The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Partners Under the Skin

Previously: "From Blonde to Blonde" 

The thought of your girlfriend riding the cock of Gordon Black makes you hot and bothered. After all—when you think back—the reason you're in this present situation is because you wanted to win Sydney for yourself from another guy—Caleb—you made the jump to a new identity because another jock asshole was trying to shove you out of the way so that he could have her.

And surely Sydney knows how you feel. Over the last few days she's acted like she's as hot for you as you are for her. So why doesn't she want you moving in to replace Chelsea's lunkheaded boyfriend—the friggin' captain of the school's basketball team—so you can keep making hot, pounding love to her?

You hate the frothing waves of jealousy that are twisting your stomach into an angry knot, and you glower at the reply she sent when you asked if Gordon would be available to you.

Omg no he has a shitty home life trust me u don't want to b him

Is that some kind of made-up excuse? Or a genuine warning?

You can't really believe that Sydney would want to push you away after what you've been to each other as Michael Hagerman and Hannah Cho, and as Zion Barber and Christine Miles. Wouldn't you miss me if I wasn't Gordon? That's what you want to text her. But you don't want to sound needy.

A new text pops up: U there? she asks.

Yah m thinking, you reply.

Your stomach is still churning half an hour later when she pokes you again for a decision. But with a sigh you feel your willpower crack. Kendra, you reply. That's one of Chelsea's pilot fish. At least that will keep you close to her.

* * * * *

But you're in a mood the next day, a fact that your friends pick up on. "Did you and Christine have a fight?" Marianne asks you at lunch, which you take fourth period in the crowded cafeteria. Christine herself has fifth lunch.

"Huh? No!" you exclaim. "Did she say something to you?" Across the table, Charles Sweeney stops in mid-bite to grin devilishly to himself.

"It's just the way she was looking at you after you dropped her off at the gym. She saw you scoping out that girl."

"What girl?"

"You know what girl."

"Is she pissed at me?"

"Not yet." Marianne says it very primly.

Charles falls in next to you later when you return your trays to the front of the cafeteria. "Don't let her fuck with you, man," he says. "It's just a girl thing, you know."

"What is?"

"If I listened to half the shit Julie tried laying on me, I'd need to see a psychiatrist."

That's all he has to say, leaving you even more vexed than before. But you leave lunch early so you can meet the Christine-pedisequos outside her Spanish class. She squeals with delight when she sees you, and you squeeze each other tightly as the crowd surges around you. After a biting kiss you as her if she's mad at you. "No!" she says with a queer laugh. "Why would I be—?"

"'Cos Marianne said she thinks you are."

"Tch. If anything, I'm worried that you're mad at me." She pouts and strokes the side of your nose with a fingertip. God, you think, I wish this was Sydney. Or no, I don't. If it was, I think I'd slam her up against a locker and take her right here!

"Well, I'm not mad at you," you say.

"You didn't kiss me when you dropped me off at the gym for P. E.," she says in a tiny voice.

"Oh. Well, let me make it up to you now."

She sags in your arms after you've gnawed lips for a minute. "I wish you wouldn't look at other girls, though," she says.

"Who did I—? I don't, you know. I—"

"I wish you wouldn't look at Sydney McGlynn!" Christine says. Her voice is a murmur, but there's real fire in it.

Oh! you think. That's right. I passed Sydney coming toward the gym on my way out. "I'm not even sure who that is," you tell the pedisequos.

"Well, don't look at anyone except me," she says, "then accidents won't happen!"

"You have a problem with that girl?" you ask. This behavior worries you.

The thing shrugs. "I just don't like her. I've got her in that class, and she's so stuck up!"

* * * * *

"Yeah, whatever," Chelsea tells you later when you try to talk to her about the Christine-pedisequos and what it said. "I'm sure it'll be okay."

She's distracted, more distracted than you think she ought to be, considering that you have everything under control. Kendra Saunders, your impersonation to come, sits twisted up, like a broken doll, in a chair in the back of Mr. Hagerman's room. The lights are out, the door is locked, and the teacher is in the lounge again, distracting anyone who might come looking for him in his room. So it's just you and Chelsea, waiting for the mask-and-band combo to finish copying Kendra.

