CirqueErotique Page 3

  Slightly panicked, I tried the doors again—and they slid open silently. Easily.

  Rather than wait and risk another strange encounter, I decided to go looking for Tony or someone who could let me use a phone. I’d been here too long. I stepped into the dark hallway and looked both ways. Alone.

  I went on the hunt for someone, anyone, slowly forgetting my concerns the longer I wandered the corridors. My worries lifted like a fog. It was the house again, I was sure. Like a narcotic, a sweet, compelling drug. The longer I stayed, the less I wanted to leave. I suspected if I stayed long enough, I’d forget I had a life outside these walls. I’d be one of them forever…a freak.

  No clues marked my way, but something told me to turn left at the end of yet another long, narrow hall. I passed three empty rooms, each decorated stranger than the last. Voices up ahead drew me and I turned a corner to find a large dining room filled with the oddest assortment of people I’d ever seen.

  If I hadn’t been convinced before, this motley crew was proof that I’d found my way into the bowels of some strange circus troupe’s home away from home…or home away from circus.

  There was a bearded lady who smiled at me as if she already knew all my secrets. I felt a flush rise to my cheeks as I remembered my earlier sexual tryst with the hermaphrodite. A man no bigger than my three-year-old niece took a seat beside her, tipped an imaginary hat in my direction then proceeded to dump three spoonfuls of sugar into a steaming mug of coffee.

  I spotted the conjoined twins across the room, sharing a single bowl of oatmeal. I quickly looked away, but not before feeling a shiver of molten need in my loins just remembering what I’d seen, and the steamy sex I’d engaged in.

  As if I’d conjured him with just the memory, Tony entered the room.

  “Here she is,” he announced to the people gathered around the table. “This is Loralei, the woman I told you about.” He ran a fingertip along my shoulder, tracing the swirls and curves of color on my skin—the red, red rose and bloody thorns. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  A chorus of voices agreed. I felt their scorching gazes raking over my body, heads nodding in agreement, eyes darkening with lust. A hot wave of sexual tension washed over me. I felt it coming from all sides. Even the walls seemed to pulse and throb with their collective need. They all wanted me.

  And I wanted them just as badly.

  I felt dizzy with lust as I looked around the room, envisioning myriad sexual scenarios, partners and positions. I imagined fucking both the world’s tallest man and the world’s smallest at the same time, offering spaces for each to fill. I pictured the bearded woman’s hair tickling my inner thighs as I sucked the cock of my hermaphrodite lover, enjoying the best of both worlds—womanly man and manly woman. There was the hulking giant whose girth would surely split me in two…

  So many pleasures to explore. All I had to do was ask and they would all be mine, as often as I wanted.

  I shook my head. Hard. Were these my crazy thoughts, my imagination? Or was the house putting those lascivious scenes in my mind?

  Did it truly matter?

  “What is this place?” I whispered.

  Tony stepped closer. I could feel the heat of his body against mine. “A temporary stop between performances,” he said, his voice a husky vibrato that sent lightning ripping through my core. “A place to rest for a little while.”

  “And then what?” I heard myself asking the question but didn’t really care about the answer. All that mattered was the hard body inches from the thin sheet covering my nakedness. I knew exactly how it would feel if he pressed that engorged cock against my ass, sliding the sheet between my cheeks. And I wanted it…again. I let out a soft, liquid sigh.

  “Then we move on,” Tony said. “There’s always another town, a new place to perform, new people to amaze.” He ran his hand down the length of my back, a shudder following in its wake. “The circus is always performing somewhere,” he murmured.

  It sounded more like a threat than a promise.

  I couldn’t remember ever feeling so hot, so wet. Heat rippled off my skin in shimmering waves and juices ran like warm honey down my thighs.

  “Andre fixed your car,” Tony continued, gesturing to a bald albino sitting at the table. The man was studded and pierced, with a row of implants along his brow bone—tiny balls embedded beneath his skin. I remembered a boy I once knew who had body modifications that included genital beading. I wondered if Andre also had pearling along the shaft of his cock, and shivered at the thought of such balls rippling in and out of my tight cunt.

