Freakshow Page 11

  I woke again and he was up, sitting on the side of the bed texting somebody like mad. I rolled over, reached out and rubbed his smooth back. In the daylight I got a good look at the intricate, bright tattoos covering most of his body. There were beautiful detailed drawings of birds, a peacock feather up one shoulder blade, and a large crest done on his back. The crest looked like a phoenix and I loved the detail.

  “Good morning, beautiful girl,” he said and turned around. He set the phone on my night stand and slid back in under the blankets. I had to smile at how clunky and outdated it was, he had claimed the phone was vintage and funky though.

  “Who were you texting?” I asked, “Any news on Cara?”

  He tucked my hair behind my ear and said, “I’m sorry, nothing yet. And it was my father, he’s expecting you. I told him you may be a little late considering you were looking for your friend all night.”

  “Oh shit, what time is it? I have to meet him at ten.”

  “You have until noon, and it’s ten thirty. I bought you an extra couple hours.”

  “Oh,” I said and reached down to rest my hand on the ripple of muscles on his lower abdomen, “what are we going to do?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them and said, “Fuck, I know what I want to do. But we can’t. I won’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, a little offended by his perceived rejection.

  “I want to take my time with you,” he said and kissed me. He broke away and continued, “The first time I fuck you, Liv, I want to have hours with your gorgeous pussy. I want to kiss, and talk, and slide myself inside of you when I can take it slow. It’s all too strange, right now, with Cara being gone. I can wait until the time is right, can you?”

  I was a little taken aback, searched his words and his face for his rejection, and found none. His sincerity was achingly poignant. His need to love me, not just fuck me, was apparent in his simple declaration that he wanted more from me than just a casual fuck.

  God I love him, I thought and fought hard not to say it. The time wasn’t right and it was ridiculous, I’d only known him for a couple weeks. My new friend was missing and we were both exhausted. I couldn’t say it.

  Not yet.

  But when I was around him, the moment he touched me, my tension melted off like a skiff of snow in the bright winter sun. When I was in his arms, he was the only thing that mattered.

  “I get it,” I said instead of pouring my guts out to him and scaring him off. “It’s not a good time.” I couldn’t help myself though, thinking of that thick bulge in his jeans last night, my hand crept lower and I gripped his shaft.

  I wasn’t disappointed, he was huge. Ginormous. Thick, veiny, hard and long.

  And pierced.

  I hadn’t expected that.

  “Do you like it?” he said, his breath shallow and his voice thick.

  “Like what?” I asked and blinked at him, feigning ignorance, then giggled. “Uh, fuck yeah, your cock is amazing. And pierced! What the hell, that’s exciting.”

  “I guess you were going to find out somehow,” he grinned.

  “What is it?” I asked and felt his shaft gingerly. I could feel maybe five barbells along the underside of his cock. Frenum piercing, I thought. I’d done a lot of research when I had gotten my clit done.

  “It’s called a Jacob’s Ladder,” he said, proud of himself. “Do you want a sneak peek?”

  “Heck yes,” I replied and scooted under the blankets. The morning sun illuminated the white sheets and I had enough light to see his magnificent beast.

  Piercing his giant cock had only served to make it look fiercer. Like it could beat me in an arm wrestle. Like he could club me with it and leave a bruise. I hid my smile at the visuals racing around my head at the sight of his mighty cock.

  Instead I gave into the next impulse and leaned forward to kiss it.

  The moment my lips touched the head, he sucked his breath in sharply. His hands went to my head and he cupped me gently.

  “You don’t have to,” he said, but his voice betrayed his urgent desire. I wanted to do for him what he’d done for me, in spite of the night’s events and my dangerous, uncontrollable feelings of love and lust that bubbled just under my calm exterior.

  “I want this,” I said and slid my tongue along the shaft, counting the barbells with the tip as I licked. There were five in total, ten little beads of metal along the sides of his cock. It excited me.

  I’d been with pierced men before, but they all seemed to be crying out for attention with it, or using the metal as a distraction, as though I wouldn’t notice how small the dick was if it was finely decorated.

  Cai’s cock enhanced the jewelry, not the other way around. It was lucky to be attached to such a perfect specimen of dickhood.

  I laughed to myself, waxing poetic about a cock.

  I wrapped my lips around the head of it and took as much in my mouth as I could manage. The piercings bumped along my teeth and I worked his cock with my mouth, taking it deeply down my throat.

  He couldn’t last long, I hadn’t expected him to.

  What I didn’t expect was how excited I got when he came. Previously I’d given head as more of a duty than a pleasure, but right now, I was lapping up Cai’s precum like it was my last meal before execution. I was hungry for him, I wanted to make him groan and pant for me, I wanted to own his pleasure and give him more than he’d ever had before.

  He’d turned me into a sexual fucking Mother Teresa, I wanted to give, give, give with him because the way his body tensed and the way he sounded as he built to his release was the sexiest god damned thing I’d ever experienced.

  I couldn’t help it, I wiggled my body and reached down to finger myself as I sucked his cock. I almost brought myself to orgasm as he exploded in my mouth, but I hadn’t quite made it.

