Circus Excite

by Nikki Magennis

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  Julia allowed herself a smile as she heard Rachel’s question. She was standing next to them now and spitting with rage. Pulling away from Henri with a reluctance that was only half feigned, she looked up innocently at the woman who stood over her, a vision of fury in her sharp red outfit.

  ‘Is there a problem, Rachel?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘Only that you seem unable to stop yourself from fucking anyone who crosses your path.’

  Julia wasn’t even slightly offended. She had heard so much criticism of her sensuality during her years at college that she was now totally immune to it – in fact it tickled her to think she was once again causing a stir by flaunting her voluptuous charms. And making a woman like Rachel jealous was a serious coup.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rachel,’ she said sweetly. ‘Would you like a go?’ Julia stood and motioned Rachel to the bench beside Henri. Now the two women faced each other, tension crackling in the air between them. The whole group was now throwing sidelong glances at them, curious to see if a fight was going to break out.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Rachel said, looking from Henri to Julia and back again. ‘I think we’ve got some talking to do.’

  It was a Friday night and the streets were full of rowdy clubbers, spritzed with aftershave, faces shining with excitement. The three circus people wove through them, making a strange picture – the strong wiry frame of Rachel in her hotpants, long brown hair falling in wild curls past her shoulders, fully made-up and with a face like thunder; Henri, dressed simply in black shirt and trousers but with his tall lean figure, shaved head, beard and tattoos hinting at exotic mystery. He walked with grace, loping through the cobbled streets, his face haunted and intense. Walking slightly behind them, taking her time, was Julia. Despite her light floaty outfit and hair pulled back in a simple pony-tail, she managed to exude an air of knowing sexuality. When the three reached a bridge next to the canal, where a bench lay in the shadows of a tall hotel building, they stopped as if by mutual consent. Julia and Rachel sat on the bench uneasily side by side, while Henri leant against the wall and waited. Rachel lit a cigarette, and Julia watched the smoke drift out over the black water of the canal, where the shattered reflection of the moon floated among the weeds. At last, she broke the silence.

  ‘Julia, you can fuck Joe and Sylvie to your heart’s content. I can even live with you drooling over Robert, though trust me, you won’t get very far. But Henri and I have – an understanding.’

  ‘Oh really? What if it wasn’t my choice?’

  Rachel gave a hard brittle little laugh, and looked over to Henri’s long figure by the wall.

  ‘Henri, you couldn’t possibly tell me you found this cheap little slut attractive, could you?’

  Henri spoke from the shadows with his usual deep slow tone.

  ‘Rachel, you know how I feel about you. Have always felt. But you have to admit, she’s alluring.’ Julia couldn’t see Henri’s face, but she could hear the pleasure in his voice. Whether that was at the thought of fucking her or just the knowledge that for the first time he had the edge over Rachel, Julia didn’t know.

  ‘I have to say, I’m sorely tempted. Particularly as I know you wouldn’t let me get close.’

  ‘So despite all your whining about the spiritual love you have for me, despite mooning after me for all these years, as soon as some twenty-year-old with big tits comes by you’d toss all that away for a quick shag?’

  ‘Maybe I’m just tired of it being so fucking painful all the time. Watching you and Robert . . .’

  There was anger in Henri’s voice now, and Julia felt the accumulated frustration of his feelings were threatening to spill over. She cleared her throat, not wanting to sit like a gooseberry while the two thwarted lovers had a slanging match. Particularly, she didn’t want to hear about Rachel’s history with Robert.

  ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘Oh please let us hear it,’ Rachel snapped at her waspishly.

  ‘Rachel, I don’t want to fuck Henri.’

  ‘Are you quite sure of that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Julia said firmly. ‘I want to see you fuck him.’ She looked at Henri, still leaning in the shadows, motionless. ‘To be exact, I want to see Henri fuck you. I want to see you held down and given a thorough screw. Right here.’ She laid her arm along the back of the bench, feeling her heart pound as she waited to hear the reaction. She knew this was a dangerous game to be playing, but she was developing a taste for the adrenaline of these uncertain sexual adventures.

