Chapter Eleven

It was as though no one had ever seen a naked woman before, despite being part of Arcanium for so long—and some of them older than the New Deal. Even the Ringmaster spared her a glance, perhaps considering what his bullwhip could do to what she’d exposed.

Lennon didn’t attempt to be circumspect about sizing her up as he stretched behind the wall that concealed the amphitheater backstage. “That’s a good look for you. You should do it more often.”

Neve felt oddly free without clothes designed to make her sexier. She was a human body, her meat vehicle burdened with hungers over which she had no control, just like everyone else. She was human from hair to hide, and her brain was as much a part of that body as her body was subject to her brain. Appealing to her brain apparently led to her yielding her body, and any contact with her body lit up her brain. It wasn’t folly to try to separate them, but at this point, she wasn’t sure there was anything to gain by trying.

What did she want?

Demon, jinn and human couldn’t look away. The Spider was right. She was the one with the power here. She could walk among the people of Arcanium or the Funhouse guests as naked as Lady Sasha, without even a pair of snakes to protect her, and no one could do anything unless she allowed it. They could want her all they liked. Their cocks could grow, harden, point straight at her. Their balls could turn purple and explode. They still couldn’t have her.

She’d already decided that she wouldn’t screw the guests. She’d walked the tightrope with Samuel, but he hadn’t been inside her. He couldn’t boast that he’d had an Arcanium performer, at least not honestly.

But she would perform. Guests could look at her. Guests could jerk off to her. But she’d remain a fantasy. Maybe she could afford to make a few exceptions, but she’d rather form a reputation closer to the Spider’s—look, but only touch yourself.

What she wanted from the people of Arcanium was still undecided, but when it came to these events and the haunted funhouse, that’s the way things were going to be.

The show had to go on, and her appetites wanted her to be part of it. She didn’t know if these Funhouse events would give her enough relief or the fortitude to resist the cast the rest of the time, but it was worth a shot.

Bring…it…on.

She twisted the wedding ring on her right hand. Naked but for diamond and platinum. She should have a necklace.

“Like this, my dear?” Bell came up from behind, lowering a silver choker in front of her face then bringing it tight against her neck and clasping it.

“Do I want to know if those are real?” The base of the choker was light, the jewels small, but two clear, glittering pendants dropped over the jut of her collarbone, and a third larger pendant dropped down to accessorize the valley between her breasts.

“Money isn’t an object for me. The only reason I charge is because people like to pay. They’d think what I offered was worthless if they didn’t part with their money to have it. Lady Sasha sometimes wears this. She has a whole costume set, but she agreed to let you wear the necklace.”

“So I don’t want to know if these are real.”

“They’re conflict-free, whatever they are.” She heard his amusement as he adjusted her hair over the back of the necklace. “We do have gowns or lingerie you can wear, you know.”

“What the hell are you doing, boss?” Lennon said, hitting Bell’s arm with a grin.

“Will they just get torn off me like a heroine on the cover of a romance novel?” Neve asked.

“Likely. They’re easy to repair, though, as you’re aware.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Very well.” He ghosted his fingertips down her arms and kissed her shoulder. Her flesh marbled at the touch, and she almost leaned back against him, but he stepped back, adhering to her preference rather than her weakness. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“Then you’ll be placed on the wheel. As a novice, you’ll be excused if you back out once you choose your fate, but I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Bell, what exactly is it I’ll be performing out there?” she asked, finally hearing the warning in his reconfirmations.

“It’s a game of chance.” Bell pulled a silver half-dollar out of nowhere—certainly not from any sleeve—and traveled it over his fingers one way and back. “You might not even be chosen to perform tonight. But you won’t know with whom until after you choose a door.”

“It’s ‘The Lady and the Tiger,’ love,” Lennon said, “but the lady might also be a tiger, if you know what I mean.”

“I get it,” she replied. “I don’t choose who I have sex with. I just choose the door. Then I have to submit to whomever—or whatever—is on the other side and give our guests a good show in the process.”

She’d be a lot more nervous if she hadn’t gotten off too many times to count under ministrations of hands that couldn’t be anything but demonic. But she couldn’t pretend the idea didn’t also make her feel like she’d swallowed a cold squid, because it meant she couldn’t be selective. She couldn’t deny someone in the circus just because she didn’t like them. Actually, she could, but it would ruin the show, and since she’d decided the show must go on…

“I’ll see you soon.” Bell regarded the image of her in the jewelry and nothing else with lust he made no effort to conceal. “The Ringmaster runs the ring during the circus performances, but I emcee for the Funhouse.”

As soon as Bell left, Lennon flipped onto his hands, turning so he faced her with his feet up in the air. “You angling for the boss’s bed now that Maya’s out of the picture?”

“No. He’s not the only one who can see me naked, you know.”

“I’m well aware of that, love. Just asking.”

The impulse to hold her arms over her body was almost unbearable, but it would be a fool’s errand, given how much of her there was to cover, and now everyone had seen everything anyway. And even more Arcanium members were coming backstage. Kitty, Maya, Valorie, Victor and a good number of the rest had returned, each as surprised by her nudity as the last. She supposed they were used to Lady Sasha being naked, but everyone else wore something, even if it wasn’t much. Or they were like the Spider in her body paint or the Horned God, able to walk around naked without appearing so.

Well, she was wearing diamonds—or something that looked like diamonds. She really was afraid to check.

Kitty beckoned her over to where Maya, Valorie and Caroline were also waiting. “Daredevils over here.”

“Only women?” Neve asked.

“Sadly, our audience is heavily straight, with a male majority,” Kitty replied with dry hatred Neve hadn’t heard from her before. “While invitees are informed of our broader spectrum and simply walk past what they don’t like in the maze, we find that when we go too homoerotic in our performances, there can be backlash. Not when women do it, of course. Just men. It’s backlash we can handle, but we’d rather avoid it altogether.”

“Generally, they like the ‘damsel in distress against the terrifying monster’ scenario,” Caroline said. “You know, the Universal horror posters of fainting women and ravaging villains. They like it when a victim succumbs, like what you did in the maze. Nice work, by the way.”

Neve blinked. She kept having to remind herself that Caroline wasn’t as young as she looked and that she’d been doing this for a while. “Thanks. Do you mind playing the victim?”

Caroline laughed. “Not at all. It’s scary at first, because you rarely get to see the demons and monsters of Arcanium in full evil mode, but no matter how evil or scary they look, they’re still in it for our pleasure as much as theirs. It’s fun. And Riley and Colm get all riled up watching it, too, because they’re possessive but it’s also really hot, so I get ravished twice. What’s to complain about?”

“In a nutshell,” Maya said, shrugging.

“Besides,” Valorie said, adjusting her lace body glove, “when you’re more or less exclusive, it’s nice to have a change every now and then, just to shake things up.”

