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biffhofosho · 11 months

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Le Cirque du Fantasme | Part One

Fandom: Monsta X

Genre: Smut, natch

Word Count: 12.2k

Pairing: Jooheon/Changkyun/Minhyuk x OC

Synopsis: Step right up! Step right up! Come one, come all to a celebration of the macabre, the daring, the enticing, and the beautiful. Inside this tent is another world—one that will challenge your senses as much as your soul. Nowhere else on Earth can you experience such an awakening. Just take caution—once you are awake, you’ll find it hard to ever go back to sleep.

The Vibe: Third person (as always), fall fog, small town, lost and found, night circus, inhumans, the seen and the unseen (heh), everything fantastical and provoking, wonderstruck OC, questioning reality, copious amounts of worldbuilding leads to copious amounts of smut, foursome, suspension, light bondage/shibari-adjacent, temperature play like woah, sexual oneupsmanship lol, acrobatic sex yw

A/N: Literally the second the opening bars hit on “Daydream,” I knew I was going to write an October fic to it. Not only that, I knew exactly what it called for.

I had originally intended to publish multiple October fics, same as last year, but since I boned myself over with my earlier writing hiatus, the least I can do is give you a twoshot. This is my love song to my readers who love worldbuilding as much as I do. I didn’t try to rein in the muse this time, so hopefully you disappear into another reality entirely with me. Also—

Since it’s October, when we do get to the smut, I, um, went slightly more deviant than usual ahahaha. .-.

Cvr | 01 | 02 | 03

“Oh, no.”

Mariam is aware that, all things considered, she is under-reacting.

She is lost when there is no reason for her to be lost.

Only minutes ago, she was walking home from her late shift at the diner, and now she is wandering through fog as thick as stuffing and woods where there should be sidewalk. It’s nighttime, but it’s doubtful that even in daylight things would change. Even with the pale moon, she can neither see where she has come from nor where she is headed.

The fog has muffled every sound like a pair of noise-canceling headphones. She can hear only the crunch of dry leaves under her boots. And, yeah, it’s late, but where’s the traffic? She always passes a few cars on the road. She realizes that is exceptionally weird, but there’s nothing to do but move forward. Carmel isn’t very big; she’s bound to wander into one of the old cemeteries any moment, and then she’ll know she’s close to her apartment.

Still, the woods are a little concerning. Town might be tiny, but if she’s somehow wandered into the woods around Ninham Mountain, Mariam could be lost for hours. The state forest is huge and full of lakes, and she is definitely not on any sort of trail at the moment.

Slowly, her usual cavalier attitude wears thin. It’s getting cold. The chill of autumn bites at her through her flannel, and she withdraws her fingers into her sleeves before they can chap. The further she walks into the fog without a guidepost, the more nervous she gets.

“Idiot!” she curses at herself.

Suddenly, it dawns on Mariam to check her phone. She fishes it out of her bag to find she’s been walking for ten minutes, which is her usual walk home, but she can’t see a single building let alone a sidewalk. Foolish as it is, she decides to map her route, but something much more alarming happens.

No signal.

She cannot call. She cannot text. She cannot even access her GPS.

The little marker on the map has her floating in a blob of gray, which is ironic considering she is unmoored in a cottony swab of nothingness.

“Oh, no.”

This time, at least, Mariam is painfully aware that her reaction is right on point.

She keeps her phone in hand now in the hope of catching a wisp of signal. She doesn’t feel like she’s walking up hill—she doesn’t feel like she’s moving at all—but in the hopes that she is, maybe she’ll pick up the cell tower. Realistically, she can’t have gotten that lost in ten minutes.

Her ears perk. She hears something other than her own feet, and she stops to make sure she isn’t hallucinating it.

Nope, that’s music all right. It’s just really, really weird music. Like someone’s playing organ music, but it’s definitely not from the Baptist church. It’s too… whimsical?

Mariam cocks her head. It reminds her of something. She can’t remember what, but something from her childhood, she’s sure.

With no other options, she walks toward it. At least she’ll find one other human out here who can give her some directions.

She turns on her flashlight, but it just rebounds off the fog and blinds her. Mariam stumbles against a tree and waits for the flood of brilliance to wash from behind her eyes. When she opens them again, the fog has miraculously thinned.

She’s definitely in the woods, not one of the little town parks or someone’s backyard but somewhere wild and unmanicured. The trees are spindly but thick, almost claustrophobic. There’s still no sign of a trail, and yet it seems like she’s on one. In fact, she can see it laid out before her, free of brambles and thickets and fallen trees. The fog is thinner there, too, though all along the sides of her, it’s as dense as cinder block.

The only thing that makes sense is following it, so Mariam does, and as she walks, the music gets louder. It also becomes more familiar. Maybe it’s because she’s lost, but something about it is so inviting. If notes can be colorful, these are positively flamboyant. She finds herself smiling in the fog.

The trail-not-trail bends and when she rounds a big boulder, she sees it.

There, in a glade cloistered by a lush canopy of fiery red maples, squats an enormous circus tent replete with a black flag snapping in a breeze that she can’t feel. The tent is striped white and black, high contrast even in the dark. There’s a long entrance tunnel, and at its maw is a ticket window lined with warm white lights. It glows like a lighthouse, and Mariam finds herself drawn into its harbors.

There’s a man in the window. He’s the most intense blend of handsome and cute she has ever seen. If she looks at him from one side, his eyes are thin and sharp, and they cut through her like razors, but if she looks at him from the other, his dimples cup his playful mouth as though they can barely contain his inner vibrance. His hair is darker than the night itself, making his skin look white as starlight by comparison, but the booth lighting frames his head like a halo. He’s an impossible mix of everything all at once, and she has never seen his equal.

Mariam steps to the window with an overwhelming sense of intimidation.

“Welcome, fair lady,” he says. His voice is potent. He says each word with a confidence that she has never felt in her whole life even at her best, and she finds herself captivated in the span of five syllables. His eyes dance as he studies her. “You’re just in time.”

“For what?” she asks.

“Showtime, of course. I was just about to close the ticket window, but lucky for us, I didn’t.”

It’s kind of a weird thing to say, Mariam thinks, but his unswerving confidence makes her reconsider.

“Actually, I was just looking for directions?” she says with more of a question than she intended.

“It seems to me you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Again, his conviction makes her question hers.

“I wasn’t planning on going to a show tonight.” She fishes through her bag and finds the small roll of ones and fives from her shift. Tuesday shifts were notoriously poor payouts, but a traveling outfit this elaborate has to cost a pretty penny considering how exclusive it must be out here in the middle of nowhere. “How much? I don't have much cash on me. You take cards?”

“Those little plastic rectangles?” he replies with a flippant smile. “Pointless.”

Mariam frowns. “Then I don’t think I can afford it.”

He leans across the counter, almost through the window itself, into her personal space. Her hands fly to her chocolate locks and gather them to one side, twisting and twisting it as tightly as she feels her stomach twisting.

“Oh, admission is very reasonable,” he assures. This time when he smiles, it feels like he’s keeping a secret. He presents a golden ticket, the glossy paper winking as it turns between his well-manicured fingers. “Admission is only a dream.”

“A dream?” Mariam says skeptically.

“Just that, miss. In exchange for the best dream you’ve ever had, we will provide you with a new one. Seems like a fair trade, yes?”

“It would be if I knew what you were talking about.”

“I promise you’ll never experience anything else like this.”

Her brow furrows as she glances up at the big top. “I don’t even know what this is.”

The ticket-taker pouts, and his lush lips fatten to sumptuous thickness. “I’m afraid the show must start, miss. Do we have a deal?”

Mariam considers. This isn’t why she came—no, wait, she didn’t intend to come here at all—but she is here now, and this charming ticket monger is next to impossible to resist. What’s the harm in telling him one single dream? He doesn’t need to know about that particular dream.

And, anyway, it’s not like he’s conning her out of any money. In essence, it’s some free, entertaining shelter from a foggy night. She weighs her options and makes her decision.

“Am I supposed to, like, write it down or something?” she asks.

“Just lean in,” he instructs.

Hesitantly, Mariam tips forward over the counter, and for a brief second, his plump lips ghost along hers.

She should jerk back. She should slap him. But she does nothing but let him kiss her like the night mist. She is frozen as a current of muddy feelings spill like water from her lips. The back of her brain tickles a bit, but it’s overruled by the more pleasant tickle of his lips dusting over hers.

When he’s done, he licks his lips, which have curled into a tiger’s grin. His eyes are lively, and he’s panting lightly. He clears his throat and adjusts his hips in his pants somewhere behind the counter.

“How delicious,” he practically purrs. “I may have to keep that one for myself. I almost feel bad for taking it from you, but I promise the replacement will exceed it.”

He presents the golden ticket, and Mariam takes it. She expects it to feel like paper or maybe metal, but instead, it feels gauzy, and she can't stop rubbing her thumb over it.

“Straight through there, fair lady,” he says. “The show is about to start, and a whole new dream awaits you.”

The ticket monger holds open the black curtain, and she enters the tunnel. The moment the curtain shuts behind her, it is blacker than an abyss. The only thing she can see is a thin, shimmering line of light at the far end.

Outside, she hears the snap of the ticket booth closing, and she knows she is alone. The music is louder now, drawing her forward more powerfully than ever, and she realizes why she recognized it in the first place. It rises and falls and scampers and twirls, almost as though she can see the notes surrounding her, teasing and laughing at her. It is the song of childhood, of delight and fantasy.

It is the song of the circus.

There are smells here, too, familiar and unfamiliar. There is the buttery warmth of popcorn and, beneath it, something much more unctuous, a bit like when the cooks at the diner render the lard for the pie crusts. There's a hint of something acrid too, and it reminds her of the smell of her father's rifles.

Mariam follows the tunnel to its end, where she parts the drape only to be assaulted by the brilliant spotlights surrounding a huge red ring. There are seats seven layers high around three sides terminating at a ring entrance shuttered by another heavy curtain, but this one is three times as tall and wide as the entrance she just came through. Just surrounding the ring are four enormous tent poles soaring to the canvas above, where wires zig and zag across the arena and café lights accent each black and white stripe, softening the harsh spotlights.

The ticket-taker is there to greet her as though he has never seen her before. He beams at her, those dimples creasing his plump cheeks. Mariam approaches with her ethereal ticket in hand and starlight in her eyes.

“What’s this? A golden ticket?” says the man with a sharp eyebrow raised. “We have ourselves a VIP tonight it seems. You’re in for a truly mesmerizing experience, miss. Follow me. I will show you to your seat.”

He does not take the ticket from her after all but, instead, leads her across the ring itself toward a pair of empty seats in a box on the floor.

“VIP?” she says as she struggles to keep up with his commanding steps. His thick black boots thunk across the floor and resound under the big top. “But I didn't pay you anything for it!”

“But you did,” he insists. “The most tantalizing dream gets the VIP treatment. After all, we have to work harder to replace what we have taken.”

Mariam tries to remember the dream she’d thought about before she entered, but where her brain searches for the memory, it finds only the lingering taste of his lips, which she savors like berries ripened by the moon until they’re ready to burst. It’s a bit of a silly thought, yet dark, sweet juice coats her mouth and whets her appetite for something even darker.

They stop outside the box seats, and the dimpled man holds open the door with a question on his face. “You want VIP, don’t you?”

“I do,” she finds herself answering.

This broadens the man’s shoulders, and now he smiles so widely that those thin eyes shut under the powerful force of his bright cheeks. “Your private seats then, my fair lady.”

Mariam sits on one of the velvet-padded seats as he closes the door and offers her a sweeping bow like the showman he is. The ticket-monger-turned-usher disappears now behind the backstage curtain, and she has little doubt she will see him in the show, most likely as a clown judging from his over-the-top antics.

As she tries to relax into her seat, Mariam spares some time to look beyond the open stage and see what other lost souls have stumbled into this weird circus. She wonders if she’ll see any of her friends or coworkers in the stands.

She does not. What she finds is far more unnerving.

There are only a dozen or so other spectators in the stands. None of them sit anywhere near each other. They are spread throughout the whole tent, high and low, mostly in shadow because the spotlights are fixed downward in the ring. At first, she thinks they are strays like her, but as they wait for the show to start, Mariam begins to doubt they are even human. If she looks at any one of them head on, they look like normal people, mostly men but a few women, too, but from her periphery, she swears she sees the jaws of a wolf or the skin of a lizard or even a pair of antlers when she turns her head. Most have eyes of glinting gold exactly like those she’s seen along the road when her high beams catch just so.

And there are fangs. Fangs everywhere, some long and thin, some fat or even serrated.

One of them, a thin, hunched man with mottled scales in patches all over his body, is eating from a black and white striped carton which might usually house popcorn, but it definitely isn’t, and he isn’t eating whatever it is with his hand but with quick snaps of a lightning-fast tongue.

Mariam is growing uncomfortable again. She had thought this place might get her back home, but it has taken her somewhere far more foreign, and she’s feeling more alone than ever. She has felt different a lot in her life but never like an actual alien.

She should probably be more scared than anything, but none of these people—creatures—are looking at her. They are all looking toward the ring. Nobody speaks although she swears she hears a snort from one side of the arena that someone echoes on the other side with a series of strange clicks.

She wishes the berry-lipped man would come back and take the seat beside her. She can’t be sure he’s human now either, but she trusts his smile and his dimples, even if she shouldn’t.

Just when Mariam is ready to dart to the exit, music swells anew. It is far more powerful than the spirited diddy that lured her here. Under the big top, the organ booms and the drums thunder, and everything feels like it’s spinning like a carousel.

“Strangers! Friends! Denizens of the dark and light dwellers alike!” comes a voice of unquestionable power from somewhere backstage. As far as Mariam can tell, there is no sound system. It's just the voice of a true entertainer filling the canvas wall-to-wall. “The time has come to revel in the greatest spectacle the night has ever seen. Pretense, common sense, even the very laws of nature itself, have no place under this canopy. What you will experience tonight will challenge your very perception of reality. Nothing you have seen before tonight can prepare you for what you are about to see. At times, you may think you have wandered into a dream, but I assure you, what you are about to witness is so much more. Welcome—”

The backstage curtains sail wide with a snap and a flutter, and a man bursts through, his arms wide and his dimples shining in the spotlights.

“—to Le Cirque du Fantasme!”

The audience applauds, rather lackluster Mariam thinks for the passion of such a lofty introduction, so she tries to clap just a little louder than everyone else. After all, she is getting the VIP treatment, so she should return the favor.

The man rises from a bow that completely folds him in half, and she shakes her head in awe. She had expected—hoped—to see him again, but she is not prepared for the striking figure the former usher cuts in his crimson crushed velvet coat. The tails swish at the back of his knees as he laps the ring. Diamond buttons splinter in the light as does the sweat already beading at his brow.

“I am Jooheon, your ringmaster, but I am also your guide. For every wonder you experience tonight, I will be by your side to remind you that what you are witnessing is indeed real. Together, we will discover there is magic left in the world if you know just where to look.”

He stops in front of the VIP box and tips his head with a smile just for Mariam, and then he is gone.

Back in the center of the ring, Jooheon enumerates the many wonders on their horizon, impossible, tantalizing things that cannot be real, yet the more he promises, the more she believes him. Thanks to this man’s unprecedented versatility, she is also starting to believe this is a one-man circus. Maybe he will perform all of the spectacular acts he’s teasing.

But Jooheon confounds her again. With a dramatic swoop of his hand, he draws the audience’s eyes to the massive curtains at the rear of the tent, and slowly, the heavy fabric parts by unseen hands.

