I never imagined working at a carnie, joining the ranks of society’s oddballs: the clowns, the “mystics”, the giants and dwarfs, and the creepy redheaded puppeteer twins.

But here I am, looking ridiculous in a straw fedora, a big red bow tie, and old-timey suspenders; a vision cut from the 50s, celebrating the end of summer, fireworks painting the midnight sky with thunderous bursts of colorful light.

Your strange steam punk troupe, Airship Craven you called it, a mishmash of characters that look like they stepped from a Jules Verne novel, provide the music: slide guitar, trumpet, and oddly, a snare drum.

Sweat slick bodies shake and wiggle to the helter-skelter tunes around a bonfire, a parade of comedic grinding led by a clown and the lion tamer.

I wonder where you are - probably with Zander.

I consider bailing. Prep myself for the nose-scrunching glare you’re liable to give me tomorrow. 

Leaves and twigs crunch on the ground behind me and fingers graze my knuckles. No words are said, but I know it’s you. Under the heavy scent of cedar smoke and pine needles, is that faint waft of strawberries and vanilla that’s all you.

Your hands glide up my arms, fingers tiptoeing over my skin, raising hairs and jumbling nerves, meeting at my temples with a silk scarf that blocks you from sight.

A soft tug and you’re leading me away from the fire and our summertime family of carnival freaks.

oOo

It isn’t until we’ve weaved through the ghostly quiet carnie grounds and into the House of Mirrors that I notice something’s off.

Left hand.

Pinky finger.

The promise ring Zander gave you in high school is gone. I should feel bad about that, but I can’t bring myself to. Not now. Not with my heart hammering in my ears like the percussion section of a marching band.

You slip the blindfold from my eyes and my throat cinches up.

You’re an apparition torn from the mind of Tim Burton, a mechanical corpse bride in a top hat, the Technicolor glow of the body paint outlining a skeletal frame mixed with gears.

I notice tear tracks at the corners of your canted eyes, colors bleeding together and forming twin black lines. Your head tilts downward in angry embarrassment.

I start to say something, anything, that conveys that all of this doesn’t diminish your beauty. But you push a finger to my lips, mouth words that say, ‘just shut the fuck up.’ Then you reach up on tiptoes, flick my fedora off, and pull my mouth to yours, your glowing, taffy pink tongue sliding between my lips.

You taste of cheap whiskey and s’mores, the intoxicating mix of flavors turning my mind to mush.

The kiss is wild, messy, and leaves us breathless. My hands slide over your slender gymnast hips and you grind your dampening pussy against my throbbing erection. A keening whine escapes your lips as I pull back, panting.

Your mouth is smudged with glowing paint and I watch as a ghost of a smile reaches up your tear stained cheeks to your eyes.

Then you’re biting my neck and popping buttons as you make your way south, unzipping my pants with your teeth as you flutter gracefully to the ground. You fish my pulsating cock out and smile wickedly as you feather kiss your way up the shaft to the purpling head, fondling my balls as you go.

The mirrors reflect a thousand different versions of us, all of them hungry for something more, something we’d denied ourselves for so long.

I grunt as your neon lips engulf my ivory cock and my fingers thread into the thick locks of your ebony hair. Your velvet tongue twirls around the head, teasing and titillating, and flooding my nerves with sparks of pleasure.

My fingers tighten in your hair when your throat loosens and you take me all the way inside, right down to the root.

Your eyes flick up and before my thoughts muddle completely, I begin to decipher the meaning in them.

‘Fuck me.’

My hips start to thrust.

It’s a lightning paced tango of throbbing cock and talented mouth. Hot saliva and pre-cum leak from the corners of your lips and when my cock head slides back to your butterfly lips, you suck all the juices back in and swirl your tongue before burying me deep again.

There’s no wasted motion in our dance, just pleasure. My eyes roll back into my skull as you slide one hand under the gusset of your panties and snake the other around to tightly grasp my ass, fingernails digging in deep. 

It’s all over when you start humming, the vibrations rippling over the supercharged nerves in my cock.

I slur expletives and clench your hair in my fists as I fire first one volley of boiling cum down your throat, then another, and another, my body twitching uncontrollably.

My eyes crack open and the imagery floors me.

A thousand glowing versions of you swallowing my cum and strumming your clit. You’re not just Tim Burton’s corpse bride, you’re his version of Aphrodite: a vision of flawed dark beauty from the ether.

oOo

You brush your cum stained lips to mine for a feather light kiss.

“You need to wake up,” you whisper. Behind all the glowing paint and the tear tracks, your canted eyes are cinnamon coals flaring in sadness.

“Wake up, sir.”

Everything puffs out in a wisp of kaleidoscopic smoke, nothing more than a Technicolor dream that belongs in a Tim Burton movie.

My eyes struggle open from the visceral, foggy haze to tangled blonde hair and big baby blues.

“Visiting hours are over,” the nurse says, sympathy softening her words.

The what-ifs will always follow me. I spent the summer with Madelyn Forge instead of with the only girl that ever mattered.

I kiss your knuckles and I’m out the door, into a world bereft of your Technicolor soul.