The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Getting to Know All About You

Previously: "The Seduction of Genesis Lee" 

Remember that you're Genesis, you tell yourself. It's the only way to get through this.

It's easy advice to take. You feel like your brain is going to melt from the excitement as you play out a fantasy she has had about lots of guys.

After a long, slow kiss—longer, slower, more searching, more luscious than the kiss at the park—you had pushed him back onto the bed. He was very shy and pale, and he licked his lips as you straddled his lap and tugged at the hem of his hoodie. You had to tell him to raise his arms over his head as you pushed it up and over his shoulders.

He was wearing a red t-shirt underneath, but before taking that off you snuck your arms around him and under his shirt, to rub and stroke the hard muscles of his back with open palms. He was strong, smooth, and warm to the touch, and you kissed him like he was a cluster of grapes to be nibbled and swallowed a bite at a time.

Then the shirt came off and he fell onto his back. You scooted down to the foot of the bed and removed his boots, letting them thud to the floor. You reached up inside the legs of his pants, and pulled first one and then the other sock off. You kneaded his feet—his toes are very long—and pressed into the arches with your thumb. He squirmed and sucked his lips in and arched his hips at the ceiling.

Now you are straddling him again, rubbing the taut muscles of his torso with palms and fingertips. He is very lean and smooth, and you can feel his abs beneath the skin.

But you're not the only one caressing his torso. It amuses you—though you keep the smile off your face—to see him rubbing his chest thoughtfully as he bores holes in the ceiling with his eyes.

She's touching Blake's body, you think. That's what she's thinking. She's thinking about how she's touching Blake O'Brien's body. You lightly grip Blake's stomach between your hands, and Blake, startled, looks down over his chin and chest at you.

"Come on," you urge him. "Help me to—" You reach up to take his hands in yours. "Help me to help you."

His throat flutters as you pull his hands down to his abs. He squeezes your hands, and you have to untwine yourself from his fingers before you can press his hands onto his stomach. You cover his hands with yours. "There," you tell him. "Now with both of us—"

You pop the top button his jeans and yank them loose, revealing dark blue boxers. Something very large bulges in the front. When you glance up again, you see Blake's face frozen with terror.

Now you can't resist a giggle as you fish at the front of his boxers. This is going almost exactly like that fantasy! Him, the shy but sexy puppy who has to be coaxed into confessing his arousal, and her the ministering lover who brings him out of his shy and anguished solitude.

But you almost jump off the bed with the thing does pop out, right into the palm of your hand.

My God, it's enormous! And hairy!

And it throbs! It's like a blind snake, and the lips at its tip quiver and purse.

You gape as Blake starts to make some alarming noises. He puffs and gurgles, and a couple of different colors pass over his face. For an instant, you're terrified that he's having a stroke, or a heart attack. "Hey, are you okay up there?" you ask.

"Are you okay?" he croaks.

"Hey, remember who I am. There's nothing down here I don't see and touch every day. I'm just not used to seeing it from this angle, is all."

Blake whimpers, grimaces, and twists atop the bed. "I don't know what's wrong," he puffs. "But it's— It's—!"

You brush at it, to see if he's got it twisted up inside the folds of his boxers.

That's when it spits something white and sticky at you.

* * * * *

At least you're on familiar ground as you explain to Genesis that what happened is of course perfectly normal, and happens all the time with guys. Intellectually, of course, she knows that. But you remember the first time it happened to you, and so can sympathize with her surprise and dismay.

She insists on you getting out of the clothes you're wearing and soaking them in the sink. You protest, telling her as gallantly as you can that you don't want to take off clothes if it would make her uncomfortable. But she insists, and soon you are completely stripped. You do insist on getting under the covers, though, but then she strips off the rest of Blake's things and gets under them with you. You lay on your sides, and look at each other, and stroke each other on the arms and sides and back. You talk, in a giggly way, about the sex ed courses you took. Genesis, you notice, carefully refrains from asking you about your sexual history, and you return the favor. When, shyly but without stammering, she admits to being a virgin, you tell her that you'll be sure to keep her that way. She turns pink, and gives you a long and tender kiss.

Eventually you get hungry, and he dresses and goes out to pick up some fast food. You remain behind and study the texts you're getting from Leah, and from your other friends, asking where you are and what's happened to you. You show them to Blake when returns with a takeout box of fried fish, cole slaw, and hushpuppies from a nearby seafood place. He takes the phone from you and taps in the replies himself.

After eating, you snuggle under the covers again and watch TV, then exchange cell phones so you can separately get onto the internet. Genesis busies herself this way for more than an hour. You surf the internet.

Along about nine o'clock, you fool around some more, rubbing and prodding and squeezing each other all over, until you have lost all shyness about your bodies. You give Genesis a couple of hand jobs, until she's used to the idea of having a cock and to the practice of relieving it when it gets excited.

Along about eleven you put the lights out and nestle in the bed together, arms around each other, breathing softly in each other's faces. Blake's cock, erect between you, practically makes it a threesome.

* * * * *

You wake a couple of times during the night, but not for good until a grayish light is showing behind the curtain. Water rushes through pipes, and when you lift your head to look around, you find you've got the bed to yourself.

You lay back and let your eyes close. Another day. Sunday. You should be in church, instead of tormenting Genesis Lee from inside her own body with a freaky body swap. Is what you're doing evil? Yes, you admit to yourself with a sigh. But somehow it doesn't feel evil. After last night, it just feels like a practical joke. Not even a particularly cruel one. Genesis sure seemed to have fun, once she loosened up.

The water shuts off, and there's a metallic rustle from the bathroom. Did Genesis wake with wood, and take a shower to relieve it? You might be able to distract her for a little while longer with some bed play. But with the morning, she is surely going to insist on figuring out what comes next, and that's going to include some pretty intent questions about what she will find when (as she must) she returns to Blake's house.

Maybe you should drive out to Sydney's, and insist on swapping back before that happens.

Before you can stir any further, the bathroom door opens and Blake comes out. His smooth skin gleams under a faint sheen of water, and his hair, black with water, sticks out in little curls all over. He is wearing nothing but boxers.

You sit up and draw a sharp breath. There is something different in his manner this morning. Gone are the slumped shoulders and the tentative steps; the drooped head and the nervous side glances. This Blake walks with shoulders back and head up, with legs and arms swinging freely.

And when he gives you a side glance, his jaw tightens.

You swallow as he falls onto the foot of the bed and bends to pick his clothes up off the floor. "How are you doing back there?" he asks.

"Okay," you reply. "How are you doing?"

He doesn't answer, and when he stands to pull on his jeans, he keeps his back to you.

"We need to talk," he says as he fluffs out his shirt.

"I know."

"Right." He pulls his shirt on, and plucks at the front to loosen it. "Because I know who you are."

* * * * *

The shock of his statement is softened, but only just, as he continues. Who you are, it turns out, is not "Will Prescott." It's just Genesis's very brutal way of telling you that she recovered Blake's memories during the night. She woke with them. But she doesn't ask if you woke with hers.

That's because she's got something else on her mind.

"You gave me the impression yesterday that you liked me," she tells you gruffly. "It was a nice line of shit."

"What makes you think it was shit?" you ask. Your heart seems to slow—time itself seems to slow—as you lie on the bed, dreading the answer.

"Because you don't give a shit about me, Blake," she says. "You never even noticed me before yesterday."

He glares at you, and his voice cracks. "But now you know how I feel about you." His eyes turn red and puffy. "You know how humiliating that is?"

Next: "The Grounded Girl" 

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