Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (46 page)

The three girls were on their knees, dressed
in red corsets that pushed their breasts up high, the crotch
splitting to reveal shaved pubes beneath. It wasn’t much material,
but Alice recognized it at once—it was the same corset the Red
Queen wore under her peignoir. All three women were very
different—a petite blonde like Alice, a busty redhead and a tall
brunette—every man’s wet dream trio.

The top hat man had long dark, curly hair
and a wicked smile. He thrust his pelvis in her direction, making
the redhead gag on his dick. Then he called out to Alice, “Twinkle
twinkle little bat, how I wonder what you’re at?”

She stood and took in the scene in stunned,
embarrassed silence, realizing that she, too, was humiliatingly
naked. He was looking at her with bright, hungry eyes. They all
were.

“What is this place?” Alice whispered,
feeling the words burning in her throat.

But she knew the answer, even as the
caterpillar man lifted his head and asked, “Who are you?”

All three women spoke in unison, “This is
Wonderland!”

“You’re mad.” Alice choked on her words,
trying to cover herself with her hands. It only seemed to draw
their attention to her body even more.

“We’re all mad here.” The cat man laughed
and it sounded like a scream. The three women were already off the
bed, heading toward her. Alice backed up against the wall, the cool
stone chilling her behind, but the door didn’t open.

“Come play,” the blonde whispered, sliding
an arm around Alice’s waist.

She found herself on the bed, stretched out
at the end in front of the man with the top hat, while the three
women crawled over her like cats, stretching out, licking with
their pink tongues, rolling against her softness. She couldn’t keep
track of all of them, hands and limbs and hair. She knew only
sensation—the soft press of a mouth between her thighs, the sweet
suckle against her breast, the honey taste of a pussy poised over
her tongue.

Alice moaned and came, and came, and came
again. She had strange visions of the man in the top hat watching,
his cock weeping at the sight of them, his eyes mad with lust. The
man beside him howled like a tomcat who’d found a female in heat on
the other side of an impenetrable fence. They were all three raging
mad, trying to get to the mass of women soaking in one another’s
pleasure at their feet.

“Check in here!” The door swung wide and
Alice lifted her dazed head to see the Red Queen stalking toward
the bed. Her wild eyes widened at the sight of Alice spread-eagle
on the bed, the three women still working hands and tongues and
fingers in her orifices. The queen’s guard burst in behind her.
“Here! She’s here!” The Red Queen pointed at Alice and screeched,
“And she’s stolen my tarts!”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Alice insisted
indignantly, trying to sit up in the midst of the soft, supple
flesh pile they made together. But the women whimpered and looked
around with worried eyes and sat up to clutch each other as the Red
Queen raved. It took Alice a few moments to understand.

“You stole my tarts!” The Red Queen
insisted, waving her finger at the women until, one by one, they
climbed off the bed and went to kneel at her feet, head down. “Off
with her head! Off with it, now!”

“Off with my…what?” Alice felt as if her
blood had turned to ice.

The guards grabbed Alice without another
word, one at each arm. She tried to walk but they were too tall and
dragged her to the door. The Red Queen followed, the three tarts
falling in line behind her.

“I say!” called the Mad Hat Man. “Don’t
forget us here!”

But the door was closed behind them and the
guards were dragging her down the hall before she could hear him
say anymore. Poor Caterpillar, poor Cat, poor Mad Hat Man. She
wondered who might come along to release them. Certainly someone,
and soon. This place had to have rules. They had safe words, after
all. That proved something. It had to. They might get kicked out,
of course, after being with the queen’s tarts, she surmised. That
was apparently against the rules.

And she’d been with the queen’s tarts,
hadn’t she?

Oh yes, she most definitely had.

“Tweedledee.” The sound in front of them
drew Alice’s attention. There were two men coming toward them,
filling all the available space in the hallway.

“Tweedledum.” As they got closer, Alice
could see they were both naked, their bellies so rotund and
pendulous they obscured their privates. They were twins, had to be,
with the same moon faces and wide smiles. They were also holding
hands as they came down the hall, making an impenetrable wall of
flesh blocking the way.

