The Masquerade: a prequel short to The Rental
Title Page
1 – Rick
2 – Vee
THE MASQUERADE
(The Rental #0.5, a prequel)
Rebecca Berto
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1
RICK
My little brother, Justin, pointed his gangly finger at Genevieve Wyland. “Remember her?”
I tugged on his arm. “You idiot. Don’t let her see you pointing.”
She was the gorgeous, poison apple of my life looking so fucking sweet in a floor-length gown—blue, draping skirt; lace bust; and a high, choking neckline. I wanted that to be me, my hands where her dress began, sliding down her porcelain skin, tightening at her waist. A black-lace mask hid half her face, the mysterious effect enhancing her lips and her delicate neckline. From her long blonde locks to the tips of her heels under the dress, she looked angelic—and unattainable—standing there by her friends, who were all clad in ass-hugging skirts.
It was the first time I saw Genevieve in weeks. Months. I clasped my hands over my hard-on as I watched her from the opposite side of the party room. The birthday boy called tonight Mark’s Masq. The invitation promised a wicked night with a portrait of Cinderella in a cut-off dress, slutty heels, some sparkly-shit eye mask, and red blowjob lips.
I felt the need to shield Genevieve from it all, but she wasn’t mine to protect.
“That’s the point, you pedo, so she gets the hint I want her,” Justin said, clueing into my staring.
I punched his shoulder. “Quit saying stuff like that. Dad would kick your ass for that filth.”
“Dad?” Justin said, pulling out a rollie.
Oh, how fucking classic. “Jus …”
He circled a hand over the end and ignited the lighter. The stench of the weed filled my lungs as he whispered, “Mmm.”
“You’re fifteen, dude.”
He inhaled a long drag looking at her side profile as she tilted her head back and chuckled. “And that would make you …” he made a Mexican wave out of his fingers, counting, “nineteen.”
Indeed. The fucker said it like they were four cock-blocking years. “Only by a couple of weeks.”
But it didn’t change anything. She was still fifteen. I was still nineteen. I shouldn’t crave a girl how I did with her. How I wanted to brush her hand under the table. Or excuse myself past her, hands reverent on the small of her back. Maybe lean into her ear to tell her a secret.
I gritted my teeth and exhaled ragged breaths.
I just … couldn’t.
Too many obstacles existed between us, the least of which included long sofas, a TV as big as a normal wall, and pillars announcing the ten-foot high French doors to the grass terrain out back. It wasn’t as if she stood near enough to smell the stench of ‘idiot’ on my brother, but if I could see her, she could us.
My heart lurched out of my chest, and I fidgeted my clasped hands over myself, making sure to hide any outward signals from Justin. Wanting her spurred a competitive interest in him. I’d lose that fight.
I couldn’t.
I just couldn’t—
I snapped my eyes back to him. His lip had shriveled up on one side. If she were my poison apple, he was Judas, the silent trouble.
“Want a drink?” I asked him. “Since you spent Mum’s pocket money on that.” I indicated his smoking.
He considered the girl, inhaling deeply. Fuck, how I wished I could clench my fist and eliminate that smug—
“Nah, I’m good here.”
Yeah, I bet he is.
I, however, needed a drink. All whiskey. Hold the coke.
A couple of minutes later, I had pushed and weaved through the crowd and leant my arm on the bar as I waited to be served. The bartender took a couple of minutes to come as she was busy preparing a drink for herself. Finally available, I reeled off what I wanted and slapped my note on the bar counter.
She snatched it, and a sour expression twisted in her features. I didn’t blame her for being shitty. My mates told me she either had to volunteer this gig as a favour to her cousin, Mark the birthday boy or Mark would tell her father she had her belly button and nipples pierced.
“Nasty,” a soft voice purred in my ear.
I shuddered, not having heard her voice so close. Tilting my head, I smiled by way of saying ‘hi.’ Her vanilla scent had assaulted my nose and robbed me of my voice. I wanted to bury my face into her chest and breathe her in.
