by Lynn Red
She reclined, taking a deep breath and puffing her pillow up with a few quick punches. It was an old pillow, a really old one, but it was hers, and she wasn’t going to give it up. One small measure of control, one almost meaningless bit of power over her own life. Hell no, she wasn’t gonna give it up.
Not without a fight.
Or, without running.
As she closed her eyes, she felt the heaviness of Lex’s head settle beside her. He’d only jumped up on the bed once. The whole thing kinda heaved and creaked, and then collapsed. It took almost three months for her to pay for another bedframe, and somehow, it always seemed like he felt bad for what he did.
The big head nudged her hand, and she rested her arm on top of him, letting her arm fall around his neck as she relaxed to sleep.
That was every day for Cassiopeia Kalen, the lion tamer who never meant to be. With a few variables here and there, they were all about the same.
And just like every night, as soon as she fell unconscious, Lex shrugged her arm off his head slowly, so gently that he didn’t rouse her, and crept to the door before standing up, and becoming far, far more than just a lion.
“I’ll get us out of here,” he whispered to the woman he’d loved for seven years, but never revealed himself to. “Just a little longer. I’ll keep you safe.”
He let himself watch her for a time. Her hair, mussed and dark, in a massive heap on her pillow. Her slightly scrawny, naked body perfect in his eyes, radiant in the pool of quicksilver moonlight that came through the trailer’s lone window.
“Just a little longer. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.” Fire burned in his belly as he fantasized about swift, brutal revenge. “Not ever again.”
-2-
“I can’t tell if you’re serious, or trying to imitate a clown’s squeaky shoe.”
-Cass
Cass’s eyes shot open, and she felt like she was floating through a river of Jell-O.
If the day before was the way her life went, this was how she dreamed. And she had, for as long as she could remember. Ultra-vivid, sometimes terrifying and sometimes amazing, the one thing her dreams had in common was that she remembered all of them.
Every single one. The bad ones, the good ones, the nightmares and the Brad Pitt sex dreams, she remembered all of them. The first one she recalled was a dream where she was being dissected on a table by a bunch of faceless creatures. The next was the aforementioned Brad Pitt sex dream that started around the time she hit puberty. After that, there were a long list of dreams Cass could bring back to mind, though the one she was having right then? This was her favorite.
The man in her dream, one she’d never known, was a head taller than her, and had broad, tanned shoulders. His eyes were strangely familiar, with a brown and gold twinkle to them, though no matter how hard she tried to figure out who it was, there was nothing that came to mind.
She’d been alone for so long, hiding and distant, that she knew it wasn’t anyone she met since going on the road with Bertram & Martin.
He pushed the hair back out of her face and kissed her neck. Cass’s hands went straight to the mystery man’s shoulders, grabbing at him as he slid his lips over her sweaty, arched neck.
The other thing about her dreams? They were all wildly lucid.
“Who are you?” she asked, for what must’ve been the thousandth time. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“Because,” he said in a voice at once gravelly and smooth, like stones worn in a river. “I’ll find you when the time is right.”
Cass hated that answer, but when he slid his fingers inside her and ground his palm against her clit, she barely cared. He whispered something in her ear. He sucked her earlobe, and then inhaled the scent of her hair, breathing her in, groaning as he did.
Every time he pulled a lungful of air, this beautiful near-stranger’s chest rose and fell against Cass’s naked body. His firm, tanned skin tickled her nipples, making them stiff and hard with every breath. The sweep of his skin against hers thrilled, and sent a surge of pleasure snaking down her chest to her sex.
In between urgent, shallow breaths, Cass ran her fingernails down the mystery man’s shoulders, along the curves of his biceps. He turned his fingers slowly inside her, letting his lips paint a hot trail from the hollow of her throat to the tuft of hair above her cleft. She couldn’t help but pull one of her knees up as she spread her legs, letting whoever this was closer.
