Summer on the Tightrope

Emily's first instinct when she pulled herself back together was to go back to the tent—and Nick—but, as she walked down the midway, turning her head away in disgust whenever a man gave her the eye or a whistle, she saw that the crowd was coming out of the tent before she got there, and there was Nick, with Jessica clinging to his arm, Nick's eyes only for Jessica. Emily turned in the other direction and walked along the line of game booths on the midway. She saw Amber and Tony at a shooting gallery and moved toward them, but they weren't there when she got to the booth. She stood there, confused and not knowing where to turn to next, her gaze going to the line of beat-up tin ducks slowly parading across the back of the shooting range and then up to the shelf over them where the stuffed animal prizes were lounging.

"Which one would you pick?"

Emily turned her head toward the voice. He was connected with the carnival part of the circus setup, she thought. It wasn't just that he was wearing a red suit, with sparkly sequins on it, which marked him as part of the show, but also because he'd been standing on a box at the entrance of the grounds when Amber, Nick, and she had come in and had been directing people to the various parts of the carnival. He had caught her eye then and had smiled to her.

So, he must be what they call a barker, Emily thought. He was a good-looking guy—normal looking, but well put together and he had a nice smile. She had that old feeling of pulling herself up on a tightrope platform again. She just couldn't help herself from making the effort again. She fingered the glass slug at her neck. It was still warm. She blushed at the memory of the words David had used to proposition her—of how easily she'd fallen under his spell and how cavalierly he'd treated her again. If only it was a guy with some sense of staying power—one who would pay attention to her for more than sex.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"I asked which one you would pick—which of those stuffed animals, if you won a shooting prize. By the way, did anyone tell you you had a nice smile, and the prettiest green eyes—just like that stone around your neck?"

"Hazel."

It was his turn to say, "Excuse me?"

"My eyes. They are hazel." She said it haltingly, though, it somehow not being as important a point with this guy as it was with Nick—like maybe something more than eye color was behind her reaction.

"But they look almost green from here—like that stone."

"It's glass, not stone." But then he was looking confused, and she didn't want him to think she was making fun of him. "The tiger. I think I'd pick the tiger. Are you going to win it for me?" She gave him a shy smile.

"I think you can win it for yourself. There's a secret to this. Come on up to the rail. I'll stake you a couple of shots. I think you'll prize the tiger more if you win it yourself."

She took another look at him. No one had shown such confidence in her before. And, yeah, she should be able to win her own prizes. She should stop depending on guys who weren't dependable and wanted something for whatever little they gave her.

"My name is Ryan, by the way," he said as he guided her to the rail and gestured for a rifle to be given to them. He stood there, holding the rifle and looking at her expectantly.

"Uh, I'm Emily," she said, finally getting that he wanted a name for a name. Smiling, he showed her how to hold the rifle and murmured in her ear—so much different from what David, the glassblower, had whispered to her. Ryan was telling her how she could triumph, not playing here, not trying to get something out of her.

"Don't aim at it. Aim just ahead of it. And wait for the next one to come to you. Don't move back to it."

After the gallery attendant had taken the stuffed tiger down from the shelf and handed it to her, Emily turned her head to thank Ryan for his help—and for the confidence he'd shown in her ability to do it herself—but he was gone. That didn't keep her from having the feeling that she'd stood at the edge of the tightrope and, for the first time, contemplated taking that first step without the fear of falling.

* * * *

"Can I have a lovely volunteer from the audience to be my assistant for the next trick? You, perhaps. The young woman with the green eyes." He was smiling at her impishly.

Hazel, Emily immediately thought, but she blushed as Ryan gestured to her from the small raised platform and those standing around in the magician's tent turned to look at her. She hated being the center of attention. So why, when Ryan extended his hand toward her, did she smile, close her hand around the glass slug at her neck, and allow him to take her up onto the stage?

For that matter, why, when she was passing by the open flap to the magician's tent and hearing a familiar voice, did she look in, and, seeing Ryan in his red sequined suit performing on the stage, did she enter? And why was the image rising in her mind of standing on a platform, looking out onto the high wire, and not being afraid to take that first step?

"Just go with the act," Ryan whispered to her as she was handed up to the stage. "It's just an illusion, but it's entertainment. You can help maintain the fantasy, can't you?"

He was trusting her. He needed to entertain these people and he was trusting her to go with the illusion. No man had given her that much regard before. She gave him a smile. At this point she would have given him anything he wanted.

"Here, I'll hold your tiger for you for the moment," he said loud enough for all in the tent to hear. "Now you promise he won't maul me, will you?" Titters floated through the tent. The audience was with him.

"No, he won't bite you," she answered in a serious voice, which increased the laughter. She blushed. They'd thought she was just playing along with him, when she was so taken with him that she couldn't think straight.

"Pose nicely beside this box," he whispered. "Show them how lovely you are. Make them look at you rather than anywhere else on the set. I know you can do that because you are lovely."

