Big Cat Circus Read online

  Big Cat Circus

  Vanessa de Sade

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright Poison Pixie Publishing 2011

  Big Cat Circus

  Sometimes, late at night, when all the kids had gone home but the scent of hot popcorn and fried onions was still heavy in the air, Pa would arrange for a special show, and I’d stand on the tent stage and take all my things off for the folks that paid their ten cents.

  They were mostly men as came, silent weather-beaten farmers that stood and stared, their eyes hard, seeing me like a side of bacon or a beefsteak, the opposite of their skinny wives and haunted-eyed daughters. Some of them came to ogle, I could see that from the bumps their big cocks made in their britches, but most just came to see what plenty could look like. Times was hard and that’s what I was to them. Plenty.

  Right from when I was a little girl Pa had picked me out as special, fed me meat when we could get it, lots of fried dough, potatoes, oatmeal. My favourite was fried dough with molasses or syrup poured over it till it soaked it all up, just a mess of hot fat and sugar, warm and sticky. Pa got that for me when he could.

  But things had been bad ever since I could remember and my brothers were often mean to me because I’d get to eat when they’d be expected to go without. But Pa always said there were two things as were to be at the forefront of our existence. Priorities, he called them. First was gas for the truck, so that we could always be on the move to the next town, and the second was sweet starchy food for me. Pa said that I was our future. It was kind of a big responsibility.

  Ma and Pa ran the cooch dance tent in the De Marco carnie. De Marco’s wasn’t much of an outfit, just the usual rides and some bug-eyed dead fish in jars of alcohol, and of course, my Ma, naked every night. In the dark it all looked pretty special, though, the oil lamps putting a warm glow on the tattered red and yellow striped tents, the scents of canvas and trampled grass mingling with cooking food and popcorn. And, let’s face it, the kind of towns we played weren’t really used to much, so what we had to offer was pretty special in their poor-house eyes.

  Not that Ma could really dance or was much to look at, mind you, but she stood on the front stage with her little titties out every night, right there in front of all the farmers and preachers and their wives and kids, and she took her pants down pretty quick for those that paid a nickel to come inside, so everyone left happy, but we were never more than a cheap sideshow attraction. That’s why we were stuck with De Marco.

  But my Pa, well, Pa was a visionary, a dreamer. He said that we could easily make the big time, Ringling Brothers or even the great Barnum himself, if we just planned and invested in our future, and that future was me. Most of the hick town boys, Pa figured, could see their skinny Mamas or sisters in the raw if they peeped through the holes in the barn walls, and, let’s face it, Pa said, though I loves your Mama dearly, she’s not the kind of woman that a man’s going to dig deep into his pockets to pay to see, now is she?

  No, Pa would tell us, when a man pays out to get his dick up hard, it’s because he’s seeing something that he can’t find at home, and that’s what I’m going to give him. I’m going to give him a woman of plenty, and that’s what our Babe is going to be, a woman of plenty, so you boys just tolerate your lot just now, ‘cause one day Babe’s going to keep us all in luxury, you see if I’m wrong, boys, you just see if I’m wrong.

  So Pa fed me sweet and sticky food and the pounds piled on. I had bigger tits than my Ma by the time I was twelve, and they were close on huge when I celebrated my eighteenth birthday, and Pa brought out the length of silk he had been saving up for me, all those years. He’d been hoarding a dog-eared picture that he’d cut from a magazine too, of Lottie Grant the Barnum fat lady, and he had old Grandma De Marco make up a copy of her costume just for me, figuring that it was time to cash-in on his investment.

  I was so scared, knowing that I was going on show like a freak that evening, but inside I was just dancing with excitement, because I was going to be a big star and we’d have a proper trailer and work with Barnum’s circus, and my Mama wouldn’t have to drop her panties for dead-eyed farm boys no more.

  Pa put up the tent that morning and by three o’clock the hot canvas was putting out its familiar baking scent. There were little chinks of sunlight piercing the gloom inside, but the thick green grass was still damp and cool on my bare feet when Ma and I went over that afternoon.

