But in the morning he was alone in a bed in a room by himself. His penis was soft, and the pepper was gone from his colon. Spades might have loved his long caress, but she had not forgotten to pass him along to the next on schedule. He was almost disappointed.

  He realized belatedly that the room was heart-shaped. That figured.

  He got up and found the bathroom, determined not to get caught full again. He relieved himself, washed up, then searched for clothing, but there was none. That was of course no accident. He returned to the bedroom.

  A nude red haired woman was on the bed, ravishingly lovely. That face, those breasts, those buttocks—she was the fairest of the fair. He recognized her. The Queen of Hearts.

  “Join me, Jack,” she said. “We must talk.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, sitting on the edge of the bed. The three other Queens had been outstandingly aesthetic, but Hearts put them all to shame. “I answered an ad.”

  “You did indeed. You are by far the most promising of the candidates, if you care to qualify. The other Queens speak very well of you.”

  “That’s nice. But they said that for some reason I might not want to be with you. I don’t understand that. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and a Queen, while I’m just a homely nothing.”

  She did not argue. “This is what we must discuss. Your face and rank do not matter. Your tolerance does. First I must tell you that I love the King, and want desperately to please him. But there is a problem.”

  “A problem,” he agreed. Was she about to clarify the mystery of his summoning? If she loved the King, why would she mess with a Knave?

  “I love sex, and crave a lot of it, but only with him,” she continued. “But he is largely impotent.”

  She had a problem, all right. “I can’t help you there.”

  “Ah, but you can, Jack. The King can be potent only in a very special situation. He needs to be with a man.”

  “He’s gay!” Jack exclaimed.

  “By no means,” she said severely. “We do not speak that word here.”

  He had somehow blundered. “I apologize. I misunderstood.”

  “Not entirely. You referred to men having sex with each other. Men who prefer to love men. That is not the case here. The King loves no man. He loves me. He merely is unable to be potent with me alone.”

  Now he really did not understand. “He needs—a man to watch him?” He was sure that wasn’t it.

  “He needs a sex toy to facilitate sex with me.”

  Oh. “Then why not just use it? The other Queens use sex toys freely. In fact they even sometimes refer to me as a sex toy.”

  “Exactly. A heterosexual toy. That’s the only kind that will do.”

  “You need to put something in you, then in me? I can do that.”

  “That is precisely what I need. I am glad you understand.”

  “Okay,” he said uncertainly. “But I don’t quite see how this relates to the ad for a Knave.”

  “It’s a special ad, crafted to appeal to a certain type of man. The ideal Knave.”

  “A Knave,” he repeated. “But I still don’t see—”

  “The proper Knave knows his place.”

  “Uh, not to presume? Not to talk about things?”

  “That too,” she agreed. “But there is a more literal place.”

  He was thoroughly baffled. “A physical place? Where?”

  “Come to me,” she said.

  He got on the bed beside her. His member was rampant, but that no longer embarrassed him, after his experience with the other Queens.

  “Mount me.” She lay on her back, legs parted.

  Could it really be that simple? He straddled her, his penis stiff against her belly.

  “Kiss me.”

  He was glad to. He kissed her marvelous lips, and she kissed him back exactly as if she meant it. Her hands felt for his member, and placed it at her divine juncture, not yet entering. She brushed her fingers through her cleft, wetting them, and rubbed the moisture on his penis and on beyond it, smearing his rectum.

  Then he remembered. “But you haven’t put something in you, then in me.”

  “Then King’s royal member has been in me, though limp. It needs the sex toy to be firm.”

  “Uh, yes, I guess,” he agreed.

  “Now it begins,” she said. She wrapped her arms and legs about him, clasping him close, kissing him avidly. He couldn’t move, but didn’t want to. What a phenomenal creature!

  Then he became aware of something behind him. It felt like a large man. He knew immediately that it was the King, who had caught them at it. He struggled to get up, but she held him with a vice-like strength, still kissing him. He couldn’t get away.

  The King’s huge penis probed his rectum, knowing exactly where to go. He was trying to enter! Jack struggled again, but that only made his anus flex a little, facilitating the King’s urgency. That member felt the exact same size as Diamond’s diamond dildo. As Spade’s tumescent turnip.

  Suddenly he caught on completely. The Queens had been measuring him for this! He was truly the sex toy!

  The Queen still held him tightly in place. He was their dildo, entering and being entered. The King’s insistent member navigated his slippery rectum, forced wide his sphincter, and rammed victoriously on into his colon. The shove caused Jack’s stiff penis to plunge into the Queen’s vagina. He was having sex with her while the King was having sex with him.

  Then they were in the full throes of it. The King’s member jammed against Jack’s prostate, causing it to respond by pumping out semen. Jack thrust hard into the Queen, echoing the King’s thrust into him. He felt the King’s jet of semen as his own pulsed into the Queen. It was as if the King were doing it to the Queen, only with something between. The live sex toy.

  Now the Queen climaxed too. Her vagina squeezed his penis with the rhythm of her orgasm. Her lips parted and her tongue darted into his mouth to meet his own tongue. She moaned ecstatically, writhing so that her breasts stroked his chest.

