"BURATTINAIO"
warnings: dark romance, unhealthy relationship, female protagonist, smut with plot (explicit sexual content), dubious consent (CNC: sex bargain), size difference, power play, gaslighting & psychological manipulation, slight boot kink, forced solo (female), slight voyeurism, oral sex (male), face-fucking, degradation & praise, overstimulation, breeding/creampie, aftercare (if you squint!)
resume: she knew too much now. hidden behind the black tent, she overheard a conversation between jester and the ticket taker that she was never meant to hear. but jester noticed.
what begins as a mission to "rescue" carol transforms into a profane bargain in the wings of the circus. she eventually discovers that negotiating with jester is a point of no return. a surrender that ends up going much too far.
this story can be read with the possibility of self-insertion, albeit in an unconventional way. if you prefer, feel like you're taking the protagonist's place.
ACT I – “CACCIA”
The Jester hunts the ballerina-puppet with intent.
Her heart hammered violently against her ribcage, as if it sought to tear through the flesh and overstep the bounds of her throat, slipping from her mouth without remorse. Each pulse echoed in her gullet; her limbs had turned limp and faltering ever since her eyes first processed the burning blue gaze of Ticket Taker — always watching, always wary — and, above him, those other eyes. Purple, unerring eyes that fell upon her as if they could strip away every truth and lie from her heart or pierce through her trembling soul.
They had seen.
He had seen her prowling around the black canvas, and he was certain that now, she knew too much.
This was no coincidence, no trick of the light. This was a night encounter — hidden, confidential — a fragile justification for a slip made by the ever-methodical Ticket Taker. An error that, in itself, became inconvenient evidence in the disappearance of Carol, her colleague. A colleague she had found again that very day, now little more than a hollow shell: a dejected zombie wandering the circus, announcing attractions and murmuring empty phrases under Ticket Taker’s watchful gaze.
The image would not leave her mind. Carol still seemed beautiful and sweet; her lips drawn, silent to her own thoughts — if any still remained. Words were poured out mechanically, phrases that had been assigned to her. Her dark skin glistened under the daylight, contrasting with the pink robes of the Fools parading through the streets.
But it was the eyes that held the core of the ruin: painfully distinct from the tender, laughing eyes Carol used to have. Now they shone with a purple splendor, like jagged, unknown stars. Open windows to a heart held hostage by someone’s claws — someone who coordinated, with almost artistic zeal, the strings that kept her bound.
Someone who had been surprised by her irreversible meddling. And who knew it.
The black canvas seemed to steal her breath. Pale, with oscillating breath and aching joints, she felt the creeping warning settle in her body: to stay there would be folly. She set herself in motion. Paranoia poisoned her thoughts like a foul, slithering snake, while the gravel crunched beneath her feet and the wind hissed in funeral notes.
She didn't notice — or refused to notice — a sound that exceeded her own footsteps. It wasn't the wind or a nocturnal animal. It belonged to someone who never stepped heavier than necessary.
Jester.
The circus boots, adorned with bells, settled on the ground once, twice. A plea for attention. Or an order.
Color drained from her face in a sharp jolt. When his silhouette emerged from the shadows, there were no stories or applause — only his destabilizing presence and a wide, unsettling smile. He seemed indifferent. Tall, relaxed, one hand on his hip, as if he had just arrived — when, in truth, he had been following her since she stepped away from her hiding spot.
“If I were you, I wouldn't wander so far from the tent. The circus doesn't like it when someone roams with inconvenient information”.
He tilted his head, like one watching a mouse before a set trap.
“You know too much.”
She took a deep breath, forcing the air down.
“I know enough to realize when someone is trying to frighten me. If you were going to silence me, you would have done it already.” She said, her voice low, but firm.
His smile flickered for a minimal instant. Jester took a step forward, then another. No rush. He extended his leg and rested the heel of his boot in front of her, displaying the impeccable leather.
“Funny…” He rubbed his sole into the gravel. “You humans always react the same way when cornered.”
The sound hit her chest. A small gesture, calculated to remind her of the exact distance between them — or the suppression of it.
“I…” The words died. “It wasn't my intention. It was a mistake”.
His smile widened.
“You are a terrible liar. “Intention”?” He repeated, softly. “You cling to that word so much… as if it compensates for consequences.”
He laughed lowly, his claws covering his mouth marked by two streaks of violet.
“The ends justify the means, don't they? Well, I am not here to judge your heart. That would be far too human.”
There was a flash of disgust on his lips.
“What matters is that you know. And knowing, in this circus, is not neutral. It is a position.”
