The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Cover Girl

Previously: "Which Witch?" 

"That's kind of a stereotype, isn't it?" Sydney asks you later, after you've told her you want to use Chelsea as the "mascot" for your Brotherhood. "Horny high school guy who wants to bone the head cheerleader?"

Your face must have shown panic, because she giggles. "Fuck me, Will," she sighs. "Zion. Whatever your name is." She kisses you. "Fuck me, and fantasize that I'm Chelsea Cooper while you're doing it!"

You were feeling spent and even a little sore. But with that as enticement, you quickly rise to the occasion!

* * * * *

It will be easiest to catch Chelsea by using a teacher, so Sydney says she will change masks with Mr. Hagerman after you leave for the night, and you get confirmation from her an hour or so after you're home again: Hey Zion, this is Mr. Hagerman, comes the text from his account. This is just to confirm that our project for tomorrow after school is still on. After you respond with an Ok! he adds, Good. I'll see you after class, and I can't wait to kiss your boner with my new pussy. You have to stifle a yelp.

Monday is your first day at school as Zion Barber, and by this time your new persona is so second nature that it is almost dull exercise in deja vu. Chemistry first period. Leadership/Citizenship second period. A Speech class, a Constitutional Law class, an Algebra II class. The only real highlights are third-period PE, which is a sports class and thus your only outlet for playing basketball, and English, which is spiky and stressful because the teacher is really your girlfriend in disguise. Not that Mr. Hagerman is anything except businesslike, and he even has a sharp word for you when he you strike up a sotto voce conversation with Shane Hilburn. His tone is also flat when he asks calls your name as class is breaking up. "We're all set up for after class," he tells you.

You nod nervously. "Great. Any trouble getting, uh, Ch—"

"You don't want to be late for your next class," he chides you, and with a quick, cold glance turns around to erase the board.

"You got something going with Mr. Hagerman after class?" asks Scott McInerney. He's another basketball player, and he and Roman are lurking in the doorway.

"Class project we need to talk about.

"Don't you have enough extracurricular things going?"

"You should hear this guy," Roman says. "He's gonna try out for head cheerleader next year."

You do a full-body twitch. Could be this year, you think to yourself. This afternoon!

Then you think, Wait, that'll be Sydney, not me.

And then you think, Well, why couldn't it be me?

"You okay there, Barber?" Roman asks.

"Yeah, just thinking about the cheerleaders," you quickly shoot back.

"Don't tell Christine." Scott and Roman guffaw.

* * * * *

It had been kind of weird hooking up with the Christine-pedisequos in the hallways between classes, and being affectionate with it. You and Sydney had also decided to keep her and Zion as pedisequoses as well instead of releasing the originals from their enchanted hiding places—they'll be a help when it comes time to recruit inside the junior class. You worried that the fake Christine might conceive some kind of antipathy for you—a fake version of her boyfriend—after Sydney was out of that mask, but maybe Sydney had some instructions for the thing, because it is just as affectionate and interested in you today as the real girl has ever been for her real boyfriend. There was, perhaps, just a slight glassiness in her eyes, a vaguely mechanical rhythm to her flirtations; the hint of metal inside her kisses. But maybe that was just your own paranoia. Certainly she squeals appreciatively when you saunter into the eighth-period math class you share, and groped for you eagerly when you bent over her for another kiss.

And maybe she also understands the nature of today's business—though you don't ask her if she does—because when you tell her you'll be meeting with Mr. Hagerman after class, she nods and says she'll look for you there after tennis practice.

But you get caught up talking to Kyler and Kian after class lets out—there's some bullshit business with the clothing drive that needs sorting out—and it's nearly fifteen minutes after the final bell before you're able to sprint down the English wing to Mr. Hagerman's room. The door is locked when you rattle the knob, and the lights are out inside. No one is visible through the narrow window in the door. So you shoot him a text, letting him know that you're outside his room.

A moment later the door opens and a hand pulls you inside. Mr. Hagerman leans out to glance up and down the hallway before closing the door. "Just about set," he says, and jerks his head at the chair that's pushed into an inner corner the room. Chelsea Cooper, her chin on her chest, is slumped there. You swallow hard.