  They finished together, all three of them gasping. The Queen relaxed, letting her arms and legs fall back to the bed. Jack half collapsed on her, still much aware of her breasts beneath him. The King drew out his long, bulbous member, and suddenly he was gone. Jack had never even seen him.

  He rolled off the Queen, his softening penis falling out. He lay beside her. “May I?” he asked, looking at her breasts and bottom. For they still appealed strongly to him. He had not thought of himself as a parts man, but he had never seen breasts or buttocks like these. He wanted something to remember this encounter by. Something to distract him from awareness of what had just happened to him.

  “Welcome,” she said. She took hold of his head and brought it to her bosom, directing a nipple to his mouth. He sucked on it, delighted, as his hands took firm hold of her butt and his fingers slid into her hot cleft.

  “Now you know,” she murmured.

  “I do,” he agreed around her nipple.

  “You are perfect, Jack. Will you stay?”

  He was the Knave, a sex toy to enable the King to have sex with the Queen in his own special fashion. By penetrating a heterosexual man, so there could be no misunderstanding about homosexuality. No foolishness about same-sex love. That was their compromise.

  “Where will I sleep?” he asked. It was a more relevant question than perhaps she realized.

  “Here with me, in my bed, of course. Now that you have been blooded. In my embrace, if you wish. I’d like that. You may have anything you want of me, except—”

  “Except sex,” he finished.

  “Only with the King. In a manner. Penal penetration alone is reserved for his participation.”

  “I can do this?” he asked, kissing her nipple.

  “Yes.”

  “Or this?” He kissed her mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “This?” He slid down to put his face at her cleft, tonguing her clitoris.

  “Yes.”

  “This?” He slid a slick finger into her anus.

  “Yes. I like it all, and will do it to you too. I will be your object. Your sex toy. But I can’t climax without the King. I can’t derive passion, though I will fake it for you if you wish. You understand.”

  He did, now. It seemed like a good deal. Obviously he would live like royalty, as the Royal Knave. With almost free access to the most desirable woman he could imagine. That would be sheer heaven.

  Except for the King. That penetration—

  Then he realized something that astonished him. He had liked it when the other Queens did it with their toys. The toys had enhanced his performance. And he liked it when the King had done the same. Like the Queen of Spades, Jack had nerves there. He might not care to admit it, any more than the King admitted to any gay desire, but it was something he would like to do again. To have his prostate massaged and bathed by hot juice while he jetted into the Queen. There was nothing else like that.

  The other prospective Knaves evidently had reacted with aversion or horror to the denouement and quickly departed. That was why the position was open. Why the other Queens had been so circumspect about that particular detail, while carefully preparing him for it. But he didn’t have to go. This could be a very nice situation for the right man. He was that man.

  The Queen fathomed his decision as he made it. “Oh, Jack!” she cried, gladly kissing him.

  Yes, a very nice situation.

  2010

  Juliet Quartet

  Juliet

  It was a bad day. At lunch in the school cafeteria a damned juvenile boy had “accidentally” spilled milk down her front. Not a lot; just enough to soak her bra. He and his idiotic friends thought it was hilarious, claiming it might make her “boobies” grow, but she was hardly amused. She retreated hastily to the girl’s room and rinsed the bra out, but it remained too wet to wear, so she wadded it up in a damp ball and stuffed it in her plastic lunch bag. She managed to make it through the afternoon classes bra-less. Fortunately (?) she was as yet not well endowed, so did not attract attention.

  Her friends said, giggling, that it meant the boy liked her. He just couldn’t say it openly without getting razzed, so he touched her in another way. Well, she didn’t like him. Not after that. Anyway, her folks were hopelessly twentieth century, and refused to let her date yet. She was just an ordinary girl, nothing special, not great athletically, indifferent as a student, and certainly no beauty. So there wouldn’t have been much prospect for dating even if she could.

  Naturally she wished she could somehow amount to something. To accomplish some great deed, become famous, or at least recognized. But she was realistic enough to know a foolish dream when she saw it. She was doomed to nonentity.

  Now she saw a group of boys by the bus stop, and that one was among them, so she just knew that they knew. She didn’t take the bus, as she lived close enough to walk, but her route went right by the stop. They would tease her unmercifully. She’d be lucky if they didn’t “accidentally” rip her shirt open to prove it. Neither parents nor teachers had any notion what real life was like in or around school. Not only would she be further humiliated, she’d get the blame for making a spectacle of herself. That was always the way it was.

  So she detoured quickly, before they spied her. She made a right angle turn, going north. This would take her well out of her way, but would spare her the cruel gantlet of the boys and their juvenile humor. There was another through street two blocks up that would take her safely toward her house. She would be late, but her folks weren’t home at this hour, so wouldn’t notice.

  She made the turn and approached a larger intersection. And heard a crash. She looked up just in time to see the delivery van turn over. It landed on its side with a second crash and slid to a halt. Meanwhile the car that had hit the van skewed to the side, paused, spun its wheels, and squealed away: a hit and run driver. The jerk had probably run the light and caught the van broadside. She wasn’t in a position to see its license tag; it was just a nondescript white car.

