Chapter Two

 

 

 

It didn’t matter that she was hornier than a teenage boy when she woke up. She still had to get her makeup back on, her purple and black catsuit pieced together and zipped up, and her hair smoothed down in time to climb into her suitcase for the beginning of the exhibition on Oddity Row—the area of the circus that formed a crescent around one half of the big top tent. It was exhibition tent after exhibition tent of freaks on display, and from opening to evening performance, she was one of those freaks.

From opening to evening performance—with breaks for a snack and a drink and to walk around the circus, showing off her skills up close and personal if the mood struck her. That had comprised her Fridays and weekends for almost twenty years.

Oddly enough, those moments in the closed suitcase before the gates opened and the customers found their way to the Row were her most peaceful, limbs folded and wrapped and her head against her foot, mouth close to some of the air holes that lined the side so she wouldn’t suffocate.

If someone had told Valorie twenty years ago she was going to be a contortionist in a circus full of demons and trapped souls that was run by a wish-fulfilling jinni—and that she’d be mostly okay with that—she would have never believed it. For one thing, it sounded like a mash-up of fairy tales and horror stories gone wrong. For another, before being brought into Arcanium, Valorie hadn’t been able to touch her own toes, much less bring her head all the way between her knees and climb out the other side.

Arcanium consisted of three types of beings. There were the demons. Then there were the humans who had signed on voluntarily—although they might not have known at the time that roughly half the cast were actually monsters, and not always the ones they would have expected. Then there were humans who had been brought in against their will.

Among the involuntaries, some had been brought in because of a wish they’d made that Bell had twisted for the express purpose of adding another oddity or act to his line-up. Not all of the people he cursed became a part of Arcanium—which could be a good or terrible thing, depending on the wish. The other subset of involuntaries were the ones harshly cursed into Arcanium as punishment for some sin they’d committed against the circus and its people.

Valorie had been cursed in by a casual wish. She’d since transitioned into a voluntary cast member, which meant she could step outside the wrought-iron fence without excruciating pain followed by a few lashes of the Ringmaster’s whip. It also meant that she could leave permanently if she chose. She could terminate her unwritten contract, return to the world of normal.

She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to take her ability with her, but she felt Bell owed her that much. He wasn’t human, and though he was telepathic, that didn’t mean he always understood the emotional aftermath of his actions. He could see into the past, present and future, which was the reason he was Arcanium’s fortune teller. But a being that could see out in both directions didn’t always understand that the space between present and future could be littered with shrapnel. Kitty and Maya tried to help him understand, with little success. Valorie hadn’t had as much of a problem with it until she’d become the collateral damage in his foresight games.

That probably made her a bitch, but Valorie didn’t have a problem with that either. Most of the newbies hadn’t been here more than a few years. Valorie had done her time. She was the human who’d been here the longest, even longer than Kitty. She’d had to claw from struggling against the inevitable to accepting her fate to actively embracing it, and she didn’t think it was Stockholm syndrome that kept her here, the way it was for some.

She didn’t see the demons as anything more or less than they were. No one liked where they were, what they did and who they had to do it with all the time. A person learned to handle their life or change it, and she liked hers enough now not to change it, even though Bell wouldn’t deny her if she tried.

The key was to not resist it for a few years. The more a person resisted, the tighter Bell held them in with the reins of their wishes. A human being needed to give their service to the circus long enough to enrich it, like an indentured servant paying a debt. And those cursed in for punishment needed to wait like prisoners through the full length of their sentence, which was usually longer than just a few years. Jinn were immortal. In addition to having a long memory, Bell knew how to bear a grudge and had a profound sense of retribution.

It was best not to piss jinn off. A demon was just a jinni who had gone all dark, who sought destruction in all its forms, especially against humanity. Jinn were less one-sided. But with all their power, especially Bell, they were still dangerous as hell and capable of evil things. Just like humans with missile silos

In her early days, Valorie had felt the vengeful lash of the Ringmaster’s whip, although not as often as Maya. No one got lashed more than Maya, but that was because she asked for it, crazy woman that she was. In time, though, Valorie had become acquainted with and accepted Bell’s colder side, and she’d accepted the terrible things the demons did as long as they didn’t do them to her. Demons could be whipped too if they stepped out of line, and it hurt them just as much.

