by Jaden Wilkes
I looked around, pulled my phone out of my pocket and decided on just one selfie for prosperity’s sake. What harm could there be?
I held my phone up, checked Lucille for any signs of stress. The tiger was calm and almost purring, like any housecat. And cats usually loved me, I couldn’t forget about that.
I got as close as possible and moved my thumb to the circle at the bottom of the phone to take the shot. Seconds too late, I wondered if I’d turned the flash off.
The light flared and Lucille jumped, she jerked away from me, and whipped her head around in a lightning quick motion. I felt pressure on my arm and the phone dropped from my hand. I couldn’t control my fingers; they wouldn’t follow my intent. It was then that I noticed that my arm was pinned in the tiger’s mouth.
“Shit, Lucille, please...let me go,” I said in a hushed voice. I was utterly mortified that my stupid idea to take a stupid selfie had landed me in this spot. I tried again to wiggle my fingers and managed a little movement. My arm didn’t feel broken, I’d had enough broken bones over the years to recognize the familiar grinding of bone on bone.
The skin was definitely broken, blood poured through Lucille’s jaws and dripped onto my jeans as I tried desperately to negotiate with the tiger.
“Please, kitty kitty. Good girl, let’s get your mouth open,” I said and tried to pry Lucille’s jaws wider with my other hand. It just served to make the cat chomp harder, probably doing more damage.
“Shit. Fuck, what am I going to do?” I whispered to nobody in particular. I hated the thought of Alexi finding me like this, unable to trust me with even the simplest of tasks.
“What is going on in here?” he demanded from behind me.
Speak of the devil, dammit. How the hell was I going to explain my way out of this one?
“She’s just playing around,” I said and moved to the side to allow Alexi full view of my arm in the tiger’s mouth. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Lucille!” Alexi barked and produced a short bullwhip. “Release,” he demanded and snapped the leather tip at the tiger. She let out a low growl and stubbornly gripped my arm tightly.
“Come on,” I said and tried again to pry her teeth apart with my good hand.
“Lucille, release,” Alexi repeated and snapped the whip again. I could feel the air move beside my face, the whip was so close.
The tiger finally let go and I drew my arm back carefully.
My skin was a mess of blood and puncture wounds. There would be no easy way to hide this injury.
“Oh dear god,” Alexi said, “that looks bad. Really bad.” He produced a walkie talkie from his hip pocket and hit a button.
“It’s seriously not that bad,” I said and held up my hand. I wiggled my fingers and said, “See? It doesn’t even hurt.”
“I’ve got a bite, and she’s clearly in shock,” Alexi said into the radio. “Bring a medic, ASAP.”
“I should go,” I said and started to back away, “I can clean it up in my trailer. I’ll even bandage it myself. We don’t have to tell anyone.”
I was terrified this meant I would be fired. After giving everything away and not telling a soul I was leaving, I might end up bounced out of Cirque before they left town. I really would be homeless. I had no money to my name. Not enough for a damage deposit and rent at least. My heart started to race and I felt panicky.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Alexi insisted, “this is much more serious than you think. You’re in shock, so you can’t feel anything yet. But when that wears off, this is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“I know myself well enough to know that this isn’t too bad,” I protested and started to back away from Alexi even faster. Alexi was too busy trying to get Lucille back into her cage to come after me. “I heal fast too, and with a travel day, I’ll have plenty of time to get ready for work. I’m just going to leave.”
“The hell you will,” Orion commanded from behind me, “show me your arm.”
I froze on the spot, unable to follow his simple command. This was the worst case scenario, he was my boss and would ultimately decide my fate. He already didn’t seem to like me, this sealed it for me. I was going to get fired.
I turned and held out my arm, unable to think of any way to get out of this. Orion set down a first aid case and took my hand in his. His hands were softer than Cairo’s, but warm and dry like his son’s. I couldn’t help but react, it felt good. Not as good as Cai, but strangely seductive in the same way. As though the vibrations she picked up from Cairo were diluted with his father.
“Does this hurt?” Orion asked as he moved my hand from side to side. I couldn’t feel a thing, which meant I had been correct. No broken bone as far as I could tell.
“No,” I said, then remembered my current identity as a normal person among the freaks. “I mean, a little.”
“You are in shock,” he said, “let’s sit you down.”
He led me to a small bench at the side of the tent and yelled, “Full lights!”
I didn’t know who had responded, but the tent was suddenly flooded with light. Alexi was already gone, he’d taken Lucille into the back to her travel cage. I hoped the big cat wouldn’t get into trouble because of my stupidity.
I remembered something. “Shit, my phone,” I said and looked over Orion’s shoulder. I saw it on the ground a few feet away, it was covered in blood.
“I’ll get it in a moment, until then you can live without it. You young people and your obsession with live tweeting every damn moment of your lives,” Orion grumbled. He pulled back, looked at me and scanned my face. I wasn’t sure what he was searching for, but he didn’t break his gaze. “You should learn to live instead of telling people about your life. There’s a huge difference.”
“I guess,” I said and fell silent. How could I defend myself? It was true, trying to show off on Facebook had landed me in this mess. It had also most likely cost me a job.
