Dirty Pool

I stood there almost shaking. I looked at Renaldo with pitiful eyes. I wanted him to have one more chance. I wanted him to think about this and offer to stop his stupid hustle. He looked back at me like a wolf ready to take his prey.

I needed some time to think things through. I needed to try to figure out how to end this thing. So I started a meaningless conversation with Renaldo.

"I can't believe my wife actually agreed to this." I said, effectively delaying the start of the game. "She's never been with another man. I'm worried she will chicken out halfway through and not want to go home with you. What do we do then?"

"Come on Ese. She's not going to back out now. In fact she's been telling me all night to keep beating you so she could keep playing with the little Renaldo in my pants. She wants me. Every woman wants some of this. The only thing is Muchacho... where do you want me to send the video of me doing her so you have something to jack off to?"

My god this ass-hat was full of himself. I wanted so badly to wipe that stupid fucking grin off his face, but hitting him wasn't the answer. To wipe that grin from his face all I had to do was beat him... and why not? I'd seen all of his shots. I couldn't imagine there was much left that he hadn't already shown. I was counting on it.

Jennifer also was counting on something. She was counting on me to be... well, me. By all accounts, this hustle looked like it would end with my wife eagerly fucking another man in front of a camera. The look on her face told everyone in the place that was what she wanted, and the look on my face told everyone I couldn't have been more miserable.

Well I guess I had sealed my fate. I made my bed all those months ago when I told Jennifer I wanted her to do this. Now I had to sleep in it, with or without my wife. There was no way I could stop this now. This hustle had to be played out to the finish.

As I prepared to play this game to end all games, Renaldo beckoned his crew to gather around the table and watch. As he called them over he grinned as if he was about to take down yet another unsuspecting fool. With his crew behind him, he set up the rack packing the balls in nice and tight. Then in a kind gesture, he conceded the break to me.

In reality, his gesture wasn't all that kind. I knew that having the break in 9-Ball wasn't necessarily an advantage. In fact going first could easily produce a bad break that could turn into a huge problem, but I accepted his offer and went first in order to keep the peace.

I leaned hard into the break and the balls scattered with a loud crack, sending them rebounding off the bumpers and knocking around like cosmic elements. As they came to rest, the four ball teetered at the edge of a side hole, and then it slowly dropped into the pocket.

I'd lived to shoot again, but that one sunk ball wasn't the blessing it seemed. That was just one ball down. There were still eight more to go, and a whole litany of things could still go wrong in this god-forsaken game.

As I stood there, Renaldo tried to follow my eyes as I looked from shot to shot running the remaining plays through my head. I couldn't leave anything to chance. I needed to decide exactly how I wanted to work through this game.

Problem was, every shot pattern I could see had difficult shots that I hadn't made all night. If I couldn't sink a ball I would need to play for safety and place the cue ball in a bad position for my opponent.

The thing was, I couldn't see any sort of safety play that would block Renaldo from making the kind of shots I had seen him make all night, not to mention the kinds of shots he had been hiding from me. To add to my dilemma, Renaldo started taking advantage of my situation.

As I walked around the table studying my options, Renaldo followed me, taunting me in a quiet, yet thuggishly threatening voice. "It's been nice playing you Muchacho. Do you know what the first thing I'm going to do with your hot little wifey is?

"No." I muttered trying to ignore him while I continued to look over the shots on the table.

"I'm going to put her on her knees and make her suck a big creamy load of cum out of me." Renaldo taunted. "Does your little whore suck your cock? Has she ever tasted another man's cum? She told me she wanted to taste mine. Does she swallow?"

I knew it. Jennifer had offered to suck his cock when she was whispering into his ear, and Renaldo just couldn't pass up a chance to rub that in my face. I hated him for what he was saying, but I couldn't let him break my concentration. I tried my best to ignore him as I continued to work my way around the table and figure out my shot progression.

"My Gina hates the taste." He went on talking shit to me. "What about your wife? Does she taste your cum? I'll bet as soon as she tastes my sweet cum she is going to come in her panties like a two bit whore."

After hearing that my blood was boiling. It was all I could do to keep from blasting Renaldo across the face with the crappy warped house cue my wife insisted I use. I had to stay calm though. I knew he was just trying to rattle me, and I hadn't lost this game yet. I also knew that if I were to hit Renaldo now his crew tear into me like a pack of ravenous wolves.

Renaldo continued to taunt me about what he was going to do with my wife as if my loss in this game was a forgone conclusion. Fortunately, I was able to tune him out and finalize my game plan. I was even able to ignore how he was trying to intimidate me by standing in my way, and I simply squeezed passed him to line up for my next shot.

