The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Protecting Your Interests

Previously: "It's Like Marking Your Territory" 

You feel yourself bristling all over.

"No, we leave it like this," you tell Maria. "It's all set up. We start changing players— Besides," you interrupt yourself. "I'nt this whole 'sociology' bullshit about seein' what Chelsea and Yumi do? You seen what Chelsea done, where she's landed, what she's doin'. I switch into Gordon, try pickin' her up off'a Gary, that's us interferin'. P-kchow! There goes your sociology experiment."

"We're already interfering," Jessica says, "by putting you in for Gary."

"You put me in to watch her from up close," you retort. "Okay, you also put me in to make sure Chelsea don't get hurt. But that's not interferin', 'cos Gary wouldn't hurt her. Not on purpose."

"Oh yeah," Jessica sneers. "He's a real teddy bear."

You swagger up close to her.

"Send these other cunts and cucks away," you murmur at her, "an' I'll show you just how gentle he can be."

She shoves you with a stifled cry, and you step back with a chuckle.

"Much as I don't like admitting it," Maria says, "Will is right. The plan is to watch what Yumi and Chelsea do, and only try to anticipate the fallout."

"Great," you interrupt. "So we're all on the same page. Can I go now? I got work."

Maria blinks in surprise. "Work?" she says, and blinks again. You feel your lip curl.

"Well, I won't keep you," she says. "Before you go, can you at least tell us how Chelsea reacted to today's developments?"

"What developments?"

"Weren't you glued to her all day?" Eva jeers.

"We didn't talk, not about 'developments'. Like what?"

"Mm." Maria presses her lips together. "Yumi— Chelsea— Whatever you want to call her, the captain of the cheerleader squad did some reorganizing today," she says. "She called us in early, before school started, for a squad meeting in the changing rooms, then we had an all-hands meeting during practice."

"And?" You spin an index finger at her, to speed her up.

"She named Cindy co-captain of the squad. Jessica and Eva have been tasked with developing new routines, and Lin is to head up a 'spirit' initiative to give the squad more visibility in the school. And Kendra tells me—" A shadow clouds Maria's face. "Kendra tells me that 'Chelsea' is going to get Michelle fired from the squad before the end of the week."

"Whoa," you mutter.

"Indeed. So you see why we want to know how, uh, 'Yumi' is taking the developments."

"We put you in there to observe, Will," Jessica says.

"She didn't say nothing to me about any of this," you tell the girls. "That's what I observed. So did, uh, Chelsea give Yumi any new stuff to do, like she did for the rest of you?"

"No. She hardly even looked at Yumi."

"Huh. Well, I can only tell you that, uh, Yumi was in the dumps all day. She clung to me all through lunch like—" Like I was a life preserver floating in the ocean after a wreck. "Well, I don't think she was happy. I can tell you that Sunday night, on our date, she was bad-mouthing the lot of you. Eva and Jessica, Lin, Cindy. You're all cunts and whore in her book. But you already know she's talking about you that way behind your backs, right?"

Maria purses her lips and nods. But she doesn't comment. "I'll let you go if you've got work," she says. "But keep us posted on Chelsea."

"Sure thing." You scoop up the unfinished box of rice but leave the rest of the garbage on the studio desk. "I'll give you the blow by blow on every blow job."

"Only what's relevant!" Maria shouts as you swagger out.

* * * * *

You're not actually due for work for a couple of hours, so you drive out to a Mickey Dee's, where you buy a small cola and camp out in the back to do homework. It winds up being a tight fit, time-wise, and if you'll have to check the math homework in the morning, but you get it polished off fast enough that you're not late for your job.

It's at the country club.

Where Chen is a bus boy.

So all night you're scuttling through the dining room, cleaning up after the assholes who come out to dine and to be seen to dine, and to be seen to be the kind of people who can afford to dine at the country club. There's no prices on the menu—it's all covered in the membership fees—but you'd wager the invisible prices are twice or maybe even ten times what the best restaurants in town would charge.