He caressed her with his tongue, then with a hot, long exhale that dripped up her belly. Every time he touched her, everywhere he stroked, kissed, or moved, her muscles and nerves reacted with prickles and tugs. He buried another finger into her, curling them upward against her front wall. Cass shuddered and clutched the back of his head, riding the wave of pleasure that his tongue pushed against her clit.
Cass’s head fell backward against that well-worn, well-loved pillow. He drove his fingers deeper, and slid his tongue from between her legs back to her neck, kissing all the way and then removing his fingers and sliding into her with one smooth motion.
“Just lie back,” he whispered. It wasn’t a request. It was what Cass was going to do. She had no choice – not like she wanted one. “Relax.”
He drove into her, his hips meeting Cass’s, and pushed a groan out of her open mouth. A long, soft “yes” hissed from her lips, over clenched teeth. “More,” she begged, “more, more, more.”
With a smirk instead of an answer, Cass’s mystery man slid a hand up her body, cupping one of her breasts and brushing a nipple with his thumb in the instant before he pinched her. “Just breathe,” he demanded. “Breathe, and let me watch your face when you come.”
Cass took a long, deep, ragged breath, and as her muscles constricted on the cock inside her, she opened her eyes halfway—as much as she could.
She felt herself convulse, felt her whole body pull this man as deep as he could be. She arched against him, and gave up control.
The pulsing, crashing, desperate tugs of her body on his took Cass’s breath, and made her wish – as though she didn’t already – to find whoever this was, whoever this man was that was obviously meant for her, made for her, fated to be hers.
When her climax slowed, and her breathing did too, she kissed his throat and grabbed the sides of the man’s face, forcing him to look down at her. “When?” she asked again, almost begging for an answer.
He smiled. “Soon,” he whispered. That was the first time he gave her anything approaching a real answer. “Just be patient. Or at least, as patient as you can be. I ache for you, too, Cassiopeia, I long for you, yearn for you. Just wait. Can you do that for me?”
“For you?” she asked, curling her legs around his waist and nuzzling into his long, light brown hair. “For you? I’d do anything.”
*
“Get up, goddamnit!”
Lyle’s thick, slurred voice pierced Cass’s sleep and drove a small bore drill through the side of her skull, startling her awake. She sat up, at once alarmed and confused – she remembered Lex’s head being right beside the bed, but when she awoke, he was nowhere to be seen. This wasn’t the first time he went out like this, but it was always alarming. After all, a giant lion going on about his business at night is a whole lot different from, say, a poodle chasing the neighbor’s shih-tzu.
Cass rolled over on her arm, which was momentarily numb up to the shoulder, and wiped the drool off her cheek that always seemed to appear there. She grunted a “huhn?” and got to her feet before hastily pulling on a close pair of jeans and a tee.
“Lex?” she called into the empty room, hoping the liquor haze had made her miss that he’d just gone back to his cage. “Lex? Oh great.”
She knew what was going to come through her door before she bothered opening it. Just like last time, she had one of three answers ready, depending on how upset her warthog of a boss was. If he was sorta irritated, she’d just say sorry. If he looked panicked, she’d tell him she knew where Lex went, and if he was furious
, she’d just shoot him. Shoot him with a gun she didn’t have.
Okay, maybe she’d just pretend to be really upset.
Fact was, he ran a lot. He took off at least once a week, sometimes more. But he always came back, and he never hurt anyone. Worse still, the last time he’d run off, she had promised to keep him from doing it again. That, evidently, hadn’t happened.
Aside from all that, Cass had a rather sharp hangover, and seeing Lyle early in the morning was about the last thing in the world that helped cure that. A bowl of pho? Definitely. Some eggs and sausage? Yeah. But Lyle, already stinking even though it was barely past dawn? Shoot me in the head, she thought.
“What do you want?” Cass asked, rubbing her puffy eyes and pulling her shirt down to make sure Lyle didn’t see any midriff. “And what the hell time is it?”
Sweating already, somehow, Lyle wiped his wrist across his forehead. “Half past six. Your goddamn lion is gone.”
