The White Lady: Alice In Wonderland Fic
Author: Bitterfig
Title: The White Lady
Fandom: Alice in Wonderland
Pairing: Alice/The White Queen
Summary: Six years after liberating Underland Alice has made a fortune trading opium in China. When a reformer questions the morality of her actions Alice must confront what she has become.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 2604
Rating: R
Warnings: This story addresses racism and imperialism. It also contains sexual content and drug use.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same.
The White Lady
Six years after slaying the Jabberwocky and breaking her engagement, Alice had done quite well for herself. She amassed a considerable fortune trading opium in China.
Indeed, she was so successful that she was among the business people singled out for attention by the reformer Yvonne Song. Miss Song was a Chinese woman with a strong objection to foreign merchants (at least those who dealt in opium). Alice thought she sounded quite tiresome but agreed that the two of them should meet at Alice’s Shanghai townhouse.
Upon meeting the reformer, Alice found herself pleasantly surprised. Miss Song was a very attractive woman (Alice’s favorite sort.) She was very petite, slender and fine-boned as a little doll. Her round face was dominated by huge, dark eyes that seemed to take all things in. She was wearing a European style dress made of layer upon layer of white lawn.
Alice herself was wearing Chinese costume, a sky blue silk robe held in place by a pink sash, the whole affair embroidered with tiny pink roses. Somehow the odd reversal of an English woman in Chinese dress and a Chinese woman in English dress struck Alice as remarkably droll. She laughed and clapped her hands.
“Well, look at the two of us, what a pair we make,” Alice declared. “We ought to change clothes. Then I could be a proper lady and you a traditional woman of your people.” She found the idea of changing clothes with Miss Song appealed to her immensely but the Chinese woman had other matters on her mind.
“Perhaps we chose to wear the clothes of each other’s countries because we hope to understand each other,” Miss Song said demurely.
“Oh, I understand your country very well,” Alice said. “No one’s made more money than I have. Tea?”
“Yes, please.” Miss Song said graciously and Alice poured.
“China is lovely, it really is,” Alice assured the woman. “A very pretty country and the people aren’t nearly so bad as I expected. Most of you are very polite and don’t smell bad at all.”
“Well…. thank you…”
“Backwards and superstitious of course, but the missionaries will take care of that.” Alice went on , popping three sugar cubes in her tea. “What matters is that you’re a good market, eager for my wares. That’s what concerns me the most.”
“That also concerns me deeply.”
“Oh you mustn’t furrow your brow like that, Miss Song. You look so sad.”
“Please understand, Miss Kingsley, your wares are a blight on this country. They’re destroying it, you’re destroying it.”
“Me?” Alice asked. “I hardly think so. I’m an honest merchant. I deal fairly with everyone, I offer a good product.”
“You offer opium. You sell madness, addiction, death.”
“Pish- tosh. I don’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. All I do is make the opium available.”
“And it is ravaging the country.”
“Is that my fault? Do I put a gun to anyone’s head and tell them ‘smoke this’? I think not.”
Miss Song was on her feet, cheeks flushed.
“You’ve grown rich on the misery of others,” she cried. Alice considered slapping her for a moment then laughed, tossed her hand dismissively.
“I’ve grown rich all right,” she said. “I’ve grown rich because of my own good sense, my own hard work, my own muchness. I’ve earned every penny of my fortune by making the right choices. If your countrymen make the wrong choices how is that my fault? Cigarette? No? Now tell me, what do you want?”
“What do I want?”
“What do you expect me to do? Drop my main product? Give up the opium trade and go back to England with my tail between my legs?”
“I only want you to see the devastation….”
“Show me then. I fancy a walk. Show me these audacities I’m supposedly responsible for.” She laughed, an edge of cruelty to her merriment but Miss Song did not back down.
“Come with me then,” she said. “It’s not far. You’d be surprised at how close the fruits of your trade fall from the tree. Just down the street from this fine townhouse I can show you a den of iniquity where lives are spent on the White Lady.”
And for a moment Alice paused.
“The White Lady? Who is she?” Alice asked, then almost to herself. “I knew a White Lady once, I loved her dearly.”
“I don’t mean an actual woman,” Miss Song said. “The White Lady is what opium is sometimes called.”
“Oh yes, opium.” Alice said smiling again. “You do hate opium, don’t you Miss Song, opium and those of us who deal in it.”
“I hate no one.” The Chinese woman said. “I love my country and my fellow man. I fight not against you but for them.”
