Chapter Ten

“I don’t see any hands.” Moths battered Neve’s cold, hollow insides, nervousness briefly overtaking the effect of the rest of the Funhouse journey.

“You will,” Bell said. “Do you trust me?”

“Not nearly as much as you seem to want me to.”

“Do you trust me on this?” He gently nudged her onto the platform. “Do you trust that you’ll enjoy this as much as everyone else will?”

Neve turned around at the hiss of the glass closing back to make a seamless wall, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. But the glass case didn’t have a top, and it didn’t reach all the way to the third-floor ceiling. She was getting plenty of air. Her lungs just hadn’t convinced her brain of that.

“Neve.” Bell pressed a hand to the glass. She automatically placed her hand against his. “This is almost exactly the same as the haunted funhouse. Guests stare at you all day, wondering what it would be like to touch you, to feel what you’re feeling. This is no different, except you’ll be allowed to feel so much more, and they’ll be allowed to linger. But they can’t touch you, and you can always close your eyes. Trust me. Trust that I intend to give you nothing but pleasure tonight.”

Neve took a deep breath through her nose, exhaled out her mouth, again and again until her lungs worked like normal. She nodded.

“Then climb into bed like a good girl.”

He trailed his fingers down the glass as she backed herself to the bed then crawled under the covers. The silk was as heavenly as her dress over her skin, no prickly static to disrupt the experience. Just cool silk caressing what smooth limbs they could cling to.

“Now close your eyes and try to sleep, good girl. No monsters under the bed tonight. I’ll see you later this evening.”

Neve forced herself to close her eyes and keep breathing, unsure what was supposed to happen and when. When she shut her eyes, though, she saw the things in this Funhouse that were the most terrifying in their quiet cruelty. Bell had never pretended he couldn’t be cruel. Her stomach churned as she wondered whether that was okay with her.

A wave of warm calm swept from head to toe in seconds, leaving her nearly asleep.

“Relax, Neve. One day you’ll understand why I do the things I do.”

She rested there, her hair splayed out on the pillow, one hand next to her hip and the other curled next to her face, which was turned slightly away from the corridor. She’d pulled the covers over her chest so that only the black straps of the dress could be seen, but the way the silk clung to her, her form was still clearly discernable.

Her brain flashed between Caroline’s severed head, the Blob’s twisting body, Valorie’s silent scream, the way she imagined Maya’s back would look after the Ringmaster finished with it, but it was as though Bell plucked those thoughts from her head like apples until her mind was quiet again.

The Funhouse had its own soundtrack—like the haunted funhouse, but with fewer screams. A string quartet played something haunting and slow in a minor key, but underneath it, almost too soft to hear, were low moans, soft groans, as though from a distance or just behind one of the curtained partitions.

When stray cries, murmurs of conversation, distant laughing and moans that doubtlessly came from the Arcanium exhibits who were unapologetically having sex rather than just being sexual accented the soundtrack, Neve knew the Funhouse event had officially begun.

All of this happened while she slipped away, untethering from consciousness, aware but not paying much attention. By now, she was used to sleeping in spite of sexual tension, so there was no reason for that to keep her awake now.

A hand wrapped around her ankle.

There was no one else in the bed with her, nowhere for anyone to hide. The silk had been flawless when she’d climbed in, no holes for anything to creep through.

At her twitch, the hand slowly made its way up her body, mapping the contour of her leg, over her knee, her thigh.

The disembodied hands that groped her in the haunted funhouse were human, but what moved over her bare leg now, teasing the sensitive inner thigh before retreating to less vulnerable flesh, didn’t feel normal. The fingers were too long. She wasn’t positive, but she thought there might have been an extra set of knuckles. It was how she imagined the Gentleman would feel like if he had the inclination to touch, but the texture was different—not quite slimy, not quite brittle, reptilian but not rough, smooth without being scaly. Her dream-trapped mind couldn’t pinpoint the exact quality, but it was unmistakably wrong.

The same wrong kind of hand smoothed its way up her other leg. She drew her knee up in a bleary attempt to shake it away, as though it was just a spider crawling over her, but it followed her up, cupping her knee then squeezing the length of thigh.

She moaned, shaking her head, her brows knitting.

“Relax. The sex demons will send out another burst of magic any minute now. You’re doing wonderfully.”

The strokes of the strange hands softened into a massage, urging her along with Bell to relax, go back to sleep.

Another pair of hands wrapped around her waist. Long-fingered like the others but with nasty claws at their tips, they gathered the dress up her thighs, ran over her abdomen with eerie possessiveness then found their way to her breasts. When she lay on her back, her breasts tended to gravitate toward the sides, but the dress kept them somewhat contained and the strange hands did the rest, testing the yield of her flesh, claws pricking at her cleavage.

Her eyelashes fluttered as she shifted against the hands exploring her body more personally, more intentionally, than the hands from the haunted funhouse. She caught a glimpse of mountainous knuckles under the silk as the hand massaged her breast, the other clawed hand overlapping with the long-fingered hand on her leg as they caressed her thigh.

A sound escaped her, a harsh exhalation she couldn’t control, as she tried to turn over. But the peace had officially been disturbed. Her bed writhed with the phantom hands slowly savoring every part of her body they could touch, as though whatever they reached was the most arousing piece of her. At this point, she could easily tell when disembodied hands were aroused—a kind of tension or restraint required not to squeeze her too hard in excitement.

But the clawless hands didn’t hesitate when she tried to roll onto her side. They clamped down on her legs and yanked her onto her back again.

Neve’s eyes flew open.

As soon as they knew she was fully awake, the clawed hands slid up to grasp both breasts in a firm, almost painful grip. The silk sheets fell away, exposing black, crackled hands connected to arms that emerged seamlessly from the sheets on either side, as though a demon beneath the mattress reached up without barrier to caress her.

There was a terrible tearing sound as the clawed hands tightened their grip, but instead of rending her, they tore the black silk of her dress until her breasts were bare. The rip extended down past her navel, pushing the covers farther down.

The other pair of hands emerged from under the covers now, with mottled bluish-green, scabrous fingers that dented the meat of her thighs until she squirmed.

