Chapter 4

After lunch the show started and ended without a word between JC and any of the freaks. Everyone went to bed right after, because the circus would be moving early the next morning, and they would all have to get up around three in the morning. A couple of hours after all of the lights were out, at midnight, and Lance shot up in his bed, after hearing a noise inside his trailer.

"Who's there?" He called out into the night, and was about to lie back down, when an arm reached out and grabbed his chin. An angry voice spit into his face.

"What the fuck is your problem, freak?!" It whispered in a harsh tone that he recognized immediately.

"I'm so sorry, sir. What did I do?" He was pulled forward and out of his bed.

"The bullfighter told me that last night you had dinner on the other side of the tent! Is that true?" Lance shuddered at the anger in the voice.

"Your nephew invited us, sir."

"My nephew doesn't know what he does, and you should have known better than to eat with the normal people." Lance was all of a sudden highly conscious of his lack of arms. He could feel the air against his shoulders, and cringed at the cold.

"I'm sorry, sir. I should have known better."

"Don't you ever forget, freak, that there are only two things that you're good for. I can't even have fun with you like I do with Joey and Justin, because you pass out so easily. No threshold for pain at all. You are good for amusing customers as they wait for the actual talent to come out, and you are good for relieving my stress."

"Yes, sir." Lance went slack and let himself be turned over. His pants were pulled down to his knees, and he held his breath as Larry entered him forcefully. He gasped as he tried to catch his breath, and then yelped when a knock came to the door. Larry stopped moving, and lay down on top of him.

"Ask who it is." It was whispered harshly into his ear. He trembled and then let out a shaky sentence.
"Who is it?"

"It's JC. Can I come in?"

"Tell him you're busy."

"I'm busy right now, JC. Can you come back later?" He yelped again as Larry shifted on top of him, rewarding himself a slap to the back of his head.

"Are you okay in there, Lance?" Lance bit his lip before answering.

"I'm fine, just busy."

"Okay. I'll come back later." They both listened to JC leave and then Larry began rocking his hips again, but softer than before. When he finally finished, he got up off of Lance, and slapped him on the behind once. He moved to leave, but then spoke to him once before closing the door behind him.

"I was wrong. You're not even very good for that." The door shut, and the room was flooded with black again. When he was sure that Larry was not in hearing distance Lance stood up and crawled back into his bed crying.

Outside the trailers JC watched his uncle leave Lance's trailer, and he walked back up to Lance's door. He laid his ear to the wood, and cringed when he heard quiet sobbing on the other side. He walked away, deciding to save Lance the embarrassment of being caught crying, but felt like crying himself. It simply wasn't fair.

JC silently began his way back to his trailer, but then stopped at Joey's instead. He knocked on the door, and it slowly opened for him. He looked inside to see Joey, shaking as if he was going to be hit.

"Joey?" All of a sudden the shaking stopped and he could see Joey's eyes.

"Oh, JC. I'm sorry. I though it was someone else." He opened the door wider, and turned on a lamp, welcoming JC into his trailer. They both sat down on the bed, after the door had been closed.

"Who?"

"What?"

"Who did you think it was, Joey?"

"Nobody." They sat in silence for a moment before JC spoke again.

"Did you think that it was my uncle?" Joey nodded his head almost too softly for JC to see.

"Why did you think that he would come, Joey?" Joey sighed.

"I just. . . He looked really mad about something today, and sometimes when he gets mad, he. . . Sometimes he comes over here at night, and. . . Well, sometimes you just need to hit something hard a couple of times to get rid of the anger."

"Oh. Was that what he was doing?" Joey looked to him, with confusion etched across his face.

"Just a couple of minutes ago I saw him leave Lance's trailer." Joey seemed to visibly untighten his muscles.

"That means that he isn't coming here. He only goes to one of us per night."

"What did he do to him, Joey?" Joey looked him straight in the eye for a second, before hesitantly speaking.

"Are you sure that you really want to know this?" JC took a deep breath and nodded his head yes. He really wanted to know. He knew that it was something bad, but he had a strange urge to know exactly what had been going on in that room when he had knocked on the door.

"He probably raped him." Joey tried to say it as straight faced and clearly as he could, not wanting to repeat himself.

"What?" Joey sighed, refusing to repeat the statement.

"I don't know why, but for some reason he likes to do that to Lance, instead of hitting him or kicking him." There was a moment of silence before JC let out his choked voice into the night.

"But I was right there, outside the door. I even talked to him, and the whole time, Larry was right there with him, probably right on top of. . . Oh God! You can't be serious! Joey, please don't tell me that he was talking to me, while my uncle was. . . " He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Joey's sad face nodding at him. He put his face down into his hands, and gasped for breath, his only comfort, Joey's hands on his back. He sucked back the tears, and turned to Joey.

"At least you and Justin are safe for tonight, right?" Joey gave a wan smile.

"Yeah, for tonight."

Chapter 5