“Speak for yourself.” Maya unlaced her corset and untied the skirt of feathers. Two lines of large gauge rings in inflamed skin striped her back. Silver chain had been attached to the rings in a crisscross corset pattern. They jingled lightly when she straightened.

“Speaking for the exclusives, like I said,” Valorie said. “So you’re just going directly to pain tonight, huh?”

“If the monsters want me, they know where to find me afterward.” Now she was almost as naked as Neve, wearing only underwear again. Kitty brought her a pair of silver shackles, and Maya snapped them around her wrists in front. Kitty hooked the leather leash to the chain between the shackles.

“Is it just me or are we suddenly overdressed?” Valorie quipped to Caroline.

“What exactly happens now, aside from female human sacrifice?” Neve asked.

“Maya goes first.” Kitty helped Maya put her hair up—a whip that left welts could also cut hair. “Bell gets them all to participate in counting her blows, gives them a taste for the blend of violence and sex they’ve come to expect.”

“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” Neve said.

“Remember that they think it’s fake.” Maya winced every time the flesh of her back pulled on where the rings had pierced through. “Plenty of healthy people enjoy fake violence. Hell, plenty of healthy people enjoy real violence when it’s contained, controlled. If the Ringmaster wasn’t intending to draw blood, would you still question it?”

Given her background and own enjoyment of stinging things, Neve shrugged to cede the point.

“Once the Ringmaster drags Maya off,” Kitty continued, “Lady Sasha does a snake dance to warm everyone up. Lord Mikhail is usually a part of that dance, but tonight, he’s working the crowd from the seats. Seth and Lars will do a version of their aerial act. That’s as close as they’re okay with us going homoerotic, as long as it’s athletic—very Greek of them. Then Bell will bring out the wheel of chance, and whoever it lands on, he’ll introduce. Then you pick a door, which selects a monster.”

“Then you do the monster,” Valorie said.

Kitty nodded. “Depending on how long each performance takes, Bell picks either two or three women. Bell will close it out with a hypnosis session that puts members of the audience with each other to humiliate and thrill them, because as you said, Neve, nothing brings people together like collective humiliation. And nothing keeps them quieter about it outside the party. It usually ends with some kind of orgy. Then we retire to our cots or our own clandestine meetings back here or out there with them.”

“Then the golems wake us up with everything ready for us to leave, just in time to arrive at the circus and eat breakfast before it opens,” Caroline said. “At least you didn’t come into Arcanium during the Halloween season. That can be brutal.”

“Sounds like fun.” Neve scratched her scalp. Even though she’d been magically cleaned, she wanted a shower. She wanted her own bed, empty. And she still wanted a movie night with comfort food and comfortable clothes. “So is it just the three of us or are you coming back for something else, Maya?”

“I’m just the whipping girl tonight,” Maya replied. “Sometimes Kitty participates.”

“But exhibitionism isn’t my kink at all.” Kitty started combing Caroline’s hair. “I’ll sometimes go out to the audience and invite someone to a booth, but I’m not a performer. Even people who think it’s hot to fuck me tend to point and laugh at the Bearded Lady in public because they think they’re supposed to. After all, what’s funnier than a hairy woman getting some love? I’m not interested in playing jester. One of these days, I might have more options.” She tugged at the braids of her beard. “But for now, I prefer to take my sex in private, where my partner doesn’t feel compelled to pretend they don’t want me.”

“Usually the twins perform, but I don’t see them anywhere. Oh, here they come.” Maya raised her hand in greeting. “Now it’s an actual game of chance for the rest of you. Is Christina playing tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Joanne said. She and her twin wore filmy beige fabric wound around their bodies like a sarong to show where they were bound and that they were clearly not wearing underwear. “She and Troy are shacking up on one of the cots, at least once Troy’s through with his part.”

“Christina plays maybe once a year. Sandra used to play sometimes, too. People kept expecting the demons to break her like a twig,” Valorie said. “Then our Skeleton wished herself out healthy and took the Fat Man with her as a bonus for being such a good voluntary, so Bell’s been on the lookout for both. Be thankful you didn’t wish to lose weight. It would have been a real shame to lose all this.”

Valorie pinched Neve’s side. Neve danced away from her, laughing because she was deathly ticklish, not necessarily because she thought it was funny.

“If the menfolk could play, it would be an even better game,” Valorie added, “but alas, we’re not yet at a time when straight men won’t catch the gay by looking at a man touching another man’s dick.”

“So we’re all that’s left to sex up the demons and monsters of Arcanium,” Caroline said brightly. “It’s a terrible burden to bear.”

“And the rest of you are okay with random Arcanium demons, not ones you pick?” Neve asked.

“Sure, why not?” Caroline said, shrugging. “They still follow the rules and you’re guaranteed a good time, no matter how creepy they get. I mean, you know how it is, having sex with a demon, right?”

Kitty didn’t yank on Caroline’s hair the way she had with the twins, but she nudged Caroline’s head.

“Whatever.” Caroline dialed down her enthusiasm a tick. “From what I understand, they have the power to make it really fucking bad or really fucking good, and the way Bell has it set up here, it’s always the really fucking good—for our benefit and to keep them from doing too much damage. Because now I’m thinking about how it would be to take Ciarán without magic. Yowch.”

“And they’re pretty good about making the scene about whoever you want to.” Maya lowered her head. “You know, doing a show for your person—or people.” She nodded at Caroline and the twins in acknowledgment. “Me, I mostly just like Arcanium’s demons. Even the clowns have kind of warmed up to us, which is weird as hell after avoiding them all these years. I guess we have you to thank for that, Caroline.”

“Except for Murphy. Murphy’s still a grouchy bastard who doesn’t want to play outside the hive, bless him.” Caroline waved at Comedy and Tragedy as they went through the door with the rest of the monsters.

Valorie gave Caroline a slight push as though to test that she was a human being and not a robot. “You’re weird. Must be to make up for the fact that you’re the most normal woman in Arcanium.”

Valorie’s hair was already in braids and loose from its bun, so Kitty came up behind Neve and started brushing her hair then twisted it up and wrapped it around a comb.

“Trust me.” She patted Neve’s shoulder. “The necklace is worth showing off, and you won’t have to worry about it catching on the collar or getting tangled.”

“Thank you.” It was odd to thank Kitty for preparing her as a symbolic sexual human sacrifice, but Neve admired practicality.

Kitty let two stray locks frame Neve’s face so she didn’t look too done up, diamonds or not. “Are you sure about this?”

Neve suspected Bell had a hand in Kitty doublechecking.

“Not in the least. But I’m not going to get any less frayed tonight, even if I do nothing. The only way for me to know if I like this is to try. I don’t appear to have a choice in being a nymphomaniac, but if I have to be, I think I want to be the best damn nymphomaniac in this circus.”

