The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Rescue and Retreat

Previously: "The Meat Counter" 

"You shouldn't have encouraged him."

You know Maria means it as a joke, but you punch her in the side of the head anyway. Your wrist catches headrest, so it's not much of a blow, and she only laughs unfeelingly.

"No one tried making out with me," Linda says hollowly from behind the wheel.

"Get Will to lend you his mask," Maria chortles. "Or, I dunno—" She turns to glint merrily at you from the front of the car. "Maybe he just knows better how to flirt."

"I'm gonna fuck you up!" you yell, and grab at her face. She rears back, and laughs again.

"Maybe we should take turns sharing masks," Jenny says. "That way it's not just one of us, you know, suffering all the attention."

"Oh, I don't think Will was 'suffering'," Maria chortles. "Pretty sure he was loving it."

"Stop the fucking car!" you scream, and fumble at the door handle even though you're rocketing back to town at nearly sixty miles an hour. "I'm not gonna sit here and let—"

Jenny grabs your arm. "Calm down, Will," she says. "And you can shut the fuck up now too," she tells Caleb.

"Fuck Prescott if he can't take a joke," Maria snorts. Only Jenny's restraining hand stops you from punching her again.

* * * * *

You're being teased so cruelly because you got caught, and you're not sure it would have been worse if you hadn't. Because if you hadn't got caught, you might have gotten more thoroughly mauled by Jared. But then at least you wouldn't be getting mauled by your friends.

But you did get caught, while Jared had one hand on your hip, the other on your breast, and his tongue in your mouth. It was a thick and busy tongue—a flexible, unhinged muscle, probing the insides of your mouth, and pushing your own tongue around. His lips worked over yours, pulling and sucking, and when he broke off it was only to come up for a quick bite of air before plunging back in again. You made muffled protests, but were too frozen—first with shock, then with a kind of paralyzed curiosity—as you received your first ever French kiss.

And then as you tentatively tried to return it.

When Jared broke off, it was in answer to a voice that you yourself hadn't even heard. Not until you looked around in a daze, and saw Jenny standing in the doorway with a look of shocked amusement on her face, did your position—and an awareness of what you'd been doing—come rushing over you.

Jared tried hanging on as Jenny grabbed you by the forearm and pulled you back outside. The clouds were back and the sky was lowering, and a breeze had come up. Trask and the others were starting to put things away.

"We're gonna take off," Jenny announced in a loud voice. "Linda, Maria, come on."

"We were gonna hang out!" Jared protested.

"Get in the car, uh, Mickey," Jenny said. "I'll get everyone else."

You staggered forward a few steps, then turned to look guiltily back. Jared was staring at you with a wounded but stony expression. Your eyes met, and he hurried forward.

"Hey, come on, hang out," he urged as he leaned over you. "Don't let your friend push you around. Let 'em go, you and me'll—"

"We already told some other people we'd be meeting up with them," Jenny hollered as she punched Linda and Maria—who were standing around looking puzzled—into motion. The guys—Trask and Cody, Micah and Josh—stared at you intently, but none of them made a move.

"I gotta go," you protested. "These guys, they're my ride—"

"I'll give you a ride," Jared murmured down into your face. "We were all gonna ride out to the Warehouse together—"

"Mickey's never been to the Warehouse," Jenny said. Linda finally staggered forward, though casting a quick, forlorn look back over her shoulder at Josh. Maria, still holding a paper plate, thrust the last of her supper at Trask. The last thing you saw before getting in the car was the glower settling on Jared's face.

Even then, things might have been okay if Linda, in the car, hadn't whined about not finishing her supper.

"You just wanted to keep ogling that meathead you were talking to," Jenny snapped, "while Will was letting that other guy steal second."

In the front seat, Maria whirled to gape at you and Jenny.

"Steal second?" Linda asked in puzzlement.

"He was unhooking Will's bra."

"He was not!" you shouted.

