Ringmaster

By Aurelia Evans

He's the master of the ring, but he cannot master her.

Kitty has been part of Arcanium as Pretty Kitty the Bearded Lady for over fifteen years, taking care of the circus' inhabitants—both human and demon—when the curtains close.

But she's kept a dark secret from the rest, one that she shares with the sadistic demon known only as the Ringmaster. Though it would be a stretch to call the arrangement he and Kitty share tender, the Ringmaster finds himself curiously drawn to the kind but dark heart of Arcanium.

When Kitty convinces a long-time lover of hers from outside Arcanium to join the circus—Victor, a sweet, handsome, charming man in love with every square inch of hair on Kitty's body—the secret between Kitty and the Ringmaster not only risks coming to light, but the strange relationship itself threatens to crumble and throw Arcanium into chaos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Totally Bound Publishing
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784307097

Book preview

Page

Ringmaster

ISBN # 978-1-78430-709-7

©Copyright Aurelia T. Evans 2015

Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright August 2015

Edited by Sarah Smeaton

Totally Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2015 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

Warning:

This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Melting and a Sexometer of 3.

Arcanium

RINGMASTER

Aurelia T. Evans

Book four in the Arcanium series

He’s the master of the ring, but he cannot master her.

Kitty has been part of Arcanium as Pretty Kitty the Bearded Lady for over fifteen years, taking care of the circus’ inhabitants—both human and demon—when the curtains close.

But she’s kept a dark secret from the rest, one that she shares with the sadistic demon known only as the Ringmaster. Though it would be a stretch to call the arrangement he and Kitty share tender, the Ringmaster finds himself curiously drawn to the kind but dark heart of Arcanium.

When Kitty convinces a long-time lover of hers from outside Arcanium to join the circus—Victor, a sweet, handsome, charming man in love with every square inch of hair on Kitty’s body—the secret between Kitty and the Ringmaster not only risks coming to light, but the strange relationship itself threatens to crumble and throw Arcanium into chaos.

Dedication

For Liv, with thanks to Amy.

Trademarks Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Volvo: Volvo Trademark Holding AB Corporation

Dem Bones: James Weldon Johnson

Boy Scout: Boy Scouts of America Corporation

Rocky: Sylvester Stallone

YouTube: Google Inc.

Chapter One

Kitty had been part of Arcanium for over fifteen years. Over fifteen years of Arcanium staying the same. Over fifteen years of herself more or less staying the same as well.

Yet every time she walked around the crowded circus, there were whole minutes when she felt normal. And she always felt like she was home.

In a place where cast as well as customers were intentionally not normal, no one blinked an eye when a voluptuous woman in a filmy, ribboned gown walked around, not just with a Rapunzel-like chestnut braid thick down her back but also soft, dark reddish hair sprouting from her arms, her chest, her legs—everywhere hair could be and shouldn’t be. And on top of that, a long, glorious beard that wizards and bikers only wished they had—softer whiskers than on a male, slightly curly when it was shorter but wavy when it was long. She kept it braided or contained with a series of beaded leather strings.

In Arcanium, Kitty delighted patrons, taking pictures with them and encouraging them to tag her and the circus on their social media sites. Although she didn’t have the acrobatic, gymnastic, dancing or illusionist skills to be much use in the ring, she was the circus’ most popular visual draw. And when she left Arcanium, she was their best advertisement.

However, when she left Arcanium, she wasn’t normal anymore, and people were less inclined to be delighted.

Damned, though, if she was going to let them keep her from the rest of the world when she needed a change of pace.

Kitty pulled a phone out of her bodice with a slight smile on her face then ducked behind one of the booths. It wasn’t very private. There wasn’t much ‘behind’ in a circus arranged like a spider. But it would do.

Please be there, she muttered after she’d swiped through her contact list to find the name she was looking for. She didn’t like answering machines, and texting wasn’t any better. She’d text with her family, her only exception because it wasn’t often.

But she wasn’t calling family.

Hello?

Victor? Hi. This is Kitty.

Kitty who? he asked.

Don’t even start with me, buddy. How many Kittys do you know? she said, leaning against the booth with a grin.