  I trembled. As if sensing my hunger, Tony slid his hand beneath the sheet, caressing my breast. “You’re free to go whenever you want now.”

  His words had a familiar ring. Suddenly a line from the song Hotel California came to mind. You can check out anytime you like. But you can never leave.

  Tony had said I was free to go. But to where? I’d never really felt as if I belonged anywhere until today. Never felt as if anyone truly understood me. Until these people, in this place.

  I could leave…

  “Or you could stay,” Tony whispered in my ear. “Be one of us.”

  One of them. A freak.

  I leaned back until we touched, fitting perfectly into the curve of his body. My skin ached for his touch. I didn’t know if I wanted to stay here forever, but I was sure I wanted to be here right now.

  There were other people in the room, but I didn’t care. The house was a drug that had me in its thrall. And I was a willing junkie, ready to do anything for my sexual fix.

  I reached up and loosened the sheet above my breasts, letting it fall to my waist. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as I exposed the first tattoo I’d ever gotten—a golden tiger sprawled over the curve of my right breast, his paw stretched out and around, sharp talons digging into the puckered skin just below my nipple. The tattoo was amazing, rendering an almost three-dimensional effect, as if those claws were truly slicing through the tender skin of my breast. It was both shocking and erotic at the same time.

  Tony traced the curve of the tiger’s tail, then up and around, cupping my breast over the lion’s outstretched paw. He traced upward, his fingernails dragging over the tiger’s talons. He tweaked my nipple and I growled low and deep in my throat. A jolt of heat sizzled from my breasts to my clit, sending molten lust along my spine. My skin felt like a furnace. I gasped when he pinched and tugged my nipples hard.

  “Harder,” I moaned.

  His voice was hot against my ear. “Beg for it.”

  I begged. Oh, how I begged.

  With one quick tug, he pulled the sheet from my body, letting it fall to the floor and exposing me completely to the onlookers. There were oohs and aahs of surprise when they caught sight of the deadly python curling around my thigh, its raised head hovering just above my shaved mons. The serpent’s tongue stretched downward. If I rolled my hips just right, the snake seemed to dance, its tongue dipping and swaying before disappearing between my swollen lips. It did so now, as I writhed and rubbed against Tony. He rubbed his palm up and down my thigh, over the snake, as if enthralled.

  I could feel the heavy, heated stares following the path of that tongue. Tony spread my lips, exposing the tip of the forked tongue that bracketed my clit. It had been both the most painful and the most pleasurable tattoo on my entire body. I heard the collective gasp of approval, but was too delirious to care that I was exposed so intimately to strangers.

  With one smooth move, Tony lifted me as if I were a child, gathering me to his chest. He swept me out of the room, away from the onlookers. I pressed my lips against his neck, licking the salty man-sweetness of his skin. My tongue trailed upward—along the pulse at his throat, the sensitive lobe of his ear. I bit down, thrilled at the gasp that dissolved into a moan of pure pleasure.

  The walls seemed to close around me, a dark, musky tunnel that lured us into its depths. I was beyond caring. The house could have me if it meant I’d spend the rest of my life
having mind-blowing sex with a never-ending array of lovers.

  And Tony. Above all, Tony—the dark and mysterious ringleader of this circus of delights.

  He took me into a masculine room that I instinctively sensed was his bedroom. It smelled like Tony, as if the walls themselves were embedded with his pheromones. The wood furniture was dark and rich, the walls covered with muted tapestries. I spotted gleaming swords hung carefully and a rug made of pelts. It felt like the private lair of a deadly huntsman.

  He lowered me onto a wide bed. Before I even had a chance to settle into the downy softness, he’d kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned, unzipped and undressed. The economy of motion was as fluid as a magician’s sleight-of-hand.

  Gloriously naked, he reclined beside me and captured my mouth with his own, ravaging me with tongue and teeth.

  Something felt wrong, out of place…but the flicking of his tongue drove the thought from my mind before it could take root, and soon all I could think about was how much I wanted him inside me.

