“Alpha”—Little Destroyer

“Animal”—AG, MOONZz

“Born for This”—CRMNL

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”—Taylor Swift

“Champagne Supernova”—Oasis

“Clean”—Hey Violet

The Jazz Age

Daisy & Gatsby

Jazz music blares across the lawn, its brassy notes filtering through the trees, softened by whispering, green foliage and delicate darkness.

I pause by an oak, bracing myself against the trunk while I take off my T-straps. Leaving the shoes there, I continue in my stockings, not really caring if they’re full of runs tomorrow.

The champagne I drank sparkles in my head, punctuating my dark thoughts like the fireflies winking on and off across the shadowed expanse of the lawn. I round the corner of a hedge, taking a last backward glance at the up-lit pinnacles and glowing gables of the great house from which I’m fleeing.

Tonight’s party is a masquerade, so I’m wearing a half mask covered in faux pearls, lent to me by my best friend, Jordan. Now that I’m away from everyone else, I could take the mask off, but it feels like a shield, like protection. A layer of mystery between me and whomever I may encounter.

I had to escape the party—“Gatsby’s party” they said. A man named Gatsby, though no one could tell me his first name and no one seemed to know where he was or what he looked like. I’ve never been to a party where the host was so scarce—it’s rude, I think, not to make oneself known to one’s guests. Especially when someone has a name like “Gatsby.”

I knew a Gatsby once, years ago. He went off to war, and I waited…I waited so long, until Mama and Daddy insisted I marry someone. It was odd, they said, for a young woman of twenty-two to be unmarried. I was on my way to being a dried-up old maid, they told me, and we couldn’t have that in the family, no we couldn’t. It wouldn’t do for a dynasty such as ours, old money with a name to uphold.

So I let Tom Buchanan tether me to him with a long string of pearls, roping me as surely as any pretty heifer being led to market. The wedding is in one week.

My family and I are staying with Tom’s parents at their Long Island estate until the big day. Afterward my parents will go back to Georgia, and I’ll stay here, to be Tom’s fire bell, his devoted wife, his dutiful escort to all business dinners and society affairs.

The world is changing. I know it. I feel it—I can taste it. But I’m being left behind. Once I’m married, I’ll be trapped in Tom’s family, and they’re high society, old money, like mine. That sort of wealth comes with expectations—rules I’m expected to follow, etiquette I’m supposed to know.

Sometimes I think the poor girls working as typists or clerks in the city have more freedom than I do. That’s why I let Jordan sneak me out of the house tonight so we could attend this party. It’s more than just a dance—it’s my last gasp of liberty before I resign myself to married life. The music is wild, the place is hopping, and the whole event is a speakeasy right out in the open—’shine flowing in fountains and damn the snoopers. I suppose someone with a house like that and money like that can just pay off the cops if they come poking around.

It was fun at first…and then as time passed and I saw nothing of the party’s host, I began to feel hollow. I could hear the clock in my head, ticking down the minutes until dawn, when I’d have to hobble home on weary feet and give myself up to the inevitable reality of being Mrs. Tom Buchanan, the oven in which the next generation will bake.

Mama hates it when I talk like that, but it’s true. To Tom, I’m a pretty little fool, a lovely trophy to be admired when I’m with him and to be used whenever he feels the urge. Of course, I say none of this aloud. I keep it in my head, where it belongs. That’s what good girls do. They know their place, and mine isn’t among the glad whirl of people howling and laughing and dancing their shoes to ribbons in Gatsby’s courtyard and halls. My place is amid huge rooms of silent, deadly elegance; endless beauty rituals to keep myself perfectly polished and pleasing to my husband; lawn parties and teas and occasional trips into town, where I must smile and keep my voice low and never speak out of turn.

And my alternative? Without any education or training, no money of my own? I’d have to rely on friends like Jordan, and she’s tied to her own family. She’d be shunned in our circles for helping me, and I can’t destroy her like that. Which means I have no choice. To survive, I have to marry, and I’ve said no to far too many suitors—waited far too long, hoping one person would return and ask me.

