Funhouse

by Aurelia T. Evans

  With her brain well into contemplating the cosmic and scientific implications of the last twenty-four hours, she doubted she was going to get much sleep. If there was any justice in the world, she hoped Joseph was having just as much trouble, if not more.

  She punched her pillow then flipped around onto her back again.

  “Well, aren’t you just the tastiest little thing?”

  Neve gave a little scream, hurriedly covering her top half with the duvet.

  Part of her expected to see Bell, although she didn’t know why she would expect him at her bedroom window in the middle of a snowy night well after the circus had closed, when he was probably too tired to do anything but sleep. She didn’t know how she could expect anyone at her second-story bedroom window. And she’d sign a sworn affidavit that she would never have her window open in late January.

  Yet her bedroom window was open, and a man perched on its edge like a hybrid between a gargoyle, an owl and a very creepy person.

  At first she thought the reason for the smoothness of his color was because of the shadows. But then he shifted and her eyes adjusted at the same time. In addition to sitting on the edge of a previously unopened window in the middle of winter, he was completely naked. The dim, blue, reflected moonlight illuminated the steam that emanated from him. Though his knee was propped up to conceal his front, the extent of leg and buttock exposed proved he wasn’t wearing a stitch.

  She bit back the part of her that wanted to invite him in out of the cold, a perfectly rational act of hospitality. But a strange man at her open window at midnight was not a perfectly rational thing at all.

  Neve wasn’t a hundred percent sure she was awake. This seemed like the kind of dream she’d have, trying to fall asleep as she had been—a tall, large, dark stranger with eye sockets so black, they were the darkest part of midnight.

  “I usually don’t visit someone while they’re awake, but I so rarely sense sexual frustration as keen as my own. It’s an awfully big bed, and it smells like a man. Does he not satisfy you?”

  “Who the hell are you?” She wasn’t fond of swearing, but she was tired, angry and, yes, unsatisfied. “How did you even get up here?”

  There was a baseball bat under the bed and a gun in the closet safe, but to get them, she’d have to either emerge nearly naked from under the covers or drag the heavy duvet with her. He’d be able to catch her either way. She considered yelling for Joseph, but she still wasn’t certain any of this was real, and she didn’t want to need him for anything right now.

  “It’s his loss if he cannot satisfy a woman like you.” He spoke in chocolate—warm, dark, rich, with the hint of a foreign accent she couldn’t place, although it resembled the mild Middle Eastern accents she’d encountered at school and sometimes heard at work. “Let me in. I’ll show you how a man should treat a woman. With me, you’ll know satisfaction. With me, you’ll never again be satisfied by another.”

  “I have my phone. I’m calling the police. And if you come any closer, I’m going to get the baseball bat and crack your kneecaps right after I hit a homerun on your balls.”

  “You don’t have your phone.” He spoke with absolute certainty. “And if you were going to go for a weapon, you would have already. I don’t think you’re afraid of me. I think your body is so distracted that you don’t have enough in your head to be afraid. And that’s good, woman. Shall I take up more of your mind?”

  He lowered his bent leg. And though Neve couldn’t see details, she didn’t need to. She could see clearly enough to notice that he was definitely without any kind of covering, and the winter cold had done nothing to diminish his sexual frustration.

  In such little light, Neve couldn’t be positive. It could have been some kind of trick to the angle, but his full, high erection looked like it was the width of his wrist. She didn’t think that was anatomically possible—and certainly not something that would be comfortable going into anyone.

  But the sight of it bobbing near his thigh made her ache—and not in preemptive pain. Her lips went dry even as she salivated. Her clit twitched in odd little pulses that felt like some kind of atavistic signal, a primitive I want with which her cunt agreed. Her panties had already been damp from frustration, but she felt new wetness drip out.

  “I’ll create oblivion between your thighs, bring poetry to your lips, fire to your skin. Your body is a finely crafted instrument, and I am a master musician. Invite me into your cool, empty bed.”

