Memoirs, Ink

The Circus Inside Me

by Re McBride

 

Until now, only three people in the world knew that I had an orgasm on a circus elephant. If I were to say it was an awkward story to tell, you might ask why I told it in the first place. The answer is easy; I had consumed two vodka gimlets, I was with close friends, and conversation was lagging. Before we went home, my friends asked if I would consider committing the account to paper. I respectfully declined. But each summer once the circus posters appeared in town, one of them would call to see if the story has been recorded. This year I decided to surprise them.

The climb to my zenith at the circus began one hot morning in the middle of July. The posters advertising the arrival of the circus had been hung on every light pole and store window for two weeks. I loaded my two seven-year old boys and their two friends into my van and did my due diligence for the town.

After parking my vehicle, I organized the boys into a platoon and started our march to the high school field where the festivities were being held. As we drew closer to the field the faint sounds from the circus grew louder and seemed to accelerate the pace of the boys as they scampered along the sidewalks. Being fixated on the safety of my pack of circus-goers, I hadn't realized we had rounded the last corner before the field, so I was astonished when an almost biblical revelation appeared before me. I stood still for a moment, taking in the magnificence of the Big Top. My heart skipped a beat and a childhood rush flowed through me, but I was abruptly shaken from my trance when a curly, red-haired member of my pack of boys yelled loudly.

"Hey, look at that!"

There was a collective gasp, and they all ran to a huge wooden poster standing on a tripod that had a picture of a sad elephant with a cluster of waving kids sitting on its back. Underneath the picture, bold red circus-letters commanded, "March inside, to take a ride on Marvelous Marvin!" I took an exhausted sigh as the boys began a whining chorus of "Please, please, please!"

Considering the idea of a jaunt around the tent on an elephant, my first inclination was to say no. But as I sized up the condition of the mechanical rides scattered about the field that surrounded the tent, I had second thoughts. They were old and unstable, and the people operating them were in an even worse state. I made up my mind. A slow ride on an uninspired elephant was a reasonable, safer alternative.

As we approached the one-person vertical jail where the tickets were sold, I asked the carnie-in-a-box how much it cost to ride Marvin.

"Five dollars for kids, seven for adults."

"I'll take four kids' tickets." I cringed, digging in my purse for my wallet.

"How many adults?" he grumbled.

"None."           

The carnie leaned out of his box and pointed at the poster plastered on the front of his house.

"All children must be accompanied by adults," he read out loud to me, and then pulled back in his box like a mouse in a hole. "It's a strict rule."

The glee club boys started up again, this time chanting, "She's coming, she's coming! She's going on the ride too!" I looked at them scraping their feet in the dirt, squeezing each other's arms and jumping up and down. There was no way to tell this group their ride wasn't happening because of my fear of heights.

"So, how many adults?" the mouse repeated.

"Oh, dear sweet Jesus," I prayed under my breath.

The carnie tilted his head and forced a mock frown. 

"One ticket," I sneered.

Twenty-seven dollars later, like a queen bee with her swarm, we buzzed into the tent through a large hole where the heavy canvas was held open by a large rope.  Once inside, I stopped for a minute, letting my senses adjust to the dark shadows, thick dust and the smell of wet hay.  Suddenly, a loud bark of authority blasted toward our group.

"Line starts here!"

The voice belonged to a stout clown, dressed in red stripes and an oversized tie, waving us over to the entry of the ride.  I relinquished our tickets and led a dirt cloud filled with kids down the rope runway until we found ourselves at the bottom of a huge ladder. My mouth fell open as I tilted my gaze upward, searching out the summit of my steep climb. Somewhere in the dusty air, I spotted the top rung of an enormous ladder that was leaning into a large boxed-in platform perched on two giant poles.  The entire launch pad resembled a diving board suspended over a pool, but this board hung over Marvin so the riders could get on and off his back. My stomach began to churn and I could feel my heart banging.

The silhouette of a woman appeared hanging over the wall of the platform, waving at us to start climbing the ladder and yelling in a syrupy, Bulgarian accent.

"Children first, please!"

The squirming boys scurried around me and started up the ladder. Desperate, I put my hands on my hips and looked down at the ground trying to bolster my self-confidence. Taking a long breath I bent my head back again and made eye contact with the woman. Something was wrong. I detected a disappointing lack of youth in her. It was obvious that although once taut and beautiful, her face now looked like a slowly deflating balloon whose skin was turning into drooping wrinkles. My mind went off on another tangent: Where were all the strong young men? What if I slip? What can a middle age woman do? My thoughts were interrupted when I realized the kids were crawling higher up the ladder and panicked.

