Ringmaster

by Aurelia T. Evans

  “I thought about it,” Kitty said. She tugged on the single braid of her beard, suddenly too aware of all her hair, smothering, as though it could suffocate her through her skin. “I was this close to doing it just a few years into Arcanium. That’s why I wished for an ice cream cone because it was hot outside. I did it so that I could never be normal, even if I wished it out loud.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Victor said. “If that’s what you wanted, if that’s what you wish—”

  “You know how you can have your own personal problem forever, and you can be completely unable to problem-solve your way out of it, but someone else comes along and sees the easy solution that you were never able to figure out?” Kitty asked. “I had that earlier this year. Caroline joined Arcanium and asked me the same kind of question. Then she told me I could have wished to control my hair, to be normal—or hell, completely bald—if that tickled my fancy, but I could grow my hair back out again when I was working here, whenever I wanted. It was simple. It was elegant. It was perfect. I regretted my ice cream wish so hard at that moment. I couldn’t let her see how much at the time. I’m still angry at myself. It’s part of the reason I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Victor eased her hand away from pulling on her beard. “There’s another solution to that too, you know. I have two wishes left. I only need to save the one.”

  “No,” Kitty said. Victor jerked away from the force of her reply. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why not?” Victor said. “I want to. You gave me this chance. It’s only right for me to return the favor.”

  “I’m not ready,” Kitty replied.

  “You’ve been ready. You want it. I can do it.”

  “All my life, Victor. All my life, I’ve been this. I’ve had people skirt away from where I’m walking. It’s just like today, except multiply it a hundred thousand times—and that was before I joined a freak show. They pointed. Laughed. Attacked. I tried to groom it into submission. I eventually had to admit that it wasn’t going away. I had to accept it, embrace the freak that I am. That was the only way I could survive. But even so, everywhere I looked, everywhere I look—television, movies, magazines, ads, other people—they all tell me I’m ugly.”

  Victor tried to interrupt, maybe to say ‘not all’. But that would have been missing the point—and he’d be in denial, because there had doubtlessly been a point before she’d sucked him off for the first time that he would have agreed with them.

  Kitty bulldozed over him. “I’m not just abnormal,” she said. “I’m disgusting. They want to lock me up and throw away the key so they don’t have to look at me. It’s pervasive. It’s everywhere. People don’t even notice those messages they’ve absorbed into their impressionable minds until I walk across their path. They don’t even think about it. They just react and never question their reaction unless I push back, and I can’t do that with everyone.

  “I’m afraid,” she murmured, turning her face away so that she didn’t have to see her shame reflected in the bright sheen of his eyes. “I’m afraid if I wish it away or wish for it to be a choice…it means they’re right. And I’m afraid that, given enough time being normal, I’ll become just like them.”

  “You couldn’t,” Victor said, cupping her cheek and stroking the hair there. “You could never be like them.”

  “I could. And whatever you do, I don’t want you to make the wish for me, Victor,” Kitty said forcefully. “Someday, maybe I’ll ask someone to do it, but not now. Don’t you dare make that wish.”

  “It’s not your wish to forbid,” Victor replied. “I don’t need your permission to give you a gift.”

  Kitty closed her eyes. Nausea rocked in her stomach as she took a step back. “Victor, I need you to listen to me.”

  “What?”

  “I like you. I really, really like you. I wouldn’t have shown you the true side of Arcanium if I didn’t. When we’re together, it’s almost always a pleasure, and it makes me happy to be with you,” Kitty said.

  “Man,” Victor muttered, running his hand over his head, “I see that ‘but’ coming from a mile away.”

  Now that he was waiting for her to say it, it got even harder. But finally, she managed to pull herself together.

  “Don’t waste your wish. And don’t fall in love with me, Victor. Please,” Kitty said.

