The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Favors and Friendships

Previously: "A Kendra in Character" 

"Oh my God," you gasp. "You're not serious, are you, Syd— Chelsea!"

Chelsea glances around, then gestures you to follow her into the stacks.

"I wouldn't ask you to do this," she says in a small, pleading voice, "only it's really important."

"How? What is it you need from Steve so bad that You—?"

"Please don't ask me that. It's—" She squirms. "It's important to me. But it's not for me."

"Why's it important to you?"

She looks miserable. "Don't you trust me, Will?"

What an awful question. But you know you can only give one answer. Still, you feel like it's being dragged out of you. "Ye-es!"

"And you know that if you do this for me, it's not because I have some selfish reason! Right?"

"I guess," you grind out.

"So if I ask you to do something for me, even if I don't tell you why—"

"But why don't you want me to know?"

"Because if I tell you," she says in a voice so small you can barely hear it, "I'm scared you'll tell me not to do it."

You feel the blood rushing from your face. "Is it something to do with—" You glance around. "Baphomet?" you mouth at her.

"Hmm? Oh, no!" She sounds shocked. "No, it really is— Well, it's just a favor I have to do for someone. And I need Steve's help. And the only way I can get Steve's help—"

"Okay, okay. Shit."

"So will you do it for me?"

"Yes, I'll do it for you." You have to grind the words out.

"Has to be tonight."

"What? Oh God, you're not really—! Okay, okay," you catch yourself again. "I'll talk to him after practice."

"Great!" Chelsea beams at you. "I'll do another big favor for you sometime then!" She hops away, and a moment later is gone.

Not until you're picking your stuff up does the oddity of what she said strike you: I'll do another big favor for you.

So what was the first big favor?

* * * * *

You meet up with her and Gloria again in the gym, where you perch high up in the bleachers to watch the boys' basketball team practice on the court below. Well, you attend the practice. None of you spend much time watching it, being occupied with your phones. There's the usual texts that pop in, and social media sites you have to keep up with, but between these you work on searching out girls to talk to about the "JV" cheerleading squad. Kendra already has tabs on a couple of likely girls in the junior class—like Stacy Stahl and Peyton Morrow, who have actually approached her to talk about the regular squad—and Sydney is also doing research, for she share some names as you work side by side: Dallas Lockhart, Leah Parrish, Dana DiBenedetto. The first of these is also one of the girls who got caught in a pinch with the wrestling team, and you break the ice with her by posting a comment in her x2z feed: Mm, luv to make a sandwich w some of THAT meat! You gag a little.

Especially when you lift your eyes from your phone to watch practice. In the middle of the scrimmages loom the figures of the boys that you and Sydney have to make nice to: Gordon Black and Steve Patterson.

Kendra doesn't really know their history, save that they've been friends since at least middle school. Patterson is the more plausible as a basketball player, for he has a few inches on Gordon, and is lean and rangy, with long legs and arms. He is quick, too, and has a deadly accuracy with the long-range shots, while Gordon prefers to barrel toward the basket and loft the ball in from below.

You have to fight down your gag reflex, because Kendra has memories of Steve.

* * * * *

The first such memory isn't even a year old. It was coming up on Christmas, and Chelsea kept nudging Kendra to "be nice" to her boyfriend's best friend. Steve likes you, she kept saying, and you two would look so great together! But even though she did think Steve was awfully attractive, Kendra resisted because even in his junior year he was picking up a reputation as a guy who would screw a girl then move on to the next. But when Chelsea started dropping hints about "double dating" with her and Gordon, Kendra gave in. They did it in Potsdam Park, after midnight, on the grass, in a sleeping bag that Steve had (providentially?) brought along.

They did it two more times, then Steve moved on to another girl. Chelsea clucked her tongue and implied it was Kendra's fault that she hadn't caught Steve. Kendra resigned herself to being only one more knot on Steve's string.

Then Chelsea began singing a different tune. Steve had liked her, she told Kendra. He still liked her. He just wasn't a one-girl kind of guy. It wasn't Kendra fault and it wasn't Steve's fault either, she said. The timing just wasn't right. But if they liked each other and wanted to have fun ...

