Perilous Pleasures (10 page)

Making her way out of the lights and the pavilion, she headed for her wagon where she intended to shut herself inside and try to make sense of things. But as she went to step inside, Gene rushed up and grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him. "What are you going to do, fall apart at every performance?" he said, eyes boring into her.

Joanna glared back. "Don't worry. I'll be ready for Karl's stunts next time."

"I'm not talking about Porter. I'm talking about Janacek."

"Stefan had nothing to do with my timing tonight," Joanna said. "I'm entitled to an off-night once in a while." She glanced over Gene's shoulder, startled to see Stefan exiting the exhibition pavilion and walking toward her. She snapped her eyes back to Gene.

Gene flailed an arm into the air. "Your timing's been off ever since Janacek prowled into your life. Well, you'd better pull out of it or you'll be washed up as a flyer."

Otto appeared from the shadows. "Take it easy, Gene."

"Sure, I'll take it easy," Gene said. "But when the nets come down she won't get a second chance."

"Come on. She doesn't need this right now." Otto took Gene by the arm and turned him toward their dressing wagons. "See you later, Jo."

As Joanna watched Otto ushering Gene away, she was on the verge of tears. Her performance had been a disaster, but beneath it all, she knew that neither Karl Porter nor the clowns were the reason for her mistiming. The man who was walking toward her was.

She turned to go into her wagon to avoid him, but he caught up and followed her inside, shutting the door.
 
She yanked off her cape and hurled it onto the narrow bunk then glared at Stefan, not knowing whether to yell at him in outrage and send him away, or rush into his arms and let him hold her and kiss her and assure her that everything would be alright, that his animals would never fight again, and she'd never fall to the net. Instead, she said in a weary voice, "I suppose you heard everything Gene said."

"Some. I'm sorry if I had anything to do with whatever happened in there tonight."

Joanna's hands began to tremble as she visualized the frenzied cats. "How can you do it?" she said, her voice quivering. "How can you step inside that cage knowing you might be ripped apart?" Just saying the words made her heart quicken and her eyes mist.

"It's my job," Stefan stated quietly.

"Your job! Don't you give a damn about your life!" she said, her voice shrill.

"Of course I do. I don't intend to get ripped apart." He took her by the arms. "Honey, you've got to have more faith in me. I'm very good at what I do."

"I'm sure you are," she said, her eyes zigzagging over his bare chest beneath the Hussar vest and the scars crossing his muscular body. "I'm also sure your father thought he was good." She looked up at Stefan, aching with the desire welling from merely the sight of him. She'd never understand his need to prove himself in such a potentially lethal way.

His thumbs began lightly stroking the sensitive flesh above her costume as he held her arms. "I didn't see your performance," he said. "What happened?"

Giving an indifferent shrug, while trying to quell the tightness in her stomach as the memory of the cat fight emerged, she replied, "My timing was off. I fell to the net."

"Because of me?"

"No," she said, looking at him through a blur or tears. "Because of... the fight."

"These things happen," he said. "It's part of my job, just as flying is yours. But we learn to live with the danger. If we can't, we shouldn't be in the show."

As Joanna looked at Stefan, his face moved slowly toward hers and his arms curved around her. Their lips met with an intensity that made Joanna weak. In his arms she felt helpless, as if she were tumbling in space like in the terrible dream, falling toward an arena with animals viciously attacking Stefan. Still, she couldn't stop what was happening. She couldn't stop her longing to be with him and feel his arms around her, or her desire to stay with him forever...

And she couldn’t stop him from going back into that cage, day after day...

With that thought, she thrust her fingers into Stefan's hair, pressing her lips to his with a urgency she couldn't quell. She felt the demand of his mouth claiming hers, the reassurance of his arms around her, and she clung to him, until the image of lions and tigers viciously attacking each other made her pull away to gasp for air. "I don't know what's happening," she said. "Just thinking of you going back into that cage makes my stomach clench with fear and my chest feel like my heart is being squeezed, and now the feeling never goes away."

