Ringmaster

by Aurelia T. Evans

  His skin, lightly tanned from summer, had gone from its golden hue to a dark clay gray, hairless scalp to fingertips. Not only that, but it had the visual texture of pumice stone, with circular pits dotting him as though air bubbles had exploded where his hair follicles had once been.

  “Holy crap,” he muttered, holding up his arms. “What is this superhero-origin-story bullshit?”

  Remembering something Bell had said in the fortune teller tent, Kitty tentatively touched his forearm. The soft hair there was gone, but while his flesh felt hard to her, it gave under her touch, and in spite of its strange firmness, it still felt more or less like regular skin. It crackled a little as she touched it, like listening to melting ice over a pond in early spring. It wasn’t unpleasant.

  “How do you feel?” Kitty asked, running her palm over his arm as though to reassure herself that he didn’t feel like he’d been cut from a boulder, no matter how he looked. She tried to hold back the grin that threatened to reveal her giddiness, at least until she knew that Victor wasn’t going to freak right the fuck out. It wouldn’t do for her to be excited when he was in the throes of furious regret.

  “When I move, it’s like I crack all over,” Victor said. “I feel…dense. Stronger. Heavier. But I…”

  He peeled his shirt off over his head and looked down at himself.

  This wasn’t the smooth kind of Classical, stone-carved sculpture. He looked like someone had touched a craggy rock on the side of a mountain and made it human. Arcanium called its crew golems, but this was even closer—a man made entirely of stone and flesh at the same time, hard as a rock, his muscles more pronounced and even slightly exaggerated. But when Kitty stared into his face, into his human eyes, she still saw Victor under all the gray and the lack of hair.

  Victor laughed with a mixture of disbelief, shock and amazement. This time there wasn’t a cough to go along with it. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding as far as it could. He laughed again.

  “Is this what it’s like for everyone else?” he asked.

  “What? Looking like you crawled out from the bottom of a crater lake?” Kitty asked. She ran the tips of her fingers over the prominent contours of his abdomen. He’d kept himself in shape before, and it still had the sense of being him, but he’d never looked quite like this.

  “No. Breathing. Being able to take a deep breath and getting all this…air,” Victor said. He flexed his fingers out then tightened them into fists as he moved his arms. He shook his head, laughing again. “I can’t believe this. I don’t know what I am or why, but the son of a bitch did it. Things I didn’t even know were wrong are fixed. I feel all kinds of weird from the change, but damn, I’ll get used to it if this is what I get in return.”

  He looked up at her. His eyes were still a rich brown, richer against the gray, but the little pink flesh at the corners of his eyes had lost its pigment—not all gray, but lacking much of its original color. His mouth, too, had been sapped of its color, the pink like a pale feldspar instead of the pink of flesh. Where she touched him, though, he had normal heat, no more fever. His appearance had altered, but he was still human instead of cold stone. For some reason, that was important to her, for him not to have sacrificed everything only to lose his core of humanity.

  This change would change him, no doubt, the way choosing to stop trying to control her hair had changed her. But she’d never lost the core of who she was. It could grow, mature, gain wisdom, suffer the cuts and blows that accompanied this life, but she couldn’t lose it.

  And she didn’t want to have saved Victor by destroying him, with Bell creating something else from the dusty ashes of his soul. It had come close to happening before.

  “Look at me!” Victor cried with all the excitement of a young boy at Christmas.

  Kitty finally let herself smile for his joy. She gave her own cry when he wrapped his arms around her tight and pulled her to him. He was stronger than he had been, much stronger, with an immovable density that was hard to describe and stranger to feel, but it felt good. He just had to control it, in case he accidentally broke something that she’d rather not have broken.

  But she moaned and squirmed against him in pleasure as he guided her head down to kiss him. That was very much the same, the odd texture of his mouth still human enough and still tender against her, although when he pressed her closer, she thought he could bruise her with his kisses. There were worse reasons to bruise, and she refused to hold herself back because of such a little thing like that.

