She wondered if sour vomit was the last thing she would ever taste, a frantic hand job and abandonment her last memories.
The RV door opened. The contortionist, Valorie, climbed inside. Upon seeing a girl tied up in the center of the room, Valorie heaved a put-upon sigh and yelled over her shoulder, “Don’t tell me we got another one.”
The reply back was indistinct to Maya. Valorie sighed again and closed the door behind her. Instead of, oh, say, untying Maya or calling the police, Valorie just said “hi” and burrowed through the fridge and freezer until she found some spaghetti sauce and frozen mozzarella sticks. Valorie deliberately kept her back to Maya the entire time, the set of the contortionist’s jaw tight and her temples twitching as she clenched her teeth.
As she warmed up the mozzarella sticks in the toaster oven, she tapped her foot to some unheard music playing in her head and undid her tight bun. The skin around her eyes relaxed a little as Valorie’s dyed blonde hair was released from its hold and fell to her shoulders.
“Untie me before he gets back. Please. Help me,” Maya said.
Valorie’s tattooed shoulders shifted with tension above the tight leather of her catsuit, so at least Maya knew Valorie had heard her.
“Please…” Maya repeated. Her begging carried a hysterical edge that rubbed Maya the wrong way, even as she did it and knew she had to do it. Not that she was unfamiliar with the act of begging, just that each time she’d had to beg, she’d known she never wanted to have to do it again. Yet here she was.
“No can do, kid,” Valorie said, still not looking at Maya.
“Kid? I’m older than you,” Maya said. “For God’s sake, get me out of this.”
“I’m older than I look,” Valorie said. “And I can’t do that. You want something to eat?”
“Something to eat?” Maya asked incredulously. “Do I look like I fucking want something to eat? Untie me! Please!”
Valorie didn’t say another word to her, just gingerly put her hot mozzarella sticks on a plate and poured some cold spaghetti sauce on the side. Then, eyes downcast, she walked around Maya, deftly evading Maya’s flailing legs as Maya tried to grab Valorie with her feet, and sat down on the couch to eat. She determinedly ignored Maya through the rest of her meal.
Her appetite was unaffected by Maya’s pleas. When she was finished, Valorie left her plate on the coffee table and headed back to the bedroom, undoing the thick, constrictive straps over her abdomen. It had to be tremendously uncomfortable against the flexibility Valorie’s contortions demanded. Maya gave exactly zero fucks. She’d gone from afraid to angry. The fear wasn’t gone, of course. Just temporarily displaced.
Maya shrieked when Valorie walked out of view. She grabbed the coarse rope and yanked on the bar, jumping to use her weight as additional leverage. The rope dug into her wrists, grating the tender flesh and making her cry out, but she couldn’t stop just because it hurt. Raw skin on her wrists was nothing compared to what Maya anticipated from her captor.
Valorie wasn’t going to help her, and Maya didn’t think it had anything to do with circus folks’ famed eccentricity, although damned if she knew why Valorie ignored her. She had to keep trying. Derrick had walked away, knowing that she wasn’t following and welcoming her absence. None of her friends knew where she was. No one else was coming to save her.
But the bar was solid, and so were the knots.
She dangled from the bar, limp in spite of her wrists protesting from the pressure against the wounds. More than anything, she didn’t want to appear defeated. She didn’t want to cry. But nothing this evening was going the way she wanted it. Hot tears streamed down her face. She had to wipe her running nose on the shoulder of her shirt. She wasn’t too concerned about its integrity at this point. She’d gladly burn her corset. In fact, she’d be happy if she had nothing to do with Renaissance or circus-themed shit ever again.
The RV door opened again, and Maya started, twisting around in her bonds.
The fortune teller locked the door behind him as he made his way up the steps, into the living room.
“Hello, Maya,” he said.
Maya met his gaze. She said nothing. Her expression would say it all.
“I know this upsets you,” the fortune teller began.
