Freakshow (10 page)

“How can a genetic anomaly be called a talent?”

“You can’t feel pain. That’s much more than a genetic anomaly. It is a skill that is older than time. Surely you can feel the pull we people have on you, your kind has never been part of our world, but there’s always been an undeniable attraction between the two,” he said, staring so hard at me that I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t look away. He’d taken my arm in his hands again and was running his finger along it as he spoke.

I finally jerked my arm back and said, “What if I don’t want to stay?”

He laughed at that, as if he already knew I had nowhere to go. “Don’t worry, we will come up with an exciting performance piece for you. I could incorporate you into my own show,” Orion said, stroking his chin, his eyes growing distant. “I will pay you triple what you’re making now, and you’ll only be on stage for a few minutes each night. You will receive performer’s services, extended health benefits and more on your staff card for the concession. If you decide to stay with us, after two years you’ll earn profit shares in the Cirque. Think about it.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I replied. “I don’t think I could do anything in front of a crowd, and I can’t imagine anything being that exciting, really.”

“Go back to your trailer and I will contact you once we’re in Seattle. Your wage increase starts today however. Relax, enjoy yourself. I have research to do.”

He stood and looked down at me, once again with a hungry look as though about to devour me. If only Cairo would look at me like that more often, I’d be a happy woman. When Orion did it, I had to suppress a shudder at his intensity. Although Orion’s warning rang loudly in my head, stay away from his son.

As if I could.

He turned on his heel and left the tent. I felt as though a great weight was lifted, his presence was almost supernatural in its oppressive quality. I couldn’t breathe properly when Orion was around.

I left the first aid case where it sat, picked up my phone and walked slowly back to my trailer. My arm had stopped the persistent throbbing and had settled down to a dull pulse under the bandage. I could see some blood seeping through, but knew they’d be sealed shut by tomorrow. I really did have excellent healing powers, bordering on the uncanny I’d always been told.

I stretched out on the couch in the living room of the travel trailer and opened the pictures on my phone. After all the drama and traumatic injury, I was pleased to note that my tiger selfie was pretty fucking bad ass. I smiled as I uploaded it to Facebook with no caption. I made sure the location was turned off, I didn’t want people to find me, I just wanted to let them know I had moved on and my life was awesome.

Now I just had to work on convincing myself of it.

T
he entire move from Vancouver to Seattle took much longer than I’d anticipated. I hadn’t really comprehended how much there was on the Cirque’s grounds until it was all packed, lined up and ready to go.

Hundreds of big rigs with flat decks were the first to leave, one by one. They carried things like the tents, the infrastructure, ticket booths, furniture and such.

After this was Alexi driving a smaller truck and trailer housing the tigers. I was jumpy just thinking about Lucille’s giant teeth riding on the back of the truck. I’d given my roommates a glossed over version of events, downplaying the seriousness of the bite. I hadn’t mentioned a thing about Orion’s offer.

Last but not least were the performer’s trailers and RVs. Our trailer was hooked to a pickup truck, Cara and Rose took turns driving. I sat in the back seat, but wasn’t left out of the conversation.

The entire three hour drive was spent gossiping, giggling, and singing road trip songs. It was, by far, one of the best days I had ever had.  I loved Cara and Rose, and happily they totally got my weird sense of humour.

I supposed you had to be a little off center to travel with something like
Cirque des Curiosités.

Once we arrived, I was told to stay in our trailer until things were set up. I cringed at the special treatment, but it was a direct command from Orion himself. The girls didn’t seem to resent me though, they understood it was because of my injury. I just hoped they wouldn’t treat me differently once I was a performer.

I was lounging on the couch again, watching shitty television from the trailer’s satellite dish, when Carl popped in to check on me.

“How are you feeling, girlfriend?” he asked and motioned for me to show him my arm. “Oh my god, you could have had that torn right off.”

He was dressed in casual clothing, and once again I found it a little unsettling to see him out of costume.

“It’s not that bad,” I said and laughed, “Lucille just got surprised when I took a photo. I should have had the flash off, it was all my fault.”

“Lucille? Lucille did this?” Carl asked, his eyes widening.

“Uh yeah, why?”

“Lucille is the dangerous one. Desi is the sweetheart, but Lucille’s been a bitch from day one. She’s had quite the rep. What the fuck was Alexi thinking?”

“He was probably just a little distracted with everything that was going on, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” I replied. Still, it did bother me that I’d been sent to the tigers in the first place, so why had Alexi left me with a dangerous animal?

“I heard you might get a performer’s slot,” Carl said, changing the subject. I loved him for it, he was very perceptive for a man.

“It’s a possibility.”

“What’s your talent? Or are you a closet freak? Tell me,” he said and leaned in. “Do you have a tail? Or two pussies? Or a tail
and
two pussies? Oh my god, don’t keep me guessing.”

I was laughing so hard, and his words spilled out so rapidly that I couldn’t squeeze in an answer. I waited until he ran out of ideas and I grinned at the anticipation on his face. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” I told him, “but I just have a genetic condition. I can’t feel pain. And one boring pussy.”

“Oh,” he said. His face dropped as he processed the information. “Can’t feel pain? That’s it?”

“Sorry,” I said, “I know, double vaginas would have been so much better.”

He smiled and said, “It’s not that bad. Oh, I’m sure dear old Orry will come up with something spectacular. If there’s one thing that man does well, it’s exploit his performers.”

“That sounds rather ominous,” I said.

“Kidding, you know I’m overly dramatic,” he laughed and brushed it off. I couldn’t shake the warning in his words though, but he changed the subject smoothly and went on to tell me about a few of the logistics of setting up the Cirque. I was interested, and thought about following him back out to alleviate some of my boredom, but decided against it.