  It was Henri who moved first, walking slowly to stand behind the bench, putting his hands on Rachel’s shoulders. She seemed to have been rendered speechless. Her eyes were flaming with anger, but Julia noticed that she didn’t move away from Henri’s touch. She didn’t flinch when he ran his hands over her breasts, rubbing slowly and hard over the round curves under her basque. As Julia leant forward to unlace the garment and let Henri in to feel the flesh beneath, her lips parted and she started breathing hard. But she didn’t say a word. She watched Julia with an expression that was a mixture of hatred, fury and arousal that Julia recognised well. It was just how she looked, she thought, when Robert played his games with her.

  As Julia gently turned Rachel around and positioned her on all fours on the bench, she had a sense that this was how Robert would feel, directing the action of one of their voyeuristic scenes. Firmly, she yanked down Rachel’s hotpants, exposing the woman’s perfectly toned ass, which she noticed Rachel was raising slightly, rocking her hips back as though asking Henri to fuck her. The only sound she was making was a hard panting, an animal noise that Julia found darkly sexual. She was drawn to join in a little, and the satisfaction she felt as she gave Rachel a sharp slap on the bottom was deliciously rewarding. She gave a couple more slaps, relishing the jerks that Rachel couldn’t help making under the sting of her hand. It was as though she were toying with a wild animal. Julia even dared to dip her finger in the warm crevice of Rachel’s cunt and felt the wet of her arousal, knowing she wanted to be fucked as much as she resented the loss of control.

  ‘Go for it, Henri,’ she said, stepping back and letting him take over. She watched with fascinated excitement as Henri approached, grabbing hold of Rachel’s hips with a surprising firmness. He didn’t touch or caress her, just held her steady with one hand while he unzipped himself with the other. After years of submitting to her cruelty, Julia sensed a kind of sadistic pleasure from Henri as he held Rachel’s thighs apart and sunk his cock deep into her, forcing a moan out of her that sounded like the gasp of relief she’d waited for for a very long time. As the two of them rocked slowly back and forth, their lithe bodies an angular jerking silhouette in the grey moonlight, Julia felt a strange new kind of arousal. She could imagine the way it felt for Rachel, and see how much they enjoyed this charged union at last. But more than that, she felt that she was living some erotic lucid dream, able to will the desire of the two people fucking in front of her. She knew they hadn’t been able to break out of the old, practised roles they’d been playing until she gave them permission. She wasn’t involved, yet was intimately essential to their pleasure. As long as she was there watching, Henri and Rachel were her willing acolytes. Julia felt a surge of unfamiliar power, and for the first time understood Robert’s pleasure as he manipulated her sexual awakening.

  It was a turning point, and she felt the strength of this new insight gather as Henri’s movements became more urgent, as he pushed harder into Rachel till the woman stiffened to let him grind as deep as he could. Julia watched, entranced, as Henri started hissing through his teeth, on the brink of coming and struggling to hold himself back. Suddenly Julia knew what she had failed to do all along. What Robert wanted, and what he had been subtly trying to make happen for the past month.

  As the realisation dawned on her, Julia thought of the intensity of their relationship, the balance of power and strength. What it was that made her want him, and the reason he
wouldn’t touch her. In front of her Rachel and Henri were reaching their climax, struggling against each other to attain that sweet moment of oblivion, calling out like birds, their voices breaking. Julia, without touching herself, felt the warm satisfaction of communion spread through her body.

  She knew with total conviction what she had to do next.

  12

  EDINBURGH WAS A gothic fantasy that captivated Julia: crenellated towers sticking out above the cobbled streets; the blackened stone walls of the castle high above; gardens spilling over with flowers and fountains and everywhere swarming with people. Bewildered foreigners bumped up against street artists and ticket touts, traffic fought its way along Princes Street, and the roiling harsh cry of pipes sounded from buskers on the street corners. Julia loved the buzz and the chaos, the mix of stylish opera buffs and barefoot shabby fringe performers. She had visited a couple of times before, once on a boozy college trip, once with friends to see a couple of dance shows. Never, though, had she arrived in the city in Festival time as a performer.

