Chapter 52

"What is this?"

"Your mask, my dear." Julian gave me a subtle smile.

After fuming over my words with Devon for an hour or so, I started getting ready for this underground party that Julian had been building up for the last two weeks. Of course, I couldn't get ready for it without explaining things properly to Min. I had feared Min would be angry or call me a cheater again, but she merely nodded and told me to do my best. I was hoping this meant that Min was starting to understand me better. This was the only way I knew how to get stronger.

As a result, my interactions with Min started to feel more like preparation for battle. If you encountered a nest of goblins, and then started preparing to fight them, your wife might help you put on your armor as you got ready. This just happened to be my battle. My war paint was makeup. My weapons were an outfit that made my body sexually appealing. I would attack and keep attacking until I had reached my goal. That goal, of course, was freedom from Denova.

That was when a knock came at my door. I feared it might be Devon coming back to argue more, but it ended up being Julian holding a parcel. I opened that package right in front of Julian and pulled out a mask. The mask had a strap that would wrap around the back of my head, only covering the front. It was similar to my dresses, plain with streaks of white, green, and brown. When worn, it would leave my mouth and chin exposed, only covering the upper part of my face from my cheeks to my forehead. It ended with two pointy cat ears although the mask itself was form fitting and didn't have any animal characteristics other than the ears jutting out the top.

"This… won't really cover much at all?" I frowned.

I had expected something more obscuring. If the idea was that no one could tell the appearance of anyone else, I imagined that the mask would cover the whole head and the hair. Something like those leather S&M masks, maybe. However, this looked like a gaudy costume mask you might wear at Mardi gras, merely covering the eyes. Ultimately, my hair, my ears, and my mouth… basically, everything was obviously revealed. As if my body and voice weren't enough, there was no way I could hide my identity with this. This wasn't some silly Cinderella story where slight physical differences was enough to hide.

"What would be the fun if you didn't know?" Julian laughed and then continued when he saw I was still confused. "I've said it before, but everyone knows who everyone else is. The mask blocks analyze, but it doesn't really hide you. I mean, if we were wearing body suits covering up our faces, what would be the fun of exploring each other's bodies?"

"So, what does that- "

Julian waved his hand, stopping my question. "See it this way, my dear. Your goal at this party is to have fun and fulfill your darkest desire. Meanwhile, everyone else will hold the same goal. We will all try to find the partners we had always wanted but never dared to have in polite society, and then we'll do every dark fantasy to them. They'll know who you are, you'll know who they are, but the mask is what is important."

I started nodding, the information starting to click in my mind. Like with the King, it was all about the illusion. It could be said that nobles were the best at self-denial. Devon was absolute proof of that. I was still angry when I thought about how much of a hypocrite he was being.

"And speech?" I let out the question before I could help myself.

"You can talk all you want. People will recognize your voice, but when you wear the mask, it doesn't matter, because you are not you. Some people like to be silent, won't say a single word until they're moaning and give it all away, anyway. Did you know that every man has his own unique little moan? Why, Gregory has the tendency to whimper, like a cute puppy dog, but when I stick it in his-"

I nodded but didn't really pay attention to the rest of what he was saying. Instead, I was kicking myself for having wasted the last week trying to disguise my voice. Half of me already knew that the party was half an illusion made up by pretense, but I still had the desire to hide. Of everyone there, I had the most to lose if I was exposed.

A snap in front of my face brought my attention back to Julian, who wore an annoyed look. "But pay attention to this, my dear girl, you absolutely must hide the mask. No one may see you put it on, no one may see you take it off. Your mask is your admittance to the society. Lose it, and you will never get another ticket. Show your face underneath, and you will never live it down.

"I've known girls before who would fall in love with one of the men they enjoyed and would reveal their masks, wanting to deepen their relationship by making love with their true selves. I'm not saying it never worked, but more often the girl is shunned publicly, and she either gets married off to some distant kingdom or forever becomes an outcast locked away in her family's estates as an embarrassment. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I gave a nod with an apologetic look. "Is there anything else I need to know?"

Julian broke into a smile, then snapped his fingers again. "That's right, I don't think you'll need them, but here is one."

