The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Doubling Your Fun

Previously: "Time Out with a Fake" 

"There's a little public park half a block that way," the pseudo-Sydney says as you pull up in front of her house. "The best thing, I think, is for you to park down there and wait for me to text you. Then you can come in."

This is the first time you've been out to her house. She lives on the northwest side of town, where the subdivisions fade into rolling countryside with woodland stands: a country where the McMansions stand aloof from each other with pastures and grazing land to buffer their borders. Hers is a rambling, asymmetrical house of white stone walls and gray shingled roofs, with a tower rearing up over the front door.

"I can't wait here?" you blurt out. Then you quickly change your mind. "No, never mind, I'll do it that way." The pedisequos gives you a puzzled look, but doesn't argue, and climbs from your truck with the reminder to keep your phone on.

The "park" she directed you to is a very small thing, with picnic tables and a large gazebo, and some playground equipment. There's a small parking lot, so you can relax there without looking suspicious as you wait for the call.

The thought What's it going to be like when I'm a girl? vies with Should me and Sydney "break up"? as you wait, each distracting you from the other. You try to imagine what it will be like wearing a dress, one that binds tightly to your ass and to some boobs, and and high heels, and to have long, thick hair bobbing and bouncing around your ears and atop your shoulders. It arouses you, which bothers you a little bit, but you tell yourself it's because you're imagining the parts—the boobs and the legs and the bits in between—and being able to touch and fondle them without care or worry. That will be nice—

But you're distracted by worries about you and Sydney. Is she going to be mad at you (or even just disappointed) because you don't like being with the fake version of her? Or will she be relieved? You can imagine her going either way.

So you decide not to say anything unless Sydney brings it up first, and then try to settle back into those fantasies of having a firm and sexy body you can manhandle in the dark, under the covers. Except that there will still intrude the thought of fake-Will and fake-Sydney unhappily trying to act like boyfriend-and-girlfriend when there is a weirdness between them.

* * * * *

Luckily, you don't have too long to worry over it all, though the wait is long enough that you get restless. But it's only about fifteen minutes before the pedisequos texts to say that "the boss" and the other girl have just pulled up, which you acknowledge in order to show that yes, you do have your phone on. It's still another ten minutes, though, before you get the follow-up text, telling you to come over, which is long enough that you had to get out of your truck and work off the burgeoning nervous energy by taking a quick walk around the park.

"Boss is upstairs," fake-Sydney murmurs as she lets you into a cool, spacious foyer that opens into a living room with a vaulting ceiling. "Go on up," she adds as she pushes you toward a narrow flight of stairs. At the top is a short hallway ending in a double set of doors. These are open, and Autumn Mattera is standing in them, leaning against the doorjamb. She grins like the cutest little devil when she sees.

"Hey!" she exclaims as she hops up to embrace you, and give you a warm, nuzzling kiss. "We're all ready for you."

"Yeah?"

"Well, the brain thingie is copying her. Then we'll have to do the mask. But that gives us time to—" She kisses you again.

When you part, she pulls you into a large, ivory-colored bedroom whose tall, clear windows overlook the driveway. There's a tall bookshelf and a large desk whose surface is free of all clutter save an open laptop; a dresser; a vanity table with mirror; and a queen-size bed. Sprawled on this bed is a girl.

She is dressed in jeans and sneakers, a t-shirt, and a green windbreaker. Her thick brunette hair is disordered about her head, and her face, with open, staring eyes, is turned toward the ceiling. You edge up to the bed and crane your neck to look at her. Her skin is smooth and clear with a healthy tan. Your palms itch with the desire to run themselves over her.

You jump a little as Autumn touches your back.

"You kind of surprise me, Will, wanting to do it this way," she says. It's her first real comment on your decision. "Instead of just wanting to jump into a guy who can—" She rubs herself against you.

"Well, I want to look around at the choices," you mumble.

