Freakshow (13 page)

He laughed and said, “It’s the beard. I’m fresh faced and innocent under this thing, I swear. Like a newborn baby.” He opened the door to his RV and stepped up inside, I was still in his arms, my hands around his neck, clinging to him and this moment in a poignant desperation.

I wanted to whisper to him, “Please don’t hurt me,” but didn’t think he’d understand.

Sometimes men took my condition to mean that I wasn’t able to suffer heartbreak, like it didn’t hurt when they treated me callously.

This, I supposed, was where I’d developed part of my wall, the impenetrable distance I kept between myself and others.

I could feel Cairo at that wall, dismantling it, brick by brick.

Instead of warning him of my fragility, I sighed and nuzzled my face into his chest, inhaled his scent and let the entire evening wash over me.

“I like your place,” I said when he finally set my down. He turned and locked the door, pushed a button on the front console and privacy shades dropped down. I looked around and was impressed at how homey it was, for being an incredibly state of the art RV. It was essentially a traveling mini mansion with his personal touches everywhere. I took in the photographs, books and paintings with awe. He was more refined than I’d anticipated.

“Thanks,” he said and reached for me. “I like you.” He ran his hand up my shoulder and took a fistful of hair again. I loved the way he wove his fingers between the strands, the way he held me possessively, as though he were entitled to having me linked to him.

“I like you too,” I said and held my breath as he made his next move. He slid his hand beneath my ass again and pulled me up against him. He kissed me again and walked me backwards towards the kitchen area. I edged up against the table, but he kept pushing with his insistent need.

I moaned and hooked my fingers in the belt loops of his pants and wrapped my legs around him. With his mouth on mine, and my legs around him, and his hands all over my body, it became undeniable how we felt. We wanted this, we wanted each other and I no longer had to worry about how to communicate this to him.

Our raw, naked need was enough. Words were not necessary, with their misplaced meanings or stuttered, awkward replies. Our bodies were expressing what we’d been feeling for the last couple of weeks.

He gripped his fist tighter in my hair, and the act of being held in place by him elicited a thrill that traveled up my spine. He slid his hand down my leg, found the hem of my dress and shoved it up over my thighs. His huge, rough hand found my panties and pushed them aside, fumbling for my clit. I was grateful in that moment that I’d removed it, my last reminder of Jason. I didn’t want it to pollute this moment with Cairo by reminding me of my past mistakes.

“I don’t know,” I said, wanting to warn him about my lack of orgasm, my inability to feel pleasure. I didn’t want to let him down, but I didn’t want to fake it for him. Everything so far had been so authentic; it felt disingenuous to keep it from him. “I have this problem...”

He moved back and looked at me, not moving his thumb from my clit, circling it slowly as he waited for me to finish.

“It’s really difficult...” I started to say, but he hit something right at the perfect angle and I gasped. “I don’t think I can...” I tried again but he hit that spot once more and I jumped, gasped and grabbed his forearm.

He didn’t break my gaze; he set me onto the table behind me and pushed my thighs wider. “You were saying?” he asked and pressed harder, circled faster and stirred something deep inside of me, something previously unknown. I was hypnotized, by his deep, soulful eyes and his persistent touch and I felt something break loose.

I couldn’t put into words the things I had wanted to say because they no longer mattered. He had me in the palm of his hand, and I wanted to see how far he could lead me. I closed my eyes as he found that spot again and again, with each pass across my clit. “Keep them open,” he commanded and I obeyed.

His eyes and his thumb were my entire world now. I was no longer the girl who couldn’t come, I was hovering somewhere in between who I had been and who I was about to be. I could feel the urge building, persistent and all consuming. I didn’t close my eyes again, but when his thumb made the last pass, that final contact that it took, I gasped and cried out, “I’m...I’m...I think I’m...”

And I
did
. I
came
for the first time in my life. I felt so much pleasure inside of me that it almost hurt, for half a moment I imagined I knew what everyone else in the world could feel.

“Come for me,” he said in a deep, guttural voice that connected with my primal self. “Come on my hand,” he said and I quivered against him, feeling it all build, ready to crash at any moment.

And then it was gone, it was released and I shuddered against his thumb and hung onto his arms for dear life and couldn’t close my eyes or look away.

As I sobbed my confused orgasm, his eyes became my entire world. He lusted after me, he wanted me and he was taking me.

I couldn’t have said no even if I’d wanted to.

I started to breathe again and a short time after, he stopped circling my clit. The entire thing had taken mere moments, but to me it felt like a lifetime. A long bridge filling in the gap between the time I hadn’t been able to come, and the time I’d finally done it. He’d connected the before and the after and changed my world beyond measure.

He’d done it. He’d taken me there, where I hadn’t even been able to take myself. All this time and I’d just assumed...

Fuck, if I had known it was like that, I would have played with myself continuously over the last few years. I would have become a professional at getting off, developed elite status self-pleasuring skills and never left the house.

“That’s my good girl,” he said and kissed me again as he drew back his hand. My panties slid over me, protecting my sensitive clit but adding to the sensations going on in my most intimate flesh.

“I think I came,” I said, my eyes still wide with amazement. “You made me come.”

“You did,” he replied and kissed me again, then said against my lips, “And I did. But I want more.”

His kisses trailed down my body, he pulled my breast out of the dress and took my hardened, pierced nipple into his mouth. He worked my barbell in his teeth and tongued it as he nibbled.

I felt it.
Felt
it. An electric jolt moving from my nipple to my brain, somehow the connection was rewired with his touch. I hadn’t felt it when they’d slid the metal through my nipple the first time, why did I feel it now, with Cai’s mouth on me?

