Chapter One

 

 

 

Seth’s teammate David, who’d already gone to the circus last week with a few of his friends, had given it a high recommendation. He’d said the Bearded Lady’s tits were amazing.

‘Just ignore all the hair, and the rest of her is a real piece. And you can see the outline of the snake charmer’s nipples and pussy against her leather bikini.’

Those were reasons enough for the rest of the team to visit Arcanium that Saturday night.

Arcanium was connected to the local Ye Olde Faire, which meant they had to go through the whole faire to get to the circus. But since David had said the best stuff happened in the evening, Seth and Lars didn’t mind putting the weird hotties off till then. After all, the faire had an endless number of boobs over corsets on display, plus knife and star throwing and bawdy comedy shows. Nothing wrong with taking their time over turkey legs and a couple of pints.

If Seth remembered his history class right, there probably hadn’t been this much exposed cleavage back in medieval times, but historical accuracy wasn’t that important to him. Especially when the barmaid did that thing that always seemed to short-circuit his brain—leaning over the counter, her elbows close to her sides, smiling, making those flirtatious eyes at him, and framing those beautiful breasts so that they plumped with that intriguing shadow between them. The neckline barely stopped short of her nipples, which just invited his imagination to push her bodice down.

The move worked on him every time, reducing him to a gibbering idiot. But whenever he realized that his tongue wasn’t going to function for conversation, he fortunately had his smile to fall back on, so at least he wouldn’t be alone in his carnal stupidity.

The barmaid licked her lips and blushed, passing him another pint.

“On the house,” she said.

Lars laughed when Seth handed him the free ale. He put Seth in a headlock and rubbed his head, tousling his blond hair.

“You fucking dog,” Lars said. “How do you even do that? Aren’t chicks supposed to con drinks out of you?”

And they did too. The exchange of free drinks was definitely weighted in favor of the females on bar nights, but sometimes it managed to swing his way. And Seth was more than willing to share the boozy wealth with good friends, not that Lars needed the help. Lars’ wallet was probably as light as Seth’s after the weekend—all in the pursuit of a good night’s lack of sleep.

“We all have our talents. You suck on the field. I score with the ladies. That’s just how it is,” Seth said. He took a big gulp of his own ale and grinned when Lars threatened to pour his over Seth’s head.

“It’s that damn smile, isn’t it?” Lars said. “All I have to do is take off my shirt or show them what’s packing, because when you take yours off, they get blinded by your pasty white ass. But I have to wait for soccer season or summer so I don’t freeze my balls off. You can just flash those brilliant whites like a fucking shark year-round, and all the panties come off even in the dead of winter. It’s a sin, a fucking sin, I’m telling you.”

“What can I say? God loves me more than you.”

Seth flashed his signature smile at the barmaid again before he left. Always leave them wanting more.

Sometimes he got phone numbers, but the times he didn’t weren’t a disappointment. He’d remember the image of her tonight, the one that made his tongue heavy and his cock stir, the one that made him warm and prickly across his chest and over his face. Oh yeah, he’d remember—until the next girl.

He’d remember them only a short time, but they were all special, all sweet for their moment. Sometimes he wondered—when he was standing in the shower and stroking off—whether they were thinking of him at the same time. That would make the exchange complete. A brief, blissful memory, hot in their hands, slickened and a little sticky—like the start of summer, when there was nothing but good distractions around him, memories to keep and memories to let go. All that ‘ships passing in the night’ shit. He was twenty-two years old. He could stand to wander, and he enjoyed it when the girls were just as interested in wandering with him.

He liked being nice, but God knew he wasn’t looking to settle down, not yet—not when he and Lars were this close to getting out of college and trying out for the real thing. Sure, Lars was majoring in business and Seth in marketing, so they had their more conventional fallbacks. Buzz about their post-school future had been promising, though, and a person couldn’t settle down when he was traveling all soccer season.

Seth had his whole life to settle. Right now, putting down roots was overrated, no matter how often his aunts and grandmothers asked him whether he had a girlfriend yet. He assumed the shiftlessness would leave him one day, but today was not that day.

His team got it. Lars got it. They couldn’t stop moving. They were briefly confined to a soccer field, but then the horizon was the limit. Seth signed up for marathons with Lars, ran in the ungodly hours of the morning with him. The Earth was a constantly moving body, and Seth liked running with it moving beneath his feet.

Or walking. Seth liked walking, too, and this faire thing seemed to go on forever.

