The Masquerade (2 page)

I did the only thing I could to plug that plunging hole. I said, “Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. Going to see the guys again.” I stepped back, waved. “Justin,” I lowered my voice, “Genevieve.”

• • •

Justin’s eyes burned a hole
through my back as I walked over to the guys. I felt it like a looming shadow, and when I pumped Matt’s hand hello, I saw him doing just what I had imagined, right there in my peripheral.

I
hadn’t been kidding earlier about Dad wanting to kill him. He was serious about us behaving. And he thought we did because of Mum’s disciplining. Often, she’d take me by the hand to a quiet spot and remind me with teary eyes of how she came close to losing him, close to losing our family in the process over many nights of his smoking and drinking. Sometimes, I wanted to throw my hands up at her. I couldn’t do shit. He misbehaved
more
because I tried to father him. I wasn’t that dude. Shit, I was hardly a brother to him.

On the other side of the room, Justin glided his hand around
Vee’s back and used a finger to draw in her face. She came. She leant to his lips, paused. He snatched up the space and her, his lips hungry. The jealousy plunged into my gut like a sword of revenge.

I could
not
wait to see if she’d pull back. I had to find a distraction. And they were here tonight in herds. A group of three stood nearby.

I stepped up to the girls and said,
“Come chill outside with us.” I cocked my head to my mates behind me.

One girl nodded. “Sure thing,” grinning hard, her cheeks pinched.

Three girls, five guys, about twenty cigarettes and lots of fucking—class schedules fucking us over, parents fucking us over, who seemingly didn’t get the memo we weren’t in high school anymore, and repeated eye fucking.

We huddled
outside in a circle close to the doors. Some of the heat billowed out with the curtains as people passed, but the temperature still felt a few degrees below mild so, of course, we guys warmed the girls. One of them chose me, sitting high up my lap, her perky little ass wiggling over my crotch every time she giggled. Over a short period of time, she turned more so to face me, asking what uni did I go to? What was I studying? Did I go out much? And, finally, did I have a girlfriend?

Reaching a satisfactory conclusion to
her interrogation, she asked no more. Her eyes flamed with lust, me being the recipient of that intensity. She licked her lips and batted her eyelashes.

I sensed she didn’t feel like talking much, so I asked, “Want to go have a chat there by the trees?”

“Ooh,” she giggled, “okay.”

We walked down
, and I sought out her hand along the way. She squeezed back and stumbled a lot, holding my hand close to her thigh for stability.

“We can slow down,” I said. “No rush.”

“There isn’t?” she asked. If there had been enough light to illuminate her eyebrow, it would have been a perfect arch.

Near
the edge of the property, close to one corner, there was a big eucalyptus tree with rough bark around the fat trunk. Another one lay several metres off, enclosing plenty of space. Surrounding shrubbery circled us even more so.

Her mouth found my neck as we stepped into the area followed by her mouth at the top of my chest. She shook my tie loose and undid the top button. I found the hem of her short dress and pulled my hands underneath searching for her panties, slow and teasing. I rubbed up her inner thigh all the way and discovered she wore nothing there.

“Mmm,” I moaned, kissing behind her ear. I breathed hard, and she purred. I played with her pussy, finger moving over the bud and massaging along the opening while I nibbled the shell of her ear and her lips. My experimentation spurred her on, and she rubbed my crotch, sparking heat and hardness underneath.

“God, you’re good,” she said in between kisses.

I held her back by her jaw, her lips pouted and pinched together. “‘
Good
’? Sweetheart, wait until you find out
how
good I actually am.”

“Oh, crap I am not drunk enough for this,” she announced and blushed, realising she said that aloud.

She probably was drunk enough for this, but heck, I encouraged her on as she pulled a tiny bottle of vodka from her skirt pocket. She took two swigs and handed it to me. I didn’t feel like more than the few beers and whiskey I’d had, but I was pulsing for release. So for the sake of it, I grinned and took a few swigs myself.

She put it away
, and we shook our heads with the burn, and then layered scorching kisses from lips down necks, from necks down chests, our fingers ripping at my buttons and the layers to remove them. She looked up at me, kneeling at my hip-level batting those eyelashes again.

“Vee …” I moaned, head swirling with the image of her little body beneath me, asking if she could pleasure me.

“Vee?” the
actual
voice below me queried. She shrugged. “Well, damn I’m drunk enough for that. You call me Vee for vagina, and I’ll call you Dick for … dick.” She chuckled.

“Suck me, Vee,” I begged, moving my hips into her face.

My
hardness rubbed her lips, marking my dark slacks with lipstick.

“Mmm, let me see what you have here …” she drifted off and undid the button, unzipped. “Mmm.”

“God, I’ve dreamed about this.”

She began to take
off her mask.

Fear gripped my chest as I thought of a stranger. It stopped me cold. I’d lose my hard on if I couldn’t have this fantasy. I stopped her. “Let’s pretend.”

She removed her hand
and placed it on me. From here, my view consisted of long cascading blonde hair and unseen brown eyes, dissimilar to the grey-blue ones I adored. She lowered the elastic of my briefs and out popped my spring-loaded hard cock. Forming in my imagination was sweet, innocent Vee giving herself over to me, the first man ever. I buried my hands in the blonde hair and growled. Pulling her onto me, she took me in her mouth, swirling her tongue.