  Victor finished the pass of his hand at the back of his neck. He looked up at her, the stone of his face not entirely concealing the emotions flitting through his eyes and in the subtle muscle tics in his cheeks, his jaw, his forehead, his mouth. She couldn’t pin them all down, couldn’t give them all names, but she felt the reactions from them just the same. She saw hurt in there. That one she recognized. It was present for less than a second, but there was no mistaking it.

  He stepped back too—not a retreat or a stagger, just taking a moment to reestablish a boundary that he hadn’t known was supposed to be there.

  “Hey, what? Where’s this coming from?” he said, brushing the warning away as though it didn’t matter.

  “Don’t give me that,” Kitty said. “I’m not psychic, but I’m also not stupid. I’ve seen it enough on other people to know when someone’s falling. You wouldn’t have offered one of your wishes if you weren’t.”

  “Fine. Then, really, where is this coming from? Because I don’t know if you noticed, but we do pretty well together—if we consider yesterday a blip, and I thought you did. It’s not a coincidence. It’s a damn miracle, Kitty,” Victor said.

  “It’s a bad idea,” Kitty replied.

  “Why? Because you’re part of a traveling circus and can’t settle down?” Victor said. “Well, neither can I. That excuse doesn’t wash anymore. Before I came here, I had to let women down easy because I never knew whether I’d be able to give them a full life with the kind of love they deserved. I liked being with you because you never asked that of me. What we had was enough. But now I’m settled into unsettled life, the same as you, and I have the time that I didn’t have before. We click. We have fun together. You’re amazing. I’m amazing,” he added with good humor. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no reason we shouldn’t. I know you don’t care what other people think about us together, so why not go for broke and try?”

  “This isn’t about fear, Victor,” Kitty said. “It was never about fear. The thing I’m afraid of is the wish, but that’s not you.”

  “Then why do you look so afraid right now?”

  “I don’t like hurting people as a rule,” she replied. “And nothing hurts more than telling someone falling in love that you can’t love them back. I do love you, Victor, but not the way that you need. Not the way you look like you love me.”

  Victor took her hands again. “You do just fine being what you are, what you’ve always been. That’s the woman I’m falling for. You don’t need to change—”

  “The woman you fell for is the one who never asked you to settle down,” Kitty interrupted. “The one who never demanded that you give more of yourself than a few not-so-brief moments in the year, never asking for more, never asking for love or commitment. Your future changed since then. Mine didn’t.”

  “Is this your way of telling me that you only want to have sex four or five times a year again?” Victor asked with a weak smile, trying to salvage the conversation with humor. It worked. He got a soft laugh out of her.

  “I don’t mind what we’ve been doing, Victor. I don’t mind having sex with you more often. The sex isn’t the issue,” Kitty said.

  “Is it that you want to see other people too? You as good as told me to do the same,” Victor said. “I’m okay with you seeing other men. It kind of bothered me when you were with that guy, but that was… I was mad at me, not you. You know that.”

  “Why are you fighting so hard for this?” Kitty asked.

  “Why aren’t you?” Victor insisted. “This is what the poets write about. It’s what launches wars, and it’s what makes them end. It’s what makes
the world go round, if you believe the songs. I’m not saying all women are supposed to be mushy romantics about everything. I’m just saying that usually love is something almost everyone wants. A basic need we strive to fulfill. Something we’re willing to fight to get and to keep. I’m fighting because it was something I couldn’t have before, but it’s something I can have now. It doesn’t have to be some…burden on you. If it’s a burden, we’re not doing it right.”

  Kitty felt even worse as she stroked his cheek. Maya was right. He was perfect, the kind of guy any woman would want pursuing her—sweet, emotionally available and communicative, articulate, human enough to make big mistakes but man enough to admit when he did, capable of the kind of tender love that girls wrote about in their notebooks and decorated with hearts. This was prime husband material pleading with her with such earnestness that her chest ached when she met his eyes.

  So why was she turning him down?