Mariam’s seat trembles. At first, she thinks she’s imagining it, caught up in the ringmaster’s passion, but then it trembles again and again, and she realizes they’re tremors.

No. Footfalls.

The arena is dead silent.

Thwomp. Thwomp. Thwomp.

The face appears first in shadow—a great black snout snuffling so strongly that the curtains puff. Even through the veil of backstage, the eyes are clear and bright, an otherworldly metallic green that flash the same sort of gold that some of the audience members possess.

Another footfall, and the muzzle appears, ornamented with thick black lips fringed by snow white and overhung by two bone-shattering fangs as long as her hand.

Since Mariam sits off to the side, the eyes do not seem to perceive her, yet she tucks her legs up against herself and ducks her head to peer from behind her knees as the rest of the creature emerges to fill the ring.

It’s a wolf—if one can call it that. It’s nearly twice the height of a horse and just as broad. Its fur is white all over save for the silver tips to each hair that make it sparkle in the spotlight. Its chunky claws click on the ring floor as it shuffles into position.

Mariam relaxes now. Maybe it’s because Jooheon is standing there unbothered by its haunches or maybe it’s because its face is rather doglike despite its other ferocious features or maybe it’s the fact that its tail is wagging, but most likely, it’s because a man sits astride its great shoulders, scratching its fluffy ears.

“Friends, behold!” trumpets Jooheon. “Our Amorak and our beastmaster, Shownu! Together, they will take us on a journey through the world of creatures long considered too elusive or vicious to be tamed. Many have been laughed at for believing the campfire tales or legends of our ancestors, but for Shownu, these legends are not legends at all but friends and allies, and now, they will be yours, too.”

The Amorak sits down, and Shownu releases its mane to slide down its back like a child on a playground. The beastmaster lands easily and pats the great wolf’s backside. With a snap of the man’s fingers, the Amorak stands and side-steps as delicately as a pony so that even a man as imposing and broad-chested as the beastmaster stands beneath the animal, the man’s head at its elbow.

From the shadows beneath, Shownu whistles, and the wolf spins so its back legs face the audience. Another whistle, this one like a see-saw, and the creature wags its tail in huge, careful strokes that send its long fur sweeping the faces of the audience members brave enough to sit in the first couple rows. Laughter rings out. Mariam finds she is laughing, too, and perhaps even a little envious.

As if he knows this, Jooheon saunters over to the VIP box and says, “Fair lady, would you please stand?”

“What?” she whispers hoarsely.

“Now is better,” he teases with his dimples.

The Amorak shifts, and now there is no doubt it perceives her. The beastmaster steps out from the belly of the beast and walks toward her. Mariam shoots up from her seat, less out of fear of the creature than out of respect for its master.

Shownu stands opposite Jooheon at the box and centers his attention on the VIP. There is a gentleness in his face that she could never have anticipated considering his ominous moniker, but Shownu smiles at her very differently than Jooheon ever has. His lips do not part but, instead, sit neatly atop each other in a way that raises his cheeks like two little fresh-baked rolls.

“Hold out your hand, palm up,” the beastmaster instructs in a gruff but inviting voice.

Mariam does so hesitantly, and when her arm is fully extended, the Amorak raises its paw, too, and places it light as a feather in hers. It’s so huge that only a portion of a single blazing paw pad fills her palm. Its long feathery fur tickles her skin, and she finds herself giggling. The two men exchange smiles, and the Amorak lowers its head. It snorts once, and her long hair sails behind her. She laughs harder now, and the beast and the beastmaster withdraw to the heart of the ring again, her body vibrating both from the experience and the tremors of footfalls.

Mariam sits back down, cradling her hand to her chest with a slack-jawed smile on her face.

The duo performs a few other stunts—the Amorak stands on his back legs and wobbles in the circle, as does Shownu, which has the audience cackling, and then it howls, nearly blowing the roof off the circus tent, which sends the audience cowering—before the wolf takes a seat and Shownu takes a post at the curtain.

Another man, this one even broader and more muscular than Shownu, comes out just long enough to shepherd in two sweet-faced animals before he disappears into the back. At first, Mariam thinks they are fawns, but then she sees the tawny wings folded at their backs.

Jooheon introduces these as perytons, not that that means anything to her, but the antlered person she’d caught sight of earlier in the stands cheers and stamps so enthusiastically that the ringmaster practically glows with the praise.

Shownu gets the energetic little critters to perform a choregraphed dance, which would be cute enough, but then they take to the sky, and whimsy becomes awe. The perytons glide and weave just like birds though they snort and snuffle like deer. Mariam is so lost in the spectacle that she barely catches Jooheon’s note that their sweet faces conceal true power, and no sooner does he say this then one of the little deer-birds divebombs the spectator with the popcorn container and, with taloned back legs instead of its hooved front ones, grabs a hunk of what looks like entrails and lobs it back like a baseball to its friend. The other peryton snaps it out of mid-air to devour it, and the sight of a sweet little fawn face gobbling intestines is not something Mariam imagines she will ever forget. The Amorak growls, and the two mischievous babies promptly land, bleating like kids laughing at their father.

After that, Shownu spreads his arms out wide and lifts his powerful chest, and the perytons follow suit, their hawk-like wings fanned out, every feather articulated. There’s no denying the stir in Mariam’s belly as she studies the beastmaster commanding his beasts, for they follow his every command unquestioningly.

The perytons perform a few more aerial tricks of agility with a ball and a ribbon, and when they are done, the buff shepherd from earlier fetches them to the back and then returns, this time dropping a trail of meat into the ring.

From the back inches a gigantic pink blob. The front end is nothing but a gaping maw lined with hundreds of wicked teeth, and… that’s it—it’s nothing but pinkness and horrifying teeth. Again, Mariam finds herself tucking her feet up onto her chair as though she’s afraid it will break into the box and mow her clean off at the knees.

Jooheon explains this is a Mongolian Death Worm, eyeless and earless but hardly helpless. The crowd is instructed to keep quiet since it hunts by vibration, but Mariam quickly sees that is only partly true when the worm reaches Shownu, and the beastmaster stoops down to pat the top of its head while two big nostrils open for a long sniff.

The creature is longer than her father's car and the color of exposed muscle. Its segments undulate when it moves as well as when it eats, which is an awful lot like Taz from the Looney Tunes, she thinks. It should be grotesque, but Mariam can't help but find it adorable as the monster looks up at its master and seems to smile even without eyes and lips.

Through a series of stamps and claps of his hands against the floor, Shownu communicates with the beast. It rolls up and lunges on command, jawless mouth snapping. It roars with the power and ferocity of a sandstorm, and her blood curdles. Then, as if to rub its stubby pink nose in the face of its moniker, the worm curls into a ball that Shownu scoops up in his sturdy hands and lobs straight into the air for his Amorak to catch in its mouth. Finally, the big wolf drops it to the ground, and the giant wad of chewed bubble gum unspools and jiggles itself dry to the squeal of the few audience members who sat too close to the action and got sprayed with giant dog saliva.

As the laughter dies down, however, the ringmaster reminds everyone not so subtly that this is a death worm. To prove that point, Shownu brings out a giant rod with a metal ball on the end and taps the top of the worm's head. It growls—a sound that trembles in the bones more than in the ears, a bit like a building earthquake or an oncoming train—and rears up, and when it does, it puffs out almost twice its width. Fantastic crackles of lightning discharge from its head and arc into the ball at the end of the rod. They snap and pop and sizzle in yellow so brilliant, Mariam has to close her eyes most of the way so she doesn’t go blind.

When at last the worm deflates, panting in the ring, the beastmaster touches the tip of the rod to the metal pole supporting the tent, and a sonic boom shivers the canvas on its rails. The residual electricity stands up every hair on Mariam's arms and, unfortunately, most of her head, too, which she is quick to smooth down. Shownu pats the worm on the head again, and the chubby blob slinks off behind the buff shepherd, rather satisfied for a death worm, she thinks.

After a hearty round of applause, the beastmaster and the Amorak both bow to the audience, and Shownu takes the opportunity to leap between the giant wolf’s shoulder blades. When it rises again, the man sits astride with a nod for the crowd and one specifically for Mariam, and he looks as much like a cowboy on a horse as he does a man on a mythological creature.

Jooheon takes center stage again, and she is struck by just how much the man seems to belong in the spotlight. With a toothy grin, he says, “Shownu, everyone! Please let him hear how much you loved his menagerie of talented friends.”

Applause and cheers ring out, and Mariam joins in extra loudly since she’s still feeling electrified by the death worm.

“For our next act, I invite you to feast your eyes on a man with the strength of a beast, the body of a god, and the face of an angel. But it isn’t just strength he brings to the table, no, no, no, but agility. Straight from the realm of the Fair Folk, prepare to delight in the beautiful brute force and precision artistry of our resident fae, Wonho!”

The ringmaster steps to the edge of the ring as the former shepherd returns to center stage, padding out in bare feet unaccompanied. He is massive, with enormous shoulders corded with muscle protruding from his tank top. Mariam wonders how it doesn’t burst at the seams considering how the rest of his chest bulges against the fabric, but maybe that’s just another part of the circus magic or it’s simply painted on. It's not much different with his pants. The way the fabric stretches around his tree trunk thighs is perhaps even more magical, and she knows she should probably look away, but how can she when it seems as though the man was made specifically to ogle.

His white hair has the faintest hint of lilac, and like the Amorak fur, there’s a metallic glint to it, but it’s nothing to the glint in his emerald eyes. Even from ringside, they are piercing, so green that they seem lit by some internal flame, and when they fall to her, Mariam exhales so sharply that she realizes she’s been holding her breath since he strolled in.

He is carrying something in his enormous hands. It looks like a giant crystal cube, and it warps and shatters the light like a disco ball.

Wonho smiles. It’s as dazzling as Jooheon’s, all teeth but no dimples, and it accentuates just how delicate he is despite his big body. His ears stick out like little butterfly wings, but just before she can be spirited away by such cuteness, he shucks the tank top over his head, and it’s not just the intimidating display of muscle that catches her off-guard—it’s the actual set of wings at his back.

They unfurl, thin and translucent as stained glass, framed in by silver rims as fragile as the mint green panes inside. She thinks there's no way that something so ethereal could possibly be functional, but, as if to prove her wrong, Wonho alights before her eyes toward a crow's nest just above the ring. The wings make a rustling sound, like a stack of papers blown apart at an open window. They beat nearly as fast as a bumblebee’s, and when he pivots in the air, the breeze they make ruffles Mariam’s hair.

He lands on the platform there and puts down the block in his hand. He wipes his hands on his pants and then rubs them together before waving at each group of the audience. To Mariam, he adds a bow.

When he's ready, he takes several deep breaths, that gargantuan chest ballooning with every one. He picks up the block and splays his hands on either side of it, and then she hears the cracking. It sounds like ice when she pours soda over it at the diner, pops and crackles and pings.

His biceps strain and his forearms flex, and the cracking gets louder and louder and louder. Huge fissures zigzag across the cube until there's an explosion. The cube is powder now, piles in his hands and at his feet. Before anyone even has a chance to applaud, the strongman pivots and flaps his wings, and now, it's snowing under the tent. Like an oscillating fan, he swivels from side to side, and Mariam feels the kiss of snowflakes on her cheeks and lashes. It melts instantly, but its dewy memory sends a smile of pure marvel to her face.

Instead of flying down from his perch, Wonho leaps and lands on his feet with a thud so fast that the snow is still falling like glitter on his fair skin. He doesn't bother to brush it off but lets it melt to a sparkly finish that turns him into living art.

He spends a few minutes lifting impossibly heavy objects and then taking to the air with them as though they are beach balls and not anvils and boulders and other ridiculous things. With his hands, he twists pipes into shapes like balloon animals and ties a knot—out of rebar—with his feet.

Another man emerges from the back then, this one long and thin like taffy freshly pulled, but when he steps into the ruthless lighting, she sees his fair skin is covered in delicate iridescent scales. He brings a stool, a mirror, a bow and arrow, and a bullseye. The tall man configures everything carefully while Wonho makes faces at his coworker in the mirror, and Mariam realizes the strongman is just as much a clown as anything.

When everything is ready, the tall man steps back. Wonho does a handstand on the stool, his back to the bullseye and his eyes on the mirror opposite it.

There’s something about the way his muscles lengthen as he contorts that has Mariam licking her lips. The twitches in his forearms as he adjusts, the flare of his ribs under that dewy skin, that illicit bulge urging against the constraints of his lycra pants—Wonho is truly an astonishing sight, and there’s a pang in her heart when she realizes how much of the world will never know his beauty and grace.

When he’s balanced just so, muscles trembling and abdominals squeezing with breath and stability, the other man situates the bow with the arrow already nocked between Wonho’s nimble feet.

The strongman shuffles his hands on the stool seat and achingly slowly bends his legs, arching his chest as a counterbalance. When the bow and arrow are lined up with the bullseye, Wonho grips the bowstring and pulls it taut.

Mariam holds her breath.

Wonho holds his.

The arrow flies.

Straight into the red bullseye.

The small crowd breaks out into uproarious applause, and she finds herself standing as she claps. Wonho bows to them all as the tall man clears out the equipment, and just as the strongman finishes his rounds, the Amorak comes bounding back in.

The audience recoils at the sudden thunderous intrusion, especially since the great beast is growling, but Wonho is unbothered, and only then does Mariam realize there’s a humongous rope lodged in its great teeth. The strongman pats the wolf’s head before he snatches the free end of the rope and shakes the Amorak back and forth. The growling turns to snarls.

Wonho takes to the air, yanking and pulling, those fragile wings beating more ferociously than the snarls sound. The Amorak digs in its claws and tries to pull back, but with a cheeky wave to the crowd, the white-haired fae drags the wolf back through the curtain as though the creature ten times his size is nothing but a tiny terrier.

The room is speechless, which Jooheon is only too happy to discover.

The ringmaster slides right back into the spotlight and trumpets, “Don’t forget to let Wonho hear it if you were impressed.”

Of course, the small crowd erupts, Mariam chief among them. She can’t escape the image of those pretty wings contrasting rock-hard muscle, the kiss of ice crystals melting on ivory skin.

It’s impossible. It’s unbelievable. She is shaken to her very core.

“We’re not done yet, folks,” Jooheon promises as he cuts through her existential crisis. “Our next performer is just as sure to wow you as much with his incredible dexterity as his unparalleled visuals. I personally guarantee you have never before seen anything like his act let alone the performer himself. He has come up from the darkest depths of the sea to dazzle and delight you with wonderous abilities only a one-of-a-kind hybrid like himself can conjure.

“During portions of the show, you may feel tempted to enter the ring. For your safety as well as the safety of our performer, I ask that you please use the seatbelts provided at your seat before we begin.”

Mariam looks down and finds that there is indeed a belt dangling from her chair, which seems utterly ridiculous at first, but as she recalls the incredible things she’s just witnessed, she secures it around her waist. Only a moment later, as the click of buckles ding around the tent, Jooheon walks by with a gentle smile, though his eyes are on her secured seatbelt.

He does the same throughout the rest of the crowd while two new men, one with red hair and one with blue, emerge with Wonho from the back and lift a large wooden cover from the center of the ring to reveal a shallow pool of water. They roll the cover off to the side into a metal corral and then linger at the lip of the ring along with Shownu and the man with the scales, who takes up his station closest to Mariam’s booth. Each man turns his back to the stage to watch the crowd instead, and when the man with the scales catches her gaze, the iridescence shimmers to the sweetest pink before it goes white as a sheet.

