From “Satin Circus”

The music swells and the lights dim under the big tent, as the excitement builds in the audience and the buzzing conversations subside with the rising expectation that something—something special—is about to happen. Strobing lights and laser beams come up, gyrating around on the floor below and under the canopy of the tent above, showing a swirl of activity here and there, tantalizingly vying for attention, everything everywhere. The audience gasps in unison at the brief glimpses of the spectacles to be amazed by.

The lights dim again for a second and then one beam ignites, roams the tent, and comes to rest in the center of the floor below. It picks out the ringmaster, tall and solidly and powerfully built, with thick chest and small waist and a ruggedly handsome face. He is lifting his white-satin gloved hands in the pose of the concert master about to mark the first downbeat.

The audience sighs, knowing that he is there to bring order to the chaos the opening of the performance portended.

The music rises as the ringmaster in the center of the rings twirls his gloved hands, directing with a flourish the attention of the audience to where one act is starting, and to another ring, when that one is winding down. He is clothed in gold satin, with the dash of a billowing red satin cape. High above his head, the aerialists are flying from one platform on a pole to another. They are young and lithe, bare-chested and wearing skimpy blue satin shorts. The ringmaster has had his eyes on the youngest, fairest of them for some time.

The young aerialist stands, posed for the audiences gasp of awe, on a platform for a brief moment—the youngest of the dashingly handsome and courageous Flying Flauberts. Small of stature, but perfectly formed. Alabaster skinned, with a dark, sultry look. Hard body, smooth chest, oversized arm and chest and thigh muscles to meet the requirements of his profession, flat belly, and tiny waist. With a wave of his raised hand, he grasps the trapeze his partner has just flown off and sent his way, and flies out over the arena.

As the ringmaster directs the attention from the aerialists to a scantily clad woman standing on a white horse with gilded trappings that’s prancing around the periphery of the rings with a flourish of his satin-gloved hands, a grip between aerialists above slips, and the young trapeze artist tumbles to the netting below. The ringmaster instantly directs the audience’s attention to the cage with the lion tamer, and moves, as deliberately but quickly as he can, over, to the side of the net. The young man appears to be unharmed, only momentarily dazed.

The ringmaster caresses the young man’s cheek with one satin-gloved hand while using the other to check for possible damage. He is cupping the young man’s basket through his blue satin shorts with the gloved hand when the young aerial artist opens his eyes and gives the ringmaster a glazed smile. . . .

“Take him to my dressing room and lay him on the studio couch there,” the ringmaster commands to the two clowns who have shown up and who proceed to carry the young man out of the tent, covering the event with antics that convince the restless and concerned crowd that the tumble was all an act. As the ringmaster waves for his understudy to come forward and take over the circus maestro duties, the ringmaster assures himself that there is nothing wrong with the young man that a little special attention won’t fix—that his limbs are unbruised and still malleable enough for the positions the ringmaster is contemplating putting them in. The two of them have been dancing around an inevitable coupling for weeks now and it is finally time for the master to make his mark.

The ringmaster enters his dressing room. The young man is lying on his belly on the satin-covered studio couch, his eyes half open in a semi sleep, watching the door of the trailer for the arrival of the older man.