Table of Contents
Books by Aurelia T. Evans
Title Page
Legal Page
Book Description
Trademark Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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About the Author
Totally Bound Publishing books by Aurelia T. Evans
Single books
Calling the Dragons Home
Red Queen
Arcanium
Fortune
Carousel
Aerial
Ringmaster
Contortion
Spider
Anthologies
Wild After Dark: Intervention
Collections
Frost Bite: Gravedigger
Arcanium
FUNHOUSE
AURELIA T. EVANS
Funhouse
ISBN # 978-1-78686-472-7
©Copyright Aurelia T. Evans 2019
Cover Art by Erin Dameron-Hill ©Copyright April 2019
Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2019 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.
Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.
Book seven in the
Arcanium series
What’s wrong with a little harmless demonic circus fun?
When Neve enters Arcanium, her six-month marriage is already on the rocks, in part because of her complete lack of interest in sex. However, after making a frustrated wish in front of the fortune teller, she seethes with sexual desire that calls the Arcanium strongman straight into her bed and pulls her into the circus and under its jinni owner’s thumb.
Neve is unprepared for the onslaught of lust coming at her from every side—from the sex demons that charge the circus with excruciating sexual tension to her exhibit in the haunted funhouse, where hands stroke her sensitized skin for hours on end without relief. What’s worse, the jinni has more insidious plans for her in the secret Funhouse, private esoteric events where Arcanium can go as far as it wants.
But after a lifetime of combating men’s objectification of her, fighting to be seen as a person rather than as something to seduce, her new raging libido and the impulses that accompany it make the effort all the more difficult. Among the free-spirited and tempting cast of Arcanium, Neve struggles to determine what she’s willing to become.
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
The Wizard of Oz: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Netflix: Netflix Inc.
Magic 8-Ball: Mattel Inc.
Google: Google Inc.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Richard O’Brien, 20th Century Fox
Nightmare Before Christmas: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Krampus: Universal Pictures
Dracula: Bram Stoker
Evil Dead 2: Embassy Communications, De Laurentis Entertainment Group
Bring It On: Universal Pictures
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?: American Broadcasting Company, Buena Vista Television
Captain Hook: Disney Enterprises Inc.
The Lady and the Tiger: Frank R. Stockton
Universal: Universal Pictures
Barbie: Mattel Inc.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson, Paramount Pictures
Hamlet: William Shakespeare
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: William Shakespeare
Chapter One
She was freezing in spite of two layers of pants and three layers on top—four, counting the scarf. But despite a rough post-holiday month with her husband—first holiday living together, first holiday married—a glimmer of something like contentment glowed in her chest. Joseph had his arm around her, and they were sharing one of the best hot chocolates she’d ever had. It felt like when they’d first started dating—all the reasons he’d eventually asked her to marry him, in spite of everything, and she’d said yes. He was her person, and her own personal heater as they walked through the traveling circus.
According to some of their friends, Arcanium had come to town several times before. Neve couldn’t believe she’d never heard of it. A circus-slash-carnival with freaks, steampunk and horror? It was so totally up her and Joseph’s alley. How’d they miss it all those other times?
It was small and cheap-looking from the outside—such was the travail of a nomadic business, she was sure. At a distance, Arcanium was just clusters of tan canvas tents and wooden booths—easy to erect and tear down. The fences were solid and good quality, and the gate entrance was beautiful, but the limited rides were, at first glance, a weak offering.
That is, if a person didn’t get close enough to notice that the carousel was one of a kind, each mount custom rather than generic or cheap and delightfully weird, with a squid, spider and a few saddled men to accompany more traditional mounts. Parking lot carnivals had higher Ferris wheels with brighter lights, but sometimes one of the performers or oddities would creep into a swing with someone to give them a good selfie from the top. And although they hadn’t visited yet, Neve was looking forward to the haunted funhouse.
Heck, she’d come back for the hot chocolate alone. She didn’t care what their special chef of odd delicacies might have put in the drink, whether it was cricket legs, coffee extracted from civet droppings or cocaine. It was amazing and warmed her up from the inside, where Joseph couldn’t reach.
Walking with him through Oddity Row was an exercise in trying to figure out which one was the humbug—and how they faked it—and which one was real. The best part was that it didn’t matter.
If the oddities were real, it was a testament to the awesome variety in the gene pool that hadn’t been, or couldn’t be, completely eliminated. As the only pale redhead in an immediate family of tan brunettes, recessive genes and genetic anomalies had been an amateur fascination since elementary school.
