sparkling white mask onto me, fastening it tight with white ribbons. ‘Now, you look hot, girl. You get out here and charm the pants off my friends! I already love you, but Pierre will love you forever, too!’
All sound and movement shrinks to the narrowness of the mask’s slit, like the helmet of a suit of armour. Everything has a dreamy, surreal air.
‘You will remain virginal and masked, until I set you free.’ Polly cackles like a pantomime villain, reminding me of her filthy side, and as she moves back into the party she’s like a dancing flame around which huge menacing moths flutter in their swirling cloaks and feathered, furry, Venetian, Phantom, lace masks. Polly has put on a mask in the style of Catwoman and her eyes seem to sink back into her head, narrowing into red-glowing slits.
I love my beautiful, borrowed cousin to death. But mixed with the love there’s always been jealousy. That she had a family who gave her that confidence, that generosity and style, of the cocksure way she can look down her nose at an admirer so he has no idea if she’s going to lick him or lump him one. Someone offers me a tray of devils on horseback, fiery fruit wrapped in salty bacon, and as I stuff in a handful I realise I’m ravenous. I can’t remember when I last ate.
Someone changes the music. It grows louder, and wilder, looping endlessly round the same gypsy spirals. Everyone is dancing like there’s no tomorrow in this confined space, knocking over stands, mannequin arms and legs flailing like marionettes, and some, oh my God, are getting frisky now, grabbing at each other’s clothes, ripping at dresses and trousers, showing knickerbockers and camisoles, but it all looks directed, like a show, everything looks so choreographed, like a ballet, composed like a mural.
Everyone is so white, some almost transparent so that you can see the blood blue in their veins, painted red on their throats, white arms, white faces bending into each other, kissing, licking, pretending to bite, pretending to be vampires with their false fangs.
Now I do wish I had my camera. It’s my disguise. My shield. Normally I’d be prowling the place taking photographs, offering to display them later, sell them for a fee. Or keep them for my own archives.
I am limbless and naked without it.
A violin tests its strings in a kind of screech and the music lurches into another gypsy dance, the kind that makes you want to leap over a camp fire, and suddenly I’m lifted off my feet, tossed across the sea of bodies, hands and faces everywhere, stamping, clapping, whooping.
A man coated in green feathers with a hooked mask bows courteously, but as we start to waltz his hands wander over my dress, lightly resting on my hips or bottom, threatening to move further up, further in, but luckily another figure dressed as a court jester spins me round so he can rock me from behind, but then he pushes himself into my back, getting off on the feel of my buttocks pressed against his groin, ripping my dress a little more. I squeal and wriggle away from him. My breasts are in danger of falling out for all the world to see.
‘Hey, babe, you having fun? You’re the belle of the ball tonight!’
Polly sweeps past me in the arms of a very tall man in top hat and tails. They look exactly like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I try to screech at her that actually I want to go, but the music is too loud. I try to veer away from the friendly fingers and hands on me, but there’s no point. There are too many of them, big men, slender women, heads bobbing and pecking like birds in their elaborate costumes and sinister masks, all with red-painted mouths, those clever white fangs which look totally real, stabbing at their lips.
Whatever was in those canapés suddenly kicks in and instead of panicky and desperate I now get high. Euphoria must be close to mania, because now I’m laughing as two men wearing cat masks advance on me and throw me back and forth between
All sound and movement shrinks to the narrowness of the mask’s slit, like the helmet of a suit of armour. Everything has a dreamy, surreal air.
‘You will remain virginal and masked, until I set you free.’ Polly cackles like a pantomime villain, reminding me of her filthy side, and as she moves back into the party she’s like a dancing flame around which huge menacing moths flutter in their swirling cloaks and feathered, furry, Venetian, Phantom, lace masks. Polly has put on a mask in the style of Catwoman and her eyes seem to sink back into her head, narrowing into red-glowing slits.
I love my beautiful, borrowed cousin to death. But mixed with the love there’s always been jealousy. That she had a family who gave her that confidence, that generosity and style, of the cocksure way she can look down her nose at an admirer so he has no idea if she’s going to lick him or lump him one. Someone offers me a tray of devils on horseback, fiery fruit wrapped in salty bacon, and as I stuff in a handful I realise I’m ravenous. I can’t remember when I last ate.
Someone changes the music. It grows louder, and wilder, looping endlessly round the same gypsy spirals. Everyone is dancing like there’s no tomorrow in this confined space, knocking over stands, mannequin arms and legs flailing like marionettes, and some, oh my God, are getting frisky now, grabbing at each other’s clothes, ripping at dresses and trousers, showing knickerbockers and camisoles, but it all looks directed, like a show, everything looks so choreographed, like a ballet, composed like a mural.
Everyone is so white, some almost transparent so that you can see the blood blue in their veins, painted red on their throats, white arms, white faces bending into each other, kissing, licking, pretending to bite, pretending to be vampires with their false fangs.
Now I do wish I had my camera. It’s my disguise. My shield. Normally I’d be prowling the place taking photographs, offering to display them later, sell them for a fee. Or keep them for my own archives.
I am limbless and naked without it.
A violin tests its strings in a kind of screech and the music lurches into another gypsy dance, the kind that makes you want to leap over a camp fire, and suddenly I’m lifted off my feet, tossed across the sea of bodies, hands and faces everywhere, stamping, clapping, whooping.
A man coated in green feathers with a hooked mask bows courteously, but as we start to waltz his hands wander over my dress, lightly resting on my hips or bottom, threatening to move further up, further in, but luckily another figure dressed as a court jester spins me round so he can rock me from behind, but then he pushes himself into my back, getting off on the feel of my buttocks pressed against his groin, ripping my dress a little more. I squeal and wriggle away from him. My breasts are in danger of falling out for all the world to see.
‘Hey, babe, you having fun? You’re the belle of the ball tonight!’
Polly sweeps past me in the arms of a very tall man in top hat and tails. They look exactly like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I try to screech at her that actually I want to go, but the music is too loud. I try to veer away from the friendly fingers and hands on me, but there’s no point. There are too many of them, big men, slender women, heads bobbing and pecking like birds in their elaborate costumes and sinister masks, all with red-painted mouths, those clever white fangs which look totally real, stabbing at their lips.
Whatever was in those canapés suddenly kicks in and instead of panicky and desperate I now get high. Euphoria must be close to mania, because now I’m laughing as two men wearing cat masks advance on me and throw me back and forth between
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