She has only a moment to reflect on the tall man’s otherworldly elegance before Jooheon clears his throat.

“Introducing: the one, the only, the luminescent Kihyun!”

The lights dim and the gentle circus music that always swells between acts dies entirely. Each of the last two performances had music, but now, it is so quiet, all she can hear is the lapping of the pool.

It is almost pitch black, though there is just enough light to see a figure emerge from behind the curtain.

He is compact and wiry. His bare feet pad across the ring and dip into the pool with the gentlest of splashes. He wades into the center, the water rising no higher than mid-shin, and then he opens his eyes.

Mariam had assumed it was just too dark to see his eyes, but now that they are open, she understands. He’s special.

They shimmer with the same eerie softness of a glow-in-the-dark toy. They don’t have the sharpness of oncoming headlights which force the eyes away, but instead, they draw her in. They beckon. She imagines seeing them looking down at her in the dark of a bedchamber, but she shakes the thoughts away.

He stoops and rifles beneath the water and soon comes up with a handful of rings. One by one, he squeezes them, and suddenly, they glow, too. He drops four chartreuse rings back below the water to glow at his feet but holds on to five others, though each of those are different colors.

Slowly, Mariam realizes it’s not just Kihyun’s eyes or the rings that glow. Pinpricks of light stud his body like a runway, and she can see now that, though he has arms and legs like a man, he is different—he is more. His skin is also unique. Though she can’t be sure of the exact colors, his front is definitely lighter than his back.

He wears a skintight outfit, something streamlined like a full-body swimsuit though its hard to be sure in the wan light, but now, she can clearly see the outline of sharp, articulated fins both on his forearms and his back.

Kihyun divides the rings in his hands and begins to toss them in the air until a rainbow of light streaks through the darkness. He builds speed until it seems that he’s not just juggling rings but bending light all together.

Once he’s captivated the crowd, he begins to sing. It’s not like anything Mariam has ever heard. Her heart slows. Her mind muddles. She forgets things beyond the show of light and the swirl of the melody around her. Kihyun bend a series of “oohs” and “ahs” of varying textures and power and lengths just as he bends the light—masterfully.

He spins. He pivots. He catches behind his back. Through it all, he sings.

Mariam realizes vaguely that her hips hurt where something presses unfairly against her. It’s keeping her from the ring. It’s keeping her from Kihyun. If she could tear her eyes from him, she could figure it out, but she can’t risk a second away from his incandescent frame.

The music stops, and Mariam stops, too, waiting for the next dulcet note. Abruptly, the juggler gathers all but one the rainbow rings in one hand and crouches down to the water.

He rubs the pink ring along the surface in a figure eight, and when he lifts it, it is dripping loudly in the stone silent room. He brings it up to his face, and Mariam can finally see his features clearly—his angular jaw, his strong cheekbones, his sharp eyebrows. Even the bow on his elegant lips is pointed.

He puckers those dangerous lips and blows into the center of the ring. Just like a kid’s wand, a bubble appears, but Kihyun does not easily run out of breath and the bubble stays flexible. By the time he is done, the bubble is almost as tall as he is. With a swift motion, he flicks the ring inside the bubble, and it seals behind it. The surface warbles with the pink light within, and with another gust from his lips, it sails to the ceiling above Jooheon and hangs obediently like a balloon tied off. He repeats the process with the remaining four rings until there is a watery chandelier illuminating the whole room. Mariam catches a glimpse of shimmering aqua on her own skin, hears the burble of the impossibly churning water sphere overhead, but she can't bring herself to look up—only ahead.

Kihyun stoops and scoops a cupful of water, which he then pours into his mouth. At first, she assumes it’s just a necessary part of being whatever it is he is, but then he spits a thin jet of the water into the air, only when he does, it’s colored with the same eerie blue-white light that dots his body. The stream wanes, but he replenishes it with another long draft from the cup, this time arcing the glowing water like a hula hoop as he spins. On the last drink, he blows a trio of bubbles, these ones as small as his fist but infused with the otherworldly luster. He does not pop them but casts them gingerly just above his head where they hang like a halo.

Finally, he fishes back through the water again, and this time, he brings up five already-glowing balls. These, like the rings, are clearly a prop, though half of Mariam wonders if they’re actually shimmering deep sea pearls.

Kihyun starts juggling these the same way he did the rings, establishing a familiar rhythm before picking up speed until he adds a new layer. He closes those firefly eyes and trusts in whatever senses he has left to keep the balls aloft.

Above him, the little bubble crown illuminates his wet black hair, which undulates back from his face as though caught in an unseen current. It is as mesmerizing as the blender-like rhythm the balls seem to be caught in between his dexterous hands.

Sing.

Please sing.

Please.

Mariam thinks she’s said that in her head, but the whispers hit her ear, and she realizes she hasn’t.

The man with the scales encroaches at the edge of her vision, and it’s a crude reminder that there are others in the room beside the luminescent Kihyun.

As though he’s heard her, the juggler opens that exceptional mouth, and more notes pour out, and though there’s no eerie blue light to accompany them, they’re brilliant all the same. Kihyun has a way of singing that sounds as though they’re all underwater.

None of the balls waver even for a second. His unswerving confidence that he will never let them drop is almost as mesmerizing as his unearthly voice.

Again, Mariam feels that pressure across her hips, and it’s becoming more insistent by the second.

She should be in the ring by now. She needs to be. She might go insane if she’s not.

A whistle pierces the air, and Kihyun stops singing. The balls fall together in a discordant splash, and quick as the death worm’s lightning, the juggler raises his arm, forearms out and fins in a full mast. From the tips of those articulations, he shoots something too small to see in the dim light though Mariam hears the little pew-pew-pew-pew-pew as he spins in the pool.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Each massive glowing bubble explodes overhead while the rings inside fall into the hands of his fellow performers and the water rains in a much-needed cold shower over the audience. Mariam lets out a squeal as she is drenched and gulping for air against the wet chill. Goosebumps dimple her from head to toe, and she folds her arms over her chest to generate fresh heat.

The crowd is too stunned to applaud, but Kihyun doesn’t wait for it either. He exits the pool, bows to the stands, and then pads off to the back while the other performers begin the cleanup. Meanwhile, Wonho takes to the sky to buzz over the handful of audience members one by one, spinning around so his wings beat like a fan over them. He reaches Mariam last, and when he blasts her with air, she yelps and shivers, but in short order, she is dry and happy again in her flannel. He tips his impish head to her and buzzes back to help the others with the last of the preparation, and soon the ring is back as it was.

Now dry and sober, the audience remembers itself, and together, they erupt into riotous applause. Mariam tries to stand for an ovation, but then she remembers the seatbelt, and as soon as she unbuckles it, it’s like a weight is off her lap, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem so silly.

“Let him know, let him know!” cheers Jooheon as he takes center stage again. “You’ll never see another one like Kihyun, folks.”

Of that, Mariam is certain. She claps fiercer than ever even as her cheeks color at the memory of his voice.

“I’m sorry to tell you we have but two acts to go,” Jooheon laments, and Mariam laments with him. She feels the dread even before he says it. But he brightens immediately and surges forth in a sweeping circle around the room. “But the good news is they will both delight, confound, and astound you.

“First up, from far across the seas, on an untamed mountain, comes a beautiful and elusive man who both defies your notice but also demands it. Don’t let the sweet face fool you, he is wild and unpredictable and harbors a true hunger for adventure. Prepare to thrill as he risks life and limb to take you to the edge like never before! I present to you… Hyungwon!”

The spotlight centers in the ring, but no one is there and no one emerges from the back either.

“Hyungwon!” Jooheon repeats just as dramatically, but no one appears. Eyes start darting around the room, so, too, do whispers break out. The man in the crimson coat looks back to the entrance. “Hyungwon?”

The ringmaster looks a little nervous, those robust lips pulled tight as he paces the ring edge. He clears his throat.

“My apologies, esteemed guests. Hyungwon is supposed to be nocturnal, but sometimes he drifts off. Just a minute, and we'll get on with the show.”

Mariam sees Wonho darting back behind the curtains while, in the deep shadows at the edge of the ring, she spies the mysterious Kihyun with his arms stacked over his chest as he shakes his head. It's just starting to get uncomfortable, and they're all at the edge of their seats.

“Where is he?” Mariam whispers.

“Boo,” comes a totally different whisper along with a puff of hot breath beside her ear.

Mariam yells and instantly clamps her hand over her mouth as she jukes to the side in time to catch the luminous round face of the man with the scales.

All eyes as well as a spotlight turn to the VIP box to find Hyungwon with this face beside hers, flaunting a toothy grin and cheeks like doorbells begging to be pressed. His laugh is airy and infectious, childlike even, and though he has startled a year of her life from her, Mariam is laughing, too, even as her hand clutches her heart in hopes of slowing it.

How long had he been there without her knowing?

As her pulse slows, she closes her eyes, and when she opens them, he is nowhere to be seen.

Mariam swivels around like a dope, but the new performer has vanished. A few other crowd members laugh, but the patchy lizard man with the long tongue is outright cackling and applauding louder than anyone as though he understands the joke better than the rest of them can.

Jooheon, Wonho, and Kihyun are all laughing, too, so Mariam has to assume this is all part of the man's grand entrance.

And grand it is! Now when the spotlight centers in the ring, Hyungwon strolls into it. He is sporting a pair of leather pants but nothing else, not even shoes, and she can see it's not just his hands and neck and face covered in those scales but his whole body. Like the rest of his features, they are delicate and captivating, almost like glitter sewn directly onto his skin. He throws his arms wide, and she is dazzled by more than just his unique features. He is lean and sinewy with a tiny waist and shoulders as broad as a door.

Colors and shapes dance across his scales in seemingly impossible patterns; even his hair shifts like fiber optics. She recognizes many of the patterns: the tent stripes or the ring floor or the Amorak’s fur; for a moment, he even glows like Kihyun’s strange luminescence. His visual display morphs into a splash of crimson in the exact shape and design of the ringmaster’s coat, which makes Jooheon beam and clap enthusiastically. Hyungwon concludes with the most shocking display of all—he nearly disappears from plain sight by copying the patterns of the backgrounds on all sides.

But then something occurs to Mariam. Hyungwon is almost totally invisible thanks to his camouflage, but the leather cannot follow suit so it looks like a pair of pants floating in the middle of the ring. When he’d been right beside her though, there’d been nothing—not even pants. Shock and more than a little embarrassment grip her body, and she swears the performer knows because he turns to her right then with a very troublesome smile.

Mariam has been so busy being awestruck by their performances that it hasn’t occurred to her to consider how much of them is human when so many parts of them clearly are not. But now the rabbit is out of the hat and she's chasing helplessly after it, wondering what kind of lovers such spectacular beings would be. That's not a thing she should be thinking about looking at a chameleon man, especially because she is a conservative person—she has been her whole life. But sometimes she has thoughts… fantasies. Sometimes she has unusual dreams. There was one in particular she’s often thought of since, in her moments of weakness, but what was it again?

She's so far gone in the illicit thoughts that she nearly falls out of her seat when a motorcycle above her roars. She looks up, and there is Hyungwon at the peak of tent on a platform much higher than the one Wonho had risked. She doesn’t remember the motorcycle there, but it must have been. It sits anchored at the edge of the platform. It has no tires, just rims resting on top of a wire, and though there is a ring securing the machine to the wire, it won’t keep it upright. Beneath it is a perch as a counterbalance, and, of all things, one of the perytons sits on it. Its clawed back feet cling like a bird on a wire.

Hyungwon sits astride the motorcycle, now clad in a black leather vest and a pair of boots. As a whimsical note, some of the scales across his face have blackened into a sunglasses shape. He isn’t tethered to anything, and Mariam can see between his slight twitches and the peryton’s, they are working together to keep themselves upright on the wire.

The engine revs again, and Jooheon raises his hands to incite the crowd. Everyone whoops and cheers, including Mariam, and then Hyungwon zooms ahead.

The bike zips up the slight incline to the other end, where he lets off the gas, and the unlikely pair drifts backwards smooth as a sled riding down a snowy hill. Once they’re back at the bottom, Hyungwon surges ahead again, but he slows when they reach the middle of the line. He cuts the engine, and instead, the room fills with the ping-ping of the wire bobbing under the weight.

Below, the peryton wobbles and tips backwards, clinging to the rail with its claws as it hangs upside down and spreads its wings. Once it’s at full breadth, Hyungwon stands on the footpegs and slowly—tremulously, steps both feet onto the seat before propping one on the handlebars. He, too, spreads his muscled arms, and as the motorcycle glides backward down the slope, little bursts of yellow, like tiny supernovas, fire across his skin. Feathers whisper in the breeze before the crowd roars with the showcase.

Mariam’s heart is in her throat, so big she practically chokes on it. Her skin pebbles with fresh goosebumps because the pair isn’t slowing. In fact, the motorcycle is picking up speed as it glides.

Before they can crash back into the platform, Hyungwon slides back onto the seat and revs the engine again. The peryton swings back upright, and the rider tosses down some dark and messy treat to his passenger.

Mariam assumes it’s over, but then the bike sails even faster up to the peak, and this time when they brake at the top, the peryton rocks side-to-side, and just like that, the motorcycle loops like a propeller around and around the wire.

She screams. So does someone else. Both rider and passenger are completely unbothered.

They whirl backwards down the wire, and it almost makes Mariam sick to watch the spinning. Even worse, as has been happening all night, she thinks again on things she shouldn’t. She thinks on how strong his thighs have to be to hold onto that bike, and she finds herself clenching hers just as hard.

Just as they get to the platform, the peryton startles and takes flight, which immediately flips the motorcycle. Hyungwon plunges from his seat several stories above the floor. Screams ring out all around the canopy.

But not Mariam. She can’t scream. This time, she’s too paralyzed with terror.

This is it. This is going to be the show where something goes horribly, terribly wrong, and as much as she had already been changed by tonight’s performances, this will ruin her.

She feels sick.

Hyungwon’s halfway to his surefire death when the winged creature swoops down casual as can be and grabs his outstretched wrist with its back claw. He drifts like Alice falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland onto yet another motorcycle that Mariam never even saw waiting for him in the ring.

Relief washes through her, and she realizes that over the course of however long she’s been sitting here, she has formed some kind of unnatural bond with the performers. She thinks of them not just as acrobats or athletes but as friends—or, maybe, more disturbingly, something more. Just the notion of them getting hurt tightens every muscle in her body like a winch.

But no one else seems nearly as bothered by the daring risks they’ve just witnessed. As the crowd leaps to its feet, Hyungwon waves and circles the ring on the bike a few times. With a rev of his engine and one final wheelie, he speeds to the back with the peryton in tow.

Jooheon makes his way to ring center as usual, and he’s cheering just as much as the audience. That infectious smile of his stirs the crowd as much as it stirs Mariam’s heart with gratitude.

“How about that, dear guests? I think I can boast with total confidence that that was yet another act such as you have never seen! Another round of applause for Hyungwon and Dyani. Let them hear you.”

The audience doesn’t disappoint. With each act, they’ve gotten more and more comfortable and more and more awestruck. It’s beginning to feel like an impossible ask to ever leave this big top. Yet, Jooheon’s next words send a chill through Mariam’s bones.

“As always, we close our show with the most dynamic performance of all. As you have learned by now, nothing about Le Cirque du Fantasme is traditional, so it must hold true that neither are our clowns. Not only will they take to the skies tonight, but they will take you to new heights with them. Be dazzled as fire and ice harmonize in ways you never thought possible, and, above all, expect the unexpected. Presenting The Flying Fools, Minhyuk and Changkyun!”

