The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Getting to Know All About You

Previously: "Getting to Know You" 

Your anticipation -- and, to be truthful, trepidation -- about what you'll find inside Gordon's memories keeps you from jamming his mask onto your face right away. You take several deep breaths to calm yourself, without real success. You decide to wait until you're sure that Gordon is out of the gym, and then you decide to wait another minute.

The wait quickly becomes unbearable. But instead of getting the transformation over with, you scamper (naked!) down the stairs to the boys' locker room. Gordon said you'd have to get into his locker to find a set of his clothes to wear home, so this is another way of delaying things: You'll make the change down there.

It's a nasty room and it hasn't changed from your sophomore year when you broke down and took a P.E. class. The floors and walls are cold, hard cement, and metal girders crisscross the ceiling. Wooden benches sit between the lockers. It's dark and just a little bit spooky, but that's probably just the bad memories, for you expect at any moment that The Molester or Patterson or Gary Chen or some other asshole will come around the corner, taunt you for the cupcake you are, and push you face first into a locker. So you make a recon first to make sure the place is empty.

It is, and then you have to decide where to make the change. The locker room seems too open, so you move into the showers, where you changed yesterday.

It's come to the point, then. You sink down into a corner, draw your knees up close, and contemplate the name floating on the inside of the mask. Then you close your eyes and put your face into it.

* * * * *

With your transformations over the last week -- into Caleb's mask, and in and out of Gordon's -- you've gotten used to the feeling that comes over you when entering a mask: the sense of a weight settling onto your face and your limbs, pressing down upon you and into you, and enveloping you in an embrace so crushing it obliterates consciousness.

It's like that now, but something has been added. A dream, it feels like, or the impression of one. You hang suspended somewhere, neither awake nor asleep, knowing neither which way is up nor which way is down. You hardly feel conscious of yourself, except for the bare impression of existence. How long this lasts, you're not sure, for you've no sense of passing time either. Maybe you only become aware of this state when it ends.

And it ends when he comes.

He's a presence, and he takes you from behind. A mental shudder runs through you, and you quiver with both loathing and excitement as his presence deepens. It invades you, and entwines you, and it pulls you apart, like a vine pulling at a crumbling wall. But you don't feel yourself shatter. Instead, you grasp and pull the tendrils tightly about you, and into you, and then you are yourself and the tendrils both, clasping and enclosing yourself.

And as you claim the new presence as your own, you open your eyes.

So this is what the world looks like when your name is Gordon Gerald Black. You grind an eye with the heel of your hand, and grunt.

You feel him inside you, and you only have to shift your brain a little -- like flicking between one mental lens and another -- and then it's not him inside you but you inside him. Somehow this does not come as any surprise. You are very calm, for Gordon Black is quite used to feeling like Gordon Black; and if you feel like you're Gordon Black -- and you do -- then of course you're going to be used to feeling like Gordon Black. You stretch out your legs -- those long, brawny things -- and blink a couple of times.

What am I doing down here? you ask yourself, though you know the answer. I came down to change into Gordon's mask, and now here I am in Gordon's mask. Before that I was up in the loft talking with --

You are briefly dizzy as you remember a conversation from both its sides: you looking up at Gordon as he tells you to undress because he's going to change down in your truck, and you looking down at Prescott while ordering him to undress because you're going to change in his truck. Your brow furrows as you idly wonder if he's having the exact same experience out there.

And before that --

Whoa! You put your head back and let the erection come.

Chelsea was molten, and fucking her was like bathing in a volcano. She showed up in a halter top and cutoffs -- a combo guaranteed to stir up your lusts -- and you quickly got through the apologies and the pledges to keep together and try to work things out. It was amazing how broken up she seemed, and she cried gently into your chest after you said you'd thought about things and decided to stay with her. Then you got your hands under her top, and she moaned as you pulled down her cutoffs and hooked your forefinger into the front of her panties. You pushed her head to the side and kissed the side of her neck while she pulled your own shorts down. Tops came off, and you held her as you eased back onto the mats. For a long time you nursed the banked throbbing in your cock as you kissed and stroked her, and as she kissed and stroked you. Then she broke the condoms out and slid one onto your shaft and mounted you. You worked it into her as she squeaked and gasped, and when you were firmly anchored -- and she was boiling around you -- you started a regular thrust and release. It wasn't long -- she was so hot and tight around you -- before you geysered into her, and kept it going until her voice cracked and she shrieked too. Then you held each other, and nuzzled and made little meaningless noises while rubbing lips against each other.

That was the first time. There was a second time, after you'd unclenched and lay side by side to talk softly while holding each other. Your girlfriend is psychotically high maintenance, but when she puts out it's a rocket trip to ecstasy.

You bet you can get at least one more great lay out of her before she reverts to type.

With another deep grunt you get to your feet, swaying a little from a head rush as you achieve maximum altitude, and your cock guides you like a dowsing rod to the locker where you keep a spare change of clothes. When your fingers touch the combination lock you get a nice sense of bifurcation -- I'm getting into Gordon Black's locker because I know the combination, and I know the combination because I'm Gordon Black! -- and then you're twirling it expertly to the requisite numbers. The door opens with a clang and you haul out the bag with the clothes.

For once it's not a t-shirt and shorts, but a pair of blue jeans, a checkered short-sleeve shirt, and dark socks and loafers. This is what Gordon wears when he's trying to dress up, but it's all you've got to see you home.

Home. The word is like a punch to the gut.

All the times your dad has hit you, slapped you, and knocked you around; all the times he's grabbed you, yelled at you, hissed and seethed at you; all the times he's belittled, besmirched and insulted you; all these come rushing back. You grab onto the locker door and put your forehead against it. You know how wrong it is to hate your father -- he's told you that often enough too -- but you can't help it. Your heart swells and cracks.

But then, through the gloom, shoots a ray of light -- a memory of Thursday, the day that you grabbed the switch from him, broke it, and stared him down. But that wasn't you, it was Prescott who did that. (Of course, you're Prescott too.) You've never done that. You've never had the gall or the balls.

But your dad backed down. He actually backed down. You grip the edge of the locker door until you think the skin is going to break and your fingers are going to bleed.

The son of a bitch actually looked like he was afraid of you.

You gulp hard and stumble back a step, knocking against a bench. You drop down hard and put your head between your knees, for you feel like you're going to hyperventilate. He backed down, and he hasn't gotten in your face since. Prescott even shut the bedroom door on him.

You punch the bench with your fist.

Gordon is terrified of his dad, but he's not your dad. You stood up to his dad, and you survived. It should be easy to keep doing that. As long as you don't let Gordon's cowering fear of his father overwhelm you.

Just remember: I'm not really Gordon Black.

Fucking hard to do, though, when you're six-foot-five, dressed in his clothes, and have the memory of fucking his girl twice in one day. You stand up, roll your shoulders, and grimace.

There's a basketball in the corner. You pause to regard it, then scoop it up. You give it a test bounce. It goes exactly where you want it to go. And that's with your left hand, your bad hand.

You dribble it out onto the court, to the free throw line. You bounce it a few times, to get the feel of it. Then you sink it with a satisfying swish.

Yeah, I can do this.

Next: "An Inside View" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"