Funhouse Read online

  Had anyone but Bell said that while wearing black leather pants and holding the hand of a scantily clad woman in a crowd of wealthy associates, he would have been laughed out of the warehouse and probably beaten within an inch of his life by very expensive security personnel, perhaps with homophobic epithets rained down upon him. He was wearing eyeliner tonight, his dense curly hair gleaming close to his head, and with his body covered, it was more difficult to see his strength. However, he was so much less delicate than he appeared, so much more in control than his wardrobe suggested, and it was impossible for him to hide that completely within his human façade.

  Allen finally nodded.

  “Good. Now if you can wait a few more minutes, I need to introduce Neve to what she’s going to be a part of.” Bell brought Neve forward again, kissing her shoulder in a proprietary way. He looked up at Allen as he did so, as though to show that he could but Allen couldn’t. But even so, the place where he kissed her awoke the rest of her skin, a stone in the pond of her desire. “You can enjoy the sight of her then. Excuse me.”

  “You’re not helping,” Neve whispered at him as they reached the split in the black curtain that acted as the entrance to the Funhouse.

  He pulled her through into the near pitch darkness within. His white shirt was just about the only thing she could see, but in a matter of moments, she could feel plenty. He slid his arm around her waist and brought her against him, slowly, gently, though no rude erection pushed against her abdomen.

  “I’m uncomfortable with this,” Neve murmured. His breath was cool against her lips, so he wasn’t about to kiss her, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was still being scrutinized and that he could see much better in the dark than she could.

  “I keep expecting you to slap me, but you’re so very polite. There’s no need to be so nice, my dear.”

  “I’d slap you now, but I can’t find your face.”

  He laughed, pulling away and hooking his arm in hers again. “I appreciate that you agreed to join me here, despite your reservations. I think the same enthusiasm you have for the haunted funhouse will be served well by this one. Shall we?”

  “How exactly is it going to be different from the haunted funhouse, other than my not being able to see? I’m barefoot, but some of those women were wearing scary high heels. They’re going to need to know where they’re going.”

  “There are pieces of glow tape to delineate the path. For someone so observant, I shouldn’t have to point them out to you.”

  “Them’s fighting words, Bell.” She wasn’t feeling playful, but he was keeping her mind off of what had been bothering her since he’d invited her to the Funhouse. Pretending she was confident made her feel more confident, and it changed the way he interacted with her, even if he could see beyond the bravado.

  “Drink your champagne, Neveline, and relax. It’s like your funhouse, but better.”

  She swallowed the rest of the champagne. Bell plucked the glass from her fingers. She didn’t know whether he set it down on the path or made it disappear. She just followed the ghost of his shirt through the darkness and around a corner. The line of the partitions stopped at a black platform, where red lights shone down upon a figure Neve didn’t immediately notice, because it was just as black as the rest.

  Then the figure lifted its head, and Neve saw the dark blue flame at the ends of her hair, purple in the red light. The Spider had been airbrushed—or magicked—completely black from head to toe. She rose on all eight limbs, wearing nothing but a satin underbust corset with red lace detail over her abdomen.

  The Spider moved with the kind of jerky grace of the tarantulas she liked to keep with her in the creepy-crawly tent. She was all angles, long legs, long arms, long fingers, except for her exposed breasts, which were full for her frame, especially when there was nothing to contain them. Neve tried to be circumspect when she checked, but she confirmed the Spider wore only the corset. Neve hoped the airbrushing was magical, because she could only imagine the dedication and discipline to have every last bit of her painted, even to the inside of her lips and over her labia.

  The Spider tilted her head, reaching one sharp-nailed hand out to stroke the pointed tips along Neve’s jaw, drawing her closer. The Spider trailed her fingers down the shadow of Neve’s cleavage to the bodice of the dress, curling a claw in to draw her still closer, until Neve had to grip the edge of the platform. The Spider looked directly in her eyes, and though she didn’t speak, Neve heard her as though she had Bell’s telepathy.