The ringmaster steps to the side as the final two performers enter the room.

They move in perfect unison, but that’s where the similarities end. The taller one, with hair like candle flames, presents in vivid detail. His face is shaped like a flame, too, with all the same flickering dimension and undulating contours. His skin is bright and brilliant like his smile only with a sheen to it, and when he spins in the lights, Mariam realizes it’s like a cast of gold dust upon him. She’s not sure if that’s stage makeup or if that’s just part of who he is, but considering his counterpart, it seems like the latter.

The shorter one has hair like snowflake filaments, each strand almost crystalline yet without being actually frozen. Even the cool way he strolls feels like a breeze across damp skin. Though his lines are sharp, borderline cutting, when he steps in the light, Mariam swears she can see through him. He’s sleek when he moves; every line and twitch has a purpose. It’s as though he is untethered and untouchable by everything. It’s almost as though his feet aren’t even touching the floor. She might think he’s a ghost if everyone else weren’t seeing the same thing.

With a pair of synchronized bows, the performers greet their audience silently just as the others did, saving all the talking for their ringmaster. Instead, they start their act with a series of incredible one-upsmanship. The redhead conjures fire in his palm, which the blue-haired man snuffs with a flick of his wrist. In retaliation, he then creates three snowballs of varying sizes into a very sweet but very humble snowman, and the redhead returns the favor by lobbing a fireball under his knee with the unforgiving precision of a meteor. The poor snowman explodes and melts into a puddle while the crowd chuckles.

They make faces at one another as they hurry to build their next assault. One constructs a basketball-sized snowball to the other’s fireball, and with a war cry like two brothers squaring up, they throw at each other. If either is off-target, Mariam will be buried in snow and the other side of the ring will be engulfed in flame, but their aim is true, and the two balls collide with a hiss like punching a hill of sand.

As they mock-squabble, a bar lowers from the ceiling, one side featuring a ring dangling from a chain and the other side featuring willowy baby blue ribbons fluttering as they descend. The two performers continue silently bickering as the redhead climbs into his ring and takes a seat and the blue-haired man winds his foot intricately through one ribbon while he scales the silks.

Once their eyelines are even, the bar raises, and now, the two men soar over center stage a few stories up. Closer to the spotlights, the redhead glitters like a disco ball while, at precisely the right moment, the light pierces the blue-haired man, like sun through a blanket of clouds, and shines down on the ringmaster’s grin.

As the pair reach their pinnacle, they play—not just off of the instruments but each other. It’s organized chaos. The man in the ring rocks like a monkey on a swing, his feet kicking and lifting. At first, it’s art, but then it’s clear his true intent is to toy with his friend. He drops. He swings. He pushes off of his friend’s back like a swimmer off the pool wall.

While the man in the ring flips and threads through his hoop, the man in the straps flies beside him. Thanks to the push, physics draws them back together until they’re rebounding off each other like a Newton’s cradle. Both of them are light and slender, but their sinew flexes with each choreographed move.

Watching them somehow makes Mariam feel strangely feminine, which isn’t something she usually thinks much about. Between work and TV and sleep, she doesn’t spend much time on herself. Carmel is a hamlet, too far removed from the City for the Big Apple to tempt her and too insular to attract outsiders except for the accidental stranger passing through. She doesn’t have to doll herself up because there’s no one in town left to impress, but as the dexterous duo wheels above to a chorus of ruffling silk and clanking chains, she feels soft, pliable even. She wishes she’d had time to change out of her shift clothes or apply some lip gloss. Watching them perform makes her yearn to impress them the way they’ve all impressed her.

Her eyelids droop.

They’re so beautiful. They sail as though the ribbons and chains are merely there for decoration, as though the sky would be their playground with or without them. They might be aiming to make everyone laugh, but Mariam sees beyond that. It’s their artistry she’s swept up in—the way they flick not just their wrists but echo the motion straight through to their fingertips, the way they use every part of their body to sell a complete experience, the way their no doubt countless hours of rehearsal ensures their whimsy looks as effortless as it does unstudied.

The blue-haired man chokes up on one silk as he releases the other and wraps his foot in the chiffon. He spins. He twirls. He sails by his wrist. The ribbon fans like a cape beneath him.

But when he swings too close to his fellow performer, the redhead shoves him playfully out into space to send the blue-haired man arcing over the audience to a chorus of “oohs” and “ahs”. Seeking his revenge, the aerialist slips down the fabric to angle himself like a bullet with an aim for his fellow performer.

At the last moment, the man in the ring latches on to his friend’s wrist, and together, ring and ribbon twine through the air. They circle together before they push apart and rotate like two bodies caught in each other’s orbit. It’s beautiful. It’s hypnotic.

Mariam can’t get them out of her head. Of all the things she’s seen tonight, they ensorcel her every sense. They’re two fools bickering like brothers, but without the bounds of gravity, their playfulness becomes aerial ballet. She wants to be part of the fun.

The redhead climbs on top of his hoop, legs splayed around the supporting chain, and reaches for the chiffon. While he goes high, the blue-haired man goes low, grasping the ring. He looks up at his brother-in-air and pokes his tongue wickedly at the corner of his mouth.

The next thing Mariam knows, the hoop is white with frost, and with a yank, the blue-haired aerialist shatters the ring beneath the redhead’s legs. Frozen metal tinkles to the floor. The redhead grips his chain tighter now, but there’s vengeance in those calculating eyes, and he spins so fast, he looks like a tornado of fire.

His hand lashes out.

He grabs the ribbon supporting his friend’s foot.

Flame marches up and down the chiffon, and the blue-haired man barely has time to unwind his foot and leap to the second silk before the other ribbon is engulfed. It untethers at the loop above and drifts to the floor like a snake made of fire to coil messily beside the shattered hoop.

Both men hang by one hand. The set piece begins to lower, but their rivalry does not slow. Their feet bicycle as they kick each other like toddler brothers, and the room reverberates with laughter. They collide only to push off each other’s thighs, and when they swing back, their arms are outstretched—not for each other but for their opponent’s supports.

The pair stills in the air.

The redhead grips the silk above his friend’s hand, who also has hold of the chain now.

They look each other in the eyes, each confident they have the upper hand.

Chain crackles like a sheet of ice. Fire ignites like a burner.

Their eyes widen. Their cocky grins falter.

They fall.

The pair thunders to the floor, each landing on his own feet thanks to their cleverly choreographed descent. And then they descend into a playground slap fight like the fools they’re promoted to be, which sends Jooheon skittering to center ring to break it up.

The tent is shaking with the crowd’s laughter and applause. Mariam is already on her feet and whooping at the top of her lungs like she’s never done before.

Jooheon raises the redhead’s arm by the wrist and champions, “Minhyuk!”

He does the same to the blue-haired man next as he yells, “Changkyun!”

The crowd somehow gets louder.

“One more time, my friends, for all our distinguished performers!”

Out of the back comes the rest of the circus, including the Amorak and the perytons but thankfully no death worm. Together, everyone fills the ring, the ringmaster front and center. They bow in unison, even the animals, and when they rise, Mariam thinks it’s simultaneously the most ridiculous and most wonderful family she’s ever seen.

The crowd doesn’t seem to take a breath in its cheers. The stands might not be anywhere near packed, but no one would be able to tell because the heartfelt screams—and a couple of animalistic roars, she notes—fill the canvas to the brim.

Jooheon couldn’t look prouder. His dimples have never been deeper. His eyes are little arches. His pearly teeth glimmer. He glows not from the spotlights but from the praise.

“Thank you all for coming! From all of us at Le Cirque du Fantasme, you’ve been a terrific audience, and should our paths chance to meet again someday, we hope you’ll return for another round of unparalleled fantasies. Get home safely, everyone!”

The cheering continues even as the performers head backstage, and once they’re all gone, the guests begin to filter out, each murmuring to the other strangers. It’s clearer now that the lights have come up that the denizens of the big top couldn’t be more different. As far as Mariam can tell, she’s the only obvious human.

She lingers in the VIP box. She’s probably supposed to leave—it’s clear from Jooheon’s well-wishes that they’re all supposed to—and while she’s not afraid of the strange folk after such a show, she just doesn’t want to go.

She’s changed.

She’s not the same Mariam she was when she walked through those striped flaps. How can she go back to her boring, conservative, empty life knowing all that truly surrounds her? It’s like discovering that the world she always thought was flat has a third dimension.

The big top is empty now except for spilled cartons and other litter. Humongous paw prints dapple the dusty ring floor. Motes of dust drift through the beams of light, past the gently swaying extra cache of rings, ropes, and ribbons above.

With a deep, shaking sigh, Mariam resigns herself to her fate. Just as her hand lands on the swinging door to the box seats, the backstage curtains fling open, and the redhead, Minhyuk, and his blue-haired partner, Changkyun, enter.

“Finally!” exclaims Minhyuk in an exuberant voice. “Showtime is always the hardest when you can't open your mouth.”

“I think you’re the only one who suffers on that point,” Changkyun retorts in a much gravellier tone.

The pair take to sweeping up their torched and shattered mess as though they don't even realize they still have an audience, the redhead gabbing away to make up for lost time.

Mariam doesn’t say anything. She’s sure she’s not supposed to be here, and she worries they’ll ban her from ever coming back—not that she’s sure exactly where she is or how she got here. She ducks down a little before she catches herself in her own stupidity. There’s nowhere to hide.

Should she apologize? Hurry out? She could just tell them that their rhythmic aerial battling has stirred things in her that she never thought she’d feel, but that’s probably stupider than trying to hide.

The last act is still emblazoned in her mind when the ringmaster abruptly appears from the back. While the other two men work around the tent, he heads directly toward Mariam as though he never expected her to leave in the first place.

“Well, my dear, what did you think of the show?”

His lips look even fuller and juicier somehow. She’s drunk just on the way they purse and pucker.

“Unbelievable,” she breathes. “I don’t even know what to say about it.”

“And how has VIP been so far?”

Mariam cocks her head to the side. “So far?”

“Did you think your experience ended with the show?”

“Well, yeah.”

Jooheon chuckles. “For the pretty maid in the front row, I offer a truly once-in-a-lifetime upgrade free of charge.”

“What kind of upgrade?”

“Only the most exclusive kind. We’re going to custom build you a dream, my dear.”

Mariam squints. “I thought the circus was the new dream?”

“Well, thank you, but you forget that we took your best dream ever.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says with a blush and a scuff of her boot on the floor. She's getting a strange feeling from his burrowing gaze that she's missing something more important than she’s realized. “But since I don't remember what it is, how do I know you haven't already exceeded it? Tonight was amazing.”

“Trust me, we haven't traded in fair yet. We can do better because… it’s important to me that you remember tonight—and me—forever.” Jooheon smiles at her then, but it’s different than those other flamboyant smiles. This one is gentle and sincere.

“There’s no way I could forget,” she admits shyly.

He looks dubious, but he nods and offers his hand as he opens the VIP box door, too. “Let me see to it then.”

The moment Mariam’s hand slips into his, the ringmaster’s demeanor changes. He’s been the consummate showman all night, but he’s narrowed that influence of his tremendous power to her and her alone. The big top hasn’t changed, but as he leads her to the center of the ring, it’s all much more intimate now.

Jooheon squares up to her and smiles, this time with the faintest hint of a lip bite. His thumbs rub reassuringly over the back of her hands as he takes one step closer.

“We're going to make you the star of our show.”

#monsta x smut #le cirque du fantasme #october vibes #jooheon smut #minhyuk smut #changkyun smut #third person #trilogy

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biffhofosho · 11 months

Text

Le Cirque du Fantasme | Part Three

Word Count: 13.1k

A/N: IN UNDER THE FUCKING WIRE. I am never, ever proofing 20k on the same day I need to publish, especially when I have to work and hand out Halloween candy. I am so sorry if the editing is sloppy. I'll fix it when I'm not seconds away from passing out on my keyboard.

I really really really hope you enjoy. I love this universe, and I'm super proud of it.

Cvr | 01 | 02 | 03

Minhyuk couldn’t be more eager. He shoots to the pool of silk and waits for his fellow aerialist to disentangle himself from their starlet and join him. They fan out the ribbons and snap them like bed sheets until they are twice as wide as Mariam ever realized.

Jooheon offers his hand, and she takes it as he leads her to the mat. With her standing, they flare one ribbon around her neck and shoulders and then criss-cross it with the other around her whole back. When they are satisfied, they push her back, two of the men supporting her sides until she is laying in a cradle of silk.

“Comfortable?” Changkyun asks as he looks down on her with the vaguest hint of a smile.

“I’m good,” she answers.

Minhyuk crosses her legs at the ankles so he can wrap one of the silks around it and then wrap the other in the same fashion around her opposing ankle. He then ties them off together in a charming bow that tickles the back of her calves.

She’s immobile now, swinging in the air like meat in a smokehouse, and as she twists, she sees she’s admired with the exact same kind of craving.

“You really are an artist, Min,” praises Jooheon, a finger nibbled between his teeth as he ogles her.

“I have a beautiful canvas,” the aerialist replies cavalierly.

“That you do.”

Changkyun runs a finger from her knee down to her hip to toy with the hem of the bodysuit. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. The way those black eyes glide like oil along her body to her face makes her quiver. Though her legs are secured, her hands flounder on her belly as she waits.

“Will this hurt?” she asks as she studies the two sylphs bookending her.

Jooheon shakes his head as he massages her calf. “You couldn't be in more capable hands. Would you like to see?”

“Okay,” she says shakily.

“Gentlemen…”

Both aerialists hover over her, their smiles unique though their gentleness mirrors the other’s.

“We performers are nothing if not in total control at all times,” assures Changkyun. “Let us show you all the ways we can please you.”

Changkyun produces an ice cube between his fingers, and as he twists it, it scatters honeyed light brighter and brighter and brighter around her. Only then does she notice that a flame flickers on Minhyuk’s fingertip. He brings it closer to the ice cube, and Jooheon whispers lowly, “Open your mouth.”

Mariam does, and chilly drops of water explode on her tongue. She can’t help it—she moans.

“Tastes good, right?” says the redhead. “Let’s shift the balance a bit though.”

The flame on Minhyuk’s finger doubles in size so he had to hold it between his thumb now, too. This time, the cube melts completely in Changkyun’s palm. Slowly, the air sylph tips his cupped hand, and the water drizzles not in her mouth but along the open swath of her collarbone. It sizzles against her skin like candle wax, and she hisses and writhes and, again, her moan cannot be held back.

“Not all pain hurts the same. Some of it can be addictive.”

Changkyun’s barely finished his sentence before she’s pleading with huge, green eyes, “Please, more!”

The trio of men laugh.

“You were right,” says Minhyuk through his chuckle.

“Dreams are just a window to the heart,” replies Jooheon. “Let’s take things to the next level.”

“Up she goes,” announces Changkyun a minute later, and suddenly, she is rising.

As she ascends, she spirals, and Mariam glances to the left in time to see the blue-haired man hiking up the cable until her body is level with their faces, like a dumbwaiter bringing their meal to them.

Minhyuk holds her cheeks, and from this vantage, she has a dizzying inverted view of his sensual lips.

“Well, hello there,” he says before he pecks her on the lips.

She only has a moment to savor the sweetness of the encounter before he strokes the edge of her face and then dives in for another kiss. The upside-down angle allows the surface of his tongue to stroke her fully, and she tastes him completely—his pervasive heat and spicy cinnamon depths with a smoky aftertaste that lingers like a memory she’s never made but still feels like a part of her.