After her third session with the Ringmaster and hearing too many badly worded wishes, Valorie had learned to be more careful and color within the—albeit unconventional—lines. It had been over ten years since her last whipping session, but that was only because Maya’s second wish had stopped her from incurring the worst of Bell’s wrath. Valorie probably wouldn’t have had a back to speak of for months, and she would have lost Bell anyway. Even now, she probably wouldn’t have completely healed. Bell was powerful enough that he could keep a wound around for a long time.

That was his power—the power not just of wishes but of his whim, within the framework of a wish. He could make one wish last centuries if the logic was sound.

Valorie could still remember the day Bell had granted her first wish.

She hadn’t been in Bell’s fortune teller tent like most of them. She’d been walking past it, wearing jeans she wouldn’t be caught dead in now.

Valorie had been enjoying one of the days off she’d jumped through all the right hoops to get, and she’d arranged for co-workers to cover for her if anything came up. Because, damn it, she’d wanted her week-long vacation. She hadn’t used all of her vacation days since getting the job, and this had been her third year in. She’d sacrificed her plans the last two years. She wasn’t sacrificing this time.

So when her boss had called her right before she’d decided to get a turkey leg for lunch—fuck her diet—Valorie had silently fumed. She’d been about ready to throw away her bulky nineties mobile phone and live off the land by the time her boss had told her he wanted her to come back in. She had been three hours away from work and four hours away from home, but her boss had told her it didn’t matter if she had to return in her casual clothes for the afternoon. She just needed to come in. It had been an emergency, sure, but it had been an emergency that other people in her part of the office could have handled.

She’d realized at that point how much of a prick her boss was, but she couldn’t tell him that.

What she’d said within Bell’s hearing was, “Look, sir, I wish you’d give me a little flexibility on this.”

After that, she hadn’t had to go back to work anymore.

As far as everyone knew, Valorie Cain was a missing person, presumed dead after seven years. Valorie didn’t know what her boss or her co-workers had thought happened to her. Probably nothing flattering. It wasn’t them or the work she missed. It had been a job, something to give her income and benefits until she found something better, and damn straight she’d been looking.

But being kidnapped into Arcanium hadn’t exactly been the escape route she’d had in mind.

She’d started out doing standard and not-so-standard contortion in her tent. That had been all Bell had required of her as she’d adjusted to her new life and the fact that she couldn’t run away from it, no matter what she tried. Craft and cunning couldn’t measure up to magic.

After a month, Bell had given her a circular platform in the middle of the ring during the weekly rehearsals and told her she had to perform the following weekend. In the early days, he’d given her direction, shown her how far her body could go—which was farther than it ever should have gone.

Valorie had no medical training, but she was pretty sure some of the shit she did wasn’t supposed to be possible without grievous bodily injury, even for the most flexible contortionist. She wouldn’t know. The only training she had was from Bell, not from dancers or kinesiologists or people familiar with the limits of human anatomy. Bell didn’t know limits. If he could have reasonably pushed her body further and not had people think it was a trick rather than a feat, he would have done that to her. Fortunately, it never hurt.

In some ways, she had to thank him. There were monks in Tibet who hadn’t contemplated their own navel as much as she had. She could spend a week focusing on all the things she could do with one toe. That was how attuned she was. Most people—her old self included—went through their lives as though their bodies were merely vehicles. Or enemies. Because of all the time Bell had spent with her in those early days, coaxing her, molding her, Valorie had a much better grasp of how she was her body as much as her brain.

A virile man like Bell didn’t put his hands on a lovely, flexible young woman every day while a pair of sex demons made the joint sexy without the woman finally putting her hands on him.

A few years later, Valorie had wished for a bigger, more luxurious trailer than Bell’s, which had been shockingly modest and dated for the real man in charge. Bell had yielded his old trailer to the pool to be modified for someone else and joined her bed on a permanent but open basis. She hadn’t been jealous of his one-offs any more than he’d been jealous of hers. They tended to happen in Arcanium. Sparks flew, people got naked, marvelous shit happened.

Maya had been different because it hadn’t been a one-off, and everyone else around them had known it.

The other thing she’d wished for soon after getting the RV—and the fact that she’d used all her wishes was the only reason Maya was still alive today—was to make her hair more manageable to dye, straighten and style, either by Kitty or by an outsider. Part of it was practical for the circus—a way to distinguish herself from normals and make herself more a part of the circus as an oddity rather than just a performer like Seth and Lars or Maya.

