The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Beds and Foreign Bodies

Previously: "Totally Mental, I Must Say" 

Even though it's nearing midnight, you throw on some pants and a jacket, and text Michelle to meet you at the gym with Chris. Your parents are in bed by now, so you have to steal quietly from the house.

* * * * *

The switchover seems to take an ungodly long time. The fake Chris gives Michelle the address for his house along with a quick-and-dirty description of what to find there: parents, a little sister in the fourth grade, and a dog. Michelle herself protests that she doesn't know why she should be making this switch, but you bully her along, telling her that she should spend at least one night in Chris's bed, as him. You wanted to turn yourself into him, you fume at her. You at least need to give it a chance! Even after she is in Chris's mask, she looks wounded and resentful.

But that's Friday night. Saturday morning brings a change.

* * * * *

The buzzing of your phone from beneath your pillow brings you groggily from sleep, and you groan when you see the text is from Chris Love: Get together now? he says.

You sigh and maybe you even fall asleep again, for it's like no time has passed when another text from him comes in: Maybe breakfast?

You groan again and roll onto your back to thumb in a reply: No go sleep or go run. If Michelle wants to get out of the house and away from Chris's family, there's other ways to do it than by hauling you out of bed too.

Really want meet, he replies, so you text back one hour at school. You know full well it will be two hours at least before you will get there, but Michelle can wait.

Still, you do try to wake yourself up. Maybe it's because Michelle, being in a foreign body, has reminded you that you yourself are also in a foreign body, but as you lay in Chelsea's bed, you feel the strangeness—the alienness—of her body around you in way that you haven't felt it in a long time.

Take your boobies, for example. They are big and they are fat and they are firm, and they sit heavily on your chest. You smile as you grab and gently squeeze them. My boobs, you groan happily to yourself. Mine! They were Chelsea's, and there were few sights more fascinating (or daringly forbidden, it seemed) back when you were a boy in the tenth and eleventh grades than Chelsea and her boobs. They made your eyes water to look at them: torpedo-shaped when stitched tightly inside a halter top, or bounteously lush when draped in the soft folds of a blouse. Their tips tingle now at your memory of looking at them, and you shiver with delight as you freely squeeze them now. My glorious boobs!

And your hair. It is soft and pillowy beneath your head, and when you turn your face huge curls of it fall across your eyes. Mmm! That was another fantasy you used to have, of digging your fingers into her golden curls and roughly teasing them out, and of burying your nose in their scented, silky depths. You pull a great hank of them to your face now and breathe them in deeply, like a bouquet. It is tangled and a little greasy to the touch, but you sigh contentedly and breathe it in some more.

And your legs and your hips, those bouncy, springy legs and hips! When you were too daunted to stare at her boobs or face, you'd stare at her ass and legs. So taut, and well-shaped, and so muscular, with smooth, creamy skin! You drop a breast and glide your palm down over your firm stomach to your inner thigh, to rub and stroke. Nngh! Your legs twitch and kick involuntarily. They're my legs now, and I exercise everyday to keep them in shape!

And of course as you rub yourself, your fingers touch the tender strips of flesh between your legs. Oh, the inner mystery, the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies that you only dared to dream on when you were in your own bed, and had your sock at the ready! Chelsea Cooper's cunny!

It's rough and prickly this morning, for it's been awhile since you've shaved it. But the flesh seems to swell and engorge as you touch the prickling tips of those hairs. Oh God, I'm making making myself wet, I've made myself wet, you moan to yourself as you slip your forefinger inside. Oh, how long has it been since—? you ask yourself. You can't remember. Well then it's been too long! You splay your legs, then cross them beneath you, and arch your back and knead the back of your neck with one hand as with the other you probe and pleasure yourself more deeply. I am fingering ... I am fingering ... ! Oh my God, I'm fingering Chelsea Freaking Cooper! you glut to yourself. And I ... I am! ... Chelsea Cooper!

A shriek rises in the back of your throat, but dies behind your firmly clenched teeth, as you cum.

