Steve and the Indian Booth Babe

Ashley said, "I'm organizing a volleyball game in the pool. Would you two like to join? I promise it'll be a lot of fun with interesting penalties for losing a set."

I thought of Bela's transparent swimsuit and wondered if she would accept the challenge.

Bela laughed, "Volleyball is for tall people. I tried standing in the shallow end of the pool, and the water came up to my shoulders. I think I'll pass. I promise to cheer for your team."

Ashley turned to me and said, "Steve, you can't use your height as an excuse, and after dancing with you, I know you're coordinated."

I had no intention of leaving Bela unattended even in the relative safety of the pool bar. For all I knew, this was another ploy by John to get Bela alone.

"Well, Ashley, you've never seen me in a sport that involves a ball. I am remarkably uncoordinated. I think I'll pass on the chance for a broken nose for tonight."

Ashley tried some smack talk, but neither of us rose to the bait. Even without our participation, she managed to get two teams of eight into the pool. Everyone was buzzed but still played with enthusiasm. I was curious what Ashley meant about penalties. It didn't take long to find out. After the first set, everyone on the losing team did a shot of tequila. It wasn't much of a penalty since the winning team also came back to the bar for a swig of their favorite poison.

When the same team lost the second set, all the women on that team was forced to go topless. I ignored the beer bellies of the men as I stared at the topless booth babes. Ashley was on the losing side, and her large breasts received a lot of attention from the spectators.

With all the catcalls, no one heard Bela whispered, "Those can't be real."

"What's not real?"

"Ashley's humungous breasts."

"I can understand why you might say that, but I believe they are real."

Bela stared at me, and I blushed. I remembered Ashley's torso hanging over the edge of sixteen story drop. I could still picture her lovely breasts jiggling while she begged me to fuck her hard.

I stammered, "Just saying. There is a wide variation in the sizes of women's secondary sexual characteristics."

Bela giggled, "Is that how you talk about mammary glands?"

I laughed, "Is that how you talk about women's breasts?"

I got a punch on my shoulder from Bela. It came as a surprise since she had never been physical with me except in her sleep.

There was a shout of despair from the volleyball game that saved me from further interrogation. The effect of the topless women on the male players was obvious. All the men were having so much trouble paying attention to the ball that some of them got hit in the face by a hard-hit ball. Soon the women on both teams were playing topless. When Ashley suggested the next penalty would involve losing one's bottoms, the game broke up. The women stayed topless around the bar for the rest of the night.

Ashley asked Bela why she was all bundled up in her wrap when most of the women were going topless. Bela checked her swimsuit before taking off the wrap. Her suit had dried enough so that it was no longer transparent. Even though her suit was the most modest one at the bar, she received another round of free drinks.

Couples started drifting off after midnight. Bela and I said good night and took a cab back to our hotel.

Bela said, "Everyone is so free in Las Vegas. With all the women going around topless, I almost felt like a little child again. I'm glad Himnish didn't see me. I know I was wearing the most modest bikini at the pool, but Himnish would have been outraged."

We got back to our warm hotel room before one. Bela and I were exhausted but still had to shower. I fell asleep to the sounds of Bela blow drying her hair. I woke once in the middle of the night with Bela spooning my back. Her arm was wrapped around my chest. The sheet and blanket had been pushed off the end of the bed. I carefully rolled onto my back, and she curled up against my chest. I wasn't sure what to expect when she draped her leg over my thigh. Her breathing remained steady, and I soon fell back asleep. She was still lying half on my body when I woke up in the morning. I got out of bed without waking her. Her tee shirt had ridden up her legs, and I saw a hint of her white panties covering her cute ass. I pulled the sheet over her and headed to the bathroom.

The next day at the Trade Show was pretty much the same as the first. We added another four companies to our list of strong candidates and even got return visits from a couple that had visited us on Monday. Fred was thrilled, but he cautioned us that a company buying our product was making a big and potentially risky investment. This wasn't like ten years ago when Paradox introduced the first X-ray inspection system on the market. Then no one was sure what to make of the product, and the trade show only produced two immediate sells. Now, everything was different. Everyone understood the importance of inspection systems as well as the cost. This time, we had competitors, and we were introducing an upgraded product that cost more than our competitors. Fred had no idea if we would sell ten or zero. We had to keep our heads down and keep pushing in the hope that our CEO would not have an excuse to pull the plug.