But after some years had passed, she’d pulled a brush through her hair and wondered whether that had been the right wish to make. She wasn’t sure she’d have the hair her mother gave her ever again. And when she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman she saw there as either herself or part of her family’s history, Valorie mourned what she had lost.

Bell’s magic kept them from aging. It didn’t keep them from changing.

When Valorie was packed in a suitcase like this, the past always seemed to creep up on her. It didn’t help that she could probably lock herself in, drink smoothies brought to her by golems by using a straw through the air holes, and no one would miss her.

She could be abrasive, caustic, ball-busting and snide, but she wasn’t evil, and most of her worst qualities weren’t intended badly. She had her defense mechanisms, same as everyone else. She’d brought a knife to the Maya fight, sure, but that was an anomaly—an anomaly that had been taken care of.

However, for the first time since a year or so after becoming a part of Arcanium, her future had gone blank. Not in the ‘blank canvas’, ‘look at all my options’, ‘I could do anything’ sense.

In the ‘I have no idea what’s left for me here, but I don’t know what’s left for me out there’ sense.

At the first murmur of customers milling outside her tent, Valorie pushed the suitcase open with her elbow and waved to the crowd. Already she heard the clink of change in the tip box.

How generous.

Maybe it was time for her to leave Arcanium. If she retained her abilities, she could take a job as a contortionist with a regular circus or freak show. She could do erotic performance art. She could strip.

But she’d still be alone. She wouldn’t be able to return to her family and friends, twenty years older than the last time she saw them. Valorie didn’t even know which of them might have died. Maya, Caroline and Kitty all had ties to the outside world and reasons to keep in touch with them through their electronic devices. But there was no explanation for the fact that Valorie hadn’t aged and no explanation for having run off and joined the circus without telling anyone. After twenty years, Valorie had run out of excuses. She couldn’t go back to where Bell had taken her from. That Valorie might as well be dead.

So this Valorie was, for all intents and purposes, alone. Leaving wouldn’t solve her problem.

But it didn’t matter how big the bills that men stuffed in the tip box were when she lay on the floor, spread her legs into the vertical splits over her curled-up body, and touched both toes of both feet onto the wooden platform. It didn’t matter that she liked contortion or that she didn’t mind being gawked at. Art didn’t exist in a vacuum. It liked an audience, and Valorie functioned better with public acknowledgment.

However, working here had lost its luster. Staying wouldn’t solve her problem either.

She needed a change. Taking on solo work again was a change, but it wasn’t progressive change. It was just going back to how things used to be, as though she’d hoped to reclaim the old glory, the old love and loyalty for Arcanium—for Bell. Wonder of wonders, the adrenaline high of the performance was nice and all, but there were only so many times she could walk like a pretzel before it became mundane.

Maybe it really was time for her to leave. She hadn’t thought it was Bell keeping her here, but there was no denying that she’d expected to last here a lot longer—fifty years, seventy-five, always looking twenty-three, distancing herself year by year from the rest of her old world until she could step back into it and never be recognized, caught.

But once she’d had to strike out on her own, Lennon was a poor substitute for what she’d once had, and he didn’t even want her enough to keep a thirty-minute-old promise instead of visiting his underwater partner. Nothing made a girl feel rejected like a demon passing her over for an imprisoned mermaid, no matter how pretty her curves—a woman who couldn’t wrap her legs around his neck, a woman as slimy in the tail as the fish that he enjoyed eating.

But Valorie wasn’t bitter or anything.

She crawled over her stage armchair like a woman possessed, her back bent as far as it could go and her head twisted around like an owl. She snapped her head over to look at a group of three girls. They squealed and laughed.

There was a reason why Bell had invited her to join the haunted funhouse when he eventually set it up—and with a horde of slaves he wasn’t using trapped in the carousel, he had the means to follow through on his plans soon. Nothing said unsettling like body parts in all the wrong places. That would be a change too. Not the kind of change she needed, but it was something.

The truth was, she’d done everything she thought she could do. And that was also considering Bell had been incredibly generous in his granting of her spell over the years—giving her all kinds of flexible skills, from contortion, dance and gymnastics to the more complicated aerial acrobatics and tightrope walking. Basically, short of dislocation, Valorie wasn’t sure where to go from here—on so many levels.

