Caroline stared at herself in the mirror. She knew the person there, knew what she was supposed to look like, what she was supposed to be doing. If her father had had his way, she’d be wearing a power suit, her shoulder-length hair brushed and meticulously straightened, her makeup tastefully enhancing but invisible. Caroline wished her father had had his way—but it hadn’t been for Caroline’s lack of trying. And now there was nothing she could do to change the fact that she was cast of a circus with a reputation to maintain. She couldn’t be the girl she’d wanted to be, the one she knew how to be. If she had to keep seeing that girl in the mirror, maybe she’d never get over what she’d lost.
She took three fast swallows of her margarita. “Do whatever you want.”
By the time Kitty was through with the most strenuous part of tending Caroline’s hair she’d turned Caroline around away from the mirror, and Caroline was drinking her second margarita with a straw, keeping herself still to make sure the blonde touchup dye and the aluminum-covered streaks weren’t disturbed. There were a few odd angles of hair at her feet from where Kitty had made the ends of her straighter haircut jagged. That much she had seen. It edged up her hairstyle, enhancing the sharper points of her bone structure rather than softening them.
While they waited for the dye to set, Kitty took out the makeup that she’d been considering for Caroline then retrieved a garment bag from her bed.
“I was thinking of going cooler with your palette. You have such light coloring, but you definitely lean ivory rather than ruddy or gold. I think brown would be too bland for you, so most of your leather is going to be black or a mix of brown with other colors. Lady Sasha agreed that instead of going with Arcanium’s usual colors, especially since they’re represented so well with the carousel, we’d like to give you a base of blue, expanding into greens and purples with an undernote of blue instead of red,” Kitty explained after she had dried Caroline’s hair.
When Kitty finished with the blow dryer, the front locks framed Caroline’s face with dark but rich, startling peacock-blue. She had loved the color when Kitty had shown her the dye. She just didn’t know whether she’d love the color on her hair or whether she’d look like a wannabe hipster when all this was over. Kitty still wouldn’t let her look in the mirror.
“As you can see from the makeup, we like a dramatic eye for you, which I can do for you or you can do it yourself. Either a bright color for the lids or a smoky eye paired with a bright red or pink lipstick. I think you can pull off the dramatic in an entirely different way than Maya.” Kitty laughed a little. “I used to love makeup when I was a little girl, but it just cakes and powders on my hair now that I don’t groom it into oblivion.”
“Have you ever considered wishing it to go away?” Caroline asked, her tongue loosened and her words a little slurred even to her own ears. “Or is that a stupid question? I know I’d consider it. Who wouldn’t?”
“Yes, I considered it,” Kitty said. “But my wishes are up.”
“So that ‘three wishes’ thing is an actual thing?”
Kitty bit at her grin. Caroline was not prone to being articulate in her tipsiness. “Yes. You only get three wishes.”
“So I have two more,” Caroline mused. “I’ll bet you can’t wish for more.”
“Nope. No loopholes. Bell’s the only one allowed to have loopholes,” Kitty said.
“Why does he get holes and not me?” Caroline asked.
“That’s what happens when you make the rules. He controls all the pieces, and he has all the power. He wrote the rulebook, so he knows where all the loopholes are,” Kitty said. “There’s no point in telling jinn something isn’t fair. He’s not interested in fair.”
“Then what’s he interested in?”
“You’d have to ask him, although I doubt he’d answer. My guess? Entertainment. Sometimes the entertainment he chooses is justice, the way some people like to watch procedurals. But other times, the things he does have little to do with justice. It’s impossible to know why he does what he does, so I wouldn’t recommend trying to understand him,” Kitty said. “Do you want me to do your makeup before showing you the costumes?”
Caroline shook her head. “Just give me the tools. I can do most of it myself when I’m capable of drawing a straight line again. I’ve also seen what some of you people wear. Kinky minds made those costumes. I’m almost scared.”
