A Marked Deck Ch. 04 - Spades

Note: All characters are over 18, as stated in this or prior chapters

A Marked Deck: Chapter 4 - The Queen of Spades

This evening had been a long time in coming. I had planned and acted and waited for just over two years for this, the night I would take my final revenge and destroy Alexander Sharp, which us why I must leave nothing to chance; I had come too far to rush things now and spoil my chance.

I had taken a lot of care over my clothing and appearance. I wanted to look desirable but not too blatant, spending a lot of time on makeup and ensuring my long blonde hair - always a selling point with the guys, as I well knew - was looking at its best, while my skirt and top were tight but not too skimpy, emphasising my good figure without showing off too much flesh. It seemed to have worked, judging by the admiring glances I was getting as I walked through the club.

I already knew what my quarry looked like but I was also on the lookout for his victims and they weren't difficult to identify. Three women in their twenties sitting together, all scantily dressed, all very attractive - one with short brown hair in a pixie cut, a pale skinned redhead and a girl of coffee-coloured complexion with the most beautiful mass of brunette curls. They were chatting happily together, clearly at ease in one another's company.

Sharp's women differed greatly in surface appearance but they always had three things in common. They were in their early to mid-twenties, beautiful and always very contentedly happy. It was that last part that really grated with me. A couple of months short of my twenty-third birthday I fitted the first of those criteria and I was comfortable enough that I qualified for the second. However, I was not happy. My anger and bitterness would drive me on to victory; I was sure of that.

I took a table not too far from the trio of beautiful sex-slaves - for so I knew them to be - as I wanted to keep an eye on them without being too obvious. I needed Alexander Sharp to 'find' me in his audience in his normal way. That would build his trust and let me get close enough to him to end his vile reign.

An attractive blonde alone in a place like this was always going to attract some male attention and I was worried I might have to waste time and effort on repelling idiots and drunks, but I got lucky. A young couple asked it they could sit at my table and it was plain they only had eyes for each other. So I agreed and then ignored them thereafter, something with which they were clearly fine.

The show started and proceeded exactly as it always did. This was not the first one I had seen. Disguised by assorted hair colours and fashion styles, I had attended four of Sharp's shows before. It was quite pleasant to be able come to one as my natural blonde and closer to my own dress sense, albeit sexed up a little.

Sharp got to his 'wandering round the tables doing card tricks' shtick and I waited patiently for him to reach my table; I already knew what would happen when he did. Finally he arrived and, sure enough, he was interested in me at once, largely ignoring the young couple. I expected him to be attracted to me. It was much more than just good looks, although they helped. I knew I was oozing conflict vibes - they were real enough but I was encouraging them - and that meant Queen of Spades material.

Sure enough after a little banter, which I played along with looking as confused and innocent as possible, he suggested I had some unresolved conflict in my life. I agreed that was true, looking amazed as his knowledge.

"Sophie," he said, having already established my name, "I may be able to help you with your problem, but I need to check. Let's see what my magic deck of cards says."

Sharp spread the cards on the table face down. I knew exactly which one the Queen of Spades was. I could easily have taken any other card had I wanted to. However, that would not have furthered my aim. I gave the appearance of hesitating for a moment then selected the Queen of Spades and turned it over. He, of course, already knew which card I had chosen and could barely contain his pleasure. I knew why. This meant another set of four completed and one step closer to his goal. Well he was in for a shock there.

"Sophie, I'm delighted to say I think I can help you. Would you be willing to come up on stage and take part in the second half of my show?"

Well of course I would. I also consented to his suggestion that I might like to sit with his 'friends' and went to join his three handmaidens during the interval. They were clearly delighted to meet me, mixing friendly greetings with surreptitious glances at my face and figure. They were obviously pleased with what they saw, and I'll admit I didn't mind that. It is flattering to be desired, especially by such beautiful people as these three.

During the interval the trio not only introduced themselves but sought to get to know me. Naturally I concealed most of the truth but I confirmed my name to be Sophie, which was true and seemed to particularly interest the one called Rachel. The brunette immediately got her phone out and seemed to be checking something.

