I Took Them Masked to the Carnival of Venice

The dull hum of the engines created an insulating bubble eleven thousand meters above the Atlantic. We were crossing on a direct flight, a straight line of steel that tore us away from Buenos Aires and flung us into the Italian winter. In first class, the light was a blue half-darkness, and the other passengers dozed beneath their blankets. I sat in the middle, flanked by my two possessions: my Panther on the right, my doll on the left.

Under the fine wool blankets, the game had begun long before cruising altitude. The controls for the devices rested in my lap, hidden from the flight attendants patrolling the aisle in silent footsteps. Both of them had a vibrating egg shoved deep inside their cunts and a smaller capsule pressed against their clitorises, held in place by lace panties I had put on them myself in the airport bathroom. I turned my doll’s dial up a couple of levels and felt her tense beside me.

“Do you feel it?” I whispered in her ear. “We’re crossing the equator. Another hemisphere. Your old resistance is useless now. Up here, only you and my will exist. That egg inside your cunt is my cock in miniature, do you hear me? And it’s going to keep pounding you until we land.”

I watched her small fingers dig into the armrest. Her brown curls trembled as her head searched for air that seemed to be failing her. Her brown eyes, clouded by lack of sleep, sought mine with a mixture of panic and devotion. The vibration was a dull noise masked by the purr of the fuselage, but I knew that inside her it was an earthquake. I slid my hand beneath her blanket, under her dress, and buried two fingers between her thighs. The lace was soaked, a hot puddle dripping down the inside of her legs onto the leather seat.

“Look at you, little slut,” I whispered, pulling out my glistening fingers and bringing them to my mouth. “Dripping on a first-class flight. If the flight attendant saw you, she’d know right away what kind of filthy sow was traveling with me.”

“Don’t move,” I ordered coldly. “If a flight attendant asks whether you’re all right, I’ll spend the rest of the journey with you tied up in the bathroom, your tits out and your ass open for anyone who walks in to fuck.”

My Panther, by contrast, watched with predatory calm. She didn’t need me to turn up the intensity to know her place; she enjoyed watching the other one fall apart. With a fluid movement, she slipped beneath my blanket, unzipped my trousers, and pulled out my already rock-hard cock. I felt the heat of her mouth claiming me, her tongue tracing the thick vein from the base to the glans before swallowing me whole. Her throat opened to receive me, and I felt the tip of my cock strike the back of her palate while she controlled her gag reflex with discipline learned through countless sessions. She moved up and down at a slow, calculated pace, squeezing her lips around my shaft, sucking with deep pulls that made a wet sound camouflaged by the aircraft’s engines.

“That’s it,” I murmured, placing my hand on the back of her neck to set the rhythm. “Show that doll who’s in charge on this flight. Swallow all the way to the base; don’t let go of my cock even to breathe. Look at her, little slut. Watch your superior choke on my cock while you can barely stay seated without crying.”

The doll watched the bulge beneath my blanket with morbid fascination, guessing each thrust of the Panther’s head against my hips. Her body convulsed from the pulses I sent her through my phone. She was trapped between envy and the agony of restrained desire. Every time a flight attendant passed, she held her breath until she turned red, and I took advantage of it to raise the Panther’s vibrator, which made her suck me harder, swallowing her moans with my cock buried in her throat.

“Damián, please…” the doll managed to say in a broken whisper. “I’m going to come, I can’t take any more…”

“You call me Damián, and for you, ‘please’ doesn’t exist,” I cut her off, turning the device up to maximum for ten brutal seconds. “Don’t you dare come without permission. Clench your teeth and drink your own shame. This is only the prelude to what awaits you in the canals.”

Beneath the blanket, the Panther sped up. I felt her fingers close around my balls, massaging them with precise pressure while her mouth continued working me. She knew I was close; she knew every tremor of my cock as if it were her own instrument. I seized her hair and shoved her down to the hilt, fucking her throat with short, controlled thrusts. My thighs tightened and I came in spurts directly into her mouth, release after release of hot semen that she swallowed without wasting a drop, with the discipline of a devotee who never squanders her god.

When my Panther emerged, her lips shining and her eyes full of triumph, she wiped the corner of her mouth with an insulting slowness for the other girl. She collected a white drop from her chin with one finger and put it in her mouth without taking her eyes off the doll. The doll was ruined, soaking the luxury seat, trembling beneath her blanket as the plane began its descent toward the old continent. I put my hand between her legs and left the vibrator on its lowest setting, a cruel heartbeat that would keep her on the edge without letting her finish.

