The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Return of Marianne Matthias

Previously: "One Bhodi, Two Brains" 

Joe's offer—

But it's really Grant wearing a mask of Joe Dickerson.

Well, either way, it's a very tempting offer, but you decline it. "I promised Lindsay and Paulina I'd do it," you explain. "I don't want you thinking I'm the kind of guy who breaks his promises."

Grant snickers and shrugs, possibly by way of showing that he doesn't care either way, possibly because you've embarrassed him.

"Okay," he says, "but I think that's supposed to happen this afternoon."

"What? Me leaving town to get Evie?"

"No. But don't you have to get a mask of some other guy? I think that's happening this afternoon."

Actually it happens a little later that morning.

* * * * *

You're right in the middle of polishing up a mask when the door opens and Lindsay Cho steps in. You both jump at the sight of each other.

You jump because, of course, you weren't expecting to see her so early. She jumps because she's just caught you in the act of polishing a mask. "I thought you guys got that done last night," she says. "What's going on?"

"Just polishing up a mask," you say. "To use on whatsisname?"

"You were supposed to do that last night! What were you and your friend doing all night, sucking each other off?"

You redden, and against your better judgment you pull out another one of the polished masks. "No! We got it done!" you say as you brandish it at her. "This is another one."

She explodes. "Another one? The fuck do we need another one for?"

"For just in case! Caleb and Joe bought enough stuff to make a couple of more masks, and there's nothing else to do with it except—"

"Christ! We can't leave you fuckers alone for one fucking minute!" As Lindsay clatters down the stairs, you shove a chair over to hide the small nest of masks you've already accumulated.

"Here!" she says, and from her giant purse pulls out a mask. "I was bringing you this one to polish up, so you might as well do it now too." She thrusts it at you.

"What time is it?" you ask. "Don't you have to be at school?"

"I'm skipping." She grimaces. "But as long as I'm here— " She grabs you by the arm. "We can go get that guy's face. Do you have the mask of that woman?"

"Dane's mom?" You wrench yourself free. "Sure. Gimme a minute to get things together."

Lindsay fumes as you make a great show of picking up the mask and checking to make sure it is the right one, and of searching for and finding the brain band to go with it, and checking to see that it's the right one too. You wad Marianne Matthias's clothes up into a ball, pick up a blank mask to use on Dwayne Macaulay, and dip into the hidden pile to retrieve a blank brain band.

Up in her car—a relatively new family sedan, and quite clean on the inside—you ask her what the plan for the day is. "I told you, getting a copy of that guy. Dur."

"You're going in with me?"

"Do you need any help?"

"The guy's a scary-ass drug dealer," you remind her. "You probably shouldn't, unless you— Never mind."

"Unless I what?"

You give her a sidelong glance. If she hadn't gotten so pissed at you, and so gotten you pissed at her, you'd bite your tongue. "Unless you take your pants off and distract him with your pussy, I don't think you're going to be a lot of help."

It's a mercy she doesn't have a stroke right then and there.

Instead, she pulls over in front of a house, and after fighting her voice past some kind of blockage she taps out a text on her phone. She says nothing more about it, though, and just tells you to get changed into Dane's mother's things. You clamber into the back and, after laying down, strip off your clothes and put on Mrs. Matthias's pants and t-shirt. After that, you fit the brain band inside the mask and drop both of them simultaneously onto your face.

All the lights go out.

* * * * *

You're very stiff when you wake up, and there's a fog inside your head. No, it's more like a burning haze. Jesus, I need some water, you think, and sit up.

You almost brain yourself on the roof of a car.

Wincing and blinking, you look around. You're in the back seat of a car. Dane? Did Dane pick you up again? No, that can't be right for ... some reason that will come to you. Heather? It's a woman driving, so you try that name. "Hey, Heather honey?"

The driver looks around with a fierce frown, and you fling yourself back. It's Mrs. Hu, the woman you worked for nine months in her nail and pedicure salon until she caught you stoned at work once too often and canned your ass while shrieking all kinds of ching-chang-chow curses at you! She's come to get you!