The pause was cruel.
“She was your little friend, wasn't she?”
She lifted her chin despite the tremor.
“Don't use Carol as currency!” She snapped. “If you want to scare me, do better. She doesn't belong to you.”
His violet eyes glowed, attentive.
“You don't need to answer”, he said with a half-smile. “for your body has already answered for you.”
“She wasn't a close friend,” she retorted, controlling her breathing. “but she was someone free. And you took that from her.”
She turned enough to face him.
“Whatever you are, you don't have the right to decide who becomes an empty shell.”
He tilted his head, interested.
“Your sense of justice is touching.” Jester murmured mockingly. “But irrelevant to me.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she found the purple reflection locked onto her own.
“Enough babbling.” Jester said, bored. “The Ticket Taker appreciates order. Predictability. People out of the flow are a nuisance.”
The pebble floor groaned under his weight. Jester was leaning dangerously toward her, his long, purple hair hanging tentatively in front of her face. The smile gradually returned to his expression. Slow, calculated.
“And you are the exception to the delimited flow, visitor. You know too much, you pry too much. A truly problematic little thing.”
He took a side step, like one circumventing an obstacle.
“Like a plague of rats.”
The violet eyes seemed more alive now, watchful for the slightest tremor in her brow. Fear and hatred alternated in her throbbing chest in that suspended moment of the night. Her indignation, however, escaped before she could contain it — small, trembling, almost pathetic before him. But real nonetheless.
“Bring her back”, she gritted through her teeth, her voice too broken to sound like a command. “You had no right to do that to her, you monster!”
The words had barely left her mouth when Jester stopped. Not abruptly. Not with irritation. He simply ceased movement, like a performer interrupting his own choreography upon hearing a curious sound from the audience.
Then, he laughed. Not loud. Not exaggerated. A low, indulgent laugh. Almost affectionate.
“Right. Monstrosity, deviation, aberration…”, he repeated, chewing the words with a near-didactic contempt. “You remain so perplexed by such lovely concepts.”
The pause that followed was too short to be perceived as a warning.
His hands clamped around her wrists in a blunt impulse, nothing elegant, nothing performative. The touch was firm, cold, devoid of any human caution. He pulled her against him without apparent effort, as if her body weight were irrelevant, an inconvenient detail. The impact against his torso knocked the air from her lungs.
Jester was too tall to be this close. Too close to be understood as something familiar.
He was markedly slender. His limbs were hauntingly elongated, his posture too upright, as if gravity had only been partially applied to his form. His silhouette seemed stretched, forcibly refined — an elegant caricature of something that had tried to imitate the human figure and failed not by deformity, but by excess.
Horns emerged discreetly at the hairline, their roots carefully hidden by his long, dark hair of a deep purple that flowed in straight strands. They weren't grotesque at first glance. They were deliberate. Integrated.
And that was what disturbed her.
Because, despite everything — despite the oppressive height, the razor-like teeth, the impure violet dripping from the corners of his mouth — there was something coherent about him. A cruel harmony. An impossible agreement between strangeness and elegance.
She realized the thought at the same moment she felt ashamed of it.
Beautiful, she thought.
Not in the human sense of the word. Not kind, not inviting. Beautiful like a newly polished blade.
Shit. What kind of damn thought was that crossing her mind in such a critical moment?
She looked away for an instant, not out of respect, but for self-preservation.
Jester moved minimally. The sneer painting his face thinned into a discreet gesture.
“Is that what you see when you lay eyes upon us, isn't it?” He whispered, his low voice vibrating from a place that didn't seem to belong entirely to his throat. “When you look at me. An error. An excess. Something that shouldn't be here.”
His hand, armed with sharp claws, touched her forehead in a subtle flick — a gesture too small to be violent, too intimate to be innocent. Jester's mouth twisted in open revulsion.
“When you, humans, are truly more disgusting, dull, and monstrous in ways we could never be.”
She tried to respond. She really did. But nothing coherent formed — only an afflicted, embarrassed sigh, as if air failed her before words could.
Jester didn't seem to care.
“And yet…” He continued, with an almost bored disdain, “despite the mutual loathing, our declared abomination, the precarious lighting of your little heads…”
He rested his hand on her head, not to restrain her, but to mark his position, his long fingers pressing lightly, mockingly.
“You bargain with me.”
The smile that opened on his face was not wide, but measured.
“Doesn't it sound conveniently predictable? You want to save your little friend. You want to believe that choice still exists.”
He tilted his head, those violet eyes vigilant, almost tearing pieces of the human's soul in front of him.
