Needles & Sins

by John Everson

  I’m sure we’ll hear about yours soon.

  Go on in.

  Your daughter’s waiting for you.

  And…

  …Good luck.

  — | — | —

  LOVE &

  ROPE &

  SEX &

  SCREAMS

  A CIRCUS IN FIVE ACTS

  — | — | —

  AND THEN SOME

  “Stand tall, stand tall,” the barker cried.

  Ramsey didn’t know how he could do otherwise, what with all the naughty bits of his anatomy struggling to escape the confines of his clothes.

  “See the Three-Breasted Woman!” the barker continued. “Is she a freak of nature? Is she the next stage of evolution? Imagine if she was your mother…” the barker twirled one side of his black handlebar mustache and sneered with exaggerated slowness “…or your girlfriend.”

  Ramsey strained his neck above the other eager patrons of the tent and squinted as the curtain lifted behind the stage.

  Four long white fingers gripped the dirty canvas, and then slowly pulled the material aside, revealing inch by delicate inch of Yvette, the ace in the hole of Barnett & Staley’s Circus—a real live, honest-to-goodness three-breasted woman.

  One black fishnet leg stepped inside the tent, followed by her left sequined breast. A tendril of long black hair followed, then a rouged cheek.

  “She is everything you’ve dreamed of,” the barker continued, drawing out the moment. “And then some…”

  The dark pit of her belly followed, and then a thin nose and her eyes, emerald green and piercing.

  Ramsey trembled, and stretched taller. His mid-section seemed tauter, the rest of him should be, too.

  She materialized fully then. First one swell of flesh, then another, and then, indeed, another until she stood, white teeth grinning, two eyes daring, three breasts beckoning…

  The spotlight shone.

  And she stood still, at last, fully, undeniably, revealed.

  Ramsey shifted his hips, but felt no more comfortable than before. He could see her flesh pressing against the paper-thin red, sequined fabric. His eyes squinted hard…was it really three nipples playing against the outfit, or only two and a sock…or some other augmentation device?

  “Who will volunteer to test our Yvette?” the barker cooed. “Who will handle breasts one and two and…th-reeee to verify that she is all woman. And more?”

  The hands poked high among the nearly all-male audience, but a more delicate finger or two protruded from the crowd as well. Lesbians, or merely curious? Ramsey wondered at the painted nails.

  His hand joined the rest, and perhaps he looked more desperate than most. Or more normal. His belly didn’t protrude six inches beyond his belt and his face wasn’t marred by a dozen pockmarks or mangy tufts of hair. He looked like Joe-average. Sandy haired and blue-eyed, 155 pounds and five-foot-ten.

  The barker picked him.

  Heart pounding, mouth dry, Ramsey broke out of the standing-room-only crowd and approached the stage. She met his eye immediately, her gaze piercing and black, unblinking. He paused.

  “Go on, son, feel them,” the barker prodded.

  “Tell the rest—there are no implants or other chicaneries here…she is all woman. Plus one.”

  Yvette didn’t twitch or nod or even break into a small grin. She only stood there, watching him, invisibly daring him to reach out and feel her up in front of an audience of hundreds. Okay, maybe tens. But it felt like a mob.

  Ramsey blanched.

  “C’mon, boy,” the barker said again, annoyance creeping into his tone. “Don’t tell me you haven’t always wished for more. Yvette IS more. That she is. More than you could ever dream of.”

  Ramsey shook himself out of his frozen stance and moved closer, his heart beating in his chest like a crazed metronome. And then he was next to her, sweat beading across his brow and dripping down his ribs to moisten his belt. He hated to be the center of attention, always had. Why had he volunteered for this?

  But then he looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. She was pale.

  Thin.

  Scared.

  Those unblinking black eyes met his with a look that said, Be quick. Be gentle.

  He felt a chill flash down his spine, though he didn’t know why.

  “Go ahead,” the barker growled. “Feel her up. And then do it again. And AGAIN!”