Again, Alice paused.
“How very odd,” she finally said. “You sounded a bit like her.”
“Like who?”
“My White Lady.”
As Miss Song had promised they did not need to venture far from Alice’s luxurious neighborhood to find an opium den. Just a few blocks away was a dark little hideaway swathed in sweet-smelling smoke. In the close darkness bodies lay, seemingly lifeless, on cushions and couches. Alice examined the scene with curiosity.
“Dear me,” she said. “Look at the pipes. I used to know a caterpillar who smoked a pipe like that.”
“A caterpillar?” Miss Song asked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“How odd that I should be reminded of him here, so soon after you mention the White Lady.”
“I don’t understand at all but you must see the human degradation of this place….” Miss Song began but Alice was miles away.
“It’s like they’re sending me a message,” she said. “I think that must be what it is. I think I must try this opium.”
Miss Song’s tiny hand flew to her throat.
“You mustn’t,” she cried in genuine alarm.
“Pish-tosh. I certainly must. It seems to me some friends of mine are asking me to visit. It would be dreadfully rude of me to decline their invitation. Say you,” she called to the proprietor of the establishment. “Fetch me a pipe.”
“I won’t leave you alone in this horrid place,” Miss Song vowed.
“Well I’m much obliged then,” Alice said and gave her a kiss on the nose. The proprietor offered her a pipe and Alice took it, graciously allowing him to light it for her. She inhaling the smoke and she abruptly dropped to the floor. “Dear me, everything’s spinning. You’re spinning, Miss Song. In fact, I don’t think you’re Miss Song at all.”
And indeed, she wasn’t. As the room spun it seemed to open up, changing to a lovely garden, and Miss Song seemed to change as well. Her lips grew dark and her hair grew long and pale.
“Mirana,” Alice cried. “I mean Your Highness. Is it really you?”
“My champion,” cried the White Queen.
Alice threw herself on the White Queen, kissing her passionately.
“How delighted I am to see you!” She exclaimed. “Where is Tarrant? Still making hats? And Bayard? His pups must be all grown up by now. How wonderful it will be to see all my friends again!”
“I’m sorry, Alice, but you can’t stay long. I’m afraid it took all my magic to bring you here and I can’t keep you long.”
“What a shame, but at least I’m reunited with you my dearest. I couldn’t be happier. We must make the most of our time together. Do you still have that unicorn’s horn?”
“No, no, no my dear,” the White Queen said shaking a finger. “Much as I’d like to unwrap you from that blue silk and make love for the duration of your stay we have a most important matter to discuss.”
“What could it be?” Alice asked. “Do you have a Jabberwocky that needs to be slain or an invading army to be turned away? I’ll raise my sword and vanquish them!”
“Nothing like that,” Mirana said blithely. “This concerns your world.”
“My world? What of it?”
“You see,” Mirana said coyly putting a finger to her lips, “over the past six years I’ve done my very best to keep abreast of what you do. After all, you are my White Knight. I’ve found you’re a most clever businesswoman, that you’ve had great success and are absolutely blossoming. And yet I fear you’ve lost your way. That this opium trade of yours threatens to make you into someone I don’t know and can not love.”
“Oh!” Alice cried and stamped her foot. “How tiresome. How very tiresome. I’m sick to death of pretty women taking me to task for the morality of my business dealings. You sound exactly like that Miss Song. Yes I sell opium. It’s legal, why it’s encouraged! If I stopped, someone else would do it and I’d be left with nothing besides.”
“Look into your heart, my beloved and you’ll see that what you’re doing is wrong. Deep inside you’re still my sweet Alice, I’m sure of it.”
“Still Alice? Let me assure you, Your Highness, that I’ve never been more Alice than I am today. I do a dozen impossible things each day. I’m a woman, yet I’m a success in business. I have no husband, no children and yet I am respected. I deal with men on an equal footing. I’ve travelled the world. I’m twenty-five and I’ve kept my looks….”
“But none of that matters if you’ve lost yourself. You have muchness, Alice, confidence and bravado, daring and intelligence. You have muchness in enormous quantity but I fear your heart has become hard. You’re beginning to remind me of my sister.”
“Horrors. I’m nothing like her. “
“Can’t you see that you’re becoming just like her? You reap your gains, not caring who you hurt. Do you remember when you were a child, painting white roses red? You’re doing it again, to a whole country. Painting it red with blood, laughing as you do so.”