“It does take some getting used to,” Kitty admitted. She turned away to unzip the garment bag.
“Why didn’t you wish it?” Caroline asked.
“To lose my hair where I don’t want it?” Kitty asked. “It’s complicated. Suffice it to say, once I found my place in Arcanium, the matter wasn’t that important anymore. The clientele come here looking for something a little different, so my social life doesn’t suffer for it.”
“Well, if you don’t want to lose your hair but miss what it was like not having it, maybe you could have wished to control whether you had it or not,” Caroline said.
Kitty’s hands froze on the zipper.
“Like, you could still be the Bearded Lady of Arcanium, but you could also say one day, ‘You know what? I don’t want any hair at all. Self, make me completely bald’. Or, you know, ‘Body hair, be gone’, or something like that.” She was starting to babble, made worse by the realization that Kitty still hadn’t moved, so she wondered whether she’d said and was still saying things she shouldn’t. “That way you could be normal or not normal whenever you wanted. I mean, if you still had your wishes. Back then. If Madoc hadn’t twisted it or anything.”
“Maybe one day I’ll ask someone else if they’re willing to make that wish for me,” Kitty said quietly. “For now, I’m fine being the Bearded Lady, and I wouldn’t ask just anyone to sacrifice a wish.”
She finished opening the garment bag.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Caroline exclaimed. “That’s gonna get me arrested in a few states of the Union.”
“To say the least,” Kitty replied. “Like I said, you get used to it. Besides, you’ve probably worn less at a community pool. Remember that.”
“Yeah, but…that’s different.” Caroline wasn’t sure how, but she was sure it was. “That’s where you’re supposed to wear less.”
“But this is Arcanium,” Kitty said. “It won’t be out of place here. Believe me. It’s not just the cast that dresses this way. At the right town, with the right connections, it’s the normal dressers that feel out of place.”
“I can’t wear this. My dad will fucking have kittens,” Caroline said, holding up the black leather dress. Dress was a generous term. Thin, brass-buckled straps over the shoulders and across the midriff connected a structured black bra to a tight, short skirt.
“Very few of us invite our families to come see us,” Kitty said. “And you don’t have to wear this all the time. This would be good for when we have kink conventions visiting us, for instance, or closer to Halloween, but it would be terrible for a faire. See? These were more what Sasha and I had in mind for regular wear.”
Kitty showed her two other outfits, both of them practically Puritan in comparison. One was the mix of brown and black that Kitty had talked about, black lace over a brown leather, strapped, underbust corset. Bunched black cotton covered the breasts, and the thin, slight sleeves draped off the shoulder. The thick buckles of the corset were in the front and looked like aged brass gears, resembling the clockwork of the carousel cage. The top paired with a tiered and bunched black cotton skirt that reached below the knee at its lowest point.
“This one was made to make you blend in with the carousel, but still stand out as cast rather than crew,” Kitty said, shaking the hanger to indicate the brown and black steampunk ensemble.
“All I need are some goggles and a top hat,” Caroline said. “I like it.” She hadn’t meant to say that last part. She’d rather stay incensed. But even the kinky poor excuse for a dress was cute, in an overtly sexual way Caroline was very much not used to expre
ssing in public, even on Halloween.
Kitty raised the other outfit. “And this one should function for any venue. The bodice, anyway. There’s also a long black skirt in the pile that you can wear for the Renaissance faires instead of the leather pants or the shorter skirt, but it’s a pretty easy transition. It goes with your hair and makeup palettes. It used to be Valorie’s, but I think it’s more suited to you.”
And now Caroline was literally biting her tongue to keep from gushing about how gorgeous the satin corset bodice was. The minute she admitted she couldn’t wait to put these clothes on was the minute she was firmly in Arcanium’s clutches, and she couldn’t allow herself to be glad to be a part of this.