  She ran up to the van. She was the first person on the scene. This was exciting!

  Then she saw the man.

  He was evidently the van’s driver, and he had somehow been pinned half under it. He lay on his back, his arms spread out to the sides, facing up. He was conscious, because he was moaning.

  She dropped to her knees beside him, letting her purse, lunch bag, and homework book fall beside her. Then she saw the blood leaking out beside his body. She stiffened with horror. He was badly injured.

  “How can I help?” she asked him, unable to think of anything more sensible.

  “My legs!” he gasped. “God, they hurt! Make the pain stop!”

  And how could she do that? She obviously lacked the strength to lift the van off him, and even if she could, it wouldn’t make him stop hurting.

  She did remember one thing. She fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed 911. “Bad accident! Man injured! Send help immediately!” She gave the intersection. “Can you hurry? He’s in awful pain. What can I do?”

  “Comfort him,” the voice said. At least that was as much as she was able to assimilate at the moment.

  She had no idea how to do that. But she knew it would take at least a little time for help to come, and the man was in pain now. How could she help him in the interim? She couldn’t stand to see him suffer.

  His head rolled back and forth and his eyes were scarily wide. Then his wild gaze caught hers in a desperate glancing contact. “Please!” he begged.

  She had to do something! But what? What could she possibly say to comfort him? How could she make his pain go away?

  Comfort. Could she somehow comfort him the way her mother sometimes did when she was hurting? Not with words so much as with a hug. But she couldn’t hug him; it was physically impossible, there on the pavement. Apart from the dirt and blood. Was there anything else?

  She acted before she knew it. She picked up his near hand and brought it to her slight bosom, hugging it to her. This was of course absolute foolishness, but what else could she do? “Help is coming,” she told him reassuringly.

  His eyes abruptly focused on hers, and she felt his arm relax. It was working! She was hugging his arm, and it actually seemed to be helping him.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “You’re an angel of mercy.” His breathing became less labored. Could that really be all he needed?

  But then his eyes closed. She realized that he was relaxing too much. In fact he was probably going into shock. She knew about that from her health class. It was when there was not enough blood left, and the body shut down and died. Maybe like freezing to death. She couldn’t let him relax too far, lest he sink into oblivion. She had to keep him alert, at least for the few minutes until help arrived.

  Maybe it wasn’t comfort he needed so much as distraction. To keep him conscious, alert, but not thinking of his legs. He was a man, and they had certain interests, as the attitude of the boys indicated.

  She turned his hand around, then untucked her blouse from her waistband. She threaded his hand inside and set his palm against her small bare right breast. Would it be enough?

  His eyes popped open again. He knew what he was touching.

  “Don’t tell,” she pleaded.

  “Never!” he agreed, with a fleeting smile. His fingers squeezed gently. He was definitely awake and distracted. “I’m feeling no pain.”

  Someone came. She looked up, and was horrified. It was her church pastor! He recognized her. He saw where the man’s hand was. Now she was in awful trouble.

  “He’s hurting,” she said lamely.

  “It is not for us to question the manner God works His will,” the pastor murmured.

  Did that mean it was all right, or at least that he wasn’t condemning her completely?

  “You deserve credit for helping this man survive,” the pastor said.

  “No! My folks would never understand!”

  “You prefer anonymity,” he said, unsurprised.

  She nodded, ashamed.

  There was the sound of an approaching siren. The ambulance was finally coming. In fact there were several cars. The police were here also.

  “I will handle this,” the pastor said. “Whom may I say comforted this man?”

  He was giving her a chance to be truly anonymous! She gazed wildly around. She saw the cover of her school book: Romeo and Juliet. It was the Shakespeare play the class was reading, that promised to be really dull homework. “Juliet.”

  The pastor intercepted the newcomers, speaking quietly to them. They saw his collar and knew he was legitimate. Actually, probably all the city personnel knew him, because of his calling.

  The injured man’s hand was still inside her shirt, still grasping her breast, but the medics seemed not to notice. The pastor must have warned them. “Can’t help him until we get that vehicle off him,” one said grimly. “Can’t medicate him until we know the complications.”

  “Lift the van off,” the pastor said. “Quickly, while he is feeling no pain.” He certainly knew the score.

  There was another vehicle there. In moments the van was heaved up and off. The victim’s crushed legs lay exposed in their pool of blood. She averted her gaze, wincing. The medics got rapidly to work. They were used to this sort of thing.

  “Now we can stabilize him,” one said. He brought a kind of cup and put it over the man’s face.

  The hand relaxed, letting go of her breast. She pulled away, hastily tucking in her shirt. Then she got up, picked up her things, and walked away.

  “But she’s a witness!” someone protested.

  “I am the witness,” the pastor said. “Let her go.”

  They let her go, heeding the man of the cloth. He had really helped her.

  The accident made the news, but only in a minor way. Similar accidents happened all the time. No one seemed to think anything of it. Her folks never mentioned it.