“I won’t hear this. I’m an honest merchant. I do nothing wrong.”
“You cause harm.”
“Who do I harm? No one who matters, just a few Chinamen.”
“Listen to yourself, beloved. Is this who you want to be? “
“What would you have me be?” Alice said, her voice rising sharply. “You’re a Queen, if you decree people ought to be kind and cause no harm they have to do as you say, but I have to make my way in a world where I don’t make the rules. You sit in your marble palace and judge me, but you’ve never been threatened with poverty. You’ve never had to consider a loveless marriage just to keep a roof over your head. In my world it’s eat or be eaten, Your Highness, and if that makes me like your sister so be it. If you don’t like it perhaps you should find another champion.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
“Then perhaps you can go to hell,” Alice screamed.
“How dare you.” Mirana cried and before Alice knew what was happening her white hand flew up and delivered a stinging slap. “How dare you talk to me in that way? I am your Queen.”
Alice was too stunned to answer, she only stood there, mouth open, staring at the other woman. With her flashing eyes and bared teeth, she scarcely seemed like Mirana at all.
Then quickly as the fire had sprung up, it died down. Mirana crumpled to the ground, her breast heaving with sobs.
“What have I done,” she wept. “I’ve broken my vows. I’ve willfully harmed another creature with my own hand. I disgrace myself. I disgrace my crown. Oh woe is me.”
“Oh dear, what have I done?” Alice wondered aloud as she flew to the Queen’s side. “Please Your Highness, it really didn’t hurt a bit.”
“Don’t you see Alice,” the White Queen sobbed, “there’s a Red Queen in each of us, even me. A part of me that’s a spoiled child, wanting her own way. We each have to fight against that part of ourselves, me by keeping to my vows, and you by doing the right thing, even if it is difficult and unpleasant.”
And Alice knew that whether she liked it or not, Mirana was right. It had been so awful and frightening when the White Queen slapped her in the face, but Alice was certainly slapping any number of people in the face each day and thinking nothing of it. She did not want to be a person who did that.
“Oh, Your Highness,” Alice said, “I think I see what you mean and what Miss Song was trying to tell me. I have been selfish and spoiled, thinking only of myself, and what a horrible place the world would be if everyone was like that. I’ll learn to keep the naughty part of me in check as you have, truly I will. I’ll find a way to stop my part in the opium trade. I promise I will. I’ll be a noble champion to you from now on.”
The White Queen smiled.
“You’re a good girl, Alice,” she said embracing her champion. “I knew you were. I’m so sorry I raised my hand to you.”
Alice stroked her hair, soft and fine as a bolt of silk.
“You said I couldn’t stay long, Mirana. Please, before I go to face these decisions give me something to remember you by, something to draw strength from.”
“But of course,” The White Queen said. She gathered Alice to her, drawing her down onto the carpet of crushed white petals that was the garden floor. Lying there together they kissed, long and deep, kissed to the exclusion of all else, Mirana’s black lips against Alice’s pink lips, the press of body against body, the warmth and weight.
Alice reached for Mirana’s breast, plush and full against her own. She freed the White Queen’s breasts from the confines of the white lawn dress and kissed them all over, paying special attention to the violet pink nipple, teasing with her lips and tongue till Mirana was moaning, her legs parted beneath her skirts, drawing Alice nearer.
Alice undressed her, peeling off the gown so Mirana lay beneath her in just her corset, her stockings and scanties.
“So lovely,” Alice said as the White Queen untied the pink sash of her robe. “So very lovely. You are my Queen, my Lady and my goodness.” Mirana took Alice’s hand and placed it between her legs where she was slippery wet. Alice stroked her there then bent, tasting the salty creaminess of her. The White Queen’s legs curled about her golden head and shoulders.
Afterwards as they lay in each other’s arms the garden began to spin. The sky became dark and close, the crushed petals transforming into a dirty sofa. Alice looked at the face of the woman who held her and saw that it was Yvonne Song.
“Miss Kingsley, thank goodness you’ve come around at last,” Miss Song cried. “It’s been nearly a day.”
“And you waited here with me?” Alice asked.
“I certainly wouldn’t have left you alone in a place like that.”
“Yes, I think you are right about places like this, Miss Song. They benefit no one but me. I think you are right about many things.” She stood, taking Miss Song’s arm. “I don’t know how I should change but you’ll help me, won’t you. It seems quite impossible to make my way in the world without the opium trade, but I’ve done the impossible before, haven’t I.”