“Where’s the circus supposed to be again?” Seth asked. He couldn’t figure out cardinal directions to save his life, which was okay until he had to go somewhere without GPS telling him how to get there. Lars was the one with an internal compass.

“I think David said it was on the south side,” Lars said.

“Oh, the south side. That clears everything up.”

“Fine, on the other side of the fruity arts and crafts tents, moron. He said we couldn’t miss the gates.”

David had been right. After the pagan jewelry and melodramatic paintings and costume sellers, the scrolled, wrought iron gate that led into Arcanium seemed just the right amount of dramatic—as though they were walking out of the kids’ section of the park and into the real stuff.

Arcanium sure knew how to draw people in. Right at the entrance—next to a large sign that read Adults Only after 8 p.m. Wayward children will be eaten by clowns—a sword swallower on a wooden platform greeted incoming patrons with the sight of hooks going into his nose and coming out of his mouth.

“Fucking sick,” Seth said with equal parts disgust and awe.

The sword swallower did not look well. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair had receded almost all the way over his head, barely concealed by being shaved close to the scalp. His tan cotton pants hung low on his bony hips. But he grinned at them with the jagged hook point poking out between his teeth. He swept a bow to Seth and Lars as they entered.

Seth put a dollar in the cauldron near the rack of swords and daggers. Then he put in another. Paltry tip for a man risking the integrity of his sinuses, but Seth only had so much cash and would probably want to share some singles with the ladies too. This was just the opener.

Excitement clenched in his abdomen as he and Lars followed the arrow signs to Oddity Row. Given the low-rent nature of the circus, David’s description of Arcanium had probably been built up to impossible standards by now, but Seth couldn’t help it. He couldn’t wait to see the weirdness, especially if some of the freaks were as hot as David had promised. Hot or not, everyone loved a good freak show, right?

Seriously, the Lizard Man? The average person would think he’d be just another guy with bad skin or wearing a poor attempt at a rubber suit. Instead, the Lizard Man—named Bale, according to the placard—totally looked the part, with crocodile teeth dense in his mouth and scales all over his dome head, bare chest, arms and back. Seth assumed it was prosthetics and makeup, made more real under the softer golden light of the lamps, but it was done really well. It must have taken so long to put it on, Seth wouldn’t have been surprised if the poor man slept in full costume.

And when he went all Ozzy on the dead white mice in a jar… Genius. The guy was a genius. Seth was unashamed of buying a Lizard Man key chain from the vendor next to the exhibit tent to guard his car keys. The guy was pretty damn cool.

As they walked on, it felt a bit like a peepshow, with the individual tents and the theatrical lighting. The tip jars overflowed from all the appreciative patrons as they moved from tent to tent for the next bit of salacious or grotesque exhibitionism.

Seth couldn’t stop staring at the Human Torso, a Chinese woman in her thirties who, according to the placard, had been legless and armless since birth. There were nothing but stumps where her limbs should have been, but she was surprisingly mobile, her abbreviated thighs working her ass under the corseted leather leotard as she walked around the platform. She had to wriggle to climb onto the low chair, but she managed to get up and recline, her leg stumps parted by nature.

He was caught between sympathy and fascination watching her get around the tent. He thought he was probably going to feel that way a lot along Oddity Row. But hey, these people had signed up to be here and be stared at, so he wasn’t going to overthink things too much.

Seth wondered if she and the others realized that almost every single guy that passed them probably thought about what it would be like to have sex with her, with a Bearded Lady and definitely with a snake charmer. What it would be like to have something different. It was an idle but powerful curiosity.

The barmaid’s breasts faded to the back of his mind while the oddities took over his mental screen.

“Jesus Christ on a cross,” Lars said almost under his breath as they stared and panted at the snake charmer.

She was Elizabeth Hurley gorgeous, of course, but there was something else—a quality about her that brought the early summer heat to a boil inside him. Sweat formed on his upper lip and forehead and dripped down his back under his shirt. When Seth tore his eyes away from the sight of the snake charmer’s body being caressed by her serpents of choice, he noticed that Lars was in a similar state, his mouth parted and his lips wet.

He didn’t check, because that would just be weird, but Seth could guess that Lars’ shorts were probably just as tight as his. A guy just couldn’t help it when presented with such a pin-up visual feast as that.

