The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Lizard King

Previously: "At Home as David Kirkham" 

"If I was you, I'd be lookin' at Meghan Farris."

So says Justin Roth, and the words are like a cold punch to the heart. How fucking far, you wonder, has that Pinterest shit about you being her 'secret husband' been spread around?

Before you can react, Cody Wooten asks, "You breaking up with Mindy, man?" and Spencer sniggers, "Yeah, you cheatin' on yer 'secret wife'?"

You still have hold of his hair as you smack him hard across the face. He yells, and you smack him again, this time so hard you knock him from your grasp. He scrambles away.

"Jesus!" he snivels. "What's your fucking problem?"

"My fucking problem is you, and I'm your fucking problem." You haul him upright by the front of his windbreaker. "How bad you feel like getting fucked over, you little douchebag?" You double him over with a hard punch to the gut, and he falls to his hands and knees, gasping and coughing and spitting up.

You drop back into a crouch and snap your fingers at Roth while holding out your hand. He stares at you, then with a soft snort plucks the cigarette from his lips and again hands it over.

"I ain't breakin' up with Mindy," you tell Wooten after exhaling a long cloud of smoke and handing the cigarette back to Justin. "'Cos I ain't goin' with her. We're just havin' fun."

"Must be nice, havin' that much fun," Justin rumbles.

"Fuck you. Ain't like you're not havin' that kind'a fun."

"Like to know who with," he snorts.

"You want whatserfuck, my 'secret wife'?" You glare at Spencer, who is crawling—coughing and gasping—back into the circle.

"Yeah, the fuck is your problem there?" Roth asks. He takes a long drag on the cigarette, then holds it out to you. "If I had some girl postin' stuff about me, how I'm all, like—"

"She's a fucking stalker."

"So? You can still fuck her."

"You know who she is? She's nothing. Skinny like a rail, no tits. No snap, no zazz—"

"She got a pussy? You can still fuck her."

"She ain't the type to let me near it." You offer the cigarette back to Roth, but he shakes his head, and you finish it down to its filter. "Fuckin' waste of time," you snarl as you toss the butt away, "and it pisses me off. You got anything more to say, motherfucker?" you ask Spencer, who has been making weak gargling noises. He shakes his head. "Then the fuck are you doing here? Fuck off."

"He doesn't have to go anywhere." Justin holds your eye until you shrug. "What are you in a fucking mood for?"

"I dunno."

"You're talking like you're not getting any."

"I'm getting plenty—"

"Then what's your fucking beef?"

You half-turn to Spencer. "My fucking beef is cocksuckers who think they're fucking comedians." He ducks his head, and continues to hold his tongue. Justin grunts. Then with a sigh he leans back and changes the subject by asking if anyone's going to the football game this weekend.

* * * * *

But you keep your mouth shut and let your mind wander as the others talk about sports. I'm looking at the world through Kirkham's eyes, you find yourself marveling. I'm driving him around and acting like him, and no one here knows I'm not him. The disassociation—the feeling of floating free of your body and impersonation—grows so intense at some points that you have to surreptitiously clap a palm over a hard bicep, or grip a strong calf, to remind yourself that you're still here and still in control.

And you find yourself coolly studying Spencer Osbourne from behind your shades. You've never known him very well, but you've had him for a lot of classes before this year, going all the way back to middle school, and you know him to talk to him. You've always thought of him as a jerk and a slob, and he has sometimes showed you a mean, sniggering streak. But you've never disliked him enough to ever think about hitting him, or even talk to him the way you've talked to him this morning.

(Also, you'd have to admit, he wouldn't have taken it from you, and you have no confidence that Will Prescott could have come out the other side of a fight as the winner.)

But now here you are, casually and contemptuously slapping Osbourne around, and he only crawls back for more. Pretty fucking powerful.

And that sense of power begins to pulse even harder after the bell has rung, as you're swaggering through the hallway toward your AP Calculus class, and you recognize the back of Caleb's curly head bobbing off a little ways ahead of you. You blink at it, then test Kirkham's own instincts. He has none: apparently he thinks so little of Caleb that he doesn't think of him at all. But the memory of what you did to Spencer—and of what Caleb has done to you—comes back, so you shift the toothpick from one cheek to the other and push ahead after him.