And from the corner of her eye, ghostly figures watched from outside the scene. Most of them were already in a state of undress by now after everything they’d witnessed earlier in the maze. They watched with their noses pressed to the glass, fogging it with their breath until someone urged them back so everyone could see. Some turned away—Neve assumed to return to a previous tableau—or continued on, but a few stayed, observed mercilessly as the demons laid claim to her.

Allen stood there, his hand in his open trousers. She couldn’t see anything anatomical, but it was perfectly clear what he was doing. That wasn’t breaking the rules here, but Neve had to look away, pained at the reality of a supercilious ass like that taking pleasure from what was happening to her. She closed her eyes, shaking her head again, playing along with the fantasy but also oddly raw after being pulled out of her half-sleep.

The hands on her legs gripped her thighs hard enough to bruise, but the thumbs were gentler, caressing where her thighs pressed together as though to coax them to open. They disturbed the trimmed curls at the juncture, making her abdomen, mound and thighs break out into gooseflesh. Neve bit her lip as those thumbs brushed closer and closer to her clit, which peeked out from the top of her folds even with her legs closed.

Meanwhile, the clawed hands had also taken a more delicate turn now that her breasts were out for it to enjoy, as though the mind behind it couldn’t quite decide what to do with her now that he had her at his mercy. When his claws rubbed together, they made a sound like sharpening knives.

Then those claws descended upon the peaks of her breasts, closing in on the areolae, which puckered and darkened, her nipples hardening almost out of self-defense rather than arousal. But as the claws plucked at her, dangerously sharp on such sensitive places, the pink deepened to near red on the tough, pebbly flesh. She pressed her thighs more tightly together against the relentless sensations sending lightning bolts from her breasts to her clit, which throbbed with every pinch and pull of those wicked claws.

With a high moan, she brought her own hands under her breasts as the claws pulled her nipples taut. When the claws released her, she caught the tender, menaced flesh with her softer palms, but quickly brought her thumbs and forefingers to her nipples to press her own nails into the flesh.

Neve lifted her hips helplessly toward the teasing fingers so close to where she wanted them. Her folds tingled, full between her thighs, but she wasn’t quite ready to part her legs for everyone on the other side of the glass to see her so shameless, although she knew she only delayed the inevitable. She wasn’t going to be able to keep her legs closed for this, and hell, even if she did, the hands would find their way in from underneath.

Another pair of hands, human-like but skeletal and gray, grabbed her wrists and yanked her away from touching herself. She’d still been pinching her nipples, and the sudden jerk pulled them to the point of pain before she could release her breasts to quiver back against her chest. Neve cried out, struggled against the hands on her wrists, but they forced her fists back onto the pillows. The claws tapped her breasts in a clear gesture—naughty, naughty.

Then another pair of hands—black and shiny as a spider and bigger than Ciarán’s, with claws like those of a wolf—emerged from the red silk, dwarfing the long-fingered hands on her breasts and legs and seeming to quell them as well. They stopped stroking and teasing her and instead joined the skeletal hands in holding her down as the broad black hands flexed their fingers, displayed themselves to her like a warning.

One giant hand curled its fingers to brush her cheek in a parody of tenderness. It played its nails over her lower lip, plumped from her biting it. The other giant hand slowly lowered itself to her abdomen. The clawless hands on her thighs roughly pulled her legs apart, spreading her for her audience, who watched so intently they almost didn’t breathe, perhaps because she was having trouble with that herself. She trembled with such violence that it could only be genuine. The hand on her abdomen spread its fingers, taking possession of everything it touched, then slid down to her mound.

At that moment, Neve felt a surge of desire so strong through her that it overshadowed the pain of the claws on her nipples, the bruises the other hands had left, any lingering modesty. The hand at her face closed around her neck just as she raised herself to meet his fingers descending between her legs. They brushed over her clit but weren’t concerned with it. All the demon wanted was inside.

Two giant fingers pushed rudely into her cunt, which offered no protest or obstacle, entrance smooth from a combination of what the Funhouse exhibits and fucking with Bell had already done to her and what the other hands had continued.

Hers weren’t the only moans filling her ears as the demon penetrated her, probed her, pushed as deeply as he could, curling his fingers to own her before she could adjust to so much inside, so dexterous, so big. His claws added a line of pain to the sensation, like a wasp sting on her tongue during a kiss, turning some of her moans into screams. He brought his hand down from her neck after a squeeze that made her vision blur then groped her breast, small in his massive paw.

She fought against the hands holding down her wrists and legs, but their grips were as unyielding as iron. She didn’t know whether she was fighting to get free or fighting to offer herself more fully to the demon who took her, didn’t know whether she screamed out of pleasure or pain, whether the stinging was one or the other or both.

What she couldn’t mistake was that, underneath the moans and cries she couldn’t control coming from her mouth, the sound of his fingers moving inside her made clear how wet she was. She didn’t know whether the people on the other side of the glass could hear it as loudly as she could, but they’d be able to see.

“You’re the strongest in the room, little girl. I smell you, hear you, feel you, feel what you’re feeling, feel what you want those hands that aren’t mine to do to you. You’re irresistible. It only makes what I send so much stronger in return. I thought I could control this. I thought I could fight how much I—”

That wasn’t Bell.

The voice in her head was much deeper, wilder, a vibrating rumble that brought tears to her eyes. She thrashed under the prison hold of the hands, which struggled to keep her down as the giant demon hand beckoned for her orgasm.

It ripped through her as though he’d clawed straight through. Liquid splashed over the demon’s hand and on the silk as her hips bucked off the bed. The thick fingers continued to plunder her, forcing her orgasm into pain and back. Her cunt clutched at him in desperate need. Neve bit her pillow, her screams grating and scraping through her throat.

Applause followed, but Neve could barely hear it through the roaring in her ears and the familiar groan in her head. She felt his orgasm, too. He sent the waves of it through the Funhouse, leaving only heightened desire in its wake, because in a glass case and with a blade affixed to his erection, he couldn’t satisfy himself or kill anyone with his feed.