***

The descent over the Adriatic was over in the blink of an eye. The clouds parted and Venice appeared, a jewel of stone and terracotta floating on a silver marsh. When we landed at Marco Polo, Italy’s icy air made them shiver. The heat of Buenos Aires was already a distant memory. Waiting for us at the airport dock was a private mahogany motoscafo, polished and sharp as a knife.

The journey was the perfect prelude to the isolation I sought. Seeing the two of them in the stern, wrapped in coats but with their legs still trembling, was a vision of pure possession. The driver steered through the canals toward the Grand Canal. There, facing the dome of the Salute, stood the Palazzo Ca’ Sagredo, where I had reserved the hotel’s highest suite.

“Welcome, Signor Damián,” said the concierge as he received us at the private dock.

We went straight to the suite. As soon as the door closed with an electronic click, the silence of absolute luxury took hold of us. But it wasn’t the interior that stole their breath; it was what lay beyond the windows. I took them out onto the terrace: a stone platform that seemed to float above the canal’s green water, where all of Venice lay at your feet and you stood exposed to all of Venice.

“To the railing. Both of you,” I ordered, pointing to the marble edge overlooking the void.

The canal wind lashed their faces. From there, any tourist in a gondola could look up and see us.

“Look down,” I said, taking my position behind them. “This is what it means to be under my command in Italy. You’re on the world’s most famous stage, but you’re invisible to everyone except me. The vertigo isn’t from the height. It’s from the clothes you’re going to lose in a minute.”

“Damián, it’s so cold out here,” the doll murmured, hugging herself as she stared in terror at the constant stream of boats.

“The cold is a reminder that you’re alive and that you belong to me,” I answered harshly, grabbing her by the hair and forcing her to look at the horizon. “My Panther doesn’t complain. She knows the cold is only the canvas for the heat I’m going to give her.”

I forced them to strip off their coats and traveling clothes right there on the marble, in front of the vastness of the Grand Canal. Nudity in that setting was an elegant humiliation; their white bodies contrasted with the Gothic architecture of the neighboring palaces. The Panther remained upright, chin high, accepting the exposure with a fierce dignity that made my blood boil. Her high breasts hardened immediately in the cold, dark nipples standing out like points in the icy air. The doll, by contrast, tried to cover herself with her hands, shrinking from the possibility that some curious gondolier might turn his gaze upward, her round breasts trembling along with the rest of her body.

“Don’t cover yourselves,” I declared, activating the devices with a slow but deep press. “Hands on the railing and asses back. I want Venice to witness you vibrating. I want you to feel the Adriatic air on every pore while the motor reminds you that there’s nowhere to hide.”

I positioned myself behind the Panther and ran my hand between her buttocks, sliding two fingers along her cleft until I found her soaked cunt. I penetrated her without warning and felt the vibrator inside her strike my knuckles. I arched her back by pulling her hair behind her and fucked her cunt with my fingers to the rhythm of the vaporetto passing below, while the doll cried silently beside her, forced to watch without being allowed to touch herself. The Panther pushed her ass against my hand, seeking more, moaning low through clenched teeth so as not to wake the sleeping palaces.

***

The canal air had left their bodies in a state of extreme hypersensitivity. I made them return to the suite, where the heat from the radiators contrasted brutally with the icy skin of their thighs. On the four-poster bed, two sandalwood boxes were waiting. They were pieces bought from an artisan in Castello, designed to conceal the soul and highlight submission.

“Venice during Carnival is a theater of shadows,” I said, opening the first box. “Here, if you have no face, you have no limits.”

I took out the first mask. Black leather and silver, pointed ears, an expression of noble ferocity. The Panther’s. I placed it on my favorite, tightening the silk ribbons firmly enough to make her gasp. Her dark eyes, behind the slitted openings, acquired an animal depth. It matched perfectly with the silver collar she never took off.

“This is your crown, my Panther,” I whispered, kissing the edge of the leather. “Beneath this mask, you own the night, as long as you remember who holds your leash.”

For the other one, I took out a white Volto mask, smooth and expressionless. Absolute emptiness. When I put it on the doll, her university-girl identity disappeared. She was no longer a girl with curls and a round face. She was an object, a cold porcelain surface whose only purpose was to receive my orders.

“You don’t need a face, little slut,” I declared, striking her sharply on the nape so she would lower her head. “Your only trace of identity in this city will be your moans when I fuck you. Nothing else.”

