“It would be easier to hate her,” Neve muttered. “She’s here and he isn’t. But I just really hate my husband right now.”
“I’m sorry about that, too. Arcanium doesn’t lend itself to resolution of outside conflicts. It has its moments, but marital strife isn’t one of the exceptions. There. Test makeup done. What do you think?”
“Depends what it’s for.” Neve laughed in spite of the nausea and the fact her lips didn’t want to smile. “Am I supposed to look seasick?”
Kitty grinned as she rummaged through Neve’s costumes. She pulled up the gray-handed dress. “It’ll look much better in a dim green light, trust me. It’s supposed to be a touch of haggard, but theater makeup has to be more dramatic than regular to get a similar effect under bright or dim lights. Your coloring is like Elizabeth’s. I have to go more gray and soft with you, with your red hair instead of her black, but both of you take to color really well, as well as a lack of it.”
Kitty hummed in quiet happiness as she held a few other outfits up, some which appeared to not have enough structure to hold Neve in. “We’ve had Lady Sasha for decades, but I don’t think Bell’s gone the vampire route so plainly, even when it was fashionable a few years ago. It was wonderful to sew in velvet. Lady Sasha does all our leather, so she has plenty of work, but what I provide is usually simpler and smaller. I think he wants a Dracula’s bride out of you eventually.”
“Is that what the hands dress is for? Dracula plays and movies sometimes have hands coming out of beds for Jonathan.”
“No, the hands are for something else, but that’s a delicious thought, isn’t it?”
“Depends on whether I have other outlets, I guess,” Neve replied, lowering her eyes.
“Ah, yes, outlets. You don’t have to pick the one Bell clearly groomed you for. That’s your right. Maya and I have multiple outlets. Caroline has her two men. Christina and Troy are basically exclusive, although true monogamy tends to be rare in Arcanium. The Spider’s got a stronger sex drive than me or Maya, but she mostly sticks with the Creature—the winged monster, who you’ll probably meet at the funhouse. If you’re like her and take issue with demons, Carlo, our legless Torso, rarely says no. Poor baby is dead-center bisexual and randy as a tom with both sex demons working their magic on him. Misha’s kind these days. And the stone-skinned man, Victor, is a former lover of mine. We wanted different things, parted amicably. Seth and Lars are with the twins when they’re not with each other, but all four have taken other lovers. You don’t have to have both men together, although based on Maya’s description, I do recommend the experience at least once.”
Neve shook her head, laughing because she didn’t know what else to do. It was funny, like a good girl listening to a worldly friend during a makeover. “It sounds ridiculous to say, because Joseph strayed and I did the same to get back at him, but I’m married. I’m monogamous, and marriage means I’m taken. Unless Bell knows a good divorce lawyer, I’m stuck with a ring”—she held up her left hand—“and no outlets.”
“Christina, our limbless Torso, was married. She’s been declared dead, but she took off her ring long before that. Arcanium’s not the world, Neve. Your age is suspended. We produce no children, fear no disease. I’ve long suspected time itself runs a little differently. No one finds us unless Bell lets them, and until we wish ourselves out or Bell releases us, we can’t leave. Even those of us who can cross the threshold must always come back. Arcanium’s not the world. You’re not married in here.”
“I made a vow. It has a few cracks in it, but the bond was still made before God. And with jinn and demons here, it’s hard not to believe God exists, too, right?”
“Suit yourself. Though if there’s a God, He has yet to smite any of us,” Kitty said. “I just mean you have options. They’re not good options, but the best thing anyone can do in here is take comfort where they find it, and with the incubus and succubus working their magic into the soul of Arcanium, sex is inevitable. If you’re crawling out of your skin, sweetie, you might have to stand before your Maker and admit to your weaknesses, because you’re right. It’s only going to get worse from here.”
