Magician's Chains and more of the Circus

So it's out and I'm pretty darn happy with it. Magician's Chains was released June 16th and it's already a Reviewer Top Pick at Night Owl Reviews with 4 1/2 stars. Yay!!!!!

Here's a short excerpt from the beginning:


Shadows moved behind the sheer screen covering the front of the stage, jacking up the anticipation. The spectacle was a grown-up version of shadow puppets, with dark outlines of jutting breasts and naked limbs behind the see-through curtain. Enough to send pulses past their legal limit. Or at least past his, goddammit.


Though it proved his libido wasn't completely dead. He'd begun to wonder.


Fog crept along the floor of the platform, setting the mood for this erotic magic show. Jesse shifted in his chair and rubbed his palm along his thigh, unable to find a comfortable position. The build-up to the curtain lift, including the foreign music in the background, strung out his nerves, which hadn't been spectacular to begin with. How the hell had he let Corrine convince him to come here tonight?


He swiped a glance at her out of his peripheral vision. Yup, she was all toothy smiles and eyes glued to the performance. So fucking giddy to be here it depressed him. He wanted to scream over it, the son of a bitch he was. But he held himself back. He had to in order to walk the fine line of keeping his shit together. For her sake. She deserved this vacation. Still this whole weekend trip to Las Vegas had been insane.


The synthesized music, a combination of Indian, Middle Eastern and techno beats, started winding higher. The pulse of it throbbed in his cock. The curtain rose and Jesse found himself sitting forward in his seat. Onstage a dozen men and women, faces covered in domino masks, danced, wearing leather-studded harnesses and mesh g-strings, nipples hard points, groins outlined tightly to advertise their assets and sweat gleaming from their skin. Pantomiming servants rushing with excitement to prepare the room for their Master. Jesse imagined he smelled their sweat but even with his front-and-center orchestra seat that had to be impossible. From the faux stone walls hung manacles, coiled whips on hooks, other devices he wasn't quite ready to name but which unmistakeably reeked of nasty.



And above this dungeon setting perched a metal scaffold. Atop it stood a bare-chested man in leather pants, a cliched black cape hanging from his shoulders. The magician?



Before Jesse could draw a breath, the man jumped. Shit. It had to be forty feet. But instead of plummeting to a messy, splattered landing, the laws of physics shifted, his fall slowed and he flew down in a controlled descent. Damn good wirework. Jesse shifted in his seat again.



The magician strode to the front of the stage while the music dropped to a background hum. Jesse's heart sped to overdrive as the man looked out into the seats and met his gaze dead-on. He smiled a secret, his slate-blue eyes narrowing and the cleft in his chin becoming pronounced. He tossed his head back and laughed a rich thunder. Holy hell!



Jesse recognized that laugh. Deeper but still the same. Fuck it! It was him! Savin. No, Jesse thought, he had to be wrong. His damn mind played tricks on him all the time now. That's what happened when a person barely slept.



The magician began to stalk back and forth across the platform. Jesse's eyes traced the line of his body, the lithe, lean muscle. A sleek jungle cat. His soft, burnished golden-brown curls wild and unruly to his shoulders. His low voice purred out into the air and Jesse clenched his teeth.



"Tonight, my dear ladies and gentlemen, you come to witness magic. An erotic tease to your sense. What masks do you wear to hide your darkest fantasies, I wonder? And are you brave enough to strip them off?" His gaze squared on Jesse. "My intrepid theater seat travelers, this evening I offer you new questions to ponder. If you surrender to magic and forget what you think you know about bondage and freedom, pleasure and pain, what ecstasies await? He reached his hand out to the audience and curled one finger as if to beckon. "Join me if you dare."



Jesse's cock hardened viciously with the challenge. The volume of the music swelled as the magician strode back toward his servants. "Come, poppets," he called to his entourage. "Gather 'round and let your Master practice his magic."



Jesse tried to take his eyes off the stage and the man who cast his spell on the room. He couldn't afford to fall under anyone's spell. He tried and he failed.