“You eighteen? Mind getting me a cosmopolitan?” She leant in—right under my chin—and whispered into my ear, “Nasty Pants there might not serve a fifteen-year-old.”
I gulped, thinking cock block.
In the end, I ordered. The red drink came in a cocktail glass garnished with sugar along the rim. Genevieve darted her tongue along it. I looked away.
“… Rick?”
I returned her gaze, piercing grey-blue irises shadowed by dark make-up under her mask. “What?” I said, not catching the start.
She grabbed my mask and flipped it up, peering along my nose up to my eyes. Sharp nails dug into my forehead. I suppressed a groan, imagining other places and those same nails.
“Oh, sorry,” she said and sat back. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I asked if that was you, Rick.” She beamed. “It is.”
“Yes. Hi, Genevieve.”
I mashed my lips together and clenched my jaw at my stupidity. Yes. Hi, Genevieve, I thought, mocking myself.
“It’s just Vee. Everyone calls me that. You can, too.” At long last, she sipped her drink, smiling into it. I hoped the smile wasn’t for the drink, but even if so, my insides twisted together at the thought of something I bought her made her that happy.
“Vee it is.”
“Oh, and also …” She plunged her hand into the side of the top and reached … her breasts? Christ. I gulped down half my whiskey, relishing the burn at the back of my throat. It was hard and palpable, something I could absorb.
She tapped my arm with the back of her hand. In it, she clutched a ten-dollar note. I raised an eyebrow.
“For that.” She flapped the note at her drink.
“No, keep it. I bought it for you.”
“No way. Please,” she said and flapped it at me.
“Vee, it’s a gift. Accept it. Don’t give it back.”
Something in my words halted her. I wasn’t sure what it was, but she deliberated, holding the note to her breast. Oh, fuck this. I grabbed my glass and took care of the rest.
With her money tucked back inside, she glanced at the empty drink and back to hers, then swallowed the whole thing. Empty, she slapped the cocktail on the bar and cringed, thrashing her head.
“Nasty?” I teased.
“No. Strong. Very strong.”
Before I could say anything else, a girl stumbled into Vee, tipping her glass onto her shoulder. She mumbled something that sounded like sorry as she stumbled off in a different direction, all of which passed in an instant.
“Yuck!” Vee cried and pulled her long hair over the opposite, clean shoulder.
I patted down her shoulder and asked, “Where did she get you?”
“Just there,” Vee said as the pads of my fingers moved across her shoulder and pushed beneath the lace trimming at her back.
“Hold on.” I grabbed a wad of napkins. She stood statuesquely, the portrait of sheer beauty poised with her hair swept over her farthest shoulder, her neck tilted away, exposing her creamy neck. I blinked and swallowed hard, wan
ting to lick her clean with my tongue. I leant into her and inhaled. The shoulder smelt of lemonade, thankfully, and not cola or something as pungent.
Vee’s back faced my chest, so she couldn’t see the way I gazed longingly down her dress at the shape of her hips. Taking advantage of her position, I looked down the delicate curve of her shoulder. I grazed my teeth along my lip, witnessing her breasts rise and fall rapidly. I wished her heightened state of arousal was for me, yet my heavy heart reminded me it was due to the shock of the spill.
“Err, Rick?”
“Yes?” I rasped.
“Are you going to use those napkins or should I?”
I didn’t reply but mopped up her shoulder. I dabbed around to her back and lifted the lace to swipe there, too. “Good as new. I think it was only lemonade, so your dress shouldn’t stain.”
She looked up at me, eyes wide in wonder, then over herself and patted down her dress to check.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I hoped she wasn’t hurt.
“Fine.” She stared at my hands as I wrung them on the last napkin, soaking up the dampness on my skin. “I think I’m on high alert. That cocktail, that girl bumping into me …”
“But you’re not hurt?”