On this shot I used a bit of spin on the cue ball and managed to drop the one ball in the corner, as a bonus the backspin I put on the cue directed it across the table and knocked the six into the far side pocket. From there, my shots at the two and the three were short and straight as long as I watched my leave.

After the two and three was where the trouble was. I knew the next shot would be as tough as they come. The four was already down and the five was at the opposite end of the table. The cue ball was in a spot that blocked my use of the bumpers for any sort of bank shot.

Even worse than having the cue wedged in the corner, the nine was right in my way. By house rules, striking the wrong target ball would give Renaldo 'ball in hand'. Missing the next target ball altogether would have the same result. Either way this sort of error would easily allow Renaldo to win the game... In fact, this very same technicality caused me to lose to him on that first game we played.

Seeing what I had to work with, Renaldo laughed at me for putting myself in this situation. He knew that the odds of even striking the five, let alone sinking it were a zillion to one. Only a handful of players could make this shot.

Seeing me mull over this shot Renaldo stepped up next to me and mumbled something about me being a novato. He was no longer interesting in boosting my confidence. This hustle was way beyond the need for that. Indeed, he probably could have considered me a novato, or a newbie as we call them... That is, if I couldn't manage to make this next shot.

Indeed, this shot was as difficult as any I'd seen in years, but I added just enough spin to my soft tap on cue ball to barely miss the nine, and gently drop the five in the far corner.

On top of dropping the five, my leave was perfect, and sinking the seven in the far side pocket was academic. As Renaldo held his breath, I put the eight in the near side with an easy double bank shot. Well easy for me anyway.

That left the nine, and it was in the worst possible place on the table. I heard Renaldo let out the breath he had been holding as he slid up next to me.

"Hey Muchaco." He nervously said as he leaned towards me, talking just loud enough for me to hear. "That's too bad about your leave. You are either going to scratch or miss. It doesn't matter how hard you try."

He was right. There wasn't much I could do to make this shot and not scratch, and shooting for any kind of safety would knock the nine off its point and likely leave Renaldo with a winning shot that any novice could make.

Of course Renaldo couldn't leave this little fact alone. He stepped even closer and put his arm around me resting his hand on my shoulder, bending to look over the shot with me as if he was about to give me some much needed advice.

"Does your wife like big cock?" Renaldo quietly reinitiated his taunting as we both eyed the shot. "I'm going to send her home to you all stretched out Muchacho. That is if she even wants to go home. Once she's had it, that cuero of yours is going to want to join my gang so she can suck and ride my grande marron pitote all day long."

So he thinks my wife is a slut and she is going to want to ride his big brown cock... I didn't know a lot of Spanish, but I knew what he had just said. He was still trying hard to rattle me, but I wasn't about to let him. I ignored what his foul mouth was spewing and looked at the shot before me. If I could just sink this last ball, it would all be over. Miss or scratch and Jennifer was as good as his.

It looked as if I only had one way to play this, and that shot was one only the top players in the world can make. To guard against a scratch I'd need to bank the nine off the far end and have the ball travel the length of the table and back to make the pocket.

The shot before me was difficult to say the least, and on a regulation size table the slightest error in angle would cause me to miss. Missing this shot would certainly leave my opponent with an easy shot to win the game and take my wife.

I looked over at Jennifer for the first time since the start of this final game, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. She was squirming with excitement over my predicament. Then I looked at Renaldo who was grinning over his assured victory, and the lump in his pants told me he was thinking more about getting his cock sucked than what he had to do to win this game.

I didn't care what Renaldo and Jennifer were doing. I couldn't care. Letting my mind wander at this point in the game would have taken me out of my game. It was hard enough to stay calm enough to play without all of the distraction.

So I steadied my breathing and leaned down to eye this shot to end all shots at table level. Then I walked the length of the table making sure there weren't any flaws in the cloth that might alter the ball's path. I checked the bumper at the far end of the table, making sure it was solid and secure. I had to end this now or die trying.

After looking things over I walked back and faced the cue ball. Then with my right hand gripping the very back end of that crooked house stick, I raised it up as if I was holding the sword Excalibur. This was it. This hustle was going to end right then and there.

I swung that crooked stick down with authority, and Renaldo cringed as he fell back, dodging a blow that never even came close to him. He obviously thought I'd had my fill of his crap and was going to end his life right then and there. But I stopped short of hitting him and laid that stick across the edge of the table.

I took my time lining up my shot. Then I put my left hand on Renaldo's shoulder, and looked him square in the eyes. The look on his face told me volumes. That look told me he was waiting for me to beg him to end this ridiculous bet. His eyes darted, looking for just one last chance to taunt me. There was no way he was going to let me off the hook. Still he wanted me to see me beg.

