The Book of Masks (Abridged)

My Friend, the Guinea Pig

Previously, in "The Solo Magician" : You picked up an old book in the used bookstore that promised to show how to make magical disguises. Working in secret, you have used it to make a kind of mask, but there was no way you were going to test it on yourself ...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THIS THING IS LIKE A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT, and who should you try a science experiment on?

That's right! A scientist!

Unfortunately, you don't know any scientists.

But Caleb is kind of like one. He's a hell of a lot more science-y and math-y than you are. He even has the look: Long face, beaky nose, droopy lips, and tightly curled hair cut short into a scalp-hugging rug. Put him in a lab coat, and he could play Egon Spengler in a high-school production of Ghostbusters. But even geekier!

So you call him up. "Hey, we're getting together tomorrow after church, right?" you say.

"I don't got church," he retorts.

"I know that, you godless fuck. I mean when I get out of church."

"You kiss Jesus with that mouth?" he chortles. "But text me later, okay? I'm watching porn."

"Yeah? What kind?"

"Shut up," he says, and the line goes dead.

So you text him. He doesn't reply. Fucker must have turned his cell off completely.

* * * * *

It's Monday before you catch up to him in the student parking lot at school. "How long was that fucking porno anyway?" you jeer.

His brow crinkles. "What porno?"

"The one you were watching when I called the other night."

"Oh." He shrugs. "It was the perfect length. Long enough for me to cum."

"So after the end credits, huh?"

Caleb sticks the bird in your face. "I don't have any fucking idea how long it was, cocksucker. I turned it off after spackling the computer screen. Do you watch your pornos past that point?"

"Jesus," Stephanie Wyatt mutters as she strides past you. "Keep it to the locker room, you pervs."

"Thirty-six-double-deez!" Caleb shouts after her. "She had thirty-six-double-deez, and I paused the video when she popped them out, and I pinged her right between them with my spooge!" He grabs his package.

Stephanie shoots him a murderous glare over her shoulder, but doesn't veer or break stride otherwise.

"You can talk to Stephanie that way?" you mutter at Caleb.

"Didn't you just hear me?"

"I just can't fucking believe it. She scares me." You shake your head in jealous wonder. Stephanie Wyatt plays for the girls' basketball team, and has thighs she could probably use to crush your head like a brittle walnut, if you were ever bold enough to put your head between her thighs. You'd probably lose an arm-wrestling contest with her, too.

And she looks fucking great and great to fuck in shorts and polo shirts, which makes her even more intimidating.

"You need to stop giving a shit, Will," Caleb says. "Like it matters what she thinks of you. So what did you want to talk to me about the other night that was so fucking urgent?"

"I wanted to know if we were going to hang out after church yesterday."

"Oh. Well, I guess not."

"So what did you do instead?"

"Nothing. Jacked off twice between Sunday School and whatever time you guys sang your last hymn. Mm." Caleb stretches. "It must suck for you, only getting to spend one morning a week with your wood."

"Hey Stephanie, wait up!" you yell after her. "This perv won't shut up about his pecker!" But she's too far ahead, and of course you didn't really mean it anyway.

"So what was the crisis?" Caleb asks.

"No crisis. But did you ever turn your phone back on again? I couldn't ever get you."

Caleb checks his cell with a frown, and runs his thumb over the screen. "Okay, I'm hooked up again. Apparently I didn't miss anything."

"Well, I did want a chance to show you something, get your help with it."

"Yeah, what? Your—?"

"So fucking help me, Johansson, I will punch you in the face if you shove your cock into the conversation again."

"Ewwww!" That's from three girls. You're passing into the breezeway that runs in front of the gym, so it's crowded with other students. Caleb laughs asthmatically as you sputter at the girls. But they just return your flannel-mouthed apologies with dirty looks and shrink back against the wall until you're past.

Another voice sounds as you exit the breezeway into the small quad on the other side. "Yo, where the fuck you guys been?" Keith Tilley asks. He's hunched up, and he darts fearful glances over at the gym doors. "I've been dangling over there with my dick hanging out—"

"Shut up, Tilley," Caleb sneers. "No one wants to hear about your genitalia."

Keith's jaw goes slack, and he turns a wounded expression from Caleb to you. "What's his problem?"

"He only wants to talk about his own—" You glance around, but there aren't any girls about. "Penis."

