Finale

After her first time having anal sex, all she wanted to do was take a shower. He was gone, the bench was sticky, the door was ajar, and all that remained of him was the smell and whatever was still leaking out of her. Silke locked the door, took off the mask, washed herself hot and thoroughly, as if the evidence would wash away with the soap suds, and pulled the bunny costume back over her wet skin.

She wanted to get back out on the dance floor, maybe cuddle a little, dance...

She stepped onto the dance floor just as the clock struck midnight.

The announcement cut through the bass like a gym announcement—too friendly, too bright, too final.

“Now for the grand finale. Let’s get rid of the masks. We have a group here tonight who’d like to do that on stage. Rabbit and Magician, please come forward.”

Silke stopped as if she’d been called by name and yet not at the same time. Rabbit. Her. The skirt was still clinging to the inside of her thighs; the mask felt too warm, her mouth damp beneath it. A cape on the left, a cape on the right. Identical. No hesitation. The hands on her upper arms were firm, not rough, and she had already taken the two steps before her mind had finished reading the sentence.

Spotlights.

The room tilted.

Wait a minute.

They were all wearing the same costume.

Top hats. Capes. Masks. The same quality, the same black trim, the same Amazon piece she’d sent him. She stood in the middle of nine magicians. She counted, because counting was the only thing she could still do. Nine. What’s happening here?

Overwhelmed. The bass rumbling from below in the floorboards. Someone in the audience was already laughing before anything had happened. Silke scanned the crowd between the top hats. Any one of them could be Peter. None of them had to be. One stepped very close. His mouth right by her ear, beneath the brim of the rabbit mask. “Play along. Or the mask is gone.” She recognized that line.

Not from Peter. From another stage. From Neon. From a cloth that had saved her face and at the same time become a leash. Fear and lust in the same spot, instantly, as if someone had found the switch again. What’s wrong with her? Where was Peter? What was going on here? The chat had said: just me, just that line. On the dance floor, a nod had been enough. In the backroom, she’d said the line herself. In the booth, he’d stammered. And now a stranger was whispering the same deal as in the club.

The announcement for the big reveal came from a microphone pressed too close to the speaker’s mouth.

“On three, everyone takes off their mask and looks at the camera.”

One.

Panic. Silke could hear her own blood. Nine men. No Peter she could recognize. Just a group that had planned a prank: one rabbit, many magicians, photo.

Two.

Lust. Dirty. Wrong. Her body remembered things in the wrong order: the fingers under the slits, the cock in her fist, her mouth in the chamber, the four poses on the table, the glass, the waving, her ass on the bench, the first time that wasn’t the first time anymore. Her pussy throbbed under her skirt, wet, ready, as if the stage were just the next dressing room. Silke hated that. Silke felt it anyway. Her nipples rubbed against the corset. The mask stuck to her face.

Three.

Nine masks fell. Faces. Faces from her semester. Guys from Jonas’s circle of friends. One she’d already seen in a lecture. Not Jonas. Nine mouths, and then the chorus, loud, in unison, as if they’d rehearsed the line, as if it belonged to them:

“The rabbit is out of the hat.”

Silke was so startled that her knees buckled.

The hands around her arms turned into a hold. The phrase echoed through the room and through her. So that’s what he meant by *us*. In the message. *If anyone says anything other than ‘rabbit out of the hat,’ they’re not one of us.* She understood *us* now. Always too far. Always more. And now *us* had nine voices, and none of them had to be the one she’d been writing with.

Which one of them was he? Was he even here?

Who had groped her on the dance floor? Who had filmed her in the back room? Who had she given a blowjob to until he came in her mouth? Who had she shoved onto the chair in the booth? For whom had she struck those poses? To whom had she offered her still-virgin ass on the bench, the hole left slightly open afterward so the camera would have proof? Oh God, who had pictures of her now?

She almost came on stage.

Just from the line. Just from the faces. Just from the fact that the command was now a chorus and her body read the chorus as an order. A tingling down there, hot, unmistakable, her labia pressing against the open lingerie, a sound in the mask that the bass swallowed up. Almost. Her thighs trembled. The shame came a second too late.

Instead of fleeing, she followed the chat.

*The rabbit’s out of the hat* means Silke’s out of the costume. The mask stays on.

Two tugs. Three.

The skirt first, the straps, a jerk to the left, a jerk to the right, the fabric on the boards. The corset, the hidden zipper, too fast, her breasts exposed in the spotlight, heavy, her nipples stiff. Someone helped with the garters—not tenderly, but practically. Naked. In front of everyone. Just the mask. The rabbit ears. Her face gone. The rest still there.

Panting.

Moaning.

Cheers rang through the room, too many voices, too many cell phones already raised before the last piece of fabric fell. A hundred eyes. A hundred cameras. Flashes. Screens. Someone shouted her costume name, not her real one. Bunny. Bunny. Bunny.

“The Bad Touch” kicked in, right at the moment when nothing was left on her body except the mask. Too loud. Too stupid. *You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals.* The first beat hit her bare stomach like a hand. Discovery Channel. A bunny in the light. Exactly that cheap joke.

She spread her arms, showing that she wanted to be seen. Four of them grabbed her.