Every night Jason returned to The Midas Game, which seemed like a misleading name for the game if players stayed in a rescue mission flophouse, eating a diet of chili, hard rolls, and coffee. Nevertheless, he had begun to enjoy the game and his steamy encounters with Sister Belinda, but he hadn’t seemed to progress in the game, and had never gone any further with Sister Jamie than seeing her shy smile.

During the day, Jason worked out steadily, doing pushups in between classes. It was not because he was interested in fitness, to be honest, but because he knew it would pay off that night in his sexual performance in the game. He steadily saved money, starting with bringing a lunch to school instead of buying junk at the convenience stores or eating at any one of several restaurants near the school that catered to students. Nothing in his life had ever seemed as hard as saving a thousand dollars. Sure, there were several thousand dollars in his bank account every payday, but almost all of that quickly went to expenses like rent and his car, so that at the end of the month he had nothing. Several times he tried building up money in his savings account, but always wound him withdrawing it all out when he found himself short of money.

“Whether you’re dating or trying to earn money, you need to offer value,” the monkey told him one night when Jason asked for advice in how to build wealth in the game. The monkey further explained that the principle also applied in real life. “Go to where the money is,” the monkey said with a wave of his cup. “Right now, your work earns you free food and a bunk, but you can do better than that.”

This afternoon after work he had gone to the latest doctor’s appointment he could schedule, so that night as he lay down in his bed and slipped the headband on, carefully aligning the contacts with his temples, he was curious to see how the checkup would improve his performance in the game.

He was on his hands and knees trying to scrub out coconut oil from the carpet in the healing room when Pastor Roy came in.

“Brother Jason, Doctor Steinman is offering a free clinic today, and I thought you would like to get a free health screening.” The obese pastor swept a white handkerchief over his forehead, which always seemed to be sweating. “Here’s a nickel for subway fare.”

“Thank you, Pastor,” Jason said, taking the dime. “Let me finish this up.”

Once Jason finished his cleaning, he boarded the subway and rode beneath the busy streets of New York, full of checkered yellow cabs and delivery trucks, with a phone booth on practically every corner. He arrived in the doctor’s office, expecting it to be packed with homeless men and poor families, but it was nearly empty. He picked up a copy of Life magazine from the table, and browsed through it, when a woman called him into the office. Jason sat on a table covered in white paper, waiting for the doctor.

A nurse came into the room, looking gorgeous in her white uniform. She was freckle faced and a redhead, with bright red lipstick matching the piping on her uniform. Her body was neither thin nor fat, but curvy, with wide hips filling her tight skirt, and generous breasts up top. He was mesmerized by her green eyes when she smiled at him. She set her chart down and readied her blood pressure cuff, which prompted Jason to roll up his sleeve.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I need you to get undressed.”

He stared at her vacantly until his confused mind realized that she had said exactly what he thought she said. Jason stripped off his shirt and then hopped down from the table to remove his socks, shoes, and pants, which he threw onto a chair. Just as he was about to spring back onto the table she added, “And the briefs, too.”

“Ooookay,” he thought. “This is getting interesting.”

Once he was sitting on the table she explained, “We find that penile blood flow is a better indicator of blood pressure and overall cardiovascular health.” She wrapped the cuff at the base of his penis and scrotum, then squeezed the bulb in her hand to tighten it. His penis turned scarlet red, and veins bulged along the side, threatening to burst as his penis became harder, bobbing with every heartbeat.

“Your penis is filled with small veins, which fill with blood to cause an erection,” she expounded as she stroked his turgid column packed with blood. “If those veins don’t get blood flow, it’s a sign of more serious cardiovascular issues.”

She removed a slender metal thermometer from between her breasts. “I like to keep it warm.”

Jason opened his mouth and raised his tongue so she could take his temperature.

“You can close your mouth—it’s a penile temp.” She slid the thermometer into the slit in his glans, which drooled a clear fluid. Her hands stroked the sides of his beet-red shaft, gradually working the tube down his urethra. The sensation was unlike any he had ever felt, as she kept stroking him, and probing his sensitive urethra, driving down deep toward the base of his erection.

She jostled his balls, and rolled her fingers over each testicle. “Just checking for lumps; screening for testicular cancer.”