Caleb nudges you hard. "Never mind, Keith," he says in a kinder tone. "What's your story? You look like you're about to shit yourself."

"Well, you would too if Javits came into the place you were working, the day you were working, and ordered three dozen donuts from you, and fucking winked at you after picking them up."

"Jesus," you mutter.

But Caleb is nonplussed. "Did Seth do that? That's good news, isn't it? Sounds like he's forgiven you for being, well, you."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Keith snarls.

"I dunno. You tell me why he's so spastically opposed your existence."

"I don't know!" Keith's hands explode into the air.

"So it must just be you. Anyway, when did this happen? His coming into the donut shop and offering to suck you off, I mean."

"Just piss off, man!" Keith turns and sprints off around the front of the school.

"Tch, look at that fucker fly," Caleb sneers.

"What is your problem today?" you demand.

"I don't got a problem, Will." Caleb's tone is serene. "I'm just feeling, I dunno. Contented with the world."

"Well, you're pissing everyone else off."

Then: "Porn." You say that one word and stop in your tracks. "It's the porn, isn't it?"

Caleb arches his eyebrows. "If you're asking if I'm well-satisfied with what I watched the other night—"

"It's on account of the porn you gave to Walberg for the time capsule. Isn't it? You smug son of a bitch." You feel the blood rushing up and over your scalp as Caleb's shit-eating grin just widens. "You've got a chubby for yourself because you think you're so goddamned clever! Because fucking Walberg let you put porn in time capsule, and he's going to let you write a god-damn fucking term paper about it!"

Caleb clasps his hands behind his back and rocks back and forth on his heels, thrusting his pelvis in and out. For all the world it looks like he's air-fucking the administration building.

* * * * *

You and Caleb both have Mr. Walberg for first-period Sociology, but you refuse to talk to your friend in it. He doesn't seem offended at your cold-shouldering him, though, and he takes it with good grace when in English you tell him you'll be eating lunch with Keith instead of him. "I'll just hang out with Carson and them," he says.

And how do you know that Keith won't be eating with you and Caleb, as the three of you usually do? Because in second-period word Keith said you'd have to make a choice because "no fucking way" was he going to "break bread with that cocksucker."

"Sure, Caleb's being a dick today," you tell Keith when you settle down with him in your usual spot behind the school. "But it's temporary, it'll wear off."

"He's usually that way, Will," Keith says. "More and more. He thinks he's better than us. Where is he now?"

"Eating with Carson and James, I think he told me."

"There, you see? Those two—" Keith muffles his dark mutter by shoving a thick sandwich into his mouth.

"What's wrong with Carson and James?"

"Nuthingk," Keith says. "Sept'ay ack tall—"

"Swallow that shit, then talk. What is that, anyway?" you ask, for Keith's sandwich looks a lot more appetizing than yours. He doesn't answer, though, and just keeps chewing. "Anyway, Caleb's just fucking pleased as piss with himself. You heard about our time capsule project?"

Keith rolls his eyes and shoves his sandwich back into his mouth.

"Are you trying to eat that thing in one mouthful? Christ, come up for air. But you know we had to bring something in for that dumb time capsule in Walberg's class. And Caleb brought in a thumb drive full of porn. He was so fucking smarmy about it, like he thought he was getting away with putting in a Kleenex of his own cum."

You pause. Now that you think about it, that should have been what you put in. You bet you could have gotten away with it, too. It's a DNA sample, Mr. Walberg, so scientists in the future will have— Well, it would have been better than what you did contribute.

"Whaddhid you put in?" Keith asks, and smacks the bread that's still caught in his teeth.

"Never mind. But Caleb put in porn, and then shat himself when Walberg said we had to write a paper on what we put in. Wanted to dig up the capsule and replace his—"

"Does this story come with a T-L-D-R?" Keith picks at his teeth with a fingernail. "It needs one."

You roll your eyes. "Fine. T-L-D-R, Walberg let him get away with it."

"Pft. Yeah, well, that doesn't make it right what Caleb was saying to me this morning."

You shrug in lukewarm agreement.

* * * * *

Anyway, your two best friends still aren't talking to each other when school ends, which leaves you with a choice as to which friend to experiment on.

If either. Because maybe you can find a stoner after school. They probably wouldn't notice if something funky happened during the experiment.