Maya dissolved into a fit of laughter that she tried and failed to turn into coughs.

Valorie crossed her arms with a crooked grin. “You have some fierce competition. You ready for it?”

“Bring it, Contortionist Barbie.”

That just made Maya laugh harder. Kitty slapped her rear, but she couldn’t hide her own grin.

Caroline narrowed her eyes in contemplation. “How do you even measure that?”

“Believe me,” Neve said. “I’ll come up with a way.”

 

* * * *

 

Neve couldn’t see anything from backstage. All she could do was listen to Bell announce each act.

The Ringmaster had a rich, booming voice, rounder and more resonant than Lord Mikhail’s, though similar. Bell had none of that. He spoke quietly, intimate and seductive, hypnotic without soothing his audience to sleep. He brought the same intensity to the microphone in his role as emcee as he did to his fortune teller readings. Every person in the audience probably felt like he was talking to them.

Neve pressed her forehead against the partition concealing the monsters in an attempt to cool her skin when Bell called Lady Sasha to the stage. Since the beginning of the show, the sex demons had subtly increased their magic—only those who knew it was magic would recognize the building excitement and arousal for what it was. Once Lady Sasha took her place, however, and the harem music began, she took firm hold of everyone she could reach, and Lord Mikhail apparently did the same. There were moans coming from the audience, and moans behind her from the cast who had retired for the night but who’d found a partner to while the magic through.

Kitty had ushered the Ringmaster—who’d carried Maya offstage with him like a child—away with her somewhere private to tend to Maya’s wounds. It had been strange to see the Ringmaster hold someone so tenderly and show a modicum of kindness, although his face still appeared to be stone-carved malice. There’d been no other way to carry her, though, with thirty blows applied to her back and thighs, rings ripped out and flesh torn to shreds. She’d been in no shape to walk. Her eyes had been half open in a daze that hadn’t been anywhere near an expression of bliss.

Neve didn’t understand the impulse to be struck like that, especially in front of an audience. It went well beyond the realm of S&M, so unrelentingly sadistic Neve couldn’t wrap her head around why it was allowed at all. Whipping someone into shock had to be harm by anyone’s standards, no matter if it was voluntary or not. But the other women, while concerned, didn’t appear frightened by the extent of Maya’s injuries.

It wasn’t Neve’s back, though, so she let it go to deal with the snake pit in her abdomen. She’d already had sex in front of everyone, so she didn’t know what the big deal was in her brain, why this was different just because it included a demonic partner rather than living props that looked and felt like multiple demonic partners.

Lady Sasha left the stage and stepped into the green room where the rest of the cast milled about, her cobras entwined in new patterns around her. Cast and crew skittered away from her, as much from the smoldering frustration in the set of her jaw and burning red eyes as from fear of touching her. Naked, she strode to where the golems had laid out the cots, separated into small rooms by curtains like in hospitals—privacy by sight rather than by sound and presuming most people wanted to sleep.

After Seth and Lars’ performance, they exited the stage with Lars’ hand on Seth’s shoulder as they rushed into the back. Joanne and Jane grinned. It was hard to believe they’d ever been successfully closeted, especially given the states of their tight, elastic pants, which concealed nothing. Theirs had to have been one of those secrets everyone knew but kept for the boys’ sakes.

“Well, my dear friends,” Bell said into his microphone, “I think it’s time we move on from foreplay. What do you say?”

Applause followed.

“Would you like to play a game?”

Louder applause, more individuals discernable through the din—presumably from those who had been to one of these events before and knew the game in question.

Misha rolled out a primitive contraption most people would recognize from any cheap carnival—a wooden wheel outlined in metal pegs, which the arrow would click against when the wheel was spun. The circle had been split into four wedges, each with a drawing of one of the women available—presumably done by Troy on the fly, since each event would have a different cache of women to choose from. He managed to capture each of the girls in a sketch, in a style that suggested he’d done most of his own tattoos.

“Who shall we see first, hmmm? Ma’am, please come up here. Tell us your name—no last names, let’s pretend we’re anonymous here—your sign and your most secret kink, please.”

The audience laughed, but so did the woman who took the microphone.

“My name is Ingrid. I’m a Leo, and I love a good massage.”

“Come now, Ingrid,” Bell said. “A good massage isn’t a kink. It’s a given.”

More laughter, but also a female groan that suggested Bell was giving her one.

Neve licked her lips, her body suddenly aching. She clenched her teeth against the desire. The more she fought, the worse her arousal would become, but then again, that would get her in just the right place to take whatever random monster was assigned to her, if any.

“Share with me, Ingrid.” God, he sounded like quick sex in a closet. “What’s your secret fantasy?”

“I want to be blindfolded,” Ingrid said, hesitant, but urged to divulge both by applause and by Bell’s natural influence. “Blindfolded in a strange place, so I don’t know who’s taking me.”

“Maybe we can arrange that tonight. One of my girls is going to have a stranger in a stranger land here soon, too. Why don’t you give that wheel a spin, Ingrid, love?”

The tick of the arrow on the pegs was too fast to be Neve’s heartbeat but felt like it anyway.

“Ah, our spirited twins. Joanne, Jane, it’s time to come out and face your fate.”

“See you on the other side.” Jane saluted the other girls as she and Joanne pushed against each other’s backs in order to stand.

Neve sighed, but she could only be so relieved when not being selected meant she had to deal with the anxiety a little longer—or a lot longer. She didn’t know how long the twins would last.

“Our wonderful audience may wonder why the girls are pictured together, other than the obvious,” Bell said. “I could be cruel and have only one of them ravished while the other is spared, but let’s face it, folks, that just wouldn’t be fair. Where one goes, the other follows, and I simply can’t bring myself to separate them from the monster in store. All the more for him, yes? My creatures can more than satisfy them both until all four legs can’t hold the two of them up.”

Enthusiastic applause. Wolf whistles. The early sounds of moans again, like the maze and haunted funhouse soundtrack. Some people were already getting started just at the sight of the twins and the suggestion of what was to come.

“Ladies, you know what you have to do. Our strongman is here to keep you from trying to run. Wave to them, Lord Mikhail.”

Oh God. That meant Mikhail would be close to the stage, maybe even in the front row. She wouldn’t be able to ignore him. Neve brushed her hand over her breast, cupped herself, rolled her nipple between three fingers but forced herself to stop.

“You have two doors. Behind each door is a monster, but it’s up to you the kind of monster you choose. Some are downright sweet, I’m sure.”

Laughter.

“Go on, Joanne, Jane. Choose. There’s nothing left to do but choose.”

The lights dimmed. Music rose up to meet the anticipatory silence.

“The music is cued to match the monster,” Caroline whispered. “They all have different rhythms, different personalities.”

Valorie closed her eyes to listen better. “They got Ciarán and Moss. Damn it. I was hoping for them.”