  He laughed and the crowd followed, a cackle of horny jealous caws. They wanted her, and couldn’t believe this twit had gained the privilege.

  An almost-invisible nod from Yvette, and Ramsey felt his hands rise. It would be worse if he didn’t.

  He reached out, touching her shoulder and then trailing his fingers down, first cupping her left breast, feeling its heavy weight resting in his hand, then with light but visible squeezing, holding her right. He let his fingers drop slightly, to trail across the pendulous flesh that hung just beneath and between the other two, feeling and seeing her nipple rise against the cotton T-shirt as he brought his palm together in a light squeeze.

  Then a firm hand gripped his shoulder and moved him away from the girl, who stood stock-still before the crowd.

  “Is she real, or is she real?” the barker asked. Ramsey could feel the fingers on his arm tighten with each word.

  He nodded.

  “Definitely the real deal,” he found himself saying.

  It was just what the crowd wanted to hear.

  “Let’s hear it for our volunteer—and Yvette, The Three-Breasted Woman,” the barker begged, and they responded, clapping and hooting and hollering as Ramsey made his way back into the crowd. A sallow-faced man stopped him with a hand on his chest and stared hard at his eyes.

  “You really think she had three? It wasn’t just a put-on?” the man mumbled.

  Ramsey nodded. “They felt real. Honest.”

  The man dipped his head once, and faded back into the mob.

  Ramsey eased out the tent, before he had to field any other embarrassing questions, but as he slid through the mildewed canvas flap, he hesitated, looking back to the “stage.”

  The barker stood behind his star attraction, pretending to do a jiggly juggling act with the three “balls” anchored to Yvette’s chest, much to the delight of the mostly male audience.

  “She’s more than you can handle,” he joked, letting her center breast bounce down out of sequence.

  Yvette didn’t smile. Frown. Or blink.

  He met her gaze, or thought he did. For one electric instant, her eyes seemed to connect with his own. “Go on,” she seemed to say. “Forget about me.”

  Ramsey let the flap slide shut behind him, and moved on to sample the cloying sweetness of cotton candy and to lose a handful of dollars in games of “chance.”

  He figured he had more of a chance to score with a three-breasted woman than he had of winning at one of the rigged booth games—like tossing a basketball into a too-small hoop, or launching rubber frogs into the air with a slingshot and successfully having them land atop plastic lily pads. Eventually he gave up and went home, but not without stopping to look back at the freak show tent.

  Her tent.

  He couldn’t forget about her.

  Not that night, or the next.

  ««—»»

  Visions of the barker’s hands performing his rude juggling act kept leaping through Ramsey’s mind instead of sheep. And as he rubbed his eyes at work, the sensation of her firm, warm breasts kept tingling in his palms.

  He went back to the circus.

  This time he stood in the back of the tent as the mustacchioed man pushed and prodded and purloined his prize to another man in the audience, who approached his opportunity at triple nipple massage with more gusto than Ramsey had.

  Ramsey ignored the macho antics of the barker and his lusty volunteer and watched Yvette.

  She showed no expression through it all. She might as well have been a mannequin. He wondered if the circus kept he
r drugged in order to deal with the humiliation. The barker never went far from her side, prodding her to stand in the center of the stage, and never missing a chance to paw her overly-ample bosom with his beefy hairy hands. He seemed to hold her with an invisible leash.

  Ramsey saw the show winding towards its lewd juggling end, and then heard the barker offer something he hadn’t before.

  Something that made perfect sense.

  Something that made Ramsey’s heart swell to bursting with empathy and then, implode with sadness.

  “Now,” the barker said. “You’ve seen all that I can show you at a family show. But if you’re over 18…” He twirled his mustache and grinned. “…see me after this for our mature audiences-only show.”

  Ramsey slipped out of the tent. The lights gave off enough brilliance to mark the path towards the next tent, but not so much that he couldn’t slip out of their cones of spotlit earth to skulk, unnoticed, to the back of the freak show tent. Eventually, she had to come out this way, he figured.

