Marionette

Chapter 8 -A Taste

Zachary

Beautiful and innocent. I should have no business with a woman like her. Yet, there was that strong voice that kept on telling me over and over until my mind’s ears were deaf – “She’s mine. Mine. Mine.”

I promised a dance, but a dance with me would never be the same as a dance with an ordinary man. Dancing with me was a pleasure. I was pleasure personified. She knew it, even though she still had no idea what I was.

“A dance?” she asked, her smile revealing the minx hiding behind her innocence. They would try their best to keep her this way, until they were ready to break her.

“Yes, a dance.” I kept my tone light, even as my throat hurt. I twirled her around with one arm as if to confirm my plans.

“Nothing more?” she prodded, even as I pulled her hand and walked faster toward the vicinity of our rooms.

“Nothing more,” I murmured, almost feeling bereft because I realized I couldn’t do anything more, but damned if I didn’t give her as much as I could. I was damned, anyway.

I couldn’t take what was left of her innocence – not yet, if ever it came to that. I just wanted a taste. I just wanted to claim her before Mr. Crow did with his power and influence, or Hugh with his kindness.

Power. I could have had it if not for Mr. Crow. I was trapped here, a mere slave, even if I dressed better than most of the other employees. In their eyes, I had more freedom, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I had money that I couldn’t use, bound by magic.

“How do I know you wouldn’t use my share of the money?” I had asked the Ringmaster the year I turned eighteen. It was the year that I was given a proposition: to w***e myself to earn the circus – and myself, they said – more money.

“You have my word. You also have the spell that binds the money. Nobody else can get their hands on your share. Nope, don’t look at me like that, my boy. I couldn't even get hold of your money. When you turn twenty-five, you can leave.”

“I can?” I asked then, excited. Youth was great for strength, but apparently, not for wisdom.

“There’s a price to pay, of course, darling,” Madame Yora interrupted the joy that was coursing through my veins. I guessed I had to be thankful. She woke me up from the dream that had started to form in my head. Pure silliness.

Of course. They wouldn’t let me go without a price. It wasn’t enough that I was the one that was bringing in the big money, but I had to give up something. More likely something big.

“How much?” I asked, even though I knew then, young as I was, that there was no way it would be about money. Mr. Crow was rich as sin. I couldn’t even understand why I had to do what I had to do other than “give in to nature” and “use the powers the darkness has given” me.

“It has to do with Hugh.”

My bone chilled then. They knew that even though my brother and I couldn’t be more different from each other, I would never sacrifice him.

“Hey, you okay?” Alice asked, her brows contorted with concern. The thing about her was that my brother was a better match for her. They were both innocent and kind. Even as her body craved me before she even set foot on the circus, she was still nothing more than an angel. Suddenly, I didn’t think bringing her to my room was a good idea after all. My touches would stain her soul.

“I’m fine,” I lied, even as my skin trembled.

The circus performers didn’t really know my real age. Only Madame Yora, Mr. Crow, and my brother did. I had two more months to go before I could make a choice that could change things forever. I could also decide to stay a slave here in Crow’s Nest, forever a w***e. I had only f****d three women without money or property involved, two of whom before I turned eighteen. We were just bored teenagers looking for other things to do at the circus. One week after we took each other’s virginity, Eloise disappeared. We found her body near the riverbank of one of the sites we used to frequent. We didn’t go back to that place, called Amerstand, as we all left her body to be found by the authorities there. Madame Yora made sure that there were no traces of who Eloise was – that she couldn’t be traced back to Crow’s Nest. The second young woman was Jane. Plain Jane. I thought that if I f****d someone nobody really wanted, there wouldn’t be any repercussions. Again, one week later, her body was found dead. That time, her mangled body was found by the gates of a cemetery in Rudensfeld. Different town. Different dead young woman.

For some reason, Mariska was still alive. It was probably because Crow’s Nest needed her. She was the only fire breather in the circus who could perform without the use of any type of fuel.

“She is part dragon,” Madame Yora once joked. “Or a demoness.”

I just nodded. After all, I knew who I was, and I was no longer surprised by the mysteries that were being unraveled in this place.

But Alice. Oh, sweet Alice.

Her arrival here was never my idea. I was just a servant.

“Visit this girl in her dreams,” Mr. Crow ordered, showing me her picture for the first time when I was twenty-one.

“I had never done that before,” I protested even though her beautiful face seemed to call to me.

“You can. You have the power. It’s part of your nature. Of who you are.”

“What will I do with her then?”

“Seduce her. Make her think of you even as she sleeps. Even as her fingers find her cunt in the middle of the night. Seduce the devil out of her so that she’ll come and look for you. Look for us.”