He adjusted himself and nearly groaned out loud, wishing to God that he could touch his erection directly as he watched her dance in the golden light and shadow, her tits and ass exactly as ripe and exposed as described. Little imagination needed, and it was somehow better that way. Nothing his imagination came up with would be better than what was right in front of him, and how often did that happen? There was no doubt why a considerable crowd had formed in front of her tent.

Seth had to convince Lars to leave to visit other oddities on the Row. They could always come back. And cross their fingers that she also had an act during the evening performance. She looked like the kind of woman with an act—probably the kind of act they had all those ‘Adults Only’ signs up for. Seth was surprised that she wasn’t ‘Adults Only’, period, but he wasn’t going to complain.

No one was going to complain, because if Lady Sasha got a woman’s dander up, that woman would probably have to hold her hypocritical tongue when she reached Lord Mikhail. He had his own considerable audience that consisted of mostly women, and the Lord wasn’t any more clothed than the Lady.

Seth could appreciate the strength of the strongman and the discipline needed for his singular craft of lifting heavy things in bodybuilder poses. But Seth was uncomfortable staring too closely at the contours of those muscles, impressive though they were. He was overly conscious of the intensity of the female and male eyes sharing that sight—practically drooling like he and Lars had before the snake charmer. He didn’t resist when Lars gave him the hook and pulled him farther down Oddity Row, thankful for the excuse to move on.

They passed a Tall Man and a Short Man walking together on the Row to show off their disparate sizes in the flesh rather than confined to an oddity tent. The giant was pretty massive, but tall and short men weren’t exactly in the ‘wow’ category, no matter how much like a hard-headed alien the tall man looked.

After seeing them and getting some distance from the snake charmer as they checked out the contortionist—whose body did things that conjured up…images—it occurred to him that these people were cool, but only the Lizard Man was unique and nothing he’d seen before. The rest were kind of standard fare. He guessed expecting the transcendent was asking a bit much from a traveling circus that latched on like a parasite to cheesy Renaissance faires, but David had said it was amazing.

Maybe it got better during the evening performance. Or maybe it would be just a bunch of acrobats doing the same tricks, clowns doing the same pratfalls and trapeze artists doing the same jumps. Seth hoped not or else he was going to be seriously disappointed—jerk-off fodder aside. He’d been promised marvels, but while most of these people were certainly different, ‘marvelous’ wasn’t the descriptor he’d use.

Lars moved on to the Bearded Lady at the next tent, but Seth found himself pausing during his inner grumble in front of a pair of twins facing away from each other on a cushioned ottoman. They were glitzed up in pink satin dresses that showed off their trim figures and an offering of cleavage that couldn’t be called generous but could be called healthy.

The skirts were shorter than the average Renaissance costume, displaying sweet, pale legs marked with a few dark freckles, one twin’s leg mirrored in the other.

If Seth hadn’t been looking for something odd, he might not have even noticed where their lower backs were pressed together. The satin dresses had been expertly sewn to make the connection look natural.

Seth thought they had a girl-best-friend or girl-next-door kind of vibe. They weren’t hot the way that the snake charmer and the contortionist were hot. Twins were hot, of course. Twins were one thing, though. Conjoined twins were another thing entirely.

Seth’s interest was piqued.

He glanced down to read the placard. The conjoined twins were Joanne and Jane. Joanne was supposed to be on the left and Jane on the right, although the placard wished the patrons luck figuring out which was really which, since they regularly switched sides for their own amusement.

Seth could already tell how they differed from each other. He had twin cousins and had learned several of the tricks to tell twins apart. Then again, he didn’t really need to know which was which.

It probably wasn’t easy for the twins to compare to the skilled finesse of the contortionist or the snake charmer. However, Seth had to admit they were a legit marvel to him, even just sitting down and looking pretty as a pair of pink roses. Conjoined twins were usually separated at birth. The shared spinal cord must have made the separation impossible.

How did they go to the bathroom? There didn’t seem to be a good arrangement for that, especially for women. Had they ever had sex? He could think of several dozen men who would probably volunteer for that experiment.

How did they deal, having another person with them all the time, never able to get away, even during their most private, intimate or gross moments? Seth didn’t know whether he’d be able to handle it.

He wished he could ask questions, but he was pretty sure they got enough of the same questions day in and day out, and they were probably display only. He erred on the side of silence.

Still, they’d captured Seth’s eye and his curiosity, from the light shadow of their cleavage to the definition on the lower part of their thighs, their skin’s creamy paleness and their cheery smiles.