  He brought his hand to the base of his cock, stroked himself slowly. It didn’t feel like the kind of frantic perversion of a public voyeur or peeping tom. He was deliberate, the action a supplement to his words, a display of his wares.

  “I have everything you’ve ever desired, everything you’ve ever fantasized about. Let me in, and I will be the fulfillment of every dream, any dream. Even now, your body makes itself ready for me, craves me. You are starving, but I am a feast, and I offer myself to you. No woman should ever go as unsatisfied as you are right now. I can practically taste the salt on your skin, the sweetness between your legs. It fills the very air, no matter how the cold tries to chase it away. You needn’t suffer any longer. Let me in.”

  If it was a dream, it was the most intense sex dream she’d ever had. Even she had sex dreams now and then, of subjects that seemed eminently unsexy upon waking. She was capable of orgasm, so she would sometimes suffer through a meaningless one, clutching the sheets and willing it to be over.

  If this wasn’t a dream, it was utter madness. She’d had time to grab her phone from the nightstand drawer. She’d had more than enough time to get the baseball bat from under the bed, even with the duvet. She could do it now. He’d trip over that cock on the way to her.

  But his words caressed her as though they were fingers, awakening every part of her that he spoke of. She remembered when she’d thought Bell was hypnotizing her. Neve couldn’t shake the idea that this man might be doing the same thing—that he was more than just a man murmuring sweet nothings to her as he masturbated.

  “Let me in. Or cast me away. But do something, woman. Don’t torture me like this, able to see you, smell you, taste the mist of you but not touch, not feel you against my body. I’m as hungry as you are. So very hungry, my love. Please…” He bowed his head. The silhouette of his hair suggested it was loose and long, tangled into locks that draped past his elbows. Neve thought he was almost familiar, but she couldn’t think of anyone she knew who looked like that, or anyone who could possibly be packing what he had between his legs. Scrubs and lab coats could hide a lot, but she wasn’t sure anything could hide that.

  Neve felt frozen, mesmerized by his strokes, by the way he seemed clearer and clearer to her each time he passed his hand over the shaft, as though lust attuned her senses to him.

  Her breathing was loud but shallow. She’d fallen slightly forward, still using one hand to hold the duvet over her front, the other one braced on the bed between her knees. The position made her feel even more sexual, waiting for him to come up from behind and push her panties to the side, push every huge inch of that impossible cock into her cunt, where she’d take it—and gladly—because her need was even closer to painful, her wetness soaking through and smearing against the tops of her thighs. All this was impossible, but it felt so damn real, too strong to be a dream, too strange to be a dream, even as strange as dreams could be.

  Every time she thought she’d regained control of her tongue to tell him to get out of her room, to go away, that she was definitely calling the police now, that her husband was just downstairs, he would stroke himself again, and the action would erase the board of her mind.

  “At least let the covers fall. Let me see more of you. I crave the sight of your body as much as the sensation of it against my flesh. Show yourself to me.”

  In spite of the cold, sweat dripped down the back of her neck and the valley of her spine. She struggled to gain control over these all-too-strong, all-too-new aches and pangs of what seemed lik
e unfiltered, unadulterated lust—just as dangerous as anything else pure. Whimpers spilled from her pressed-tight lips as she tried to hold back.

  “I cannot enter unless you allow it. I cannot harm you or even touch you if you don’t let me in. What harm would there be in showing yourself to me? You want to. Your nipples harden and your belly tightens at the thought of me seeing you—the thought of another man seeing what your man cannot appreciate. Even my gaze upon you will be better for you than twenty hours under his hands.”

  This is not normal. She didn’t know what normal was, but this couldn’t be it. People weren’t prostrate on the ground at concerts by their favorite bands. People weren’t moaning in ecstasy when their favorite song came on the radio. I really don’t think this is normal.

  “Who are you?” It was all she could manage to say before another pang of need cramped through her abdomen. She shook her head against another whimper.

  “I’m the best sex you’ve ever had.” His answer came to her as a promise. “Let the covers go. Lose your inhibitions. I uncovered myself, showed you my lust. I’ll show you more if you show me yours.”

