“Do earthquakes happen here often?”
“They tend to follow me around,” he shrugged casually, “Come I’ll show you the library.”
26. Marcus’s Library.
The library was a large office off the entrance hallway with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining all four walls. A quick look at the titles revealed everything from classics, to historical fiction, to biographies and travel guides.
“Wow, this is a lot of books!” I gasped.
“It is, isn’t it?” Marcus rubbed the back of his neck. He looked a little self-conscious, almost bashful, as if by showing his books he had revealed an intimate secret. “To me, reading has always been like having a conversation with people who wouldn’t ask me any personal questions. Instead, they open up their own hearts and tell me their secrets.”
My heart seized in pain for him. When you differ so much from the norm, leading an ordinary life becomes an everyday struggle. I was glad that he found a way to deal with his self-imposed isolation from the world in the books he read.
I slid my finger along a few colourful book spines and read the titles out loud.
“The Greatest Shows on Earth… Cirque Du Soleil: 20 Years Under the Sun… These ones are books on circus history!”
He nodded.
I stopped my finger on one of the titles.
“When Pigs Could Fly and Bears Could Dance?” The title made me laugh.
“That one is on the history of Russian circus. Circus always has been a big part of Russian culture.”
“Have you seen a Russian circus?”
“I have. Many times. You know that there is a permanent circus building in almost every city in former Soviet Union? Regular shows run all season every year, just like theater performances in North America. There are families of performers where generations of circus artists are born and raised to continue what their parents did. Children are thought as soon as they learn to walk. They grow up performing alongside their parents. Circus is their life. Many acts involve animals too. The animals are as big a part of the show as humans are, if not bigger. Love it or hate it, it’s hard not to admire the dedication and skill. It’s a fascinating world on its own.”
“Have you ever ‘borrowed’ circus animals for your shows?”
“Yes. Circus animals are true actors, and I have a huge respect for them. Although, they don’t make the best stage partners for me.”
“Why not? I would think they’d be comfortable on stage?”
“Too comfortable!” he laughed. “All I need from animals in my acts is to sit still and let me do all the work. Circus animals are true professionals. They start performing their own acts as soon as they get on stage.”
“Have you been upstaged by animals in your own show?” I teased.
“I have,” he grinned. “Many times. Wild animals work better for me. They calm down naturally by my magic. I don’t have to do anything to keep them relaxed in front of a crowd. My personal preference though is zoo animals. They’re already used to large crowds of people, so I feel like being on stage is not such a big change for them.”
I watched his eyes light up with enthusiasm when he talked about the circus. I had rarely seen so much passion in him when he spoke of his own work.
“What interests you the most about it? I mean, about the circus?” I gestured at the shelves with circus books.
He paused for a second and replied confidently.
“The skills of the artists.”
“Is it something you would like to have in your shows? Could you add some circus elements?” I would have loved to see at least a fraction of this excitement on his face during his own performances.
“I wish I could.” He shook his head, his smile faded. “But I can’t. Absolutely not. These people, they achieve what they can do through years of hard work and relentless training, pushing the limits of what a human body was designed to do. If I go out there and pretend to walk on a wire, just like that…” He sighed and shook his head again. “I don’t care how it looks to everyone else. I would feel pathetic. An even bigger fraud than I already am.”
“What if you don’t pretend?”
“You want me to learn to walk on the wire for real, without magic?” he raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “I’m afraid I’ll break my neck way before the first show!”
“No, not like that!” I protested. “What if you stop hiding? What if you reveal to everyone that you have real magic? What if you have a chance to use it freely on stage, do everything you ever wanted to do without limits or restraints, without the constant worry of being exposed? I don’t know… You could invite people from the audience to be a part of it too. Your magic is your gift, and as any gift it only makes you happy when you can share it.”
“I do share it. As much as I dare,” he said stubbornly, and I hated to see his forehead furrow with lines, his features hardened. “You see, Angela, once my secret is out, I can never undo it.” His gaze moved to the bookshelves behind my shoulder. “I’d hate to be known as a freak again…”
I understood him. I really did. He learned to hide very early on. Life taught him to keep his secret deeply hidden, because every time people got a glimpse of what he was, they got angry or scared, and every time he was shunned. Still, the wheels in my brain kept turning, looking for possibilities, searching for opportunities. More than anything, I wanted him to be happy. And I thought that he could be happy if he truly loved what he did, if he embraced what he was instead of denying and hiding it.
“How about the new opening act you have been working on so hard lately? How about the Phoenix act? It’s the best part of your show. Do you feel happy performing it?”
He met my eyes again.
“I do. I designed the Phoenix act when a girl in a red dress challenged me to do something different, something on my own.” He stepped closer to me and traced his finger along the red satin ribbon I’d tied around my head in place of a headband. “I liked to imagine that she’d see it one day and tell me that I blew her mind again.”
“You sure did,” I smiled at him and wrapped my arms around his middle. “Tell me what you like about the act? How did you work on it?”
