He had done it for her, but he had also done it for himself.
She sank back into her body, a constant whimper shuddering out of her as the Ringmaster approached her again, raising her chin.
“Again,” she croaked.
“I would dearly love to torture you more, little girl,” the Ringmaster said, crouching down to meet her eyes, and she believed him. “But your lover will not allow it. Not until you trespass again.”
She wiped her nose on her arm, wincing at the way the curve of her spine stretched the places he had struck her. She looked over her shoulder. Maya couldn’t see her back, but she could see her buttocks and thighs. It looked bad and felt worse.
“Then I’ll trespass,” Maya said.
“Please do,” the Ringmaster replied. “So many of the souls and soulless learn their lesson too well after they are given to me. I rarely punish repeat offenders.” He caressed her cheek with the wrapped fall of the whip. His smile was dazzling.
Something flickered over his face. In his joy, he hadn’t been able to hold on to the humanity he wore to hide the demon beneath. It didn’t last long enough for her to know what it looked like, but when she closed her eyes, he reflected in a negative on her eyelids as briefly as she had seen him.
“That is what I am here for,” the Ringmaster murmured, “to repay for your sins.”
“Enough,” Bell said behind Maya. “You are finished.”
“For now,” the Ringmaster replied, standing and stepping back. “Tend your wounded. Make her fresh for the next time. But not all the scars disappear, girl,” he added.
He hung the whip on the crook of his elbow and left through the red curtain. The spotlight faded. The performance was over.
* * * *
There was no easy way to transfer Maya back to the RV. She couldn’t walk, and any way Bell held her pressed against the fevered, red stripes. Maya resisted none of his efforts, but she couldn’t stop her involuntary reaction to his touch on her wounds.
Bell settled on wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, embraced against his chest as though she was the little girl that the Ringmaster had called her. When she had steadied herself, holding him like she had the bench, he tucked his arms under her thighs, where the damage wasn’t quite as bad.
Her near-nakedness concerned neither of them. The guests were gone, and the cast members wouldn’t mind. They would understand what those welts of insufficient atonement meant.
Some of those they passed looked away, feeling her pain. But they couldn’t really know. They would never understand why she’d invited it.
“Leave,” Bell said when he walked into the bedroom.
“But…” Valorie protested.
“Go!” Bell shouted.
Maya flinched, and Valorie scrabbled back and fell to the ground under the twisted sheets. He eased Maya down onto her stomach on the cool cotton. It was too comfortable, but she couldn’t convince herself to roll over onto the hurt.
“I have tended to your wounds too, Valorie,” Bell told her, gentling his voice in an unspoken apology. “Would you deny her the same respite?”
Valorie rummaged through her drawers until she found a pair of panties and a shirt. Without a word or a backward glance, she stalked out of the bedroom. She slammed the RV door shut behind her.
“Stay still,” he said to Maya. He opened one of the cabinets in the room and pulled out a wooden chest. Inside were vials of thick, pearly, bright blue liquid.
“I thought you didn’t heal,” Maya said blearily.
“Not little things like bruises and scrapes. They take care of themselves. And if wounds are part of a wish, I can control the pain and the subsequent healing at my will. However, the Ringmaster’s punishments are different. The marks they leave are too conspicuous, the wounds sometimes debilitating.”
“On with the show, huh?” Maya said.
“In a matter of speaking,” Bell said.
He uncorked one of the vials.
“A punishment usually lasts only as long as the Ringmaster’s performance, although the duration of the wounds depends on the transgression. Sometimes I’ll make the subject suffer for days if he has incurred my wrath,” Bell said as he poured the liquid in thin, cold streams over her back. He undid her boots and threw them to the floor then removed the torn shreds of her underwear. “What you did was a mild transgression, Maya, because I knew the motivation wasn’t to escape. Any future attempts will be considered just as mild, and I might have to lessen the Ringmaster’s punishment if you continue to do it just to hurt yourself.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Maya asked.
Bell placed his hands on her back, the pressure like the sting of a hundred bees. He spread his fingers and smoothed his hands over her, spreading the liquid. It cooled her fever and numbed the pain.
“Why do I heal you or why do I refuse to allow you to torture yourself?” he asked.
“What I did…” she said.
“You wished it. I did it, Maya. I did it for you, and one day you will understand the gift that it is.”
“You just wanted to hurt him because you didn’t like him, for whatever arbitrary reasons you decide whether or not you like someone,” Maya said. She coughed. Her voice still wasn’t right, like it was grappling along the side of a rugged cliff.
“My reasons are far from arbitrary,” Bell said. “It is only because I see deeper into the hearts of man than anyone else that it seems arbitrary.”
Already the liquid or potion or whatever it was had begun its work on the welts. As Bell gently spread it over every wound—not rubbing it into her, but rather letting it sink in—the pain which she’d been holding onto as right and just slipped from her grasp, fading. Her skin twitched as the split welts closed and slowly healed.
