The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Hunger

Previously: "Dinner and a Side Plot" 

"Will!" Laura MacGregor cries when she sees him, and comes out of her chair. With a squeal she gives him a quick, one-armed hug around the waist.

Number Six could hardly look more surprised than you yourself feel. A stunned expression settles onto his face, and he stares back at Laura with a slightly opened mouth. Then he squeaks, "Oh! Hey, Laura!"

"Oops, sorry, I embarrassed you!" Dimples show in Laura's cheeks, and she looks around. "Are you here with, um, Caleb? Or Keith or someone?"

"Huh? No, just me. I was coming out here to, you know—" He make a face. "Get away from my house. And I saw you guys over here and—"

"Get a chair," Jack offers. "Or get you a sandwich or something, then get a chair."

"I'll get him a chair," Laura declares, and pushes at Leah Simmons to scoot her over. "Then I'll come over and talk to you in line." She twinkles at Will.

When they're gone, you lean over to murmur at Jack. "Who's that?"

"Will? Prescott? You know him."

"Maybe." You sniff. "At least, I've seen a couple of dozen guys at school who look just like him." But inwardly you are roiling with lust. You had almost forgotten what the "scruffmonster" does to Number One and her glands, and you can't help feeling a pang of hard jealousy as you watch him and Laura talking. And after they've rejoined the table, you soon excuse yourself. "It'll give you guys more room to spread out," you tell everyone with a laugh that even in your ears sounds forced. "Unless," you can't help adding as you pass behind Laura's and Will's chairs, "you like being all skwunked up in each other's business." You hurry out before your blush grows too hot.

Once you're in your car, though, you almost instantly calm down, and it's with a kind of mental numbness that you take out your phone and reread the texts that you only quickly checked at the table as they came in: from Gloria, confirming that Michael Hurst was telling some girls at lunch that Justin has something planned with Kelsey and Karl, and from Kendra suggesting that she deputize Mindy into watching the Donna for Kelsey and her boy toys. But the key text is from Number Four, now confirming that she and Karl and Justin will be getting together this Saturday afternoon.

But your concentration (apparently, because you are hardly conscious of it) is upon Number Six. So even though you had ordered him to fall in with Number Seven, you now send him a DM through x2z, ordering him to break away before his curfew and to come look for you up at Westside. Then you DM Number Seven and tell him to nudge Number Six into checking his DMs.

Then you go back to your place to get your homework done.

* * * * *

The school parking lot is deserted when you get up to Westside. This is as you had expected, for you had DMed Number Three and told him to make sure that Gordon didn't go up to the school to spend the night in the loft, as he sometimes does when he wants to avoid his father. You let yourself into the gym and mount the stairs to the loft, where you wait, silent and unmoving, for Number Six to join you.

You hardly had any memory of doing your homework, and the time in the loft seems to pass almost instantly, so that you are mildly surprised, when the text pops up, to see it is nearly ten o'clock. Gym door open, you tell Number Six. Loft. A minute later, you hear the creak of footsteps on the stairs.

Again, you are mildly surprised by your reaction when the door opens, and the skinny kid with the shock of hair shoved under a sloppy ball cap steps into the room. It's dark, so you can barely see him, but you recognize the silhouette, and it brings back a sharp memory of the half-dozen other times that Numbers Two and Six have met up here. Almost your limbs unfreeze, and you have the ghost of a sensation that you are about to throw yourself hungrily at him. But instead you only say, "Report."

"I went with Number Seven and the others. We wound up at Brianna Kirschke's house, doing homework and ... flirting."

"Who did you flirt with?"

"I didn't. I don't think I did. Me and Laura spent a lot of time talking. Catching up. She's in the drama program, in a play."

"Why was she so excited to see you?"

"I don't know. She told me that she missed me, said that she didn't realize how much she missed me, and Caleb and Keith and them, until she saw me."

"She's gotten fat." To the extent that you'd even paid attention to Laura, that was the main thing you had noticed, that she had gotten noticeably chubbier.

