The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Every Chance You Take

Previously: "Booting Up a Legend-Worthy Night" 

You can feel it in your cock and in your balls and in all the muscles behind them. The straining certainty that if you just put yourself out there tonight, you can get laid.

But you don't really know how, though. It seems unlikely that you could pick a girl up just by snapping your fingers and asking her to dance.

Just keep alert, man, you tell yourself. There's girls here probably wanna get laid as bad as you do. There's every chance, you tell yourself, that something good will fall into your lap—

—and will pull down your pants and give you a blow job—

—if you keep alert.

* * * * *

You and Dean start off in the bar area, though, where you find Tiffany, Lacie, and the girl from the mini-golf whose name you didn't know. Tiffany introduces you all the way around again, and so you learn that the one girl's name is Mattie. The name startles you a little, and you shoot Dean a look. He keeps a poker face, but maybe there's just the smallest light in his eye to confirm that your deduction isn't wrong. This is the girl who, back at the restaurant, he warned you against getting entangled with.

Not that you'd want to. She has a nice figure, but she has narrow eyes, a crooked nose, a twisted mouth. Worse is the expression she's knitted these features into: she looks pinched, frigid, and more than a little ticked off at the world.

Lacie, on the other hand, looks pretty good. Like Tiffany, she's got big breasts and big hips, and a hefty in-between as well. She is stitched up tightly in a white, sleeveless blouse with ruffles at the shoulders and down the front, and is wearing a very short blue skirt that shows chunky, bare legs all the way down to her high-heeled sandals. She has pinned most of her mass of dark hair up in a bun on the back of her head, but two thin tendrils of curls tumble past her ears to rest on her shoulders. Her eyes are large, dark, and sparkling.

She also compliments you on your hat, but you only grunt in return.

"So who all is here?" Dean asks as he surveys the room.

"Patrick was heading into the dance floor a few minutes ago," Tiffany says. "And Scott and some of his friends came in a little while ago."

"Who's here from Eastman?" Dean asks.

"I dunno. I think they're all just here together."

You follow the direction of Dean's glance. There's a cluster guys in green-inflected letterman jackets between the front door and the door to the dance hall, all looking very burly and very healthy. Instinctively, you avert your gaze before one of them can catch your eye, come over to demand what the hell you are staring at, and push your face into a wall.

But now the girls are interested, and as you turn back to them you find them gazing at the jocks with glistening eyes. (Well, Tiffany's and Lacie's eyes are glistening. Mattie looks like she's sucking on a lemon.) "You know any of them?" Tiffany asks her friends.

"I think some of them are on the basketball team," Lacie says. "Yeah, there's Timothy and Brett. Oh my God!" She whisks around to whisper behind her hand into Tiffany's ear. Tiffany listens, turns to stare at the jock-pack, and breaks into a huge grin. She titters.

"I think it is!" she tells Lacie. "Let's go find out! I'm hearing stories!"

Stumbling a little over their feet, the girls rush for the pack, leaving you alone with Dean and Mattie. You watch their retreating backs, then turn to Dean. "I'm not liking the competition, man," you confess.

"Don't worry about them," Mattie says. She too is watching Tiffany and Lacie, who have caught the boys' attention and are now chatting with them. "They're trying to distract them for you."

"What?" you ask, but she answers you with a snort and turns away. Dean grabs you, though, and pulls you toward the dance floor.

"Patrick didn't come out yet," he says. "He must'a found someone in there. So come on. Before the basketball squad," he adds in an acid sneer, "can come snag 'em."

* * * * *

The doors into the dance hall muffled the beat, but it doesn't overwhelm you when you enter.

It's not a big floor, and it's not crowded either, and most what crowd there is spreads out in clusters by the walls. The room is dim and colored lights play over the floor and walls and ceiling, while a disco ball revolves slowly overhead. You've never been out here before, and you hardly ever hit places like this, but though it is all obviously very new, it also feels very retro, like a decades-old throwback.

As you're glancing around, trying to spot anyone interesting, Dean nudges you. "Hey, you know those guys?" he asks, pointing off to your left.

You squint. "I dunno. Who are they?"