Seth knew what his smile did to women, but the twins’ smiles made anyone just want to smile back. It was all part of the job—smile and be happy at the customer. And Seth thought the twins’ smiles didn’t quite reach their eyes. Had to be hard to smile all afternoon without ceasing.

The left twin tried, though, when she smiled at him, and the trying was genuine.

Seth smiled back.

The left twin’s smile became more sincere.

Seth liked that he could help a girl like that have a better day, for a few seconds at least. A man usually wanted to use his powers for good.

Then his smile fell away. The left twin’s smile faltered in confusion.

He looked down at his feet. A cold stab of irrational betrayal hit his stomach when he realized that he’d been naïve. They might not actually be conjoined twins at all.

The way the dresses were sewn hid where the twins were conjoined. A circus of any kind was one part real and one part fake. It was hard to fake contortions or giantism, but the Lizard Man could easily be the product of good makeup, and the twins could be ordinary twins with a special girdle contraption that kept them bound together at the back. Or maybe their clothes just held them together, simple as that.

Seth didn’t know why that annoyed him as much as it did. The circus was under no obligation to disclaim when something was a hoax. The point of a circus was suspension of disbelief, and clearly he’d suspended his when he’d believed that such an innocent smile couldn’t deceive.

He’d just suspended it too high and hit the ground too hard when he’d realized how easily he could be duped. He didn’t know that the twins were fake—that the conjoined part was fake, since there was no denying that the girls themselves were real—but the fact that they might be made the marvel of them less amazing.

When he looked up to smile again at the left twin, it was little more than a grin. It wasn’t her fault that he was disappointed. He was angrier at himself than her. She seemed to realize that their momentary connection had been severed, though. Her otherwise smooth brow showed that she was troubled. But he raised his hand to her in goodbye and backed away through the crowd around the twins to find Lars.

“Hey, compadre. You look like someone just killed Christmas,” Lars said, standing in front of the Fat Man, who was watching a television show on a TV smaller than a breadbox as he ate a bucket of popcorn.

“I saw the zipper,” Seth said.

“Okay, you got to give me more than that, Mr. Metaphor.”

“You know, the way you can tell the Creature from the Black Lagoon is just a man in a rubber costume because of how it moves, and in the really bad B-horrors, you can see the zipper on the monster costumes. For a second, I thought something was real, but now I think they’re more likely well-done fakes, like the Fiji mermaid. Guess I’m just mad that I fell for it.”

“So you’re the sucker born in your particular minute,” Lars said, messing up Seth’s hair again. “Need any other illusions shattered? You know that reality TV isn’t reality, right?”

“Fuck you,” Seth said, brushing Lars’ hand off his hair. He smoothed it back, although the natural curl would keep it from ever being perfectly straight.

“And Jay Z isn’t the leader of the Illuminati. Just saying.”

Seth punched Lars in the gut—not hard, but Lars doubled over anyway, still laughing.

“You know if you say ‘orange’ really slow, it sounds like ‘gullible’,’” Lars continued, this time running out of reach.

Seth ran after him toward the midway. He leaped onto Lars’ back, making Lars stumble, and wrapped his arm around Lars’ neck in a headlock. Since he and Lars were about the same size, Lars fell to his knees, but he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

“I’ll consider giving you back your dignity if you buy me something fried,” Seth said.

“Your face is fried.”

“Look at you. Everyone gets to see that I’m stronger, faster and better-looking than you.”

“Get off, homo. I’ll get you your damn jalapeños.” Lars coughed and tried to get his laughter under control when Seth released him. Lars had used the real magic word.

“You know I don’t like it when you say that,” Seth said, as he followed Lars into the line.

“I don’t mean it. You know I don’t mean it.”

“Then why do you say it? I mean, you play just fine with Luis, no locker-room drama,” Seth said. “So why do you do it?”

“Because it got you to let go, didn’t it?” Lars said. “I notice you’re quick to point out how it should all be okay and rainbows and parades, but God help you if anyone thinks you’re gay, right?” Lars gave him a pointed look over invisible glasses. “Do we need to have a talk, Seth Brady? You need a little help out of the closet?”

“You’re the one who keeps insulting gay people. Maybe you’re the closet case.”

“No fucking way.” Lars pushed the fried jalapeños over the wooden counter to Seth and asked for two drinks.

“I just don’t like it when you do that,” Seth said.

“You can’t even say out loud what you don’t like me doing,” Lars replied, stealing one of Seth’s jalapeños.

