Façade of Flesh

It was that sound that bothered her the most.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

It wasn't the moans. It wasn't the way her husband, Joseph, had whispered her friend Andrea's name. Or the way Andrea whispered his name back. It wasn't even the high-pitched wail when Andrea came on his cock or the way he grunted like a wild animal when he emptied himself inside her. It was that percussive rhythm. That unmistakable sound of slapping skin. It had poured from their guest bedroom during the dinner party Caroline had spent weeks planning. That was the sound that echoed in her ears and followed her through every moment of her daily life in the months after. That was the sound that haunted her. That was the one she couldn't scrub from her memory no matter how hard she tried. It stayed with her long after that night.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

When it had happened, Caroline had been searching for something to open the wine bottle. The guests were mingling in the living room, and she needed to open another bottle. She couldn't find the corkscrew she'd used earlier but knew there was an assortment of sewing supplies and other small tools in an old metal cookie container in the upstairs hall closet. The closet was right next to the guest room.

And then she heard that terrible sound.

The door had been slightly ajar, just enough for her to nudge it open with the back of her hand without alerting whoever was inside. The dim light from the hallway had filtered into the darkened room, and at first, Caroline's brain couldn't process what she was seeing. There was the familiar curve of her husband's back. But why? And there in front of him was her friend bent over on the bed. His hands gripping her hips as he drove himself into her from behind.

Caroline froze. She couldn't move. She stood there with her hand against the door. Her lungs stopped. Her heart stopped. For a fleeting moment, her existence didn't even seem real. She stood outside her body, watching herself watch them. Joseph's face clenched and scrunched up as he thrusted back and forth. And on the bed in front of him, Andrea. Andrea, one of her best friends. Andrea, the woman who had held her hand at her father's funeral. Andrea, who at this moment, knelt over the bed in her guest room on all fours with her dress bunched up around her waist.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Every time Joseph's hips met Andrea's ass, that smacking sound cracked through the room and ripped into Caroline's eardrums. The awful sound drowned out everything else. Their moans. Their whispers. Their heavy breathing. The gentle squeak of the bed.

Caroline should've done something, done anything, to make her presence known. Screamed. Kicked the door open. Even rushed in and jumped onto Joseph's back and tried to choke the life out of him. But she just stood there and silently witnessed her own humiliation.

"Unnnnnhh... so good... you're so good," Joseph had groaned. They were words he used to whisper to Caroline.

"Harder," Andrea had panted in a harsh whisper. "Yes! Don't stop fucking me!"

Caroline had to get away from it. It was too much.

But she couldn't leave either.

What if someone came looking for Joseph? Or even Andrea? What if the downstairs bathrooms became occupied and one of the guests wandered by looking for another one? Despite Joseph's repeated prior infidelity, Caroline had managed to keep it all relatively quiet and hidden. But if someone discovered this? In her own house? During her own dinner party? Her own best friend? The scandal would tear through their social circle like wildfire. She'd become known as the pathetic wife who couldn't satisfy her own husband. She'd be known as the idiot who invited the other woman into her own house.

So, she stayed. Just outside the doorway. Keeping watch over her own shame. Protecting the door like the King's Guard at Buckingham Palace.

She pulled the door back to the threshold to try to muffle the sounds from within and prevent them from carrying through the house. But she could hear it all. She listened as Joseph's pace increased. His groans. Andrea's whines. The creaking bed. Joseph whispered something to Andrea that Caroline couldn't quite make out, but she was able to guess what it was from Andrea's response.

"Inside," Andrea gasped. "Do it inside. I want to feel you."

Caroline almost threw up in her mouth but fought it back. She kept silent. She'd carry this new humiliation just like she had already been carrying every one of his many indiscretions before.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Joseph's breathing grew faster and raspier. And then a deep, satisfied groan spilled forth.

Then silence.

Caroline pulled her body back from the door, careful not to make a sound as she retreated down the hall. She felt detached from her body as she drifted to the bathroom just down the hall. She locked herself behind the door and leaned against it and spent almost a full minute just trying to get herself to breathe. When she was able to move again, she ran cold water into the sink and let it run over her hands. It was a trick she'd learned to stifle panic attacks. It barely kept her from bursting into tears and collapsing on the floor, but somehow, she held it together.

By the time she returned to the dinner party downstairs, Andrea was already back among the guests laughing and socializing like she hadn't just been bent over in Caroline's guest room. Joseph appeared minutes later with his hair noticeably out of place but otherwise composed.

"There you are," he said when he spotted Caroline. He sidled over and placed a hand on her hip that made her flinch and then leaned in to kiss her cheek.

She could smell Andrea on him.

"Is everything ok? You disappeared," he said with a hitch in his voice.

"Just looking for another corkscrew, for the wine" Caroline replied with a surprisingly steady voice. She tried to force a laugh. "But silly me, I ended up finding the first one after all."

And the evening had continued. Caroline poured wine, served dessert, chatted, and did everything to play the role of the good host. No one realized her torment. No one saw the frown that formed on her face every time she heard Andrea's voice or laughter from across the room.

And through it all, she kept hearing the sound over the din of the guests.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Caroline's mind drifted back to the present and she adjusted her witch's mask, trying to get the cheap plastic edges to stop digging into her temples. All around her, the Halloween party buzzed with the music and laughter and excitement of the mansion's guests. She hated Halloween. She hated everything about it, especially these parties. What she hated most, though, was how the holiday made otherwise wholesome and professional women feel compelled to transform into walking fantasies for men like her husband. It was the one night a year when cleavage and thighs became required costume accessories. 'Sexy nurse' and 'naughty librarian' became normal attire for grown women with mortgages and 401(k)s.

She wasn't alone at the party, but she might as well had been. It had taken her 42 years to realize that being lonely had nothing to do with being physically alone. She could feel completely invisible even while surrounded by people especially when the one person who should've been with her was off charming everyone else in the room and had forgotten she existed.

Joseph hadn't even looked at her once since they arrived. "There's Jenkins from accounting," he'd said the moment they walked through the door. "I need to talk to him about that Murray account. Someone screwed the pooch on that one. I'll catch up with you later."

It was always been the same. He'd give her a brief, almost pained, acknowledgement of her existence and then dive into the crowd without a second thought about her. And then, just like tonight, she'd spend the evening pretending to look socially engaged while standing alone and sipping her drink just to give her hands something to do. All the while, she'd be forced to wear a pleasant half-smile designed to make her look totally content and not look like a woman with an absentee husband.

As she stood watching Joseph backslapping with an executive from the west coast office, her mind drifted back to the guest bedroom incident, and then it wandered further back to all the others. Andrea hadn't been the first. Before her, there had been the new temp at Joseph's office, a young blonde with endless legs. Before her, his personal trainer. There was the time she found him with lipstick on his collar. There were late-night 'emergency office meetings' when he came home smelling like perfume. There were unexplained errands where he came back wearing a different shirt or different pants. There were hushed phone conversations when she was out of the room. The most painful had been her college friend Diane who had come to stay with them while she was going through her divorce. One minute, Diane had been crying on her shoulder about her own unfaithful husband, and the next minute, she was sleeping with Caroline's. Cooking that woman breakfast while she was in another part of the house fucking Joseph was a torture that felt like the universe had singled Caroline out for torment.

And with every woman, a little piece of Caroline had been chipped away until she longer recognized herself in the mirror. She became a small and diminished shell of a person.

A roar of laughter pulled her attention back to the present once again. Her eyes were drawn to a young couple near the bar, the woman whispering something in her partner's ear while he laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. Caroline couldn't remember the last time Joseph had touched her like that. The memory of it and the sight of them made her chest ache and she turned away. When she did, she caught her reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar.

She'd spent an hour getting ready for this party. She'd tried in vain to conceal the lines around her eyes and mouth, lines that seemed to multiply daily. Her witch costume had been a last-minute choice that she had hoped would help hide herself. The flowing black gown was loose enough to conceal the extra pounds that had settled over her waist and hips over the past several years despite her best efforts to prevent it. "Hmm... you're getting a bit soft here," Joseph had commented about six months ago while poking her midsection as she changed for bed. "Maybe cut back on the pasta?" He hadn't meant it maliciously... at least, not really. No, he'd done it in his usual dismissive, matter-of-fact way. And even though she'd laughed it off, she laid awake that night trying to do the math in her head of how many sit-ups and squats she might have to add into her workouts to try to reclaim the body she'd had at 20 or even 30. Anything to keep pace with his wandering eyes.

But even as much as Caroline resented him, she couldn't imagine leaving. What would she do? Where would she go? Their life was built on Joseph's income. Their house. Their son and daughter's private school tuition. Their vacations. Her meager teacher's salary wouldn't even cover a third of it. And who would want her at this age? 42. Overweight. Stretch marks and gray roots. She was invisible to men. Every day, she watched them look past her and through her to younger, firmer flesh. Including her husband.

Across the room, a woman in her 20s laughed at something Joseph said, touching his arm. The woman was probably new at his office and completely unaware that she would just be the latest in a long line. Caroline almost felt like she should go over and say something, do something warn her. But, no. She wouldn't move. She'd just stand there like an idiot and watch it like she always did. One more betrayal. Another night crying quietly in the bathroom while Joseph snored in bed.

She pulled her eyes away and spotted other couples around the room. The man by the window with his arm around his wife's shoulders. The couple in the corner with their foreheads together, swaying slowly to a song only the two of them could hear. An older pair sitting and enjoying each other's company.

What was so wrong with her that Joseph couldn't love her like that? She'd tried so hard keeping herself fit after their children were born, maintaining their home, supporting his career, turning a blind eye to his increasing infidelity. Maybe that had been her mistake. Maybe she should've confronted him the first time and drawn a line in the sand. But the thought of disrupting their carefully constructed life and ending up alone had terrified her. The mere idea of it had terrified her that first time just as much as it had the most recent time the night she saw him clapping his thighs against Andrea's ass.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Joseph moved through the crowd with the young blonde woman following him like a puppy, shaking hands and gesturing like he was the king of the world. Even here in someone else's home, a mansion at that, he commanded attention from men and women alike. His Halloween costume was barely a half-hearted attempt at a vampire, but he pulled it off even though it was just a set of fake fangs and a cape thrown over a suit. He looked classy rather than ridiculous like many of the other people. Eyes followed him as he moved around the room, including Caroline's.

