The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Where the Boys Play

Previously: "The Remains of an Afternoon" 

Chelsea wants to talk to her boyfriend. Tonight, right now, that would be you.

You're already excited to be sitting where you are, and this just supercharges it, and an erection swells in your shorts. Your breath comes so quick it leaves you puffing and blowing.

But even though you're excited by Chelsea's invitation, and the chance that it represents, the tremble in your hand tells you it would be a bad idea. You don't know Chelsea, and you don't know what to say to her. If she isn't mad now -- and she probably is furious -- she will be by the time you're done screwing things up with her even more.

So you ignore the message and clamber from Gordon's VW Bug.

But at the door to the gym your phone buzzes again. pookie pls?

It sounds like she isn't mad, but you've already decided you don't want to talk to her.

With one of the keys on Gordon's ring you unbolt the door and step into the gym. It's cavernous and echoes in the fading light, and your nostrils flare at the scent. You lock the door behind you. Your sneakers squeak on the court floor as you trudge across it. You're halfway across when you realize how furtive you are in your attitude. I'm Gordon Fucking Black, you remind yourself, and I fucking own this fucking gym. You put your head up and shoulders back and swagger the rest of the way.

A wooden staircase behind the bleachers takes you up to a landing outside a loft under the rafters near the eastern eaves of the gym. You've never been up here before, but it's not hard to find, and at the top of those stairs is a single door made of scarred plywood. You fiddle a bit with keys until you find one that fits the deadbolt set high in the door. It slides open with a satisfying clunk, and the door creaks open.

It's already dark inside the loft, and you fumble your fingers along the wall until you find a switch. The dusk flees from a harsh, buzzing fluorescent light.

The loft is more like a junk yard. The roof is very low -- with Gordon's height you can palm the metal sheets overhead, and the space is filled with large wooden crates and gymnastics equipment that looks dingy and disused. You have to navigate a small labyrinth through these in order to reach an open space around a wooden support pillar. Here is a kind of nest for teenage boys. A couple of torn and faded gym mats are spread out on the ground next to an open cardboard box and a dorm-sized refrigerator. There's also a plastic trash bag that stinks of beer and old pizza. You pad around these, looking for further nooks and goodies. Along the back wall is a row of cabinets, but these only hold shelves that are either empty or stacked deep with old textbooks.

No, hang on, in one of the cabinets are some liquor bottles: whiskey, tequila, rum, and vodka. You unscrew one for a sniff -- potent! -- but don't sample any.

Beer and pizza. If there's hard liquor in the cabinet, then in the refrigerator -- Yes! Seven full six-packs of beer and part of an eighth! It's a cheap brew, but you grin as you take one out and crack it open. It tastes good, better than you remember beer tasting, and the more you pour down your throat the more you want to pour down it. Only when you've got your head back do you realize you are chugging it, and then you have to go all the way. When the last trickle has run out the can and into your mouth, you fling the can away and let rip a mighty belch. It feels really good.

Another buzz from the phone. pls i want to talk!

This is getting ridiculous, but it's also fun to think of Chelsea begging you. More fun to think of rejecting her. You text back a brusque no. And when she comes back with pookie pls! you fire back with busy. stop it. That brings peace, for after fifteen minutes she hasn't replied.

You drop onto the gym mats with your back to that pillar -- a pose that Gordon and his friends probably take all the time -- and try to get used to the feeling that this is where you belong, that this is a place that is yours. It does feel natural, as you clap one hand around a muscular knee, and the other hand onto a meaty bicep. You relax. Yeah, this is nice. You notice that everything is within reach of this spot, including that cardboard box. You dip a hand into it, and your fingers touch paper. A magazine. You pull it out. Porn. Old porn, too. It's more than ten years old. You lean over to dig through the rest of the box. All the magazines are old, tattered, and worn, with very old publication dates. It must be part of the traditional hand-me-downs, maybe going all the way back to ... 1990? Before that, even? You flip through them, wondering why the guys are spending time with this instead of internet porn. Well, nothing wrong with old porn, you decide after a couple of pictures have arrested your eye and stirred your cock.

But you toss it back. You've got a project to do, and you want to get it done since you're not sure you want to spend another night in Gordon Black's form.

So you set up a small work space on one of the crates, propping open the book and setting out the supplies you bought. There's not a lot of prep work: the metal strips have already been cut into the dimensions called for by the spell, and after chanting over them and the sigil they are ready for the last step. That step, though, proves to be nearly as tedious as the old routine of buffing masks, for it involves carving some runes into the metal. It's fairly exacting work that is not made any more fun by having to stand hunched over a crate while you work.

In the back of your mind you idly speculate about what these things will be used for. The masks already seem to be pretty perfect at copying bodies, so what other kinds of "disguises" will the book be teaching you to make? It's not a super-thick book -- less than an inch -- and the pages are heavy, but there's lots of room for lots of spells.

Maybe there will be spells for copying memories. That's one place where the masks are pretty damn deficient. Skills and talents, too, like Gordon's ability to drop a basketball through a small hoop from halfway across a court. Why, if you could copy those aspects of him, you could pull off a perfect imitation of him! And with a copy of your brain, he could pull off a perf--

Mm. Yeah, there's the problem. Would you want him poking around your head, learning what all your secrets are, what kinds of dirty little things you get up to in your fantasies, and how you act out when the fantasies get to be too intense?

Do you want to know what Gordon's fantasies are?

Luckily, you've got the tool off the metal when you shiver, or else you might have slashed a deep cut across the strip.

* * * * *

An hour passes. There are a lot of runes to carve, and you have to carefully cut them and wear them into the surface. You finally finish one set of runes, set them in the sigil a second time, and run your fingertip around its edge. An electrical gleam shines briefly over the metal's surface, and a chill passes through you to know that it is now ready to do whatever it is supposed to do. You lay the strip onto the book and press it down so the book will know you've finished. But when you try to turn the page, nothing happens.

Hm.

Well, there will be time to experiment later at home, you decide, and start on a second metal band. You haven't worked long, though, before you raise your head at a sound -- creaking wood. The walls settling? Something moving inside the crates?

No! It's footsteps on the stairs. You sweep the book closed and get everything shoved inside one of the cabinets just as there's a faint knock at the door. God, you hope it's not Lynch or Patterson.

No, it's worse, in a way. The door opens and Chelsea Cooper peeks inside. "Pookie?" she says in a quiet, pouty voice.

Her blue eyes are very big, and her blonde curls are limp, and her kewpie lips are pulled downward. She looks like a doll that has come to life and had its heart broken. She blinks heavily and rapidly as she pushes open the door and stares at you from the door frame. "Can I come in?"

You would like to say Yes. You would like to sweep her up -- she looks so vulnerable, and has clearly made herself look intentionally pathetic -- and crush her to your chest. But you strive to keep command of your emotions. "I told you, I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"None of your business." If she's going to be mad at you, give her a good reason to be mad at you.

It's like you flipped a switch: Her eyes instantly turn puffy and red, and she gasps and sniffs hard. "Gordon," she says in a barely audible squeak, then wheels around and covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders shake.

For a long minute she holds this pose, and you let her hold it. When she turns to give you an agonized look over her shoulder, her complexion is blotched and her nose red. "Gordon," she says again, now in a husky voice. "I'm so -- sorry -- " She hiccups. "Can we -- please -- make up?"

Next: "A Girl Who Can Rout Two Guys" 

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