You catch him just outside the classroom door, and grab him from behind by the backpack; he stumbles as you yank him backward. He spins, blinks at you, and turns a little pale. "Mind your fucking betters," you softly hiss at him. When he doesn't react, you lay a palm against his breast and shove him back a step. "You don't come in 'til I'm in my seat. Understand, cocksucker?" He blanches, and goes rigid.

You pad into the classroom like a panther. You have to pass James Lamont—another ex-friend you've got a grudge against—who is occupied with his phone and is turned sideways in his chair with his big feet in the way. You kick at them savagely as you pass by. He glares up at you, but quickly recomposes his features when you shoot him a sidelong glance, and turns forward into his seat. You drop your pack and flop heavily into your desk, and look around with a quivering nose for Amanda Ferguson, but she hasn't come in yet. From the corner of your eye you watch the classroom door, but Caleb is nowhere to be seen. Not until the bell has rung does he come scuttling in to take a seat on the other side of the room.

You cross your arms, slouch in your seat, and grin inwardly as you chew on the toothpick. Lotta possibilities here, you gloat to yourself.

* * * * *

Third period is a weightlifting class, which is as physically satisfying as math is mentally satisfying, and you work up a good ache and burn with Tanner Evans and Joshua Call, two of the losers that Kirkham hangs out with for old times' sake. (Also, Tanner is one of the douchebags that helps Chen push and sell his weed.) Then, after a cleansing shower and a change back into regular school clothes, comes the one real bullshit class on your schedule, a Spanish for Reading Knowledge class.

But first, on your way there, you detour into the Arts wing. Mindy is already waiting for you in front of Ms. Willet's classroom.

Kirkham and Mindy hooked up at a party a couple of weeks ago. She was with some friends as he pushed by, and called him a reptile to his face. He retorted that she was the kind of girl who probably liked humping lizards. Things escalated from there, until they were in a shadowy patch in the back yard, making out hard.

Mindy is a sloppy, bosomy red-head who dresses in short shorts and halter tops that show off a lot of pale skin—"trailer tail," in the parlance of Kirkham's crowd. She's got a mouth on her, and she's a biter when she gets excited, and Kirkham has dimples in his back from where her fingernails have dug. She's beneath him (but most girls are beneath him, in his estimation) but she's exciting, available, and puts out.

She's dressed today in a sleeveless, one-piece, baby-blue romper, like an overgrown toddler. Her eyes narrow and smoke when she sees you. She just has time to croak "Hey" before you push her back against the lockers, grab her by the hips, and dive in for a hard, wet kiss. "Rrmm," she growls appreciatively into your mouth. You grip and squeeze her ass.

Neither of you wastes time on words until the bell rings. "See you after school?" Mindy gasps. You reply, "Text you later," and send her into the classroom with a hard slap on the butt. Then it's to class.

After that comes lunch. And that leaves you with a couple of choices.

The first and obvious one is to go looking for Kelsey. You've not spoken to her—Sydney, of course—or even texted her since yesterday afternoon. At first this seemed normal, for what do David Kirkham and Kelsey Blankenship have to do with each other, outside of secretly meeting and plotting and banging each other since being puppetized? But now you're getting restless, and are also worrying that maybe Sydney is miffed at being ignored and is ignoring you in turn. (It would be in character as Kelsey if this is what she did.) So you could try to intercept her at her locker; or, failing that, intercept her at the cafeteria, to let her know at least that you're thinking of her.

The alternate is to intercept "Will Prescott" at his locker and to hustle him off, ostensibly for another beating but actually just to talk to him, to let your replacement know where you are and to figure out how long the fake beatings should continue until it's safe for you to "tire" of them and start leaving him alone again.

Or you could just do what Kirkham usually does, and eat lunch with whoever you can find for company in back of the school.

Next: "Like a Boss" 

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