The Masque

[save_marla]

He'd said he would meet her here. Jacquie looked around the room anxiously through the holes in her papier mache mask, trying to recognize her boyfriend in the decadent crowd.

It’d been her idea, to arrive separately at the Governor’s New Years masquerade party - to make a game of it, see who could find the other first. She hadn’t realized there would be so many people here - it was almost creepy, to be met with so many blank, featureless faces. She pressed herself against one wall, flattening her voluminous skirts as well as she could. She was dressed in the royal opulence of Marie Antoinnette, and had selected a grimacing, tragic theater mask as her visage - Marie anticipating her eventual fate, perhaps...but she had no idea what her boyfriend would be wearing. In retrospect, it really wasn’t one of her better ideas.

With renewed determination, she left her place by the wall and moved slowly through the crowd, looking to the left and right. She was so focused on finding a familiar face that she ran right into the back of a man standing in her path - and when he turned, she was met with another mask. She stammered her confused apology, even as she searched his blank face, trying to determine if it was someone she knew.

 

[Demos Straxus]

The man smiled down at her from beneath the mask, which utterly concealed all but his lower face. His hair was neck length and tied in a short ponytail behind him. The costume he wore as every bit as elegant as her own. With a flared white sleeved shirt, beneath a black vest, and with elegant black breaches and knee high glossy black boots. His hands were covered in black leather gloves, and a fine cape flowed back from his broad shoulders.

"Not a problem milady."

The voice is deep, resonent. Like that of the operatic phantom he so elegantly portrayed. gesturing over to the bar he speaks.

"Would you care for a drink?"

His eyes behind the mask twinkle with mischief, suggesting that he knows who she is, even if she does not know him.

 

[save_marla]

She stared, for several seconds longer than was polite, then remembered her manners, and smiled - though of course he couldn't see it. "Do I know you?" she asked hesitantly.

Giving her head a little shake, and with a nervous flutter of her ball gown, she moved in the direction of the bar, adding, "I-I'm looking for my boyfriend...he's supposed to meet me here, but I don't know what to look for."

She perched on a stool that was swallowed up by her dress, and turned to the stranger. She wanted to take off her mask, in hopes that he would do the same, but - looking around, she didn't see anyone else, besides caterers and waiters, not wearing a mask. She left hers on, but extended a gloved hand to him. "I'm Jacqueline Ross - d-do we know each other?"

 

[Demos Straxus]

"Perhaps."

He lets the words hang in the air, and by extinsion her. He knows all too well how women cling to familiarity, and yet desire mystery. Instead he gestures to the barkeep, and speaks to him in a quiet tone, before turning to her.

"This is a costume ball my dear. If I told you who I was....what would be the point?"

A smirk of amusement crosses his features, and then he reaches past her, intentionaly brushing against her as he picks up his drink, and gesturing towards her with it slips off towards the gardens area, taking the time to give her a wink.

Behind her, there is a clink as a glass is set beside her, her prefered drink. The Barman smiles, and speaks.

"From the gentleman in the phantom costume. He said you'd like it."

 

[save_marla]

She felt a thrill of fear at his noncommital response, and studied his hard jaw and full lips, trying again to guess his identity. He spoke almost as if he knew her - but perhaps it was just her imagination. She was quite sure it wasn't her boyfriend - unless it was a very good costume.

Jacquie laughed in acknowledgement of her impertinent curiosity, and nodded in agreement. The point - the fun of a masquerade was in not knowing. She just wished she could shake her uneasiness, and have a good time, like everyone else.

She watched in surprise as he reached across to accept a glass and then abruptly left her company, without ever being rude - but taking the time to wink playfully at her as he departed.

He must know her! Would a stranger do that?


Jacquie accepted her drink from the bartender politely, and sipped awkwardly at it through the mask, watching him walk away, before she realized he'd ordered her favorite drink without asking. She stood up and followed after him into the garden, pinching her skirts up with one hand and holding her sloshing drink with the other as she trotted to catch up.

 

[Demos Straxus]

Outside the air is cool, with a light coating of freshly fallen snow upon the ground. The phantom leaned comfortably against the stone wall, nursing his drink in one hand, watching patiently the entrance, and smiling when she arrives, the same mischevious smirk that has adorned his face most of the evening. As concealing as the mask he wears.

"Didn't like the drink?"

 

[save_marla]

Her breath plumed out of the mask like smoke in the cold air, and she slowed her steps as she felt his eyes on her, feeling a bit foolish for chasing him out of the hall. At his question, she blurted, "Oh no, I -"

Jacquie caught herself with a grin, and shook her head slightly. "It's my favorite...but you knew that. Somehow."

She took another sip to demonstrate that she was enjoying the drink, then set it down in the dusting of snow on a stone bench. She was feeling bewildered enough without getting drunk.

She looked back at the stranger, still unable to stifle her maddening curiosity, and shifted awkwardly in her stiff dress. "I just - wanted to tell you thank you. For the drink. You left so suddenly..."

 

[Demos Straxus]

"Thank you? No, I don't think so."

He stepped closer to her, his cape swirling in the night air, making him seem part shadow, blending into the night like the ghost he portrayed. He moved closer to her, letting her feel the warmth of him so close to her. When he spoke next, it was a whisper, steaming against her skin, a heat of his breath in sharp contrast to the chilling words he spoke.

"It excites you. That I know who you are, but you don't know me. That I am intimatly aquainted with you....but that you don't know me at all."

He leaned in then, and unexpectedly nuzzled her neck, kissing lightly across the skin, and then backing away.

"You love it, and you want more. Don't you?"

 

[save_marla]

His contradiction confused her - she took a step back, but then he was beside her suddenly, close enough to feel the heat of his body, his warm breath. She was uncomfortable, with him so close - this wasn't how polite company behaved with one another - but his direct words pinned her down, like a butterfly.

It excites you.

Hearing him say it sent a shiver through her, and she looked away - glad for once, that he couldn't see her face, flushed behind the mask. Her mind was spinning - this could be anyone, the Governor himself! What was she doing?

She felt his warm lips, pressing against the back of her exposed neck, as if he had every right in the world, and then pulling away. He was teasing her. He wanted to hear it from her, wanted her to admit that she liked it.

Jacquie stammered again as she felt her body answering him before she could speak. "I - I really...should find my boyfriend," she murmured, but she stood in the snow as if fixed by his gaze.

 

[Demos Straxus]

He smiled at her then, and shook his head.

"You should....but you won't. You can feel it burning inside you. A desire to know what lies beneath this," he touches the mask gently, "And how I can do this to you. You want it, this knowledge, and you want me."

He steps closer now, moving slowly, backing her gently into the wall behind her. He pushes her against the cold stone, and reaches up, carressing the line of her neck with one gloved hand.

"This...is why they invented the masquerade. The sheer delight of being anymous among a crowd. In Paris, there used to be orgies in the streets. So delightful to be unknown. So empowering."

His other hand reached up, gently removing her mask, and casting it aside, as he leans in, kissing her lips hard and fast.