* * * * *

It wasn't an earth-shaking orgasm—maybe only a three out of ten—but it was enough to wake you up and get you moving. It must have exhausted those horny-teenage-boy nerves of yours, though, because you conduct the showering and soaping and shampooing in a much more business-like manner, and even when you dress—in a form-fitting track suit, for you're going to go jogging after you've taken care of Michelle up at the school—you only check yourself out in the mirror long enough to straighten the lines and pat yourself over and heft the flesh this way and that before nodding with satisfaction over the general contours of your thighs, butt, back, and bosom.

Michelle—Chris Love, to all appearances—must have gotten bored while waiting, even though you are in fact only twenty minutes late, because he is on the far side of the outdoor track when you pull up, and has to jog all the way around again to meet you. "Hey!" he pants as he comes slowing up. His grin is liquid and easy. "Wanna take a spin around the track?'

"Maybe after." You look around. "Where's A-One?"

"Michelle? Home asleep still, probably." He bends over to rest his hands on his knees, and smiles up at you from under his brows. "Just wanted to get together with you this morning," he continues, still panting, "show you it all worked out!"

"Worked out?" you frown. "What worked out?"

"Last night! I woke up this morning feeling—" He straightens up and flexes his arms. "Feeling and thinking like Chris!"

"What?" You blink. "Really?"

"Isn't that what you were hoping would happen?"

"Well ... yeah! I wasn't really counting on it, though." You peer closely at him. "So what happened when you went to bed? And woke up?"

"Well, my mom— Chris's mom," he corrects himself, "was still up when I got back. She yelled at me a little for being out past my curfew, I told her I was sorry, was heading straight for bed. Kinda freaked me out, you know, 'cos of—" He touches a fingertip to his forehead. "So I got in bed and was all, like, Shit, I dunno what to do, I don't even know if I can sleep! I didn't even want to touch myself!"

That confession reminds you of what you did in bed this morning, and you can only hope the flush you feel blooming beneath your skin doesn't show on your face.

"But then I did fall asleep, and when I woke up this morning—"

He claps a broad hand over the top of his skull, and chomps down on his lower lip. His eyes go distant, but they glint.

"Well, it was all kinds of confusing," he says. "It was like, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure it out. I had wood, and I was all, um— I don't know if you know what guys do when they have wood—"

"I've heard a thing or two," you snap.

"Well." He grins bashfully. "I was in the middle of doing something about it when it just hit me. I was like, 'Hang on, this isn't like me, I don't—! Except I do! So who—?' And then I'm, like, 'Oh my God, I know what's going on!' Freaked me out hard!" he finishes with a laugh.

"So you've got all of Chris's memories?"

"Everything he'd remember when he's not stoned," he brags.

"So when's your birthday?"

"June 29."

"Address?"

"845 Sparrow Lane."

"Parents' names?"

"Greg and Jennifer. My sister's name is Hailey." He laughs. "Used to call her 'Hellion' for a coupla years, back."

"Alright! Congratulations ... Chris!"

His smile plumps up at the implied compliment, and you give him a long and appreciative look up and down.

"Wanna take a jog together?" you ask.

He laughs—loose, casual, easy—and sprints off before you can even drop to the ground to do some warm up stretches.

* * * * *

"That's Andrea's car," he says as you're taking a cooling-down walk from the far end of the track back toward the gym. He nods at the white Honda Accord that is parked close to the natatorium. "Andrea Varnsworth."

"There's only one Andrea worth talking about."

You feel him cock an amused eyebrow at you. "Is she one of yours?"

"One of my what?"

"You know what I'm talking about. A Number Four or Ten or Eight Hundred and Thirty."

"I told you, I've only got seven."

"Well, is she one of them?"

"Not really your business, Michelle."

"Chris," he corrects you, and there's a hint of a growl in his voice. "Or A-Six, I guess I'm supposed to answer to that one too."

You glance up at him in surprise, for it's just about the most unexpected thing he could have said.

"Well," you say to cover your surprise (and discomfort), "You can still have another one for yourself."

"Sure, and I was thinking Andrea would be a good one. Or maybe Catherine Muskov."

That really does floor you.

Next: "Ambition from a Surprising Place" 

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