Mariam gets lost in his mouth until she feels scintillating pressure at her clothed sex. She has to tear her lips from Minhyuk’s just to breathe. When she lifts her head, she finds Jooheon’s eyes peering at her from around her trussed legs. She can’t see his mouth, but she can tell from his rainbow-arched eyes that he’s grinning.

“How’s that feel?” he asks, and a moment later, the pressure deepens until she feels an intrusion between her lower lips despite the lycra’s firm resistance.

Her head lolls back, and she lets out a pitiful sob. “I want more…”

Jooheon’s eyes firm up, and his gaze flicks between his two friends. “You heard the lady.”

Minhyuk shuffles to her side while Changkyun takes the opposite, and everything seems to happen at once. It may have been her own fault because it was exactly what she’d asked for, but the deluge of hedonism that follows completely overwhelms her.

Changkyun guides her sin-slackened lips to his, and while he numbs her mouth with a messy kiss, Minhyuk gropes her chest. The fabric of the bodysuit is unforgiving, pressing, pressing, pressing against her while it binds, but the fire sylph’s heat penetrates anyway. She arches into his hand and wishes for more, though she is too high for him to indulge in fully.

Or so she thinks.

“As darling as you look in this,” comes the silken voice beside her, “it is spoiling my fun.”

Mariam turns her head from Changkyun and finds Minhyuk hovering now. He doesn’t seem to have wings like Wonho, yet he’s clearly levitating. Again, it’s probably something she should be more shocked about, but it feels so natural, especially since it allows him to touch her exactly the way she yearns to be touched.

The fire sylph lifts the costume’s neckline roughly so that the chill of autumn can finally kiss her skin, and the next thing Mariam knows, his fingertip is scarlet, and he draws a line through the center of the bodysuit down to her navel. With the surgical precision of a laser, he burns through the fabric. The acrid sting of smoke singes the air. Her tits bounce free, her nipples hardening instantly, and Minhyuk tilts in the air so that he can bring the tip of that scorching tongue to her aching bud.

The sensation is intense, like the first kiss of a flame to a wick, and she ignites. Her back lifts in the ribbons as she tugs on them to deepen the arch into the aerialist’s mouth. Minhyuk swirls that red-hot tongue around her puckering edges, and while she’s never been particularly sensitive there, it feels like her every nerve ending has convened in his mouth.

She whimpers, but that is met with a soft tsk-tsk.

“Mariam.”

She lifts her head and strains all of her attention toward the ringmaster peering at her from behind her thighs.

“You know we’re performers, right?” he says.

“Right.”

“So it’s very important to us that you don’t hold anything back. The louder you are, the better we know we’re pleasing you.”

“But what about the people backstage?” she asks with a worried brow.

Jooheon smirks. “Well, maybe that's just an added bonus for me. I like to rub it in a little that the most beautiful girl who's ever walked into this tent chose me.”

Minhyuk selects that exact moment to engulf her nipple in his hot, wet mouth, and Mariam cries out at full force this time. Instead of pulling on the ribbons, she forks her hand through his hair and crushes him against her breast as she pants.

Her mouth is already hanging open, so it’s easy for Changkyun to turn her back to him, and he helps himself to it. His frozen tongue running over hers has her nipples tightening even further, which makes the sylph at her chest hum with pleasure. Minhyuk takes to nibbling the hardened flesh as his big hand slithers across her ribs to her other breast to tug and pinch with just the right pressure.

“Oh my god,” she breathes between heavy kisses. “Oh my god.”

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” Jooheon murmurs, pleased. “Off to a great start. Let’s send you over the edge though and see just how needy you can get.”

Fingers hook at last around the seat of the ruined bodysuit, and once it’s pulled to the side, her body temperature plummets. Were it not for the fire brand of Minhyuk’s mouth on her, she would be shivering.

“Boys?”

Both Minhyuk and Changkyun lift their heads to look at the ringmaster.

“You have to see this,” says Jooheon.

The sylphs answer his call, and Mariam lifts her head to see where they’ve gone only to find them lined up in a handsome row, all three pairs of eyes fixed to her exposed pussy. Minhyuk has his arms propped on Jooheon’s shoulders, and Jooheon has an arm wrapped around Changkyun’s waist. Each man smiles drunkenly.

“Now, isn’t that the prettiest sight you’ve ever seen?” the ringmaster asks.

Suddenly, a tongue blazes up the length of her seam, and Mariam cries out before she sags in her basket of ribbons.

“Tastiest thing ever, too, mm-mm,” muses Minhyuk.

Changkyun shakes his head with a tsk-tsk-tsk. “You’re absolutely dripping wet, princess. And I thought you were so innocent.”

Jooheon lets out a little chuckle. “Not our wild little Mariam here. Let me show you.”

The ringmaster draws the air sylph in closer, and just as he did with her at the ticket booth, he brushes his lips against his friend’s. Jooheon barely has time to come up for air before the fire sylph yanks their leader by the neck and jerks his lips to his as well.

It’s just a quick graze, but the sight unearths yet another primitive desire she’d never realized she’d been harboring.

Jooheon pulls back and suckles on his bottom lip. His already thin eyes are razor blades as he utters darkly, “You taste like her.”

Minhyuk chuckles. “Couple more minutes and we all will.”

The redhead leaves his friends’ sides to take up alongside Mariam’s. Since she’s hanging high up, he rests his chin on her shoulder and studies her like she’s the mythical creature instead of him. “You really are full of surprises, sweet Mariam.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she replies, but each word shakes as hard as her heart.

Minhyuk runs his spindly fingers back through her hair to free it from under her neck, and it dangles like the spare ribbons below her. He looks at her with such admiration that her throat goes dry. Slowly, he leans forward to kiss her cheek.

“You will.”

This time when the fire sylph takes her tits in his hot hands, he pulls a little rougher on her nipples, and she moans sharply. Everything inside her contracts, and the silks jostle the fasteners in the rafters. There’s no hiding her overwhelming arousal. Mariam feels it, especially when a jet of cold air rushes over the exposed mess. Instead of a shiver, she throbs and feels a different kind of tremor rip through her as she leaks a little more.

Changkyun quits blowing on her so he can instead whistle sharply next to Jooheon. “Shit. She’s dripping on the floor now? Unbelievable.”

“Enough’s enough,” growls Jooheon as he shoos away his fellow performer. “Time to dig in.”

While the air sylph bookends Mariam’s free side, behind her thighs, she feels a fingertip gloss up the arc of her ass to, at last, push into her eager core. Her breath catches, even as Minhyuk continues his play at her nipples and Changkyun sucks a patch at her throat. As good as everything feels, her whole being has centered on the welcome intrusion in her walls.

Jooheon withdraws his finger to the tip and pushes back in to the filthy symphony of her arousal.

“Wow,” he whispers, “you truly are a good listener, baby. Even your pussy is nice and loud.”

As if to hammer home the point, his finger picks up speed to coax forth a lurid squelching. It’s mortifying, but the friction is so delicious that Mariam sheds the last of her conservative pretenses. There’s no point in hiding how badly she has yearned for this kind of adoration, especially since there’s nothing she can do to hide the shamelessness between her legs.

The dark corners of her mind have been whispering temptations too illicit to ever admit, but Jooheon knows what she’s always been too afraid to acknowledge. She longs to be a buffet of sin that these beautiful men need to devour. She wants to be admired and used and reused until she can barely walk.

“Feels so good,” she whines.

“Do you want to feel more?” probes the ringmaster.

“So much more!”

“Good because so do we.”

Jooheon fixes that fabulous mouth to her core, and stars shoot across Mariam’s eyes. Her hands lash out this time for the two sylphs, and both of them hum delightedly at her touch. The dream-eater’s tongue is nowhere near as scalding as Minhyuk’s, but it is diligent and targeted. It should come as no surprise that someone whose career revolves around his skill with his mouth is a master between the legs, but after just a few broad strokes up her seam and then a few swirls and suckles at her clit, she is surprised at the way her belly is already screaming with a pressure she’s never quite felt before.

“You’re going to make me cum already,” Mariam warns frantically, and both sylphs shift their keen attention to her face.

“Good. Then cum,” Jooheon replies before he dives back in, suckling even more determinedly on her clit.

Mariam screams.

Her climax rips through her more savagely than anything she's ever experienced. Her bindings prevent her muscles from thrashing the way they need to, so, instead, she wriggles like a caught fish, and, as though to emphasize how pathetic she truly is, she's gasping for breath like one, too. Her hands inadvertently claw that the shoulders of the two aerialists as she struggles to cling to her own sanity.

A string of incredulous nonsense tumbles from her slackened lips as her head sags backward.

“How long has it been since you’ve cum, love?” marvels Changkyun as he threads his fingers through the dampening hair at her brow.

Mariam works to form a coherent sentence between her heavy panting and Jooheon’s fingers, which alternate between prodding her entrance and rubbing clit. “Not sure… I ever… have… Oh god!”

Minhyuk sneers and snarls. “So neglected. If I knew who’s been leaving you so unsatisfied, I’d burn—”

“Easy, Min,” reminds Changkyun.

But she can barely make out their words. The pressure between her hips hasn’t lessened, even with her release, and it’s so powerful that she can’t stop quivering in her binds.

Jooheon chuckles darkly. “Pretty little pussy still throbbing so pathetically.”

He sweeps his hand urgently back and forth across her lips now, and Mariam squirms from the intensity.

“It’s too much!” she squeals and bucks, but all three men shake their heads.

“Just a little more,” coaches the ringmaster. “Ride it out. Ride it all out. You can do it. Give it to us, baby.”

Her climax pulses onward, tapping her for every last bit of sanity she’s been struggling to hold onto. It’s like her first orgasm never stopped, only grown hotter and fiercer, and her cries march on. Her legs thrash in their ties, and she swings, though Jooheon’s there to snatch her waist and steady her.

“You did so well, sweetheart,” he assures, both hands rubbing the back of her legs as he places gentle kisses to her calves. “Breathe. Breathe.”

Mariam struggles to do anything but sag helplessly into the chiffon.

“I’m so tired,” she laughs, though it’s through a few tears.

“Quitting so soon?” says Jooheon with a heavy note of disappointment. “And we made you our main event, too…”

“No, I—”

“Aw, damnit,” murmurs Changkyun as he clutches his chest.

Minhyuk kisses her cheek then before he snares her gaze. “You nearly broke the man’s heart, darling.”

Mariam whips her head toward the air sylph and funnels all her sincerity at him. “I didn’t mean to!”

“It’s okay,” Jooheon comforts with a squeeze of her leg. “As long as you’re not leaving us yet.”

“No, I don’t want to!”

“You don’t?”

“No, no, no,” she begs. “I can’t leave you.”

She should add “yet,” but she can’t find the energy.

“Good,” says the ringmaster. “Have you cooled down enough? Are you ready for more?”

Mariam nods, and Jooheon’s quick to run a finger back up her slit. It makes her shiver, but it also makes the blue-haired man beside her grumble.

“Hey!” Changkyun protests. “It’s my turn.”

“I made the mess. I’ll clean it up,” Jooheon returns firmly.

At this, Minhyuk intercedes by swiveling Mariam like a lazy Susan straight to the air sylph’s mouth. With a tut, he says, “You know this is his favorite.”

“It’s one of my favorites, too,” pouts Jooheon.

The redhead scoffs. “You like everything. It’s Kyun’s favorite. Besides, you did set him up with that ‘cooled down’ pun.”

“That wasn’t intentional…” Minhyuk glowers at his dimpled friend, and the ringmaster lets out a long sigh. “Fine.”

Mariam catches a flash of Changkyun’s eyes as she’s lined up for him. They’re vortexes, and they’re pulling her inextricably to him. She’s never seen eyes so absolutely blackened by lust, and they are centered solely on her soaking wet heat.

The man doesn’t say a word. He just dives forward, his nose and mouth immediately pressed to her cunt in a hungry kiss. Desire roils off of her so palpably that she swears she’s steaming in the autumn air, but Changkyun’s mouth is another matter entirely. He feels like the fog that brought her here in the first place—cool, damp, cloying. He brushes over her leisurely, leaving his presence known with a chill that’s as luxurious as it is enticing.

Where Jooheon had eaten her out with the obvious intent of setting the record for fastest orgasm, Changkyun explores her folds like this has nothing to do with her—this is for him. He’s humming down there between her legs, his fingers curling around the meat of her thighs to press her harder into his mouth. When his tongue at last quests for her clit, his cool tip sends shivers jolting through her with every languid circle.

Mariam pants and clenches under Changkyun’s diligent attentions, and while the speed and friction isn’t nearly fast enough to bring her to her edge yet, it’s spectacular. She’s never had someone ravish her—consume her—before, but it brings a different kind of pleasure. She’s never felt so desired… or so needed. It’s altering her.

It’s not just her body that craves release anymore—it’s her soul. She’s becoming someone new.

Someone greedy.

Someone wanton.

Someone completely and utterly willing.

“So good… Please don’t stop,” she whimpers.

“What a polite little thing,” Minhyuk laughs as he twirls a lock of her hair around his finger. “What she means to say is make her cum already, Kyun.”

Mariam is really not in a hurry, not when Changkyun’s cool mouth is stirring such a delicious ache in her core, but then, it’s clear that’s not what the fiery aerialist really means.

“I knew I should have gone second,” grumbles Minhyuk. “He’ll be there all night if he has his way.”

At this, the blue-haired man lifts his mouth from his entrée just long enough to say, “If I have my way, she’ll never leave and I can be here as many nights as I want.”

The redhead doesn’t even have time enough to roll his eyes before Changkyun is back to savoring her. Still, Minhyuk’s obviously not one to let things go, especially not when it’s interfering with his own good time.

Mariam hisses as a sharp pain flares across the meat of her ass. Her head shoots up as she furrows her brow at Minhyuk, who is now staring at her cheekily with his chin resting on her hip.

“Hi, beautiful,” he says.

“Did you just bite me?” she says incredulously.

Jooheon steps forward, a scowl darkening his bright face. “Did you bite her?”

“I’m bored. I want pussy, and, in my defense, her ass is very biteable.”

“You’re insane,” scolds the ringmaster.

“Hey, it was just a play bite. It wasn’t like I was marking her. I’m not Hyunwoo.”

“No, I know. He’s more domesticated than you are.”

The two friends devolve into laughter until they sober up enough to return their attention to the man whose tongue hasn’t broken stride across their starlet’s cunt yet.

“He hasn’t heard a word we’ve just said,” Jooheon observes.

Minhyuk shrugs. “You know how he gets.”

“He hasn’t even,” stutters Mariam through a fresh wave of arousal, “ah, come up… for air.”

The redhead laughs. “He doesn’t have to. But he needs to for a second. Cube, Kyunnie. Come on.”

As though just to spite his friend, Changkyun doesn’t lift his mouth from her even as he presents his open palm, and quickly, a little block of ice assembles itself from thin air. Once it’s fully formed, Minhyuk plucks it from the other aerialist’s palm only to situate it in his own.

In a matter of moments, the ice has melted into a puddle. The redhead contorts his hand into a shallow funnel shape and drizzles the water, droplet by droplet, directly onto her clit. It’s so warm, like massage oil, but it sends pleasure like electricity through her limbs. It’s even more exquisite when the air sylph’s chilly tongue slakes desperately from the stream as it sluices over her hardened bud.

“I can’t hold it back anymore,” she shouts. Her fingers wrench the scarves around her, and her body winds up on itself.

“Give it to Changkyun, sweet Mariam,” says Minhyuk as he brushes her hair. “Feed him well.”

“Oh, no!” she calls mindlessly as she shatters.

