Featuring the White Queen and Red Knight from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There,” this erotic short story by Jaye Valentine incorporates Carrollian elements of nonsensical comparison and White Queen-specific time distortions, all wrapped up in a pretty, gender-bending package.

I’m a huge fan of Lewis Caroll’s “Alice down the rabbit hole” stories and have been ever since I was a wee bit. So when I read the blurb for Jaye Valentine’s Happily Ever Before I jumped at the chance to read his adult version of the enchanted White Queen and her chivalrous Red Knight.

Happily Ever Before offers up a cleverly written and playfully arousing vignette of the White Queen and Red Knight’s liaisons dangereuses. The story is only nine pages in length but through his word play Valentine skillfully masters the elements of nonsensical comparison and time distortions in what I believe is his first foray into the realm of the literary absurd:

“Her breath warmed and tickled the skin of his neck as the White Queen dusted him with a chuckle. ‘I am not certain when or where I lost my undergarments.’

Gods, how happy she made him!

‘I suspect,’ the Red Knight said, placing a small kiss on her lovely white neck, ‘I shall most likely remove them the previous time we meet.’”

Equally, the author’s descriptions in this story capture the deliciously decadent and sensual sex play between the White Queen and her Red Knight.

“Those perfect red lips parted, her glorious tongue peeking out to take a timid lick of his essence before she dragged the flat of it across his palm with gusto. She lapped at him like a kitten slurping milk, until his skin shone pure and clean.”

But it is Mr. Valentine’s gender distortions that most capture the imagination. Those familiar with the author’s writing, including under his alias of Acer Adamson, will understand what I mean when I say that he has carved-out a rightful place in the sub-genre of gender-bending gay erotica, and Mr. Valentine certainly works and owns his particular brand of gender line blurring in this short story.

“Gods, how he sufficiently adored her. Even as the Red Knight closed his throat around her exquisitely beautiful cock, he still could not think of him as anything but her.”

Happily Ever Before offers up teasingly delightful erotic nibbles and bites. It is an amuse bouche that had me asking for more please.

Happily Ever Before by Jaye Valentine is available at All Romance eBooks, Books On Board, Powell’s, Diesel eBook Store and at Amazon (US and UK).

Music: Tea Party – Kerli (Soundtrack from Almost Alice, 2010)