A magician pulls off the ultimate disappearing act in “Queen of Hearts” by L. Soviero. Soviero pulls off a magic trick of her own throughout this flash story, combining humor and desire and melancholy, in just under 600 words.
Nicole tells the magician, I will fuck you. And, poof, they’re on the landing of her apartment building. His fingers slipping aside her cotton panties with panache. As though performing a feat of prestidigitation. But what’s the trick? she wonders, as his tongue disappears in her mouth.
And poof, they’re in bed. It really happens so fast; she’s not sure how they got there. But that’s not the only thing that happens in a snap. Where she feels the thick of him embedded between her thighs one moment, there’s a void the next.
The following morning, she awakes with dried drool on her cheek. And a heartbeat tha-thumping in her head. An impression in the other pillow and a sour smell in the sheets, the only signs he was there.
But he was there, wasn’t he?
She’s certain of it. And she can’t really say why, but as the day passes, she thinks he still is. Not only that, but she feels somewhere deep and weird that he’s the bunny, and she’s the hat. And with an abracadabra she can pull him out whenever she pleases.
This thought intrudes for weeks. Sometimes making her chuckle to herself. Until a co-worker asks, What’s so funny? And she has to make something up on the fly. About a sitcom or a cat video. Anything but the truth because there’s no sharing that.
She eventually forgets about this most inside of jokes. The novelty of it, a final disappearing act.
One night, she meets a bricklayer in the same bar where she had met the magician. And she takes him home, betting on the fact that this will be a one-night stand much like the rest. But when it becomes a two-night stand and finally a relationship, she realizes that this time is different. He’s not as exciting as the magician was. But she finds magic in how mundane they are together because it’s a mundanity she’s never before had.
Soon, Nicole likes the bricklayer enough to consider loving him. And when he asks her to move in, she doesn’t say yes exactly but kisses him long enough that it feels like a contract. And as they move toward the bedroom, they liberate themselves of their clothing—a t-shirt in the living room, a lace bra in the hallway, a pair of boxer-briefs by the foot of the bed.
Once under the covers, he surveys her body, placing kisses like stamps of approval on her parts. And when he arrives between her legs, she awaits that specific pleasure. But it does not come. In fact, he doesn’t move, and his stillness is somehow frightening.
You okay down there? she asks.
What’s this? He pulls something from between her legs. A playing card. The queen of hearts. And though she doesn’t hear the words aloud, a voice beats through her body, asking, Is this your card?
And she almost shouts yes, but there’s a melancholy in the very corner of the bricklayer’s eyes, which replaces her excitement with a filthy, achy feeling. So, she performs another trick—she smiles, and poof, there’s a transformation from melancholy to happiness. They pick up where they had left off, her head rolling back so that she can see the veins in the paintjob of her ceiling, where some strange illusion makes them seem as though they throb like the ones inside her body. She can feel them now, pumping dramatically, especially the ones that feed her heart.
L Soviero is a writer from Queens living in Melbourne, Australia. She has work published in a variety of journals, and has been nominated for Best Microfiction, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Wigleaf Top 50. Her stories were included in Best Small Fictions 2021 and 2024 and Best Microfiction 2024. Her chapbook Wandering Womb made The Masters Review‘s 2023 Chapbook Open shortlist. Check out more from her at lsoviero.com.