The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Driver's Seat

Previously: "Ambush at the Donna" 

"What did you do to him?" you squeal at Sydney as you step over the prostrate body of David Kirkham. "You didn't hit him with a mask, did you? I didn't see—"

"Half of one." She bends over to grab Kirkham by his ankles. "The metal strip. You know, the part that copies— Are you going to help me out here?"

Together, you drag him into the middle of the room by the foot of the bed. There's no way, even working together, you'll be able to haul him up onto the bed, so that's where you leave him.

There is a mask on the bed, but when you turn it over you find it has Kelsey's name inside it. "So where's the one we—?"

"Inside the bag. So are we just going to turn him into a pedisequos? Or do you want to take him for a spin from the inside?"

"No, we can just turn him into a thing." You dig inside the plastic grocery bag that Sydney brought. It contains a plastic tub—the slave-making goop—and a mask. But the inner surface of it, you find on turning it over, has no metal strip inside it. "So we'll have to finish putting the thing together?" you ask Sydney. "After the, uh—?"

"Yeah. I thought, you know, he'd see the mask coming, but if I just used the metal strip— It's so small—"

"Yeah, okay, that's smart. It was just a surprise." You pause. "It was a surprise finding you here instead of Kelsey."

"I thought it would be more plausible."

Sydney stares down at Kirkham. His turquoise polo shirt is bunched up around his chest, exposing a flat stomach with some visible muscles, and his glasses have half-fallen from his face. She kneels to pull them off and to shift his head so that he's staring at the ceiling instead of the bottom of the bedspread.

"He's not bad looking," she says. "It's too bad he's such an asshole."

You shudder a little. "I think he looks like cancer."

"That's only because you know him better than me. You know, I think Kelsey kind of liked him? He had that bad boy thing going for him." She gives you a side-glance. "Isn't Amanda into that kind of guy?"

You shiver again. "She knows him better than that."

And yet, beneath the shiver of loathing there may be a shiver of a different kind. One of anticipation. In a few minutes, David Kirkham is going to be one of us, under our control.

Then you think, Wait. Under whose control, exactly?

"I just made up the generic stuff," Sydney says when you ask her, "so we'd just have to add the hair afterward, depending on who wanted him. If you don't want to be him, I'll take him for one of mine. Besides, I'm already undressed for it," she adds as she fingers a long strand of golden hair.

You both fall silent, and when it gets awkward you troop into the bathroom to relieve yourself. You were very jumpy the first time you had to pee and pat your frizzy bush dry after claiming Amanda's face for yourself, but haven't thought much of it since. Now, for some reason, you are self-conscious about it again, and fold the toilet paper up very carefully into a neat square before wiping yourself down. I miss my dick, you think.

Then, after a moment's thought, you unspool another length of toilet paper, fold it equally carefully, and give yourself another pat down, though you don't need it. Yes, I miss my dick, you think as you rub and dig the tissue deeper into the tangle of hair. It's like worrying at a wound—it hurts but it also feels good as you remember what you gave up. A cock. I need a cock again.

You suck on your lower lip and draw down a deep breath when you feel a warm flush start to spread down below. That's enough of that, you tell yourself, and drop the tissue into the toilet. You're just thinking about that guy out there, tell yourself as you button up and wash your hands and study your expression—a cold pout under the dark, straight bangs—in the bathroom mirror. There's a guy out there and he's poisoned with testosterone, you tell your reflection, and you're thinking about how you cut off your manhood in order to get this face, and so you're thinking about how much you miss it.

Except you don't miss it. Or you didn't miss it, until now.

"Sydney," you say as you come out of the bathroom and put out the light. "I think maybe I will—"

But Sydney is sprawled on the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. You rush to her side. "Sydney? Sydney!" But she doesn't respond as you chafe her wrists and slap lightly at her face. You cast a terrified glance down at Kirkham, but he's still out as well.

Not until you notice that the blank mask is gone do you start to put the pieces together.

* * * * *

"God, you guys are so disorganized!" Kelsey fumes as she helps you pull the last of her clothes off the still-unconscious Sydney McGlynn. She has kicked off Kirkham's clothes, which she woke up in, and gave an exasperated sigh when you told her that you needed her help getting Sydney undressed. "Couldn't you have figured all this out before—?"