"That figures," she finally said. "The Queen of Spades is called Pallas, which was another name for the goddess Athena, who was the patron deity of wisdom and Sophie literally means wisdom."

I knew way more about what was going on here than they did, but I will admit this thing about names was something that had passed me by. I supposed it didn't really matter, but if it meant my cover story as Queen of Spades was a little stronger, then that was all to the good.

We sat together through the opening part of Sharp's hypnosis show and I did my best to look as fascinated by it as my three tablemates. If my acting was not up to scratch it didn't matter, since the three of them spent their time staring at the man I knew they called Master with devoted reverence. If all went well I would be putting a stop to that later on.

Then came the moment of truth. I went up on stage to see if what I had learned would save me from Alexander Sharp's powers. I was confident it would, given we had both had the same teacher, but I couldn't be certain until it was put to the test.

Sharp's big brown eyes started into my baby blues. I felt his will tugging at mine, demanding I give in and accept him as my Master. I felt I was being promised endless delights if I submitted. But my will was armoured against this attack by the knowledge I had gained. I resisted successfully, but I didn't let him know. Instead I gave every indication I was under his control. Only in one way did I vary from his usual script, and I got away with it, as he suspected nothing. After he had whispered an order to me to come to his dressing room after the show, I whispered back:

"Master, may your slave beg a favour of you." He was clearly surprised but let me continue. "The other Queens I met are so kind and beautiful that I would like them to join us. I'm guessing your dressing room is too small for that. Is there somewhere else we could go?"

Perhaps unsurprisingly my enthusiasm for involving his other sex-slaves went down well with Sharp and he was gracious enough to grant his new slave's request. This was to the good. I wanted to get him and the others alone, not in a public place like the nightclub. Then I would have my revenge.

*****

The journey that had brought me to this place started when I returned from university to discover a strange change in my elder sister Dawn, three years my senior. When I had last seen her a few months before, she had been her normal self - which from my point of view was not a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I love my sister and that will never change, it's just I don't always like her very much.

To be fair to Dawn that was partly our mother's fault. Parents are not supposed to have favourites among their children, but Mum told me when I was about ten that I was the ambitious one and Dawn was the pretty, sweet one that everyone liked. The hurt caused by those sort of comments to a child never passes. Oddly enough nature changed that assessment over the next few years, because as I passed through my teens I stopped being a rather plain girl and grew into an attractive young woman. But Dawn didn't stop being the favoured child.

However, whatever feelings I had about such things I was still alarmed to find Dawn so altered, although most people seemed to think it a change for the better. When I had last seen her, my sister was unhappy, frustrated that she couldn't get into her dream job as an actress because casting agents said she lacked personality and drive (perhaps there are advantages to ambition after all).

Suddenly, she was getting a stream of acting work. Further, she had left her boyfriend (no loss there in my opinion; he had been as drippy as her) and moved in to live with three other women. I even began to suspect that something was going on between them, which was strange as Dawn had never shown any sign of being anything other than straight. Weirdest of all, she had an obsession with someone called Alexander Sharp - all those women did in fact - despite the fact he was not around.

I became increasingly convinced that Dawn had changed on some more fundamental level than I could name and that Alexander Sharp was probably the cause. Well, nobody was going to mess around with my sister and get away with it. And I have to say, her doe-eyed happiness quickly became very grating. So I decided to find out everything I could about this Sharp character.

The first stage of my investigation was easy enough. It wasn't difficult to find out where Alexander Sharp had been before he arrived in my home city of Manchester, nor where he had gone afterward. I even went and saw one of his shows, keeping a low profile. Slightly more difficult was discovering what he had done in each place, but I learnt to recognise the signs and eventually I tracked down his victims. In each city - London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Nottingham, Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham - I found four women, all blissfully happy, all enslaved by this man.

