Prompt Post 4!
The first, second, and third posts are now shut down for prompting. All new prompts must be posted here. Any new prompts posted to Prompt Post 1, 2, and 3 will be deleted without warning.
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The strange thing about chess, Snow White thinks, is that everyone assumes it is about the King.
In a sense, she can understand the misconception. The game does not finish until the King falls, after all, and that struggle to reach checkmate is always the end goal. But the King is little more than a damsel in distress in his own game, stumbling over his skirts from square to square while his armies have to protect him.
But when it comes to the game, it is the Queen who strides among her soldiers, who heads the assault, who has eyes in all directions and the greatest reach of all.
If people are fool enough to think that it is somehow not the White Queen and Black Queen that they should fear, the more fool them, as far as Snow White is concerned. Ferdinand and Phillip may be the Kings, but they are nothing but figureheads, occasionally gaining advantage from the deals done but only as seconds to what Snow White - and Aurora - desire.
Business meetings may have their place, but it is far more comfortable to recline in a large, plush chair within the rooms of the Hellfire Club, sipping at a fine Brunello di Montalcino and amused with the feeling of moving pawns across the chessboard of the world whilst clad in a corset and highs. In a boardroom, one must be careful to dress appropriately; be sexually attractive, but not too sexual, be mature but not too old, walk a dozen invisible tightropes all at once.
Far easier to control a fly, and have them collect the information of competitors for you.
“So tell me,” said Aurora. “How goes business recently?”
It had been months since they had been able to attend a meeting at the same time. Aurora sat at the end of the couch, Snow White’s bare feet in her bare lap, and looked flirtatiously over the rim of her crystal wineglass.
Snow White shrugged. “Quite well. A little hiccough with waste management in Africa, but Belle’s lawyers managed to make it…” she made a fluttering gesture with her hand. “Go away. What about your political affairs?”
“You haven’t been keeping track?” Aurora raised one perfect brow.
“You know I don’t read trashy magazines,” said Snow White, piety dripping off every word.
It made Aurora laugh, a fabulous throaty sound that ran all through her body. She ran a hand over Snow’s ankles, along the smooth curve of her calf. “It works well. People are always keeping an eye on politicians these days, is this one a mutant, does that one have powers? But nobody ever thinks to look at their wife.”
“As if anyone would catch you anyway,” said Snow White. She rubbed her foot against Aurora’s thigh, as much playful as sensual. “You’re far too good for that.”
Aurora smiled, and let the compliment stand. She had been using her powers of persuasion since she was a child, and had been making sound use of them for far longer than Snow White had been taking advantage of hers.
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A gasp of mock outrage left Aurora’s lips. “How dare you, indeed! I will have you know that there has been no fucking of journalists;” she set her own glass aside, and twisted in her seat, rising to her knees straddled over Snow White’s extended legs. Her hair was richer than gold in the firelight. “My fucking has been strictly relegated to political associates or their partners. Or both.”
She crawled along the couch, legs silken against Snow White’s, breasts gilded and shadowed and glorious in her white corset.
Snow White smiled wryly. “Good to know that your equal-opportunities policy has not changed when it comes to fucking.”
“Of course not.” Aurora reached Snow White’s lap, and sat upon it, subtly grinding their hips together. “The Ulstead-Dornrose political association is scrupulously in favour of gender and sexual equality.”
Some people that Snow White knew thought that Phillip Ulstead - and his wife Aurora Dornrose, who had kept her maiden name to represent her own political pedigree - were overly liberal. All over their pro-immigration policies, at that, while ignoring the fact that such was mostly an aside to their economic focus and the desire for cheap labour. The more labour that was available, the lower they would be able to push costs; it only made sense.
“I’m glad to hear it,” replied Snow White, and put her hand beneath Aurora’s chin to draw her into a kiss.
And that, of course, was the other benefit of the Hellfire Club. For while it was possible to meet sexual partners in any number of ways, especially as the world grew increasingly technological, there was still something to be said for a business partner who was capable of finance talk as pillow talk, and who could talk as evenly over the table as spread-eagled atop it.
“And if you do need any local political assistance…” said Aurora, words brushed against Snow White’s lips.
“I will be certain to say.”
That was the other benefit of the Queen, Snow White supposed; alliances with the other pieces on the board. Rather than the pieces having to constantly shift to defend her, she was alongside them, above without being so separate as the King. In the Hellfire Club, they had come together for a similar sort of mutual assistance.
But she had always wondered, from time to time, what could happen were the two Queens to work together instead of listening to the rules which forced them to separate sides.
It had always struck her that they would take the board by storm.
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