  But once in back, he saw that this was not the case. A maze of hastily hung wires and lines followed a length of stained canvas that led from the freak show tent to broaden into another tent hidden from the view of circus goers behind. There must be a hidden exit behind the stage. An exit that led quickly and privately away to another tent shielding a sleeping trailer.

  Her trailer.

  Ramsey stole quickly across the grass to where the canvas-covered corridor met the fabric of the rear tent. With his hands, he felt along the surface, searching for a seam.

  It wasn’t hard to identify. His fingers found the steel-lined holes and heavy laces, then began to slip between the pieces, seeking a gap big enough for him to slip through. He didn’t think he’d be able to work on the laces to untie knots in the dark.

  The tent fabric was laced at the very bottom, and then again a couple feet off the ground. But it was another three feet after that before more laces knit the two flaps together. Ramsey softly spread the hole with his arms, and lifted a leg up and through the resulting gap. The rest of his body followed.

  And then he was inside.

  He realized he’d been holding his breath, and suddenly gasped to get air. The smells of the carnival had vanished with the close of the flap; the buttery scent of popcorn and tangy aftershave of old baking hotdog grease were gone. Now, Ramsey smelled something different. The nose-watering spice of mildew, mixed with the toxicity of varnish and the vinegar of old apples. He stifled the urge to sneeze, and squinted into the gloom.

  A sleeping trailer stood dark and quiet in the center of the shadows, and Ramsey stepped up to its battered doorway, trying the knob. Somewhere not too far away he heard an explosion of hands, and guessed that her show was over. He pulled the door open, but then stopped at the faint sound of a deep male voice talking in muffled tones somewhere behind him.

  Ramsey shut the door and stepped back, looking back and forth in the narrow confines between the tent and the trailer for a spot to hide. He ran to the head of the trailer and crouched in the shadows watching. Seconds later, two shadowy figures moved from the interconnecting canvas to the door he’d just touched to disappear inside the trailer.

  He could hear the mumbling of voices again from inside, but couldn’t make out the words over the crashing, caterwauling sounds breaking through the barrier of the tent from the Midway. When it appeared that the conversation inside the trailer was going to continue for some time, he left his tenuous hiding place and slipped back out of the slit in the tent to wait outside, lying down on the cool grass out of sight of the dirt thoroughfares of the circus.

  Eventually, he heard the slight squeak of the door opening and closing, and risked a look just in time to see an elongated shadowy figure disappear down the canvas corridor. Minutes later, inside the tent, the light shut off, and then Ramsey could see nothing but shadow before him, and stars above.

  Still, Ramsey lay on the ground. He thought he should wait until things quieted down before venturing back into the tent. After awhile, he rolled over on his back and stared up at the night sky. Despite the glare from the nearby tents, the eastern sky was dark as black velvet, and just as plush. A scattering of pinpoints cut through its shield, and a half moon burned through the horizon. Ramsey thought of Yvette, and of her daily indignities. How could she go on? What must her heart feel, to see so many men wanting, not her, but only to see the deformity of her body? To entertain crude fantasies and laugh at obscene jokes at her expense. What was it like to grow up as a freak? What was it like to live as a woman in a circus?

  The screams and laughter and background chatter of voices slowly dwindled, and Ramsey dozed. When he awoke, the night was quiet, and the lights from the rest of the circus dimmed. Shaking himself awake, he tiptoed around the musty tent canvas and with his hands explored until he found the slit between the laces again.

  The calliope music now played only in his mind as he eased the fabric apart and slipped a leg inside. Then he was turning the knob and stepping inside the trailer of The Three-Breasted Woman!

  He worried she would hear the legs of his jeans rub together, or his heart beating. It pounded so hard he could feel the blood pumping like angry surf in his ears. But nothing stirred in the silent, dark space. His eyes were already adjusted to the thickness of the night. Outside, at least, there was starlight. Here, there was only blackness. He stepped forward, and a clatter rang out. Something had fallen over.