  I had the new costume with me and I undressed and put it on in front of both her and Pa, ‘cause, hell, they’d both seen me naked about a hundred million times before, but there was something different in the way that they both looked at me that day.

  Ma told me to go and stand on the stage where I could hear the roustabouts putting up the Ferris Wheel outside, and Pa was telling me to turn this way and that, and Ma was telling me how to smile and give guys the eye, when Pa suddenly said, well, hell, this was going to be good, but we’d need to do some special shows at night to bring in the real money, and Mama nodded.

  “What’s special shows, Pa?” I’d asked, all naïve like, and Ma and Pa had just looked at each other.

  “Well, when men folks pays to see a pretty girl,” Ma said slowly, “sometimes they wants to see quite a lot of her, like they do with me, so you need to learn how to show them as pays extra what they want to see…”

  I looked from one to the other, thinking that it was a joke, but their faces were deadly serious and I realised that even though we was going to be rich now, someone was still going to have to show their bare ass on our stage at nights, only now it was going to be me instead of Mama.

  “Come on, child, it’s not so bad, I’ll show you how it’s done,” Ma said, getting up on the stage alongside me, “Elmer, put some music on.”

  Pa cranked up the Victrola and put on the scratchy record that Mama stripped to every night, and, as the familiar melody started up we shuffled slowly through Ma’s routine. “Just do what I do,” Ma whispered in my ear over the music, and I suddenly realised why Grandma De Marco had put poppers on all the fastening of my costume rather than buttons, the top straps springing undone with each bump of the boogie-woogie beat, our dresses falling to our feet as the pounding music hit its first refrain.

  Pa rubbed his hands together in glee, counting money in his head, as he saw us both up there in our bras and panties, Mama thin and bony, me fat and sleek like a Thanksgiving turkey. “That’s good, now, don’t walk on your dress, you’ll wear the fabric out too quick,” Mama instructed, “now turn your back and take your bra off, that’s right, then hold it out for two beats, then drop it, but not where they can get it. Good, now clasp your bosoms and turn to face them, good, now look down and smile and… move your hands away… now, that’s perfect.”

  Pa let out a whistle of appreciation at our bare tits, mine big and round like watermelons, Mama’s small and snub-nosed with big vertical nipples.

  “Okay, now they’ll be cheering,” Mama advised, “so turn again and pull your panties half down while they’re still hollering and bump and grind. That’s it, wiggle that big ass and let your drawers just shimmy down, that’ll drive them wild, so get ready to turn. But don’t just give it all away just yet, make them beg till the next chorus, cup your pussy before you face them and hold it tight like I’m doing, that’s good, and… wait for the music and turn and… now, show them the goods.”

  The music gave a great drum roll and symbol clash and I took a deep breath and pulled my hand away real quick like she said, then sneaked a quick look down into the tent where the audience would be, trying to visualise what showing my bare pussy to a room full of strangers would feel like. That was when I saw my Pa.

  The lamps weren’t lit ‘cause it was day time, so the tent was dark a
nd shady despite the hot sun outside. Pa was standing like a statue, half illuminated by a shaft of light coming through a chink in the striped canvas, and he was staring at our naked cunts like a hungry wolf stalking a baby rabbit, though you’d think he’d be well used to the sight of me and Mama without our things by now.

  The record was just spinning round, the needle making a thud-thud noise like a heartbeat or a slow galloping mare, but Pa was still staring at me, finally shaking himself all over like an old dog coming out of a creek and saying, “The girl’ll need broken in if she’s gonna turn tricks for us,” in a strange kind of held-in-check voice.

  Mama nodded.

  “Reckon you best do it yourself, Elmer,” she said thoughtfully, “no sense in giving away free fucks to strangers…”

  * * *

  I’d seen a cock before, Hell, I had seen my Pa and brothers without their clothes countless times, and I knew the things that men and women did together, had heard Pa doing it to Ma in the truck at nights, but there was a big difference between knowing and doing, and the way it was done to me on the boards of the cooch tent podium that afternoon was nothing like what I had dreamt about all those lonely evenings in my bunk.

