“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I search for a hint of green glass or sepia lace. Where is she? “I’d never let someone use Iolite Bronze on me.”
“Didn’t you say it was a gift when I sold it to you?”
“What?”
“I was the shop girl in the onyx mask.”
I am shocked beyond words, beyond reaction. It is the biggest taboo in our society, so profane and obscene that it is not even in our law books. We do not discuss the events and encounters of our other masks. It is not done. What if people started blaming one face for what another did, merely because the same citizen wore both?
The moment of speechless paralysis ends, and I run. I fly through the glittering doors, not caring that I’ve left my best friend behind, and run, run, run until I am back to the dormitory on Center at Corridor. I huddle in the lift, and it whisks me to my quarters. On my bed, I sob, the tears wetting the inside of my mask. A part of me worries that I will stain the satin, but it is a distant part.
When the tears run out, I am done with the day, done with this mask. But the unmasking time is still far off. If I’d only worn the tan mask today, with the bronze veneer and dripping beadwork, I wouldn’t have fled from the pewter-masked deviant. I’d have punched him in the golden flesh of his gut or hauled him to the queen’s gendarmes for a reckoning.
Then I realize what I’m thinking, what I’m wanting — another mask, but not during the morning selection, not during the unmasking — while I’m still wearing today’s.
And I’m afraid.
3. Black Is for Sex
In the morning, as I stand barefaced among my masks, looking anywhere but at the tan one, I receive the queen’s summons. It is delivered, as always, by a gendarme masked in thinly hammered silver. He rings my bell, waiting for me to acknowledge him over the intercom.
The gendarmes are the only citizens about during the early morning when the rest of us are selecting our daily masks, just as they are the only ones who patrol the thoroughfares after the unmasking hour, collecting retired masks and distributing new ones.
“Good morning, gendarme,” I say.
“Good morning, citizen. You are called upon today to carry out your civic duty.”
“I am pleased to oblige.” A square of paper slips through my delivery slot and into my summons tray, bringing with it an elusive sweetness. The queen’s writs are always scented like the honey named after her, both more insistent and more subtle than the stuff which circulates in the marketplaces.
Among my arrayed masks, raised above the others, is the sable mask — hammered steel painted with liquid ebony. It is the consort mask, worn only to honor the queen’s summons. The paint is sheer, and glimmers of silver flicker through the color. The eyes are outlined in opaque kohl, a masked mask.
I lock the delicate chains with their delicate clasps around my head. For a moment, I am disoriented by the lenses over the eyes. It takes longer for me to adjust to the warp in my vision than to the feel and heft of the mask. But not much longer.
The music trills liquid and rich around us, and I concentrate on the steps. In her mask-like-stars, the queen swirls and glides across the ballroom in my arms. Caught in her beauty and my exertions, I have missed her words.
“I beg your pardon, my queen. What did you say?”
Her mask tilts up, and the piquant flavor of her amusement fills my senses. “I asked if you were enjoying the dance, whether you liked the refreshment.”
“I have not sampled the buffet, but it looks lavish. As to the dance, I am worried that my clumsiness might offend you or that I might misstep.”
“I’ve never danced with you before? That would explain your stiffness.”
“I have not had the pleasure. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was only a whimsy. I don’t dance with many. You probably won’t dance with me again.” The queen gestures, and the music stops. She leads me to her couch — crimson sheets and alabaster cushions. I am more familiar with this type of dance, but she isn’t ready for me yet. Her scent, though heady, tells me it is not time to mate, although it will be soon.
It confuses me, this waiting. Why am I here, if not to do my duty?
She reclines on her couch but not in the position of copulation.
“Talk to me,” she says.
“What would you like to speak on, my queen?”
“Do you have a favorite mask?”
It is an odd question, treading the boundary of indecency.
“No, my queen. They are all precious to me.”
“Don’t you wish you could discard some masks, perhaps the ones that you suffer in, and just wear the ones that are pleasurable?”
Was she testing me? “They are all precious to me,” I say again. “Each in its wonderful variety. I would never presume to contravene the law.”
“Not even to bend it a little? There are some citizens who wear just a few masks and don others only as often as they must in order to stay out of the purview of the gendarmes.”
“But that’s criminal.”
“Technically, it’s legal, although it defies the heart of the code. Generally, the number of their select rotation is large enough that no single mask becomes dominant. Do you find the prospect appealing?”
Dominant mask? What would be the purpose in limiting one’s mask selection? Her words make no sense.
“No.”
My answer pleases her. Her scent rises and with it, my arousal, and I cannot think clearly anymore. The queen is the font of desire and satisfaction — the perfume of true Queen’s Honey between her legs, her need, mine — nothing exists but the urgency of mating. It eclipses mere copulation as the sun outshines the stars. I submerge in a tide of desire and completion and the rise of desire again, over and over, until the unmasking hour.
In the morning, barefaced and aching, I report to the Mask Makers galley. I avoid looking at their ugly, soft countenances. It’s partly instinctive discomfort at being seen without a mask, but also, Mask Makers have always made me uneasy. I feel sorry for them, their faces so colorless and insipid. It’s an irony that they wear such bland features and plain colors, yet they make such marvelous faces for us, each one unique in its brilliance. I pity them, and I’m glad I was not born to their caste.
I hand over my summons writ and accept my newest mask, my favor from the queen. It is glossy saffron with pointed wires to fasten it. It has no mouth opening, but it does not seem lacking for that. Like every face they craft, it is a feat of artistry.
4. Orange Is for Agony
I press the saffron mask to my face and wrap the barbed laces around my head. A fleeting touch, my fingertips on the painted metal tell me of thick runnels that dent the surface. Their unevenness makes the fit uncomfortable. For a moment.
Wire mesh presses above and below. If I lie down, I can stretch my neck, a little. But then the mesh cuts into my feet, my forearms, my chest. Standing, sitting, a few back-and-forth steps. But pacing only reminds me how small my cell is. And they do not like for us to pace. Exercise thins the fat between muscle and skin, making the harvest more difficult.
My neighbor wears a ginger mask dotted with cobalt sequins. He urinates, and it splashes through the mesh on me. I hiss my rage, crowded by the scent of his body, and return the favor.
I’m glad when the workers come for him and watch as they trap him in their loops. He tries to fight, but he has nothing sharp or hard to wield. Their wicked tools, edged with blue light, open him from neck to groin. He barely has time to bleed before they carve perpendicular incisions, flaps to better flay him in a single piece.