You must be the soft, furry one. None of the others give me any lip.

You’re insufferable.

You’re also hotter than them, he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

Literally. When’s summer over again? Kitty had suffered sweltering in the summer all her life. She could wear airy things that showed off her legs and allowed airflow, but her hair made summer hell, no matter what. Sadly, she couldn’t get one of the crew to follow her with a fan and a spray mister when she wasn’t in her tent or her RV. Actually, she could, but it seemed a little despotic.

If you checked a calendar lately, you’d see it was almost over.

Don’t give me that calendar crap. It’s over when it’s under eighty during the day and under sixty at night, Kitty said.

Then you’ll have to suffer a little longer. Welcome to the desert.

I dislike your desert.

But you don’t dislike me.

Not at all. I called to say that I was in town, Kitty said.

I figured. How long are you here this time? he asked.

About a week and a half. The usual.

You never stay long enough, he said.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Yes, but my liquor cabinet is sorely lacking in absinthe these days, he said. Pre-show, post-show or sometime during the week?

I like a man who gets straight to the point, Kitty said. I’m good for a post-show tonight. All night.

You sure the circus can survive without you that long?

The circus doesn’t want to survive with me if I don’t meet you tonight.

He laughed. I know I’m not your only man, Kitty. You can’t fool me.

Doesn’t mean I’m swimming in it.

Lots of frustration?

A whole night’s.

Mmmm. You sure know how to make a man feel needed—and intimidated.

It’s how I keep my men on their toes, Kitty said. Pick me up at ten-thirty?

I’ll be there.

Kitty closed her phone and tucked it back into her bodice. She’d return it to her tent later.

Bell—the circus owner and fortune teller, among other things—had let her have the phone about a year ago, when she’d grown tired of having to go to the Ringmaster’s trailer to use his computer. Maya—high-wire acrobat, Bell’s beloved pet and one of Kitty’s newest friends—had introduced her to the wonder that was smartphone Internet connectivity. Maya had been patient, and Kitty had become smitten with the new technology.

A group of older teenagers walked up to her when she headed around the booth again to get some food. The group was mixed male and female but not apparently paired off—an important distinction because the boys had no one to misguidedly try to impress. Kitty had learned which groups to tactfully avoid and which were less likely to be aggressive or loud. The less trouble, the better for everyone involved.

Hey, can we get a picture? one of the girls asked. She appeared nervous, but she tried to hide it with a smile.

Kitty smiled back. Kitty didn’t automatically assume that everyone’s discomfort was with her hair. For shy people, it was sometimes enough that she was a stranger.

Absolutely, Kitty replied. She spread her arms to welcome the girls and a few of the guys as they clustered around her. One of the guys took the pictures with several phones and one digital camera. Don’t forget to tag Arcanium and the Pretty Kitty Bearded Lady.

Um, are they real? one of the guys asked. His hair was too long for his cut. He was just as shifty-eyed as most teenage boys—and like most boys and men, his gaze kept shifting to her breasts.

People usually ask about my hair. I’ve never been asked if my boobs were real before, Kitty said, amused.

No! the guy said. He jerked up and determinedly met her eyes. I didn’t mean—

Relax. I was kidding, Kitty said. Yes, the hair is real. It’s all real.

Can I touch your beard? another guy asked. Just to check.

No, Kitty said.

Why not? he asked.

I appreciate you asking. Some people just yank on it like a bell pull. The reason why not is because you wouldn’t like it if I grabbed onto something of yours and pulled, right? Kitty said pointedly.

The guy nodded with a sheepish grin.

Besides, if I let one person do it, I’d have to let everyone do it. Do you know how much oil and dirt is on the average human hand?

Ew, said one of the girls. Do I want to know?

Ignorance is bliss, sweetie, Kitty replied. But if you want me to prove it’s real, I have no problem pulling my own hair.

She tugged sharply on her beard close to the chin. Then she pulled at the long, dark, reddish hairs on her arms down to her hands.

See? One hundred percent natural, Kitty said.

Cool, the second boy said.

That was the reaction that made her work worthwhile.

* * * *

There had been other circuses, carnivals and sideshows for her before Arcanium—of a sort.

