Fortune Read online

  “Oh, I bet present will be a real challenge,” Derrick said snidely.

  “Your negativity and skepticism don’t interfere with my ability to read people,” the fortune teller said, showing the first symptoms of thinning patience, “but it does interfere with my ability to concentrate. If you prefer, you may wait outside the tent.”

  “No way,” Derrick replied. He crossed his arms and slouched in his seat, but he didn’t say anything more. So maybe he did see the way Maya reacted to the fortune teller’s touch, his voice.

  “There are elements of the present I cannot know by conventional means. For instance, I have no way of knowing that you, sir, have a tribal sun tattoo on your hip, or that you’re craving an orange swirl shake on the way home. Your young woman would prefer a cherry Dr Pepper,” the fortune teller said.

  Derrick stiffened, his jaw tightening.

  “Holy shit, how’d you know that?” Maya asked.

  The fortune teller tilted his head, his enigmatic smile no less Cheshire cat than before. “You did see the sign outside my tent, yes? It’s what I do. Now, relax, my dear. Where would you like me to begin?” he asked.

  “Well, I already lived my past, so you probably don’t need to tell me about that,” Maya said. “I mean, it would impress me if you knew about it, but if you do, I’d like to pretend that you don’t, okay?” She laughed a little.

  “So you would like to know your future,” the fortune teller replied. He leaned in and tightened his grip on her hands, pressing his thumbs into the center of her palm. “Then I must give you the standard disclaimer that while I am almost always right, there is a chance telling you the future will change it. I’m obligated to remind you that my services are purely entertainment and not to be considered true forecasting.”

  Derrick snorted.

  “Also,” the fortune teller said, ignoring the undignified sound, “sometimes a person’s fortunes are not so pleasant. So I must impress upon you that you should not ask questions to which you do not want the answer. After all, a tall, dark, handsome stranger in your future might be a tall, dark, handsome criminal who will assault you in your sleep.”

  “Oh, please,” Derrick said. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  “Please remove yourself from my tent, young man,” the fortune teller said. He dropped Maya’s hands and stood. “You have not paid for this service, nor do you intend to.”

  Derrick was taller but had none of the older man’s unaggressive confidence, which made the fortune teller’s stature seem more imposing. Also, Derrick still possessed some of the twitchy restlessness of his adolescence. The fortune teller, on the other hand, displayed uncanny stillness—as though he had convinced even his heart to beat less forcefully.

  “It’s a free country,” Derrick replied, slouching and crossing his arms. “I paid my ticket for the faire—and hers.”

  “Our circus rents the grounds, and I own this tent and everything in it. Your lady should be out to you in a few minutes.”

  “If you think I’m leaving you with my girl…” Derrick began.

  “For God’s sake, Derrick, just go,” Maya said, burying her head in her hands. “I already paid my ten dollars. Don’t make a scene or else I’ll leave you at the circus.”

  “What-the-fuck-ever,” Derrick said. He batted the tent flap open and stalked out. The evening’s flood lamps had switched on after they’d entered the fortune teller’s tent. Derrick became a sharply outlined shadow against the canvas.

  “Sorry about that,” Maya said as the fortune teller resumed his seat. “It’s been a long day. He doesn’t know his limits.”

  “There is no need to apologize for him,” the fortune teller replied.

  The fortune teller held out his hands once more. Somehow the gesture was more intimate when it was just them.

  “Now, where were we?” the fortune teller asked.

  “The future. Disclaimer. Danger. I think I’ll risk it,” Maya said, placing her hands in his again. Shades, shadows, cold readings, all in good fun…but none of it was real. It was all well and good to get taken in. That’s where the enjoyment came from.

  But not too much. Too much led to phone psychics and horoscopes, and Maya wasn’t that kind of woman.

  “Very well then,” the fortune teller said. “Would it be too self-serving if I suggested that the boy standing outside will not be your long-term partner?”