"Then let me stay here with you tonight. Let me hold you and kiss you and make love to you and take all that fear you've bottled up inside and release it for you." His lips moved along her throat and down to send a trail of kisses over swell of her bosom above her costume, and back up to meet her lips. His hands came up to caress her breasts, as he said in a ragged voice, "Let me make love to you, sweetheart. Let me take you mind off everything but the gratification that my hands and my lips and my body can give you."

A little moan of pleasure bubbled up as he lowered Joanna's costume and kissed her breast.
 
"Your making love to me would only be a temporary diversion," she said in a breathless voice. "It might make me feel good, but it would not make the scene disappear from my mind." Pulling his face from her breast, she said, "Please, Stefan, just hold me tonight. Nothing more."

Stefan sighed and gathered her against him. Although she tried to dismiss the whole horrible episode, the scene of Rafat jumping from his pedestal and leaping at the tiger came back, triggering something Walter said when she first saw Stefan working Rafat in the arena. Looking at Stefan, she asked, "What happened to Rafat's previous owner?"

Caught by surprise, Stefan stared mutely for a few moments before replying, "Rafat attacked him. It happened during a practice session."

"And?"

"I bought Rafat when the man's wife sold off his cats."

"His wife?"

"There was... brain damage."

Joanna felt like she was suffocating, as if there was suddenly no air inside the wagon. Why would Stefan buy an animal who was a potential killer? "How long do you intend to keep him?" she asked in a wavering voice.

"I don't know," Stefan replied. "I'll work with him for a while longer, then decide."

The passion Joanna felt moments before was replaced by anger, and it was all she could do to keep from pounding her fists against Stefan's chest. Instead, she said, in a clipped dry tone, "What makes you finally decide when to get rid of him? When he attacks you and you end up with brain damage, or get your arm ripped off like Klaus Haufchild?"

Stefan looked at her with a start. "How do you know about Haufchild?"

"Walter pointed him out tonight."

Stefan's eyes flashed with alarm. "Where was he?"

"In the audience. Why do I get the feeling this man is in some way a threat?"

Stefan ignored her question. "What was Haufchild doing?"

"Just watching you. He left right after you were finished, when he saw Walter." Joanna studied Stefan's face. "What's going on? You're acting the same way Walter did."

Stefan shrugged. "I'm just curious why Haufchild is here." His eyes drifted off momentarily, then he gave Joanna a guarded smile, and said, "Don't worry, honey, I won't end up like him. And what you saw tonight won't happen again."

"You can't possibly give me that assurance," Joanna said, angry with his constant denial. "Look at the scars on you! Every time you got clawed I'm certain you assured everyone, including yourself,
 
that it would never happen again." Her gaze dropped to the scar low on his belly. She reached down and lowered his breeches until a brush of pubic hair, divided by a bald band of scar tissue, emerged. "Rafat already tried to emasculate you. Do you intend to wait until he completes the job before you get rid of him!" she said, frustrated with Stefan for keeping the dreadful lion. "
Or maybe he already did and that's why your wife left you
!" she cried, then immediately regretted her words.

Stefan's eyes darkened. "Rafat did not reach his mark, but if you need proof that I'm still a man capable of taking care of you as my wife, if it comes to that, then I'll give you that proof. There are enough issues coming between us without this being one of them." He shoved her hand aside and tugged on the lacings on his breeches.

"Stefan, no, wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply—"Joanna stopped short and stared in shocked silence, not at the scar, but at the perfection of even that part of Stefan, large and full and thrusting upward. The scar veered around his hardened shaft and terminated above one full round testicle. It was obvious he'd had multiple stitches to close the wound. But it was also clear that he would have no trouble satisfying a woman.

"Maybe you won't be so lucky next time," she said in a weak voice, continuing to stare at him, realizing she wanted to be that woman, knowing it was an impossible dream.

Stefan packed himself back inside his breeches. "Rafat will not get another chance at me. At least not there. I wear a cod piece whenever I work with the cats."

"And you think Rafat could not rip that cod piece off you,
 
along with what's beneath it, with one swipe of his paw!" Joanna's eyes filled with tears.