She smiled and said, “No, Rick. I’m fine.”
“Have you ever …” I drifted off, inspecting her expression. Her eyes glimmered, and she licked her lips as if she could still taste the buzz from that one drink. Like she’d never … “Ever drank before?”
She shook her head causing her hair to sway. Fuck, how I wanted to grab hold of it.
“I’m a bad influence.”
“Would have happened anyway.”
“But much later on when you’d be older and wiser not to take a drink from a strange guy.”
“You’re not a stranger, Rick. We’ve seen each other. And I like that my first was you.”
Someone burst between us, and we lurched back. Justin cried out, “My big brother here was your first?”
She blushed. “Drink.”
“Now that’s some context,” I said, chuckling, though I didn’t feel very funny.
“What other firsts are left for me, princess?”
“None if you keep calling me that.”
“What,” Justin teased, slinging his arm over her shoulder, “princess?”
She struggled under him. With a firm grip on his shoulder, I plucked him off her. “Time to go. Nasty Pants is giving us evil eyes.”
“Nasty Pants?”
Vee and I chuckled.
And Justin, feeling vulnerable outside our joke, looked deep into my eyes to a place I didn’t want him perceiving.
I did the only thing I could to plug that plunging hole. I said, “Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. Going to see the guys again.” I stepped back, waved. “Justin,” I lowered my voice, “Genevieve.”
• • •
Justin’s eyes burned a hole through my back as I walked over to the guys. I felt it like a looming shadow, and when I pumped Matt’s hand hello, I saw him doing just what I had imagined, right there in my peripheral.
I hadn’t been kidding earlier about Dad wanting to kill him. He was serious about us behaving. And he thought we did because of Mum’s disciplining. Often, she’d take me by the hand to a quiet spot and remind me with teary eyes of how she came close to losing him, close to losing our family in the process over many nights of his smoking and drinking. Sometimes, I wanted to throw my hands up at her. I couldn’t do shit. He misbehaved more because I tried to father him. I wasn’t that dude. Shit, I was hardly a brother to him.
On the other side of the room, Justin glided his hand around Vee’s back and used a finger to draw in her face. She came. She leant to his lips, paused. He snatched up the space and her, his lips hungry. The jealousy plunged into my gut like a sword of revenge.
I could not wait to see if she’d pull back. I had to find a distraction. And they were here tonight in herds. A group of three stood nearby.
I stepped up to the girls and said, “Come chill outside with us.” I cocked my head to my mates behind me.
One girl nodded. “Sure thing,” grinning hard, her cheeks pinched.
Three girls, five guys, about twenty cigarettes and lots of fucking—class schedules fucking us over, parents fucking us over, who seemingly didn’t get the memo we weren’t in high school anymore, and repeated eye fucking.
We huddled outside in a circle close to the doors. Some of the heat billowed out with the curtains as people passed, but the temperature still felt a few degrees below mild so, of course, we guys warmed the girls. One of them chose me, sitting high up my lap, her perky little ass wiggling over my crotch every time she giggled. Over a short period of time, she turned more so to face me, asking what uni did I go to? What was I studying? Did I go out much? And, finally, did I have a girlfriend?
Reaching a satisfactory conclusion to her interrogation, she asked no more. Her eyes flamed with lust, me being the recipient of that intensity. She licked her lips and batted her eyelashes.
I sensed she didn’t feel like talking much, so I asked, “Want to go have a chat there by the trees?”
“Ooh,” she giggled, “okay.”
We walked down, and I sought out her hand along the way. She squeezed back and stumbled a lot, holding my hand close to her thigh for stability.
“We can slow down,” I said. “No rush.”
“There isn’t?” she asked. If there had been enough light to illuminate her eyebrow, it would have been a perfect arch.
Near the edge of the property, close to one corner, there was a big eucalyptus tree with rough bark around the fat trunk. Another one lay several metres off, enclosing plenty of space. Surrounding shrubbery circled us even more so.