She rolled her eyes, although when they hit the apex of the roll, the rum struck hard. “Uh,” she started, very intelligently, “I know. He does this sometimes.”
Cass immediately regretted saying that, but wasn’t sure why she had. Something had driven her to make that pronouncement that she didn’t quite understand. But, somehow, her playing it completely cool worked. “What’s the big deal? He goes out like twice a week. Never hurts anyone.”
“You can’t be serious,” Lyle said. “We gotta move, we gotta make some tracks, and you’re telling me that goddamn lion is still running away a couple times a week? I thought you said you’d stop him? I thought you promised, Cass.” His voice was a fermented hiss that turned her stomach.
“He’ll catch up. He always does.”
She didn’t know how she knew that, but there it was. The warm feeling in her chest, a remnant of her dream, was still upon her. “It’s fine.”
Cass grabbed her head, pinching her temples with her thumb and her middle finger. “Can I get a shower and get ready to go without you letching all over me?”
“You,” Lyle had started shaking, alongside the incessant sweating. “You’re a wreck. You’re lost. Without me, you have absolutely nothing! You know that.”
She paused for a second, trying to understand exactly what Lyle was saying. “Uh, yeah well, thanks for that. For someone who owes everything to you, you listen to me an awful lot. I wonder why that is? Oh right, the lion taming thing is the only part of this shitty dirt circus that makes any money. What a fucking surprise.”
Lyle hissed and drew back like he was going to backhand Cass, but her eyes were closed and she didn’t notice his attempt to intimidate her. When he realized that, he stuffed his hand back in the pocket of his filthy coveralls. That’s when the smell of him really hit.
“Are you gonna leave me alone?” Cass asked. “Or are you going to stand there while I get ready to go?”
The leer on Lyle’s face made her stomach wrench just as much as his unexpected appearance had.
“Yeah, I’m leavin’. If that lion ain’t back, I’m sending two guys to hunt him. I can’t have some stupid cat getting me sued for lettin’ him go.”
If her stomach was churning at Lyle existing, the idea that he’d gleefully murder Lex just to save himself some trouble made her wish she really did have that gun she kept telling herself she’d buy. For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another, and then, Cass’s hangover got the best of her.
“What do you want from me? Making me dance like last night, threatening Lex? What can I do to get you to leave me the fuck alone?”
Her short, angry, curt question put Lyle aback. Although, a moment later, he cracked a smile. “You want the truth?”
Cass just stared at him, cold-eyed and wishing she could sleep for another four hours or so.
“It isn’t what I want from you,” he cracked a greasy, moist-lipped smile. “It’s that I want you.”
With that, Lyle wiped at his face again, turned on his heel, and shambled down the steps. He froze again, as though something just occurred to him. “You got one more chance to keep that lion under control, kid, and this is only because I like you. I can’t have the show getting the reputation of letting animals escape and terrorize the population. So you got one shot. Next time? I get the lion, and you’re gonna go back to being my full time dancer. Get it? Only way you’re gonna change my mind after that… well…”
His disgusting demand was very clear. Her stomach turned, but she didn’t make a move one way or another. Silence seemed like the best option just then.
“Don’t disappoint me,” Lyle grumbled, with his back still facing Cass. “Or do. I win either way.”
Chewing her lip, Cass watched her lumpy, toady, wretched boss-cum-master shuffle off down the dirt path to another trailer, where he banged on the door and leaned his forehead on the doorjamb while he waited.
She folded her arms across her chest as a dust devil kicked up, swirled for a moment and disappeared into memory. This wasn’t the first time Lyle had made threats like that one. Not anywhere near. Every time though, they never came to much more than just some passive aggressive whining and a few harsh words.
Of course, the sweaty old letch hadn’t ever come right out and almost licked Cass, either, so maybe things around the old Bertram & Martin show were changing. Maybe the desperation, the chronic almost-going-broke, and the string of workers who just up and ran instead of sticking around—even in the wretched deserts they worked—were getting to him.