“Then enjoy yourself.” The hand withdrew slowly. “I'm in a good mood.”
A short pause.
“Entertain me.”
ACT II — “DIVERTIMENTO”
The Jester revels in the lack of luster of the ballerina-puppet. It entertains him more than he would care to admit.
She could not believe her own eyes — or the fading of her own judgment. She had followed Jester. And as if that weren't enough, she had followed him to a desolate, dusty place, far beyond any reasonable notion of safety.
The backstage opened before her.
Living. Ancient. Filthy.
The backstage of a traveling circus.
Nothing there resembled the spectacle offered to the public. There was no color — only dead tones of aged wood, darkened fabric, and dust accumulated like a layer of forgotten time.
The floor was made of wide planks, worn by the constant weight of bodies, scenery, and secrets. They groaned under any sudden movement, betraying one’s presence as if the place itself had a habit of watching. Dust rose in thin clouds with every step, impregnating the air with a dry, old scent: raw wood, damp fabric, a touch of rust.
Above, exposed beams supported ropes, pulleys, and metal hooks. From them hung remnants of scenography — faded fabrics, broken masks, forgotten props — swaying gently, reacting to invisible drafts. Some shadows stretched too long. Others seemed restless.
It was a space of transition. Neither stage nor shelter. And perhaps that was why it was so dangerously intimate.
“Where are we?”, her voice came out muffled, confused. “Is this part of your tent… or what?”
He didn't even bother to answer.
Jester continued walking, the dry sound of his boots echoing over the worn boards. There was no rush in his steps, nor any care to hide them. Every creak, in fact, seemed calculated — a constant reminder of the space she occupied and how he decided when that space ceased to exist.
She hesitated for a moment. Then, she followed in the same direction as he, visibly offended.
“Rude.”
The wooden floor was irregular back there, some boards lower than others, warped by time and excessive use. Dust collected in the grooves, forming small, invisible traps. It took only one false step for her balance to escape her for half a second. Time enough for her heart to race once more.
Jester stopped, but he did not turn immediately.
“Careful”, he said, finally, without looking at her. “This floor does not forgive distractions.”
She felt the comment as something beyond a warning. A judgment.
She straightened up, swallowing her nervousness, forcing her spine to align. His proximity — the broad back, the excessive height, the undefined smell of old fabric and something citric — pressed against her senses. This was not an invitation. It was a test.
She thought of Carol.
She thought of the emptiness behind her eyes.
She thought of what she had lost and what she could still lose.
And, like so many other times in her life, she resorted to the resource she had learned too early.
She took a step closer. Then another. Not fast. Not submissive. Trying to appear conscious, controlled.
A discrete gesture. A more intentional look. A slight tilt of the head, followed by the shadow of a smile that didn't quite form. Perhaps a brief licking of the lips, weighed enough to seem casual, calculated enough to be read as an invitation.
These were old possibilities. Strategies tested and approved by foolish men, easily impressed, whom she had encountered before. It shouldn't be that difficult. After all, despite everything — even with the evident monstrosity — he still wore a human form.
“Jester.”
Her voice called out, hesitant, but masked by a more delicate, almost affectionate tone.
“If you want something in return, perhaps I can offer it.”
Silence.
She took a deep breath, feeling the heat rise in her face, a mixture of shame and urgency.
“I can please you.”
The words sounded more fragile than she intended. Too human.
Jester turned, finally.
There was no surprise in his expression. No desire. Only a sharp, almost curious attention, like one observing a wounded animal insisting on a familiar strategy. His gaze slid over her figure, but not as one who admires. As one who silently measures.
He gave an ironic chuckle, shaking his head.
“Fascinating. You humans always reach this point.”
He made a move to approach, and she instinctively recoiled, visibly regretful. Her cheeks burned with shame and self-hatred for having underestimated, once again, his sense of superiority and his natural disdain for humans.
It was evident he would see no appeal in her ridiculous attempt at seduction. He was not easy like other men. He was not a beast easily excited, led by his own impulses. In fact, he seemed to have exceptional control over all of them.
“You are not offering me pleasure, you pathetic little rat”, Jester corrected, weary.
And then, a deliberate suspension. As if he were choosing his next words with playful cruelty.
“You are begging me for mercy with your body.”
His hand traced her silhouette in the air, disinterestedly.
“Poor execution.”
He stepped just close enough for her to feel his presence as a weight.
“You can't even do that well.”
His words hit her pride like violent stones, breaking her resolve. She felt her eyes sting against her will, reddened and wet with repressed tears. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, swallowing the sob. She would not give Jester that pleasure. Not here.