“You think you deserved what the Ringmaster did to you because of the wish,” Bell said, “but the Ringmaster punished you first because you crossed the threshold and second because you asked for more. None of these marks were done to you because of the wish. You will not get your absolution here for what happened to your boy, Maya, because you don’t need it.”
“Stop talking,” Maya murmured, hiding her face in her hands. “Just stop talking.”
“Not yet.” He climbed onto the bed and parted her legs to kneel between them as he tended to her whipped thighs. “You wished that your boy would feel what you were feeling, what he had done to you with his thoughtless, careless, loveless wish and everything he had chosen afterward. You were bound to me because of his wish, a curse from which he never experienced the fruit. He cast you aside, and I took you in because it was my will and pleasure to do so. Then he continued basking in his undeserved freedom, until you gave me an opportunity to play my part, to exert my will upon him.”
Now he dug his fingers into her muscles, only minor discomfort left. The massage soothed her stubborn, aching tension and coaxed the knots loose whether she wanted it to or not.
“You punish yourself for hurting him, but you should instead feel vindicated that he finally hurts for hurting you,” Bell said softly, “to the same degree that he hurt you, more than even you know.”
“What the fuck do you care?” Maya asked.
“I told you, Maya. I like you,” Bell said. “Do you know what a rare, coveted thing it is for a jinni to show you favor?”
“I didn’t ask for it,” Maya said.
“You didn’t have to. You don’t get to choose upon whom I bestow that favor.” He ran the knuckles of his fists over her shoulder blades. Maya couldn’t escape from how good it felt. “Or upon whom I deliver just retribution.”
“You don’t deliver just retribution,” Maya said. “You harm and reward those who did nothing to earn it. You do whatever the fuck you want.”
“Which means that sometimes the vengeance I wreak is well-deserved,” Bell said. “I dispense justice in the same measure I dispense injustice.”
“Who are you to judge?” Maya snapped. She
bit her wrist to keep herself from groaning as Bell moved down to her lower back, kneading the Gordian knot there with the efficiency of a sword.
“Sometimes the Creator delegates,” he replied.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to believe me. I know it to be true. An eye for an eye, Maya. I simply plucked his out,” he said.
“You know what they say about an eye for an eye,” Maya said into her arm.
“He had already taken yours,” Bell whispered in her ear. “I don’t want you removing the one he left.”
“Can we stop with the body parts? You’ve done enough damage for one day—or not enough. It’s hard to tell,” Maya said, still hiding her face in the crook of her elbow.
No more words, no more slippery arguments that tried to justify what Bell had done with her wish, because if she listened to him much longer, she might start to believe him the way he believed himself. She couldn’t allow the pain to stop, couldn’t allow the memory to fade—the snap of a thousand wishbones—or else she’d become as bad as a demon herself.
Maya wanted to cry. Tears had poured from her eyes like a tapped spring when she’d crossed the threshold to let loose the dogs of pain, and again when the Ringmaster had beaten her. But that had meant nothing except that her tear ducts still worked.
But now she wanted to cry because what had happened to Derrick meant something to her—proof that she was a human being with empathy and a need to make things right, as a Christian who turned her cheek to her enemies, as a fucking member of this world who cared about the needless suffering of others. An eye for an eye, Bell had said. But retribution, if it was to happen, was supposed to come after this life, not in it. Hell wasn’t supposed to be here, no matter what Shakespeare had said.
But if it was, she now knew why she had been taken into the circus instead of Derrick—not just because of Derrick’s wish, which could have been granted without her being bound to Arcanium.
Bell had bound her to him because she was evil. Maya belonged with all the other tortured souls of Arcanium to not only accept her just deserts but to serve the master she’d ultimately chosen.
She wanted to cry for Derrick, but she couldn’t. A padlock hung between her and any emotion that made her a worthy human being. That was how she knew she was evil. There weren’t enough whips in the world for her.
When Bell slipped his hands between her thighs to stroke up the sensitive inner flesh, his touch was anything but healing. She buried her head deeper in her elbow, but her body responded anyway, relieved to be free of what she had brought upon it. Her body didn’t care about salvation in a devil’s den. It just wanted to feel good.
“If the Ringmaster’s whip makes you think you’re being treated fairly, Maya, I am sure we can come to some arrangement. However, if you go to the Ringmaster with your needs, I require that you limit the damage—the potion does wonders, but some scars run deeper than the healing can reach, and we already have enough scarring down there, don’t we? I will still heal you after your sessions with him, but I will permit them if you feel you need them. Ten lashes a week until you feel forgiven. Does that sound fair?”
“Not enough,” Maya muttered.
“That’s not what I asked. There are other ways to pay. I am offering you one method, but I will only allow so much.”
“Fine,” she said.
“The whisper through your mind is that you want your sessions Saturday evenings.”
A masochistic Mass—the phrase that broke through the fog.
“It would be more convenient during the week when we’re on the road or setting up, but I am sure the Ringmaster will not object. I keep the Ringmaster sated, but it’s important not to give him too much or else he’ll crave more. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
Bell laved over her folds, tracing up and down the labia before swiping through and tasting the wet entrance to her cunt.