"You didn't notice." Jenny then proceeded to tell the others what you'd been up to with Jared inside the shed.

* * * * *

After settling down, no one says much on the drive back to town, and no one argues when Teresa tells Keith to take you all back to the old elementary school. No one looks at anyone else as you all troop into the basement, and separate to change clothes and pull off masks. You are so hideously embarrassed that you want to find a mouse hole and crawl into it. The darkness that swells to embrace you as you pull off the mask is a welcome respite.

But you feel better when you wake, even though you are disoriented. You still wince at the memory of what happened, and of the fight in the car, but it also feels distant, like something in a dream. You are still hunched in your corner, frowning over it all, when Caleb calls your name.

"You and me okay?" he asks in a clipped voice.

"Yeah, sure," you irritatedly retort.

"I was just busting your balls."

"I know." But you can't help glowering at him a little. "You know, man, if you wanna put on Mickey's mask, I'll text Jared and tell him she wants to hook up with him. And then he can come pick you up—"

"That's okay, I wouldn't wanna come between you and— Ah, fuck it, forget I said that, okay?"

Teresa and Keith are staggering up onto their feet by now, so you shut up. There are a few murmured curses, but most everyone—except Teresa, who is giving everyone else some very direct but silent stares—won't meet anyone else's eyes. You finally signal the time to break things up by telling Caleb you'll give him a ride home.

"I'm sorry I was giving you shit," Caleb says as you're buckling yourselves in.

"It's alright, I shouldn'a got so upset," you reply. You start the truck, and it's not until you're on the street that you add, "I think it was mostly Mickey."

"Making out with whatsisname?"

"Shut up. That, yeah, but also me being so mad at you."

"Well, it was ... Maria ... Mary Boucher," Caleb says, "who was giving you so much shit. I mean, I was too," he starts to add, but you interrupt him to say it's all okay and to forget it.

Not until you're almost to his house does he say, "You know, those things can be pretty overpowering."

"Uh huh."

"I mean, you start off just thinking, you know, 'Oh hey, I remember what this girl knows, that's pretty cool,' and 'I think I know how to act like her.' And then you start and the next thing you know it's like you don't even remember who you really are."

"Yeah, that's what it's like," you agree.

You sense him giving you a sidelong look.

"So was it fun making out with that guy?"

"Caleb!"

"No, I'm serious, I'm not giving you shit. T'be honest, I'm kind of jealous. I know Tilley was." Caleb snorts. "The way he was hanging onto that football player," he mutters. When you don't reply, he asks again, "So was it fun?"

"Mickey was enjoying it," you say. When Caleb mutters, "Huh," you add, "If you want to borrow her and get back together with Jared—"

"No! I told you that. I was just curious, is all."

When you pull up in front of his house, you ask, "So you want to do that again? Put on the masks tomorrow night, go out and—"

"Yeah, I dunno," he sighs. "Maybe we oughta take a break. Anyway, we're not gonna do it with those guys. They, uh, they didn't really have any boundaries. That fuckin' bull snake," he mutters with a noise that's half-grunt, half-laugh.

* * * * *

Back home, you rush past your surprised parents and throw yourself into your bedroom, where you brood restlessly, unsure what you feel or even how you want to feel. You are embarrassed and more than a little ashamed about what happened. At the same time you can't stop thinking about it. It's like picking at a scab: painful, and you know you shouldn't do it, but pleasurable at the same time. You finally can't deny that you got a thrill from it all, and that you kind of want to have the same thrill again.

You're just starting to come out of this mood when you get a text from Teresa, asking if you're doing okay. After you tell her that you are, she calls you direct.

"Yeah, I didn't get a chance to tell you in the car," she says. "But I used that mask on someone."

"What?" You bolt upright on your bed.

"Yeah, your friend Micah. At the grocery store. And I got that brain-copy thing onto his cousin. Anyway, with the mask. Do you want to put your face in it? 'Cos otherwise, you know, I'd put mine in."

That's all for now.

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