When she tried to kick him in the balls, he knocked her legs away with his knees, but that didn’t stop her. He maintained composure as she lost hers, striking her legs out with as much force as she could muster. He eventually got his arms around her, holding her against him to keep her still. His expression was utterly dispassionate, unexcited by the struggle. The embrace served a purely practical purpose of immobilizing her, nothing more.
When she stopped squirming in his arms, he brought a hand up to her cheeks and brushed away her tears.
“Look at that face,” he said. “Do you need a tissue?”
“I need to get out of here.”
“You don’t have that choice,” the fortune teller replied. “And I’m afraid any explanations will have to wait until tomorrow morning. I’m exhausted and you still have too much fight in you, fight that is ultimately pointless. Every ounce of strength you use to struggle is strength wasted, strength that could be put to better uses.”
“Get your hands off me. Don’t you touch me,” Maya said through clenched teeth.
The fortune teller pressed his lips against her cheek. “I won’t hurt you, Maya. I have no desire to do so. And I won’t touch you, except to protect you from yourself. We wouldn’t want things to end too quickly, now, would we?”
The fortune teller abruptly let her go. She twisted around to follow his progress as he turned the light off in the living room and headed into the bedroom, where Valorie waited for him.
Maya’s eyes widened when she realized that Valorie was completely naked except for the extensive tattoos curling over her darker skin—as though an artist had painstakingly applied a calligraphy brush to her body.
Valorie lay on her back at a diagonal in the queen-sized bed, her legs bent and spread to either side. She stroked her pussy as the fortune teller approached, which was the last thing Maya saw before she spun away again, silently wishing for brain bleach. Didn’t the woman know that Maya could see her? A contortionist in a catsuit had probably shed all vestiges of modesty, but rubbing herself off in front of a stranger was a bit much.
The fortune teller and Valorie spoke too softly for Maya to hear, but she had a vague sense of what they were doing, because what she could hear just fine were the sighs and soft moans, the whisper of skin on sheets, the obscenely wet sounds of kissing and sucking who knew where.
Maya tightened her grip on the ropes. She wasn’t curious, felt none of that peculiar curiosity that defied circumstance and fears and anger—the same train wreck syndrome that had kept her from looking away during the circus acts. Not curious at all.
Cursing Derrick’s name—and underneath those silent curses, her own name featured on more than a few occasions—Maya cautiously peeked around.
She got an eyeful of the fortune teller holding the thick base of his shaft, poised to thrust into Valorie’s glistening cunt. For her part, Valorie had practically bent herself in half, her knees pressed to either side of her shoulders as she played with her small, dark nipples. Her hooded eyes were trained on the fortune teller’s impressive erection, the likes of which Maya thought would be painful to take.
With Valorie’s gaze on his cock, the fortune teller glanced in Maya’s direction, as though he had known she would choose that moment to turn and he had been waiting for her.
Maya flinched, her fears flooding back, but now she couldn’t look away as he pressed the thick head against Valorie’s entrance. It didn’t look like it could possibly fit in the contortionist’s slight body, but it sank in as though through melted butter. After that, the fortune teller lowered his attention back to his partner in bed, a gesture that was almost shy.
In spite of herself, Maya couldn’t tear her eyes away from the almo
st hypnotizing sight of the fortune teller’s red, firm erection pulling out of Valorie, wet with her juices, her flesh clinging to its girth. Valorie cried out when he thrust all the way in again. Her back arched off the bed from the force of it.
“Oh yes,” she gasped. “God, slam it in. Make me scream.” Valorie cursed as the fortune teller obliged.
His hips were tireless, forceful, the muscles of his thighs and buttocks clenching and releasing. He braced himself over Valorie so that he could watch her as he fucked her. As vocal and commanding as she was, he stayed quiet, limiting himself to quiet grunts of effort.
Valorie made the demands, but any fool could tell that the fortune teller was the one in control. Valorie’s stream of words was nothing more than elaborate moans. He set the pace, held her where he wanted her, took her in front of his new captive and Valorie made no discernible objection.
