The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Motel Room and the Girl of Your Dreams

Lets talk abt it tmrw, you text Cindy. Then you add: Smplace ppl cant find us.

* * * * *

You're still not decided what you're going to do, which is why you replied to Sydney's query with that very temporizing answer. Although if you really were settled on taking over Seth's identity, you would have just told her that's what you wanted—so maybe your answer really was Let's shoot for someone else.

It's Sunday, and you're antsy all through church and the family lunch afterward, for Cindy replied that she wanted to meet you at the Donna Motor Courts this afternoon at two. You're late getting there, because your dad made you stay late to help clean up, and it's not until he's laying down for his Sunday afternoon siesta that you're able escape. You've got the shakes as you turn onto south Twentieth Street because ... Cindy Vredenburg wants to meet me at a motel!

You vaguely remember the Donna from all the times you've driven past it, but pulling in now is the first time you've ever given it a good, direct look. It's a tired old motor court, at least sixty years old and maybe more, arranged in a U-shape around a central courtyard. It's a one-story affair, with doors and windows that peer out from under low-slung roofs. There's an island of concrete in the middle of the parking lot, with a chain link fence and an empty swimming pool. The whole thing is done up in beiges and browns—probably (you decide after parking in farthest corner of the lot from the street) because the dirt stains don't show up as clearly against those colors.

Your phone chimes even before you've shut off your engine. I'm two cars down to your left, Cindy says. You squint in the indicated direction, at a stubby little white Nissan Sentra with the shape and proportions of a blown-up grain of rice. You get out, and the driver's-side window comes down as you approach.

Cindy is behind the wheel. She is wearing oversized sunglasses and a purple ball cap pulled down low over her face. But even with her face half hidden, there's no disguising her beauty: the tight, smooth, creamy skin; the pie-pan cheekbones; the pert nose; the lips lightly touched with pink lip gloss.

"Here," she says, and crams a wad of money into your hand. "Go into the office and rent us a room. Get number seventeen if you can."

"Is that a magic number?"

"It's in a corner behind the ice machine, where no one can see. And if Kim is there, don't talk to her."

"Kim?"

"Walsh. Her family owns this place, and sometimes she's up here doing homework."

"The fuck?"

"Just go, Will," Cindy orders in a voice pinched with fright.

You shrug and turn and trudge off toward the office. As you open the door, you glance down and see that Cindy has given you two hundred-dollar bills.

The front desk is manned by a burly bald man with a bristly mustache who instantly makes you think "cop." He's all business, though, and takes your money and gives you your change along with a key card for Room 17, as you requested.

"Did he say anything about the refund?" Cindy asks when you get back. She's loitering behind the ice machine.

"No. What refund?"

"If you check out early, you get a refund."

"I hope so," you observe as you insert the card into the lock. "This room cost a fortune."

"That's because they rent by the hour, Will. Only they can't rent by the hour, they're not allowed to. So they rent by the day and then they refund you the balance if you check out early."

"Really? Huh. And you know all about this place, Sydney?"

She whaps you in the shoulder. You push open the door.

The interior is dark—the heavy curtains are drawn—and the air close, but though there is a musty odor it doesn't smell unclean. The room is furnished in a very Spartan manner, with a king-size bed, a bed-side stand, and a small, two-drawer chest opposite the foot of the bed, on which balances a small flat-screen TV. An arched opening leads to an alcove holding a sink and a large mirror and (you'd guess) the door to the bathroom.

Cindy lets out a deep, slow breath after pushing the door shut. "Here we are," she says.

"Do Cindy and Seth come to this place a lot?"

"No, never. They don't have the money. I got it from Nicholas. Well, I got it from, um, 'Sydney', who got it from Nicholas. She also got an earful from me."

"Sorry about the mixup last night."

"Forget about it." She throws her purse onto the bed, then advances on you. "Make me forget about Seth, too, Will," she adds as she puts her arms around you. Her mouth finds yours, and suddenly you are kissing.

She's got a different taste than Sydney, less like ... cinnamon? And more like ... licorice? Maybe it's her lip gloss. Or maybe it's your imagination. Because it's a different girl.

