The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Skin You'll Live In

Previously: "Stalking Chelsea Cooper" 

"I'll take care of Chelsea," you mutter as you stare boggle-eyed down at the unconscious Chelsea Cooper. "You try to head Gordon off until I'm ready."

Sydney says something, then she says something else, and then she snaps her fingers in your face and says, "Will!" You look up, startled.

"Are you going to be able to handle it?" she asks you with a very serious, very direct look. "She's ... Well, she's a she, and she's a cheerleader, and she's got a boyfriend. That's not anything like what you are."

You feel yourself flushing.

"I'll be fine," you say, "as soon as I'm inside the mask. That's what they do, you know, they—" You shrug. "They turn you into—" You gulp. "Inside and out," you conclude in a shaking voice. I'll be fine!" you repeat when her expression remains grave.

"Okay," she says after taking a deep breath. "I'll help you get her ready—"

"No, just go outside and watch out for Gordon."

Her expression grows even more taut. Then with another sigh she jogs from the changing room.

You look back down at Chelsea, and swallow hard.

She is so small, so firm, so perfectly formed that she might have been sculpted for display in a museum or art gallery, over a little plaque that says Cheerleader. She isn't a tiny thing, but she is built close to the ground—perfect for rolling and tumbling—and she has strong calves and thighs, toned arms, and wide, bowl-like hips. Her boobs are round and firm too, like cantaloupes, though smaller. Her hair, though now spread out and disordered on the tile floor, tumbles down to her shoulders in golden curls. Her nose is small and pug-like, her mouth pink and pursed, and her brow and skin clear.

She's also, you suddenly realize, dressed out in her cheerleader uniform. It wraps so tightly to her that she might have been stitched into it.

And this is going to be me, you think with yet another gulp. I'm going to be Chelsea Cooper, head cheerleader.

You clasp her by the ankles and drag her into the very back of the changing room—disordering her skirt—then around a corner into the showers. Only then do you kneel beside her and start to peel off her pink tennis shoes; her golden hose; the stiff skirt; the crimson top. You have to roll her over a couple of times to find every stay and zipper, but before the mask is done copying her, you've got her spread out naked on the floor. Her limbs are still a robust golden hue from the summer, but the rest of her has begun to fade to pink again.

You'd squat on the floor and stroke her and pinch her except you're scared that Sydney would come in and surprise you.

Still, you're preoccupied with staring at her tufted bush—it's dark, and it curls up in little flame-like tongues—when the mask comes out of her, so that it takes a moment for you to jerk to life again. Only then do you discover you've been nursing a painful erection.

You pull out the mask you made of yourself; and you hesitate with clenched teeth and clenched eyes before dropping it onto Chelsea's face.

G'yick! Something bony and hairy appears where she was lying. You scramble back as a straw-headed teenage boy snaps his eyes open and does a double-take at you. His own eyes widen, probably mirroring yours. "Holy shit," he says as he sits up on one elbow, and scoots away.

For a long moment neither of you speaks. Your own throat is petrified, and your duplicate only makes faces back at you. Finally, after glancing warily around, he says, "So I guess the thing's started?"

"What thing?" Your voice creaks like an old screen door.

"The, uh, thing with Sydney," he says, looking ill. "Turning people into—" He glances around. "Things."

"Yeah."

His eyes fall onto Chelsea's stuff. "What're those?"

"Clothes. Cheerleader clothes." You lick your lips. "Chelsea Cooper's clothes."

His eyes widen. "Chelsea? Chelsea Cooper? You mean she's—? I mean, is she the—?"

"That's the plan."

"Oh. Right." His gaze goes distant. "Right, we were at her house. Did she—? Where are we?"

"Up at the school. Girls' changing room."

"Yeah? And Chelsea is—"

His jaw falls open. "Oh God," he says, and he looks down at himself. Gingerly he puts a fingertip to his chest.

Then he cups his shallow breasts. "She's—?"

Something snaps inside you, and all the nervous energy you've been banking up comes exploding out.

"Oh, Jesus!" you yell at your double over the roar in your ears. He scrambles back in shock. "Look, we don't have time for this shit," you continue. "I have to get ready. You have to get out of here. Sydney's outside— Gordon's here too, and he's coming back, and I've gotta get ready for when he shows up again. And you need to get out of here before he— Look, just stop laying there all goggly-eyed and get dressed!"

