Fortune

by Aurelia T. Evans

  “Really, really dirty,” Maya muttered. She arched against nothing and clenched her fists when the first wave of the sex demons’ magic reached backstage.

  “I have to repay the orgasms you took,” Bell said, stroking her hair. She had to have the worst bed head ever by now. “I have all night, but I think it would be better for you if I spaced them out, don’t you agree? Less punishing that way.”

  “We all know you love to punish me,” Maya said.

  “No, Maya. I love that you love for me to punish you. You were the one who requested such treatment. And now, at least, we can focus solely on punishing treatment to enjoy rather than punishing treatment to endure, yes?”

  “Fuck me,” Maya breathed, trying to double over, but the bindings wouldn’t allow it. The orgasm wrenched through her like nails gouging at skin, rocking her whole body before she, the dildos and the vibrations stilled.

  “All in good time, my dear.”

  Not a short enough time. The dildo squished in her cunt, and her juices smeared over the leather, probably ruining it for more than the one use. And even though she winced every time she moved her legs and shifted the position of the dildos inside her, the double penetration never let her forget her arousal. All she could think of was Bell’s cock replacing them. Real. Hot. Connected to a real man who desired her, scratching all the itches and rubbing all the aches until she would shiver and cling to him to ride out the orgasm and know that he felt it all around his cock. Toys weren’t the same. They were teases, and so was that orgasm.

  One down.

  “We’re on deck,” Bell said after the tumblers’ music neared its end.

  The golems rolled her into position, and Bell left her side.

  The heavy swing of the red curtain was followed by a burst of applause in greeting.

  “If you will excuse my interruption, I am temporarily taking the reins from our estimable Ringmaster. Don’t worry, I asked permission first.”

  The audience hummed with polite laughter.

  “I see many familiar faces in our audience tonight. If you attended the performance last night, you might have realized that an act is missing today—our novice mistress of the high wire,” Bell continued. He didn’t have the baritone resonance of the Ringmaster, but his comfortable, gentle voice captivated nonetheless.

  “We will address the mystery of the missing girl in due course. Now, some of you who were here last year or the year before might remember otherwise, but most of you only know me as fortune teller and mentalist. While I do love my day job, I also occasionally grace Arcanium with the skills of a master magician. A very modest master magician.”

  More laughter, this time a little more genuine as the audience warmed to Bell’s charm.

  “And what would a magician be without his lovely assistant? If I may, let me introduce to you to the incomparable, high-flying Miss Maya—temporarily grounded, I assure you.”

  The golems rolled her forward, and golden light hooked its fingers under the edges of the blindfold. Applause met her entrance. The quality of the applause was different when she just lay there, looking pretty and doing nothing, than when she’d performed on the high wire. She liked the other applause better.

  But one of the things that stayed the same was that everyone’s eyes would be fixed on her, and this time she had a lot more to show them. As nervous as it made her, their observation also made her want to preen, to display herself even more provocatively. When the audience finished their perfunctory applause, whispers and mutters continued. Maya couldn’t tell if they were positive or negative.

  “Now, today has been an interesting day for our young woman here. Over the last month, she and I have been embarking on a, shall we say, alternative sort of path with which many of you might be acquainted.”

  Knowing mutters. Self-satisfied chuckles.

  “At no point today—during which she was tormented by all manner of pleasures, poor girl—did she know what was going to happen to her. She accepted it all, willingly and happily, if I do say so myself. Now, she presents herself to you, our wonderful audience, to display her willing submission,” Bell said. “But don’t take my word for it. Is this true, Maya? Do you trust me, here in the middle of this ring surrounded by strangers? Do you trust me?”

  Maya swallowed. Then she nodded.

  “Do you desire to remain, cognizant of your present state?” Bell asked, running a finger down the leather straps that circled the outside of her right breast.