  Ma and I was both naked on the stage, and Pa just strode up and pushed me down onto the edge of the platform and roughly spread my thighs, standing between my knees as he undid his pants, keeping me from closing my legs again, seeing all the pink inner petals of my pussy.

  “Pa, don’t,” I whispered, “not like this,” but he was beyond reasoning and he just dropped his pants there and then, his cock all hard and angry, standing up straight in front of him like twisted root sticking out of the dry earth around a dead tree.

  My Daddy’s face and arms were burnt the colour of old leather, but his legs and lower belly were a pale white, like wind-smoothed desert sand, with a just a thin crop of scratchy reddish-brown hair not nearly as dark or thick as my own. My brothers both had short white cocks and balls that hung down low like the ones on the herds of beef cattle we sometimes passed on the road, but Pa’s cock was long and thin, his undercarriage small and tight, his firm balls nestled neatly below the stretched stiff dick that he was trying desperately to ram up inside me.

  “For God’s sake, Elmer,” my Mama said, getting in between us and pushing him gently back, “it’s the child’s first time, let her get something out of it. Here, Babe, let me show you how to handle a man.”

  She took my hand and put it onto Pa’s big hard erection, and I started at how hot it was, like a pot handle on the stove, hard as wood and yet soft to touch like it was covered in old leather.

  “That’s it, squeeze him gently,” she whispered, her own skin soft and silky as she leaned up against me, so close that I could feel the slight coarseness of her thick pussy hair on my thigh.

  Pa began making a soft groaning noise as I touched his yearning prick, like an old tom cat does if you get to stroking him just right behind the ears, and I moved my hand slowly up and down his hot hard member, fascinated by the look and feel of him.

  “That’s good, now you’ve got him under your spell,” Mama said in my ear, rubbing herself up against me, her hot naked cunt hard against my thigh, “always do that when you’re turning tricks, that way they won’t hurt you, and you get your pussy good and ready before you let them inside you.”

  “How will I know when my pussy’s ready?” I asked, squeezing his cock hard and making little drops of clear white pre-cum appear.

  Mama laughed.

  “Oh, you’ll know,” she said, running her thin hand down my big round thigh and slipping her fingers into the slippery folds of my slit, pulling my willing cunt open for my daddy. “OK, Elmer, you can go in now…”

  She took Pa’s big prick in her hand and steered him gently inside me, and it hurt and burned and felt wonderful all at the same time as he pushed deep inside where even I hadn’t ever touched before. I let out a cry of pain and he paused a moment, but Mama urged him on and he breathed a sound like a horse raring to be given his head, then pushed in again, deeper and harder this time, and, through my arousal and pain it felt as if he was right inside me and sharing my soul.

  I cried out again and Mama whispered, “That’s it. You’ve broken her, you going to come out or do you need to finish?”

  But Pa was a drowning man at sea clinging desperately to wreckage and he hissed, “I need to finish,” in a thick guttural voice, full of eighteen years worth of unrequited yearning, thrusting into me again, harder and faster as Ma nodded.

  “OK, do it, but I’m hornier than a stud bull in a heifer pen, boy, so just you make sure you’ve got something left for me when you’re done,” Mama chided, “I wants my sugar too.”

  But Pa was beyond listening as he hammered in and out of me like a pile-driver, his long tree-root cock pushing deeper and deeper into my pussy as he shoved it right into my soul, his big rough hands kneading at my hips and thighs. Overcome with lust, I grabbed at him and dug my nails into his skinny butt and his face contorted into a mask as he suddenly slammed home, riding me hard like a rogue mare, his orgasm shooting out of him in hot burning jolts.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Darleen,” he said to my Mama as he juddered to a halt and held on to her skinny naked body, “this girl’s pussy is like liquid gold. We is going to be richer than Rockefeller...”