"I guess. Number Seven also got me alone, and gave me a message to pass onto you."

"He didn't text me tonight, like he was supposed to."

"There were a lot of people around, but he got me out on the back patio for a few minutes, just long enough to tell me what to tell you about his talk with Marc in the bathroom at Panera."

"Which is?"

Number Six cocks his head. When he speaks, there is an odd timbre in his voice, almost as though he is trying to imitate Jack's voice—and nearly succeeding,

"Tell Chelsea," he says, "that I told Marc I was getting lots of pressure from his sisters and from Yumi about voting to kick Chelsea off the squad. I told him I didn't feel comfortable doing that, and asked him what I should do. He told me it was my business, not his. I told him, Maybe you should tell your sisters that I'm thinking about not joining the squad, because I hate all this drama and I don't want any part of it. He said he hated drama too and that's why he always tries to stay out of his sisters' business. I told him that everyone was going to be mad at me no matter what I did, and I didn't appreciate it. He said he sympathized, but it wasn't his business. I told him I was thinking about voting with Chelsea, if there was a vote, because I felt like I owed her, but mostly because I hated the way Yumi and Eva and Jessica were putting the screws to me. He said that was my business. I told him, Thanks for listening, I just had to vent, I seriously don't know what I'm going to do, but I had to tell someone. He suggested I tell Yumi what I told him. I said I'd think about it. That's all."

You nod. It is almost exactly the script you gave Number Seven to recite to Marc, and it gives you some little hope that he'll say something to Eva and Jessica to make them back off a little. But at the very least, by playing up the alignment of sympathy between you and the neutral, popular Jack Li, you've given Marc (and Hannah) even more reason to take Chelsea's side in the future.

And if Marc acts like you hope and expect him to, no one will lift an eyebrow when his doppelganger, once deployed, falls into Number One's orbit.

Once he's done with his recital, Number Six asks if you have any orders. "Is Laura good friends with Number Seven? I mean, do they hang out a lot?"

"It sounds like they do."

"Then hang out more with her. Get to know some of the people in the drama program."

"Number Seven hates drama, but I'm supposed to like it?"

"Are you being cute with me?"

"No, boss."

It startles you, a little, to hear that word from him. Boss. "You don't have to call me 'boss'," you tell him. "Not when it's just us."

"I feel like I do," he says. "But I'll try not to. If you don't want me to."

Your emotions have been frozen almost since the moment you left Panera, but you feel them beginning to thaw. "You know," you admit, "I think I felt jealous when I was watching you and Laura at Panera."

"Why?"

Ah! That question is like a bee sting to the heart. "Come here, dummy, and I'll show you."

He shuffles up. "All the way here," you order, and he comes so close you can feel his warm breath in your face. "Oh, my little scruffmonster," you groan as you squeeze him to yourself. "Have you missed me?"

"Boss?"

"Don't call me that! Call me— Oh God!" A hard spasm of desire rocks you. "Quick! Get me on the mat! I want you, Will! I want you—! Oh, now, God damn it!" You erupt in gasps so hard they are almost like hiccups. "Get your shorts down! Get mine down! Oh, fuck me, Will! I mean ... fuck me!"

Number Six hurries to comply, but he has hardly gotten his penis inside you before you erupt in a head-spinning orgasm. "Oh, Jesus! Push, God damn you! Get in—! Yaaaghh!" You bounce violently beneath him and crush him in your arms and between your legs as you try to eat him all up cock first.

* * * * *

The storm subsides almost as quickly as it had erupted, and only some ten minutes later you and Number Six are tucked back inside your clothes and walking out of the gym together. You don't even wish each other a good night before getting in your vehicles and driving off.

Back home, you open up x2z and send yourself a DM. It is nothing more than a list of five names, and it's not until you've received it and filed it that you realize who they are.

They are the five candidates that you have somehow, at sometime, chosen to be Chelsea Cooper's junior partner.

Next: "A Coup Quashed" 

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