The Masks That We Wear

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

“Welcome to the party, Cyrus.”

Myles nodded slowly as Marcus and Max approached him, Marcus giving the greeting, his eyes alight through the mask.

“We figured that suit would fit,” Max added, before he noticed the twin on each of Myles’ sides. “I see you’ve met the twins.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He agreed, glancing at each of the twins, who both held a hand to their heart.

“Yes, and he was simply delighted to meet us-”

“-well, who wouldn’t be grateful to be in our presence?”

Marcus sighed and shook his head, while Max laughed lightly, Myles merely grinning beneath the mask at the amusing brothers.

Looking around, Myles noticed that, even though the room was filled with people, at least eighty percent of them were males, there were not many females at all.

“Just a question, there’s not a lot of women here,” Myles spoke slowly, glancing at the twins. “Is there a specific reason for that?”

“Yeah, its really just that The Lady doesn’t much care for women, there was some stuff that happened a couple years back-”

“-and since then she hasn’t been very excepting of them. There’s a few here that she’s okay with, but, that’s pretty much it.”

Myles nodded, uttering a soft ‘I see’ under his breath as his eyes roamed the ballroom.

After a moment, the twins each slapped a hand to one of his shoulders, causing him to jump lightly and look up at them.

“We’re going to socialize, perhaps find a pretty girl to dance with-”

“-we suggest you do the same, our friend.”

He nodded again as the twins winked at him before walking off and disappearing into the crowd of masked figures, and Myles could see that almost every female in the room had a partner and her dance card was almost definitely fully booked.

That was what he thought, at least, until his eyes landed on the lithe, gorgeous woman standing near the table that held champagne glasses.

She was, out of the women here, the most beautiful, her black and red dress was clearly more extravagant and stunning than anyone else’s, and her brunette ringlets, which looked soft as silk, fell over one of the most beautiful masquerade masks he had ever seen.

Myles swallowed, his hands suddenly feeling rather sweaty as he gripped at the sides of his tuxedo, trying to wipe them off as he forced himself to take a step towards her.

As he approached, she looked, her dazzling hazel-gold coloured eyes studying him as she delicately placed a straw into her glass with a gloved hand, and pressed the straw through the lips of her masquerade mask, which was slightly open to allow breathing.

He mentally sighed, knowing that he was going to have to get used to wearing that mask for everything, he knew they could raise their masks to eat solid foods, but, everything liquid would require straws.

As if she could tell he was slightly frustrated, her eyes twinkled in amusement, causing Myles’ cheeks to heat up beneath the mask.

“Uh, erm,” He stuttered, only causing the woman to seem even more amused. “Would you... uh... may I have this dance?”

As he held out a hand, Myles was silently thankful that she was wearing gloves, his hands were clammy and that would only be even more embarrassing if she commented on that.