She lowered her gaze for a second — not in submission, but to recompose the loose pieces of herself — and breathed deeply, forcing the air down, like someone holding back something about to break.
When she looked back at him, there was a strange glint in her eyes. Not defiance. Not desire.
Ugly determination. Human. Wounded.
“Then tell me how it should be done, Jester. The right way.”
Her voice came out raspy, failing just enough to evidence the effort she was putting into it.
Jester tilted his head slightly, as if observing her under a new light. There was no triumph in his expression. Only renewed curiosity.
“Now this is starting to get minimally interesting.”
He circled her with the meticulous slowness of a hunter, a trickster, a true destroyer. He stopped behind her, sliding his hand across her waist and touching the curve of her elbow, lifting her wrist with a clasp of his own dark claws. It was like a choreographed position, the sharing of a small space between two lovers, in a way that was strangely inconsistent and intimate. She blinked, suspicious, until the tone of his voice cut through the silence of the backstage again.
“You don't want to learn the thrill of conquest. More than that, you want to be useful and not disposable.”
Two long fingers tilted her chin up, forcing her to face him. His violet eyes were too close. Not warm. Precise.
“First lesson: stop offering what you think others want.”
He pushed her lightly backward, until the cold boards and high crates cut off her escape route. A thin smile crept onto his lips as he noticed her eyes — a complex mixture of hope, dread, indignation, and anticipation.
“I'll show you. Just don't get it wrong, this isn't for you. It's for my own satisfaction. You're actually quite pretty when you tremble.”
She swallowed hard. The air seemed too heavy, every heartbeat reverberating in the boards above. The old, metallic smell of the place mingled with his undefined citric scent, and for an instant, the backstage closed in around them, as if the forgotten shadows wanted to witness that moment. Her goosebumps betrayed every tense muscle, conscious of her own vulnerability, and yet no retreat seemed possible.
“If it is through sex that you want to negotiate, so be it. Perhaps I can have a little fun with you if you act less ridiculous.”
Her eyes flickered with a mix of fear, revulsion, offense, and, deep down, lust. The next request dragged from her lips, almost silent, though she could hear the strong thumping of her heart resounding in her ears.
“Just promise me, Jester”, her voice came out serious, quiet. “that you will spare Carol. Whatever you do in the wings of this circus, leave her whole.”
He nodded, a flash of mockery glinting in his exposed teeth. It was done. The foundation of the bargain was laid: the woman and her surrender, risking everything for her friend's integrity — or at least, that was what she allowed herself to believe as her purpose for being in that cramped space with Jester.
ACT III — “CESSIONE”
The Jester and the ballerina-puppet finally reach a consensus. Foul, instructive, raw.
She remained leaned back against the crates, her body still trembling from the previous approach, saturated with tension. Every breath came out short, almost raspy, while her gaze remained locked onto the imposing figure of Jester, who returned her movements with a silent, predatory decisiveness in his calm.
His hair flowed loose — smooth, violet cascades freed from the dandyish hat. His costume remained intact — a cruel irony. She watched him with restrained curiosity, her nails tapping irregularly against her own knee, betraying the nervousness her face insisted on masking.
He seemed more beautiful than before. Almost human. Almost candid.
But she knew: it was only an illusion — a whim of her shaken heart. Nothing there was tenderness. Nothing there was love. There was only an agreement: to entertain him, to play the game, and perhaps, if everything were conducted with enough precision, to break the hypnosis imprisoning Carol.
The air was heavy, impregnated with old wood and his undefined perfume, mingling with the heat of their proximity. Every beat of her heart seemed to reverberate through the narrow backstage. The tension was palpable, suffocating — a wire stretched dangerously between fear and expectation.
“Are you ready?” he murmured, his voice low and venomous, laden with contained amusement.
She swallowed hard, her body tense, her hands pressed against the crates as if seeking an anchor. Every muscle reacted to his proximity.
“I think so,” she grumbled, stretching her neck slightly, trying to escape the amethyst gaze that held her.
She didn't feel exactly disgusted. It was something deeper, more confusing: a belated warning from reason, in direct conflict with her body, which reacted indecorously to his presence.
Jester nodded.
With a slow, almost ceremonial gesture, he reached for his own gloves, pulling the fabric with meticulous calm, finger by finger. The soft sound of the material being removed echoed in the wings like a clear starting signal. She held her breath.
His bare hands seemed more dangerous than any blade. They hovered close, deliberately, as if testing the invisible limits of the newly sealed bargain. He took a step forward, reducing the already non-existent space between them.
“Observe.”
