The Night of the Masquerade
The boxes arrived on the evening of the third day, stacked outside her apartment door like a delivery from someone who had never once in their life considered doing anything by half measures.
I opened the first one and stopped.
The dress was black. Deep, consuming black, the kind that didn't reflect light so much as absorb it. The back was almost entirely open, two panels of fabric held together by an embroidered serpent that ran the length of the spine in fine gold thread, its body coiling at the base where the fabric finally met, its head resting between the shoulder blades. The left leg had a slit that climbed so high I stood there for a moment doing the mental calculation of exactly how much movement I could get away with before it stopped being a dress a