“Can you feel this?” Orion asked and I looked at what he was doing. He had a damp cloth and was wiping the blood from my arm carefully.
“A little,” I said and added, “ouch,” for dramatic effect.
“You’re handling this very well,” Orion told me and continued to clean the wound. The blood had stopped pouring out and had receded to a slow ooze. I had two large puncture wounds on the top of my forearm, and two below on the other side. Lucille had really gotten me good, but at least she hadn’t torn the flesh too badly, only punctured it.
“I’m a tom boy, I’m used to getting hurt,” I said. I carefully kicked off my sandals, keeping my eyes on Orion so he wouldn’t notice, and dug my toes into the dirt floor of the tent.
I fought the urge to squeeze my eyes shut and envisioned myself drawing energy up from the ground, flowing from deep in the earth and into my body. I felt my cells healing and my flesh knitting together as we sat there. I hoped he didn’t notice the very slight blue glow along my flesh as my magic rose to help me.
“I can see that, you’ve got scars all over the place,” Orion said, seemingly not noticing what was going on from my toes up. Thank god for long pants and bright lights, they hid the energy seeping into my body.
“I grew up on a farm, it added to my injuries.”
“I can imagine,” Orion replied but his eyes were narrowed and he was examining me, as if looking for clues.
“This might hurt,” he said and drew a bottle out of the case. “It’s antiseptic, it will sting. Look over my shoulder, don’t look at the wound.”
“Okay,” I replied and winced when I felt cold liquid hit my arm. I screwed my face up into a pained expression and squeezed my eyes shut.
I felt pressure along my flesh and opened my eyes wide. Orion had a razor sharp blade held to my inner arm and had opened my skin in an expertly applied slice.
“What the fuck,” I cried out and jerked my arm away. Fresh blood flowed from the thin cut and I held it against my shirt to stop the bleeding. “Why did you do that?�
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“You can’t feel pain, can you?” he asked, his eyes piercing through my façade to my very core. I felt like a bug wriggling on a pin, I was caught and I had no way out. If I hadn’t given up my apartment and given all my shit away, I might have stood up in indignant protest and marched out of the tent right then and there.
But I had, and I essentially had nowhere to go if I stormed off. I was stuck, he was right, and he knew it.
“What makes you say that?” I asked, drawing the inevitable conclusion out even longer. Why didn’t he fire me right on the spot? If he’d suspected my condition, why had he allowed me to decide to follow them?
“I’ve been watching you over the past two weeks. There was something special about you Liv. I have a sixth sense for these things. I knew it, and it wasn’t just your beauty. You have a certain...energy about you.”
“There’s nothing special about me at all,” I said and held my arm out when he motioned for it. He was tender this time, cleaned up the new slit and applied a bandage to my entire arm to stop the bleeding.
“Take these,” he said and gave me a couple pills with a bottle of water. “They’re antibiotics. And you are wrong by the way, you are extremely rare.”
“Are you allowed to give these to me?” I asked and took the pills. I swallowed them with a swig of water and handed the bottle back to him. I felt as though I was about to make a deal with the Devil, and the more I took from him, the more I would ultimately owe.
“We treat our own around here,” he replied. He then paused, looked at me again and added, “I saw you with my son. At first I was angry, all new hires chase him like bitches in heat.” When he saw my wince at that, he said, “Don’t flatter yourself, he’s out of your league. He might play with you a little, but he knows his place. The Cirque isn’t a world for outsiders, and even though I am going to make you a star, you will always be an outsider.”
“I don’t think you have the right to make that decision for him,” I replied quietly.
“That’s not up for debate. He is my son and he will do as I say. You have entered into a world older than yours, our people have lived this way for thousands of years and one small girl is not going to change that.”
“I’m not chasing him anyways. We’re friends,” I said, miserable in my predicament. Nowhere to go, and now not a single chance with Cairo, the man who made my heart flutter and my pulse race. Not if Orion had anything to do with it.
“That’s neither here nor there. You are forbidden to him, and he to you. I have been watching you though. I saw you with him one night, you had a nasty cut on your knee. When he was around, you limped, but you forgot a couple times which leg it was supposed to be. When you left for home, you walked as though nothing had happened. I started to wonder about you, and I see I was right.”
“So I can’t feel pain, what’s the big deal? I can still work, it’s not exactly risky to sell tickets.”
“You are no longer going to sell tickets,” he said and closed the first aid case. My arm felt squeezed, he’d done the bandages a little too tight and I could feel my pulse in the wounds. It was an uncomfortable reminder of my oddity.
“Are you going to fire me?” I asked and slid a finger under my bandage to loosen it.
“Oh no, dear, we won’t let you go,” he replied with a dark grin. “Like I said, I am going to make you a star.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your condition...we’re going to make you famous. I have to figure out an act, but until then, you are not to work. I will have our physician visit you to start you on a supplement routine to promote rapid healing, and I will figure out the perfect thing to showcase your particular talent.”
“How can a genetic anomaly be called a talent?”