The hands didn’t stop or disappear. She didn’t expect them to. This was a continuous exhibit, presumably until everyone had made it through and had their fill of whatever repeats they wanted. The haunted funhouse was a place of perpetual dissatisfaction, all teasing and no follow-through, but this was the exact opposite. And apparently the demonic hands qualified not as sex toys but sexual partners, because the end of her orgasm was followed by sheer relief that none of the dildos or her own hands could give her.

It didn’t last long, with the sex demons emanating like nuclear reactors, but the tension that had been building up since Victor had snapped. What followed was new tension, new desire, new lust, and she could live with that, even though it came on just as strong.

As the crowd that had gathered around her moved on, either to whatever lay beyond the Funhouse maze or to previous exhibits, the fingers inside her eased out all too slowly, forcing her awareness of every stretch, pull and caress of him until he emerged. And as his fingers lifted away, her wetness made a thick, fluid line between them and her cunt. The hand stretched those fingers out to show off how she’d made his shiny skin glisten even more.

“Again…” Mikhail pleaded. “Please don’t stop.”

She didn’t know whether he could hear her, but she tried to think in his direction. “Stay away. Stay out of my head.”

“Your desire screams even louder than you do. It’s all I can do to not shatter the glass and break down the walls between us to bury myself in you and feed until I no longer know hunger. But I can’t not hear you. Your desire is so much stronger than my control, and it begs for me… I can’t…stop…this…”

Another wave of need hit her as strong as a twenty-foot wave, obliterating the satisfaction the demon hands had given her as though it was nothing but a castle in the sand.

Thick fingers coated with her arousal entered her mouth mid-moan, forcing their way in against any muffled protest. With the desire hot and thick inside her like a summer storm, she shook her head as though trying to refuse, but she also sucked him in, breathed in the strong fragrance of her own scent, swallowed her own salty taste. Underneath it, she tasted the demon as well. Bell had been thorough in his creation, down to the undertaste and aroma of smoke and uncooked meat.

“Do that all you want, but stay out of my head.”

“You opened the gate, Neve, not me.”

She couldn’t keep having a conversation with Lord Mikhail and handle the sex magic and demon hands at the same time. As the demon’s filthy fingers filled her mouth without any magical aid, its other hand drifted between her legs again, this time avoiding her pussy, which still felt as though it gaped, the air cool against the wet heat.

He instead focused her clit, pinched the front of her folds between two fingers, plumping them and trapping the blood inside. The smooth side of a claw teased the hypersensitive flesh. There was no body to laugh at her, but Neve still sensed amusement in the way some of the other hands eased their hold on her. The long-clawed pair found her breasts again, pinching her nipples as well between the razor edges of his claws. They all seemed to delight in making her wrench and writhe, which only made it worse.

Please please please please…

The long, scabrous hands from the beginning parted her legs until her heels were on the edge of the bed on both sides. Then, as though afraid the larger hand torturing her clit would notice, they slithered in, thin finger by thin finger, until she was nearly screaming again. They stretched her inside, pulling her open more and stroking all angles of her cunt.

The demon in her mouth forced her head from side to side, demonstrating his dominance. The hands over her breasts might have actually been giving her little cuts at this point, but she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care. And still the hands at her wrists kept her pinned.

The hall on the other side of the glass was nearly empty. She had an audience of one. Neve could hardly believe that all of this was going on and almost no one was interested, which briefly distracted her from the intensity of her own need.

The man on the other side of the glass stood near the back of the corridor out of reach of the light, an apparition she could barely make out until he touched his hat in greeting and stepped forward.

He wasn’t wearing the tan trench coat this time. A trim leather jacket clung to his slim frame. But he still had that fedora, and she couldn’t forget those uncanny bright eyes or the enigmatic amusement that lit his whole beautiful face with the subtly of candlelight.

She tried to sit up, suddenly embarrassed that someone she recognized was watching her. All the hands forced her back down again, redoubling their efforts to thoroughly overstimulate and distract her.

He wasn’t touching himself, and she couldn’t tell whether he was aroused. But there was a quality to his face, to his consideration, that transcended simple interest and entertainment. When he realized she recognized him, his boyish grin broadened, but his amusement didn’t transition to humor. He wasn’t laughing at her. And as more gaunt fingers found their way into her pussy and the pulsing pinch over her clit became too much to fight, his smile melted away, leaving his beautiful face something thinner, darker, hungrier than it was before.

He was looking into her eyes when she came again.

The giant fingers retreated from her mouth. Neve gasped for breath as the fingers inside her continued to fill and stroke her inner walls, and still more entered. How many fingers did this particular demon have, and how many more could she take before it became painful?

The man continued to survey her, savor her, as the hands over her clit and inside her pussy once again stretched out her orgasm thin and tight to the brink of agony before letting her come down. The giant demon hands released her clit. It throbbed terribly as blood moved through the flesh again, which circled her cunt right back into a pleasureless orgasm that clenched around the thin, spidery fingers inside her.

The man nodded—in acknowledgment, gratitude? Then his grin returned, and he sauntered around the corner.

Only when he was gone did other people start passing by her tableau again, and the hands reprised their assault on her senses in tandem with waves of the incubus’ lust.

She had no idea how long any of this took, but the hands eventually slunk away from her body, retracting back into the bed as though they’d never been there but for the rumpled sheets and what some might kindly call her ‘disarray’.

Neve closed her eyes. She slumped, replete and panting, against the mess of silk around her, completely uncaring that her dress was ruined or that she was the very definition of ‘ridden hard and put away wet’ and felt like it, too.

She was briefly alone and untouched. After too many orgasms to count—what were the odds a woman could have that problem twice?—and at least eight hands on her at all times, she was quite through with contact.

The glass at the front of the case whispered to the side. Bell had removed his shirt and had since taken care of his erection one way or another. To Neve’s irritation, Lord Mikhail stood a few paces behind him, still in his ‘sex kills’ costume, still hard and emanating, although he seemed to be semi-successfully reining it in.

“If you climb out here, you’ll feel ever so much better.” Bell clasped his hands behind his back, as though he was just passing through and incidentally rendering aid.

Neve groaned as she sat up. All of her muscles ached, and there was an unspeakable wet spot underneath her. The straps of the dress draped over her arms, the dress itself fluttering on either side of her breasts. She brought the sides together, more to maintain a semblance of dress than of modesty.