“Wait, both Ciarán and Moss?” Neve said. “You can’t separate Joanne and Jane, but how come the twins gets both?”

“They don’t separate either,” Valorie replied. “They do everything together. It’s similar to Seth and Lars’ curse, if I had to guess, except it’s not a curse.”

“I always thought they were… What do you call it? Some kind of symbiotic relationship,” Caroline said.

Valorie snorted. “More like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Ciarán’s the kindly, horny old superego and Moss is the nasty bastard id.” She shrugged when Neve raised an eyebrow. “They grow on you. And though Moss is a nasty bastard, he’s not awful or anything. He’s the one to go to if you like dirty talk.”

“I like dirty talk,” Caroline said happily.

Valorie gestured at Caroline. “Exhibit C on why Resident Nymphomaniac is a difficult title to win.”

“I have an edge,” Neve said.

“Which is?”

“It’s what Bell made me.”

“Well, he’s very good at that, isn’t he?” Valorie said.

“Fishmonger,” Neve muttered.

Valorie laughed. “That’s putting it kindly. I’ve read Hamlet, too.”

“Thank God,” Neve muttered.

“Don’t thank God. We get so very bored around here sometimes. The Complete Works of Shakespeare was something I challenged myself to read in a year. It took me a little over that, but I’d already read some of them in middle school and high school, which helped.”

“Do you still have it?” Neve asked hopefully.

“It’s a doorstop, but yeah. You’re more than welcome to borrow it. I probably won’t read through it again.”

“Do you have thoughts on it?”

“You mean, does good William give me the feels? Sure he does, sometimes. Why? You want to start a book club?”

“Hell, yes,” Neve moaned, resting her head against her forearm, unable to distract herself enough from the sounds of what was going on during the performance and in the audience. There were vibrators. Vibrations and moans and groans and sighs and grunts and growls, and a steady stream of profanities from Moss.

Valorie bit her lip against a grin. “Well, when you put it like that, I suddenly feel like a bookworm.”

“Me, too. I actually took a class on Shakespeare in college. I was going to take another one, but Arcanium happened.” Caroline spread her arms. “As Arcanium happens.”

Valorie rubbed Neve’s shoulder. “You going to make it there, Nymph?”

Neve nodded, let out the shaky breath she’d been holding. “It would help if you would tell me what to expect, what monsters might be waiting for me behind those doors.”

“Telling takes away all the fun. You’re just going to have to wait and see, new girl.”

Neve groaned.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place,” Valorie said. “It’s almost over for the twins.”

Definitely almost over. The twins sounded exactly the same, so even though their rising moans weren’t always in rhythm, they overlapped and magnified the sound above the intensifying music, which had a pounding drum foundation.

She couldn’t stop imagining what it was like for Ciarán and Moss to have sex with both twins at the same time when the place where the girls were conjoined limited their positions. She came up with a number of scenarios, all which she then imagined herself in solo, with the giant demon looming above her and the small demon eye-level with her hips, at a perfect height…

An animalistic howl rose, joined by a rebel yell from Moss. The girls sounded like they were crying, but the sex magic cocooning itself around Neve had never been more intense. If there were a female version of a gloryhole, a cock just sticking out of the floor, she’d have screwed herself silly by now, but there was nothing but her own fingers, which she already knew wouldn’t work.

The drums stopped into almost complete silence, broken only by the twins’ hiccupping gasps.

Ciarán carried Joanne and Jane out from the concealed backstage area, looking like the demonic version of himself from the glass case, with his prehistoric teeth. Most human Tall Men wouldn’t have been able to carry a pair of girls like them, even though they were probably light enough individually. Humans weren’t meant to grow that big, and weight could wreak havoc on a skeletal structure that hadn’t been designed to support them. But Ciarán did so without effort. He could probably qualify as a strongman himself, as a giant and with his prodigious, visible, vascular strength that belied how gently he eased the twins to the floor. Moss wasn’t far behind, grinning like the cat who’d gotten the cream, the catnip and all the sardines in the cupboard. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, making clear what he had done for at least one of the twins.

Jane laughed weakly, patting Ciarán on his forearm. “Thanks, big guy. We may never walk again.”

“Our pleasure.” Moss slapped both girls on their asses then grabbed hold of Ciarán’s hand. Ciarán hauled him up onto his massive shoulders. Moss saluted the other girls waiting in the wings with a wink, as though saying, “Next time.”

“Double, double, toil and trouble. Delicious, wasn’t it?” If the response to Bell was more subdued, Neve thought it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm but because of occupied mouths and hands. “Think you have the appetite for more?”

The audience managed to make themselves heard, even if the cheers had a certain strained quality.

“You, sir, please come to the stage. No, leave your shirt off. We’re all strangers here, even when we know each other, yes? You know how we do things. Name, the age you feel you are and your deepest, darkest fantasy. And remember, I’m psychic, so I’ll know if you’re lying. That’s all right, sir, you’re supposed to be intimidated, but I promise I won’t bite. Not you, anyway.”

“Hello. My name is Magnus, thirty. And I, uh, I want…” Magnus drifted off in palpable embarrassment.

“Magnus…” Bell’s voice became unbearably personal again. Neve could almost feel his breath against her ear, over her neck. “Every single person here today has a deep, dark fantasy they shudder to air aloud. Every single one of them. Some of my people have imaginations that swirl with the wickedest filth they dare not speak. A waste of a good opportunity, in my opinion. Do share, sir. I’m all a-quiver for someone to conquer their fear in this house of horrors.”

“I, um, I pay a girl to tie me up, slap me and call me a dirty old man, a tub of lard, waste of breath. I pay for it every week. I don’t even have sex with her. She just meets me in the apartment I rent as a playroom and humiliates the shit out of me. I’m not allowed to come until I free myself, which is well after she leaves.”

“There now.” Bell spoke in a soothing purr, and Neve couldn’t help the sound that escaped her. Caroline giggled. Valorie covered her mouth in her continuing but failing attempt to hide her smile at Neve’s discomfort. “Freeing, isn’t it, sir? As a reward, you get to help fate choose the next victim. Spin that wheel.”

The arrow on the pegs ticked violently then slowed to a stop.

“It seems fate seeks a little flexibility. Our contortionist, Valorie, she of the biting wit and sharper knives. Come out and join us, love. Don’t worry. We won’t make anything easy for you, no matter how far you stretch.”

Neve struck the partition with her fist. “Lord have mercy.”

“Bell doesn’t do mercy. Peace out, bitches.” Valorie stood in a single fluid motion. For such an unforgiving outfit, there was absolutely nothing it needed to forgive on Valorie’s lithe, angular figure.

“Just the two of us now,” Caroline said. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“I wonder why.” She clenched her teeth, but not in anger.

“Wait. Are you in pain?” Caroline stood, concern in the furrowing of her fine eyebrows, but she seemed unsure whether to approach. “Is there something I can do?”