“Tweedledee.” The one on the right would say
this, and the one on the left would echo it with, “Tweedledum.”

The guards stopped. An impasse.

“Out of our way!” The Red Queen waved from
behind them. “Get!”

The two brothers looked at each other,
behind them, then back at the queen, incredulous. There was no way
they could turn around. Even if the two of them went single file,
they wouldn’t all squeeze past. The twins grew very distraught,
mumbling,
tweedledumtweedledee tweedledumtweedledee
tweedledumtweedledee
over and over, their hands flapping at
their sides like trapped birds.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” The Red Queen threw
up her hands and pushed against the wall to her left. A door opened
and Alice watched in wonder as another hallway appeared. How did
anyone keep track of where anything was in this place? She
wondered. But she didn’t have long to ponder the question because
the hallway led around into another, and that one let them into a
great hall where food and sex and games had all melded into one
great orgy of excess.

Alice winced as the guards dragged her to
the front of the room, depositing her without ceremony on the floor
in front of two large thrones. They were silver, not gold, high
backed and upholstered in red. The Red Queen huffed past Alice,
sitting in one of them and reaching for a long cord beside her
chair. She pulled it, but nothing happened.

“Please.” Alice spoke, still trying to cover
herself, everything about her trembling. “Let me explain.”

“Verdict now, explanations later,” the queen
snapped. “Did you or did you not steal my tarts?”

“I didn’t steal them,” Alice protested,
glancing over at the women. “They rather stole me.”

“What say you?” The queen turned to the trio
but they just shook their heads, quivering together.

“This is just a formality.” The queen waved
Alice’s protests away. “I saw you with my own eyes. Collar
her.”

Alice didn’t know what it meant until one of
the guards fit a red collar around her throat and snapped it
closed. She clawed at it, but it seemed to close seamlessly, like
everything else in this strange place.

“Now!” The Red Queen pointed at Alice and
one of the guards pressed her down to her knees. “Off with her
head!”

This isn’t happening, Alice thought, but the
flash of a blade behind her made it very immediate. One of the
guards was holding an old-time executioner’s ax and it looked very
real.

“Wait!” There was that word again, but this
time Alice didn’t speak it. Wade burst into the room wearing a
white robe trimmed in red and silver, something similar to what the
Red King had been wearing when she met him. And where was the king
anyway? She wondered, glancing around the hall. The place was full
with bodies, writhing, moaning, piled on top of one another, but
she didn’t see him.

“I call for mediation.” Wade stepped between
the guard and Alice, grabbing her upper arms and bringing her to
standing. She had never felt so safe and leaned back gratefully
against him. “Where’s the Red King?”

“Mediation?” The Red Queen snorted and waved
her hand. “What do we need that for?”

“For fun of course.” The Red King appeared,
seemingly out of nowhere, his robe only half-closed, although he
was trying to fix that. He grinned and winked at Alice and she
instantly relaxed. “The girl has to solve a riddle. How’s that, my
pet?” He raised an eyebrow in the queen’s direction.

“Oh fiddlesticks.” The Red Queen turned her
nose in the air, waving the idea away.

“Wait.” Wade took a step toward the Red
King. “If she solves it, we crown a new king and queen.”

Both of the king’s eyebrows rose. “That’s
quite a wager.”

“I believe in her.” Wade looked over at
Alice and gave her the smile that made her melt into little
puddles.

But she couldn’t do this. Solve riddles? It
was insane. “Wade…”

“So be it!” The Red Queen’s eyes brightened
as she looked at Alice. “Solve the riddle and you will be the new
queen.”

Alice gulped. “I’ll do my best.”

“Tell me…” The queen leaned forward on her
throne, her lips curling into a wicked smile. “Why is a raven like
a writing desk?”

Alice blinked, frowned, and looked over to
Wade for help. If she failed, what did it mean? Were they really
going to chop off her head? And if she solved it, well what did
that
mean? Is this what Wade had meant about being together,
forever? Or was this part of the test?

She tried to think of any way the two things
could be related but couldn’t come up with anything. A crowd had
gathered around them, distracted from their own distractions by the
queen’s proclamation. Finally, Alice had to admit defeat. Ravens
and writing desks had nothing in common. They were going to cut off
her head and she was never going to see Wade again.

