Under the hazed damp light of the blanket the four peeled back clothes to reveal each other’s most intimate places: Julia allowing Sylvie’s mouth to dance over her body; nipping at her breasts with sharp pearly teeth; feeling Joe pull her scant G-string aside as Sylvie worked closer to her pussy; letting Henri grind himself between the cheeks of her ass. It was as though they were lost in a strange subliminal place where only their pleasure mattered. The sequence of movements blurred into an overwhelming mix of sensations as Julia felt Sylvie’s tongue slipping over her clit, Joe’s fingers digging into her inner thigh, and Henri holding her tightly. She was held firmly while the other three explored her, while she strained to feel yet more of their bodies against her, trying to rub her face into Sylvie’s crotch, wanting suddenly to taste the salty dew of her friend’s excitement even as her cunt was assaulted by the others. She was like an animal caught in a trap, willingly tortured by the three hungry creatures, each pushing her against the other. A chorus of fingers, tongue and cock tried to find their way inside her, hands roving over her skin and agitating her to a point of frantic want. She felt, from behind, Henri holding her tits, squeezing her nipples between his delicate fingers as if he was playing an instrument, pinching her till he coaxed a note that was a mix of pain and intense pleasure from her mouth.
Julia cried louder, an unearthly sound coming from her mouth as he pushed the head of his cock against the tight hole of her ass, and she felt herself licked and sucked at the same time.
She let waves of furious arousal shimmer over her and through her, giving her a sensation as white-hot and dangerous as the feeling she had when she performed – knowing her entire body was being worked to fever pitch, that she was moving into a space that was not entirely sane any more. It was the moment when her body took over and became something outwith her control, a conductor of heat and energy that was no more than movement, sensation and eroticism.
As she felt the intent of the other three working her towards an orgasm she knew would blow her apart, Julia moaned and gave in. She felt Henri’s dark intense movements, and the jubilant flicking of Sylvie’s tongue against her clit, Joe’s strong hands holding her as she came, holding her hips and bearing down on her to let the climax of this sequence crash through her and overpower her, the darkness explode in her head. She lost control, then, of her mind and body: bucking, writhing and half sobbing. Yet even as she convulsed with the orgasm, she knew somewhere within herself that this abandon was what drove her, what she had always been chasing, as she danced and flirted and listened for the roar of the crowd out beyond the stage. The sensation of being fucked beyond reason was the same as that of dancing herself to a frenzy, surrendering to the desires of the audience, of her lovers, her own body.
14
IT WAS EARLY morning when they walked back across the quiet empty city, the only other souls awake a few workmen clearing last night’s litter and debris from the streets. Julia felt as though she were floating through a silvery grey dream, the lack of sleep and after-effects of love-play combining to give her a feeling of altered reality. Bumping gently against Joe’s side, wrapped in the soft blanket, she let herself be led through the sleeping city to the quiet green expanse of the Meadows. Her eyes were half closed with fatigue and her skin felt sticky from her own sweat and that of the others, from their shared small playful intimacies on the side of the hill that left Julia turned on and blissful.
Since she’d joined the circus it seemed she’d been in a perpetual state of arousal; hyper aware of every nuance of her body’s responses from the touches of others or from the vivid provocative spectacle of the show itself. It had been an intense, confusing experience, and she felt the exhaustion of days overwhelming her. Yet as the morning slowly brightened she was flooded with a new energy. Her desire to perform was stronger than ever, and it was with a fresh confidence that she arrived at the tree-shaded site where the rest of the circus still slept.
The circle of caravans was quiet and dark, with curtains drawn and the generator lying idle and silent. As the others said goodbye and headed to their caravans, Julia remembered the note. The light was on in Robert’s van, and she realised with a lurch that he would have read the letter last night, no doubt ensuring his night was as sleepless as hers. With a whispered explanation to Sylvie, she crept towards the silver trailer, half hoping that Robert would be asleep.
