The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Bodies in Motion

Previously: "Alone in the Dark with You and Andrea" 

You feel hot and grimy as you surface from sleep, and your pajamas and the sheets are twisted up all about you. An acrid haze, like smoke, seems to hang between your brain and your eyeballs, and if you didn't feel unclean all over and in need of a restoring swim and shower you'd bury the chiming phone under the pillow and go back to sleep.

Instead, like a good girl you stumble out of bed and across the hall into the bathroom.

Not until you've splashed some cold water on your face and raised up to look at yourself in the mirror do you remember who you really are and what you're doing here.

Water droplets congeal on the tip of your nose as you stare into your new face.

It's still brown from the summer, though the tan is beginning to lighten beneath. A few tiny red spots show where Andrea hasn't scrubbed her pores as deeply as she should have. At this very close range you can see the tiny freckles at the top of her cheeks, and the white streaks of faint chapping on her lips. Hers isn't a coddled face, a pampered face. It's a face that has been turned into harsh winds and harsher waters, and has seen more sun than is probably good for it. The bones beneath give it a severe cast, and as you scrutinize yourself your already hooded gaze grows more hooded still.

In one smooth motion you pull off the pajama top, then peel off the bottoms and everything else between your skin and the world. Your breasts fall out. They're on the small side, and pointed like pears. Banana breasts was the cruel jeer hurled at Andrea in middle school gym class, when they were just coming in and looked like they were going to turn out funny. The tips are nubby, like fingertips. But on the whole they're not badly shaped, and when covered with a shirt they have enough heft to give her a pleasing bust.

Below that, though, all is perfection.

Her stomach curves inward, and the skin and muscles are firm and taut, like she's been sanded down and polished from gleaming wood by a skilled hand. Her hips splay out like a narrow bowl, and her buttocks are like loaves of bread. The legs below are slim but strong, and taper down to long but graceful feet.

You pull the thick brunette hair back behind your shoulder, stand away from the mirror, and drink yourself in.

My God. No wonder Andrea can't walk through the hallways at school without guys swiveling like tops to follow her progress.

You step into the bathtub only long enough to wash the heat of the night off your body with a spray of cold water, then wrap yourself in a towel. So arrayed, you step into the kitchen to start some coffee before retreating into the bedroom. You're still wet, but that's okay, because it's the black Lycra swimsuit that you pull on, grunting just a little with pleasure as it clasps itself tightly to your body. Over that you pull some vermillion shorts and a thin, off-white blouse that you leave untucked and unbuttoned. You pack fresh clothes, books, and homework into your gym bag, and set them by the front door. In the kitchen you pour yourself the coffee and set up a new filter of fresh grounds, then put on the timer so it will begin to brew at eight-thirty, when Andrea's mom usually wakes up. You make a breakfast of peach granola and oats with soy milk.

This would be really disgusting if it was still me eating it, you think as you gobble it down. But with Andrea's palate, it's delicious.

You wash out the bowl and coffee cup, set them in the rack to dry, and leave for school. It's a little after seven-thirty.

* * * * *

The cold water pours over your limbs as you slice through the pool; your legs thrash the water behind into a froth. The side of the pool looms suddenly before you, so you dive and curl, touch the wall with your feet, push off, and with strong, regular strokes pull yourself back the way you came. Your breath comes in quick gulps each time you breach the surface.

You've done twenty laps and are turning for the twenty-first when from the corner of your eye you glimpse a figure looming at the side of pool. You pull up short and bob to the surface.

It's Coach Acuna, in a gray t-shirt and turquoise shorts. She smiles as you paddle over and grab the side of the pool. "You're here early," she says.

"I thought I was on time," you gravely inform her.

She only smiles at that—"on time" for Andrea is early for everyone else, and you still have the pool to yourself—and starts to outline the morning's practice plan.

Coach Acuna runs the class, but she delegates a lot of the responsibility onto Andrea, and they frequently take turns with one managing the senior and junior members while the other manages the sophomores and freshmen. Today she wants you to do some teambuilding exercises with the underclassmen so that she can drill the upperclassmen.

