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  Instead, he whispered, “Stay like that.”

  He stepped back, and I was poised, my face lifted, my lips slightly puckered as if to kiss him. I had started to lift my hands, so I clasped them at my waist, my weight still shifted forward on my toes in eager anticipation.

  I almost broke from my pose, feeling caught when he stepped away rather than kiss me.

  But… I want to please him.

  So I stayed as he had placed me, watching with my eyes as he slowly circled me, taking another long look at my costume. This time, bound by his word, I felt every glance fall against my body.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured, behind me now. His hand trailed along the back of my arm below the ruffled cuff. “The white sets off your skin, like a sun-kissed goddess rising from the foam.”

  I trembled, unable to see him. It was so naked, so honest. His admiring voice, the longing that roughened it, and the lingering way his fingers touched my arm. Like he was barely restraining himself from throwing me down on the bed and taking me.

  But that’s what always happened between us. Either the spark combusted and we exploded together, or he threw up walls and ran away. Anything but exploring this tug of war between us.

  He circled around to the front, looking down into my eyes. “You belong to me.”

  I felt it then, with a wild hope. Yes, I belong to you! It was what he’d said in the barn at the Festival, when he had played with my mind as we made love.

  “Yes,” I agreed. As I had agreed all week to his demands.

  Now he really smiled. “I think there’s too much of you covered up.”

  “There is?”

  He reached for his back pocket and pulled out two gold cords. “Don’t move,” he reminded me.

  I was swaying from holding my pose, leaning forward on my toes. But his warning kept me still as he knelt in front of me.

  He touched my ankle, feeling the strap around it. Then he trailed his hand up my leg, up my outer thigh to my hip. He passed the cord under my skirt and waistband, then tied it at the bottom with a knotted bow. It pulled the skirt high up on my thigh, nearly to my hip.

  Brushing my skin, he did the same with the other side. The skirt looped down in front, barely covering my panties. The rest of my skirt trailed off to the back.

  I could feel the air on my exposed legs. The bare skin at the top of my stockings got goose bumps.

  Victor stepped back and examined me. “Better.”

  He turned to the desk and picked up a tissue-wrapped package. He pulled out something bronzed. “It’s a corset. I want you to remember all night, with every breath, that you’re bound to me.”

  He stepped close to me. “Lift up your arms, over your head.”

  I slowly lifted my arms over my head and clasped my wrist in my hand. As he fit the bronze corset around my waist and clicked each hook shut, I felt a deep blush spreading through me to be dressed like someone who was helpless. He was taking possession of me, reducing me to this state of utter dependence on him.

  I knew it wasn’t real. I took care of myself every day, worked harder than I ever thought possible to make my dreams come true. But in this moment, putting myself into his hands, I felt light and free of all worry. I was safe with him. Protected by him.

  So even as he loosened my peasant blouse so it fell off my shoulders, and he tightened the corset to the point where I gasped, I felt a warm and happy buzz growing. The luxury of being able to stop struggling! To relax and let him decide everything. To let him tie the lovely Venetian mask over my eyes.

  When he led me to the mirror, I was transformed. A Victorian courtesan with a tiny waist, my nipples poking the silk of the blouse, and a naughty peek of garters showing.

  Victor’s Venetian mask was similar to mine. He looked like he could rob a bank in style, a study in red and gold.

  When Victor put his hands on my bare shoulders, looking at the two of us in the mirror, I shivered in delight. I could have stayed forever, looking at our new personas in the mirror. We could be anything we wanted tonight.

  “Our car is waiting,” he said.

  “Do you have a coat I can wear?” I asked.

  “No.”

  My eyes met his in the mirror. I knew there was no reason to deny me. He must have something I could put on to cover my shoulders and the bunched up dress between my thighs.

  I had fought Lola over this for years. It was a hard thing to ask of me, much more challenging than Victor may have realized. I had protected her with every ounce of my being, and look what she was doing now—showing her body off to anyone who wanted to see it. So my constant efforts turned out to be pointless.

  Maybe it was okay for Lola, but that didn’t mean I wanted to expose myself, even at Victor’s order.

  He didn’t say a word to convince me, silently waiting for me to comply. He let me slowly form my own arguments in his favor. I wasn’t revealing anything—it was risqué but not indecent. And the mask made it clearly a costume while hiding my identity. Even if someone took my photo and put it on the Internet, nobody would recognize me. I didn’t even recognize myself.

  I started to smile. I could walk around Manhattan in disguise as an old-fashioned slut if I wanted to. If Victor wanted me to. It wasn’t hurting anyone, not the least myself.

  Yet I felt terribly exposed as we stepped into the hallway. Thankfully nobody else was in the elevator, but we passed one of his neighbors in the lobby. Victor nodded to the man and said hello as if everything was perfectly normal. I could hardly look at the guy. All I got was a confused impression of a big grin before he turned away.

  On the street it was worse because there were more people walking by, but better because it was dark. Somehow my costume was not nearly as awful away from the mundane brightness of the lobby. I was grateful Victor didn’t have a doorman.