Another involuntary reaction, another betrayal.
“What are you doing?” Maya asked, shifting to twist around, but in her position it was hard to move, and her muscles didn’t particularly want to after what she’d put them through.
“I should think that would be dreadfully obvious,” Bell replied, speaking into her inner thigh before returning to her cunt.
“I don’t want to feel—” Her moan cut her off as he slipped a hand underneath her and palmed her clit with broad, luxurious strokes.
“Oh, but you do,” Bell said. He kissed up her spine until he lay on top of her, his cock resting heavy and full against her ass. “You want to feel so much. I can help you. I can punish you, Maya. I desire to give you pleasure, and you will accept it. You will do as I tell you. You will obey my every wish, no matter how uncomfortable you become, because it will eventually give you the pleasure that I crave to offer.”
“That doesn’t sound like punishment,” Maya said.
“Give it time,” he said.
He spread her legs wider and stretched her cunt around his erection as he slid inside. She whimpered, trying to sink away into the mattress, but there was nowhere that he wasn’t—his warm, strong, moving yet immovable body embracing her, reaching as far into her as possible, as though seeking the scars he couldn’t heal.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make me want you. Please.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Bell replied. He bit lightly at her neck, teasing the flesh. “And neither are the sex demons. Not tonight. Just you. Just you and me and the desire we share, azizam.”
She groaned. She arched her back like a cat’s as his cock stroked through her. He traveled his hand down the length of her arm to intertwine their fingers. Maya clasped him, a handhold as she drowned, because in spite of everything she thought she deserved, she just couldn’t let herself go.
“Bell, if you… Fuck.”
He’d changed his angle slightly, rubbing against her G-spot. Her cunt clamped around him from arousal, shivering with an almost electrical shock through her system. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “If you want me, then fuck me, damn it. Now. Hard. Please.”
“I’d think it would punish you more to deny you what you seek,” Bell said. “You might find you like it too much. I can’t guarantee it’s what you’re looking for.”
“Wishes rarely are,” she muttered.
He smiled against her shoulder.
Then he placed his hand on the back of her neck to hold her down, partially smothered by the pillow but also braced against her arm so that she could still breathe. He climbed to his knees to add leverage and more strength to his thrusts, and he forced her legs farther apart with his knees. The darts of his hips made meaty slapping sounds against her inner thighs—she thought she might bruise there. His balls hit her clit in broad strokes.
He circled the base of his cock with his thumb, fore and middle fingers, grinding into her. Her moisture smeared over his fingers. He slipped a few in with his large cock, stretching her further.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“What was that?” Bell asked. “Are you enjoying this?” He added the rest of his fingers around his cock, as far in as he could. She whimpered. She felt thin around him, the soft, swollen tissue pulled into a membrane around the thickness inside her.
He drew his thumb up her perineum to the pucker of her ass, circling it with her juices.
“Yes. There,” Maya muttered. She bit her wrist. Someone that endowed would tear her with stinging pain. She wanted him to make her hurt in a way he couldn’t take from her again.
“I think that’s quite a bad idea,” Bell said, even as he removed his fingers from her cunt and brought them up to her clenching hole. “At least the way you mean. You forget that you’re not the one who gets to tell me what you want anymore. I do what I please, and you take what I give you. But I can still fuck your ass my way.”
In spite of his refusal to stick his cock where he was playing now, he didn’t give her time to adjust to the two
fingers he forced inside—twisting, scissoring, spreading. It already felt full when he added another finger. Derrick had enjoyed something like this, taking her ass while he fingered her pussy. Maya could usually take it or leave it, and that was why she welcomed Bell’s intrusion, the curl of his fingers as though trying to stroke himself through the barrier between. Eventually, she realized he could, the off-rhythm movement of his fingers odd against her walls as he pumped them in and out of her ass while he moved his cock in her cunt, like rubbing hands together inside of her.
Tension, new and delicious where she already ached, gathered in her back, abdomen and thighs, meeting him where he filled her, fucked her, fucked her over, took her, used her. It sometimes hurt, but the pleasure that he coaxed from between her legs unfurled its tentacles and sucked him in, clenching to keep him inside, to keep him crossing the lines, blurring them, erasing them completely.
She still couldn’t cry, and when she cried out, it cracked like eggshell and became nothing, her voice finally giving out. Arousal crawled through her veins like lava flow, spilling over his cock as she gasped out the orgasm he wrenched from her.
He twisted his fingers, pushed deeper and continued to thrust through the fluttering muscles around him, stoking the peak higher, higher, higher until it burst again and she thrashed on the bed as though she were being attacked.
Bell let himself go, flooding her over. His cum squeezed out with her juices as she finally started to unwind from the climax.
Maya slumped on the bed, mentally and physically exhausted.
She felt filled with poison. Good. She didn’t deserve the peace that sleep would bring. If there was any fairness to the world, she would dream over and over again of what she had seen in the crystal ball.
Bell jerked himself out of her, leaving her terribly empty. He got off the bed and left the room.
Fortune Page 19