Rockets of ecstasy fire through her veins. She jerks and shudders and struggles to breathe. It’s even more potent than her last climax, and she wonders if they manage to rip another from her, will she still be conscious after?

The intensity dulls, and Mariam’s limbs go leaden. Her belly is slack and painfully aware of how empty it still is. She’s given and given by now, but she hasn’t been refilled. Something about it makes her want to cry.

“Oh… Oh…” she blabbers.

Minhyuk chuckles. “Still so sweet after all that…”

“Very sweet,” the other aerialist agrees as he licks his fingertips and then his lips.

“I have got to do something about all this innocence.”

Minhyuk’s vow has Mariam chewing her lip in anticipation. This is it—the freedom she’s been seeking though she’s been too afraid to confront that part of herself. Her whole life has been framed to project the picture of the normal, simple girl, the one accepted in every corner of respectable society, but deep in her soul, she’s not simple. Now, she doesn’t need to be accepted by anyone but this troupe of, for lack of a better work, circus freaks.

The redhead moves Changkyun a few steps back, just to make it clear there will be no second helpings, before he grabs a hold of her legs and steers her toward his station. Once Minhyuk has positioned her all to himself, his hands begin to roam—greedily, enthusiastically, curiously—until, at last, they grope the apple of her ass. There, they squeeze rhythmically as the pretty man hums.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “It’s kind of funny how we have you tied and tarted up like this for us, but here the three of us are, tripping over each other to please you. Who exactly is in charge here?”

Mariam blinks as she tries to clear the fog from her gaze so she can form a coherent thought, and all three men groan.

Jooheon presses his mouth to hers in a rush, and his tongue thrusts in unexpectedly. She winds her hand automatically into his soft hair so she can press back into him just as urgently.

When, at last, he pushes back, the dimpled man exhales shakily as he murmurs, “How can you look like some lost little doe but kiss like some succubus? Damn, I think Min’s right. I’m beginning to think you’re the one here who can hijack all our dreams.”

“Mm,” says Minhyuk, “that’s a good start then because I don’t think I’m going to be satisfied until we’ve made you as desperate for us as we are for you.”

“I need you!” Mariam insists.

“You do?”

“Yes! Yes, I need you—all of you. So much.”

Minhyuk grins. “I don’t know… You’ve already cum a couple times. I feel like you’re just about done with us.”

“No, please no! I want more.”

“You want more?”

Mariam nods furiously as her voice shakes when she whispers, “Down there.”

“‘Down there?’” the aerialist parrots with a laugh that is definitely mocking. “Baby, I know you can do better than that. I thought you were desperate for us?”

“I am!”

“Tell you what, I’m going to get you there, I promise. Pretty soon you’re not going to be able to keep your dirty thoughts to yourself. For now, I’m gonna open you up first and show you you don't have to hide with us.”

Mariam grabs his wrist, and when his eyes shoot to hers, she implores, “Show me how to let go, Minhyuk.”

Beside her, Jooheon curses.

The fire sylph’s tongue probes the corner of his mouth before he nods. “Promising… Very promising.”

He leans forward to briefly kiss her over-eager clit, and Mariam yelps, but Minhyuk clearly has grander plans. He cups her heat, and she's overwhelmed, not just by his much warmer skin, but by the sheer size of his hand. He slots her sticky lips between his fingers as he glides up and down her sex. It's slow, methodical, and, thanks to her unending arousal, embarrassingly noisy.

Sometimes, he switches to rubbing both thumbs along her folds, and other times, he warms his fingertips a little more before he takes hold of her clit and rocks it back and forth enticingly between his finger and thumb. As soon as she starts singing from the delicious friction though, he moves elsewhere. Her entire consciousness is wrapped up between her thighs, and if she doesn’t get some relief soon, she’s worried she’ll never escape from the swamp of indulgence she’s mired in.

“Getting pretty swollen down here, sweet Mariam. Ripe as a peach…” Minhyuk leans forward so his fire brand of a tongue can lick up her seam and swirl once around her clit. She whines and cants her hips to his silken mouth, but he pulls back, catches her gaze, and crudely wipes the back of his hand across his lips to smear her sinful lip gloss across his cheek. “Mm, just as juicy.”

Unexpectedly, Changkyun shoots up to his toes to lick the indecent streak from his friend’s skin, and Minhyuk beams.

“Wow,” she whimpers, though it’s a borderline sob at this point, “you are very bad men.”

“You don’t mean that,” pouts Jooheon.

Mariam bites her lip. “It sounds bad. It all just seems so wrong.”

But Minhyuk isn’t nearly as bothered by the bad boy label as the ringmaster. “See, that’s how you know it’s just what you need. You crave the bad things, we all know it. Thanks to our pretty Honey there, I’ve seen what’s deep inside your sexy little mind, Mariam. Isn’t it exhausting, keeping up this charade that you’re like everyone else?”

“Yeah…”

“You don’t need to bother with us ever. You’re safe here. You can be all that you are and so much more.”

She’s writhing tragically in her binds, lurching in every way that she can to tempt Minhyuk’s fingers into her so she can plummet over an even sharper ledge, but he’s steadfast. He maintains a hypnotic stroke across her puffy skin. Mariam knows she’s throbbing—she can feel her heartbeat in her cunt—but he won’t give in because she hasn’t given in.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to, but the tenterhooks of her old life refuse to give way. She wants to let go, but she realizes she still has a few fingers clinging to the ledge because it’s more than a little terrifying, the thought of freefalling into the unknown.

“Just tell me what you need,” urges the fire sylph.

“And you complained about me taking forever,” Changkyun grumbles before she can answer, but Minhyuk just shakes his head.

“That was different. That was just about you. This is for a higher purpose.”

“This is definitely about you,” the other aerialist mutters.

Again, Minhyuk shakes his head. “That’s not true, is it, sweet Mariam?”

She has no idea what the fire sylph is talking about, but she’s delirious with the ceaselessly mounting pleasure, so she’ll concede everything at this point. “No!”

“Tell me what you want.”

“Please!”

“Aw, she’s cute when she begs,” coos Jooheon.

“You call that begging? It’s not nearly enough,” tuts Minhyuk. “You want something from me, baby, you need to make me feel your desperation. You’ve got to convince me.”

The aerialist parts her sex, and her hopes soar to the big top. Her core pulses. She cries out—whines.

But the dream is too beautiful to last, and he pulls his hands back again to return to painting her wet lust up and down her seam.

This time when Mariam cries, it’s accompanied with real tears. Her voice is small and pitiable. “Please…”

“Aren’t you being too hard on her?” Jooheon admonishes.

Minhyuk shrugs a shoulder. “Don’t talk to me. Talk to her. This is her own doing. I’m beginning to think she likes teasing herself.”

Jooheon scowls and circles back to her face. Her head droops back over the scarves now as she whimpers. Sweat beads roll up her brow to her hair line as her eyes roll back in her head. She’s a mess. Even without being able to see herself, she knows exactly how depraved she looks.

The dimpled man kisses her cheek suddenly and lets his lips linger there even as he whispers, “Come on, Mariam, baby, sweetheart. Give Min what he wants so we can all give you what we want. Just give in. Let go. Be with us.”

It’s not just Minhyuk’s fingers preparing to pry her next orgasm from her; it’s Jooheon’s urgency prying loose the last hold she has on the old Mariam.

She’s not innocent, and she doesn’t want to be. She’s wild. She’s wanton. She’s a Fantasme, and she belongs here.

“I want it! I want you!” Mariam shouts as she shoots up in the chiffon. “I don’t care anymore—I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be whatever you want. Just please don’t stop. I have to cum. I need to cum for you. Please, Minhyuk, please, I need you.”

Her eyes meet his. She's sure the fire in her gaze mirrors the fire in his. Her hands knot in the ribbons as she pants and bucks.

“Anything, I’ll do anything,” she continues, though this time her voice is leaden like an anvil. “Please, I have to cum. Open me up! Put your fingers inside me, and let me cum!”

The fire sylph smirks. “Now, that’s how you beg. Attagirl, baby. You’re going to cum so hard for us, I promise.”

Minhyuk’s mercy overtakes her in the form of two very long, very dedicated fingers thrusting into her walls straight to the knuckle. A scream tears from her chest as he plumbs her every nerve. He’s warm and thick and burrowing so deeply into her that Mariam’s sure her humanity abandons her. It feels so right to be this wrong.

“You've been hiding your true self so far down,” he muses as his fingers drill to unfathomable depths inside her. “Let's see what we can do to set you free, pretty baby. We’re going to give you the whole world.”

“She’s close,” Jooheon says as he fondles her tits and studies her contorted features.

Changkyun threads his arm through the ribbons at her side and wheedles his hand between her pressed thighs. The chilled pad of his finger circles her blazing clit, and the assault on her remaining sensibilities overwhelms.

With Minhyuk’s fingers buried knuckle-deep in her cunt, Mariam cums. It’s too violent for sound itself. She simply contracts and explodes. Maybe her breathing even stops—she can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter anyway. She has never felt even a fraction as alive even as it feels like a death of sorts. She is shattered and unhinged on an elemental level.

Eventually, with all three men soothing and singing her back to reality, Mariam crystallizes into something new entirely.

Her eyes flutter open, and she finds Jooheon’s sweet face. His dimples are there, soft like a lover’s creases in the sheets. He’s staring at her as though he’s trying to imprint on her soul. She’s sure he has.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he asks.

She nods dumbly.

Her throat is dry, so she swallows hard and tries to find her voice, and when she does, it doesn’t quite sound like the gentle, even voice she’s always had. She sounds confident and assertive, even this wrapped up.

“I want all of you to fuck me.”

Minhyuk grins ear-to-ear. He turns to Changkyun and says smugly, “You’re welcome.”

“Changkyun first, Jooheon last,” she demands.

Minhyuk looks even more smug. “I’m not last this time.”

“That just means she wants me to leave the last impression,” replies Jooheon.

“Please,” the redhead says, “our girl is practical through and through. You think she wants to end the night with a cold pussy?”

“Minhyuk!” both his friends shout.

“I do have control over it, you know,” grouses Changkyun as an add-on.

At this, Mariam lays a hand on his forearm, and everyone stills. The air sylph looks as frozen as his mesmerizing skin. Under her hand, his ethereal opalescence feels as cold as marble though the texture is just as supple as her own flesh.

She smiles softly at him as she says, “I’m not worried, Changkyun. I can’t wait to be with you.”

Now, everyone is frozen. A line has been crossed between bound plaything and boundless creatures. There is more affection in her words than anyone anticipated, and it has changed the way they look at her.

“I don’t want to wait anymore either,” echoes Changkyun, and with a supportive nod from his fellow performers, he lowers her suspension and begins unwinding the ties at her ankles.

Both Jooheon and Minhyuk join in her unraveling as they twist and guide her form in the silks. They secure half of the chiffon around and between her thighs and then around her waist, and it’s very similar to the pose they’d taught her in warm-ups. Their organized devilry delights her though she quickly realizes that the tension at her hips will become too much all too fast.

Of course, the aerialists already know this, and it’s clear they’re not finished orchestrating her body. Minhyuk lifts her chest—and definitely takes some liberties as he does so—while Changkyun threads the other silk under her arms a few times. Now, her weight is evenly distributed as she dangles once more, this time with her ass up and out. He ties the two ends across her back, and the redhead grins.

“The prettiest little package…”

Instead of acknowledging his friend, Changkyun turns to Mariam. “Is this okay?”

She nods. “For now.”

“If you get sore or uncomfortable, just let us know.”

“You can’t imagine all the holds we’d like to truss you up in,” adds Minhyuk.

“I can’t wait any longer. Please fuck me,” she confesses, and she feels both sets of her cheeks must be red with such a truth.

The fire sylph is positively gluttonous at his triumph, and he belts out a deep laugh. “She does know naughty words after all. What fun!”

“Come on, Min,” says Jooheon with a clap on his friend’s back. “I wouldn’t mind some ringside seats for now.”

The pair agree to step back so Changkyun can fill the window of her vision. The air sylph strips out of his pants, the lycra peeling reluctantly from his sinew. Mariam had thought that, because the fabric was skintight to begin with, seeing him completely naked wouldn’t be nearly so memorable, but she was horribly and inexcusably wrong.

Completely bare, Changkyun is a sight to behold.

His every muscle is defined with merciless precision. His chest is sculpted just as his abs undulate in textbook swells. They all taper down to a symmetrical belt of muscle at his hips that begs to be worshipped. While his thighs are nowhere near as massive as Shownu’s or Wonho’s had hinted, they are sleek and defined—bitable, as Minhyuk might say.

And then there’s his cock… Just like the rest of him, it is smooth and ethereal, and though there has always been a translucence to him, she sees its grand length in inescapable full focus.

Mariam wants to taste him, to swallow him deep down in her throat. Shamefully, she wonders if it would be like sucking on a popsicle.

“Did she just drool?” Minhyuk barks with an incredulous laugh.

She looks down in horror to find a droplet on the floor beneath her, and her body heats further at her exposure.

Changkyun smirks. It’s unbearably sexy.

He takes himself in hand and pumps his shaft devilishly slowly.

“Later,” he promises, though, even more unfairly, he closes the gap between her mouth and his length so he is just out of reach. He gives himself a few more good tugs, and up this close, she can see how his fat cockhead bulges with every stroke of his fist.

Mariam whimpers.

With a low grunt, he jerks to the side and disappears at last from view, though she feels him a moment later at her backside when one heavy hand gropes her cheek and then her wet sex.

“Damnit,” he grunts as he cups her roughly. “I could fucking melt inside you, you’re so hot.”

Her fever was already at a boiling point, but anticipating what’s about to come next has her bubbling beneath her skin. She’s so eager, she might erupt just from the promise of his cock inside her.

“Maybe you should ease her into this, Kyun?” Jooheon suggests, but Mariam shakes her head.

“No more teasing, please. Just fill me.”

All three men groan.

“Damnit, it’s going to be hard for me to hold back,” Changkyun warns as he grips her hips and squares himself up with her seam. To Minhyuk, he orders, “Little lower.”

Mariam feels herself descend a bit, and her stomach leaps. She grasps the scarves at her chest like it’s her last handhold for sanity itself.

Changkyun’s chilled cock grazes her cunt. She shivers hard, but it’s much more from the anticipation.

“Goddamnit,” he groans. “Are you ready, doll baby?”

“Hurry, please. Put it inside me, Changkyun.”

Her lower lips part for the blunt head of his dick, and she swears she can hear a damp hiss. Even if he doesn’t hear the same thing, judging by his nails biting into the meat of her hips, the air sylph feels the intensity as keenly as Mariam does.

He sucks in a breath and pushes into her hole straight to his hilt.

They cry out in unison, both of them collapsing, her into her net of chiffon and him onto her back. The swing sways them like lovers dancing as they adjust to each other’s temperature.

She didn’t know what exactly she’d been expecting from a creature like Changkyun, but despite all her build-up, Mariam couldn’t have been more ill-prepared. Inside her, he feels decadent, bordering on overwhelming. Only a moment ago, she’d been fire; now, she’s plummeting. The coolness of his cock charges every nerve within her walls. Her whole being lives between her legs as she waits for him to stoke her fire again.

“Goddamnit, I need a minute,” he grunts, his head resting at her back.

But with every second that passes, his thickness bulges her core as it saps her heat, and Mariam devolves.

Her head lifts, her eyes finding Jooheon and Minhyuk, both of whom are palming themselves through their pants. The implication is exhilarating. They’re going to watch, then they’re going to join. They’re going to use her, and she’s going to thank them for it.