For some reason I felt as though when Orion gave an order, he expected nothing less than complete compliance. I didn’t want to test my suspicion and find out first hand if he was easily brought to anger.

A little after six, Cara texted to meet up with her and Rose for dinner. I’d spent the day dozing in the trailer, only interrupted when somebody was checking up on me at Orion’s orders so I was bored and ready to do anything. I agreed to meet them in a few minutes.

Before leaving, I peeled the bandage off. My arm wasn’t throbbing at all, and as predicted, the puncture wounds had already begun to heal. They’d scabbed over and were dry.

Orion’s knife cut however hadn’t stopped leaking blood. It was strange, generally the finer cuts and injuries healed faster. It felt almost as though his toxicity remained on my skin, a reminder of his plans for me, a warning to stay away from his son.

I found my friends sitting at a table in the cafeteria tent, grabbed a sandwich and a hot chocolate, and sat down with them.

“Shit, you lucked out today,” Cara said immediately. “It was miserable, rainy and cold. And we’re back in Marymoor Park, which is essentially the middle of nowhere. We’re stuck in Cirque even more than ever.”

“I don’t feel like I lucked out,” I said. “To be honest I’d rather not be under Orion’s scrutiny.”

“She’s got you there,” Rose said, “I’d rather do pretty much anything than have Orion watching you.” She turned to me and asked, “What exactly does he have in mind for you?” She had already found out, Carl was right, word traveled fast in the Cirque.

“I have no idea,” I said, “I was bitten and he found something out. He got excited and said he was promoting me to performer status.”

“Oh, wow,” Cara replied, “That’s amazing. Performer! What are you going to do?”

“No idea,” I said.

“What’s your talent?” Rose asked.

“Um, it’s kind of a weird one,” I replied.

“Do you have a tail?” Rose asked, leaning forward in excitement.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I replied and laughed, “No, I do not have a tail. I can’t feel any pain.”

Both girls looked at me, confused. “What do you mean no pain?” Cara asked.

“No pain. Nothing hurts,” I said. “It’s a disorder, congenital analgesia.”

“That is awesome,” Cara said.

“Fucking epic. That’s like the best thing I’ve ever heard,” Rose agreed.

“It’s not as great as you’d think,” I said. “For example, something like dinner. This sandwich here. I take a bite, I might be chewing on my own tongue and not notice it until the blood comes pouring out of my face. I might bite my cheek while I’m sleeping and wake up choking on it. I might break a foot and walk around for a week, doing damage that’s irreversible. It sucks actually, if you want to know how epic it is.”

I hated that my little speech sounded so bitter, but it was the cold, hard truth. There was nothing glamorous about feeling nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Cara said, “I never would have thought about it that way.”

“Me too,” Rose added, “I promise if I ever see you with a mouth full of blood, I’ll tell you discretely.” She smiled and held out her hand. I shook it and relaxed. I had to remember that in a circus full of freaks and oddities, I really wasn’t that shocking.

It felt nice.

I was chewing away, carefully avoiding my own tongue and listening to Cara and Rose argue over which of the new acrobats was the hottest when a shadow fell across me. I looked up and saw Cairo staring down at me, an unreadable mask on his face.

“Hey you,” I said and smiled at him. He didn’t smile back.

“We need to talk,” he said in a low voice.

“Sure, what’s up?” I said and put my sandwich down.

“Not here, follow me,” he ordered and I jumped up and trailed behind him as we passed through tables of performers and front end staff. I looked back and shrugged my shoulders at Rose and Cara’s inquiring faces.

We ended up behind the concession tent in a dimly lit impromptu alleyway formed by several trailers and storage containers.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” Cairo said, his voice a hiss of accusation.

“Tell you what?” I asked, but knew immediately what he must be referring to.

“I had to find out from my father. My fucking father. You’re a performer?”

“I’m not a performer, I mean I’ve never done anything in front of an audience.”

“Then why is he featuring you next week?”

“Next week? That seems awfully soon,” I replied. I fidgeted and forced myself to remain calm while thinking about the crowds of people who would be staring at me soon enough.

“What are you going to do with him?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t”

“Then what’s your talent?”

“I don’t have a tail, if that’s what you’re wondering,” I said and smiled, hoping to lighten his dark aspect.

“This is no joke, Liv,” he replied. His voice was just as tense as before, but he seemed to be losing steam in the anger department. I loved his voice, and I loved how protective he seemed right now. Normally this kind of behaviour from anyone would have me demanding they back the fuck off and give me space.

Cai was different.

“I know it’s not a joke. I think it’s terrifying. And my talent, if that’s what you can call it, is that I feel no pain.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. He almost sounded hurt.

“You never asked. And I kinda liked being Miss Normal for a while, after a lifetime of being abnormal.”

“I can understand that,” he replied and exhaled. The tension left his face completely and he softened, smiled, and said, “You’re still Miss Normal to me, for what it’s worth.”

My heart did its usual little flip flop at his beautiful smile and I said, “Aren’t you going to barrage me with questions about it?”

“I know a little about it from med school,” he said. “Congenital analgesia? Pain insensitivity?”

“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner,” I replied with a grin and gave him a thumbs up.

“It’s pretty serious though, are you okay? Are you healthy?”

“Well, other than being bitten by a tiger yesterday, I’m doing pretty damn good,” I said.

“Alexi’s tiger bit you? Which one? Desi?”

“No, Lucille.”

“What the fuck were you doing with Lucille?”

“You father sent me to help Alexi pack up, and Alexi left me with her. It was one hundred percent my fault though, I took a stupid pic and the flash scared her.”