  She ran her hands over his newly bald head. He laughed against her mouth from the sensation, which she relished as well. She’d had many different kinds of men over the years, but ironically enough, she couldn’t recall a single one who had been bald. She loved the way it felt, smooth, the velvet of moss on river rock. Kitty hummed in pleasure when he broke away and rubbed his cheeks and his head against her breasts. He laughed again in awed delight.

  “You feel different to me too,” he said. “I can’t tell if it’s my new skin or whether it’s the fact that I don’t have any hair.”

  “It could be both,” Kitty said.

  She sat back on his thighs and unsnapped the front of her dark magenta costume corset to free her breasts and hold his head between them. He plumped them in his strong hands to nuzzle them each in turn. She was the soft to his strong, enough give to her figure to cushion him as he rolled them over on her bed and smothered himself in her, breathing her in with depth that he had never been able to manage before, worshiping her nipples until he had to come up for the air that he still needed.

  She reached behind her to unzip the back of her skirt and wriggled out of it so that his wandering hands could find their way to her thighs.

  “I’d do this to you in public if we could, in return for the last time,” Victor murmured as he kissed and bit her abdomen on his way down to between her legs. “But I guess we’ll just have to work with the surroundings we have.”

  “I was never much for exhibitionism anyway, life in the public view notwithstanding,” Kitty said.

  “Could’ve fooled me. Besides, if you can use the words ‘exhibitionism’ and ‘notwithstanding’, I clearly need to up my game, woman,” Victor said.

  When Arcanium was on the road, the incubus and succubus magic drifted along the caravan like a comet trail and didn’t settle as pervasively or invasively as when they were stationary. However, she’d had the last three performance nights coursing through her system, just waiting to be awakened.

  Part of it was awake already from Victor’s contagious enthusiasm and the novelty of his transformed body. She was definitely going to have to take that puppy for a ride when Victor was finished doing what he was presently doing and doing well.

  Once again, he dove into his task, holding his breath for as long as he could now to reach as deeply as possible inside her cunt or to suck particularly hard at her clit as he furrowed his tongue between her folds. Her hair there was thicker than the rest, but not as coarse as other women’s and about as dense as the hair on her chest above her breasts or on her legs. It wasn’t such a bad thing to get lost there, no more than anywhere else on her body, and Victor seemed set on losing himself in her.

  Kitty watched him in delight, sometimes throwing her head back at a particularly keen thrill of pleasure, but mostly she enjoyed the sight of him enjoying her, no different than any other time she’d watched him do much the same thing. But now, it was a celebration, and he was extra-attentive, with stamina to spare that she hadn’t realized he’d lacked. It wasn’t as though she’d suffered before.

  She slid her hand up his back to his neck and squeezed just as her cunt gave a juicy clench that demanded satisfaction, right on her edge. “Up,” she said. “Let’s see how your new body handles.”

  “I’ll show you how this body handles, doubter,” he retorted with a grin as he climbed over her. He’d already unfastened his jeans and pushed down his underwear. “I swear, touching myself is like someone else is touc
hing me, but it doesn’t feel like me either. It’s weird. And amazing, I’m not going to lie. It’s a guy’s dream to be able to touch himself while feeling like it’s someone else.”

  “You have the rest of your life for the left-handed stranger to stroke you,” Kitty said. “It’s my turn.”

  “Have I mentioned weird yet? Because it’s all so weird. And amazing. And weird. I mean, look at me. Did I always look like this?” He wrapped his fingers around his cock as Kitty did the same, testing the new flesh.

  “Wouldn’t you know that better than I would?” Kitty teased. She withdrew her fingers until just the tips grazed the pitted stone skin.

  “You’d think so, but after you get used to yourself, you don’t notice all the things that you see every day. This is extreme. I’m not even going to qualify it. This is extreme. There’s a picture of my naked body in a dictionary somewhere next to the word ‘extreme’.”