Maya couldn’t help it. The old arousal from the hand job, the snake handler and the strongman returned despite her nausea and terror, as though it had only dimmed to sparks in cinders, ready to be stoked back to life. Maya discarded all thoughts of Derrick and proceeded to devote all her curses to her own body for reacting this way to such a sick situation. It wasn’t that two people making love was sick or even that their coupling was particularly depraved, because by strappy leather circus standards, the sex was practically vanilla, if flexible.
But for God’s sake, she was right here, could see everything they were doing, and maybe the psychos had wanted it that way. Maybe the contortionist was in on the whole thing, the drugging, the kidnapping and whatever they were going to do to her later.
“That’s right. Ride me with that huge cock. Split me in two. Suck my tits, just like that, yes, oh yessss, almost there…” Valorie moaned.
The RV rocked back and forth as the fortune teller sped up and strengthened his thrusts. He leaned down and took Valorie’s left nipple in his mouth, sucking and holding it between his teeth to make Valorie’s back arch again. She clutched his arms, digging her nails into the firm muscles there. Her fingers brushed the curling golden band around his upper arm.
Maya bit her lip, pressing her thighs together, and hoped it would be over soon. What if he was the kind of lover who liked to go all night and had to please his lady several times before he was satisfied? Fuck, Maya hoped not. She didn’t think she’d be able to get through lovemaking that long without whimpering and making a fool of herself. She’d bite a hole through her lip before she would let that fortune teller smirk at her, with that preternaturally knowing grin and those smug, fae eyes.
She clung to the memory of him saying he was exhausted, although he looked anything but.
Valorie threaded her fingers through the fortune teller’s short hair and held him to her breast as he teased, worried and pounded her through her orgasm, a series of yeses that coaxed him to match his thrusts to her rhythm. As she came down from the peak, Valorie wrapped her legs around the fortune teller’s shoulders, stroking his earlobes and along his neck with a light caress of her fingernails. He moved from her breast to her mouth, but he didn’t quite kiss her. His kiss-swollen lips brushed hers, and he nipped at her lips and chin, all the while taking her with deep, meaty slaps against her thighs and cunt.
“There’s my man,” she murmured. “So good, so sweet, so hot, come for me, come for me, come.”
The fortune teller shoved in as far as he could, the sculpture of his hips slotted firmly between Valorie’s parted legs. He finally kissed Valorie through the spasms with a ferocity that startled Maya and made her insides tighten, but not with anything close to nausea.
If her captors were sick, what exactly did that make her?
Now she could look away, but her skin tingled with phantom sensation, and her mind spun with confusion and self-loathing whirling in eddies littered with question marks. Why had she been watching? Why hadn’t she been able to stop? Why hadn’t they closed their door? Why was she here? Why was he doing all of this?
Maya shrieked in surprise when the fortune teller came up behind her again. She twisted away, trying not to let her legs or even the fabric of her skirt brush his naked body. But the fortune teller was all business, slipping the rope bindings from the bar like a magician opening a trio of Chinese rings.
He braced her with his shoulder as she stumbled. He didn’t have far to drag her. He opened a blanket over the sofa and laid her down on it. As she wriggled to sit up and run, the fortune teller seemed to pull more rope out of nowhere behind him—because he sure as hell hadn’t pulled it out of his ass—and attached the bindings around her wrists to the longer length of rope, which he tied to the bar again.
“You will be able to walk around the cabin and go to the bathroom, but I recommend you sleep instead of trying to burn the RV to ashes like you’re thinking about doing now,” the fortune teller said.
“How—?” Maya stammered.
The fortune teller spoke over her with unconcealed impatience, “If you set a fire, I shall spare my lover and leave you in here to burn. Know this, Maya— I could have left you hanging all night, your weight on the injuries that you caused to your wrists. I chose to let you down to sleep on the sofa for my pleasure, not yours.”