Chapter Five
Bell entered backstage as the golems were handing out breakfast tacos to the cast. He was as pretty as ever, summer-skinned in his leather trousers, but there was a drawn quality to his face, discomfort in his neck and shoulders. He glanced at Maya and Kitty where they sat together, but he didn’t argue, and neither woman tried to castigate him any further.
Instead, he directed his attention to Neve. “I see Kitty’s made you up for the day. Are you ready for what I have in store for you?”
Neve finished the last few bites of her taco, pulled lip gloss from the front of her dress, applied it then handed the tube to Kitty. With a burlesque flourish, she shed the robe that had hidden her from anyone’s new-girl-in-town curiosity. As she folded the robe over the table, a few wolf whistles and delighted laughter rose in response.
She didn’t know yet how it went with a haunted funhouse, but the gray-handed dress fit her like a body glove—comfortable, breathable jersey on the inside, with the rubbery hands covering every inch of the outside, seeming to hold her breasts, caress over her shoulder, grope her back, hips, ass, thighs. She’d done Rocky Horror costuming, so this was tame in comparison, if a bit exposed for nine o’clock in the morning and with everyone staring at her. Showing skin wasn’t uncommon around here, but it felt strange to join their number.
Her reveal brought a smile to Bell’s lips—and not a sad one. “Not every new member exhibits such enthusiasm.”
“I’m not enthusiastic. I don’t know what to expect, so I don’t know how to feel yet.”
“You know, people might be more ‘enthusiastic’ if you didn’t abduct them, literally and figuratively strip them down, make them transform like some goddamn horror show then tell them they have no choice but to do what you say,” the Spider said, still not looking up from her book. “Just a thought.”
Neve raised an eyebrow at him.
“Every secret organization has a trial by fire. It’s tradition,” Bell said.
“Do you know why?” Neve asked.
“I do.” His smile deepened. “Do you?”
“When organizations make membership difficult, prohibitive or exclusive, people work harder to get in, even if the organization itself is frivolous and not worth the currency paid. And when people share the same traumatic conditions of membership, they grow closer, form a bond, a tribe, based on that shared trauma. They succeeded, survived, where others failed, and no one else can know how they suffered. It forms the foundation of the Greek system, school pride, the military, gangs. It’s a way to break down individuality and resistance, forge community and force rapport more efficiently—and it works.”
“It must be interesting, seeing the moving parts,” Bell said.
“I could say the same of you.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” he replied. “You’re fortunate I’m quite taken with intelligent woman and surround myself with them, else I’d be threatened, love. Even intimidated.”
“Maybe you could stand to be intimidated.” As Neve passed the table, the Spider, still not looking up, raised her fist. Neve bumped it.
Lennon, Carlo, Victor and Moss added their hooting and hollering to the fray.
“Oh, do try.” Bell offered his arm the way Joseph once had.
But Bell wasn’t her husband. His skin wasn’t her husband’s skin. She already knew direct contact would be like introducing a live wire to a rain puddle but she took it anyway, swallowing as her body reawakened.
Bell led her out of the big top. “You’ll have plenty more to distract you in a few hours. Pace yourself.”
“How am I supposed to do that? You made it impossible.”
Out here, she couldn’t close her eyes, breathe and keep completely still on her clean sheets to minimize stimulation, which was how she’d slept at all last night. But she’d woken key
ed up, her libido shot with espresso from her dreams. Knowing the toys close at hand were useless to her made each and every one of them taunts. It had taken a cold shower to calm her nerves down enough for her to put on the costume and go to Kitty for makeup before breakfast rather than after—Neve’s choice as a morning person and Kitty’s prerogative as a person who didn’t need much sleep.
Thinking about Kitty with the Ringmaster as soon as she’d seen the rumpled cot hadn’t helped matters. She’d had to follow her time in Kitty’s tent with a few minutes out by the food court picnic tables, which were frigid without the patio heaters on, just so she could eat her first breakfast taco without innuendo burning through her brain too far.