She tore her eyes away and took another sip of her drink, the ice now melted, diluting the alcohol. She should leave. Order a Lyft and go home, wash off her makeup, and crawl into bed. But she could hear him now. "Why did you leave early? Were you feeling sick?" Not that he'd actually care. To him, it would have more to do with the public appearance of his wife leaving him hanging. So, no, she wouldn't leave. She'd stay. She'd stay here... an invisible ghost among costumed ghosts and ghouls watching her ghoulish husband shamelessly ogle cleavage and try to line up his next whore.

Caroline took another sip of her watery drink, watching the parade of exposed flesh with equal parts contempt and envy. A Hispanic woman walked by with long dark hair and blonde highlights that made her look like a Bad Bunny backup dancer. Her high, half-exposed tits would've looked utterly fake but for the natural bounce in them as she strutted along in her high heels and form-fitting fairy costume. Every sweeping curve was on display with nothing left to the imagination. Caroline had never had the confidence to dress like that, even in her 20s when her body might've justified it.

When Caroline turned her head away, she spotted Joseph at the bar now, his attention focused entirely on a woman Caroline recognized from his office Christmas party last year. Melissa? Melanie? Something with an 'M.' She was dressed as a cat, but the word 'dressed' was a generous term for her nearly see-through black bodysuit. The woman laughed and threw her sand-colored hair over one shoulder, and for a moment, Joseph leaned in as though he was going to kiss the newly exposed side of her neck. Instead, he diverted at the last moment and canted his face toward her ear. The cat-woman placed a hand on his forearm, leaning in to hear him better and grinned at whatever he was saying to her.

Caroline's witch costume suddenly felt like a joke at her own expense: the wretched hag watching from the shadows while the young and beautiful people danced in the light. Her shoulders curved inward, and her spine rounded itself as if her body was physically folding in on herself. She pressed her elbows against her sides, unconsciously trying to make herself smaller and less noticeable.

Joseph leaned upright again and said something that made the cat-woman giggle. He pointed at his jacket pocket and removed the fake vampire teeth he'd put in there earlier. The woman gestured toward his mouth, and after smiling and shaking his head, he put them in. The woman reached up, stroking the skin just below his lower lip and then reached to adjust the fake teeth before Joseph playfully snapped at her fingers. The woman pulled back with exaggerated fear in a disgustingly obvious game of flirtation that made Caroline want to throw her glass across the room. It was like Caroline wasn't even present. It was as if Joseph arrived at the party alone and was free to pursue any woman who caught his eye.

18 years of marriage. Nearly two decades of marriage. And here she was watching him seduce another woman right in front of her. He didn't even bother to be subtle. The blatant disrespect made her want to scream.

The cat-woman leaned in and whispered something into Joseph's ear that made him grin and nod slowly. His fingertips went to the woman's shoulder and then he gestured subtly in the direction behind her. She turned and looked that way and then grinned at him and nodded. The two of them casually drifted away from the bar and towards the exit on the far side of the room with Joseph's hand on the woman's lower back.

It was happening again. Right in front of her.

When had she even become this person? This doormat. This ghost. This nothingness who watched her life disintegrate and did nothing about it.

As soon as Joseph and the woman drifted through the exit and into another part of the mansion, something inside Caroline split and cracked wide open. It was like the night she'd caught him with Andrea. Her vision darkened and narrowed. Her breath caught. The music in her ears faded until the only thing she could hear was her pulse in her ears.

If she didn't get out, she was going to shatter completely. And if she did, there was no guarantee that the pieces would ever be able to be put back together.

She shakily sat her glass down on a server's tray as it passed, and the server had to reach up to keep it from teetering off. Caroline didn't acknowledge it and turned and pushed her way into the crowd toward the exit on the opposite side of the room from where Joseph and his cat-woman went. "Excuse me, I need to get through," she strained out, her voice so weak that it probably wasn't even audible over the party noise. A man in a zombie costume stumbled backwards, spilling his drink on her arm. Ahead, a woman dressed as Wonder Woman was deep in conversation with a pirate, both blocking her path. Caroline crashed between them like a football player and made no apology.

The walls around her closed in. The crowd pressed against her. She struggled to breathe and ripped off her mask.

The exit loomed closer, and Caroline clawed towards it with increasing desperation until, finally, she broke free of the crowd and stumbled out the door and into a corridor. Her vision swam in front of her face like heat haze on a desert highway. Then it dimmed to nothing. For a moment, she thought she was going to pass out right there. But she somehow managed to keep her feet moving. She strained through the darkness, moving deeper into the corridor, tears now fully filling her eyes and blurring what little sight she had.

She turned right at the end of the corridor and kept moving, shuffling and stumbling, clutching the walls to keep herself upright. A flash of gold went past her field of view, and she doubled back.

A door with a small golden plaque with an embossed female silhouette. A restroom.

Caroline staggered through the door and locked it behind her then slumped against the solid wood. The room filled with her ragged gasps for air. Her vision, slowly returning, swept the room. She focused on it, desperately trying to get her breathing under control. The room was a testament to the party hosts' wealth. A white, highly polished marble floor stretched across the room beneath her feet. A dazzling array of mosaic panels lined the walls. A huge, gold-framed mirror hung above a deep sink with matching gold fixtures.

Caroline took an uneasy step toward the sink and then another until she reached for the faucet to run cold water over her hands. As she extended her arm, the scent of rosewater drifted to her nose, probably from the crystal bottle of hand soap beside the sink. It reminded her of her grandmother's garden and summers spent running through rows of carefully tended roses. It reminded her of a time when she still believed in fairy tales and happily-ever-afters.

She dropped her mask on the marble countertop and plunged her hands beneath the cool water. It took several minutes before her breath returned to normal and her heart stopped feeling like it was about to crash through her chest. She lifted her eyes to the mirror. The tears were flowing as freely as the water in the sink. They ran in lines over the gentle roundness of her cheeks. There was no color there. No life. Just horribly pale skin. Her face was that of a woman who had faded from the world.

When had it happened? When had she become this invisible version of herself? Had it been gradual? Or had there been a specific moment when everything changed? Was it the first time she caught Joseph cheating? The second? The sixth?

What did it matter? This was who she was. Ignored. Disregarded. Cast aside.

She could still hear the distant sounds of the party through the door. No one had followed her. No one had come looking for her. No one had even noticed she was gone. No one cared.

Her legs begin to wobble, and after fighting it for only a moment, she gave in and slowly turned and sank onto the cold marble floor under the weight of years of neglect and betrayal. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and buried her face in them. The wails soon followed as all the hurt, anger, and disappointment tore through her all at once.

"Why do I let him do this to me?" she screamed to the empty bathroom, but there was only silence in response.

So, she sat and cried. And cried and sat. Time stretched and compressed around her. The minutes that passed could just as well had been hours.

Eventually the tears began to slow. Her throat burned from the crying. Her body was exhausted and emptied out.

After several more minutes, she managed to climb back to her feet using the counter for support. She reached for her mask and lifted it to her face but hesitated. The face staring back was tortured. Red, puffy eyes. Trembling lips. She needed a moment to clean herself up before she returned. She'd done it so many times before, pulled herself back together and pretended everything was fine. How many times? She'd lost count. But everything wasn't fine. It wasn't fine then, and it damn sure wasn't fine now. She couldn't go back. The thought of watching Joseph come swaggering back into the room after disappearing with that other woman was almost enough to make Caroline double over and start crying again.

"No, please, not tonight," she whispered at her reflection. "I... I can't do it tonight. Please, God... anyone... I--I just can't..."

She turned away from the mirror and leaned back against the counter. She shut her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath before letting it out. When she opened her eyes, they drifted around the room. Her gaze settled onto one of the mosaic panels on the wall and followed its intricate lines and swirls before settling onto an inconsistency in it where two pieces of the pattern don't quite line up. As she looked closer, she realized it wasn't just a mistake in the pattern. There was a seam where two pieces met.

With her curiosity temporarily pushing aside her misery, Caroline stepped across the room and pressed her fingertips along the seam. It was so slight that she could barely feel it, and when she pressed gently against it, it slightly gave way. Applying more pressure, her fingers found an indentation.

Odd.

Something within her, or maybe outside her, nudged her into pressing it. When she did, something clicked beneath her fingertips and a low mechanical rumble came from behind the panel. She pushed against the panel again and it swung outward, away from her, revealing a dimly lit corridor.

A secret passage? In a modern mansion? It looked like something from one of the novels she taught her students, not something that existed in real life. The air that wafted in from it was warmer than the air in the bathroom. Damper. Almost tropical.

Caroline cautiously leaned her head through the opening. In the dim light within, there were walls that seemed closer together than in the part of the house she came from. A burgundy carpet ran down the center and amber sconces lined the walls.

No. This was absurd. People didn't just wander into hidden passages in other people's homes. What if she got lost? What if someone caught her trespassing in a private area of the house?

But beneath all of those practical concerns, her desperate desire to escape still gnawed at her. And here, literally, was a door to freedom.

She hesitated only a moment longer before leaning through it. "Maybe just for a minute," she whispered out loud, stepping forward. But after just another step, she was fully inside. She craned her head back and strained to hear the party but couldn't. The laughter and music that had been barely audible through the bathroom door were now completely gone. The only sound that remained was the sound of her breath.

She took a step forward and then another. Even though she knew she shouldn't, her curiosity, and something she couldn't place, overrode her better judgement and pulled her forward as if by a string. The walls to her left and right were lined with an elegant, textured wallpaper that seemed to absorb the light. Her nose wrinkled as she took each step, drawing in subtle scents of spices and incense.