College had been a world removed from the world, like Arcanium. That had been around the time she’d stopped trying so hard to be normal. Shaving her whole body at least three times a day, plucking so much that she’d nearly rid herself of eyebrows some weeks, damaging her skin with chemicals, never going out without long pants, long sleeves and high necklines… There was a point at which a girl had to admit that there was no winning the battle.

She hadn’t quite been born early enough to be there when other girls weren’t shaving their legs or pits and were walking around without bras. But her admissions essay had been appropriately filled with the woes of living with an untreatable disease, getting her a few additional hundred in scholarship money.

Her peers at the time had been more curious about her than mean, which had been a breath of fresh air from the hell of high school. Leaving the tight cliques of home revealed what Kitty had already known—that underneath the antagonism was a strange jealousy. Here they were, still insecure in how they looked and beholden to the demands of fashion as well as ordinary expectations, and she was walking around with hippie beads in her hair and beard.

While other people’s curiosity had got her through college relatively unscathed by jokes, insults and bullying, that curiosity had become a plague once she’d been expected to go forth and join the sadistic, civilized circus the world called the job market.

Had she sought a job in the new millennium, she might have had a shot for the same reason she’d received a scholarship. Diversity quotas would have made her a prime catch. Some HR representative and business owner could pat themselves on the backs about their disability hire and congratulate themselves that it was only their charity that could give her a decent living.

But back when she’d tried to enter the workforce, she’d received a wealth of double-takes but not a single job offer. By an accident of birth, she would never fit a company’s image standard or grooming clauses. They hadn’t been able to get her out of the door fast enough, no matter how polite or professional she’d tried to be, and they’d always hesitated before shaking her hand hello or goodbye, as though her fur would start growing on them like some kind of fungus.

She could have gone into a career that shut her away from the world like a shameful secret—something where she didn’t need to leave her house, something that just required a computer, a phone connection and a headset. No one would ever have to see her face. She didn’t sound diseased.

Kitty had instead decided to swallow her pride and check out circuses.

Again, she’d been born too late. There were countries where freak shows were actually banned—to prevent the exploitation of unusual peoples, they said. Kitty knew that kind of thing happened, of course. All throughout the history of the strange and bizarre were those looking to make a buck off their backs.

But she thought the real reason was because people started getting uncomfortable looking at them. Letting them voluntarily display themselves for the entertainment of the normals was an admission that humanity—with all those medical breakthroughs and cheap food and computers, all that hope and optimism, all those cold, hard, capitalistic designs on the world—still produced aberrations and abnormalities like her.

We have penicillin! We remove extra limbs! We separate conjoined twins, and if they die, we saved them from a life like yours! We burn away extra hair! We have special places for people with special needs, resources to make sure they’re never seen and never heard! It’s just a disease! It’s just a disability! It’s just a chromosomal anomaly! It’s just a mistake! And one day, we’ll be able to eliminate people like you altogether in the womb! So we shouldn’t have to look at you anymore, because the future is nigh!

Hitler had killed himself. The Third Reich had been dismantled. The evil had been vanquished. No one had to examine their own eugenicist inclinations anymore.

There had still been a few freak shows in the States. She’d gone to three. One had denied her because they’d already had a Bearded Lady. The second one had wanted to go the old-school route and call her the Human Orangutan, a missing evolutionary link. Kitty had made a swift exit. Being a Bearded Lady wasn’t the best thing in the world for a woman to be, but at least it acknowledged her as both a human being and a woman.

‘Kitty’ didn’t so much, but that was just her name, a reasonable diminutive of Katharine.

Then she’d stumbled across the mysterious, soft-spoken fortune teller of Arcanium. Bell had had no interest in making a beast out of her.

Kitty was lucky to have found Arcanium—a place where there were far stranger things than her, where she knew she was safe and wanted and appreciated for more than her looks.

When she’d called her mother to tell her that she was moving out of the house for the new job, her mother had gone real quiet.

Are you sure you want to join a circus, Kitty? her mother had asked. Something like this tends to stick with a person. You’ll be the Bearded Lady for the rest of your life.