It was not a request.
Jester unbuttoned the upper part of his costume, revealing just enough to fracture the rigid image she had built of him. There was no rush, no lack of control. Every movement was calculated to be seen, felt, anticipated — a carefully architected entertainment for her.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Her nails stopped their nervous drumming; now they dug into the rough wood of the crates. When he finally reached out and began to remove, with almost cruel diligence, the clothes that shaped her body, the shiver was immediate.
The cold air became hostile against her exposed skin. She was half-naked under Jester’s amethyst eyes.
“Come,” he murmured. “Enough trembling. I want to see you fulfill your promise.”
The voice sounded like an intoxicating whisper, making her senses throb with the uncomfortable — and yet, strangely desired — proximity. Without realizing it, she leaned her body toward his, bringing her lips closer.
The first contact was brief and rigid. A test more than a surrender. Jester maintained a calculated pressure, dictating the rhythm. Every second stretched beyond necessity, prolonging the tension, amplifying the anticipation.
She stiffened her body, trying to maintain control. But there was something in the intensity of the touch, in the suffocating proximity, in the heat and the scent of him that dissolved, bit by bit, the barrier she had built with such effort.
Her lips gave way slowly. Rigidity gave way to an involuntary response. The kiss deepened, still marked by that almost painful tension: fear, fascination, and the uncomfortable sensation of being entirely at his mercy.
When she felt his tongue shamelessly touch her upper lip — purple, hot, and damp flesh — she pulled back in a jolt, the shock evident. She brought her hand to her own face as a blush spread across her cheeks.
Jester laughed, a low and satisfied sound. His eyes shone with a vexing, almost childish pleasure.
“So shy all of a sudden. Is this how you instigate the men you wish to take to bed?”
The question was a weapon.
She swallowed hard and turned her face, refusing to look at him, just as his knee insinuated itself between her thighs, pushing them apart with an almost cruel slowness. The palm of his hand pressed against her stomach, pushing her back until the edge of the crate dug into her spine. Jester leaned over her, letting her feel every rigid line of his body, every deliberate movement of the muscles under his costume.
“I thought you were less restrained when provoked. But I believe we have the whole night to reverse that impression.”
His teeth brushed her ear, provocative. His hands descended without haste, finding the fabric of the pants that still resisted. Her body reacted before her thoughts: her hips contracted in a treacherous reflex, and her fingers dug into his shoulders, tearing a long hiss from him.
“Don't speak as if...” she began, her tone sharp in a belated attempt to regain control.
But Jester did not allow the sentence to finish.
His grip became firm, irrevocable. His fingers slid between her thighs, reaching the last barrier of fabric protecting her intimacy. She was already damp and trembling — a betrayal of her own body that surprised Jester and plunged her into a wave of shame.
He purred some provocation she refused to process, as he dragged the tip of a finger through the hot wetness. She shuddered, an instinct to cover herself arising too late, but he kept her exposed. Jester pressed her clit with a slow touch, almost clinical in its attention, testing every reaction of the human under his domain.
A curse escaped through her teeth, and the crate at her back creaked under the pressure when he, shamelessly, penetrated her with a finger. It wasn't deep, just enough to force an involuntary movement of her hips. Her breathing lost its rhythm, coming in short, irregular gasps, while Jester watched her with greed, his nostrils flared by the scent of her excitement in the air.
“Pathetic,” he growled, his voice betraying its own hoarseness. “You make a sexual bargain with me and fall apart like a cornered rabbit at the first touch of my fingers.”
He curved his finger slowly and cruelly inside her. She gasped, the moan being torn out by his thumb, which now crushed her clit with insistence. A second finger hovered at the entrance, ready to stretch her with that implacable precision. She cursed him, but the insult dissolved into a louder, sharper sound.
She knew this was a feast for Jester. He seemed to drink her despair like a rare vintage wine, watching the spasmodic tremor of her thighs against his wrist as personal entertainment. Perhaps there was no other way out but to swallow the humiliation and embrace that cruel surrender once and for all. There was something in the way Jester manipulated her body with mastery; the pressure was too accurate, the fit like a terrible perfection against her wet core. The only way was to unravel into moans and disordered movements against that stubborn hand, surrendering to his ministrations which, now, became increasingly ravenous and accelerated.
She felt a heat accumulating in her lower belly, a tingling sensation between her legs. A louder moan escaped her lips as Jester rubbed her clit and folded two bony fingers inside her with more greed.
Close. Very close.
And he noticed it.
