Freakshow (29 page)

He was such a strange and disturbed man, and once again I had no idea if I had offended him or if he was just odd all on his own.

I sat up and picked up one of the hooks. I hadn’t looked at them beforehand, and now I was glad that I hadn’t.

Cairo ran something cold down my back, a cloth coated with something, some kind of antibiotic cream I assumed.

I let him clean me up and looked at the hook again, almost shuddering. It looked almost like a fish hook, but it was about eight inches long, curved and gleaming. I could see a smear of my blood on the end and wondered how much I had bled as Orion had me suspended.

As if reading my thoughts, Cairo said, “Wow, you’re a bleeder. I would have thought with your condition, you’d be able to control that or something.”

“Let me get down,” I said. “If I can reach the earth, I can draw from it.”

He helped me stand and I took a quick look at the towel in his hand. It was soaked through with blood, the sight of it making me feel a little light headed.

Cairo took my hand and helped me off the stage onto the dirt floor. I preferred the cool damp grass when seeking earth energies, but dirt would do in a pinch.

I closed my eyes and extended myself down through my feet, envisioning myself spreading out among the lines of energy present in the earth’s depths.

I found one particularly bright one and inhaled, drawing it up into my body.

It sought the injury immediately and my back grew warm as it began to heal the damaged cells.

I had no way to describe it, and no way to explain why or how it happened, but it was the only way I’d been able to live my life as normally as possible over my lifetime.

I realized I was luckier than most with my condition, and I worried that there might be long term implications over my casual use of the earth’s magic, but I couldn’t help myself. Drawing power from the soil was as natural to me as breathing, and although I’d never been schooled in terms of technique or ability, I somehow knew where to find what I needed.

“Fucking amazing,” Cairo breathed. I smiled and stood a little straighter, letting the healing energy course through me, finding any other little things here and there that I might have missed given my inability to receive pain as a warning.

I finally let it go, I exhaled the energy back into the earth and opened my eyes.

Cairo was staring at me with pretty much the same look I had when he’d turned into a wolf. Equal parts fear and admiration.

“What are you, love?” he asked, taking my hand. “You’re hot, hotter than me even.”

“I don’t know what I am,” I replied, “And other than making for a decent side show, I don’t think my powers are worth anything. They’ll never make me rich or famous, that’s for sure.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

“Maybe not famous, but rich might be nice.”

“Unfortunately you’re in the wrong business,” he grinned and spun me around. He ran his hands down my back and whistled. “There’s barely any blood left, and they’re starting to heal. Incredible.”

“Aren’t you able to do something similar?” I asked, reaching for my shirt. I shrugged it on and turned to him. “How do you find the magic to shift?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, frowning.

“Well, when I need to heal, I can sense where the energy flows through the earth, reach down and bring it up into my body. Where does yours come from?”

“All around,” he replied, “We take ours from the air, the atmosphere. It’s like tendrils of moonlight that exist in the air that we breathe. I’ve never heard of the earth having something like that though, I wonder what it is.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I wish I did.”

“We’ll figure it out someday,” Cairo said and slipped his arm around my shoulder. I snuggled in against him and we left the tent, just two normal people in love walking to go figure out what happened to another missing girl.

As if there was anything normal in any of that. But hey, I could dream, right?

*****

D
ays passed as if in a dream. Cairo and I saw each other every waking moment. We slept entangled in each other’s arms, and we worked alongside each other trying to solve the deepening mystery of the dead girls.

I was supposed to work one night of After Dark, but Orion decided against it. He told me it was a particularly bloody crowd, one with loads of old money and even older demands.

He didn’t want to break me in by breaking me.

I wasn’t worried, I had time off and I spent that night curled up with Cairo counting the stars tattooed along his rib cage and reciting poetry to one another.

At one point he traced an empty space along his side and said, “This spot is for you, you know.”

“I don’t know what you mean, in fact,” I said and smiled at his mystery.

“You will find out,” he told me, rolled me onto my back and kissed every one of my scars, piercings and tattoos.

And there were many.

Those were some of the best moments I’d ever had in my life. Beyond the orgasms and crazy insane sex that Cairo and I had, we had this intense connection that existed from the marrow of my bones to the deepest, darkest parts of my soul.

As the week came to an end, Orion found me in the cafeteria one morning and informed me I would be performing in After Dark that evening. They’d had a cancellation, so the audience would be very small and very exclusive, but not as bloody as the previous performance.

He assured me it would be the perfect place for me to start.

“Cairo will be there, won’t he?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble from my words. I didn’t want him to know how anxious I felt, performing for the first time in this fashion.

“He will do his best to make it,” Orion said, “He’s had to go to the city this morning, we have guests arriving on the train and he had to pick them up.”

“Oh,” I said, “he didn’t tell me this.”

“He doesn’t need to inform you of his whereabouts every waking moment,” Orion said with a cruel sneer on his face.

He might have seen my own face fall and took pity on me. He added, “Besides, he did not know about it until just a moment ago. Alexi was to go pick them up but he’s ill at the moment and unable to. I told Cairo that I would inform you of his plans.”

“Does he know of yours?” I asked. “Does he know I’m to perform tonight?”

“I’m quite certain he will figure it out,” Orion said with an oily smile. He clasped his hands together, gave me a mocking bow and said, “I will see you at eleven.”

I watched him leave my table, I shivered, as though he’d just been the one to walk over my grave.

I didn’t feel good about being part of Orion’s machinations yet again, but I didn’t know how to back away.

