Circus Excite (26 page)

She closed her eyes, wishing fervently that someone had persuaded her not to undertake such a foolish move.
Her heart hammered in her chest and she felt sick with nerves.

‘Okay, Julia?' Henri's voice was tight, but Julia was grateful for his concern.

‘I'm okay,' she nodded. ‘Just feel like I'm about to throw up.'

‘That's a good sign,' Joe said. ‘It means you'll give an edgy show. Now come here and give me a good-luck kiss before you go on.'

Julia laughed with disbelief as Joe caught her wrist. She could feel the dampness of his palms and knew he was as unsure about performing this routine as she was – but even so, he was a pro. He knew the best way to deal with performance anxiety was to throw yourself completely into the act. He pulled Julia close to his chest, burying his head in her hair and letting her feel the long hard muscles of his body press against hers. With his mouth so close to her ear that his breath tickled her, he whispered: ‘Remember what you dreamt of in the first place, Julia. Remember what it's all about.'

He let his hand travel down to her sex, slipping quickly under the silk folds of her dressing robe, to brush teasingly over her hairless pussy. Julia felt the thrill of his solid presence, his predatory desire for her. She let him stroke her until her juices started to flow, oiling her body in preparation for what she wanted, which was to put on the horniest and most daring show she had ever imagined. Her heart was racing with adrenaline, and Joe's insistent ministrations increased her pulse rate till she felt dizzy with excitement. Next to them, Sylvie looked on with amusement, licking her lips. Her eyes were fixed on the small movements of Joe's hand, and Julia knew she was joining in their preparations. In the cramped dark space behind the curtain, the three of them worked each other up, Sylvie coming close to the other two and pressing her small
frame against Joe's body, also slipping her hand in between the folds of Julia's robe, where she joined Joe with her quick pointed fingers and manipulated Julia to fever point. With the two of them rubbing and caressing her, Julia started to worry she would be brought to orgasm and left shaking and weak before she even got on the stage. She tried to pull away, but found herself pinioned, held firmly under Joe's strong arm. Sylvie seemed to sense she was dangerously close to coming, though, and lessened the pressure of her fingertips, leaving Julia groaning with frustration, and distracted by the knowledge she was about to bare her soul onstage.

‘What's going on back there?' Rachel's harsh whine rang out from the seats in the tent, jolting the three back to the present situation. Julia looked at the other two with terror-stricken eyes.

‘We've got to go out there,' she said, voice trembling with hesitation and unrelieved tension.

‘Don't worry, girl.' Sylvie's voice was as slow and heavy as syrup, and she loosened the tie at Julia's waist as she continued talking in a hushed sweet voice. ‘Let them wait. It only increases the anticipation . . .' She let Julia's naked body show under the flat glare of a lead light. The oil that she'd smeared over her earlier glistened in the white lamp, and Julia's full breasts heaved as she tried to take deep breaths to steady herself. ‘You should know that by now. Joe and I are going to make sure you're half crazed before you go out there.'

With this, Sylvie bent her head to lick at the very tip of Julia's breast, letting the wet heat of her tongue lap gently around the aureole and tickle her nipple, a sensation that Julia found hard to bear.

‘You've got to get in character, babe,' Joe said, his hand still reaching slowly inside her legs to where she burned with the desire to be fucked. ‘No acting, remember. This
performance is the real thing. We aren't going out there and pretending. You have to put your whole self into this one. Every inch of your body has to be burning up.' Joe slipped his other hand over her ass, between the crack of her cheeks to rub at her anus gently, a shockingly unexpected feeling for Julia. ‘Every inch, baby,' he reminded her, working the tip inside her tight little hole, letting her buck forward and slip his fingers further into her pussy as she did so.

It was a slight, incredible assault on the most sensitive parts of her body, and Julia writhed with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. Outside, the company were growing restless – she could hear them slow hand-clapping – but Sylvie and Joe showed no signs of concern. The more she struggled to free herself, the more the two of them held her firmly, Sylvie giving little bites to her breasts and suckling at them hard when Julia tried to move away. It was a delicious torment, but just as Julia felt sure she was about to dissolve with the most earth-shattering orgasm of her life, the two pulled away, leaving her gasping and shivering, bereft of their touches.