Clear pre-cum coated the thermometer, so that it more easily slid up and down while the redhead pinched and stroked his straining cock.

“Don’t be embarrassed if you accidentally orgasm: I make guys cum all the time.”

She knew the effect she had on him, because at that very moment he erupted, and milky semen poured out over the thermometer and rolled down his glans. “That’s it,” she coaxed him, while she jerked his inflamed tool, so that semen bubbled up and ran over her freckled hands.

The redhead released the pressure in the cuff and removed the greasy thermometer, so that a bolt of his milk shot out of the tip of his knob and landed on her hand. She jiggled his sodden cock, shaking out the remnants of his ejaculate, then went to the sink to wash her hands. The redheaded beauty brought back towels, which she used to clean him up, then had him stand so that she could tear off the slick paper coated with his jism and throw it into the trash. She rolled out a new strip of paper for Jason to collapse upon. With a racing heart, he watched the nurse jot down notes on a clipboard.

“The doctor will be in in a bit,” she said with a smile, and left.

Following a knock, the doctor entered the room. “Good morning, I’m Dr. Steinman.” He extended his hand.

“Jason Whitlock.”

The two men shook hands. The doctor then examined his chart. “Hmm, looks like your penile blood pressure is a bit high.” The doctor looked at his ears, eyes, and throat, checked the nodes under his jaw, and even did the reflex test with a hammer against his knee.

The doctor stood and put away his hammer. “Well, other than the penile blood pressure, which is elevated, you’re in good shape.”

“Doctor, I was just thinking” Jason decided he might as well give it a try. “Do you get reimbursed for every bum who comes in here?”

“Indigent person? Yes, there are a couple of charities, or I can deduct it as a charitable contribution. Why?”

“Well, I know guys like me who could use your help. If I steered them toward you, do you think you could give me a finder’s fee?” Then Jason remembered what the monkey said about “going where the money is,” and realized there was a better way to phrase it. “Because the charity or the deduction is paying the cost, my fee costs you nothing.”

The doctor mulled the idea. “Sure, since you put it that way, I could give you fifty cents for every referral.”

“Fifty cents!” Jason felt like shouting, but restrained himself, “I’ll be in touch.”

The doctor left with a nod, and Jason got dressed, thinking that he needed a physical more often.

* * *

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” Pastor Roy said in his baritone voice. “But before we eat dinner, Brother Jason has an important announcement.”

“Thank you, Pastor.” Jason came up in front of the pulpit and looked at the assembled group, calculating that twenty times fifty cents for each man here totaled ten dollars! “I’ve arranged for each and every one of you to get a free checkup. Please see me after dinner tonight to sign up.”

Jason skipped dinner and headed straight to his sign-up desk so he didn’t miss the chance to sign anyone up. The men seemed to take forever eating, but after the first man finished eating, he determinedly looked past Jason as he walked down the hallway to the bunkroom. Jason tried to call out to him, but he was gone, and the next two men slipped past him while he was distracted. The process continued with every single bum, who filed by and determinedly avoided eye contact, or pretended not to hear, or mumbled, “maybe later.”

Jason looked at the dining tables, which were completely empty. Pastor Roy came up to the desk, looking dejected. “Sorry about that, brother, but now you get an idea what it’s like working with the homeless.” The big man lumbered down the hall to check on the men before retiring to his own room.

“Can I sign up for a free checkup?”

“Yes!” Jason felt elated that his efforts weren’t a total loss. If just one guy signed up, it could set off a chain reaction, emboldening others. Turning his eyes from the hallway, he looked to see who wanted to sign up.

Damn monkey. A long breath of air escaped through his pursed lips as if from a flat tire. The monkey stood beside him, just tall enough to rest his chin on the edge of the table. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Jason followed the monkey in his little red fez, going out the swinging doors and down the stairs to the street, where the monkey opened the door and hopped onto the back seat of a taxi.

Jason hesitated on the sidewalk. “I don’t know if I have the money for a taxi,” he said, reaching into his pocket.”

“Don’t worry, I’m loaded.” The monkey patted the seat next to him.

“Okay,” Jason consented, and got into the cab.

The instant the cab pulled from the curb, the monkey held his tin cup in front of Jason. “That’ll be ten cents.”