Title: The White Lady
Fandom: Alice in Wonderland
Pairing: Alice/The White Queen
Summary: Six years after liberating Underland Alice has made a fortune trading opium in China. When a reformer questions the morality of her actions Alice must confront what she has become.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 2604
Rating: R
Warnings: This story addresses racism and imperialism. It also contains sexual content and drug use.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same.
The White Lady
Six years after slaying the Jabberwocky and breaking her engagement, Alice had done quite well for herself. She amassed a considerable fortune trading opium in China.
Indeed, she was so successful that she was among the business people singled out for attention by the reformer Yvonne Song. Miss Song was a Chinese woman with a strong objection to foreign merchants (at least those who dealt in opium). Alice thought she sounded quite tiresome but agreed that the two of them should meet at Alice’s Shanghai townhouse.
Upon meeting the reformer, Alice found herself pleasantly surprised. Miss Song was a very attractive woman (Alice’s favorite sort.) She was very petite, slender and fine-boned as a little doll. Her round face was dominated by huge, dark eyes that seemed to take all things in. She was wearing a European style dress made of layer upon layer of white lawn.
Alice herself was wearing Chinese costume, a sky blue silk robe held in place by a pink sash, the whole affair embroidered with tiny pink roses. Somehow the odd reversal of an English woman in Chinese dress and a Chinese woman in English dress struck Alice as remarkably droll. She laughed and clapped her hands.
“Well, look at the two of us, what a pair we make,” Alice declared. “We ought to change clothes. Then I could be a proper lady and you a traditional woman of your people.” She found the idea of changing clothes with Miss Song appealed to her immensely but the Chinese woman had other matters on her mind.
“Perhaps we chose to wear the clothes of each other’s countries because we hope to understand each other,” Miss Song said demurely.
“Oh, I understand your country very well,” Alice said. “No one’s made more money than I have. Tea?”
“Yes, please.” Miss Song said graciously and Alice poured.
“China is lovely, it really is,” Alice assured the woman. “A very pretty country and the people aren’t nearly so bad as I expected. Most of you are very polite and don’t smell bad at all.”
“Well…. thank you…”
“Backwards and superstitious of course, but the missionaries will take care of that.” Alice went on , popping three sugar cubes in her tea. “What matters is that you’re a good market, eager for my wares. That’s what concerns me the most.”
“That also concerns me deeply.”
“Oh you mustn’t furrow your brow like that, Miss Song. You look so sad.”
“Please understand, Miss Kingsley, your wares are a blight on this country. They’re destroying it, you’re destroying it.”
“Me?” Alice asked. “I hardly think so. I’m an honest merchant. I deal fairly with everyone, I offer a good product.”
“You offer opium. You sell madness, addiction, death.”
“Pish- tosh. I don’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. All I do is make the opium available.”
“And it is ravaging the country.”
“Is that my fault? Do I put a gun to anyone’s head and tell them ‘smoke this’? I think not.”
Miss Song was on her feet, cheeks flushed.
“You’ve grown rich on the misery of others,” she cried. Alice considered slapping her for a moment then laughed, tossed her hand dismissively.
“I’ve grown rich all right,” she said. “I’ve grown rich because of my own good sense, my own hard work, my own muchness. I’ve earned every penny of my fortune by making the right choices. If your countrymen make the wrong choices how is that my fault? Cigarette? No? Now tell me, what do you want?”
“What do I want?”
“What do you expect me to do? Drop my main product? Give up the opium trade and go back to England with my tail between my legs?”
“I only want you to see the devastation….”
“Show me then. I fancy a walk. Show me these audacities I’m supposedly responsible for.” She laughed, an edge of cruelty to her merriment but Miss Song did not back down.
“Come with me then,” she said. “It’s not far. You’d be surprised at how close the fruits of your trade fall from the tree. Just down the street from this fine townhouse I can show you a den of iniquity where lives are spent on the White Lady.”
And for a moment Alice paused.
“The White Lady? Who is she?” Alice asked, then almost to herself. “I knew a White Lady once, I loved her dearly.”
“I don’t mean an actual woman,” Miss Song said. “The White Lady is what opium is sometimes called.”
“Oh yes, opium.” Alice said smiling again. “You do hate opium, don’t you Miss Song, opium and those of us who deal in it.”
“I hate no one.” The Chinese woman said. “I love my country and my fellow man. I fight not against you but for them.”