When Valorie decided it was time to take a break for the afternoon, Bell was waiting for her in the back of her exhibition tent with a glass of sparkling white.

The back of Kitty’s tent was practically a small apartment, because that was where she preferred to live. It was bigger on the inside, perfect for the dressing and makeup room that it had also become. But the backs of everyone else’s tents were fairly spartan, with a cushioned ottoman and a small table in case they wanted to eat. Her display platform was more comfy than her private backstage, but here she could get away from the eyes.

“You’ve been thinking traitorous thoughts very loudly, my dear,” Bell said. He held his hand out to her, and she accepted. He guided her into his lap like an impish Santa and gave her the wine.

He’d always known just what she needed.

He was a touch shorter than she was—when he was wearing his human form, that was, and he’d only shrugged out of that for her once. Not as ripped as Victor or Lord Mikhail, but his strength was substantial in his more compact form, his skin golden tan, his hair coarse, dense, cinnamon shot with honey, a touch of curl in spite of how short he kept it. He had the perfect combination of undeniable masculinity tempered by a touch of fae in his grace and the prettiness of his cheekbones. His was an unaggressive strength, his voice like Scotch, his skin warm to the touch.

It was no wonder that he was so successful as a fortune teller, even though he didn’t always tell happy fortunes. He appealed to men and women alike, putting them at ease with his very presence—or if they were ill at ease, it was the kind that came from such an enticing, satisfying enigma.

Looking at him, interacting with him, one would never guess what he was and what he was capable of.

Short of Maya and perhaps Kitty, not a human in the world knew him better than Valorie—his worst and his best, the terrible and wonderful things that he had done and would do, those amber eyes calm and the fire in his head burning slow and long, caged from laying waste to everything around him. Bell was a man in control. If he wasn’t omnipotent and omniscient, it was only because he chose his own limitations. He could shed them at any time.

Just being near him, held against him, was like dispensation from a prince. He kissed her neck as she drank, but although his touch was familiar, comforting, it wasn’t like it used to be. He kept his lust at a distance—not of his own volition but because Valorie had been the one to let him go.

Bell would have been happy to satisfy both her and Maya. But Valorie needed to be the center. She couldn’t share the spotlight the way that Colm and Riley shared Caroline. If Bell missed her as much as Valorie missed what they’d had, he didn’t indicate those feelings to her. His affection now was affection alone. He was as demonstrative in some ways as he was aloof in others. Touch had never been one of his more aloof traits.

“I’m not a traitor. What a melodramatic thing to say,” Valorie replied after downing half the glass, sip by sip. It flushed her cheeks and made her mellow.

“I? Melodramatic?” Bell said.

“Say it ain’t so,” she agreed. “They were just idle thoughts.”

“They’re not idle when I can hear you thinking all the way from my tent,” Bell said.

“So I have strong idle feelings. So what?”

“Do you want to leave, Valorie?” he asked, his countenance shifting ever so slightly from playful to serious. His expressions were almost always subtle like that, but anyone could discern what they meant—transparent yet obscure. Bell was paradox made flesh, and that was the way he liked it. “Is there not enough here to satisfy you?”

“I’m between satisfactions,” Valorie said. “Don’t suppose you could peek into the future and tell me when I can stop being frustrated?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Or tell me whether I’m going to leave?”

“That’s for you to decide, Valorie.”

“You’re sometimes an infuriating douche. You know that?”

“It has crossed a few minds,” Bell said, unaffected by the insult.

“Then let me make this simple,” Valorie said. “I told you I’d stay unless I got bored. I’m not bored yet, but I might be getting there if there’s nothing but my job to stay for.”

Bell stroked her lower lip with his thumb, gazing at her as though, for a few seconds, he would gladly devour her. The moment passed. “Lennon is a jackass.”

“Not so much of a jackass,” Valorie said grudgingly. She took more than a sip of wine this time. “Well, okay, he’s a jackass of the first order, but not for dumping me for a mermaid. It was a temporary deal between us. I’d totally poison his coffee, but I wouldn’t do it because I hated him. He just needs a stomachache now and then.”

“I like it when you’re diabolical,” Bell said.