Jester read the rhythm of her broken breathing and pulled back with a calculated brutality, withdrawing his touch like one denying a small mercy. His hands moved up, predatory, to her breasts, twisting one of her nipples with purely sadistic pleasure. She wanted to scream, to reprimand him, to spit in his face — but his cold command cut the air before any protest gained a voice.
“Finish it yourself. I want to see you manage now, you meddling little rat.”
His smile was a loathsome razor. With a choreographed disdain, he wiped his fingers on her clothes, which lay crumpled and forgotten on the floor. The challenge dripped from his tongue, mocking; she felt a visceral urge to kill him, to devour him alive for that insolence against her ego. His eyes, dark as the sinister lights of the wings, dropped abruptly to the blatant invitation of her still-parted and trembling thighs.
“Go fuck yourself, you bastard,” the mumble escaped, almost inaudible, between the sound of her legs adjusting against the crates.
Her hands wavered, her fingers clumsy from the residual urgency he had left behind. The clothing rack pressed into her spine like a cold, relentless reminder of where they were, while she circled her clit with blunt, hurried movements. Jester laughed, low and approving, as soon as he noticed the way she stifled a muffled sob.
“Louder. Let the whole circus hear how much you need this.”
Jester stood tall, his silhouette lengthening monstrously over the crates. He didn't use his hands. He simply took a deliberate step forward and placed the sole of his boot against her abdomen — a gesture that tore a gasp of pure shock from her. It was absolute arrogance, a symbolic crushing of her pride while he watched her writhe under the leather of the boot. Cruelly, he rotated his foot in provocative circles, making the bells on his shoes jingle in a rhythm that mocked her frantic movements against her own pulsing intimacy.
The image of that literal superiority was the final blow. The weight of the footwear against her flesh and the sadistic glint in those dark eyes were enough. The climax hit her like an electric shock, violent and humiliating, making her hips collide against the sole of the boot in one last spasm of total surrender.
She collapsed against the wood, her breath coming in noisy, erratic sobs, while he only tilted his head, savoring the sight of the ruin he had provoked.
Jester broke the silence with a voice that wavered between sweetness and poison:
“How delicious. May I have a taste?"
She stared at him with hatred and something else. Something like untamed lust. She didn't know if it was a need for revenge or a growing craving for more of his attention, however cruel it might seem. But she wanted more.
“A taste? What do you mean?” she whispered with difficulty, her breath still irregular from the intensity of the release.
“Like this.” Jester squatted quickly, running the palm of his hand over her opening, wet with her own fluids and climax. His fingers captured a bit of that essence, which he brought to his mouth in a fluid, shameless gesture. He hummed softly, a smile appearing on his lips. “Delicious. Surprisingly, you taste good.”
She was perplexed by the clown's audacity. The woman closed her legs, swearing softly, as she tried to regain some composure — as if that were remotely possible after everything that had happened. She sat under the nearly empty clothing rack, hugging her own body. Jester then moved again, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb; his gaze was fixed on her as he stood and undid the lower portion of his circus costume with agonizing slowness. A silent invitation of unspoken words, expressed in the way he insinuated himself in front of her.
She understood what he wanted, and she wouldn't wait for him to pull her by the hair out of her hiding place under that metal rack. She simply stared at Jester for a few long moments, hatred still sparking beneath the lust, and accepted that his silence was her final challenge. If he wanted her to be his little rat, she would show him that cornered rodents bite too.
She stripped away any remaining barrier of fabric and her eyes dilated, disoriented, as they landed on what he hid beneath the costume. Her breath hitched in her throat. It was an intimidating presence — a length that seemed disproportionate and heavy, filling the space between them with a promise of absolute pain and pleasure.
There was something bizarre, almost unreal in the thickness and the way the flesh pulsed — hot and demanding — against the cold air of the backstage. Before that sight, she suddenly felt small. She swallowed hard, trying to hide her visible awe, but doing so was a difficult task. Jester noticed, and a presumptuous smile returned to his lips.
“What is it? Have you finally realized the size of the problem you've gotten yourself into?”
ACT IV — CARNE
No more rehearsals, no more flourishes. The Jester and the ballerina-puppet indulge in a filthy symphony.
She caught her breath, subtly rolling her eyes in a flash of newly discovered courage. Her gaze rose from his length to his masked face; a defiant smile, though trembling, appeared on her lips.
“The problem is indeed quite large, Jester. But I confess I’d be disappointed if this entire spectacle ended in mere vanity.”
Jester’s smile died on his lips. The mask of sadistic amusement cracked, and his brows flickered in a swift expression of frustration — a spark of irritation crossing his controlling purple eyes that she savored as a victory. His chest contracted in a long, heavy sigh, as if he were restraining a beast she had just poked through the bars of its cage.
