The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Bros and Hos

Previously: "Comes the Revolution" 

"We could arrange a boyfriend for Stacey," you muse.

"What do you mean?" Michelle asks. Her tone is guarded, so you know that she knows exactly what you mean.

"Tell me about Jason. I don't know him, is he someone like Ryan that we should, you know."

"Jason's a good guy."

"Oh. So you think we shouldn't?"

"Are you asking me for permission?"

You decide not to push it.

"Well, if he's a good guy, what's he doing going out with Stacey?" You laugh. "We'll find her someone new. Some asshole in the senior class who could stand an attitude change, like your friend Ryan— Oh, by the way, how's he working out?"

"I haven't heard anything from the guys."

"Well, there's lots of assholes on the football team who could stand to be straightened out. And if we got one of them to be Stacey's new boyfriend—"

"That wouldn't be fair to Jason."

"Is he really stuck on her? She told me she didn't even have a boyfriend!"

"Well—"

"It's for the best, Michelle. If Jason's such a great guy, you don't want to see him going around with a fake! Oh, by the way, I've got one of my girls scouting around for a new girlfriend for whatsisname. Zion?"

"Christine's boyfriend?" She sounds aghast.

"Yeah. I haven't decided yet, but I think she should break up with him. And since we don't want him to die of heartbreak—"

"Chelsea!" she exclaims. "You can't just—! I mean, what you're—! It's not nice!"

"I only said I was 'thinking' about it, geez! If you don't like it, okay. But Christine— Is Zion an asshole?"

"No, he's also good guy."

"Then I'll say it again. What's he doing going out with a cunt like Christine!"

"Well, I guess he's in love with her!"

"So we'd be saving him from his hormones. Besides, remember, we're going to be turning these people back to normal at the end of the school year. It's going to be weird for Zion, and for Jason, and for whoever, if their girlfriends—"

"Chelsea!"

"What?"

There's a pause. "Nothing," she grumbles. "I guess. I mean, if you're so set on this—"

"I'm not set on anything, Michelle. And we're a team, remember? Partners! If I'm ever crossing a line that— Am I crossing a line now?"

"It feels like you're close to one."

"Okay, we'll leave Zion and Christine alone. But Jason and Stacey— Look, it sounds like she's going to dump him the moment she's on the cheerleader squad anyway. Hell, ten to one, whatever party we end up at on Friday, she's going to end the night with her panties around her ankles and her ankles up by her ears! It's going to happen anyway, we might as well be in control of it. And Jason— Do you like him?"

"What?"

"Well, if you like Jason, and you want to make it, like, not a crisis for him, and there's a girl you want to be who he likes anyway, then, you know, plug and play."

"Plug and play?" Her voice is faint with bafflement.

"Yeah. Turn yourself into the girl who starts going with Jason after we have new-Stacey dump him and start going out with new-asshole-boyfriend!"

There's a very long pause before Michelle says, "I'm going to have to think about this, after I take some ibuprofen."

"It's not hard, Michelle, just think it through. I'll pull some notes together, come up with some names, and we'll talk about it tomorrow while dealing with Stacey. Talk to you tomorrow!"

* * * * *

Chelsea herself rarely wades into x2z to post anything under her own name, and you don't do so now, either. But you do anonymously make a couple of posts in the Kelsey gossip streams, backing up those like Janelle Pelletier and Emily Sparks who are outraged at the double standards.

OMG, I am so mfing done with douchebag guys like Justin and Karl, you write. So effing glad Emily had the guts to come out say it wish I could do but lol I'll just say it we're not alone too sooooooo many girls I talk to are sick of hypocrisy and saying it privately some of them even in this stream where their smoking Kelsey's ass. Don't get me wrong its girls like Kelsey who reward guys like Justin and Karl for their shit behavior but its their shit behavior that needs calling out. Thanks Emily u rock!

After posting that and a few more like it, you DM Kendra and Gloria, telling them that you want them to post similar notes, and to do so under their own names. Gloria is slow to respond, but when you check in an hour later (to find one snarky reply to your note that reads "Stfu Kelsey!") Kendra has a note of her own up, with her name and avatar shining brightly beside it:

I am so totally with Emily on this it just stinks the way people are giving Kelsey shit ubt none to the two guys. T3MNV9YR [the randomly generated "user name" that goes with your anonymous post] is right, I hear from so many girls thinking same thing but all too scared to say it around here even anonimusly but I wish they would. Don't be the bitch dog that dogpiles Kelsey just bc its happening here stand up for what you believe put ur name on it too!

