The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Some Will Act Where Others Dare Not

Previously: "Question With No Answers" 

"Will, are you listening to me?"

Catherine voice jerks you from the sexual reverie you had fallen into. "Huh? Oh. Yeah."

She looks skeptical. "So you see what I'm talking about?"

"Sure, it makes sense. If you flunk your classes— Uh." You struggle to get your mind back onto matters academic. "But, if you and Catherine, like, crash study your classes— And I said I'd help you with Physics—"

"You can't crash study art, Will! I'm taking a three-D art class, and creative writing—" She scowls at you. "And do I have to remind you I'm supposed to be in the school play?"

"Oh yeah."

"I'm one of the leads! Well, one of the leading supports. We've got, like, less than a month until the performance, and I'm already word perfect, but— Oh, Jesus!" She pales. "We've got rehearsal after school, and I'm supposed to be there. Catherine's not going to know any of my lines! I don't even know if she can act."

"She'll do her best."

"What if no good? Oh my God!" She begins to wail. "Charles already thinks I'm not good enough, even though I'm better than him! What if Catherines goes up there—? On stage? And she doesn't know her lines? And she—? And he—? What if he fires her?"

She buries her face in her hands.

* * * * *

You do your best to comfort her, suggesting that Catherine just has to avoid being pinned down in rehearsal for a couple of days. If she can just get a few days breathing space, you say, so she can learn your lines and practice them a bit, maybe she can get through. Laura, though, is hardly to be comforted, and her eyes roll with horror as she imagines all the ways that Catherine could screw up her stage debut.

She's still a wreck when you walk her to her next class, and she begs you twice to be sure to pick her up afterward so you can walk together to the one class—seventh-period English—that Adam and Catherine share. You promise her you will.

Your own sixth-period class is AP Computer Science—despite his louche ways, Adam has a brain for math and logic, which is why he's taking not only an advanced computer class but also AP Calculus—but you don't pay much attention in it, and fall back into that sexual reverie that Laura interrupted.

What could Adam get up to sexually with your body? What kind of sex life might you return to, if you returned at all?

The subject of sex—and particularly of Adam's sex life—is not one that you have dwelled on. In fact, you have flinched and thrust it from you every time the thought of it has drifted across your mind: it was hard enough touching Adam's junk in the shower this morning. But now you plunge into it, and muddy yourself with it. The subject of sex—the sex he's had, the sex he's wanted to have, the sex he's fantasized about having—swells to choke you.

Though Adam may give the impression that he lost his virginity in middle school—he never comes out and says so, but he strongly hints at it—in fact it was only last fall that he graduate from poseur to veteran. And it was a terrifying experience, for he only did it on a dare.

It was at a party at Brianna Kirschke's house. The night before he had gotten mildly drunk and stoned at Terry Colson's apartment. Bragging and fantasizing with Terry and Spencer Osbourne and Kyle Kent had gotten out of control, and they had wound up pushing Adam into a corner where he felt he had no choice but to try—and succeed—in fucking a girl at the party.

It was slow business, which is probably why he had ultimately succeeded. After cornering Leah Simmons—the girl he finally chose to pursue—with some talk of this and that, he had pushed up close and started touching her. Then, on the back porch, to the delight of onlookers, he had slowly begun to maul her with kisses. She was slow to relax, but the fact that she didn't push him away at all gradually boosted his confidence, and when he felt she was ripe he pulled her back into Brianna's bedroom and thence into her bathroom, where he did it to her, standing up, between the sink and the toilet. Of course, Spencer and Kyle and the others had to take his word for it. But the fact that he had pulled her into the bathroom for a quarter hour, and that she had emerged glassy-eyed and disheveled, was proof enough for them.

That was the night Adam Dortch not only secured his reputation as a bold sexual conquistador, he had made it unassailable.

And with his confidence so bolstered, he followed it up with similar exploits with Molly Shaw and Mindy McAdams and Mandy Tiller.