So they did it again, during spring break, in the laundry room at Chelsea's house, at a party. That was exciting. Steve told her he liked that about her: You like it when it's dangerous, he said. That's cool.

A month later, Chelsea poked Kendra again. Steve's going through a dry spell. You know what would make him happy? Kendra obliged.

Then came the day that Chelsea asked Kendra to help Steve break in the gym loft, to which she and Gordon and Steve had finally gotten the keys. You're going to be his first up there, Chelsea giggled. He told me specially he wanted it to be you!

Finally—inevitably—came the day that a tearful Chelsea begged Kendra to "make nice" with Steve. Him and Gordon are being buttheads to me! she bawled. If you could just, you know, soften him up for me ... Kendra obliged.

And from that day forward, any time that Chelsea wanted something from Steve, she didn't ask him herself. She asked Kendra to ask him. And Kendra quickly realized there was only one way to ensure that Steve would do Chelsea that favor ...

* * * * *

Chelsea and Gloria take off separately after the boys have trooped into the locker rooms for a shower and a change of clothes, but you linger on the floor. You feel yourself crimson all over as, one by one, the boys come trooping out. Jonas Martin ... Darren Green ... Matt Nichols ... They all eye you openly with a glittering lust. None of them speak to you, though. The worst has to Shawn Sax, the sole black guy on the team. Like the others, he gives you a lingering glance up and down as you twist in place near the gym doors, and like the others he says nothing to you. That can only be (you figure) because he knows that you belong to Steve. There's no way that Shawn wouldn't hit on you if he didn't know you were claimed by another. It leaves you feeling like a side of beef with the brand PROPERTY OF STEVE PATTERSON burned into your skin.

Steve and Gordon are the last to come swaggering out. They're wearing a couple of nasty grins, and are muttering at each other. Gordon jerks his chin at you in greeting, but passes by. Steve gives you a longer glance, but also brushes past. Then he pauses in the doorway to squint at you briefly while shouting after Gordon: "Hey man, I'll see you around later." Gordon's reply is swallowed in the echo of the outside hall.

Steve turns back to you. "You planning on sticking around here?"

You twist on your feet. "I dunno. Are you?"

"What's your night look like?"

"Empty." Your heart goes into your throat. "Wanna help me fill it?"

Steve sucks in a cheek and gives your legs a very long and lingering look. You go up on tiptoes, so that your calf and thigh muscles "pop."

"I have to go home for a bit," Steve says as he stares at your jugs. "I can be back up here at seven."

"That sounds good to me," you tell him.

He only grunts, and after boring a deeper hole into your bosom with his stare, he turns and stalks off, letting the door close behind him.

You run for the changing room, and barely make it to a toilet before losing part of your lunch.

* * * * *

But there's no denying he knows how to make you feel good.

"Oh, God! Nngh!" You impale yourself deeper onto his steely cock. The cleft between your legs is like a second gullet, and its hunger can only be sated by driving something hard and hot up into it.

You're in the gym loft, the crummy storage space up under the eaves. It stinks of beer and sweat, and the grimy gym mattress is unspeakably filthy. A naked Steve Patterson is lying atop it, thrusting at you from below, as you balance yourself on his shoulders and take him between your splayed legs.

His length and his girth are like a perfect fit, and when he comes you nearly levitate with an orgasm of your own. You have to swallow your screams.

Afterwards, you drape yourself over him and bury your face in the matted hair of his chest. He runs his fingertips up and down you backbone.

You disentangle yourselves after some minutes, and Steve pads off into a corner. When he returns, he's peeled the condom off. He falls back onto the mattress and pulls you close, rubbing your back and kneading your shoulders. "What does Chelsea want now?" he asks.

Son of a bitch, you think. "I don't know," you snap.

"Doesn't she tell you anything?"

"No."

"Huh. Well—" He stifles a yawn. "Tell her me and Gordon are in."

In what? you wonder.

That's all for now.

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