For Fiction friday, 3WW, and Sunday Scribblings

Serena could gamble with the best of them. The ponies were her passion; Saratoga her shrine. Every year she came to upstate New York for the entire six week meet.

Exacta, trifecta, pick 6, daily double, these were music to her ears; the Racing Form a feast for her intellect. Track conditions, Byer speed figures, grade of race, distance; her eyes pored over each minute detail every night back in her hotel room allowing nothing to be omitted.

Every morning she woke at first light, to rub shoulders with jockey agents at the local bagal shop, and then enjoy her breakfast sitting in the hallowed clubhouse seats while the lady at the loudspeaker announced when a famous horse would step onto the track. Serena had seen them all--Ginger Punch, Inside Information, Fourstardave, Easy Goer, Hansel, Alysheba, Lady's Secret.

After, she went back to get ready for the afternoon. A leopard print dress was her favorite outfit, the sleeveless one that cinched at her waist and then flared around her knees.

She was a woman in a man's world. She could wear what she wanted, do her hair as she wished; there were no female eyes to criticize her and how she looked. Here, at Saratoga, she could do what pleased her.

True, this was a temporary world, but this was her world, the time when she came alive.

The time when she became complete.