The King
“Oh, Jeezie, that was just wonderful! I mean just really, truly, mind-blowingly, incredibly wonderful! Some girls I know have called you the king of… of…. I don’t know what and I really don’t care what anyone else calls you or says about you. All I know now is that you are just the King, that’s all!”
“Why, I thank yuh, Ma’am. Thank yuh veruh much.”
“Huh? What the hell was….? Oh, I get it. Elvis, the king of rock ‘n’ roll. Yeah, that’s cute; really clever. But I wasn’t talking about any one king, Jeezie; I meant you were the King. I mean, don’t you get the full depth of what I’m saying to you?”
“King? Oh, you mean like, ’A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ Or something like that. Is that what you’re trying to say here?”
“No, no no, Jeezie! Please, please just listen to me! I’m not saying you’re just any old king. You are my only king. I mean, with that honking big ol’ dick of yours that gets me coming only seconds after you’ve got it inside me you really are the ONLY king for me. See what I mean? Do you get it now, Jeezie?”
“Whoa! Just wait a minute right there, baby. The name ain’t ‘Jeezie.’ I told you maybe a hundred times what it is and I mean it. My name is Jessemiah. Get it? I mean, you can call me Jess or Jessie but cut it out with all this Jeezie stuff, okay? Again, the name is Jess or Jessie but for fuck’s sake, it ain’t no Jeezie by any stretch of your cray imagination!”
“Okay Jeez…. I mean Jessie. But, Jesus, really…. You don’t have to go and get so worked up about it.”
“Sorry about that, honey. But, you know, when it’s about my name, well…. The king has his prerogatives about how he’s addressed and all, you know.”
“Huh? The what did you just say?”
“I said that the king….”
“ That’s what I mean and please, just tell me, what the hell are you talking about when you say king? After all the bullshit you’re spouting about your name and all, you aren’t the king of anything anymore in my book, darlin’. Damn! Tell a guy one nice thing and he just blows it all out of proportion!
“But, baby, I just….”
“I tell you Jessie, you sure do have one monster of an ego there. I mean, just listen to yourself. King? Ha! What a laugh!”
“But, baby-darlin’, you just said before that I was….”
“Was, sweetheart. That’s the operative word here. Was! And that’s all there is to it. Now where’s my purse? I’ve got an audition for a baby powder commercial in about an hour and I don’t want to be late.”
“But….”
“No more buts about it, Jessie. Thanks for the halfway decent fuck and the good laugh. I mean, king? Really? Well! All I can say to that is, Ta-ta, darling! I hope you and your inflated ego will be very, very happy together!”
Biography
Stephen Faulkner is a native New Yorker who was transplanted with his wife, Joyce, to Atlanta, Georgia. He and his wife are now both retired and living the good life in Central Florida. Steve’s first novel, Aliana in Paradise was published by World Castle Publishing in 2018; his second, Lunar Effects was published by Eden Stories in 2020; Speculations, a book of short stories, has just been released by Bridge House Publishing. All are available through Amzaon.com and BarnesandNobele.com.