Before dressing them in the heavy period costumes I had rented—brocade and velvet weighing kilos—I laid them on their backs on the bed, side by side, and spread their legs apart. I carefully removed the eggs they had used during the flight and replaced them with larger, heavier models. Before putting them inside, I spat on each cunt and rubbed the saliva mixed with their own juices over their swollen lips. The Panther opened easily, swallowing the device until only the silicone cord remained outside. The doll had more trouble; her cunt clenched from overstimulation, so I penetrated her first with three fingers, forcing her open until I could insert the vibrator without resistance.

“There’s your plug, little slut,” I told her, giving her cunt, already closed around the device, a sharp slap. “Don’t even think about letting it fall, or I’ll put it in your ass in the middle of the square.”

I configured the devices by Bluetooth. On the phone’s screen, both intensity bars glowed red.

“In Venice, pleasure is a secret carried beneath your clothes,” I told them as I forced them to spread their legs to secure the devices. “No one in St. Mark’s Square will know why you tremble when they brush against you. Only I will control your pulse among the crowd.”

I tightened the corsets’ laces until their breathing became short and shallow. The rustle of silk and the weight of the skirts enveloped them, concealing the technology that had already begun vibrating in a constant “heartbeat” mode. They were two visions of a bygone century, ready for modern sin.

***

The journey from the hotel to St. Mark’s Square was a procession of mounting tension. We walked through the calli, the narrow lanes where the sound of our footsteps on the damp stone mingled with the secret hum emanating from their bodies. When we emerged into the square, the immensity of the space and the density of the crowd struck us like a wave. This was the epicenter of Carnival: thousands of people wrapped in silk, feathers, and gold, moving beneath the shadow of the basilica and the campanile.

I took out my phone and slid both dials to level nine. The Panther tensed, her back arching beneath the brocade, while her gloved fingers dug into my arm. Behind the white mask, the doll let out a muffled gasp that was caught in the icy air.

“Walk,” I ordered in their ears. “And don’t you dare stumble.”

We entered the sea of people. The risk was intoxicating. In St. Mark’s, physical contact was inevitable; masked strangers brushed against us as they passed, their velvet cloaks colliding with those of my women. Every accidental brush was an adrenaline surge, an invasion of their personal space while their cunts were hammered by the vibration I controlled from my pocket.

“Damián, please, there are too many people,” the doll whispered, her mask fogged by her erratic breathing. “My juices are coming out, they’re running down my thighs…”

“That’s the point, little slut,” I replied, switching to a pattern of violent pulses. “Let the puddle show beneath your dress. Let yourselves feel that any of these men could discover your secret just by looking into your eyes. Feel the shame of dripping beneath those thousand-euro dresses while a tourist asks you for a photograph.”

The Panther, despite enduring the same punishment, kept her head high. Her silver mask challenged the crowd, but her pace was slow and heavy, proof that every inch she advanced was a struggle against her own climax. I forced her to walk one step ahead of the other, marking the hierarchy even in the middle of the chaos. I ran my hand around her waist and lowered it to squeeze one cheek over the brocade, feeling the flesh firm and hot even through the layers of fabric.

When a group of masked people crossed our path, I stopped them.

“Look at her,” I said to the strangers, pointing at the doll. “It seems the Venetian cold has gotten to her, doesn’t it?”

The strangers laughed behind their Dottore masks, nodding with Venetian courtesy. They didn’t suspect that the girl in white wasn’t trembling from the cold, but because I was pressing the orgasm button in the middle of the world’s most famous square. She squeezed her thighs together desperately, trying not to come, trying not to scream when the device hammered her clitoris at maximum power. The humiliation in her brown eyes, visible behind the half-mask, was exquisite. She was on the verge of collapse, while the Panther looked at her with cruel superiority, enjoying the fact that on the scale of shame, the other one was always a step below.

I dragged her into a corner between two columns of the portico, half-hidden by shadow but still visible to anyone passing nearby. I lifted her dress from behind just enough, pulled her panties down to her knees, and put two fingers into her soaked cunt, pushing the vibrator all the way in.

“Come now,” I ordered in her ear, biting her earlobe beneath the mask. “Come here, in front of all these people, or I’ll leave the device on throughout dinner.”

She came silently, shaken by spasms that ran through her entire body, her porcelain mask striking the stone column. Her cunt poured over my fingers, a thick, hot fluid running down her thighs to her garters. I wiped them on her own corset before pulling up her panties, now useless from being so soaked, and returning her to the procession without giving her time to recover.