  ‘What does Neve want?’

  Neve didn’t let herself think. Or rather, she ignored every thought, even as she leaned in to close what little distance the Spider had left. She moved slowly enough that the Spider could have stopped her, even if she wasn’t capable or willing to speak, but instead, the Spider angled herself to meet Neve’s shy kiss.

  She’d never kissed a woman before. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it beyond the pleasure of a kiss, the way anything could shiver over the surface of her skin like a tongue of fire blossoming through fumes. If she hadn’t been standing and the Spider bent on the platform at an awkward angle, Neve might have parted her lips, explored more.

  When Neve broke the kiss, the Spider had both of her right hands flipping Bell off. The Spider grinned, kissed Neve’s cheek then retreated, lowering herself almost flat again with impressive flexibility.

  Bell kept his gaze on Neve, though he didn’t say anything until they rounded the corner. “Interesting.”

  “Just don’t.”

  “I don’t mean because of the undeniably erotic image of the two of you together, especially in that light. I mean that the Spider chose you to kiss. When she doesn’t have her spiders, she prefers working without a partition, because she’s still mildly claustrophobic. But she won’t let anyone touch her, which is why the Gentleman waits unseen in the corner in case he’s needed. She’s spare with her friendship, sparer still with desire. I knew you’d gone to her to discuss your decision. I believed it wise. I hadn’t realized you’d made such an impression.”

  “I think you’re the one who made the impression, modeling me after her—which she’s angry at you for, and so am I.” Though she doubted that devastated him.

  “And is that what you wanted, Neve?”

  She didn’t answer him, continued instead down the path until the next break in the partition.

  This time, the two performers stood in a glass case, blue light pouring over them. Seth and Lars were bound together in a deep kiss, their bodies naked, their legs interlocked, their hips so close together that their cocks weren’t visible—or at least that was what Neve thought, until she stopped in front of the glass case to stare.

  Their skin melded, molded together, sinking into the other’s body everywhere their skin met. When Seth lifted his hand from Lars’ shoulder, for a moment the skin struggled to stay in contact, stringing like molasses, the blend of contrasting flesh tones like the mingling of watercolors. Even their mouths were trapped together, their lips pulled tightly against the other whenever they’d withdraw from the kiss—as though their curse had intensified beyond mere contact, making them closer than ever, closer to one body than two. It was as hot as it was horrifying.

  “It may look awful, love, but they, like you and the Spider, are here of their own volition, and they agreed to this particular horror,” Bell murmured in her ear, although he didn’t touch her as he watched over her shoulder. “I promise they quite enjoy themselves as long as they don’t have to see who’s watching them. They’re more open with their affection than they once were, but they haven’t grown used to other people enjoying the sight of it.”

  She licked her lower lip, shifting from one foot to the other. She rethought her decision not to wear underwear under the dress.

  “Come along.”

  The next glass case sent light wavering into the hall. The mermaid swam close to the glass, though when she saw Bell behind Neve, she swam back again, glaring wit
h large, iridescent eyes. She was topless, the way most mermaids were when not in a children’s story. Frills ridged over her shoulder blades, and webbing stretched between her fingers and under her arms. The gills on her neck opened and closed. Her lips were blue, but only because the patches of scales along her cheeks and down her torso were also a light blue and green. Professional mermaids were nothing new, but even a woman who knew how to use a fake mermaid tail underwater needed to breathe. There were no obvious places for a woman to breathe above water, no human ways to breathe underwater. Guests from outside Arcanium would wonder what the trick was, as they did with every aspect of Arcanium. And as usual, there wasn’t a trick.

  Neve continued on, leaving the wavering lights behind her.

  This was the second time Bell had followed her through a maze. It occurred to her that he rarely got to watch someone experience his circus in real-time. She sensed Bell’s hunger for her reactions and wished she didn’t feed him so well, but she couldn’t help it. She liked haunted houses, she liked freak shows, and she was now in the perfect position to like sexual exhibitions as well.