Maybe he’s starting to go crazy. All this time out here in the dirt and the sand and the loneliness sure as shit would have broken me if it weren’t for Lex. Maybe that’s what’s going on.
On the other hand, Cass was well aware that she may have just been telling herself that so she could avoid the horrible possibility that Lyle had been serious with his lecherous request. It’s one thing to avoid leers and gropes from a bunch of drunk carnies, but it’s something completely different to try to avoid those things from a guy with a key to your house. Hell, he’s the guy who owns the house.
She turned back into her trailer, running her hand through her mussed up, early-morning-tragic hair and stopped. Dead silent, full stop.
“Lex?”
He greeted her with a slow purr that would have been a southern drawl if he were speaking. Cass squinted her eyes, rubbed them with her balled up fists, and expected him to be gone when she opened them again.
Instead, the huge golden lion let out that noise she could only describe as chuckling. “Where the hell did you go? And how,” she shook her head, “actually you know what? It doesn’t even matter. I’m just glad you’re back.”
She settled down on the floor beside him, stroking his ears. “Although you have to stop. He made one of his threats, Lyle did. Said if you ran away again he was going to take you away, whatever that means.”
The lion lifted an eyebrow, or at least that’s what it looked like.
“Do you understand me? Why does it always look like you know what I’m saying?”
Cass stared at him for a second, and then laughed at herself. “Thank God I have the excuse that it’s barely past dawn and I’m hung-over. Otherwise I’d be certifiably batshit, sitting here and talking to a lion.”
Lex licked her hand, his sandpaper tongue tugging slightly on her skin.
“Anyway, it’s just as well he woke me up and you magically reappeared or whatever you did. We gotta get packed, get going. We’re supposed to hit the road before too long and I’d rather not have all the stuff fall off my shelves again.”
*
It hadn’t been three hours before the noise outside her trailer got Cass thinking maybe something wasn’t quite normal. And then about thirty seconds after that, she realized that things were really out of hand when a brick came through her window.
“Dick!” she snarled, climbing up on the bookcase she had bolted to the wall and looking out at a handful of sour looking, red-cheeked faces. “The hell do you think you’re
doing?”
“We’re gettin’ that lion,” one of them – she couldn’t remember the name that went with the face, but he was the largest of the men, wearing an unbuttoned plaid work shirt and loose-fitting Dickies. “I ain’t gonna have him roaming around at night, getting my kids or anything.”
“Maybe you should send them to school?” Cass snarled back. “He never hurts anyone. Just mind your own way.”
The problem though, was that she knew it was bad to have him getting out. Lyle was right, loathe as she was to admit it. It couldn’t possibly be good for business to have rumors of an escapee lion prowling the carnival grounds. So, she did the only thing she could – lie.
“Lyle said if I kept him in from now on, nothing would happen. You gonna go against him?”
As she watched the crowd, which had become a group of about seven by that point, she realized their faces were vacant, almost blank. “Lyle don’t like it when people go against his orders,” she said. Cass hated that when she got really mad, really drunk, or she panicked, her South came out when she spoke. Thankfully, none of those things happened very often.
Another brick came, but this one thunked harmlessly off the matte green aluminum trailer and to the ground. “We’re takin’ him,” another of the faces said, in a weird, detached, placid sort of way. The taste of dirt and grit between her clenched teeth made Cass pull back into her trailer. She turned to Lex, who had stood and was creeping toward the trailer door, his head low and menacing, a growl deep in his chest.
“Calm down,” Cass whispered. “I doubt killing them is going to be the best way to convince anyone you’re not dangerous.”
At her words, Lex’s shoulders relaxed, though he stayed on his feet, alert and ready for whatever came his way.
“Is he in there?” It was Lyle’s voice that time, cold and sober. “Nobody’s found him yet, so he must be. You come out first, Cass, and you won’t get hurt. Neither will he, unless he puts up a fight.”