Once again, we headed back to the pool after the trade show closed for the day. Today, Fred was a little more relaxed about our swimming. We swam until the pool bar was half full. We swam over to where we had left our stuff only to find that my shirt and Bela's wrap were missing. I tried not to stare at Bela's transparent clingy suit while I searched for any sign of our clothes. Bela's wrap was so distinctive; we would have spotted it in an instant. It was nowhere to be seen in the pool area.

Bela had her earpiece in and was talking to Fred. I put mine in and heard the last part of their conversation. Fred wasn't interested in Bela using her swimsuit as an excuse to go back to the hotel. He made the point that she would have to make the trip back to the hotel alone since I would have to stay at the pool to represent Paradox. Bela caved in when Fred pointed out that she would have to make the trip in a cab while wearing a transparent swimsuit. I watched Bela nod in surrender when Fred said she could sit at one of the bar stools at the edge of the pool. The seats of these stools were under water. Only her torso would be exposed.

Earlier in the day, I had talked to Fred about what happened the night before at the pool bar after he had gone to sleep. He laughed when I had told him how Ashley had maneuvered all the booth babes into going topless. He now used the information that many of the booth babes had gone topless to knock down Bela's protest. We snagged a couple of bar stools. The bartender leaned over and grinned at Bela when he took her order. His eyes jumped back and forth over her exposed breasts. He never even looked at me as I asked for a whiskey.

John King and Ashley immediately joined us, and John insisted on putting our drinks on his tab. I tried keeping an eye on John as his booth babe ran her fingers up and down my thigh. John had his arm around Bela's narrow brown shoulders. He didn't leave his hand on her thigh, but he made sure to squeeze it regularly to illustrate his latest point. I kept an eye on her in the mirror behind the bar.

I thought Bela received a lot of attention Monday night, but it was nothing compared to the crowd of men around her tonight. Bela and I had a harder time avoiding drinking too much since Ashley and John kept challenging us to drinking games played with the bar dice. By the time the bar filled up, both of us had a good buzz going.

Ashley said, "I noticed the two of you enjoy swimming. If you're not too much of a coward, I propose you join the chicken fight I've organized for tonight."

Bela said, "What's a chicken fight?"

Ashley said, "It's played with teams of two. The woman rides on the man's shoulders and is the attacker. She can use her hands to try and unseat her opponents. The man is the horse and is not allowed to use his hands. A team is eliminated when the woman is unseated. The object is to be the last team standing. You guys have an advantage because Bela is so light, and I know she has a strong young horse. Each team puts up a hundred dollars, and the winning team keeps all the money. I have enough teams that the winners will split sixteen hundred dollars."

I said, "I don't think we are interested."

Ashley put her hands in her armpits and flapped her arms while she crowed, "Come on chickens."

Fred was listening and said, "I'll put up the hundred. We don't want our customers to think we are too good for them."

Bela chugged the rest of her margarita and said in a slurred voice, "I'm in."

I laughed and finished my drink. We dropped our earpieces and phones on the bar. I knelt in the water, and Bela climbed onto my shoulders. Ashley was right about one thing. Bela was very light. I caught a glimpse of her sitting on my shoulders in the bar mirror. She had gotten her suit wet again when she was climbing on my back. Once again, her suit top was transparent and clinging to her curves. I could only imagine what her gorgeous ass must look like to the other teams. John was standing in the pool nearby with Ashley on his back. His eyes were focused on Bela. I noticed the flash of several phone cameras from a large crowd of onlookers.

Once the game started, I expected everyone would be after Bela. Instead, John intercepted most of the teams who went after us. We only had to counter a couple of the weaker pairs which we did easily. I suspect John had played guard in high school. He was powerfully built under all his fat. He used his weight to knock down team after team. Eventually, we were the only two teams left. I realized that was John's plan all along.