  She let the hand holding the duvet drop to the bed, hoped that giving in a little would ease some of this ache. It didn’t. A sob escaped her.

  It didn’t help that when she lowered the cover, he doubled over with a groan of his own, and he quickened his hand over his erection.

  He spoke of tasting her, but his own desire seemed to thicken her air as she breathed. As each breath entered her, it weakened her resolve. The snow-strewn breeze fluttered the curtains, struck her newly exposed skin, but though she marbled, her nipples tightening further, it had little effect on the heat inside her. She didn’t need the covers when she had his gaze.

  “You are a tasty thing, aren’t you?” The muffled slapping sound of his hand over his cock was loud in the quiet room, unbearably obscene. “Painters and poets dream of such a muse.”

  “Neve, is that you? Are you watching something in there?”

  Neve had left the bedroom door open a crack. Now the man at the window jerked his head toward Joseph coming down the hall. The door closed on its own, locked with a definitive click.

  “I know you’re mad at me, but I thought I heard you crying. Are you all right?”

  Neve turned from the closed door to the man in the window.

  In the darkness of his eye sockets, she saw Maya’s dark hair, Joseph’s fingers tangled through it. She saw Joseph grasping Maya’s body as though to imprint her upon his memory. She’d known their marriage had cracks, but she hadn’t imagined how broken it was, that she couldn’t swear her husband had been faithful just yesterday or the day before.

  “You’re even more beautiful when you’re angry,” the man whispered.

  “Neve?” Joseph tried to open the door, with no success.

  “He’s not even a man. He doesn’t deserve a woman like you. Do you know what a woman like you deserves?”

  Her legs shaking, Neve lowered herself back onto the bed, parted her knees and slid off her underwear. “Come here,” she said softly, “and show me.”

  “Your wish is my command.” The man climbed down from the window, his steps muffled by the carpet. But his body whispered, skin brushing skin. She couldn’t deny him as some dream figment. He was too large, blotting out the snow, a looming shape advancing upon her like some kind of monster. But though she thought she might hyperventilate, only a little of it was from fear.

  She was going to do this. She had just invited a stranger into her bedroom, a man who otherwise would be considered a total pervert for masturbating himself uninvited at her window. She should have been calling the police—or at the very least, setting aside her anger and shouting for Joseph to help her, save her. But after witnessing her husband break their vows, break their marriage, the marriage was over. She didn’t want Joseph anymore. She wanted this. She wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything in her whole life.

  He stalked toward her bed like a predator, his cock even larger and more daunting the closer it came. He climbed onto the foot of the bed, crawled over the duvet, his knees and fists pressing deep into the mattress with a profound creak at every inch forward. He was shadow and furnace heat. She was afraid that his touch would leave blisters behind, but he arched over her, keeping himself away to the last. Even his cock, drawn down by its weight, didn’t reach her from how he positioned himself above her.

  When he stroked along her cheek and into her hair to cradle the back of her head, she somehow didn’t catch fire. He caught her cry just in time, slanting his mouth to slide his tongue along hers. She felt branded, not blistered, by his hands, his lips, his tongue, claimed in a matter of moments.

  He might as well have locked a shackle to her neck. Nothing he did would ever be enough.

  “Neve, please,” Joseph called through the door. “I’m kind of worried now. Just tell me you’re okay and I’ll go back downstairs.”

  The man’s hair waterfalled over his shoulders to brush her chest like fingers. She reached up through the locks, strands clinging to her hands, to hold him in the kiss, to keep him close. She drank the soft groans he gifted her, licked and sucked what he offered. She had no idea what she was doing, and she didn’t care. She’d become the creature, the animal that humans were before civilization demanded its rules and rituals. She didn’t care that it was messy or lacked finesse, and neither did he.

  Just his mouth, hand and hair brought her to the edge then pushed her over to fall, body clenching and tensing in a primitive rhythm she recognized but had never experienced like this. He bit her lip, sucked it with relish, then covered her mouth again to muffle her cry as she came. Her hips lifted from the bed, but he still kept himself away from her, laughing as he avoided the contact she instinctively sought, her need to fill the hollowness made unbearable by her orgasm.

