Page 1 of He Likes it Spicy

SAM

I'm tired of these small-town fairs. Dunk tanks. Kissing booths. Rigged carnival games that send you home with a goldfish if you somehow manage to win. They're always the same.

It’s not even noon, and the fairgrounds are already awash with the smell of cotton candy, kettle corn drenched in butter, and fried everything you could ever imagine. Seriously, they even deep-fry sticks of butter.

From the trailers that serve as carny bunkhouses, I walk toward the purple tent jutting into the sky like a hot-air balloon that hasn’t quite inflated for takeoff.

A line of people snakes off from the ticket booths.

I bow my head in the hopes that I won’t be recognized—it’s far too early to get into character.

A bunch of young guys in cowboy hats whistle at me from their perch on a wooden fence as I pass. They hop off like vultures, right on my heels even though I do my best to ignore them. I guess the Sweetheart County Fair has the local boys feeling lucky.

"Are you her?" one of them asks. I can smell cheap beer on his breath. "The girl from the poster? Valkyrie?"

I hike my gym bag higher on my shoulder. "Yup."

The guy steps in front of me, thinking he's far more suave than he actually is. "I'll be at your show later. Front row . You gonna spread those legs for me?"

I smile and cock my head at this idiot. "Did you pay the price of admission?"

"Shit yeah,” he scoffs. “Paid top dollar for this seat. But that's nothing for me."

"Top dollar, bottom dollar, makes no difference. You get the same experience as everyone else." I lean in conspiratorially. "And it’s a family show. Sorry, no peeks under the unitard."

The boys all hem and haw as I brush past and round the backside of the tent. Posters featuring my contorted body are everywhere, especially around the ticket booth. The Valkyrie : mind-bending acrobatics, death-defying leaps, and mystical dances.

I wish I didn’t look so erotic on the poster but, Charles is right, sex sells.

I've been traveling with this circus for nearly two years.

We're not some old-school tent show that whips elephants or forces monkeys to jump through flaming hoops (that risk lies with me).

Our retinue consists of twin-brother fire breathers who can stick nails through their own flesh without a wince, a trio of clowns who studied theater together at Julliard, a band that can play any song requested by the audience by ear while adding their own silly lyrics, a depressed comedian, a magician who gets higher than a kite behind the tent before every show, and me, the Valkyrie, the main event.

Charles insists that we're a classy circus. If that were the case, we wouldn't be touring these backwood county fairs. And if we were Circque du Soleil , I’d have my own trailer…

"There she is! Our golden girl!" Charles makes a big fanfare when I arrive backstage. The only other person in our shitty staging area is Mark, the sad comedian, so I assume the boss is about to ask me to do something strenuous on my soul. "Have I told you how lovely you are lately, Samantha?"

"Cut the shit." I drop my bag and join Mark at the little card table. The comedian gives me a minimal-effort smile. "What do you want? You need me to cut another sleeve off my unitard, show some more skin? Or maybe you'd like me to perform nude for the fair's first show?"

Charles is a man somehow stuck between boyhood and collecting social security.

His features are gray and heavy, but the way his eyes dart around and that constant politician’s smirk reminds me of a kid who’s always trying to get away with something.

Not to mention those ash eyebrows that lick up his forehead like the tips of flames.

Our show isn’t for another six hours, but he’s already in his majestic purple and black suit.

He holds his hands up, fingers spread. "What? No, no. Nothing quite so scandalous... unless? "

I give him my most vile stare.

"Kidding! See? Mark thought that was funny."

"No, I didn't," Mark grumbles.

Charles moves on as if Mark no longer exists. "The favor I need to ask of our wonderful, spectacular, transcendent Valkyrie is that she join the panel of judges for the Sweetheart County Fair's esteemed chili cook-off. What an opportunity!"

Mark chuckles, earning the rare ire of Charles’s gaze.

"You're kidding," I laugh, leaning my metal chair back on two legs.

"Not in the slightest. And I so wish you wouldn't do that..."

"I do a high-rise act, jump from swings sixty feet in the air, and contort my body in ways that would pop a normal person’s joints clean out their sockets. This is the least risky thing I'll do all day."

"It's an unnecessary risk! What if the chair breaks and you get hurt? Is Mark going to take over the main event? We’d be ruined!"

"Ouch," Mark sighs. "Although... me stuffed into Sam's unitard... there might be something there..."

