Camille picked out the cue that happened to be Kristen’s favorite. When Camille noticed Kristen’s reaction, she handed it to my Goddess and took another one of similar size.
Sherry inexpertly chalked her cue and Kristen helped her line up her shot. It wasn’t quite strong enough, but a striped ball managed to fall.
“Stripes!” Kristen called, proudly.
Camille simply shrugged.
Sherry tried to line up another shot from a long diagonal. Her target bounced onto the two corner rails instead of into the pocket.
“May I?” Camille asked me.
“Of course,” I answered Camille, regally. “Age before beauty.”
“Hey!” Camille protested, but continued lining up her shot.
Camille managed to clear the solids. I noticed after she banked the three ball that she ran them numerically, finishing with a two bank shot that sunk the eight ball.
The three of us realized that Kristen was just hustled on her own table! We all laughed at the dumbfounded expression on Kristen’s face.
“You guys never ask me where I spend my Sundays,” Camille said, sticking her tongue out and collecting Kristen’s twenty dollar bill. “Since I was twelve years old, I’ve been playing at the Brew Lounge.”
“You need to be eighteen to go there,” I pointed out.
Camille shrugged. “Sunday afternoons they allow me to play for a couple of hours in between lunch and the time the real players come in. Fifty cents a game to cover the coin slots, and Louie used to teach me shots when the bar was mostly empty.”
“Louie?” Kristen asked.
“Used to be the bartender there until he passed away,” Camille said. “I used to go there to get away from… my sister.”
Kristen and I nodded. Kristen now knew about Camille’s relationship with her sister. Sherry also seemed to know that Camille had a rocky relationship with her sister.
“You’re welcome to use our table here if you ever want to use a table for free,” Kristen offered. “Sherry, too,” Kristen quickly added.
Camille laughed. “I haven’t paid for a game since I was thirteen. The guys thought it was cute that such a young girl would play them for the cost of a game.”
“You’re both still welcome.”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on it. I bet Jim can use a better teacher.”
“Hey!” Kristen objected.
“I need to get home,” Sherry said, quietly.
“What time is your mother picking you up?” I asked.
“She should be here in five minutes.”
We all went back upstairs, since the main house intercom wasn’t yet wired into the playroom.
The intercom was buzzing just as we entered the apartment. “Miss Kristen, Mrs. Jordan is here to pick up her daughter,” Wally said as Kristen answered the intercom.
“Where is she?” Kristen asked.
“She’s just entering the parking area,” Wally answered.
The four of us went back downstairs to drop Sherry off.
“What’s in the bag?” Sherry’s mother asked her daughter as she entered the car.
Before Sherry could answer, Camille opened the bag and pulled out what I recognized were the pompoms that the cheerleaders used last year. “For practice,” Camille explained. She most certainly did not reveal the rest of the contents of the bag, and Mrs. Jordan didn’t bother to ask.
We all bade the mother and daughter good-bye, and watched the car depart.
Instead of going back to the apartment, Kristen and Camille headed straight for the pool table.
The two girls showed me how to play a game they called Cutthroat. Apparently, the normal rules were that each of us were given five balls, and the object was to sink your opponents’ balls.
Of course, I was the first one out, followed by Kristen.
Neither girl thought this was quite fair, so they improvised new rules. Each girl would have ten balls, both of them sharing my balls.
No matter how we played the game, Camille won.
I eventually grew tired of losing, and ended up watching the two girls play.
Kristen asked Camille if she’d like to spend the night in the spare room. Camille only accepted when Kristen promised to allow her to wear one of her outfits to school the next day.
When I woke up the next morning, I noticed Kristen wasn’t in bed. I went to the bathroom, and Kristen wasn’t in there, either. I looked all through the apartment, and noticed that the spare bedroom was empty as well; Camille’s bed didn’t even look as if it was even slept in.
“Wally?” I called out.
“Steve here, Jim,” answered the intercom.
“Sorry,” I said, forgetting that Steve did the night shift. “Any idea where Kris may be? Is she in the main house?”
There was a delay. “I show the lights on in the pool room.”
Pool? “Do you mean the Solarium or the room downstairs over here?”
“Downstairs—your billiard room, sir.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Steve.”
Since I was only wearing boxers, I went back into the bedroom and grabbed my robe. I decided against slippers and went barefoot downstairs into the playroom.
The girls were playing pool. Kristen was completely nude, and Camille was topless. Camille was holding a cue in her hand. There was only the nine ball on the table. “If I sink this on a bank, I get you as a slave for two weeks, or a night with Jim.”
“A night with who?” I asked.
Both girls were startled when they noticed that I was in the room.
“Jim! What are you doing up so late?” Kristen asked.
“Late?” I asked. “It’s six thirty in the morning!”
“Really?” both girls asked together.
Camille laughed. “Kristen is a compulsive gambler.” I watched Camille line up an unusual shot. The cue ball lay just inside one of the corner holes, and the nine ball was positioned in the exact same position inside the corner hole opposite on the same end of the table. Instead of making the short shot from one pocket to the other, Camille was going to bank the shot.
Knowing what I did about bank shots, I figured that Camille would aim for the direct center of the opposite rail on the other side of the table to make a V-shot toward the corner. I never had any luck with this sort of shot, and wanted to see how Camille would do it.
Camille wasn’t aiming where I expected, though. Instead, she was aiming for a spot between the opposite side pocket and the corner diagonal pocket. Camille took her shot, and it hit where Camille aimed, bounced to the center of the rail between the two opposite corners, then bounced on the side rail almost exactly opposite the first cushion she hit. The ball continued its motion and just missed the nine ball.
“Aha!” Kristen laughed, as the ball’s speed was much slower now due to all the banks.
The ball continued moving, albeit slowly, and hit the rail next to the corner and then banked one more time to hit the nine ball with a perfect kiss, sending it into the hole with the cue aiming safely away from the hole.
Kristen’s jaw dropped. I replayed that shot in my mind a few times. If you drew a picture of the ball’s motion, it would look like a fish without the tail completed.
“Which is it, Kris?” Camille taunted. “A week of slavery or a night with Jim?”
Kristen looked crushed. She didn’t seem to like either alternative. “How about more money?”
“I’m up over six thousand already,” Camille said. “If I accept more, I’ll have to start declaring income tax!”