The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Mother of All Impersonations

Previously: "May We Borrow Your Mother?" 

You snatch up Riker's mask and hurry back downstairs with it. There's no rush to get it onto Elijah's mom—she should still be knocked out for several more minutes—but you are suddenly and hideously embarrassed by the sight that Sydney laid out for you, like a banquet.

Alec and Eric watch with hooded amusement as you lean over Mrs. Cabot to push Riker's mask—already prepped to enslave her—onto her face. Her clothes billow and pucker and collapse as the smaller and slimmer form of Riker Brown appears where she slumped. He raises his head, blinks at you, and looks around.

Then he looks down at himself.

He's in Mrs. Cabot's clothes. A crisp, white linen top with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and the stiff collar pulled back; Capri-style blue jeans; and drab, olive-green, high-heeled sandals that match the scarf that's tied over his head.

Riker lifts and examines his hands, flexes his fingers. Then he grabs the top of the blouse, where Mrs. Cabot's boobs had been.

"Whoa!" he exclaims. "We made the switch?"

"Yeah."

His face lights up. "And I'm still in her clothes?"

"Yeah, you need to get changed."

"Oh, c'mon, bro!" he wails.

"Yeah, come on, whatsyername," Eric jeers. "Can't you see he's about to cream himself?" He and Alec chortle.

Riker staggers onto his feet, wobbling on the sandals and feeling himself all over. "She's under this thing, right?" he says as he pats his chest and his ass. "Like, inside me?"

Before you can answer, there's a thunder of tumbling footfalls, and Micah appears at the foot of the stairs. He gives you a wary double-take, then advances on his Riker with a smile. "Brah," he gloats.

There's a click like a camera shutter, and Eric lowers the cell phone he'd raised. "That's going online," he chortles.

Riker stares. Then he and Micah jump at him.

* * * * *

The fight ends with Alec and Eric hiking Riker into the air by his shoulders and knees, and there's a lot of unfeeling brotherly laughter as, with your help and Micah's, you strip Riker of Mrs. Cabot's things.

You take them upstairs and arrange them and the mask and the memory strip next to the still-sleeping Sydney, and your eyes water as you drink in her loveliness. Before you can work yourself into the kind of frenzy that would require a full beating off, though, you stumble back downstairs, to let her don her new persona at her own speed while you retreat into the back yard to kill time.

You're kicking the soccer ball around with Riker and Micah when your name is sharply called. You turn to see your mom standing at the back door. "Are you ready to go?" she asks.

See you guys at school, you mouth to the grinning twins, and jog over to meet her. You find your heart is beating wildly.

It's her, your mother exactly, unchanged from when she led you out to the SUV for the drive over. Dressed in that crisp linen top, those short-legged jeans, the sandals, the scarf, and the amber-rimmed sunglasses. Her key ring jangles in her hand. "So did you have fun?" she asks, so stiffly and archly that a fear grips your heart: Is this really Sydney? Or has Carolyn Cabot returned?

You gulp and nod.

"Well, let's go. Your father will be wondering what happened to us."

What happened to us. Your heart flips in your chest.

You pass through the house on your way to the car, and Alec gives her a plastic grocery sack that clinks softly. "Tell your mother I said hello," she says. "And that I don't think a bake sale will be necessary."

"Yes ma'am," Alec says. To Eric, who is standing nearby, he raises his eyebrows and mouths the query, Bake sale?

Your mom looses a deep, impatient sigh after you're buckled up in the SUV, but she says nothing even after pulling into the street. It's not until you're halfway home that she speaks, and then it's only to ask what you want on your Sunday-night pizza.

By the time she pulls into the driveway, you can't take it any more. "Are you mad at me?"

She turns to give you a very direct look from behind her sunglasses. "Now, why on earth would I be mad at you?"

It's like your heart is sitting on the back of your tongue. "On account of what happened back at Riker and Micah's."

"Darling, you did it perfectly," she says. Her nostrils flare, and she turns to gaze up at the house. Her knuckles whiten as she grips the steering wheel. "I've been reliving it all the way home. We love you, mom," she murmurs softly to herself. "We want to be you. My God, Elijah." She looks at you sidelong. "That was—"

She seems to catch herself, and her lips part. Slowly she lifts her hand, and strokes the underside of your jaw with a single finger. For a very long minute, you stare unwinkingly back at her.