I let the chair slam back down. Charles flinches.

"Judging a chili cook-off sounds like an unnecessary risk," I say. "What if I get food poisoning? I'm sure some of these contestants won't be abiding by health and safety standards."

"Nonsense. They do it every year. It's perfectly safe."

"Will you be sampling this year's chili, then?"

"With my stomach?" Charles flips a chair around and sits awkwardly at the table, nearly tipping himself over.

"God, no. There are not enough portable toilets on the fairgrounds for a disaster of that magnitude.

Look, Samantha, darling, I had to pull a lot of strings to even get you on the panel.

Well, some old woman who's been judging the contest for twenty-five years died or something or other, so they were admittedly a little desperate. .."

Mark scratches his chin. "Maybe I could add that into my routine..."

"But tragedy births opportunity!" Charles says with a flourish of his wrist. "With the Valkyrie on the panel, we'll sell the tent out for every show. And, as your employer, I am obliged to mention that this is not so much a favor as it is an order."

I lean my chair back again; being suspended between falling and floating helps me think.

Normally, I'd tell Charles to go stick his head in a simmering pot of disgusting chili: I know how much the boss relies on my act, and that gives me quite a bit of political pull.

Unfortunately, I used that leverage a few months ago to renegotiate the contracts of all of our performers.

Everyone appreciates the pay bump, but I'm not in a position to disobey Lord Charles right now.

Charles recognizes my position before I say anything. He's not dumb, I’ll give him that.

"Splendid! Lucky for you, I’ve only conscripted you for the first round of the cook-off…

it begins in an hour." Charles hurries to the wardrobe racks and returns with a skimpy red wine dress that sparkles like a firework and will be tighter than a tourniquet.

"I believe this gown will pair perfectly with a home-cooked chili. Just don't eat too much..."

"Yeah," Mark says, "we don't want Sam farting as she jumps through a flaming hoop."

I laugh so hard I snort, which puts a grateful smile on Mark's face.

Walking through a county fair in a shimmering skintight red dress and high heels is not my idea of a good time.

When I walked past the kissing booth, a dozen men jumped in line because they thought I was taking over—some of them left their wives throwing ping-pong balls into greased bowls or buying cotton candy.

Admittedly, I enjoyed the look on their faces as I kept on walking.

Clouds of teenage boys wearing too much body spray waft by me, making me hold my breath in the midday heat.

Sweat licks my skin, adding to the sheen of my dress.

I stop at a lemonade booth along the way, and the woman running the stand gives me a free drink after she recognizes me, which is good because I didn't have anywhere to shove my wallet in this stupid dress.

Just as I'm about to leave, some asshole with a giant gold belt buckle grabs my arm. "Let me get that for you, sweetheart," he says with his over-emphasized country twang.

I understand the reality of being a performer: I get catcalled and followed around and hit with such awful pickup lines that I cry laughing telling them to everyone backstage.

Men go home thinking about me, and not through an artistic lens.

It’s fine—it’s natural. But I do not, under any circumstance, allow some random man to put his hands on me without asking.

"Let go of my arm," I say it like he should've done it yesterday.

"Come on, sweetheart. Relax. Let me just—"

I throw the lemonade in his face.

The bright yellow sugar water cascades down his frown, soaking his plaid button-up, jeans, and boots.

"Get that for me? All right, you got it for me. Enjoy."

He's fuming, but he lets my arm go.

"What the fuck is your problem?" He’s screaming louder than a little girl on a rickety roller coaster. "This is a two-hundred dollar shirt, you psycho!"

"So you only pretend to be a cowboy," I laugh. "Makes sense. A real cowboy wouldn't go grabbing a bull that ain't his. Shame that you ruined such an expensive shirt over a two-dollar lemonade. Ma’am, may I have another drink? I seem to have spilled mine.”

The old woman is smiling like he deserves every bit of that and more. I wonder if she knows this prick. But before she can diffuse the situation with a fresh drink, the man slams his hands on the table, cracking the plastic. Lemonade still drips from his bare chin.

“You fucking carnies think you can come into my town and do whatever the hell you want?” he whines like a hog. “How about I teach you a lesson—“

He moves.

I’m not sure what he intends to do—grab me again, hit me, flip the table over—but he doesn’t get that far. A giant hand grips the back of his head, slams it down, and holds the man bent over the table, completely submitted and squealing like the pig he is.

A giant has come to my rescue.