But oh, those beaded peacock feathers and the peacock-blue, structured satin over the shoulders and down over the hips where the ivory, blue, purple, green and black feather designs didn’t reach. Caroline was, however, glad to note that there was a zipper in the back. She didn’t think she had the dexterity for anything else, and she would have hated asking someone else to do it for her.
“Try this one on,” Kitty said. She set down the steampunk getup before pulling the peacock bodice and folded leather pants from its hanger. “You can’t fool me. You want to. And I think it’ll really set off the hair reveal. No, don’t look yet. Do you need privacy to change or—?”
“I don’t mind,” Caroline said. They were both women here. They knew what their bits looked like. She took off her shirt and jeans. Then she pulled on the leather pants.
Wow, Kitty wasn’t kidding. Lady Sasha did magic with leather. She was a succubus, but Caroline didn’t know that meant she could make leather pants comfortable even in the heat. It was like wearing warm butter, and it fit perfectly. She didn’t have to stretch it out or hold in her stomach to button it closed. Lady Sasha had to have made a deal with the devil at some point, because leatherwear like this just didn’t happen in reality.
Once she had unzipped the bodice, she realized she’d have to take off her bra, even with the straps. Bare breasts were a little more intimate than she usually showed in a girls’ locker room, but she unhooked her bra anyway and discarded it with the rest of her clothes to zip the corset bodice.
“Look at yourself,” Kitty said. She turned Caroline around to look in the mirror.
The face was still hers only because she hadn’t put on any of the makeup, but even that looked slightly different, elfin with her small nose, pointed chin, and low but defined cheekbones now framed with the jagged fringe of her new hair. Some locks were still shoulder length, others closer to the base of her skull, the angles unpredictable, blunt and dramatic. That alone would have been a departure from her usual reflection, but the blue streaks Kitty had put in brought out the color in the corset bodice.
It hugged her body, displaying her shape rather than creating it. Caroline had always been leaner than she was curvy, but this bodice accentuated that leanness while calling attention to the curves she had. And the color was sumptuous against her paler skin.
She wouldn’t belong behind a receptionist desk, that’s for sure. She wasn’t sure yet whether she was circus material, but Kitty seemed pleased with the end result, playing with the uneven layers of Caroline’s hair.
“I look so weird,” Caroline said. She leaned in as though she’d recognize herself better up close.
“That’s the general idea,” Kitty replied.
“So this is me forever,” Caroline muttered.
“Not forever,” Kitty said. “You have to remember that. You won’t be here forever, not if you don’t want to be.”
“I’ll never want to be,” Caroline said. But under the influence of two margaritas and a makeover, she thought she might make the year.
* * * *
Kitty had made sure Caroline could walk steady before letting her go alone back to the carousel, now fully assembled as though it had never been taken apart. Whoever the staff were—and that was still a mystery, like many things, because they were always around but rarely seemed to interact with the cast—they were efficient little buggers, like ants building giant anthills after the rain. The whole circus was up and running, and it was only Monday night.
Caroline had changed back into her casual clothes. Kitty had told her she could get her costumes back once her blood alcohol level was under the legal limit. It wasn’t that they didn’t have magic to clean them up if something went wrong, but they’d rather not have to clean them more than necessary, because Lady Sasha had other things on her plate she would rather be doing. Caroline could see the wisdom in not pissing a succubus off.
All things considered, though, she felt pretty good. Her limbs were loose, her hair was awesome and for a few hours anyway, Arcanium didn’t seem like such a dark place—evilly speaking, because it was nighttime, so it was very dark indeed. But the carousel was like a beacon, a lighthouse, and she approached it as steadily as she could.
She crawled up, using a horse’s leg for leverage then stood, holding her head to keep the carousel from spinning without her telling it to.
When she righted herself, her vision focused on the man standing before her.
The slender, strong, slightly scary man from her dream—except this wasn’t a dream. She’d never had a hallucination while drunk before. And she wasn’t drunk anyway. She was tipsy. But she had to be hallucinating, because that man had been part of her dream.
“Are you real?” Caroline asked. “Tell me you’re not real.”
