Unmasced: a novelette ~PREVIEW~

The evening of the rave, Ashton was scrubbing the dishes in his dishevelled rags. Ever since he came out as gay, his family—his portly 22-year old sister, Portia; Portia’s twin brother, Cassius; their conservative, religious father, Monsignor Zigor—had disowned him, only letting him stay there if he cooked and cleaned. He was treated like a slave, and not in the fun, kinky way either. But to be fair, Portia and Cassius were slaves in their own way.

“Have you downloaded the new app yet?” Cassius asked his sister, eyes glued to his phone. “It’s called iCarious.”

Without looking up from her phone, Portia replied, “I’m downloading it as we speak. What is it? Another game? A social networking site where I can take lots of pictures?”

“It’s both. You just film everything you do and post status updates about every moment of your life, and it runs an algorithm that tells you what your Fun Quotient is.”

Portia popped her gum. “Fun Quotient?”

“Yeah. It tells you how much fun you are having, compares it with all your friends and strangers who have the app, then bases your number off of how much fun you should be having. Right now my Fun Quotient is only at 71.4809. Imma raise it at the party tonight though.”

“I heard DJ Charmz is hosting it!”

Cassius gasped. “An autograph and a selfie with him would boost my Fun Quotient!”

“Same! Looks like I got a lot of Fun to catch up on.”

Overhearing, Ashton interjected: “wait, did you say DJ Charmz is gonna be there?”

“Shut up,” scolded Cassius. “You’re not going. You have to mop the floor and fold the laundry and polish the furniture and clean the toilets.”

Ashton’s heart sank. “But I love DJ Charmz.”

“Besides, you don’t even have a phone,” sneered Portia. “How could you possibly have fun if you can’t photograph every moment of it? If you don’t take any pictures, it’s like it never happened.”

Cassius nodded. “Exactly. Now finish putting those plates away. Father will be pissed if you don’t.”

Moments later, Monsignor Zigor began plodding down the staircase, his right palm firmly clutching the banister, garbed in a black cassock with red buttons and a fuchsia sash. The Monsignor articulated, “I am leaving to attend the sermon. I trust Cassius and Portia to be safe at the event. The boy will be cleaning up. I shall not return until the morning. Farewell.”

“Adieu, Father,” the twins said in unison.
“Adieu, Monsignor Zigor,” said Ashton.

The Monsignor grabbed his Bible and headed out the door. As soon as he left, Portia and Cassius rushed upstairs to change. They had a few hours before the rave would start. The theme this year was Efemmeral Mascquerade, meaning that all the guests would wear masks reflecting how masculine or feminine they felt.

Portia rummaged through her walk-in closet for the frilliest, laciest, most stereotypically girly dress she could find. She found a glistening mask with pink feathers and tried it on. “Perfect!” She slipped her feet into a pair of sparkling sapphire stilettos, Louboutins, whose $1,300 price tag would surely give her a higher Fun Quotient than Cassius. Standing in front of her vanity mirror, she admired her ensemble, then applied more Sephora products to her face than a beauty pageant finalist, topped off with $80 lipstick (yanno, for that rare shade of rouge only money can buy). Finally, she doused her body in Cinnamon-scented perfume until she smelled like a cookie bakery on Christmas morning. Phone in hand, Portia shot a series of photos of her garish face and outfit and uploaded them to iCarious.

Her phone screen read “CALCULATING FQ” while it processed her results.  “FUN QUOTIENT FOR PORTIA ZIGOR IS 34.480897.” Then a pop-up read “15 TIPS ON HOW TO DRASTICALLY INCREASE YOUR FUN QUOTIENT OVERNIGHT—YOU WON’T BELIEVE #12: CLICK HERE.” Portia clicked it, and an ad-heavy article with 19 pages appeared.
TIP #1: Upload all pictures and videos of your life into your Local Gallery, available to all other app members within a 50-mile radius of you. Whenever a member with a lower Fun Quotient than you views, favorites, or comments on any of the images or videos you upload, your Fun Quotient goes up.

Tip #2: You can find the people in your area with the top twenty highest Fun Quotients if you go to “View High Score Leaderboard” on the homepage of the app. If you become friends with them, your Fun Quotient will improve… (continued on page 2).

Meanwhile, Cassius put on a macho-looking three- piece suit, threw on some threadbare black mask he found in his father’s old storage box, and sprayed enough Axe cologne on his body to put any middle school football team’s locker room to shame.

Swiping his phone with his thumb, he saw his Fun Quotient go up slightly. Dissatisfied by the slow rate at which his FQ was progressing, he friend requested everybody who RSVP’d to the rave. The more people who accepted, the higher his FQ (and ego) would be.
The app recommended that, before he left, Cassius watch several videos from their sponsors, and that by doing so, his “Cool Factor” would increase. The “Cool Factor” being another element in the FQ equation. In the first video Cassius watched, he saw an ad with a bunch of people his own age drinking a new brand of water called HIGH-DRATION. “Ah, refreshing,” the cast said in unison.
The voiceover above said: “HIGH-DRATION. Stay hydrated in style. Our product is organic, gluten-free, eco-friendly, non-GMO, and vegan.” Some bikini-clad blonde bombshell guzzled the water, one hand on her hip, and winked. Cassius suddenly felt very thirsty.

After his siblings left the house, Ashton dug out a secret box he kept hidden inside his mattress. From the bottom of the box, he scooped out...

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