“Gay, homo, fag, pansy, sissy—I don’t fucking like it when you call people that. You always get bent out of shape when people use ‘retard’ because your damn stepbrother is autistic, so I’d think you’d be a little more understanding.”

“That was below the belt, man,” Lars said. He started walking back through the midway.

“No, I think being called ‘homo’ like it’s a bad thing is below the belt.”

“If it’s not a bad thing,” Lars mocked, “why is it such a big deal that I called you one?”

“Because it was meant as a bad thing. Why do I have to explain it to you every fucking time? You’re a grown man who should know better.”

“And you’re an oversensitive prick who needs to know a joke when he hears one.”

“Think of how Luis would have felt if he’d walked by while you were ‘just making a joke’. You think it would have been a joke to him?”

“I don’t think he would have gone off on me like a girl about it,” Lars shot back.

“God damn it, Lars, you damn well know better, and I really wish you would fucking stick with me on this. It’s not about me—”

“Well, it sure sounds like it! All about what makes you feel comfortable, not having your tiny manhood insulted by being called queer. You’re the one who’s all insecure, treating it like it’s insulting.”

“You’re the one slinging it around to get under my skin, which makes it an insult.”

“I’ll say. Calling you a homo is definitely an insult to homos everywhere.”

Seth grabbed Lars’ shirt and reeled back his clenched fist. Lars was the best friend Seth had had since middle school, but goddamn if the man didn’t sometimes make him so freaking mad….

“Gentlemen, if we could take this increasingly loud and violent fight to a private location, I would very much appreciate it.”

“What’s it to— Oh.” At first, Seth thought it was just a visitor butting in where it wasn’t his business, but then he saw that the interrupter wasn’t a visitor and that it was his business.

Seth couldn’t put a finger on why he understood from one look that this man was part of the circus and not just a committed costumer. Probably because most men wouldn’t go topless with those loose cotton trousers. Nor would most men wear that beaded leather belt, coin purse attached, a small golden hoop earring, talismanic necklaces and a dark brass bracelet over his upper arm unless they were dead secure in their masculinity. There was actually a small purple flower in his hair above his left ear.

Seth had to admit that the man pulled it off, the accessories somehow accentuating his maleness rather than calling it into question the way it might have for him or Lars. Though the man was shorter than both Seth and Lars, Seth bet he never lacked for ladies. Lord Mikhail was the kind of man that men wished they were, but Seth didn’t have to be a girl to understand that the man in front of him was the kind of man with more than just a smile to charm his way.

He was unobtrusive and quiet standing there. However, Seth abruptly released his grip on Lars’ shirt and took a step away. Lars rolled his eyes, which he always did whenever Seth snapped to attention like a good boy. Seth was also far more likely to call his professors or coaches ‘sir’ than Lars, who preferred being on a first-name basis. But Lars stepped back too and crossed his arms.

“We’re good,” Lars said, lifting his chin.

“Yeah. We were just fooling around,” Seth said. “Sorry it got so loud.”

“I still need to speak with you about the disturbance to my circus,” the man said.

“Your circus?” Lars asked, staring skeptically at the man’s casual trousers.

“Yes. Arcanium is my circus.”

“What are you? Some kind of froo-froo fortune teller?”

“Among other things,” the man replied.

“We won’t do it again, sir,” Seth said, interjecting before Lars could stick both feet in his mouth. “Really, we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

The man turned his even, emotionless gaze from Lars to Seth. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll do it again,” the man said. “And you won’t be able to keep your hands to yourselves.”

Seth’s skin broke out in gooseflesh in spite of the cloudless sky and insistent summer sun.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lars asked.

“Please come with me, gentlemen.” The man beckoned them to follow as he headed to a small tent near the entrance of the midway.

“Look, we said we were sorry. It’s not like we broke anything and have to pay damages,” Lars said. He glanced uncertainly at Seth. “Can we just go now? We promise we won’t fight anymore.”

“I don’t want you making promises you can’t keep, Lars,” the man said. “You so accurately called me a fortune teller. It’s time to tell you and your friend your fortune.”

“We weren’t planning on—” Seth began. He didn’t believe in psychics or mediums and didn’t like wasting his money on them, and Lars thought everything supernatural that stopped short of a church door was blasphemous.

“Free of charge.”

“You get what you pay for,” Lars retorted.

“Yes, you do,” the fortune teller said. “Free means I have no incentive to please.”

“You heard us using our names,” Lars shot back. “That’s how you knew them.”

