Funhouse

by Aurelia T. Evans

  Sometimes during the afternoons, she headed into the big top tent. She hadn’t yet seen a full performance, but watching rehearsals was close enough to the real thing. She was regularly impressed.

  Victor mostly played foundation to Valorie and Lennon’s tumbling, although he did quite a bit of it himself. Neve had been avoiding him—because she was ashamed of herself, not of him—but she liked to watch him flipping through the air as much as she enjoyed watching Seth and Lars practice—although Seth and Lars practicing was significantly sexier than the tumbling. Part of their whole concept was defying the laws of gravity because of the way they were magically connected. The aerial act itself was less spectacular than the conceit, which was the premise of the whole circus—Is it real or not? And does it matter, as long as it looks amazing?

  Maya’s high-wire act was predicated on the fact that she couldn’t fall, so there were all sorts of things she could do. She wasn’t quite at Kitty’s or Neve’s curviness, but as Joseph had pointed out, she was top-heavy, and she was built with more curves than the usual skinny, petite miss who would walk the high-wire—because thinner legs were easier to keep closer together, and the less sway a woman had to her walk, the better. Valorie’s would have been the better frame for high-wire and tightrope walking, but she was already an aerial contortionist, and Maya doing flips, handsprings and freefalls in circles, plus assorted other balancing acts, was much more impressive.

  The fire-eater practiced his act as well, complete with juggling, fire fan dances and tumbling that ended with flips through flaming hoops.

  When Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail entered the big top, everyone else mostly cleared out, not inclined to stick around while the sex demons stoked each other and anyone close to them. But Sasha and Mikhail needed to practice what they’d planned for the weekend. Based on what she saw in rehearsals, everyone regularly changed their routine. After so much same old, same old, she supposed they had to keep things fresh.

  It kept things fresh for the audience, too. A new guest wouldn’t know that anything was different. He’d just get a good show. But a regular attendee would appreciate the variety, all the more reason to return again and again. Neve hadn’t been surprised to learn that there were Arcanium groupies and fan clubs, and not just because some of the circus folk were prone to sleeping with outsiders.

  Mikhail knew she was there in the bleachers, watching them, but if Sasha did, she gave no indication. She and Mikhail did their routines, talked when they wanted to change something, repeated moves until they agreed it had the desired effect. They emanated, but not as strongly as during the actual performances, when Neve could feel them all the way from the food court. Lady Sasha kept their interaction entirely professional, and Lord Mikhail respected her wishes. As soon as rehearsal finished, Lady Sasha went one way, and after a wistful look into the bleachers wherever Neve was sitting, Lord Mikhail went the other way. It was amazing how much a demon could look so much like a kicked puppy.

  On the afternoon Bell sat next to her, though, there was bounce in Mikhail’s step, and a smile touched the corner of his eyes, if not anywhere else in his expression.

  Bell straddled the bench, one foot higher than the other due to the elevation of the bleachers, his elbow on his higher knee. It was a performance of nonchalance, but with him, sometimes it was difficult to tell what wasn’t a performance. She didn’t face him, continued to watch the sex demons performing, but she caught the arrangement of him out of the corner of her eye, and his presence had an attraction all its own—different from the kind Mikhail had on her, but undeniable.

  “Tonight, Arcanium is going downtown for a Funhouse event. The nature of what we do during the events pushes enough boundaries that we’d be unlikely to manage them without the patronage of just the right people, but the Funhouse is quite near and dear to my dark, little clockwork heart, and I’d very much like you to be a part of it. It’s the reason I brought you into Arcanium in the first place. I think it would suit you, if you let it. But it’s your decision. Attendance is mandatory for all working cast these days. Participation has never been.”

  “What boundaries would you be pushing, exactly, that are farther than the haunted funhouse?” she asked, sitting almost primly, which was more a function of the bleacher benches than naturally good posture. However, her lower back stiffened at what he might be asking of her.

