high stakes ates

I started strong. I always do. You let me get away with a couple of rounds.

“Oh! It was only the King of Hearts!”

My victory dance bounces off your patient smile. Patient like a snake lying in wait.

“You have four hearts already, huh? Impressive.”

I nod and look back to the cross. When there’s a project or game I switch between hyper and serious at the drop of a hat.

We’re sprawled on the floor of your living room. Your belly makes a magnificent cushion for you and I change positions frequently, unconsciously relishing the movement. In between us lies the game that you invented.

“No more hearts on the board, though,” you say with a voice like poisoned sugar. “Worried about your forfeit?”

I cast you a glance that almost convinces you of my confidence. “Got a lot of game to play yet.”

I slide you my hand. You count and then fold them in to the pack. “Not if you burn cards like that. You want to simmer into mush?”

You see that comment hook my attention. You deal with exaggerated slowness, drinking in my attention. Your pose flattens your breasts against the carpet but they’re large enough they support you still. Your belly is squished against you like a hug. Behind you, your legs kick playfully. Your eyes never leave my face and when I finally make eye contact you blow me a kiss. “Not hearing a no, here.”

“Not today,” I manage weakly. “You’re not worried about your forfeit?”

“I won the last three games, sweetie. And if you think wearing that little necklace is going to stop me eating, you have another thing coming.”

The cards make a fan in my hand. You can count then, with annoyance: ten. Ten! Oh well, you’ve dealt with me so strong before and I succumbed.

I lay a card on the weakest wall, a four of diamonds. “A random walk on a hypergraph tells you information about the nodes,” I say. You smirk. I use technical language when I’m feeling threatened, and card games set off some mathematical history I had before I met you. “Mulligan gives me information on distribution. I have the advantage.”

“Then press it.”

I do, and you catch me out twice in a row. My card was an attempt at squeaking a weak Heart through, which is now sitting comfortably in your pile, and then I tried the same trick again because I thought you thought I wouldn’t be so stupid. You have only two hearts against my four but those are two fewer I can count on gaining.

“How are you going to stuff me with only things in this room?” you ask, referring to my forfeit in a voice as sweet as honey.

Another selection. A counter that draws, but no hearts are gained; then you draw a heart you have to place.

“Is that what the forfeit was?” I ask, lowering my hand and sounding panicky. “I thought it was ‘stuff you without leaving the room’.”

“Nuh-uh.” Your lips broaden across your face in a smile that shows your teeth. Your fangs shine, brazen, visible from gum to knife-sharp tip. “Worried?”

I shift to kneeling, and can’t focus on my cards. “Thought I had a clever solution. Get a deliveroo driver to go to the window or something. But…” I set down the cards and turn my head to scan the room. “There’s nothing edible in here.”

“Except the obvious,” you correct me.

“Except me, yes. Maybe… I could get you drunk on those bottles in the corner?”

You shift your hips slowly, allowing your weight to shift and pull you into a relaxed side-on pose. My flitting attention falls upon the swell of your hips so revealed and I forget about my predicament. “Would just mean you stewed away in alcohol. There’s not enough drink in the house to make me skip my meal.”

My eyes fall back to my hand. “I’d better fight for my life, then.”

I’m losing steam. In between indifferent rounds a couple of gambits pay off and I win two hearts. Then I slip a heart through on a six of something, leaving me with seven hearts and three cards to play with.

Your eyes narrow. I’m fidgeting with my hand like I want to throw it on a desperate Mulligan, but I’m eyeing an eight of hearts. With our combined hearts counting eleven, there’s only this eight and somewhere an ace. Your deck is comfortably enough to smother my pitiful hand. It’s all down to these hearts.

Listening to the rapid beat of my heart tells you only of my fear and excitement. It’s an intoxicating sound, bringing the taste-memory of my blood to your tongue. You begin fantasising about how you’d consume me. Drink me almost dry first? Lie on your back and command me to feed myself to you? You don’t consider anything other than giving me to your stomach but maybe I would struggle nicely half-way in your cunt first…

My heartrate increases sharply and you realise you’ve been staring at me like a lion. My face is pale. Full adrenaline dump. Even if I hadn’t known the sort of thought you were thinking I’d have known I was in the most beautiful danger.

I shakily lay down a card. You intuit that I am bluffing—too much acting was going on. A daring Ace of Spades counters my surprise Eight of Clubs, and on the next round you devour the Eight of Hearts.

Heartless walls surround me. If I don’t have the Ace of Hearts I’m done for. If I do you have a single Eight to counter, but you have to guess which round I’d play it.

I have the Ace. My heartrate is high but not I’m-going-to–die high. So… Which round will I make my move? I place my card.

Your stomach rumbles out a sloppy-sounding gurgle. Ah, there’s that heartrate spike you were looking for.

We stare at one another, predator and prey embodied as surely as lioness and rabbit. Seeing no strong advantage to playing my Ace first or last, you try to picture my thoughts.

I’d want to spend as long as I could with you. I’d choose the last card.

Your hand, which was until now unconsciously playing with your belly fat, selects a card—a Queen, your second-highest.

Then you turn up my Ace of Hearts.

Now we both stare at the board.

“Well done,” you say, weakly. Your mouth floods with saliva. You didn’t realise how much you wanted to win

“This could have been… You were fighting to eat me, weren’t you? Not letting me off? You close your eyes when you shake your head to confirm it. “Everything told me to try for the last round. I didn’t want the game to end. And you knew that, didn’t you, Rey? And you tried to use it to take me down…”

“What else did you—”

But I’ve moved to kneel right in front of you where you’re propped on your side. I cup your chin gently with one hand. “All I ever wanted was to be wanted like that by someone like you. Thank you, Rey.”

You feel a tiny flush settle like pollen on your cheeks. Then you remember the collar and grimace. “I could still choose to eat you, you know.”

“I do. But not till you’re wearing silver.” I grin and press a kiss to your lips. “You love consequences too much. And this is your consequence.”

“I hate consequences,” you mutter, but you sit cross-legged and gather your hair to reveal your neck. I cross the room to fetch your collar. Louder, you say, “Maybe your consequences will be squeezing down a neck that’s wearing a collar. You’ll unlock it if I start to choke.”

“My wonderful Raven,” I say, placing the cool metal on your skin, “the collar is to protect others. I’m yours, always and whenever you want to take me.”

There is a click as the lock shoots home, and then a long, sweet kiss. Later comes popcorn and cuddling in front of a movie and laughing at Tinder profiles and a foot rub that turns into a full body massage. I brush your hair before bed and we check your weight—unless you’ve eaten someone after Ro it’ll be around 155kg through her gains and some low-activity days.

Then we retire to bed, me cuddling you and you cuddling your belly.

One day the order will change. I’ll try to stick around as long as I can before then.