I Don't Seem So Bright in a Well-Lit Room

Chapter Sixteen

Orchestra Balloo waited absolutely naked at the top of her post, high above an audience of dangerous drunks and drug-addled sex addicts waiting for her musical cue. She had trained for almost a decade in the acrobatic arts and had wished very much to perform in front of kings and presidents as her mother had. However, this performance was about to have her mother spinning like a tiny heartbroken whirligig in her grave, as the old idiom goes. 

Times were tough across the universe for anyone not wishing to push books or impound illegally parked spaceships for The Node. Or go into a lucrative (but short) career in hair-styling and machine restoration.

The Node was not much of a patron of the arts. He didn't understand them, and the arts didn't understand him back.

She knew enough not to look down. Not for fear of falling, but she didn't want to see the audience she was about to perform for. She tried hard not to look across at the other platform. She didn't want to see her performance partner (and forthcoming sex circus performance lover) either.

Their act was simple in circus terms, but challenging in sexual terms. She would swing on over. No trouble there. He would swing on over. No trouble there. She would flip and land on his lap. No trouble there, either. But aim was paramount, and that's where the trouble started. Luckily he had a very large "target" that none of his past partners had ever missed before. 

He would have his way with her as they swung, flipped and twirled around ropes. Dangerous drunks would cheer, drug-addled sex addicts would drool.

She was instructed to play the submissive. She was instructed to take his lead; he was the veteran. He had done this a thousand times before. He had requested this new, younger lubricated partner. He had dropped his last partner to her death. Steppin Tope was a four-armed Jost'lean and he was awful and egotistical and misogynistic and cruel. He was a murderer that always made it look like an accident, and his victim's accident to boot.

She tried hard not to think of this. She tried hard not to cry. She tried not to simply jump off the platform and end it all. 

Once they started, the crowd would no doubt scream out requested positions and entry points. The crowd would be awful and cruel as well. As her music cue blasted out of the overly bassy speakers, she closed her eyes and left the platform gripping the trapeze handles as tightly as she could, both fearing and hoping he would drop her. She opened her eyes as she landed on his lap. 

Crooked. 

An unexpected bit of joy washed over her (like a quick spark of static electricity) upon feeling a quick "snap" under her left thigh. She grabbed the ropes of his trapeze swing just in time. He screamed in agony and slipped out from under her, falling into the audience to his death, taking a dangerously drunk and drug-addled sex addict with him. The audience (apart from that once dangerously drunk, now quite dead drug-addled sex addict) cheered so loudly that no one could hear how loudly a drunken Teeg laughed at this. And it was a very loud laugh.

Orchestra Balloo, out of fear, continued performing non-coitus acrobatics on her own. A feeling of great relief was replaced quickly when she thought of coming down from the high top and facing Rhanque Baptoose.

She kept going, knowing that when she finished she would die. As her original trapeze swung back to her original platform, she noticed it was occupied. Occupied by a beautiful Kancorian female.

She had never seen one of these reptilians quite so bright. Quite so blue-green. She looked like a tropical ocean with huge, gorgeous, unblinking eyes. She, a boring (but typical-for-the-species voluptuous) Flettocean, knew that Kancorian women did not need to train for acrobatics, that they were naturally adept.