  He lifted her breast slightly, as though for the audience’s gaze. Her cheeks flushed, but she nodded again. He cupped her, and she breathed in to fill his palm with her breast. Under the pasty, her nipple pulled against the adhesive as it tried to tighten.

  “Although you were unaware of my plans for tonight, are you here of your own free will, Maya, open to…expanding your already broadened horizons?”

  The audience liked that.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “What do you think, folks? Should we leave her in the dark, or should we show Miss Maya what she’s in for tonight?” Bell asked.

  The crowd cheered for the latter. A few patrons stomped on the stands to add to the noise. Maya bit her lip, but their enthusiasm swept her up as well. And not just their enthusiasm. Bell’s excitement was both palpable and contagious through his contact with her.

  “Prepare yourself, my dear,” he said.

  Although the words resonated through the room with the aid of his microphone, the moment nonetheless struck both her and the audience as intimate. They quieted almost immediately. This was a performance for their entertainment, yes, but perhaps they understood from the way he touched her and spoke to her that Bell intended the performance more personally—that the audience was the tool for his pleasure rather than the other way around.

  “I can take whatever you throw at me,” Maya said.

  “How apropos.”

  Bell untied the blindfold and swept it away from her eyes with a flourish. The first thing she noticed was a table of some of Misha’s sharp implements, mostly knives and short swords.

  The second thing she noticed was that Jason sat a mere three feet away from her. No leash, no chain, no Ringmaster with a whip, just his giant shaggy mane framing his lightly panting mouth. For a split second, Maya knew real fear for her life before she remembered that, as alarming as Jason was, he would never hurt her.

  She had to remind herself of that in a repeating mantra after Bell clicked his tongue and Jason stood, keeping his eyes on Maya’s and closing the distance between them. Jason’s nostrils flared. He could doubtlessly smell what Maya had been doing all day and with whom, and he doubtlessly smelled how turned on she was from the silicone embedded inside her. Maya couldn’t imagine what he was thinking or what he must believe of her, but his hot breath puffed over her thighs, his head on level with her strongest scent. Jason was a human being under that mass of muscle and fur, but even so…

  The audience sucked all the air out of their room as they held their breaths.

  “Oh dear. That doesn’t look safe,” Bell said with a knowing smile. “Perhaps we should put the kitty away before he does something he regrets. Back home, big guy.”

  Jason hesitated at first, but when Bell clicked at him again, he sauntered around the platform and through the red curtain to another round of hesitant applause from the audience. Stunned from the degeneracy of Arcanium’s ilk or stunned because they were shifting with tingling discomfort in their own seats, it was difficult to say. Or both, it could possibly be both. Maya was fairly certain she was feeling both right now, even with her knowledge of the secrets behind the scenes.

  “Maybe we should do something a little safer, shall we? Let’s play with knives,” Bell said cheerily. “And while I enjoy this, why don’t you enjoy yourself a little bit too, Maya? Ride the rapids of adrenaline. After all, I want you to get some pleasure out of this as well.”

  “You’re a fucking bastard, you know that?” Maya moaned as the d
ildos started moving again, but alternating instead of at the same time.

  The audience tittered.

  “I aim to please,” he replied, picking up a glinting silver throwing knife. He then chose five more, laying them out on the edge of the table so he could easily grab them. “Now, our audience might be wondering what lion taming and knife throwing have to do with magic. As far as the lion taming, absolutely nothing. I was just showing off.”

  The audience laughed.

  “When it comes to knife throwing, there’s an element of danger, yes, but keep your eyes peeled. On the knives or on the fetching woman tied to the platform, whatever your personal preference. We don’t judge here.”

  “Liar,” she thought in his direction.

  “Well, not in that way,” Bell amended with amusement. He palmed a knife and brought it behind his ear. As the audience went silent, the sound system crackled to life with one of the instrumental symphonic metal pieces that Arcanium preferred when it was being itself. “Brace yourself.”

  She thought he meant for the knife. But then the dildos didn’t just move—they pounded into her, her clit buzzing again from whatever spell Bell had cast. Maya thrashed in her bonds.