"Will you please shut up?" you retort through gritted teeth as you yank the panties off your girlfriend.

"You can ask me to, but I don't have to, Mandy," Kelsey retorts. "Oh, excuse me, I mean, Will!" She looks disgusted enough to spit.

Well, she's right. It is kind of a clusterfuck. As soon as you realized that Sydney must have put the blank mask onto Kirkham in order to copy him, and put the metal band onto herself—though why she did that, you'll have to ask her when she recovers—you started thinking ahead to what would come next. You were terrified of Kirkham waking up, so you looked for the mask of Kelsey. (Her mask was already treated with some of the pedisequos paint.) After the mask reappeared on Kirkham, you carefully peeled it off him, then laid Kelsey's mask onto him. The girl materialized instantly, and groaned and squeaked and whined when she sat up. She was disgusted to find herself on the floor, and demanded to know whose clothes she was wearing, and how she got into them. With a minimum of explanation, you informed her that she was a pedisequos, and that there'd be hell to pay from her mistress if she didn't help you. She only rolled her eyes and demanded that you help her get into her own clothes.

Is she going to run off once she's dressed? Fortunately, she doesn't have a chance to, for all your shaking has woken Sydney up, and the girl sits up with a glare. "The fuck?" she demands.

"Good, you're awake," you say, and point to the fake Kelsey, who has frozen in the middle of putting on her bra. "Can you tell Kelsey to get herself a better attitude?"

Sydney stares at you, then turns to stare at Kelsey. For the longest time (it seems) she says nothing. Then she snorts, wipes her hand across her eyes, and says, "Go home."

No one moves or says anything until Kelsey asks, "Are you talking to—?"

"I'm talking to you, bitch! Go home! And keep your cum-sucking mouth shut about this!" she shouts after the half-naked girl as she stumbles backward toward the door.

"Jesus, Sydney!" you gasp.

"Shut up," she snarls. "I—"

Then she freezes with her hand before her face. Slowly she turns it this way and that. Her eyes go very wide, and her mouth falls open.

A wave of goosebumps ripples up your back as Sydney gently cups and squeezes her right breast. "Oh, fuck me," she gasps, and she swims across the bed and flies across the room for the bathroom. She flicks the light on, but doesn't shut the door.

You remain frozen in place, half hunched where you were when she woke up. You count the seconds by the pulse inside your ears.

After a count of seventy, Sydney comes swaggering out. Yes, there's no mistaking it. She is swaggering.

"Hey Prescott," she says, and her voice is at least half an octave lower than normal. "You look fine like that, a fuck-load better than you usually do. But so do I." She squeezes her breast again, and closes her eyes. An expression of pain and ardor washes over her face.

Icy fear closes around you. Your mouth and throat don't want to work. "Ss- Sydney?" you finally squeak.

She shivers all over, then smiles.

"Yes, Will, it's me," she says, and with a sigh she settles onto the foot of the bed—a beautiful naked girl. "Oh, God, but—" She covers her face with her hands and shudders from her crown to her toes, as though struck by lightning. "Wow!"

"You put on the, um— from David's—"

"Oh yeah, I know what I did. I wanted to see what would happen. Like, if I put on one of those things without putting on the mask. Because, like, you can do that. You don't have to wear both of them."

"Uh huh." You feel a little relieved, but not much. "And?"

"And what?" she asks. "It worked. I've got— Oh, man! All at once! Just woke up with all his . . . and his— Mmm!" She cups her breasts and lifts them to stare down at them. "Not like when I put on Kelsey's mask, or your friend Caleb's. Jesus!" She looks up. "Where's—?"

Before you can react, she snatches up Kirkham's mask, and the supply bag, and runs into the bathroom.

* * * * *

He's naked, and his cock is like a dowsing rod as he emerges from the bathroom. He gives you no quarter.

"Let's make it official between us, Will," he says as he grabs the back of your neck and pushes his face into yours. "No more of this cock-teasing bullshit."

Then David Kirkham chomps down hard on your lower lip.

Next: "The Cherry, Hung with Snow" 

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