Cartesan Casino

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

In case you need to have your prejudices about the transaffectionate confirmed — or about the nature of Kismirth — you have but to visit the Cartesan Casino. [The name in Ketherian is one letter off from "Courtesan", and suggests games of chance. It's not 'Cartesian'.] There’s another casino, larger and cheaper and more splendid, but devoid of the surprising feature, or misfeature, of the Cartesan one.

We have taken it as an axiom that anyone visiting Kismirth on vacation might be hoping for some body-play. Probably with someone of another species. Kismirth is not going to be fussy about the details. Our smallish but growing tourism industry will do its very best to satisfy our tourists’ wishes, with considerable safety, for a fair price.

Safety? Kismirth is very very safe! Its walls are far heavier than Vheshrame’s! (Never mind why we think we might need them that heavy.)

Are you worried about someone scrying on you? Scrying and the like are broadly blocked in all of Kismirth. (Certain exceptions apply.)

Blackmail? Our professional tourism associates are bonded; they will expect terrible punishments if they violate the trust of the client-professional relationship. (Or at least they’ll lose some money.)

Annoying your spouse by going off for six hours alone and coming back smelling of Herethroy? A six-hour trip to the Quick Quarter will take less than one hour, and our first-class short-term-hotelliers will make sure that you are impeccably presentable to family and friends.

The pangs of conscience? Well, you see, it’s absolutely not your fault that you buried your muzzle in the tweff of that appealing-but-you’d-never-admit-it Herethroy, while a bunch of other people watched and laughed and cheered, and you licked away as if you’d been wishing for it all your life and you might never get another chance, because, outside of Kismirth, you might not ever get the chance again, unless you admit to yourself that you actually crave it and make the minor-but-actual effort to find it.

Well, maybe it’s your fault you joined the Forfeits of Fornication game in the first place. That’s one of the high-stakes tables at the Cartesan Casino. And, even if you lose, you’re not obliged to perform with the other loser in public; you could pay a penalty-fee and have eggs thrown at you to the sounds of the Gongs of Mockyful Derision instead. (That happens twice or thrice a day.) But Forfeits of Fornication is a game of skill. You and eight other players, secretly picking colored balls to roll to the cauldron in the center, and betting on the pattern that results.

(Despite the name, the forfeit doesn’t require more than a sincere-looking sizzling kiss. We’ve got between four and ten rooms for the game, with a spectrum of recommended levels of forfeits.)

(We — mostly Feralan — did the math. A player who wants to be one of the seven winners has pretty good chances; that part isn’t interesting. A player who wants to be one of the two losers — and, presumably, to be fornicating in the middle of the room by way of forfeit — has reasonable chances of being able to lose.)

There’s a small chance that attempting to lose will be detectable. If you bet on a certain configuration occurring, and don’t play anything that will lead towards it, and nobody else does either, watchers might get suspicious. (Well, that’s assuming that your jealous spouse is watching, though, of course, why you are playing that particular game at all with your jealous spouse watching is an interesting question worthy of a long apologistic tract. Playing to lose is definitely not considered cheating as far as the Casino is concerned.)

You can, incidentally, buy extra balls during the game, and if you buy three, it is impossible for anyone to tell that you are cheating. (By mathematics, it is impossible. It’s a different matter if your jealous spouse knows your every thought.)

In fact, cheating is kind of expected. If you are playing to lose and everyone else is playing to win — which happens, believe it or not! — there’s a very good chance that you will lose. If, in addition, you are trying to pick one other person to lose with you, there’s a good chance that you will get your choice. If many people are playing to lose, then there are good chances — over half in many cases — that the loser gets their consort of choice.

So really it’s a game that gives you the chance to enjoy the fellow player of your choice, in public, without anyone being intellectually certain that you intended to do so. Even, or especially, not yourself.

Oh, you can win money too. You don’t win any from one round though. You have to play a dozen rounds to be eligible for any prizes, and thirty to be eligible for the biggest prize. You pay a fee for each round you play, plus extra to buy extra balls or special goals. The cash prizes aren’t all that big. None of the cash prizes for gambling in Kismirth are very big.

Well, the game was reasonably popular, but lots of people hated the forfeits. We played some forfeit-less rounds, and filled the room and then lots. It’s a reasonably engaging game.

So we put together a semi-decent version where the forfeit is being locked up in a small room, just big enough for a bed, with the other loser for a while. The assumption is that the losers will take that opportunity to fornicate — teasing is all but obligatory. I suspect that mostly they don’t.

Actually, I can find out. Here’s me, asking the housekeeping department: “ask!”. The housekeepers say that maybe one bed in ten or twenty shows unambiguous signs of intimacy. Of course, intimacy doesn’t always leave clear signs on bedclothes.

And there are some other tables we’ve added. Single-species tables are quite popular. I suppose tourists come here thinking to experiment with other species, and then chicken out. They’re still performing in public in a mixed-species crowd, so that’s something, I suppose. We’ve got ‘hot tables’, where the current players can blackball new players; they tend to be single-species and only the more conventionally attractive of that species.

