Ringmaster

by Aurelia T. Evans

  The sounds of their breathing were loud and flat in the unmoving air. It was cool outside, but the sun had made the inside of the van warm. They were both beginning to gleam with new beads of sweat, the smell still clean and intimate. As he kissed down to the peak of one breast, she bit his shoulder and licked the salt from his skin.

  “I don’t normally do things like this,” James gasped against her breast.

  “Normal is overrated,” Kitty replied.

  He smiled into her skin and made her moan at the slow, brilliant heat of his tongue over her nipple. She flushed for a reason that had nothing to do with the sun.

  “But you’re right,” he said.

  “Often. About what?” Kitty asked.

  “You’re also just a woman.”

  “No ‘just’ about it, James,” she said with a grin.

  “You’re telling me,” he muttered before sucking her nipple into his mouth, pulling at the peak just on the painful side of hard to make her cry out. Then it dissolved into another moan as he softened his mouth over her.

  He lifted her off him and laid her out on the long seat beside him. She picked up her corset, pulled off her headdress and tossed them in the front seat. He didn’t say anything, but he found himself captivated by the sight of her long length of leg through the slits up the side of her skirt. He stroked the hair along her legs, petting up to her knees, to her thighs, before reaching underneath her skirt and pulling her panties off. Then, not taking his eyes off hers, he gently lifted one leg and draped it over the back of the seat. He guided the other one the other direction then pushed the front of her skirt to the side.

  “Damn,” he swore when he saw her. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth to get control of himself. “Sorry, it’s kind of been a while.”

  “The slow, sweet thing was nice, but if you need something quick, honey, I’m good with that too,” Kitty said.

  “Who’s the guest here?” James said with a laugh. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be polite and accommodating, the gracious host.”

  “Not complaining if that’s what you want,” Kitty replied, playing with her breasts as he crawled back with a slight groan of discomfort and knelt in the cramped area between the seat and the door to settle between her thighs. “Not complaining at all.”

  He took off his glasses, which had fogged slightly, and put them down next to her discarded corset. Kitty wasn’t sure why, but she bit her lip at how hot it was to see their things together.

  She pinched her nipples with a soft cry as James wriggled his tongue through her folds. He groaned at her taste and her reaction.

  “It may have been a while, but you sure don’t have a problem with your memory,” Kitty murmured. She rested her hand on the back of his head—not forcing him down on her, just massaging his scalp in encouragement.

  He seemed to have gotten over his ambivalence about her hair fast. Most of the men she had sex with did. A lot of her life was dominated by her hair for one reason or another, but all most people had to do was be with her for five minutes, and it was as though the hair became just another part of her—not innocuous, but no more relevant or irrelevant than her skin or her eye color. It didn’t take much for people who weren’t assholes to see past the hair to the woman, a lot less than they initially expected.

  It took a little longer for them to see the hair and the woman and be just as drawn to both at the same time. But that was a process she was willing to wait through for the right people, and she was more often right than wrong in her judgment of character.

  Despite popular belief, men weren’t pigs about sex. Men who turned into pigs about sex were already pigs finally showing their faces. There was nothing wrong with a man wanting to have sex with a woman, even a strange woman just because she was strange. As long as he wasn’t a pig about it—and dear God, James was so far from that at the moment—sex was the way to many a man’s mind. Once the blood flow headed back to the brain while all the endorphins coursed through the man’s body, she started looking a lot more human, not to mention even more interesting than when she started.

  She wasn’t after their hearts, although she’d stolen a few and had hers stolen a few times herself. Kitty just wanted them to see her. All of her. Oddity and humanity and everything in between.

  It really wasn’t that difficult.

  And when it went right, it was sweet all the way down to her bones, where—whether she liked it or not—she was just like everyone else.

  On those good days, the sound of a zipper was one of the best in the world.

  “That’s right,” Kitty murmured as he crawled back over her.

  When he entered into her, wrapped but without any resistance, their moans filled the van in unison.

  “Enough with the gentle,” she said, curling one leg around him, the other one still over the back of the seat. “Take me hard. I know you can. You’ve been a gentleman until now, but you don’t have to be anymore. Yes. Yes, just like that.”

  James didn’t fuck her fast, but he gave it to her hard, the way she wanted. The magic inside her stretched in pleasure. He grasped the top of the seat and the armrest above her head to give him extra leverage when he shoved his hips against her thighs.

  He stared down at her, at her face when she showed him how good he made her feel, at her tits where they shook with every thrust, at the hair coiled underneath her head in an awkward cushion, at the hair on her face and on her chest and her shoulders—taking her in as though unable to believe his own eyes at what he was sinking himself into. But it was a good kind of disbelief. The kind that had a man thanking his lucky stars. The kind that made her feel like the goddess that the demons sometimes acted like she was.

  He screwed his eyes tight as he began to lose control, grinding his cock into her until she clenched around him, shuddering and crying out through each gloriously sweet wave of climax. James pounded his hand against the vinyl siding. He grunted as his cock jerked inside her. His breath was hot on her face while he panted, catching his breath.

  When he opened his eyes again, she smiled. James smiled back with endearing shyness.

