SETTING THE STAGE
My hands slapped against the floor and I let out a long cry, bracing against the brutal thrusts of the demon, Eston, kneeling behind me. His hands were scorching on my hips, his rhythm steady and mechanical.
Just a rough and constant in and out.
He was a simple sort of partner, leaving most of the work up to me to howl and hiss and moan, and if I wanted to finish with him, I had to help myself.
Some days, it was easier just to pretend. After eight years with the theater, those days were growing more frequent.
The sharp horns and thorns of Eston's body jabbed at my ass as he rutted, and I paused in my cries of supposed pleasure for a moment to listen to the sound of the music. Nireas was playing and pedaling at the organ on stage right, the music growing faster and louder, every note sustained. Nearly to the crescendo then.
I yanked my own head backwards, Eston's grip on my hair going loose until he caught up with the gesture.
"You almost there?" I hissed, under the cacophony of coupling on the stage.
"Almost, almost," Eston whispered, nodding in time with his repetitive thrusts.
Which meant no, he wasn't close enough, and he would mess up the timing of the scene. Again. Poor Eston was shit at catching our cues. But he was an exceptional visual of a demon, so pretty even the monsters took notice, all midnight blue and opal shining horns.
I huffed and let my head fall forward, bearing my weight on one palm to reach beneath. My teeth grit as I found a grip on his enormous, heavy sac, the heat burning my palm as I squeezed.
I joined Eston in shouting, his bellow in earnest pleasure and mine in frustrated effort. But in the busy mess of the stage scene—one with so many amorous pairings to appreciate at once—I was sure no one in the audience would notice the difference.
Eston came at a high peak with a flurry of boisterous notes from the organ music, joining the stage in the frenzy of voices and pleasure. His heat lashed and licked inside of me, and a brief flurry of the pleasure I'd been faking swirled through me, drawing out a genuine, soft moan as I dropped down to one elbow and rested my forehead against the cool stage floorboards.
Applause roared and I turned my head, able to catch a brief glimpse of the audience standing and clapping, or embracing and rutting in their seats. My lips curled up at the sight of the joyous, beaming faces pressed together, watching us, adoring us. Those faces, those stares, the cries for more…the audience was why I was still here after all these years. Then the curtain swung shut, and I let out a long sigh.
Eston hissed, nudging inside of me again, more gently, before falling back on his heels. "Thanks, Hazel."
I waved a hand, giving myself a moment of rest, my ass and hips and cunt still stinging from working with Eston. It would heal soon, thanks to my mother's blood, which was why I was always the choice to pair with Eston.
Eston, and any of the especially “challenging” guest act monsters the theater hosted. The monsters who came to us, eager to demonstrate their prowess to others, or to sample all the theater might cheerfully offer them.
I sat up slowly, wincing and stretching, turning to find Eston had already risen and was joining the others.
"Gentlemen, ain't they?" Beth quipped, groaning as she rose and brushing back fire red strands of sweaty hair from her face. She'd been paired with one of the weres, and I could see the faint scratch marks on her hips.
"Ladies, hurry it up," Billy, our hobgoblin stage manager, snapped, sticking his head out from the wings and glaring at us stragglers through thick round glasses.
I bit my tongue as I stood, body aching, and hurried to stage left as a handmade wooden Grecian temple rolled out from stage right's wings.
"You on in the next act, Haze?" Beth asked.
"Still waiting to find out," I answered with a roll of my eyes, twisting and slipping past Johnny, a werebear stagehand, his thick fur brushing over my sore ass. Myra and Reddy tended to juggle girls in and out of scenes right until the last second, and I was often one they would toss in when another girl was too worn out to do the work.
Beth grinned. "I've got a short easy one coming up at the end. Wait for me and we'll walk home together?"
I used to always stay until curtain call, watching each scene from the wings. These days, I liked to slip back home at the first chance. But it was late already, and walking back with Beth would be safer than going alone. We lived in the same neighborhood and always made it nearly to my block together.
"Sure," I agreed as we rushed down the stairs with the others to the dressing rooms, a cascade of naked flesh, all grubby and bruised.
The dressing room hall reeked of sex every night of a show, full of sweaty bodies and us girls with our thighs pressed tight together until we had a chance to clean up. But it would be right and fresh by morning again. Ever since Myra had bullied Mr. Reddy into giving her the position of manager, the backstage of the theater had become a tidy, clean, and almost cozy place. Myra was sweeter to the theater pixies than Reddy had ever been, and they worked tirelessly for the cakes and honey milk she had us girls put out for them.
I squeezed past the others, too used to this routine to care when a clawed hand patted at my breast or a tail slipped between my legs to tease. They were friendly gestures from familiar monsters, nothing more. No one followed me into my small but private dressing room, a space barely wide enough to be considered more than a closet, but one of the few that wasn't shared and wasn't for a guest-starring monster.
But I was not alone as I ducked under the curtain.
"Hello, nut," Ronan greeted.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the warm candlelight from the short stubs burning by my mirror. Ronan was seated at the edge of my pilfered chaise—one he had helped me drag through the alleys and down into the narrow hall, the scuffs of running into walls invisible against the rough wear the chaise had already seen from previous owners. It was pressed to the back of the room, a perfect but tight fit.
My lips twitched at the sight of him, all charm and smirk, his great black leathery wings tucked carefully behind him, rust-red skin shining wickedly in the firelight. I'd learned not to get attached to many people in the theater—a bittersweet lesson ingrained in me by years of repetition. Monsters came and went. Girls grew tired of the work. Only Mr. Reddy, Myra, and a few others like Nireas had been here as long as I had now. Ronan had arrived three years ago, a new imp to replace the one who'd just left us, and I'd done my best to ignore his enthusiasm and energy. He would grow weary like the rest of them, and then he would leave.
But Ronan was infectious.
"Shouldn't you be on curtains for the rest of tonight?" I asked.
"Look," Ronan said, tapping his booted foot against a bucket on the floor. "I brought you snow."
My eyes widened and I ran forward, Ronan's grin growing wide. The bucket was filled to the brim with fresh, white snow, barely even melted, and I let out a soft sigh at the sight. We wouldn't have much more this year, and it was the best cure for a rough fuck.
"Ohhh, Ro!"
"I knew you were paired with Eston," Ronan said. "Turn around."
As it turned out, it was good to have a friend at the theater. I squealed as Ronan lifted a handful of snow and pressed it gently to one of the welts on my ass from Eston, but the squeal turned quickly into a moan of relief.
"I've got the curtains covered for the rest of the night. No rush," Ronan said, a hint of an offer in the words.
"Hmm, keep scooping," I answered, flashing him a smile over my shoulder, surprised I could still blush at the fix of his coal spark stare on my ass.
He laughed, drawing up another handful and resting it against my left cheek, sliding the hand on the right lower and closer to my inner thigh. Icy water slid down the back of my legs, cooling the flush of heat from Eston's mechanical-like fucking and being on stage.