by Jaden Wilkes
I fell back on my bed and held the phone to my chest, a wide grin on my face.
Before this, Jason had been my most intense relationship, and looking back on it I wanted to laugh. I’d never realized how meaningless our supposed love had been, no wonder I’d never been able to come, and no wonder he’d gone sniffing after Becs. I almost felt like texting them back to wish them well together.
Maybe not, I wasn’t feeling that generous.
I texted Cai back.
Me too,
That’s all I wrote, but I felt like he would know what I meant.
I fell back asleep finally able to find some peace before another day with Orion.
*****
I was, it turned out, a natural on the wheel and an expert at bleeding dramatically. The second day of rehearsal with Orion went much better than the first, in spite of my inability to sleep until I knew I was on Cai’s mind as much as he was on mine.
Orion barely spoke when I’d arrived, ten minutes early this time. He’d strapped me in and thrown several knives in quick succession, explaining that the night of the live show he would take more time in between. It was all about the performance, all about the drama and slow build up.
He paused and watched me spinning around, I could find his face in the midst of the blur and motion and used it to center myself. He said, “This one is going to make contact, I need you to react. You have to scream, carry on like you’ve been mortally wounded. We want the crowd to think they’ve witnessed a disaster. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I’d said and kept very still as he drew back his hand with at least a twenty inch blade and let it go.
It hit me with a solid thud, deep into the flesh of my upper right arm. I felt nothing but the odd sensation of being pinned to the board behind me. It had gone straight through me, missing the bone.
I screamed and cried out, writhed on the board without moving my arm in order to keep it from tearing. I whimpered as Orion approached.
His eyes shone with bright approval and a fiery excitement. I felt a small flutter of joy in my chest at his positive reaction. I felt like a little lapdog, begging for its owner’s attention.
“Very nice,” he said and set me down. Blood streamed from my arm and I didn’t know if I should continue to act as though it hurt. “You seem very terrified, anxious, downright horrified. Perfect.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I replied in a calm voice, my tears already drying as I spoke, “But it’s a strange feeling, being pinned against the cork like that.”
“Good, use it and give them a real show on Friday. Go get cleaned up, we have two more rehearsals before the big day. I won’t cut you until the night of the event, but you need to train yourself to keep still when you’re being spun. I noticed you still wobble a little, and I truly don’t want to maim you.”
I was touched, for the first time he seemed genuinely kind towards me. He was usually so filled with disdain, I had a hard time believing he could show me his soft side, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
“Thank you,” I said and walked off the stage.
“Liv,” he called out to me as I left.
I turned around with one eyebrow raised and asked, “Yes?”
“Good work,” he said, “Very well done.”
I smiled and hated myself for responding to his praise, hated the part of me that wanted so desperately to please him.
My god, I might have daddy issues, the thought crossed my mind as I left the tent. I had to laugh though, very typical that I would be the one to find out after an older man threw a knife into my flesh and patted me on the head for it.
Dysfunction reigns supreme yet again. I walked to find a medic.
*****
Cairo had to stay yet another night in Canada, and I was feeling anxious without him by my side. Although his father approved of me as a performer, I suspected he still wouldn’t appreciate Cai and I hooking up. Every minute Cai was gone, I worried that he was going to see things from his father’s point of view and decide that I wasn’t the right girl for him after all.
I hadn’t heard from him all day, and finally texted him at dinner time, just to let him know I was missing him, and he didn’t reply.
I considered calling him, just to hear his voice but didn’t know if I could afford it, calling from the US. I considered texting him again, but fought my urge and decided to find Rose instead.
My friend was sitting with a group of workers in the staff concession. I got my dinner and a tea and sat down. I listened to the talk as I ate my lasagna slowly, taking my time so I didn’t have to head back to the trailer by myself.
The talk turned to Cara, and Rose started to tear up again over the entire thing. They’d reported her disappearance to the Seattle PD that day, but nobody thought the cops could do much of anything. This was a circus problem that would be best solved by circus folk.
“Should we be talking about this in front of her?” one lithe, Goth girl asked. I had a vague recollection that the girl worked in laundry and costume repair. It took me a moment to realize the girl had been talking about me.
“Why not?” Rose asked before I could respond. “Cara is our roommate, if anyone has a right to be in on discussions about her, it’s Liv.”
“She’s a performer though,” the girl said and to my shock, several of the people at the table nodded and agreed with the Goth.
“I’m just a circus employee,” I said, “I’m not exactly a performer. And even if I was, what’s the difference? I’m just me, nothing’s changed.”
“Everything has changed,” the Goth girl said and sneered at me. “We know how it works around here, you get way more money, way more status and suddenly you’re looking down on those of us who wash your panties. It happens every damn time.”
“It’s not going to happen this time,” I said, “I didn’t know there was a division between performers and workers, and I refuse to let it get to me.”
“You took my job,” said a stunning beauty at the end of the table, “I sell tickets now and can barely afford to save for college. So thanks for that.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “Orion asked me and I couldn’t turn him down or he was going to send me back to Canada.”