Her legs were weak, shaking. Bell stepped onto the platform to help her down. Upon crossing the threshold, all the juices, sweat, salt and blood disappeared and her dress stitched itself back together, leaving her as un-disarrayed as she’d been when she’d entered the Funhouse maze.

“I may kill you both,” Neve said.

“You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten,” Bell said. “We haven’t started performances yet, and you don’t have to mingle.”

“What do you mean, we haven’t started performances yet? What the hell was I doing?”

“Too much, love?”

She punched his arm, and she wasn’t gentle.

“Ow. I told you there was something you could do in the circuit in addition to the Funhouse exhibits.”

“Right now, all I want to do is wear sweatpants, wrap myself in a fleece blanket and eat pizza rolls while I watch a movie. But the only one of those you let me have in my trailer is the blanket.”

“I’ll get some pizza rolls for the freezer and an e-book reader with a streaming program. And if you wanted pants, all you had to do was ask. As long as you limit use to when no one from the outside can see you. We have a certain mystique to maintain, after all. But we have to finish out the night, and I told you that you’d enjoy the performance as well, didn’t I? I promised. Lord Mikhail, please escort Neve to the buffet and show her where she can recharge without any of our guests accosting her.”

Neve skirted away from Mikhail as he held out his hand. She was so done with hands.

Bell placed his own on her shoulder. “He’s fed, my dear. He’ll be little trouble to you for a little while.”

She glanced from Bell to Mikhail, who was one of the few people who could appear dignified and stoic while done up in that ensemble. “Who died, then?”

“Lady Sasha broke the ban,” Mikhail replied, “for tonight alone. She wasn’t any happier about the effect I was having on her than you. We’ve fed on each other, which should give us a brief respite even in the midst of this cacophony. I won’t hurt you, Neve, and my control is no longer so tenuous. Please.”

“If you’re going to perform, you’ll appreciate a little help, but the effect of his touch won’t overwhelm,” Bell said, uncharacteristically gentle.

Putting her hand in Lord Mikhail’s sent fresh electricity through her worn-out circuits, though the leather of his gloves kept the contact from being direct. Even so, it wasn’t half the impact of what he’d emanated at the beginning or when he’d tried to convince her to fuck him. He pulled at her, as though hooking threaded needles through her palms, but it was bearable.

“How much are you holding in right now?” she asked.

“How long can you hold your breath?”

“One minute ten seconds in the summer, when I swim. Is that how long I have?”

“No. That’s how it feels to hold the magic in,” Mikhail said.

“Can you really do this?”

“After feeding as I did upon Lady Sasha, yes. Trust me.”

“Haven’t been given a reason yet,” Neve said.

“Let me give you a reason.”

Against all her better instincts, she tentatively wrapped her fingers around his hand and allowed him to do the same.

“Good. I’ll let you crazy kids get something to eat while I handle logistics. Excuse me.” Bell climbed through the rumpled bedroom then ducked through a folded back panel that Neve was positive hadn’t been foldable before.

“Am I the last exhibit?” Neve asked.

“The explosive finish,” Lord Mikhail replied.

“I can’t hear anyone.”

“They’re on the other side of the red curtain.”

Lord Mikhail led them to the red curtain at the end of the maze. He held the velvet up for her. She let go of his hand to duck under.

The murmur of people talking among themselves as though once again part of a fancy cocktail party instead of a sex-and-horror show was louder than the curtain should have been able to conceal.

One of these days, she was going to ask Bell how all the magic worked, but for now, she could accept that there were rules and laws quite different than the ones under which she’d always worked. Almost nothing was impossible, just statistically improbable, and Arcanium had rendered certain impossibilities to a statistical possibility of one. Not simple at all, yet simple as that. She could spend decades in Arcanium out of scientific curiosity alone, if all these orgasms didn’t give her a stroke or make her punch someone powerful in the face first.

People turned around to look at her, people with diamond cufflinks and ruby necklaces. She didn’t doubt part of the attention came from being followed by Lord Mikhail, but it struck her like acid.

Neve held her head up and avoided everyone’s gaze the way she did in the haunted funhouse. After everything they’d seen of her and the suggestive way some of Arcanium’s people were mingling, they might have wanted to do more than talk if she made herself approachable.

The room, which was really just the rest of the third floor, had been set up in two sections. The red curtain opened to the elevated lounge, arranged with modern couches that snaked in S shapes to accommodate many people at once while cast entertained them from display platforms that took the place of coffee tables.

The other half of the room had been set up like an amphitheater descending from the lounge. No cheap bleachers here. The platforms were sturdy and didn’t creak, and the seats were just as luxurious as those in the lounge.

It was easy to pinpoint Arcanium circus folk in the crowd. Even the simpler outfits were more elaborate than the traditional elegance of the guests. Maya had pulled on a full feathered skirt and black corset. Kitty had gone her usual furry fairy route with a glittering copper gown, brown corset and doves done up in her intricate hair. Valorie had changed from her ghost latex into a white lace body glove. Victor wore a crown of crystals with a complete lack of irony that Neve somehow appreciated even more. They all sat with their patrons, laughed, ate, flirted. Kitty sat on a large man’s lap. She was pretty sure Victor was talking dirty with the woman he was drinking with.

The Spider had chosen not to mingle. She was bound with white rope to a web hanging angled from the ceiling. The fire-eater had been strapped into a pneumatic harness that made him look like a partially turned dragon. He breathed fire from a platform on another side of the room. A few other Arcanium cast members had taken places on platforms, including Misha, doing his sword-swallowing act with innuendo he could never suggest when the circus was open, and the Rotting Man, whose naked body she’d never wanted to see and now couldn’t unsee.

Two of the clowns, Comedy and Tragedy—who Neve hadn’t expected to be here tonight, given that the clientele was entirely adult—had been chained in pretty but sturdy silver to the columns. Their monster mouths were open all the way to their ears, displaying teeth that Neve hadn’t seen on anything but deep-sea predators. Given that kind of anatomy was impossible to fake without CGI and not even Bell could CGI reality, Neve didn’t know how people could possibly think it was funny feeding them with their bare hands, but the clowns didn’t seem to mind, and no one’s fingers were bitten off.

