"It remains unresolved. I may have to return. But I've made my terms simple," Hunter said, flashing me a smile. "I must be able to attend the theater's performances."
I forced my own smile into place. He was offering me a compliment, certainly, but it meant that whatever our connection was, it revolved around the theater.
"They're lucky to have your help," I said, brushing a kiss over his cheek. "And perhaps you might lend me your help too?"
"Of course," Hunter said, starting to sit up, face falling into a solemn frown.
"Good. After all, you ought to be able to admire me in the costume you paid for," I teased.
Understanding passed brightly over Hunter's features as I slipped away from him. "You're testing my strength to resist you again, aren't you, little one?"
"Whatever could you mean, sir?" I asked, grinning as I pulled my thin gown up over my head until I stood naked in front of Hunter, praised only by the vivid glow of his gaze as he drank me in.
* * *
"Are you ready?"
I startled at the low whisper in my ear, the tall shadow suddenly appearing out of the corner of my eye.
On stage, Evie was doing what Mr. Reddy called our "juggling act," where one human took on an increasing number of monstrous cocks. Evie was the best at multitasking, and she'd gotten the act up to six with the use of her feet. Impressive, indeed, although by the end, the audience could barely make her out in the tangle of limbs.
The music Nireas chose for the scene always made me laugh, jaunty and bouncing, like something you might hear cranked out in Piccadilly accompanied by puppets. Personally, I thought it was a shame the witty finale was always buried beneath the roars of satisfaction from the monsters surrounding Evie.
"How could I be?" I whispered back to Constantine.
Goliath started to grunt in warning—a cue to Evie, the other monsters, and even Nireas that the finish was coming. Quite literally.
"I barely know what's about to happen," I said.
"You know enough," Constantine answered. "Do you really think you could follow cues and scripts once I started to touch you?"
There was something almost playful in the words, and I turned my head to look at him. He was still eerie, those metallic eyes bouncing back the stage lights, his body moving in one jerk after another, but I'd grown used to those features this week. We'd been close during rehearsal and he'd spoken softly. He hadn't touched me again, and sometimes I was grateful, and other moments I hated the waiting.
"I suppose not," I said. "Do you know what you're going to do?"
"I'm going to touch you, undress you," he said, inching closer, close enough to share hints of rough spice and carmelly sugar on his skin, his breath an almost imperceptible temperature as it stroked over my shoulder. "Fuck you. I will hurt you and soothe you."
"It doesn't sound like much of a show, if all they'll see is you touching me and me screaming," I admitted.
Constantine smiled, and somehow, it made his features fit together better. My shoulders relaxed and I tipped my chin up.
"Perhaps," he said, head dipping abruptly in acknowledgement. "I am less concerned with the audience's response than I am with our own."
I wasn't sure if I was part of the "our," or if he only meant his two halves.
On stage, the septuple came to a collective, bellowing finish, and the audience laughed and clapped and cheered—a few of the more lusty members joining the act in their completion, from what I could see. The lights dimmed slowly and the curtains closed, and the stagehands hurried to pull the cluster apart, Frank lifting Evie up off the cocks she was seated on and cradling her limp and giggling body back to the wings.
From the other end of the stage, two were-bears carried out the bench Constantine had requested. It was Mr. Reddy's design, built especially for versatility and offering a good view to our audience. When Constantine had declared it "grubby" in Wednesday's rehearsal, I'd thought Mr. Reddy would lose his temper with Constantine at last, but whoever the demon was, he had some shocking kind of power over our director and producer. So the bench had been reupholstered in a deep, cherry-purple velvet.
"Go," Billy hissed at Constantine and me.
I hurried forward, searching the floor for my mark in front of the bench, surprised to find my body bubbling with nerves. I hadn't been nervous to appear on stage for years now. Sometimes, I felt almost like a piece of machinery, just a pretty cog in a clock, making the theater tick along. Evie had said I was Reddy's favorite because I showed up and could fuck anyone, but it was more than that. I could act, as much as any of our scenes needed me to. I followed cues, always found my mark. I knew every act, every job, as well as I knew the work I did myself. And with all of that knowledge, all of that experience, the nerves had softened and faded away. Maybe the excitement had too.
