The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Eva, Hot and Bothered

Previously: "The Difference Between Boys and Girls" 

Whether she meant to or not, Chelsea has given you a lot to think about, and you spend a good hour tossing and turning before falling asleep.

To start with, there's the whole "being a girl" thing she. Whether she was being very insightful and intuitive, or just mean, Chelsea has hit on something. You do feel "girlier" since swapping Yumi's face and body for Eva's. Even on the inside, Eva feels fuller and softer and riper than Yumi, and as you lay in the warm darkness under soft sheets and blankets, you are aware of the weight of your breasts and of a breathing humidity down between your legs. Sharing a bedroom as she does, Eva keeps her hands discreetly to herself during the night, and you do so as well. Only when the desire to touch yourself through the front of your pajama bottoms becomes unbearable do you give in to the same extent Eva does when she is feeling hot and itchy and bothered: You turn onto your side, draw your knees up, and press your clasped hands between your thighs, brushing the tender and greedy lobes with the heels of your hands. Your breath comes very short, and you dig the side of your face into the pillow as you fantasize another warm presence in your bed, curled about you from behind.

Naturally, one thought will trip on the heels of another, and soon you are battering away some pretty grotty memories of being touched and kissed and mooned over by one of the last people you'd like to get naked and wet with, in any form. Jeremy Richards is a tall, droopy-eyed basketball player with a fat lower lip and a thatch of dark hair that falls over his ears and into his eyes. Eva, for whatever reason, allowed herself to pretend to find him sweet and shy and clumsy, like an adolescent buck, and she went on a couple of dates with him back in September, and even got into a couple of clinches with him. Luckily, she got smart and let Lin Pol—who knows a thing or two about basketball players; though a Westside cheerleader, she is serially dating her way through the team at arch-rival Eastman High—convince her that Jeremy was dopey and fumble-fingered and not even all that good looking. She shook him off, and (sure enough!) Jeremy proved so gormless and insecure that he didn't even plead for another chance but let one broken date stand for a solid kiss-off. You're glad of that, not only because his kisses were sodden with drool, but because Jeremy was once a friend of yours in middle school, before a growth spurt led him to join the basketball team and try to become a jock. Since then, he's hung out with assholes like Seth Javits and pretended not to know you.

But not even the memories of Jeremy's nerveless lips pushing against yours can turn off the hot steam you feel eating away at your most delicate tissues. Did Chelsea see that in your eyes? Some change in your soul, looking out through Eva's eyes, that hadn't been there when you looked at her with Yumi's? Is that why she talked about knowing how Chen felt, knowing how guys felt, and how his emotions and desires overwhelmed her—because she knew you would feel the same about Eva's? Was she giving you, in some sense, permission to be overwhelmed by Eva's femininity, telling you that she would understand? Maybe even telling you that she would expect you to be so overwhelmed?

Keeping your hands between your thighs, you flop over onto your other side, to stare through the darkness at the bed where Chelsea, in her new body, is sleeping. Her breath is soft, deep and regular. She at least had no trouble dropping off! You grimace at her before another thought catches you. Chelsea didn't just observe that you will know better now what it is to be a girl. When she said she had learned what it was to be a boy, she casually dismissed it by saying that of course you already knew that kind of thing yourself—that you already know the desire to be with a girl, to be inside a girl, to have and hold and grip a girl tightly to yourself.

Not that you can really recognize yourself inside her description of Chen. If his acting up in front of you and Jessica and Marc was him being scared, what does that make you around girls? "Petrified"?

But if she thinks that she knows and felt what you know and feel, because she knows and feels what Chen knows and felt—?

My God, you gasp silently to yourself, is she saying that she knows how I must feel about her? Is she—? Could she be saying—? That she knows what I want, and how much I want it?

Is she telling me I can make a play for her?