What even was this passageway? Old servants' routes? A smuggling tunnel from the Prohibition-era? Or merely a random architectural indulgence by people with way too much money?

Caroline continued down the hallway, one hand gliding along the wall to steady herself. But she froze in her tracks and her breath caught when she rounded a curve in the passage.

A tall man stood before her where the corridor widened slightly. His posture gave the impression that he'd been waiting for her. An ornate silver mask covered most of his face and gleamed brightly despite the low light. What she could see of his features below the mask were handsome. A strong jaw. Full, smirking lips. Dark, well-combed hair. He wore a black suit with silver accents that fit him as though it was made by a grandmaster tailor.

Her first instinct was to retreat. Nothing good could come from a strange man hanging out along a hidden path in a mansion. But something magnetic from the man held her in place. It seemed to latch onto her very soul.

He moved toward her with a smooth, graceful stride and was upon her in an instant. One moment he was down the hall, and when she blinked, he was next to her. But despite what her mind told her, she felt no desire to flee. No danger. Instead, she felt something else. She hadn't felt it in years. She felt seen. As she stood there with the man's eyes visible through the mask's openings, sweeping over her, she felt seen. The intensity of his gaze as it drifted over her from head to toe should've made her uncomfortable and want to shrink away. But she didn't. She didn't feel uncomfortable. She felt like a candle that had just been lit.

"Why are you hiding here in the shadows?" the man asked. "You don't belong in the dark." His voice was deep. Thick. Sweet like the most decadent chocolate. "Not when you shine so brightly."

Warmth spread across Caroline's cheeks, down her neck, and into her chest. At the same time, a tremor of guilt rose up from her stomach. Despite Joseph's lecherous behavior, she was still a married woman--a married woman who was standing alone in a dark passage with a stranger who was looking at her as if he could see beneath her costume. Beneath her skin. All the way to the lonely, yearning woman beneath it all. She shouldn't be savoring the sound of his voice or the way his eyes drank her in.

"I--I should be getting back," she managed to say in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "My husband will be wondering where I am." But that was bullshit. Joseph was busy with his Halloween treat.

The man drew closer until he was close enough for the heat radiating from his body to brush her skin. "Will he, though? He has not seen you go. He doesn't see you at all." His head tilted slightly. "More likely that he will continue chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow while remaining blind to the treasure that has slipped through his fingers."

Caroline's breath hitched. "But... how do you--"

"I see what others miss," the man interjected gently. "The sadness swirls over and around you even though you try to hide it."

Was she really so transparent? And even if she was, it was a hell of a thing for him, a stranger, to say it to her. "You don't know me," she said, trying to inject defensiveness into her tone.

"Don't I?" His voice was soft, almost hypnotic. "I know you build walls to protect yourself from pain. I know you've become skilled at making yourself smaller to make room for his betrayals. I know you cry and lie awake at night wondering if this is all you deserve."

"Who are you?" she whispered, unable to look away from his intense gaze.

"My name is Sebastian Thorne." He dipped his head slightly. "And you are Caroline Wells, a woman whose light has gone out."

She hadn't introduced herself, yet he spoke her name as if he'd been saying it for years. "How do you know who I am?" Her voice, defensive just moments ago, was once again barely audible.

Sebastian smiled. "I make it my business to know extraordinary people when they cross my path. And you, my dear Caroline, are extraordinary."

No one had called her extraordinary or anything close to it in years. Joseph had done so for the first few years they were married. But that had long ago been replaced with criticism and indifference.

"Come." Sebastian extended his upward-turned palm to her. "There are others who would appreciate what he does not."

She stared at his outstretched hand. What kind of woman would she be if she took this stranger's hand and followed him wherever it was he wanted to lead her? Guilt bubbled up within her again. But it wasn't guilt for the man who had made an absolute mockery of their marriage. It was guilt toward herself and the principled, conservative, restrained woman she had always tried to be.

But living that way had come at a cost. A cost of desire. Desire for acknowledgement and for being seen and for being valued. Sebastian's hand represented that. He saw her.

Caroline's hand lifted slowly. Her fingers twitched as they touched the air above his hand. She lowered her hand to his. His skin was warm, almost hot.

"There is a greater life for you than what you've lived," Sebastian said softly, his fingers closing gently around hers. "There are worlds beyond the one you've been confined to. Let me show you."

Sebastian took a step backwards, drawing her forward. For a moment, Caroline wondered if this was how it began for the women Joseph pursued, with an intoxicating sense of being chosen, of being wanted. Her head swam with the feel of it.

Sebastian led her deeper along the passage. Not once did she ask where he was leading her. She was content to see where this would go. What was the harm? She hadn't done anything even though she was entitled to. Surely she could take a short tour of the hidden parts of this mansion with a stranger who appeared smitten by her. It felt good to be desired for a change. To Joseph, she was nothing more than a convenient tool. Someone who kept his house and raised his children while he chased after other women.

As they walked, music drifted toward them from up ahead. After a few more steps, they reached another curve in the passage. When they rounded it, Caroline gasped. The passage opened into a vast chamber that seemed impossibly large given the visible dimensions of the mansion from the outside when she and Joseph had arrived at the party. The space was lit by dozens of flickering candelabras hanging against polished marble pillars that reached up into a vaulted ceiling. And within the space itself--dozens of masked and costumed partygoers.

Caroline hesitated at the doorway. It was just like the party she'd fled. And also different. The people here danced and swayed with the music with an almost choreographed grace like they were actors and actresses in a movie. Their costumes looked expensive, elegant, and thoughtful, not like Joseph's lazy cape or a slutty, see-through bodysuit paired with fuzzy cat ears. These people were draped in an assortment of materials like silk, velvet, leather, and lace in colors that spanned the full spectrum. And while many of the garments were revealing, it was all tasteful. Men with broad shoulders, women with curves that seemed to defy age. They were almost... perfect.

Caroline's mind flashed back to her reflection in the mirror. Her tortured face. Her cheap witch costume. When she continued to hold her position and watch the partygoers from the doorway, Sebastian released her hand and placed it on her lower back, guiding her forward.

As they entered, the people in the room turned toward them one by one in a wave of movement that sent a chill down Caroline's spine. She felt like an interruption and hunched her shoulders. She hadn't been invited to this obviously exclusive Halloween party and didn't belong. But as they took in the sight of her, their gaze wasn't the critical or dismissive one she received every day. These people looked... almost happy to see her.

Sebastian, as though he could hear what was in her head, leaned close, letting his warm breath brush against her ear. "They can see your light, Caroline," he whispered. "He has done all he could to snuff it out. But it is still there." He continued in that rich, sweet tone. Her mouth fell open and her body shivered as his lips brushed the edge of her ear. "You, yourself, have tried to hide it away. Let it shine."

A flutter of apprehension went through her chest, and she resisted slightly as Sebastian's hand pressed more firmly against her, guiding her further into the room. The people parted before Sebastian as if he was parting the Red Sea. "My friends," he called out, his smooth voice rising above the music, "I present to you Caroline Wells. An extraordinary woman whose light must be reignited."

It was an odd introduction, but it seemed to be met with collective approval from the gathered people. A woman's head poked through the crowd, adorned in an elegant, emerald green mask accented with peacock feathers. The woman stepped through the people in front of her and strolled forward with casual grace. The intense green eyes behind her mask almost appeared to glow. Her matching green gown hugged her body while also somehow seeming to flow around her like a plume of feathers.

Caroline didn't know what to make of the woman as she approached, and her heart raced when she lifted a hand into the air in front of Caroline before brushing it along Caroline's shoulder. Caroline flinched instinctively. Her body had completely forgotten what it was like to be touched with appreciation. The woman didn't take offense to Caroline's reaction. Instead, she smiled, revealing a row of perfect, bright white teeth. And rather than stop, she continued to slide her fingertips along Caroline's collarbone, sending sparks of electricity along her skin.

Before Caroline could comprehend the woman's touches, a tall man dressed like a wolf emerged from the crowd. He continued across the room and stopped on Caroline's right side and lifted a hand toward her face. He paused for a moment as if either unsure whether to touch or as if giving Caroline time to pull away if she wanted to. Though she should've, she didn't. He brushed his fingers through her hair and ran it all the way to the tips. It was a casual touch, but its smoothness made Caroline's eyes fall closed for a moment.

"Beautiful," the man said with a deep voice, "so beautiful."

Three words. That was all he had said. But it was enough. Caroline hadn't heard two of them addressed to her in a very long time. And he had meant them. He hadn't spoken them just to be cute or polite. His tone and the sensuality of his touch were evidence of that.

Caroline didn't budge, even as more people drew near. She knew better than to permit it, but she allowed them to touch her too. Her hair. Her face. Her arms. Her waist. Her back. At first, she flinched with each new touch, but then her body began to crave the contact and she found herself leaning into the touches. This wasn't Joseph touching her and then following it up with a thoughtless criticism. This was real. This was interest. It was attraction. She didn't know why, but they were drawn to her. And when she didn't speak out against them, the touches became more intimate. Fingertips danced along the base of her neck. Warm breath brushed her cheek, followed by soft lips that could've been a man's or a woman's. Someone caressed the front of her torso just below the curve of her breasts.

The touches were respectful and never drifted anywhere that would force her to object. But with each touch, she silently begged for it. It was attention she hadn't received from Joseph or anyone else in years. She felt desired. She felt seen.

Caroline's eyes opened just enough to glance over the crowd. Sebastian watched from beyond the edge of the circle. His posture and the part of her face she could see seemed to radiate a mood of self-contentment as if he was pleased with himself for recognizing the ache of loneliness within her and delivering this moment of satisfaction. It was a moment Caroline knew couldn't last. She'd been away from her own party for too long. More than that, she'd let the hands wander for too long. Even as polite as the touches might've been, it still wasn't the sort of thing a respectable married woman should allow.