  “If he keeps acting like that, he certainly won’t be,” Maya muttered. “I promise he isn’t always like this.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he is. But he still doesn’t figure into the greater part of your future, even after all the sacrifices you have made and will continue to make to maintain the relationship,” the fortune teller said. “Familiarity does not always breed contempt, but love soured long ago. Now you immerse yourself in contempt for its familiarity.”

  Maya jerked her hands away.

  “I warned you that fortune telling is not always a pleasant art,” the fortune teller said gently.

  “Then excuse me if the fortune does seem a little self-serving.” Maya stood. “It’s really none of your business.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” the fortune teller said.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you were,” Maya replied.

  “You made it my business when you asked for my services,” the fortune teller said as she gathered her skirts to leave. “Maya.”

  Maya stopped just in front of the tent flap. The places where the fortune teller had warmed her hands all of a sudden went cold. She had never told him her name, and she was almost certain Derrick hadn’t used it either.

  “Your relationship with the boy will end badly, but your life will not shatter because of it. You’ll discover that you are not the person you have become,” the fortune teller said.

  “Cryptic much?” Maya said, turning around to face him. She cocked her hip, just daring him to keep trying to get into her pants.

  “You want specifics?” the fortune teller asked. He stepped around the table. “How is this for specific? Though you are a teacher, you still have instruction yourself yet to endure.”

  Holy Mother of God, this guy is not serious.

  “And the next time you’re on your knees before a man,” the fortune teller said, advancing with intense deliberation, “it won’t be because you think less of yourself or because he thinks less of you.”

  Holy Mother of God, this guy might be insane.

  Maya pushed her way out of the tent and grabbed Derrick’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “What? Didn’t like your fortune?” Derrick asked.

  “Creepy son of a bitch was hitting on me,” Maya replied.

  “You just noticed? He was hitting on you from the second he walked in.”

  “Well, this time he was really explicit about it, and not in a harmless way,” Maya said. “I guess next time I want my fortune told, I’ll buy Chinese.”

  “I could have told you that,” Derrick muttered.

  “Derrick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on your side, and no one likes being told ‘I told you so’.”

  “So, circus ring?” Derrick asked, wisely changing the subject.

  “Are there funnel cakes?”

  “I think there are cinnamon pretzels,” he replied.

  “That’ll do.”

  * * * *

  “Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Derrick said, as the horror-fied circus music tinkled balefully through the speakers and three clowns tumbled into the ring. “I might not be able to sleep tonight.”

  They sure knew how to make an entrance. Maya supposed she should have known that a traveling troupe whose claim to fame was having one of the last freak shows in the nation wasn’t going to scrimp on the shock and awe.

  The clowns were done up in greasepaint and red lips like any other, but Maya was pretty sure none of the clowns from her childhood had had bright orange mohawks and leather bustiers.

  A
male clown did a series of blurry somersaults in the sawdust then popped up as though out of a box to display his bright red-painted grin in an exaggerated leer. The single female cartwheeled over to leap onto his back, the paint of her lips downturned in a grimace and worry lines dark in the white greasepaint. Her eyelashes looked like cricket legs, and her lips—as stolidly shut as her comedic partner’s—were pierced three times, two rings on the upper lip like vampire fangs and one in the center of the lower lip. Her brown tulle tutu billowed out like a cloud, showing off red-and-white-striped tights. Her partner wore brown leather suspenders to match her bustier and leather collar.

  The third, rolling in on his German wheel, seemed the odd man out of the three. What he wore took a more traditional route—rainbow suspenders, brown boots too big for his feet, billowing trousers and a white peasant shirt. He also kept his lips tightly shut, but that only accentuated the horror of the detailed face paint—the wide, slavering grin of a many-fanged beast that stretched from ear to ear, accentuated by his exaggerated, bulging eyes.

  The unhappy clown flung herself off her comedic partner and collapsed to the floor in an exaggerated pratfall, only to be rolled over down her center by the monster clown’s German wheel. Maya made a little sound of dismay when the wheel went over the unhappy clown’s face.