John said, "Paradox is going down."

I doubted I could resist a charge from John. I used my speed to avoid them. I figured John didn't have much stamina, and I hoped to wear John down. The men who had already lost seemed to be on John's side. They were standing at one corner of the pool in the shallow end. John and Ashley maneuvered us toward the corner, and a ring of defeated players surround both remaining teams. As the ring tightened, we were forced closer to our opponents. Still, John didn't charge. Instead, he got close, and Ashley grasped Bela around her shoulders. I thought it was all over, but instead of using her strength to defeat the diminutive Bela, Ashley grabbed the string at the back of Bela's bikini top. Bela shrieked when Ashley waved Bela's top over her head. I noticed more flashes from multiple smartphones.

Bela yelled, "Get me close, Steve. I'm going to teach her a lesson."

John laughed as I moved us close. Bela went for Ashley's top. John's booth babe didn't even try to defend herself. Instead, she went for the closest tie to Bela's bottoms. John went for the other one ignoring the rule about using his hands. My partner never noticed until it was too late. She was too busy undoing Ashley's top. Bela waved Ashley's top high in the air and shouted in triumph.

Bela shouted, "Now who's going down?"

She squealed when Ashley pulled Bela's bikini bottom from under her brown ass leaving her stark naked. Bela wrapped her arms around my forehead as Ashley waved Bela's suit in the air. Ashley tossed Bela's bikini into the crowd, and the two women went at it again. Both were fighting to unseat the other. I felt Ashley's hand slide up between the back of my neck and Bela's crotch. Bela shrieked and tried to escape Ashley's probing fingers by rising on my shoulders. Again, I saw multiple camera flashes before Bela spun off into the pool.

The business owners, CEOs and upper managers closed in like sharks smelling blood. They formed a tight circle around Bela and played keep away with the frantic young woman's swimsuit. I tried to go to her aid but was restrained by a couple of drunken marketing executives who shouted encouragement to their bosses. My yells to leave her alone were drowned out by the animalistic howls of the crazed crowd. I could only watch in dismay. I had no idea how far the alcohol and testosterone-fueled mob would go.

It was a one-sided contest. Even John, who was the shortest of the bunch, towered over the tiny young woman. They dangled her bikini over her head and pulled it away if she got close or tossed it to an associate. She jumped as high as she could out of the shallow water, but it was never enough. Her brown breasts jiggled in the light of the setting sun. With each jump, she flashed her trim ass and bald pussy to the lustful eyes of the most powerful men in the food production business. She was also exposing herself to the video cameras on the smartphones held by the wealthy men's subordinates.

It was at that moment that I realized that the wealthy men tormenting Bela lived in a different world from the rest of us. We were just their newest playthings. All their free food and drinks meant nothing. Even the mistresses and booth babes were temporary and readily replaced once the gorgeous women lost their youth.

The game turned even meaner when the laughing men began to grope my desperate companion. I heard her shriek when John King pulled her naked body against his chest. I saw Ed standing behind her with his hand squeezing her firm ass. Someone else's hand reached in to grope a perky breast. The crowd of men let out a roar and surged closer. I didn't think anything could stop the frenzied throng from gang banging Bela in the middle of the Bellagio pool. I struggled to escape from the firm grip of my captors to no avail.

It was the booth babes that came to her rescue. They decided the men were out of control and jumped into the pool. They infiltrated the circle of men and used their scantily clad bodies to distract the men. Ashley retrieved Bela's suit while a couple of her friends led the sobbing young woman away from the men. As soon as she was dressed, Bela and I headed back to our hotel in the first cab we could get. She leaned her head against my chest and cried all the way back. Her little body trembled in my arms.

She had recovered somewhat by the time we reached the room. I offered her the chance to skip the rest of the convention and return home. She didn't even hesitate to reject my offer. Once again, she protested she couldn't bear the idea of returning to India and being forced to submit to her uncle.

Bela took the first shower, and she had just finished brushing her hair by the time I was ready for bed. I was surprised when she crawled into my arms as soon as I was settled.

She gave me a kiss on my cheek and said, "Thanks for being my friend."

