The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Old In and Out

Previously: "A Flesh Exchange" 

"What do we need to talk about?" you ask Sydney. On instinct you glance down for your cell phone—

And then you're very conscious of the fact that you're naked.

With a girl's body. A warm, gooey feeling, like melted caramel, gushes thickly through you.

"Well, what we're going to do with this girl, for a start," Sydney says, flicking a finger at you.

"You mean, like, with Blake?" You clamber onto Sydney's bed to start sorting through your clothes. You'd love to scope yourself out in a mirror, but that doesn't seem like a good idea in front of your girlfriend.

"Yeah, there's that, I guess. But there's also the Brotherhood."

The Brotherhood. Amanda's instincts feel very close—tickling the bottom of your brain, like a frothing mass of ants—and you do a quick gut check on the topic of invoking demons.

Pff. There's no such thing as demons, she tells you. It'll be stupid, but do whatever.

"I'm up for doing the Brotherhood still," you say as you shake out Amanda's panties.

"Good. Because I don't want to waste a lot of time before getting started on it."

You look up. "Do we have to do something tonight?"

"Well, no. But—"

"Because I've got a party to go to—" You slide the panties up over your legs and tug them up around your hips. "And I'm supposed to help get it organized."

"Can you spare five minutes at least?"

Something in her tone catches your ear, and she frowns at you with eyes clouded with doubt.

She looks gorgeous.

You roll off the bed and onto your feet, and your breasts flop as hop three quick steps over to grasp her by the elbows. "I've got all the time in the world for you," you say as you look up into her eyes—

Yes, up. A quick wave of vertigo washes over you as you realize that now, in Amanda's body and outside her boots, your girlfriend is a little taller than you are.

You smile sweetly up at her. "I can stay with you. Kelsey and them can go hang."

Sydney tenses a little, and her eyes grow shifty.

"Well, I don't need you all afternoon. Just a little while, just enough to—
Gmnph!" she says as you peck her on the lips.

"What's wrong?" you murmur. Still you hover at her mouth.

"Will," she murmurs back in a muffled way. "Is Amanda a lesbian?"

"No. But I'm still straight."

"Mm." She hesitates, then gives you a quick tentative kiss back. "Look, Will," she says. "Um."

"Um?" You brush the side of her nose with the side of yours.

"I'd love you whatever you looked like, love you whatever, uh, parts you've got and whatever parts you don't—"

"You don't like this?"

"No. I mean, I do, but—"

She seems to gather herself, before the rest rushes out. "I didn't go along with you on this just so we could have hot lesbian sex with each other."

You step back. "You think I'm pushing you."

"No."

"You think I'm forcing myself on you because I'm turned on by the idea of doing it with another girl while being a girl."

"No!"

"You think I'm just your typical horny guy who's turned on by lesbian porn, and want to get some of it for myself, and so I'm going to force myself—!"

"Jesus! Will!" Sydney steps back. Shocked mortification shows on her face.

"Relax, Sydney, I'm just busting your balls." You look around for your bra. "I know what you're thinking and what you're trying not to think. Get used to the fact that I've gotten an upgrade and can probably keep up with you now. God, can't one girl kiss another without being a dyke? It's fucking presumptuous of you to think that, you know." You give her a look as you clasp the bra to your bosom, then wind it front-side forward to tuck yourself into the cups.

And she blanches. For the first time since you've known her, Sydney looks completely wrong-footed.

But she's not long in rallying. "Where did all that come from?"

"From Amanda. You want to know what they say about you?"

"Who? They? Who's they, who says—?"

"Amanda and her friends. They say you're—"

But she stops you with a raised hand.

"No, no," she stammers. "I don't— Will— You— Uh— The point— Look, can we just focus on business?"

"I'd love to focus on business." You shake out your blouse, which is crisply starched and very white. "I've been wanting to focus on business since I got here. Because I told you, I've got things to do, a party to help organize. It was a real fucking chore, you know, coming out here in fucking summons to a text."

