The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

The Seduction of Heather Dow

Previously: "The Temptation of Heather Dow" 

"Oh!" Melissa gasps as she dives for the tennis ball. But it skips past her racket, and she gives you a withering look a she straightens up.

"You wouldn't be taking lessons from a good-looking tennis instructor, would you?" she asks.

It's your turn to gasp, affecting shock.

"What are you saying?" you ask as you meet her at the net. "That you can't keep up with me anymore?"

"I don't think I'm getting worse," she grumbles. "So you must be getting better."

You laugh, and after she's retrieved the ball you saunter off the court and back to the club house.

It's eleven o'clock—too early for lunch, too late for brunch—so you relax on the patio with a couple of diet drinks. The clouds that swept through overnight have mostly broken up and are hurrying away, opening the sky to the bright sun.

Conversation lapses after you and Melissa have tired of replaying the just-concluded game. And in the silence, that cold feeling comes over you again. I am not Heather Dow, you think with fright. I am not this sixty-something-year-old woman, and I am not married to Garson Dow, and this is not my best friend from college. My name is William Prescott, and I got put here because a couple of—

And yet you have just enough sympathy still for Heather and Garson Dow that you can't quite bring yourself to curse them out, even in your head.

"How did you sleep last night?" Melissa asks, shaking you from your reverie.

"What? Oh, I slept like a baby. I always do."

"You still look a little gray in the face."

"Well, I think yesterday exhausted me. I must be getting old, if shopping takes more out of me than a tennis game!"

Oh, fuck, why am I talking like this? Because I have to? Because I have to spend the rest of my life—my short life as an old woman—pretending to be this woman because they'll put me in a hospital if I tell them I'm not?

"It's not from last night,?" Melissa says.

"You mean from the restaurant? No, I think that was just exhaustion from yesterday too." Loathing yourself for giving in to instinct, you reach across the table to clasp Melissa's hand. "Don't worry about me, Mel!"

"Well, some thing I can't help," she says. You are briefly interrupted by a waiter bringing you a couple of new colas, and you turn your gaze out past the tennis courts to the green slopes of the golf course beyond, and sip at your cola contemplatively.

I guess there are compensations, you tell yourself. Having money to do this being one of them.

You feel your lips twitch at the thought of what else you could do with the money you now have as Heather Dow. What a picture it would make if you fitted out the neatly kept living room, with its rugs and ottomans and glass-topped coffee table, its leather chair and embroidered sofa and bookcases tastefully decorated with pieces of coral and driftwood— What a picture if you added a new-generation game console and a stack of the best and most expensive new games.

Mother! you can imagine your horrified daughter exclaiming when she came over one afternoon to find you barreling your way through the latest Call of Duty knock-off. What are you doing?

What's it look like I'm doing? you'd retort while concentrating gleefully on the carnage. I'm blowing this cocksucker's head inside out. Oo, now watch this! There's a feature that lets you piss on any fresh kill!

"Maybe I could stop through to see you and Garson at Christmas?" Melissa says.

Her suggestion causes dread to settle over your heart: dread of the future, and dread of having to face a future that shouldn't be yours, even one that includes potentially buying a monster truck to drive around town in. You dodge her disguised self-invite with a crooked smile and the excuse, "I think we'll just have to see how Garson's doing."

"He is doing well, isn't he? I mean, all things considered. Except for—" Melissa bites her lip. "Except for his seeming kind of tired, you can't really tell that he's ... ill."

"He gets exhausted easily. He has to take it easy. Don's taken it onto himself to do most of our shopping for us," you add, almost as an afterthought.

"How's he taking it?"

You force that crooked smile back onto your face. "He's a real trooper."

* * * * *

So, what do you think? Garson asked the afternoon he came home—the afternoon of the change. He looked scared of what you would answer.

He couldn't be half as scared as you had been all day.

First had been the terror you felt that morning as you watched him shuffle out the front door, heading for the car. This is the last time I'll see him, you thought with a gulp as you stood in the doorway and waved to him. Even if I do see him later—if something doesn't go wrong—it won't look like him.

And the one who looks like him won't be him. Not really.

It was like getting an early preview of what it will be like when he is taken from you for the last time.

And you had a pit in your stomach when the call came at a little after ten. Mrs. Dow? a strange woman said when you answered. There's someone here who wants to talk to you.

You had held your breath. And then another voice came onto the line. A rugged, masculine voice. Shy, but with young strength beneath it.

Heather? he said. It's me.

It went okay? you asked, and suddenly you had to blink back tears, and put a finger to your nose to stop the streaming mess.

Yeah. It was easy. I just took my clothes off and laid down. And then I woke up and I was—

He choked a little.

I'll see you after school, he'd said. Not as soon as I hoped, I forgot I got ... well, I got football practice now.

You couldn't help giggling at that. A hysterical giggle, not an amused one. Garson had never been one for sports.

Along about four you got a text from your husband's phone, telling you he would be eating dinner with colleagues. At first this panicked you. Then you realized the text would be from the other Garson, the one they they had made to replace him. He was being gotten out of the way, so that you and your ... renewed ... husband could be together.

He actually rang the doorbell when he arrived, and he looked so scared when you opened the door for him. Heather, the tall, burly guy with the three-day growth of beard had said. It's me.

His name now was Cameron Huber, and he was the quarterback for the high school football team. He was tall—more than six feet—and strong and hairy all over. You couldn't help salivating a little as you looked him over, circling him as he stood in the living room. When he finally had enough, and caught you gently by the arm, his hand seemed to burn where it touched you.

I love you, Heather, he said in a cracking voice.

I love you too, Garson, you whispered back.

I want to ... love you, he said, and you wondered at the strange repetition: If he did love you, why did he add that he wanted to?

Then, when you saw the wet, ardent look in his eye, you realized what he was really saying.

You let the strength drain from your legs, and let him catch you. He held you close, as though frightened both of holding you closer and of letting you go.

Then, when you clasped him about his broad shoulders, he pulled you to him, and plunged a hot, probing tongue into your mouth. It was a kiss like you had never felt before.

Not long after, in the bedroom, you raised your face to the ceiling and screamed aloud as he cracked you open with his new and prodigious cock.

I am riding a teenage stud, a boy who's young enough to be my grandson! you yelled to yourself as he lifted and surged beneath and inside you. And he loves me and is loving me because he never wants to stop!

Afterward, as you cuddled in his embrace, he got a text. His face crinkled with pleasure as he read it. It's Don, he said. He says he's definitely up for getting together this weekend.

You already talked to him? you asked with a gasp.

Texted him at lunch. Him and Cameron still see each other around. He kissed you. I was scared that part wouldn't work out.

It'll be nice to see more of Don, you said.

It's the whole reason I picked Cameron instead of someone else, Garson said. So we'd still be close to Don.

Because he's the only grandson you've got. Or will ever have.

Next: "The Metamorphosis of Heather Dow" 

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