"Band people. I'm not into one of 'em, and I don't stand a chance with the rest of 'em, but I'm gonna go say hi." He moves off.

You keep station, watching curiously, wondering why he's going to talk to them if he doesn't "stand a chance."

And because you are standing directly in front of the doors, you are almost trampled into paste when that pack of Eastman jocks comes bursting in.

"—footwork, I can show you footwork, Johnson!" one of them is braying as he knocks you almost sideways. "Oh hey, sorry there, cowboy," he says as he grabs and sets you back on your feet. "But if you wouldn't stand there if it was a rodeo, you shouldn't stand there now!" He pats you on the chest, but you only have a fleeting impression of a bright and lively face under a mop of blonde hair before he turns and strides out onto the floor proper, and then your view of him is cut off by the rest of the scrum of his friends.

You glance over to see if Dean has noticed that "the competition" has arrived, but his back is to you, and he seems engrossed in conversation with a couple of girls and a tall, Chinese-looking guy.

You return to watch the letterman jackets, but can only see their backs as they form a screen cutting you off from the main floor. Lacie and Tiffany aren't with them—it's stag-only, again—and you look around to see if they are following. As you turn back, your eye rakes past a group of girls on the opposite side of the floor, and that's when you spot Patrick.

He spots you too, and beckons you over. There must be a dozen girls with him, and he's the only guy. As you approach you glance back to see if the Eastman guys have noticed, but they are too engrossed in watching that blonde guy gyrate solo on the floor.

"Hey, you all know Will from school, right?" Patrick says when you reach them. "And you know the volleyball team?"

"Oh God," one of the girls exclaims and looks away, but the others smile brightly (if a little tightly) at you. "Hey, who are you here with?" one of the girls asks you.

"Uh, I just came out by myself," you confess.

"No, you were dancing with someone earlier," another girl says.

"No I wasn't," you reply. "I just got here!"

"Why are you arguing?" another girl demands as the first girl says, "Yes you were, I saw you. I saw your hat!"

"This?" You touch the hat you got at the thrift shop.

"No, the one you keep in your ass," retorts the one girl, while the other guffaws.

"That wasn't me," you insist.

"Yeah, it wasn't," says her friend. "The guy you saw was about ten times cuter."

Your jaw drops.

"Well, I'm ready to dance," Patrick says to the girl standing by his side, "and I'm cute too. Come on!"

He pulls her onto the floor, leaving you alone with the "volleyball team," whom, you are terrified to see, are either staring hard at him or staring hard at you. Desperately, you ask, "So you all came out here together?"

"Pff, yeah," says the one who muttered Oh God. She's got short, fluffy brown hair and is wearing a black leather jacket. "It's a team-building exercise."

"So who are you gonna dance with next?" one of the other girls demands of you. She's got a defiant gleam in her eye.

"Uh—"

With a jarring blow, one of the other girls shoves yet another girl at you. She stumbles and falls against you, so that you have to grab her to steady her. "Jesus!" she exclaims as she wobbles back onto her feet. "What the hell?"

"Ask her to dance!" one of the others challenges you. "She's great!"

"I am not!" exclaims the girl. Then she says, "Okay, fine," and takes you by the arm to pull you onto the dance floor.

"You don't have to dance if you don't want to," you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

"Oh, shut up," she says, though her tone isn't unpleasant. "This isn't for you," she continues as she steps back and begins to shimmy liquidly in place, like a serpent. "But you can have fun with it if you try."

And have fun you do, even if your feet are frozen to the floor and you can only sort of wave your arms around awkwardly in the air. For all your attention is riveted on the girl.

She has long blonde hair and is wrapped tightly in a short, sleeveless, black satin dress. She undulates from side to side with a wave-like rhythm, and with upward-turned palms she pumps her arms as though beckoning you seductively to her. Her face is an expressionless mask, but her eyes gleam with amused intelligence as she watches the effect she is having on you.

"What did you say your name was?" she asks.

"Will."

"Hey Will," she replies. "My name's Sydney."

* To dance with this girl: "The Main Chance" 
* To retreat: "Rescue by Rocketship" 

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