Then she drops her hand. "We have to remember who we are," she says through frozen lips. "Who we are now." She holds your eye from behind her sunglasses.

Then with a short, ragged sigh, she breaks away, and gets out of the SUV. You follow more slowly.

* * * * *

She leaves you to your own devices for the rest of the day, and you finally tackle your middle-school homework. It's easy, of course, but tedious. Even Elijah, who is a straight-A student, is bored with it.

Sunday night brings three separate, small pizzas for each of you (yours is pineapple, ham and green peppers) which you eat together in the living room in front of the TV. Your mom and dad are engrossed in a PBS drama, while you split your attention (10 percent/90 percent) between the TV and a "Let's Play" video on your cell phone.

Afterward, as you're polishing off the last of your homework, there's a soft knock at your bedroom door. It opens even as you turn around, and your mother leans with folded arms.

"That was some foul weather we had yesterday," she says. "And you and your friends were playing outside in it."

"Mostly we stayed inside," you reply.

"And today," she continues without acknowledging your correction, "you played soccer on the wet grass. That's a recipe for a nasty cold, you know."

"What are you talking about?"

With a hooded expression she glances back down the hallway. Then she leans into the room.

"I'm telling you, my darling boy," she says in a low, clenched voice, "that tomorrow you will not come downstairs but I will come upstairs to check on you. You will be in bed, complaining of a sore throat and fever, and will have to stay home from school."

Your eyes widen. "Okay."

"Don't forget."

"I won't. But— Um, what about Dad?"

"The story is for his benefit."

"No, I mean, when are we going to—?" You wave a hand in front of your face.

She doesn't answer right away, but only stares at you levelly. Then she says, "Tomorrow night, I think, will be early enough." Then, with a last, narrow look at you, she withdraws, closing the door behind you.

You swallow. Sydney sure is being mysterious, you reflect.

* * * * *

Such is habit that the next morning you are out of bed and stripping off your pajamas when you remember last night's request. Hurriedly you get back into the PJs and crawl back into bed.

It was a quiet night for you. Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday night again you filled your new jerk-off sock with an eruptive fury that let you weakly wondering if maybe there wasn't something wrong with Elijah; certainly you don't remember the rage with which your cock seems to fill your sock. If it had with a voice instead of cum, it would roar like a T-rex.

Maybe you've worked enough of it out of you, though, because this morning, as you wait, your things are curled up quiescently in your underwear. You're doing nothing worse than sitting up in bed, scrolling through Instagram. when your mom lets herself in with another soft knock at the door. "How are we coming along?" she asks.

"I don't feel good," you tell her. "I think I'm getting a cold or something."

"Well, let's check," she says, and marches in. She feels your forehead and examines your tongue and tonsils, then briskly declares that you will be staying home. "Is your homework for today finished?" she asks. You point to your desk. "I'll drop it off by the school," she says as she gathers it up, "while I'm out running errands. I'll be back by ten. You can have a hot shower after your dad and I are gone," she adds. "But I want you back into bed."

"What's this all about?" you ask in a very low voice.

"Don't you want the day off?" she asks as she marches for the door. "Don't you want some quality time with your mother?"

Your heart goes sideways in your chest when you remember some of the "quality time" that Mrs. Brown had with one of her sons.

* * * * *

Her manner is very gentle when she returns at a little after ten. As she requested, you have showered and cleaned up but are back in bed. She sets an open cardboard box atop your dresser, and after telling you to climb out from under the covers she starts unpacking all sorts of bottles and jars. You eye them quizzically: they are medicinal ointments and rubs.

"We can't have you getting sick, Elijah," she says as she helps you out of your pajamas, then out of your underwear. You lay face down on the bed as she sits on the edge. She slaps a cold ointment onto your bare back. "After all the trouble we went through converting you, the last thing the Brotherhood wants is for its most beautiful Brother to come down with the flu."

Next: "Petted and Pampered" 

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