"Sure," Autumn says. "It's why I tried hard to get Ella out here. She doesn't have a boyfriend—I don't even know if she's even made out with a guy—but she's friends with everyone on the softball team, for the most part, and I think she knows all the gossip. I know she was talking to Autumn about Luke Martins recently, because she knows that Autumn has a crush on him. Oh, here we go," she says as a glittering metal band materializes on the girl's forehead. She gingerly picks it up, then digs inside the backpack resting on the foot of the bed to extract a gleaming blue mask.

That mask is for you, for you still have to make a copy of yourself. You start to get onto the bed with Ella Jaynes, but with a wry smile Sydney orders you onto the floor. She kneels next to you, and you hold each other's eyes briefly before she hands you the mask, and you lower it onto your face. It rests there a moment before you are swallowed by an intense feeling of claustrophobia, and of being dragged down into darkness.

* * * * *

You wake with a hard gasp and sit up on one elbow. There's a rustle of movement nearby, and around the foot of the nearby bed steps a figure. He's dressed in jeans and burgundy t-shirt, and a sloppy white cap is pulled down over his stiff, dark-blonde hair. His expression crinkles up into a pinched and awkward grin even as something like panic shows in his eyes.

You gape and shiver hard at this apparition of yourself.

It's a dreadful feeling, made worse by the sudden shock of realizing that you are stark naked on the floor even as he looms above you. But that is only an added note of vulnerability to the horror you feel. You are struck hard by a vivid sort of fantasy: that your reflection has stepped out of a mirror, wrapped itself around some bit of furniture—a floor lamp, a book case, a hatrack—to make itself solid, and has become your usurper. We don't need you anymore, you can imagine it gloating down at you, Now that I am you.

Instead it says, "Hey, boss. Sydney told me to wait in here for you. Said we probably had some stuff to talk about."

You swallow thickly and try to pull your eyeballs back inside the sockets they are threatening to pop out of.

"Yeah," you croak, and sit up in a way that you hope shades your nakedness without it looking like that's what you're trying to do. You find that, once you've withdrawn your gaze from its eyes, you can't look it in the face anymore. "Um, where's—?" you start to ask as you peep over the top of the now-empty bed, before realizing the stupidity of the question. Where's that girl? She's standing in front of you, hidden and asleep under the form of this ungodly apparition.

"She's outside with the, um, other Sydney, and her mom, I guess," says your double, apparently under the belief that you were asking about Sydney. After a hesitation, it says, "So are me and it still gonna go out together?"

"Yeah."

It nods. "I kinda had that impression. Well," it continues in a philosophical tone, "I'll do my best to make it work."

"Don't just do your best," you grumble at it. "Make it work. She's— She's really sexy, you know. You're so freaking lucky to have her." You rub your face. "Just forget about all that ... that shit about her not being real. She's real to you. She's the real girl. Act like she's the real girl. She's just as real as you are."

You dart a quick glance into the thing's face, to get its reaction. It looks thoughtful for a moment, then breaks into a raffish grin.

"Yeah, I get it," it replies with a soft chortle. "Yeah, I can do that! Thanks, boss!" It snaps off a little two-fingered salute. "Anything else?"

"Just do what I would do. Do your homework, don't get into any trouble—" You swallow. "Hang loose until you hear from me or— Or Sydney."

"Sure." It hesitates. "You want me to go now?"

"Yes!" you exclaim, and flinch a little at the light smirk that you half-fancy flashes over the thing's face. It resettles its cap, seems to shake its limbs out, then turns for the doors. It gives you one quick look before closing them shut behind it.

You let out a quivering sigh. Jesus, you wonder, was it like that for Sydney too?

A quick shiver, though, returns you to the moment: You are naked and alone in your girlfriend's bedroom, and you need to fix that. As you stand up on your knees, you see that there's a mask and a neatly folded pile of clothes in the middle of the bed. The latter you recognize as belonging to Ella Jaynes. And when you pick up the mask and turn it over:

ELEANOR SAMANTHA JAYNES, read the letters that float over the inner surface. It has been sealed, so that all remains is for you to put it on.

You stare at the name, then clamber atop the bed.

Next: "Taking the Field as Ella Jaynes" 

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