“Not impossible. Your brain’s inexperience with these sensations is part of the reason you suffer. It’s interpreting these foreign feelings as pain. To feel pleasure and not reach satisfaction can frustrate, but the foreplay stage is as important as the act of sex. I’ve offered you a world of foreplay, a way to sink into the warmth of your pleasure without an orgasm cutting it short. Once you’re able to recognize what you’re feeling better, you’ll no longer react as though in distress. You’re not in pain, my dear, and you’re not going to die from orgasm denial, despite what many men will try to tell you.”
“This isn’t pleasant.”
“Not yet. But I aim to please.”
“I’m not going to fuck you just because Maya isn’t.”
For a moment, Neve thought Bell was going to strike her to the ground, and who knew what he would do after that.
Then he took a breath and continued to lead her to the funhouse as though he hadn’t needed a beat. “That wasn’t a veiled invitation into my bed. I’m a helpless, harmless flirt. It doesn’t have to mean anything just because your mind’s becoming acquainted with the gutter for the first time.”
Neve stopped him, slithered her arm from around his and stepped back, but not to run. She couldn’t run from him, but she could know where she stood. “Bell, should I be afraid of you?”
“No one’s ever asked me so directly. I suppose it depends what you’re afraid of.”
“Don’t equivocate. You’re not just upset about Maya. You’re furious. Is that something I need to watch out for? Are you going to hurt me if I ask too many questions?”
“I’m angry, but you needn’t fear my anger unless you seek to sabotage or destroy my circus. Do you intend to hurt Arcanium?”
“No.”
“Kitty imparted many valuable pieces of advice. You should be careful, but if you’re good to Arcanium, you need fear nothing from me. I’m not going to take out my feelings about Maya on you or any other member of the circus. I simply experience it, the way you experience lust as it washes over you and threatens to pull you under. However, I don’t fear that it will, nor should you.”
He held out his hand, not to take hers but to indicate that they could walk side by side. Neve nodded, locked step with him. The haunted funhouse was just ahead, its reputation far exceeding an underwhelming exterior.
“Are you furious at Maya? At me?”
“Kitty was right,” he said. “Your inclination to blame yourself for things you didn’t do is a curious one. I’m neither furious with you nor with Maya. I experience anger when I think of her, but she is not the cause.”
“Are you?”
He looked up at the roof of the funhouse in silence. The Creature slowly crawled onto the edge to peer down at him, as though he’d been waiting. The strange gargoylian monster licked his teeth, his glimmering red eyes unreadable.
“No,” Bell finally said. “Not completely. Now, it’s time for you to let your questions receive their answers in other ways, not that I wish to discourage your innate inquisitiveness. You are rare company, Neve, and the ease with which you choose to speak honors me. But once you enter the haunted funhouse, I trust you to figure the answers out for yourself, observer that you are. Are we agreed?”
Neve nodded, cautious of the gargoyle and his wicked smile, but despite his angle, he didn’t leer, which made Neve feel safer.
“Ladies first.”
She entered a corridor that remained as black as pitch until Bell closed the door behind them. Then the funhouse came to life, dim lights illuminating the way and a soundtrack of horror screams and creepy string music rising through the halls. It was like walking through a ramshackle trailer home, with thin hallways and hollow floors, but this one kept going and going.
Light, shadow, strobes and subtle architectural alterations messed with her perception. Trying to determine what was wrong about the funhouse structure hurt her brain, which briefly made her forget about the costume she wore and the desire tingling under her skin like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
As she turned the first corner, a light switched on to illuminate the blonde girl with ivy coming out of her mouth. In her closet-sized diorama, the vine had been integrated into a parasitic forest. Brownish green vines thick as serpents and rough with bark wrapped around her legs and up her blue and yellow cheerleader skirt. Thinner vines curled out of her ears, budding with small, viper green leaves. The ivy in her mouth muffled her screams, but nothing covered her eyes, which were filled with fear. The vines she suffered all the time weren’t just hidden among the rest of the tableau. They’d taken root, joined with the rest of the plant life to torment the girl, swaying her among them. It was a cross between Evil Dead 2 and Bring It On, and if Neve had seen this before she’d been pulled behind Arcanium’s curtain, she would have thought it was amazing. The sinking in her stomach came from realizing it was still amazing, but terrible at the same time.