He handed me a coin. They were not the coins from the kingdom, it was a bit larger, and it had a strange intricate pattern of a beautiful naked woman. In one hand, she held a handful of wheat. On the other hand, she held what looked to be a man's genitals.

As I admired the image, Julian spoke up again. "Ah, that is the image of our Goddess, Qetesh, queen of sexual enlightenment and fertility. She oversees the Harvest festival and all of our other activities. That token is an insurance. It's mostly for the older, fatter men. If someone hands you that coin, you must perform for them sexually. Some men would have no fun if it was left to the women to only choose the sexiest of men. And then those men would stop going, taking their attractive wives with them. It's really in everyone's best interest. You can earn one token a month. Some men save them up for the harvest and then have every woman they can, others use them as soon as they get them.

"You can use the token I gave you to make a man yours… although I doubt you'll have that problem. There are two other ways the coins can be used. First off, each person can only use one coin per partner. No monopolizing here. You can use it to block any consummation. A husband that doesn't want his wife to sleep with a certain man can use his coin to block their coupling. This came into being after a few uncomfortable assassination attempts, far before I joined the society, I can assure you.

"Furthermore, if you are forced into a sexual act you despise with a coin, you can use another coin to deflect it. However, since you don't have many coins, you won't have much of a choice for the first few."

So, basically, anyone who wanted to have sex with me could toss a coin at me, but I only had one coin to either deflect or pick someone myself. Thus, women seemed to collect coins in order to be choosy about who they sleep with, and men collected coins in order to pick the girls they want.

"Of course," Julian continued. "People know how to work the system. The ugly men target the vulnerable girls near the end when they are likely out of coins. Naturally, no one has to use coins at all, we encourage people to enjoy themselves, but the coin game adds some amusement. Oh! That reminds me, perhaps the best part. During the meeting, you can also trade coins in to buy various rare magical items. Aphrodisiacs, potions, enchanted jewelry… At the end, the one who earned the most coins will become the guest of honor for the Harvest festival, and that will have certain benefits to be revealed. Not saying you have to compete, but you will be rewarded for not being too stingy, yes?"

My eyes turned bright. The idea of a sexual orgy having coin collection triggered the gamer girl in me hard. With Mental Fortitude, I wouldn't be bothered no matter how ugly the guy was. I did fuck the devil looking orc, a cowman, and a pig-like creature only a short time ago. Experience and coins made this feel even more like a video game. In a game, killing a monster caused coins to drop from him. If coins erupted every time I had sex, I'd never have money problems again. I ignored how close this idea came to prostitution, it wasn't the same!

The reality was a coin exchange system. I could earn coins by sleeping with men, and then use those coins to buy items. Julian had further added that while those were the rules, most people did not use the coins to force others into sex. The girls who only slept with men after getting a coin were typically called "Slot Girls", and they were often shunned by everyone except the desperate ugly men. Instead, coins were more often gifted to women. Men would give the coin to the woman whom they considered his best that night. This further added to the women's competitive nature, as receiving a coin from him was equivalent to a seal of approval. As a result, the winner wasn't the woman who had put out for most of the ugly men, but who gained the sexual approval of the most men period.

After Julian had left, leaving my head swimming with this information that rivaled any lecture Denova had ever given me on etiquette, I finally pulled myself together and started the preparations. I had made a few hundred potions by now, and Reinhart told me that since I made them, I owned them. I told him he could sell most of it, which left me about ten percent of the remaining vials. I pocketed a vial of male enhancement lubricant, three vials of sexual recovery, and a vial of minor heal just in case.

I also covered my skin with the vial of skin restoration. It immediately started to work, soothing and softening my skin. By the time I was done, most of my body felt as silky and smooth as the orc semen, thankfully with none of the stringiness. Min gave a weird look like she was uncomfortable but not trying to let it show. With Reinhart, he thought with an analytical mind. The idea of using semen as a product in potions didn't disturb him much at all.

"Crushed bugs, tree sap, animal feces… These are all ingredients for some of the highest end potions. There is no use getting squeamish about it. We alchemists make the products, and the nobles and adventurers consume them. They don't want to know what went into it. They just care about its effect. I wouldn't worry about you selling people stuff made with semen, we've been selling them worse for years."