Well, in a sense, it would be nothing new. You and Chelsea have already fucked each other senseless a couple of times. Only you were being the girl. Somehow, you think with gritted teeth, it had to be that way. Chelsea is so much the dominating personality, so much the one in charge. She talked about keeping her boyfriend happy, but you have the firm impression that Gordon must have had to work ten times harder to keep Chelsea happy. Would Chelsea really let you be the one with the hard and raging cock the next time (if there even is a next time!) the two of you snap your bodies together like Legos?

Eventually you thrash yourself into a hot and sweaty sleep, but your unbuttoned anxieties wake you long before dawn with a headache that's like a rash on your brain, and you get up an hour before the alarm to try washing it away with aspirin and a shower.

* * * * *

"Jessica!" Jenny Ashton exclaims as she stops cold just inside the door to the school library. She looks between you and your sister. "What are you doing here?"

"Skipping History," Jessica retorts. She's sliding an emory board over her nails and staring through a nearby bookshelf. "I didn't get my homework done last night and didn't feel like listening to Mr. Walberg get all sarcastic with me."

Jenny shoots you a querying glance. You reply with a warning one of your own. Chelsea woke with Jessica's memories, but she feels to you like she's in a very Chelsea-ish mood.

"Okay," Jenny says as she slides into a seat, putting you between her and Jessica. "What are you doing first period these days?"

"We're not joining Concert Choir," Jessica snaps.

"We don't need the credits," you explain to Jenny, who has suggested to Jessica and Eva that, since they don't have cheerleading practice any more, they could join her first-period class. "A guidance counselor said we don't, so we think we're just going to turn first period into another study hall."

"Or maybe we'll start coming in to school an hour later," Jessica says. Still she hasn't so much as glanced in Jenny's direction.

And she keeps that frosty shield up all period long, even after Bonny and Audrey and Rachel join you. She only grunts a couple of times when directly addressed, and for the rest of the time sits with her chin high in the air, staring over the heads of you other girls as you quietly gossip and do a little light studying.

"What's the deal with Jessica today?" Jenny whispers to you after the bell has rung, and your sister has swept off for her German class.

"There's lots of drama, Jenny," you remind her. You're feeling another headache coming on—it was stressful having to keep a happy face with Jenny and her friends while cocking a wary eye in Chelsea's direction. "Or hadn't you noticed?"

Jenny makes a sour face, and mutters something about making weekend plans with you later.

* * * * *

That headache never gets any worse, but it never goes away either. In fact, you start to feel feverish—flushed, sweaty, and distracted. You try telling yourself you've caught a bug, but by seventh period you give up and admit to yourself what the problem is.

You are a blonde, bouncy, sexy teenage girl, and in every class and at every turn in every hallway, guys turn to peer or openly stare at you.

And—God damn it!— you like it.

It gives you a prickle all over, like a heat rash, and makes you feel sodden, inside and out. Guys like you, they're fascinated by you, they want to get close up to you and lean over you and breathe on you. And the thought of it—the steamy breath; the touch of dry, hot skin; the bright stare of cute boys—makes you limp.

It's not every day that Eva has such flashes. It's not even most days, and it's never this intense. But it's happened often enough and hard enough that you recognize it for what it is.

It's an itch that can't be scratched—an itch that can only be dug out with something long and hard and rhythmic.

"God!" Jessica exclaims when you bump into her at your lockers after seventh period. "Was the A/C off in your last classroom? You look like you've been in a sauna!"

Something like that, you mutter.

"Well, I pulled Gary over last period, told him to leave you alone, in case you were worried about him acting up in Orchestra. God, he was so freaking obvious with you last night at Milagro."

"You noticed that?"

"Marc noticed it! Though for once, our little bro had the sense not to say anything about it."

"Well, thanks for that."

But are you grateful? Mention of Gary Chen's name at this moment doesn't excite disgust or fear. It excites lust.

Because he's the only safe place you could satisfy the craving that's capsized your good sense.

Next: "Putting on the War Paint" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"