Neve shook her head. “If the next round isn’t me, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll find somebody. God, you’d think I’d had enough, and then Mikhail goes and—” She pounded the wall again, releasing a rush of air.

“Dude, I rescind my claim for Resident Nymphomaniac. I didn’t know it was that bad. At least it explains that one night.”

“Sorry about that.” Some of her blood managed to flush her cheeks rather than making everything between her legs feel hot with sexual infection. It felt like an illness, like something she could pass on or something that had been passed on to her—from fucking Mikhail, from kissing Bell, from furiously having sex with Victor, from leading Samuel away. It felt like something was wrong…

“Hey, no worries. The golems had to do some extra cleaning on the carousel, that’s all. Everyone had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, so anything else you heard about it is all just rumors.”

Neve was surprised into a laugh.

“Hello, darling. This is a treat, having you join us for the entertainment tonight. Valorie doesn’t always partake, ladies and gentlemen, but it takes more than a monster to make her afraid. If you’re so fearless, love, pick a door, any door. The one on the left is the creature that the twins denied. Behind the other, whole new horrors. Choose wisely. There’s no turning back.”

Something that reminded Neve of the music Lady Sasha danced to, a snake charmer’s melody set to a richer orchestra, filled the room. But there was no way Valorie had opened the door to the succubus.

“Sounds like she chose David.” Caroline pronounced it ‘Daveed’. “That should be fun.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Neve said, trying to distract herself.

“You probably have. He works in the haunted funhouse, but outside his ‘costume’, he’s barely recognizable. Have you met the Serpent King yet?”

“The man with the snake’s body?”

“Yeah. The body is just an accessory, not an all-the-time transfiguration. David himself is diphallic, totally natural. I think Bell only did some cosmetic work on the two penises…penii…”

“Either one works.” Well, she’d wanted a distraction. Now she was distracted by the thought of two working phalluses at once.

“The two dicks. How’s that?” Caroline grinned. “Other than Kitty, he’s the only oddity who was somewhat famous before being brought in. And he’s part-time, although Bell’s been trying to him in here full-time. He’s contract work, like me. We’re not trapped and we still get all the benefits. It’s nice. So is he. Also, he’s fucking hot. Really passionate, eager to please and eager to be pleased at the same time. Totally loses himself in the role of the Serpent King. The act is almost like a tango. I think he does some porn on the outside, too—not that it speaks to his acting skills.”

Neve laughed again, the sound almost a sob. Caroline was trying, she really was, chattering to keep Neve upright rather than internalizing the pleasure that was like razorblades under her sensitive skin. And it was working, despite the throb of magic that still swirled around and through her, unrelenting in its assault.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like this before,” Caroline said quietly, finally deciding to rub Neve’s back. Neve flinched away. Caroline held her hands up as though to reassure her that she wouldn’t try that again. “Carlo, sometimes. I always assumed Lady Sasha suffered in silence, and Lord Mikhail looks like he’s in pain at the worst of it. But never this bad. The only people who look this bad are the ones actually in pain.”

“It’ll calm down when it knows it’ll get what it wants,” Neve said. “I hope.”

Valorie and David lasted longer than the twins with the Tall and Short Man, which made Neve suspect they weren’t just having monster sex but engaging in a performance that demonstrated their respective oddities and the inherent sexiness therein. She hadn’t ever witnessed Valorie rehearse with the Serpent King, but who knew what kind of private rehearsals happened outside the ring?

And Neve would be going in without a single rehearsal, without knowing anything. She didn’t even know whether she could perform well or whether she’d won people over in the maze through sheer enthusiasm rather than poetry. She didn’t know whether she looked good when she was having sex or whether the idea of having sex with a willing woman was enough for people to overlook any deficiency.

By the time she reached the stage, she didn’t think how she looked having sex would feature very high on her list, but that didn’t stop her from worrying about it while she still had some of her wits with her.

“Thank you, Valorie, darling. I believe it goes without saying, friends, but just in case it doesn’t… Please, do not try any of this at home. We are not liable for whatever strange positions the paramedics find you in. You laugh, but I count at least three of you who have made just such an emergency room visit.”

The Serpent King slithered from the enclosed backstage with Valorie happily naked in his arms. He smiled a serpent’s pointy grin. In the haunted funhouse, Neve had interpreted that happiness as evil glee, but closer to him, the wickedness seemed to be a trick of structure, a ridge over his eyes that drew the shape of his brows down in perpetual disdain. However, his laughter was pure human, despite the thirty-foot stretch of thick muscle and bone that comprised his tail.

“New blood,” he said as he set Valorie down. “I remember you from the funhouse. Nice to see you in the line-up. Nice to see you in general.” He stared her up and down with obvious delight, though whatever penile oddity he had displayed out on stage had been effectively hidden once more within the cloaca. “Hope to meet you more personally real soon. Don’t be a stranger.”

“It looks like we only have time for one more gruesome attack upon such virginal purity.” The audience that wasn’t otherwise engaged laughed. “You, sir. Come on up and help fate choose between the blonde and the redhead. I love your jacket. May I? Oh no. Oh dear. With leather pants underneath, I just end up looking like an eighties reject instead of a badass.” Bell gave the first silly laugh Neve had ever heard from him, and damn if it wasn’t one of the more endearing things he’d done. “You keep it. Now, you know the drill. Name, relationship status and a deep, dark secret desire you wouldn’t dare tell anyone else.”

“Sure. I’m Locke, mercifully single and open to new relationships.”

Both Neve and Caroline looked up at the same time, even though both of them knew they wouldn’t be able to see who spoke smooth as melted butter, so much so that Neve could almost taste it. And with the phantom taste came a sudden desire to lick melted butter and sugar off a hard body.

“I don’t know if everyone heard you, Locke. You mind repeating that? Oh, no, wait. A few people in the back collapsed onto the fainting couches, so I’d say your message definitely got out. Does anyone have a ruler? I think it’s time to measure cheekbones, because I’m feeling threatened. Oh, and he has dimples, ladies and gentlemen. I’m afraid I can’t compete.”

Locke was still laughing like a little boy himself when Bell pointed the microphone at him. “Well, I’m not competing with anybody. I’m just here to have a good time.”

“How’s it been so far?”

“Illuminating.”

“I like that,” Bell said. “But don’t think you can get out of sharing your darkest desire. I’m not easily distracted.”

There was a protracted silence. Then, his low register husky and warm, Locke said quietly, “I don’t have just one.”

“Damn, he sounds like one of those guilty kisses you only take in the dark, doesn’t he?” Caroline breathed.

“You don’t have to give the whole list, Locke. If I were to start myself, we’d be here till Valentine’s Day. Just a peek into that twisted psyche. That’s all we ask.”

