What went wrong?

Now everyone kept shouting. Not the song anymore. The phrase. Over and over, chaotically, too many voices: “Rabbit out of the hat. Rabbit out of the hat.” As if once wasn’t enough. As if the command had to be paid for all over again.

Silke panicked. Yet the orgasm was still right around the corner. Her pussy open in the light, her clit pressed against her own hand, her knees wide, the cramp already in her stomach. A hundred voices. A hundred lenses. The phrase that belonged to her and now to everyone. She wanted to come. She wanted to get away. Both at once, and yet her hand moved upward anyway.

Toward the mask. They wanted the face. That was the remaining amount. The bunny head had to come off on campus. Her fingers found the edge. Rubber. Sweat. One centimeter.

Then the lights went out. No fade. A jolt. Black. The synth died in the middle of the chorus. Boos, immediate, furious, as if someone had taken their goods away. Screens turned into little moons, too few to hold the stage.

A hand pulled her away. Firmly. Not by the breast. By the arm. Silke stumbled off the edge, naked, the mask still on, the orgasm still coursing through her body, and ran after a cell phone light. Just a strip of floor. Steps. A back in a cape. The hall behind her full of discontent, stomping.

Basement. Cooler. The smell of plaster and stale beer. A door. In. The hand let her go. Then suddenly, light.

A bare light bulb. A storage room. Crates. A mirror with a sticker. Before her, a magician again. Cape. Top hat. Mask still on. Silke stood naked, her thighs wet, breathing as if she’d just sprinted.

He didn’t immediately rip off his own mask. The voice came first—hoarse, out of breath, not like the choir upstairs.

“What the hell happened?”

Silke stared at the slit in the cape. Is that him? That costume again.

Upstairs, the hall was thumping.

Down below, it dripped onto the concrete.

He didn’t rip off his mask.

Again, “What the hell happened?”

The voice was hoarse, angry, too close. Not the chorus upstairs. A man catching his breath as if he’d dragged her down the stairs and lost his own breath in the process.

Silke wanted to answer but at first could only manage a gasp. Too intense. Cut off too abruptly. Her clitoris was still throbbing against nothing, her knees weak, her mouth damp behind the rubber. She saw the slit in the cape and, for a heartbeat, thought of the cock beneath it, as if that were the solution now.

“I don’t know.”

It sounded thin. Honest. Her voice wasn’t trembling with fear, but because the orgasm was still stuck in her throat.

“I did everything just the way you wanted.” She swallowed. Another drop. “The costume. The line.”

Max stayed behind the mask.

He didn’t want to show his face. Not here. Not now, not to a woman who was still wet between her legs while up above a hundred throats roared his joke back at him. He stood there angrily, shoulders hunched, his cape disheveled, as if the plan on stage had caught fire and he’d only managed to save his arm.

Everything had gone wrong.

You could hear it before he said it. In his breath. In the pause. In the peephole of the mask, which lingered too long on her wet pussy and then snapped away, as if that would make him even angrier.

Upstairs, the auditorium was stomping. “Get dressed. Mask. Rabbit.”

Max took half a step closer. His own mask stayed on. His voice came out harsh, quiet, so it wouldn’t carry through the door.

“I’ll tell you what went wrong.”