“Wish I could,” the man said.
“Hi,” came a shy voice from the other direction.
Caroline spun around and steadied herself again, wincing against her headache. The large man from her first dream was walking toward her.
“Why am I seeing two dreams? You two dreams shouldn’t know each other,” Caroline said. “It’s a time paradox. The universe will be destroyed.”
“You thought I was just a dream?” the larger man asked. “I guess it depends on whether it was a good dream or a bad dream.”
“Oh, it was a good dream. It was a hella good dream. I’ll be thinking of that dream for a while. God, did I really just say that?” Caroline said.
“And what was I, chopped human liver?” the thinner man said. “I had the impression that I impressed several times.”
“No, I liked that too. Can the two of you stop existing together for a second? I am so not sober enough for this.”
“You’re not sober at all, by the smell of it. Happy hour at the cantina?” the thinner man asked.
“Girls’ night in Kitty’s tent,” Caroline replied. “What the hell is going on? Why are you real? You’re not supposed to be real. Oh God, you’re real, and that means…I mean, I didn’t…but you didn’t…”
“Breathe, Caroline,” Madoc said, approaching between the mounts. He caressed the manes and tentacles and scales of the animals as he passed them. “I told you that you’re in no danger here. That includes danger of disease or procreation. Arcanium is no place for small children.”
“You!” Caroline shouted. She pointed her finger at his chest and kept pointing until she was poking his chest with it. “You’re the one who’s done all this. You were in my dreams and now you’ve created these illusions to trick me. You’re playing with me like a cat toy. And I’m pretty sure you’re a contributing factor to the second margarita.”
“No doubt,” Madoc said. He was gentle as he lowered her finger away from where it poked at him. “But you mistake my intention.”
“Your intentions mean shit,” Caroline retorted.
“Even if they are meant to give you attractive things that you like?” Madoc asked.
“Why would you do that? I’ve been so rude. You deserve it, but I’ve been so rude.”
“Yes, you have, but there’s always a period of adjustment,” Madoc said. “I make allowances for your youth and your grief. In that way, you are no different from many of my Arcanium cast.”
“What allowances did you make for my youth and grief?�
� the thinner man snarled. “Or do you just make allowances for lovely young women you can corrupt?”
“I’m perfectly content corrupting Maya at the moment,” Madoc said, unfazed. “I like people who like my circus, not those who seek to destroy it. Caroline may not like it now, but she liked it then and she’ll like it again.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Caroline interjected.
“I would,” Madoc said. “It is inevitable, my dear. But I don’t intend to rush you on the matter. I only hope to offer you more incentive to enjoy your time in Arcanium.”
“Is that why you brought us out? New toys to please the new girl?” the thinner man asked. He backed away, glaring between Caroline and Madoc. He crossed his arms defensively over his chest.
The larger man continued looking bewildered, but he edged closer to Caroline.
Caroline poked his arm. Yep, he was definitely there. Maybe some additional prodding was in order. She squeezed the muscle there. Her small hands couldn’t get a grip, he was so big. He looked at where she touched him, his tan face darkening with a flush. Caroline didn’t bother being surreptitious about checking. His hot leather shorts were closed this time, but she could see the outline of his erection along his hip. She bit her lip.
“I told you that you would stay trapped as mounts for as long as I wished you to serve, and there would come someone whose presence could release you,” Madoc said. “There’s no need to play indifferent, Colm. I wasn’t here to witness your…release, but I could see it in its entirety if I wanted to, if you require the humiliation.”
“No, thanks,” Caroline interjected. “I don’t need you in my sex dream life. That’s just not right.”
“I must add that just because she can release you doesn’t mean she will,” Madoc said to both men. “You are still my prisoners for what you’ve done. I present Caroline as a path for your penance. I pass the reins into her hands. You are to serve her as you have served me. If you serve Caroline better than you’ve served me, perhaps you will earn reprieve in your punishment.”
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