***

The bustle began to fade behind us as we ventured into the half-darkness of the alleyways leading to the hidden docks. In a dark corner near a solitary bridge, a gondola as black as jet was waiting. The gondolier, his face hidden behind a Medico della Peste mask, indicated that we should board without saying a word. He was the silent accomplice Venice always offers to those seeking sin.

As soon as the boat pulled away from the dock and glided through secondary canals, the silence became oppressive, broken only by the hum of the engines I had just set to a constant, deep vibration.

“Sit facing me,” I ordered, settling into the leather seat as the gondola sank into a canal so narrow we could almost touch the walls with our hands.

The Panther sat with her legs spread, letting the brocade spill around her defiantly. The doll shrank beside her, seeking the anonymity her mask promised. I took out my phone and, with a sadistic movement, linked the intensity to the movement of the oar. Every time the gondola moved forward, the vibration shot up.

“Damián, no one can see us here,” my Panther whispered, her voice charged with a lust the cold air couldn’t calm. “Please… I want to feel you, not just the machine. I want your cock inside me. I want you to fuck me until I forget my name.”

“In Venice, you feel whatever I decide you will feel,” I replied, staring at her through my own half-mask. “But you’re right. It would be a waste not to use the darkness of the canal.”

I slid onto the floor of the gondola, ending up at her feet. First I lifted the doll’s heavy skirts, pushing them up to her waist. The damp smell of the canal mingled with the intoxicating scent of her surrender; she was soaked, liquid sliding down her pink thighs while the device continued hammering her. I tore off her panties in one pull, the silk giving way with a sharp snap, and stuffed them into her mouth beneath the mask to stifle her moans.

I yanked out the vibrator and let it fall to the bottom of the gondola. Her cunt was left open and throbbing, so red and shiny it looked like a wound. I opened my fly, pulled out my already rock-hard cock, and plunged into her in one thrust, all the way to the hilt, tearing an outcry from her muffled by silk. I fucked her with brutal thrusts, gripping her hips and pinning her against the gondola’s seat, which rocked with the rhythm of my strokes. Each blow drew a hot spurt from her that soaked my balls and wet my trousers.

“That’s it,” I growled without stopping my pumping. “Learn how to fuck the way a whore is fucked. Let your cunt widen until only my cock will fit inside you.”

When she was about to come, I pulled out abruptly, leaving her empty and trembling. I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her onto the floor of the gondola, her ass raised toward me. I turned toward my Panther, who watched with desire-bright eyes.

“Come here. Get on all fours beside her.”

I hitched up her skirt and ripped out her vibrator with the same brutality. I mounted her from behind, my cock sliding straight into her soaked cunt, and began fucking her with deep thrusts, gripping her hair as if it were reins. Her raised ass struck my hips, the wet sound rebounding off the canal walls. The Panther moaned shamelessly now, arching her back and pushing herself backward to take me deeper.

“Use your pet, my Panther,” I told her in her ear without stopping my thrusts. “Show her how Damián is served in the darkness.”

Without pulling out of her, my favorite leaned toward the doll, seized her head, and forced it down between her own thighs, making her lick her clitoris while I fucked her from behind. The image was pure Venetian depravity: two masked women, one with the aggression of silver and the other with the emptiness of white, surrendering to me in a vessel that seemed to float between two worlds. The doll licked with the desperation of a condemned woman, her tongue striking my cock every time I pulled almost all the way out before plunging back in. The Panther came first, muffling a howl against the damp brick of the canal, spasms squeezing her cunt around me like a fist.

I pulled her out, put her on her back, and penetrated the doll again, soaked with my own saliva and the Panther’s juices. I fucked the little slut with the Panther astride her face, forcing her to lick everything left between her legs. When I felt my orgasm rising, I pulled out of the doll and came in spurts over both their masks, marking the white porcelain and silver leather with the thick, hot semen they both received with open mouths.

The music of a distant party reached us muffled, an echo of civilization contrasting with the rawness of the gondola. My hands disappeared among lace and velvet, doling out pleasure and pain equally, forcing them to lick every drop of my cum from the other’s mask before allowing them to compose themselves.

***

The return to the hotel was a journey of sepulchral silence, interrupted only by water slapping against the hull. When we entered the suite, the warmth inside felt almost offensive after the cutting cold of the canals. But I gave them no time to acclimate. With a sharp gesture, I ordered them out onto the terrace. The Grand Canal was still there, a dark-water serpent guarded by palaces sleeping beneath the moon.