Her skin prickles. Her mouth waters. Her body trembles.

She’s never felt so insatiable in her life. Maybe it’s this place or maybe it’s them or maybe, just maybe, this is just who she’s always been underneath all her polite hiding.

“You’ve got to move,” she urges to Changkyun in a near panic. “I’m going to cum.”

“Just like this?” he asks incredulously as he shoots back up.

“Yes, move, please!”

“Shit.”

Changkyun cinches her waist in his hands as he pulls out and glides back in. It’s so easy. Mariam has never, ever been this wet. Every inch of her is begging for it—for them.

Because of her obscene arousal as well as the freedom her suspension affords, he builds speed quickly. Even more deliciously, as he thrusts, he pulls her deeper onto him. Changkyun possesses her cunt with every single plunge, and that stimulation, coupled with the notion of her body belonging to him, sends her careening over the edge.

“C-cumming!” she squeals pitifully.

Her muscles seize and the ribbons tremble like plucked guitar strings. Changkyun stills within her, and there’s no mistaking the way his cock tumbles in temperature. Mariam had adapted to the enticing tingle of his chill, but the fresh burst of stimulation sharpens her descent.

“Goddamnit,” he hisses again as he rides out her orgasm. “So fucking good.”

She can’t stop shaking though. Wave after wave of cataclysmic release shudders through her, until her toes curl, until her mouth goes bone dry, until her mind empties and leaves her a true puppet dancing to her wielder’s dark designs.

“She just keeps cumming,” remarks Jooheon. “Unbelievable.”

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Minhyuk mumbles. He’s stroking the bulbous outline of his cock with a pretty sort of reverence, almost as though he’s completely lost in the showcase of her rapture. “Remind me to rub that in to that braggart, Kihyun.”

Mariam’s head droops and her body slumps in her trappings.

Minhyuk clucks his tongue. “What Is that? Four times now?”

“At least,” Jooheon agrees.

She can only assume they're right. It isn't that she's just lost count, it's that she can barely think at this point. She's been whittled down to a nucleus of pure pleasure-seeking.

She cries lightly. “I didn’t know I could cum this much.”

“And you can cum a lot more than that, too, but you're still new to this,” cautions the ringmaster. “It can get pretty intense, pretty fast, so if it does, you have to let us know, okay?”

“Okay. I’m okay.”

“Good,” says Jooheon. But his voice swings from relieved to ominous as he adds, “Fuck her however you want then, Kyun.”

“Not a fucking problem.”

Changkyun slides right back up to high speed and revels in her fresh slickness. Between their shared panting, filthy fucking, and the blood rushing in Mariam’s ears, it sounds louder than the music that had enticed her here in the first place.

He sighs. “You have the most incredible pussy, Mariam.”

“There he goes,” bemoans Minhyuk. “Drunk again.”

And again, Changkyun ignores his friend—or maybe he’s just lost and, like Mariam, wants to stay that way. The way he’s fucking her now feels like a man on cruise control and bent on enjoying all the scenery. His hands roam her shape, paying extra attention to the apple of her ass or the meat of her thighs, which he’s particularly fond of squeezing. Sometimes, when he fancies a more intimate grind, he leans forward so he can grasp her neck just hard enough to hold her in place while he gives it to her deeper than she’s ever had anyone before.

The chill in her walls has warmed from the fire of her release, so when the blue-haired aerialist fucks her roughly now, even a man with ice in his veins struggles to compete with the building friction. Her body thrums with every quick thrust, and before she even realizes it, Mariam feels fresh desperation in her belly.

“Squeezing me so tight,” murmurs Changkyun. “You want to cum again for me?”

“Y-yes…”

“You do, and I’m going to cum, too,” he warns.

But then, a clap booms ahead of them, and it stills the man in her core.

“I’m tagging in,” says Minhyuk with a slap on his friend’s back before he muscles in behind Mariam.

Still, Changkyun holds firm to her hips as he grumbles, “Excuse me?”

“It’s for our Honey,” the redhead assures, and all eyes turn to the ringmaster, who’s looking back with those juicy lips fixed as steadily as his wicked eyes. “He asked. Me personally? I’d be happy to let you finish inside our girl right now.”

His blue-haired friend scoffs. “Yeah right. You’re not living if you’re not causing trouble, but if Honey’s asking, I can live with it.”

Caught in an endless eddy of bliss, Mariam can barely understand what they’re saying, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. She’s here for them and whatever they need however they need it. Still, it doesn’t stop her from complaining with a wail when Changkyun pulls out of her. She’s shocked to find she’s much, much colder without the air sylph inside her.

“Before you go…” says Minhyuk.

He dangles a pair of freshly forged handcuffs clearly cobbled together from more of the hoop detritus. With their warbled handholds and clumpy connecting chain links, they look more like crude Dark Age manacles than cuffs. It only makes Mariam's heart race faster.

“Cool these off for me, will you?” Minhyuk asks cavalierly to his fellow aerialist.

“Are you kidding me? She's already tied up.”

“Yes, but think of how absolutely helpless our sweet Mariam will look while I fuck her. I promise I'll take them off after I'm done with her.”

Mariam moans, and Minhyuk smirks as he pats her ass appreciatively. “See? It's what she wants.”

“You don't know that. You didn't even ask her!”

“You saw her dream, didn’t you?” the fire sylph reminds, though his tune changes when Jooheon clears his throat. “I guess you're right. Plus, it will be a lot of fun to hear her admit what I already know is true.”

Mariam has had a damn near impossible time wrenching her gaze from Jooheon’s thick frame, especially with his arms stacked in front of that sturdy chest, but when Minhyuk spins her in the silks, she has no choice but to look up at the redhead with big, watery eyes.

“Aw, come on, that’s not fair,” he pouts. “Okay, what do you say, baby? Do you want to be completely at my mercy?”

Her eyes hop from the flames dancing in Minhyuk’s to the impenetrable ice in Changkyun’s. She bites her lip and puts a voice to the dark thoughts swirling in her mind. “Do it, please, Minhyuk! Please. Anything.”

“There, see? All settled,” the fire sylph says triumphantly. He hands the red-hot steel to his friend to cool, and once Changkyun has, the redhead returns his attention to his eager victim. “Tuck your hands in beside you, my sweet.”

It’s a bit of a struggle wheedling her arms in alongside her, but once she does, Minhyuk is quick to position them in the small of her back. There, he cinches her hands into the malformed steel and pinches the openings closed with heated fingertips while Changkyun supervises. The fit is looser than she expected, but constriction comes from the scarves pressing harder than ever against her collar and chest now that her arms can’t dangle.

“If anything gets uncomfortable, think stoplights, okay? Red, yellow, green,” says Minhyuk.

Mariam nods. “Okay. All green.”

“Ah, such a good listener and an even faster learner. Mm, now, let’s see how fast you learn to love my cock.”

Minhyuk glides inside her before she can even finish her breath, which all rushes back out in a scream of relief. The chill at the loss of Changkyun is thwarted the moment his hot cock swells inside her cunt. The air sylph had sported a thickness that had stretched Mariam to her limits, but Minhyuk is just all-around big, and with the addition of the incredible heat that now massages her most secret parts, she loses the access to all other senses.

There is only Minhyuk’s cock. Powerful, penetrating, untamable.

He’s a fire brand inside her, lighting up her darkest recesses. He fucks like he talks, too—relentlessly. Mariam’s mouth hangs open. No words escape, just the tragic, tiny puffs of air he forces out as his cockhead hits places within her too delectable to name.

“Sweet baby with the sweetest pussy. How are we ever going to let you go?”

Don’t! she thinks. Not ever. Never, never, never!

But she can’t speak. It's all she can do just to think.

Firestarter that he is, Minhyuk rubs his cockhead quick and shallow like a striker across flint, and before Mariam even knows it, he has set her ablaze.

The intensity marshalling in her belly is unprecedented. Things are lightening around her. She wishes she could hold on to something just to be sure she isn't floating away, but her hands are still manacled at her back.

“Mariam, are you okay?” asks Jooheon with concern heavy in his voice.

“Gree-ee-een,” she croaks out through the ceaseless pounding. She isn't even sure if she means it, but considering she has no control over any part of herself right now, the automatic answer that comes from the lizard part of her brain must be right.

Forcing out the word opens a Pandora’s box of lewdness, and now the moans flood forth as she’s uncorked. It’s positively pornographic, but there’s absolutely nothing she can do to stop it.

“It’s now, it’s now,” she stammers.

And then she cums catastrophically.

Minhyuk shouts. He plunges his member in to his base to ride out her release. “Shit, you’re squeezing me for dear life, baby. You need my dick so bad you don’t want to let it go?”

“Stay,” gasps Mariam though she can’t even lift her head.

He does. He lingers deep in her core, riding out the tremors of her orgasm as he kneads her hips and ass. He folds over to rest his head on her shoulder as he slips a hand around to the basin of her belly and presses. His voice is criminally close to her ear as he hums. For once, he doesn’t say anything more.

He rocks in her walls again, and it sends them both lurching back and forth , like a couple on a porch swing. It would be far more romantic though if his manhood isn’t penetrating her so thoroughly.

With a contented sigh and a quick kiss to her shoulder blade, Minhyuk stands back up and picks up speed again.

Hair has curtained around Mariam’s face so she can’t see anything that isn’t the crimson ring floor. She wishes she could see Jooheon and Changkyun, but she’s so tired and, more to the point, she’s so helpless.

Minhyuk uses this to his advantage. Instead of thrusting into her, he slides her pussy up and down his shaft.

“This is heaven,” he groans out. “Your body is heaven, sweetheart.”

The best she can offer is a whimper of appreciation.

The metal clanks at her back with every piston, and her cunt sounds obscene. She knows she’s leaking on the floor since she can see the shiny droplets as she swings.

Behind her, Minhyuk is getting unusually loud—even for him. His breath is ragged, and there’s a throaty rumble at the end of every rut. He’s not just fucking her on him anymore but meeting her stride for stride.

Inside her, his cock is so warm. After all the overstimulation, she finds it addictively soothing. Mariam would be happy just to let him fuck her forever if it meant she’d get the deepest tissue massage of her life.

Her voice returns at last just to beckon him.

“Minnie…”

“Oh, fuck!” he snaps before he pulls out at lightning speed.

In his rush, he knocks into her leg and sends her wheeling like a carousel, and she gets the divine image of him ringing the neck of his dick, thumb pressed over the slit as and hunches over and pants.

“Whew!” Minhyuk belts out with a shaky laugh. “Didn’t think I was going to make it there.”

“Cutting it a little close, babe,” Jooheon says with a shake of his head. “You almost broke my heart.”

“I would never,” the fire sylph swears even as he continues to squeeze his member. “But I gotta tell you, your little VIP really is something exquisite. Must stand for Very Important—”

“Stop,” Changkyun barks from the other side of Mariam’s swaying frame. “Don’t say another word, Minhyuk.”

The redhead glowers at him. “When did you get to be such a prude?”

“Forget it,” the air sylph deflects. “Take those ridiculous things off her while you’re at it.”

At last able to control himself, Minhyuk softens the steel enough at the top of the cuffs to pry them open before he gingerly guides them off Mariam’s wrists. She’s only too happy to have her hands back, though she finds it’s not just her wrists that are sore but her shoulders, too.

Jooheon is there in front of her now. He takes one of her hands and manipulates it gently this way and that. The tendons flex exquisitely, and her eyes close as blood flows to her fingertips. He repeats the same thoughtful stretching to her other hand though, this time when he’s done, he threads his fingers through hers and holds her hand.

The ringmaster stoops down enough to snare her gaze. He smiles, and her soul melts like butter. “What’s your color, Mariam?”

“Mm, green,” she answers, vaguely aware of how her voice mirrors the trance she always seems to go into when she’s faced with his full attention.

“Are you sure? This has been pretty intense.”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh hell yes, thank god because I really don’t know what I would do if you’d said otherwise.”

Mariam shares a tired laugh with him and squeezes his fingers between hers. She bites her lip and risks a glance back at his dimpled face. “I really want you, Jooheon. You’ve been my dream since I found you.”

The ringmaster stoops and kisses her so roughly, she gasps, which is all the invitation he needs to flood her mouth with his tongue.

Images dance in her mind, a kaleidoscope of bodies grinding and tongues tasting and breasts bouncing and dimples—flashes and flashes of dimples in every single frame. The soundtrack is just as vulgar and vibrant, with panting and grunting and moaning of a single name.

He pulls back and searches her face frantically.

“Jooheon,” she whispers, an echo of the cries still looping in her head.

“Told you I’d replace your dreams.”

Mariam suckles her own lips, hoping to devour every last remnant of the new fantasies, and all three men grunt.

“Is there no end to your greed, babydoll?” asks Changkyun.

Jooheon shakes his head as though he understands her darkest thoughts, and maybe he does since he’s been in her head already.

Those soft dimples fall away as his eyes narrow. His voice is always commanding, but as the bottom drops out, his power is absolute. “Give her something else to suck on, boys. It’s the grand finale after all.”

The ringmaster takes his position behind her, and though Mariam wishes she had the pleasure of watching him ravish her, she’s happy to get lost in the feeling of his palms skirting up her thighs. His thumbs rub her engorged pussy lips for a moment before one slides to her clit budding between them and rubs it in easy circles.

“Wish I could hold you while I fuck you,” he says, “but it wouldn’t be fair to the guys. Since it’s the finale, we’ve all got to finish, right?”

Jooheon slides a finger inside her, and she cries out.

“Right, Mariam?”

“Right, Jooheon,” she assures.

Now, she feels his mushroomed tip begging for entry at her pulsing hole. She wishes she could see it, every vein and ridge and inch, so she could commit that, too, in vivid details to her dreamscape.

She waits eagerly.

He doesn’t enter.

Instead, he orders softly, “Show me you want it inside you.”

Her options are limited because of the silks, but that doesn’t stop Mariam squirming and wriggling as frantically as she feels inside, and when that isn’t enough, she resorts to the pleading that has gotten her everything else she’s desired.

“Please, Jooheon, please. Take me. Break me. Make me yours.”

His nails bite into the tender skin at her hips.

“What did you say?”

His voice is darker than a shadow in the dead of night. It only makes Mariam that much more impatient.

She feels her walls constricting, begging and beckoning for him to penetrate her. She hopes he can feel it, too, but just in case, she needs him to know exactly how unraveled she’s become. “I need you. I can’t live without your cock, Jooheon, please! Fill me up. I can’t take it.”

“Shit,” he curses. “Okay, baby, you’ve earned it. I’ll give you everything you want and so much more.”

At last, Jooheon delves into her core. Judging from his ever-quick and decisive words, Mariam had figured he’d be in a rush, but he explores her cunt leisurely, and it is devastating. She can feel the very shape of him opening her for him. Even if she hasn’t seen the full glory of his cock, she feels like she can commit it to memory now. Every muscle in her walls clings on for dear life. She swears his thick shaft has touched every nerve in her body, and she croons low and long after he bottoms out.

“Wow, Honey,” murmurs Minhyuk, “you should see how drunk on your cock our pretty baby is. All I can see are the whites of her eyes.”

Changkyun chuckles darkly. “And her mouth’s just hanging open.”

“Well, fill it. What are you waiting for?” says the ringmaster, and no one questions his orders.

Both aerialists step forward, dicks in hand. Changkyun is jerking his steadily, but Minhyuk looks like he’s still trying to hold back his orgasm. As if to confirm this, he guides his blue-haired friend to her lips.

“Hey, man,” grouses Changkyun, but his complaint dies the second her tongue darts out to taste his skin.