End excerpt

You like? I do, but I may be prejudiced. Here's the buy link.

Now, because I know you have all day to linger over my post, I'm including Part Four of Slave to the Circus. Remember, its my serial short story--a futuristic, BDSM menage featuring Vivi, Duncan and Raven. If you'd like to read the last segment that appeared in my blog post on June 14th, click here.

Otherwise.... Here goes nothing.

Slave to the Circus part four copyright 2010 by Michelle Polaris:

Although Vivi didn't mind the jouncing atop the clown's shoulder, her simmering arousal, delight at the liquid slide between her legs at this turn of events, made her just as impatient to arrive where ever Raven intended.

Duncan would follow. She knew it as she knew her own name, or each of her knives when blindfolded. Her submissive might have speared his heart from his chest for her and presented it on a platter, but he was not one to lie down and let his male ego or his masculine sense of modern knight protector cave to a challenge from another man or threaten what was his. And Vivi was his.

She loved the delicious complexity of their D/s reality. When a wild thing like him surrendered everything he was to a woman, trusted her with the deepest part of his soul, the obligation and claim he placed on her was just as deep as any brand she might layer on his skin. Often she felt it was the submissive in such a relationship that was the more courageous partner. To let go and trust at such a profound level. She loved Duncan for this and so much more. And she feared that what she had to give back to him would never amount to enough. That her ambitions would get in the way of what she had to offer. Her Mistress heart worried amidst this unexpected play with the clown. Why hadn't she noticed Duncan's injury? Or how hard he was driving himself?

Maybe it was time for a change. Maybe the painted Dom would be good for them. Not that she'd let him get away with any more once he put her down.

"Where exactly are you taking me?" she shouted over the noise of the fairway as he exited the big top.

"The Fun House."

"Management closed it last week for repair."

"I know."

The answer pleased her, the familiar arrogance of his words helping her trust in his plan.

He let her down as they approached the darkened building with its facade of purposeful decay, the nano paint-flecked steps artfully sagging. The gaping maw of an entrance was painted as another clown face, this time the lurid one of nightmares. Fear could be delicious, but nothing about the bald vid-terrors of clowns gone killer mad, popular in the spacer empire media now, did it for Vivi. She'd seen the effects of fear in her subs and nothing beat the taste of a man or woman bound but doubting, despite assurance of a safe word that she would stop doing whatever the fuck she preferred to do to them even if they asked. She would never betray their limits, but knew how a submissive lingered over the idea, making him more aroused. Wishing partly that even those final boundaries were removed.

"He's right behind us," she said, gesturing to the figure of Duncan even now dodging crowds to catch up."

"Then let's enter quickly by all means."

Raven lifted her hand in a regal motion to help her up the steps. The frizz lights off with the exhibit powered down, the dark shadows sucked them in as they breached the building.

He extracted something from a pocket, twisted the object. Light bounced out form the thin wand-like tech. A soft muted glow to it, like miniature packaged sunshine, it threw the stark lines of the handsome harlequin into relief.

"If you want him frustrated in the hunt, darling," she said, "we need to go further inside."

Raven led the way. They negotiated the obstacles, unstable floors that still swayed back and forth as you crossed, a jungle's worth of hanging ropes drizzling down around their torsos as they pushed through tunnels, the wind machine that pummeled their bodies as they passed, not deactivated after all with the closure of the attraction.

After the bulk of the hurdles they found a panel off the side corridor and Raven stopped to open it and adjust some settings. "This will buy us time, keep Duncan from coming upon us too soon."

As they moved on Vivi heard the hum of the obstacle settings increase. Her intrepid and talented boy would be leaping left and right to dodge the surprises flying out at him. But the chase would build the edge in him she required. Time to deal with what she'd ignored too long. He deserved as much.

They hit the corridor of mirrors, the maze like pathways leading guests in circles with hundreds of images, twisted and true sized, bouncing back at them as they passed. The lights still worked in this section, dimmed but enough to make their path clear. She was out of breath, the pace Raven kept just under a full run.

