The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Seduced by Steve Patterson

Previously: "Patty-Cake with Patterson" 

You drape yourself over the roof of the sedan and shiver all over until the shakes have passed. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

And that's what it was, you realize after you are properly back on your feet. That was a fight you had back there, and though you came out on top, it was a hard and close-fought one.

I am Steve Patterson.

The thought is a cold one, and it's not a natural one, and it fills you with a certain grimness—even a little self-loathing.

But if you're not used to being body-swapped (and probably never could get used to it), you are not as freaked out by this second time as you were by the first. And just as you had an instant hold of Jack's personality when you woke in his body, so too you at least have a firm hold of Patterson's.

And Patterson, thank God, is not the type to get rattled.

But he was rattled, after you found him in the loft, so you had to be "Steve Patterson" enough for the both of you. Which freaked him out even more, so you had to be even more stern with him.

Not that you were exaggerating, much, when you told him you wouldn't care if he went out and killed himself. Those were pretty much your feelings. But they were Patterson's feelings, and you instinctively leaned into them, willing yourself to be him as you confronted the real one. But you weren't just fighting the real Steve Patterson, the one soul-swapped into Jack Li's body. You were fighting—for control—the ghost he had left behind in his old shell.

And you won. You ground the one down to the point where he accepted the need to return to Jack Li's house, and to act the part of Jack Li. And you rode the other like a high-spirited stallion, turning its strength against its former possessor.

You can't help congratulating yourself.

Just as Patterson frequently can't help congratulating himself.

And what better way to celebrate your triumph than by extending the run with the kind of victory party he'd give himself?

* * * * *

The Two of Clubs is a old bar in downtown Saratoga Falls: a sooty brick building that advertises itself only with a small neon sign that is almost swallowed up in the brickwork. But it's a landmark, so it doesn't have to advertise.

There are two entrances: one into the newer (but still old) dance club where the under-age set can party in an alcohol-free zone, and one into the original bar. You don't even glance at the first one as you make for the second. You've already got Steve's fake ID out by the time you hit it. The bouncer only gives it a cursory glance before letting you in.

Of course he knows you're underage, because he knows who you are. Steve is on the Westside basketball team. That practically makes him a local celebrity. And that's also the reason he lets you in.

Inside, from atop your six-and-a-half-foot frame, you take in the dusky, neon-lit interior with a long, slow swivel of the head. There's the bar that runs down half the length of the room before turning a corner and running down the other half. There are the scattered two-top tables, and the booths that take up the walls. The dance floor and the stage. There's no band tonight, but a blaring beat pounds the air, and lights glitter over the floor and the walls. The place is crowded, but not all the tables are full, and there's plenty of space at the bar.

"Hofbrau Dunkel," you order, and lean sideway against the bar so you can more slowly take in the place. Lots of young professionals, but also lots of heavy, bearded guys in work shirts and seed caps; and also a good smattering of college students. You hand the bartender a ten, and drop a one and some change into the tip jar. Then you lean back with the beer and make a very slow circuit of the place with your eyes.

The older crowd are all here to drink, it appears, and the college crowd is all parties of six or seven, all mixed company. Some of the girls are probably unattached, but you find your attention drawn to the young professionals. These are mostly in pairs—men and women—but there are tables that have two or three men crowded around them, and some with two or three women. Unattached singles looking—like you—for Friday night entertainment.

You've just picked one out for yourself—a trim woman in a red dress, with bobbed blonde hair—when a heavy-set bearded man in a blue work shirt waddles over and plants himself in front of her. He bends over her, and her expression tightens as she looks everywhere but at him as he clumsily tries offering her a bottle. Her eyes rake past your face, and momentarily lock onto yours, before racing on.

You hesitate maybe half a second, then push upright and saunter over.

"Ms. Adams?" you shout over the music and the burble of the crowd, and lay a hand on the man's hand to lean past him. "Ms. Adams?" you repeat as she stares, frozen-faced, up at you. The man half turns to peer at you over the top of his frizzy beard.

"You prob'ly don't remember me," you shout at the woman. "I'm Jack Larson, I had you for math about ten years ago?" As she stares at you, you give her a single slow, heavy wink.

"Oh!" She almost comes out of her chair. "Jack!" She puts out a stiff hand. "Hi!"

Your hand is still on the man's shoulder, and without looking at him you slowly but firmly push him back and slip in between him and her.

"I saw you over here!"—you still have to shout—"and I was like—! Dang, it's weird seeing your old teachers in the grocery store, but seeing them in a bar!" You laugh, and take a step back, forcing the man back. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Please!" she says, and you pull an empty chair from the next table over. You push two more steps back, and you've successfully pushed the other guy out of range. You lower yourself into the chair, and smile at her and at her two girlfriends. "What are you all drinking?" you ask.

* * * * *

"Ohhh! Haiiii! Wheeengh!" She groans and wheezes and whines as she rides your long, hard cock, making noises like you've never heard a woman make before. "Hyyyurgghhm!"

You can't help smiling up at her from below, but it's not just the noises she's making that give you a grin. She is really throwing herself into it: her fingernails dig into your shoulders as she bounces herself more firmly onto your cock. She is hot and she is wet, so hot and wet she's practically foamy. You are all the way up inside her, and you chase her on every rise, trying to drive yourself still more deeply inside her, finding extra centimeters in your boner that you didn't even know you had.

At last there comes a hanging moment when she pauses, arcs her spine, throw her head backwards ... and with a choking cry rams herself even more firmly down on you. Her squeals are now like squeals of pain as she rhythmically impales herself more and more deeply on you. You grip the sides of her hips and push up with a force at least as great.

She drapes herself bonelessly over you when it's done, and snores in your ear. You wrap your arms around her and hold her in place.

You must have dozed off, because your head is muzzy when the alarm on your phone goes off, and she has rolled off you. You grab for the phone and turn the alarm off, then lay there for a few seconds before slowly throwing the sheets back and sitting up.

You glance over, and find that she's turned her back to you.

Well, that's good. It spares awkwardness all the way around. You grab your clothes off the floor and creep into the bathroom, where you dress in the dark. Only after you've peed and put your shoes on do you put on the light, to lean over the vanity to wash your hands and study your face in the mirror.

It's a lean face, regular rather than handsome, with a strong jaw, a firm mouth, a bold nose, and a wide smooth brow under brown hair that is trimmed short without being shorn. Its strongest and most striking feature, though, would have to be the eyes, which are a cold grey: the color of a fog bank floating over a frozen Arctic sea. When your face relaxes all the lines vanish from it, leaving your mouth a straight, hard line in a firmly set jaw, under eyes empty of pity or doubt; when you glare, your eyes freeze and your face hardens into a glacial mask; and even when you smile, there is a cold, predatory watchfulness behind the eyes.

Has Steve Patterson ever noticed this about himself? Maybe not—at least you have no internal sense that he has ever studied his reflection with an interest other than in the neatness of his hair, the closeness of his shave, or the clarity of his skin. But you've seen his face in school enough times over the years to have learned to be terrified of it.

And now it's yours, you marvel again. And you used it and the body it goes with to score. You straighten up and stretch the last of the kinks out of your back. And because Steve Patterson never smirks to himself, you don't smirk either, but only hold your own eye for a lingering moment before putting out the light again.

It's four in the morning when you get home, and the house is dark. But Steve doesn't have a curfew, and his parents never ask where he's been on a Friday or a Saturday night. So if you make a very stealthy way to your new bedroom, it's out of courtesy to them, not secrecy.

Next: "The Morning After" 

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