  Usually the lovely assistant remained perfectly still to aid the magician’s accuracy. Instead, Maya had become a moving target—albeit limited in the range of her movement—as she struggled not to make any too-embarrassing noises and failed miserably.

  A thunk startled her out of her momentary distraction. Maya whipped her head to the side, eyes wide.

  The knife had embedded itself a mere two inches from where her nose was now.

  Ah, there’s the adrenaline. The first thrown knife had broken the dam.

  Maya closed her hands into fists to try to keep still, but the dildos and vibrations were relentless. The more she resisted them, the more her body responded. Her clit and cunt seemed to believe that sexual pleasure was all they were good for, all they were ever supposed to feel, tired though they were.

  A thunk to her left.

  Two more in quick succession, one on either side of her waist, despite her wriggling. The audience let out an oooooh of appreciation for Bell’s skill.

  Another oooooh when the fifth knife struck just beneath the hem of her skirt between her legs, right at the moment when she lifted her hips as her back arched. Maya cried out.

  “Oh God,” she gasped.

  “You flatter me, child,” Bell replied.

  A burst of applause when the sixth knife struck the wood right above her head during one of her downstrokes—as though her movements would dictate the depth of the toys inside her. The blade disturbed her hair when she rose back up again.

  One more knife left and nowhere left to throw it. He had her pinned on all sides. And damn it, the toys pummeling her insides were bringing her to the edge, limbs and belly tensing with impending climax. She couldn’t hold in her moans anymore. Underneath the epic music, Maya heard sighs and muted groans from the audience too, which she usually associated with Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail’s act. A swell of bewildered pride rose with the bubble of her pleasure that the audience had responded to her and her present predicament in the same way they responded to sex demons.

  Maya cried out with each breaking wave of lust as the climax took hold of her. She had to close her eyes through it, but when she opened them, the sight of the glinting silver knife spinning in the air greeted her. Fear made her cunt and ass clench once again around the toys, shivering her with aftershock as she gasped and flinched. The knife headed directly for her abdomen.

  And stopped. Its wicked tip pointed at the leather, but it had abruptly halted a few inches away as though grabbed out of the air by an invisible man.

  There— The audience’s first real delight with the act, which had transcended a BDSM scene and officially entered the realm of a magician’s performance.

  The knife spun in a lazy circle now, no strings, no mechanics. Then it flung itself back at its thrower, who snatched it by the handle and turned around to bow to the audience. Maya caught her breath and tried not to cry from the combination of arousal and terror, neither reaction one she had any control over.

  With Bell’s back turned to her, the knives yanked themselves out of the platform, and Bell whirled around to stop each one as they shot themselves at him. With every spectacular catch, the audience’s roar grew louder.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Bell said, sweeping another bow. He turned back to Maya, setting the handfuls of knives onto Misha’s table before approaching her. “And it seems our girl enjoyed that, too.” His lips brushed her ear as he whispered for her alone, “Still two more to go.”

  “I hate you,” Maya said.

  “Oh, you lie, you venomous arachnid,” Bell said, kissing her shoulder and stroking her hair. “Your last shall be with me, alone, but you still have one more to give to these lovely people. Are you ready?”

  Maya nodded.

  “Good girl.” That one he let everyone hear. The audience applauded her accomplishment as well.

  Then they gasped as Bell stepped back and spread his arms up with a grand flourish. All of a sudden, Maya’s platform snapped horizontal, levitating in the air parallel to the ground and feeling like the world’s most uncomfortable bed. Her head took a few moments to catch up. The dildos hadn’t stopped their relentless pounding and the phantom vibration still hummed over her folds, which didn’t let her come down completely from her last orgasm. Tears dripped down her temples into her hair.

  As the music built, the chains of her bonds clinked. She turned to her right as the strap around her wrist undid itself, along with the ones at her other wrist and her feet. She hadn’t realized how much her skin there hadn’t been able to breathe until she was released.