“Vanity? You will regret those words, you stupid human,” he spat.
She said nothing more, merely smiling at the venomous words dripping from the clown’s mouth. She didn't make him wait any longer. Ironically, Jester was already hard, his flushed tip brushing the bottom of her chin as soon as she leaned in.
The first touch of her tongue tore a broken hiss from him. His hips moved forward instinctively, demanding, but she was already prepared — her hands gripping his thighs, nails digging gently into the pale surface of his skin. She took his length deeper into her throat, her lips stretching tight; the wet heat of her mouth caused his knees to buckle against the edge of a stack of crates he was leaning against.
Jester was possessed. His fingers tangled in her hair with urgency, pulling hard enough to make her gasp around him. The sound vibrated along his length, and he cursed her in a quiet groan, his free hand slapping against the narrow wall to keep himself upright. She smiled at the sight, tasting his salt and the slight bitterness of whatever he had consumed before.
“Your mouth seems surprisingly adequate, darling,” he grunted.
His eyes were wide like those of a maddened creature as his hands balled into fists, forcing her mouth against the root of his member in a brutal, indelicate motion. Her gag reflex was quick to respond, but she did not pull back. She simply relaxed her throat, intending to follow the new, faster, more imposing rhythm, allowing him to fuck her face with short, rapid thrusts. The head of him hit the back of her throat all at once, and saliva ran shamelessly down the corners of her mouth. He smelled of greasepaint, citrus fruits, sweat, sex, and something more musky — unrecognizable. The image seemed chaotic and enchanting to her.
“You look hot,” she admitted.
She could feel him fighting his own reactions, but the way his hips swayed and his thighs tensed while she retracted her cheek muscles betrayed how close he was.
“Get out. Quick, get away from me!”
His voice gasped, worried and failing. Jester pushed the woman away in a hurry, trying to catch his breath. In those brief moments, she couldn't help but savor the gesture as a small, conscious victory, feeling a spark of pride and self-esteem light up in her chest again.
Jester, however, did not let her bittersweet victory last long. His purple gaze was hazy, focused on her with a mixture of lust and palpable irritation.
“I already told you that you don't command me. What were you thinking, woman?”
Before she could utter any mockery, he reacted with almost spectral agility. Jester spun her body around with an implacable grip on her wrists, forcing her back against the stack of crates. The wood groaned and protested under the blunt impact, and she let out a smothered gasp as he forced her to bend over, exposing her entirely to his gaze and his desire. He was not kind; there was no room for delicacy after the challenge she had hurled at his vanity.
He positioned himself behind her, his palm flat against the base of her spine to keep her in place. He pumped himself twice and teased her still-wet core with a heartless massage of fingers that prodded and scratched with those long claws. Jester invaded her entrance with a single, brutal thrust, deep enough to make her see stars.
“You wanted to know if I could sustain the act, didn't you? Tell me now, pet. Tell me how I feel inside you.”
She felt incredibly stretched. As if she were about to break into two halves. His words — every snarl, every insult — were punctuated by each violent drive of him against her yielding walls. It was a punitive rhythm, devoid of any hesitation, where the dry impact of his hips against hers echoed like somber applause in the deserted wings.
She screamed, a sharp sound that echoed through the rafters of the backstage, her hands grabbing desperately at the edges of the rough wood. She could barely keep her eyes open, her body being rocked back and forth obstinately. She reached one hand back, groping the air until she found his face, trying to pull him close, to validate that this monster was real. Jester, instead of repelling the touch, reacted with unexpected urgency. He turned her chin roughly, connecting their mouths in a desperate act.
It was not a kiss of tenderness. It was clumsy, a clash of teeth and tongues that had nothing romantic about it. A gesture of pure predation. Jester kissed her as if he wanted to steal the remaining breath from her lungs, silencing her screams with a warm, wet invasion that tasted of iron and desire.
They were sprawled over each other in that true scene of filth: there was something in her smeared makeup, in the tangle of throbbing bodies, and in the obscene creaking of the splintered wood beneath them — the only witness to that profane bargain they indulged in together. If it could even still be called a bargain or an agreement.
It was just sex in its most unpolished, coarse, and inclement state. A source of adrenaline for her awakened veins, an act where the line between hatred and lust had effectively disappeared.
She babbled against his chin, almost drooling on him. An infamous trail of total surrender that was, at once, shameful and unusual. But she no longer cared. Her mind no longer formulated any thoughts. There was no more circus. There was no more danger or Carol’s imprisoned eyes. Only his warm presence against her back, insistent and hard. There was nothing left but to enjoy the moment.
