Circus Excite (17 page)

This was where the trickery came in. Under her, a trapdoor opened and a dummy figure was hoisted up. While Robert acted out his remorse, Julia slipped under the stage and left the dummy lying in her place. Now she had to work quickly. Henri was at hand to help her rip off the suit, held together with Velcro to speed up her change. Underneath she was wearing elaborate silvery-grey underwear, over which she pulled on a suit identical to the one she had been wearing, only grey. She shielded her face, trying to get her breath back while Henri emptied a handful of talc over her hair, and her ghostly appearance was ready.

Out in the tent, the aerial girls were spinning overhead, looping out of the dark shadows of the tent, flying round Robert as he sat on the floor, head in hands as though despairing. A slow heartbreaking lament played from the speakers, and the lighting was softened to a
pale glow. Now the stage had an ethereal dreamlike appearance, the girls trailing wisps of gauze behind them as they floated around Robert.

In the wings, a second, false stage was hidden by darkness, and it was here that Julia slipped back into position, carefully aligning her body with chalk marks on the floor. Between her, the stage and the audience was a diagonal sheet of glass, and a footlight now rose to shine on Julia. The audience saw a ghostly vision of her, reflected on the glass screen, superimposed over the tableaux on the main stage.

The trick was an old one: ‘Pepper's Ghost'. It was simple but striking. Every move was timed to exactly coincide with Robert's. As he raised his head to see Julia's ghost float to her feet, Robert followed the music to coordinate with her. What now appeared to the audience was a slow misty apparition of Julia, dancing slowly in front of Robert. This time her provocative gestures were half obscured by the reflection. The noise from the audience died gradually, and the tent was filled with only the slow seductive music as Julia dropped her jacket to the floor. She slid out of her skirt and stood, pale and unearthly, clad in lacy silver underwear and stockings. She counted two bars, and leant forward, poised over another chalk mark on the floor. At the same time Robert lifted his hands, and the audience saw him fondling Julia's breasts, reaching to touch the mirage of her body. Someone in the crowd gave a low whistle, sending a shiver down Julia's spine. She was dancing alone on the second stage, but imagining Robert responding to her – as though dreaming the whole sequence.

As she felt the tension build, Julia straightened up smoothly, and released the clasp of her bra. It fell to the floor soundlessly, and the audience shifted in their seats to see the hazy outline of her breasts, a maddeningly
slight vision of her body. She shook herself gently, just giving a little jiggle of her tits to provoke them even more. Now, as Robert reached up to stroke the imagined side of her body, she pulled off her G-string, her movements timed perfectly so that she stood naked at last just as a pall of dry ice rose around her. All that was visible was a pale silhouette, the suggestion of her curves and the shadowed seam between her legs, the stage filling with smoke, and the dark shape of Robert reaching to touch a body that didn't exist.

Around them the girls on silk ropes twisted and spun, wrapping themselves in the fabric and pulling themselves higher into the vaulted ceiling of the tent. Sheer body stockings revealed pure angelic bodies underneath, the pale fabric contrasting with the dark fathomless black of the stage, lips and nipples rouged as bright spots of colour against their slight ghostly appearances. The rippling motion of the aerial act flowed around Julia and Robert, the two of them playing caresses back and forth, Julia rolling her figure over Robert's desperate arms, passing through them even as he tried to catch her. It was the most maddening of sights, a man so aroused he was chasing a voluptuous dream, snatching at Julia's limbs, letting his hands hover over her breasts, hips, ass as though trying to tickle the apparition into existence. Occasionally their images would overlap perfectly and the audience saw Robert join Julia in a deep kiss, heads close together and bodies limp with ecstasy, only to break apart again seconds later.