  Now that he’d mentioned it, he might be a little bigger. Kitty couldn’t quite remember whether her fingers had wrapped around more the last time she’d held his cock. It didn’t matter either way to her. It wasn’t a big enough difference to matter. Maybe it was just that his new skin was somehow thicker.

  “Ladies and gentlemen…” she murmured, bringing her mouth to his cock and tasting the tip. He wasn’t as salty as he used to be, and he smelled different—more like a forest cave up close, although underneath that she could still smell him, Victor as he had always been. Once again, Kitty was glad he hadn’t lost that essence, even something as fundamental and unnecessary as a scent. “Meet the Man Made of Stone. Rock hard from head to toe—and other places, ladies. But don’t be fooled by his granite appearance. This man’s tender, soft-hearted, sensitive as any woman would wish. Now turn around, give me your cock back and get to work on my clit again. You still need to repay me for services publicly rendered, and most of the cast knows of your debt.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Pretty Kitty of Arcanium,” Victor said, grinning madly as Kitty fell back onto the bed and spanked his ass to get him moving.

  He crawled over her upside-down and stared at her pussy with a fondness that Kitty didn’t understand but was completely willing to exploit to its fullest extent.

  She smacked his buttock again.

  “You get that firm ass up and keep it up. I’ll be inspecting all the changes and how it…measures up to how you were. But you don’t get to come until I do. I suspect you’re up to the challenge,” Kitty said.

  “We’re awful, aren’t we?” Victor said.

  “The puns practically write themselves.”

  Victor ran his tongue over her clit, through her folds and into her cunt. All of a sudden Kitty didn’t feel like making jokes anymore. He stroked his hands up and down her legs, squeezing the strong muscles, digging his fingers into her thighs the way he knew she liked as he worked to finish what he’d started.

  Kitty occupied herself with the engaging strength of his thighs on either side of her head and the cock heavy with its new weight, but thick and wonderfully sculpted over its heat from desire. It was something indeed to watch his balls shift and swing as she played with him, so pliable even though they looked like they couldn’t move at all. Even for Bell, the illusion he’d created of pocked-stone skin was extraordinary. She wanted to suck on his scrotum then take his cock as far down as she could, but she had to wait. She’d given him a command, and she’d be a weak woman indeed if she couldn’t hold him to that.

  It wasn’t going to take too long anyway, under the onslaught of rhythmic sucking against her clit as he petted her inner thigh and used his other hand to slide two fingers into her cunt and curl them up toward him.

  That was cheating. Still, she wasn’t going to hold it against him as long as he kept doing just that. Just that. Right there.

  She arched her back and clutched his thighs as he brought her up and over her climax, pushing her through until she turned and bit at his knee because she couldn’t figure out how to use her words. Then he pulled away and rested his cheek against her thigh, chuckling into her skin.

  Now it was time for Kitty to take over. She raised her head and lapped at his scrotum. She’d never minded hair on her tongue—it would be a bit hypocritical if she did—but it was pleasant to lick and just taste skin, strange though the texture was to her. Everything still tasted like it should, was generally shaped as it should have been. When she closed her eyes, she could almost forget about how he was different. He lowered his hips closer to her so that she could take the first half of his cock into her mouth.

  He buried his face against the hair on her thigh, groaning.

  She slowly pumped the lower half of his cock with her hand, twisting a little with each pass. Her last session with him notwithstanding, she’d never really mastered deep-throating a cock that wasn’t demonic, since they had some kind of magic that would let a woman—or a man, for that matter—take their cock any way they damn well chose. And they made it feel really good. But none of her human men had ever complained, not when they had a woman with an unfettered enthusiasm for going down on them. Funny what sex magic could do to a person’s sense of adventure.