To the right, Caroline stood at the center of what looked like a hell-dimension version of her carousel, with the men who’d been fucking her separated head and body as two of the mounts. She wore all patent leather, from the police hat to her stripper boots. Decapitation appeared to have done nothing to dampen her spirits, because she happily switched and caned the thighs and asses of every man on the seven-mount carousel. Christina was riding Troy, who had looped himself into the reins and who laughed madly through his bit every time Caroline got him. The Cyclops and three other prisoners made up the rest of the herd, done up in sub bondage and, in the case of Caroline’s shorter, stronger man, horseplay. A few female guests rode them for a laugh.

To the left, the odd chef manned an open bar and buffet table of both odd and normal delicacies.

There were curtained rooms along the sides of the amphitheater that looked almost like box seats. More curtained rooms lined the back of the lounge against the red curtain. Based on parties Neve had been to with Joseph, it didn’t take long for her to realize what those rooms were for.

“Is there a law here that isn’t being broken or bent beyond recognition?” Neve muttered. “I’m really not sure how I feel about this.”

“You don’t have to do anything with our patrons that you don’t want to do. Lady Sasha and I are quite adept at walking among them without getting accosted—with the right dissuasion.” He brandished the blades on his gloves and nodded at Lady Sasha, who wove between the many people in the lounge completely naked, but with a pair of king cobras wrapped around her body like a harness, hissing in warning when anyone dared get too close.

“Where am I supposed to hide a knife or a snake in this outfit?”

Mikhail laughed, a booming sound that ricocheted eagerly against the concrete. “Let me be your blade.”

So he’d protect her from them. But what protects them from me?

She could sense it in this wide room. Pulsing through the laughter and chatter, in the bubbles from the champagne, in the hiss of skin and fabric. Everyone had adjusted their dresses and trousers so that anything they’d exposed in the maze was back to socially appropriate. But there was a hand on a woman’s thigh. Under the top of a bodice. Over the front of a man’s trousers. Up the back of a jacket. All these hands everywhere, and by now she knew a little something about hands everywhere. Moans under the creepy quartet music. Pills being passed from jackets—prescription or illicit highs, the promise of youth all night long. For every person in Arcanium who said no, there seemed to be another who would say yes, please.

And for all that she wanted to say no, she was literally terrified that she’d say yes, please without hesitation. She tried not to show it as Mikhail walked with her to the buffet table. Standing in front of fried grasshoppers, salmon pate sandwiches and blinis, she was reminded how hungry she was after all the exercise the demon hands had put her through.

She’d never been much of a foodie. Joseph had cooked most of the meals, and when it had been her turn, she’d depended on simple staples. But some of the restaurants and food events they’d attended had at least proved to her that her palate could be broadened. She filled a small plate with one of everything that didn’t look like it had once been an insect or arachnid, though she wasn’t averse to trying them eventually.

An older man with receding hairline but a face rife with character came up next to her with his own plate, choosing among caviar and cheese options. “It’s a cold night, and that’s a very short dress. Would you like my jacket?”

Neve glanced nervously at Mikhail behind her, who was picking up toothpicked samples with that delicate dexterity that had surprised her before. He nodded, but she wasn’t sure what he was giving permission for.

She opted for being polite. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“My friends and I are sitting on that part of the couch over there.” The man nodded to a group of four other men, who were talking together and eyeing her as their friend spoke. “There’s room for you.”

“No. I really think I’m done for the night. I’m here for the food.” She started around the table toward the bar for a drink.

The man caught her upper arm. He wasn’t rude, and he didn’t hurt her, but Lord Mikhail set a heavy hand on the man’s shoulder. The man immediately released her. Lord Mikhail turned away as though nothing had happened and as though he wasn’t wearing assless chaps.

“Enjoy your evening,” Lord Mikhail called as the man made a wise retreat. “Do not fear saying no to them, Neve. And you don’t have to be polite. They’ll only call you a bitch—and that but once.”

“What do they say when you say no?” Neve asked.

“They don’t say much to me. Even when they desire me, I frighten them. People fear what they most want. When I’m not hunting, I do nothing to discourage this. The Lady and I are only here if someone breaks their contract.”

“And to salt the mines,” Neve said.

A smile. “Do you want to stay in the lounge, or would you like an escort to the green room?”

“I’d like to just sit and not be disturbed. Is that possible here, or do I need to go to the green room?”

He gestured to one of the high tables by the bar, made for two, then broke away from her to get his own drink.

“That was quite a show, darling. Everything I’ve come to expect from Bell’s Arcanium and better.” Samuel, accompanied by his associate Allen, had sneaked up on her from behind, whether intentionally or not. She had no doubt, however, that waiting until Lord Mikhail was no longer at her side had been intentional.

He held out his hand as though in a business meeting. “Samuel Amendola.”

“Neve. I don’t really have a title here.”

Allen stripped her with his eyes but Samuel didn’t. He wasn’t even briefly looking at her cleavage, displaying controlled behavior Neve had only noticed in long-time coworkers and her bosses, at least the ones who wore lab coats instead of suits—men who’d learned how to work with women as equals. Neve liked working with men like that, so she didn’t mind shaking his hand, although she remained wary.

Samuel kept hold of her fingers, lifted them as though he would kiss them, but the lift was the only salute he gave. “Have you worked in circuses before, or in another profession?”

There was only a little hesitation before asking about other professions—a comma rather than an ellipsis, which carried less disapproval, and he didn’t leer at the suggestion.

“I’ve never been part of a circus before. I originally worked in a pharmaceutical research lab.”

Samuel raised a bushy white eyebrow before sitting in the chair next to her. “You don’t say. Were you always interested in the circus arts? Dreamed of running away to a circus?”

She’d wanted space, but actual conversation was something she’d been without for a while.

“Not in the least. Arcanium sort of…happened to me.” Neve wondered how to play her past. Obviously, the truth wouldn’t do, but she’d never been good at making up stories. “I was going through relationship problems. Some women hit the gym. Some get a haircut. I apparently joined a circus.”

