Dulululululululululute! Dong dong dong dong dong! 

It’s the sound of a yes. She is lucky again. The dinging continues as she extracts her mouth from the lever of the slot machine, as she wipes the saliva away from the corners of her mouth and pumps her fists into the air. Another $400 won.

She has always been lucky with her tongue.

Like with the lesbians. Each one has an orgasm upon her tongue touching their clits. It never fails. It’s why she’s never single. She’s good at what she does. And her tongue is what helps her to do it. She feels lucky to have such a great tongue.

But she hasn’t called her ladyfriend lately. She’s been too involved with a different relationship. Quarter slots. Back corner. Third machine to the left. She came to this casino three weeks ago with her best friend. They wanted “friend time” and so they escaped their girlfriends in Texas and booked it to Shreeport, LA for four days. Here, gambling is legal. Three weeks ago they got drunk off of the free drinks the casino provides as long as you continue to gamble. They lost their money. But on their last night there, she got too sloshed to know her idea was ridiculous. She would use her lucky tongue for good luck, to coax this lover of a machine to climax, to make it incapable of stopping the flood of winnings from coming out of its depths. She put her mouth around the lever. She pulled her head down. She won $644. Her friend clapped and slapped her on the back.

“We came out on top! We should leave now so we don’t lose it all again.”

“Hell no,” she slurred. “I’m just getting started.”

She knew this machine had more love for her, because it had finally opened up to her, finally gave her a reward for her strong commitment. How else to describe it but call it love?

There was an argument. There was a curt hug goodbye. There was her friend’s car as she drove away. She didn’t need the ride anyway. She had enough money to fly back whenever she wanted to. She called in “family emergency” to work. They told her to come back when everything was okay.

That was three weeks ago, and now she’s still sitting at that saliva-saturated slot machine, watching the three triple bar symbols line themselves up perfectly. Her green eyes sparkle in the neon light saturated air, gaze at the machine with adoration.

Though she realizes she’s vaguely sad that no one is sitting next to her, that no one can clap their hands or slap her back, that no one can witness how well this relationship is going.

No one wants to sit next to this woman who operates the machine with her mouth.

You would think she would have been kicked out by now.

But last week she won so much money that she paid the security guards $100 each to let her stay. They took the money from her in the back corner, the place where the cameras couldn’t quite catch them, gave that awkward smile to her, then let her be with her slobbery machine.

And the relationship continues to build. It is a stronger love than any relationship she has ever been in. She knows its patterns, its daily routines, how a seven will come up every eighteenth turn. How her lover machine lights the cherries up with red every time it gives them to her. She knows this machine. And this machine knows her well.

Her jaw became sore after her second day there. She did not care. The things you do for love.