And of course we have kid’s tables. The prices are low: the adult tables take lozens [1 lozen is loosely $10], the kids’ tables take terch [1 terch is loosely a quarter].. They are in a small room that’s just kid’s tables. The bouncers are very strict, and will give you the evil eye and tell you to go to a different room if you make an off-color remark. The forfeit is singing a silly little ditty as a duet with the other loser.

Our balls rolled down the table with a clack, clack, clack
We cried about the colors that we lack, lack, lack
We haven’t got the slightest bit of luck, luck, luck
And now we’re up here quacking like a duck, duck, duck
Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!

My Opinion

I wish we didn’t have ‘hot tables’. The atmosphere around them is rather ugly, even if the players themselves are attractive.

I’m not much happier about the single-species tables. That’s not the point of the casino, or of Kismirth. Still, they’re always full, even when the multi-species rooms aren’t very crowded. We do keep the single-species room pretty small, so that it has to overflow to the original game rooms.

People come in to watch and not play — I think that maybe a third of the people in the sex-forfeit rooms don’t play. They do buy snacks and such.

The original game, with obligatory sexplay … well, we were trying to give our visitors an excuse to themselves for tasting transaffection. The game sort of evolved from there. I suppose it’s just an advanced form of Spin The Bottle, ultimately. The people who play it seem to enjoy it, maybe too much, so I suppose that’s got to be good, right?

This is not a high-profit game, neither for the house nor for the players. It’s not a high-risk game either. We — Castle Wrong, which is to say, the builders and initial governors of Kismirth — have decided that we don’t want to be in the business of utterly shearing visitors. We’d rather provide a variety of wholesome and unwholesome entertainments, with profits distributed fairly widely. The ultimate goal of Kismirth is to take care of its inhabitants, and of wrongfolk even if they’re tourists.

We need money to do so, among other things, but we are not particularly trying to get ourselves rich off of Kismirth. (Well, Grinwipey is, but never mind that.) (We are not entirely consistent about this: Arfaen is making a good deal of money off her share of the kitchen’s profits.)

We have been told, more than once, “This is no way to run a casino! You must have high-stakes games! You must have pit bosses who watch your table-masters to see that they don’t pocket hundreds of lozens from the thousands that pour through their tables! You must have accountants, investigators, and an attitude of fear and surveillance throughout! You must offer free drinks so that your marks will spend more! We shall open a casino in Kismirth based on these principles! You get a 1% cut — you personally — just for making easy to us.”

To which we responded by making laws that severely curtail the maximum bets allowed in Kismirth. They’re not high. A diligent and unlucky gambler could probably manage to lose a thousand lozens in a day — and yes, that’s a lot of money — but it’s not the millions of lozens that big gambling centers slurp down. More typically they’ll lose a couple dozen lozens in a day — not a ridiculous price for a few hours’ entertainment (and sex) on vacation.

Actually, after thinking it through to write this essay, I’m not at all sure we should have done this at all. It seems emotionally volatile and morally mischancy. So far it’s been OK. Only one person has accused their fellow-loser of rape, and they lost the case once in court, once in the legeriat, and seventy times in the broadsheets — it’s not rape because you consent to it half a dozen times before lip meets spip, with at least one reasonable alternative at each stage, and yes, plenty of people a day take the alternatives at each stage.

But it can be something you can regret doing, you can even regret it to the point of divorce or suicide. Just like any other sort of affair or fling or drunken escapade or whatever.

Well, the more I write about it, the less comfortable I feel with it. It’s out of my paws now anyhow.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It sounds... interesting. Maybe for the regrets, you could have a mind-wipe device people could use on their way out so they wouldn't have to remember. n.n

[rowyn]

I don't think Mentador is on Kismirth's list of Approved Vices. n.n

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Quit letting eeeevil mentador creatures get access to your account, terry!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No. Kismirth as a pleasure city is one sort of bad reputation, an amusedly-good kind of bad. Kismirth as a city of Mentador would be another, worse one, and one that kept tourists and immigrants away.

[rowyn]

So the forfeit started out the same as spin-the-bottle but expectations built up to the point that if there was no screwing involved people thought you were a wimp?

So if there's 7 winners and 2 losers, what do the winners win?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

From one game, they win nothing but tally marks. Every dozen tally marks, you get a ticket for a modest lottery. The person with the most tally marks at two-hour boundaries gets an unimpressive cash prize.

[kensaro.livejournal.com]

Is the cash prize large enough that one could reasonably claim that they've come ahead considering each round's buy-in and perhaps the purchase of extra balls and or goals?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Yes to the buy-in. No, if they'd been buying everything they could have bought.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

Huh - doing that in a casino is the weird thing to me. In my world, non-mainstream sexuality generally occurs either in complete and utter private, in a party space (with guest lists and sanity-check rules and the like), or in a club (a place for drinks and dancing). In clubs it's more common for people find those they're interested in and kiss with some mild groping in the club, then take it elsewhere.