It had made Kitty sad. She couldn’t have asked for more loving parents, but after almost thirty years, they still hadn’t been able to understand. They’d been supportive of her in her teens and early twenties, back when she’d painstakingly tried to tame her hair growth with every razor, shaving cream, quack snake oil and new technological treatment known to man at the time. They’d footed most of the exorbitant maintenance fees. Kitty thought they’d secretly felt obligated because they considered themselves responsible. Kitty didn’t see it that way. It was a lottery Kitty had won by a nearly impossible confluence of genetic events. No consolation prizes, except a cute nickname that hadn’t even been ironic when she was born.

I’m pretty sure it’s a little late for that, Kitty had replied. I doubt I’ll ever be elected senator or hired as CFO, even without a circus job on my résumé. You’ve been supporting me for the last six years. What do you want me to do, Mom? Live in your attic like the mad relative no one wants to talk about and sew five hundred hope chests’ worth until a werewolf prince comes riding under my window?

She’d kind of hurt her mother’s feelings with that, but her mother had hurt her feelings too—in a way that was harder for other people to do to her. It was as though her mother had thought that if Kitty wished on the right star, her ‘hair problem’ would just go away.

If only she’d known.

But her mother had been wrong in another respect. In Arcanium, Kitty was never just the Bearded Lady. And when she was, people wanted to take pictures with her and complimented her braiding skills.

Also, Kitty got to wear fairy and princess costumes and anything else that struck her fancy. Right now, Kitty was in one of her fairy ensembles. How many normal, gainfully employed people could say that?

The breeze made the ribboned skirt flutter and curl around her legs in the dark. She’d already informed Bell that she was leaving for the night. Kitty didn’t need to tell him, but she felt it was good policy to let him know her comings and goings, just in case.

She waved goodbye at passing audience members as she joined them in crossing the fairegrounds to get to the parking labyrinth on the other side. Kitty was glad she didn’t have to find her way through one of the makeshift parking lots typical of where Arcanium set down its stakes. They were always a nightmare.

However, Kitty recognized Victor’s older model Volvo sedan immediately. He pulled up in front of her and rolled down the window.

She leaned over, resting her arms on the opening. Her breasts threatened to spill over the bodice, but they wouldn’t. She had tailored the design to her exact measurements. Nothing was going to fall out unless she stood on her head.

Hey, pretty girl. My cat is missing. I was wondering whether you might have seen her. Lusty ginger female, answers to ‘Kitty’.

I think I have a few ideas, Kitty said huskily. Mind if I join you in your search?

Hop in, Victor said. He flashed his gorgeous smile at her.

Kitty heard the murmurs, giggles and whispers from people who walked around Victor’s car and heard the exchange. She always heard them.

Let them look. Let them talk. Let them laugh. She gave the proverbial middle finger at everyone who thought they weren’t right for each other, opened the door and climbed in.

* * * *

They didn’t bother with a motel room or hotel. Victor drove her to the place they usually went, a place where public land met private, where the desert stretched out in every direction, and the occasional headlights peeked through the moon-grayed brush.

She was spread underneath him, lying on a large flannel blanket. He had unbraided her hair and arranged it on the blanket and over her bare breasts, less furry than her chest or her abdomen. He hadn’t undone the bodice all the way, just enough to set her breasts free for his gaze.

Victor loved looking at her. He couldn’t get enough. She captivated him. But when his eyes had drunk their fill, his hands would still be hungry.

You’re fucking gorgeous, he said. He’d said that during their first encounter. He said it during every encounter. Not once did it ring untrue, like flattery that some men just threw around to convince a woman’s legs to open for them.

Kitty knocked his hand away from the front of his jeans, where he squeezed himself lightly. She didn’t want to ruin his handiwork. She could undo the front of his jeans without getting up. But he was up. Very much so.

How long have you been like this? she asked, wrapping her hand around his cock through his boxer briefs. The cotton was damp.

Since you called, Victor said. The moment I heard your voice. It’s too bad you don’t like using your phone a lot, because you could give awesome phone sex.

Did you touch yourself? Kitty asked. She stroked up and down the shaft far too slowly, but with a torturous, firm grip.

Yes, he gasped.

Did you come?

No. I knew I’d have you tonight.