He never did, and I can’t put this off any longer. That string of exquisite pearls is constricting around my neck. It’ll be over soon, and then I won’t feel anything.

While I wait for the noose to cinch tight, the green gloom behind this hedge is a decent place to hide.

I pluck idly at the leaves of the bushes as I walk, snatching, tearing, sprinkling the bits like confetti over the grass.

I don’t know what I expected from this party tonight. I knew its host couldn’t be the same Gatsby—my Gatsby. That Gatsby was a soldier with no family or fortune. Penniless and perfect. He had the sweetest face, the warmest brown eyes, and a smile that said I was the most important soul in his world—the most exquisite being in the universe.

I miss that smile.

Something rustles behind me and I whirl around. I suppose I shouldn’t be out here in the dark without a companion—some grifter could be lurking around, looking to do mischief.

“Is anyone there?” I ask.

Another rustling step, and a broad-shouldered, suit-clad figure emerges from the gloom. I can’t see his face, but he’s big—a regular bruno. His mask is carved in the shape of a leering, fanged face, like a demon I once saw in a stage performance of Faust.

“I was just going back to my friends,” I murmur, backing away.

“Were you?” His voice is a low rumble.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving.”

“Or you could stay.”

There’s something familiar about the way he speaks. I wish he would say more, so I could listen and try to remember who he reminds me of.

He moves closer, corralling me against the hedge. He doesn’t touch me, but he’s enormous, magnetic, swallowing all the air around me until I can hardly breathe. I’m not scared, not really. Or maybe I am—wonderfully, wildly scared.

His scent is rich, heavy, spicy—a cologne of pine, leather, black pepper, amber. I inhale deeply, savoring the scent because there’s something familiar in that too. Like the lyrics of a song you can’t quite remember but you wish you could because it always made you want to dance.

“You remind me of someone.” The man’s jawline and lips are the only features visible below the edge of his mask, and even those features are softened by the night.

“Do I?” I say vaguely, conscious that he’s coming closer, reaching for me.

He speaks again, thrillingly low and tempting. “May I touch you?”

No. The word trembles on my tongue. No is what I owe to Tom, to my family, to the white wedding and the pallid life that have been planned for me.

No is what they expect me to say to anything I might desire, anything that deviates from the plan. Always no.

But maybe, just this once, in the darkness, under the champagne stars, I can say a quiet yes, just for me. Just once, before the pearly noose tightens and my neck snaps.

Yes.

I say it with silence, and with the release of tension from my shoulders. I say it by leaning toward him, yielding.

He reaches down, cupping his hand around the back of my thigh right above my knee. His fingers glide upward, scrunching up the glittering fringes and the silky fabric of my dress. His hand skims across my garter strap and moves higher, sliding over the left cheek of my bottom and the lacy panties covering it. He pauses there, splaying his fingers. A tingling thrill skitters between my legs.

The stranger squeezes my ass lightly, and I shiver with pleasure. His hand moves higher, along my spine, dragging my dress upward. Cool air flutters across my lace-covered center, but even that slight chill can’t suppress the warm glow in my lower belly. I’m dizzy, delighted, flush with need.

Music from the party echoes across the garden, a hectic rhythm matching the heat of my blood, the speed of my pulse. The stranger bends, his masked face pressing into the curve of my neck. I tilt my head to give him better access. His warm breath bursts against my sensitive skin…and then his wet tongue trails over the pulse point of my throat.

My breath catches.

His lips seal to that tender spot, a brief kiss with firm suction. He folds his arms around me, gathering me close, engulfing my slender frame. I sense his fierce need in the heat of his mouth, the strength of his grip, the rush of his breath.

He kisses my throat again, and I’m motionless, mesmerized as each press of his lips sends a tiny bolt of ecstasy between my legs. The music is thumping faster, faster, a frenzied rhythm shuddering through the summer night…and as a trumpet wails, bold and brassy, soaring over the rest of the band, two small pricks of pain register at my throat. Twin needles of sharp discomfort melting swiftly into thrilling suction, into a mind-softening warmth.