Inwardly, you cuss to yourself while keeping your expression neutral. Andrea doesn't much like the underclassmen, maybe because she has the impression that they don't much like her.

So a little later, when you gesture the just-arrived Madison Crawford and Heaven Granberry over, they ignore you and continue giggling over—

Oh God. They're talking about Matthew Adams. Again.

"He was at my place until ten-thirty," Madison says. Her tone is very smug. "My mom basically had to throw him out. She was all, like, Matthew, do you need someone to come pick you up or take you home?"

"Oh God," Heaven giggles. "Like you have a curfew or something when you're at home."

"It was probably for the best. He was wearing his ripped jeans."

Heaven giggles again. "You told me."

"And we were on the swing set together. So we were, like—" Madison waggles her index finger. "Wiggle wiggle."

Heaven shrieks and clutches her friend.

Matthew, when he comes in a few minutes later, plays it very cool with them, but his face is shining brightly. He says a few words to Madison and Heaven, then falls in with Lucas Bell and Juan Drake while waiting for the rest of the class to show up.

Andrea doesn't pay a lot of attention to Matthew and Madison and Heaven and them. But she knows that Matthew is one of the "popular" boys in the sophomore class. He frosts his close-cropped hair and wears an earring, and he has a trick of looking up at girls from under his long eyelashes and blinking slowly at them. And Andrea has heard plenty of stories from and through Madison and Heaven—and Abigail Phillips and Allison Day—of Matthew's skill at getting close enough to girls at parties to feel them up all over.

So you watch him today in and around the pool to see how a "popular" kid—or this one, at least—projects himself.

* * * * *

"Drea," Charles Hartlein groans as he falls against the locker next to yours. It's just before fourth period. "Switch classes with me."

Your lips twitch as you turn to study him, but you only listen as he starts prattling about how awful his third-period acting class was today, and how rehearsals for the upcoming school play are the despair of his existence, and how he saw on social media that his friend Terrence, who he made a real connection with at drama camp last summer, will be directing a spring-semester performance of Rent at his school in Vermont. "Rent!" he groans. "And we're stuck doing Scrooge this Christmas!"

"Poor Charles," you coo at him.

He gives you a sulky look. "I'll be at your place after school, to weep into your neck."

Of course he will. You smile at him again, then slip into the crowd to make your way to English.

The one class that Andrea and Will Prescott share.

He tenses a little when you enter the room, but he doesn't turn to watch you. But Caleb, who is sitting next to him, does.

Good, you think. That'll make it more fun. The expression drains from Caleb's face as you pad over to where he and Will are sitting.

"Hey," you address your replacement, and your voice is hardly more than a whisper.

He straightens up and says, "Nngh?"

"I'm having some friends over at my place after school. You can come out if you want," you inform him.

"Uh huh?"

"I'll text you about it later."

His nostrils flare. "Cool."

Caleb's mouth is hanging open as you turn away.

You also feel the eyes of Carlos Montoya and Michael Hollister—well, their betas, which are in English class too—on you as you pad over to your desk, but Andrea always senses them watching her, so you pay them no mind. As you settle back to wait for class to start, you anticipate the afternoon to come.

You've only had a few days since Saturday to make a splash on the social scene, and you shouldn't be offended that, so far as Andrea was aware, you still don't exist. So if Will Prescott shows up at her house after school, it's not going to make a splash all by itself—he'll just be another guy.

But at least it will be a start, an introduction to that subset of the senior class.

Yet you wish there were a way to make it a splash, some way to let Andrea's friends know that Will Prescott is someone who demands attention; for as you run down the list of people who like to hang out at Andrea's, none of them (it strikes you) are the sort to be impressed with some random guy just because he happens to be trending on social media.

Maybe it's the way your bare legs rub against each other when you cross them that gives you the idea for making just such a splash.

What if Andrea's friends caught her and Will emerging from her bedroom while pulling their clothes back on?

Next: "The Bedroom Play" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"