The Masked Party Where No One Knew Who We Were

The invitation arrived by message on an ordinary Tuesday, with a single condition written in capitals: no one got in without a mask. Some friends were celebrating something at a huge house on the outskirts, one of those places with a garden, a pool, and too many rooms for one family. We didn’t think much of it until Saturday came and I saw you come out of the room dressed for the occasion.

You were wearing a black satin dress that clung to every curve as if it had been sewn onto you. Underneath, the lingerie you only let me see on special occasions: dark lace, almost transparent, made to be looked at before being worn. I had put on an Italian suit that had been waiting years for an excuse. We looked at each other in the hallway mirror and neither of us said a word. No need.

—Ready? —I asked, adjusting my mask.

—More than you think —you replied.

***

The house was already buzzing when we arrived. Low but relentless music, warm lights, glasses being passed from hand to hand without anyone quite knowing whose they were. And masks everywhere. Feathered masks, Venetian masks, plain masks that only left the mouth visible. It was hard to recognize the hosts, and that was precisely the point. Inside there, no one was anyone. Or anyone could be whoever they wanted.

We started by drinking off to one side of the living room, watching. The temperature of the party rose by the minute. The couples who had begun by dancing politely soon pressed together more than courtesy allowed. There were hands where there shouldn’t have been hands, looks that lasted too long, laughs that ended in whispers by the ear. Alcohol did its part, and anonymity did the rest.

You pulled me to the center. At first we danced separately, keeping time at a certain distance, until you turned halfway and rested your back against my chest. Your body began to move against mine, slow, deliberate, finding the exact point where I would feel what you were provoking. You found it right away.

This isn’t going to end with a dance.

The fabric seemed unnecessary. Every time you pressed yourself against me, I felt the heat of your skin through the satin. I turned toward you and we kissed in the middle of the dance floor, not caring who was watching. And they were watching, but that was the least of it. Here everyone looked at everyone, and the feeling of having eyes fixed on us turned us on more than we would ever have admitted in daylight.

When you couldn’t take any more, you dug your nails into my lapel and nodded toward the stairs with your chin. No words were needed.

***

We went up slowly, though our breathing gave us away. Halfway up the stairs I stopped you, pushed you against the wall, and started kissing your neck, down to your collarbone, while my hand slipped under the hem of your dress. The lace was wet before I even got to brush it. You gasped against my ear, and that sound was enough to cloud my judgment completely.

The upstairs hallway was dim. We tried a couple of locked doors until the last one, at the end, gave way. The room was dark and silent. Two large beds, one beside the window where moonlight seeped in. We went straight to that one.

We undressed in a hurry and with hunger, as if it were the first night or as if we knew there would be no other like it. I laid you back on the duvet and lowered myself, tracing every inch with my mouth, missing nothing, until I reached between your legs. I kissed you slowly, listening to your breathing crack, feeling the wetness and the taste that always made me unable to think.

—Now —you begged, tugging my hair—. I can’t take it anymore.

I entered you slowly at first, setting a pace that soon became impossible to keep. I turned you over and took you from behind, gripping you, driving harder with each thrust until the very edge of pain. Neither of us wanted to stop. We came almost at the same time, muffling our moans into the pillow, and fell asleep tangled together, still wearing our masks.

***

Light woke me. It came in faintly through the slats of the blind, drawing thin lines across the tangled sheets. It took me a few seconds to remember where I was. Then I turned my head toward the other bed and froze.

We were not alone. In the bed beside us there was a couple who must have arrived sometime in the middle of the night while we slept. Young, lithe bodies, with nothing covering them. He on his stomach, she on her side, both fast asleep. Neither had noticed our presence.

I touched your arm and you opened your eyes. You put a finger to your lips, those fingers that still smelled of the night before, and pointed with your gaze toward the other bed. You said nothing. Neither did I.

The guy began waking first. He stretched, and as he did so, a hard-on came into full view, impossible to miss. The girl opened her eyes shortly after, looked at him with a sleepy smile, and slid her hand toward him without a word. She started stroking him slowly, with a delicious laziness, while he lay on his back and let her.

We watched in silence, barely even breathing. I felt your hand searching for mine under the sheet and squeezing it. You were as turned on as I was; I could feel it in the way your pulse quickened.

The girl leaned down and kissed him downward, working him with her tongue before climbing on top. She moved back and forth, slowly, searching for the angle. He held her by the hips, setting a lazy rhythm, still not quite awake. The scene had something hypnotic, forbidden, irresistible about it. My mouth had gone dry.

Then you looked at me. And I knew what you were going to do before you had fully thought it through.

***

You didn’t ask my permission. You told me with your eyes and with a smile I knew too well, the same one you wore when you wanted something so badly there was no turning back. We had never done it. Never crossed that line with anyone in front of us, much less with strangers whose faces we would never see again.

You got up without making a sound and walked naked toward the other bed. The girl saw you approaching and, instead of flinching, welcomed you with a conspiratorial look, as if she had been waiting for you. You bent down and started kissing the part of him she couldn’t reach. The guy jerked awake, looked at you, looked at his partner, and when he saw her smiling, he let himself go.

I stayed in our bed, unable to move, my hand moving over myself faster and faster. I watched your tongue slowly rise until it met hers, the two of you sharing the same point, the bodies drawing ever closer. The smell, the sounds, the whole image had me on the brink and I had only been watching for a few minutes.

The girl couldn’t hold out much longer. She got off him, breathing hard, and gave you her place without a word. It was your turn and you didn’t want to wait. You climbed on top, took him all the way inside you, and threw your head back with a moan I recognized instantly because I had caused it a thousand times. Seeing it triggered by someone else should have annoyed me. Instead, it set me on fire.

She sat beside you and started kissing your breasts, nibbling them softly while you moved on him faster and faster. When you seemed about to collapse, he took you by the hips, turned you face down on the mattress, and held you with a strength that gave you no escape. He started thrusting from behind, sinking deeper with every movement.

The girl settled back against the headboard, spread her legs, and guided your head to her. You kissed her hungrily, without stopping, until she shuddered all over and gave herself over to your mouth at the very instant you hit the limit and he let out a hoarse cry of pleasure. The three of you at once, in a room none of us had booked, among strangers whose faces we would never know.

I finished from our bed, without anyone touching me, my whole body tense and my eyes fixed on you. I had come with the three of you without being part of it and, at the same time, being part of everything.

***

The silence that came after was strange. No one spoke. Light slowly grew behind the blind and, with it, something like shame returned, though not entirely. The couple got dressed first, in silence, without taking off their masks. You and I did the same. We exchanged one last glance with them, a tiny nod, a farewell without names or words.

We went down the stairs of that house while the last guests were still asleep, sprawled on the sofas. We stepped out into the garden, where the cool morning air hit our faces like an unanswered question. In the car, with our masks in our laps, we looked at each other for real for the first time all night.

—Did it happen? —you asked, half smiling, as if you needed to make sure.

—It happened —I said.

We didn’t speak of it again for a long time. But some nights, when we turn off the light, I know we both think of the same thing. Of a house on the outskirts, of a dark room, and of a fantasy we stopped imagining in order to live it, hidden behind a mask that gave us the courage to be, for once, exactly what we wanted to be.