  “It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it, if just my kiss can bring you to your climax? I barely have to try. How long has he left you unsatisfied?” He nudged her nose with his then dipped down to her neck. He covered her mouth with his hand before she could cry out. “Shhh, woman, unless you want him to hear. Of course, if you do, I can make you scream louder.”

  “I’ve never… It’s never felt like…”

  “Tragedy, tragedy. His shame is my delight.”

  She ran her tongue over his palm, taking in the salt of his pre-cum and the strong musky scent of him caught under the curtain of his hair. “Let him hear.”

  “With pleasure.” His smile warmed his words further.

  Then he kissed her neck, using his teeth to call a flush to his tongue. He lowered his hand to stroke her lips with two fingers. She anticipated his intent and opened her mouth for him again. He stroked his fingers over her tongue, a mimicry of what he would do to her, either in her mouth or her cunt. Not that two fingers were enough to compare to his cock, but the comparison was apt enough for her palate. Her mouth watered as he thrust to the knuckle, where she ran the tip of her tongue across the creases before his palm.

  He bit her neck then the swell of her breast above her nipple, but he avoided the taut, aching bud to bite the underside. A pained groan followed when he abandoned her breasts to bring his mouth lower.

  Oh God. Just thinking about it felt dirty. Joseph had performed oral for hours on her, employed every trick he already knew and a number of them he’d had to look up. But in the end, they’d given up on that and contented themselves with using a vibrator if he needed her to come. From the strange man’s kiss alone, she’d already experienced a tremblor multiple orders of magnitude greater than one of her old orgasms.

  He was gentler on her abdomen, little deliberate licks down her to navel, to the soft belly below. He inhaled like a dragon preparing to breathe fire.

  “Your skin is sweet, love, but you smell dark and wicked where you want me. Shall I taste such wickedness from its source? Would you make your angel fall for you?”

  He still hadn’t br
ought his body against hers, hadn’t given her the closeness and intimacy she needed more than sex, had needed all of her life and knew so much better than the pleasure torturing her like a sadist with thorns under her skin. Before she could beg for more than the parts of him he’d allowed her, he licked a line up her inner thigh to her folds. He swiped through them with the tip of his tongue, dragging his lips along, before closing his mouth over her clit and pressing his deft tongue to the hood in a soft, luxuriant suck.

  She clapped her hand to her mouth to contain her cry on her own, not quite ready for her husband to hear her, despite what she’d said to the man making the music he’d promised. Her flesh flamed, prickled with the intense heat emanating from his expert mouth. If she had wick, he would have lit it and melted the wax down in a matter of minutes, like Bell’s truth candles.

  Neve clawed at the sheets with her free hand. The other she made into a fist, gagging herself, though she dug her teeth into her fingers. She tried to find an anchor for what she was feeling, for the swell of emotion and sensation, but there was nothing to hold, no way to hold it in. Her cry sounded like crying, like sorrow keening through her fist. Underneath the nails of her other hand, she tore through the sheets as though she had claws. Tears seeped from under her eyelids, and her arousal dripped out of her to dampen his chin. He broke away from her clit to nudge her thighs wider with his shoulders and probe her cunt with his tongue. Whatever he tasted there, it made him moan, a more powerful vibration than anything mechanical she’d tried.

  “I can’t.” His pained admission sounded as much like sorrow as her cries. “Damn it, I can’t wait anymore.”

  He raised his head from her cunt, wiped his mouth like a cat after a feast. Up close, she could see him a little more clearly, and the sense she knew him became stronger, but the fog from their bodies in the cold room had grown thicker, obscuring him in waves.

  “If I had the endurance, I would take all night to have you. I’d savor you slowly, make it last. But I’ve waited too long, held myself back from so many. I can’t hold back from you anymore, not when you taste so dark, my delicious, rich pomegranate. How I’d make you last…if I wasn’t so fucking hungry.”