“If you say so. And it wasn’t a request. You will come with me, gentlemen.”

“Look, man, we didn’t even hurt anyone—”

Lars cut off midsentence as his and Seth’s legs started walking. They followed the man like little tin soldiers. Seth wanted to call out, either in alarm or anger, let everyone know that something weird was happening, try to convince someone to hold him back to see if he could stop. But his lips were closed, and no amount of effort could pry them open any more than he could make his legs stop moving. He tried to hum his fear through his closed mouth, but not even his own vocal cords obeyed him. Lars’ wide eyes were bright in his dark face when they met Seth’s. He wasn’t making a sound either, so Seth assumed that the same gag order was in effect on him.

Seth had heard of hypnosis and watched shows where hypnotists claimed to control their subjects, but hypnotists were always adamant that no one could be forced into doing something they didn’t want to do.

No, no, I don’t want to do this. This isn’t me. He ducked into the fortune teller’s tent after Lars. What the hell have you done to us?

“I know you’re frightened, gentlemen,” the man said.

“Frightened?” Lars snapped when the invisible gag on their tongues let them speak again the second the tent flap fell closed. “What I am is fucking furious. What the hell, man?”

“I expect better from you, Lars, and I will extend that expectation into your service within Arcanium,” the man said.

“What the f—” Lars shouted, his face twisting with a whirlwind of emotions that didn’t know which should take point.

“Sit down. Don’t speak.”

Seth and Lars sat down onto the spindly chairs across from the fortune teller’s crystal ball as though they were marionettes with cut strings. Seth’s hands hung limp between his legs, and Lars’ swung at his sides.

The tent was nice. There was a fan that kept the air moving cool against their faces, and the incense, something woodsy, smelled good without being too cloying or strong. Seth would have appreciated it under different circumstances.

”I would like to continue uninterrupted, because I intend to serve customers today and not cater to your hysterics. This will go more quickly if I explain how things are going to work from now on, so that you will know I do not speak idly.”

Seth didn’t have much choice. His muscles were totally relaxed—as though he really were having his fortune told for the sheer fun of it because it was just that kind of whimsical weekend, instead of the reality of being a prisoner in his own body. He could look around just enough to see that Lars was once again in the same predicament.

“Now that I have your attention… My name is Bell Madoc. Most patrons of Arcanium know me only as their fortune teller and occasional illusionist. However, as I have said, Arcanium is my circus, and I am always on the lookout for new talent. You may not have noticed, given that you’ve only enjoyed the marvels of Oddity Row, but I could really use a few more human men in my ring. I’ll admit that I am partial to women, and they are much more likely to express their wishes freely. I think that, animosity aside, two fine, attractive young gentlemen such as yourselves would be an excellent act together.”

Seth had heard of talent scouting among complete strangers. That’s how some people got discovered and made it into the world of the small and silver screens. But Seth and Lars were soccer players, and this was a traveling circus.

And usually talent scouts didn’t steal their subjects’ will.

Seth had no fucking idea what was going on. Bell’s mild demeanor only made Seth’s anger shift into the terror it had concealed.

“I wish there was an easier way to bring you into this circus—tender pleas, ego-stroking, offers that you couldn’t refuse. However, my own wishes no longer have power. Your wish, on the other hand, has been made, and I am bound to grant it. As entertaining as it would be to grant your wish and watch you struggle ignorantly through its complications, I have our patrons to consider. Your fear would only agitate them.”

Bell ceased his pacing before the two young men and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Now, you mustn’t assign blame to Seth, Lars,” he said, nodding to Seth. “If he hadn’t made his wish, you would have made one later in the day—one that may or may not have had more dire consequences. I won’t tell you what it would have been, because the two of you will have a hard enough time without the added competition of whose wish would have been worse and whose fault it is that you’re here.

“I knew the moment you entered the circus that you would be good for Arcanium, and I knew you would become a part of it, so I followed you to ensure the outcome. I can hold the blame, because you cannot seek revenge against me the way you can with each other. You cannot run. You cannot fight. You cannot call for help. You cannot hurt my people, and you’ll find that hurting each other only hurts yourselves. All of these things only lead to the particular kind of punishment that our Ringmaster is more than willing to provide.”

Seth could barely blink or breathe in his own rhythm, much less react or respond to the crazy and confusing things the fortune teller was saying. But as Bell continued to speak, he painted a slightly more complete picture, although he still skirted around the edges. What Seth did understand made cold sweat drip down the back of his neck and under the collar of his shirt. Bell didn’t make much sense, but he was clear, and nothing he said sounded good.

