The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Surging Seas of Indecision

Previously: "Strange Acts, Anticipated and Done" 

Gordon's story has given you a lot to think about. It's too bad that it also causes your brain to shut down. After a very long moment of silence, you tell him that you have to leave.

"You're not pissed at me, are you?" he asks.

"No. I just have to go before my head explodes."

And you trudge out.

* * * * *

You drive around in a daze, and through force of habit almost wind up at Chelsea's before redirecting yourself back to Caleb's. Supper is almost ready, and you help out Mrs. Johansson with the final steps before sitting down for the meal. She talks to her son a little, then asks you why you're so quiet. "Oh, I just got back from talking to a friend. He had some news."

"Not bad news, I hope," she says.

Caleb snickers, then turns it into a cough.

"No. Just something to think about."

You're silent the rest of the meal, and while helping to clean up. When you go to the bedroom, you have to pass Caleb's room. He's standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "I assume that was Prescott you were talking about at supper."

You glare at him, then shove him inside his room and shut the door. "You heard about his date?"

"All the way down to the micro-details. What was your favorite part, the bit where she was sucking on his fingers, or the part where she had her legs wrapped around his neck?"

Something between a roar and a shriek starts to build low in your chest. You push out the words, "I didn't ask for details."

"Don't worry, I can set you up with them," Caleb says cheerfully. "I copied them down, got them around here somewhere -- "

"That would be great," you say in a choked voice. "But it's Cassie Harper!"

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Cassie. I don't think so, and you don't either, not to judge by that thing squirming around in the front of your shorts."

You snatch the pillow off his bed and shove it over your lap as you sit on his bed. "What am I going to do when we go back to being ourselves? I can't hang out with her, do the kind of stuff with her that Gordon was doing!"

"Why not?"

"I just can't!"

His mouth twists mirthfully. "Are you scared to try?"

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean I just can't -- " That rising scream has gotten stuck in your chest, where it is squeezing all the air out. You're going to hyperventilate in a moment. "He's getting me a girlfriend!"

"I thought that was the plan. That's what he told me was the plan."

"But I can't just take over from him when it's time to switch back! I won't know how to talk to her, how to be the way with her that he's being -- !"

"So are you going to stop giving me shit about Eva?"

It's like he threw a basketball at your face. "What's that got to do with -- ? Oh!"

"Yeah! Oh!" Caleb rolls his eyes. "Now you understand why I just couldn't pick things up and go out with Eva after all that work you supposedly did for me."

"I didn't 'supposedly' do any work for you, I really did -- "

"Same as Gordon is doing for you and Cassie."

"But this is totally worse! I just set you up for some dates. Gordon is going to -- "

"Then maybe you should switch back with him now, while it's still only just a date and he hasn't set you up for going steady with her."

Now it's like being hit in the other side of the head with a baseball bat. "Switch back? Hell, yes!" With trembling hands you take out your cell, but your fingers are too numb to work it properly. "Here, you call him," you say, and thrust the phone at him.

"Sure thing, Will," he says cheerfully. "I'll call up Gordon, and tell him you want to switch back so you can break Cassie's heart by dropping her hard, and you also want to give up all the time you've been spending with Chelsea. He'll be really happy to hear about the last part."

Now you're being beaten up from both sides. You put your head between your knees, and fall out of the chair. "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. I don't know what to do, Caleb."

"Well, you better figure it out. Because if you're going to switch back, you need to do it soon, before -- " The cell in his hand rings. "Says it's Chelsea. You want me to -- ?"

But you're up and have grabbed it from him. Then you're outside his bedroom and talking into the phone.

* * * * *

It wasn't a long talk, or about anything very important, but it was enough to slow your rush back toward your life. You kept thinking of her boobs and her butt and her legs and her pouty lips, and of the intense thrill that comes from having the high-maintenance cheerleader captain hanging off your side and impaling herself on your cock. Eventually Gordon will want her back. But you're not so eager now to throw away Chelsea so you can have the chance to throw away Cassie.

You force yourself to finish up the little homework you have left, and go to bed. In the dark, you rise and fall as you think about the two girls, and whether you can handle at least one of them in your native form. It seems impossible. You have all of Gordon's memories of doing it with Chelsea, and you can easily imagine all the things he could do with Cassie, even with clothes still on. The resulting fantasies are so intense you almost levitate from the bed. But could you do them, as yourself?

The next morning, a newly risen Caleb intercepts you just before you leave for the school. "Hey," he says in a voice still sticky with sleep. "Did, uh, you and Will talk about what you're going to do about those guys?"

"What guys?"

He makes a face. "Whaddaya mean, What guys? Cameron and his friends."

"No. Why do you care?"

"I don't." He rubs his eyes deeply. "I just know he's going to bug me about it today, and you should tell me what -- " He blinks. "Oh yeah, and did he tell you anything about making up a new mask yesterday?"

"No. Did he? How come?"

"For your thing. In case you need it."

He's way too sleepy to be worth talking to. "I'll talk to him about it later. Maybe he'll be awake and I can figure out what he's talking about."

Caleb gives you a dirty look, and if he hadn't heard his mom in the hallway behind he probably would have given you the finger.

But Gordon doesn't come talk to you. He just leaves the new mask in a paper sack inside your locker, where you find it at the start of first period. You move it into your backpack, in case Chelsea goes snooping through your locker.

* * * * *

Matthew McElroy is a lineman on the football team, but he's probably the smallest lineman on the team. But, being a lineman, he's definitely meaty. He's also pretty agile.

So you and Steve and Jason approach him from two directions when you make the hit just before third period. He's alone at his locker, except for a girl he's talking to in a casual way. That's probably why he doesn't pay any mind to you as you approach, even though he's facing in your direction. You arrive at his side just as Steve and Jason arrive on the other.

Bang! You punch the locker next to his face. He jumps and cusses, but before he can react Steve seizes his arm. He whirls, and you grab his other arm. Jason's shout sounds over the scream of the girl McElroy was hitting on, and that's the signal for you and Patterson to move. With your victim's arms locked in yours, you force him into the crowd. He stumbles and falls forward; Jason grabs his legs. Now McElroy is splayed out horizontally, like a battering ram as you and Patterson, cursing lustily at the screaming crowd, force your way through.

"Oh, shit!" McElroy yells as you rush at the doors, and he flinches hard. But you kick them open before you can bust his skull against its reinforced windows. Then you and Patterson are running hard across the ground toward the portables. The sound of your approach causes the ragged stoners flocked in front to scatter.

McElroy has been surprisingly docile all this time, but he comes to squirming life when you slam him against a portable wall. "Get the door open," you snarl at Jason, and he obliges as you and Patterson twist McElroy's arms behind his back. You lock his wrists together in your grip, and force him up and into the portable, ramming him gut-first into the edge of a the old teacher's desk. The air busts out of him, and you ram him against it three more times until his knees bend and his legs sag. You keep him pinned as your friends pull off his shoes, socks, pants, and boxers. You tear a great rent in his shirt as you pull it over his head.

Then you let him go. McElroy turns over, showing no shame at exposing slab-like muscles and a hairy dick-and-ball-sack as he grins up at you. "Great party Friday night, huh?" he laughs.

Jason has been stuffing McElroy's clothes into his backpack, and he hands you the old, frayed pink tutu. You drop it onto McElroy. "You want your shit back? Put that on, and come find me in the gym at the end of third period."

He laughs again. "Is that all?"

Is it? You could use that mask on him. It might prove useful.

Next: "Who to Be, or Who Not to Be" 

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