“It would be easier than your current job. You wouldn’t be on your feet all night. And your salary would be double what it currently is.”
I cross my arms and lean back in my chair.
“There is, of course, one caveat.” Her Majesty reaches into a desk drawer and takes out a small coin purse made of red leather. She pulls out a small mushroom with a slender stem and a tall cap. “Do you know what this is?”
I shake my head.
“A psilocybin mushroom. A naturally occurring mind-altering substance. You must take this, and then you will be presented with a small examination to ensure you are up to the task.”
Done.
I take the mushroom and consume it without a second thought. Tim has talked to me before about going on “trips” with these mushrooms. It’s something I’ve always been curious about but have never experienced firsthand. Not unlike the physical act of intimacy.
Her Majesty widens her long-lashed eyes. “Goodness. Usually I have to talk someone into this.”
I shrug.
And I sit.
I wait.
Until invisible strings pull at my lips and twist them into a delighted grin. As I gaze around Her Majesty’s chambers, the tiny red diamonds begin to sparkle violently, some of them twitching as though they have their own heartbeat. They then begin to dance in an elegant waltz around one another until all I see is a solid wall of cherry-colored crystal.
It's the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
At first the wall of diamonds is solid, but then tiny bursts of light peer through it. The pores in the wall enlarge, swell, until they reveal a resplendent scene in front of me. Her Majesty, completely nude, bouncing up and down over my naked chest.
My God. My manhood is within her, the walls of her privates closing in on me like a pillowed mollusk.
It feels magnificent.
Is this what Tim meant when he told me the physical act of intimacy was the greatest gift given to man?
Her Majesty is doing the bulk of the work, but I begin to undulate my hips in tandem with her. She bends her head backward, tweaking her own perky breasts as I secrete my own warm fluid inside her body.
Today, the Jack of Hearts is a man.
My vision blurs, and Her Majesty’s womanhood opens wide, swallowing my entire body up into it. Somehow, I am inside her body, privy to its stunning ins and outs. Her glorious stomach, her sumptuous liver, her exquisite intestines—all of them lined with the same red diamonds as her office.
Again, glimmers of light begin to burst through, small at first but then broadening until I’m back in Her Majesty’s four-poster bed, still completely nude, but no longer experiencing the physical pleasure of her cantering upon my shaft. Instead, she is at my side, a toothy smile splitting her powdered face.
I cock my head, and she gestures to the floor. Her bedchambers are lined with dark-red cherry hardwood, and splayed across it is the body of a woman I recognize—the Three of Hearts. One of the servers in the club who, like me, never got much attention from the patrons. I never saw Three accompany anyone behind the velvet curtains.
I slowly lift my body up and gaze at her. She’s in her Aces uniform—a black bikini speckled with silver hearts, baring the bulk of her porcelain skin that is unmarred except for a few faint bruises on her neck.
“Yes, Chet,” the serpentine hiss of Her Majesty’s whisper glides into my ear. “She’s dead.”
I blink. Dead?
I feel nothing for Three. We were never close. But how did she die? I dare not ask. Her Majesty still has not given me permission to speak.
She reaches under the bed and pulls out a long, jagged saw. She leans back into my ear, licking the lobe before she croons gently, “Off with her head.”
I point to my own chest, as if to clarify that she expects me to do the honors.
She nods slowly, her grin growing. “Of course, Chet. The head must be removed, and then we begin the harvest.”
The harvest? What does she mean? It’s early March.
