The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Turnabout

Previously: "Joey and You and You" 

"Sure, we could do that," you stammer with a gulp. "Or, couldn't I just, you know, try on that one?" You point to her face, which is yours.

"Don't be a doofus!" your twin exclaims. "If you put it on you'd just look like yourself!" Then her face falls. "I mean, unless you don't want to try ... my ..."

"No, that's fine!" you rush to assure her. "I was just thinking, um—" You feel yourself floundering. "But yeah! Dur!" You smack yourself in the head. "I just can't hardly think straight!"

Joey's eyes light up.

"It is incredible, isn't it?" she exclaims. "Come on!"

She grabs you by the wrist, and you're struck by how warm her palm is. Is that me, does it feel like that to other people when I touch them? you wonder as the person who looks exactly like you drags you into the house. Or is it Joey? Or does it only feel warm and prickly and weird because it's someone else who is looking like me that is holding me and—?

"I got everything laid out upstairs," Joey gushes. "And we don't have to worry about something for you to wear, 'cos, you know, I got all my clothes up there too and—"

Holy shit, you think, I'll be wearing her clothes and I'll have her body, which means I'll have her—! You gulp. Has Joey thought this all the way through?

Up a broad flight of stairs she hauls you to a second floor landing, then down a broad hallway. At the end of it is her bedroom.

But it's two bedrooms. The one you enter contains a desk the size of an aircraft carrier with a desktop computer and a laptop in addition to the wide space covered over with books. But there's a double doorway, which Joey pulls you, into another spacious room dominated by a queen-size bed under a navy blue bedspread. Two dressers, a vanity table, and small bookshelf lined with porcelain figures complete the spread.

In the middle of the bed, its burnished blue contrasting with the deeper blue of the bedspread, is a mask. Joey squeezes your arm, and squeaks.

"You go ahead and start getting undressed," she says. "Oh! Um." She wheels to give you a feverish look, and bites her lip.

You can see it her eyes: She's just realized she's asking a guy to get naked in her room. Probably on her bed. Maybe she's just now seeing all the way to the end of her idea.

"I don't have to get undressed," you tell her. "Do I? Is it going to interfere with the—?"

"I don't know," she stammers. "I mean, I took all mine off, just in case— Oh God!" She slaps her hands over her face and wheels around. The back of her neck—your neck—starts to blush.

Fuck, you think with a sinking heart. I'm going to have to be gallant or some shit like that, aren't I? And it's not like you've had a lot of practice.

You take a deep breath.

"Joey," you say, "it's totally up to you what we do. I mean, you tried on that mask, and you saw it worked. If you don't want to— If you change your mind—"

She's got her hands pressed over her nose and mouth when she swings back around, and her eyes are watering, but they're twinkling too. She sucks in a couple of deep breaths before speaking.

"No," she says. "Let's go do it. If you're okay with it!"

"You're the one who—"

"Don't you want to?"

Christ! you want to shout. Will you stop putting it all on me? Farther back, under that shout, is another, discordant thought: Is this what it's like having a girlfriend?

"Joey," you tell her, "I said I wanted to do it. If you want to change your mind, we won't do it. Okay?"

She squeaks and wobbles on her feet.

"Okay," she says in a croaking voice, and pushes you to the bed. "But wait till I've brought you some of my clothes first! Then I'll go downstairs and ... wait out in the back yard."

You nod and sit on the edge of her bed. You keep very still—by being very quiet you will calm her down—as she bustles through dressers.

"There," she says as she drops the clothes beside you. "Do you know how to, um—?" She points at the bra, which is very small.

"I'll figure it out."

"Oh God! Then I guess I'll— Oh wait!" She snatches up the mask. "I'm such a moron! I have to make it for you first!"

"Make it?"

She nods. "Yeah, I didn't— I haven't actually—" She gulps. "Copied myself—"

"Okay, then I'll go downstairs and wait in the back yard." You cross to the door. "Come get me when you're ready. And Joey?" you continue. "It'll be okay. Just take deep breaths."

She cringes, but smiles. You pull the bedroom door shut on her.

* * * * *

In fact, you're sitting in a breakfast nook by the back door when she comes downstairs in about fifteen minutes time. When you opened the back door, a black and white spaniel leaped with a howl off some patio furniture and hurled itself at you. You slammed the door in its face, and for five minutes it scratched at the door and barked.

Joey is looking like herself again when she finds you. She hasn't changed clothes, though, and has to hold her pants up with one hand. "All ready," she tells you from the stairs.

"What's your dog's name?" you ask. You feel a desperate desire to make small talk.

"My dog? Oh! I forgot about— Did you make friends with her?"

"No. She jumped at me like she wanted to tear my arm off, so I came back inside."

"Oh God, I'm sorry. She's usually such a sweet dog. Oh, it's Monday."

You blink and do a quick mental calendar check. "No, today's Wednesday."

Joey giggles. "People always get confused. Her name is Monday. My dog."

"You named your dog Monday?"

"No, we named her a couple of years ago!" Joey bursts into peals of laughter. "It was my dad's idea!"

Is your whole family like you? you wonder as you follow her back upstairs.

"Now, you were supposed to say, 'It was your dad's idea to name her a couple of years ago?' And then I would say— Oh, here we are again." She stops short in the middle of her bedroom. "Tell you what, you change in the bathroom, and then pass your clothes out to me, then put on my things. And I'll change into your things in here."

"You're going to put on my clothes?"

"Sure," she says with a shy smile. "If you're going to put on mine."

You shiver hard. Somehow, the idea of Joey in your clothes is even more exciting than the idea of yourself inside hers.

* * * * *

The first thing you notice when you wake is the cold. You feel like you've been sleeping on a block of ice, and the chill has got all the way down into your bones.

The second thing you notice is that the bathtub has gotten bigger. It gigantic to begin with, almost big enough for you to lay down in, like a coffin, when you clambered into it with the mask. But now it completely swallows you up.

You draw a very deep breath. Oh God, what am I going to find when I touch myself?

In spite of what happened when you made that first mask ... and in spite of what you saw when Joey opened the garage door and showed you your own face ... there was a still a part of you that didn't believe anything was going to happen. It's just so incredible. You actually felt silly as you stepped into the cold tub. It's just a silly piece of theatrical decoration, said some mulishly skeptical part of your brain as you studied the mask. Come on! Don't be a dumbass. You'll die of embarrassment when you put it on and nothing happens.

It was with an exasperated sigh (at yourself, at Joey, at a universe that would tip itself upside down and throw you into this bizarre afternoon) that you settled back in the tub and lifted the mask to your face. For a moment you felt yourself suffocating as it settled over your nose and mouth.

Then it gripped the front of you face and stuck there. You tried to suck in a breath, but your brain got very gauzy and your muscles relaxed, and you felt a syrupy warmth oozing and welling up all around you. It felt like you were smiling to yourself when you slipped underneath.

But now you're awake. The mask is gone and you're staring at the ceiling. The chill of the tub is like an icy spike driving into your spine. You sit up.

The first thing you notice is that nothing is flopping around down below, like there should be. There's hair between your legs, but it's all the wrong shape: a woolly patch with nothing inside. Then you look at your chest. Your pecs are all the wrong shape. Tiny bananas are sprouting there.

You touch your face and climb all the way out of the tub. A figure moves in the mirror over the sink. You gape at Joey Tarwhatshername as she gapes back at you.

Next: "The Touch of Magic" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"