He moved his hand lower, brushing it against my hair, and rested it on my shoulder.
“I thought about how I wanted it to look and, more importantly, what I wanted people to feel when they watched it. The hardest part was to make the use of magic less apparent. I had to make it incredible but believable at the same time.”
“And you did it! I don’t know how but you managed to do that. It was incredible to watch but it was also believable without being confusing or uncomfortably intimidating.”
“I had the actual wings manufactured by a company that produces theater props. I store them backstage but make them appear on stage when needed. So, the crew knows that there are props and special equipment being used, but I modify the wings on stage, of course. I add the light, the fire and the movement. I left the music and stage lighting in charge of the production crew mostly, but I add a little bit of brightness, intensity, scents and heat whenever I feel is necessary.”
His eyes lit up again, letting the enthusiasm shine through, betraying the true showman in him. I was so glad to see it come out; he was discovering his own style.
“You did really well, Marcus. The end result is spectacular! Visually, it actually reminds me of Cirque du Soleil…” I stopped mid-sentence. “Would you like to do more of it? Maybe replace the rest of the show with acts like this? Oh, I know. You can invite other circus performers to work with you!”
“I don’t work with human partners on stage,” he reminded me, but his eyes narrowed in thought, considering what I had said.
“You don’t have to be in the acts with them. Let them do their job, just help them make it truly spectacular! Put life in their props, infuse colours in their costumes, add emotions to the stage and spread the magic around them.”
“So it would be like a circus show?” He so
unded intrigued, and it spurred me on.
“Something like it. Circus or variety. You can add singers and dancers if you want to. Oh my God, Marcus! It could be so great! Like nothing else on Earth! You won’t have to copy the acts of others any more. You’d be working with real talent and you can add a few more of your own acts too. Despite what you think, using magic is not cheating. It is your gift, your very own special talent. You are a talented performer in your own right. You just have to find your own way, your own style.”
His hand slid from my shoulder and moved behind my back as he pulled me closer.
“You are my biggest fan,” he nuzzled my hair.
“Your groupie,” I giggled and pressed my nose to his collarbone. “Will you contract allow you make changes to the show?”
“No, I don’t think so. The contract is specifically for a magic show. This sounds like it would be a big deviation from it. I’m planning to renew the existing contract for another year in March.”
“And you probably should,” I agreed. “The changes we are talking about will need some time to plan. You may as well stay where you are for now. You will have to find another venue for the new show anyway. Do you think Simon will be ok with changes like these?”
“Simon wouldn’t care,” Marcus shook his head confidently. “As far as the show is concerned, I have full creative control. As long as I’m still making money for us, Simon would let me do anything I want. Circus, variety, striptease… Whatever.”
“Striptease?” I cocked my head intrigued. “That could be fun.”
“You think so?” With a cocky grin, he lifted an eyebrow at me, and I felt his shirt dissolve under my fingers pressed to his back. My palms now lay flat against his bare skin. I made a surprised noise and took a step back to see that Marcus was completely naked. His clothes, his shoes, his underwear… Everything was gone!
I froze, speechless, even as my eyes slowly took him in, just the way he was, gloriously nude. I couldn’t help myself — I was just a human, after all.
He stood in the middle of the library, his tall powerful figure surrounded by shelves filled with books. His pale skin gleamed in the bright light, and dark hair shrouded his wide shoulders; the thin trail of short black hair led my gaze along his lower stomach all the way down to his twitching erection. At half-mast at first, it jolted under my stare and smoothly inched higher.
He held completely still otherwise, allowing my eyes to shamelessly roam all over his body. It was the first time that I saw him like this, entirely naked and fully exposed to me. He always wore boxers to bed, and was often completely dressed during our one-sided sexual encounters.
I licked my lips; my fingers itched to touch him. As if in trance I took a small step towards him, pulled by an invisible force, and noticed him shrink away from me. It wasn’t even a full movement, he didn’t step back or turned around, he just gently, maybe subconsciously, swayed backwards as I approached, and it made me stop in my tracks at once, bringing me out of my haze.
I took a bracing breath and tore my eyes away from him.
“This is not how it works!” I laughed nervously and shook my head, desperate to defuse the situation.
“You don’t like it?” I couldn’t decipher the intonations in his voice.
“You ruined it completely!” I waved my hand in front of his bare chest, refusing to look at him directly. “You took the ‘tease’ out of ‘striptease’. It’s supposed to be done slowly. You have to take your time.”
“Like this?” I lifted my eyes again as he spread his arms out to the sides, and all his clothes gradually appeared from the air, first like a smoky shadow then like a gauzy material until they finally solidified around his body.
I shook my head again, laughing away my unease.
“You better keep your clothes on during your shows, Mister Hargrave!”
27. Morning in the Desert.
Of course one morning when I could sleep in guilt-free, I had to be up at sunrise! It wasn’t even six o’clock Vegas time, and I was already wide-awake, staring at the wooden ceiling beams in Marcus’s bedroom. Giving up on trying to go back to sleep, I quietly crawled out of bed, careful not to wake Marcus, grabbed some clothes from my bag and padded out of the bedroom.