  “Come now, Neve. A dedicated horror fan such as yourself knows better than to think the circus funhouse pushes all the boundaries that it could. The things we do during the events are not strictly legal the way what we do during circus hours are, when I suggest, intimate, tease but ultimately hold back. Patrons pay a flat fee for our time at Funhouse events. Some of the things we do during that time, though completely consensual and unpaid for, may be perceived by outside parties as something entirely different.”

  She finally turned to look at him, incredulous and unsure why she was still so incredulous. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Not quite.” A boyish grin much like his old one returned to his face. “The Funhouse is what we already do in the circus, but amplified, truer, what everyone wants it to be and what I envisaged for Arcanium from the beginning. You know perfectly well I’ve no interest in prostituting out my people. Money’s merely adequate compensation for the entertainment we provide, and people expect me to ask for it.”

  “Sounds an awful lot like prostitution, Bell, and like you made me for the sole purpose of pimping me out. Or else you’re not explaining it very well.”

  His smile faded, but not into anger. “How would you like the hands on you to do more?”

  Bell seemed to feed upon her reaction—as though he knew about the strange man in the fedora and what the hands had done while he’d watched, as though that had been designed as the teaser for this little request.

  “The Funhouse is where the horror of Arcanium meets its eroticism, a place for people to encounter the true Arcanium that awakens after they leave. It’s what I would have Arcanium be if not for the censures and strictures placed upon an operation like mine, as well as upon the individuals that make up so many of my people. Do you think you are alone in how you feel now, in your resentment, guilt, confusion? Arcanium was built to set that free.”

  He slid himself closer, still perched like a sprite.

  “Imagine the Serpent King, the Spider, the mermaid, the werewolf, the Creature, the Tall Man, the Horned God, all laid bare for everyone who ever had a flicker of curiosity for what hid under the leather and latex. Imagine the Ringmaster laying his whip upon the back of someone who begged him for it rather than begged him to stop. Imagine the horror and intrigue of limbs removed, the man or woman completely vulnerable. Imagine the carnal awareness of a body’s insides as well as its outsides, writhing in what appears to be pain but could also be pleasure. Imagine what lurid horrors we can bring to life when we’re simply given the room to allow these terrible fantasies to come to fruition.”

  Without his smile and with that off-kilter attraction engrained in his being, she was all the more aware of the sheer performance of him. He fit into his role like a glove, human visage nothing but a costume, although she hadn’t seen so much as a pair of black eyes from him. He wore arrogance, casual flexibility and fey beauty as though he’d been vacuum-sealed into a latex bodysuit, but there were places here and there where the illusion threatened to peek through, if a person dared look close enough to notice. The wideness of his mouth when he smiled, showing too many teeth. A fleck of gold in his hazel eyes. The golden band around his strong upper arm. The set of his shoulders and neck, simultaneously tense and relaxed at the same time. It was all of these things and none of them that betrayed him, but peering too closely hurt the eyes, like staring too hard at an optical illusion.

  Krishna had held the universe in his throat. Neve wondered what sort of universes Bell’s façade concealed.

  “The Funhouse is a chance to explore those terrible fantasies safely. I have
ways of keeping the law from interfering. The only rules and laws that matter are mine. That means you don’t have to be a part of it, although I’d hoped you would consent to being an exhibit and perhaps yield to your nature enough for a performance.”

  He took her hand, turned it to run his fingers along the lines on her palms as he had done in the fortune teller tent. Neve wished she could pretend he was hypnotizing her, but sincere passion bled through every smooth, charismatic word.

  “You don’t need to decide now, my dear, but I’d like you to see it before you convict me of procuring and pandering, before you think yourself a whore for me.” He passed his thumb along the blue threads of the veins in her wrist. Her breath caught, her mouth parting slightly at the static electric sparks from the contact.

  He brought his other fine hand to her lips. So attuned was she to his touch, she could practically feel the texture of the ridges and whorls of his fingerprint.

