The Mask Ritual That Woke Renata

Renata was an architect and had gone for weeks without sleeping more than four hours at a stretch. Impossible deadlines, endless meetings, and the weight of every decision had pushed her to the brink of collapse. Like so many times before, she loaded the tent into the trunk, provisions for a week, and left alone for the mountains, far from everything and everyone.

The forest was her refuge. The cold air, the crunch of leaves beneath her boots, and a silence broken only by birds were the only therapy that truly worked for her. But this time, something felt different from the start.

As she drove along the dirt road that wound toward her usual spot, she saw motionless figures among the trees. People standing still, wearing deer masks over their faces. They watched her pass without moving.

A festival? Some kind of village ritual?, she thought, bewildered. She didn’t give it much importance, though a chill ran down her back and stuck there, just below the nape of her neck.

***

Night fell peacefully, as it always had in that clearing Renata considered almost her own. The fire crackled beneath the can of food, the aroma mingling with the smoke rising toward the stars. She stretched out on her sleeping bag, letting herself be wrapped in solitude. Until the silence broke.

First it was a whisper, barely audible. Then a distant melody: drums, guitars, a trumpet sounding far too cheerful for the hour. The music enveloped her, hypnotic, as if each note were speaking straight into her ear. Come. Join.

She sat up, alert. And then she saw them.

Among the trees, figures dancing. Men and women with their bodies wrapped in light fabrics that barely concealed the curves and muscles beneath the moonlight. All wore deer masks, their faces carved into an eternal smile, but their movements were fluid, sensual, as if the rhythm possessed them from within.

One broke away from the group and moved toward her with slow, calculated steps. The white mask gleamed in the torchlight.

—The night is young —he murmured, extending a gloved hand—. Don’t you want to dance?

Renata felt the urge to step back, to look for something to defend herself with, but the music and the way those bodies swayed left her rooted in place. The air smelled of incense and sweat, of herbs she didn’t recognize and that, nevertheless, made her mouth water.

—Who are you? —she asked, but her voice came out weak, lost among the drums.

—Those who celebrate —another figure replied, gliding up beside her, brushing her shoulder with a tenderness that made her shiver—. Those who worship beneath the moon.

***

She never knew how she ended up in the center of that circle of dancing bodies. Someone had put a deer mask on her, and the material pressed against her cheeks, the dark crystal eyes reducing her vision to flashes of skin lit by torchlight.

Foreign hands explored her with a mixture of shyness and audacity, as if they already knew her, as if they knew exactly where to touch. Fingers closed around her breasts over her blouse, thumbs tracing circles over her nipples. Other hands, gentler, slid down her back and into the curve of her ass with a pressure that forced her to hold her breath.

—Feel the music —whispered a voice close to her ear, while a warm palm settled over her belly and drifted lower, slowly, to caress her over her pants.

Renata gasped. She didn’t pull away. The smell of burning herbs, the steady beat of the drums, the fixed gazes of those empty masks: everything held her in a kind of lucid trance. Her body responded on its own, arching toward the caresses, allowing them to unfasten her pants, letting fingers slip beneath her underwear.

—The moon wants you to come —said someone else, and this time a mouth joined the hands, biting her neck while the fingers stroking her became more insistent.

It was too much and, at the same time, not enough.

They stripped her with expert hands, each garment folded and set aside with a kind of reverence, as if in that place, under the full moon and the murmur of the trees, only skin mattered. Looking around, Renata saw the others doing the same. The gauzy fabrics fell to the ground, revealing burning, surrendered bodies. Hard, aroused men. Women with erect nipples. All of them moved toward her, but not with violence, rather with an almost religious devotion.

—You are the temple —whispered a dark-haired woman, brushing her lips against Renata’s shoulder—. You must be adored. And you must receive us.

There was no leader, no one giving orders. Only shared faith, the collective desire that moved them like a single creature. Mouths and hands traced Renata: lips on her nipples, tongues circling her navel, fingers sinking into her with a precision that made her moan without shame.

A man knelt before her, the mask tilted, and looked at her for a moment before burying his face between her thighs, tasting her without haste. A woman stood in front of her and guided Renata’s mouth to her breasts, while more hands traveled every centimeter of her body.

***

Then came the penetrations. First a man, pushing into her with agonizing slowness, filling her until she believed there could be no more. Then a woman, sliding a toy strapped to her hip, while another man sought her mouth. There were no turns or hierarchies. Only the constant flow of bodies entering and leaving her, murmuring senseless words between moans.

—The goddess is pleased —someone shouted, and Renata felt something change in the air, as if the moon itself were holding its breath.

She no longer thought. She only felt. A broad-shouldered man lifted her effortlessly, sinking into her while she wrapped her legs around his waist. A woman with brown skin slid underneath and began to lick the exact point where the two of them joined, adding a new shiver to pleasure that was already unbearable.

The deer masks remained identical, but now Renata distinguished her lovers by other details: the man taking her from behind had old scars on his shoulders; the woman biting her nipples smelled of vanilla and tobacco; the one now seeking her mouth wore a bead necklace that knocked against her chin.

Someone adjusted her mask and a wet kiss found her lips. It didn’t last long enough for her to recognize the taste, because another mouth was already claiming her, and then another, and another. Renata arched her back with a stifled cry. She didn’t know whether there were three or thirty surrounding her. Only that ecstasy was splitting her in two while hands crushed her breasts, nails marked her thighs, and tongues collected the sweat from her skin as if it were nectar.