Chelsea is the queen of the school, an imperious presence without the time or interest for anyone but the handful of people she deems worthy—and many of these (you've heard through friends) she treats more like employees or staff. But as head cheerleader she can get away with it, for she a body to make guys die with lust, and girls die with envy.

She is small, but strong, and the short skirt she is wearing shows powerful thighs and calves. Her tummy is trim and curved inside a tight blouse, and her prodigious breasts are plump and globe-like. Golden hair tumbles in loose curls to her shoulders. Her nose and chin are pert, and her skin clear and unblemished. Her feet, inside her bright white sneakers, are small and nubile.

"Huh?" you say with a start after you've been staring at Chelsea for what seems like hours, for you realize that Mr. Hagerman has been talking to you. "What was that?"

"Christ, Will," he mutters. "There'll be plenty of time to eye-bang her later. I was asking what you thought of Meredith Ritenour or Stacy Stahl as our second."

"Our second what? No, really, I don't know what you mean," you protest when the teacher glares at you.

"We were going to do two of them, remember?" he says. "Chelsea and another one. Then pick out some recruits explain things by—"

"Oh, right. Wait, I'd also be a girl?"

Mr. Hagerman blinks at you. "I didn't think you'd have a problem with that," he says. "I mean, you seemed okay with Hannah, so—"

"No, that's right," you hurriedly assure her. Why am I freaked out by the thought of being a girl again? you wonder. It freaked you out a little when you thought of it at the end of English class, when you were leaving the room. Maybe it's Zion, you think. Maybe he doesn't like the idea of—

"Well?"

"Huh? Oh. Why them? Meredith or Stacy? Are we talking about—?"

"Should we take this conversation outside so you can concentrate without being distracted?"

"No, I'm fine, sorry." You turn your back on Chelsea, to give your partner your full attention. "Meredith. Um—"

"I don't know that she's into the occult, but she seems like she could be, don't you think?"

"Oh!" You snap your fingers. "You mean use Meredith instead of, um, Delp or Morgana."

Mr. Hagerman visibly grits his teeth. "Yes. And Stacy does gymnastics, she's going to try out for the cheerleading squad next year. That would make her a natural to pair up with Chelsea here."

You cast a quick glance back at Chelsea. Yes, she's still slumped there, and she's still gorgeous.

Okay, so, Stacy Stahl is a natural candidate to partner with Chelsea. Meredith, meanwhile, hasn't any of the "witchy" qualities that Morgana does, but she's bookish and nerdy and pale and plump all over. She wears horn-rimmed glasses, and carries around books on feminism and "queer theory." Someone like that, you suppose, is plausible not as the victim of a body swap, but as someone who might have found and read a book on a fringe cult like the Brotherhood of Baphomet, and seen a chance to put it and its ceremonies into action.

But both those girls are juniors, and you thought that you were keeping Zion and Christine as your junior-class puppets ...

"We can have more than two," Mr. Hagerman replies with a sigh when you ask about that.

While you're still mulling all this, a glow from Chelsea's face heralds the reappearance of the mask, and Mr. Hagerman swoops in to catch it. "You better start getting undressed," you warn him as he holds the mask with one hand, and plucks up the memory strip from a nearby desk. But instead of moving, he weighs them in each hand.

"I'm getting nervous making the changes in here," he says. "One of these days, someone will knock."

"You have to get changed," you repeat.

"I'm just thinking— If we glue these things together, we can put the pedisequos-paste in it and put it back on her," he replies. "Then we can order her to follow me home. I can change out there without anyone interrupting."

That makes sense. But— "You have trouble getting the memories, don't you, when you glue the things together?"

Mr. Hagerman bites his lip as he stares at the interior of the mask.

"Well," he says, "I've got all the stuff here. So if you don't mind being Chelsea, we could glue them together and put your stuff inside the mask."

He raises his head to look at you.

Next: "From Blonde to Blonde" 

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