Mid corridor of glass, he stopped and spun, grabbing her around the middle and pressing her into the smooth mirrored surface. The hard muscle underneath his clothing set her blood to simmer as she rested her hands at his slim hips, tilted in her groin to enjoy the feel of long, thick cock at her folds. She slid her knee between his thighs, nudging it upward to compress his testicles. An obliging groan left his lips.

"Lovely," he added.

His lips inches away, it was hard to focus on much beyond the slow, sexy smile of his. "Now that you have me just where I want you," she said, "what do you intend?"

He tilted his head, lips hovering closer. "A contract for the three of us."

Her fingers skimmed up his body, snaked in front of his arms and shoulders and kept going until both hands were twined in the bottom of his hair, digging into the dark silky strands tucked into a queue but even now unraveling as she pulled it taut. "Why is it worth my while, Raven? You are a gorgeous man, but not my type."

Yes, she appreciated his body, but if locked too long in a room with him she suspected they'd end up killing one another.

In answer he raised a hand to caress her nipple with a light brush of thumb. She shuddered with the sensual drag of pad over her pointed tip. His fingers pinched, caught the nub elongating with his attention. Held it captive. "I've seen your passion together. Your love. It's breathtaking even in the few moments you snatch together. And I like to increase joy. I'm a clown after all. You can treat me as one of precious blades, the excitement and danger of an edge pressed so gently against the texture of your relationship. Or like another whip to use to heighten the tension for your poor boy." His eyebrows quirked. "Of course, it won't go amiss if you'd care to let me taste your merchandise apart from this play. Fucking you would be worth it indeed."

She leaned into him fast and caught his lip between her teeth. Bit hard.

He barely flinched.

"Behave. Such a tough Master, Raven. You say you want me, but you must be dying to get inside Duncan's ass to think of approaching me. What Dom would lower himself to the level of another's tool?"

"You've caught me out, my dear. I do indeed get off on swooping in on the wings implied by my name to save the day. Fix any problem. Savior complex. But am I wrong about your love for Duncan or the difficulty of balancing work and ambition?"

Her skin drew tight as the corners of her mouth slid down. "Perhaps not."

"You could always choose to cut him loose. Let him find another who can devote the energy. He is not low maintenance."

The rage that funneled up from her gut had her tightening the fingers in his hair, almost yanking. "Never."

"Why?"

"Cut the shit, Raven. You understand how it works and I don't appreciate the manipulation. We're together because we fit. He understands my drive. Daughter of a Cirque family, my father trying all my life to bully me into submission and offering no center in return. Antithetical to every instinct in me. I'm a Domme because I was born that way and it calms the chaos of that traveling life and reminds me of my worth. And Duncan is my home. And he needs one too. He's insecure about his worth. Needs my hand my love to remind him. His rubbish of a mother never gave him the time of day so he doubts himself. It makes him driven. My demands, my attention brings him peace. I love and he is everything." She never refused a challenge or feared to tell the truth. Even personal ones. Yes, it was time for a serious change in their lives.

In quick response Raven grabbed her arm and pinned it to the mirror. His fingers circled her wrist. A living manacle. "I understand the importance of home, Vivi. And what you give each other. Just as much as you. All of us who wander for a living understand how precious it is. I don't ask for this lightly as entertainment. I'll prove myself if you give me a chance. How can showing him he deserves even more attention be wrong?"

Both their breasts ran fast, as skin to skin she kept his gaze and tried to find the truth in it.

"Give me the chance. I respect you and your sub. I envy what you have."

She hesitated. Hated the hesitation, so unlike her.

"Take the risk, lovely Mistress of Knives. A contract, for one night. Let me prove my intentions and my skill."

Footsteps grew louder, running toward them. Time was up. "He's coming."

"Please, Vivi."

Beneath the contradiction of the harlequin gaze she saw a burning need of his own, a solemnity completely at odds with his guise.

She made her decision. "Show me," she said.

He smiled. "Come on."

He pulled her father into the hall of mirrors.

To be continued in two weeks.....