CirqueErotique

by Maxie Cooper

  I glanced away with a sense of shame. It felt wrong to leave without even a goodbye. I almost returned, but when I looked back the window was empty.

  Had he really been there, or was the house playing one last trick to entice me back inside?

  I saw my car parked at the end of the driveway and strode purposefully toward it, fighting the urge to turn around and look back.

  There was a moment of panic when I realized I didn’t have my keys. Then I saw them dangling in the ignition, where Andre must have left them. When I turned the key, the car started up immediately, the engine purring like a contented kitten. Relief washed over me. I drove away, determined to put the craziest night of my life behind me. As the minutes mounted, already I blamed my indiscretions on the heat, on the house, on anything but my own dark desires.

  I could still turn things around. I could pretend to be normal and make my brother and the rest of the family proud. I could force my square-pegged self into that round hole.

  My stomach sank at the thought. Then what? I envisioned a lifetime of endless days that held no surprise and lonely nights without passion. I’d be doing what was expected of me, rather than what I wanted to do. And I knew a part of me would die in the process. Something precious and unique would be lost forever.

  Or I could return to Cirque Erotique…

  I thought of the house and the people I’d left behind. Tony had rescued me when I’d needed help, his troupe had welcomed me into their home and shown me erotic delights like I’d never known. They’d accepted me in ways my friends and family never could. I’d felt like one of them. Not freaks, but family. They’d embraced me without question.

  And in return, I’d run away like a frightened child.

  So what if the house had cast some mystical spell over me? Recalling every moment of the previous evening, I realized that I was never in any danger. Each choice was mine to make and I’d enjoyed every moment. Was it so wrong to give in to erotic desires? Was it wrong to feel loved and accepted for the first time in as long as I could remember?

  What had I done?

  My heart hammered in my chest. I knew without a doubt that I’d made the greatest mistake of my life by leaving. I slammed on the brakes and turned the car around. I’d explain my moment of panic to Tony. Surely he’d understand and take me back. I did belong there. I was one of them—a freak. And proud of it.

  It seemed to take days, weeks, years, but I finally drove around the familiar bend—and stopped where the house should have been.

  Should have been…

  The house was gone. In its place, a weed-riddled field and a driveway leading to nowhere.

  A far-flung scattering of broken rocks marked the foundation where a house had once stood. It looked as if decades had passed rather than just minutes.

  Too late.

  I stood in the empty field, hoping I’d come to the wrong place. But I knew in my heart this was where I’d spent the best night of my life. There was the bend in the road, the same driveway, the same—

  I blinked and suddenly the house appeared before me, like a haunted shipwreck rising from a watery grave.

  Had the house been there all along? It didn’t matter. A wave of relief washed over me. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted—needed—to be here until I thought the house was gone. But that was silly. Of course it hadn’t disappeared. It was the heat, that’s all. A mirage causing my eyes to play tricks on me.

  I rushed forward, anxious to be inside again. As I neared the door, the heat broke. A cold breeze lifted my hair and chilled my skin, but instead of welcome relief I felt a prickling of foreboding. Goose bumps rippled along my skin, raising the hair on my arms.

  Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

  Rushing inside, I felt the house enfold me as before. But instead of a warm embrace, the air was bitterly cold inside, as cold and still as a corpse. My steps slowed, each one raising a cloud of ancient dust beneath my feet. I shivered, unable to resist as the house lured me into its depths, clouding my brain and wrapping me in mystery.

  I called out, trying to will the freaks to show their faces, but there was no answer. Every instinct in my body told me the house was devoid of life. I noticed desiccated animal droppings in the corners, gone chalky white. Monkey droppings?

  In the hallway, brittle glass crunched underfoot. I reached down and lifted a large piece, cloudy with grime and lined with a network of spider-web cracks.

  Somehow I knew this was the very glass Tony had offered me, the glass that had once held cold, clear water that I’d swallowed gratefully.

  I dropped the shard, watching it shatter to dust.

  I entered another room, finding the remnants of a gauzy scarf that had once been pink but was now a ghostly gray. It disintegrated even as I reached out, before I could pick it up. I shook my head from side to side, not wanting to believe my eyes.

  With one final turn, I found myself back where I’d started and realized the house was no longer the endless labyrinth I’d run through the night before, but just a handful of empty rooms in an otherwise deserted house. This was the drawing room where Tony had ushered me into the house. And there was the poster I’d seen the night before, even more fragile with age, the colors so bleached out I could barely read the words “Cirque Erotique” across the top.

  But solid proof that this was the very house where I’d spent the night, experiencing dark desires I hadn’t even known I craved. There was no denying it.

  If the poster was still here, then…

  I knelt down and scrabbled through the dust and refuse littering the floor until I found what I was searching for. The frame was tarnished, the picture impossibly old and faded, but it was the same photograph I’d seen the night before. I rubbed at the glass with the hem of my skirt, trying to wipe away decades of dirt and grime.

  Their faces were so familiar—the conjoined twins side by side, the beautiful hermaphrodite, the trainer and his monkey, the bearded woman and the albino. All of them staring back at me with sad smiles.

  And there in the center was Tony, in a ringleader’s jacket and top hat, looking directly at me. He stood proud and stern and as hopelessly charismatic as he’d been when he’d invited me inside. I could still smell him, feel the bristle of his stubble against my skin, the heat of his touch. I ran my finger over the glass, convinced I detected a look of disappointment on his face.

  In the distance, I heard a far-off train whistle and the eerie echo of a calliope. The circus had pulled up stakes and moved on.

  Without me.

  My shoulders sagged. A cool breeze feathered my hair but brought me no relief. I’d had the chance to be part of something special and fear had sent me scurrying toward a false sense of safety. Now it was too late to turn back. Too late to be a part of something new and exciting, something sexy and raw and unabashedly erotic.

  Or is it?

  I clutched the picture to my chest and walked back to my car, knowing what I had to do.

  If it took the rest of my life, I’d search every back road and alley until I found their next rest stop. I’d beg for another chance and they’d take me back. I was sure of it. All I had to do was find them again. It shouldn’t be too hard.

  After all, the circus was always in town…somewhere.

  About the Author

  Maxie Cooper wears many hats, writing in multiple genres under various pseudonyms. In addition to writing, she has a passion for sexy new shoes, decadent chocolate and hot, steamy novels. She can often be found indulging in one or more of these guilty pleasures at the same time.

  Although Maxie physically resides in Florida, her imagination takes her to faraway magical places where an element of fantasy usually finds its way into her award-winning books.

  Maxie welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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  Also by Maxie Cooper

  Ellora’s Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile II anthology

  The Last Pearl

  Print books by Maxie Cooper

  Ellora’s Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile II anthology

  Provocative Pearl anthology

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