  As the trucks rolled slowly up the bridge that led to the south of the city and the Meadows, where they’d set up for the last fortnight of their summer tour, Julia leant forward in her seat. Passers-by turned to watch as the convoy of dark six-wheelers moved slowly towards the site, twelve black lorries with ‘Circus Excite’ emblazoned across their sides. While there were many strange sights all over the city during the Festival, few were quite as imposing as the cavalcade of vehicles bringing the circus to town. The performers, stuffed into cabs and peering back at the onlookers, were also a source of great curiosity. As they neared the large rolling park which would be their showground, Julia felt the surge of excitement that she always got when she was the centre of attention, waving back at the gawping pedestrians and blowing kisses, to the amusement of Joe who sat calmly in the driver’s seat ignoring the fuss.

  ‘You just love causing a sensation, don’t you, babe?’ he teased Julia as she gave a wink to a group of lads standing watching the troupe’s arrival.

  ‘It’s my inner diva coming out for the big show.’

  ‘Biggest yet,’ Joe agreed, blowing out his cheeks as he considered the work he had ahead of him. The circus was playing for two weeks, two shows a night. New programmes had been printed, and thousands of glossy flyers and posters would flood the city. Julia had secret fantasies of five-star reviews and packed houses shouting for more, along with a thrilling fear that it could all go terribly wrong.

  She’d performed the new routine with Robert for the past week in Manchester, and had a taste of being the star of the show. Somehow, though, Edinburgh seemed different. It felt to her like the summer had been one long rehearsal in preparation for this – a chance to perform in front of the most discerning and difficult audiences in the world, outspoken art snobs half drunk and looking for a chance to heckle. The thought made Julia’s toes curl.

  ‘Still,’ she mused, half to herself, ‘five days to opening night. Time to check out the other shows.’ Silently she wondered if any of her classmates were around. The Festival was a magnet for everyone in the theatre and there was a strong chance she’d bump into someone she knew. The thought gave her an uncomfortable flutter in the pit of her stomach – how would her peers react to the circus? Pushing her uneasiness aside, she turned her attention back to the site. The lorries ahead were already parked in a ring, forming the circular enclosure that would be Julia’s home for the next three weeks. Joe rolled his truck in behind the others and they jumped out, shaking out tired muscles and nodding to the other crew as they surveyed the ground. Julia was used to the loud rough attitudes of the roustabouts now, had even come to enjoy the banter as they set up. For just over two months the circus had been her entire world: the gruelling manual labour and the dazzling adrenaline of the shows had formed her days and nights. The experiences along with the intense episodes of sexual discovery had woken an exhilarating sense of freedom in her.

  As she circled the site in her scruffy work clothes, waiting for construction to start, Julia found herself almost dancing over the grass. She was brimming with nervous excitement and jittering like a schoolgirl.

  ‘Look who’s getting over-excited,’ Henri called, giving her a lop-sided grin as he pulled a box from the back of his lorry. Since the night in Manchester, Julia had found a subtle shift in the atmosphere between her, Henri and Rachel. The other woman seemed to have retracted her claws and gave Julia a nod when she passed her. Occasionally she even flashed her a dangerous little smile, as though to remind her the ceasefire was temporary. There was an uneasy balance between them now, although Julia was well aware of the volatile nature of relationships in the circus enclosure. She was working her way into this strange new world, but every step seemed to bring new dangers as well as new possibilities. Still, as Julia looked around the green, tree-lined park she felt part of something bigger than herself – as though she were at last finding a place where she could dare to fulfil her dreams, even her darkest fantasies. It would never be an easy place to live, but Julia wasn’t interested in a quiet life. Part of her was starting to enjoy even the highly charged spats with Rachel, as though they were indeed playing a game and she was starting to understand the rules.