"Honey don’t—" Stefan took her face between his hands, looked at her solemnly, and said, "Sweetheart, let me make love to you. Let me take all that stress away. I know you've never been with a man before so you have no idea what happens. But you will feel a release that's beyond your comprehension until it happens. Give me your body for one night. Let me pleasure you in ways you cannot imagine."

"No, Stefan," she said, backing away from him. "Your making love to me won’t work because it will only make me want you more than I already do. And in the end, it won't stop you from going back into the cage with your cats. And I will never understand how you can gamble your life like that when you know the odds are against you. I can't live with that. So please just go now... stay away from me."

"I'll go," Stefan said, "but this isn't over. Not by a long shot." He stared at her for a few moments, but when she offered nothing more, he turned and left.

And Joanna knew that whatever it took, she would not let herself fall deeper in love with Stefan. She couldn't endure the anxiety that would always accompany that love...

...my husband died and I felt relief... at least I would be able to sleep at night without wondering when his time would come...

In her stateroom, later that night, Joanna lay in bed unable to sleep, wondering if tomorrow, Stefan's time would come. Maybe she should give her body to him, let him do the things he promised, let him release the terrible tension that seemed to be a part of her existence now. There would never be a man like Stefan for her, and with life so tenuous, if she lost him, she'd never know the depth of the physical love he was offering. And she wanted that physical love, if only for one night.

Throwing the covers back, she opened the door to her stateroom and crossed the passageway, prepared to give herself to Stefan, body and soul, fearing that if she did not, she'd lose her sanity. But when she knocked, he didn't answer. She looked inside and found his room unoccupied, and she knew he was on the Glazier with his animals. Which was for the best, she conceded. She needed time away from him.

***

At dawn, the
Aurora
docked at Natchez-Under-The-Hill, the narrow shoreline between the river and the bluff that was the site of seamy bars, brothels and gaming houses where river men and scalawags drank and brawled. Joanna stood on the hurricane deck looking toward the
Glazier
, where roustabouts hauled the wagons with cages off the steamer, and she faced the chilling possibility that if she didn't turn away from Stefan now, before long she would be too deeply in love to do so because once they were joined, body and soul, for her there would be no turning back. Having acknowledged that, she made the decision to avoid Stefan at all cost and do whatever was necessary to enforce that decision.

While Stefan was directing the handlers, she decided to slip off the boat unnoticed and head for the lot on the bluff. Leaving the sternwheeler, she crossed the landing and threaded her way between vendors and concessionaires, walking briskly toward the broad road that climbed to the top of the bluff where the city of Natchez overlooked the river from high above.

Natchez-Under-The-Hill looked disreputable, and she shouldn't be walking alone, but most of the others had left the
Aurora
so she had no choice. She quickened her pace, but as she passed a seedy-looking boarding house, a pair of bearded, hard-faced rivermen stepped out of the front door and walked along with her.

"Hey, Mo," one said, "look at them cream jugs. I'll wager they've got a pair of the prettiest raspberry tits this side of heaven."

The other replied, "I bet she's got an
arse
to match, soft and round and
hidin
' a nice pink fancy-piece just ripe for the
takin
'."

Joanna quickened her pace, but the men continued to walk with her. One took her by the arm and said in a voice laced with salacious intent, "Seems you come to town just in time. My cock's up ready to sink inside a pretty little whore like you. What say we duck down this next alley and I'll show you what I've got for you. I been told by the best whores
workin
' these parts that I got the kind of cock you ladies like. Big and mean."

A wave of panic surging through her, Joanna said, "I am not a prostitute, and if you don't remove your hand this instant I'll scream." She attempted to shake off the man's hand.

He tightened his grip. "You're a feisty one. The best kind. There's
nothin
' like a good fight before a good night... right?"

"
Wrong
!" The man was dragged from Joanna's arm, and an instant later he fell back, sprawled on the ground. "Keep your hands off her you goddamn bastard," Stefan yelled, "or you'll find yourself belly-down in the river sucking mud."