But before she could think to move and put a stop to it, the partygoers drew even closer, surrounding her in the warm heat of their bodies. A woman dressed as a golden butterfly stepped through the nearest people and leaned in. Caroline froze as the woman pressed her full, gold-painted lips against the side of Caroline's neck. Caroline's eyes shut once again and her head tipped back. A tingle spread from her neck, down her spine, and through her body. Far too soon, the woman stepped back.

When Caroline opened her eyes, the woman was staring at her with a raised eyebrow as if assessing her reaction. Caroline should've been shocked. Mortified. She should've recoiled at such intimate contact from a stranger, a female stranger at that. Instead, she offered a toothy grin.

Caroline's eyes were pulled away from the woman as Caroline was gently moved around the circle as new hands slid across her body and new kisses found her. A man, just a bit taller than she was and dressed like a skeleton, pulled her toward him with a tight grip around her waist. He leaned in and kissed her ear, breathing warm breath onto it. He might've said something like, "You move like the ocean and are just as breathtaking," but Caroline could barely hear out of that ear now. The blood rushing into her head was like a freight train.

Before she could fully process what she believed the man had said, a man and woman closed in around her. The woman's hand settled onto her shoulders and gently rubbed the base of her neck while the man stroked her back. "Beautiful," the man said, echoing what others had already said, but the words sounded no less genuine.

As she pondered the words, her body felt different. Her shoulders, rolled and slouched all evening, had lifted. Her chin was lifted instead of dipped to her chest. She nearly twirled like a ballerina when she was passed along the circle again. When she did, she felt the straps of her gown slip slightly from her shoulders. If she had been at one of Joseph's company parties, or a school function, or even the party she'd just come from, she would've immediately adjusted the straps. But here and now, surrounded by these people who seemed to have an actual appreciation for her, she made no effort to reposition them.

A man reached out and ran his fingertips along the newly exposed skin, making Caroline tremble slightly and her mouth part. "Yes, let your light shine," he whispered. With another twirl, she was passed into another set of hands.

Though it wasn't sexual, Caroline had never been a part of something so grotesque. How many had touched her? She had completely lost count and didn't care. That thought was mortifying. This wasn't like her. And at the same time, she wanted it to be her. Even as the straps of her gown slipped further to the point that her level of exposure became wholly improper, she made no effort to stop it.

Her thoughts broke with the sound of a soft thud behind her. She turned to see that the man behind her had taken off his mask and dropped it on the floor, revealing stunningly handsome features. Something within her made her want to reach out and touch his face, but before she could, there was another thud. And another. All around her, the faces of the partygoers emerged in startling beauty. Their features and skin were impossibly perfect as though belonging to beings from another realm.

Caroline's eyes swept over the people, taking in eyes that were turned back on her in intense desire. She had only a moment before more soft sounds hit the floor as the people around her began to shed their clothing. There was no grand production, no sultry dance. Their gowns and costumes came off with the simplicity of someone stretching their arms. Caroline's wide eyes couldn't look away as robes slipped from shoulders and bodices unlaced from breasts. Her mouth fell open as pants slid over hips and thighs. The exposed bodies were as perfect as the faces. Flawless skin. Lean muscle. Endless curves. Different hues. Different shades. Different shapes. All of them perfect. Not a single imperfection. Living sculptures.

A woman with long black hair stepped from the circle, her naked proportions seeming to defy nature. She stopped in front of Caroline close enough for Caroline to see the subtle ring of hazel at the edge of the woman's irises. The woman brushed her fingers along Caroline's arm. "Let us see you," she whispered, but there was no demand in it, it was an invitation.

Caroline hesitated. She was a 42-year-old married mother whose body had seen its best days, assuming there had ever been 'best days.' She didn't belong here amongst these flawless people. She should've left before she came.

Her eyes found Sebastian once again who remained at the edge of the group watching her. He was still fully clothed with his mask still in place. His head tipped forward, ever so slightly, as if granting her permission. But it was more than that. Unlike the woman's invitation to let them see her, Sebastian's nod carried more weight--it was definitely a command.

A touch came from behind. Fingertips. They slid along her collarbone at the edge of her dress where it met her skin. She flinched but didn't pull away. Another touch came. This time, a palm cupped her cheek and turned her face. She found herself looking into the eyes of a man whose eyes were so intense, they made her knees weak.

"You truly are a gorgeous creature," he said as his thumb brush her lower lip.

The weakness in her knees nearly toppled her, but a solid body behind her kept her upright. At that moment, she knew it was too late to leave. Joseph's face flashed in her mind, but not the cold and dismissive one that greeted her every day now. It was the one from when they were dating, from when they first got married. It was the one who looked at her the way these people looked at her now. But the image didn't last. With each new hand on her body, the image was swept away as if it had been physically brushed aside.

The touches grew more insistent. Fingers weaving through her hair, lips pressing against her neck, hands sliding along her arms, hips, and back. And each touch chipped away another piece of her resistance. The ongoing admiration of her body was nothing she had ever experienced. Her shoulders fully relaxed. Her breathing deepened. The hands she'd been using to hold her gown in place loosened their grip.

Fingers slipped beneath the straps of her costume and began to ease the fabric from her shoulders. The dark-haired woman reappeared in front of her. "Let us see you," she said again, her voice barely a whisper.

Caroline's arms shifted to cover her chest and hide the rest of her body as the straps slid down her arms and chest to reveal her plain black bra underneath. But the expressions around her weren't ones of repulsion. They were of a desperate desire to see more of her. Even still, she continued to cover herself as the gown slipped past her waist, over her hips, and became a puddle at her feet.

Fingers gently wrapped around her wrists, pulling her arms back to her sides. A soft voice said from nearby, "No, there's no reason to hide yourself."

Caroline offered slight resistance but allowed them to reveal her body. A bronze-skinned man stepped through the crowd with muscles that rippled with every step. He took her right wrist, pushing aside the hand that was holding it, and lifted it to his mouth.

"Your hands," he said, kissing it and sending a shiver up her arm, "they are beautiful. They have loved and created and comforted." He opened his mouth, extended his tongue, and ran the tip of it along her palm, making her fingers curl against the stubble of his cheek. He smiled and stepped closer, kissing her wrist and up her forearm and inner elbow. Before she knew it, he'd worked his way up and over her shoulder to her neck.

Caroline moaned through clenched teeth. It was too much. Far too much. And yet, she wanted more. The man did more.

The man flicked his tongue against her neck and continued kissing his way up and along her jaw. He kissed across her cheek to the corner of her mouth before pausing.

He wanted her permission. The idea was nearly foreign to her. Joseph had long ago stopped asking for permission, instead taking what he wanted on the very rare occasion he wanted anything from her. To have this absolutely stunning man silently beg to continue was more than she could endure.

Caroline closed her eyes, extended her neck, turned her head, and met the man's mouth in a kiss that was tentative. She hadn't kissed a man besides Joseph since they began dating. It felt like lifetimes ago. But here and now, it felt so right.

The man's tongue slipped across the seam of her lips, and Caroline let him in. As they kissed, her body melted into it. She pressed her own tongue against him as years of unmet passion poured from her. This wasn't a man kissing her out of marital duty. This man wanted her. Truly wanted her.

Hands slid over her hips from behind and over her stomach until they came to rest on top of her bra. She didn't want to open her eyes to see whose hands they were. She didn't want to acknowledge the hands at all. Only Joseph's hands should be there. But she made no effort to remove them. The hands proceeded, caressing and squeezing her breasts through the thin fabric. When they found the sensitive peaks, she moaned into the kiss. Taking that sound as permission to continue, the hands slipped beneath the edge of her bra and cupped the bare weight of her flesh. She moaned into the kiss again as thumbs grazed her achingly hard nipples.

She didn't care that they weren't Joseph's hands. He no longer mattered. Not him. Not her home. Not her job. Just this moment.

When the kiss ended and the man stepped back, Caroline's eyes opened to find a woman stepping forward with milky white skin that almost seemed to glow in the dim light. Caroline's eyes drifted down over the woman's body, settling on the woman's bare breasts. They were perfect, not like her own hefty mammaries. Small, firm, and topped with the faintest, most delicate pink. The sight of them sparked an impulse that ran completely counter to decades of traditional living and conditioning. The woman smiled as if reading Caroline's mind, and Caroline seized the moment.

Caroline slowly raised her hand toward the woman's chest until her fingertips grazed the curve of the woman's breast. Though subtle, the difference between touching another woman's body and her own was jarring. Caroline rotated her wrist and opened her hand fully to cup the woman's breast, savoring the softness. The woman moaned when Caroline brushed her thumb over the woman's hard, pink nipple. That sound, that gentle cry of pleasure, sent a strange feeling of power through Caroline. She had only ever known the ability to give pleasure to a man.

The hands on her breasts shifted and gripped the clasp of her bra and quickly released it. Her bra fell away just as someone else hooked their fingers into the waistband of her panties and tugged them down her hips. They dropped to her ankles, and she stepped out of them without a second thought. Naked. She was completely naked. The people around her pressed in against her from all sides. Smooth skin. Hard muscles. Soft curves.

Just as it had done earlier, time began to blur. The only thing that was clear in her mind was how good it felt to have this group of people lusting after her.

Before she knew it, she was floating through the air and realized they were carrying her. They took her a short distance to a velvet divan in the center of the chamber. Her body practically melted into the cool, deep burgundy surface. When she looked up, gorgeous naked bodies surrounded her, some kneeling, some standing. The intensity of their eyes gave her a moment of pause.

Was she really about to surrender herself to them? She didn't even know any of their names. And what of her husband?

But Caroline already knew--he was off somewhere fucking that other woman.

Her thoughts were pushed aside by a kiss against her inner thigh. She didn't even get a chance to see who it was. She gasped, and her head fell back as the warm mouth traveled up her leg. And to her surprise, rather than close her legs, she allowed them to fall open. When she did, another mouth closed over hers. She didn't open her eyes to see who it was. She grasped the back of the head, a man's, and pulled him deeper into the kiss, accepting his tongue as it pressed into her mouth. Twice now, she had kissed a total stranger deeper and with more passion that she had her husband in years. Perhaps she never would again.