“So that ring on your finger… Is that by habit or is the relationship on hold?” Samuel nodded toward her left hand. “You chose a rather unconventional venue for mere separation. Are they aware of your relocation?”

Neve raised her left hand to stare at her wedding ring. In terms of fidelity—and being realistic with herself about the nature of Arcanium as well as the nature she’d been given—the diamond had become nothing more than pretty carbon. She wasn’t going to get divorce papers signed, but there was no reason to dwell too much on technicalities if she’d be declared dead a decade or so. She sighed then twisted the ring off and moved it to the third finger of her right hand, which was less symbolic than it seemed—the fourth finger on her right hand was smaller than the left.

“Habit,” she said softly.

“I didn’t intend to bring up unpleasant memories.”

“You couldn’t have known.” She checked his left hand. No ring and no tan line where a ring would be. In the winter, that wasn’t a given sign, but he was darker-skinned, like Mikhail, and she thought the contrast would have shown better on him. Allen still wore his wedding ring. All the more reason to keep ignoring him. “How often have you hosted the Funhouse?”

“This will be my third year. I have several properties here and there that have served as Bell’s canvas. We used to be a group of twenty, but we’ve since grown—invitation only, like a secret society.” Samuel grinned with amusement at himself. “As secret societies go, I suspect we’re more esoteric than most, but at least we’re not meddling in the affairs of the world.”

“Why meddle in the affairs of the world when you can meddle in other kinds of affairs?” Neve ducked her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out as sarcastic as it did.”

He placed a hand on hers on the table. “We do what we do. When I was young myself, I used to imagine running away to join the circus. They lost some of their edge when they discarded unapologetic strangeness and danger and focused more on gymnastic feats. Admirable in their own way.” He peered over the lounge, where Valorie was showing off her contortion skills and where Seth and Lars engaged in displays of tandem strength. “But Bell’s Arcanium is special. It’s the highlight of our year.”

“Did he suggest a sex show or did you?” Neve asked.

“Who are you to judge, girl?” Allen laughed, gesturing over her.

“I’ve done private parties before, but they were the kind partners went to and where you didn’t pay for the performers,” Neve said. “I’m only judging a little. You’re judging a lot.”

Samuel’s smile widened. “This is Allen’s first party. He doesn’t quite appreciate it the same way I do.”

“And how do you appreciate it, exactly?” Neve asked.

“I’m a widower, have been for ten years. I never remarried, but I crave company like any man. In my circles, you tend to cross paths with the perverse and mercenary, but it’s not very interesting. Not at all. Deep in the heart of it, I feel other men like me forget that companionship is the commodity, not the people. When Bell insisted that all carnal accompaniment would be performative or else strictly consensual, that appealed to me more than knowing I could have anyone and anything I wanted.”

Samuel gestured to his friend. “Allen doesn’t quite understand that. He thinks the contracts give us loopholes rather than limitations. But even after your performance in the maze, I appreciate that if you’re here with me now, talking with me, it’s not because you were coerced by your boss or some misguided effort to keep me happy. And if this conversation is all you do with me, I welcome it.”

Allen rolled his eyes. “You’re a romantic old fool. Who sponsors and attends a sex show for the conversation?”

“He’d be surprised,” Samuel murmured to her before taking a drink.

“Well, I know I’ll be disappointed if she’s not in the circuit,” Allen said. “I’m saving myself for that, unless you’re available for a private room now?”

“Pass. Even if I weren’t exhausted, hard pass.” Neve kept expecting some kind of repercussion for being rude, but no fiery hail rained down upon her head, and no man slapped her unwilling mouth.

“You’re a shrewd businessman and a pig, Allen. Have another drink and think about what you’ve said,” Samuel said, with the same light, casual air with which he’d introduced himself.

“I’d rather think about other things.” But Allen took the advice to get another drink, looking instead to other cast members in the lounge.

Neve watched him leave. “He’s never going to catch a circus woman like that.”

“I believe any companionship he pays for tends to be of the sort with whom he’s paying for something else entirely.”

“And what do you pay for?”

“I’ve no interest in remarrying, Neve, dear, but I enjoy the company of a young woman, the better if she has something to say.”

She slid her hand from under his. “I’m not sure how to feel about that, Mr. Amendola.”

She really didn’t. The sensation of his very human hand on hers and the raspy warmth of his worn voice was doing things that made her spine feel as bubbly as the champagne, and she didn’t know whether to be angry at her body or Samuel or Bell or whether she should just follow her sex-crazed instincts. Practically speaking, she was worn out, but she’d bet her entire indecent wardrobe that she could lead Samuel to one of the private rooms, draw the curtains, have him and still be able to resuscitate her arousal for a performance.

“Samuel, please,” he said. “If I’m making you uncomfortable, do feel free to find yourself more welcome conversation. I’m grateful for the time I’ve had.”

He was easily in his sixties, vital but old to her, with thick hair and leathery skin. She’d never been a May-December romanticist, but age hadn’t been a significant factor in her pursuit of a partner back when sex hadn’t been high on her list. Did it matter now that sex had taken a different place on that list? Her body didn’t care, but what about her?

“Tell me, my dear, what did you do in pharmaceuticals?” he asked.

“Research and development. Slow, methodical and often disappointing, but I liked my work, especially since I wasn’t the part of the team that handled trials. I always felt that would be too much pressure. I worked with theory and formulas, contributed to preliminary testing—nothing where lives might be lost. I also never had to sell what I helped create. I’ve been told I’m too blunt for that.”

Samuel smiled. “If you liked your work, why abandon it? Life in a traveling circus may seem exciting from the outside, but does it compare?”

As long as she was understating the truth… “I might have been a bit hasty with my career change.”

“Is there anything about Arcanium that keeps you here?” His implication was clear, but she appreciated he didn’t say it. An orgasm could be faked. Just because it looked like she’d been thrilled to pieces didn’t necessarily mean that she had been.

She tentatively placed her hand on his, afraid that she was just doing what men like Allen expected her to do, afraid that Samuel was being charming to get what he wanted, afraid that it didn’t matter because she was going to do this anyway.