Maya stared up at him, uncomprehending, and he didn’t elaborate.
She tried not to look at his cock, soft now but still exceptional in size and frightening because of it, as he backed away from her toward the bedroom again. This time he closed the door and latched it with an audible click.
Maya considered her options, few as they were. She decided against the arson. Instead, she went to the bathroom. She couldn’t close the door with the rope attached. She had just enough room to stand and clean herself off, strangely humiliated even though she was alone. Water and soap stung under the rope around her wrists when she washed her hands.
Then she went back to the couch and lay down on the blanket. After another thought, she pulled the other half of the blanket over her. The air in the RV was cool. At first, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink with the fortune teller just a few steps away in the other room, but sleep crept up on her before she could stop it. She submerged beneath dark, suffocating waters that promised peace. They lied.
* * * *
She was startled from her sleep by the fortune teller untying her ropes. The western window was still dark, although the eastern window revealed a misty light, the first rays through the haze of morning.
The fortune teller had donned his costume once again, his bare chest unnerving her almost as much as when he’d been completely naked.
He stroked his thumbs over her wrists, more badly damaged than Maya had thought. She hissed at the sting. The chafed scratches were red, oozing and angry.
“If you want to have these seen to, go by Kitty’s tent,” the fortune teller said.
“You mean you’re letting me go?” Maya asked.
“I’m untying you,” the fortune teller corrected. “You still can’t leave. You are free to roam within the boundaries of the circus, but you cannot cross the threshold.”
“What do you mean, I can’t cross the threshold? The gate won’t be closed forever. Maybe I’ll jump over the fence,” Maya said. The bite of her words became toothless as he stared down at her. Nothing she said seemed to have an effect on his emotionless but somehow captivating expression—as though something amazing and terrible was happening underneath.
“You could try. You’d discover why it’s a bad idea very quickly.” He stroked her hair away from her neck. Maya jerked back.
“I don’t believe we have been formally introduced,” the fortune teller said. “I know you, Maya DeLuca, but my name, should you care to use it, is Bell. Bell Madoc. I would say I am pleased to make your acquaintance outside of my work, but I can see such pleasure would fall on deaf ears. I have a few things I need to arrange with the Ringmaster. The cast should be eating breakfast backstage in the big top. I will join you there shortly. Then I can explain your new circum
stances to you in full.”
With a smile curving the corners of his lips, Bell exited the RV. He left the door open. Maya stared at her wrists then at the open door.
It couldn’t be this easy.
Maya ran out, not even closing the door behind her. She was thankful for her boots. She felt manky, from her greasy hair to the sweaty socks in her hot boots, but that didn’t matter right now. She glimpsed the circus crew strolling about their business, and chatter drifted to her from the big tent, but she went in the opposite direction.
She wove through Oddity Row, where all the exhibition tents had their curtains closed, until she found the way to the front gate. Still locked. Damn it. She rattled the chains holding the gate together and growled in frustration. She considered climbing up, but there was no place to get a decent foothold. She could conceivably use the lock chain itself as leverage, but it was too high up for her to lift her leg and reach the top of the gate. She wasn’t an acrobat, for Christ’s sake, nor a contortionist.
Okay, new plan.
Maya ran the circumference of the fence, looking for an opening, a weakness—or hell, a box or crate that she could use to get up and over.
She finally hit pay dirt by the circus dumpsters. Several pallets leaned against the secondary gate, less elaborate than the entrance and just as locked. But she could use the pallets to climb onto the dumpster. Then it was only a matter of jumping over and rolling into the tall grass. Who cared if she broke something or got shin splints or chiggers? She would be out.
After piling the pallets one on top of the other, three high, she pulled herself up onto the dumpster. Some truly amazing smells emanated from the receptacles—food, animal poop and a whole lot of rotting meat, the whole mess fermented under days of an early summer sun. Delightful. The expired maraschino cherry on top of a fantastic couple of days.
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