She moved on from the ivy woman. A dark corner—darker than it should have been, as though Bell had some kind of mechanism for blackening shadows—concealed most of a monster except for his furry head. Horror movies had trouble making werewolves scary, but when the creature lifted its head and showed bright, silver-moon teeth threaded with strings of saliva, real life was far more effective. It emerged from the darkness like a body from water, chains clanking as they slid against each other. Heavy iron wrapped around the wolfman’s neck, but nothing held back its long arms as it started after her.
Neve screamed as she scurried away.
She wasn’t afraid it would really attack her. She knew this was a funhouse. But if she didn’t give in to the fear, haunted houses and scary movies wouldn’t be nearly as fun. Getting scared was the point.
The werewolf roared after her, lumbering, though it was lean enough it could have run faster, could have caught her and torn her limb from limb. He didn’t look like a man in a costume. There was a terrible reality to his shape, his musculature, the fur over his arms, chest, abdomen, face. Like the structure of the funhouse, it was just real enough to disturb. But the werewolf caught up short at the end of his chains. He growled, ferocity and hatred mingling with a kind of evil glee in his dark, glittering eyes. Then he backed into the darkness, gathering his chains around him once again.
Unconcerned that the wolfman or anything else would hurt him or try, Bell maintained his own slow pace—like a god stepping through the carnage of a battle fought in his name. He raised his chin to encourage her to go on, his smile indulgent.
Neve turned the next corner without him. This tableau was larger, a small bedroom blocked off by glass and filled, body on body, with disease—suppurating sores, boils, necrotizing fasciitis that appeared to dissolve the flesh like slow-burning paper as she watched. Huge, evil-looking sewer rats the size of small cats clambered among them, nibbling at the lesions.
Neve crouched to peer closer at the people at the bottom of the pile, at the way the pus, lymph and blood smeared on the glass. No, they weren’t faking. There weren’t prosthetics here.
That was the trick, wasn’t it? That was the humbug—that there was no humbug, but everyone thought there was. Everyone thought it was latex, corn starch and food coloring, all the best go-tos for a horror makeup artist. But this was real human misery. She’d seen som
e of these people eating breakfast this morning. That man with his forearm hanging from a mostly virus-eaten elbow? He’d been having his coffee. Ivy Girl had had vines growing out of her from both ends, but she’d been able to drink her smoothie, able to walk without blood dripping down her legs.
Did that mean it didn’t feel as bad as it looked, or did that mean it was worse in the funhouse than it was in the rest of the circus? So there was the everyday torment, then the special torment Bell brought out when company came over and paid for the privilege. The practical side of her thought it was quite the system Bell had set up. The human side of her was horrified. The inner child, however, was fascinated with this new kind of haunted house, where the horrors were real but where she knew she was safe.
Already, she’d adapted to the horrors of Arcanium faster than she’d adapted to the changes in her own body.
“Help me,” the man mouthed. Myoclonus twitched his body and the bodies over him like death throes, but Bell wouldn’t make it that easy for them.
“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure whether he could hear her through the glass. “I can’t help you.”
Bell came up behind her and urged her back to her feet.
“Whore.”
The man spat bloody phlegm on the glass. Neve jumped back.
“Don’t take their epithets to heart, my dear.” Bell put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. “I never punish without a reason. Believe me.”
Mindful of his suggestion to save all questions for the end of the funhouse, she continued, although she wondered—if the people in the haunted funhouse were the prisoners, the punished, then why was she here? Was she safe, or was the safety he’d promised only to lull her into a false sense of security?
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