Mask Off

The night air kissed her skin like silk turned cold.

Dominique stepped out of the cathedral barefoot, heels in one hand, cloak hanging loose from her shoulders. Her lipstick was smudged. Her pulse had not yet slowed.

She didn’t know how long she’d been inside.

Time had melted. Like wax on the altar. Like the heat in her stomach, still ebbing.

But outside, under a sky full of dull stars and a broken moon, it felt real again.

Almost too real.

Her fingers trembled.

Not from shame.

From something older. A kind of sacred exhaustion. The kind that came not after the fall… but after flying too close to something divine.

She clutched the white gloves still tucked in her pocket. They felt heavier than before. A costume she had to put back on.

A part of her didn’t want to.

Not yet.

She walked down the steps slowly, like a bride descending from a forgotten altar. Each breath came with a memory: the collar slipping into place, his hand on her skin, the way her name—not her title—had been whispered like something holy.

She didn’t know what hurt more.

The closeness.

Or that it was already over.

She turned down a narrow alley beside the cathedral, needing space. Quiet. Anything but more eyes.

The shadows welcomed her.

And so did he.

Wolf was waiting.

Leaning against a rusted iron fence, half-shrouded in dark, casual clothes. No cloak. No mask. Just him.

And those eyes.

Moonlit. Familiar.

Piercing in their stillness.

He didn’t speak.

He just looked at her.

And in his look, there was no hunger.

No pride.

Only... permission.

Permission to be messy. To feel everything. To let go of the roles and just exist.

Dominique's throat tightened.

“Did you follow me?” she asked, voice low.

“No,” he said gently. “I waited.”

That broke something.

Not in a painful way.

But in a way she didn’t expect.

Tears welled before she could stop them.

She laughed once—soft and cracked. “God, I hate this.”

“What?”

“This feeling.”

“Which one?”

She looked up. “The one where I’m not in control.”

His silence wasn’t judgment. It was listening.

Real listening.

And then, softly—

“You don’t have to be right now.”

She didn’t move.

Neither did he.

The air between them thickened—not with lust, but with truth. The kind of truth that only rises from ashes. From what’s left after you burn everything else down.

She took a step forward.

Then another.

Until her forehead met his chest.

He didn’t pull her in.

But he didn’t let her fall.\“He didn’t offer to fix her. Just to sit with the pieces.”

Wolf’s body was warm beneath her cheek.

Not possessive. Not expectant.

Just warm. Steady.

Present.

Dominique hadn’t been held like this in years—if ever—not without someone wanting something in return.

But here, in a shadowed corner of the city where no one knew her name, she let herself be small.

She didn’t cry.

But her breath shook. And her grip on his shirt tightened with the quiet desperation of someone who had always had to be strong.

Always had to lead.

Always had to be Domica.

They didn’t speak for a while.

The city hummed softly behind them, distant car horns and wind through gutters like background music to the silence between their pulses.

Finally, she stepped back.

Wiped her eyes.

Cleared her throat.

“I should go,” she said.

He didn’t stop her.

Didn’t plead.

He just asked, “Why?”

Her jaw tensed. “Because if I don’t, I’ll… want to stay.”

“And that scares you?”

She looked at him.

The streetlamp lit only half his face—gold on one side, darkness on the other.

He looked both saint and sinner.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Wolf reached into his coat.

Pulled out a box.

Not fancy. Not wrapped.

Just a plain black velvet pouch.

He handed it to her wordlessly.

She hesitated.

“What is it?”

“A choice.”

Inside was a token.

Silver.

Carved with the same symbol from The Mirror—a broken infinity loop.

But on the back, a date and time:

Friday, midnight.

Location: Unknown.

Dominique stared.

She looked up. “Another performance?”

Wolf shook his head. “No masks this time. Just… us.”

She laughed bitterly. “There is no ‘us,’ Wolf.”

“No. But there could be.”

He stepped closer.

Not to corner her.

To meet her.

“Not Domica. Not your stage. Just you. And me. One night. One truth.”

She blinked.

Her heart stammered.

“And if I say no?”

“Then I disappear,” he said softly. “No pressure. No questions.”

Her hands curled around the token.

It felt warm. Like it remembered something she didn’t.

They stood like that—two ghosts in the night, too alive to disappear and too scarred to stay.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

Wolf smiled. “That’s all I wanted.”

He turned, hands in his pockets.

And walked away.

No flair.

No final look.

Just… gone.

She stood in the hush that followed, clutching the silver token like it was a lifeline or a bomb.

Maybe both.

Then she whispered to the wind—

“What if I don’t know who I am without the mask?”

And from the shadows, something answered—

“That’s exactly why you take it off.”Dominique walked slowly beneath the flickering streetlamps, the token heavy in her coat pocket like a secret heartbeat. Each step echoed in the hush of midnight, heels swinging from her fingers, cloak dragging behind her like a veil of ghosts.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t tossed it.

Maybe because it scared her.

Maybe because it didn’t.

At the corner, she paused under the shadow of a shuttered café, leaning against the stone wall like she could hold herself still if she just pressed hard enough.

But her thoughts were already unraveling.

What was that?

What just happened?

It wasn’t a scene. It wasn’t performance art. It wasn’t domination for the camera or submission for likes.

It was raw.

And it knew her.

Worse, it saw her.

She hated that.

And loved it.

She had spent years mastering herself—refining her laugh, trimming her words, learning how to breathe just right in a corset of expectations. At school, at parties, in Domica’s shadowed digital palace—she was always the one holding the leash.

But tonight?

She remembered the feeling of her knees on the stage floor. Of leather pressed to her throat. Of breath shared in the space between words.

She had wanted it.

And that terrified her.

She pressed a hand to her lips.

They still tingled.

Not from kisses.

From nearness.

Wolf hadn’t tried to break her. He hadn’t demanded her name or her submission. He didn’t want to own her.

He wanted to witness her.

And that—that was more dangerous than anything she’d ever streamed.

She swallowed hard, blinking up at the fractured moon.

What would it mean to show up without the mask?

Not Domica.

Not Dominique.

Just… the girl who hid between both.

What would she find?

Who would she become?

And worst of all—

What if she liked it?

A sharp gust of wind tugged at her coat, snapping her back into motion. She walked the rest of the way home in silence, keying into the penthouse elevator and slipping into the marble foyer like a wraith.

Everything here gleamed.

Perfect.

Immaculate.

Lifeless.

She looked at her reflection in the entry mirror.

Lipstick faded.

Hair disheveled.

Eyes wild.

And for once—she didn’t fix any of it.

She just stood there.

A girl. A shadow. A question mark with a pulse.

Then she whispered the word aloud, to no one but the glass:

“Friday.”