  Bell leaned in, but he was the one to veer away, lowering his head so that his forehead pressed to hers. Neve closed her eyes tightly, hating herself because she knew that if he’d kissed her, she would have welcomed it and everything more. Because he was warm and beautiful, and sex with him would be like his kiss, sweet and impossibly intense. It was all somehow worse knowing how good his kiss had made her feel before she’d understood what a manipulative bastard he was, before she’d known what he’d made her.

  “I apologize. I would say it was unintentional, but I won’t lie. Misguided. Careless. Ill-advised.” He retreated, pushing himself back on the bench. “Think about it, Neve. Think about what your own dark heart desires, about what the true Arcanium can do for you. You have until this evening, when you’ll see what Funhouse has to offer.”

  He swung his legs over the bench and stood.

  Neve wanted to ask him something, but the question hooked into her tongue behind her lips, and she didn’t dare open her mouth again.

  Because she didn’t ask, he didn’t answer. He nimbly descended the bleachers bench by bench rather than down the stairs. She clenched the edge of her own bench, her lips wishing she hadn’t let Bell turn away.

  * * * *

  Neve knocked on the Spider’s RV door. With daylight growing dim and the golems scuttling around like the worker ants they were, Neve didn’t have much time left, and she’d reached the end of her own considerations without arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. The rules of decision-making—and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?—now suggested she ask a friend for advice. Neve didn’t know the cast well enough, although most of them were perfectly nice.

  She did, however, have peers—people in the same situation she found herself in—and the Spider’s name kept coming up.

  The Spider opened the door, wearing a black terrycloth robe and nothing else. She blinked with obvious perplexity.

  “Were you expecting someone else?” Neve asked.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone. Oh, the robe? No, nothing like that. There isn’t much I can wear. That used to bother me, but now I barely notice.” She tucked the sides of the robe more firmly around her. “Did you need something?”

  “Is it all right if I ask you some questions?”

  The Spider looked no less perplexed. “Okay… Would you like to come in? Ignore the mess. My housekeeping skills have suffered some. Something to drink?”

  The last part was said ironically, because the mess the Spider spoke of was a vast collection of whiskey and bourbon bottles on the floor in the tiny living space. The scent hit Neve just as she entered, and the sight struck her just as hard.

  Far be it from her to criticize someone else’s house, though. “No, thanks. I don’t drink much.”

  “Must be nice.” The Spider sipped from the glass she’d obviously been nursing before Neve had arrived. “Sorry. I don’t really entertain, and I take up a lot of space when I sit. There’s room in the cab or in the bedroom. Which would you prefer?”

  “The cab,” Neve said quickly.

  The Spider’s grin was wry. “Don’t worry. I’m not that kind of spider.”

  “It’s not you.” Just the mention of a bed, knowing the woman was naked and that Neve might as well be, triggered an automatic reaction she’d rather avoid.

  The Spider crawled into the cab after Neve, squeezing herself through the narrow opening and settling with her back legs splayed. The logistics of multiple limbs as fully developed as hers had to be difficult to manage. Yet the Spider still made sure her drink didn’t spill.

  “People don’t come to me for questions. That’s usually Kitty’s job.”

  “I don’t think Kitty can help me,” Neve said. “She doesn’t have the same conflict. Based on what I’ve heard, you might.”

  In spite of Neve’s suspicion that this wasn’t her first tumbler, the glint in the Spider’s eye was shrewd, assessing, as sharp as her teeth. “Religious objections?”

  “Sort of.” Neve didn’t think there was a polite-society way to talk about it, so she stopped trying. “All my life before I came to Arcanium, I was uninterested in sex. My parents weren’t strict about my Christian upbringing, but I was firmly in the ‘no sex until monogamous marriage, no divorce’ camp, although I wasn’t really fundamentalist or evangelical about it. It was the way things were supposed to be, and it wasn’t a trial, with a whole deadly sin not even part of my repertoire, you know?”

  The Spider laughed, loud, harsh and dark, but not cruel at all. “Sorry. That wasn’t directed at you. I’m afraid I had a more fundamentalist upbringing, but I took on every last deadly sin in spades before I was even a legal adult. Funny how we ended up in the same place, isn’t it?”

