Where the Action Is, page 7
part #29 of Cherry Delight Series
He turned to me and smiled. “Didn’t you see this fuzzy little fellow when you looked in the hat?”
“No sir.”
“Well maybe you’d better look in the hat again. Maybe his brother’s in there.”
He passed the hat back to me and I looked inside. “There’s nothing in here, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes sir.”
He took the hat back, and pulled another rabbit out. Looking it over, he said, “I’m afraid it’s not his brother, it’s his sister!”
The audience laughed and applauded. I was dumbfounded because I was standing up there beside him and I couldn’t see where the rabbits were coming from. He dropped the rabbit to the floor and pulled another rabbit out of the hat. And another. And another. He gave me the hat to check again, I did so, and he proceeded to pull a turtle out of the hat. And a puppy. And a kitten. The audience applauded, their mouths hanging open with awe.
He set the hat down on the table and bowed.
“And I wonder if the young lady might take a bow, because she’s done a wonderful job, hasn’t she folks?”
Shyly I bowed, and Millie, Sally, and the rest of them applauded me. It was my first taste of show biz and I loved it.
He drew closer to me and whispered in my ear: “It’s fun, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
He reached into my hair and pulled out a dove. When I opened my mouth in astonishment, he pulled out a canary. He reached under my denim skirt (I was too thunderstruck to do anything) and pulled out a parakeet. He held the parakeet high in the air and the applause was thunderous.
“Still having fun?” he asked me softly.
“Uh huh.”
“Good, because now I’m going to saw you in half.”
With a dramatic gesture, he moved off stage. A second later he returned, carrying a coffin-like box, which he laid on the table. Placing his hands on his hips, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission I am going to saw this beautiful young girl in half and then put her back together again.” He looked at me. “Is that all right with you?”
“I don’t know,” I stammered.
“I’m glad you’re so agreeable tonight.” He picked me up in his strong arms and laid me inside the box.
My head was sticking out of one end. Reaching behind him, he came back with a wooden panel, which he fitted into the box around my neck. My feet were sticking out the other end. Reaching behind him again, he came back with another wooden panel, which he slammed around my feet.
Now I was completely enclosed except for my feet, my head, and the entire top of me which the audience couldn’t see. With another dramatic gesture he went off stage, and soon returned with the top of the box, which he laid over me. He raised his arm up and snapped his fingers. A saw miraculously appeared. He brought it down and set it at a point over my tummy.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I am about to commence this incredible feat of magic. If any of you have weak stomachs, I urge you to look away.” He turned his face to me. “Do you trust me, girl?”
“I think so.” I replied, shivering with fright.
He fixed his fathomless eyes on mine. “Be sure that you trust me, because if you don’t I’ll never be able to do this feat of magic.”
His eyes made me dizzy, and something told me I could follow this man into the cauldrons of hell.
“I trust you,” I said.
His lips trembled. “Young lady,” he whispered, “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever had the joy to behold.”
And he began to saw. I heard Millie scream, and if I knew Sally as well as I thought, she was already passed out cold.
To make a long story short, he sawed right through the box. I didn’t feel anything, and to this day I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. He even separated both halves of the box on the table and passed various knives and burning torches through the area where my tummy should’ve been. I had the eerie feeling that my being was somehow longer.
“Do you feel all right?” he asked me.
“Yes sir.”
“No discomfort?”
“No sir.”
“No pain of any kind?”
“No sir.”
“Would you wiggle your toes for the people?”
I wiggled them, and they felt very far away.
“And would you wink at them, please?”
I winked.
“Would you like me to put you back together again now?”
“It’s up to you,” I said. “I feel fine.”
He smiled. “Your faith in me is truly touching, and I’d like to stay with you like this forever, but the show must go on.”
And with his mighty arms he pulled both boxes together again. Then he raised his hands in the air.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “may I have your attention please. This young girl’s body is together but not yet completely joined. I’d like to ask all of you to concentrate with me so we can make the final connection. Ready—one, two three—concentrate!”
Suddenly I felt a hand on my breast. I looked at the great Staracci and both of his arms were crossed on his chest. He winked at me. The hand caressed my breast, and fingers twiddled my nipple. I was only a young girl then and I hadn’t had much experience of this sort, but I found it kind of exciting. I mean, there I was lying in a box on a stage, with lots of people and my two best girlfriends looking at me, and I was getting felt up by the most thrilling man I’d ever seen.
“Are you all right?” Staracci asked me.
“Yes sir,” I replied in a quavering voice.
“Then I’ll proceed.”
The hand caressed my other breast, and then it worked down my stomach, which was taut with apprehension, and came to rest on my little quimmy.
No man had ever touched me there, and I nearly swooned. He rubbed his middle finger into my cleft, and just as I was really getting with it, the hand went away.
“The young lady is now completely together,” the magician said. “Let’s see what she looks like.” He lifted the top off the box, and removed the two panels. Then he lifted me out and stood me up. As he did so, he whispered in my ear: “I live in the trailer with the rose painted on the side. I’ll be waiting for you at midnight.” Then he deftly stepped away and held his hand out to me. “Let’s show our appreciation to this brave young lady,” he said. “Let’s give her a big hand.”