‘I think you're good to go, babe,' Joe said, a delightedly wicked look on his face. Julia knew he wanted to fuck her, could see the swell of his cock straining at his shorts, but he stood back with his arms folded and a twisted smile.

‘Let the show begin,' he said, patting Sylvie on the ass. Her lips were swollen from her suckling of Julia's tits, and she only smiled lazily, letting Julia know that this particular game was only just beginning.

THE MUSIC THAT
poured from the speakers was a low throbbing dance track with a bass line strong enough to make the hairs on the arms of the audience vibrate. Julia crept onstage in velvety darkness, her heart pounding. When the lights came up to reveal her, she was standing in front of a plain white screen. She felt the heat of the stage lights warm her skin, and the arousal of her body continued – the backstage groping had primed her to a point where she felt herself so full of the buzz of sex she was magnetic, as though she were drawn inexorably towards the audience like they were a room full of lovers.

On her own, in a single white spotlight, there was no way she could relieve the burning want in her body for fucking, other than by turning it into a dance, channelling her desires into movement. She was dizzy with heat, weighed down with her own sexuality, and as she stirred onstage the whole company in the seats watching could see her obvious lasciviousness. She dragged her head slowly upwards, letting the glossy plaits of her dark hair slide slowly over her back and spill across her shoulder, where they dangled suggestively just at the level of her nipples. Her breasts were bound loosely with a criss-cross string of beads that cut a little into the soft flesh and made it swell around the thin strips of brocade. The strings snaked around her body like the slightest suggestion of a dress, a skeleton of an outfit that barely covered her pubis and nipples, and wrapped several times round her thigh. In her hand she held a
white ostrich feather, a curling plume with which she tickled the curves of her body, letting the waving tip of it dance lightly over her nearly naked skin. Julia kept all her movements slow, in sync with the ominously thudding bass beat, standing proudly onstage to let the audience appreciate her beautiful form.

Only after a minute of teasing herself with the feather did Julia start to dance. She moved with an aching sensuality, dragging her arms over her head to let her breasts swing slightly under the constraining bands of the costume, tilting her hips so that her rounded ass was sticking out prominently, and turning slowly to let everyone get a good view. She danced with her eyes closed, imagining herself alone with a huge invisible lover that surrounded her on all sides, watching intently as she displayed first one part, then the other of her body. Still, she kept her thighs pressed together to preserve the mystery of what lay between them, sliding them a little against each other to keep the frisson of horniness buzzing through her.

The music grew in complexity now, a woman's voice sighing over the beat, her low exhalations melting into the music like a strange instrument. Julia moved from her stretched position through a series of poses, parodies of erotic dancers, lifting her breasts upward, opening her mouth, swaying her hips, half trying to excite the crowd and half mocking them. It was a difficult balance, but she struck it perfectly, eliciting whistles from the watching performers. Their response gave her a tremor of relief, and she hoped fervently it meant that the company at least were supportive. What Robert thought, she could only guess at, and the thought of his critical judgement made her shiver a little. Besides, the act had only just started. The tricky bit was yet to come.

As she gyrated on her platform, weaving in and out of the beam of the spotlight, other figures started to
filter in from the shadows. Sylvie crept on from backstage, and Sarah climbed stealthily up from a seat hidden among the audience. Three other figures joined them, slowly approaching Julia as she danced by herself. These other performers were wearing black: tight cat suits buckled and zipped to cover every inch from their black work-boots to their chins, leather gloves and dark glasses giving them wasp-like black eyes. The suits were sheer enough to show the defined curves of the figures underneath, clinging tightly to well-formed muscles, stretching over breasts and asses so that the figures looked almost like their coverings were painted on. As the sinister creatures inched closer to Julia, their blank faces turned towards her and a sharp metallic element was introduced to the music. Backstage, Henri was controlling the sound, carefully mixing music according to Julia's instructions and watching the stage intently to ensure the synchronisation was perfect.

These figures carried equipment: sleek black objects, which they pointed towards Julia, taking aim. She continued to writhe and pose on the raised platform, apparently oblivious to the people moving in closer to her.

