A wide figure wearing a Boy Scout uniform trotted into the arena, followed by two others, thin, masked, and in bondage harnesses. The skin that showed between the gaps was covered in hair, but despite this they both had narrow waists in proportion to their hips, and substantial yet fuzz-covered breasts protruding between the leather straps. The first figure held up his hands to rapturous cheering from the audience. He was very fat, and shorter than the other two, the hat obscuring his features. His legs appeared oddly smooth and hairless, and Sylvia couldn’t tell from this distance whether he was a man or a boy. The main screen above the entrance changed to focus in on him, and now she saw from the face under the brim of the hat that he wasn’t a boy, but a man in his early thirties.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” He held up a hand to quiet the throng.
The audience booed and laughed. The main screen showed the man’s expression change to mock offense. “Whores and bastards!” he barked into the microphone, his voice becoming shrill and fierce. Applause and noisy laughter broke out. “It’s my delight to announce the opening and to cordially welcome you all to what I hope you’ll all agree is the greatest freak show on Earth!”
His voice had a nasal timbre and a slight Oxford accent, not at all the sort of voice Sylvia would have expected from someone introducing live pornography. She found herself fixating upon his thick legs as he spoke, her gaze wandering up over his knees to his broad, shapely thighs and his shorts, which strained at the waistband where his belly overflowed. Flesh bulged voluptuously under the yellow fabric of his shirt.
The ringmaster continued. “If my sideshow’s reputation precedes it, which it usually does, most of you may already have heard about our notorious fully interactive main event, which will be opening tomorrow evening. In the meantime, tonight, we would like to offer you a select sample of the entertainments we have on offer. Before the events begin, we do have some rules that we do ask you observe. We merely ask that you do not intrude upon your fellow members of the audience and that you do not engage in copulation or frottage of any sort while you’re seated, and we also ask that you do not throw objects at our performers. So, without further ado, I’d like to welcome the first act! Please give a very warm welcome to our leprechauns!”
Spotlights raced between the curtains and the stage. Riverdance music began, and a host of midgets or dwarves–or whatever the current politically correct name might be for vertically disadvantaged men and women–clad in green rushed onto the stage and began to tap dance. As the dance went on, the midgets started stripping off their clothes and flinging them about the stage, pairing up and cavorting together, until the dance deteriorated into an orgy on the stage floor. The spectators laughed and clapped in time to the music.
Sylvia looked away in embarrassment, finding only other members of the audience. Not wanting to make eye contact with them, she looked down at her feet and at Max where he curled against her ankles, rubbing the soft fur between his ears with her fingers.
At last the leprechauns’ shameful display ended, and they picked up their clothes and bowed and exited the stage to rapturous cheers.
The ring lighting dimmed once more, and a single spotlight sought out the remaining figure of the ringmaster. “So, whores and bastards.” He turned slowly as he spoke so as to address the whole audience. “You’ve seen some dwarves. What would you say if I said I could show you an elf, too?”
The audience answered with a questioning murmur.
“In that case, you might like to look up there.” The ringmaster pointed to a place close to the central pole, in the rigging above him. The spotlight left him and followed his direction up until it came to a stop, illuminating a lithe figure: a petite, small-breasted woman wearing a lot of green leather straps around her torso that covered nothing, thigh-high patent-leather boots, elbow-length gloves and a green felt hat with a fur trim and a dangling tassel.
The little woman bent over backward until her hands touched the wire she was balancing on directly behind her heels. She flipped her legs nimbly over her waist and straightened. In this way, she made her way down the length of the wire to a gantry on the other side, where a pair of horizontal bars was installed, of the sort gymnasts use in the Olympics. The woman began to swing on the bars, occasionally throwing her legs open and flashing her bald vulva at the crowd. Sylvia started and glanced about at the other members of the audience, thrown into self-consciousness. If they’d noticed her reaction, it wasn’t apparent. All of them seemed mesmerized with watching the act. Did all these men expect normal women to behave like this, not to have hair…down there? Did the women here go home and try to emulate this sort of behavior?
At the summit of the final swing, the woman flew off, tucking up her arms and legs as she rolled head-over-heels twice, before uncoiling to grab a trapeze and sail across the room to another pair of bars on the opposite side. After spinning on the bars a little longer, she raised herself vertically on her arms before squaring her shoulders and lowering her hindquarters, so she was balanced upright with her hands gripping the bar, the muscles in her arms knotted and trembling. She curled her back and spread her legs apart, bending her face toward her crotch to sink her tongue between her own labia.
Sylvia was too incredulous to feel shocked or look away this time. Here was a woman performing cunnilingus on herself, in front of an audience, balanced on a bar twenty feet away from the ground. Were these people desperate for money and unemployable in any other career not quite so debasing? Or did Victor R. Maynard, whoever he might be, pay so well it made it worth it?
After maintaining this posture for about ten seconds, the woman unknotted herself and stood gracefully on her toes. She took off her hat, waved it flamboyantly, and bowed to the applauding throng. The spotlight dropped back to the ringmaster on the sandy ground below.
“Thank you to our lovely elf. And if all women could do that, I don’t know why on Earth anyone would have need of men anymore.” The main screen showed him run his tongue over his lips suggestively. Most of the women in the audience laughed. Most of the men booed.
“Now then.” The ringmaster paused to consult a card before throwing it away. “I shan’t say anything about the next act. You can make up your own minds about it.” He pivoted on one foot, turning his back on the audience for an instant as he ushered forward someone behind the curtain. Sylvia once more found herself drawn to stare at his legs, fascinated by the rounded shape the mass of his buttocks made inside his tight shorts.
Egyptian-themed music began to play. The curtains opened and two women danced forth. Both had olive skin, straight, shoulder-length black hair cut level over the forehead, thickly kohl-rimmed eyes and huge breasts that bounced as they cavorted. They wore only colorful sarongs slung low around their hips. Probably this would be an exotic dance with an ancient Egyptian flavor.
A long, thick object reared from the ground, instantly changing from sand-colored to a dark amethystine sheen, and both women screamed. “A snake!” one of them wailed, and the two clung to each other as the snake advanced, another snake rising from the floor behind them. The two snakes began to wind their bodies around the women, coils glistening and pulsing with the motion of powerful muscles beneath the scales, binding the dancers with their backs together while they screamed and feigned feeble attempts to fight themselves free.
They must be genetically engineered snakes. That color change must come from an inserted gene, probably originating from a chameleon. The main screen showed a close-up of one of the women’s trembling bosoms protruding from between coils, a snake head peeking down from the corner, black tongue flickering. The snake had a tiny gem in the center of its forehead, just above the eyes. A mind interface. Someone was controlling them.
“Someone please help us!” one of the women shouted. The curtains parted once more, and there stood a tattooed man wearing a linen kilt, his head and body shorn. In one hand he carried a carved music pipe. He strode forward on the sand, raised his flute to his lips, and began