It was so wrong that I
stirred, embracing the dirtiness. I could come in Vee’s mouth and show her how much she pleasured me. But I didn’t
want
to do that—come in her mouth. I wanted to take off my suit jacket and lay it under her, pick up her tiny body and place her down onto it, stripping her layers as I tore apart her patience, igniting an erotic need in her that she’d never known existed before. I wanted to discover everything she wanted so much it embarrassed her, and then fuck it out of her until she succumbed to wanting that pleasure, too.

My dick throbbed hard and deep; I had to slow
down to do the things I wanted to my kinky dream of Vee.

“Baby,” I whispered, and eased her back.

I shrugged out of my coat and lay it down, then held her shoulders and lowered her over it. The girl was older than I’d have liked—the body of an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old with huge tits, wide hips. It was as if she was trying too hard to be part of the fantasy.

For a split second, I wanted to call off this whole thing. I’d run back inside, pull the real Vee away, and find a secluded space of our own where I would love every piece of her—the soft touch she might have and the look in her eyes as she gazed up at me.

All of which was bullshit. Justin wanted her.

She let him want her
, answering with that kiss.

If
her feelings existed, they weren’t as strong as mine were.

“Why, Vee?” I hissed deep and bursting with rage. “Why did you wait until now to give yourself to me?”

“I was afraid,” she said
and stroked. “I was so afraid you’d reject me.”

“Never.” I lowered my weight over her body with hands fisting the damp earth and crumpled leaves. “Never.” I kissed the swell of her breast, and she arched up, making a sound.

“You’re so good.” Her voice was harder, how she’d spoke before when she was herself.

I kissed her hard, blocking her words with my roaming tongue. I whispered into her ear, “I’m keeping your dress on.”

I moved my hand under and pushed the hem
up, rubbing her pussy. She cried. I sat up and retrieved a condom from my back pocket, ripping it open.

“It’s okay. I’m on the pill.”

“Sweetheart, I’d never fuck you without protection.”

“Ooh,” she crooned, “you’re intelligent and talented.”

I cringed but angled my chin to my dick, rolling over the condom. She probably didn’t see my expression.

When I moved down on her, my stomach churned. I was almost drunk, but not overly drunk, and didn’t know why I felt ill. I pictured the body beneath me
maskless
, blue-grey eyes staring up in wonder as I was about to take her, to show her, loving her. The unease whirred.

I ground my
teeth together, mad at myself. Already guilt had bled through the façade.

Leaning above her ear, I fell into my fantasies and thrust into her opening, obliterating reality. “Have you ever been with another man?”

“No one like you, Dick.”

I moved against her, panting at her ear, one hand rocking her legs wide open for harder penetration.

“Have you ever screamed, Vee?”

I pulled out and then impaled her, and she screamed unlike any sound I’d heard.

I lifted her legs over my shoulder
s, stared at her parted lips, and soaked up her panting moans. After a few minutes, I moved her to her side and lay down, embraced her, and rocked into her.

Ten or fifteen
minutes passed.

“Are you going to come for me?”

“I’m h-
holding o-on.” She made a sound.

“Don’t. Come with me
.”

“Mmm …”

I’d switched positions,
high above her, controlling her hips. She contracted, building me up, pushing out my orgasm. “Tell me you want me
now
.”

“I pick you. It was always you,” she whispered, sliding down her own high as I soared into a hard, body-rocking release, shooting deep into her and thrusting, long and deep, milking every drop.

“Was I?” she whispered as I turned away to dispose of the condom. “Was I who you wanted?”

“My poison apple,” I whispered, imagining maybe—just maybe—the real one was still untainted.

I turned around, plastering a big grin on my face. The girl in the mask was drunk enough to mumble and smile.

“Sweet, forbidden apple,” I whispered again, glancing through the break in leaves to the two pillars beside the French doors.

• • •

The guys and I regrouped outside—some of them returning from corners of the property—and we shared two bottles of whiskey between us. The next minutes and hours blurred together with bets, lack of clothes, pranking people. After that, my memory disappeared.

Between
one thirty to two a.m. I threw up most of it. At last, I straightened, staggered over to the garden hose, and washed out my mouth. A hand rubbed my back, accompanied by a soft, soothing voice.

No.

It couldn’t be.

I gurgled, spat the water away from her, and wiped the water off my mouth as I took her in.

She still wore the black lace mask
. Mine rested over my forehead and hairline though I hadn’t recalled removing it. It was dark at this grassy bit, and she was hence silhouetted, a slight navy glow from her dress along the sides of her breasts to her hips. Even in darkness, she appeared otherworldly in her draping skirt, lace neckline, and warming smile.

Mud smeared my shirt and pants. I hoped that was the worst of my state—
please, God, save me this once.
As a consolation prize, the ache in my head dulled and the waves of nausea in my stomach simmered.

“Vee.” I was hoarse.

“Hey, there. You okay after all that?” She crept up to me holding the front of her skirt up and dodging spots in the grass.

“All that
?”

“Yeah, you—”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I brushed my shirt and swiped at my face lest anything lingered. It wouldn’t have mattered—Vee just admitted she’d helped me through the whole ordeal. “Sorry about the mess.”