But there are also clubs with space created specifically for semi-public sexual encounters, which is separated from the dancing-and-drinking space (generally you go through the dancing-and-drinking space to get to the sex space, which is visually partitioned off, around a wall or down stairs or suchness). I could absolutely see this game occurring in rooms in the sex space of a club, or at parties that I've been to. No prizes, just a game played for fun - but keep the winners and losers aspect, the cutting-the-ice function of those concepts is very useful as you note.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Here in Kismirth, we do things -- and people -- wrong!

The Cartesan Casino isn't the only non-mainstream sexual approach on Kismirth. It's simply the one that presents the best illusion of taking responsibility away from the participants. A tourist clearer on what they wanted could simply rent a friend. A tourist who comes with a friend could simply hold hands in public, or get married. A native could use the tourist options, but is more likely to find sweeties in the usual ways, for longer-term but closer relationships.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

I have to give Kismirth this, the reason for the venues mentioned is that they must stay hidden from the general public lest they be raided by police, despite the lack of actual crime associated with most of the activities mentioned.

But then, my discomfort might also be that in my world paying for sex is almost universally illegal, which means sex workers are part of an underground trade where they are treated extremely poorly. I'd much rather it was above-board and regulated for the health and safety of sex workers - a lot of the abuse and trafficking in people that currently occurs would dry up if that happened.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

We are certainly trying to treat our sex workers well! They are, after all, us.

Off this immediate topic...

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

Sythyry, during the Vacation, you mentioned various people who lived in Castle Wrong but didn't accompany you on the vacation. What has happened with those people? Does Castle Wrong itself still exist, or did everything remove entirely to Kismirth?

Curious minds want to know!

Re: Off this immediate topic...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

They have pretty much moved to Kismirth. Three refused to leave Vheshrame for one or another reason.

[redbird]

It may not legally be rape, depending on Kismirth law, but it bothers me ethically, if there's a point at which one of the losers gets to ignore "stop now" or "don't do that" from the other.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

A good question. (Vheshrame's laws here; Kismirth is technically part of the city-state of Vheshrame. We don't have our own laws about rape; Vheshrame's laws are fine.)

So I asked a couple of room-bosses. The rules they use are, the games are supposed to be fun and sexy. "Losing" should be a victory or at least an amusement. If one of the losers is visibly not pleased, the room-boss is to end the scene quickly. So, if a loser has gotten as far as making out with the other, and wishes to stop, they may be expected to finish a bit of kissing and groping, but that will be the end of it.

When the two are actually copulating or some such, and one suddenly changes their mind about it, it is a bit more awkward. That is not the casino's fault. Every time people are copulating and one suddenly changes their mind about it, it is awkward. The casino, at least, provides a referee, in the case that the other one is unwilling or unaware of the sudden change.

Of course, perhaps the room boss will be unaware of it too -- if, say, three or four couples are going at it in different places, as can happen in our larger rooms, or if the signs of disapproval are subtle, as can happen with an Orren boss and a Cani loser. This has happened a few times that we know of -- so far, in situations where the inconstant one simply had to be somewhat clearer or louder.

And of course we've had the Cani woman who shoved an Orren man down on his back and rode him with the full appearance of enthusiasm, and then, suddenly, without letting him up or out, slapped him and demanded (too late) he not come in her. This did not end well.

So there's no such point, exactly, or perhaps less so than in ordinary body-play. Of course the participants are chosen by gaming rather than by mutual attraction and negotiation, so the room for miscommunication and incompatibility is much larger.

I don't know how many people leave the games thinking "I wish I hadn't done that" or "I really didn't like that" -- feeling that they couldn't get away with stopping the scene, even if they actually could have. Certainly many people leave after their first loss and don't come back, for whatever reason.

The lesson being, I think, that sexuality is a crate of eggs, some raw, some hard-boiled, some rotten, and all of them very fragile and easy to break. One ordinarily tiptoes across the crate. At the casino, one is blindfolded when one tiptoes.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

You left out the most important detail! How's the poker room?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Disappointing, according to professional gamblers. The stakes are required by law to be low. So the best players are not in Kismirth.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

You seem to be doing things in a good way: You're making more profit from food and drink.

If Forfeits of Fornication becomes unpopular, you're not tied to that game -- you can switch easily to another game. Or something else that is lightly profitable... but that keeps people involved for food and drink.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Could you at some point address what has happened with the inevitable issues of 'harmless, sapient nonprimes' and sexuality? Is there a club that caters to them exclusively? Have you come across any Prime/Nonprime crossover romances, and had to deal with it as a society and culture? Are there relevant laws on the books? Also, in a semi-related question, how does a nonprime not of one of the normally allowed species petition (or whatever) to be allowed in?