The Masked Night

Names and places are fictional.

Missed the last part? Part 2: April in Montreal.

The invitation arrived by email on a Tuesday morning, between two meetings. A black card, gold lettering: Masked night. Evening wear required. The mask stays on. The rest… is up to you.

Julie read it three times. Then she closed her laptop and went to splash cold water on her face.

It didn’t help. All through the ten o’clock meeting she could feel the lace of her bra against her skin, as if someone had just touched her there.

Getting ready

Marc wanted to know everything. He read the club’s rules twice, at night, in bed, out loud. Guided tour for newcomers. Explicit consent. No phones. Open spaces, closed spaces. And one line that made him smile: Nothing is mandatory. Everything is possible.

"Like our rule," he said.

They chose the masks together one evening, on the couch, laptop on their knees. For Marc, a simple black domino. For Julie, a black lace mask that revealed only her eyes and her mouth. She tried it on in front of him, wearing nothing but her robe.

The grey satin robe, her Sunday one, tied any old way. The lace tickled her cheekbones. She struck a pose, hand on her hip, as a joke. She stopped laughing when she met his eyes.

He looked at her for a long time without saying a word. Then: "I’m not sure I can wait three weeks."

He tugged the belt of the robe. Just once, gently, to see if she’d let him. The satin fell open over her bare skin and she didn’t move. He put his mouth between her breasts, where her heart was pounding, then lower, on her stomach, which pulled in under his lips, and she felt her knees give against the edge of the couch.

She stopped him with one finger under his chin. "Three weeks. With the mask." He dropped his head back against the couch with a groan, and she laughed as she retied the robe. The mask went into the drawer of her nightstand. For three weeks, every night, she caught Marc staring at that drawer.

For lingerie, Julie hesitated for a long time. Then she chose the boldest option: a black lace bodysuit, almost sheer, garters, fine stockings. The kind of thing she’d never have imagined wearing a year earlier. She showed no one. Not even Marc.

She tried it on one night, alone, with the bathroom door locked. The lace was so fine she could feel the air of the room through it, on her breasts, on her hips. Sitting on the edge of the tub, it took her three tries to fasten the garters. And she wondered, cheeks hot with embarrassment and wanting all at once, whose hands would be the ones to undo them.

Toronto

The club hid behind an unmarked door on a quiet street. Nothing hinted at what lay behind it. Sofia and Léo were waiting on the sidewalk, masked as well. Sofia wore a red dress slit to the hip. Léo, a dark suit and a smile his mask couldn’t hide.

Sofia kissed Julie on both cheeks, then a third time, at the corner of her mouth. "That one’s for Montreal," she murmured.

"Ready?" Sofia asked.

Julie squeezed Marc’s hand. Lemon was there, somewhere, just in case. But she didn’t need it.

Inside, a hostess welcomed them and showed them around. The bar, huge, bathed in amber light. The dance floor. Alcoves with velvet curtains, some open, some closed. A long, dimly lit hallway. And a large dark-walled room with a wide window looking into a bedroom lit in red.

"Here," the hostess explained, "those who like to watch can watch. And those who like to be watched… can be. The curtain is always theirs to close."

Julie felt heat rise to her face. She said nothing. But Marc saw her gaze linger on the window.

He leaned in. "We don’t have to do anything."

"I know." She hadn’t taken her eyes off the glass. The big bed, the black sheets, the red lamp. She could already see herself in there, and it wasn’t fear tightening low in her stomach.

The changing room

In the changing room, the women changed on one side, the men on the other. Sofia helped Julie out of her dress. Her fingers brushed Julie’s back, slowly, from one shoulder to the other.

The zipper, in one pull, and the black dress pooled at her feet. Air conditioning on her skin. Around them, other women were changing without a trace of shyness: a woman in her fifties in a corset, humming as she straightened her stockings; two friends sharing one mirror to redo their lipstick while they swapped stories about their last night out.

When Julie turned around in her lace bodysuit and stockings, Sofia stepped back to look at her. For a long time. From head to toe.

"Oh, Julie. Marc is going to lose his mind."

Julie looked at herself in the tall mirror. The mask. The lace that hinted at her skin everywhere. The stockings that made her legs look endless. She had never felt so beautiful.

One of the garters had come loose. Sofia crouched without a word to fix it, two fingers slipped under the top of the stocking, against the inside of Julie’s thigh, much more slowly than the job required. Julie watched in the mirror. She could feel Sofia’s fingernail on her skin, the little click of the clasp, and her own breathing getting loud enough to hear over the chatter of the room. Sofia looked up at her. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Sofia slipped behind her, rested her chin on Julie’s shoulder, their two reflections side by side. She wore a red set that matched her lips. "Come on," she whispered in Julie’s ear. "Let’s give them the night of their lives."