Another silence. “I like watching people in beautiful pain. Crying and begging for more. I very much enjoyed watching your Ringmaster with the Maya woman.”

“So do I, Locke. So do I.” But a note of distance suffused Bell’s heated reply. “Thank you for trusting us. Give that wheel a spin. Will it be our enterprising carousel engineer with a taste for dominating bad boys or the newest cast member of Arcanium? She still hasn’t quite found her place, but fuck, that woman is game for just about anything.”

The ticking noise felt like it would end with an explosion this time if Neve didn’t get what she needed.

“Excellent spin, sir. Neve, darling, would you come out, please? I think it’s time to fully initiate you into our esteemed, eccentric circle.”

“Awww, I wanted to go, but you seem like you need it more.” Caroline brushed the stray locks of hair away from Neve’s face so that she didn’t look like she was having as much trouble as she was. “Knock ’em dead. Remember to have fun. And try not to die between here and the scene. All right?”

“I’ll make every effort.” Neve braced herself against the partitions as she made her way to the opening that led to the stage.

Immediately upon stepping onstage, howls and wolf whistles expressed appreciation for her brief choice of costume. Neve allowed her eyes adjust to the light then took a deep breath and stepped out to join Bell to the right of downstage. She walked with a sway, her breasts quivering with each step. Locke was heading toward his seat, but he stopped halfway up to stare.

He’d taken off his jacket to let Bell try it on and held it draped over his shoulder like a model in a magazine, but his wide, blue eyes under the telltale fedora were fixed upon her, as though stunned. And in being stunned, that hunger she’d seen outside the bedroom tableau returned in full force. Blue was too cool a color for what smoldered behind.

Lord Mikhail was in the front row, his arms crossed over his chest, biceps bulging against the arms of his jacket. Unlike many of the men within view, he hadn’t undone the front of his trousers, but his large cock pressed against the seam of the leg, the fabric forcibly holding it down the way his leather pants did. His eyes and eye sockets had gone black in the dimmed light.

Neve tried to ignore both men and went directly to where Bell held out his hand. She took it, let him draw her next to him, pressed her hip against his and kissed the corner of his mouth, a greeting more than anything sensual. Then, on impulse, before Bell could raise the microphone to speak again, she turned his face back to her and parted her lips to kiss him more fully, slow, sensual, their tongues meeting in light, smooth brushes over their lips as the audience cheered.

He was the one to ease back, albeit with some reluctance. He brought the microphone between them. “Makes a man wish he was a monster, doesn’t it? Now, this was your first Funhouse. What did you think?”

“I think it’s not over yet. Did you think you’d won, Bell? Did you think I’d fold just because I was tired? I’m nowhere close to finished, and I don’t think you’ve given everything you have yet.” She took his earlobe between her teeth and sucked lightly. She was rewarded with a soft moan, barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up, but she thought she’d surprised him a second time tonight, and apparently, he liked these kinds of surprises. “I dare you to really scare me, Bell. I really do.”

“Dangerous to dare, love. I hope the rest of the monsters behind the doors heard you and step up to meet it, even if they’d planned to go more gently on the new girl. You don’t need gentle, do you, Neve?”

His hand had been on the small of her back, but he slid it down to squeeze her ass, and she was surprised to feel the prick of claws like the ones that had left livid scratches on her body. Bell had never showed his claws to her before. She hadn’t even known he had them. This time it was her turn to moan, and she was pretty sure the microphone caught that one.

There were other sounds she could hear while on stage that the partitions had mostly blocked—sounds with which she was so intimately familiar because she’d either done them or had them done to her by now. When she looked beyond the first row, it was more difficult to see what was going on, but she saw enough. The orgy had already begun, but in the midst of everything they did, most people’s attention was nevertheless fixed upon the stage.

God, those sounds. They used to repel her unless made by her husband or for him. Now it was a reminder of what was happening to other people who weren’t her, and suddenly, all she wanted was to forget about the monsters behind the doors and just grab Locke from the stair, beckon Mikhail from his seat and pull Bell down over her right on stage. Three pairs of hands and three cocks sounded like just the right amount.

Bell slapped her right cheek as though to jolt her from her reverie. The heat in his smile suggested he’d seen exactly what she’d been thinking about. “Maybe another night,” he whispered in her ear. Then he brought the microphone back to his mouth. “Don’t get distracted, love. What you’re looking for is behind one of those doors, and I think the rest of the audience agrees with me—I’ve been looking forward to this all night.”

People managed to stop what they were doing long enough to clap if their mouths were busy, holler if their hands were busy. The cheers followed her to center stage, in part a reaction to her turning her ass to the crowd.

Door number one and door number two. Right-handed people were inclined to choose the right door, and that’s where she wanted to go. She turned instead toward door number one. Every step to the door pulled her on the rack, tighter, tighter, tighter, but wrapped around a dense core rather than apart in four directions. Even the act of taking hold of the doorknob felt obscene.

As she opened the door, the lights went a bluish green. Soft, minor key string music overlaid with a waterphone emitted from the speakers.

In the darkness on the other side of the door, a giant mass shifted.

Neve backed away, nerves hitching on the roads of her arousal.

A slick tentacle struck the ground. It left a trail as it slithered back into the darkness.

What the actual fuck?

Neve stumbled back, straining to see what was in the shadows.

Five more tentacles stretched out into the light. Three of them were smooth, black or dark gray—difficult to tell in the dim light—but two of them were thicker and lined with grasping suckers. At the ends of the larger tentacles, there were seven smaller tendrils, like boneless fingers.

The tentacle arms raised up and grasped the sides of the opening to pull the body forward.

At first, Neve wasn’t sure that what came out had ever been humanoid. All she saw were masses of tentacles like Gorgon hair, sliding, grasping, glistening with something too thick to be water and too thin to be slime. But then it opened its black eyes, like barnacles deep in its face, and parted its mouth. Each tooth narrowed to a point so sharp it could have been carved, like the teeth of a lantern fish. And it had legs, large powerful legs the same color as its tentacles, which was why she hadn’t noticed them at first, not until he’d crawled all the way through the doorway and had room to stand.

He was twice the height of the doorway, which Mikhail would have been able to walk through and Ciarán would have had to duck. His body was a slick anemone, a cluster of deep-sea worms, a biological paradox. Tentacles unfurled and twisted in constant movement, the darkness of his body difficult to see through them, like staring at a blurry photograph and trying to see sharp lines. He was a creature from another dimension, not the alien that Troy had pretended to be but something truly anathema to her reality. Each step shook the floor, and his tentacles struck the concrete with wet slaps, rubbed against each other with sounds too much like what came from the audience, awful and arousing at the same time. He was very much a humanoid figure underneath the tentacles, but they always drew her eye away.

Neve scrambled back until her heels hit the first step up that led to the first row.

“Now, now, Neve, no running,” Bell said softly into the microphone. “That’s not the game.”

