CIRCO

by Tara Ellis

 

  The only character trait that stayed within Mimi’s shifting personalities was anger. The truth is she liked being angry. Since the body grew into its teen years the anger would rupture forth when provoked. Her wrath would be like a volcano spewing lava, because you cannot reason with nature. And she would only stop venting on her own terms. It got to the point where Mommy, Daddy and her brothers paid her no mind. And it prevented her from developing relationships with other people. An outsider and a slave because of her emotions.

  Later that night, in Dallas, the circus was filled to the brim with fans. Happy faces belonged to every patron. And the dark sky above had its little twinkling stars sprinkled about. Mimi had worked for about ten hours with a few breaks in between. The entire workday for her centered on giving away balloons to children. And she adored every smile she got in return.

  She was coming across the petting zoo where little kids played with exotic animals. Among the children was the man that took away her body’s virginity. Mimi watched as the camera crew approached him.

  “Hey Freddy,” said the camera girl.

  “Hey Regina, how’s it going?” said Freddy.

  “I’m wondering if you would like to do an interview for the show.”

  “You mean like be on T.V?”

  “Of course ‘like be on T.V’ that’s why we have a camera.” Freddy smiled at the sarcasm. His smile was gorgeous. Instead of giving Mimi butterflies fluttering about in her gut she got a stampede of horses. His smile was worth more than the others she had gotten today. But she wasn’t sure if she was worthy of having him. And it wasn’t because she was living a lie. It was because she felt like her performance in bed was awful. She hadn’t really spoken with him since they had woken up together.

  The memory of their intimate moment replayed in her mind as he was doing his interview. She touched her pelvis remembering how Freddy unzipped her pants like a hypoglycemic child un-wrapping a Twinkie. She remembered how he glanced at her privates like she was hiding a treasure chest. He pulled off her jeans and he kissed her in the place where it counts to be a woman. She winced and clinched as he performed his linguistics on her. He kept rolling his tongue with his hand on her chest feeling it rise and sink. He came up, huffed in some air, and then told her “You taste good.” She giggled at him.

  He peeled off the shirt that read “World’s Greatest Soccer Mom” and took turns fitting each breast in his mouth. He went for the lips. When he kissed her… that moment had became a new religion for them.

  He was ready to enter inside of her and she asked him “Do you have a condom?”

  “No, I don’t,” he said.

  “You’re not going to give me a STD, are you?”

  “I’m clean.”

  “All right then, go for it.” He aimed his genitalia for hers like an arrow to the bull’s-eye. That hurt like hell, she screamed from the pain. Freddy asked “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just start off slow,” she said. The whole time he was inside of her, she felt like that crewmember in the movie Alien, who had the little monster in his chest, except it was in her vagina. The whole time for her it was nothing but discomfort. She thought “what the hell is all the appeal about, sex isn’t all that great.”

  Freddy was pumping his member in and out of her and she was trying not to make a sound. Because she believed whatever sound she’d make would turn Freddy off. She also figured to lay there lifeless; flopping from his exertion. “I totally suck at this,” she thought.

  “What?” asked Freddy. The sex stopped.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “You said you totally what?” he asked.

  “Nothing, nothing. Continue.” The sex persisted.

  He went for a kiss, she loved his kisses. As long as he kept kissing her, she was willing to finish through it.

  “Did you make an orgasm?” she asked him.

  “Um, I don’t know… did you have one?”

  “No I don’t think so, did you?”

  “Um no, I really don’t cum that fast.” He looked at the clock. “We only have been doing this for four minutes.”

  “Do you know when you get one?”

  “Um, yeah you would know. That’s kind of the point here. You never had an orgasm, have you?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No. Not for me.”

  “You had a few orgasms right.”

  “Um yeah I had plenty. Most of them I made all by myself.”

  After a while she noticed his breathing becoming heavier. She saw his face contort and soon after she felt him put a warm goo inside her. When he got off she asked “What is that?”

  He asked “What is what?”

  “I think you put something inside me.”

  “Yeah um, that was kind of the point.”

  “No, it’s like…did you pee in me?”

  “What?!”

  “I feel something warm inside me… oh my god you put sperm in me.”

  “Oh yeah, there was no condom.”

  “Am I going to get pregnant?”

  “Guessing since it’s your first time then no, but if you did…” He showed a nervous smile then said “you believe in abortion.” He then laughed. She threw a pillow at him.