  Ramsey dropped to a crouch and listened. If she was here, he must have woken her. And if the barker was nearby…

  Seconds passed, then minutes. He barely dared to breathe. But no one came. Presently he could make out the shadows of a cot in the far corner, and square shapes on either side of him. Boxes and trunks. He moved quietly, careful not to step on the pieces he’d knocked to the ground.

  On his fourth step, he found her cot. And her.

  He could still barely see in the darkness, but her skin seemed to lighten the room on its own near where she lay. She was nude, and lying on her back. Ramsey stifled a gasp as he saw the third breast, uncovered, lolling below her normal bosom. It was almost as if she had a second stomach. Or a huge tumor. With a pink cap. The rest of her torso was marked by a handful of other, undeveloped breasts. He could see the reverse pocks of unrisen nipples dotting her ribcage.

  The barker hadn’t lied. His own hands hadn’t lied.

  It was sick. Perverse. A bit sad. But she had three full teats.

  And two wide open eyes.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

  She didn’t respond.

  He touched her hand.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Still she lay there. Looking at him. Eyes open. Lips tight.

  “I felt bad after seeing you in the show,” he explained. “I wondered how you could let them do this to you. Then I thought, ‘maybe she’s drugged, or a prisoner.’ I had to come see you when no one else was around. I had to make sure you were all right.”

  Her lips seemed to move but she did not speak. Her hand, however, gripped his own.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again.

  She lifted her free hand and gripped his shoulder. Then she pulled him closer. Ramsey put his ear to her lips, thinking she was going to whisper some secret.

  Instead, her hand went to his head, and pressed his face lower. He smelled the faint hint of lilac on her skin and the tang of sweat-salt. And then his lips were brushing across the silk of nipples. One and two…and three. She guided him like a bee to each, stopping him briefly at each cone to sip and then pressing him on, a perfect circle of silken flesh to sample and taste. He hadn’t even meant to open his mouth but suddenly Ramsey realized he’d not only opened it, he was suckling.

  He struggled to pull back, and looked up at her eyes. All he saw were contented slits of lids, her mouth trembling and purring in a satisfied O. Her fingers wrestled in his hair, twining like playful snakes, and then pulled him close again. He was drownin
g in her subtle scent, thirsting for the taste of her skin again. It was dark and close, and everything in the world seemed to come back to her. He couldn’t struggle. Why would he want to?

  He woke at dawn and disentangled himself from the warm nest of her arms and legs. His left arm was numb, buried beneath her head.

  “Hey,” he murmured, trying to pull himself away.

  Her eyes opened. In the light, he could see they were pale, and green as sea foam. They seemed bottomless.

  “I came here last night to talk to you,” he began, but her hand stopped his lips. She sat up quickly, her eyes darting side to side.

  “I worried…” he said, but her fingers trapped his lips, and with a jolt, she pushed him upright. Pins and needles began pricking his arm as she nabbed his clothes from the floor with calculated attacks. In a flash, he was cradling his jeans and shirt with his good arm, and she was pacing in the far corner of the trailer, near the door leading to the tented passageway to the freak show stage. He took the hint and dressed.

  He had to sit on her cot to pull his shoes on. The tingling in his arm still burned, but he shook it out, and forced his fingers to work on his laces. Before he was finished, a hand gripped his arm and pulled him upright. She faced him, chest jutting proud and strange. Her lips met his for just a moment, and then she pushed him out the door. Sensing her urgency, he hurried to the hole in the outer tent that he’d found the night before. He fell through, landing on the other side on his knees. Behind him he heard a good reason for her haste.

  “Yvette?” It was the barker.

  He crept away from the tent, slipping from one just-waking attraction to the next, until he’d made his way to the edge of the circus. The sun was burning orange on the horizon as he started back down the road to home. His body was satisfied. And sore.

  And he’d left her exactly as he’d found her. Well, not exactly. But he hadn’t rescued her.