“Masks off. Dresses off. Everything,” I declared.

They stripped away their silk-and-leather identities, letting the heavy fabrics fall to the floor like dead skins. There they stood, naked beneath the Venetian sky, their skin prickling in the Adriatic breeze and their bodies marked by hours of constant vibration. The Panther kept her chin high, though her thighs betrayed her exhaustion with a slight tremor, and the mixture of juices and my semen slowly ran down the insides of her legs; the doll, small and vulnerable, avoided looking at the horizon, her nipples bruised from being bitten so much.

“Lean against the railing. Asses up, legs spread. Look at the horizon,” I ordered.

I took a short, rough leather whip from my pocket. The crack of leather against the air was the only warning before the first blow. I began with the doll; the dry impact on her left buttock left an instant red mark that contrasted with her pallor. I moved to the Panther, giving her an identical blow, measuring the force so the pain would be a reminder of my presence. The lashes fell alternately, a cruel rhythm traveling from buttocks to the insides of their thighs and across the swollen lips of their cunts, drawing moans that echoed off the marble.

“Damián…” my favorite whispered, clenching her teeth while her buttocks burned beneath the punishment.

I struck her directly across her open cunt. She gave a muffled howl, her whole body convulsing from the sting, and instead of closing herself, she pushed her ass even farther back, asking for more. I repeated the blow in the same spot, and a drop of fluid escaped and ran down her thigh. I didn’t stop until both asses and both cunts were vivid red, a map of my authority engraved in their flesh before the dome of the Salute. They were hot, throbbing with blood and restrained arousal. I approached the marble table on the terrace, where a silver bowl held what I had ordered from room service: lemon slices taken straight from the freezer, covered with a thin layer of frost.

“Turn around, little slut,” I told her.

I forced her to spread her legs while the Panther watched, compelled to maintain her position. I took the first slice. The cold was extreme, almost burning to the touch. I slid it with sadistic slowness along the line of fire the whip had left on her buttock, then, without warning, pressed it against her cunt, which was still throbbing from the recently removed device.

The scream was smothered by my hand over her mouth. The citrus acidity penetrating her hypersensitive skin and the glacial cold created a thermal shock that made her convulse. I pushed the slice between her cunt’s lips, rubbing it against her clitoris until the sour juice mixed with her own fluids and ran down her thighs. The acidity burned her inside, and she clawed at the marble trying to escape the punishment while her treacherous body pushed her ass backward, begging for more. The contrast between the sting of the punishment and the lemon’s chemical burn left her breathless, while her tears vanished into the canal wind.

“Now you, my Panther,” I said, repeating the process with her.

Unlike the other one, my favorite did not scream. She released a deep growl, her fingers gripping the marble so tightly that her knuckles turned white. I pushed the slice in even farther, opening her cunt with two fingers and forcing the icy citrus inside her. Her cunt spat it out after a few seconds, soaked in her own juices and lemon, and I took advantage of the moment to put my fingers inside her and fuck her to the rhythm of the vaporetto passing in the distance. Feeling the acidity against her punished flesh before all of Venice was the tribute she accepted with pride. I forced her to hold the slice pressed between her thighs while staring fixedly at the lights of the Doge’s Palace in the distance.

“Feel the acidity. Feel the cold,” I whispered, positioning myself behind both of them, embracing them around the waist and sinking one finger into each of their cunts at the same time. “This is what it means to be property. There is no pleasure without sting, no Venice without sacrifice.”

***

The cold of the terrace and the acid burn left their senses raw. I made them return inside, where the light of the Murano lamps bathed the room in a dense amber glow. Their asses, still burning from the whip, stood out against the black silk sheets of the four-poster bed, a surface that looked like an altar prepared for the final act.

“To the bed,” I ordered, finally stripping off my shirt and trousers, my cock ready again, throbbing at what was to come. “My Panther on top. Doll underneath.”

They moved with the coordination born of absolute obedience. My favorite positioned herself over the other in a sixty-nine, their naked bodies entwining while the citrus scent still floated in the air, mingled with the dense aroma of their soaked cunts. The Panther looked at the girl in white—now without her mask, revealing her flushed face and clouded eyes—with a mixture of contempt and possessive desire. She knew that, under my command, the doll was her toy as much as she was mine.