She knocked tentatively, and heard the scrape of a chair inside. Robert opened the door and stood looking at her, his face distracted and unshaven, the puffiness under his eyes betraying his exhaustion. He nodded at her.
‘Still here? I thought you’d abandoned the sinking ship.’ His voice was rough and scratchy, as though he’d spent all night smoking. Julia noticed the accusation, but tried to ignore it.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Be my guest.’
He stood aside to let her pass, and Julia slipped into the caravan to be greeted by a chaotic mess of papers strewn over the table, floor and sofas, an ashtray and dirty wineglass abandoned on the desk. Gingerly, she moved aside a pile of folders and sat on the sofa. It was a very different scene to her last visit – obviously Robert had been up all night.
‘So, is this a goodbye call?’ he asked, folding his arms.
‘I’m not going, Robert. I just got scared. Like you said, the circus isn’t an easy way to live.’
He studied her with a hard gaze.
‘Julia, the whole show runs according to exact planning. You’re well aware of that. We put you in an important position and would expect you to honour your commitment.’
His tone was sharp, but Julia was prepared for it. She nodded.
‘I just needed reminding of something.’
‘Which was?’
‘More important, even, than being obliged to perform. I’d forgotten what it is I love, the whole reason I’m here.’
‘The spotlight? The glory? Might not be much of that to go around,’ Robert spat bitterly, and Julia realised how much the review had shaken him. She shook her head, watching him carefully.
‘No, Robert, it’s not important. It’s the dance I love, the movement and the playfulness of it. I love the freedom, and the Circus Excite is the first place I’ve felt like I could show – everything of myself.’
Robert gave a short bark of laughter.
‘I thought you objected to being called a stripper.’
‘So did I, to begin with. But I’ve learnt a lot since then.’
‘Yeah, well I’m glad the show’s helped you find your inner slut, or whatever it is you think you’ve got a hold of. But I wouldn’t hang your hopes on the circus.’
Julia was stunned. She’d never heard Robert talk with bitterness, and despite the fact neither of them had slept last night, she gathered his anger was more than just exhaustion. The circus was Robert’s whole life and she couldn’t believe he would doubt himself. He had dropped abruptly into a chair, hanging forward as though he was utterly drained, rubbing his eyes. His usual easy languor had evaporated, and for the first time Julia thought she saw a human weakness about him.
‘I saw the review,’ she said softly.
‘You and the whole of the theatre world,’ he said, shoving his hands into his hair. ‘We’ve been written off as a cheap sex show. The bastard might be a hypocrite, but he’s got power. It’s not just the article. He’ll make sure the guys at the licensing department are aware of the “perversity”. He’ll spread the word round his cronies in the press, the theatre critics. He’d do anything he could to shut us down. As it is, we’re running on a loss . . .’ Robert trailed off, letting the note of despair hang in the air between them.
It was almost heartbreaking, Julia thought, to see this man who’d worked tirelessly to create the circus destroyed by a vindictive piece of criticism. Robert was a wreck, and in contrast to Julia’s new surge of optimism, he was obviously on the edge of a dark chasm. She sat for a minute watching him. The change had not diminished his attractiveness, she th
ought; in fact a part of her wanted more than ever to approach this strange lonely man and press her body against his. He lived in a world that was distant and unknowable, but in that moment she thought she glimpsed a little of his true self, and the feeling excited her. Although she was dizzy with lack of sleep, Julia sensed the chance to touch Robert now, to move closer to him in a way she hadn’t imagined before.
‘Do you remember the first time I came to your caravan?’ she asked, feeling her way tentatively.
When Robert made no response, she continued, determined to reach him.
‘You made me undress and held a mirror in front of me. I was terrified, and when I got turned on I was . . . ashamed.’
Robert lifted his head and looked at her. Though his eyes were still shadowed with tiredness, Julia saw a cold spark in them that made her catch her breath.