  Bell beckoned her up with his magic. The second wind of her pleasure ascended and so did she, until she hovered above the already hovering platform.

  The audience murmured with repeated variations of, “How is he doing that?” They were all trying to figure out the trick when there wasn’t any. Either way, they were there to be duped. Fake magic or real magic, it didn’t matter, as long as they were amazed when they left.

  It was coming, the violent arrival of her seventh orgasm of the night. Maya didn’t know whether she was going to make it, sobbing somewhere between intense discomfort and intense pleasure such that she couldn’t tell the difference.

  Bell conjured over a thin, silky sheet from Misha’s table and flipped it over Maya’s body, covering her just as she began to thrash in midair, the toys and magic going at her as strongly as they could.

  Then, for the briefest of moments, right before she crested her peak, she blinked out of existence and she was nowhere—no shape, no form, no body, just a consciousness strung out by pleasure and pain, awake and exhausted, exhilarated and stretched thin.

  For one or two seconds, she glimpsed a spirit world, ether beyond the physical plane, revelation that rocked her even though she couldn’t begin to explain it.

  Maya reappeared in the audience, and the spotlight sought her out in the formerly empty section of a second-row bench between an older man and a younger woman as she braced her hands against the seat and ground her hips to the rhythm of the toys inside her. She gave an animalistic shriek that overpowered the thunderous applause of the shocked and awed audience.

  Bell eased the toys and the vibrating magic to a standstill and approached the bench to help her to stand and make her way back down. The dildos disappeared, leaving her open, empty and dripping. But it was easier for her to maneuver over the bench when she could bend all the way at the waist. Bell gave her something solid to hold onto while she trembled. He wrapped his arms around her and led her to the center of the ring, where the platform and the sheet lay flat on the ground, presumably dropped at the same time she’d disappeared.

  “Everyone give Miss Maya a round of applause for being such a good girl with a wicked man like me.”

  The audience was mor
e than happy to oblige.

  Maya shakily wiped her tears away then waved and smiled to show that she was okay. With her other arm, she clutched Bell. She didn’t want to let go. Ever.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Bell concluded, “and have a good night.”

  * * * *

  “I tried to warn you, asalam,” Bell said, curling his arm around her waist and lifting her up into their RV. It wasn’t as big or as nice as Valorie’s, but its conveniences were new and everything was clean and modern.

  “Cut the crap, Bell, you knew exactly how many times I’d come and exactly how many times you’d have to make me come again,” Maya replied.

  “True,” Bell said. He set her down and swooped in to kiss her as he guided her back to the bedroom. “Fair warning nevertheless.”

  “I thought your magic was wish-based,” Maya said breathlessly, running her fingers through his hair to press him closer. “Where did all that come from?”

  “As I said, I’m the arbiter of the rules, and I’ve learned how to milk a wish for all it’s worth. A wish can last me centuries if I interpret it right,” Bell said. He unhooked all the various leather and rings, peeled off the pasties, and pulled open her corset to toss it aside and yank down her panties. Her boots unlaced and flung themselves against the wall as he threw her onto the bed.

  “Spread your legs,” Bell groaned huskily, poised above her on his hands and knees. “Yes. I want you to take me, all of me. You can, Maya, and you will.”

  As he transformed into the blue-skinned jinni—almost filling up the room and certainly putting a strain on the springs of the bed—Maya didn’t have enough energy or presence of mind to become too nervous before he brought his gigantic cock between her legs and pressed at the slick, stretched opening of her cunt. He sank into her, her body shifting and somehow creating enough space for his cock to continue into her all the way to the hilt, his balls heavy against her perineum and ass. She felt full into her chest, which should have been impossible and painful and yet were miles away from either.

  “How?” she gasped. “How?” It was all she could manage before he started to move, the action stroking all the raw little nerves screaming for everything to end yet ecstatic at the jinni’s touch in spite of it.