I wondered if he’d been dabbling in some sort of magic in order to regain control over Cairo, because at the moment, the old feeling was back.

I was no longer in charge and Orion was mighty pleased with himself because of it.

I
texted Cairo throughout the day and received a few brief texts back. He sounded harried, Orion had sent him to the wrong train station and he’d been forced to drive through mid day traffic to find the new performers and bring them back.

I decided to sit with Rose for a while, to help keep her mind off Cara and Erica. It was bizarre, my life was going better than it ever had, the parts with Cairo that was.

The other parts were the strange bits, like they belonged to somebody else. When Cairo was gone from my side, the rest of my life came into sharp focus and I felt as though I hadn’t been part of the process to get me there.

How had I even come to work for Cirque in the first place? How had I agreed to everything so far with Orion?

It felt as though another being was guiding my actions. The only time I felt completely at home was when I had Cai next to me. Or when I was in his arms.

Then the world felt right.

I got ready for my big After Dark debut with shaking fingers. I laced up a bright red silk corset over top of my black bra and panties. I tightened it, tied it off and slipped on knee high black leather boots. The heels were thick, but inches taller than I was used to.

Over this I pulled a long rain coat on and tightened the belt for some privacy as I teetered across the Cirque’s grounds.

I really had hoped Cairo would be back by now, but it seemed he was going to miss my performance after all.

I made my way into the tent through the back entrance, hoping to avoid seeing the audience before I went on. For some strange reason it felt sickening to me, to know who would be watching me and getting off on my pain.

I squeezed my eyes tight and listened to the hushed tones of the crowd outside, heard the cries of the performers on stage, and the distinct cracking sounds of a whip on flesh.

I opened them and stared at the ground, checked my phone for a text and found nothing. I slipped out of my jacket and stood in the cool air, shivering in the red corset.

I heard Orion’s voice and knew I would be up next. A quick check of my phone again revealed nothing and I set it down on a small bench.

At the base of the bench I noticed a dark brown stain on the canvas tent. I bent lower to see what it could be when Orion’s sharp voice cut through the quiet of the tent.

“We’re ready,” he hissed, “get out here now. You missed your cue.”

“Oh, sorry,” I whispered back, wiggled out of my corset and teetered on my high heels, struggling to keep up with him.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced in his deep, sultry showman’s voice, “tonight we have a special guest performer all the way from the icy depths of Canada’s north. Miss York, she craves pain and won’t say no to any humiliation we bestow upon her.”

I stepped forward and caught his eye. I mouthed a question, “We?” at him, but he didn’t respond. I had been under the impression that this would be his show alone.

I bowed deeply and climbed onto the table as we’d rehearsed. The surface was smooth with wear and pitted from the punctures and spikes of torture over the years.

I laid on my stomach, my arms at my sides and my legs straight out behind me. Orion jerked my hands behind my back and slipped a rope around my wrists, fixing it tight with a knot.

We hadn’t agreed to this.

He then grabbed a handful of my hair and tugged my head back. I gasped and shot him an angry look, but he wasn’t fazed.

He slid a thick black cloth around my eyes and tied it tight at the back of my head, effectively blinding me.

I hadn’t agreed to this either.

He began to walk the crowd through the procedure we had practiced, so this I was prepared for.

As he slid the fifth or sixth hook through my flesh, he said, “I will have my assistant begin to lace the ropes through at this point.”

“Which way do I begin?” a male voice asked him. I detected an accent and a deep timbre that gave it away immediately.

Alexi was working in After Dark.

“Start on this end,” Orion said, and I felt his fingers brush over my scapula, where wings would sprout had I been an angel instead of a freak.

I tensed up as Alexi jabbed the first needle through my flesh. Orion grabbed a handful of my hair, leaned over and told me, “Start your screaming now, or I’ll fucking make you. Don’t forget, you’re on stage.”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off, or protest that he hadn’t told me about any of this, but knew it would ruin the act.

And what was the point of me being here other than to play along and make them all believe? I needed the crowd to believe that I was being tortured, and I needed Orion to believe that I was ignorant.

And I needed to find out what the fuck was happening to girls in the Cirque.

I screamed and howled, writhed and strained against Orion’s fingers digging into me, holding me down.

The crowd was quiet, I could hear whispers and hushed conversations, but they were apparently a polite fetish group. There was no reaction to my pain at all.

I could feel blood begin to well and pool in the crease along my spine.

I sensed we were near completion, so I let my cries fade to numb sobs as Orion clipped the ropes to my hooks.

I felt myself elevated as he let go of my hands. I gasped, afraid I was falling forward. My arms dropped and the blood slid down them in rivulets, it hit my hands and fingers and began dripping off the end.

The crowd’s reaction was instantaneous, they collectively made a noise of interest and I could sense them all sitting forward in their seats.

As Orion lifted me, he pushed my leg and began to spin me slowly. The blood was carried to the ends of my fingers faster the higher I went.

I realized then what this was to Orion. It was art. I was his living art exposition, his opus as he cut me and spread my blood for the fans.

I moaned and cried out as I spun faster, my head losing all sense of which way was up or down.

I heard him say, “Most excellent performance,” as I passed him at one point.

My rotation began to slow and my arms sagged, the blood easing off and the droplets getting sluggish as I finally came to a stop.

Orion grabbed my legs roughly and announced to the crowd, “I do hope you enjoyed this artistic performance, please watch closely as we bring the next blood letter. This one is going to be even more dramatic, I promise you.”