Then suddenly the stage was filled with a barrage of blinding white flashes, as though sheet lightning were ripping through the tent, accompanied by the noise of bulbs popping. The lights continued to flicker, and now images of Julia were being projected on the tall white screen behind the stage. From every angle, the audience could see flashes of her body close-up – a profile focusing on the line from her shoulder to her thigh, breast outlined against the black shadows of the tent; shots of her bare feet bound in strips of beaded brocade, her startled face with open mouth turning wildly to find the source of the attack; a shot of her from behind with the dip of her back and the moving target of her ass. It was clear the figures in black were carrying cameras, filming
every angle of Julia, trapping her in a web of images which were being magnified and displayed so large that the sight was almost surreal – a visual explosion of Julia's intimate parts, exposed and broadcast for the whole tent to see. Lurid and vivid, the shots were a barrage of pornographic snaps, Julia licking her lips making a debauched picture when isolated and projected in a twelve-foot high image, the intrusion of the camera so voyeuristic it made every part of her body sexual.

While the images continued to flash across the screen, becoming ever more extreme close-ups of Julia's bound breasts, her shaved pubis and the writhing frame of her hips trying to shield herself from the intermittent bursts of hot white light, one of the figures started to turn towards the shadowed seats in the audience. It was Sylvie, tiny but formidable in her skin-tight suit, moving her camera towards the shadows. A spotlight panned through the figures in the seats, skimming over the audience and catching the glimmer of open mouths, eyes reflecting with points of light. On the screen the pornographic close-ups of Julia were interspersed with this roving view of the audience, the frame swinging wildly through the crowd and occasionally fixing on an individual, focusing on their face and sweeping over their body.

Joe had sneaked round the stage to sit among the other performers in the crowd, his costume a casual white T-shirt and jeans, as though he were any punter who'd wandered in for the spectacle. Now, though, Sylvie's camera fixed on him, meeting the point of the spotlight and zooming in to pick out his face among the other, bewildered audience members. With a shout, Sylvie summoned a couple of the burly roustabouts to where he sat, and Joe was roughly pulled to his feet. He played his role with shocking believability, protesting
and struggling a little, trying to laugh off the surly advances of the bully boys who hustling him steadily towards the stage. Their faces were impassive, but the threat of their vast muscular arms was enough to compel Joe to the foot of the stage. Here, he was pulled upwards by a knot of black-clad camera operators, who tugged at his clothes as they did so, loosening his T-shirt and spreading hands over his crotch. He responded to their rough fondling with a dazed incredulity, and the audience were treated to more close-up shots of Joe's half-naked torso, glimpses of the hard muscular body that was being mauled by the camera operators even as they filmed it. Steadily, he was pushed towards Julia, and shoved to his knees.

Now the voyeur, the innocent watcher of Julia's earlier exposure, was sprawled at her feet. Julia moved one foot to place it on his shoulder, and the figures circled the two of them as they froze in tableau, Joe looking up with fear and lust at the view afforded by Julia's raised leg, the white feather held over her pussy to frustrate his furtive attempts to catch a glimpse of her secret cleft. Slowly, every movement filmed and projected onto the screen, Julia reached down to hold Joe's head steady. She stroked herself with long movements of the feather, letting the fronds stray over her clitoris and between her ass cheeks, tickling every inch of her most sensitive parts in front of his face. With her other hand she held onto his hair, fixing his what her display on her self-pleasuring, and Joe continued to gaze with awe-struck fascination.

Pulling his head close to her body, Julia allowed Joe to feel the feather stroke over his cheek, so that the fluffy white tendrils obstructed his view, even as her sex was only inches from his face. The cameras were filming every moment of this lewd exchange, focusing on the shadow between Julia's sex and Joe's sweating
face. While the details were hidden, obscured by the blurred image of Julia's thigh and Joe's shoulder, there was no doubt that Joe was gazing at the most intimate part of Julia's body. In the audience, people shifted uncomfortably, either from arousal at this flagrant display and the palpable tension as Julia played with her voyeur, or perhaps from uncertainty that they may be singled out next to be victimised and exposed by the cameras.