  * * *

  Unfortunately for Pa, though, things just didn’t work out the way he planned. Folk wouldn’t pay more than a nickel to see the famous fat lady, and we had to do special shows almost every night to make any extra money at all. But we refused to be deterred and we even had a photograph taken at a studio in a lead mining town we passed through, and Ma sent it to Mr Barnum himself, and to the Ringling Brothers as well, but none of them were interested in hiring me. It seemed that no-one was paying good money to see a woman of plenty any more.

  Pa was devastated and I felt so bad for him, and I did hundreds of special shows and turned tricks when he asked, but it didn’t really make any difference and, six months down the line we were still a cheap sideshow with De Marco’s carnival. It broke my sweet Daddy, so it did, and it broke my heart to see him brought down so low, a man with a dream left bereft when the thing that he had suffered and sacrificed for all these years just evaporated like the dew in the morning sun.

  But, as I recollect, it was in those dark months that the miracle happened, in the summer that was so hot that the tar melted on the roads and stuck to the tyres of the trucks, slowing us down as we laboured through the red dust to our pitch of the day. Old man De Marco ordered a fifteen-minute halt in the town to let the engines cool before we headed down to the field by the dried-up creek, and, in there, in a Nowheresville Post Office, was a letter just sitting waiting for us.

  “What’s it say, what’s it say?” I asked, all overcome with excitement, as Pa handed the letter to Ma, since she was the only one of us that had her letters, and she took the small neat envelope from him and slit it open.

  Inside was a single sheet of coloured notepaper, with an old-style drawing of a red-eyed cat jumping through a hoop, and the words Große Katze-Zirkus – Big Cat Circus – in spiked Germanic lettering.

  “What’s it say, Darleen?” Pa said, rocking her this way and that, but Ma was just shaking her head from side to side and saying, “No, no, no,” in a strange far-away voice.

  “Ma,” I said, “tell us. What’s the matter?”

  She looked at me, all stricken, a tear running down her pale sunken cheek. “They wants you, Babe. These German folks wants you.”

  Pa let out whoop of delight and I hugged Mama. “But that’s what we want, isn’t it?” I said, all puzzled, “if they wants me then we’ll all join a big circus and finally be rich, ain’t that right, Mama?”

  But Mama just shook her head again. “You don’t understand, child,” she said sadly, “they don’t want us, they just want you. They want to buy you from us…”

  Pa stopped his Indian war dance like he’d been s
hot. “Buy her? They want to buy our Babe? Hell, no, not while I’ve still got breath in my body!”

  Mama nodded. “You’re right, Elmer,” she said, wiping away her tears, “no-one’s buying our daughter, not even for four hundred dollars.”

  “You’re damn right,” Pa said, in a funny strained voice.

  * * *

  It was a few days after the letter came that Pa asked me to turn a trick for him. We were closing up for the night, the roustabouts opening bottles of warm beer and the lamps going out all over the fairground, the hot night air alive with the songs of cicadas. I had just done two special shows back to back, showing my bare ass and pussy to crowds of jeering farm boys, and I dreaded that Pa had arranged for me to go down on one of them for half a dollar, but he said that it was a much classier deal than that.

  There was no breeze at all as we climbed into the truck together and drove out into the stifling night, the radio tuned to a negro station that was playing blues music, the quiet voices sounding like howls of anguish in hot stale air. I moved to turn the dial to a crooner show, but Pa stopped me, said the black songs suited his mood tonight.

  And then was silent.

  “Where we meeting this guy, Pa?” I asked, eventually, as the truck left the sleeping town behind and we bumped out into dust bowl country, the struggling fields sad and bereft, their meagre crops dying or already dead.

  “At the cross-roads,” he said quietly, as, on the crackly radio, the broken voice of Robert Johnson began to sing and a big blood-red moon rose up slowly in the sweltering night sky.

  “Oh Jesus, Papa, what have you done?” I asked looking around me, the pieces suddenly falling into place, but he didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, couldn’t even look at me.

  “God damn it, you’ve sold me to those Germans, Pa,” I said, not crying or shouting or anything, just wanting to hear him say the words, “you’ve sold your own daughter for forty pieces of silver.”