‘I sat like this,’ Julia continued, leaning back in the seat and slowly spreading her legs apart. ‘I was at my most vulnerable, Robert. I could never have imagined . . . touching myself in front of a stranger.’ As she spoke, Julia let her hand drift over her body, reaching to her breast and resting gently there, cupping the soft swell. She started rubbing at herself, scuffing her nipple and letting it harden under the insistent pressure of her hand.
‘I wasn’t sure if I was doing something very wrong, something that could end with humiliation and misery.’
Now, she unzipped her jacket and pulled it off. Underneath, the corset was still on but unlaced, dishevelled from the mauling of the night. It was easy to pull her breasts free and let them rest on the top of the bustier, and she let her head fall back, still kneading at her nipples, leaving herself naked and open in full view of Robert.
‘Part of me wanted to cry, I was so scared of what might happen. But at the same time, I was burning up, I was so turned on.’
Now Julia moved her hands down, slid one down the front of her knickers. She felt the heat between her thighs, the swell and the wetness as she slid her fingers between her legs, rubbing with the same slow rhythmic pressure she’d applied to her breasts. As she lost herself in the pleasure of fingering herself she continued to talk to Robert in the same low voice.
‘I was shaking when I left, as horny as an animal. I could hardly walk.’ Julia knew she was doing to herself what Robert had made her do that night, but this time she was the one in control. She stopped herself from looking at him, though she was dying to see his face and the expression of intense fascination and amusement that he had when he watched her. Struggling to stay present, she moved her fingers inside herself, twisting into the mouth of her pussy and tugging a little at her lips, letting the excruciating tenseness of the situation build. She wanted to involve him, this time, to elicit a response from him, good or bad. Nuzzling at the cushions with her head, she let her mouth fall open a little, a moan escape. Under her hand, her hips bucked and she knew Robert was watching as she fucked herself.
The early morning light lent a cold dream-like atmosphere to the scene as Julia slowly let her arousal build while Robert watched. She was half performing for him, showing him her stiffened nipples and the glistening of the moisture that wet her thighs, knowing her face was twisted in concentration as she explored herself. As she moved around, splaying her thighs and writhing, grinding herself into the fabric of the chair and the soft cushions, she let herself drift in a state of such arousal that she was almost unconscious, every moment drawn out in a long blissful buzzing of tension, every flicker of her fingers sending crazy thrills through her whole body. The pressure of the very air on her nipples seemed enough to make them tingle, as though Robert’s gaze, his rapt attention, was a physical sensation stroking over her, compelling her to prolong the act though she yearned to feel the shock of orgasm.
‘It’s like since that night I’ve become someone else,’ she said, her voice shaky with desire. ‘I found my pleasure, all the ways of exploring it.’ Julia felt her pulse quicken, and held herself back in case she should come. All night she’d been hovering on the edge of orgasm, and the tension was becoming a deliciously drawn out torment. Her thoughts were spinning through her head as though she were on drugs.
‘You’re the one who helped me find what I love.’
As she heard herself say the word love, Julia opened her eyes, looking directly at Robert with eyes that were suddenly bright with urgency. She’d almost said something she hadn’t even imagined she felt, that she might feel for Robert something greater than lust and anger. She lay sprawled in her seat, undone with the intensity of the silent room, feeling as though she’d opened herself more fully to him than she ever had before.
He was sitting straight in the chair, as though poised to move, with a shine to his eyes that Julia recognised as his familiar engaged self. The two of them locked eyes, and a moment of understanding passed between them that was as close as Julia had ever come to being at ease with him. A smile spread over her face, unbidden, and she realised her small intimate performance had shifted something within Robert.
‘I do love watching you, Julia,’ he said, warmth and guile mixed in his voice. ‘You’re truly fascinating. Enough to make me forget the world.’
He stood to leave the room, throwing a comment over his shoulder as he did so: ‘You know, I think it’s time I showed you something too.’