I still had no idea how he did it. Some type of hypnotism seemed likeliest, but I read up on the subject and the consensus seemed to be that no form of hypnotism could have reproduced such results. The only way forward seemed to be to find out what Sharp had done before his first appearance in London and this was where for a long time I hit a brick wall.

Eventually I got lucky. Asking around the clubs where he had worked his act in South London I found a guy who remembered him trying out as a young man under a different name - Alex King. Young Alex had been a very indifferent performer, although keen. He knew some basic, book-learned stage magic and was good with card tricks but had no real stage presence or distinctive act. The general view at the time was that he should give up ideas of a career in entertainment, but it seemed the eighteen-year-old had plenty of determination.

I was told King had asked around for a mentor and presumably found one because when he reappeared a few years later under his new name he was a very different performer, far more confident and having added hypnosis to his act.

Unfortunately, my helpful informant did not know the identity of this mentor, but it was clear I needed to find them if I was going to make more progress. However, simply knowing the name 'Alex King' gave new lines of enquiry. Over the next month I assembled a full biography of young Alex - where he was born, who his parents were, where he had lived and gone to school. And this in turn gave me fresh people to talk to.

This brought results, although not quite in the way I expected. I didn't find Alex King's mysterious mentor - he found me. One day I received a letter; a genuine old-fashioned letter through the post, which was a surprise in itself. The contents were even more remarkable. The writer seemed to know all about me, Alexander Sharp and my researches into him. He offered to help me, not out of any animosity to his former pupil, but because his pleasure in life was to find those with a destiny and help them fulfil it and apparently I was one such.

Naturally, I suspected a trap but once I had met the writer - and his rotund and jolly wife - in the unlikely venue of a McDonalds in Croydon, my fears were set at rest. My new teacher had an impressively mystical sounding title - he called himself Master Conrad, and I never did find out whether Conrad was a first or second name - but in every other respect he was not what you would have expected.

Conrad was as ordinary as it was possible to imagine; about 50, short, overweight, balding, good humoured and friendly, with a rather silly small moustache and a slight European accent which I was unable to place. The powers he showed me over the next few months were off the charts weird, and with them he might have been anyone he wanted, possessed anything he desired, but it seemed he had no such ambitions. Conrad's pleasure was to help selected others by passing on some of his knowledge.

He taught me exactly what I needed to know to defeat Alexander Sharp and ruin his plans, but nothing more. I asked him once why he was doing it given Sharp was also his pupil.

"Ah, well, Alexander had a destiny - four Queens in thirteen cities and he would have earned the ability to access extraordinary new powers. That was his desire. You too have a destiny - to stop him. If you oppose each other then one of you will win and one destiny will be changed. Or maybe even both. What happens is a matter of indifference to me; I merely enable fate to play itself out as it will. Such are the chances of fortune."

After six months Master Conrad announced that I knew everything I needed and so I left him. My first action was to visit the enslaved women I had identified and free them. It is fair to say that none thanked me for it, least of all my sister. Dawn was furious with me, saying I had stolen her happiness. I didn't care and was immune to their complaints. Smashing Sharp's network of little harems was part of thwarting his plans, and that was good enough for me. I had no doubt I was doing the right thing. With that task complete I went in search of Sharp.

*****

So when I walked through the door of the house Alexander Sharp presumably shared with one or more of his latest little harem, I was ready. That was my advantage. I knew what was happening here and he did not.

Nor did his women; we had gone into the living room of the house and sat down and I had accepted an offered glass of wine. I could see Ellie, Rachel and Judy looking at me eagerly. I knew their minds were running ahead, imagining their Master controlling me, fucking me for the first time and then the debauched orgy that would follow. They were eager for it to happen. The poor fools did not realise that I would soon break their addiction to this man whether they liked it or not - and I knew they wouldn't.

Sharp came and sat on the settee next to me. It seemed he was about to make his move.

"Sophie, back at the club, I offered to solve your problem and in return you would become mine, an offer you accepted. To complete the bargain you must tell me what the source of the anger I see inside you is and I will resolve it, I promise. After that you will be mine."