After several moments, maybe seconds or minutes or hours, the mouth traveling up her leg stopped agonizingly short of where Caroline had hoped and expected it to go. The mouth kissing her pulled away as well. When she opened her eyes, a man was standing on either side of her. Perfect faces and perfect bodies. Both of them had the smug confidence of men who never had to beg a woman for anything.

Moving together, each man knelt next to her and lowered their heads to her breasts. Wet warmth crashed over her nipples, making her cry out and arch her body up against them. She'd never experienced such a unique sensation. Two mouths, tongues, and sets of teeth sucking and grazing at the same time. It was the stuff of college party rumors and the dirty romance novels she kept hidden in the attic. It was the stuff of desperate women on vacation giving themselves over to sex-crazed foreign men. It wasn't the sort of thing a conservative, married, middle-aged woman experienced. And yet, she never wanted it to stop.

The feeling was surreal. While one man sucked softly, the other flicked her other nipple with rapid strokes of his tongue. When one opened his mouth and blew warm air across her wet skin, the other clamped his lips tightly over her, almost to the point of pain. The competing sensations nearly made her dizzy.

She reached for both heads to pull them tighter against her chest, but her path was intercepted by hands that clasped around her wrists. They tugged her arms upward and guided her hands to warm, rigid flesh that she immediately recognized. She didn't even hesitate before closing her fingers around the cock in each hand. The smooth texture was as familiar as it was foreign. They were almost like Joseph's but also different from his and from each other. Thicker. Longer. One smoother, one with more pronounced veins.

Her mind screamed at her to let them go. This was outrageous. This was the sort of thing drunk, young whores did, not her. She'd never even entertained the idea of holding two men at once.

But as she began to stroke them, it felt right. These flawless men, men who could probably have any woman they wanted, were standing there fully at her mercy. They wanted the pleasure only she could give.

Caroline's concentration was momentarily broken by a brush of hair against her inner thigh. And a moment later, a warm mouth pressed against her pussy.

Caroline's eyes flew open and she tried to look downward, but her view was obstructed by the heads of the men still sucking her tits.

Whose mouth was that?

But the moment its tongue swept along her soft folds, she immediately stopped caring. She shut her eyes again and lifted her hips toward it. When the mouth pulled away, she nearly screamed. But her pussy was licked again, this time, by a different tongue, she was sure of it. The pressure and texture were totally different. But then that mouth receded... only to be replaced by a lick from the first tongue and then another from the second tongue.

"Oh... sh--"

Her hands tightened around the cocks in her hands even as her stroking rhythm faltered.

Two tongues. A man and a woman for sure. The stubble of a man's cheek brushed against one thigh while the smooth softness of a woman's cheek and long hair brushed against the other. The idea of a woman's mouth on her was revolting--or so she had believed up until this point. But here in the moment, she felt only pleasure. Her body trembled as the two mouths took turns exploring her. One circled her clit while the other dipped between her lips, devouring her. They switched locations. They sped up. Slowed down. They danced and dueled. They kissed each other against her clit, making stars appear behind her eyelids.

All the while, the men at her breasts never wavered. One sucked hard and grazed his teeth over her nipple while the other pressed his face tight against her soft mound and flicked his tongue back and forth over her sensitive peak.

¬

"Oh, God! That feels so good! Don't stop!" Caroline's voice sounded foreign to her ears. So wanton. So needy. So desperate. So slutty.

A short time ago, she would've been horrified at her behavior. But she felt only pride now. Pride at being at the center of such attention. They wanted her. They were practically worshipping her. The guilt she'd felt earlier had been burned away by the heat of desire. And yet, something still held her back. Something. Despite each sweep of a tongue against her clit. Despite each wet pull at her nipples. Despite the throbbing shafts in her hands.

Maybe it was a lifetime of living conservatively. Maybe it was the idea of surrendering her body to people she didn't even know. Maybe it was the thought of what people outside this room would think of her if they knew. Her school. Her neighbors. Her family.

"No," a voice whispered from somewhere behind the divan. "Give in to it. Let go."

And that was enough. That voice from somewhere within the crowd, seemingly granting permission, was enough. The orgasm that crashed through her nearly swept her off the divan with the force of a tidal wave. It started deep within her and then crashed outward, almost violently, to every part of her body.

"Oh, fuck! Yes! Eat it! Suck my--fuck!"

Her screams echoed back from across the room to her ears. It sounded like they had come from some other woman. She didn't talk like that, even in her most pleasurable moments. And yet, they were her words.

Her back arched off the divan, mashing her heaving breasts against the mouths sucking them. Her hands squeezed the cocks. Her thighs fluttered and tried to close around the heads between them.

She'd never experienced anything like this. Even back when Joseph cared whether she came, he'd never driven her to such heights. She felt like she was walking on the moon.

Only when the tremors gradually began to subside did she start to come back down to reality and question what she had just allowed to happen. She bit her lip and released the cocks, unable to meet the eyes of either man. The mouths lifted from her body.

But as her breathing began to steady itself and the last ripples of pleasure flowed through her, she spotted Sebastian through the swarm of naked bodies. He stood at the edge of the crowd, still fully dressed with his mask still in place. Even at that distance, she could see approval in his eyes. And in that moment, she realized she didn't feel shame... not exactly. It was something more like clarity. Self-recognition. It was like she had discovered, or rediscovered, some part of her that had been locked away. Something primal. Something animalistic.

"More," Caroline whispered, shocked even as she said it, "Give me more."

The people nearest her exchanged glances and grins. And then they moved as one, guiding her body. Caroline felt weightless as they turned and repositioned her until she settled on her hands and knees on the divan. She found herself facing a man with a rich mahogany skin tone. It almost looked as though his skin had been polished. From his shaved scalp to his sharp, angular jawline to his broad shoulders and contoured abs. And right at her eye level, his rigid erection stood out like smooth, dark skin stretched over a rod of steel.

Caroline had never been with a black man in even a remotely romantic context. To have one standing in front of her that was so handsome and perfectly constructed made her mouth literally water.

"Can--can I taste you?" she heard herself whisper.

The man cradled her face with a tenderness she didn't expect. "Open for me," he said in a deep tone that rolled through her bones.

The moment she parted her lips, he rolled his hips forward and guided himself into her mouth. The flavor of salt, cinnamon, and other spices flooded her senses. His hot shaft was like a slab of rock resting against her tongue.

Before she had a chance to do anything with it, a woman with long, silky, platinum blonde hair appeared beside her. Without a word, the woman bent down and pressed her lips to Caroline's neck, just below her jaw, and began to suck her skin. Caroline moaned around the cock in her mouth, drawing a groan from the man's dark chest. The woman slid her hand beneath Caroline and gripped one of her hanging breasts and began kneading it delicately. When her fingers found Caroline's nipple, she rolled it and tugged it until Caroline found herself pressing her body into the woman's hand. Any reservation she'd previously had against receiving sexual contact from another woman was gone.

On Caroline's other side, a man with pale, freckled skin and red hair positioned himself with his mouth just below her other breast. His tongue teased its way around the edge of her areola with agonizingly slow speed before drawing the hard, pink nub between his lips. Just as when the two men were sucking her tits, the dual sensations made her writhe.

Behind her, yet another person made their presence known by griping her thighs and parting them. Caroline couldn't tell if it was a man or woman and didn't care. When their tongue pressed against her entrance and slowly slid along her lips and over her clit, she let out a scream around the dick in her mouth. The moment she did, the man in her mouth began thrusting his hips with a slow but steady rhythm. Caroline was a little surprised by the motion, but any bit of hesitation she might've had about blowing him quickly gave way to enthusiasm as she began bobbing her head and matched his rhythm. She poured herself into it.

This wasn't her giving Joseph a lazy birthday blowjob. This wasn't him straddling her chest before bed and using her mouth. This was pure, mutual desire. Every time she hollowed her cheeks, the man responded with a quiet gasp. A tremor went through his thighs each time she rolled and flicked her tongue along the underside of his shaft. An act that she'd rarely performed with any sense of enthusiasm was now an act of raw pleasure... maybe even power. This perfect man, this statue of masculine excellence, was bound to her. Regardless of anything else he might've been in life outside this chamber, no matter what woman he had previously seduced and conquered, his entire focus was Caroline right now. Nothing else and no one else mattered.

"Take him deeper," the platinum-blonde woman whispered against Caroline's neck. She put a hand on the back of Caroline's head and applied gentle pressure to it. "Deeper. He wants it."

Caroline complied, doing her best to relax her throat and fight against her gag reflex. She was rewarded with a deep groan from the man as he fed more of himself into her mouth. At almost the same moment, the face between her legs became more insistent as if the person there felt ignored. Their mouth pressed harder against her. They buried their tongue in her while their lips nuzzled her burning clit which was still recovering from her earth-shattering climax.

Time swam around her again with one moment melting into the next. The man she was sucking abruptly withdrew, but another man immediately stepped forward and took his place. Caroline barely had time to register the change before he slid into her mouth. The person behind her was replaced by another. A tickle of stubble against her sensitive pussy told her it was a man.

The parade of partygoers continued as more people stepped in and others stepped out. A woman with light cinnamon skin knelt beside the divan, replacing the platinum-blonde woman. Her hand slid onto Caroline's breast, and her mouth clamped onto her neck. The man in her mouth stepped back, and a man with bright-white skin and jet-black hair stepped forward, his cock slimmer but longer. The people to the side changed out again. Caroline lost count of how many people had indulged themselves with her body. She couldn't begin to contemplate what she had become. Her entire view of the world, her entire view of herself, had narrowed to the pure sensation and emotion of this room.

The bright-skinned man in her mouth trembled and reached for her hair, gripping it tightly. She knew what was coming but didn't even attempt to break away, even when the man grunted, "Do you want it?" through clenched teeth. She stayed on him.