  “Bell bringing me here basically broke every principle I followed,” Neve said. “I’m still technically married, though my husband talked about divorce before Bell took me. After what Joseph did with Maya, I probably would have gone along with it eventually, but I’m still married in the eyes of God and the state. I never thought my religious objections were that strong until they were challenged. But now I want sex all the time, with anyone at all, and damn it, I hate this. I hate feeling like Bell and Mikhail are following the letter of Bell’s law while still forcing me into having sex I’d rather not have. But my body wants it—needs it. I can’t say no. And I don’t know what to do. I assume you must have made a decision at some point—principle or pleasure. I was wondering how you balance that.”

  The Spider took a generous swallow of her drink then set it down in a cupholder. “Principle or pleasure—I like it. The short answer is that I don’t balance it. I had to decide to give up the principles, not that they were particularly useful to me before Arcanium either. I’m with the Creature because he’s kind, because he gives me something I need and because I think I love him, strange as we are. On the rare occasion I do fuck another member of Arcanium, it’s because he asks me to, so I can give him what he needs, and it satisfies a few of mine. Is it biblical? Not in the least. You need to decide if that’s your line.”

  “What if I don’t know?” Neve asked.

  “If it’s not biblical principle, what about having indiscriminate sex turns you off? Why resist it at all? No one else here does. Most of the people in Arcanium have no compunction about sleeping with man, woman or human-like beast—and given I lie with something that calls itself the Creature, who’s better than any man I’ve encountered, I can hardly throw stones. Kitty calls it taking comfort in what comfort you can find. Maya calls it purgatory. For me, I never had a chance at resisting, and if Bell modeled your…appetite after mine, I don’t know that you have a choice either.”

  Neve combed her hair back, scratching at her scalp in the process. Was it the voice of God, the little angel on her shoulder, that told her not to commit adultery, not to sleep around, not to spread her legs for anything and everything? Was it the voice of Society, that melting pot of thoughts and beliefs that drew most from the American undercurrent of Puritanism and Protestantism, with its fundamental suspicion of women and poor
opinion of men?

  When an image depicted lust, it showed Aphrodite rather than Eros. Jezebel, the Whore of Babylon, the whisper campaign that Mary Magdalene’s demons had been sexual and that she’d been the woman at the well with many men under her belt… Though, given the stereotype of the promiscuous, voracious red-haired woman, the secular world she’d grown up in was just as responsible for her hesitation as religious upbringing.

  But the more Neve examined her life, the more she thought religion didn’t have a damn thing to do about it.

  It formed the surface of her objections, not the foundation. Heaven knew she didn’t let religious objections stop her from other actions, other beliefs, no matter what the Bible said. She had her own principles, some of them biblical, some of them just plain human decency.

  Abstaining from sex had a practical element that didn’t apply in a magic circus where most of the consequences had been removed precisely so that people could have as much sex as they wanted—and with whomever they wanted. As far as Neve could tell, Bell’s vision for Arcanium was decadence rather than temptation of the soul. Depending on who was right on the question of religion, the difference might not matter, but Neve was just a woman, and a woman could only do her best. Take comfort where she could, like Kitty said.

  And still Neve hesitated. Struggled to resist. Hated herself for giving in. Hated the ones with whom she gave in, even when they were considerate, kind.

  Which she supposed had been the Spider’s reason for asking.

  If her point of principle wasn’t that God frowned down at her in paternal disapproval whenever she had sex with someone who wasn’t her husband, why did she feel like shit?

  “Was your objection religious?” Neve asked.

  “Don’t model yourself after me, new girl. I ran away from my fundie family straight into the arms of a sexual predator who turned me into what Bell turned you into. I’m such a tangle of victim grooming, post-traumatic stress and religious contempt that when Bell first brought me in, I’d basically accepted that I was the worst sinner and destined for hell because I couldn’t stop myself from doing what my conditioning told me to do. These days, with the Creature there for me to relieve those impulses with someone I actually like, I don’t struggle with the same ambivalence.”