“Jester, more...” she sobbed, the sound coming out as a broken wail between short breaths. “More, more, please!”
“Greedy girl. Say it...” Jester sounded distantly broken, as if losing his composure with the increasing rhythm of his hips. “Say that this is the best moment of your mediocre life.”
He fucked her for a few more moments with a rhythmic brutality, but it was evident he was already close to the peak. Every impact of his pelvis against hers was like an effort to fuse and deform their bones in a joint pressing; she felt each of his thrusts hit the most perfect, most satisfying spots, in a way that made her eyes roll back.
His hands closed around her throat — not to suffocate, but to keep her present, so she couldn't look away from the abyss into which they were both sinking together.
He sealed their lips in one final kiss, a clash of swollen lips, the taste of salt, saliva, and something like tears of sickening satisfaction, while pleasure rose up their spines like an uncontrollable fire. She was tightening around him. His hips were moving unevenly.
It was known how it would end. Surrender did not come as a sigh, but as a collapse. With the weight of being hit by rubble or by all those crates at once.
Jester let out a guttural cry against her mouth, his hips locking in one final and agonizingly deep thrust as he poured himself into her. It was a liquid of anomalous heat, thicker and more viscous — a reminder that, apparently, monsters came differently than humans did, too. She, on the other hand, arched her back; her body spasming in a sequence of violent tremors, her vision darkening as the ecstasy tore her in half.
Silence.
His ballerina-puppet collapsed forward like a doll with abruptly severed strings, a dizzy, short, and sated smile etched on her lips.
The suspended air of the backstage seemed too heavy, cut only by the sound of recovered breaths. Jester stepped back slightly, only to pull something — a white cloth, apparently satin — from a hidden pocket of his discarded costume. With a strange delicacy that contrasted with the fury of moments ago, he used it to clean her face, the corner of her mouth, and the sweat on her brow.
She let out a soft sigh of wonder at the sudden and delicate touch, so irregular and unexpected. But she allowed it, appreciating the gentle care of his hands after the brutal treatment. Jester had the care of a master with a new toy.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, a fleeting, content glow reaching her eyes.
It was ridiculous, but inevitably moving to see him show a bit of affection, however brief it might be.
She tried to focus her thoughts. The image of Carol, her friend — the reason she was there, giving herself to that monster — rose in her mind like a distant and accusing echo. She had lost herself in his show. She had delighted in her own captivity.
“I admit you were an exceptional audience,” Jester murmured, resuming that velvety and ostentatious tone, though his purple eyes were still dilated. He tilted his head, watching her fallen figure, resting lazily.
With a fluid gesture, he gathered her clothes from the dirty floor and held them out to her. It was an invitation for her to recompose herself, to return to the real world, but the glint in his eyes said she would never truly leave that circus.
“Do you hear me?” Jester questioned, laughing softly.
“Yes, of course. You can say whatever you wish.”
“Well, I simply believe that encounters like this demand repetitions. Perhaps next time, you can find me in my purple tent. Or in my dressing room. What do you think?” the clown asked unpretentiously, but there was a hint of amused laughter backing his words.
She felt the weight of the clothes in her trembling hands. The thought of Carol, of the promise of liberation, and of her own soul that seemed to have stayed behind, tried to emerge under the torpor of pleasure. She should hate him. She should flee as soon as she regained her balance.
But for some reason, she couldn't, not when his eyes, hypnotic and nefarious in that enchanting purple, struck her mind full force. Her own reflected in consonance, and her lips parted immediately to whisper something sudden and irrevocable.
She held his gaze, her breathing finally stabilizing, though her heart still beat for him.
“Yes. Always, Jester.”
hi, hi! how is everyone? let here, as always. another jester piece for your indulgence and mine.
i admit this one was tough to write. i’m still a bit unsure about the tone, and it strayed quite a bit from my original idea. but here it is. i’m trying to write something for the ticket taker, something different and NOT sex-centered. honestly, I confess that even though I enjoy writing these darker and morally ambiguous works, i’m a bit tired. i need a detox, really.
that’s one of the reasons why i took so long to finish this one (besides the platform’s interruptions, of course, as always). being sincere, I was writing something else, something more pleasant, wlw! :) but writing for jester is always interesting, even though he seems exceptionally cruel here.
overall, that’s it. thank you so much! <3
“BURATTINAIO” (The Puppeteer) warnings: dark romance, unhealthy relationship, female protagonist, smut with plot (explicit sexual content)