  As we got into the same town car that had brought me here, I gave a sigh of relief. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal for another girl, but for me, it felt like I had already been put through my paces before we got into the cab.

  Victor grasped my hand and abruptly brought it to his pants. He was thick and hard beneath the soft twill. He stroked himself using my palm, without looking at me, idly watching the traffic and pedestrians outside our windows. I kept looking at his face, as he settled back, his expression softening as he continued to stroke himself with my hand.

  He was using me to pleasure himself. But he was so detached. Here in the car, where I finally admitted to myself that I would have done so much more if he had asked, he never looked me in the eyes.

  When I ventured to ask him, he stopped me before I could finish. “Don’t speak.”

  So I continued to stroke him, putting my attention completely to the task, rubbing and dragging my nails across his long thick hard-on through the twill. But he held firmly onto my hand, setting the pace and rhythm he wanted. I struggled inside of myself—he was using me, objectifying me with every command.

  Why did I love it so? Why did it make me more eager to please him? Why did it make me hang on his every word, every turn of his head. Like I existed only for him. He made it that way, with his attitude and hardly any effort on his part, as if this was the natural state of things between us, that I should serve him without question. That he should be the center of my world, while he cherished and took care of me.

  “We’re here,” he murmured, rousing me from the erotic haze I had fallen into. As I shifted, I realized I was damp between my legs. Just from stroking him!

  Victor smiled at me, his eyes piercing me, knowing exactly what he had done.

  I tried to pull myself together to face the sidewalk, but I was stripped bare by this point. I felt so naked anyway that skin hardly mattered anymore.

  Besides there were plenty of half-dressed people on the street outside the venue. It looked like your typical Chelsea dance club with no sign, only ropes and bouncers by a nondescript door in a black facade. But the scattered bunches of people arriving or waiting to g
o in were dressed in black tulle like dark ballerinas, or vampires in long coats and high-necked dresses, or sheathed in brightly colored rubber so that every curve showed.

  As we entered, I mostly saw the masks that everyone wore: tufted by feathers, sparkling with spangles, some with long noses and some full-faced and painted in delicate designs.

  There was an exhilaration in the air, as if everyone felt the same abandon. As if anonymity made them freer to be whoever they wanted to be.

  Now Victor’s attention was on me, very different from his aloof demeanor in the car. He made sure I wasn’t jostled in the crowd, ushering me through as if I was made of glass. He held my hand, watching my reactions to everything, kissing my palm and putting his arm around my shoulder to guide me.

  In the lobby and the dance floor beyond, where the buzz from the crowd was the loudest, there was typical techno dance music. Little clots of people were dancing around the edges, with the main mass in the middle, their arms pumping overhead.

  Victor took me straight back to the open stairwell. On the second floor, a more soothing electronic music without vocals played in the long darkened loft. Plush chairs and sofas were arranged in groups around the pillars. Pools of light picked out one spot from the next, while the outer edges were in darkness, giving the illusion that the room was much bigger than it was.

  I was panting from the climb and my tight corset, and I couldn’t quite catch my breath for the sudden fear that Lola would be here. Maybe it was the underlying drum beat of the music that reminded me of Lola. It was the first time I considered the possibility, and I was glad about that. It was about time I stopped thinking about my sister all the time.

  Victor was watching me, smiling a little too smugly. “Transcendence won’t be here. They don’t book entertainment for the Masquerade. We’re the show.”

  “Now you’re reading my mind?” I asked. “Am I that transparent?”

  “Yes.”

  Again he said it with such finality that I couldn’t say anything more.

  And with that, my apprehension faded away like it never existed. I didn’t have to be afraid of showing too much of myself to him, whether it was too much skin or my insecurities. Victor already knew, and here he was, still with me despite the odds against us.

  As for the others, being masked was freeing in a way I never imagined it could be. It didn’t matter what I did because they didn’t know it was me, so I didn’t have to play by my usual rules. I could throw all of that away, and be someone new. Someone who experienced every moment without fear.

  Victor slowly led me by hand through the clusters of furniture, past the dim forms of couples in various positions. The rainbow upholstery turned out to be white slipcovers that turned colors under the lighting. Exposed skin had a red or blue or green cast. With the masks, everyone was alien, like we were no longer on Earth.

  The sounds of flesh being smacked, the low cries and groans, filled the air with their lust. Then I saw bared buttocks pumping and legs kicking high, or people humped over each other as they knelt on cushions in front of the chairs. Other people were wound in ropes and were being flogged or spanked as they bent over the backs of the couches.

  Victor stroked my arms while we watched the various scenes, a methodical rise and fall that mesmerized me with sensation. Even the people making love were fair game, as we drifted by to pause and watch their ecstasy.

  It was a heady thing to see people being intimate in real life. Much more so than watching a video. I could feel their passion, and knew it was real.

  At the other end of the long room was a frosted wall that cut off the bathrooms. The glow through the wall served to light most of the area near it.

  Victor led me inside the bathroom. The light was bluish, like I was underwater in the stainless steel and white bathroom. Both men and women were using it and washing their hands in the long silver troughs where water ran continuously.