Anonymous user V55Qc6BCDW already has a reply to that, though: Thats bc ur a whore too Kendra!

To which Kendra has replied, Jelous bitches gonna jelous bitch guess u wanted to be u with Justin and Karl but it wasnt so u such thir cocks here lol.

Hot exchanges start flying after that, which you encourage both with more anonymous replies of your own (pretending to be other, newer commenters) and indirectly by DMing the rest of your minions to get them to contribute anonymously. You also DM Michelle, asking her and her minions to contribute.

And by the next morning it's been enough to turn things around. Where yesterday ninety-nine out of a hundred comments were gleeful, chortling attacks on Kelsey Blankenship, more than half are furious, outraged attacks on the "asshole-bro culture" that permeates Westside.

There's even talk of a student walkout.

* * * * *

So you are almost giddy as you dance into school the next morning. You feel so much raw, surging power that it actually makes you horny.

But—

"I don't want us wasting any time with gossip," you tell the assembled cheerleader squad after you're all out on the floor. "But if any of you are interested in what's being talked about online, be sure to come to the cafeteria fourth lunch."

After practice, you tell Coach Tesla that Stacey Stahl will be joining the cheerleading squad, assuming that she can get her schedule changed, and you tell her that even before you get the text from Jack confirming that he's told Stacey that she's on. Armed still with the schedule that Number Two had provided you, you find Stacey at the start of third to congratulate her in person and promise her that, until she can make other, more permanent arrangements, you can give her a ride home from after-class practice sessions. She is so happy it looks like her face will split open from sheer joy.

You steal every second that you can during third and fourth period to check that the hot tide of indignation has not abated online, so that when lunch comes you won't look foolish when you hotly urge the girls at the alpha table not to let the moment pass.

"We've got to show people that we're serious here, that we're sick of all the bullshit!" you tell them as Kendra, Gloria, Cindy Vredenburg, Eva Garner, and others listen intently. "We need a march, or a demonstration, or something!"

"Some people are talking about staging a walkout," Kendra says, just as you'd told her to.

"That's what we need!" you exclaim. "And I'd like to see the fucking school administration try to stop us!" Each of the girls you urge to pressure their friends—and Eva you urge to pressure her sister and brother ("Especially Marc," you tell her, "people listen to him!") into talking up the idea of a student walkout, maybe set for next week sometime.

There's not much enthusiasm, you can tell, but you're pretty sure that you can stoke it given time.

Well, you can stoke it in the girls. The guys? Steve is not the only one glumly chewing on his bad lasagna like it was a mouthful of nails.

* * * * *

It's in Dance class that Gloria finally admits what you've already learned from Number Two: Kim refuses to tell her who rented that particular room last Saturday, from which they could film Kelsey and her boy toys. (Of course she didn't tell: you ordered her to refuse Gloria's request, as it would hardly do you any good if the world learned it was Kendra and Steve in that room.)

"Then I'll take care of it, Gloria," you fume at her, "since you're either so incompetent or you just don't give a fuck like I do." She reddens. "All I'll have to do," you continue as you tap meaningfully at the screen of her phone, "is to show her what people are saying, and suggest that she does not want to be standing in the way of that!"

And you give her another couple of hard glares eighth period, while praising Kendra for her "good work" in nailing down the names of people who saw and shared the video early. "Betcha anything it was him in that motel room," you say as you tap Spencer Osbourne's name on her list.

But you've got another list of names that you've drawn up over the course of the day, and while taking a pee after the last bell of the day, you finalize them: candidates for who will go under Michelle's fifth mask. (The sixth mask is one she will pick for herself.) You've narrowed it down to three: Christian Padilla, Charles Hartlein, and Sydney McGlynn.

But you are assailed by doubts at the last minute when you realize there could be advantages to adding a girl like Emily Sparks or Janelle Pelletier to the gang.

Next: "Michelle Doubtfire" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"