The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Song of Yourself

Previously: "The Book, Mobile" 

Meet me up at school.
Now.

Your hands freeze around the phone as you study Chen's text. Your brain seems to freeze as well.

He has the book, and as a last resort you texted him, pleading with him to give it back to "Will Prescott," the guy it belongs to.

And, almost without thinking, you promised to do him "a solid" if he did that.

Now your bluff has been called.

* * * * *

"Christ, Will, why didn't you take him up on it?" Caleb fumes when you tell him how you chickened out.

It's Sunday afternoon, the soonest you and he could get together. You're at the old elementary school because it's a private spot where he and "Chelsea Cooper" are unlikely to be seen together. There's no other reason to meet there. You used up the last of your supplies for making masks, so you couldn't make any more even if you still had the book (which you don't), and you used up the last of your magical gear to make a copy of Stephanie Wyatt and to copy Gary Chen's mind.

The situation is desperate, which is probably why you are snapping at each other.

"You want to know why I didn't I take him up on it?" you retort. "Do you really fucking have to ask that question? Here!" You mime tearing your own face off. "If you are so hot to suck Gary Chen off, or to let him jam his sausage up your gyny, you can put on the mask and give him a call!" Caleb makes a face and turns away. "Yeah, that's what I thought!" you yell at him.

"You didn't have to put out, Will! You could have just found out what he wanted."

"I know what he wanted!"

"We should'a taken Chelsea up to meet him, not Stephanie," Caleb mutters. "That's where—"

"I didn't want him knowing I was connected to this mess!"

"Well, he knows now, God damn it!" Caleb roars. "So if you're already in all the way, you might as well have let him in all the way!" He thrusts his crotch at you.

"Fuck you!" You look around for something to throw at him, but the smallest item within reach is a six-foot bookcase. "Fuck you fuck you fu—!"

And all at once, you're bawling your head off. Caleb grimaces with embarrassment. When you can't take it anymore, you rush up the stairs and out to your car. Between the tears and the hiccups, you can hardly see as you race away from the school. That goddamned asshole! That cocksucker! That motherfucking—!

* * * * *

You wind up at the college library of all places, probably because that's the only place that Chelsea can be sure of not running into anyone she knows. You hide in the back stacks, at a study table, with your head under your arms. It all seems so hopeless!

Losing the book is bad enough, but the worst part is that your phone is completely silent. Surely Caleb would text or call you to apologize! Or at least to gruffly insist that you talk! Even with him, the situation would be daunting—Chen in possession of the book, and you without any kind of tool or disguise you can use to get it away from him—but alone, by yourself, what hope have you got? You are overwhelmed with a sense of desolation and loneliness. Just me against the world!

Eventually, after you've cried yourself out and rubbed the wetness from your face—God, I'm probably a mess! you think—you discover that the reason you haven't heard from anyone is that your phone is off. Right, you remind yourself, I turned it off when I got to the old school, so Caleb and me wouldn't be interrupted. You feel feel a pale but palpable sense of hope when you turn it back on, and see the screen light up with alerts. Your heart sinks, though, as you run through them and find they are all solely from the usual suspects: Kendra and Gloria, Meghan Farris and Deanna Showalter, various girls on various sites trying to suck up to you by tagging you into their conversations. It leaves you feeling very tired.

Mechanical habit asserts itself, though, and with numb fingers and a distracted attention, you start working your way through the list, replying with curt directives and queries; likes and emojis; searches of related posts and threads and texts. Gradually you warm to the job, and when you come up for air after a lot of intense thread- and text-management, you find that nearly ninety minutes have passed.

You also find that your mood has improved.

Oh, you're still cheesed off at Caleb. But you know what? Fuck him! He's a dweeby loser floundering somewhere in the lowest, muckiest percentile of the senior class. And without the book he has no way of improving his position, the way you have. Meanwhile, even without the book, you're Chelsea Flippin' Cooper, head cheerleader, at Westside High School!

In fact, the more you think about it, the more you wonder why the ever-loving fuck you were upset to begin with. So you lost the book. So flipping what? Was there someone else you would have preferred to become? Are there any better positions out there? I don't think so! As for Chen getting ahold of it— Well, is there anything to really worry about there? He's a psycho and a criminal, but that's because he's too dumb to be any better, and why should you worry about a dumbass like him getting ahold of the book? If he's even looked at it, he'll have noticed it's in Latin and will have probably already thrown it away!

It's not long before you've plumped yourself back into a very cheerful mood, and "Cheerful" elevates to "Imperious" after you've retreated to the nearest restroom and put yourself back together. A clean face, repaired makeup, brushed-out hair, straightened lines on your blouse and jacket and skirt and leggings ... Your tits are swinging like the guns on a battleship when, with chin up and shoulders back, you march back out.

And when you get a text from Gordon asking you to meet him up in the gym loft, you smirk hard to yourself. It's not the real Gordon, but it's a passable facsimile. And if there's nothing else that Chelsea Flippin' Cooper is proud of—aside from her hair, her nose, her bust, her waist, her hips, her legs, her adorable little feet, and the skill with which she can execute a flawless triple backflip—it's that she's dating the hot, mean captain of the basketball squad!

Be rite thre pookie! you text back, and double-quick-time it for the library parking lot.

* * * * *

"Oh, Gordon," you moan as you suck and nibble at his lips. "You are making me so hot. And so wet!"

"You know what you're making me?" he grunts back.

You giggle. "You don't have to tell me!" It is indeed impossible not to feel the straining boner through your boyfriend's gym shorts.

You're up at the school, in the gym loft, on one of the crummy gym mats that's the only padding for the hard-wood floor. Gordon is sitting with his back to one of the support beams, and you are straddling his lap. You are clasping his shoulder while he wraps brawny arms around your waist. You were happy to see him—so drunk are you with relief at realizing that as Chelsea Flippin' Cooper you have no reason to be upset with recent turns of fortune—but now, after twenty minutes of poking, teasing, tickling, squeezing, and chewing on him and having him chew on you ... Well, God damn it, you are almost horny. I've got Chelsea Cooper's pussy, you pant silently to yourself. How long am I going to go without using it?

"Wait here, Pookie," you say as you push yourself off him. "I'm going to go change."

"What do you need to change for?" he grunts. "You look fine to me."

"Well, you're in your uniform. I wanna go get into mine!"

A hard, sharp gleam comes into his eye, and the corner of his mouth twists up into a leer with just a shadow of cruelty in it.

Oh my God, you think as you stumble down the stairs from the loft. I can't believe I'm doing this! Am I really—? You gulp. Oh Jesus, I think I really am!

It's not just your own behavior that surprises you as you numbly pull the cheerleader uniform from your locker. What happened to Goofball Gordon, who last you saw on Friday? That one could hardly look you in the face, and cracks himself up each time he tries talking to you. As for trying to make out with you— Well, the only move he has made is to try putting his arm around you, and even then he acts like he's touching a porcupine.

Today, though, he was waiting for you in the loft with a hard and undaunted eye, and when he saw you he reached for you as though you were a ripe grapefruit he was thinking of tearing open with his bare fingers. He doesn't giggle, either, and when he talks, he talks dirty to you.

It's almost like he's the real Gordon again.

Which is impossible. Dane must be trying to live up to the role, you decide. Finally.

But these reflections, you find as you finish changing into your cheerleader uniform, have caused a cold shadow to fall across your heart.

Maybe, you think, I should pretend I got a text summoning me home. I don't really want to fuck him, do I?

That's all for now

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"