  “Is it because I’m not normal anymore?” Victor said. He didn’t sound angry or accusatory this time. He was searching for answers Kitty wasn’t sure how to give, because she didn’t have them either. “You go out for your normal men, but you don’t have any weird ones waiting for you at home.”

  “I’ve had weird at home now and then, Victor. I go out because the temporary encounters are all I can give most days. It has nothing to do with these changes.” She ran her fingers over the somehow smooth roughness of his pitted shoulder. “I just… I don’t need what you need right now. What my life has been for these last twelve years or so, that’s what I need.”

  “No, that’s what you have,” Victor corrected her, drawing her against him once again. “It’s what you’ve chosen. But it’s not what you need. I can tell that when we’re together. I can tell there’s something missing.”

  “Victor, someday I might want the amazing array of what you have to offer a woman. Seriously, I’m not knocking you. You’re a good man, and you’re going to make someone a very happy, very satisfied, very lucky woman. But I don’t want you to hold your breath waiting for me, because I just don’t need that right now. I’m for everyone. There’s a piece of me for everyone here in Arcanium, where they need me, which means that I can’t just be for you. Almost everyone here has someone. Maya and Bell. Christina and Troy. Caroline with Riley and Colm. Joanne and Jane with Seth and Lars. Seth and Lars together, even though we don’t talk about it and they don’t know everyone already knows.”

  “They don’t? But it’s so obvious,” Victor said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes, it is, but they don’t know that, so we’re all pretending we don’t know until they realize we don’t care,” Kitty said. “Anyway, the point is, everyone has someone. Everyone needs someone here, which means that you probably won’t be alone for very long. Hell, you don’t have to be alone alone now. But Victor, not one of them has a ring on their finger. Part of it is the nature of the sex demons’ magic, which is why exclusivity around here is an exercise in futility. But the other part is how hard it is for people in Arcanium to settle the way you want us to. We’re nomads with each other too, never fully satisfied staying in one place with one person, whether we like it or not.”

  “Wow. I can’t tell if you’re just cynical or whether that’s true,” Victor said. “I’m not sure what I think.”

  “Please don’t tell me that I’m the reason you joined Arcanium. Please. I never meant…”

  Victor shook his head. “No. You told me all this before—or some version of it—when you sent me off to make my decision. I tried to make the decision with that in mind. You were a reason I came back. I won’t lie, Kitty. But you weren’t the reason. But the truth is that a man can’t help who he falls in love with. And it’s easy to love you, Kitty. That’s why everyone does.”

  He stepped out of her arms and gripped the back of his neck again. No infinitesimal expressions this time. That was definitely pain etched deep in his face.

  “I did this all wrong,” Kitty murmured, rubbing her forearms as though she were cold. “How upset are you? I tried to get to you before—”

  “Yeah, I’m upset,” Victor said. “But the truth is, right now I’m just… I’m sad. I’m sad for you.”

  Kitty couldn’t move when he met her gaze again.

  “You love everyone. And everyone loves you. You’re like a sun in the midst of all this darkness,” he said. “You give a little of yourself to everyone—to the customers, to the cast, to the men you’re with like me. You’re a hell of a good woman who thinks Arcanium needs her to be something for everyone. But that means it has nothing to offer you. In the end, everyone’s around you, surrounding you, but you’re alone.”

  “I’m not,” Kitty replied quietly. “I’m really not.”

  Victor took her hand and kissed it. “Maybe you don’t realize it now, but you will. And you’re right. Maybe I won’t be there anymore when you do.” He sighed and released her hand with a weak half-smile. “So, should we go back to four or five times a year? None?”

  “It’s up to you,” Kitty said. She sensed the pain he was pushing down along with the rest of his grief and wished she could be the one to alleviate it instead of make it worse. “I don’t mind how things are right now. I enjoy being with you too much to tell you to stay away. But if it’s going to be too hard…”

  “I’m not quite ready to let you go either,” Victor answered her after a deep breath. “That’ll be my problem, though. If there’s something everyone here seems to have in addition to a partner, it’s a problem.”