“You can’t feel pain. That’s much more than a genetic anomaly. It is a skill that is older than time. Surely you can feel the pull we people have on you, your kind has never been part of our world, but there’s always been an undeniable attraction between the two,” he said, staring so hard at me that I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t look away. He’d taken my arm in his hands again and was running his finger along it as he spoke.
I finally jerked my arm back and said, “What if I don’t want to stay?”
He laughed at that, as if he already knew I had nowhere to go. “Don’t worry, we will come up with an exciting performance piece for you. I could incorporate you into my own show,” Orion said, stroking his chin, his eyes growing distant. “I will pay you triple what you’re making now, and you’ll only be on stage for a few minutes each night. You will receive performer’s services, extended health benefits and more on your staff card for the concession. If you decide to stay with us, after two years you’ll earn profit shares in the Cirque. Think about it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I replied. “I don’t think I could do anything in front of a crowd, and I can’t imagine anything being that exciting, really.”
“Go back to your trailer and I will contact you once we’re in Seattle. Your wage increase starts today however. Relax, enjoy yourself. I have research to do.”
He stood and looked down at me, once again with a hungry look as though about to devour me. If only Cairo would look at me like that more often, I’d be a happy woman. When Orion did it, I had to suppress a shudder at his intensity. Although Orion’s warning rang loudly in my head, stay away from his son.
As if I could.
He turned on his heel and left the tent. I felt as though a great weight was lifted, his presence was almost supernatural in its oppressive quality. I couldn’t breathe properly when Orion was around.
I left the first aid case where it sat, picked up my phone and walked slowly back to my trailer. My arm had stopped the persistent throbbing and had settled down to a dull pulse under the bandage. I could see some blood seeping through, but knew they’d be sealed shut by tomorrow. I really did have excellent healing powers, bordering on the uncanny I’d always been told.
I stretched out on the couch in the living room of the travel trailer and opened the pictures on my phone. After all the drama and traumatic injury, I was pleased to note that my tiger selfie was pretty fucking bad ass. I smiled as I uploaded it to Facebook with no caption. I made sure the location was turned off, I didn’t want people to find me, I just wanted to let them know I had moved on and my life was awesome.
Now I just had to work on convincing myself of it.
Chapter Seven
The entire move from Vancouver to Seattle took much longer than I’d anticipated. I hadn’t really comprehended how much there was on the Cirque’s grounds until it was all packed, lined up and ready to go.
Hundreds of big rigs with flat decks were the first to leave, one by one. They carried things like the tents, the infrastructure, ticket booths, furniture and such.
After this was Alexi driving a smaller truck and trailer housing the tigers. I was jumpy just thinking about Lucille’s giant teeth riding on the back of the truck. I’d given my roommates a glossed over version of events, downplaying the seriousness of the bite. I hadn’t mentioned a thing about Orion’s offer.
Last but not least were the performer’s trailers and RVs. Our trailer was hooked to a pickup truck, Cara and Rose took turns driving. I sat in the back seat, but wasn’t left out of the conversation.
The entire three hour drive was spent gossiping, giggling, and singing road trip songs. It was, by far, one of the best days I had ever had. I loved Cara and Rose, and happily they totally got my weird sense of humour.
I supposed you had to be a little off center to travel with something like Cirque des Curiosités.
Once we arrived, I was told to stay in our trailer until things were set up. I cringed at the special treatment, but it was a direct command from Orion himself. The girls didn’t seem to resent me though, they understood it was because of my injury. I just hoped they wouldn’t treat me differently once I was a performer.
I was lounging on the c
ouch again, watching shitty television from the trailer’s satellite dish, when Carl popped in to check on me.
“How are you feeling, girlfriend?” he asked and motioned for me to show him my arm. “Oh my god, you could have had that torn right off.”
He was dressed in casual clothing, and once again I found it a little unsettling to see him out of costume.
“It’s not that bad,” I said and laughed, “Lucille just got surprised when I took a photo. I should have had the flash off, it was all my fault.”
“Lucille? Lucille did this?” Carl asked, his eyes widening.
“Uh yeah, why?”
“Lucille is the dangerous one. Desi is the sweetheart, but Lucille’s been a bitch from day one. She’s had quite the rep. What the fuck was Alexi thinking?”
“He was probably just a little distracted with everything that was going on, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” I replied. Still, it did bother me that I’d been sent to the tigers in the first place, so why had Alexi left me with a dangerous animal?
“I heard you might get a performer’s slot,” Carl said, changing the subject. I loved him for it, he was very perceptive for a man.
“It’s a possibility.”
“What’s your talent? Or are you a closet freak? Tell me,” he said and leaned in. “Do you have a tail? Or two pussies? Or a tail and two pussies? Oh my god, don’t keep me guessing.”
I was laughing so hard, and his words spilled out so rapidly that I couldn’t squeeze in an answer. I waited until he ran out of ideas and I grinned at the anticipation on his face. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” I told him, “but I just have a genetic condition. I can’t feel pain. And one boring pussy.”
“Oh,” he said. His face dropped as he processed the information. “Can’t feel pain? That’s it?”
“Sorry,” I said, “I know, double vaginas would have been so much better.”