“Right,” the girl said and muttered something to the Goth.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said I guess it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re fucking his son, right?” the girl replied.
“I’m not fucking anybody,” I said and felt tears at the back of my eyes. I hated to cry and refused to cry in front of people who would take joy in it.
“Guys, calm the fuck down,” Rose shouted at last, “Liv’s good people. I don’t care who she spends time with or where she’s working. Can you just get to the whole fucking point of this little meeting? Why did three of our girls disappear and who took them?”
I felt foolish, I hadn’t realized this was a meeting, I’d assumed it was a casual dinner gathering. Now gorging on my lasagna seemed so uncouth and callous.
“Why doesn’t she ask her boyfriend?” Goth girl said but my gaze dropped when Rose stared her down with an angry challenge.
“Nobody is asking Cairo anything,” I said, “he is as freaked out about this as all of us.”
That seemed to settle the grumbling and the meeting continued.
The Goth and the pretty girl went down a checklist of new security regulations and the group voted on which ones would be implemented.
After it was all over, I finished my cold dinner and gulped my drink. Rose and I walked back to our trailer.
Halfway back Rose stopped in mid stride and said, “Holy shit!”
I stopped and turned to look at my friend. “What?”
“You didn’t deny that he’s your boyfriend!”
“What do you mean?”
“When Emo princess called Cairo your boyfriend, you didn’t correct her.”
“So?”
“So, that’s huge,” Rose
said with a big grin, “it means he might be.”
“He isn’t,” I protested, “but he might be eventually.”
Rose giggled and punched my arm. “I knew you liked him more than you were letting on,” she said and we started to walk again.
I smiled back and accepted the gentle teasing. I still hadn’t heard from Cai though, so in spite of my apparent admission, I wasn’t sure if he ever would be.
How could I be sure of his feelings if he didn’t get back to me?
*****
Thursday was our third rehearsal and I practically sleep walked through it, I was so tired. I hadn’t heard from Cairo and had finally given in sometime around midnight. I’d texted him something short and sweet, then called him. It had gone to voicemail after one ring and I left a plaintive message, hating myself as I spoke the words in my sad little voice.
Hey Cai, just me thinking about you. Call me!
I wished I could go back and erase it. Was it possible to get dumped before you were even dating? Had I just broken a speed record or something?
“Pay attention!” Orion barked, breaking into my daydream and pulling me into the present. We’d gone through several variations of his routine, pretty much all of them ending with him tossing varying sizes of knives at me. I didn’t think I needed to pay much attention to that.
“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” The spinning slowed and I came to a stop. I had learned the wheel was weighted so it always landed upright when he pushed the pedal to slow it down.
“I asked you if you’ve heard from my son,” he said with a dark look on his face. His thick brows were furrowed and he looked almost vulnerable with the concern that played around his eyes.
“I haven’t,” I said, “not since the night before last. Is he okay?”
“I’m asking you,” he said and walked to stand in front of me. I looked up at him, my hands and feet still tightly bound. “He seems to be more interested in slumming these days than spending time with his family,” Orion continued and reached up to touch my face. I thought he was going to slap me and winced when he made contact, but he stroked my cheek instead.
It was a horrible sensation, his finger drawing across my face, like a snake moving across my body. It was strangely erotic, but full of fear and tension mixed with disgust. At him, for touching me, and at myself for almost liking it.
He was undeniably an attractive man. He took care of his body and I’d caught glimpses of his thick muscles under his tailored white shirt. I could appreciate him on some level, hot, fuckable, powerful and demanding.
But on a gut level, somewhere deep inside my reptilian brain, he repulsed me. There was something about Orion that felt wrong, like he possessed some kind of madness that, once it was unleashed, could destroy me with its hunger. There was always the sense that we were struggling for dominance, and I wasn’t sure I’d win.
“We occasionally spend time together,” I said and didn’t break eye contact. Never one to back down from a challenge, even when I was facing off with my boss, a knife throwing, hot, weirdo who had me completely at his mercy.
“I told you I want it to stop,” he said, not removing his hand. He cupped my face and repeated, “I want you to stay away from him.”
“Why?” I challenged, “Why should I stay away? We’re grown-ups, he’s an adult, we’re free to make our own decisions.”
“He’s engaged,” Orion replied and pulled his hand away, watching my reaction. “The girl is exquisite, a contortionist from Bulgaria. From a prominent circus family, they’ve been in the business for generations. She’s also more suited to our kind of people than you are. You’ll always be an outsider, you’ll never understand what flows through our bodies and resides in our bones.”
I did my best, I tried to keep everything to myself, tried to hang onto my poker face and walk away from Orion with my dignity intact, but I cracked.
“You’re lying,” I said, hot tears already rolling down my cheeks.
“I’m not,” he said, “where do you think he is right now? He’s arranging his fiancée’s papers to come to Canada and meet up with us in the US.”