I had been working as a gigolo for the circus for years then. Mr. Crow’s words shouldn’t offend me. I laughed nervously at the thought that I was growing a conscience, and when I did visit Alice, I enjoyed as much as I could of her.

“Why should I do it?”

“Her mother owes the circus. It’s time to collect.”

Curiosity got the best of me. I was persuaded by her beauty, the lush curves hidden from the rest of the world. I was the first to see them, as I slid her blanket down her body. My finger was the first to enter her wet cunt, sliding in its heat. It was the first to feel the tremors that followed as she came all over it.

It took a lot of self-control not to taste her then. It took thoughts of Hugh and what could happen to him – to us – if I plunged my c**k deep inside the woman I was pleasuring.

Could the same fears stop me now?

“Do I still get a dance? Maybe you should rest.”

Rest. My c**k was still hard, a presence between us. I promised myself just a taste. Nothing more.

What if Mr. Crow decided to take all of her? No. Alice was not the type to be controlled. She wouldn’t just do it just because the Ringmaster wanted it. If she gave herself away, it would be because she wanted to – and what right did I have to stop her from getting what she desired?

And yet…

I managed to seduce her from a distance.

Mr. Crow was a more experienced man. A handsome man. A wealthy man. He could choose to collect Alice’s mother’s debts by taking her virginity. Would he do that?

No.

I flung my door open, and the two of us rushed in. Alice giggled nervously, her hands caressing her velvet dress as if looking for buttons. There were none. I pulled her toward me, grinding her against my hard c**k. She moaned against my lips, right before I kissed her savagely. I kissed her with tongue, lips, and teeth. My hot tongue slid in and out, showing her just what I wanted to do between her legs. To f**k her senseless. She knew how I felt through the wall that separated our rooms. I wanted to show her that being with me in reality was a lot more. A lot more.

Alice curled her fingers over my shirt, pulling me closer as if she was trying to take me under her skin. Oh, I wanted to, but I promised myself just a taste.

My hand tested the collar of her velvet dress and felt a little give in the fabric, just enough to pull out one breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra – the minx – and my mouth watered at the sight of her hard, pink n****e. I swirled my tongue over it. Over and over. She whimpered and moaned, her limbs feeling weak. I caught her before she fell on her knees, holding her up by her buttocks with one hand. With nips and bites, I marked her. Then, I sucked her delicious flesh deep into my mouth, reveling at the feel of that turgid tip clashing with my tongue.

“Zachary,” she said with a sigh. I liked my name on her lips. She was mine, then, and nobody else could take her away from me, but I had to take it slowly. “Take me now. Let me feel you the way -.”

I gave her n****e a soothing lick before I carried her to the bed. She trembled, more likely thinking that I’d take her tonight. That I would take everything. Not yet, sweetheart.

When her back met the bed, her thighs fell apart. Her body was trembling, and I hadn’t even touched her between her legs. Her hand pulled her dress to her waist and reached for her mound, covered only by a swath of lace.

‘Please?” she whimpered.

I kneeled between her spread legs, watched the hint of pink through the lace, and took out my c**k. I fisted it, stroking up and down while she mirrored it with the movement of her hips.

“Please.”

“You’re not ready yet, Alice,” I said, almost admonishing her. I was punishing myself, but I had to make sure she knew what she was doing. One day, when she finds out who I really am, she may not want me anymore.

“I’m ready,” she protested. Her fingers were rubbing herself now, inexperience welling into frustration.

“Listen to me. You see my c**k, how it weeps for you. You will feel it rubbing your c**t. Do you feel that?”

She closed her eyes, understanding what I was trying to do.

“Yes, I can feel it. It’s hard against me. Oh -.”

“I’m rubbing it even more, feeling you getting hotter and wetter. Soaked.”

She was panting now, feeling what I was describing to her. With her eyes closed, it was real for her just as I could feel her at my tip.

“Now, I’m putting it in you, slowly and without pain. Inch by inch. I am now filling you.”

“Yes! I feel so full.”

I could feel her heat around me. It made my hips piston forward as if my body had a life of its own. With her, it was different. With her, there was blinding pleasure, but I shouldn’t forget to make her feel everything.

“I’m moving in and out of you now, deeper each time. Filling you.”

She was incoherent by then, her body slamming up and down on the bed. It was like a woman possessed by pleasure, with one bare breast bouncing and her hips moving in tandem with mine.

“You’re coming now, feeling my heat and girth as I keep pushing you over the edge.”

“Yes! f**k me, Zachary! Harder.”

I gave it to her harder, until she was shaking like a leaf. I felt my c*m spurting on my hand, like a teenage boy who just discovered what m**********n felt like. I had never felt like this before, and I had f****d so many women, and it was just a taste.