It was through Mandy that he met Catherine.

He was immediately intimidated by her, and it was the first time realized that he spent most of his time with girls that he felt he could easily seduce (if he wanted to). But Catherine carried herself like one of the alpha girls, like a Kelsey Blankenship or a Chelsea Cooper. Not that she was a snob and a bitch like they were. She only held herself aloof, though not so aloof that she wouldn't talk to him. In fact, it seemed like she liked to talk to him, and after a couple of chance meetings at parties, she started seeking him out at school. At first, Adam told himself that she was hot for him, and settled back to let himself be seduced. But when nothing happened and still nothing happened, he switched over to offense. But she slipped away time after time, without ever actually turning him down, until it became an actual challenge to him. By the end of their junior year, he knew that it wouldn't be enough to score with her. He was going to get her to be his girlfriend.

Finally, at the start of August, on a moonless night out by the old quarry, she slipped off her panties and sank herself onto his hard, thrusting spike. They have been together since.

Oh, the sex is isn't a constant—they've only done it three times since then—and Adam has found himself in the odd and uncomfortable position of telling his friends that he and Catherine have only done it once, and that he hasn't put any pressure on her since, because what they have is special. But the very rarity of sex is keeping him still fascinated and enthralled by her. Each of the subsequent times they've done it has been like a seduction and conquest from scratch.

But now that he is— Well, now that he is Will Prescott, he has a chance to slip off and start over again, maybe with new girls, or maybe with girls like Leah and Mandy and Molly he seduced before.

It almost gives you a headache to think of what he might do with your body, and what choices and opportunities you might return to—if return to them you do.

* * * * *

When you see Laura again after class, she is again "Catherine" to you, and after your time together at lunch you are more comfortable putting your hands on her. She responds, tucking herself close as you walk to English, and trembling a little under your touch. Almost eagerly she accepts your suggestion that you stay after school to watch the play rehearsal together. "I don't want to," she admits, "but as long as you're their with me, I think I'll be okay."

She allows herself a little optimism as you make your way to the theater, but she becomes increasingly tense and agitated as the players gather on stage, and confesses that she might puke all over herself if it winds up as bad as she fears; and she moans audibly when the girl who looks like Laura MacGregor comes tottering onstage, looking pale and stricken.

"Laura," Charles calls from the pit in a snide voice, "where's your mark?"

"My what?" Laura stammers.

"Oh God!" Catherine buries her face in your shoulder. You pat and stroke the back of her head, though you yourself feel a sympathetic wave of nausea. But of the three of you, the girl onstage looks likeliest to throw up.

Charles yells at her some more, and she wanders about the stage until she finds the spot he wants. But when he tells her to put down the script she is clutching like a lifeline, she refuses. Charles's reaction—of stunned and furious disbelief—is obvious even though he is completely silent, and is sitting a dozen rows down with his back to you. Catherine, who has lifted her face to watch, shoves her face back into the crook of your neck, and starts to weep.

So preoccupied are you, that not until he's almost upon you do you notice the skinny figure in the white ball cap who comes hurrying up from the wings. "Hey," Will Prescott murmurs after settling the seat behind, to murmur in your ear. "I gotta talk to you a minute."

"Yeah?"

"Alone?"

But you have to shake your head, for Catherine has you pinned in place as she sobs into your shoulder.

"Okay, well," Will says, "I got a lead on 'Clover Mystery.' You can forget about her, she's got nothing to do with any of this. Well, not the way you think."

You twist around as far as you can, to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"I found out about the name," he says in a worried tone. "Where it comes from. Who it is."

His voice is tense with unease, and he leans forward to whisper directly into your ear. "It's Catherine."

"What?"

"Yeah, I asked her about it," he says, unhappily. "She told me about it. I mean, she doesn't know anything about those texts you got, she didn't send those. But the name, it's the name she used to write 'Twilight' fanfiction under in middle school. She posted it online under the name 'Clover Mystery'."

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"