  Kitty smiled against the weight of her own private sadness as Victor kissed the corner of her mouth.

  “You want a drink after the gates close?” Kitty asked. “It can be just a drink too, if you want.”

  “The woman breaks my delicate little heart and asks if I need a drink,” Victor said with a grin that was becoming more comfortable with each passing second. “Hell yes, I need a drink.”

  “All right. I’m headed out again, but I’ll meet you after closing,” Kitty said.

  “Kitty,” Victor called after her.

  “Yeah?”

  “A man can’t choose who he loves. I can’t promise that I won’t keep trying. Because there is something missing in you. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like that it’s missing. You deserve better.”

  “But not tonight?” Kitty asked.

  He gave a sideways nod of acknowledgement. “Not tonight. I’ll see you for that nightcap.”

  Kitty would say something else, another apology perhaps, but there would be no point. Nothing she did would make it any better. She brushed her arm against his as she passed him to leave backstage and head back into the circus to finish her part of the late shift.

  It all could have gone much better, but it also could have gone much, much worse. As it was, Kitty unwound from the conversation through the rest of the night—no small feat, given the amount of caffeine in her system.

  Hence, the beer before the drink she was going to have with Victor.

  The Halloween season reminded her of college in the last month of each semester. It was a good thing that magic kept them healthy, or else she’d be a complete wreck. She wasn’t twenty years old. Her body didn’t know that she wasn’t twenty-eight anymore, but twenty-eight was still not twenty. Caroline could probably keep up, and Seth and Lars had been strapping, young college boys when they’d been added to Arcanium. But most of the members of Arcanium probably wouldn’t be able to function without magical help.

  When the customers started to finally leave through the Arcanium gates, Kitty closed her eyes and tried not to fall asleep standing up against one of the light poles near the picnic tables.

  Just one more day, and everyone could get some rest and relaxation before starting the whole process all over again the next weekend. It would let up once November came along. And in December, they usually had a few whole weeks off—not because Bell wanted to but because very few organizations booked Arcanium during the Christmas sea
son, and if they went solo during that time, few people came. They usually had a pretty wild New Year’s Eve party to perform for, but the new year seemed years away. So did the day of Halloween itself.

  “You going to make it, Kitty?” Caroline asked as she led her men to the food booth to pick them up something to eat.

  “If someone will just point me in the right direction, I might not even have to open my eyes,” Kitty replied.

  “Don’t tempt me, woman,” Colm said. A demon cursed into a human body, he’d probably get her turned around the wrong way just for the entertainment value, because he couldn’t do much in the way of evil while being ridden as a carousel mount all day. Caroline’s men did get the short stick, with even fewer hours of the day for a little bit of freedom, and they had to sleep through most of it.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just…so far away,” Kitty said. It really wasn’t. She could see her tent from the picnic tables, even in the darkness beyond the light.

  “I’m exhausted, and I barely move around,” Caroline said. “I can’t imagine how tired you are. You practically walk twenty miles a day doing your rounds. How do you still have shoes?”

  “Elves remake them while I sleep,” Kitty said. “Have a good night.”

  “You too,” Caroline called back.

  Kitty convinced herself to walk back to her tent, encouraged by the idea of putting up her feet and sharing a glass with Victor, any lingering tension between them notwithstanding.

  And sleep. Sleep was a very good reason for her to reach her tent.

  She ducked in and bent down to remove her sandals so she could walk on the rugs in blissfully bare feet.

  Someone grabbed her by the braid on the back of her head and the one attached to her chin and yanked her forward. She cried out, losing her footing. A man in an anonymous, dark gray hoodie dragged her by her hair onto the rugs.

  Her first thought was that this couldn’t be the Ringmaster. It didn’t smell like him. It smelled like cheap alcohol. Also, he would never wear something as plebeian as a hoodie.