by Jim HARRINGTON

Karl salut­ed the pic­ture of the orig­i­nal Karl and Kar­la hang­ing on the wall of his dress­ing room, then slumped in­to a tat­tered, leather chair. It was a rit­u­al he act­ed out af­ter every per­for­mance. He re­moved his top hat, laid it on the dress­ing ta­ble, and won­dered how many times he would get to do this in the fu­ture. Cir­cus­es weren’t as pop­u­lar as they used to be. His was no exception.

“You de­cent Karl?” 

“De­cent and broke.” He re­spond­ed the same way every time his Kar­la knocked.

She en­tered the room wear­ing her fa­vorite black over­alls. From ex­pe­ri­ence, Karl knew she was naked un­der­neath. She was ac­com­pa­nied by a hulk of a man Karl didn’t know.

“This is Bruce and his pit bull, An­gel,” Kar­la said, hold­ing on­to Bruce’s sculpt­ed bi­cep with both hands, her fin­ger­tips un­able to touch.

Karl stared at the big ga­loot wear­ing jeans and a sweat-stained, sleeve­less tee; then widened his fo­cus to Bruce and An­gel. They could be twins. 

“I hired him to han­dle security.”

“Se­cu­ri­ty?” Karl said. He stared out the win­dow at the rem­nants of the au­di­ence they’d just per­formed for. They re­mind­ed him of smil­ing con­gre­gants hang­ing around af­ter a rous­ing church service.

“You nev­er know these days,” Kar­la said. “There are a lot of lu­natics out there.”

“We’ve been at this for twelve years and haven’t had a prob­lem yet.”

“Like I said, you nev­er know. Be­sides, I have a plan to save us from clos­ing down; and Bruce and An­gel might prove useful.”

“Oh?”

Kar­la pro­ceed­ed to ex­plain her idea.

…

The fol­low­ing Fri­day at mid­night Karl stood in the sin­gle cir­cus ring. His hands shak­ing, he was un­sure if they were do­ing the right thing.

“Ladies and gen­tle­men. Wel­come to our first ever adult-on­ly per­for­mance. And with­out fur­ther ado, here’s Kar­la and friends,” he said with a broad sweep of his arm. He fig­ured this show would ei­ther save the cir­cus or send them to jail.

As Karl walked back­stage, Kar­la gave him a wink and pranced to the cen­ter of the cir­cle wear­ing a red and white se­quined see-thru top and a blue miniskirt. Mu­sic start­ed and Kar­la be­gan to dance in a way she thought en­tic­ing. The cheers got loud­er when she re­moved her top and skirt ex­pos­ing match­ing pasties and G‑string. The crowd clapped like they nev­er had for the cir­cus. As Kar­la left the cir­cle, one of the pasties fell off draw­ing a loud­er re­sponse. She didn’t both­er pick­ing it up. A sec­ond dancer ap­peared and then a third bring­ing the male mem­bers of the crowd to their feet.

At the show’s end, Karl ap­peared from be­hind the cur­tain to a round of boos and thanked every­one for at­tend­ing their in­au­gur­al performance. 

The next night’s at­ten­dance was triple the open­ing crowd. Even the may­or showed up with his wife to see what all the ex­cite­ment was about.

…

Karl looked at his new bride sun­ning her­self on a nude beach in Greece. He’d sold the cir­cus af­ter a prof­itable run, mar­ried Kar­la — fi­nal­ly, she said when he pro­posed — and, un­like those fake fairy tales, they did live hap­pi­ly ever after.

Filed under Fiction on June 20th, 2025

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