“Only because you think you rubbed off on me, you narcissist,” Valorie replied. She grinned as she climbed off his lap and stretched her legs. “I’ll have you know I was already this bitchy before you got to me.”

“I know,” Bell said. “Your solo performance last night was inspired. You’ve lost none of your touch. It pleased me to see you return to center stage, and I don’t want to see you go.”

“Then grab me a man, tie him up and stuff him in my RV tonight,” Valorie said.

“Is that your wish?” Bell asked.

“I don’t have another wish, Bell. You know that,” Valorie said. She finished her wine. Bell accepted the empty glass and set it on the table next to him. She still planned on stretching her legs the normal way, walking through the circus, occasionally doing a routine on a booth counter or picnic table to please the customers.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t still grant some of them,” he said, crossing his arms. “In other ways.”

“No, that’s not my wish. Don’t abduct someone on my account. I’d rather you abduct them on yours. Keeps my conscience clean.”

Bell raised an eyebrow. He could host an international race with that eyebrow.

She may have been watching more TV on the small screen in her living room after Bell had left.

“Cleaner,” she amended with a grin.

“Poor woman,” Bell said, stroking her face, his fingers trailing into her hair.

He slowly turned her around and undid the twist of braids that lined her head until her hair hung free over her shoulders. Valorie wanted to pinch the bridge of her nose at the thought of Kitty having to put them back in again tomorrow.

But if Bell was undoing her hair, it was because he wanted to see how it looked that way for the rest of the day and the evening performance. Ever since she’d had it changed, she hadn’t liked it loose. It made her look young, as young as her body was, which felt too young for her mind. Immortality was all well and good to keep the wrinkles at bay, but Valorie sometimes wished she could age the good ways at least. It was strange to be pursued by people in their late teens and early twenties when they seemed entirely too young for her now. Valorie wouldn’t call herself mature, but when she spent time around her usual outsider prospects, she felt like a wise woman in comparison.

“You know I don’t like performing with my hair loose,” Valorie said quietly. “It gets in my face. It’s all a little too nineties music video for me.”

“Try it for a while,” Bell said. “Give the follicles and your forehead a rest. It won’t run off if you don’t tie it down.”

“Are you being metaphorical again?” Valorie asked.

He didn’t let her know one way or another, which meant he was. “You think that if you look soft, they won’t take you seriously. You have all the hard edges you need, Valorie. You’re the knife trap at the bottom of the pit, and I love you for it. Having some softness doesn’t make you weak, and it doesn’t detract from the hardness. It merely provides a basis for comparison.”

“I think I’m close to enough sweet people to sand down the rough places,” Valorie replied. After all, her tent was between Kitty’s and Troy’s. But she tucked her hair behind her shoulders, and it did feel better on her temples. She’d gotten used to the pull of it on her skin. “I don’t need to be sweet.”

“Who said anything about sweet?” Bell said with a crooked, catlike smile. “I’m merely saying that a knife must have a handle.”

“God, did I use to have a daily diet of that much metaphor, or are you just feeling poetic today?” Valorie asked.

“That’s my contortionist,” Bell said, stroking the small of her back. His palm ghosted just over the curve of her ass, but not quite there. “Go cut some throats. Just not mine, my dear. Not today.”

“I won’t wait forever, Bell,” Valorie said before she ducked out. “I’ve got things I could be doing, and I think I’ve waited long enough.” She wasn’t talking about how horny she was.

“Who said anything about forever?”

Ooooh, he’s in rare form today. A girl could pull her purple hair out in patches when he was like this. Scheming, secretive son of a bitch. If he wasn’t the boss and she didn’t still have a soft spot for him, she’d slap his smug face and hope some sense got in. However, he’d probably like it. And a man like him didn’t learn.

 

* * * *

 

She’d been right. Having her hair down meant that it got in her way, but it was mostly a nuisance when she was doing contortion in her tent or among the patrons, when it could get caught under her while she was trying to shift from one position to another. She’d had to ask more than one customer to move her hair for her. Sure, it got her more tips, but Valorie wasn’t keen on strangers touching the goods. If Bell wanted her to keep her hair down instead of in Heidi braids, she’d have to compromise and find a rubber band in Kitty’s stash to keep the color within at least a few lines.