  The unhappy clown flailed as though in pain, but then she grabbed the sides of the wheel and clung to it. The monster clown’s momentum lifted her off the ground in an arc. She tumbled off before it could ride over her again, and she petulantly kicked it to a stop, causing the monster clown to fall onto his orange-spiked head.

  Though the crowd was somewhat less dense than an afternoon performance in the faire proper, there was a good audience in the ring. Anyone looking around would be able to tell who hadn’t seen this particular troupe before by the various stages and degrees of ‘What the fuck?’ on their faces. Veterans laughed their asses off.

  “What is in these pretzels and where do I get more?” Maya asked, grinning with bemused bewilderment.

  The rest of the pre-show followed the same gamut of fake injury and tumbling—quite impressive tumbling actually, but overshadowed by the raunchy physical comedy. Maya squirmed on the uncomfortable bench when the unhappy clown vaulted over a barrel onto the happy clown’s shoulders—from the front.

  That was about the time everyone got a gander at just why children weren’t permitted at the show.

  It wasn’t quite Lysistrata and giant dildos, but the happy clown moved his head under all her tulle, and the unhappy woman writhed in wide-eyed surprise, arching her back to show her clownish pleasure.

  When the monster clown came up behind her in interest, the unhappy clown threw her arms up in surprise and fell back…but the happy clown kept hold of her legs, and the woman bent her spine back, back, back, until she grasped the monster clown’s waist, her mouth poised in front of the placket of his giant trousers. All three clowns looked to the audience with faux innocent awkwardness.

  Derrick’s bellowing laughter mingled with the rest of the audience. Maya felt like she’d walked into some kind of esoteric porno. Clowns weren’t usually Maya’s cup of coffee, but damn if she wasn’t just a little aroused by the enthusiastic set.

  Eventually, the clowns waved to the crowd, and the unhappy clown blew kisses to the men who wolf whistled after her.

  The lights dimmed. The organ grinder music faded out, replaced with an equally creepy and dissonant string quartet.

  A deep baritone boomed through the sound system. “Lords, ladies, peasants of the realm… Welcome to Arcanium, the Circus of Lost Souls.”

  “Oh, that’s original,” Derrick muttered, but his sarcasm had lost its bite. Sitting down in the cool tent with food in his belly and plenty of eye candy, he watched eagerly as the torches around the circus ring suddenly sprang to life.

  “Here we shall show you wonders of the world that have been hidden, skills lost for centuries, sights to shock and amaze you. I must remind everyone that this venue is not intended for anyone under the age of eighteen, and the clowns feast upon any we find sneaking about.”

  The sonorous voice paused for the audience’s laughter, although all of them had doubtlessly seen the sign at Arcanium’s gate as well as the others dotting the rest of the circus to cover its ass.

  A single figure passed through the red curtain entrance into the ring. The Ringmaster would tower above an average man by a head. His regal crimson and gold doublet strained over his barrel chest. He walked with a strange, graceful gait, each step taken with the gingerness of a dancer as he brought his anachronistic microphone to lips framed with a dark, thick, trimmed mustache and beard.

  “Within the iron fence of this circus, there is no normal, no average—only the strange, the weird, the eerie, the grotesque…the arcane. All I need to do is look at our wonderful audience.”

  More indulgent, deprecating laughter. It wasn’t self-deprecating, Maya noted. The stark sense that the audience didn’t laugh with the human oddities behind the curtain made her deeply uncomfortable.

  Then again, the circus hadn’t snatched these people from their beds and forced them into servitude as freak exhibitions. They were here voluntarily for the purpose of being gawked at. So maybe her discomfort wasn’t for the oddities at all, but her own discomfort at being confronted by the oddities themselves—an overwhelming sense of There, but for the grace of God, go I.

  She folded her hands in her lap and continued to watch the performance without a word.

  “Allow me to invite you now to indulge your senses with two of our most popular oddities— The seductress of the serpent, our snake charmer, the loveliest, most poisonous woman you will ever have the privilege to die for…Lady Sasha.

