Mr. CEO is a Psychopath

Fifth Mask of Llana (short bonus story)

Fifth mask of Llana Merek

I am but kept in a box. Furthest inside of Lady Merek who has the hidden key, however soon enough, rusted by uneventful years and bestrewn with imposed routines, it will be buried far at the back of her mind and into nothing until I… shall remain locked away like we all do.

The keyhole is a peek to the outside, and as I am behind her eyes, I see her looking down at embroidered intricate patterns on a piece of white fabric. Slender with jutting veins, her hands move exceptionally as rooted from habitual years to form an art. Her lady friends from the next green pastures, and in their smiley masks, feed her with compliments of how well she does her needlecraft. When the conversation ends and takes another subject for a turn, she reaches in her bag and gets herself a mask, and pastes it tightly on her proud face so as to not let it fall off. They conversed about their husbands’ achievements and feigned interest in political matters they are not a part of. It is all the town ever talks about, after all.

Her second one is a mask she wears the most… contentment. The one she is presently wearing that I see in her reflection from a beige-framed mirror across the room as she stitches beside a perpendicular window, bathed in the rays of mid-afternoon. Not a single unwashed dish in the kitchen, nor dust atop tables and cabinets. Her eyes are glinting with happiness, and she is humming a song, but I know better than those with their own orbs to see, and tragically, maybe better than she knows herself.

Her heart is in a stupor. At times, when part of me slips through little cracks from the box, she feels conflicted. And when she feels this conflict, a single drop of tear falls at the side of her contented face, every time and even right now.

“Llana! I am home,” came the rough voice of her husband.

Lady Merek frantically wipes away her strange single tear as it is at odds with the mask she wears. After a decade of marriage, Llana wouldn’t want to ruin it by being an abomination because as all worlds are, being different is frowned upon. Even if it was a union she did not choose, but her now senile parents.

Neither will she let anyone see that tear, because Lady Merek has a perfect life, and is a woman doing her perfect role. Her trained posture dressed in the finest silk. She is the embodiment of a woman of her age, who takes care of her husband better than anyone. So with a smile, she stands up, all while wearing the same mask to her husband who she greets with open arms and an instinctive kiss on the cheek, a habit formed by couples with years on end.

“Welcome home, love. How was the election?”

“Good,” he answers shortly, not showing anything other than that same indifferent mask, even when he asks, “where is Royse?” Clearly, he thinks that any of politics does not concern her at all like it is above her.

“Napping at her room,” Llana mentions her 6-years-old admirable daughter, her only anchor to this world. I, on the other hand, remain a spectator. Until I am freed from Lady Merek’s own constraints, I will remain an observer as she destroys pieces after pieces of herself to become what her people say is perfection.

“Good,” her spouse eyes her chest, two round anatomies protruding out her dress from a tight corset that accentuates her curves as well. Like garnish to his food that is his to consume. Only his property. Because if another man touches her, even without her consent, she would be condemned a w***e.

From his own bag, he got another mask. Removes his previous one and puts lust securely in place. Lady Merek knows what to do then. She reaches for his hand and pulls him softly to their shared bedroom. The moment she enters the door, I see from behind her eyes, is his and her collection of masks. His is hanged at the right side of the white-colored bricked wall, while hers on the other. Both collections are separated by a lavish baroque fireplace.

She turns to the room’s extensive window and closes the red curtains that adorn it. And then, she strides toward her side of the wall, his presence behind her while his hands roam in her waist, as she stands on the tips of her toes to reach another mask. Pleasure.

Her spouse yanks her to the bed until she is on her back, ripped out of her dress. Her mask tells her what she needs to do, and so she spreads her legs wide. And she moans in pleasure.

I think she is a liar because it is not for herself, but for him.

///

‘How different we are.’

I hear Lady Merek’s inner voice. And she is right… Compared to her five masks, his wall is almost filled. Stocked with emotions of varying kinds; determination, stoic, anger, hope, fury, pride, strength, and so on. Everything in there, she is allowed with none. Wearing one of them would have gained her not praises, but only judging gazes. Even if her mind would be filled with wonders, she already lost when no one would listen. When people think she is not worth it.

But now that she is reminded of me, she pushes me back yet again with her other mask. The fourth one.

She nods to his rants and concerns, empathetic as he vents on everything that is in his eventful life. At their dinner table where all they talk about, is him. And now that she wears the mask, she tries to understand.

He is, after all, only a victim to society as well. Proof of that was the lack of what is considered weaknesses in his collection. Her husband is not allowed by their society, of sadness, of grief, and of all— well, anything that they think is feminine. They say it makes them less of a man. Maybe it is why, despite all their strongest features, they tend to fade away more.

When he leaves for his office, Lady Merek is left on her own. Time she uses to go back to their bedroom and stare at the masks yet again. These masks are not merely a disguise. These are tangible emotions linked to dictate what she is feeling or what she should feel. These at her wall, are what she is only taught to be, but I know better. Llana Merek is a wonder of her own with complicated, unnerving emotions that despite everything, are something she should feel. Not buried under layers and layers of forged perfection nor limited to her five sets of masks.

How ironic… she possesses an empathetic mask and yet, she never seems to understand her own self. The moment she removes her current mask, it all feels empty. She tries not to remember me as she closes her eyes into oblivion, her nothing into nothing.

She locks me in here. Not because she wanted to, but because it is what she was taught. All for the reason that I create rumbles at her chest. She isn’t allowed to be anything other than those in her wall of five masks.

Too deep in her stupor, she does not hear the door creak. Not until the intruder spoke.

“Mother, sing me to sleep?”

She slowly opens her eyes to see her little treasure. The only reason she keeps and wears a mask that is so genuinely her. It is what she lets her daughter only see, a peek of her own self and a mask she created to not fade away, love.

She wears it, and it is the first time in that day, that she feels herself. That her body is her own skin, and not for others while she spectates her life play out. Few of her people, only ever have it, and love is maybe, the only thing in her possession that she can only wear to those who she really loves. A mask that would never let her lie.

A part of me seeps through the cracks every time.

Because love— well, it makes you do things beyond comprehension. To be different for someone without dread.

She carries Royse up her arms, and at the moment, she swore that her daughter would have everything she wants— to feel everything and to have a mask that expresses. She would teach her, and not like how her parents did, because love… would do anything to prevent their child from feeling the emptiness that she herself feels.

It is not too late for her daughter, she thinks, but I know better... because it is not too late for her as well.

And if she wants and just take a little bit of that love, and give it to herself, she just might find her key to me.

Freedom.