The first pulse sprayed across her tongue and hit the back of her throat, hot and thick. Unlike Joseph, the flavor was shockingly sweet, like honey, but deeper and richer. She surprised herself by swallowing it hungrily, something she never did with Joseph.

After he had emptied himself into her mouth, the man stepped back and another quickly took his place. Caroline wasted no time inhaling the full length of his short, but very thick cock. Her jaw strained as she struggled to avoid scraping him with her teeth while she worked. After no more than a minute or two, he stepped back. Caroline assumed he was surrendering his place to the next man, but he didn't. Instead, he gripped his cock and gave it a single stroke before painting her cheeks and lips with pearl-white stripes that were like hot milk against her skin.

It should've been humiliating. It should've been revolting. To have a stranger cum all over her face in front of a room full of other strangers should've been enough to make her call it quits. But it didn't feel humiliating. It didn't feel like an act intended to degrade her--it was more like an act of adoration. An inevitable outcome from a man who truly treasured her. But how? How could that be? She didn't even know the man's name.

Before she could consider that any further, a woman with ice-blue eyes knelt beside her and turned Caroline's face toward her. Without hesitation, the woman leaned in and began to lick the cum from Caroline's face. The intimacy of this beautiful woman cleaning a man's cum from her face with her mouth while another mouth continued to feast on her pussy was enough to send her over another orgasmic cliff.

Caroline cried out and rocked her hips back to meet the tongue flapping against her spasming pussy. When Caroline cried out again, the woman cleaning her face pressed her mouth against Caroline's. She slipped her tongue into Caroline's mouth, sharing the sweet taste as Caroline moaned back into the woman's mouth while riding out her orgasm. Caroline had once overheard a grotesque story in college about two girls 'cum-swapping' after blowing a guy at a frat party. At the time, Caroline had no experience from which to draw upon to make sense of what she'd heard and had been horrified when she looked up the phrase online. But here and now, it felt right. More than right.

As Caroline began to come down to earth and the shudders in her body began to subside, the woman moved away, leaving a thin string of cum dangling between their parting mouths. As the woman departed, the bodies around her shifted again. When Caroline adjusted her position, she suddenly realized someone was now lying beneath her. When she looked down, she saw the silver mask--Sebastian. He still remained partially clothed, but his jacket and shirt were now open to reveal a sculpted chest that gleamed like marble. His hands rested lightly on her hips as she straddled him. He didn't pull her closer. He was giving her the choice of whether to proceed.

Time seemed to suspend itself in that moment. Her life outside this chamber came crashing back into her consciousness. What would happen after she left? Joseph's face flashed across her mind, but not the dismissive and cheating one. It was the one who loved her once. And as his face drifted past her mind's eye, she thought of their children and their home. Her job. Her place in the community. None of it would ever be the same if she crossed this final line.

Sebastian's fingertips traced along her skin. He didn't insist, but he didn't back down either. "The choice is yours," he said with the same rich tone he'd used when he first spoke to her. "The choice has always been yours."

Caroline gazed through the slits of his mask at the deep, mysterious eyes beneath. And as she lost herself in them, the image of Joseph's face swept back across her mind. But this time, it wasn't the one from better days. It was the smug, grinning one that had been flirting back at the other Halloween party. The way he'd practically paraded out of the room with his whore and hadn't even bothered to look around to see if Caroline had spotted them.

More images flooded her mind. She thought of him fucking two of her friends in their own home. She thought of the years of betrayal with other women. She thought of the neglect. The criticism. The dismissal. The mistreatment. She thought back to the woman she had been before she followed Sebastian to this party--a faded, diminished, shell of a person. And then she thought of who these strangers saw her as. She was bright. She was beautiful. She was worthy of praise, desire, and maybe even love.

"I choose this," she whispered simply.

She lifted her hips and positioned herself above him and rotated until the hot tip of his cock settled against her entrance. Her eyes locked onto his as she lowered herself and took him in. A gasp burst from her lips as he filled her. He was different from everyone else who had touched her tonight. Larger. Hotter. Stronger. More handsome. More worthy of her. A king ruling over his kingdom.

His hands tightened on her hips, guiding her into a slow, deep rhythm. She settled onto him and ground her clit against him with each downward motion until she fully gave herself over to him. She braced her hands on his chest, feeling the unnatural heat of his skin surge across her palms. She threw her head back and let out a primal moan.

The other partygoers circled the divan and drew in closer. A man with amber eyes the same color as the candle flames around the room stepped up next to her, his cock reaching out toward her. Without breaking her rhythm on Sebastian, Caroline turned her head to him and took him into her mouth.

Penetrated at both ends. And by strangers, no less.

It was a monstrous thing to allow. Never in her wildest, most lewd dreams could she have imagined it. Yet here she was, a middle-aged, married mother and respectable teacher and community figure. All that was gone now.

She rode Sebastian with increasing confidence and passion, matching the pace of the man thrusting into her mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, a woman closed in and reached for Caroline's large, bouncing breasts. She sank her fingers into the flesh, caressing and kneading and squeezing them with unrestrained excitement. The man in her mouth gripped her hair and tilted her head as another partygoer planted kisses along her neck and nibbled the skin.

Caroline began drifting away amongst the endless sensations. Hands stroked her back. Fingers threaded her hair. People kissed her neck, and shoulders, and breasts. And all the while, Sebastian's rhythm never faltered and neither did hers. His hands alternated between guiding her hips up and down to letting her control the tempo. A herd of cattle couldn't pull her away.

After filling her mouth with a sweet stream of thick, milky cum, the man in her mouth withdrew with a satisfied groan. Caroline was still swallowing it down and licking her lips when a woman stepped before her. Caroline's eyes, half-closed in pleasure, opened fully as she took in the presence. A woman with a rich caramel skin tone and long dark hair stood with her hands on her wide hips. Like the others, every feature was perfect. Her face was the model of perfection that women sought from plastic surgeons. Her breasts defied the laws of physics. Her long, toned legs were almost endless.

After seeming to pause for a moment to let Caroline gaze upon her, she stepped closer, positioning herself so her pussy was directly in front of Caroline's face. The woman slid her hands from her hips to her slippery lips and parted them, revealing the delicate pink flesh within. She swayed her hips with a subtle motion that was nearly hypnotic in its form. Her intent was unmistakable.

Caroline reared back in an instant, nearly losing her rhythm on Sebastian as disgust rolled through her. This was too much. She had never and could never do anything like that to another woman. It was beyond what even this night, which had gone completely upside down, could justify.

Caroline turned her head away. "I can't. I don't--"

The woman didn't move away. She remained in place and continued her provocative swaying, her fingers still holding herself open. "Look at me," she said with a voice that sounded like a harp. "Look how beautiful it is."

Caroline couldn't deny the woman's words as her eyes were drawn back to the woman's center. With the slick, delicate folds and the small bud of her clit, it looked like a rose in full bloom.

The woman continued in her dreamy voice. "You know how good it feels... to be tasted... to be savored."

Caroline swallowed hard, her resistance wavering. She did know. She knew all too well. And as the scent of the woman filled Caroline's nostrils, her mouth watered. She'd been licked by women tonight. Was it so wrong to do the same?

Sebastian's hands tightened on her hips, guiding her up and down his length. Up and down. "Trust yourself. Trust your desire," he said as he thrust his hips up to meet her body. "There is no shame in pleasure freely given."

The woman took a small step forward, bringing herself within an inch of Caroline's face. The heat of it drifted over Caroline's skin as if a flame was being held in front of her. The scent was nearly overpowering now. Inviting. Calling out to her.

Almost without a conscious decision, Caroline's compulsion to satisfy her desire and her curiosity pulled her forward.

The first contact was tentative, only the lightest brush of her mouth against the woman's spread lips. The soft, delicate texture was somehow both surprising and expected. Caroline tasted the wetness that slid over her mouth. It reminded her of fruit. Pineapples. Or maybe kiwi. Mango. It was hard to isolate the flavor, so Caroline deliberately tasted the woman, extending her tongue and dragging it over the pink inner lips. The woman sighed and removed her hands, leaving Caroline to fully explore with her mouth.

The more Caroline licked, the more she liked it. Before tonight, the idea of her mouth coming within two feet of another woman's pussy would've been fantastically absurd. But what began with reluctant curiosity quickly became a genuine hunger. Caroline's hands rose to grasp the woman's hips, pulling her closer and burying her face between the woman's legs. She lapped at the woman's entrance before moving upward and gently tapping the woman's clit with the tip of her tongue.

"Yes," the woman breathed out as she curled her fingers through Caroline's hair, "just like that. So good..."

When she closed her lips around the woman's clit, the woman cried out in a sharp scream that tore through the chamber and echoed off the walls and the marble columns. But Caroline kept going, determined to explore every fold. She didn't even notice herself being repositioned once again, turned and arranged, until she was on her hands and knees once more. The whole time, she remained connected to the woman.

Behind her, Sebastian gripped her hips and pushed his cock back into her with surprising force and drove her face even deeper against the woman. He was relentless. Untamed. Every thrust pushed the air from her lungs. And each forward motion came with a sharp crack of sound. Skin smacking against skin as his hips met the fleshy curve of her ass. The sound rose above everything else. The moans. The gasps. The music still playing from somewhere unseen. Above the murmurs and whispers of the crowd. It was a sound that shot across the room and returned to her ears. It was haunting in its familiarity.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Caroline's mind suddenly lifted beyond the chamber and flashed to another time, another place. To a moment that felt like it had occurred centuries ago to someone else.

Those muffled groans. Those whispers. Those grunts. The wailing. She'd heard it all.

Joseph and Andrea.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

And not just her, the others before her too.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Even now, somewhere in this mansion, Joseph and that cat-woman.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

All the women over the years had been but another crack in the foundation of a marriage she thought was her life. But it was a life built on Joseph's lies.