A flame was burning between my legs as I accepted the applause. And the only hand I wanted was his skillful one on my body again.
Chapter Nine
Millie, Sally, and I chatted about the magician all the way home. They thought his tricks were simply marvelous but insisted they were only tricks and implored me to tell them what the gimmick was. Since I was up on stage with him, they figured I knew. But I didn’t know. I thought the magician was some sort of godlike figure, and not a mere trickster. I was mystified by him, turned on by him, and even in love with him.
Up till then, my only romantic experiences had been with boys my age, and about all we ever did was play touch-me feel-me, except that I never let any boy touch my little quimmy. Now for the first time in my young naive life I knew what it was to desire a man, a grown man with hair on his chest and a knowing look in his eye. For the first time in my immature brain I caught a glimmer of the difference between fumbling around in the back seat of a car with the captain of the high school football team, and being made love to by a man who knew what it was all about. Like all girls my age I had plenty of sex fantasies and played with myself a lot, but now I saw myself on the threshold of the real thing, if I wanted to take the step.
And of course I wanted to take the step, for was I not the budding Cherry Delight?
The three of us girls all lived in the same suburban neighborhood a few blocks apart. We said good night and I continued home alone, making plans to return to the carnival and see the magician. My mother was waiting up for me along with my younger brother Ned, and we had milk and cookies before going to bed. They asked me about the carnival and I told them it was nothing special.
At eleven o’clock we went to our bedrooms, ostensibly to go to sleep. I however primped in front of my mirror, combed my hair, and adjusted my bra so my boobies would be irresistible. I even put on a clean pair of underpants. I waited until eleven-thirty when I was sure everyone else was still asleep, then slipped out of my room and tip-toed down the stairs. As I let myself out the back door I smelled the fragrance of flowers in the cool summer night. There was a full moon in the sky and from afar I heard the howl of a wolf.
Filled with trepidation and doubt, I made my way back to the carnival. I realized that when he saw me he’d know I was offering my young body to him, and that made me feel like a tramp, the kind of girl we cheerleaders never talked to. But it also made me feel wanton and mature, maybe a little like Scarlett O’Hara. Yes, I told myself, the great Staracci would be my Rhett Butler, and I would be his Scarlett. He would teach me all there was to know about romance, and in return I would give him the pleasure of my company.
But then I felt the doubt sensation. To him I was probably just another small town slut, and he probably found one in every town where he pitched his tent. He’d probably hurt me between my legs and break my youthful heart and send me on my way with a boot in my tail.
But no, the man who plucked a dove out of my hair couldn’t be that way. The man who smiled so tenderly and touched so adroitly couldn’t be cruel. He’d treated me like the child that I was, with courtesy and respect. No, this was a good man, a handsome man, a man who could teach me all that I was so desperately anxious to know.
At the edge of town the tents and trailers of the carnival loomed up out of the darkness. A few lights were twinkling here and there, and I could hear scraps of music from violins, harmonicas, and mandolins. At first I thought I should enter the carnival area surreptitiously, but no, I told myself, I’d walk in like a proud young woman and ask the whereabouts of the great magician who’d invited me to see him. If I was going to do this thing, I might as well do it with dignity.
I soon found myself among the tents and trailers. I heard raucous laughter and saw midgets and clowns cavorting in the pathways, some of them carrying bottles of alcoholic beverages.
A hunchback in a clown suit with a patch over his eye bowed in front of me. “Hello miss,” he said, “would you care to have a nip of brew with a man who can make you laugh and cry?”
“No thank you, but I wonder if you can tell me where to find the Great Staracci?”
“You mean Boris Staracci who cuts pretty little things like yourself in half and then puts them together again?”
“That’s the one.”
The hunchback pointed. “He’s over that way, in a black trailer with a red rose on the side.” He winked. “But aren’t you sure you’d rather have me?”
“I’m afraid I have a date with the Great Staracci.”
“But wouldn’t you rather have this poor old broken-down clown?”
I smiled. “I might, but it isn’t nice to break dates.”
He laughed. “Life isn’t nice, and art isn’t nice, but a fair young damsel like yourself, well I suppose you have a right to be nice.”
He danced away with his bottle of wine, and I headed in the direction he’d pointed. Eyes underneath broad-brimmed hats or within the cowls of hoods peered at me from the shadows as I moved along. It was shocking to realize that this weird sinister world could actually come to my bucolic hometown, and that I would willfully enter it alone.
Finally I saw the black trailer with the rose painted on the side. I walked up the steps and knocked on the door. Or I should say that I was about to knock on the door when it opened, and standing above me was the Great Staracci, his eyes boring into my soul and a charming smile on his sensuous lips.
“So you’ve come,” he said in a tone that made me feel welcome. “Please come into my humble home.”
Trembling, I climbed the steps and went inside.
It was surprisingly roomy on the inside. He had a bed, two chairs, a table, and a dresser. In one corner were cages that held rabbits and birds. Books were stacked everywhere. On the table was paper and a pen; he must’ve been writing something when I arrived. The lighting came from two kerosene lamps.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said.