  She rubbed and kneaded his lovely ass that she couldn’t see but could feel just fine. She delved her fingers between his cheeks. His hips jerked, pushing his cock deeper in her mouth. She coughed, but she continued to stroke the sensitive area—not quite all the way in, but close enough for Victor to groan loudly in the crowded room and clutch her thighs so tightly it hurt. Kitty thought she’d definitely bruise. She liked the thought of that.

  “Fuck, yes,” Victor breathed as she jerked his shaft and swallowed his climax down. He tasted the same that way too. His body underneath the stone gray was just as human as it had always been.

  He fell to the side of her, panting at the ceiling.

  “Oxygen is good,” he said.

  “Oxygen is a poison,” she replied.

  He laughed breathlessly. “Well, that’s one way to look at the world.”

  Kitty smiled, but she was serious as she crawled around so that they were both resting upside-down on the bed.

  “We need oxygen to live—just the right amount, with just the right amount of other stuff mixed in too, but not too many pollutants and things like that. It’s a balance. But even so, the oxygen that we need slowly kills us. That’s why they call life a chronic disease,” she said.

  “I get the feeling you’re making some kind of point, Kitty, but you’ve got to give my blood a chance to reach my head again. Also, it’s probably three in the morning, and I am tired, even though I couldn’t sleep.”

  She turned onto her side toward him, embracing his arm like a stuffed animal. “It’s just funny, that the thing that makes life possible is also often the cause of our death.”

  “Unless you wish yourself into service to a jinni who keeps you ageless as long as you work for him,” Victor said.

  “Well, yes. But that’s just a temporary reprieve,” Kitty said. “Forever’s an awfully long time.”

  “I spent most of my life with a death sentence of a disease. My lifespan was cut in half in comparison to most other people,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Forever sounds pretty good right now.”

  “For now,” she agreed. “I’ve been doing this sixteen years. Valorie’s been here even longer. Bell keeps the performances ever-changing and fresh for a reason. Life becomes dull after a while, especially when you stay in one place all the time. It’ll be easier for us, Victor, because we’re voluntary. It means we can leave if we want to—as long as we return, of course. But even though we travel, Arcanium is always the same place wherever we go. You have to make your own variety,” she said, rubbing his forearm.

  “When you’re living with that death sentence, you try to find joy in routine. Repetition is life. History repeats itself, from history long past to history from yesterday morning,” Victor responded. “You know you have less time to enjoy life. So you make a bucket list and check
things off, thinking that if you can just do those things, you’ll have done everything that you’re supposed to do, packed into less time. You think you’ll be okay with leaving after that.”

  He shook his head. “But you’re not. There’s always more to be done, always something new to try, some new pleasure that you think you’ll have to miss because there’s not enough time. Boredom is a part of life, but you’re also only as bored as you let yourself be. Believe me, Kitty, I know how to make my own variety.”

  Kitty leaned in and kissed his shoulder. “It’s different when you have all the time in the world. But I think you’ll do just fine here, Victor. I think you’ll do just fine.”

  * * * *

  When they woke up, the RV was unmoving, and all the things that had trapped them in had disappeared as stealthily as they had arrived.

  “I smell breakfast,” Victor said.

  “Eggs and sausage,” Kitty said. She stretched and climbed over Victor to grab her set of brushes from the nightstand, warm in a patch of sun filtering in through the blinds. The set she used most was in her tent, but Kitty had learned a long time ago to have multiple sets of brushes in all the various places where she could possibly need them, the way older people kept reading glasses all over their homes.

  “Do you want me to get us some?” he asked.

  “Would you? I don’t normally wake up this late, and I have a routine I still need to go through before I’m decent. Someone kept me up last night,” she said, poking him in the back with the round brush.

  “And you’ll never be decent,” Victor needled, kissing her head. “Sure, I’ll bring some back. I’ll eat whatever you don’t eat. Man, I’m so hungry, I could eat a camel.”

  “Please don’t eat the camels. We need the camels.”