roller derby girls

the currency came in one pound lumps of living flesh and john handled it all. the flesh was covered in a seamless dermal layer and each varied in texture, color, firmness and shape to a certain degree. the lumps did not give the impression that they were in any way sentient, but did seem to respond on some level to being tossed from hand to hand as they appeared to tense up slightly when traveling through the air (though in truth, they were rarely dropped). john held roughly 50 at any given time in a burlap sack he wore across his body. he never strayed far from the ticket cage so that he could easily and safely offload the extras or grab more to make change.

john was gruff with the customers (who were always men). he let them know as they entered in no uncertain terms that we were professional roller derby girls NOT hookers and any money they wanted to win or lose on side bets had nothing to do with the house. we were a clean and legal operation he told them and anyone who tried anything funny would have his fists to deal with. the truth of course was that we made our money selling the men rotgut liquor and tricking them into the futile hope that at least one of the roller girls would get drunk enough to fall in love with them for a few hours by fanning the flames of furious unquenchable lust with an endless loop of thundering ass to eye level bare legs and satin tap-dance shorts. in order for the men to drink they would have to hold out a ticket for a roller girl they fancied and buy her one as well. amid the elbows and sling tosses, the girls would keep an eye out for eager faces and tickets directed their way. once we spotted our mark, we would peel away from our carefully choreographed rolling chaos, roll over just close enough to grab the outstretched tickets and roll down to the bar in the center of the ring. the bartender would mix the rotgut for the customer and an exact replica of the drink in colored water for the girl. the girl would wait for the other roller-girls to pass, bring the two drinks back to the customer and then make big theater out of downing the shot at the same time as the mark. it never took long for the crowds to get angry-drunk. always, just before things got really awful, john would pull the plug, stop the music, turn up the lights and have his goons roughly clear the hall to make way for the next group of suckers.