“On the contrary, I’ve been waiting for you. Would you like to sit down and have a cup of tea?”
“Okay.”
I sat at the table and he poured tea into two old china cups. Then he sat opposite me and gazed into my eyes. There was something about his dark beard and healthy teeth that made me want to hug him.
“So here you are,” he said.
I nodded my head shyly.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
He laughed. “You’re lying—of course you’re afraid of me. You know that I have powers that are beyond human understanding, and that I mean to seduce you. Why don’t you admit the truth?”
I looked at his whirlpool eyes. “I know all about those things, but I also know that you like me and have no intention to harm me, so why should I be afraid of you?”
He smiled and scratched his cheek. “You’re an extraordinary young woman, I can see that. In the crowd in my tent your aura shone like a giant beacon in the midst of a lot of dim bulbs. You probably think that in every town I leave behind me a seduced young girl, but I don’t because most young girls are silly little creatures and I have no patience with silliness. You are one of the great ones—what did you say your name was?”
“Cherisse Delissio.”
“Cherisse,” he said dreamily, “what a lovely name. Tell me, do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well I not only believe in it, but I know that it really happens. For instance, I have spent many lifetimes as a soldier. I have been a general and I have been an ordinary foot soldier. I have fought great battles on every continent of this world, I have killed many brave soldiers, and I myself have been struck down into the dust many times. Then, tiring of the violence and killing, I became a vagabond, a minstrel, and now a magician.” He looked me in the eyes. “Do you believe all that?”
I gazed back, and our souls became connected by an invisible strand. “You know I do.”
“Well now let me tell you about yourself. You think you are only a young teenage girl, a high school student and a cheerleader, the daughter of a pizza man, and it’s true that in this lifetime that’s all you are so far. But I can look in your spirit and see that you were a duchess, a baroness, a famous dancer, and a great courtesan, among other things. And I can see that we have met once before and fallen deeply in love—that’s why the feeling between us is still so strong. You were a lady-in-waiting to Empress Catherine of Russia, and I was a captain in the Petrograd Hussars. I courted you for a year, and we were married in Saint Basil’s Cathedral with the Empress herself in attendance. Three weeks later I was called away to war, and I was struck down in the Battle of Constantinople, carrying the standard of my regiment. When you heard the news you went mad.” He smiled mischievously “I’m so glad to see that you’ve made a complete recovery.”
I reached over and touched his hand. I was intoxicated by the sound of his voice and the tea I’d been drinking. “I’ve never felt so strange in my life. I can’t believe that I’m Cherisse Delissio, the daughter of a pizza man. Somehow I feel older and wiser. I think I should be afraid, but I’m not. I’m ready for whatever fate has in store for me. Take me, Boris, and do with me what you will.”
He stood and began unbuttoning his shirt. I saw his hairy chest and well-formed pectoral muscles emerge. “Let us go back to the summer of 1718, Cherisse. It is our wedding night in my mansion in old Saint Petersburg. We have dismissed the servants, and now at last we are alone in our bedroom for the first time. You were about the age you are now, and I the age I am, for whenever we meet in this universe I will always be fifteen years older.”
The walls of the trailer disappeared and so did the table, rabbits, and birds. We were in a huge luxurious room with crystal chandeliers and a canopied bed. Boris was removing his splendid red and gold uniform, and I stood in front of him trembling with fear and dizzying desire. He stepped out of his trousers and looked into my eyes. I looked at his muscular hairy body, and that big thing sticking out at me. It looked like a weapon of some kind, an ugly alien thing, and somehow it was supposed to fit between my legs. I didn’t see how it could.
“Take off your clothes,” he commanded me.
With trembling hands I undid the buttons on my bodice. No man had ever seen me naked before, no man had ever even seen above my knees, but this was my wedding night and I was with my husband. I was shy, but he was a brave soldier and I would have to be brave too. I removed my arms from the bodice and let my gown drop to the floor. Stepping out of it, all I had on now were my corselette and my petticoats. I unbuttoned the corselette, hesitated, and then peeled it off. My healthy young breasts stretched toward my husband. Swallowing hard, I unhooked my petticoats and pushed them down.
Now there were just my silk bloomers. As I was about to take them off, my husband charged forward, hooked his fingers in the waistband, and tore them off me. He picked me off my feet, carried me to the bed, and laid me down. I was a bit frightened by his show of emotion but then I felt his hairy muscular chest and flat hard stomach against mine and that brought me around.
I noticed he was very careful not to touch my little quimmy with that monstrous thing of his; I guess he didn’t want to scare me. But I was getting very curious about it. At one point, completely by mistake, I brushed my palm against it, and it felt very strange. It was smooth and soft, yet hard and muscular. I pondered this riddle as he covered my face and shoulders with kisses.
Then he moved his head down to my breasts, and for the first time I felt a man’s tongue against my nipples. I felt I’d been catapulted into another dimension, a place of intense passionate carnality. He held both my nipples together and sucked them into his mouth, and I nearly fainted with ecstasy. He licked and sucked both my boobs for a long time—it seemed like days—and I noticed my little quimmy was dropping dew onto the bedspread.