She's a beautiful thing, a slim, gazelle-like girl with high cheekbones and auburn-dyed hair that hangs in tight ringlets to her elbows. She's much skinnier than Chelsea, and much less developed, with a physique better suited to track than to cheerleading. But it probably fits. She is of Kenyan descent—Kenyan, not African, she will insist when the point comes up—and she looks like she's borne of a family whose progenitors hunted game with spears across the Serengeti for thousands of years. Almost as though she might have been bred to.

Otherwise, you don't know much about her, except that she haughty to everyone except Chelsea, whom she follows around like a hyena padding after a lioness. Her reputation, if anything, is even worse than Chelsea's, because (at least according to Jenny Ashton and her friends) Chelsea may be a bitch and a bully, but Kendra is a sneak, a narc, and a liar.

It gives you a shiver of anticipation to think that you will soon be her.

"Eleven minutes, forty-four seconds," Chelsea says as you lunge in to catch the mask as it falls from Kendra's face. She puts away her phone. "About in line with the others."

"What are you keeping track of?"

"How long it takes these things to copy people."

"Does it matter?"

"Probably not. But I want to see if there's a pattern."

You cock an eyebrow, but let the conversation lapse as you reach for the pedisequos paste. Today, with Kendra, you will put Sydney's earlier plan into action: Turn the girl into a pedisequos, then order her to follow you to a more secure place to make the final switch.

Kendra looks very confused when she wakes, but does a double-take at you and sucks in her breath. "Kendra," Chelsea says in a cold and imperious tone, "you will come with me and Zion."

Kendra's eyes widen and her mouth falls open. But she doesn't move, except to give you a surreptitious glance of inquiry.

"What Chelsea said," you tell her. "Come with us."

The pedisequos shrinks up a little, but lurches upright and looks around for her bag.

Chelsea sighs. "This is going to take some getting used to," she says. "Her doing what you say and not me."

Mr. Hagerman, though, is more obedient when she finds him in the lounge, and with a girlish, beaming smile tells him that you're all heading out. He recognizes the signal, and tells Mrs. Kohl (who he's been talking to) that he has to go. You form a small parade on the drive out to his place—the English teacher in front, with Chelsea, Kendra, and you following behind in your own cars. He lets the three of you into his house, then leaves again when Chelsea tells him to run an errand.

You're just gesturing to Kendra to follow you back into the bedroom when Chelsea catches you in a hug. "She's just jealous," she tells you with a sigh.

"Who is?"

"Christine." She pushes her face into the crook of your neck and rubs it there. "She's mad about Zion. That's all it meant back at the gym this morning."

"She said she doesn't like you, Sydney. She called you, um, snooty."

Chelsea giggles. "I suppose I am. Christine's a bossy girl and so am I. That's all."

You wonder what it was like for Sydney, then, to share a P. E. class with herself, while impersonating a girl who didn't like her. Probably she just ignored her, you think. You make a mental note to try to ignore your old self, if you run into him as Kendra

Chelsea pushes you away with another sigh. "Better get changed, Will," she says. "I don't know what Kendra's schedule is."

So you take the other girl back into the bedroom and order her to wait on the bed while you go into the bathroom to disrobe. Ten minutes or so later, you stumble out and order Kendra to get undressed. She stares at you with loathing, but complies. Then you lean over her and pull a mask off her face. You lay Zion's mask onto her, and a skinny, dark-skinned kid appears in her place. "Whoa!" he exclaims as he eyes you up and down. "Freaky!"

"Get dressed and get out of here," you tell him. "And don't tell anyone where you've been or what's going on."

"Don't worry, I gotcha, boss," he says as he leaps off the bed. "Um—"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, what?" you demand. The thing has a furtive look to it.

Zion shrugs. "Just wondering if you was going to be sharing that cheerleader out there with me."

"Just get moving," you growl, and he hurries into his clothes.

When he's gone, you plop onto Mr. Hagerman's bed, and lift the new mask to your face.

Next: "The Lieutenant" 

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