The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Dreams and Temptations

Previously: "Some Naked Truths" 

"Oh Jesus, are you serious?" you gasp. You are hardening fast, despite yourself.

"God, yes!" Chelsea groans. She drops forward to brace herself against your shoulders, and lowers herself gently onto your shaft. "Mmm!" she says. "I can see you like the idea too!"

Actually, you're concentrating on the rush of blood that is boiling into your cock, and the electric thrills running up and down your thighs and calves. You clasp her by the hips and push up and into her again.

"Every. Pussy. You could ever. Want. Will!" she gasps as she falls deeper onto you.

* * * * *

She admits afterward it would take some doing. "I can't just wave a magic wand and make myself into ... I dunno. Maya Cottrell!"

"Who?"

"Maya Cottrell. She's an influencer on— Oh, never mind! I have to ... get something ... physical ... off them," she stammers, and she turns a little coy. "If I'm going to turn myself into them."

You feel your eyes narrow. "Have you been turning yourself into other girls, who I know?"

She titters. "I will neither confirm nor deny."

"But you could turn yourself into anyone from school?"

"Probably. Like I say, I'd have to get something, um, physical off them. Are you interested?"

Of course you're interested. You're just not sure if your code of ethics will allow it. More weakly than before, you ask again if she will please change you and the other guys back.

"No," she sighs. "And I wish you'd stop asking me."

"But if I'm myself again, we could still—"

"We couldn't do it up here, then."

But an idea comes to you. "What if I made a deal with Steve?" you ask. "You change us back, but I get a key to the loft?"

She lifts a skeptical eyebrow.

"You, with a key to the loft?" she says. "Do you think Steve would go along with that? Because Chelsea wouldn't!"

"Well, we don't tell Chelsea. Or Gordon, or Lynch. It's a side deal with Steve. He gives me a copy of the key, and when you and me want the loft, I tell him, and he fixes it with Gordon. In return, we'd all get switched back."

"You think he'd go along with it? You can answer for him," she says.

"Yes." But you're not certain, and it must have come through in your voice, for Chelsea snorts. "Of course he will!" you protest. "If it means he can stop being Jack!"

"There's nothing wrong with being Jack!" she retorts. "And maybe he'll learn a lesson from it. In fact, I'm thinking of— Er ..."

"Thinking of what?"

"Never mind. But give up on making a deal with Steve. He'd tell you anything to get turned back, and then he'd stab you in the back. Just ask yourself if he wouldn't."

Your mind's eye turns inward ... And you see what she means. Steve must be beyond furious. And if he had to make a deal with you—for a key and access to the loft—it would probably confirm his suspicion that you were in on the whole thing.

"But I can't just leave them there," you protest.

"They'd leave you there, if it was you."

"Jack?"

"Okay, Jack wouldn't, but—"

"So switch Jack back!"

"And where would I put Steve? Would I turn him into you?" She smooches you on the lips.

"I can't tell them I made a deal with you."

"Of course you can't."

"But I'm supposed to help them get back to normal."

"Of course you are." She smooches you again.

"Well, so what am I supposed to do?"

"We'll think of something," she says between kisses. "Don't worry about it. For now. We'll think of something. Later."

* * * * *

She's the one who actually breaks things off, when an alarm goes off on her phone. She leaves you to dress while she scampers into the gym. She's dressed in a big, floppy, figure-hiding track suit when you meet up again with her at the side door.

"Am I gonna see you at school?" you ask as she mounts her bike.

"I'll see you," she says. "But you won't see me!"

"Do I know you?" you plead, but she just smiles before pedaling awkwardly away.

You watch her go, steering onto Borman and then—

You frown as she swerves down a side street. Is it possible, you ask yourself, that she lives around here? Could you actually follow her home and find out who she is?

You sprint for your car, twist the key in the ignition, and throw it into reverse before you've even got the door closed.

The street you follow her down is dark, with few streetlights, and the reflector on the back of her bike is only just visible far ahead of you, and it weaves in and out of sight as she vanishes around the street's gentle curves. You don't dare follow too closely, in case she notices, but each time she swerves from view you gun the car a little faster, so that you won't lose her.