But if the fak
es were just that good, kudos had to be given to the person responsible for such exceptional, consistent illusion.
The Bearded Lady, the Man Made of Stone, the Human Spider with all her lovely spiders and insects, the snake charmer with all her wonderful reptiles, the Sphynx, the Cyclops, the mermaid, the Rotting Man… And those only tapped the surface, since many oddities were walking out and about, mingling with the guests.
Neve had thought freak shows had been mostly banned and eliminated in favor of acrobatic performance art and gross-out sideshows—which she loved, too. But she was oddly thrilled that an actual freak show still existed outside cable TV, whether the freaks were real or not.
“You want to ride an elephant or go to the haunted funhouse? I hear it’s nice and dark in there, sometimes even sexy.” Joseph kissed her forehead, his lips lingering there.
There had been plenty of oddities and performers who were as sexy as they were strange, like the harlequin clowns with their painted monster faces and their raunchy vaudeville pantomime. Like the contortionist in latex, with the dragon fire-eater led behind her on a silver leash. Like the Human Spider in leather and bound in white rope into her web. Like the strongman and the snake charmer showing off their bodies by limiting their costumes. Skimpy attire was par for the course in a circus, but Arcanium walked the line between teen-appropriate and adult, obeying the letter of the law, if not the spirit.
But Neve could only really tell sexy based on other people’s reactions and the empirical facts right in front of her, like clothing types and movement, the way Joseph’s pupils dilated and his easily red face flushed to his hairline.
Bodies were just bodies to her. Anatomical curiosities, sometimes walking pieces of art—and quite a few pieces of eccentric art were walking around the circus. Neve had always seen bodies differently than most. That had only been confirmed after her beautiful white wedding. She loved bodies, and she loved Joseph’s. But it wasn’t quite the same way he loved hers. His expression as he looked at her now gave her an all-too-familiar pang in her chest.
“Sure.” She hoped her smile appeared sincere, because she didn’t want the good day to sour like New Year’s Eve all over again. “I’m looking forward to the scary more, though. If you want romance, why not win me a Cthulhu and ride the Ferris wheel with me?”
Joseph’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. It lit him up like a yearlong Christmas tree. When he wasn’t smiling, he had what would be called Resting Bitch Face on a girl. On a guy, it was just a scowl. But she loved the furrows and his strong brows as much as she loved his smile.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said.
One stuffed tentacled elder god later from her amateur baseball pitcher husband found him and Neve waiting in line for the Ferris wheel, which, like the carousel, looked so much better up close—with gears and scrollwork over the enclosed swings and integrated into the wheel structure itself, like a giant faceless clock mechanism reduced to skeleton plates and cogs.
“Mind if I join you?” A short woman in a feathered bustle and sparkly red corset and shoes walked the fence around the ride as though she wasn’t wearing four-inch heels on a railing no wider than two fingers. When she flipped to the ground, her barely contained breasts quivered from the landing, lending credence to Neve’s theory that most of Arcanium’s people were actually glued into their costumes.
Joseph checked with Neve, as though he thought she’d be threatened by a beautiful, bosomy woman joining them. Why he thought she didn’t know he noticed other women’s tits as much as her own was beyond her. They were his favorite parts, after all. Neve’s only rule was Look, but don’t touch, but he still got jumpy about the look part now and then.
Neve nodded in encouragement, happily allowing the Arcanium performer to tuck her arms into both of their elbows like Dorothy in Oz, the very embodiment of ruby slippers. As soon as the ride was ready, she stepped up into the enclosed swing and beckoned them to follow.
“Either of you afraid of heights?” she asked.
“If that’s a subtle way of asking whether we can rock the swing at the top,” Neve said, “how about no?”
The woman laughed. “I’m the tightrope walker. I had to get over my fear of heights pretty quick. It helps when you know you won’t fall.”
“I’m fine on a Ferris wheel as long as it’s stable. How long have you been a tightrope walker?”
“A few years now, not long after I joined Arcanium. I started as the magician’s assistant, but they like you to have multiple skills around here.” She sat next to Joseph, across from Neve, and she crossed her strong, shapely legs to nudge Joseph’s knee with her shoe.
“I’d think it would take just that long to learn how,” Neve said.
“Apparently all you need is the right motivation.” The woman’s smile was dazzling, especially with the deep red lipstick she wore to match the corset, shoes and scarlet pigtail falls that fountained out on either side of her head. “No net.”