Now your girlfriend shows her teeth, and for a moment it looks like she's going to yell. "Is this you still being Amanda?"

"Yes." You leap at her again, catching her in your arms. "God, it's fun doing it to you."

* * * * *

At Sydney's insistence, you calm down and start giving her a respectful listen. You finish dressing as she talks: the blouse, the short, black leather skirt, and the toeless, high-heeled boots cinched tightly around your ankles.

She begins by pulling down an old Candyland board game box from a shelf high in her closet. "I started making these things after you said you were okay with making ourselves up a Brotherhood," she says as she opens the box and extracts two rods of polished, blonde wood. They are about a foot long, with a carved grip at one end and a knob at the other. It strikes you with a note of shock—and more than a little excitement—that they have the length, shape and heft of a dildo.

You look up at Sydney from under a raised eyebrow.

"They're meditation wands," she says, and if she's read your mind she doesn't show it. "You hold the haft in one hand, and cradle the shaft in the other." She demonstrates, gripping the hilt in her right hand and cupping the length in her left. She closes her eyes. "Then you concentrate."

"On what?"

"On whatever needs concentrating on. It's part of a, uh, multi-step process, designed to— to synchronize you with the plane where—" She turns just the slightest shade of pink. "With the plane where Baphomet dwells. At least," she adds in a quick mutter, "that's the way my dad's old papers put it."

"Huh." Amanda's rock-like skepticism keeps you unfazed. "Are there any other instructions beyond—? Um—"

"Sure. That's why I wanted you to stick around, to show you the first step or two." You follow her back into the walk-in closet, which smells of freshly laundered fabric.

She pushes aside some of her blouses, exposing a patch of wall behind. "You can't see it," she says, "but there's a door there. A door into, or out of—" Her brow furrows. "Well, it's a door for Baphomet to come through."

"He comes through a door?"

"Not the way you're thinking, Will. It's psychology, mostly, a psychological trick. That's the way I read the stuff my dad left behind."

She freezes, and her gaze briefly turns watchful. Then she relaxes.

"I sometimes forget that Nicholas isn't a problem anymore," she mutters, "and I worry about getting caught by him. But anyway, it's about belief. Getting yourself to believe in it. To really believe in it."

Her expression curdles as she studies your face. "It's going to be hard talking you into this, isn't it?"

"Well, you can give it a try. Amanda's a total atheist—" You cluck your tongue over the idiocy of religious belief. "And normally she'd believe that magic is just a total shit show. Of course, look at her now." You let your lip curl. "So go on."

"Well, it can't be— It's not like—"

Sydney gathers herself.

"The way it's explained, there's like two kinds of belief. The first kind is all, just, like, the stuff you agree with. Oh, yeah, sure, New Delhi is the capital of India, Jupiter's the biggest planet in the solar system. Stuff like that, stuff you say 'Yes' to when someone asks you about it."

"Uh huh."

"But the other kind is the stuff that, like, you believe because it's right in front of you, and you can't help believing it. It pokes you in the eye. You don't just say 'Yes' to it, it would actually hurt if you said 'No.'"

"Like?"

She studies you. Then she grabs and kisses you. Her tongue is silky and succulent, and it explores your mouth like a snake darting for prey.

"Do you believe I'm kissing you?" she murmurs when she pulls back for a second.

You swallow. "Oh yeah."

"Now, try to say 'No', Will. Try to say—" She nips at your tongue. "That I'm not kissing you. Try to believe I'm not kissing you," she says just before shoving herself back inside your mouth.

"Wow," you mutter when she finally releases you. "That's—"

"Hard to not believe? Yeah. That's the other kind of belief. The kind that puts its face into yours, grabs you by the ass, and dares you to look away."

You swallow again. "And that—?"

"That's the kind of belief you need to have in Baphomet. And that's the kind of belief—" She raises her meditation wand. "That this is supposed to give you."

Next: "Prelude to a Party" 

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