“No, I said ‘bigly’.” The Beast maintained his glare.

“Oh I see. I am sorry.” Hashwini became alarmed. She glanced at the pit supervisor for help but the latter pretended to be chatting with a croupier from the adjacent roulette table.

“You think my English is no good because I am from China?” the Beast pressed.

“Of course not.” Hashwini began to panic. “It’s just that I have never heard the word used here in Singapore.”

“Sure, you have,” the Beast proclaimed. He pointed at the humongous diamond ring he was wearing and said, “This ring is not small but…”

Hashwini saw his outstretched palm pointed at her and realised in dismay that the Beast wanted her to complete the sentence.

“Big.”

The word came out of her mouth in a timid whisper. She knew it was the wrong answer but she simply could not bring herself to utter the mutated, bastardised word.

The Beast shook his head and repeated himself. “This ring is not small but…”

Hashwini felt as though she were being pressed up against a wall by a hideous, malicious three-headed beast that threatened to tear her head off if she did not comply. She swallowed her pride and capitulated, “Bigly.”

At her utterance the ball dropped into the pockets, bounced thrice and landed on the number “7”. There was a monolith of betting chips sitting on single bet “7” and an additional obelisk of smaller stature straddling the split bet between “7” and “10”. The Beast yelped in delight and clapped his hands joyfully. The pit supervisor and the other croupier cheered.

“What do you call this?” The Beast swivelled around and beamed at Hashwini.

“A good win,” Hashwini struggled to give him the word he wanted but simply could not do it. It went against everything she believed in to utter such an abomination to the English language.

The Beast shook his head but maintained his wide beam. He tapped on the roulette table and said, “This table is not small but…”

Hashwini could feel the noxious, sulfuric breath of the three-headed beast burning down her neck.

“Bigly.”

“Good. So the win is a...”

“Bigly win.”

“Good girl.”

That was the first time Hashwini had entertained the fantasy of smacking the ashtray onto the Beast’s temple and watching pretty ribbons of blood streak down his face out of that bigly hole.

When Hashwini grumbled about the encounter to Euu Ki, the latter shrugged and said, “The Beast is easy to handle. Just keep stroking his ego. He likes that.”

“His bigly ego,” Hashwini hissed. “What I can’t stand is his awful English. It burns my ear!”

“Sweetie, you saw that humongous diamond ring he wears, yes? No one else in the VIP lounge has anything even half as big. He is the Lord of the Rings. He dictates the rules of grammar and spelling. Screw the Oxford Dictionary.”