All I see is the audience, faces raised towards me. I smile. I swing. My fingertips leave the bar. Defying gravity, I arch through the air. I’m a shimmering bird in flight.
Vince catches me and plants a kiss on my lips. The people below howl, their calls in our ears as we finish the complex set. With grace we slide down a silken ribbon wrapped around our bodies. Vince holds me tight; I can hardly breathe. We bow. The audience know by the way our bodies bend to each other that we are a couple. It makes them want more.
“We have magic in us, together we will conquer the world.” Vince whispers as he holds me. We face our fans and he kisses my neck. “Total trust, you and I, it’s all we need for this act. Much better than being an Olympic gymnast in hope of an elusive gold medal. We get this every night we perform.”
We take our final bows and Vince leads me off as our music plays. Around us, clowns run and summersault. They will entertain as our set is rearranged for the human cannonball to use our net. We will be in our caravan, away from the crowd, trust a fathom deep as our bodies entwine.
The new waggon pulls into the field, the cages are screened but the roar of lions echoes in the dusk. She jumps down from the cab, sinew-stretches with her midriff glowing taut in the fading light. Vince hollers and runs; pulls her into a bear hug. She screams with laughter as her lion’s snarls rise from inside the waggon. Later from heavy lashed eyes she watches our performances,the hunger on her lips, and the lies forming on her tongue, stain the sawdust she stands upon
Her act is a crowd-pleaser with a matador-tight outfit, epaulettes swishing like manes as she whips and displays her lions for the audience. They lap her up, thrill to the danger when she puts her head in the lion’s mouth. But I know there is not a single tooth left in the old soldier.
Mud thick, cloying in the cold morning as the blue lights flash. A team of yellow-sweatered vets and keepers from the local zoo arrive. She fights, she cries, she waves vaccine certificates, but they take them one by one, toothless Tommy and the three girls. Her eyes flash as she points her finger at me and screams revenge. I might not be born to this life but I know a curse when its thrown. I catch it, and grind it beneath my heel, sneer at her feeble attempt. But Vince senses my betrayal of his childhood sweetheart, he shifts his body away from me. Trust a fathom shallow.
Freezing fog huddles over the winter field we are camped on, the big top’s red and white barely visible. I take a breath before I open our caravan door, praying the muscle memory works when our skin connects and I don’t draw away. Under the striped canvas, above the ring, our practice set is ready. The clowns perform their rehearsal paces below. Their faces, greasepaint free, are bright with frowns of concentration for a new routine. In their sweat pants and slogan t-shirts they fall about and make honking noises in place of props. As they clear away, fooling about as clowns do, they smirk at me.
Vince has the trapeze ready in this audience-empty space. I join him, skimming up the ladder, no wooing the crowds—or him—with hellos and false smiles. He looks me in the eye, I glare back, daring him to speak. He grunts and flicks chalk dust from his hands, swings away and waits. I clasp my swing, its glitter tarnished this high up under the spotlights. The strength beneath my skin ripples with the practiced ease of hours in the gym. I release and fly, reach for his hands; they are not there.
A clown gasps below as my motion slows and I fall.
The net catches me, the sawdust a mere whisper away.
Trust a fathom absent.
Author: Joyce Bingham is a Scottish writer whose work has appeared in publications such as Flash Frog, Molotov Cocktail, Ellipsis Zine, Raw Lit, and Sci-fi Shorts. She lives in Manchester, UK. When she’s not writing, she puts her green fingers to use as a plant whisperer and Venus fly trap wrangler.
Love this Joyce, esp the repeat of trust a fathom ___. Brava!
another wowser of a story from you, Joyce