  The next tableau had been set up on a low platform, no glass partition. Carlo was bound, naked, to a St. Andrew’s cross, the bindings black leather and false legs attached to the stumps of his thighs.

  Misha didn’t look any healthier than usual, but he appeared pleased that he didn’t have to swallow anything. Instead, he started pounding nails into the false legs, which spurted blood as though they were real.

  Carlo arched, his erection unflagged. But he shouted as Misha took a toothed cock ring and snapped it around the base.

  “Carlo’s a little bit of everything,” Bell said. “He and Misha alternate from Funhouse to Funhouse on who gets tortured, but Carlo gets to have his legs chopped off before he’s sodomized, which is always a satisfying visual, and he never tires of it. I’ve gotten more use out of him than anyone would give him credit for…although Misha can swallow anything, which makes watching a dildo the size of Ciarán’s cock go down his throat also quite satisfying. You know a little something about that, don’t you, love?”

  “Stop.” Neve didn’t need to be reminded of how much he knew, what he’d experienced in his secondhand way. “If you’re going to be cruel…”

  “I’m not saying it to be cruel. There’s nothing wrong with a throat yielding to an incubus. Jinn in general can find their way into just about anything with ease when they choose to make it sweet. If it gives you some sense of balance, I’ve had my own throat around the cock of another jinni myself.”

  Carlo was weeping and moaning at the same time, but Neve actually looked away from him to stare at Bell. He raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know why that surprises you. Most jinn are shapeshifters one way or another, which makes the shape of one’s genitalia quite inconsequential. I prefer surrounding myself with fierce women because they are so rarely appreciated, but when I choose the company of men, I’m partial to equally underappreciated men who don’t try to dominate me. I decide if I allow them to, just as I allow the women who choose my bed to decide.”

  She blinked.

  “I still don’t know why that surprises you. But you’ve experienced something I’ve never been able to try myself. I’m as subject to the destructive effect of a sex demon’s feed as any other creature. Until you came along, I had never experienced the other side of an incubus’ feed from a human woman’s perspective. I’m quite envious of you, love.”

  Neve had no idea what to say to that.

  Bell gestured her onward.

  Lady Sasha was next, in a glass case set on a pedestal. The succubus reclined on a reticulated python that had to weigh over two hundred pounds and filled almost the entire base of the container. Three albino ball pythons were wrapped around her body. Yellow-white scales slid and clung along her firm breasts. Muscles flexed around the curve of her nipple. A thick body moved between her legs to cover her, although it hardly seemed like modesty.

  Lady Sasha wore very little as a rule, but it was amazing the difference made by removing the last strips of leather from a figure like hers. She lay there like a pin-up parody of a Genesis painting. All she was missing was an apple, although she’d painted her lips a cherry red.

  Neve kept a certain distance from the case, unsure what Lady Sasha thought of her, especially as angry as she was with Mikhail.

  The succubus turned her head, opened her dark eyes. The irises were red, not a glow in shadows like Mikhail’s—more like garnets under white light. She moved under the slithering serpents around her, stroking along the firm bodies as she lifted herself upright. The python underneath her didn’t seem to be bothered by the shift in weight.

  There was ferocity in those eyes that Lady Sasha didn’t soften with a smile. Neve didn’t necessarily sense animosity, but she still backed away. Lady Sasha’s fierce gaze followed her until Neve turned the corner, trying to catch her breath and crossing her arms over her breasts to cover her nipples. They were hard as diamonds against her forearms, and the silk only stimulated them more.

  Neve ducked away from Bell’s hand when he touched her shoulder.

  “On Oddity Row, she’s compelled to be pleasant. Though she’s kind enough for a demon, she’s not nice and doesn’t particularly like being nice.”