As these thoughts and memories assaulted her mind, they should've dampened her desire. They should've reminded her of the fool she had been. But they did the opposite. They reminded her of the woman she was now.

As she accepted every clap of Sebastian's hips against her, it felt like both an awakening and a form of revenge. Revenge for all those wasted years. Revenge for the cruelty. Every moan into the caramel-skinned woman's pussy was like a verbal rebuke of Joseph's infidelities. Caroline rocked back against Sebastian, meeting his thrusts with every fiber of her being, arching her spine and tilting her hips. She lifted her face and mouth from the woman's wet surface and hissed, "Yes... harder..."

Sebastian immediately complied, digging his fingers into her cheeks and increasing his pace until the clapping sound of their fucking bodies filled the chamber and drowned out every other sound. Each thrust drove her forward against the woman, her knees sliding slightly on the divan's velvet surface. She gripped the edge of it to steady herself while her breasts swayed below her.

The woman withdrew from Caroline's face, almost reluctantly. A man with ebony skin swooped into her place. Caroline didn't even hesitate to open her mouth. The man smiled and moved forward, slipping his thick head into her mouth. The taste of spices and a hint of chocolate flooded her mouth as he continued pushing in, gliding over her tongue as his shaft glided past her lips. He groaned and caressed her face as he began to thrust back and forth in her mouth.

For the second time in her life, she was being penetrated at both ends. The dark man's mouth-fucking while Sebastian drove into her was maddening. The duo almost seemed to fight over her body. They wanted it. They needed it. But as it was, they were content to share it. Each thrust from behind forced her forward, making her take the dark cock to the back of her throat until she gagged on it.

To be used and wanted so freely was liberating. Her past joined the present to create a woman who couldn't be ignored. A woman capable of inciting the most intense sexual hunger in anyone. She'd never felt so complete.

A subtle shift in the bodies around her made Caroline aware of someone climbing onto the divan and crawling beneath her. Soft hands parted her thighs wider just before long hair brushed against them. A woman, Caroline couldn't see who, peppered her skin with soft kisses up her leg toward where she and Sebastian were joined. Higher. Higher. At some point, Caroline assumed the woman would stop short.

When the woman's tongue slid across Caroline's clit, the contact surprised her so much that the jerk of her body nearly dislodged the man in her mouth. Somehow, she managed to keep her lips wrapped around it and renewed her focus on it, swirling her tongue along the head each time it withdrew and along the shaft when it pushed back in.

Two men were having their way with her while a woman licked her. It was scandalous, even by this evening's standard. If anyone were to ever learn of it, every piece of her life would be destroyed, ground to dust, and blown away. But she had no intention of stopping. By this point, Caroline had gotten over the silly hang-up of having a woman lick her pussy. There was nothing left for her to do now but ride a seesaw of two cocks while the woman devoured her. How had she gone her whole life without experiencing such pleasures?

Sebastian seemed to sense this shift in her and slowed his rhythm just long enough to shift one of his hands beneath her to the woman's head. He guided the woman's movements to complement his own, grabbing a handful of her hair and rocking her head back and forth while he rocked Caroline's body back and forth. The woman never resisted and never slowed. She continued to flap her tongue along Caroline's pussy and Sebastian's shaft like a butterfly's wings.

The ebony man's pace quickened as though the sight of what was being done to Caroline was driving his sexual excitement. His thrusts went deeper, and Caroline did her best to control the steady stream of saliva that had begun leaking out from the corners of her mouth and running down her chin. It had become too difficult to focus on sucking him properly while the sexual pressure between her legs built, so she relaxed and let him use her mouth freely.

She was close. So close. Too close. She'd already cum twice and didn't know if her body could sustain another orgasm, but she wasn't going to deny herself. She'd cum again. And again. And as many times as the people, these otherworldly sexual creatures, drove her to one.

Caroline was so focused on cumming that she barely noticed when the man suddenly withdrew from her mouth and began raining cum down onto her face and into her mouth. She nearly choked in surprise and fought for breath while the man continued unloading. It spilled across her nose, her forehead, down her chin. At least two spurts splashed into her hair. She closed her mouth just long enough to swallow the thick, salty-sweet fluid before opening her mouth to accept more.

Never. Never had Caroline ever even heard of a woman behaving this way. Certainly not among her more sexually liberal friends in quiet conversation. Not even from those college sluts who went through guys like shoes. A man was rubbing his cock over her face and smearing his cum across it while another man pounded her senseless. And if that wasn't enough, a woman was tonguing her cunt.

Here and now, she had entered uncharted territory. And the total depravity of it sent her over the edge.

She threw her head back and let out a piercing shriek as her body began to convulse. It felt like her body was being pulled inside out. The orgasmic waves that crashed against her hit again and again. And all the while, neither Sebastian nor the woman under her let up. Sebastian's hips continued to smack against her ass cheeks while the woman kept licking, each sensation drawing out her pleasure until she thought she might blackout.

Sebastian's pace became frantic, his thrusts so powerful that they lifted Caroline's knees from the divan. The woman's tongue zipped back and forth across her soaked flesh and along Sebastian's cock with the speed of lightning.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Harder and harder. Faster and faster. Thrusting until, with one last pump, Sebastian buried himself to the hilt inside her and let out a roar that sounded less like a man than a wild animal. His cock jumped and pulsed inside her as his cum sprayed into her.

And with a jolt, Caroline realized she could feel it.

The strangeness was enough to momentarily pull her from the ocean of pleasure she was drifting across. She'd never been able to actually feel a man cumming inside her, just the shudder of his body and the twitch of his cock. But she could feel it now. Rope after rope of searing hot cum shooting inside. And it just kept going. It was as if Sebastian was trying to fill her entire body with it. It flowed out from around his cock and dripped from her, presumably falling onto the woman's face below her. The woman didn't move and didn't stop licking.

Only after the last waves of her own pleasure began to subside and her arms give way, did Sebastian's cock stop throbbing. Caroline collapsed forward, cushioned by the woman who had been licking her and Sebastian. The woman somehow twirled and twisted until they were face to face. The woman's mouth glistened in the room's candlelit glow, wet with both Caroline's juices and Sebastian's cum. Caroline didn't resist when the woman lifted her mouth to kiss Caroline. The combined flavor was almost indescribable. Caroline had tasted herself before, but she could barely register it beyond the spicy taste of Sebastian. He tasted almost like wine.

She continued to lay atop the woman, her breasts crushed against the woman's. She kissed the woman until the woman's mouth had been completely cleaned off and then dropped her face into the soft crook of the woman's neck. Sebastian laid his body down on Caroline's back, sandwiching her between the two of them until she felt somehow weightless. Hands resumed touching her. Her arms. Her legs. Her back. They were no longer demanding or arousing. They were soothing and worshipful across her cooling skin.

She shut her eyes and allowed herself to drift away. She'd never known anything like this. And now that she had, she never wanted to leave. And as she laid there, time once again seemed to lose its normal progression, minutes and seconds stretching and compressing impossibly. Had she been here an hour? Two hours? A day? Her whole life? In the back of her mind, she knew that at some point, she had to go back to her own party.

When she opened her eyes, the chamber was still bathed in the same candlelight. But as her eyes swept the room, she noticed oddities. The candles along the wall continued to burn with the same intensity as before, but their flames remained steady despite the movement of bodies past them. Even stranger, beyond their light, no shadows flickered against the walls. And despite the passage of time, no wax had dripped down their length.

She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on this strangeness, but her vision swam in front of her face as if she was looking through water. Sebastian was no longer against her back, and the woman was no longer beneath her even though Caroline couldn't recall either of them moving. She lifted her eyes to the people around her. They watched her, smiling, unmoving. Their beautiful faces were fixed with expressions of satisfaction... and expectation? Anticipation?

Caroline blinked again and suddenly found herself standing at the edge of the chamber, her witch's costume once again draped over her body. The straps sat properly on her shoulders as if they'd never been removed. Her hand flew to her face, expecting to find it sticky with the evidence that multiple men had spilled themselves on her, but her skin was smooth and unmarked. Her hair, which had been damp with sweat and cum moments ago, was dry. She could still feel the tingle on her skin of countless hands and mouths. The taste of kisses. Honey-tinged cum. Pussy.

Across the room, the partygoers stood fully clothed in the elegant costumes and masks they'd been wearing when she first entered the chamber. They watched her with eyes that expressed gratitude.

The question formed in her mind before she could fully grasp it. "What the--"

"It's time to return," Sebastian said, appearing near the edge of the crowd. His coat, shirt, and pants were back in place. "He'll be looking for you soon."

Caroline ignored his words for a moment, running her hands over her clothes and body. There was no sign that anything she'd just experienced had just happened. But how? It had been real. More real than anything she'd experienced in years. Maybe even more real than the farce of a life she'd been living before she came to this chamber. And yet...

Sebastian stepped forward and took her hand in his. His skin radiated the same warmth as moments ago on the divan. Minutes ago. Hours. She couldn't tell. But she accepted his hand and allowed him to lead her out of the chamber and back into the passageway. When they entered it, the corridor looked different. More narrow, maybe. The walls were brighter and covered in shadows that moved independently of their sources.

As she walked, her mind remained preoccupied with the impossibility of the moment. What had happened? Was it real? Fantasy? A dream? An experience? It was impossible to tell. But there was no way she had imagined it. Something had happened.

"Wait--" She paused, trying to find her voice. "What happened?"

Sebastian continued to lead her but cast a sideways glance at her. "What do you believe happened?"

She tried to reconcile it. Even now, phantom sensations continued to filter through her system. Her inner muscles remembered the stretch of him. Her nipples remained sensitive beneath her gown, aching with the memory of multiple mouths licking and sucking them. Her pussy, still wet, was almost raw from the pleasure that had surged through it. But even as these thoughts went through her head, her rational mind grappled with the evidence of her untouched clothing and spotless skin.