  I reached down and grasped his turgid cock in a possessive grip. He closed his hand over mine and squeezed tighter, until I could feel the blood pulsing against my closed fist. Then his hand moved, dragging mine up and down his erection. The only moisture was the sweat of our skin. I briefly wondered if it hurt him, squeezing his dry cock so tightly, but his low growls of pleasure pushed those doubts from my mind.

  He drew my hand slowly upward, until it circled his crown, then gave it a little half-circle twist before guiding my palm across his pre-cum-coated tip, lubricating it. He brought our joined fists down faster, picking up more pre-cum with each upward stroke and increasing the speed on the downward motion. Together we worked his cock until it was as hot and hard as freshly forged steel.

  I was drenched with need, my pussy clenching and tightening in anticipation. His hand left mine and while I continued stroking his cock, he reached down and buried his fingers into the slickness of my cunt, pumping them fiercely, driving me to heights I’d never imagined possible.

  I loosened my grip on his cock, arched my back and tensed, holding myself on the crumbling edge of release.

  “Come for me,” he growled.

  As if his clever fingers weren’t enough, his words sent me over the edge. I let myself go, my body shuddering as I came in an overwhelming rush. Blistering waves rushed over my body, tumbling one after the other until I felt myself drowning in ecstasy.

  “That’s my girl,” he whispered, his breath cool on my feverish skin. “You’re so beautiful when you come for me.”

  I shuddered again, gasping for breath, feeling waves of steam shimmering off my body. Tony pursed his lips and blew a breath over my chest, teasing goose bumps along my skin. I moaned and opened drowsy eyes to find him smiling slyly down at me.

  “Tell me what you need,” he said.

  “More,” I begged, when I could find my voice again. “I want more of you. I want all of you.”

  He chuckled and climbed between my thighs. I arched my hips in wanton invitation, spreading my legs wide. His eyes smoldered as he watched the snake rise and fall with each roll of my hips.

  “Not yet,” he said, flicking out his tongue.

  And that’s when I saw what had been hidden until now.

  At first I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. Then everything made sense, including the look of understanding and acceptance on the hermaphrodite’s face when she’d seen my most intimate tattoo.

  Tony’s body modification mirrored my own—the yin to my yang. His split tongue played its way across my body, following the serpent’s path. Both sides moved independently, lapping roughly against my skin. I closed my eyes and he was the snake, slithering over and around me. My serpentine lover.

  I felt as if I’d been waiting for him, had conjured him with the ink marking my skin.

  When he reached my core, I held my breath. His split tongue slid lower, fitting perfectly on either side of my swollen clit, moving precisely into the same position as the serpent’s forked tongue.

  Oh God. Oh my fucking…

  He worked that snake tongue harder, faster, vibrating and encircling my clit until I thought for sure I’d lose my mind. In my fevered imagination, both man and beast made fiery, eager love to me. The combination was too much to bear. I cried out, my body bucking and jerking as I came harder than I’d ever come in my entire life. The orgasm was so intense I felt as if I was going up in flames, leaving nothing but a breath of ash behind. I came in a massive rush, my entire body shuddering in ecstasy.

  Before I could catch my breath, Tony rose to his knees, spread my legs wide and drove his cock deep inside me, grinding himself against my quivering pussy. With one quick lunge after another, he seemed to go deeper and deeper, burying himself. I rose to meet each thrust, crying out with every tight, controlled jerk of his hips.

  “Harder,” I shouted, my voice a strangled moan. “Fuck me harder!”

  And he did, fucking me harder and faster until we both collapsed in a tangle of sweaty limbs. And still he didn’t stop, pounding me into the soft mattress, that serpent’s tongue plunging deep into my mouth. I came again. And again. And one last time as Tony roared his own release.

  When he finally stilled, I buried my face against the side of his neck, trying to catch my breath. Never in my life had I felt so satisfied, so fulfilled.

  I started to doze lightly, barely registering his voice in my ear.

