“You like that?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied hoarsely.
“Now what do you tell me?”
“Thank you?” John asked. He was too stunned to add sarcasm.
“Well, yes. And you’re welcome. I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Mistress knows best’, but that works.”
He turned his head and bit her thigh above her knee, where she was still kneeling on either side of his head as she reclined. She jumped then laughed a little.
“What about your side of the bargain?” he asked. He lifted his hips involuntarily as she shifted her head closer to the place where the leather seemed molded to his scrotum with the tightness from his erection.
“What bargain is that?” she asked. She nuzzled his balls, turned her neck more so that she could mouth them, one side then the other.
You know what they say—more than a mouthful’s wasted, she thought with amusement. Tight, close balls, but thick cock. She brushed it with her cheek a few times as she lavished her attention, one layer removed, on his testicles.
“The one where…if I give you…what you need…you’ll…give me…what I need,” John said. What she was doing to him kept taking his breath away, as though it was sucked right out of his mouth every few words. It was cute.
“But what do you need, fire-eater? What do you really need? What do we all really need?” Valorie murmured up the ridge of his cock. Then she pulled herself up until she was sitting on his chest.
“Come on,” he begged. What sounded like annoyance was really just desperation. “Are you shitting me?”
Valorie laughed again, a little wickedly. She let him wonder whether she was going to do for him as she stood. His face was shiny. She could smell herself on him. He brushed some of it away with his rope, but rope wasn’t made for absorption or cleaning. He winced at the roughness against his skin. She thought he might actually cry in anger if she were to deny him. With his history, she almost wanted to see that. But she had mercy on him—mercy he didn’t deserve, but she decided to give it anyway.
“Oh, thank God,” he breathed when she crouched down and began to undo his trousers.
“No, thank me,” she said.
She made a small noise of appreciation when she wrapped her fingers around the shaft and pulled him out. He was a satisfactory size, but even better to her was his heft. His cock pulled to the side under its own weight. The purplish head gleamed from pre-cum, and she polished him with her palm. The cords of John’s neck stood out as she rubbed the lubrication along the length, like a groom rubbing her horse down, until he shone everywhere.
“One of these days, if you’re real nice, I might suck this as well as you sucked me off,” Valorie murmured. “But right now, I need a cock inside of me, and I think yours will do nicely.”
“Whatever I can do to help.” It sounded like his throat had narrowed to the size of a toothpick as he watched her position her cunt above him, the cunt that he’d made so slick with her orgasm and his saliva. She nearly slammed down when he breached the entrance. Valorie forced herself to take it slow, however, to torment him and to get a longer look at his eyes rolling back once more, his teeth clenched, his hands clasped tightly against his chest like a man praying, his whole upper body tense… The man looked possessed, even though he was the one entering her.
Once she’d taken him all in, seated against the base, Valorie groaned, moving her hips in small circles to tug at the tight flesh around his base.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been needing. Don’t need to be a demon to do it right. God made this one just as special,” Valorie muttered. It didn’t mean anything, just a moan put into words.
She clamped her knees on his hips, tucking her feet under his thighs so she had some measure of a hold. She squeezed her cunt around him and slapped his damp cheek lightly when he tried to thrust up into her.
“You. Stay still,” she said over his agonized groan. “I’m going to give you what you want. You don’t get to take it. I’m not even making you do any work, and you’ll get to shoot up all inside me, no rubber, so stop your grousing.”
“Fuck, you’re a dirty girl,” he said.
“You have no idea,” Valorie replied.
She didn’t squeeze or do anything else with her hips over his cock anymore as she began to untie his wrists.
“I don’t care about being tied up,” John said, pleading with his eyes. “I just want…”
“It’s not about what you want,” Valorie said. “It’s about what I give you, boy, and I’m giving you a small bit of freedom so you can play with my tits as I take you. Or hold on to my waist. Whatever strikes your fancy, as long as I’m still the one riding you and not the other way around.”
It didn’t take long. As soon as his wrists were free—there was some blood, but he didn’t seem to notice it—he pushed himself sitting only for Valorie to tighten her muscles around his cock again and point him back down.
This could be it. Valorie was devious, more experienced, older, certainly more flexible, not averse to fighting dirty, but he had strength on her. If he decided that he wanted to do it his way, there was nothing she could do to stop him except attempt to bash his head against the coffee table or the floor, which she wasn’t going to do. And Bell wouldn’t come running, because she’d be enjoying herself. There was no denying that the image in her head of a big, strong, athletic man over her, being the top, pumping powerfully into her, was appealing. It wasn’t what she wanted tonight, certainly not from John, but she wouldn’t say no if he insisted.
But she wouldn’t let there be a second chance if he broke faith now. He could choke his chicken for the next year and a half for all she cared. He’d come into Arcanium with the trust completely obliterated, especially when it came to sex. He could have languished for far more years than this if he hadn’t had the good fortune of one of the human women of Arcanium needing to get laid.
He wasn’t going to take her against her will either way, but he could make this about power, and that was the same thing that had gotten him here in the first place.