Jason rose up from his seat a bit so that he could reach into his front pants pocket. He rummaged around and removed two nickels, which he dropped into the cup. “All right, what’s your advice?”

“I don’t have anything to say; this is something you have to see.” The monkey let out a silent cackling laugh, and jangled the coins in his cup.

It seemed that they hardly had time to go around the block, when the taxi stopped on the street. Jason saw a hand-lettered billboard reading, “The Great Houdini: King of Handcuffs.” For once it seemed that the monkey had redeemed himself, because Jason was a long-time fan of Houdini and sleight-of-hand magic. Jason eagerly stepped out of the taxi and rushed to the door, until it suddenly dawned on him that he didn’t have any money for tickets.

“Ghost mode, remember?” The monkey stepped right past the doorman, and the two of them got front-row seats, consisting of folding chairs on a sawdust floor in a small room. Several other persons straggled in, which struck Jason as an insanely small crowd for Houdini.

Houdini came out and theatrically threw out his arms, which drew a smattering of applause. He ran through a series of card tricks, a rope trick, and a trick with several knotted silks, tossing his props to his wife Bess each time he finished using them. Despite the small crowd, he was enthusiastic, and Bess beamed in her short, wavy flapper-style hair. Jason was impressed by Houdini’s fitness and muscularity, which was evident even though he wore a suit.

“I will now escape from a pair of regulation handcuffs,” Houdini announced dramatically, while Bess stood poised like a dancer stage right. “The same handcuffs that are used to restrain the most violent criminals, drug fiends, and the criminally insane.”

Rising to the tips of his toes, he dramatically held the cuffs high overhead.

“Can you get out of these?” an old man asked from the back row. He looked like a retired cop, with a fedora and a cigarette sticking to the corner of his mouth. A chrome pair of handcuffs glinted in his hands.

“Without a doubt,” Houdini replied.

The dozen or so people in the small room perked up: this was the most interesting part of the evening yet. The old man walked over the sawdust and latched the cuffs onto Houdini, who had rolled up his sleeves. Houdini held up his cuffed hands to the crowd, and slipped behind a curtain that Bess had brought to the front of the stage.

There was struggling and tussling behind the curtain, but nothing happened. Five minutes passed, then ten, and the crowd grew restless, Bess struggled to maintain her smile.

Houdini peeked from around the curtain. “Almost!”

After several more minutes, people began to file out. A few more minutes, and the room was empty, except for the retired cop, who was on his third cigarette. Houdini came out from behind the curtain, and sheepishly admitted that he couldn’t open the cuffs.

“It’s an old trick we cops sometimes use.” The old man rose to his feet and reached into his jacket to hand Houdini a hacksaw blade. “There’s birdshot in the mechanism, and the cuffs won’t open. You’ll have to saw them off.”

The retired cop threw down his cigarette butt, then ground it into the sawdust with his shoe. He tipped his hat to Bess, “Ma’am,” and strolled out.

Jason and the monkey filed out of the room to the sound of a hacksaw sliding over the arm of a pair of handcuffs. The same taxi waited for them outside. After Jason and the monkey slid into the rear seat, the cab slipped into traffic.

“So what was that about?” Jason asked.

The monkey stood on the seat so that he was eye-level with Jason. “It’s a true event from Houdini’s life. Ask anybody there in the audience, and Houdini was unimpressive as a magician, and a failure as an escape artist. So Houdini sucks, right?”

“No,” Jason protested incredulously. “Houdini was the greatest.”

“Tonight he was a total flop. Should’ve called himself “Poodini.” If I had any poo, I would’ve thrown it at him. Any reasonable person who saw that show would have told him he sucks, and he should quit. How does he become the greatest?” The monkey raised his eyebrows and looked at Jason with eyes like marbles.

The monkey slapped Jason’s shoulder. “He didn’t quit. Everybody who’s famous was a flop at some point. Some will quit, but the successful keep going.”

“Is this about my health clinic idea?” Jason asked, and looked to see where the taxi was going.

“It’s about everything,” the monkey responded. “Bums didn’t sign up for a free checkup. Why did you get one?”

“Hot chicks,” Jason confessed.

“Exactly,” the monkey agreed, then pointed at Jason with a long, thin finger. “Offer the men a carrot. Everybody needs a carrot.”