“Those are the rules, gentlemen. The rest—the nuances of Arcanium when the curtains close and the lights go out—you will understand in time. Now, I have arranged for a place for you to stay while you adjust. I wouldn’t dream of putting the two of you on display and performing for me so soon, not when I can’t trust you not to fail on purpose or scream for help while you still think you can thwart me. I am a patient man. Whether you need six days or six months to accept your fate, I can give you that time.”

Bell stepped around the table and paced behind them, where they could only hear him. Seth thought he could believe in the hypnotism theory, just listening to Bell’s voice. For someone saying the things he was saying, he sounded surprisingly soothing. The words seemed to bore into Seth’s head.

“But you will perform for me. And if you think that wishing yourself out of my service will succeed, you’ll find I am far craftier than you give me credit for. I have lived ages. I created fire from thought before humanity learned to create it from branch and flint. I lived in luxury when humanity only knew hard ground, tents made of skin, caves. I may not look like much, but you only see me how I wish to be seen. I am so much more powerful than I appear.”

Bell shifted back into their field of vision and leaned against the small round table. It threatened to groan in protest, but it was as cowed as Seth and Lars and didn’t dare.

“If you need proof, I suggest you ask your fellow cast members when you’re permitted to wander the circus freely. Perhaps they can convince you better than I. However, I now have customers I need to serve. I don’t have time to explain everything, and nothing will be as effective as letting you find out on your own.”

He reached out to Seth and stroked the line of his jaw with strange tenderness, lifting Seth’s chin to inspect his face and stare into his eyes. Then he did the same with Lars with his left hand.

“Yes. I think you’ll do splendidly together,” he murmured, “once the peace is found.”

Bell withdrew from Lars and turned his attention to Seth. Seth couldn’t look away from those amber-hazel eyes, more intense in color than a person might expect against his short, coarse, cinnamon-blond hair and tan skin from an exposed, outdoor life. If Seth had had control of his body, he might have squirmed uncomfortably.

As Bell leaned closer, Seth was afraid that Bell was going to kiss him—kiss him with unashamed confidence, kiss him while Seth couldn’t move or protest, against his will. After the argument Bell had interrupted, it seemed cruel irony that this was what was going to happen to him. Most of the things Bell had said were suffused with the mystery one might expect from a fortune teller telling fortunes. But this wouldn’t be mysterious or ambiguous, although it would be just as unwelcome.

However, Bell didn’t kiss him, just stared unflinchingly into his eyes.

“Seth Brady, I want you to take your friend’s hand. From now on, you will have each other. Sometimes, that will be all you have. Sometimes, you’ll wish you’d never met. But either way, he’ll stick with you, just like you wanted. Go on.”

Seth lifted his hand from where it hung against his thigh and, without tearing his gaze away from Bell’s, drifted it to the side as though in a daze. He interlocked his fingers through Lars’ limp left hand. Seth would have been self-conscious with anyone else seeing them like this. But right now, he was too distracted by those eyes and the need to obey.

Also, underneath the haze of whatever spell Bell wove, Seth was still scared. He figured Lars was too when Lars squeezed his hand almost tight enough to cut off circulation.

Seth couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all the start, rather than the end, of a horrible nightmare.

“Very good,” Bell said, almost huskily.

Seth’s skin crawled again.

“Now it’s time for you to head home. I’ll see you in the morning. All your amenities should be working, and there’s food in the fridge. It’s up to you how well your first night goes. Wish granted. Enjoy.”

Bell snapped his fingers.

The fortune teller’s tent was gone, as though Seth had blinked and just…appeared somewhere else. His ass settled into the tiny couch, their arms now bent with their hands between their thighs, significantly closer than they’d been before in the wooden chairs.

Seth tried to tell himself that he’d fallen asleep and woken from a dream, but he’d never been in this tiny mobile home before, with its combination sofa and dining room, its miniature kitchen, a bathroom and shower that, combined, was the same width as a shower tub. And to their left, a bed over the van cab of the RV, barely bigger than a twin-size bed, which Seth already had trouble fitting in.

“The fuck just happened?” Lars looked stricken—literally like someone had struck him across the face and left him paralyzed in its wake, except now he could talk.

Seth moved his jaw, making sure that he was also free of the trance.

“Did it happen?” Seth asked.