  Victor pushed me up against the frosted wall, face-first. My palms splayed against it to brace myself.

  He leaned into me, pressing me against the wall.

  With my eyes so close to the glass, I could see the dim shapes through it. On the other side, the hazy forms of people were turning and pointing. They could see the shadow of my body through the glass wall, our hands pressed against it.

  Into my ear, Victor murmured, “I want to see how well you followed my instructions.”

  People were coming into the bathroom behind us, going into the stalls and washing their hands next to us. But Victor didn’t pay any attention to them. He leisurely bent down and circled his hands around my ankles. “Straps. Good.”

  His hands trailed upward. “I like the seam, that’s a nice touch.”

  He was lifting my skirt as he raised his hands. I bit my lip, knowing I’d be exposed.

  Tugging on the garter, he added, “Black lace is always a good choice.”

  With his thumb still hooked around my garter, he circled his arm around my chest, pulling my back into him. “Keep your hands on the wall,” he ordered.

  I held on for my life as his hand slid to my breast. His fingers tightened, gripping my breast until I hissed my breath inward. He was rougher than I expected, as if he felt the right to treat me however he liked.

  His fingers pinched my nipple through the silk. “No bra. But then we all knew that.”

  I jerked, but he wouldn’t let me budge. “She doesn’t like to be teased?” he asked, his voice mocking.

  “No!” I exclaimed. But I could hardly complain, not when his fingers were doing things with my nipple that I had never felt before, like there was a live wire connected to my core.

  “No…,” I repeated more weakly, twisting in his arms.

  He kept pulling and twisting on my nipples, one then the other, as he held me against him with one arm wrapped around my waist. I felt engulfed by him, hidden yet exposed as his fingers pressed harder and harder.

  I wanted to protest, “We’re in a bathroom!” But that was part of the crazy weirdness of the whole thing. That he was holding me and torturing my nipples in a public bathroom. But people were doing much more out there.

  Writhing in earnest to get away from the sharp pains and tugs he was giving me, I finally cried out, “Victor!”

  His face buried in the back of my neck, taking a deep breath. “No perfume. Excellent.”

  “Was that a test?” I panted.

  Abruptly he released my nipple, pressing himself against my back, his hands braced against the wall. His breath burned hot against my ear. “What was the one thing I didn’t tell you to wear?”

  I arched my back, loving the feel of him up against me. His rigid cock pressed into the cleft of my buttocks, rubbing into the curve of my lower back. With hardly any effort, he could slide himself inside me, and I would cry out in pleasure.

  But I knew what he was talking about. “My panties.”

  “I didn’t tell you to wear underwear, did I?”

  “You… you said no bra.”

  His hand slid down to my thigh, up and under my skirt. His hot palm caressed the bare curve of my butt. “You’re wearing a thong.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they over your garter or under?”

  I flushed, remembering how Candice instructed me to put my thong on last. “That way he can take it off and you still have your garters on,” my roommate had explained.

  I had tried it that way, but it was too slutty. And it wasn’t comfortable.

  “Under.”

  The disapproving murmur filled my ear. “I can take care of that.”

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a curved black hook about the size of his palm. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No…” The glint of steel at the heart of it looked sharp. My voice got louder. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “No questions.” His voice was calm, but determined. I knew I couldn’t stop him, whatever he had decided to do. It gave me a weak feeling in my knees, like t
he way he had destroyed my illusions about myself in one minute flat the first night we met. I thought I was so smart and had everything under control, but that turned out to be laughable. I was flailing and barely keeping afloat, and it was no use kidding myself otherwise.

  Letting go and letting him decide was so much easier. Even if it was only for one blessed night of relief.

  I sighed and relaxed, and he rewarded me by hugging me tightly from behind. He knew the mental struggle I had just gone through. He knew he had won.

  Victor ran his hand up under my skirt, up to my hip. Slipping the hook under the side of my thong, he gave a tug and it separated with hardly a sound. He changed hands and did it to the other side. “It’s used for cutting rope quickly when something goes wrong.”

  He reached around to my front and put his hand over my mound, rubbing his fingers down into the silky hair. The thong separated and fell. With a flick of his hand, he dropped the cut up thong to the floor. His fingers were slick from the priming he had done to me.

  My thighs separated slightly, inviting him in further. He sank his finger into my cleft, drawing a moan from me. My clit slipped under his slick fingers as he rubbed it, and my moans turned into cries.

  I didn’t care anymore what he did to me in the bathroom. I wanted him inside of me now. “Please, Victor! Please…”

  “You want me to fuck you?” he asked harshly, his mouth against my ear.

  “Yes! Please, Victor!”

  I felt I existed only to please him, to be filled by him. That the only thing that mattered was being his.

  He pulled back, and I thought he was going to satisfy me.

  Instead he said, “Come with me.”

  Chapter 29

  Victor

  I had to tear myself away from her. I wanted nothing more than to give her what she asked for right there between the sinks. But that’s what I always did. I fucked her instead of truly possessing her.

  So I did what I had to do. I pulled away again. Leaving her vulnerable, confused, under my control. I had toyed with her all night, delighting in her reaction.