price was up to thirty pounds. It all happened so fast, she wasn’t able to tell who the current high bidder was.
“Forty, anyone?”
Immediately the dungeon master raised his hand. Sylvia had a bad feeling he might be able to recognize her as the woman who’d been poking around his dungeon the day before. She felt horribly undressed standing there before him, an intuition that had nothing to do with her skimpy costume.
“Vaughn? Forty pounds?”
Vaughn’s jaw flexed into a smile. “I could do with someone to help out in the dungeon.”
“Anyone care to top Vaughn?”
A man in a Nazi costume saluted. Oh shit, no .
“Fifty pounds.”
Vaughn’s hand went up again. Sylvia wasn’t sure which prospect was worse.
“Sixty pounds.”
A hand went up at the back–some great wide person, garbed in a lurid Lycra costume. The ringmaster , Sylvia realized, giving way internally to an ebb of relief. He was somehow unthreatening, too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
“Seventy pounds from Victor.” The auctioneer’s voice took on a strange inflection at the ringmaster’s name.
The executioner turned his eyes away from Sylvia, his posture changing subtly, almost reminiscent of a genuflection. It was as though the others afforded this absurd ringmaster a reverence incongruous with his appearance.
The auctioneer’s gavel rapped on the tabletop. “Sold, to Victor!”
Sylvia stepped down off the dais and made her way toward him. The relief she’d initially felt wasn’t lasting. He might well have been the least scary individual in the room, but he was still a stranger who exhibited his private parts in front of an audience and he’d still won her in an auction, and what was to come next was anyone’s guess.
She wasn’t sure what he was meant to be: probably a court jester or some sort of clown, or maybe a cartoon villain. It appeared he wore nothing under his garish costume, and the tight fabric didn’t leave much to the imagination. She could even make out the shape of that weird piercing. Sylvia averted her eyes, glad her mask at least partly concealed the rush of heat to her face. “So, am I, like, your slave or something for the day?”
“It’s just for fun.” Victor shrugged. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. There’s a main event starting in the arena soon, if you’d honor me with your company for the first part of it. I’m afraid I’m in the second part of it, if you see what I mean.”
Noisy music started up in a stall close by. People threw hoops at male mannequins dressed in trench coats and hats. The trench coats opened on drawstrings in sync with the music, and the mannequins had black strap-ons beneath them.
“You have a lot of stalls here,” said Sylvia, thinking she ought to try to make conversation. “They’re very imaginative .”
“Yes, although we used to have more. We’ve been forced to shut down a lot of it. We used to have poodles,” Victor elaborated. “I don’t know how much you know about dogs, but when they have sex, their genitals swell up and they stick together. The female poodle had been sterilized, but she had a remote-controlled pituitary implant so you could make her effectively go into heat at the push of a button. Tom–the snake guy–he used to cut funny topiary into them so they looked like something or spelled a word when they were together. An RSPCA inspector said it was cruel, so we had to retire them.”
“Oh,” said Sylvia, thinking of Max and that she agreed with the RSPCA inspector. She said no more, because she didn’t want to start an argument.
“Ridiculous, really, because poodles like to be laughed at and to be the center of attention. People like to say they’re stupid and not real dogs, but historically they were bred as gundogs, and they’re the second-most intelligent breed there is. The funny thing is there was a police officer with a castrated sniffer dog here the other day. I mean, how is cutting parts
“Forty, anyone?”
Immediately the dungeon master raised his hand. Sylvia had a bad feeling he might be able to recognize her as the woman who’d been poking around his dungeon the day before. She felt horribly undressed standing there before him, an intuition that had nothing to do with her skimpy costume.
“Vaughn? Forty pounds?”
Vaughn’s jaw flexed into a smile. “I could do with someone to help out in the dungeon.”
“Anyone care to top Vaughn?”
A man in a Nazi costume saluted. Oh shit, no .
“Fifty pounds.”
Vaughn’s hand went up again. Sylvia wasn’t sure which prospect was worse.
“Sixty pounds.”
A hand went up at the back–some great wide person, garbed in a lurid Lycra costume. The ringmaster , Sylvia realized, giving way internally to an ebb of relief. He was somehow unthreatening, too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
“Seventy pounds from Victor.” The auctioneer’s voice took on a strange inflection at the ringmaster’s name.
The executioner turned his eyes away from Sylvia, his posture changing subtly, almost reminiscent of a genuflection. It was as though the others afforded this absurd ringmaster a reverence incongruous with his appearance.
The auctioneer’s gavel rapped on the tabletop. “Sold, to Victor!”
Sylvia stepped down off the dais and made her way toward him. The relief she’d initially felt wasn’t lasting. He might well have been the least scary individual in the room, but he was still a stranger who exhibited his private parts in front of an audience and he’d still won her in an auction, and what was to come next was anyone’s guess.
She wasn’t sure what he was meant to be: probably a court jester or some sort of clown, or maybe a cartoon villain. It appeared he wore nothing under his garish costume, and the tight fabric didn’t leave much to the imagination. She could even make out the shape of that weird piercing. Sylvia averted her eyes, glad her mask at least partly concealed the rush of heat to her face. “So, am I, like, your slave or something for the day?”
“It’s just for fun.” Victor shrugged. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. There’s a main event starting in the arena soon, if you’d honor me with your company for the first part of it. I’m afraid I’m in the second part of it, if you see what I mean.”
Noisy music started up in a stall close by. People threw hoops at male mannequins dressed in trench coats and hats. The trench coats opened on drawstrings in sync with the music, and the mannequins had black strap-ons beneath them.
“You have a lot of stalls here,” said Sylvia, thinking she ought to try to make conversation. “They’re very imaginative .”
“Yes, although we used to have more. We’ve been forced to shut down a lot of it. We used to have poodles,” Victor elaborated. “I don’t know how much you know about dogs, but when they have sex, their genitals swell up and they stick together. The female poodle had been sterilized, but she had a remote-controlled pituitary implant so you could make her effectively go into heat at the push of a button. Tom–the snake guy–he used to cut funny topiary into them so they looked like something or spelled a word when they were together. An RSPCA inspector said it was cruel, so we had to retire them.”
“Oh,” said Sylvia, thinking of Max and that she agreed with the RSPCA inspector. She said no more, because she didn’t want to start an argument.
“Ridiculous, really, because poodles like to be laughed at and to be the center of attention. People like to say they’re stupid and not real dogs, but historically they were bred as gundogs, and they’re the second-most intelligent breed there is. The funny thing is there was a police officer with a castrated sniffer dog here the other day. I mean, how is cutting parts
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