But then you come around a corner, and find yourself plunging into a cul-de-sac. Porch lights are on, but there's no sign of anyone going in or coming out. Did she disappear between two houses? You idle for a minute, then with a muttered curse swing around to leave. There's an intersection just before the cul-de-sac, and you realize too late that she might have turned off in either direction.

So you've lost her.

Still, you prowl up and down the streets for a few minutes, on the off chance of picking her up again. But she has vanished into the dark.

* * * * *

You pass a restless and sleepless night, preoccupied with the temptations that "Clover"—for that is how you've got to think of her—has laid before you. Awake, you tell yourself you've got to resist, that you've got to force her to change you and the others back. You'll promise her that she'll be your girl. You'll tell her that you'll find some way of being with her even if you can't get into the loft. You'll threaten to refuse to see her if she doesn't change you all back.

Or you'll at least make a deal with her to change Jack back. That would be an acceptable compromise. Wouldn't it?

You toss in your sleep, waking yourself up more than once from dreams where you pick a girl up in a bar or at a party and take her home or to the loft or to a motel, but when you get alone with her she turns into Chelsea, and giggles that you'll never get away from her. And in one dream you're eating breakfast with your parents—are they your real parents or are they Steve's? they seem to be both—and Chelsea joins you at the table. She's in pajamas but everyone thinks this is normal, and when she asks Who do you want me to be today? they all think that is normal too. In fact, your mother suggests a name to her, but you can't remember who she suggested, only that you were shocked.

You wake early, as Steve always wakes early on weekdays, but are so exhausted that you lay in bed, groaning, for twenty minutes longer than you should before getting up and stretching and taking an invigorating jog around the neighborhood while it is still pitch black. Back home, you gobble down a protein shake while taking a quick shower. Then you dress in shorts, tank top, hoodie, and ratty sneakers, while packing fresh socks, boxers, and Levis, a blue t-shirt, and a rugged white cotton button-up shirt into your gym bag. Your dad is up by the time you come out of your bedroom, and talk briefly to him while rinsing out your shake glass and putting it in the dishwasher.

Then, with the eastern horizon only beginning to pale with the approaching dawn, you drive out to school for pre-class basketball practice.

* * * * *

"Richards!" Gordon barks at the most hapless member of the team. "Seven more laps! And if I catch you cutting even one more corner, and it'll be twenty!"

Jeremy Richards flushes before lowering his head and powering through yet another lap around the gym.

There's only a handful of players still straggling around the court; most of the rest are in the changing room, showering. You're panting and walking off the last of your own laps: you did two more than Gordon demanded, so as to lap the stragglers, like Richards, and scream them into picking up the pace. Gordon is watching Richards and Green with a hard scowl.

"Our faggot friend still watching?" he growls as you pace by his elbow.

"Uh huh. Guess he must'a 'joyed that little party we gave him Saturday, wants another one." Out of the corner of your eye you glance up at the bleachers, high at the top of which Jack Li has been watching practice.

"Fuck. If he goes to the administration—"

"He won't. He knows what we'd do to him, and how careful we'd be not to leave any bruises."

Gordon's jaw clenches. "If he thinks he's gonna start hanging out here before classes, eye-fucking us—"

"I'll go explain it to him."

You run up the bleachers, two at a time. The stitch in your side, which had faded, threatens to tear itself open again. At the top, you glower down at Jack, who glowers coldly back.

"Want me to repeat the things Gordon is saying about you?" you ask.

"I can guess."

"Then you know that he's—" you bend to pinch your fingers together in his face—"this close to hauling you off and telling you himself."

"You're the one I wanted to talk to."

"Yeah, I figured. That's why I—"

"Steve!"

You turn at the bellow from the floor. When he's got your attention, Gordon glances to his left, and you look up to see Coach Brooks emerging from under the mezzanine, to "coach" the final few minutes of class. "We'll talk after class," you mutter, and hop back down to the floor.

* * * * *

There's a text from Clover Mystery when you check your phone after showering. Wanna be my friend? it reads. Help me move some dirt.

That's all for now.

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