“You’re welcome,” Minhyuk returns as he stands aside to watch.

Mariam starts sucking gingerly at first. She’s out of practice. It’s been a while, and it occurs to her that she has no idea what’s she’s doing. She’s only ever had one partner, and everything they’d done together had been completely paint-by-number. She’s had sex and given a few blowjobs, but she’s never done both at the same time, let alone given two blowjobs simultaneously. It’s more than a little daunting, but that only adds to her arousal and her innate desire to please.

It’s almost refreshing sampling him. With as overheated as she is, it’s just like she imagined—like sucking on a popsicle in the dead of summer. Mariam ventures further down on his shaft than she’s probably ever tried before, and even though it tickles at the back of her tongue—just on the verge of a gag—the challenge is intoxicating. She wants to conquer it. She wants to make it down to his polished ice base, so she tries for a little more each pass.

Meanwhile, Jooheon finds a laid-back rhythm in her pussy, yet each thrust splits her open in a whole new way. He’s so good. It’s like he knows exactly how she’s always craved to be fucked—slow and thorough and desired. Each plunge has her yearning for the next. Nothing has ever been sweeter.

Changkyun’s cock pops out of her mouth as she moans, “Jooheon, Jooheon…”

It must be something the ringmaster has been hoping for because he lets out a moan of his own so velvety that it swaddles her heart. There’s something about it that feels special—personal. For Mariam, it goes beyond the pleasure of sex. It’s a sound so delectable that she knows she’ll feast on it forever in her memories.

The ringmaster goes rougher now in her walls to build up unrivaled friction. It’s so all-consuming she forgets her other obligations, but the sylphs sure don’t.

Minhyuk has regained his self-control, and it’s clear he’s getting antsy. Without a second thought, he lifts his friend’s dick back to her lips and shoves her mouth back on Changkyun’s tip.

“Keep sucking,” the redhead orders.

Mariam does.

She’s tired to her soul, and though she is in no way ready to end the best night of her life, Mariam’s finding it harder and harder to mine the stamina to please her lovers. Luckily, every hammer of Jooheon’s hips against hers bobs her head deeper onto Changkyun’s length, and when that’s not enough, that’s where friends are happy to step up to look out for each other.

“Let me help you, you ravenous little kitten,” says Minhyuk as he rocks her head on his friend’s cock.

That feeling of helplessness in the face of their lust makes her want to thank them and cum all at once, but she can do neither yet. As much as they’re giving her, they’re all just shy of gunning for the finish line. It’s for the best anyway. As addicted as Mariam is to the climaxes they’ve been serving her, she’s willing to put off her final one as long as possible.

They can use her forever if they want.

It's a symphony of sin in the room. Between the squelching between her legs, the garbles of her throat, and the barbershop trio of harmonized grunting surrounding her, it feels louder than the organ music that drew her here in the first place.

Jooheon leans forward enough to tug her nipples bouncing beneath her. It’s an unexpected ecstasy that makes her cry out with gratitude, though it’s muffled thanks to the cock in her mouth.

There’s nothing to compare this to. The very limits of Mariam’s body and mind are being tested. It’s everything. She can’t go back. She can never go back.

“My turn,” Minhyuk says abruptly and plucks her from Changkyun’s length with a smack of her lips. He turns her mouth to his straining tip and slides in immediately.

Mariam does her very best to service him the same way she did his friend, but the temperature difference is jarring. Her tongue throbs as it cradles his hot shaft. She purrs around him and sucks more eagerly to thaw her throat.

“Oh shit, shit…” he groans. “So fucking sexy.”

Mariam loves the way the fire sylph sounds. His usually feral personality has been chained by the pleasure her mouth is serving him, and instead of his boisterous taunting, he’s a desperate puppy eager for release from all this torture.

“You see his face, Mariam?” asks Jooheon as he rides her hard, and when he realizes he doesn’t have her full attention, he twists one of her nipples a little rougher until she gasps around his friend’s length. “You’ve got Minhyuk ready to blow. You want that, don’t you?”

She mumbles her eagerness around the cock blazing a path toward her throat.

“You’ve got to take good care of him, baby,” the ringmaster continues. “If you please my boys, you’ll please me. You want to please me, right, Mariam?”

She nods and hums, but she doesn’t answer because she can’t afford to. She continues slurping along Minhyuk’s throbbing shaft, and when she risks a teary glance up at him, she finds his face twisted with pleasure.

His hand knots in her hair, and the throbbing becomes a more urgent pulsing on her tongue.

“I can’t hold it any longer. Aw, baby, I’m gonna cum. Please swallow it.”

The “please” from him sounds so foreign, which makes it all the sweeter, and though Mariam has always been a spitter, she realizes that may be because no one had ever asked her to swallow. It had always felt wrong to even consider it. But now that Minhyuk is begging for it, she’s starved for his cum.

His huge hands fold over each other around the back of her head, and he ruts to the back of her mouth to pour his searing seed down her throat. There’s much more of it than she expected, but somehow, it’s also not enough, and when he tries to pull out, her lips follow, her tongue lapping up every trace of his offering.

“Aw, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hisses as he races to pull her back. “Shit, baby, that’s too hot and I’m too sensitive. Fuck, I wish I could give you more. Kyunnie, feed our girl this time, would you?”

Minhyuk swivels Mariam’s head toward his friend, and she opens at once. Changkyun places his tip on her tongue, and he groans hard enough to shake the earth itself.

“Goddamnit, doll, your mouth is on fire.”

This time, Mariam doesn’t hold back. She’s too famished. She wants Changkyun’s cum, too, and she wants it bad.

Jooheon fucks her rougher now, so she knows he’s pleased with her display. The tension in her belly rises exponentially, and she finds herself smiling even as she devours the air sylph’s cock.

Changkyun’s hand skirts under her chin, his finger questing. “Look at me, babydoll, look at me. I want you to watch me cum.”

Mariam whines and does exactly as she’s asked. Just as she had for Minhyuk, she turns her eyes to the sylph and finds that elegant neck tipped back, his powder blue lips open as a fountain of grunts and groans spill forth. One of his hands slides to his throat and squeezes, and he unloads his icy spend into her belly.

He’s still spurting down her throat when he looks at her, brows knitted and nose scrunched with pleasure, and he makes the sexiest little howl as he empties himself of every last drop. He pulls out with a shiver that makes Minhyuk laugh.

“Never seen an air sylph tremble.”

“I don’t feel the cold unless I leave something so fucking warm,” Changkyun retorts. To Mariam, he says, “Thank you, baby.”

Jooheon grabs a handful of her rear and squeezes to remind her she is his and his alone now, and she collects the last of her energy to look over her shoulder.

There she finds the ringmaster glistening with sweat, all the way down his throat and chest and forearms. It even drips under her chin and onto her ass. She’d taste it if he asked her to.

Her core constricts, and Jooheon hisses.

“Did they taste good, sweetheart?” he asks.

“Yes, Jooheon.”

“You did so good, Mariam, so good. You’re doing even better for me. You’re squeezing me an awful lot, baby. Can’t wait to cum?”

She bites her lip and nods. “Please make me.”

“I will, I promise. We’ll cum together, okay?”

“Jooheon…”

She can’t stop crying his name, and she wonders if she’ll ever be able to call out anything else ever again. Maybe that’s been his plan all along.

Mariam sags in her cocoon of silks as she rides out his energetic fucking. All three men have fit inside her differently, but when Jooheon takes control of her, his power is all-consuming. Each thrust drives the air from her lungs in high-pitched whines. Her hair flies around her face and her tits jiggle beneath her and more arousal trickles down onto Jooheon’s thick thighs.

Minhyuk stands before her, unabashed, his cock as soft as his eyes as he watches her take his friend’s pounding. The fire sylph is glowing, the sparkles in his skin all the more glittery post-release.

“Absolutely fucking stunning,” he observes as her eyes roll back in her head.

Mariam’s body is vibrating. From deep within her, something electric and violent is mounting.

“This is it,” says Jooheon. “Help me out, guys.”

The slyphs tag-team her, so that all three men surround her to hold her in place for the ringmaster to fuck at inhuman speed. Fingers thread together over her clit, hot and cold entwined, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing in perfect harmony while the cock inside her enlarges to unprecedented thickness until she can feel every vein goading the last of her consciousness from her.

The feeling overtaking her is so intense, her first instinct is to run from it. Maybe this is more ecstasy than a person can take. It feels like her muscles are being stretched to their limit, like strings being tuned on a violin until they fray.

She’s thinking yellow now, but she can’t bring herself to say it. She can’t say anything, but he does the talking for them.

“Gonna cum, baby. Cum with me.”

With one more drill of Jooheon’s cock, she explodes.

Mariam feels like a starburst, like a supernova.

A scream is torn from her lungs, and she collapses in her chiffon embrace.

She thinks maybe her soul left her for a moment. Maybe it hasn’t come back either because she feels dead to her bones.

“Still with us?” asks Jooheon as he runs his hand down her spine.

“Yeah.”

“I worried you might have passed out there for a second.”

“Mm, no. I’m here. I could take everyone here if you let me,” she boasts, though half of it is through a vicious yawn.

All three men laugh before Jooheon bends forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Maybe you could, but what makes you think we’d want to share?”

Mariam’s lids droop as she studies his delicate dimples and chocolate eyes, and she nods in slow motion. “Next time then.”

Jooheon exhales sorrowfully. “If you come back, sure, next time. You can have as much of any and all of us as your voracious little heart desires.”

The trio releases the scarves slowly, and she emerges transformed—though, into what, she is unsure. They ease her down onto the mat, where Mariam curls into a ball, her core dribbling liquid indecency all over the floor. Jooheon covers her with his coat before he joins her to spoon.

Changkyun follows suit and mirrors her, their foreheads touching. Not to be left out, Minhyuk spoons Changkyun, completely unbothered by the fact that they’re both as naked as the day they were born.

Mariam’s not sure how long they lay like this, but she does know it’s not nearly long enough. Jooheon kisses her shoulder, and she knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“I don’t want to go,” she says drowsily. “I don’t want to leave you.”

The ringmaster rolls her onto her back so he can cradle her cheek in his hand as he peers so deeply into her eyes that she can feel him inside her again. “And we don’t want you to go.”

“Then why are you going to make me?” She’s crying now, but she’s expended every ounce of energy on them, and she has no self-control left.

“If you can find us again, you can stay. It’s the rules of the circus, sweetheart, not our rules.”

Though her exhaustion is relentlessly overtaking her, Mariam finds enough strength to cling to Jooheon’s shirt as she implores, “That doesn’t make any sense. How do I find you? I don’t know how I got here in the first place.”

“I can’t—” He cuts himself off and sighs. His head hangs as his two friends clamp their hands on his shoulders. “I can’t tell you that, but if you do return, just know you’ll never have to leave again.”

Hopelessness surges in her chest as strongly as sleep does. Her eyes are shutting against her will, though they refuse to dam her tears.

Jooheon rubs his thumb along the rainbow of her cheek and adds gently, “If I did it, I know you can. Don’t forget us, Mariam. Don’t give up.”

“Never! Never, never! I won’t stop looking until I find you again.”

Jooheon kisses her slackening lips, but even overwhelmed with exhaustion like she’s never experienced, she finds the strength to taste his mouth one last time.

Mariam’s lost the fight to open her eyes again, but as she sinks down toward unconsciousness, she hears the last of their voices like she’s on a train pulling away from their discussion on the platform, and she’s powerless to stop the momentum.

“I don’t want her to forget us,” whines Minhyuk.

“She doesn’t have to forget, does she?” Changkyun asks.

“That’s not up to us, you know that,” Jooheon reminds. “It’s up to her.”

Minhyuk grumbles. “You humans never want to remember.”

“I remembered.”

“You’re different, Honey.”

“She’s different,” adds Changkyun.

“I know,” says Minhyuk. “That’s why I need her to remember.”

Jooheon’s voice is the last thing she hears as she reaches the bottom of the black abyss.

“Remember us, Mariam. Find us again, and we’ll never let you go…”

---------------

“Mariam! Mariam, open your eyes!”

“Jooheon?” she asks groggily. She rubs her eyes to help them adjust faster to the wan gray of pre-dawn.

The fog has lifted. Carmel is Carmel again, though, for a second, she sees stripes overhead and hopes the big top is just behind her. On second look, however, it’s only the diner’s green-and-white vinyl awning snapping in the early morning freeze.

“Who’s Jooheon?”

After a dozen furious blinks, she recognizes the face looming over her as that of Felix, one of the chefs.

Mariam’s not just confused, she feels hungover—or maybe still wasted—not that she’s ever been either, but that’s the only way to describe this sensation of imbalance. She doesn’t feel right.

“Are you okay?” the cook asks as he studies her beneath his scrunched brow.

“I’m okay, I think.”

“Did you pass out or something? Don't tell me you slept out here.”

“Here?”

Only then does Mariam lift her head and look around. It is still dark out, but Felix has the 6:00 a.m. shift, so it must be closer to 5:00 in the morning. She is on one of the benches in front of the diner. She doesn't remember falling asleep here.

She’s also still in yesterday’s clothes, and her server’s apron rests bunched up at the edge of the bench like a makeshift pillow. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and notices the imprint of the bench slats on her hand.

At last, she stands, and she feels the humiliating squish between her legs. Did she have a wet dream on the sidewalk? Thought is both horrifying and preposterous, but she can't decide which it is more of.

“I guess I did,” Mariam says cautiously.

“You don’t remember?” Felix looks seriously concerned now, and he rests a wrinkled hand on her shoulder. “Maybe I should call someone. Or I could run you down to the hospital?”

“No!” she shouts before she tempers herself. “No, that’s really not necessary. I must have just overdid it on my shift.”

Maybe that’s true. Her limbs have never felt so tired; her heart has never felt so heavy.

“On a Tuesday?” Felix presses.

“I guess I haven’t really been sleeping super great the last week. Must have just caught up to me.”

It sounds logical, Mariam thinks, enough to throw the cook off his line of questioning, but none of this makes any sense. She is sure she was lost in the fog. She is sure she went to a night circus. She is sure she has seen things that have altered the very fabric of her reality. She is sure she has felt things that she may never feel ever again.

At least, she was sure…

But sometimes her dreams cross the line, and it makes it hard to differentiate between the physical world and her subconscious. She knows she’s had one before that had felt so good—so real—she had woken up like this, soaked between the thighs and reluctant to reenter reality, but for some reason, she can’t recall it anymore. All she feels, sees, thinks about is her night circus and the beautiful creatures who inhabit it.

And she hears a name looping in her head in her own desperate voice.

Jooheon!

Her nails bite into her palms just to be sure this is reality, and as they do, she feels another tightness, this one on her finger.

It’s a flower ring—rudimentary, handmade, and utterly beautiful. The steel is lumpy and singed, but the way it wraps around her finger, like a climbing rosebush permanently fastening itself to her, soothes her heart.

“You need me to see you home?” asks Felix. “I’m worried about you, kid.”

Mariam shakes her head. “I’m good, but thank you. I’ll see you tonight before shift change?”

He narrows his eyes but nods all the same. “Yeah. You sure you’re good?”

She cradles her ringed hand to her heart and feels as galvanized as the steel itself.

It was real.

It was all real.

They’re all real, and she will find them again soon, she feels it in her heart.

Mariam casts her eyes to the encroaching dawn as the last tendrils of the night fog fades away, and she answers quietly, “All good. I’m going to find my way home.”

#monsta x smut #le cirque du fantasme #october vibes #jooheon smut #minhyuk smut #changkyun smut #third person #trilogy

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