The bar

When they came out of the changing room, Marc was leaning on the bar with Léo, shirt open at the chest, drink in hand. He turned. And he froze.

Julie walked toward him slowly, feeling eyes follow her. Dozens of masked eyes. She should have felt self-conscious. She felt powerful.

Heel, ankle, the seam of the stocking, the garter tugging lightly at her thigh with every step. A man in a tuxedo stepped aside to let her pass and didn’t take his eyes off her again. Neither did the woman beside him.

Marc said nothing. He set down his glass, slid a hand to the small of her back, on the lace, and pulled her against him. His mouth came close to her ear. "Everyone’s looking at you."

"I know," she breathed. "I like it."

She felt his breath catch against her neck.

His hand slid a few inches lower on the lace, unhurried, to the curve of her backside, in front of the whole bar. She didn’t pull away. She took Marc’s glass, drank a mouthful of his whisky while she looked at him over the rim, and handed it back with her lipstick on it.

The dance floor

They danced. The music was slow, heavy, almost hypnotic. Julie danced against Marc, her back to his chest, his hands on her hips, and she could feel every movement, every breath he took.

She could also feel, against the small of her back, exactly how much he wanted her. So she moved against him on purpose, once, in slow motion, just to hear him swear under his breath into her hair.

Sofia and Léo danced right beside them. So close that the four bodies brushed with every beat. At one point, Sofia took Julie’s hand and pulled her in. They danced together, face to face, the men right behind them. Sofia’s hands on her waist. Their foreheads almost touching. Sofia’s perfume, vanilla and something darker.

"You’re trembling," Sofia murmured.

"Not from fear."

Sofia smiled. And she kissed her.

A slow, soft kiss that tasted of champagne. Julie closed her eyes. Then less soft: a light bite on her lower lip, Sofia’s tongue, Sofia’s fingers sliding up into her hair and working loose the clip that held it. Julie’s long dark hair fell over her bare shoulders. She felt Marc’s hands tighten on her hips, his breath quicken against her neck. When she opened her eyes again, several couples had stopped dancing to watch.

She didn’t look away. She looked right back.

The window

It was Julie who took Marc’s hand. She led him down the dim hallway, Sofia and Léo behind them, to the red room. The one with the window.

In the hallway: curtains half open, muffled laughter, a woman’s sigh that stopped short, then started again, higher. Julie could feel the garters tapping against her thighs with every step, and Marc’s hand, damp, holding hers too tight.

Marc stopped at the threshold. "Are you sure?"

She glanced at the window. On the other side, in the half-light, she could make out silhouettes. Couples sitting in velvet armchairs. Masks turned toward them. Waiting. One of the masked women stood up abruptly when Julie met her eyes, and vanished down the hallway. Julie didn’t give it more than a second’s thought.

"I’ve never been surer of anything."

He kissed her. Not like on the terrace. Not like in the living room. As if he’d been starving for her for weeks. His hands roamed over the lace, her back, her hips, the tops of her stockings. His mouth moved down her neck, lingered on her collarbone, her shoulder, traced the edge of the lace. Julie tipped her head back, eyes half-closed, and through her lashes she saw the silhouettes behind the glass lean forward.

He backed her against the wall, right beside the window. The wall was cool against her shoulder blades; he was warm in front of her. She slid her hands under his open shirt, over his broad back, his shoulders, and felt him shiver under her palms the way he had the very first time, in the tiny apartment on Rachel Street, back when they didn’t even own curtains.

Sofia came up behind Marc. She slid his shirt down his arms, slowly, and let it fall to the floor. Her lips on his shoulder blades. Her nails on his chest. Marc moaned softly against Julie’s skin.

Léo knelt in front of Julie. He looked up at her, asking permission without a word. She nodded. He placed a kiss on her knee, just above the stocking. Then another, a little higher, on her thigh, where the garter began. Then another, on her stomach, through the lace.

His fingers found the first garter clasp. He looked up at her again. She said yes, out loud this time, and the small click of the clasp opening sounded louder to her than the music.

Julie stopped breathing.

"Tell me what you want," Marc whispered in her ear.

She opened her eyes. Looked at the window. Looked at Sofia, who was undoing Marc’s belt with deliberate slowness. Looked at Léo, on his knees, waiting. Looked at her husband.

"I want them to watch us," she breathed. "And I want everything else."