  He didn’t pursue contact again. The bastard knew exactly why she didn’t want him to touch her now.

  It certainly didn’t help that Lord Mikhail was next on display.

  He was dressed like a warrior out of a video game, but one that objectified men as much as its women, with harnesses and armor meant to enhance rather than protect the appearance of his physical strength and Atlas figure. He was an executioner in gay culture leather, but the harness around his cock was what drew the eye.

  Leather wrapped around his scrotum and the base, keeping his erection impossibly large, hard and curved under a leather-edged blade that extended beyond the head of his cock. From the sides of the leather cock ring, two more leather-edged blades curved outward. He wore leather gloves with razor claws over his nails. The helmet through which he wore his long hair in a tail covered the lower half of his face like a muzzle, but with serrated blades like teeth over his mouth.

  He was delicious, his dark skin gleaming and tattooed, at its best from every angle, and at every angle dangerous as hell—a not-so-subtle warning of what he was that so many would still ignore if he pulled them in hard enough.

  He could have been a wax sculpture, except for his breathing and the way his eyes followed her as she backed away from him as well. There was ferocity in his own gaze almost identical to Lady Sasha’s and also without any outright animosity. His cock twitched, pulsed, making the blade over it glint in the light.

  Neve thought getting away from him would help, but his magic followed her, and it had apparently reached the conjoined twins on their own platform as well.

  The twins were blindfolded, gagged, their arms tied over their heads. Rope bound their ankles wide apart to spread their legs and give them no purchase or solid ground to brace themselves. They were poised in a seated position above an indifferent machine that slowly pushed thick red dildos into their pussies.

  The pale tumbler wore a mask that concealed everything except the glee in his eyes as he walked around the girls with the remote in one hand and a flogger in the other. Even though the dildos were slow, the twins were already writhing with the same fervid need that had wrapped itself so firmly around Neve’s own desire.

  Lennon winked at her as she passed, grinned underneath the leather mask. The stretch of the leather over his smile made it decidedly creepy. Lennon flicked the flogger over one of the twins’ breasts. When one twin flinched, the place at the base of their spine where they were connected meant both of them jumped. The twin’s skin went white where the flogger had struck her then flushed into pink lines. He trailed the tails over their shoulders, the bulge in his loose leather trousers prominent, not contained like Lord Mikhail�
�s.

  “Seth and Lars used to scene with them, all four bodies melded together, and Lennon used to swim with Melanie in the mermaid tank, but I think they prefer spending the Funhouse events apart, despite their entanglements the rest of the time. The Funhouse is a chance to step out of the usual boxes…into other boxes, true, but different ones. Arcanium is so similar from week to week. These parties allow for some variety. If you ever have an idea for a change here in the Funhouse events or in your usual funhouse tableau, do not hesitate to ask. I don’t want my children bored.”

  “What do you do to keep from getting bored? Figure out how to make the people who’ve been with you longest miserable? Bring new people in to make new people miserable, too?”

  He took her by the wrist and whirled her through the dark until she hit a corner in the makeshift hallway. The partition shuddered, but it didn’t fall or collapse. When she raised her arms to protect herself, he grasped her wrists like cuffs and pressed them against her shoulders, which pushed her deeper into the niche.

  “If you’re still miserable here, Neve, you’ve no one to blame but yourself.” This time his breath brushed hot across her cheek and over her ear, close. “The price for bringing interesting women into my circus is that those women are often their own worst enemies, but while I’m no hero, I’ll thank you not to make me your villain. You were the one who wanted to know what this was like. I’ve gifted you with opportunities, protections, sensations that most women and even some men would kill for, and all you can do is condemn yourself for what you have because it’s new, strong, something you were unprepared for. Instead of attacking me, why don’t you take the Spider’s advice, love? Why don’t you just fucking take what you want?”

  Neve leaned her forehead against his, tilting her head to bring her mouth closer to his until she could almost taste him. “What makes you think I want you?”