So you just went around work with an erection all…day…long. She delivered a particularly deliberate, twisting, gripping pull on that last word. He bucked forward with a groan. I think I like that idea.

What about you? Victor asked. He stroked against the grain of her hair up her sternum. The hair all over her body was mostly soft, softer than even his light dusting of dark fur. For the men given the honor of touching her, they often couldn’t touch enough.

"I’m always turned on. Today, you were the reason," Kitty said. Just the light brush of his fingers had her tingling all over. She arched her back for him to touch her breast, but she still didn’t want to disrupt his artistry. He grinned knowingly and didn’t give her what she wanted.

Always, huh? he asked.

You have no idea.

Kitty released his clothed erection as Victor stroked the length of her regular hair, the kind that grew on her head—although like the rest of her, it grew faster than the average person’s. It needed a cut again. Unbraided, it reached halfway down her thighs.

He swept his palms briefly against the sides of her breasts on the way, avoiding the aching nipples. Even in the darkness, he had to see how the broad, darker flesh puckered, the peaks hard and prominent in the moonlight.

She bit her lip and whimpered as his touch continued down over the bodice of her dress to the ribbons that draped between and outside her parted thighs. Victor gripped those thighs for a moment, digging his fingers into the flesh in a teasing massage. All he needed to do was push the ribbons of her skirt aside, pull down her panties, and she’d be his for the taking.

"You’re the only girl I know who’s always turned on," he said. He brought his fingers tantalizingly close, brushing her inner thighs with his thumbs in a deliberate caress. Then he started his trek back up, ignoring her breasts once again.

The only one who says it out loud, maybe, Kitty muttered. She could think of a few ladies in her immediate circle of Arcanium acquaintances who could give her a run for her money.

Turned on as much as this? he asked. He abruptly swept his hand between her legs. Her panties were soaked through, evidence of the buildup of her lust since that afternoon.

There are plenty of horny girls all over the world. I’m just lucky you happen to be with this one, Kitty said. She covered his hand with hers, guiding him, urging him harder, faster.

God, that is so hot, he whispered. He did as she silently instructed, stroking her clit in firm circles, sometimes cupping all of her before pressing down on the bone beneath her mound.

Kitty’s breath quickened. There was a pulsing in her clit, her folds there swelling as though to make themselves soft and welcoming for him—as though she needed help in that department.

Let me see it, baby. Come for me. Get all dripping wet for me, Victor said, stroking her more furiously still.

Kitty cried out in the desert night, all her muscles going tense but something inside collapsing into a wonderful puddle of lust and release and the feeling of being the prettiest damn girl in the room.

Victor leaned down to kiss her, gentling his strokes to her clit and broadening them over her folds and cunt, keeping the excitement at a low burn.

Kitty threaded her fingers through his short, dark brown hair. He was shaven, well-groomed and his scent was clean, just a sheen of new sweat from the heat of arousal inside him. She met his tongue with hers, angling his head and pulling him down closer. Humming with pleasure, she spread her legs wider to accommodate him. His cock rubbed against her thigh.

During a moment of her own curiosity, she’d once asked him why kissing a woman with a beard wasn’t like kissing a man to him. Not all of her men liked to kiss her mouth—that was fine by her, since there was so much more of her that they were just fine kissing, and there were places she wasn’t thrilled about kissing them either—but Victor always had.

He’d replied that he knew she wasn’t a man. That was more than enough for him. Besides, he’d said, her whiskers didn’t feel like a man’s, and he would know. It just felt like her hair, and he liked her hair. All her hair, from her head to her furry little toes.

And he’d always said that the hair between her legs was the softest of any women he’d ever eaten out.

Can’t wait, he murmured against her cheek. He took his hand out from between her legs and grabbed his erection by the base. Been thinking about you all day.

We have all night, she said. She latched onto his neck behind his ear, one of the places on his body that made him downright crazy.

He groaned loudly and bucked into his hand.

Go on, love. Take what you want. She licked him where she had bit, laughing a little when his elbows gave out.

Shit, he swore. He pushed himself up and stood next to her while she unhooked the ribboned skirt from the fit-and-flare bodice that reached just below