As she danced this luminous insubstantial tease, Julia felt she was acting out her feelings for Robert; the two of them able to fuck only in an imagined scenario, her sexual exploits a mirror of her desire for him. She danced alone on the hidden stage, assuming the positions she longed to share with Robert, allowing the audience to see the deepest of her secret fantasies. On
her knees now, so that her rounded pert ass was displayed to Robert's shadow-image, she closed her eyes and imagined him kneeling behind her, stroking the softest part of his fingertip along the line of her crack, teasing her pussy and clit as if he was mesmerising her. She started to sway and rock, knowing that the audience saw her reflection being taken by Robert, hands on her hips. She could tell from the hushed restlessness of the audience that they were fixated by the sight now unfolding: Robert miming his fuck, moving his hips as though sinking his cock into her, slowly increasing the tempo of his thrusts as the aerial display whirled ever faster around the stage. It was a stylised fuck, an exquisite and graceful simulacrum of the sexual act, and Julia knew it only aggravated the sexual longing of the audience. They were now agitated with a mix of pleasure and frustration, in the same state as Julia would be after the show, so keyed up and sensitised that every movement seemed heavy with suggestion. She let her breasts sway gently under her as she and Robert moved, together but far apart, providing a perfectly synchronised display of erotica for this house full of strangers.

She moaned as she moved, her voice lost in the loud cocoon of stirring music that accompanied the climax of the act, strings swooping as the girls unfurled the fabric and tumbled to the ground, where they writhed like fallen angels around the stage, their dramatic movements surrounding the tableau of ringmaster and dancer, rocking steadily in a final spasm, sharing their imagined orgasm with the crowd.

AS SHE WALKED
over the grass towards her caravan, a figure in a leather jacket stepped out from the shadows.

‘Hello there, beautiful.' His voice was unfamiliar, and Julia froze, trying to make out his face in the inky blackness.

‘Who's that?'

‘Your most ardent fan. My name's John. This is Mark.' His friend materialised beside him, a provocative smirk on his face. Julia suddenly recognised them – it was the two men Robert had spoken to before the show.

‘We've been waiting to see you.'

‘Yeah, loved the show.' Mark spoke for the first time.

‘Only, it's left us feeling kind of cheated.'

‘But that's the whole idea, boys.' Julia was shivering, cold after the sweat from dancing had dried on her skin. She was wearing her costume suit, and hugged the thin fabric round herself in an effort to stay warm.

‘Surely you know the deal with a strip show?'

John nodded. ‘Yeah. Cheap tricks. It's not that which was bothering me. It's more what your manager told us before the show.'

Mark was moving in closer to Julia while John talked, slipping his arm round her shoulders.

‘My manager?'

‘The guy with the cards. He said you always needed to unwind after a show.'

Mark played with the hair at the nape of Julia's neck, curling a strand round his fingers. He leant in to her ear
and whispered, his breath tickled her neck. Julia caught a whiff of beer and smoke.

‘We thought you might fancy a little trip. Help you relax.'

‘Show you the sights. There's a lot to see round here.'

Julia laughed. ‘Cow-shit in the dark? It's not my idea of fun, guys.'

‘A bit further than the next field, we were thinking.' He held up a set of car keys and shook them.

‘We can promise a night to remember.'

Julia looked at the glittering keys, wondering if she was entirely insane to even consider the offer. John had a tightly packed, compact body that bristled with an aggressive sexuality. His attractiveness was amplified by his arrogance and the boldness of his suggestion. Mark appeared a darker, yet more enigmatic presence, less inclined to bravado, more likely to quietly insinuate himself into a situation – as he was now calmly slipping his arm round Julia's and pressing his fingers into her flesh. Julia felt as though she was being coerced, and for a minute the very danger of the situation appeared tantalising.

‘Don't pretend you're not tempted, Julia.' Robert's clear voice was a sudden shock, and as he appeared from the shadows she felt as though she'd been caught in a trap. The three men stood waiting to hear her response as she stood shivering with uncertain excitement in the cold night air.

‘I'll be coming along too,' Robert added, as though the decision had been made for her.

‘How could I refuse?' Julia finally answered, meeting the challenge in Robert's eyes.

John's car was a sleek black Audi that made the road melt under them. Julia didn't even notice when they hit 100mph, especially with the distraction of John's hand
on her knee and the driving house music that thumped a heavy bass line from the speakers. Mark cracked open cans of beer as they drove, and Julia felt a warm buzz overtake her, the night flashing by filled with traffic and a reckless feeling of escape. After half an hour on the motorway they were pulling onto the slip road, Robert's car a short distance behind them. When Julia caught a glimpse of the signs, she burst out laughing.