John panted as she tightened herself around him, as much like a vise as a slippery orifice could be. His hips twitched on their own. She could practically see the internal struggle.
Take or accept.
He slowly lowered himself back on his elbows then lay down on the floor again.
“There’s my boy,” she whispered, leaning down and stroking his chest. It had a few burn marks too, as though he’d been hit with a drop or five of boiling water on his shoulders and chest, but they weren’t as extensive as the scars on his face and hands. His skin felt like skin instead of warm, dried wax, and she enjoyed kneading the muscles that he’d cultivated after years of sports training. As soon as he slid his hands up to her waist she began to move over him, lifting her hips even as she kept the rest of her upper half almost steady.
When she was done exploring his chest, her cunt revved up again like a revived motor at the shallow strokes of his cock she gave herself. She propped herself back up, using gravity’s help to grind down.
As she bounced, her small breasts jiggled. He brought his hands up her ribs when she really started to ride him so that he could stroke the pert nipples with his thumbs. He didn’t cup them, didn’t stop her breasts from moving—and when she really started bobbing over him, the jiggling began to ache pleasantly and unpleasantly at the same time. The undersides hit his palms with light slaps, and in the meantime he made her nipples ache pleasantly and unpleasantly too. She was so sensitive there. She’d never known whether it was because they were small or whether it was just her, but she was used to them hurting and practically zinging with arousal that shot straight down between her legs. It meant he was doing something right, her nipples tightening until they were hard little pebbles under his thumbs.
Two could play at that game.
Actually, she doubted playing with his nips and pecs would get her the same kinds of reactions, but she could
still squeeze her cunt muscles around him off-rhythm to her pace and the natural contractions like flutters on his cock. It wasn’t right that she was the one who wanted to scream when he was the one who’d been without sex for so much longer.
His hands started grasping. His breath became ragged, and he pounded his heels on the floor. His teeth were gritted against any sound, almost as though he didn’t want to give her that, didn’t want her to reduce him anymore. But she wouldn’t have it.
Valorie leaned back, grabbing his still leather-clad thighs, and rode him at an angle that was tighter on him and pulled her folds back from her clit. That was where she brought one hand now, stroking herself furiously above and around but never directly on. Sometimes her fingers slid down to where he split her, which he had to see even better than her, given the way he was unable to tear his gaze away.
The ends of her hair tickled her shoulders and arms as she let her head fall back, focusing all her power, strength and speed on the movement of her hips and her hand.
“Oh God.” Each word wrenched out of him. “Oh God. Oh God. Fuck!”
His hips snapped up, but she could forgive him the lapse, because he slickened her further as his cock jerked. It seemed to go on forever. He’d probably expelled more than his share of seed into his hand all this time, but something had been held back. That something let loose now, over and over until he practically screamed with each pulse of it inside her.
It was messy, wet and exhilarating, knowing that she was the one who had cut the thread that finally let him come, really come, freeing him for a time from the cumulative effect of the sex demons’ magic.
And it kept him hard and hot for her while she drove herself to her second climax, using his cock while he cried out and bucked on the floor, holding on to her hips like a life raft.
When he’d released her and gone limp, she was almost concerned that he’d screwed himself into unconsciousness. He probably hadn’t even known how sexually tense he was after a while.
But John stared up at her, his eyes hooded as she brought herself down from her own high.
“Was it worth it?” she asked, crossing her arms on his chest and resting her chin on her forearms to stare down at him.
“Did I melt inside you?” John asked. “I’m pretty sure I actually started turning into a liquid.”
“We’ll figure that out when I let your cock out of me,” she said, grinning. “But you seem solid enough to me—more or less. Want a drink?” She could reach the fridge from where they lay, but she eased him out of her and stood, heedless of the wetness trickling down her thigh.
He sat up and accepted the open bottle of beer that she gave him.
As she knelt at his feet to undo the ropes there, Valorie started giggling madly.
“What?” John asked, cautiously insolent.
“Now it looks like you’ve been fucking a cinnamon bun instead of pie.”
He took in the sight of his cock, softening and covered with her juices and a considerable amount of his own semen.
His embarrassed, crooked grin was made more appealing by straight, white teeth. All-American, this one, in many ways—bad as well as good—but no denying the charm when he wasn’t being a grade A enema. There might be hope for him yet.
“I’ll let you have the shower first,” she said. “I’m dripping, but you’ve got a little…me on your face. And a lot of me and you on your dick.”
“I’m damn sure I had a lot of you on my face,” John said.
She slapped his bare ass before he could pull up his trousers.
“Once I’m out, though, I expect to see you gone,” Valorie said, taking a swig of her own beer. “I don’t keep pets in my bed, and I need my beauty sleep.”
“Pretty sure you don’t,” he muttered.
But he didn’t protest as he ducked into the small but manageably sized bathroom and closed the door.
Chapter Four
Lennon sat down next to her and popped a raw egg into his mouth. It bulged his throat as he swallowed.