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you at the pool. I tried to get to you, but two of John's assistants were holding me."

"Steve, I heard you yelling and saw you struggling with the men. When no one else would come to my aid, you tried. I can see the bruises on your arms."

"I feel terrible. I don't know how you can keep going. You're a lot stronger person than me."

"Don't worry about me. I've been through worse. Now go to sleep. We have a quota to meet."

I shouldn't have been surprised at how fast Bela fell asleep. She had swum laps non-stop for at least an hour, and the chicken fight took a lot out of her. I lay on my back with Bela snuggled against my side for some time. I remembered what she had said about never sleeping alone since she was nine. I fell asleep while thinking about tomorrow. The day should be easy since everyone important had seen our demonstration. However, I wasn't prepared for the party after the trade show. I had not been invited last year and had no idea what to expect. Fred said it was the key to the convention. All the deals were signed at the party. If the customers who had already committed signed a contract, we would have four total sales. Our CEO had been clear; we had to sell five systems at the trade show. If we didn't land another sell tomorrow night, we would all be looking for jobs.

I was right about the trade show on Wednesday. It was an uneventful day. Some companies paid a second visit to our booth to ask questions they hadn't thought to ask the first time. We even saw a couple of the men from the pool party. They flirted with Bela as if nothing had happened. They lived in a different world from ours where they could do no wrong.

Fred had been discharged from the hospital the night before. He said he had gotten his first decent night's sleep and was raring to go. We used the quiet times at the show to prepare for the private party tonight. Bela and I helped Fred generate a list of potential customers from all the visitors to the booth. We narrowed it down to about a dozen companies that could easily afford one of our systems. After we had ranked them by how likely we were to make a sale, the list shrank to five companies. The top names on the list were Bergman Products, Global Foods, and International Food Packing. Michael Minor, the CEO of Bergman, stopped by our booth and said he was reviewing our system with his staff back at their Illinois' headquarters. Making our quota was going to be close.

My biggest concern was Bela's safety. Fred had planned on her wearing the skimpy party dress she had worn to dinner with John and Ashley. I was surprised when she agreed to wear it again tonight. After the chicken fight and cruel game of keep away in the pool last night, I knew I couldn't leave her alone with these wolfs for a moment. I just wanted to make five sales and get out. Tomorrow we would spend the day packing up our equipment before catching a late flight home. I just hoped we would have a job when we returned to work on Friday.

After we had shut down at the end of the day, I went back to the hotel to get dressed. Bela showered first before taking a cab to the salon for makeup and hairstyling. Fred wanted her looking perfect. After she left I voiced my concerns to Fred. He told me to drop it. He said Bela was a grown woman and comfortable with her role. I was ready early, and Fred had me go down to the hotel bar for a double Scotch. He gave me a pep talk to get me on top of my game. He said, Bela and I had worked hard and spent a lot of the company's money to bring the system to market. He wanted me to prove it wasn't a mistake by selling a ton of InspeX 200 systems. I was on my second double Scotch by the time I was ready to pick up Bela.

The party was in the Bellagio Tower ballroom on the top floor. There was a stage at one end of the room with food and drink stations along the walls. Much of the floor space was packed with high top bar tables designed to allow patrons to eat standing up. Part of the floor was open for dancing and a contemporary band was playing relaxing music.

Bela followed her nose to bring us to an Indian food station. She talked to the servers in their native language, and they prepared her a plate with extra spices. According to Bela, they prepared a milder one for me. There was a big punch bowl of mango lassi made with yogurt, water, sugar and mango pulp. We took a couple of large glasses of lassi to an empty bar table. The table was too high for Bela, but fortunately, there were some bar stools available. The food was delicious, but it made me break out into a sweat. I was used to hot Mexican food with lots of jalapeno peppers, but this food was in a different league. Bela laughed as I chugged my lassi and tried not to cry. It took me a couple of large gulps to realize that they had added a lot of vodka to the lassi to make a potent beverage. Bela laughed when I warned her about the vodka. She told me I was a sissy. She said she was used to drinking bhang lassi during the Holi festival.