Julia took a deep breath to calm her racing pulse and rearranged herself. She didn’t cover her nakedness entirely – it hardly seemed worth affecting modesty with Robert any more. When he reappeared she was sitting with her corset casually pulled straight, her hair tangled and dishevelled. She felt strangely as if she’d spent the night with a new lover and was just waking up with him.
Robert knelt in front of the low table, his arms full of battered books, which he laid in front of them as though spreading out gifts for her.
‘This is how I fell in love with the circus, Julia.’ He pulled a brown suede-bound album open and motioned for her to look. Inside was a small poster, written in Cyrillic script and unintelligible to her. The paper was yellowed, cheap and wrinkled, but the image that caught Julia’s eye immediately was a delicate detailed drawing of a woman, frozen in a lewd arabesque. Her legs were scissored apart as though she was opening them for a lover, and her body leant backwards in a posture of abandon.
‘St Petersburg, in the winter of 1989. The woman is Elena Matrovka, the one who introduced me to sexual theatre. It was an underground show, by invite only.’ Robert smiled as he leafed through the album, showing Julia brief glimpses of performers, naked and adorned with feathers, beads, body paint. The people were Slavic, Indian, Eastern; exotic and intriguing. Julia felt a shiver of curious excitement as she perused the photographs, saw the expressions of mischievous daring and the lascivious poses of the performers. It was a gallery of theatrical erotica – faded photographs and drawings, pages cut from books in languages Julia didn’t recognise, all Robert’s history revealed in scraps of images. Robert showed her other books – Indian paintings of round-breasted women and men with huge erections, Chinese lithographs showing Emperors with their concubines, twisted, perverse images that were executed with beautiful skill and artistry. The two of them lost themselves in the books, moving further into the world of erotic visions and every so often stopping to look at a particularly arresting image.
Julia sat on the floor, half undressed and sharing Robert’s fascination with the obsessively detailed pictures. Through all of the pictures she recognised a certain quality, an edge of dangerous and bold transgression that aroused her as much as the graphic depictions of sex acts. She realised slowly that the thing which she found exciting was the way the subjects displayed themselves or appreciated each other, the way a Victorian girl with shy eyes looked timidly from behind her hair at the photographer, her ghost-white body a soft blur of flesh, the dark hair of her pubis shrinking neatly to a point between her legs which she kept demurely pressed together. An Indian miniature, rendered in deep inky blues and complex gold leaf, showed a prince rapt
with attention as a woman danced before him, tilting her hips to show him the delicate pink flower of her sex, her nipples dotted with henna, full breasts proudly displayed.
‘This is how I became a voyeur,’ Robert said, smiling again, and it was then that Julia felt things settle into place – the way he watched her, how he loved the theatrical, the visual feast of bodies and sex.
‘Is that all you are?’ she asked, intrigued by this new perversion, wondering if Robert’s mystique could be so easily explained.
But Robert only laughed, his old easy rough laugh, so that his eyes creased and he seemed once again self-possessed, coolly confident. When he looked at Julia she saw again the distance that stretched between them, her guileless naivety and his unexplained history: the confidence that has been earned through experience and effort and doesn’t need to prove itself. She saw Robert’s character reassert itself, and he became the languorous charming magician again.
Whatever they had shared in that quiet charged morning had dissipated and he was once again the ringmaster: wry; suggestive but untouchable. Julia realised that the moment of intimacy had passed and once again, she’d been left dissatisfied. Now, with her mind full of the lush images and vivid descriptions of his pornography, her body still aching from unfulfilled desire, she thought she had an idea of how to play his game. She knew he was aware of her barely concealed nakedness, and of how turned on she was. Before, she’d railed against his lack of physical touch, but this time she felt the shimmer of tension between them and relished the distance. Sitting beside him, so close she knew he could feel her breath on the side of his face, smell and feel the warmth of her eager young body. Without moving closer, she started to talk.
‘I like this pose,’ she said, pointing to one of the photographs. A couple were intertwined, the man’s tongue curled between the buttocks of the woman, her figure prone on a hotel bed. Looking steadily at Robert, she continued.
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