Again, Alice paused.
“How very odd,” she finally said. “You sounded a bit like her.”
“Like who?”
“My White Lady.”
As Miss Song had promised they did not need to venture far from Alice’s luxurious neighborhood to find an opium den. Just a few blocks away was a dark little hideaway swathed in sweet-smelling smoke. In the close darkness bodies lay, seemingly lifeless, on cushions and couches. Alice examined the scene with curiosity.
“Dear me,” she said. “Look at the pipes. I used to know a caterpillar who smoked a pipe like that.”
“A caterpillar?” Miss Song asked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“How odd that I should be reminded of him here, so soon after you mention the White Lady.”
“I don’t understand at all but you must see the human degradation of this place….” Miss Song began but Alice was miles away.
“It’s like they’re sending me a message,” she said. “I think that must be what it is. I think I must try this opium.”
Miss Song’s tiny hand flew to her throat.
“You mustn’t,” she cried in genuine alarm.
“Pish-tosh. I certainly must. It seems to me some friends of mine are asking me to visit. It would be dreadfully rude of me to decline their invitation. Say you,” she called to the proprietor of the establishment. “Fetch me a pipe.”
“I won’t leave you alone in this horrid place,” Miss Song vowed.
“Well I’m much obliged then,” Alice said and gave her a kiss on the nose. The proprietor offered her a pipe and Alice took it, graciously allowing him to light it for her. She inhaling the smoke and she abruptly dropped to the floor. “Dear me, everything’s spinning. You’re spinning, Miss Song. In fact, I don’t think you’re Miss Song at all.”
And indeed, she wasn’t. As the room spun it seemed to open up, changing to a lovely garden, and Miss Song seemed to change as well. Her lips grew dark and her hair grew long and pale.
“Mirana,” Alice cried. “I mean Your Highness. Is it really you?”
“My champion,” cried the White Queen.
Alice threw herself on the White Queen, kissing her passionately.
“How delighted I am to see you!” She exclaimed. “Where is Tarrant? Still making hats? And Bayard? His pups must be all grown up by now. How wonderful it will be to see all my friends again!”
“I’m sorry, Alice, but you can’t stay long. I’m afraid it took all my magic to bring you here and I can’t keep you long.”
“What a shame, but at least I’m reunited with you my dearest. I couldn’t be happier. We must make the most of our time together. Do you still have that unicorn’s horn?”
“No, no, no my dear,” the White Queen said shaking a finger. “Much as I’d like to unwrap you from that blue silk and make love for the duration of your stay we have a most important matter to discuss.”
“What could it be?” Alice asked. “Do you have a Jabberwocky that needs to be slain or an invading army to be turned away? I’ll raise my sword and vanquish them!”
“Nothing like that,” Mirana said blithely. “This concerns your world.”
“My world? What of it?”
“You see,” Mirana said coyly putting a finger to her lips, “over the past six years I’ve done my very best to keep abreast of what you do. After all, you are my White Knight. I’ve found you’re a most clever businesswoman, that you’ve had great success and are absolutely blossoming. And yet I fear you’ve lost your way. That this opium trade of yours threatens to make you into someone I don’t know and can not love.”
“Oh!” Alice cried and stamped her foot. “How tiresome. How very tiresome. I’m sick to death of pretty women taking me to task for the morality of my business dealings. You sound exactly like that Miss Song. Yes I sell opium. It’s legal, why it’s encouraged! If I stopped, someone else would do it and I’d be left with nothing besides.”
“Look into your heart, my beloved and you’ll see that what you’re doing is wrong. Deep inside you’re still my sweet Alice, I’m sure of it.”
“Still Alice? Let me assure you, Your Highness, that I’ve never been more Alice than I am today. I do a dozen impossible things each day. I’m a woman, yet I’m a success in business. I have no husband, no children and yet I am respected. I deal with men on an equal footing. I’ve travelled the world. I’m twenty-five and I’ve kept my looks….”
“But none of that matters if you’ve lost yourself. You have muchness, Alice, confidence and bravado, daring and intelligence. You have muchness in enormous quantity but I fear your heart has become hard. You’re beginning to remind me of my sister.”
“Horrors. I’m nothing like her. “
“Can’t you see that you’re becoming just like her? You reap your gains, not caring who you hurt. Do you remember when you were a child, painting white roses red? You’re doing it again, to a whole country. Painting it red with blood, laughing as you do so.”
