The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Runaway GF

Previously: "A Girlfriend With Two Faces" 

"Maybe you should give it some time," you tell Sydney. "You know, maybe if you wait long enough, the memories will start to come."

She looks doubtful, and pulls away. "It didn't take you any time when you put on Blake's mask," she reminds you. "In fact, if I recall correctly, it took you a couple of minutes to remember that you weren't him."

She's right. At the same time, having gone through all this trouble to get her into the face and body and clothes of Catherine Muskov, it would seem a waste to give up.

Besides, as you look down into her face—into those grave eyes; at the button nose; at the pillowy lips; and as you gently finger the loose curls of her soft, brown hair—how would it be possible to challenge the identity of someone who looks so much like Catherine Muskov? As long as she keeps mostly to herself, and doesn't try to volunteer anything ...

"I think you can fake your way through," you assure her. "At least for tonight. Tomorrow morning—"

"Oh God, tomorrow?" she gasps. "You want me to fake my way through until tomorrow? With Catherine's family?"

"So let's go out. Yeah!" Your hands slide down her back until they are cupping the top of her hips. "Catherine—" You catch yourself, and feel your lips curling up into a faint smile. "You, Catherine," you correct yourself, "were saying earlier about how you and me and your boyfriend and my girlfriend should all go out some time. So, let's make it now."

"Now?" she squeals. "Just leave? But it's— This is Catherine's house, it's her party!"

"It's your house. But just try it. Go find some of her friends and tell them that you're leaving with whats-his-nuts and a couple of friends, and they can shut down the party whenever they're ready to."

"Oh, jeez!"

"Do you want to stay here and try to run things?"

"But if we go out, I'll have to talk to Michael, like I know him!"

"So we'll get rid of him after we're out of here. Look, if it doesn't work out, we'll take the mask off you and send Catherine home or something, and she'll have to deal with it all if it's a disaster."

Sydney mutters something that sounds like It's going to be a disaster anyway, but she agrees to go along with your plan.

* * * * *

Still, it takes some time for Sydney to extricate herself from the party. While she's talking to some of Catherine's friends and searching for Catherine's boyfriend—because he has to come along if it's not going to look completely weird—you pull Fake-Sydney aside and explain things to ... her. She takes it all in with a bemused smile. "So what am I supposed to do about it?" she asks when you're done.

"Who asked you to do anything?" you retort. "Except help out."

"Like how?"

Good question. "Do most of the talking?" you lamely suggest. "So she doesn't have to?"

"Can't you do that?"

"Well, I'll try my best."

She lifts an eyebrow.

"Don't take this as a criticism, sweetie," she tells you, "and don't hold it against my friends. But the one thing they all have to say about you, is that you don't do a lot of talking."

* * * * *

Catherine's boyfriend is named Michael and you get a chance to get to know him a little on the drive, for Catherine insists on sitting up front with Sydney, putting you in the back with him.

"Yeah, first baseman," he clarifies when Catherine (a little nervously) informs you that he's on the school baseball team. "Where'd you go to middle school?" he asks you. "Schuyler, right?" You grunt an affirmative. "Yeah, I remember you, you played on their team."

"Not me," you correct him. "I don't play, uh, much." Or at all.

"Really?" He sounds surprised. "'Cos I could've sworn— Oh, I dunno," he sighs, "maybe it was just someone else, just looked like you."

Or maybe you just don't pay attention, you think to yourself. You ask if Jason Lynch isn't on the baseball team too. "What's that like?" you ask when he nods, for Lynch has a reputation as one of the most psychotic of bullies at the school.

But Michael only shrugs. "It's alright," he says. Then, as though guessing why you asked, he says, "Nothing wrong with Jason as long as he sticks to business. And he likes to win. I do too." He leans forward to drape his hands over his girlfriend's shoulders. "It's how come we're together."

"That's right," she says, and lays a hand over his. "I love it when you win."

