You help her pick out a mask for the ball

You pull into the garage, the engine's hum replaced by the sudden, sterile quiet of home. The silence that follows, though, is different. It's not empty, it's full. You can still feel the ghost of her, the heat of her, the taste of her on your lips.

Before you even kill the ignition, she's out of her seatbelt and reaching for the dress bag in the back. The urgency is back, the infectious energy from the morning now humming with a new, carnal frequency.

"Help me," she says, her voice a low command. Not a request. "I have to see how it all looks. Together."

You follow her into the bedroom, the dress bag rustling like a promise in her wake. She hangs it on the closet door, then turns to you, her eyes bright with a manic, creative fire. "The masks. Kyler's box. Get it."

You find the large, flat cardboard box tucked in a corner of Kyler's studio space. Inside, nestled in black tissue paper, is a lot of possibility. Ava spreads them out on the king-sized bed, a macabre collection of beautiful strangers.

She's already shedding her jeans and blouse, her movements economical, practiced. Her huge tits falling out of her bra.

She unzips the dress bag, lets the sapphire blue fabric pool on the floor, and steps into it. The zipper sighs as she pulls it up. She turns to the full-length mirror, and for a moment, she just looks. Her posture changes. Her shoulders pull back. Her chin lifts. This is the woman from the shop.

Then she turns to the bed. Her fingers hover, a conductor choosing her opening note.

The first one she picks up is an opulent thing, reminiscent of a Venetian plague doctor but rendered in midnight blue velvet and black laser-cut filigree. She holds it up to her face, the long, curved beak of it casting her features in shadow.

"Too much?" she asks, her voice slightly muffled. She looks mysterious, intimidating, almost unapproachable.

You laugh. "Yeah, that'll fit me better probably. It looks like I'm here to foreclose on the mansion."

She sets it aside with a dismissive flick. Next, she chooses a delicate, skeletal construct of polished silver wire, shaped like a butterfly's wings. It covers only the upper half of her face, leaving her mouth and chin exposed. It's beautiful, but fragile.

"This is pretty," she says, admiring her reflection. But she shakes her head. "It feels like I should be singing in a garden, not crashing a mayor's party. Too sweet."

She discards it and picks up another. This one is pure, unapologetic glamour. A half-mask covered in iridescent peacock feathers, sweeping back from her eye in a dramatic arc. It's loud, arrogant. When she puts it on, she transforms. She becomes a character, someone who demands attention, someone accustomed to getting it.

"Now this," you say, stepping closer, "has possibilities. You look dangerous."

"I feel a bit ridiculous," she says, but she doesn't take it off immediately. She strikes a pose, one hand on her hip. "Like a villain in a James Bond movie."

"You could tie me up any day Mrs. Ava." You put your hands out laughing.

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