“There’s no way he is,” I said, “he’s a good man.”
“He is a good man,” Orion replied, “which is why he will obey his father and fulfill his mother’s dying wish. He knows the destiny of our people.”
I didn’t reply as he removed the straps. When the last one was free, I thought I was going to tumble forward and fall on the floor, my body was shaking so hard.
Orion caught me, held me in his powerful arms, looked me in the eyes and said, “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I tried to keep you away from him, I could see how fast you were falling for him.”
“I thought you hated me,” I said and found my legs again but didn’t pull away.
“I don’t hate you,” he replied softly, “I just know what kind of effect my son has on our employees. You’re not the first one he’s hurt with his careless ways, and you probably won’t be the last.”
I took a step back at last, composed myself and said, “Well, if this is true then you don’t have to worry about me any longer. I won’t have anything to do with your son when he returns.”
I decided to leave, took several steps towards the tent exit and had the strangest feeling that Orion was watching me like a hawk. I turned back and saw a very sly smile on his face, as if he’d just become the victor in a battle I knew nothing about.
I shivered and kept walking, ignoring the weight of his gaze on me as I left the tent, determined to find out what the fuck kind of game Cairo was playing with my heart.
Chapter Fourteen
I supposed it shouldn’t bother me that much, I’d barely known Cairo after all. It hurt though, more than the stinging annoyance I’d felt with Jason’s betrayal. This felt personal somehow, much more directed at me. Like he’d drawn back his arrow and pointed it directly at my heart.
I decided to stop thinking about it and concentrate on something that had come to light.
There had been some news about Cara. A friend of a friend had told Rose that Cara had been spotted back in Canada. We were both skeptical, but somehow it seemed easier to accept that reality than the alternative...that Cara was lying lifeless in a ditch somewhere.
We couldn’t figure out why she would have gone home without telling us, and logic demanded that we still look for her, but both of us had come up empty handed over the last day and didn’t know how to keep looking. Neither of us had the power, money or know-how to initiate any investigation. Cairo would have to tell me what his assistant had discovered when he returned.
Thursday night found me lying on my bed, listless and half awake. I’d been checking my texts every so often just in case. In case he decided to actually fucking get back to me, and in case Orion was insane and planted the thought in my head to tear us apart.
Rose had gone for dinner without me, but only after she’d asked me a hundred times or so to join her. She was worried about me, and with good reason.
I was a mess. Truly a pathetic mess of a woman, and all over a man.
And I wasn’t even sure if Orion was being truthful, I needed to hear it from Cairo’s lips before I believed a word. My gut told me it felt right, there was something else going on in his life.
A knock at the door dragged me from half sleep. I held my breath, listening, not entirely sure if it had been from the dream side or this side of my brain.
I heard it again, it was real.
I got up, pulled my robe tight and went to the front of the trailer.
“Who is it?” I asked and peeked out the window.
Before he even answered, I saw his face, Cairo.
“It’s me, Liv,” he said through the closed door.
The moment of truth, my hand shook as I unlocked and opened the door, swung it wide and saw his grin.
“Fuck, you look amazing,” he said and stepped into the space that suddenly felt miles too small. I
backed away and looked him up and down. He was fucking delicious.
“Where have you been?” I asked and crossed my arms in front of me. It was hard to be angry when he looked that good. Why did he have to look so damned good? “I even called you, I was worried.”
“I lost my phone,” he replied. I wanted to believe him, he sounded so sincere. I shot him a skeptical look and watched him squirm. “I left it in a cab in Vancouver. I had to get a replacement, but they couldn’t keep my old number and I don’t have anybody’s contact information.” He held up an obviously brand new phone, his old one had been beaten up and a few years out of date. I’d loved it though, that it had marked him as so against the grain.
“You couldn’t get a hold of your father? He was asking about you this morning.”
“You’ve been working with him? Has he been okay with you?”
“Yes, and you didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I don’t know my father’s number. I couldn’t text. I knew I was coming back today anyways, so it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
I stood with my feet apart and my arms crossed and stared him down. Finally I got the courage to ask the question I’d been dreading, simply because I was terrified of the answer.
“Cai, I want you to be honest with me. Are you engaged?”
He sucked in his breath, ran his hand through his long, tangled hair and stared back at me. I could almost see the gears moving in his head as he formulated his response. By the time he whispered his reply, I already knew what he was going to say. “Yes,” his voice broke with emotion and I could almost see whatever we’d been building crumble slowly into the sea.
“Please leave,” I said, my voice low and steady. I needed him to leave so I could collapse along with the fledgling relationship I’d been imagining.
“It’s not like that, Liv,” he said and took a step towards me.
“It never is, is it? I said go.”
“Let me explain, please.”
“How could you possibly talk your way out of this one?”
“It’s not how it appears, I promise. You mean so much to me, you’ve changed everything. Everything I meant to do or say, standing up to my father...I couldn’t do it until I met you. You do that for me, Liv. You give me the option to disobey him.”