“Claim her,” I told her, sitting on the edge of the bed to watch the spectacle. “Show this little slut that her cunt belongs to me, but that you are responsible for carrying out my will. And you, doll, don’t you dare stop sucking your superior’s cunt until she orders you to.”

My Panther needed no repetition. Her expert, cruel hands closed around the other girl’s tits, squeezing and twisting her nipples until she drew a broken moan. She lowered her head and began devouring the doll’s cunt with calculated ferocity: her tongue traced tight circles over the swollen clitoris, and now and then she nipped it with her teeth, drawing spasms that made the girl lift her hips. At the same time, the doll licked the Panther’s cunt from below, her tongue working with the desperation of someone who knows her worth depends on how much pleasure she can give.

“Look me in the eyes, little slut,” my Panther ordered, rising for a moment to look at her over her shoulder. “Feel what Damián is doing to you through me.”

It was a perfect choreography of submission. Under my direction, the Panther began fucking her with three fingers while continuing to suck her clitoris, moving in and out with an increasingly brutal rhythm, tearing wet, obscene sounds from the doll’s soaked cunt. The other girl answered by eating my favorite’s ass, burying her tongue in the cleft while her clumsy fingers attacked her clitoris. I watched both their skin become covered in sweat, the muscles in their backs tense with effort, their fluids mixing and dripping onto the black silk.

“Harder, my Panther,” I intervened, sliding my hand through my favorite’s hair. “Fist her if you have to. I want her to cry from pleasure. I want her to forget she ever had a life outside this room.”

The intensity reached a point of saturation. The doll began to convulse, her hands searching for something to hold on to before finally digging into the Panther’s thighs. She came with a long howl, her cunt contracting around the fingers that continued fucking her mercilessly. When the curly-haired girl finally collapsed, empty and defeated, her face soaked with the Panther’s juices, my favorite sat up and looked at me with a triumphant smile, her mouth shining in the candlelight.

“She’s yours now, Damián,” she whispered, panting as she knelt before me on the mattress. “There’s nothing left in her that isn’t ours.”

I approached the bed and laid her on her back, spreading her legs wide apart. I drove my cock into her in a single thrust, burying myself to the balls in her accustomed cunt, which closed around me like a hot glove. I fucked her with long, deep thrusts, bracing myself against her thighs and watching her tits bounce with every stroke. The doll, still dazed, crawled closer and, without being asked, began licking my balls while I pumped inside the Panther, her tongue also working over my favorite’s clitoris every time I pulled almost all the way out.

“Good girl,” I told her, gripping her hair. “Suck. Learn how to fuck a woman who actually knows how to take a cock.”

The Panther dug her nails into my shoulders, arching beneath me, moaning my name through clenched teeth. When I felt she was close, I turned her over roughly and put her on all fours. I gripped her hips and plunged into her from behind again, while the doll positioned herself beneath her face so the Panther could devour her cunt once more. I fucked my favorite until I made her come three times in a row, each more violent than the last, and when she could take no more, I pulled out, turned her over, and came across her tits and face, marking her with thick spurts of semen that the doll hurried to lick like a lapdog fulfilling its function.

I put her on her back and claimed my favorite with the same intensity with which she had claimed the other. The communion of our shadows was complete. In that suite at the Ca’ Sagredo, with the Grand Canal as a silent witness beyond the glass, power was sealed through the flesh of the two women who knew my darkness best.

***

The light of dawn began filtering through the windows, tinting the walls a pale, cold blue that announced the end of our stay. The Grand Canal, which during the night had been an abyss of secrets, awoke with the first vaporettos loaded with supplies. On the four-poster bed, the Panther rested her head on my chest, her breathing keeping time with mine, while the doll slept curled at our feet, exhausted, reduced to her most basic form, traces of semen still drying at the corners of her lips.

I went barefoot onto the terrace for the last time. Venice shed its masks with the arrival of the sun; mist rose over the water like the ghost of all the humiliations we had orchestrated among its canals. I lit a cigarette and let the smoke mingle with the icy air of the Adriatic.

I felt light footsteps behind me. My Panther appeared wrapped in a silk sheet that barely covered her marked body. She stopped beside me, looking toward the Basilica of the Salute with the serenity possessed only by those who have surrendered their will completely and found power in that surrender. The silver collar gleamed in the first light of day.

“Carnival is over,” she whispered, resting her hand over mine on the railing.

“For the world, yes,” I replied, looking straight at her. “For us, Carnival is a permanent state. Venice merely lent us the stage, but the performance continues wherever I decide to take you.”