She swallowed hard and met his eyes,
blinking back her tears. She didn’t regret dying for him, not
really. She just hated to disappoint him. More than anything, she
wished she could be back home snuggled under her down comforter
with Dinah while Wade made pancakes in her little kitchen. Thinking
of home made her remember Maddie, and how she’d never see her again
either. Her poor sister would always wonder what had happened to
her.

And that’s when it came to her. Maddie and
her solid belief in science was going to save her life in this
strange, surreal place.

“A raven is like a writing desk…” Alice
swallowed and turned to meet the Red Queen’s eyes, feeling rather
triumphant. “Because a raven and a writing desk are, without a
doubt, scientifically proven to be both made of atoms.”

The whole crowd was quiet and then a
deafening cheer went up around her. The queen stood, sputtering her
protest, but the king, looking proud and amused, stepped in.

“That’s as good an answer as I’ve ever
heard,” he exclaimed, reaching out and grabbing Alice’s hand. He
kissed it gently as he had the first time and the way he looked at
her made her flush.

“That’s not the answer!” the queen
screeched. “There is no answer to that riddle!”

But no one heard her. They were all starting
to chant: “Long live the White King! Long live the White Queen!”
and a white robe trimmed with red and silver was being draped
around Alice’s shoulders. She smiled over at Wade and he winked at
her. The Red King was shaking his hand and passing over his crown
and didn’t look too upset to be giving it up either.

“Look out!” The cry came from behind her and
Alice whirled toward the sound, a woman’s voice. One of the tarts
pointed at the queen’s throne, where the Red Queen had tussled for
and won the executioner’s ax from the guard. She wielded the heavy,
ungainly thing with no grace or skill, but it didn’t seem to
matter. The queen swung and the ax was headed straight for the red
collar around Alice’s neck as if it were a magnet.

The last thing she heard was the Red Queen
screaming, “Off with her head!”

* * * *

“Alice.” The sound of her name was far away,
in another world. “Alice! Wake up!”

She jolted awake at his command, gasping and
clutching Wade to her. He wrapped his big arms around her and held
her close, rocking her in the darkness.

“Was I dreaming?” she whispered
incredulously. “Was it only a dream?”

“It must have been something.” Wade chuckled
and kissed her forehead. “You were screaming ‘Off with her
head!’”

Alice’s hand went to her throat, which was
thankfully still attached to her head. And then she felt it—a
collar. It was fastened seamlessly to her neck and she was sure, if
she turned on a light and looked into a mirror, that it would be
red.

“Wade…” she whispered, fingering the band at
her neck. “Was it really a dream?”

He was quiet for a moment and then he asked,
“Do you want it to be?”

In an instant, she relived every moment in
the strange land she’d visited and knew, no matter what her sister
said about Alice’s imagination, it was as real as she was, as real
as Wade or ravens or writing desks.

“No,” she admitted.

His lips moved over her neck, kissing her
new collar. “Then let’s go back to Wonderland.”

She surrendered.

Her only regret was that she would have to
leave Maddie behind. But maybe, some day, she could convince her
sister to come over to the other side.

GRETEL

Gretel loved her big brother and he had to
admit—he took advantage of that fact on occasion. It wasn't that
Hans didn't care about her. He did. But to him she was just his
sometimes-annoying little sister, the one who used to tag along and
make his life miserable at pick-up baseball games when she wanted
to run around all the bases with him.

He’d finally gotten her to stay on the
sidelines, watching him with worship-filled eyes, but he could
never get her to stay home, and his stepmother was no help in that
regard—the old bat didn't want to be bothered with either of them,
especially in the summer when the two of them had an extra eight
hours a day, five days a week to spend in her hair.

But Gretel didn't just love her
brother—Gretel worshipped him, always had, although he hadn't done
anything to deserve the attention. And Hans figured, if you
couldn't beat them, why not join them? So he didn't feel too
awfully bad about taking advantage of her willingness to do
something—anything—for him. She seemed to want to, and who was he
to argue?