The being lowered himself at center stage. He leaned forward to reach his grasping tentacles toward her with a low moan that wasn’t of desire but an attempt at a voice, like the opening of a giant stone door in a cave.

“Are you scared now?” Each word was extended, nearly deafening. It wasn’t so much that he was loud as the vibrations were violent, shuddering through her like the big bell in a bell tower.

She could run. Mikhail would try to stop her, she supposed, but if she were truly afraid, she doubted Bell would force her to take this…thing on. But though her surface mind rejected the sight of this being almost completely, she couldn’t help the slow, damning swell of curiosity.

This was a creature feature kind of horror monster, no question, the sort that wouldn’t be out of place in an eldritch bestiary. There was nothing like it in the haunted funhouse, and there had been nothing like it in the Funhouse maze. She hadn’t seen him on Oddity Row or slithering through Arcanium after the circus closed. Yet although she might not have been introduced to everyone in the circus yet—after all, David and the Blob had been new to her—she felt almost certain she knew him.

She cautiously stretched her hand out to touch one of his reaching tentacles. If his suckers were similar to those of a squid or octopus, that could spell danger for her, tearing her skin and drawing blood. But Bell wouldn’t send something like that out here to take her. Capable of violence, yes, but not something that would actually do damage she hadn’t signed up for.

The tip of the tentacle she touched curled around her finger with frightening strength. It was like a prehensile tongue, although not quite as slippery.

The comparison made her bite her lower lip against the reawakening of her desire. Fear immediately receded.

The being’s mouth curved upward in a glittering, terrible smile.

“Who are you?” she whispered. But he shook his head, still smiling like a shark.

His tentacles beckoned her in, parting over the front of his body to where his dark, slick cock arched up—big and as strong-looking as the rest of him, the head pointed, bottom ridge of the shaft frilled.

The arcane assortment of dildos under her bed suddenly made sense.

The being’s laughter filled the room as her face flushed a hot, burning red that probably extended all the way down to her chest. Then he jerked her in by the hold he had on her finger, and she tripped forward into his waiting tentacles. They wrapped around her, quick and unstoppable as pythons. Whatever coated him slicked over her, and again, she was reminded of tongues—tongues that licked around her arms, her waist, her legs, shifting all over her body.

She shouted as he whipped her around like a carnival ride, adjusting his hold by raveling and unraveling his tentacles over each part, disorienting her.

Before she knew it, she faced the audience again, gasping and trying to find something to hold on to, but he shifted his tentacles from her grip every time. She was at his mercy, held up from the floor and nothing under her control. There were more wolf whistles as the being spread her limbs to display her, inspecting her with a prod here, a brush there, then curling around her thighs to part them farther and expose her cunt to everyone’s gaze.

Mikhail was still there. He clutched at the front of his trousers as though he wanted to tear them off—or perhaps as though he wanted to tear his cock from himself, crush it in his strongman’s grip.

The being rolled his tongue against his teeth in a deep, clicking purr as he brought his tentacle arms, with their seven smaller finger tentacles each, to her torso. They curled around her, suckers pulling on her skin as though searching—over her abdomen, near and over her navel, over the skin above her mound, up between her breasts then over them—leaving red marks where they’d been. If his suckerless tentacles were like tongues, the suckers were like mouths. The comparison was all the more apparent when they blindly found her nipples. The suction was nearly excruciating, yet her clit throbbed with every suck.

Before Bell had granted her wish, she’d had no doubt she was somewhat masochistic based on what she and her husband had discovered during experimentation. But that masochism hadn’t been connected to sexual desire.

Now she couldn’t deny that her masochism effortlessly extended into that realm. Between the demon hands and the being’s suckers, the only conclusion she could draw was that she was indeed turned on by pain—this kind of pain, the kind that walked the line of pleasure but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“You don’t need gentle, do you, Neve?” Bell whispered in her head.

“No,” she murmured. She jerked against the tentacle grip over her wrists and ankles. She shook her head sharply, closed her eyes. “No, no, no…”

The being hesitated, his suckers still working over her nipples but his tentacles otherwise still.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Whatever you do, don’t stop. Just take whatever you want. Just…oh, fuck no.”

His laughter was an avalanche in her ears. He curled his tentacles away from her then snapped them in vicious rubber band slaps over her abdomen and breasts, leaving new flushes over the red sucker marks. She swore a blue streak she didn’t know she had in her, but the being cut her off when he brought his greedy suckers back to her breasts. She fought the tentacles around her feet and ankles for entirely new reasons, tired of being bound, wanting to hold instead of being held and moved back and forth against her will. Even as she writhed into the suckers at her breasts and teasing her mound without getting close enough to her clit—oh God, what would that be like?—she dug her nails into the tentacles, trying to get them to let her go.

She cried out as the tentacles spun her again, this time tilting her head to face the floor, her profile to the audience. Her breasts weighed heavily against the tentacle arms, but he held her more or less steady around her waist and thighs. He released her wrists and ankles, as though he’d known what she wanted.

Neve kicked, though, and shouted as he flicked his thinner tentacles across her buttocks. It reminded her of her favorite flogger, but with more of a sting because he put more power behind it.

She wrenched with every blow until tears joined whatever secretions he produced to glisten on her skin. But when she whimpered, it was because her folds, her pussy and her clit weren’t touched or sucked, not so much as caressed. And with dozens of tentacles in her way, she couldn’t tend to it herself.

She could only imagine what her backside looked like when he was finished. He smoothed his cool secretions over her ass, raised her up to stroke the tears from her cheeks, although that did nothing to clean the mess.

When he pulled his suckers from her breasts, she screamed. It hurt, yes, but she felt almost like she was throwing a tantrum. She was at the end of her night and she couldn’t take any more, damn it. The whole night had been a tease—worse with Mikhail there, emanating at her like a black sun sending out radioactive waves with every little solar storm. The scream grated through her vocal cords.

A tentacle shot into her cunt without warning, nothing but its secretions—and hers—to protect her as the tentacle shoved in with the force of a fist. She cried out, wrenched again against the tentacles before her body realized it hadn’t hurt.

The tentacle undulated, arched within her, but not on her G-spot, which was all the more maddening.

That tentacle was joined by another—smaller, thinner, entering her just as rudely and as a counterpoint to the thicker one fucking her. It found a different place that wasn’t quite like the G-spot, but which still had her wriggling in spite of feeling full.

She dug her nails into his arm again as a third tentacle squeezed in with the other two. This one swished over her G-spot like a cat’s tail. The fullness stretched her blood-swollen flesh taut, her pleasure tauter.

The being brought yet another prehensile tentacle up to trace over her lips. He didn’t have to force anything. She opened her mouth and took him deep as though swallowing a cock. She suspected this being had some of the magic the other demons supposedly had that allowed improbable sizes in tight spaces, but that didn’t stop her from feeling strained.

