She’s not even sure how she got invited to this party, except being plus-one to someone who doesn’t date has unexpected benefits sometimes. It’s nice enough, though she doesn’t know anyone except the friend she came with, and her loose hair keeps catching on the butterfly filigree mask she’s wearing. She’d decided to wear her favourite green corset with a black handkerchief skirt and tell anyone who asked that she was Madame Butterfly.
So far no one had asked.
Her gaze keeps catching on the tall, elegant lad, hovering like herself near the snacks, until he finally speaks.
“I thought staring was the point of wearing masks? Anyway you’re worth staring at,” she replies boldly. There is something liberating, after all, about being unidentifiable.
Ace’s gaze wandered from the girl before him, to the partygoers, all gathered on the dance-floor, swaying in-sync to ‘Earned It’ off of the Fifty Shades soundtrack. It’s a great record for a shitty movie, and he remained unabashed by having listened to it on repeat the whole week.
There’s a sharp, yet simple contrast between what the men and women wore; the women put in so much effort, whereas the majority of men, Ace included, simply threw on a suit, and bought a cheap dollar mask on their way to the function.
“I thought the point of masks was to make regular dances like these far more interesting than they actually are,” the curly-haired boy said, reaching for the punchbowl’s ladle and raising his glass as he did so. At the next part of the statement, the lad actually shot her a wink through his mask.
“And don’t you forget it.”
“They’re never that interesting,” she shot back, and if there’s an edge of resentment or resignation to her voice nobody has to know but her.
Though it’s true; these are parties for people who drink to get drunk, fuck to keep score, and gossip like cruel vampires. She just goes to be reminded why she doesn’t go. Maybe here, with the mask on, she’ll do something shocking to even these jaded socialites.
She tossed her head at his riposte. “Now I’m certain you’re hiding some deformity under all that black. You’d better get one of the girls here to check, just in case.” She keeps staring anyway — it’s a cutting comment, not meant to carry truth.
And how else is she going to get to look at beautiful bodies anyway?