That was Reinhart's opinion on the subject. Regrettably, Min wasn't quite as enlightened. She accepted that I gathered the ingredients and made the potions, but she was very squeamish about using them. It took nearly two days to convince her to use the male enhancement lubricant. Natural, her dildo couldn't be "enhanced", but that didn't mean I didn't like to lube things up every once in a while. My own body was often enough, but the feel of my natural lubricant and the feel of the oily slippery Pigman lube led to two completely different sexual experiences, and thankfully Min agreed after the first time she tried it and came hard enough that her juices ended up squirting out of my snatch through the dildo's tip.

I had cleaned my body from head to toe, softened it with lotion, decorated with makeup, did up my hair as fancy as the days with Jenai, and put on a new dress. It seemed like it didn't matter what dress I wore. That didn't factor into this illusion of Julian's. However, I still had a brand new dress made. I was going to have another seamstress do it, but Min wouldn't hear of it and so I ended up with a gaudier and flashier version of the dresses she usually made. It was still noticeably her designs, but it was different enough that no one would connect it with the plain dresses I usually wore.

Although Min knew this was for an event where I would be "cheating", she seemed to have come to terms with it, understanding my own needs. In that respect, she used everything she had learned from our own sexual experiences to modify the dress. Simply put, she had made an outfit designed for sex.

The dress had a button on the front and the back that could tie up my dress, bearing my naughty bits without the dress falling in the way. My usual panties and thigh high socks had been replaced with a garter belt. This world did not seem to have garter belts, but when I described one, Min seemed determined. She even managed to replicate the thin filmy nylon, giving my legs an appealing darker tone, which was held up by a strap around my back.

The garter built wrapped around my stomach, and in the back, it had a handle which would allow someone who was grabbing on to me from behind to pull up. The underwear was held on with a button, and could easily be torn away, but also had a flap and a line of buttons that could quickly convert it to crotchless. The dress itself included two strategically placed belts. One ran across my hips and dropped to either side, the other was sewn into the fabric, wrapping around my breasts like a bra. It served to hold up my breasts, accentuate them, and it had another function.

If someone were to grab the straps of my lower belt, they would gain control of my hips, pulling them to drive their dick deeper into me during a Doggie or a Ben Dover. If they grabbed at the back, the belts would softly squeeze my tits as they gained control of my upper body. By grabbing both straps, my body could be used to a man's sexual delight.

Yet, despite the dress being in the form of a dominatrix dress, it all blended into the design, with nothing eccentric visible to the casual observer. Both the lower dress and the sleeves were pull-away, which would leave me wearing nothing but the tight upper bodice, the leather straps around my tits and hips, and the garter belt. The bodice had various pockets, a soft place that protected my vials, and another pocket lined with six handkerchiefs, should I need to do a quick cleaning. There was even a way to split the bodice down the middle, exposing my chest from the breasts to just below the belly button. The bodice would still push together from the sides and squeeze on my tits, pushing them together for some nice cleavage and prepping them perfectly to be played with or have a cock stuck into them. As I looked in the mirror with the dress in its dressed-down state, which is just the garter belt, and a bodice that squeezed on my bare tits, I had to say that my body never looked hotter. If ever there was a uniform designed for the seductress class, this outfit designed by Min would be it.

She created this, despite knowing what I would be doing in it. I once again felt a swelling of love for this woman who had entered my life and cared for me so much. I would seriously need to make this up to her later. When I was finally done dressing back up into the full outfit from what I started calling seductress mode, I looked like a princess. However, past plain sight, I was a girl primed for sex, every inch of her exuding the need and methods for sexual contact.

"So… how do I look?" I asked, spinning in the dress, trying to alleviate my nervousness.

"Mm… mask." Min held it up.

I looked down at the mask which surprisingly matched the dress perfectly. Admittedly, Min always chose green, white, and black, so it wasn't terribly surprising that Julian chose the colors that matched the outfits I usually wore. But of course, I was procrastinating from nervousness. I reached out, grabbed the mask, and put it over my head. There was no feeling as the magic took effect, but I trusted that it did its job as Julian promised. Sliding the Qetesh coin into one of the hidden pockets Min had prepared, I took a deep breath and headed out. With luck, in just a few hours, I'd be several levels higher and that much closer to thwarting Denova. I wasn't going to have sex, I was going to war.