  It didn’t matter, the grunt he muttered as he flooded my mouth with cum was enough to give me a jolting thrill of excitement along my spine.

  “Fuck, Liv,” he breathed out and I felt loved. I knew I was loved, with every breath he took and every time he said my name, I could feel the testament to our mutual fulfillment.

  So I could wait for the right time to consummate our connection. I fully understood now where he was coming from.

  I finished drinking down the last of him and savoured the moment of power over such a strong, beautiful man.

  When he had softened in my mouth and relaxed the grasp on my head, I opened my lips and let his cock slide out of me. I could still taste him on my tongue, a tangy, earthy taste...he tasted how he smelled, it excited me.

  “Come up here,” he said and grabbed my hand, pulled me up towards him. He kissed me and I thrilled to the fact that he didn’t mind kissing me after I’d sucked his cock. He didn’t seem to be as uptight as the men I’d been with, even the so called bad boys and rockers I’d always been attracted to.

  Cai was dirty, delicious and I couldn’t wait to fuck him at last.

  But first, I had to survive my first rehearsal with Orion and figure out what the fuck had happened to my friend.

  I drew back from him, but his teeth caught my lower lip and he sucked it. I moaned and pressed myself against him, our naked bodies entwined so perfectly that I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.

  His phone buzzed, we tried to ignore it, but finally had to pull apart when it wouldn’t stop. He went to pick it up, his gorgeous, tattooed body stretching as he grabbed it. I couldn’t help but marvel at the rippling movement under his intricately patterned skin. He was so fucking hot.

  He read a text, rolled back over and faced me. “Listen, I have to go but know that I don’t want to. Know that I want to spend the day here with you, rolling around under your blankets, and finally getting inside that hot cunt of yours.”

  “I know,” I said, “I have to spend the day with your father, who hates me I might add, throwing knives at me. I’d rather you were stabbing me with your big knife, if you know what I mean.” I wiggl
ed my eyebrows at him suggestively and we laughed together.

  “We still need to find your friend,” he said, growing serious. “This is going to bug the hell out of me if we can’t figure out what happened. I’m going to have my assistant pull any information we can gather about the previous two disappearances and we can go over it later together, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” I replied, “I feel so helpless that it will be good to do something. I just hope she turns up today.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, and looked almost ashamed, “I should have put out a bulletin, hired more guards, and cancelled the event. I should have been able to prevent this.”

  “It’s not your fault. I was totally overreacting last night. I was so tired and stressed I kinda lost it. You’re a good man, Cai,” I assured him. I quietly had to wonder what he meant by this. Did he know something he wasn’t telling me?

  Chapter Twelve

  “You’re late,” Orion said as I entered the performers tent. It was still messy from the previous night, but major attempts had been made to tidy it up. Orion seemed to have chased everyone away when he commandeered the area for our rehearsal.

  I checked my phone and saw that it was three minutes after twelve, not exactly late. Besides, I had to clean up after the crazy night, make breakfast for Rose and take one last check through the Cirque for signs of Cara. Once again, nobody had seen her. She’d seemingly vanished in the short time Rose was in the bathroom.

  “I’m sorry,” I said and slid the phone back in the pocket of my jeans.

  “When we work together, I expect a high degree of professionalism. Being tardy will not be tolerated. Do you understand?”

  He spoke to me in a slow voice, as if I weren’t mentally capable of comprehending a simple order. I hated it.

  “I understand,” I said and waited for his next direction.

  “Next time you need to wear loose, comfortable clothing. We’ll practice a little today, but you need to be more flexible,” he said.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. He hadn’t even mentioned the fact that I’d turned him down yesterday. He was so arrogant that he’d forgotten my stubborn protest already.

  “I am going to strap you down, spin you and throw knives at you. We are going to go through a few rounds on performance night, and I will hit you. A very bad, direct hit. Lots of bleeding. You might work on screaming, making it sound like you’re in pain. Play it up, and all that.”

  “That sounds awful,” I said and shuddered, thinking of the blades sinking into my flesh. The blood, the healing, the risk of infection, it was all horrible to think about.

  Orion crossed the few feet between us and pointed at my upper arm. “I will hit you here,” he said, “it will bleed a lot and look dramatic. It will also heal very well.”

  “What if you hit something important? Like the bone or a nerve? I won’t know anything is wrong unless my arm stops working or I keep bleeding.”

  “My aim is perfect,” he said, “You will remain unharmed. Now let’s do this.”

  I was reluctant to get up on the stage. I hesitated, weighed my options and found my only choice was to follow him. I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at his set up. He had a rack with at least a hundred knives of all shapes and sizes lined up in order of largest to smallest. Twenty or thirty feet across the space, there was a large wheel that resembled a roulette table. Four straps were attached to it.

  “You want to tie me to that?” I asked and thought again about leaving. Walking away and going back to Canada.

  But Cairo. And Cara. And the emptiness that waited for me back in Vancouver.

  I would stay put, even if it meant getting myself sliced up in the process.

  “I will strap you in and spin you,” he told me, “it’s all very exciting. The crowd loves a good knife act.”