Up in the air, however, Valorie understood the change he’d intended to make. It didn’t get in the way up there because there was nothing for her to lean against. Instead, she simply had an violet curtain of hair hanging over her, making her more human in the audience’s eyes, less otherworldly…which deepened the creepiness of her face and created a contrast to the edge of the leather and latex.

As usual, Bell had his vision. He respected Valorie’s in most cases, but she respected his whenever he offered it. Arcanium was his baby, his magnum opus, his purpose. He never steered his people wrong when it came to the circus.

She was also a little less headachy when the evening performance was over, so that was a plus.

This time she had nothing to hurry home to, so she stayed until the end with most of the rest of the cast.

“Whose idea was it to let it loose?” Kitty asked, finally getting a chance to breathe after double-checking everyone’s hair and makeup for each act. She knew Valorie preferred her hair braided and well contained.

“Didn’t have the time to put it back up after the gang bang,” Valorie said.

“I don’t believe a word out of your mouth about gang bangs. You’re not Maya,” Kitty said.

Valorie sucked on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “Bell. Picture it. A romantic moment alone where he slowly…lovingly…painstakingly unbraids my hair…and that’s it.”

“I heard Lennon’s back in his own trailer,” Kitty said. “I take it you’re in a dry patch?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You’re not usually this sarcastic.”

“Shame,” Valorie said. “Because I’m so good at it.”

Kitty rolled her eyes like a mother. “You damaged women and the walls you put up. You’re lucky some people like the challenge.”

“Not lately,” Valorie muttered.

“Ciàran and Moss never say no. They still talk about you,” Kitty said.

“Those two are a glutton’s appetizer. I’m looking for a meal I can eat all the way through. Thanks, but no thanks,” Valorie said. But acknowledging reality over her pride, she added, “Not yet.”

“You and Victor seem to get along,” Kitty suggested. “He’s without a woman to call his own.”

“Your old sweetie is a sweetie,” Valorie said. “He prefers outsiders, like you. He’s a good beer. Not a meal.”

“Are you hungry, by the way?”

“A little.”

“There’s always Marcus,” Kitty said.

This time, Valorie had to cover her mouth to keep her laughter from making it past the curtain. Bell could muffle the noise backstage, but he’d never had to, and Valorie didn’t want to be the one to break unspoken tradition.

Marcus was a relatively new acquisition, and not under very good terms, given that he’d tried to break into Lord Mikhail’s trailer. From what the rest of the cast knew about him, he’d been something of a dull petty thief with a mean streak who also happened to be gay and exceptionally susceptible to Lord Mikhail’s magic. He’d gotten the drop on Lord Mikhail with a Taser, which had deeply shamed the strongman incubus, like a high-school jock who’d been pantsed. It had also earned Marcus one of Bell’s famous second chances— Die by clown or serve Bell in a manner of his choosing through an open-ended wish.

Most of them usually wished for what Bell wanted, when given the chance. Marcus was no exception. No matter how bad things got, people chose life over death.

And that was around the time Arcanium had introduced the Rotting Man. There were some unusual and unlikely pairings in Arcanium, but no one went near Marcus. Valorie doubted anyone would for at least a century. He tended to slough, and he was a bit…moist. In Arcanium, weird wasn’t a deterrent. Not even gross was, otherwise Misha probably wouldn’t get as much as he was getting. Turned out decay was the line freaks drew. Even Carlo wouldn’t tap that.

“Have I really reached that point? Have I sunk that low?” Valorie asked, once her laughter had worked itself out without disturbing the audience.

“Yes,” Kitty replied. “You’re untouchable now. No one is ever going to want you again.”

“Ouch. Can I get some salve to go with that dose of truth?”

“I was kidding, Valorie.”

“I’m pretty sure I recognize sarcasm, pussycat,” Valorie said. “But if you tell me it’ll happen when I stop looking or someone’s out there for me because there’s someone for everyone, I’ll slug you right in your furry face.”

“I was going to suggest you take out the big dildos, but okay.”

“Now you’re talking my language.” Toys didn’t work much better than masturbation against sex demon magic, but it took some of the edge off.

Valorie leaned back until she was resting the wrong away across the foot of the chaise longue she and Kitty shared while Bell and Maya continued their act out in the ring. Another evening concluded.

“It’s because I’m mean, isn’t it?” Valorie said.

“You’re not mean. Well, you are mean, but you mean to be mean, and most of the time, it only seems mean if a person doesn’t know any better. We all know better, Valorie,” Kitty said.