“I won’t hear this. I’m an honest merchant. I do nothing wrong.”
“You cause harm.”
“Who do I harm? No one who matters, just a few Chinamen.”
“Listen to yourself, beloved. Is this who you want to be? “
“What would you have me be?” Alice said, her voice rising sharply. “You’re a Queen, if you decree people ought to be kind and cause no harm they have to do as you say, but I have to make my way in a world where I don’t make the rules. You sit in your marble palace and judge me, but you’ve never been threatened with poverty. You’ve never had to consider a loveless marriage just to keep a roof over your head. In my world it’s eat or be eaten, Your Highness, and if that makes me like your sister so be it. If you don’t like it perhaps you should find another champion.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
“Then perhaps you can go to hell,” Alice screamed.
“How dare you.” Mirana cried and before Alice knew what was happening her white hand flew up and delivered a stinging slap. “How dare you talk to me in that way? I am your Queen.”
Alice was too stunned to answer, she only stood there, mouth open, staring at the other woman. With her flashing eyes and bared teeth, she scarcely seemed like Mirana at all.
Then quickly as the fire had sprung up, it died down. Mirana crumpled to the ground, her breast heaving with sobs.
“What have I done,” she wept. “I’ve broken my vows. I’ve willfully harmed another creature with my own hand. I disgrace myself. I disgrace my crown. Oh woe is me.”
“Oh dear, what have I done?” Alice wondered aloud as she flew to the Queen’s side. “Please Your Highness, it really didn’t hurt a bit.”
“Don’t you see Alice,” the White Queen sobbed, “there’s a Red Queen in each of us, even me. A part of me that’s a spoiled child, wanting her own way. We each have to fight against that part of ourselves, me by keeping to my vows, and you by doing the right thing, even if it is difficult and unpleasant.”
And Alice knew that whether she liked it or not, Mirana was right. It had been so awful and frightening when the White Queen slapped her in the face, but Alice was certainly slapping any number of people in the face each day and thinking nothing of it. She did not want to be a person who did that.
“Oh, Your Highness,” Alice said, “I think I see what you mean and what Miss Song was trying to tell me. I have been selfish and spoiled, thinking only of myself, and what a horrible place the world would be if everyone was like that. I’ll learn to keep the naughty part of me in check as you have, truly I will. I’ll find a way to stop my part in the opium trade. I promise I will. I’ll be a noble champion to you from now on.”
The White Queen smiled.
“You’re a good girl, Alice,” she said embracing her champion. “I knew you were. I’m so sorry I raised my hand to you.”
Alice stroked her hair, soft and fine as a bolt of silk.
“You said I couldn’t stay long, Mirana. Please, before I go to face these decisions give me something to remember you by, something to draw strength from.”
“But of course,” The White Queen said. She gathered Alice to her, drawing her down onto the carpet of crushed white petals that was the garden floor. Lying there together they kissed, long and deep, kissed to the exclusion of all else, Mirana’s black lips against Alice’s pink lips, the press of body against body, the warmth and weight.
Alice reached for Mirana’s breast, plush and full against her own. She freed the White Queen’s breasts from the confines of the white lawn dress and kissed them all over, paying special attention to the violet pink nipple, teasing with her lips and tongue till Mirana was moaning, her legs parted beneath her skirts, drawing Alice nearer.
Alice undressed her, peeling off the gown so Mirana lay beneath her in just her corset, her stockings and scanties.
“So lovely,” Alice said as the White Queen untied the pink sash of her robe. “So very lovely. You are my Queen, my Lady and my goodness.” Mirana took Alice’s hand and placed it between her legs where she was slippery wet. Alice stroked her there then bent, tasting the salty creaminess of her. The White Queen’s legs curled about her golden head and shoulders.
Afterwards as they lay in each other’s arms the garden began to spin. The sky became dark and close, the crushed petals transforming into a dirty sofa. Alice looked at the face of the woman who held her and saw that it was Yvonne Song.
“Miss Kingsley, thank goodness you’ve come around at last,” Miss Song cried. “It’s been nearly a day.”
“And you waited here with me?” Alice asked.
“I certainly wouldn’t have left you alone in a place like that.”
“Yes, I think you are right about places like this, Miss Song. They benefit no one but me. I think you are right about many things.” She stood, taking Miss Song’s arm. “I don’t know how I should change but you’ll help me, won’t you. It seems quite impossible to make my way in the world without the opium trade, but I’ve done the impossible before, haven’t I.”