When we got back to the kitchen from the library last night, Marcus had dinner waiting for us on the big table in the dining room, but we had barely touched any of it before he brushed the dishes away and threw me on the table, declaring that he was ready for the dessert.
He made me come right there on the table, then carried me to the master bedroom and peeled every piece of clothing off me, one by one. With his hands, tongue and fingers, he slowly, languidly coaxed another orgasm to rise in me until it too exploded through my body with earth-shattering power.
Yet, I was all alone in my ecstasy once again. As eager as he was to get me naked, Marcus kept his own clothes on. Through his leather pants, I could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressed against me, but he just wouldn’t allow himself to go any further.
I saw how difficult it was for him to keep in control — his muscles shook from restraint and his jaw flexed tight with tension. His eyes would then close for a second as he forced himself to regain composure then continued to focus on me and only me.
I got dressed in the guest bathroom and made my way to the kitchen, where I found a small unopened pack of ground coffee in the cabinet and then made some in a new, never-before-used coffee-maker on the counter.
I looked at the sparkling kitchen appliances. They must have all been brand new. Such a shiny, clean stove did not belong in any family kitchen. My hands itched to turn it on, to cook something, to make it look real.
An idea came into my head: I wanted to make dinner for Marcus tonight. I cooked for myself all the time, not only because it was significantly cheaper than a take-out or eating out, but also because I liked it.
Of course, I didn’t need to cook for myself that often. A lasagna would last me for a week, even if I ate it for lunch and dinner every day. Cooking for others was also much more rewarding. It was nice to feed people who appreciated all the work I had put into making their food.
I would need to talk to Marcus about getting groceries for me to make dinner, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t have to drive to the nearest grocery store to get them.
The sun was shining over the horizon, and I felt restless sitting inside the house. I figured I could take a walk outside while I waited for Marcus to wake up.
I tiptoed towards the master bedroom and cracked the door open a little to peek in and make sure that Marcus was still asleep.
I realized that he was awake when the door flew out of my hand and opened wide. The next moment, I was swept into the air by an invisible force and hurled across the room towards the bed.
“Marcus!” I shrieked in surprise as I crash-landed on his chest.
“Were you sneaking on me?” He stretched through his whole body and rolled us both on the bed.
“I didn’t want to wake you up!” I tried to explain. “I didn’t know you were awake already.”
“Did you come to beg for my forgiveness for leaving me here all alone?” He nuzzled my neck, tickling my skin.
“No,” I giggled. “I came to tell you that I was going for a walk. You’re free to continue your beauty sleep…”
My voice trailed off, and I stopped laughing abruptly.
I was fully under him now; through his boxers and my jeans, I could feel his hard-on pressed firmly against me. That part of him that I’d never had a chance to touch. Now that I’d seen all of him in the library last night, I longed to lick it, wrap my lips around it, have him come inside me — all the things he hadn’t allowed me to have.
I rocked my hips against him gently, urging him on, waiting…
He looked away quickly and edged his lower body away from me, breaking the contact.
“Do you still want to go for a walk?” he asked, his voice low, raspy and so very
sexy.
“Yes…” I replied hesitantly.
No, I didn’t! I’d forgotten all about the walk already. I wanted to stay. I wanted to rip his boxers off and see where it would take us.
“Okay,” he rolled off me completely. “Be careful, stay inside the fence. The paparazzi cars have been gone for a while now, but still.”
“Would you like to join me?” I offered.
He considered it for a second. “I’ll stay in bed for a few more minutes and then come find you. Okay?”
“Sure.” I kissed his cheek still warm from sleep and headed for the door, completely turned on and more confused than ever.
What was that all about? The thought kept bouncing through my brain as I walked outside, hoping the cool morning air would give me some clarity.
Was it me? Was I not enough for him to want to go all the way?
Despite his obvious determination to avoid having an actual intercourse with me, Marcus never made me feel undesirable. On the contrary, he’d been generous with his affections. His heated looks and naughty words not only fanned my need for him, they always made me feel wanted.
All this was therefore only more puzzling.
Okay, I admitted that sex was a delicate subject to discuss. For me personally, it was a million times easier just to do it than to talk about it. However, I realized that there was a problem that needed a discussion.
Even the terrifying thought that the issue might be something to do with me personally didn’t appear as bad any more as the uncertainty of it all. Something was definitely wrong between us, and if I didn’t know what it was, there was no way to fix it.
I cared way too much about Marcus to let anything, absolutely anything, stand between us. I just hoped that he cared enough about me to finally open up.
28. Earthquake.
The house was surrounded by acres of land, with the wooden rail fence marking the boundaries of the property. The immediate area around the house was professionally landscaped with rock gardens, containing carefully arranged desert plants and palm trees.
The Real Thing Page 18