“What are you doing?” Valorie asked. She had her own breakfast in front of her on the fold-up picnic table backstage where the cast took their morning meals. On circus days, the golems made breakfast burritos. Sometimes Lennon had them and sometimes he preferred his eggs uncooked.
“I’m sitting,” Lennon replied.
“But why are you sitting here?” Valorie asked.
“Because there was a seat. What? You need regular access to my prick for me to sit next to you? Is that how this works, love?” Lennon asked.
Valorie glared at him, but while annoyance wasn’t a difficult emotion for her to access, she couldn’t manage to stay mad. He’d sat next to her before they’d started having sex. There was no reason why he couldn’t sit next to her after they’d stopped. She could ignore him just as well now as she’d used to.
“Whatever,” she said.
He popped another egg into his mouth in response. He didn’t force her into conversation. Talking wasn’t really their thing. Besides, he’d won the argument.
“Yeah. Could you imagine only eating breakfast with those you’d slept with?” Maya asked with a smile.
“The question wouldn’t be who you’d sit with, it would be who you couldn’t sit with,” Valorie replied.
“There aren’t many people I’ve been with that you haven’t been with first.”
“Calm down, girls,” Kitty said, not looking up from her paperback. “You’re not competing for circus slut. Besides, I’m pretty sure I have both of you beat on overall quantity.” She raised her fist, still focused on her book. “I win.”
“It makes a black heart so proud,” Lennon said, “knowing how our women have grown.”
“You’re just proud you corrupted us,” Maya said.
Bell continued eating his breakfast in silence, wearing one of his subtler smirks. He ate his breakfast burrito with a fork and a knife. He was clearly not human.
“Who said they corrupted us?” Valorie asked. “Who said we weren’t already like this before we were pulled into here?”
“I’m pretty sure I was never this slutty,” Maya muttered with her mouth full. “I don’t know about you and Kitty.”
“What’re you doing there, champ?” Lennon asked. “Catching flies or misfiring brain cells?”
Valorie glanced over her shoulder. John stood by their table, holding his plate and staring down like a loser in a school lunch room.
“What?” she said, with not a small touch of acid. One night of good sex—not even great sex when it came to Arcanium, but good—didn’t absolve him from his sins. At least that was the way Maya would say it, in her incessant and frankly insane need to continue being a good Catholic girl while boning a jinni whom some would call a demon, regardless of how he identified.
“I—” John began. He swallowed then looked away. “Throat was burning. Had to take a moment.”
“Move along,” Lennon said with a grand flourish.
John continued past their table to the one where Shawn and Marcus sat. They each took opposite ends of the same bench, effectively eating alone. John sat in the middle on the other side. Melanie had been put in her transfer tank away from the tables, closer to the animal cages. They were all isolated. Even Jason and Lily, the lion and tiger, had each other.
Valorie felt nothing as John walked away. She continued eating her breakfast burrito. Not a single shred of guilt.
Bell caught her eye after she’d returned to her meal. He raised an eyebrow in query.
As though he didn’t already know.
Valorie nodded slightly, running her finger over her lip and licking it.
“Glad to be of service. Feel free to avail yourself of the gift whenever you like.”
But no. Valorie wasn’t interested in settling again. She didn’t want a consolation prize, even if that prize was a decent pet. She wasn’t the fire-eater’s handler, and she wasn’t interested in being his partner, his buddy or his lover. Once was fu
n, but enough as far as she was concerned.
* * * *
She tapped her forehead with her toes. Her stomach was on the carpet on her platform, her legs bent over her from either side until her feet rested comfortably on the curve of her head. Some of the members of the audience giggled, especially when Valorie opened her eyes wide and looked up, as though to see who was knocking.
Valorie stepped forward with her feet in front of her face. She unwound until she was in a backbend then lifted herself to standing.
She bowed to applause, but her acknowledgment of the fourth wall didn’t last long when she was in her tent. Valorie had music instead of conversation to keep her entertained. She couldn’t knit like Kitty or watch TV like Arnie. Even Sandra, the twins, Victor and Christina could mostly just sit around looking weird. Lady Sasha, Lord Mikhail and Valorie’s oddities, however, required constant demonstration.
Valorie counted herself lucky that she could choose her own music, as long as it fit with the atmosphere of the circus and she kept it low enough that it didn’t interfere with anyone else’s tent. The placement of the speakers kept the sound limited to her platform and the area right outside it. Caroline was stuck listening to carousel music all day, even when no one was on the carousel.
Valorie was pretty sure she’d have become homicidal a lot sooner if she had to listen to that stuff for hours on end.
She turned around and spread her legs into an A-frame. The boys, who tended to stay around her tent more often than the women, whistled as she bent down to place her hands on the ground, her ass high in the air. The leather would shine and accentuate it like a comic book heroine’s. But she couldn’t think of a single comic book heroine—with her admittedly limited knowledge of the more obscure corners of the graphic novel world—who could walk her hands on the ground as she twisted her spine so that she could grab her knees and appear right-side-up between her thighs. Some of the whistles turned into winces of sympathetic pain, but one guy howled his approval and clapped. In appreciation of her skill, no doubt.
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