***

They laid her on a leather-and-wood frame, her body shining with sweat, secured by soft straps that didn’t restrain her so much as seem to consecrate each of her movements. The deer masks were still there, watching, participating, but now the ritual had mutated into something deeper.

Each time a new lover penetrated her, another came to feed her. Mouthfuls of ripe fruit passed from mouth to mouth to hers, mixing the sweetness of the pulp with the taste of another’s skin. Red wine flowing thick, sometimes directly from another’s lips, sometimes spilling over her chest to be licked by several tongues before reaching her mouth. Bread spread with honey, broken apart between the teeth of a man who then bent to kiss her and transfer the warm crumbs.

The turns continued until Renata could no longer tell pleasure from exhaustion, hunger from satiety, shame from glory. A mature woman with wide hips rode her from behind with a silicone phallus while biting her ass. A long-limbed man sought her mouth and emptied himself between her lips with a long groan.

The sky was beginning to turn purple and gold when the ritual reached its climax. They placed her face up on a stone altar, her legs open and held apart with crimson silks that swayed with every thrust. The masks crowded around her, the bodies gleaming in the first light of dawn.

—Drink, sister —someone whispered, bringing a clay cup to her lips—. It is your rebirth.

Unconsciousness arrived like a warm wave.

***

The sun was already high when Renata opened her eyes, gasping, her heart pounding as if she had run a marathon. She was inside her tent, wrapped in the sleeping bag, daylight filtering through the canvas.

She sat up abruptly and ran her hands over her body. There were no marks. No pain. No trace of the previous night. Only her skin, clean and intact, as if it had all been a dream.

She dressed in a hurry, her fingers trembling with the boot laces. When she stepped outside, she swept the clearing with her eyes. There was nothing. No altar, no crimson silk, no masks. Only the forest, silent and normal, exactly as she had always known it.

Until she returned to the campfire. There, carefully placed beside the dead embers, was a deer mask. White. Empty. Smiling.

Renata held her breath. She would have sworn it wasn’t there when she woke. She would have sworn she hadn’t brought it with her. But there it was. Without thinking twice, she grabbed her backpack and left almost at a run. She didn’t look back. She didn’t want to know whether someone, or something, was watching her from among the trees.

***

She spent the next few days locked in her apartment, curtains drawn, eating without hunger and sleeping without rest. But her mind would not leave her in peace. The memories possessed her: the touch of those anonymous hands, the endless penetrations, the taste of wine mixed with another person’s saliva, the smell of sex and burning herbs under the moon.

And worst of all: she missed it.

She couldn’t resist. She went back to the forest, to the same clearing, as if something were pulling her back. And there it was, in the same place where she had left it: the deer mask, cold and smooth, as if it had never moved. This time she didn’t leave it behind.

Since then, the mask has rested in a box beneath her bedside table. Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, Renata gets up and caresses it, wondering if it was real, if it could happen again, what would happen if she put it on. For months she didn’t dare.

***

Almost a year had passed when, in the middle of New Year’s Eve dinner, amid the glitter of the lights and the family’s toasts, Renata felt a familiar shiver. Someone had slipped an envelope beneath her plate. Inside, a thick paper card, with gold letters shining in the candlelight: “The Dance of the Deer awaits you. Midnight. You know the clearing. Come alone. Come hungry.”

The message wasn’t signed, and no one at the table seemed to have noticed the envelope. But Renata felt it immediately: the heat between her legs, a wetness she couldn’t ignore.

—Are you all right, dear? —her mother asked, leaning toward her.

—Yes, just… the wine made me a little dizzy —she lied.

In her mind, she was no longer at that table. She was in the forest, among the masks.

She made her excuses early with a made-up headache. In her room she opened the box, looked at the deer mask, and for the first time, didn’t hesitate. She dressed in black, put the mask in her bag, and stepped out into the icy night.

The forest was covered by a thin layer of snow that crunched beneath her steps. The cold bit her skin, but she burned from within. She reached the clearing exactly at midnight. And then, one by one, the torches lit up, like eyes opening in the dark.

The figures emerged from between the trees, moving to the rhythm of drums that could not be heard but that Renata felt in her bones. All wore deer masks. All were waiting for her. She didn’t think twice: she took out hers and put it on.

The ritual began again. But this time Renata walked among them with a firm step. A narrow-shouldered woman slid behind her and casually squeezed one ass cheek; Renata held her breath, but did not move away. A tall man sought one breast and squeezed it with devotion; she let out a moan that was no longer surprise, but surrender.

And then, without thinking, she too extended her hands. She caressed the taut belly of a stranger, nibbled the earlobe beneath another mask, brushed her fingers over the wet sex of a woman who arched against her. The music started again, but now Renata recognized the rhythm: it was the same one she had been hearing in her dreams for months.

The circle closed around the fire and the masks leaned toward her. When the first penetration of the night came, Renata knew there was no turning back. She was one of them.

This time she did not wake in her tent. She woke in another’s arms, with the mask still on, and with the certainty that next winter she would be the one slipping an invitation beneath a plate, at the dinner of someone who still had no idea how much they longed to be found.