It was back now. I stopped in front of the bench, the glimmer of stage lights just barely visible through the seam of the curtain, and bounced briefly on my toes, the silk stockings slippery against the floor. Hunter had sent me an elegant pair of shoes, but Constantine and Reddy both dismissed them. The curtain twitched, and Nireas's last notes went still. There would be no more music for the rest of the show. It was only me and Constantine now.
I caught one deep breath, steeling myself, and then the curtains parted and a bright, warm spotlight found me. I lifted my chin high, shifting just slightly in place, allowing the spotlight to glitter on the jewelry Hunter had gifted us, at my ears and wrists and throat.
The audience was silent as they watched me, waiting. In this gown, fabric kissing and stroking over my form, and with these bright gems glittering on me, I was not the helpless human creature Mr. Reddy's audience paid to see. I was pristine. Hunter had taken great care backstage in brushing out my hair until it was glossy, and Myra had proven herself to be a much defter hairdresser than I'd realized, twisting my long auburn locks up into something worthy of a princess.
Suddenly, I understood. Constantine would destroy this version of me, unravel me in front of everyone. But he'd given me this moment, this brief, haughty dignity where I was beautiful and untouchable, an impossible object for any of the monsters in the audience to ever hope to possess.
I stared down my nose at the front row, watched blurry faces frown, bodies shift in discomfort, knowing that any moment, I would be sent toppling from the pedestal the finery provided.
The audience's focus on me distracted from Constantine in the shadows, and their sudden bouncing gazes on either side of me was my only warning.
"Now," a soft voice whispered in my ear.
I didn't feel Con's fingertips at the lobe of my right ear, but a scream tore out of me at the sudden, brilliant slicing that stroked down my throat and up into my skull. The audience gasped as I arched in place, hands flailing out in front me. I was on the tips of my toes, about to lose control of my legs, when as quickly as he had struck, Con's touch vanished, just a sweet burn left licking the right side of my head. I stumbled in place, hands clutching air, and my scream died in my throat, my breath catching.
A silvery-blue hand held the earring I'd been wearing, and I turned to meet Con's eyes. There was no sympathy in his gaze, but no glee either.
Antin took my other ear, and this time my knees really did wobble, a heavy roll of pleasure dripping down from my head right into my cunt. My eyes fell shut, and my lips fell open on a moan. Antin's hand was gone again as swiftly as Con's, but the pulsing in my core remained, thrumming heat and need through me, eager dampness growing on my sex.
I tried to straighten, to find my mark on the floor, my eyes blinking dizzily at the audience, but Con was fast. Lightning cracked up and down my spine, but I didn't have time to scream before it was gone again. My whole body trembled in the wake of the attack. The clasp of the necklace was open, and it slid cooly down my chest as I sobbed for air.
My legs were liquid already, and it was Antin who caught me as I fell forward. I gasped, and his own breath hitched in my ear as I wrapped my arms around his shoulder, clinging to the sensation rushing through me, as if he could be both wave and anchor.
"Show them your face, sweet creature," Antin whispered, his voice strained as his power stroked between my legs, over my skin, all by the grip of his hands on my arms trying to steady me.
My face was pressed to his shoulder, the contact amplifying every color in the room as I turned my head, rocked in his arms with the pulse of pleasure, and stared out at the audience. I cried out, stiffening with the snaps of pain as Con undid the buttons down the back of my dress, sagging as those sharp bites forced the first tide of an orgasm to wash over me, a bright, wordless cry echoing up to the mezzanine.
Antin freed himself from my grasp, pushing me gently away and leaving me to slide down to my knees. My palms clapped against the floorboards of the stage, arms shaking. My dress was open, sliding down from my shoulders to expose my breasts. I lifted my chin slowly, facing the audience on my knees, panting for air and shuddering through aftershocks. I arched my spine hard, and the spotlight shone down on me, a soft murmur of study rising from the quiet mass in front of the stage.