“God, what is happening to me,” I whispered and touched his hair, allowed myself to feel him and touch him. I wiggled the hair tie holding his bun back and pulled his thick, black mane loose. It fell around his fierce face as he worked my breast and I gasped again.

He looked up at me from his dark eyes, his beard jutting out in a defiant stance, and I did wonder what he looked like without it. Would his face be as strong and read as so masculine? Would my body react on such a visceral level? I suspected it would, there was powerful magic going on between the two of us, and it would not be denied.

He moved lower and parted my thighs with his insistent face. He pulled my panties back and plunged his tongue onto my clit, sucking and nibbling my swollen flesh. I cried out immediately, his beard tickled and rubbed my inner leg as he worked himself against me.

“Cai,” I gasped and felt something even more intense coming down the line for me. Something burst forth in the back of my brain and I said his name again, “Cairo.”

He looked up at me, his beautiful face framed by my thighs, his nose peeking over my mound and time seemed to speed up. I could hear the hungry sounds of his mouth on my cunt, and my own frantic, panting breath. I threw my head back, cupped his head in my hands and shuddered the second orgasm of my life.

This one was more intense than the first. I almost shouted in triumph as my entire body tensed in shuddering release. His guttural groans as he lapped at me sent me over some edge I never knew existed, some darker, hotter spot in my head where my entire body was alight and my nerves were finally deeply rooted into my body.

I cried his name one last time and fell back onto the table, not concerned for my comfort or dignity, splaying out licentiously.

He came up from between my legs with a grin on his face, still not comprehending the significance of his actions.

He had brought me to orgasm, not the pleasant equivalent of scratching a really bad itch of my previous orgasms...but the sweaty, screaming, upheaval of earth and sky and tipping my world upside down orgasm that I’d always heard about.

“That was...” I trailed off, again unsure how to put something so insanely intense into mere words.

“You’re beautiful when you come,” he said and nuzzled the smooth place where my thigh met my torso. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” I said, propping herself up on my elbows, “I can’t say that anyone has ever mentioned it.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he said and stood, holding out his hand. I took it and he pulled me to standing. The dress pooled around my legs like a curtain call, the end of a stage production, and my panties felt twisted.

I was suddenly aware of how quiet it was, how the blood rushing in my ears and my shallow, rapid breathing were the only things I could hear. “It’s true, but then again, I don’t think anyone has ever gotten me to...”

“To what?” he asked, but didn’t let me finish. He kissed me, his mouth hot and hungry and my scent clinging to him now. I kissed back, my own needs rising again, now that I knew what it was all about. He lifted me and I wrapped my legs around him, clinging to him in my heat.

He walked slowly towards his bedroom, kissing me and half stumbling as we laughed and kissed until we hit the door. He fumbled and reached behind him to open it when there was a loud pounding on the side of the RV.

“What was that?” I asked and pulled away, looking behind me, half afraid I’d find Orion there.

“Hang on,” he said and wiped his face with the back of his hand. I could still see my juices glistening on his beard. It thrilled me and repulsed me, as though Orion would be able to sniff me out. I was still worried about his reaction, and had sobered up enough to understand the costs involved if he found out about us.

Cairo straightened up his shirt and smoothed the front of his pants where his cock was visibly bulging. I quietly cursed whoever had interrupted us, after feeling that thick bulge several times now, I was dying to get it inside of me.

I followed behind him and peered around as he stepped down and swung the door open.

It was Rose.

“Is Liv here?” She asked. I felt disheveled, my hair was messy and my make up was smudged.

“I am,” I replied and stepped from behind Cai. “What’s wrong?” I asked, my friend’s terrified state worrying me.

“It’s Cara, she’s gone,” Rose said and her voice hitched as though she were about to cry. “This is all I found,” she continued and held up a clutch purse. I immediately identified it as Cara’s, it was blue satin to match the pretty blue dress she’d worn.

I normally wouldn’t be too concerned, people tended to hook up during events such as this, and they’d been with two men when I’d left the party.

The thing that alarmed me, and most likely contributed to the blind panic on Rose’s face, was the splash of colour across the purse.

My hand trembled as I took it from Rose’s outstretched grip and saw the splash for what it was.

An angry slash of red, blood spattered across the blue fabric of the clutch.

It definitely was blood.

And Cara was missing.

C
airo sprung into action and grabbed his jacket. He turned to me and said, “Do you need to change? We have to go look for her.”

I looked down at my flimsy clothing and said, “Yeah, can we head back to our trailer? Rose, did you check her bedroom?”

“I did when I went back to change, but maybe she’s there already.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but that wouldn’t explain the blood.”

“I get bloody noses all the time,” Rose said. “It’s probably just a bleeding nose, right? I feel stupid for coming to get you.”

We left the RV and made our way back to our shared travel trailer. “Don’t feel stupid for worrying about your friend,” Cai said, “the safety of our employees is paramount to us at Cirque.”

Rose glanced at him as if she’d forgotten who he was. Ultimately he was their boss and it really was a little odd to have him join them.

“I’m glad you found me,” I said. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

“A couple minutes after you left, we met a couple new guys from the clown group. They’re pretty cool, tats and piercings, that new extreme performance thing that’s so popular now. Anyhow, we did a few shots with them and we had to go to the bathroom. We headed out to the toilets behind the performers tent. Cara said she’d wait for me outside, but when I was finished, she was gone.”

“Where did you find her handbag?” Cairo asked.

“I didn’t notice it at first,” Rose said and tears began to leak from her eyes, “I walked back and found it under the stairs at the bathroom. I didn’t even see the blood until I got back to the party. The guys and I looked everywhere for her, but I haven’t been able to find anything, so I came to get you. I’m sorry.”