‘Blackpool? You're taking me to Blackpool?'

‘Valhalla, babe, Valhalla.' John gave her a wide smile, and in the dark Julia saw his teeth gleaming.

The three of them spilled out of the car and straight into the carnage of Blackpool on a Saturday night. It was one in the morning and the seafront was littered with smashed bottles and chip wrappers, among which groups of drunken revellers staggered, shouting and singing. The neon signs and lights dazzled Julia, suggesting a lurid carnival of debauchery. A strip club blared raucous music into the street from a pair of tinny speakers, the sign promising ‘Girls, Girls, Girls! Live action!' She could smell the reek of the night – the vinegar from the fast food vans mixed with the smell of vomit and piss from alleyways. Overhead seagulls circled and shrieked, beating their wings against a stiff sea wind.

Julia was still in her costume, shivering with the blustery cold. John wrapped his jacket round her, Mark slipped his arm round her waist, and they meandered down the street swigging beer. She felt herself carried along by the two men, hunched under John's arm, with Mark kneading her hip, the three of them bumping pleasantly against each other as they walked. Behind them somewhere, she knew Robert was following. Resisting the impulse to check for him, Julia relaxed into
the company of her two new admirers, enjoying their attentions as they playfully flirted with her.

Ahead of them a stag party crashed out of a pub onto the street, a dozen guys reeling with drink and full of vim. One of them caught sight of Julia with her twin escorts draped over her and bellowed at them. Within a minute the whole gang were whistling after her, making animal noises and cackling with laughter. John casually gave them the finger, pulling Julia closer in to him as though claiming her.

‘I think it's time we took you somewhere a little more private, sweetheart.'

‘What, like a hotel room?' Julia wasn't sure if she was into the idea.

‘No, like a long, dark ride.'

The Pleasure Beach was a vast city of roller coasters and fairground rides that stayed open long into the night, and Julia passed through the turnstile into total sensory overload. Rides looped under and around in a crazed tangle of tracks, everything covered in 200-watt light bulbs and fluorescent paint. After the sleek black tents of Circus Excite, Julia felt that she had entered a huge cheap spectacular. In the circus they worked to keep a tightly sophisticated atmosphere of erotic tension, playing with dark illusion and restrained desire. This place was an explosion of cheap thrills, a cheerful mess of blatant kitsch and high-tech special effects, the gargantuan Big Dipper sitting monstrously above it all.

John and Mark pulled her through the arcades to where a hundred-foot high cliff face rose forbiddingly. Julia felt a pang of trepidation as they approached the small wooden station, behind which a waterfall roared. The entrance was carved in the shape of a huge Viking skull.

‘Told you I was taking you to Valhalla, didn't I?' John jumped into a wooden longboat that rocked on the current of an underground river. He held out his hand. Julia hesitated, wondering if she should wait till Robert was near. Before she could speak, however, John had grabbed her and pulled her down to sit next to him on the bench.

‘I'm not getting left out,' Mark said, squeezing himself in next to them. Julia was trapped in the middle, jammed in tightly.

The boat moved off, the surly ticket seller barely glancing at the party before they disappeared under the jaw of the Viking skull. Once inside, they were plunged into darkness. The cave-like tunnel was cold as the tomb, echoing with the splashes of the boat as it drifted further into the murky shadows. Julia gripped the padded handrail with a feeling of fluttering disorientation as they moved into unknown territory. Beside her, she felt John slip his hand under her top and caress her back. His fingers were so cold they made her shiver.

‘What happens in here?' she asked, only half wanting to know.

‘Thrills and spills,' John replied, reaching his hand down the back of her skirt and working his way under the elastic of her G-string. Julia jumped as lightning sparked over wires around them, prompting laughter from Mark, who put his hand on her knee as if to reassure her.

‘Scared?' he asked, leaning in to try to kiss her. ‘You want to sit on my lap?' He pulled her over onto his knees, while John shifted round in his seat to face her. The pace quickened while around them projections of fire rolled over the walls. Julia felt the boat start to spin and rock as Mark manoeuvred her closer, holding her firmly by the hips and pushing his hard-on against her.
Julia wriggled, wondering if the whole boat was about to turn over.