Even though his tentacles took her from either end, as unpredictable as the liquid music of the waterphone, she rocked herself forward and back to her own rhythm, using her strength and her grip on his tentacle arm. His groan shuddered through her in low vibrations so strong, her clit thought they were close. She moaned her orgasm helplessly through the tentacle in her mouth.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, that this was going to be the sexual overstimulation that sent her tumbling into the realm of unconsciousness, the tip of a tentacle traced from the base of her spine, between her cheeks, to just between her legs, circling the last unpenetrated orifice she had left.

She immediately tensed. He had to have felt it around what he’d already put inside her.

He pulled her upright again and into the seething cradle of tentacles against his body, facing her toward the audience. His gigantic face loomed above her, his teeth a disquieting lack of distance from her head. Tentacles wrapped around her breasts, not quite squeezing but pulsing their grip, and the suckers returned, needy little mouths.

She knew what he was going to do before he did it. Her eyes widened as he finally brought one of his suckers right over her clit, keeping blood in the little organ no matter what he did elsewhere.

She’d only done anal once and hadn’t liked it at all, but the being’s tentacles were thin and slippery, and every time her thoughts were coherent enough for her to try to raise herself up away from that probing limb, the suckers over her nipples and clit would just suck harder, distracting her until the tentacle had curled like a parasite in her ass, moving with its own rhythm like the rest.

As soon as he thought she was ready, another two tentacles made their way in with the rest until she was completely full, her skin covered in his slick secretions like oil, on pornographic display for every person in the room. She shivered as she fought off her second orgasm, which climbed so hard and fast that she was afraid it would pummel her from the inside.

Mikhail reclined on the couch by himself. So many spectators had moved up to the first row for a good look, but no one dared sit next to him when he looked like he’d kill anyone who tried. He wrung his erection with so much force, it couldn’t have felt good, but he didn’t stop, didn’t blink.

The being’s cock came up between her parted thighs, and she let go of the tentacle claiming her mouth to grab the equally slick erection. Her hands felt small around the shaft, but she caressed the head and pumped both hands over him, her grip as firm and punishing as Mikhail’s, unintentionally finding the same rhythm until the being growled again.

Neve clamped around the tentacles, her orgasm a rain of punches inside, her body like a fist to whatever had slithered within. Her eyes rolled back and her eyelids fluttered, taking away the sight of Mikhail staring. She came so hard, she managed to make the tentacles sway from the rocking of her body as she tried to intensify everything at once—the tentacles in her ass, the tentacles rubbing every last spot left in her cunt, the suckers over her clit and her nipples, the tentacle in her mouth, the tentacles all over her body like tongues, the cock in her hands. Her own liquid sprayed the tentacles moving in her cunt, not that it made a difference. Her muscles nearly cramped from the tension that wouldn’t release, wouldn’t stop, kept hitting her over and over and over as long as the sucker over her clit didn’t let up.

Finally, the being groaned one more time as the music reached its conclusion. The cock in her hands pulsed, visibly twitched. Thin, whitish fluid closer in consistency to his secretions than semen struck her cheek, her breasts, her arms, her stomach, before the pressure made the rest a fountain down his shaft.

Neve thought it was over when the tentacle in her mouth and the suckers pulled away to let her orgasm run its course, as thick tentacles emerged from her cunt, leaving her empty and a complete mess from head to toe. The refined nudity Kitty and Bell had arranged had been rendered cheap with the being’s fluids.

Then, the tentacles in her ass still curling and uncurling in a horrible, wonderful way she still hadn’t decided whether she liked, he turned her around to face him and brought her gaping pussy to his still-spilling cock. He’d already found all the places that made her squirm, knew exactly how to angle her so that the frilled ridge rubbed over them. He stood up with her like that, the floor far away from her now. He spread the many tentacles around his head as he slowly slid her down his cock, deeper, deeper, as impossibly deep as Mikhail would go. Deeper.

With her mouth no longer stoppered, her moan was long, loud and humiliating.

“Goddammit, Neve, ride him. Fucking ride him, gorgeous creature. Take that monster cock deep. Make it yours. Grab those fucking tentacles and ride him.”

At this point, she didn’t know whether the desire burning under her skin was more hers or Mikhail’s, but he’d officially lost control of his sex magic, which took the room by torrential storm. She did what Mikhail told her, undulating and writhing over the being’s cock and tentacles the way she had those strange dildos for days. She filled herself up, her moaning almost constant except when she had to breathe. Her whole body had become one giant sex organ bent on pleasure and unafraid of anything except not being able to come again, because she wasn’t done, somehow wasn’t done. Something still yearned inside her, because when someone and something wanted her, she could never be done.

It was a kind of hell, but it was also liberating to not think about what she should want or what she should be, to accept the constant ebb and flow of pleasure, accept that it wouldn’t stop.

She looked over her shoulder. In the rows behind her, Rome could have been burning, but the audience was fixed only upon its pleasure, and that pleasure no longer had rules. If there were women, the men had the women, but in the absence of one, they pleasured each other—these sensitive men who couldn’t watch another man getting fucked by a male monster.

A man was on his knees in front of Locke, who had somehow miraculously stayed dressed. She still couldn’t see his cock, because it was buried down an older man’s throat. Locke shoved his erection into the man’s mouth, but he was transfixed, clenching his teeth, the hollows of his cheeks twitching.

Bell sat on the edge of the stage, his bare toes in a crouching woman’s mouth. He was clearly aroused but the only quiet in the storm, his eyelids heavy in feline pleasure.

Mikhail stood then lifted the sofa and slammed it against a column. The legs and frame splintered like balsa wood. He staggered away stage left as though he’d been shot in the stomach. Watching wasn’t going to help. Her coming wasn’t going to help. Everyone around him coming wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference to him. No one could give him what he needed without dying except Sasha—who Neve doubted would do it a second time tonight.

And after the effort Neve had made to avoid having sex with him again after that long night, she’d made it clear she wouldn’t do it again either…all so she wouldn’t be exactly what she was right now—nothing but holes to fill over and over again, to scream and moan because that’s what the things inside her wanted. Because Mikhail would take it all if he could. Every man would. If she collapsed dead, they’d still all be satisfied.

She turned back to the being, stared into his unfamiliar elder god face with certainty he could understand her. “Enough,” she whispered. “End it.”

She let go of one of the tentacles above her to rub around her clit. It hurt now, but she also rode him harder, rocking to ensure all the places that needed to be stroked were stroked, rocking until she squirted again and his cock surged inside her with another flood. They rained down on the concrete floor.

The being knelt in it without a care. As he eased himself out of her, he wrapped her in more and more tentacles, bringing her closer to the body she couldn’t see. He slid back to the open door, taking his prize into the darkness with him as the reprised music concluded.