But I was done being humiliated that day, so I didn't whine or beg. Instead, I poked the cue ball with that crooked stick never once taking my left hand from his shoulder or my scowling stare away from his eyes. Then I listened for the unmistakable sound of the nine ball dropping into the corner pocket, right in front of where Renaldo was standing.

Renaldo's head dropped. He never stood a chance. He didn't even get to shoot. He had lost... And that one-handed no-look shot I used to win the game? Well I did that just to let that fucking son of a bitch know that there was absolutely no doubt that he had just been hustled.

I looked over at my wife and smiled. She had played her part of the hustle perfectly. She had acted as the bait and kept Renaldo thinking with the wrong head so he couldn't figure out what we were up to.

Our waitress had done her part too. Bringing us non-alcoholic beverages in hi-ball glasses and adding spare empties to the table as often as she could. I'm sure Renaldo thought we were the easiest drunken fools he would ever take advantage of.

It took a moment or two for what just happened to sink in, but as soon as it did, Renaldo's crew started laughing at him. They were calling him names like Ese and Cabrón. One of the thugs loudly teased about how the master had just gotten hustled. Another one yelled out how much Gina was going to enjoy getting some strange this weekend. Hearing that, Renaldo started to shake and his face became red with anger.

Just like Jennifer and I had planned all those months ago, we had humiliated Renaldo in front of his crew... and to put the icing on the cake, Jennifer smirked at Renaldo and jutted her face towards him sticking her tongue out at him.

The childish gesture my wife made with her tongue was one even Renaldo would surely understand. In one simple schoolgirl's taunt, Jennifer let him know he never had a chance. He couldn't have beaten me if hell itself had frozen over, and there was no way on earth Jennifer would ever have sex with him.

After Jennifer's tongue retreated back into her mouth, we both made a hasty retreat for the exit. Of course I kept that bent house cue in my hand in case I needed to fend off an attacker.

With our adrenalin running high, I don't think Usain Bolt himself could have caught up with us as we blasted through that pool hall, finally busting through the doors at full speed and spilling out onto the street.

Now I know we should have gone ahead and run, but at the last second I decided to go back and wedge that old bent house cue in the door handles to try and slow Renaldo down. It was the equivalent of raking a garbage can behind you to slow a pursuer. Doing this was going to eat up precious getaway time, but it could buy us some time as well. It was a risk I was willing to take.

I turned toward those doors with that stick ready to do its job, only to find the beautiful Gina standing there looking like a lost puppy. She had followed us out, apparently not knowing that Jennifer and I did not on her coming us after taking down that piece of shit named Renaldo.

I had no idea what to do with Gina, but I knew her being with us meant that I needed to slow down our pursuers more than ever. So I broke that cue stick over my knee and wedged the two pieces into the door handles as tight as they would go.

I knew that wouldn't stop Renaldo and his crew, but I figured it would take a minute or so for them to figure out they could easily dislodge those sticks with a couple of good hard pushes on both doors at the same time.

With the doors barred, Jennifer and I took off running down the street towards our hotel, with Gina following close behind. The three of us had run for a little more than a city block when we heard the emergency alarms ring out from down at the pool hall.

My first thought was that I had stupidly barred the pool hall's front doors right when there was a fire. Then I realized Renaldo and his gang couldn't figure out how to break through the cheap cue stick, and they simply ran out through the emergency exit, letting the fire alarm blare.

As loud as that alarm was we could still hear Renaldo yelling to his crew at the top of his lungs, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He screamed. "Where the fuck are they? Those fucking assholes took my wife! Go fucking find them!"

Hearing Renaldo yelling we knew he was after us so we made an abrupt turn down the next alleyway, looking for a place to hide. As we ran, my eyes were open as wide as could be, feeling complete and utter amazement over what had just happened.

As we ran, I snickered to myself. "That fuck-head Renaldo was actually married?" Then my brain wouldn't let go... "You mean he had actually put up his own... wait a minute... Gina is Renaldo's wife?" Then that snicker became a smile that overtook my face as I thought... "Now who is the fucking cuckold?"

Up ahead, at the far end of the alleyway was a man smoking a cigarette. A pale sliver of light peeked out from the edges of the door behind him. It looked like he was cook taking a break. That slightly propped door would allow him to get back into the kitchen when his cigarette was done. That was just the break we needed.

That cook's cigarette break was our escape. Now we had a place to hide while the manhunt went on all around us. All we had to do was get past the man with the cigarette and we could lay low in the back of a restaurant until the alarm that Renaldo had set off summoned the police and firefighters.

All those months ago, I had told Jennifer how I wanted to take down that douche bag in the hustle to end all hustles. Now it was hard to believe. We had come to town for a weekend getaway and ended up beating Renaldo at his own game on his own turf. We had pulled off the perfect sting, and it looked as if we had gotten away with it.