Page 10 of Survival Game

Want misdirection at its best, and a great subject-changer? Always have a deck of cards in your pocket.

Eric nodded eagerly, the shadows disappearing from his eyes. “Fuck, yes. I love card games and tricks. There was this old geezer who used to sit outside the station house in Shoreditch where I work, and he could do this crazy thing with an egg and a pack of cards.”

Kyle laughed. “Sounds fun. Mine doesn’t have an egg but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway.” He winked at Eric.

This would be fun.

As a casino dealer working in Vegas, he’d learnt a few tricks. At any given moment, he’d been expected to deal, pitch cards, move chips, sweep cards, check the players weren’t cheating and pay out to the punters. Impressing Eric would be easy.

He started with a couple of easy tricks, like producing a royal flush one after the other.

Eric’s eyes boggled. “How the hell do you do that? I thought the odds of dealing one of those was astronomical.”

Kyle chuckled as Eric stared at him with disbelief. As did the few fascinated onlookers who watched avidly.

“The probability of receiving a royal flush is slim. I could deal twenty hands of poker every night of the year, and in eight to nine years you would hit one royal flush in the deal.” He grinned wickedly. “It’s all in the sleight of hands and making the audience focus elsewhere. We call it card manipulation. Here, look at this.”

Deftly, he shuffled the deck of cards and dealt four onto the table. With a flip of his wrist, he turned each one over. Eric watched, mouth open, as Kyle revealed four aces. Then he gathered the cards together, shuffled and did it again.

During the parlour tricks, they’d both had a couple more drinks—bought by the clapping onlookers who were enjoying the show—and were fairly buzzed.

Kyle began a running commentary on the card facts he’d learnt over the years.

“Ever notice how the ace of spades always stands out in a deck of cards? There’s a reason for that. Once European leaders saw that playing cards had become so popular, they decided there was an opportunity to levy taxes on a deck of cards. Typical, right? Levy tax on a game people enjoy.” Kyle waved a hand airily. “The leeches put a stamp on the wrappings of playing cards. Of course, the wrappings got discarded, so to make certain the tax stuck, they decided to stamp one card in a deck to indicate the duty had been paid. In the eighteenth century, the ace of spades commonly received the stamp, probably because it lay on the top of every deck.”

“Wow, that’s fascinating.” Eric watched as Kyle laid out a perfect arc of cards on the table. “You never think about cards having history.”

Kyle nodded. “Most playing cards have a story behind them. The king of hearts was fashioned after King Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. He was born around seven-forty-two and is the only king in the deck without a moustache, and he has a sword through his head. They used to call him the ‘Suicide King.’”

“But how, I mean, you guessed every card I chose, and that thing you do with the royal flush, how do you even...?” Eric’s voice trailed off in awe and Kyle basked in the pleasure of it.

“Oh, it’s easy when you know how,” he sniffed as he shuffled the deck adeptly, loving how it made Eric catch his breath. Practice made perfect after all. “It’s all about speed, reading people, misdirection and having fingers the speed of light.” He shuffled the cards dexterously then fanned the pile on the table.

Eric nudged his shoulder. “Show off,” he muttered. “Do your cocktails taste as good as your mad card skills play?”

Imbued with a sense of confidence that he’d impressed Eric, Kyle threw caution to the wind and decided the flirting could escalate a little.

“Oh, my cock tastes just fine,” he murmured, rejoicing at the sight of Eric’s face pinking up and his eyes darkening. “Oh, cocktails, sorry, I must have misheard you.”

If that didn’t indicate he was interested in the gorgeous man sitting across from him with hunger in his eyes, with lips that were meant to be invaded by Kyle’s tongue, then Eric was not the man Kyle thought he was.

Eric leaned over and brushed his fingers over Kyle’s eyebrow piercing. It was new, to match the one in his left ear. He’d got rid of the nose piercing a while ago, deciding it was too much.

The feel of calloused fingers on his mouth made Kyle shiver with delight as his cock hardened in his jeans.

“Have you ever had a lip piercing or a tongue stud?” Eric asked as he slid his finger along Kyle’s bare lip, gathering up the moisture there.

Kyle swallowed, his cock deflating, cold chills making a slow path down his spine. The memory of Mario trying to rip out Kyle’s tongue piercing with his teeth played behind his eyes and he could hear. Mario’s disgusted voice as if he were here in the room with them.

Wanton slut. You’re a perversion in the sight of God. You tempt me and that’s a sin.

“No,” Kyle managed to say, as the images and sounds flickered in his head. “Not anymore.”

Lip and tongue piercings are too easy to rip out, leaving shredded flesh behind.

Kyle moved back, away from Eric’s fingers.

Disappointment and concern registered on Eric’s face. “Hey, I hope I didn’t step over any line,” Eric sat back and drained his drink. “I don’t want to spoil what’s been a great night.”