  Only Robert remained untouchable, closed off in his bubble of cool disciplined authority. No matter how Julia talked to him, no matter what she did, he never lost his poise. Although she still wanted him so badly it sometimes made her ache, Julia kept her fantasies to herself, treating him with calm respect and trying not to let him ruffle her when they performed. Before a show, when they waited backstage for their cues, Robert would try to provoke her. He’d tease her, let his gaze wander slowly over her body and remind her of what he’d seen. Slowly, Julia had learnt to harden her reactions to him. He may turn her on, he may make her so weak with desire it was hard to concentrate on the act, but she wouldn’t let him know. Gritting her teeth, Julia would flaunt herself on the stage, dance so close she could smell his aftershave. She moved as though she were fucking him, using her body to turn on the audience. But when his eyes met hers, their dancing brown glitter inviting her to go further, Julia would return his gaze with a blank, cold stare. She refused to be drawn into any more of his games. She made do with silent fantasies of Robert – in her head she tied him to the scaffolds with ropes and tormented him in front of the whole crew, teasing him till he begged her to bring him off.

  Today, he walked round the site frowning, looking as though he’d slept badly, Julia thought. His shirt was crumpled and there were dark circles round his eyes, which were still as intense as ever, but seemed to have lost the playful spark that both maddened and excited her. Curious, she approached him.

  ‘Robert?’

  His head snapped up at the sound of her voice, and for a moment he looked at her blankly.

  ‘Julia,’ he said, recovering himself and focusing on her. ‘There’s a box of flyers in Henri’s cab, get yourself in costume and take a thousand.’ His voice was rough, as though he’d chain-smoked forty cigarettes, but had the same note of authority that made Julia respond immediately.

  ‘Where am I going?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Which costume should I wear?’

  Robert considered briefly before answering. He pointed at her.

  ‘Noir suit. Full make-up and heels. Just walk round till you find an audience; you’d probably best head for The Mound.’

  Before she had a chance to ask any more, Robert had moved towards the roustabouts and was deep in discussion. It was clear she was expected to work the rest of it out for herself, and she didn’t waste any time. The chance to escape the grind of setting up and get a glimpse of Edinburgh was a welcome relief.

  She approached Henri as he was unloading the crates from his van.

  ‘Got some flyers for me, Henri?’

  ‘Ah, damage control, is it?’ Henri nodded knowingly at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen the review?’


  Julia shook her head. Henri’s face darkened.

  ‘Robert’s nemesis, venting spleen in The Stage. There’s a copy in the cab if you want to see it. I warn you though, it won’t make for happy reading.’

  Julia climbed into the cab, wondering if she was about to find the reason for Robert’s haggard appearance. Lying on the floor, with a bootprint on the page as though someone had stamped on it in disgust, was a newspaper. She skimmed the headline: ‘PERVERT’S PROGRESS’

  As she read on, Julia felt a cold nausea rise in her chest. The reviewer used the most vicious language he could to slate the Circus, and phrases stuck in her head with their brutal disdain: ‘vile parade of freaks and tarts . . . twisted brainchild of Robert York . . . filthy and rotten to the core’. There was no mention of her act other than to acknowledge the ‘misused’ talents of the performers, but the attack on the circus and Robert himself was enough to leave her deeply shaken. It was a poisonous piece of writing, and Julia realised that in the flighty gossip-ridden world of theatre, it could be enough to wreck the show forever.

  Julia had never realised just how many steep hills there were in Edinburgh, but after walking for half an hour in her stilettos up the Royal Mile and over the bridge to the chaotic centre of the city, she knew she’d never forget. In the strong August sunshine, her pancake make-up and ritzy costume were outlandishly uncomfortable. The ‘noir’ suit was tightly tailored, pinched in at her waist and stretching tautly over her ass to accentuate her curves. Her cleavage was shoved upwards and jiggled dangerously close to spilling over as she struggled towards Princes Street, drawing incredulous glances from passing tourists. She pulled a small suitcase behind her, stuffed with flyers for the show, and swore as her heels caught in the cobble stones. Stopping every so often to ask directions, she was keenly aware of the reactions to her garb – from shocked distaste to amused delight or, in the case of several males, blatant leering.