You're dead on your feet by the time you get done, for in addition to bussing duties you have to stay after ten to help clean up and close out the dining room. You drag yourself home, where you change into p-jays, brush and floss and waterpick your teeth, then tumble into bed. It's a fold-out bed in the living room, because it's a two-bedroom house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, and the crippled old man gets the other bedroom. But you're out like a shot as soon as your head hits the pillow.

* * * * *

The old man is screaming as you finish making your breakfast—scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon piled up between two pieces of toast—but your mom and dad will take care of him. Instead you concentrate on your phone. There's a text from Dwayne Macaulay, saying that he'll be sending your Halloween costume over a day early, and one from George Mendoza asking if you've got any extra pencils he can borrow. Both are coded references to the weed that Chen deals at Westside.

But the fun text is from Yumi. She wants to know if you can pick her up.

She wasn't happy when you parted with her yesterday. I got work, you told her, but she pointed out that you didn't have to be there until after supper. You said you had to run some errands first and she pouted hard—and not in a cute way—when you told her that she couldn't come along. I got business to take care of, babe, you told her. You don't wanna be there.

You think I'll be in the way.

No. But what if some cops stopped by? You don't wanna be there, and I ain't gonna let you be there.

She pulled you close and rubbed her hands all up and down your back. I wouldn't let them arrest my Pooh Bear.

Don't you ever fucking call me that again.

And that's where you left her. Gasping.

She doesn't look real happy as she comes trotting out her door when you pull up. Maybe it's on account of the weather, which is cloudy and blustery with occasional bursts of grumbling thunder; the wind jerks at the umbrella she's raised against the sky. But she does smile at you as she gets in the car. "Hey," she says, and tosses her head. It's an odd gesture, as her hair is cut into a short bob and hasn't the body to bounce. Maybe it's a holdover from the days when she had great heaping curls of blonde stuff tumbling about her shoulders.

"Hey," you reply, and cup her chin to pull her close for a smooch. "I'm sorry I had to run out on you yesterday."

"You had business," she says primly.

"I don't have business today. 'Cept'a do stuff with you."

"Like what?" Her smile turns beguiling.

You gun the engine and shoot back into the street.

"Whatever. Go shopping again? Go out to the river again? Do ... something we not done yet?" You take your eyes off the road long enough to rake them up her legs. She's wearing black tights under a short skirt, showing firm, shapely thighs and calves. God, what you'd give to have those gripped tightly around your waist as you press and punch the orgasmic screams from her back-thrown head and gaping mouth ... "We could stop by the drugstore after school. Or before."

"Mm hmm." Her smile is tight, but her eyes glint. She wraps a hand around your bicep. "Let's see how I'm feeling at the end of the day."

* * * * *

The morning is a repeat of yesterday. You meet her at the gym after first period for a hard grope and a kiss as she leaves cheerleader practice and you go in for soccer. Before lunch, you walk her from her Chemistry to AP German. Then you meet George Mendoza in the library, where you pass him half your remaining baggies of weed for a sale he's set up. He joins you afterward behind the music wing, where you eat lunch, smoke cigarettes, and bitch about school with a couple of other guys.

You meet up with Yumi again at the end of fourth, and she tries talking you into skipping fifth to eat with her again; she groans when you tell her that you can't, and pulls you to herself. Her kiss almost destroys your willpower, but you rally, though you have to insist that she go off to the cafeteria without you; if you go with her, you know you'll wind up staying. After parting, you duck into a boys' restroom, where you stand with your cock in a urinal until the erection passes.

You're washing up at a sink and touching up your appearance—Chen likes to have his ski cap arranged just so with exactly these little blade-like spikes of hair jutting out just this far and no further—when the door bangs back and a couple of bruisers breeze in.

Fuck.

You do your best to ignore them—what've you got to fear from them?—but you stiffen all over as Ryan Shuler, Matt Nichols, Dylan Lloyd, and Scott Frazier of the basketball squad crowd in. The laugh and jeer hoarsely at the urinals, and chase a couple of sophomores off with loud curses. You watch them over your shoulder in the mirror.

You could take off before they're finished. You got time, and you're basically done fixing up your don't-fuck-with-me look for the rest of the day. You don't have to wait for them to jostle up to you at the sinks.

Next: "Bullying the Bullies" 

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