  “You better be fucking kidding me.” And then she joined him in laughter.

  They went for another round of fun together, and after that they both slept in wet sheets from all sorts of body fluids.

  When it was ten thirty in the morning Freddy watched her get dressed. Her skin was still glistening from old sweat; it made the sunlight dance all around. She strapped on her bra, shuffling it around till her chest was in order. She slipped on bright rainbow colored socks. Skinny jeans were pulled up slowly over her long legs. She wore a different shirt, it showed three little kittens, something that you would find in your grandmother’s closet. That was the tackiest shirt Freddy had ever seen a young woman wear. And that was when he knew he loved her. So he said so.

  “I love you.” She turned around to look at him.

  “So you finally can just say it now,” she said. “That’s good.” She thought she loved him, at first. She wanted to love him. If she could make herself love him she would. But she knew she didn’t really love herself. And when someone doesn’t love their self, that person can’t truly love another.

  She turned away from him and said “I really like you too Freddy.”

 

  “God if you can hear this, please fucking save me!” exclaimed the Ringmaster. “These demons, they want me. They won’t leave me alone.” Artemis was all to himself in the wardrobe tent trying everything to mentally to stay put. The withdrawal of his three decade long coke habit was tearing him apart. He had the shakes real bad.

  He was sitting in front of a dressing mirror with his hands clamped together. Even though he was praying for his life, he never really cared for religion. But at this moment he was praying to something, God, Buddha, Zeus, Superman, it didn’t matter as long as someone saved him from himself.

  The overhead lights grew brighter; someone might have turned the knobs so Artemis looked around. There was no one, but the lights continued to grow more intense. He threw his hand in front of his eyes and turned around from the illumination. And there was his shadow staring right back at him. From the brightness the shadow had become ten folds the size of Artemis. But the shadow was distorted. It had a slight hunchback, and it held a cane in its left hand. The gangly form of the shadow wouldn’t cooperate with his movements.

  He headed for the exit looking over his shoulder. The shadow stayed in place. The head of that ghoulish figure followed his movements. He knew the apparition was staring at him.

  Walking out, a sudden shrill catches him off guard, “Oh my god, you look ama
zing!” Artemis whipped around, he was thankful that it was only his wife. She was looking in awe at the portrait living on her husband’s face. On the right half of his face was the image of a skull. It had a fracture on the forehead and the cheek showed a broken array of teeth. On the left was the image of an enraged gorilla. The beast’s eye was painted over Artemis’s whole eye socket. And from his jaw to his upper chest was the howling mouth showing a tongue and a jagged assortment of teeth.

  “I never knew Britney had this type of talent!” said Natalie.

  Artemis grabbed and held her tight. He needed something to hold on to. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just love you.”

  “I love you too.” When those words left his wife’s mouth he didn’t truly believe it. He didn’t want to believe much of anything at this point. He felt like no hope for him was left. “Die comfortable old man,” he thought.

  Natalie grabbed his hand saying “come on, let’s explore for a bit. With that canvas, your fans won’t disturb you.”

  Joyce was signing autographs for the masses that were surrounding her. She knew all of the love was on her. She could breaststroke in the adoration. Her bodyguards weren’t too far off watching just in case a fan got too enthused.

  Watching with a burning set of eyes was Scarlett, her mind couldn’t grasp why. Why was she here, why the people loved her, why she resented her, why wasn’t anyone giving her that amount of attention right then? The envy had reached critical mass. It was time for her to release it.

  Joyce, unaware of this looming predator embraced that day to be one of the best she had ever lived. The masses of fanatic faces got to be much for her, so she looked at her bodyguard and mouthed “save me”. As her bodyguard Max scooped her away from the fans she yelled “In ten minutes I will be performing I hope to see all your faces!” Max, was good man but a little slow, six foot, seven inches tall. If it wasn’t for guarding, the only job he could perform was to be a human wall.

  Joyce was escorted by her guards over to the center of the field. Where twin black silks came cascading to her. She wrapped one in each forearm and gripped tightly in her hands. Then she ascended into the air.