  “And don’t let his size fool you. Allow me to introduce you to the strongest man this side of the Pacific, the secretly sensitive man of steel…Lord Mikhail.”

  Lord Mikhail flung open the red curtain for himself and his companion, Lady Sasha, who entered the ring on a wheeled platform rolled by a black-clad crew. Draped by two giant albino pythons, with more constrictors curled around her feet and slithering serenely up her legs, she wore nothing else but a strappy leather bra and thong.

  Derrick’s whole body tightened next to Maya in immediate attention. She had to admit that the woman—with her flowing dark brown hair and skin the color of the pythons’ bellies, creamy and smooth and so artfully draped—was hot.

  However, in Maya’s opinion she didn’t quite upstage the man who joined her, followed by an entourage of crew pushing a heavy platform of items for Lord Mikhail to lift. He didn’t have the steroidal bodybuilding appearance one might expect from a circus strongman. He looked powerful, certainly, but he was smaller than the Ringmaster.

  Lord Mikhail’s gleaming muscles flexed with action-movie contours as he lifted a stone bench over his head with an animalistic grunt. He displayed his dazzling teeth in a fierce grin as he lowered into a squat and invited members from the first row to sit on the bench. He proceeded to lift them up—like Atlas carrying the world, except Mikhail appeared less burdened. Maya had never been one for beefcake. With this Middle Eastern Hercules, though, she might be willing to make an exception.

  When Maya tore her eyes from Mikhail’s glistening abdominal muscles—the man must have used some kind of oil—Derrick was still transfixed by Lady Sasha. The snakes at the charmer’s feet had raised their heads from the platform, and the ones curled around her swayed their hovering heads three feet from her body to the rhythm of the music, like sentient tentacles of a modern-day Medusa.

  Well, she certainly seemed to turn men rock-hard when they looked upon her.

  Especially after their tense evening, it was strange that Maya wasn’t jealous at how much attention Derrick was paying to the lovely, ahem, lady. Maybe because she’d just been doing her fair share of ogling Mikhail.

  And there might have been some drool, but she wouldn’t swear to it in court.

  “You l
ike that, baby?” Maya murmured in his ear.

  He jumped about a foot, as though he’d forgotten she was even there.

  She’d have to do something about that.

  “Yeah, um, no, um, what are you—?” Derrick stammered.

  Maya adjusted her shirt so that, at the right angle, he would be able to see the dusky edge of her nipple in the torchlight as she sat on his lap. She propped her feet on the bench next to them to hide what she was doing under her voluminous skirt. Sure, if anyone looked closely, they might figure out the game, but with Mikhail and Sasha in the ring, Maya doubted anyone was going to notice. They were in the top row, and there weren’t a lot of people around them. She could be discreet. As discreet as a hand job in public could be.

  Although she and Derrick had no problem getting their freak on in private, Maya had never been so bold before. She didn’t know what had gotten into her. But she wanted this, and she actually had Derrick’s undivided attention as she undid the placket fastenings of his shorts and slid her hand under his briefs to grasp the thick erection he sported from the snake charmer’s charms.

  “Oh shit,” Derrick groaned through gritted teeth. He wrapped his arms around Maya’s waist and tried to hold on. His eyes darted around the tent nervously, but he didn’t protest as Maya spread pre-cum over the tip with her thumb—or when she brought her hand out again and spit on it to grasp him more firmly and stroke without chafing.

  “Every night, Lady Sasha sleeps enveloped in a blanket of her serpents. Is it dangerous? Oh, yes,” the Ringmaster said. “Even though her friends are not poisonous, the Burmese python can exert an enormous amount of pressure on its prey. There are even cases of large pythons killing and consuming fully grown men.”

  Derrick’s breathing grew stertorous. A flush suffused the unburned places on his face, including his lips, as he stared between Lady Sasha and Maya. He wouldn’t be able to fondle Maya’s breasts—no way to hide that from everyone’s sight. But there was no reason why he couldn’t kiss his girlfriend. Making out wasn’t a crime.