"No," she said at last, her voice stronger now and sprinkled with an edge of challenge in her tone. "I remember the way it felt. The touches and tastes. I remember how you felt when we..." She trailed off, unable to give voice to the way she'd rode him and the way he'd clapped her ass until he came inside her.

Sebastian's lips curved into a wide, tooth-baring smile. "Memory and experience exist beyond the physical, Caroline. And some things can only be seen when we open ourselves to look at them."

It was an evasion, not an answer. It was the kind of thing one might find on a strip of paper in a fortune cookie.

As they continued along the passage, her attention remained on Sebastian. And the more her attention focused on him, the stranger he began to seem. He moved with an unnatural grace, the same she had noticed with the beautiful partygoers. It was the kind of walk and movement that no person was capable of unless they were unbound by the laws of gravity and bone structure. And as he walked, his steps made almost no sound despite the solid heel of his shoes. And when he passed the wall sconces, the shadow thrown against the wall seemed wrong, as if cast by a form quite different from his appearance.

"What are you?" She had spoken the words before she'd even considered saying them.

Sebastian tightened his grip on Caroline's hand. "I am what I am." He spoke with amusement in his tone.

"What does that mean?"

"A doorway. Or better yet, a mirror. A mirror reflecting aspects of yourself you had forgotten existed."

Another evasion. And it was wrong. None of this was who she'd ever been. The things she'd done tonight, if she'd actually done them, were things she'd never done in her life. He had brought this upon her. He had done this to her.

Or... perhaps... maybe some part of it had been her--something that had existed beneath the surface and was never allowed out. Something dormant. Asleep. Maybe it was who she would've been but for being buried beneath years of neglect and self-doubt. Maybe everything she'd discovered within herself tonight was less a discovery than an awakening. The confidence. The desire. The unapologetic claiming of pleasure. The willingness to truly live.

The passage curved gently, and Caroline realized that they were back at the doorway to the bathroom through which she'd first entered this strange, hidden part of the mansion. Sebastian released her hand and cupped her cheek. "You were magnificent," he said, leaning in until his lips were next to hers. "Few have surrendered so completely... so beautifully."

Few? Few who?

But before she could ask it, his mouth sealed over hers in a kiss so hot that it ignited her. It set every nerve ending in her body on fire. Fire. Heat. That was her entire consciousness. His tongue rolled against hers, drawing a small, helpless sound from deep within her burning lungs. She tried to scream, but the oxygen was gone. Her eyes widened in panic. She tried to back away but couldn't. She couldn't feel her muscles. Only flames. The kiss deepened until she thought she might turn to ash. And then it was over. When he finally pulled away, the fire went out with it.

As he stepped back, for the briefest moment, the eyes behind his mask openings looked as though they were gleaming red like embers in a dying fire. His fingers slid along her cheek and down her jaw before dropping to her wrist. He stroked it with his thumb, making her skin feel hot until it burned enough for her to pull away. She clamped her other hand over it, but no sooner than she had pulled away did the burning sensation disappear.

"Remember what you discovered tonight," he said, drawing her attention away from her wrist. "Remember what it feels like to be seen... to be desired."

Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her mind couldn't make enough sense of what had happened to form anything coherent to say. Sebastian took a step back and then another until the shadows of the passageway swept around him. For a fleeting moment, only the gleam of his silver mask remained visible, but then that too vanished. She lingered for a moment longer, gazing into the darkness before taking a deep breath and pushing against the back of the bathroom wall's mosaic panel. It swung through with more ease than she expected, causing her to stumble slightly as she crossed through.

The bathroom's bright lights blinded her for a moment as it replaced the dim glow of the corridor. When her vision cleared, something was wrong.

The bathroom's ornate marble and gold fixtures were gone. So were the mosaic panels. The tile. In fact, the entire bathroom was gone. Instead of the bathroom, she found herself standing in a hallway back in the main part of the mansion. She let out a startled gasp and turned to look back behind her and found the corridor gone as well. In its place stood a closet. Metal shelving lined the walls and were stacked with cleaning supplies and industrial-sized bottles of chemicals. A mop bucket on wheels stood in the corner.

Caroline froze in place as her brain struggled to process it.

"Excuse me," a voice said from behind, making her jump. Caroline spun around to find a woman in a princess costume staring at her with her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What were you doing in that closet?"

Caroline's mind felt like a million pieces of shattered glass. She said the only thing she could. "I--I was looking for the bathroom." Her voice sounded strange and distant in her ears.

The woman's eyebrows rose above her sequined mask. "The bathrooms are down the hall." She pointed with a gloved hand. "That's a cleaning closet."

Caroline turned back to the small space. Where a luxurious bathroom and the hidden doorway and passage had been, stood nothing but a cramped utility closet. "But there was a bathroom..." Caroline whispered, more to herself than the woman who stared at her with suspicious eyes.

The woman finally leaned around Caroline, apparently trying to see what she was looking at. "Are you alright? Do you need help finding someone?"

Caroline shook her head slowly. "No," she said, even as her eyes roamed over the stacks of paper towels and toilet paper. "No, I'm... just... a little disoriented. Too much to drink." She closed the closet door and stepped back. The other woman nodded and walked away with a final backward glance.

When Caroline was alone in the hall, she braced a hand against the wall and leaned against it for support. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back. As she did, a strange scent drifted to her nose, sharp and acrid like smoke but not quite. She opened her eyes and inhaled a deep whiff of it. It filled the air all around her. It clung to her skin, her hair, the fabric of her costume.

"This is insane. I'm losing my mind," she whispered, glancing back at the closed closet door. Unable to resist, she reached out and turned the knob, pulling the door open again. Nothing had changed. Metal shelves and cleaning supplies. No marble. No gold-framed mirror. No hidden panel leading to a candlelit orgy.

Despite what she was seeing, she stepped into the closet fully and closed the door behind her. The space smelled of bleach and other chemicals. She ran her hand along and between the shelves looking for a hidden seam. But the walls were solid.

"No, it was real," she insisted to the shelves and drywall. She pressed her body against the shelves, hoping to trigger a secret opening. "It happened," she said, raising her voice. But even as the words left her lips, doubt crept into her mind as her rational teacher's mind crafted an explanation.

What was more likely? That she had somehow accessed a hidden passage and chamber filled with impossibly gorgeous people with almost supernatural qualities who had desperately sought to pleasure her? Or that she, a middle-aged woman devastated by her husband's latest act of cheating, had experienced a stress-induced hallucination? Perhaps one aided by inhaling the fumes of cleaning chemicals in a small, enclosed space?

She knew the truth without verbalizing it or dwelling on it. It had been clear the moment she emerged from the closet into the hallway. If she was being honest with herself, it had been clear during the 'experience' itself. It had all been in her mind. It had been her mind's last desperate attempt to prevent her from falling into a deep, dark pit of depression.

And it had worked.

Even though it had all been a fantasy, she felt like a new woman. Renewed. Reborn. She felt confident and beautiful and desirable.

Caroline stepped back out of the closet and shut the door. As she began making her way back to the party, she lifted her chin, drew back her shoulders, and tugged down slightly on the front of her gown, exposing the tiniest hint of cleavage. The sounds of the party grew louder as she approached. When she reentered the ballroom, it was so ordinary. Regular people in regular costumes. No otherworldly beauty. No impossible perfection.

A server passed with a tray of champagne. Caroline accepted one and gulped it down. She stepped over and paused by a column, letting her eyes drift over the room. Suddenly, she remembered Joseph. If he was done fucking, he was somewhere in this room, probably still fawning over his latest conquest and planning their next rendezvous. That thought, which would've brought tears to her eyes earlier, now produced only contempt. Her fantasy had shown her what it was like to be truly seen and desired. Her husband's betrayals seemed almost petty and laughable--the desperate actions of a small man trying to recapture his fading youth.

"We will have a conversation when we get home," she whispered to herself. It wouldn't be an explosive confrontation about his years of infidelity. Their marriage was way past that. It would simply be a civilized discussion about the way forward. The children were old enough. The house could be sold. She had her teaching career. And now, she had herself.

Caroline moved away from the column and strolled through the party, cloaked in her newfound confidence. Heads turned. Men and women alike watched her pass with silent but unmistakable acknowledgements of her presence. Her worth. Her beauty. Their attention confirmed this new version of herself., one that screamed, "I am worthy of love and respect!" It was like walking on air.

Caroline continued through the ballroom and through the doors leading to a side patio. A breeze swept in and brushed against her skin. She reached up to lift her hair from the nape of her neck and enjoy the cool gust. As she did, her wrist passed across her field of view--and her heart nearly stopped cold.

There, on her inner wrist, was a mark she'd never seen before. At first, she thought it was a trick of the exterior lights. But the mark remained no matter how she twisted her wrist: a faint, shadowy shape that looked almost like the scar from a burn but with a glimmering glyph within it. With trembling fingers, she traced the outline of the mark. It didn't burn and held no pain. If anything, it was warmer and more alive than the rest of her body.

No.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. The mark was nothing more than an allergic reaction to something she'd brushed her arm against in the closet. One of the chemicals. Or something from her cheap costume.

And the glyphs?

She was seeing things. Things brought on by the aftereffects of the fumes she'd inhaled in the closet.

But when she opened her eyes and looked again, the glyph was still there. The mark was still there. And there was something she couldn't deny--the mark was exactly where Sebastian's thumb had last touched her. That burning spot on her wrist when she yanked her arm away.

"No. Absolutely not," she said, dropping her arm to her side. "It didn't happen." She shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

Those words were a lie and she knew it. Sebastian, whoever and whatever he was, had left the mark on her wrist. It was like his signature, a promise to her that what she had experienced had been real. All of it. The touches. The scents. The tastes. The sounds.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

And more than that, the new woman she had become was real too. The road ahead was unclear. The dawn of tomorrow would bring an uncertain future. But whatever it brought, she would face it head-on. She was stronger now. Sebastian had seen to that. It was a strength she'd always had but never knew. But she knew it now. Because she'd been seen. Desired. Transformed.