"Wait!" I yelled at their wiggling bottoms.

I placed my foot on the first rung and took hold of the sides of the ladder with sweaty death grips. One step at a time, I began my ascent. A few rungs up, I began to feel little things hitting my face, and I looked up to discover the dirt from the kids' sneakers was falling on me. I tried to continue but had to stop to get debris off my face. While rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand, I accidentally pushed dirt up my nose, went into a frightful sneezing fit and almost fell.

When the tempo of my sneezing finally dwindled, I stood, terrified. Looking up at the kids who had stopped midway on their climb and were staring down at me with worried expressions, I forced the most admirable face of confidence I could muster. Cautiously, I turned my head to wipe my eyes on the arm of my shirt and balked when I found myself looking straight into Marvin's left eye, an eye that appeared tentative, as if waiting for another battery of sneezes to begin. The intelligence of his one-sided gaze made me pause. I was astonished by how tiny his coffee brown eye was compared to the rest of his head.  His ear resembled a huge philodendron leaf, silently fanning back and forth. For a moment, we stood, staring at each other. Then Marvin raised his trunk, curled it up to his head and let out an indignant trumpet blast that shook my insides.

Somehow I ended up on the platform, shaking, with the woman's arm around me. She cooed something in her thick lilt as she rubbed my back, guiding me to the end of the plank. Her arms were surprisingly strong and I almost felt safe as she lowered me into the saddle on Marvin's back. I was seated in the middle of the kids, two in front of me and two in back. We all squirmed around to get comfortable and once we were settled, Marvin's handler gave him a gentle nudge.

Pushing his round feet through the dusty wood shavings, Marvin silently turned around the platform and began his stroll, slowly swaying all the way down the right side of the tent. When he reached the end of the lane, Marvin made a perfectly executed roll to the left. We all leaned with him and then slid back to the middle of the saddle before we hit straight road again. It was at that very moment, right after the shift on the corner, my body, mauled by the emotional confusion of the last few minutes, decided to have a circus of its own.

I felt a strong sensation, odd but familiar, at the base of my spine. My stomach started to tighten. At first I thought it was the beginning of a panic attack or another sneezing fit because my breathing was becoming cumbersome. My legs were turning warm and starting to lose feeling. Squeezing my thighs, I tried to dig my feet into Marvin's sides so I could lift my rear end up and regain the sensation in my legs, but the blanket underneath the saddle provided no traction and I slammed back down. The hard drop actually began a succession of surges in my undercarriage and I realized my body had shifted into automatic pilot. In magnificent terror, I held on to the ropes on either side of the saddle trying desperately to control all the gliding resulting from Marvin's unhurried gait. I made several attempts to rearrange my position without bumping the kids or sliding from one side to the other, but the moving about only added to my predicament.

Remembering there were still two laps of the sauntering ride around the Big Top, I finally acquiesced to my body's desires and just sank into an awkward stupor. Letting go is all there is left to do, sitting on an elephant, surrounded by giggling children, fighting a terrifying fear of heights and struggling to suppress a moan of ecstasy.

Calmness fell upon me as the ride turned tranquil and eventually ended, safe in the knowledge that my orgasm and uncontrollable fear had settled down in time for my dismount. The lady with the accent helped me pull myself out of the saddle and guided me toward the ladder where, with enhanced confidence, I began my descent. I threw all caution to the wind, figuring if I had survived the last fifteen minutes, falling off a ladder would be nothing. Half way down my descent, it felt as if someone was watching me and I stopped. It was Marvin.

I looked away as a wave of guilt washed over me. But as I turned back to face the magnificent elephant one last time, the lid of his little brown eye, with its long lashes, fell slowly and then flung open wide. For a swift instant, his gaze held mine and I knew at that moment there really was something Marvelous about Marvin. I winked back at his eye, whispered a quick "thank you," and continued down the ladder.

 

Re McBride lives with her two sons, husband and faithful English Cocker Spaniel Wilson in a small town south of Boston, Massachusetts. She began writing her memoir in 1991, but her endeavor was rudely interrupted when she sustained a severe brain injury. With the love and support of her family and friends, she has rewritten her memoir which is now the story of a life she could never have imagined would be hers. She also continues to write short stories of fiction and is planning to begin a second book in the coming year. Marie is a member of the Cape Cod Writer's Center, two writer's groups and attends various conventions and seminars in the Boston area.