The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Coveting a Coven

Previously: "Body Swapping as a Solution" 

"What about a coven?" you blurt into the phone before you can catch yourself. "Instead of a 'brotherhood'— Well, does a Baphomet thing have to be all guys in order to be a 'brotherhood'?"

"No," Sydney says. She sounds taken aback by your suggestion. "I don't think so."

"So can it be like a coven? Is that technically a thing?"

She's silent for a moment. Then she asks, "Do you want it to be an all-girl thing?"

"I was just thinking it might be, you know, kind of neat if it was."

But your heart is now in your throat. Is Sydney going to be weirded out by your suggestion? Does it sound like you want to get yourself a kind of harem? Or—gulp! that you want to swap bodies with a girl?

"I mean," you stammer, "it could be a mix, but I was thinking—"

"We should have at least one guy," Sydney says. "Some of the rituals require a, uh, cock. I guess you could provide it. Though some of the rituals might require two cocks," she adds in the tone of an afterthought, "though of course not on the same guy."

"What for?" you ask, though with a sinking heart you can guess.

"Never mind. Do you have any particular girls in mind?"

"Uh ... the cheerleading squad?" That also comes blurting out, much to your embarrassment. "There's ten girls on it," you add in a desperate lunge, "so it's already the right number."

"Uh huh."

"Is something wrong with using the cheerleaders?"

"No. But—" She breathes heavily into the phone. "Don't you think it's kind of, well, a cliche? A coven of cheerleaders, Will? Doesn't it sound like something off a bad CW show?"

"Well—"

"Oh, never mind me. Don't let me bully you. If you want—" She cuts herself off. "Let me think of some other ideas, okay? All girl or mostly girl. Pick you up tomorrow?"

"Uh, sure."

"See you then. Sweet dreams!" The line goes dead.

You may not have sweet dreams after you're asleep, but you have some sweaty fantasies before you do.

* * * * *

You've parted with Sydney in front of the gym—she has a P.E. class first thing—and are nearing your locker when again strong hands are laid on you. You're thrust through the crowd, and a punch to a kidney slams you face first into a locker. Your knees buckle, but the hand supports you as you're wrenched around. You sphincter loosens to find David Kirkham grinning into your face.

Kirkham is a little smaller than you, but he's compact and strong. He rolls the ever-present toothpick about in his mouth beneath the ever-present shades.

He puts his face close to yours so that he can make himself heard without lifting his voice over the mutter of the crowd.

"I hear you're getting fucked these days, Prescott." His voice is soft, but there's a hard rattle in it, like the scales of a serpent sliding over stone. "Wanna tell me about it?"

Your shoulders rise in a weak shrug. It's never a good idea to talk back to David Kirkham—one of the most fearsome bullies at Westside—but it's an even worse idea to say or do nothing when he address you.

"You're not sure?" His grin widens. "What kind of a pussy-sniffer doesn't know if he's getting fucked?"

Now you just swallow.

"I'm going to do you a favor, Prescott," he hisses. "I'm going to ride you." He tightens his grip on your collar. "I've seen that girl that you don't know if you're fucking or not. Oooh! If I was with her, she's know she was getting fucked. I'd fuck her into a coma then fuck her back out of it. But I was saying I'm gonna do you a solid."

He puts his face so close to yours you can smell the cinnamon on his breath.

"Starting Monday I'm gonna fuck you up every day, in front of her. Give you a chance to prove to her that you got balls big enough for her. You got balls big enough for her, don't you? She inspires you, doesn't she?" He punches you again. "So I'm gonna let you show her how much she inspires you. And as an extra favor, 'cos I like you so much, I won't pull any my punches."

He drops you, and sniggers as he pats your chest. "So get ready for a good show on Monday, Prescott. Play it like your life depends on it." With another hissing laugh, he melts back into the crowd.

You run into the nearest bathroom and throw up.

* * * * *

You can't say anything to Caleb in first period about your run-in with Kirkham. Not that Caleb could do anything about it except grumble sympathetically. But telling him would involve telling him about your new relationship with Sydney, and you've yet to figure out a way of breaking that to him.

But you don't even get to have a normal conversation with him. He is very white in the face, and when you greet him he just folds his arms and stares at the front of the room with glittering eyes. "Caleb," you say. "Caleb, man, come on!" Even when you wave your hand in front of his face he just turns the color of Antarctica and stares straight ahead.

"The fuck is the matter with Johansson?" you ask Keith when you fall into the desk in front of his in second period. "The son of a bitch went all last period ignoring me."

"It's pro'ly on account of your being such a backstabbing asshole," Tilley replies. He leans back, turns his cap brim-side front, and pulls it down over his eyes. "Can't say I blame him," he adds as he lifts his cell phone to block his view of you.

"What are you talking about?" But with a sinking heart you can make a pretty good guess.

"What you think I'm a'talk about? What's her name? Girl wanted to get to know Caleb only you got to her first?"

You grip your desk and glare. "What are you talking about?" you repeat.

"You know exactly what I'm'a talk about, motherfucker. Girl comes on to Caleb, you sling a lot of shit at him so he don't come back at her, you pick her up and walk off with her instead. Not fucking cool, man." He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. "Not fucking cool."

"Okay, first of all, who told you some girl was coming on to Caleb? And second, what makes you think I'm—"

But the words falter and die. You've never been good at bluffing. Obviously Caleb would have told Keith about Sydney, and about how you talked him into ignoring her; and just as obviously word must have spread back to the two of them that you and her had started going out.

"I tell you one more thing," Keith says, "and then I start talkin' to you like you was a wall. As in, I ain't talkin' to you ever again." You can't help rolling your eyes at Keith's attempt to sound "ghetto." "You better go lookin' for some new friends, 'cos you ain't findin' none where you been findin' 'em b'fore. An' that includes Carson and James." He whistles. "Ain't no one cool wit' what you done to Caleb. You gonna find 'em all cold."

* * * * *

Bad things come in threes, they say, but maybe your bad luck exhausted itself with Kirkham and with Caleb, for nothing else awful happens to you before the last bell rings. You spend an hour in the library, stewing quietly in a corner with your homework, as you wait for Sydney to finish her afterschool gymnastics.

"So I've got some more ideas," she tells you on the way home from school. "It's Friday night, but we should get started. Skip the parties."

You'd be up for that, and ask her what her ideas are.

"I'm going with your 'coven' idea. You have any ideas besides the cheerleaders?"

"I think I'm pretty much open to anything at this point." When she gives you a quizzical look, you just add, "I just wanna get started."

"I don't think we should rush into anything," she cautions you. "But the idea I've got would let us take it slow. We'd do things three at a time."

"What do you mean? Why?"

"Well, covens are supposed to be trios, right? Like in Macbeth?" You only shrug. "So we build it out of three groups of three. Then, for a tenth, we add a guy."

"Okay. Um—" You try to come to grips with some concrete possibilities. "Would each of these trios be, like, friends of each other? Would we get all nine of them in the same place, or would we—?"

Sydney laughs. "We could do anything we want, Will. We could get all of them from the same place, like the school orchestra, or we could take over one of the girls' sports teams. Or we could—"

She catches herself and snaps her fingers. "There's some girls in my French II class, they're always sitting around gossiping. I think they're sophomores. We could start with a trio of friends, and then find another random trio and another random trio after that. You know, after looking around."

Next: "A Team Play" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"