She kisses differently, too. Sydney was more tentative, more teasing, more cat-like. But Cindy—

And it gives you a hard, fast erection when the thought I'm making out with Cindy Vredenburg explodes like a Roman candle in your brain.

—gropes you with her tongue, as though trying to pull your mouth inside out. She squeaks and moans as she works at you.

"Oh, God, Will!" she gasps when she breaks free. "Put your—" She grabs your hand and almost wrenches it off as she pulls between her thighs. "You don't know what a turn-on this is for me!" She gives you two more quick, plunging kisses. "You've got to—! Take me to bed!" She grabs you and crabwise tries carrying you toward the bed. "You don't know—!" She gnaws the side of your neck. "All those time out front of the school, at lunch! I couldn't look at you. I didn't want Jenny and them to know how much I— Oh, Will!" She falls onto the bed, pulling you with her. "I've wanted to fuck you for the longest time!"

Zing! It's like top of your head flies off.

This is the role-playing you were hoping to get yesterday.

* * * * *

For all her hot, flashing ardor, Cindy makes you take it slow, and walks you through it every step of the way. Fingerbanging her soft, silky, closely shaved pussy until, her shrieks muffled by a pillow, she cums. The long, slow, sucking kisses as you hunch over her afterward. The gentle rubbing and squeezing of her firm, taut breasts to warm her for another orgasm. And, finally, the command for you to strip and climb under the sheets with her. She guides you inside and wraps strong legs about you, pulling you in and squeezing until you cannonade inside her. She shudders all over and goes very, very limp.

Afterward you cuddle, arms and legs about each other, mouths almost touching, as you murmur to each other with the sheets up about your ears. She wants to know if you want to do it as Seth the next time you and her get together. "Could get it done in an hour," she says. "You go back to the school and get the stuff, and I call him to meet me out here—"

"Yeah, I don't think so," you confess. You rear back and peer at her from under lids that are heavy with a happy exhaustion. "How about a new boyfriend?"

"I don't care," she groans. "As long as he's you."

I just had sex with Cindy Vredenburg, you remind yourself. I'm taking her away from Seth. The thought stirs the embers of the still-burning fire. I could take her away from him, in front of everybody. I could do this again—have another first time with Cindy—when I'm someone else.

You chew on each other's lips for a few minutes before you ask her who she'd break up with Seth in order to be with.

"You."

"No, come on," you sigh. "Another guy."

"Mmm." She rolls onto her back to stare dreamily at the ceiling. "Any of those guys we saw the movie with. Laurent. Austin. Noah." She pauses. "Marc's already got a girlfriend. Although," she adds, "no one likes her. Well, lots of girls don't like her. It might be weird for Eva and Jessica if I started dating Marc, though. We're friends, you know?"

"I thought Eva and Jessica were going to be, you know, part of the Brotherhood too."

The reminder seems to surprise her. "That's right!" she exclaims. "I forgot." She bursts out in a peal of laughter. "That would be perfect, then!"

"So ... Marc?"

She shrugs. "Doesn't have to be Marc, not for Cindy. We should add Marc anyway, if we're going to add Eva and Jessica. Maybe add Hannah, too. Except she's not a cheerleader." She twists onto her side to face you. "I could break up with Seth. Marc could break up with Hannah."

"And we'd be all the Garners."

"We'd be all the Garners," she agrees.

Her eyes close. She seems to be on the verge of falling asleep.

Then her eyes pop open, and she sits up with a startled expression. "Oh!" she says. "I just had a wicked thought!"

"What?"

"Cindy's family!"

"What about them?"

"What if we convert all of them into Brothers?" She turns shining eyes on you. "We need a safe space to meet anyway. If a whole family were Brothers—"

"You mean her mom and her dad?" The suggestion seems baffling. Who wants to be a couple of middle-aged people?

"Sure. And Lucy!"

That gives you a full-body twitch. Lucy is Cindy's sister, and she was the head cheerleader your sophomore year. She was, if you remember right, even more luscious than Cindy is.

"I know it's a change of plans, Will," Cindy gushes. "But think how perfect it would be!"

That's all for now.

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