“Bell does what he can to keep me. Plenty of pretty things. New people. Excitement. Samuel, I confess, I haven’t been completely honest with you, and I’m not very good at telling lies or letting myself get away with them.”

Samuel glanced down at her hand on his, at her fingertips brushing over the prominent veins. He tilted his head. “Well, I can’t pretend I have the same compunctions—I am a businessman, after all—but if it’s against your principles, who am I to stand in the way?”

She was thankful she was barefoot, because she thought she’d wobble if she were wearing heels. She slid off her chair then urged him to stand as well, which brought him almost flush against her. The friction of his suit through the thin silk made her breath catch and her eyelids flutter.

Neve threaded her fingers through his hand. After a deliberate press of her hips against his, she slowly drew him with her to one of the privacy booths at the back of the lounge. She avoided Allen’s heavy gaze and resisted the urge to flip him off.

But she caught sight of Mikhail. Without a word, gesture or expression, he set his drink on the bar then strode behind it to a less ostentatious series of curtains that Neve assumed led back to the green room. She ran her tongue along her teeth watching him leave.

“Part of the reason I left my old job to join Arcanium was because my relationship with my husband had changed. I’d changed.” She pulled them into the black booth, which was lit only by a small, old-fashioned lamp on a table. She tugged the rope that held the curtain open. It swung closed, blocking the view of everything on the outside, but it wasn’t nearly as effective as the red curtain at blocking sound.

Everything in the room except the red curtain was black. It looked like the booth of a bordello.

“People change in marriage,” Samuel said. “Newlyweds often forget that. They marry not one person but a hundred, one changing into another year by year, sometimes transforming over the course of months or weeks or days.” His gaze finally began to wander over her body. He could have touched her then but he didn’t. He waited, curiosity a glitter in his eyes. “What changed for you?”

“I developed…appetites that I’d never had before.”

Neve hadn’t ever tried actually using charm on anyone who wasn’t her husband. All the sex she’d had since joining Arcanium had just fallen into her lap whether she’d wanted it or not. She tried now, hoping that any amateur mistakes she made would be endearing to a man who’d doubtlessly been flirted with by women more professional than she.

“He betrayed me, but I know now that he never would have been enough.” She kept her voice quiet as much for effect as for keeping anyone on the outside from hearing. His suit jacket spread as she undid the buttons. His breathing came more heavily, pushing his chest against the spotless, pressed, white shirt.

“Why do you think Bell let me in, Samuel? I have no special skills. I don’t juggle. I don’t tumble. I’m not especially flexible. I don’t do tricks with animals. I’m not keen on heights. Why do you think Bell brought me into Arcanium?”

“Why?”

A low moan escaped her. Desire magnified that compelling raspy quality in his voice, his question like nails clawing at her skin in desperation, though he otherwise seemed so composed. Neve stroked down the front of his trousers, found where he wasn’t composed at all.

“Because nothing is ever enough.” She curled her other hand around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her. Despite his patience, he met her with the sudden passion his reply had revealed.

She unzipped his trousers, slipped through the opening there and through his boxers to take his hot cock in her hand.

Neve tore her mouth from his, pulled him back by his thick hair when he started to kiss down her neck. “I have one question to ask, Samuel.”

“Anything.”

She held his cockhead in her palm, massaging around his slit with her thumb.

“Is this why you spoke to me tonight?” She stared directly into his eyes with such intensity, he stopped trying to look at all of her at once. “Did you think your kindness would get you more than your friend’s crudeness? Did you deliberately approach me with him to make your honey seem sweeter against his vinegar?”

He panted, brows knitting in either confusion or in an attempt to stall as he considered how best to reply in his own favor.

“Your answer won’t affect what I do,” she said quietly. “I just want to know.”

“I wanted to have sex with you.” Samuel traced the line of her collarbone to the strap of the dress. “What man in his right mind wouldn’t? But I approached you to know you, without any expectation, nor did I set out to seduce. This, whatever this is, is a happy accident.” He brushed her lip with his thumb, licked his own lips at the touch. “I told you. I prefer paying for company, not sex.”

“Well, you paid for company. Are you paying for sex?” She gave him a particularly intense squeeze up the full length of him.

“No. You could walk out now, and I wouldn’t say a word against you.” But his pained expression and the way his cock pulsed and continued to grow in her hand suggested he’d be sorely disappointed.

She couldn’t know how much of what he said was honest and how much of it was to get her to continue. She’d told him she would regardless, but he may not have believed her any more than she could entirely believe him. He sounded sincere, though, and he’d tasted like an Old Fashioned, smelled of old leather and good shampoo. She raised herself onto her toes to kiss him again.

She shrugged off one strap of her dress to bare her breast, but she stopped him before he could slide his hand up her leg, before he could tumble them onto the loveseat provided.

“No,” she murmured against his mouth. “Just this.”

She pulled her hand from his trousers, spit into her palm then slipped back in. She wrung him in the same hand to which she’d switched her wedding ring, alternated between kissing him as though she wanted to swallow him up and watching his face. She’d learned how to give her husband pleasure by watching his reactions, learned to love watching him come undone because of her, even if she couldn’t share in his pleasure. But now, watching a man’s pleasure gave her just as much pleasure as she gave him.

Ever since Bell had changed her, she hadn’t had a single human being. Victor was the closest, but he’d been altered by Bell enough to not to count. This man was without question a man, with a man’s imperfections, a man’s weaknesses. Having him against her, kissing her, swelling to fill her hand… All of these things set off an electrical storm that had so little to do with magic or demons that she suspected it was as close as she was going to get to normal.

He couldn’t read her mind to know what she wanted before she knew she wanted it. Any stamina was either age or pharmaceutically induced. He didn’t have a whole arsenal of spells and tricks to get her into bed with him. He wasn’t the most attractive man in the world, not even the most interesting. But he was real and he was human and he was a man, and touching him was like touching a tree after stripping away the bark.

She pulled him down over her on the loveseat, wrapped her legs around him as she continued to stroke his cock and over his sac to the sensitive flesh behind. With her other hand, she pushed him down her neck to suck her exposed nipple.

