The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Girls Gone Weird

Previously: "The Spiders' Doorman" 

You brush aside the temptation to change your impersonation from Cindy to Marc—this is no time to improvise. Instead, you text Carlos: Marc not going says he has wait for Jessica.

You can hear the impatience in his reply: What me do?

Maybe Eva text Marc tell him go home? Out of the corner of your eye, you see Marc take out his phone and one-handedly start texting someone.

There's a hard tremble in your limbs as you wait for some solution to this standoff. It comes out of Marc's phone, when it dings. He flicks a thumbnail over the screen, studies the message, then grunts. "Finally," he grumbles, "one of them engaged the brain cell they share." With a quick, tight smile at you, he throws the sedan into reverse and backs away. A moment later, he's sailing off toward the gate.

You let out a sigh of relief, and re-enter the climate building.

A figure comes striding toward you, and you flinch a little when you recognize it as Eva. Her blonde hair, which falls in a bushy cascade of curls about her ears, is bouncing off her shoulders, and there's a purpose in her walk. "Yo, Prescott!" she shouts in a hard voice. "My dumb brother isn't still here, is he?"

"No," you stammer. "He just drove off."

"Good." She stops and puts a hand on her hips as she stares past you. "I was afraid I was gonna have to—"

She cuts herself off as her gaze returns to you. She stares at you a moment. Then, with a wicked grin, she says, "You like what you see,?" She twirls in place, showing off her curves. "Grade-A whacking material, amiright?" She sniggers. You swallow hard.

She's wearing floppy tan shorts that fall halfway to her knee, and a horizontally striped top that tightly hugs the curve of her torso; her breasts are plump and large. Her smooth throat is flushed with health, and her legs are strong and shapely. All in all, a well-toned but not grossly athletic body: soft and plump where you want it soft and plump, and strong and hard where you want muscles.

So even though you know it can't be the real Eva Garner—who would never talk to you this way—you can't help getting a rise out of her.

Maybe she notices, for her gaze turns mischievous. She saunters over to stand almost toe to toe with you, then turns around and peeps over her shoulder into your face. "If I fainted, Will, would you catch me?" She giggles.

And the next thing you know, she falls back limply against you. Instinctively you catch her in your arms, then almost drop her, for it's like embracing a cauldron of scalding water. Your heart pounds in your throat.

Eva giggles again, and turns her face so that her lips touch your cheek. "You're awful sweet, Will," she murmurs. "Did I ever tell you how I like to touch my pussy and think of you?"

"Oh, jeez," you mutter in a strangled voice.

She snickers again, and stand upright. "Oh, fuck me, this is fun." She stretches her arms. "I can't wait 'til I get her memories and do her for real." She grabs her jugs and shifts them around. "I don't think I got the bra on totally right, for a start."

"Where, uh, where's Carlos?" you ask with a mouth sticky with saliva.

"Taking care of Jessica. He told me he wanted privacy, or I'd be in there watching." She glances down the corridor. "But we could always sneak back in, I guess—Æ

"Were, uh, were we going to try to get ... Cindy ... out here?"

"Sure, we can do that. At least we can try." She strides off back the way she'd come.

The door to Carlos's workout room is pulled down, and Eva leads you into the studio, where she perches on the edge of the desk and digs into an oversize purse. "Lookit all this shit she carries around," she sniffs. "I can't even guess how come she needs half of it. Well, I'll have it figured out tomorrow." She pulls out a cell phone. "I'm gonna hafta to keep this thing in use, so the passcode doesn't come up."

As she frowns and scrolls through the cell phone, you ask, "You say you don't have her memories or anything?"

"No, not yet," she mutters as she concentrates on the phone. "That's the thing about these masks. You get them eventually, but it take time. Tomorrow morning I'll have them, though." She glances up. "Didn't someone explain this to you?"

"Yeah, I guess. Only, this is the first time I've talked to someone who was, you know, wearing one of these, uh, disguises."

"Uh huh," she says, distractedly. "So I got Cindy's number here." She bites her lip, and thinks. "I guess we'll just go with the same old story."

"What's that?"

"That we're out here talking to some guys about doing a promo video for the squad, and she should come out."

"And that'll get her out here?"