The four bodies drew closer. The clothes that remained joined Marc’s shirt on the floor. All that was left was black lace, red satin, masks and skin. Hands everywhere. Mouths everywhere. Breaths mingling, shorter and shorter.

And then the lace too. It was Marc who undid the hooks of the bodysuit, one by one, down her back. She counted them. Seven. He eased the lace off her shoulders, down her arms, to her waist, and the red light settled on her bare breasts like one more hand. Sofia, kneeling beside Léo, finished the job: the lace over her hips, down her thighs, all the way to her ankles. Julie stepped out of it. All she had left was the mask and the stockings, one of them hanging loose. The mask stays on. The rest… She had decided.

She knew Marc’s hands without looking, broad, warm, hands that knew the way by heart. Sofia’s, lighter, with those nails that left faint lines on her skin. Léo’s, still asking, every time, and she took them and put them where she wanted them herself. A mouth on her breast, another on her neck, another in the hollow behind her knee, and she no longer knew which belonged to whom. That was exactly what she wanted. She heard herself moan, loud, in a voice she’d never heard come out of her.

Behind the glass, no one moved.

She could see them over Marc’s shoulder. The motionless masks. A man’s hand clenched on a velvet armrest. A woman with her fingers pressed to her mouth. Julie knew what they were seeing: a naked woman in black stockings, masked, three mouths on her skin, looking straight back at them without lowering her eyes.

And then Julie reached for the cord of the velvet curtain. She took one last look at the masked silhouettes. She smiled.

The curtain fell.

The velvet swallowed the glass, and every pair of eyes with it. All that was left was the red lamp, the bass of the music coming through the wall, and the four of them. "Now it’s just for us," Julie said. Her voice was shaking. She didn’t try to hide it.

Marc lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he carried her to the big bed under the lamp. The black sheets were cool and smelled of laundry soap and a perfume that belonged to no one. One of her heels slipped off and bounced on the floorboards. Sofia burst out laughing. So did Julie, face in the pillow, unable to stop.

Sofia stretched out beside her, pulled her knot of hair loose with one tug, and it spilled across the pillow, tangling with Julie’s. Their mouths found each other again. On the other side, Léo was kissing the inside of her wrist, then her arm, then her shoulder, taking his time, as if he had the whole night. He did.

And Marc, above her, had gone still. He was looking at her. Domino crooked, chest rising fast, eyes dark. She took his face in both hands.

"It’s you," she breathed. The words from the terrace, given back to him at last.

She pulled him down against her with all her weight. And the moment their bodies found each other, she dug her nails into his back and said his name. Not loud. As if she were discovering it.

After

Much later, someone had switched off the red lamp. All that was left was the night-light over the door, the black sheets in a tangle, a glass tipped over on the nightstand, and four bodies getting their breath back in a heap that made no sense at all.

Julie lay with her cheek on Marc’s chest. She listened to his heart slow down, beat by beat. Her legs were still trembling, small tremors she couldn’t control, and every time, Marc laid his hand flat on her thigh, on the stocking laddered from knee to ankle, until it passed. She had the red print of a garter on her hip, thin lines from Sofia’s nails across her stomach, and a mark under her collarbone she couldn’t have attributed to anyone. The lace mask dangled from her wrist by its ribbon. She didn’t remember taking it off.

Sofia, lying on her stomach on the other side, lifted her head. She twisted her hair to put it back up, missed, tried again, gave up laughing. "Sweetheart. You made Léo blush. I’ve been trying for years."

Léo, sitting on the edge of the bed, was feeling around for his shirt. He raised both hands. "I’m not saying a thing. I’ve got no voice left."

Julie laughed, a laugh she could feel all the way down in her still-shaking stomach. She was the one who spoke to Marc first, her mouth against his skin, low enough that only he could hear. "I didn’t know I made that sound."

"Neither did I." He kissed her hair. "I’m going to be hearing it for weeks."

He knew something else now. That she liked being watched, yes. But more than that: at the very end, when it came to giving everything, she was the one who had pulled the curtain. She had wanted to keep the best of it for the four of them, and the very last part, his name, for him.

They left the club at three in the morning. Toronto was silent, the cool May air on skin that still carried the marks of the night. Julie held her mask in her hand. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Under her coat she had nothing on but the black dress. The bodysuit was rolled into a ball at the bottom of her bag, with one laddered stocking and a single garter. The other one was still somewhere under the big bed.

In the cab, Marc looked at her for a long time. "Who are you?" he asked, half laughing.

She rested her head on his shoulder. "Someone you hadn’t met yet."

Her phone buzzed. A message from Sofia, in the cab right behind them: "Apparently the club is organizing a cruise in July. A whole week. Want to talk about it?"