He wasn’t anything like Mikhail or even Victor. Years with his wife and paying for company had taught him confidence that had been well-earned, but he was so very real. And somehow, she was not. All she could think of was more. She felt as wicked as the demon hands that had left their invisible marks all over her body like brands, as though they’d passed their corruption on to her.

Samuel came over her hand, pulses of semen striking his trousers and her dress. His groans mingled with hers between their parted mouths as he gasped out his orgasm and tried to keep kissing her at the same time. She hadn’t come, but at some point, it had stopped being about that.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He cupped her folds over the dress, trying to take care of her, but she eased them both upright on the couch and gently pushed his attempts away.

“That was what I wanted. I don’t… I mean, I’m not…” She didn’t know how to explain the line she’d drawn in the sand, knowing that the slightest breeze might shift it or make it disappear. “Pleasuring you was all the pleasure I needed.”

It was a cheesy, fake line, but it was as true as the rest.

He brushed her hair away from her face, peering as though trying to understand her. “I hope you didn’t think you had to do that because I hosted the event. I hope Bell didn’t put you up to this.”

“No,” Neve said quickly. “No, I chose this.”

“Okay,” he whispered. “Are you all right? You appear…stunned.”

She nodded.

“Okay.” Samuel adjusted the strap back over her shoulder, the silk back over the breast. Tentatively, he leaned in and she met him for a slow, simple kiss. “The staff are outside to help us clean up?”

She nodded again.

“Shall we?”

Neve hadn’t quite understood the term ‘Walk of Shame’ before now. Although she’d just given Samuel Amendola a hand job and it had been her choice, she felt people’s judgment, their assumptions about her that seemed self-evident, given the state of her dress and the front of Samuel’s trousers as well as the cleansing wipes that he used to tend to himself back in the room and the ones the golem gave her to clean the worst of the cum off her dress.

Mikhail was out in the lounge again. He’d changed out of costume and into a suit of his own, with a red-wine-colored sweater under the jacket and his long hair bound back. He’d taken a seat near the carousel, and he watched her as he sipped something in a tumbler, darker amber than the Spider’s whiskey.

He watched as she came out of the booth, saw her as everyone else saw her.

Watched as she stood in indecision at the high tables, where her food had been half eaten.

Watched as she turned away from everyone and walked as casually as she could to the dressing rooms—away from how everyone saw her, from what she knew she was, from what she couldn’t help but become.

 

* * * *

 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Bell knelt next to her and wrapped a fleece blanket around her shoulders. Well, he’d said all she needed to do was ask.

She continued to sit there against the column, concrete floor painful against her ass, but she didn’t want to move. “You’re awfully hands-on with me, Bell. You never struck me as all that interested in anything but the circus, not the care and mental balance of your people. Why the exception?”

Bell crossed his legs to sit next to her. “This is usually Kitty’s job, but she’s been busy when you’ve needed help. And I do care about my people, Neve. To care for my people is to care for my circus. You’re no exception. Besides, I find myself with plenty of free time these days,” he added dryly.

The Ringmaster glowered down at them as he passed by, his red leather jacket swinging around his trousers like that of a darker Captain Hook. “You disgust me.”

“Fuck you, too,” Bell said in a perfectly conversational tone. “Go get ready to whip Maya. That should improve your mood.”

“What’s his problem?”

“He thinks I’m far too soft with my humans. If I didn’t let him whip people all the time, and if he didn’t have Kitty to keep him grounded, I believe he would have left Arcanium long ago. Or perhaps I underestimate him.” He wrapped his arms around his crossed legs and rested his chin between his knees, deceptively flexible. “He’s only had Kitty the last eighteen years. He’s been with me for sixty.”

“How long has Arcanium been operating?”

“One way or another for about two hundred and fifty years. I’ve been a con man of con men for longer.”

“The con being that it’s not a con?” She felt less numb now. The magic that kept her from getting too cold couldn’t compare to the comfort of actually being warm. She took the edges of the blanket and pulled them tighter around her like bat wings.

“That’s always been the humbug, long before P.T. Barnum made it his game to show genuine fakes. It amuses me.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “You really didn’t have to do that. That’s not why you’re here.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m not lying to you, Neve.”

“You don’t get to make someone driven to have sex with almost anyone, even after being finger-fucked into oblivion, then say that you didn’t make me to have sex with your patrons.”

“You didn’t have to stay in the lounge. If talking with Samuel made you uncomfortable, both I and Mikhail emphasized that you could deny them anything.”

“You didn’t make me the kind of woman who would deny them anything.”

Bell turned her face to him. “Hey. What you did was your choice. Even if you feel you can’t control how much you want sex, you still have the choice who to have it with. I didn’t put you in the Funhouse so that you could give my patron his perk. He’s never taken advantage of one of my women during the Funhouses he’s hosted. You’re the first he ever had in one of the privacy booths. I don’t know what else I can do to convince you that Arcanium is meant to be your playground as much as mine.”

She closed her eyes. “I suppose you want me to do the performance now.”

“I swear, woman, I could slap you sometimes. Yes, you’ll enjoy the performance, but I reiterate for the five hundredth time that you’re not required to do it, just as you were never expected to engage in any sexual activities with our guests. Maya and Kitty make no bones about only choosing men they want, not men who want them. Neither Valorie nor the Spider ever have sex with guests. Victor usually only has sex with guests, so you were a bit of an anomaly there, too. I promise, Neve, that you need not do anything you don’t wish to do. I didn’t interfere with what you did with Samuel because it was what you wanted.”

And what do you want, Neve?

Neve climbed to her feet, leaving the blanket behind. She looked down at the wet spots on her dress. A few moist toilettes hadn’t done much to help, and she was pretty sure it was as ruined as other things that had miraculously been repaired before. Until then…

Bell tried to say something as she took hold of the hem, but whatever he’d had in mind trailed off when she brought the dress over her head.

The fire-eater—still dressed as a dragon shifter—and the Tattooed Man had been holding a conversation, but both of them abruptly stopped. Lennon, the Serpent King and the Creature all paused what they were doing as well.

She tossed the negligee onto the blanket and stood there naked as the day she was born in front of everyone in the green room.

What do you want?

“Where do you need me?” Neve said. “Let’s do this.”