The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Morning Of

Previously: "Boss and Un-Boss" 

Your eye falls onto the mask that Charles handed you earlier. "The boss wants me to finish working on that thing," you tell him. Your heart is hammering in your chest as you speak.

Charles shrugs and gestures at the clothes. "Anyway, there you go. Shower's in there." He points at the open doorway, then trudges out. You shut and lock the door behind him.

You sag on your feet. It feels like nothing has changed. At the same time it feels as though everything has changed.

As you soap yourself down under the hot water, you cast your mind back to the start of the day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Huhn ... huhn ... hurf ... Eugghnnn!"

You almost levitate as with a powerful and satisfying spurt you explode into your jerkoff sock. For a lovely moment that hangs somewhere between the instantaneous and the eternal, your mind lets go and your body becomes a jackhammer. Even after the surges stop, you push and squeeze out a handful more of the throbbing pulses, then relax, ragged and exhausted. You fall into and out of consciousness, and even after you hear the shower blasting on in the bathroom across the hall you laze and daze. For it is Saturday.

"You hear from Sean?" Robert mumbles through a mouthful of toast when you catch up to him downstairs at the breakfast table. Your dad is still upstairs and your mom in the kitchen working on her breakfast.

"He won't be up yet." You tuck into a pile of scrambled eggs.

"Thought he might'a texted you last night. He had all of last night—"

"You want some more sausages, Will?" Your mom materializes at your side with the skillet.

"Oh, uh, yes please!" You snag three sizzling links. "Thanks, Mom!" She beams at you, and returns to the kitchen.

"What time'dja get home?" Robert asks. "Bet it was after your curfew."

"Yeah, it was almost four. Me and Katie—" You bite down on a grin. "Next time'll be magic time, I think."

He chortles. "Last night wasn't it? You were out till four—"

"We went places after the Warehouse. Taco Bell with Eli and Bonny, then out to the river."

Your mom reappears, this time with her own plate. "Well," she says brightly as she sits down, "today's your last free Saturday before school starts again. You boys have plans?"

"Not yet," Robert answers. A shadow crosses his face. "I think Will—"

"I'll be hitting the gym," you say. "Bobby's coming with me. Aren't you?"

"Don't call me Bobby, bro."

"Noah calls you 'Bobby'."

"One of these days I'm gonna kick Noah's—"

"I mean after your workout," your mom interrupts.

"Oh, we'll probably do something afterward with the guys. Why? You want us to do something as a family?"

"Well, no."

"'Cos after we're done at the gym—"

"No, I didn't mean that. It's your last Saturday before your last high school semester, so you do what you want with your friends." She delicately picks at her own scrambled eggs. "Although if you can keep tomorrow free—"

"We can do that," you assure her, and Robert chirps, "Sure thing!"

After gobbling down your breakfasts, you each kiss your mom on the side of her head and thank her for breakfast. She blushes with a shy pleasure.

"I feel kinda bad taking off," Robert murmurs as you accompany him up the stairs. He glances behind. "Maybe we should put it off until, I dunno, Monday?"

"She won't know."

"Still—"

"I'll check with Sean." You part at the hallway junction, him for his room and you for yours.

After shutting your door, you query Sean Mitchell via text, then change into your workout clothes. It's chilly out—first Saturday of January—so you're jacketed as well.

Robert too is dressed in track pants and a sweatshirt as you hop into your truck. Your phone is in the bag, and Robert digs it out when it dings. "Sean says he's gonna try meeting Charlie at noon," he says. "What time is—? Fuck, it's already after eleven." You and he look at each other; then you jerk the wheel hard and turn back the way you'd come. "Gonna be cutting it close," Robert says.

"We'll make it," you assure him. "Charlie always runs twenty minutes late."

Still, it takes you almost fifteen minutes to reach the Mitchells'. Sean opens the door while you and Robert are coming up the walk. "My mom's home," he says in a low voice as he lets you in.

"Morning, Mrs. Mitchell!" Robert jauntily calls out. You growl, "Shut up," and pull Sean down a nearby hallway toward his room. A woman calls out, "Sean, who is it?" but Robert says, "I'll keep her distracted while you change." Inside Sean's bedroom, you shut the door and with a quick word order him to disrobe. You do the same. Then you lightly hop onto his bed, grip your forehead with one hand, and, while muttering something under your breath, pull at your face.