She gives you a look, then grabs her left-hand jug and waves it at you. "It worked with Eva and Jessica, right?" She taps at the phone some more, then leans back with a sigh. "Okay, now to see what happens." She glances around. "Maybe we could make a video," she murmurs to herself. "Something to kill time."

So she hops off the desk and starts moving equipment around and fiddling with it, pausing only long enough to field some texts. But she's hardly got anything done before she is able to look up from her phone with a sly wink and say, "Cindy'll be over in about thirty minutes."

And then you're joined by another girl.

It's Jessica, dressed in a floral-print blouse and blue jeans rolled up to just below her knees. She resembles her sister, of course, but they're impossible to mistake for each other, for Jessica wears her pale hair in a short bob. "Eva," she drawls from the doorway where she's leaning, "how can I ever thank you enough for getting me to come out here? Sorry I was such a bitch to you when I came in."

Eva giggles. "And Cindy's on her way out, too."

Jessica glances at you. "That'll be fun. What are we gonna do after—?" She jerks her chin at you. "Him and Cindy?"

"Hang out here?" Eva suggests as you quiver in place. "Make those promo videos? Oh!" Her brow furrows. "Where are the guys, anyway?"

"The betas? Cleaning up the other bay. Then I told them they could hit the road. Tch!" Jessica rolls her eyes. "Fucking Mike was all, 'I wanna stay,' but my man Carlos just whacked him on the back of the head."

Eva peers around the doorway into the corridor. "We could use someone to run the equipment. Will, I don't think you know how?" You answer her querying glance with a shake of the head.

"Let's get Cindy taken care of. Do we need to get anyone for Keith?" Jessica asks you.

"He hasn't picked anyone yet."

"Not many to pick from," Eva observes. "Yumi, Lin, Gloria, Kendra and ... whatsername?"

"It might be someone else," you warn.

Jessica shrugs. "That's up to him. Come on, we can at least set stuff up, take turns running the camera while the other one does a promo."

Eva giggles again. "For the cheerleader squad?"

"Fuck no! For us, our channel! Douche-nozzle."

* * * * *

So you watch, feeling a little helpless, from the side as the two girls move the equipment around. It seems very odd—though you know it shouldn't—to see Eva and Jessica Garner moving cameras and lights and green screens around; checking monitors and adjusting lenses and peering through viewfinders, and talking audio-visual jargon. There's no reason that girls wouldn't know this stuff as well as guys. But it seems a very geeky thing to know, and the Garner girls are not geeky. It seems still more out of character when Jessica, grimacing as she studies Eva's face on a monitor, suggests that she could use some makeup to take some of the shine off her complexion. "Fuck if I know how to use or put any of this shit on," Eva retorts as she critically eyes some of the tubes and cases she pulls from her bag.

But time passes, and you jump when Eva's phone dings with a text. "Cindy's here," she says. "Go let her in, Will. She's out front."

"What do I do with her?"

"Let her in, dumbass," Jessica says. "Bring her back here. We'll take care of the rest."

So, on trembling legs, you sprint down the corridor for the exit.

You're about to burst out when you pull up short and quail at what you see through the tinted glass of the door.

Cindy has arrived, and is loitering near your truck. But she's brought her boyfriend with her.

You sprint as fast as fuck back down to Carlos's studio. "Seth's here too!" you pant at the Eva and Jessica. "She brought Seth with her! They're both outside!"

Eva and Jessica exchange glances of alarm. "Did you let them in?" Eva asks.

"No! We don't want Seth here! Do we?"

"We don't got any way of handling him," Jessica says. "Fuck."

"You don't have another mask or thing like that?"

"Sure, but we don't got anyone to put it on. Or something to put on him!"

"So what the fuck do we do?"

Jessica makes a snap decision. "Send them away," she says. "Come on. We'll tell them— We'll tell them the guys had to run out to get some stuff, and we don't know when they'll be back." She strides off down the hall with you dogging her heels. "We'll get Cindy back here alone later."

That's probably the best thing to do. But having Cindy here, so close, you are reluctant to send her away. What if you can't get her back? Maybe if you let them both in, you could get rid of Seth later while keeping Cindy here?

Next: "Imposters at the Improv" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"