  A voice filled the entire field. “Ladies and Gents! If you all could please gather around the center.” There was Mimi on a podium with a microphone in her hand. Joyce was suspended in air above her. She spoke in a booming voice, reminiscent of the ring master’s style. “Here you will all be witnesses to the daring feats of El Circo de Fantasias’s very own dare devil. We present to you Joyce the High Flyer!” As soon as her name as announced the lights came on her. The crowd erupted; it was like three thousand people had an orgasm all at once. From the audience perspective the black aerial silk blended in with the dark sky. It gave the illusion that she ascended in air all on her own. The music played and she danced with her silk. Joyce was suspended in forty feet above thousands of people; thousands of captivated imaginations.

  As Artemis was hidden amongst the crowd, watching his high flyer he thought to himself “even the angels in heaven must be growing envious of her.” And he was right; there was a fallen angel that was growing envy, fear and hatred towards Joyce every day. He didn’t know it was the same demon giving him trouble.

  Earlier that night Scarlett was preparing for her performance. She was still heated after her verbal brawl with Mimi. She tried to calm herself down by saying “You’re better than them. You’re made up of more important stuff. That’s why they hate you because they will never be on your level.” She looked at herself in a hand mirror. “Oh my god,” she said.

  Celia faced her scared asking “What!”

  Scarlett lowered the mirror to her hip. Her face perplexed, and she looked Celia square in the eye and told her “I’m just so physically… perfect.” Celia’s face then went cold. “I’m not coming from arrogance here. But it’s true.” She held up her free hand in defense. “I’m top of the line gorgeous. Okay before you roll your eyes at me Celia it’s like this, your god made everyone on earth right? There are obviously ugly people, there are beautiful people and there are people in between. God is the father of mankind right? So he is just like any other parent. I believe… he took a little extra time when he was constructing me? And we can bullshit all we want to, but we know parents all ways play favorites.”

  Celia’s body heaved towards Scarlett’s. Her face white and those cheeks ballooned. She turned around and ran for the exit. She headed for the Port-o-Potty, flipped the toilet lid and let go of her lunch. After that, she got on her knees and put her hands together.

  Scarlett’s audience was in the largest tent of the field. Most of her fans were growing up just as she was. Just over a thousand young faces anticipated the arrival of their teen queen. The majority had on t-shirts with scarlet’s image plastered all over them. The curtains were pushed back revealing the set stage. Her fans cheered with an excessive amount of passion when she appeared. High pitched squealing.

  She came out wearing a white leather skirt that covered her navel down to her mid-thigh. And she could barely cover her chest with that small white leather bustier bra top.

  On stage was a table with the instruments she was going to use. She picked up a rolled whip and held it over an open flame lamp. As soon as it caught Scarlet began to dance and twirl, she became a wave of fire. She cracked her whip and sparks would fly out into the audience. She swung the flaming whip around her torso, allowing the fire to caress her.

  Scarlet always burned herself in every show; she would feel the pain and the intense heat. But her greatest trick wasn’t to suppress the pain; it was to not let it bother her.

  The performance she was giving was amazing, truly captivating everyone who was in their seats. On the other hand it was not the most memorable event that happened to her that night. What the audience saw was a mysterious masked character come out from under the table. The table cloth that extended to the floor concealed this person the whole time. When the figure emerged on stage there was a fire extinguisher in those hands. The crowd was perplexed at this site; the concern from the crowd was audible. Scarlet didn’t even see this stage intruder coming toward her from behind. Scarlett cracked her whip sending more sparks into the crowd. She turned around while wrapping the whip around her torso. That was when the fire extinguisher was fired onto her. The shock of the crowd resonated throughout the tent. The cloud of chemicals enveloped them both; the crowd for a moment couldn’t see them. A confused jumble of murmuring traveled through the audience. A smack was heard onstage followed by a scream that troubled the people. They didn’t know what to believe, wondering if this was all a part of the act or something more sinister. The fog slowly cleared revealing the teen queen covered all over in blood. Well at first it looked like blood. But as everyone got a better look, seeing Scarlet with chunks of crust and fruit on her face and chest, it was obvious. She was hit in the face with a cherry pie.

  The miscreant walked out of the fog, flicked her wrist and took a bow. Under the fruit filling, Scarlet’s face reacted to the terror. She did more than scream, she did a freak out. Her attacker fled from the stage running through an isle in the seated audience. With her cinematic scream and those tears cutting the desert on her cheeks, everyone knew their queen was attacked. Security scrambled on stage and scooped up the wailing youth icon.

 

 

  The High Flyer