“You mean a white-ass fruit stopping us from fighting, taking us to his psychic tent and talking scary shit about how we’re stuck here and can’t leave?” Lars said. “I don’t know whether I want it to have happened or not.”

“That’s how I remember it, but it still could have been a hypnotist’s performance or something that wiped our memory or replaced it with a shared dream, and we lost time and ended up… I’m digging random shit here,” Seth said.

“Do you know where we are? Did he make us buy a sucky Winnebago? Was that the joke?” Lars asked. He abruptly stood, all energy and no outlet in this small space. Both Seth and Lars knew dorm life, but even this was a bit much when it came to enclosed spaces, especially the two of them together, not small men.

Lars looked down at his legs, where he could move again. Then he glanced at the place where he and Seth still held hands. He loosened his grip.

“Okay, man, I know that was kind of freaky and everything, but you can let go of my hand now. Lars needs his circulation,” Lars said.

He sounded patient and understanding—with no one there to see their clasped hands, not even Bell—but Seth immediately tried to jerk his hand away from Lars.

“No, really, dude. I think I’ve had enough Salvador Dali weirdness for today. I’m not even going to do the mocking thing. I just want to get out and grab a slice of normal pizza in a normal restaurant far away from here and hope it’s not hallucinated,” Lars said. He tugged his hand, which slid over Seth’s palm, but Seth still couldn’t release him all at once. “Really, Seth, just let go.”

“I’m trying!” Seth pulled his hand farther down, which freed their palms but kept their fingers still touching, curled into a loose knot.

“Let go of me!”

“I’m trying, Lars, but I can’t!”

Lars yanked his hand back until nothing but their fingertips touched. Seth stumbled forward against Lars, and they collided against the kitchenette.

“It’s not funny anymore!” Lars shouted. The terror in his eyes spread fury in an explosion over the rest of his face again.

“I—” Seth was about to say he couldn’t, but now he could. With their legs tangled and his chest against Lars’ where they’d fallen against the plastic that pretended to be wood, Seth could suddenly pull their hands apart from each other. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

He swallowed before the tremble working its way up his chest could make it to his voice. He didn’t want Lars to know how freaked out he was. Sure, Lars was freaked out and he probably knew Seth was too, but Seth didn’t want him to know how much. Because things that Bell had been saying were echoing in his head, things that now explained what might be going on… And they were nothing close to good.

“What’s going on is you being a douche and getting back at me for that homo comment by being all gay,” Lars said. “This is a joke, isn’t it? Ha ha, make fun of the insecure straight man by putting him in a secluded camper and holding his hand. Well, it’s nowhere near fucking funny anymore, Seth. Get the fuck off me.”

Seth pushed away from the kitchen countertop so that his chest wasn’t against Lars’ and their thighs weren’t in quite such close proximity. Now he was more self-conscious than ever. He stepped back, not that there was a lot of room.

But one of his feet didn’t want to move from where he and Lars were connected at the ankle.

“Oh shit,” Seth muttered.

“What?” Lars asked. “What is it this time?”

“I can’t pull away. Our ankles. I can’t pull them apart.”

“The fuck you can. All you have to do is— What the fuck are you doing, Seth?” Lars asked frantically. He also tried to yank his foot away, but neither of them was getting very far—or any kind of distance at all.

“Why do you think it’s me?” Seth shouted. “I’m trying, damn it. I’m trying to pull away and it’s not working.”

“It’s not fucking funny!”

“Do you see me laughing? It’s not me. It’s you. You’re the one who’s not pulling away, getting back at me for being all ‘sensitive’. Well, I get it. Joke’s over.”

“I’m not doing this,” Lars retorted.

“Neither am I.”

“Crap. Crap, crap, crap. What the fuck is going on?”

“No fucking idea.” Seth punctuated each word with another yank of his foot, nearly pulling Lars off balance. “Look, maybe if we just—” Seth put his hand on Lars’ shoulders and tried to yank away with the extra momentum.

Their feet came apart so hard that Seth kicked the wall behind him with the side of his foot.

“What the—?” Lars said. He backed away toward the bathroom door, but Seth couldn’t let go of his shoulder now, and Lars brought Seth with him.

“Shit,” Seth hissed. He tightened his hold on Lars’ shoulder to make him stop. Finally, Bell’s words in his mind mingled with his own.

God damn it, Lars… I really wish you would fucking stick with me on this.

And now he and Lars were stuck.