Michael kisses the back of her head, and you tense all over. My girlfriend has a boyfriend, you can't help thinking, and he's not me.

Though I could be him. If I wanted to.

He's not bad looking, though he's nothing very special to look at, either. He's got shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes that droop at the corners, and a long nose over a small mouth; otherwise his features are only regular. As for the rest of him: Well, baseball is not a sport that calls for a lot of running or weight-lifting, and that he looks he eats more than he burns off on the baseball diamond.

But he must have some attractive qualities, to have landed a girl who looks like Catherine. You can't help wondering what those must be.

* * * * *

"I'm sorry you didn't have any fun at my party last night," Catherine tells you the next day. She pulls herself to you, and lays her nose beside yours. "We had fun after, though, didn't we?" she breathes into your mouth.

It's Saturday now, almost noon, and you're at Sydney's house. You have the place to yourselves, except for Fake-Sydney, who is in the kitchen getting refreshments, leaving your girlfriend—a dead-ringer for the co-captain of the school track team—to nuzzle at your face as you curl up on the sofa together.

God, she feels just as good up against you as you thought she would. You found that out last night, after you shook Michael off and it was just you and her and Fake-Sydney, parked at the old elementary school, with Fake-Sydney up front with her cell phone, and you and the real Sydney in the back. You soon found yourself wishing you were shaped more like a pillow and less like a plank, so that you could conform yourself better to all of her curves and bumps.

"You didn't get in any trouble, for taking off with me last night, did you?" you ask.

"No. I don't think so," she whispers. She rubs her lips against yours. "No one said anything. And Reagan and them cleaned up after they started sending people away." She kisses you.

You kiss her back, sucking gently on her lips. "But no one thought you were out of character?" you murmur.

"No. I was, a little, probably." She titters softly, then leans back with a sigh. "But a lot of times I just do whatever comes into my head."

"What comes into your head now?" you growl.

She titters again, then releases you as Fake-Sydney comes in with a plate of sliced cheeses and fruits. "I know what you hope the answer is," she says as her doppelganger sets the plate on the coffee table. "But for right now—" She pulls her cell phone out of her hip pocket. "Let's see what we can do about finding you—" She bites down on her lip. "The perfect girl."

You make a face, but settle back as she starts to scroll through her phone.

She must have hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures in her album, because it takes her forever to find what she's looking for. Which is okay. You use the time to study her, and to imagine peeling off her clothes and peeling back the folds of her body to find the tender parts.

"So we want the track team," she muses, almost to herself. "There's Lily. She's probably top of the list there." She turns the phone around to show you the picture. You recognize her as the girl who was talking about going clubbing. In the picture she looks even taller and skinnier than she did in real life, and she's got a smile that comes thrusting through the phone screen. Curtains of dirty-blonde hair drape around her shoulders.

"Or Ella," Catherine says after she's scrolled deeper into her album. Ella is also tall and skinny, and not as pretty, in your opinion. "They've got boyfriends, though." She looks up at you. "Is that going to be a problem?"

Not as much as you having a boyfriend, you think. Aloud, you ask, "How much of a boyfriend?"

"What do you mean, how much?"

"I mean, how, um— How far—? Have they, them and their boyfriends—?" You feel yourself blushing.

"Oh! Have they slept together?" She looks amused. "I don't know. I don't think so. Lily and Ella aren't even into PDAs much." She then goes looking for photos of their boyfriends. They both look like jocks, which is both flattering and horrifying, when you try to imagine yourself in either girl's place.

"But Faith isn't seeing anyone," she continues, and shows you a picture of a girl with tangled hair, a crooked nose, and a crumpled-up smile. You wince a little—easy to imagine why she hasn't got a boyfriend.

"Those are the seniors," she concludes. "The other girls on the track team are juniors or sophomores."

Yes, there's nothing that says you have to pick one of the senior-level girls as your impersonation.

And there's Michael, still. The plan does include adding a guy as the tenth member.

Next: "The Party Hearty Girl" 

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