  Then he leaned down and tentatively kissed her.

  And that’s how you do it, she thought smugly. He didn’t deepen the kiss, but he lingered, caressing her lips with his.

  “You’re kind of beautiful,” he said as he raised himself off her.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, stranger,” Kitty said, sitting up.

  He tossed the used condom into a plastic bag and shoved it under the driver’s seat. Then he grabbed his glasses and handed her the corset and the butterfly headdress, but he couldn’t figure out which part of the headdress was the front. She giggled and took it from him to pin it back in her hair after making sure it was still smooth.

  “Have I mentioned I’m having a weird day?” James said. He played with the cord of her braid as she pulled on her panties. “I’m not sure I’m going to believe it myself tomorrow.”

  “Who said you had to believe anything? All you have to do is remember. Whether it’s a dream or a fantasy or real doesn’t matter,” Kitty said. “It’s a good memory. It was a good memory, right?”

  He gave her the cutest crooked grin, even cuter with those glasses on, and kissed her again.

  The van door clicked open. As James turned around in surprise, a pair of gray hands reached in, grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him out. The door wasn’t completely open yet, and James’ shoulder shoved into the side. From the sound it made hitting the metal, it would probably leave a nasty bruise.

  “Hey!” Kitty shouted. She struggled to get out of the car.

  Then she saw Victor in all his stony glory punching his powerful fist into James’ face.

  James staggered back, his eyes going glassy, and collapsed to the ground. A hit like that could have caused a concussion—either Victor didn’t realize his own strength or that had been the point. Kitty dearly hoped it was the former.

  “What were you doing,
you slimy asshole?” Victor yelled down at James. “Experimenting? Tasting the arcane in ways they don’t advertise in the brochure? Do you even care?”

  “Victor!” Kitty climbed down and pushed against his chest to get him away from James, but it was like trying to move a statue.

  “Don’t you get it, Kitty? All this time and you don’t get it? He just wanted the experience,” Victor spat. “Something he could laugh about with his friends. It’s just a game. Ten points on the coyote ugly scale for nailing the hairy circus chick, a hundred points for the contortionist. Does he even realize you’re a person? Does he even realize you’re human?”

  Kitty slapped him across the face.

  She didn’t know whether it hurt him—whether it even could—but it certainly got his attention.

  “Stop it. Right now,” she snapped. “He was a perfect gentleman indulging his normal curiosity with my permission. May I remind you, Victor, that was the reason why you first met with me outside of Arcanium? Maybe you should step back and examine why you assumed the worst of him. Was it because that’s what it was to you? At first? Now?”

  “You don’t understand,” Victor said, trying to get around her to grab at James. “You’ll live with demons, but you don’t let yourself see the dark side of men. You think he’s not going to crow about it the first chance he gets? Maybe he took a video with his phone to post on some amateur porn site for people to laugh at you. You don’t deserve her, you bastard!” Victor shouted at James over her shoulder.

  “I didn’t do anything,” James said blearily as he sat up. “She was nice to my daughter. She was nice to me. I didn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Kitty asked, so furious it felt like fire filled her head. “Grief will get you a long way, but this…?”

  “I did this for you,” Victor said, gesturing to his body, “and off you go after a prettier face who can’t begin to appreciate or understand what—”

  He brought his fists to the side of his head, swallowing against a frustrated choking sound.

  Then an arm wrapped around Victor’s throat, pulling him back without effort and shoving him down onto the nearest car hood. His body left dents and scratches in the paint that immediately faded away.

  “You didn’t do this for her,” Bell murmured near Victor’s ear. “You know that perfectly well. I had to abandon paying customers in order to come here after you. I am not happy.” He lifted Victor up again, his grip a vise around Victor’s wrists. “She was right. Grief only gets you so far, friend.”

  “He was the one—” Victor tried to say. He winced as Bell tightened the hold on his wrists.

  “Kitty is a woman with the freedom to fuck whomever she chooses, for the reasons that she wants,” Bell said. “Whether the ones she sleeps with are good to her or bad to her is a matter for her alone, but no one can ever truly hurt her as long as she has my protection.”

  “Where did this even come from?” Kitty asked, crossing her arms under her chest. “You were the one who wanted space, you jerk. And you knew there were other men. You were never, ever jealous before.”

  “You two can battle this out on your own time,” Bell said. “You’re still on my time, Victor. Go back to the circus and into your tent. Now. You’re confined within the borders of the circus until I decide to let you out again, and you will suffer additional punishment for what you’ve done and what you made me have to do.”

  “But—” Victor said.

  “Do I look like your father, Victor? I said go,” Bell said sharply. “Do not make me repeat myself a third time.”

  As soon as Victor reluctantly obeyed, glaring back at them all the while, Kitty turned to kneel next to James, who wasn’t able to get up.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” Kitty said.

  “Didn’t know you had a boyfriend, otherwise I wouldn’t have…” James muttered. His speech was slurred.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, which is why that was really out of character,” Kitty said. She stroked his forehead and inspected the place on his cheek where his skin had gone dark and swollen. She hissed in sympathy seeing it up close.

  “I would like to apologize for the behavior of my cast member, sir,” Bell said, crouching next to Kitty.