Her mouth found my neck as we stepped into the area followed by her mouth at the top of my chest. She shook my tie loose and undid the top button. I found the hem of her short dress and pulled my hands underneath searching for her panties, slow and teasing. I rubbed up her inner thigh all the way and discovered she wore nothing there.
“Mmm,” I moaned, kissing behind her ear. I breathed hard, and she purred. I played with her pussy, finger moving over the bud and massaging along the opening while I nibbled the shell of her ear and her lips. My experimentation spurred her on, and she rubbed my crotch, sparking heat and hardness underneath.
“God, you’re good,” she said in between kisses.
I held her back by her jaw, her lips pouted and pinched together. “‘Good’? Sweetheart, wait until you find out how good I actually am.”
“Oh, crap I am not drunk enough for this,” she announced and blushed, realising she said that aloud.
She probably was drunk enough for this, but heck, I encouraged her on as she pulled a tiny bottle of vodka from her skirt pocket. She took two swigs and handed it to me. I didn’t feel like more than the few beers and whiskey I’d had, but I was pulsing for release. So for the sake of it, I grinned and took a few swigs myself.
She put it away, and we shook our heads with the burn, and then layered scorching kisses from lips down necks, from necks down chests, our fingers ripping at my buttons and the layers to remove them. She looked up at me, kneeling at my hip-level batting those eyelashes again.
“Vee …” I moaned, head swirling with the image of her little body beneath me, asking if she could pleasure me.
“Vee?” the actual voice below me queried. She shrugged. “Well, damn I’m drunk enough for that. You call me Vee for vagina, and I’ll call you Dick for … dick.” She chuckled.
“Suck me, Vee,” I begged, moving my hips into her face.
My hardness rubbed her lips, marking my dark slacks with lipstick.
“Mmm, let me see what you have here …” she drifted off and undid the button, unzipped. “Mmm.”
“God, I’ve dreamed about this.”
She began to take off her mask.
Fear gripped my chest as I thought of a stranger. It stopped me c
old. I’d lose my hard on if I couldn’t have this fantasy. I stopped her. “Let’s pretend.”
She removed her hand and placed it on me. From here, my view consisted of long cascading blonde hair and unseen brown eyes, dissimilar to the grey-blue ones I adored. She lowered the elastic of my briefs and out popped my spring-loaded hard cock. Forming in my imagination was sweet, innocent Vee giving herself over to me, the first man ever. I buried my hands in the blonde hair and growled. Pulling her onto me, she took me in her mouth, swirling her tongue.
It was so wrong that I stirred, embracing the dirtiness. I could come in Vee’s mouth and show her how much she pleasured me. But I didn’t want to do that—come in her mouth. I wanted to take off my suit jacket and lay it under her, pick up her tiny body and place her down onto it, stripping her layers as I tore apart her patience, igniting an erotic need in her that she’d never known existed before. I wanted to discover everything she wanted so much it embarrassed her, and then fuck it out of her until she succumbed to wanting that pleasure, too.
My dick throbbed hard and deep; I had to slow down to do the things I wanted to my kinky dream of Vee.
“Baby,” I whispered, and eased her back.
I shrugged out of my coat and lay it down, then held her shoulders and lowered her over it. The girl was older than I’d have liked—the body of an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old with huge tits, wide hips. It was as if she was trying too hard to be part of the fantasy.
For a split second, I wanted to call off this whole thing. I’d run back inside, pull the real Vee away, and find a secluded space of our own where I would love every piece of her—the soft touch she might have and the look in her eyes as she gazed up at me.
All of which was bullshit. Justin wanted her.
She let him want her, answering with that kiss.
If her feelings existed, they weren’t as strong as mine were.
“Why, Vee?” I hissed deep and bursting with rage. “Why did you wait until now to give yourself to me?”
The Masquerade: a prequel short to The Rental Page 1