  “Have you decided?” he asked. “Do you want to stay here…be one of us?”

  I may have nodded. I don’t remember. Sleep washed over me in a drugging rush.

  * * * * *

  I woke to the morning sun on my face and a bed too big and wide for only one person. My clothes were neatly folded at the foot of the bed. The simple gesture reminded me of the decision in my hands.

  Would I stay or would I go?

  My head felt heavy and dull, as if I were fighting off the aftereffects of a wicked hangover. That only added to my suspicion that the house itself had some strange, surreal effect on me last night, clouding my judgment and lowering my inhibitions. In the cool, clear light of morning, the sizzling passion of the night before seemed distant and surreal.

  Had I really been so brazen? For all my desire to be different and live life on the edge, could I really consider myself one of them? A freak?

  I felt light and free. Whatever hold the house had had over me was lifted…at least temporarily. But for how long, I wondered? My window of opportunity could be closing while I stood here trying to decide whether to stay or go.

  I needed time to think. I needed to get away from the heady influence of the house, to be sure that the desire to join Cirque Erotique was my decision alone, not one thrust upon me. For once, I wasn’t willing to jump blindly into the unknown. Somehow I knew that if I made this move, it would be forever. I’d be leaving everything and everyone I knew behind. At the moment that didn’t seem like a bad choice, but I couldn’t trust myself to think clearly inside these walls.

  I had to leave now while I had the opportunity. Or did I? Maybe this was simply a test. Maybe the house was teasing me, giving me a taste of fresh air and freedom only to snatch it all away again.

  The sound of deep laughter echoed eerily in the distance. A chill crept down my spine. I reached for my clothes, feeling vulnerable in my nakedness. Once dressed, I left the room, careful to count the number of turns I made down the blind hallways. Despite my carefulness, I was soon lost in the labyrinth of rooms and corridors.

  I felt the presence of people just out of sight and knew I was being watched. I wanted to call out, but if felt like a sign of weakness. Somehow I knew that if I couldn’t find my own way out, I’d be trapped in this house forever.

  But it wasn’t just a house. I recalled Tony’s words. It was a refuge. A place where the circus performers could rest between jumps from one town to the next, a place where the freaks and acrobats and contortionists could live normal lives for a little whil
e, away from prying eyes and rude remarks. A safe haven…

  I shook my head to clear it, struggled to escape the house’s hold. “I’m not one of them,” I whimpered, sprinting from one hallway to the next. I’m not a sideshow freak. I’m not. I’m not!

  While my mind shouted in denial, I began to sense the house wakening from a deep sleep, could feel its tentacle fingers reaching out for me. Panic gripped me, tightening my chest in a claustrophobic embrace. I ran faster, as if chased by unseen demons. The sound of laughter seemed to mock my frantic footsteps.

  The walls breathed, shrinking and expanding around me. Ghostly orbs flickered from one side to the other in a dizzying kaleidoscope of color. I ran from one doorway to the next, not caring what lay on the other side. Escape was the only thing on my mind. As I ran down another endless hallway, those half-forgotten lyrics came back, playing over and over in my head.

  You can check out any time you like…but you can never leave…never leave…never leave…

  The house was winning. Already I could feel the need building inside me. Heat spread from my belly outward. I was ready—no, anxious—to embrace my own twisted desires once again, to lose myself in this erotic circus of delights. My mouth watered, my throat tightened and my knees went weak. I knew if I didn’t escape soon, it would be too late.

  I burst through another doorway then immediately tripped on a step I wasn’t expecting—and fell sprawling to the ground.

  The ground! I was outside. I pulled myself up and brushed dirt from my knees, ignoring the scrapes and cuts on my hands.

  My heart hammered in my chest. I’d made it. I’d escaped! No longer under the house’s influence, I laughed with relief. The sound was shrill and near-hysterical. I blew out a breath and wiped my hands on my skirt.

  When I glanced back at the house, I saw Tony peering out at me from a window. Even through the mottled glass I detected a look of unfathomable sadness on his face. And more. Disappointment…perhaps even a trace of anger.