Emily leaned against the side of the black box in a pose she imagined a magician's assistant would take. She was fully into the illusion now.

Ryan explained how Emily would go into the box and disappear. He gave her a reassuring look as he put her into the box. This was an amateur sideshow; the small audience wasn't expecting much, but he was giving them entertainment, so they were with him. He did his hocus pocus routine, threw open the box, and, sure enough, Emily wasn't there. She had almost laughed at how simple it was when a stagehand, lifting a finger to his lips, pulled her back into the intricate set that looked like a flat wall from in front but wasn't. He hustled her out of the back of the tent and around to the front and inserted her into the crowd while Ryan was distracting the audience, which was ooing and ahing over the elaborately demonstrated empty box.

With a flourish Ryan looked out into the crowd, took up the stuffed tiger, and called out to the audience, "You, beautiful lady with the green eyes, would you like your tiger back? I think he misses you."

Those around where Emily was standing turned to her and ooed and ahhed in good-natured amazement at her sudden appearance amongst them, whether genuine or feigned to help hold the magic, it didn't matter. Emily was beaming. It was all magic to her. The whole night seemed magical to her now. In her mind, she was taking that first step out onto the tightrope—and she wasn't falling.

As the audience drifted out of the tent, Ryan came down off the stage to Emily and handed her the tiger.

"Thank you. You were terrific."

"No, you were terrific," she said, mesmerized by him.

"That was my last show for the night, and the carnival is shutting down. Do you have someone to take you home?"

She couldn't speak; she just gestured that she didn't—realizing only now that she, in fact, didn't have anyone to take her home—with her head.

"Have you ever ridden on the back of a motorcycle?"

It might as well be a magic carpet, she thought. He'd take her home, back to her cabin behind the motel. She'd let him come in, and they'd . . . no, she'd just fall off the tightrope again. She'd just do what she'd always done, and he'd be just like the others. But maybe not. Maybe this would be different. Maybe she could trust him.

"But perhaps you don't want me to take you home on my motorcycle."

"No, that would be fine. That would be terrific," she said, trying to give him a smile, which was so much harder now than it had been just a few minutes earlier when everything was magical.

They were passing a park by the river a half mile short of her cabin behind the Cole Porter Motel, when she instinctively squeezed his biceps as she was riding behind him on the motorcycle and said, "Stop. There's a park here. Let's stop here."

He brought the motorcycle to a halt, turned his head toward hers, gave her a searching look, and said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she answered. "There's a trail at the other end of the parking lot. The bike can manage it. It will bring us to the river. There won't be anyone else there at this time of night." To make what she was offering quite clear, she moved her lips to his and they melted into a sweet and prolonged kiss.

She wasn't, in fact, sure about this. She wanted to hope once again that she'd find what she was looking for. But she couldn't take him back to her place, where leaving if this wasn't working for her would be a decision for him, not her, to make. She's never taken a man back to her cabin before.

Near the river's edge, Ryan put the motorcycle up on its stand, the two of them locked in a kiss, as he also moved her to the front of the bike, sitting on the seat, her back against the cross of the handlebars, where Ryan had folded and placed his red suit coat. He was perched on the back of the seat, facing her and pressing into her.

Emily made the first move, unbuttoning and flaring his shirt while they kissed and arching her back as he pulled the halter top over her head. From there, he took it slow, covering her mouth and face with kisses while running his hands over her body, cupping and squeezing her breasts, working her nipples, and as she sighed and moaned—but made no move to stop him—worked the fingers of one hand under a leg hole of her panties and finding and separating her folds, pressing and rubbing her clit. While taking care of her clit with his thumb, he worked other fingers inside her, bunching and then spreading them. Opening her. She shuddered and groaned under him, going wet for him.

His lips moved down her chest, and after paying attention to her breasts separately and together, she groaned and wrapped her arms around the handlebars as his hands glided down her legs and pulled them up together above her head long enough to slide her panties off her legs.

She made little yipping sounds and murmured of her desires as he hooked her legs on his shoulders and proceeded to move his lips down her belly and between her thighs, pressing his tongue between her folds and up to her clit. Emily gripped his head in her hands, arched her back, and emitted low, mewing sounds, as he feasted on her cunt. She exploded, but he continued to lick and suck and nip. No man had paid this much attention to her needs before. No man had brought her to these heights of wetness, burning need, and explosive release before.

"Fuck me. Fuck me now," she cried out as she felt herself ready to explode again. But he continued to eat her out and worry her clit with his tongue and teeth until she had exploded—not once but twice more. She collapsed on the bike in total release. It was only then that Ryan, still covering her in a close embrace, managed to strip off his trousers and briefs, sheath himself, and slowly, thickly, deeply enter her and begin to move inside her. She moved with him, her face buried in his muscular chest, as he brought her back to the edge of fireworks and then over the edge, tumbling over the abyss in a release of his own.