I looked into his eyes, just as he wanted me to and hold him my story.

"I have a sister called Dawn. One day I came back from a period away and found her changed. Her personality was completely different. I asked questions and found out it was due to a man. So I promised myself I would track him down and I have."

"And now you are wondering how to enact your revenge. I'm sure I could help you. I take it you have a name and an address?"

I smiled quietly to myself. "Oh yes," I said, "I know who and where he is. But I don't need help in taking my revenge. I'm doing it now. Keep looking into my eyes, Alexander. You can't look away." My cold blue eyes stared down into those rich brown ones that had subdued so many, but not me.

"My sister's name is Dawn Armitage - remember her?" I could see he did. "Mine is Sophie Armitage. Yes, I've tracked you down Alexander Sharp - or should I say Alex King. And I went to see your old master. He's taught me a few things. He said I had a destiny, same as you do, and mine is to stop you. And that's what's happening now. I've already freed your other slaves. I'll subdue you, take your powers, release these three and then it's over."

Sharp was starting to panic, "No ... no, you can't!"

"Oh, I can and I will," I said harshly. "Listen to me; I am locking away the powers Master Conrad gave you forever. You'll never again be able to abuse innocent women like my sister and you'll have to live with the knowledge of the power you have lost. That alone should be punishment enough."

I was excited, high not just on revenge but with the power of forcing another to my will. It was exhilarating. Sharp fought me, but I had taken him by surprise without the sort of defences I had raised, if indeed he even knew of such things. I was grinding him down.

The only risk to me now was that the other women might interfere. I didn't think they would, because they would not understand what was happening, but I now had Alexander sufficiently subdued that I could risk checking. I looked at the three women. Their faces wore looks of horror and distress. Given what Sharp had done to them I knew they were highly susceptible to commands, so I gave one.

"You three bitches, sit there and do nothing until I tell you otherwise," I ordered. Ellie whimpered in fear and Judy gave a sob of distress, but Rachel looked deep in thought, as if working out something. I was too busy to worry what. I needed to complete my conquest of Alexander Sharp.

I turned my full attention back on him. "I, Sophie Armitage, am your Mistress. You will obey me. Your powers are gone. Your reign is ended, oh great King!" This last part dripped sarcasm. "Tell me you hear and obey!"

"You are my Mistress," he said reluctantly. "Your powers are stronger than mine and now you have taken them. I submit to you." I smiled in triumph, but he continued. "But for power there is always a price. If you studied the arts as you say then you should know that. It seems that you have beaten me, but you will pay that price in time." Sharp sank into silence, finally defeated it seemed.

I had won. Sharp was mine. His powers were gone and his plans in ruins. He would enslave no more women and I had freed all his previous victims, except for the three here with me. They were voicing their objections, but I didn't let that trouble me. They might think they wanted their situation to continue, but I knew better. Break his control over them and my revenge was complete. As I was thinking this the one called Rachel suddenly said something. Startled I looked over at her.

"There's always a price!" she said. "And there are always rules! I think I see now what that price is. And I'm beginning to see how this plays out. Let's just say, it's not the way either you or our Master planned."

"What are you babbling about?" I said sharply. This woman seemed intent on ruining my moment of triumph.

"What did you come here for?" she asked.

"To avenge my sister and bring down this man!" I said angrily.

"And have you achieved your goal?" Rachel asked calmly.

"What's it look like!" I said pointing at Sharp, who was still sunk in gloom. "My revenge is complete. He will enslave no more innocent women."

"Except one," Rachel said.

"What do you mean?" There was something in her confident manner that was making me uneasy.

Rachel gave a small smile. "I'll explain. You are the Queen of Spades. It doesn't matter that you came here with plans and powers of your own, the fact remains that you meet the criteria. Your problem was one of conflict and hatred and the fact it was directed at Alexander Sharp himself makes no difference. And you selected the card from the deck. So the bargain was made. If our Master solved your problem, you would become his."