"Into what?" he cries.

Right. You're still in your clothes.

Quickly you strip, hurling everything at him as it comes off.

"You're gonna have to drive off with Sydney, I guess," you babble as shoes and socks and pants and shirt come popping off. "Jesus, don't do anything stupid with her. I mean, be yourself. Be me. Can you do that? Do all the stuff you're supposed to do at home and school, that I'm supposed to do, I mean? You get that?" His head bobs as he catches the clothes. "But don't be stupid with Sydney, okay? She's not your girlfriend, you know, she's mine!"

"Jesus, sounds like someone hasn't thought this thing through," he grumbles as he hops about on one foot while pulling on a sock.

"Just be like me! Except, you know, you're only supposed to be keeping things normal for me. Don't go getting stupid ideas." An idea comes to you. "Pretend you're me," you tell your double, "and think about what you'd tell your own, uh, substitute to do. Like, if you were the real me and there was a substitute you running around. Think of what you'd tell the substitute to do, then you do that."

"I'd tell the substitute to go have fun."

"No you wouldn't, 'cos I wouldn't."

He rolls his eyes, and his shoulders sag.

"Look, just be normal," you say for about the hundredth time as you propel the thing that looks like you toward the exit. "And when you're with Sydney, just follow her lead. Don't start anything with her."

It starts to make some reply, but you shove it out of the changing room and scamper back to the showers.

You're shaking hard as you crouch amid the discarded clothing and the magical crap, and you have to force yourself to be calm as you slather a couple of coats of paste to the inside of Chelsea's mask. It turns the inner surface a grayish-white, but her name still glows through it: CHELSEA COURTNEY COOPER.

That's going to be me, you tell yourself again. But without Chelsea herself there, it hasn't got the same thrill.

But get the shivers again as you lay out on the icy tiles and raise her mask over your face. As you lower it, you get a fast, hard, blood-quickening anticipation of Chelsea's flesh and form pouring out and encasing your own.

All goes dark as the mask settles on your face.

* * * * *

You're chilled to the bone when next you're conscious, and a searing throb, like an ice cream headache, tears through your skull as you sit up. You push the hair out of your face and glare at the cold, gray room.

The gym showers? At school? Like, what the hell? You make a face.

Then your heart lurches as you look down to find yourself naked.

Oh, God! What kind of sick, freaking prank is this? Gordon! If he—

At your boyfriend's name, your eye falls onto the pile of clothes by your hand. Something like an avalanche turns loose in your head.

Gordon. The school. Your uniform. Changing and meeting up with Gordon. That Sydney scrunt. A sock in the face. Pulling the clothes off Chelsea. Turning her into your double. Putting on her face.

God! Your bowels loose and you hunch almost double as it hits you.

I'm not Chelsea Cooper! you realize with horror.

At the same time: I'm now Chelsea Cooper! you realize with delight.

You look down again. You've wrapped on arm around your busty bust, the other around your hour-glass waist. Golden hair tumbles again into your face. You push it away again, then freeze as it comes to you how natural the gesture is.

You suck in a deep breath.

A mirror, is there a mirror around? Yes, in your locker! You scamper toward the changing room proper, then wheel back around to scoop up your clothes. With them bundled in your arms, you hurry over to a bank of lockers and whirl the combination lock. I know Chelsea's locker combination! you think. Then, "Come on, you stupid—!" you hiss, and bang a tiny fist on the door when it won't open. Two more tries are needed before you can yank it open. Hanging on the inside of the door is a mirror. You catch your breath at the face that stares open-mouthed back at you from inside it.

It's Chelsea Cooper. Shocked, disheveled, even a little horrified. But it's the captain of the WHS cheerleader squad who stares back at you from it.

The horror slowly fades, to be replaced by a grin. Oh my God, Chelsea, you'd think you'd never been naked in the girls' changing room before!

A plinking ringtone jerks you back into the present. What are you going to do now? Sydney probably wants to see and talk to you. But Gordon came up here with you because he was expecting to spend the afternoon with you ... and to spend it in the most sexual way possible.

Next: "How to Break a Date, by Chelsea Cooper" 

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