The universe glitches, like a video skipping. You are still on the bed, and still naked. But Sean is dressed, and he is straightening up from leaning over you. "Hey," he says, "Noah texted, wants to know where you are."

"What do I tell him?" you ask.

"I answered for you, told him you were running late. Better get going." He picks up another phone from his desk and thumbs a message into it while you dress. "Bobby's in charge for now," he says as you reach for the door.

"Seriously?"

Sean gives you a look. "Don't argue, man." You duck from the room.

Robert is slouched in a ratty armchair, talking to Mrs. Mitchell. She's a middle-aged woman with a worn and faded look, but there's a smile on her face. "Nice talking to you, ma'am," he tells her as he scrambles to his feet.

"It was nice of you to come over," she says, getting herself up to. "You can come around more often, you know. I know Sean likes having friends over." She looks over as Sean, his head bent over his phone, joins you. "Are you going too?"

"Huh?" He looks up. "Yeah, I'm trying up to catch up with Charlie Russo."

"Charlie? How is he?"

"He's fine. We're gonna talk about the college some." He opens a hall closet door and pulls out a jacket. "I'll be back ... I dunno, in a couple of hours." He hesitates, then goes over to give her a peck on the side of her head. "Love you, Mom," he says.

You must have been staring, for you jump when Robert nudges you. But he doesn't say anything until you're in the truck again, when he demands your phone. "We're cancelling the workout," he tells you. "We got other stuff to do."

"Like what?"

"Like making some more masks, so we're going out to the Whitney's. Oh, right, you've never been out there." He handles your phone, texting with someone while giving you directions, and otherwise ignores you for the rest of the drive.

You end up northeast of the city, in a tony development where big houses sit on spacious lots that are cut off from each other by stands of trees. You drive over a short wooden bridge that spans a creek, to park in front of a McMansion. The door is opened by a raven-haired kid about your age. He'd be handsome but for the pinched and truculent expression on his face. "Will," Robert says offhandedly, "this is Charles Whitney. Charles, my brother, Will."

Whitey nods vacantly at you. "Jenna's on her way over," he says.

"Fantastic," Robert says with a notable lack of enthusiasm as he pushes his way inside. "Your folks home?"

"No, they're out doing errands."

"Well, keep 'em distracted if they show up. This way," Robert tells you, and leads you through the house and out the back, to a dark-beamed barn that half-nestles inside a small grove of trees. Inside, he has you set a plywood sheet atop some sawhorses while he rummages around in an old-fashioned steamer trunk and hauls out some Rubbermaid containers and a few oddball knickknacks, like a mirror bent into the shape of a hemisphere. You watch silently until he has pulled out a book bound in red leather, which he sets on the makeshift table and flips to a particular page. You crane your neck around to peer at it. "Oh, so this is where that's been," you say.

"Uh huh. You remember what to do with it?"

You peer at the writing. "Oh yeah, this one."

"Then get started. We want two of them, at least."

"Who we gonna use them on?"

"Charlie Russo'll tell us when he shows up. But you'll probably be gone by then." He stares off toward the house with a thoughtful expression.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You catch sight of yourself in the mirror as you step from the shower, and rear back with a start. Your jaw drops as you stare.

Dude, what happened to my physique?

Two months of careful, targeted workouts hadn't left you jacked, but at least it had given some definition to your torso. You were starting to get some pecs, and what little fat you carried on your belly had burned off, revealing the lines of a six-pack. But that's all gone; more startling, the patch of hair you'd shaved off your breastbone is back.

Same with your hair! At the same time you started hitting the gym, you'd gotten the excess chopped off and beaten back, and had started shaving every day. But that patchy mustache and goatee you'd once let lazily grow has returned, and so too the stiff bangs and spit curls over your ears.

Your heart is hammering as you scramble to cover up this ... reversion. You can hide your body under your winter clothes. But your hair ...

You jump back into the shower long enough to sop it and brush it back. Frantically you search the bathroom until you find a razor. But will it do any good? I need a place to hide, you tell yourself. But where?

An answer comes when you step back into the bathroom, and see that mask, still sitting on the corner of the bed.

Next: "The Making of a New You" 

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