“Is it because I’m too normal?” Valorie asked. “Is that it?”

“Now I’m going to tell you to give it time,” Kitty said.

“Bitch.”

“Hear me out. You spent most of your years in Arcanium with Bell. For all that time, you were Bell’s. You didn’t really look beyond him, and because you were his, no one pursued you either. They weren’t foolish enough to go after Bell’s girl. You’ve only been away from him for a short time in comparison, and you had Lennon for most of it. Now you’ve been a free agent for all of a day. I suggest you get used to beer and appetizers and toys and take a breather. It’s hard to be alone in Arcanium, but it can be done,” Kitty said.

Valorie was about to say something snide to Kitty, but she caught herself. She only would have been snide because Kitty had actually said something smart that Valorie didn’t want to hear. And Kitty had her own issues, so the woman knew her shit. When she’d joined Arcanium voluntarily, Bell hadn’t needed to do anything to change her. She’d been born the Bearded Lady, with hair all over her body. Valorie didn’t pity her for it—Kitty never demanded pity. But Valorie did sympathize, because it couldn’t have always been as carefree as Kitty had pretended to be while banging the Ringmaster on the side. The woman had demons of her own.

Basically, though, Kitty was speaking the credo of the single lady—Take a breath and learn to love you for you. Figure out who you are without a man.

Worthy advice, except it had never really been about not being single for Valorie. She knew what she was like on her own. She was mostly fine with herself. Who was a hundred percent fine with all of themselves if they had an ounce of self-awareness? And she had well more than an ounce. She’d never been owned by her men. Kitty had inadvertently called Valorie Bell’s, but that wasn’t how it had been. It hadn’t been one-sided like that. She hadn’t belonged to the boss, and she hadn’t belonged to Lennon. With Bell, she’d been in love. With Lennon, she’d just needed a fuck. Now, she wanted something real. And Valorie wasn’t sure Kitty understood that, nor did she know how to explain it without sounding like a hopeless romantic and ruining her reputation.

“Sure. Thanks. I’ll put it under advisement,” Valorie said, running her fingers through her hair.

“You do that. And please, for the love of God, eat something,” Kitty said.

Valorie hit Kitty’s hip with the back of her hand, but the gesture was halfhearted and limp. She could definitely go for something greasy right the hell now.

After waiting for the audience to clear out of the circus, Valorie headed for the food booth and asked for fried things that she’d need lots of napkins for. They always stayed open for requests after Arcanium closed, since not all the cast liked to eat and feel heavy before a performance. After Caroline came around, the food booths had started staying open all night. Her carousel men only came to life after the audience left, like the opposite of Cinderella’s pumpkin, and they sometimes got fed at odd hours.

Valorie noticed Caroline and her men eating at one of the picnic tables with Joanne and Jane and Seth and Lars. A threesome and a weird-ass foursome. She didn’t join them. Everyone was set up together like a pre-planned orgy. Valorie had no interest in being the eighth wheel in their hippie love fest. That, and she was eating like a caveman with no regrets. It was easier to have no regrets when other people couldn’t see her.

Except the clowns. She didn’t have any problem with the clowns seeing her eat, because they had worse table manners than she did. She gave them a nod of acknowledgment as Tragedy, the female of the group, and Comedy and Murphy did their rounds near Oddity Row, searching for stragglers and felons, anyone who didn’t belong, fair game. Valorie found it was best not to interfere with the doings of killer demon clowns.

She dumped the paper, cardboard basket and dirty napkins from her meal into one of the trashcans in their little trailer park. Eating comfort food hadn’t made the high-tension hum of arousal inside her any better, but it had made her a little less cranky.

She didn’t like being around herself when she was cranky either.

Valorie opened her RV door and turned on the light. She nearly tripped over the legs of the man who took up half her living room.

John, the fire-eater, had been bound in rough sisal rope on his ankles and wrists—easy knots to untie when one wasn’t the person tied up—and he hung from the bar she used for practice during travel days. He’d been gagged with something Valorie assumed was fireproof, or else she wouldn’t have an RV anymore.

He looked massively pissed.

Tucked into the front pocket of his pants, in Bell’s spiky, somewhat old-fashioned cursive, was a note.

 

Why not play with this one for a while? Wish granted, absolutely free.