Suddenly in her mind she was on the other platform, at the far end of the tightrope. And Ryan was there with her, holding her in a close embrace, the two of them having made it across the rope together.

It wasn't a long ride to the Cole Porter Motel from there, but it was long enough for her to play out what would happen in the cabin in her mind—where Ryan would take her to paradise again and again.

But when they arrived at her cabin and she hopped off the back of the motorcycle, Ryan remained on it. "Thank you for playing along so well back there for the magic act. You were great. And you do have the loveliest green eyes, even if they really are hazel."

Not a mention of what they had just done on his motorcycle in the river park.

And then he putted off on his motorcycle, gearing up and picking up speed only when he was well away from where she was standing, confused, a bit relieved from not knowing how to proceed with him from here—but, yes, more than a little disappointed.

"Tiger," she exclaimed, realizing only then that Ryan had ridden off with her stuffed tiger in his saddlebag. She trudged into her cabin, feeling the loss of her stuffed tiger, but with some part of her realizing that it wasn't really the tiger she felt the loss of. For just a brief time there, at the carnival and again in the river park afterward, she had been alive and in a magical world, a world that was dominated by the young man in the red sequined suit, Ryan.

But now she was in Peru, Indiana, again, entering her small cabin behind the motel where she worked as a room maid. Her dream man in the red sequined suit would be evaporating tomorrow with the close of the circus carnival. And any day now Nick would offer her a ride in his truck or the glassblower David would be showing up again to claim further payment for a dollop of green glass he'd speared off the ground. And once more she'd be falling off the tightrope.

It almost would have been better not to know how good it could be with someone like Ryan.

* * * *

"Oh, I don't know if I'm up for ice cream today."

"That's OK, I don't know what Tony will want to do anyway," Amber answered, stowing the sweeper away in its closet in the storeroom behind the motel lobby while Emily stacked unused folded sheets on another shelf. Their day was done cleaning the motel rooms, and they had been discussing what they'd do with the rest of the day. Amber had suggested going to Malt Town, which had recently reopened on South Broadway under new ownership.

Emily bristled, but she turned away so that Amber wouldn't see it. She was still ticked at Amber for ditching her at the carnival the previous Saturday night and leaving her at the mercy of Amber's brother, Nick. But it wasn't like Emily had a lot of girlfriends and could afford to lose her friendship with Amber. Still being upset, though, had been the only reason she turned down a trip to the ice cream parlor after work. She, in fact, was dying for a vanilla shake.

"So, where will you and Tony go then?" she asked.

"He wants to drive over to Mexico and take a look at a Dodge Super Bee he's thinking of buying and flipping to resell." Mexico wouldn't be as far a drive as those not from Indiana might think. Those choosing town names for Indiana's Miami County had been long-distance thinkers, having included both Peru, Mexico, Warsaw, and Kokomo on the county map.

After watching Tony drive up in his pickup and then roaring off with Amber in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Emily felt safe enough to walk over to South Broadway and to the newly reopened Malt Town herself. She did a double take when she entered and saw who was standing behind the counter.

"Ryan," she exclaimed. She recognized him by his smile even without the red sequined carnival barker's suit.

"In the flesh. I was hoping you'd come in here sooner rather than later. Tigger the tiger has been growling for you." He pulled Emily's stuffed tiger prize out from underneath the counter and she happily took it from him and hugged it. She had tried to pretend she hadn't minded the loss of the prize she'd won herself, but she'd just been fooling herself. She also was wary of letting Ryan know how deeply she'd felt the loss of him.

"You're here. I thought you traveled with the circus carnival."

"I did travel with it, but this was its last stop for the summer. My choice was to go home to Fort Wayne or to find something to do here until you came to pick up Tigger. Besides, I think any town with a beautiful woman with green eyes in it is someplace I'd like to hang around for a while."

Emily blushed, resisting to point out again that her eyes were hazel. But that didn't matter anymore to her. They were close enough to green, and Ryan was close enough to who she wanted to see on the platform at the other end of that tightrope, a man who could give her courage and confidence to step out over the void and not fall. But was he just like all of the other guys in this town—content with being nowhere and going nowhere other than flying off to a bigger city at the first chance to do so?

"How about a free vanilla shake to celebrate our opening—you look like a vanilla shake girl to me—and then I'll close up and we can take Tigger for another spin on my motorcycle."

"Giving away free shakes and closing the store in the middle of the day?" she asked. "Won't you get fired as quick as you got this job?"

"I don't think so. I own the store. I figure Peru is a good place to put down roots."

Well, well, well, Emily thought. "Yes, I'd love to take Tigger for a ride on your cycle," she said, taking a step out onto that tightrope, knowing now that she could do it, that she wouldn't fall into the net—that she could make it all the way to the other platform. That Ryan would help her get there.