No, wait, it's not Mrs. Huh, it's ... Hang on, don't tell me. It's ...

"Will?" she says.

No, that's not her name. Tip of my tongue ...

"Will?"

No, that's your name. Is it?

The universe rushes in at you. You groan and bury your face in your knees, squeezing your breasts together.

Breasts. You raise your head and look.

You've got breasts inside your t-shirt. Big floppy breasts. You pull the collar of your shirt forward and peer at them.

They're whales! Big, pale, wobbly whales! With pointy tips you could suck on and suck on forever. Dane used to suck on them, when he was just a wee little baby, and his daddy, Dane Senior, used to suck on them too.

You squeak.

"Will!"

"Oh God, yes? I'm here." You feel your eyes rolling in their sockets. "We're all here. Both of us."

"Who's 'both'?"

"Me and Dane's mom. Jesus, I just had a flashback to him as little kid, and her holding him and—" You gulp. "Nursing him."

Oh, Dane. My little boy. Growing up so sweet and handsome. Wish he could do better in school, but what are you going to do?

Tears start in the corner of your eyes as you think of Dane, at military school. Turning him into a ... a killbot! No, not your sweet baby Dane!

"Will!" Lindsay leans across the back of the seat and sinks her claws into your shoulder.

Shouldn't she be driving? You bolt upright—

—then realize that the car's not in motion. You're parked in front of a strip center.

Lindsay puts her face close to yours and shows you her teeth. "Sober up!"

"Alright, alright! Jesus! It just ... Well, it takes me a moment to get oriented is all. Where are we?"

"Parked in front of a donut shop, we're not going anywhere until—"

Mm. Donuts. You could really go for a bear claw right about now. "What did you say?"

Lindsay seethes. "I said, go inside into the bathroom and finish getting changed."

So that's what you do.

It's Salvation Donuts, just off Borman, owned by the same people who own the Christian school. You almost enrolled Dane there when he was ten—

Focus, Will!

You wave cheerily at the girl behind the counter, point at the counter where the donuts are going stale, then waltz into the bathroom. You lock it and—

You're half curious, half disgusted, half bored, and half crazed with desire as you pull off the pants and t-shirt again. Mathematically, this means you are two minds, each of which is of two minds about what you're doing. Marianne is only thirty-two years old, and she still has a lot of her twenty-something charms, if she does say so herself. Her hips are big without being gross, and her thighs and legs curvaceous though without muscle. She's got a flabby little pot belly going, but it's not too bad. And those glorious D cups! She gets lots of stares in the grocery store when she—

Focus, Will!

You slip on the panties and the bra, then pull the pants and the t-shirt over them. You kick on the flip-flops, then run some water in the sink and contemplate your reflection in the mirror.

Marianne Matthias has reddish-gold hair like her son. It's thicker than his, though, and she wears it in bangs and in flat curtains that hang almost to her shoulders. You pull it back and wish that someone had thought to bring a scrunchie. Your face is getting a little fuller these days, but—

Hrm. Caleb is right. Marianne Matthias is a MILF. And you flinch when it comes over you that Marianne wouldn't mind being called that. She looks at some of the guys that Dane brings over, eyeballing them while laying on the sofa and pretending to be passed out, and thinking that most of them are hot and probably randy and wouldn't it feel good to have a hard, seventeen-year old cock inside her again. Dane Senior was seventeen when he—

Eugh!

You flush the toilet and exit the restroom. Through the plate glass window you see Lindsay fuming, but you kill a minute by pretending to study the donuts before regretfully discovering that you don't have any money in your pockets.

"About fucking time," Lindsay growls when you rejoin her. "Are you going to be a space cadet all afternoon?"

"Don't you want me in character?"

"Just enough. Okay, finally, here's Justin," she says as a kid with a long face and the complexion of a strawberry gets out of his car. "Think he'll be enough to handle that creep?"

* To continue: "Mugging Macaulay" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"