by Kylie Fox

Created on: October 01, 2009

A NICE NIGHT FOR A STROLL

"Come on, Leon." Estelle said wearily, "Let's get going before your luck runs out, ok?"

"Oh Stell, tonight's my lucky night, this wheel's just starting to warm up" Leon replied as he placed more chips on 'lucky" black number seven.

Estelle and Leon were in Melbourne to inspect one of Leon's investments, a new apartment building at the recently developed Docklands. Usually, these were solo trips, undertaken without Estelle, but the couple could not resist the lure of Bonnie Tyler, the '80's superstar, playing at the Crown Casino. Although they may not admit it to their socialite friends at the country club, both were big fans of the husky voiced blonde.

The show hadn't disappointed, although their company at the table they were allocated left a lot to be desired. Being pinned between a pair of Japanese executives and what looked like their high class hooker girlfriends, and a deadbeat from Melbourne's outer suburbs whose idea of dressing up was a clean flannelette shirt, with his whiny girlfriend who had won the tickets on the radio, was not how Estelle had envisioned her evening.

Inevitably, with Leon being the gambling man that he was, he had convinced Estelle to follow the evening's entertainment with a "quick" visit to the roulette wheel.

Estelle had fed a hundred dollars into one of the casino's hundreds of pokie machines, but found that the flashing lights and repetitive music and beeping was more annoying than entertaining, so she had wandered back to watch her husband play the wheel. Now, though, her feet were killing her and she was starting to feel the effects of all that wine that she had consumed with her dinner. All she wanted to do was get back to the hotel and have a decent night's sleep. Leon, however, was in full gambling stride and, not accustomed to his wife's company on these trips, he had almost forgotten she was there.

"Please Leon, really, enough is enough"

Leon looked around, startled for a moment by Estelle's presence but quickly snapped back to reality.

"Alright sweetheart, I've probably taken enough of their money for one evening anyway."

Leon gathered his chips and headed towards the cashier to have them converted to a cheque. Estelle wondered if he would even remember to cash it. The few thousand dollars that he had accumulated over the course of the evening was something that Estelle knew Leon would consider almost pocket change in comparison to the sizable bank account he and his wife held. Estelle, herself,

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