“Seriously?” Neve said.
“This place isn’t for the weak of heart.” She kept her arm hooked around Joseph’s next to her, but her harmless flirtation seemed directed at both Joseph and Neve together.
“I can take a lot, but I don’t like the idea of falling. Some of my worst dreams are of falling,” Neve said. “You know, the ones where you jerk on the bed when you wake up because you died hitting the ground.”
“There are some good kinds of falling,” the woman said. “Here we go.”
Neve kept a hand on the edge of the swing. As long as she sat still, she was fine.
It was interesting to see Arcanium from above. From here, she could see the caravan of semi-trailers, recreational vehicles and pickup trucks huddled together on the other side of the big top tent. The funhouse gargoyle poised above the haunted house entrance, ready to startle the unwary. She watched children riding the placid elephants, watched the carousel spin. Guests and performers mingled in the crowd, the monsters and freaks almost indistinguishable from the average people around them from this height.
“Want a picture?” The woman stood up to shift around to Neve’s side. “You’re not going to get a better shot in all of Arcanium—not while it’s open anyway.” She winked, with long false eyelashes that appeared to be made of fine, tiny black feathers.
Neve handed her phone to Joseph to take a high-angle picture as the woman sidled close, her breast against Neve’s. She kissed Neve’s cheek during one of Joseph’s pictures.
“Just a little souvenir,” the woman whispered in Neve’s ear. Then she shifted back over to Joseph’s side and handed the phone to Neve.
Kudos also went to whoever was responsible for the makeup and manicures, because those were exceptional as well. Neve worked in a lab, where long nails and latex gloves didn’t mix, so she always loved looking at other people’s nail art—right up there with enjoying other people’s tattoos while not interested in enduring one herself.
Neve scrolled through the pictures Joseph had taken as the Ferris wheel did another rotation. She smiled. The woman’s lipstick had left a blood-red lip mark on Neve’s cheek.
“Love it. Your turn, Joseph.” She set her Cthulhu stuffie on the seat in preparation.
As soon as the Ferris wheel stopped again at a good angle over the circus, Neve raised herself up, and the woman tucked herself close to Joseph.
“Want a souvenir of your own, sweetheart?” the woman asked.
“Absolutely,” Neve said, although she quashed the first irrational pangs of jealousy.
The woman kissed Joseph soundly on the cheek, leaving another mark behind, then smiled for the camera.
Not for the first time, Neve thought she was being grossly unfair and had been for a while. She recognized Joseph’s body language—not to mention the less subtle bulge in his jeans.
From the beginning of their relationship, she’d warned him that while she loved him to pieces, loved the closeness they had when they kissed, she didn’t seem to have what other people ca
lled a sex drive. She got more excited by kittens or the good pizza place near his house than the conclusion of date night.
They’d been traditionalists, which meant no sex until the wedding night, but there had been plenty of red flags before. Like when he’d been hot and bothered after a make-out session, and she’d just felt warm and fuzzy inside—no urgency, no regret they had to stop, no challenge in waiting. When she was younger, she’d thought she just hadn’t found the right boy. Now she’d found her soulmate, and six months in, they were subsisting on unenthusiastic once-a-week sessions.
At the beginning, they’d told themselves she just needed to get used to sex for it to start feeling better. Then he’d tried being more romantic, which had never been the problem. They’d bought marital aids—which was nice, but that was all.
She’d sworn to herself she would never be this person, never put her husband through a sexless marriage. It wasn’t like she’d ever been particularly conservative. She and Joseph were middle-of-the-road Christians, and she had a bit of a pagan streak to accompany it. Most religions were pretty clear about how cheating really wasn’t okay—hence her no touching rule. But as long as she simply wasn’t interested in sex, would it really be so bad to let him seek it elsewhere? Say, if this woman’s flirtation weren’t so harmless. There was certainly biblical precedent.
Neve forced herself to keep grinning and took the pictures, pretending it was all in fun. Now wasn’t the time to make a scene over something best aired in the office of a marriage counselor.
“It’s been wonderful to meet you,” the woman said. “Don’t forget to tag Arcanium in anything you post. We mostly depend on word of mouth.” She licked her lips then reached into a small purse at her side to apply a new layer of lipstick.
“How should we tag you?” Joseph avidly watched the lipstick’s progress, hiding his erection with his coat.
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