  “He should be put in jail,” James said. He shouted when Bell touched his cheek. “He was crazy.”

  “He recently suffered a tragic loss of someone very close to him,” Bell said as he inspected the damage. “I’m afraid he’s been temporarily unhinged. Besides, you won’t remember how bad this was in a few minutes.”

  “What?” James asked, but then his face went blank. Bell’s magic sank into him, repairing the worst of the bone damage, concussion and bleeding until it was little more than a slightly raised bump.

  “Are you okay, sir?” Bell asked, with all the concern of a solicitous manager. “You took quite a fall there, but we have the man who did this in custody. It won’t happen again. Of that, I can assure you.”

  James blinked, looking between Bell and Kitty. “Yeah, I… What happened?”

  “The man was drunk, raving about things that didn’t make sense,” Bell said. “He must have confused you for someone else. He’ll be sleeping off his hangover with an assault and battery charge in the local jail. I can offer you these free tickets for Arcanium, to be redeemed at any time, for the inconvenience. It looks like you’re going to be okay, though. Just a bump on your cheek and another on your head from your fall. You might check with the park nurse to make sure it’s not a concussion.”

  “No, I feel fine. I guess I was just in shock,” James said as Bell and Kitty helped him to his feet. He directed his attention to Kitty. “Are you okay?”

  “A little shaken,” Kitty said.

  She wasn’t lying. Shaken, scared, angry, uneasy, confused, shocked, even betrayed.

  The Victor she’d just seen had been worlds away from the Victor she’d known in the last five years. She wanted to know what was wrong…if anything was wrong. Or was this just the pig finally taking off his mask?

  “I need to return to my circus,” Bell said. He handed James an envelope with the free tickets inside. “I apologize again for the inconvenience.”

  “As long as the guy was caught and everyone’s okay,” James said. “Thanks.”

  Bell met Kitty’s eyes. The message was clear. He didn’t mind her indulging in an impromptu liaison during circus hours. In his view, it was just another facet of Kitty doing her part for the circus by making lifelong fans. But he expected her to be brief.

  Kitty nodded.

  Bell gave James a little bow and headed back into the park.

  “Not the way I imagined this ending,” James said, rubbing the back of his head, all shy suitor once more.

  She smiled weakly.

  “You sure you’re okay?” James asked. He took her hand.

  “You shouldn’t be asking me that,” Kitty said.

  “It takes more than one knock-out punch to stop me,” James said with a rakish wink that he couldn’t quite pull off. He took off his glasses to check them. They were unbroken. “Hey, I don’t know how to put this, really, but I had a good time with you. And I…I think I wouldn’t mind seeing you again if you wanted.”

  Kitty’s smile became a little more sincere.

  “I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to after that. Bad associations and everything,” Kitty said.

  James took his wallet out of his back pocket and gave her a business card with his personal number on the back. “Call the written number,” he said. “Well, you could call the business number, but then you’d scandalize our receptionist, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know when we’ll be back in this area, and if you can’t see me when we are, I won’t take it personally,” Kitty said, tucking the card into her corset. “But I’ll call you, James. Because I had a good time, scary drunk guy notwithstanding.”

  “Well, I doubt we’ll have an encore of that,” James said. “What are the
chances?” He kissed her cheek gently.

  She followed Bell back into the park while James stayed to make sure that everything was decent for when he brought his daughters back to the van.

  But she’d lost her taste for walking the grounds. She went straight for her exhibition tent. As she passed by Victor in his, she stared determinedly ahead as though he wasn’t there. Now wasn’t the time. She had to keep calm, collected and engaged with customers until the gates closed.

  Then there would be a damn reckoning.

  Chapter Eight

  It was three o’clock in the morning. Everyone who needed to go to sleep did, but there was a tradition among the cast to watch the whippings.

  Kitty didn’t doubt part of it was the same cruel side of humanity that compelled people to watch executions and participate in humiliations at the stocks. The cruel side of the jinn was never in question. But she thought the real reason why the human souls and jinn of Arcanium stayed for punishments was more practical—an intensely visual, visceral reminder of what awaited if they stepped out of line.

  “Just five,” Bell said, his hands behind his back as he addressed the Ringmaster.

  The Ringmaster was still resplendent, with his hair shining in waves and not a strand out of place, his beard waxed to a wicked point, his moustache into a curl—all darker than even the black leather of his boots and trousers and the black accents on his scarlet jacket.

  The Ringmaster didn’t uncross his arms. He scowled at Victor, who glared back up at him.

  “Five,” Bell repeated. “He made a scene, caused me trouble and committed violence against a customer. But it wasn’t within our borders, and allowances are made for his state of mind. The first time, Victor. Only the first time.”

  “I’m not just going to lie down and let some demon whip me for trying to protect her,” Victor said.

  “You and I both know your thoughts. I suggest you bite your tongue to stop the lies before you begin to believe them. This was the life you agreed to. We allow for a multitude of sins, my boy, but there are some that we must dissuade. These are the consequences of being a part of Arcanium,” Bell said. “Now, lie down on the bench. I will remove your skin’s protections, so that you will suffer as any of us would.”