  “What happened to the last girl?” I asked.

  “She’s working in your old job, selling tickets. She was never cut out for this type of work. Now please stand in front of the wheel and let me strap you in.”

  Understanding very quickly that it was impossible to disobey Orion, I decided to follow his direction. I stood where he asked, spread my legs and held my hands up. I realized the wooden circle was covered in thick corkboard, and this was completely covered in knife punctures. I was beginning to feel an awful lot like a pin cushion.

  He grabbed my wrist and held it tightly to the wooden circle, buckled a leather strap around it, and repeated with my other hand.

  “Is she upset?” I asked as he moved to my feet.

  He looked up at me, annoyed. “Who?”

  “The girl who used to do this. The one I took the job from.”

  He strapped my foot in, then the other. He stood up, still a few inches taller than me, and looked at my face. I was unable to move, I felt immensely vulnerable. It occurred to me that he could do anything he wanted at this moment, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Why did I get myself into these situations?

  “I didn’t ask,” he said with a slight curl to his lip, “it doesn’t matter.”

  “Did you cut her?” I asked.

  “Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “She wasn’t like you. It would hurt her if I had.”

  I didn’t know why I asked the next question, it bubbled to my lips before I could stop myself. The moment it was out in the space between the two of us, I regretted it. I was afraid of his answer.

  “Did you want to?”

  He looked me in the eyes; his were a dark brown but lacked the depth and soul of his son. He was completely unreadable when he replied, “Yes.”

  He turned and walked to the knife rack, stepped on a foot pedal I hadn’t noticed before and the wooden wheel started to spin slowly.

  “You may feel a little sick at first,” he said, “but you’ll get used to it. Please don’t vomit on your costume when you get one. If you have to throw up, warn me and I’ll stop movement.”

  “Okay,” I said, my voice a little shaky as the world tipped upside down, righted itself, and repeated over and over. I lost sight of Orion, everything becoming a blur of motion and colour until I wasn’t sure which way was up anymore.

  I heard the knife before I saw it. A rush of air followed by a solid thwack in the cork next to me. I twisted my head and saw at least a twelve inch blade sticking from the surface of the board near my right arm. I squeaked and continued to spin.

  “Don’t move your head!” Orion barked at me and threw another knife. Thwack! This one landed on the left side of me. “I am going to hit you once only, at the very end of the performance. And I don’t want you disfigured by taking off an ear or hitting your eye. You are a beautiful woman, that will bring more people than a horribly scarred one.”

  He threw several more knives and I felt my stomach lurch. I was surprised that I’d held it in this long, given the wine I’d had the night before. Adrenaline coursing through my body didn’t help and I felt it twist again as he tossed another knife, this one landing somewhere very close to the top of my head.

  “Stop!” I yelled and tried to calm my roiling insides. My head was still spinning when the wheel slowed and he came to remove me.

  “You were drinking last night,” he stated, as though he knew the answer already. “Don’t drink while you work with me, and I won’t drink while I work with you. You got that?”

  I was alarmed at his admission, that he was a drinker. I hadn’t figured him for the type or he would have a less dangerous act, wouldn’t he? I shuddered as his hand brushed my arm and he unbuckled the final strap.

  Unable to hold it much longer, I jumped off the stage and found a garbage bucket near a row of chairs. I let loose the contents of my stomach with a most unattractive retching sound. I dry heaved, tears coming to my eyes and my stomach clenching over and over until I felt spent.

  When I gained awareness of my surroundings, I saw Orion watching me, his face a hard mask of contempt. “Come tomorro
w at ten,” he said, “and we will work on this some more. Do not drink tonight, am I clear?”

  I stood slowly on weak legs and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I didn’t bother to wipe the tears off my face. “Yes,” I said, my voice quavering with fear and self-loathing. I never got hangovers, this must have been directly from the wheel, but I couldn’t protest or explain myself. Not to him, he would never buy it.

  He turned and walked off the back of the stage, leaving me alone and shaking next to the garbage full of my vomit.

  I just prayed the rest of my days with Orion would go better than this one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After my failed rehearsal with Orion, I’d gone back to my trailer to join Rose and some friends in a search for Cara.

  We’d turned up nothing.

  That afternoon Cairo had been forced to go back to Canada to clear up some paperwork at the border. Apparently the Cirque was having some difficulties with a pair of conjoined twins who were going to be joining the show. They needed their passports sorted out.

  I already missed him and spent a restless night worrying about Cara and fantasizing about Cai’s pierced cock. I felt guilty for wanting him so badly when my friend was missing, but couldn’t help myself. The thought of fucking him consumed me, so much that even when I tried to bring myself to orgasm later that night, I was unable to.

  I wanted only him. My body wanted his, and wouldn’t respond without his touch.

  I ended up punching my pillow out of frustration and reaching for my phone to text him that I missed him and was thinking of him. Fuck the rules, fuck playing hard to get, fuck my fears and insecurities, I wanted him. Full stop.

  It was past three in the morning and I noticed a text from him sent just twenty seven minutes earlier, when I’d been trying so desperately to get myself off.

  Missing you, can’t wait to get back. xoxo