The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Unhappy Warlock

Previously: "Dirty Deeds in Plain Sight" 

"Oh, God! Yes! Oh ...!" You shriek and grip your husband's cock even tighter with your pussy. He's already pumping hard, but you just need a little more tickling, a little more teasing, a little more pulling. You gasp and dig your fingernails into his back. You throw your head back, gulp for air, and ...

The front door below opens and slams; running feet hit the stairs and charge down the hall outside. You hold the moment in suspense, praying that it's just for a moment ...

Rob tenses too ...

"Mom!" an aggrieved male voice calls. "I can't find my kit! Did you put it someplace again?"

You clench your eyes. "Look in the laundry room!"

"I did!" Jordan knocks on the door, then rattles the knob. I didn't raise you to be that rude! you want to scream at him.

Instead, you shout back, "You sure you didn't carry it off in your workout bag?" You grimace at the ceiling. Rob's rock-hard erection is starting to soften as the two of you, still frozen in place, grip each other.

"Hang on!" Jordan shouts from the other side of the door.

Why he can't put two and two together? you fume to yourself. His dad's car in the garage at lunch time; the house is empty; the bedroom door is locked... It's beyond you how a college student who is so obviously screwing his girlfriend can't read the obvious signs.

Rob lets out a huge sigh, then pulls out and rolls off you as quietly as he can. You want to smack him. Instead you climb out of bed and pad into the bathroom to put on a dressing gown. As you try to compose yourself in the mirror, you hear Jordan running up the stairs again. "Never mind!" he yells through the door. "Found it!" And then he's off again, tumbling like an rockslide down the stairs. The front door opens, then slams.

You give an exasperated groan; Rob pats his thigh invitingly, but you shake your head. "You have to get back to work," you remind him. "And I've got chores to do."

"I've got time," he argues. "And I've still got—"

"And you've still got just time enough to get cleaned up. If you need to finish up, finish up the shower, hon. I'm slow-cooking a roast for supper tonight, and I just remembered I got to get started on it." Rob doesn't move, so you cross over to clamber atop him and give him a deep kiss. "We'll try it again tomorrow," you promise as he clutches you by the elbows. "Jordan's got classes on Tuesdays that keep him up at the college."

"Myers will schedule something tomorrow," Rob grouses. "This is the first time in two weeks I've been able to sneak home at lunchtime," he adds in an almost-Chelsea-like whine.

"Sixteen days," you correct him. You scramble down to nip playfully at the bedspread where what's left of his erection is poking up. "I count them." He growls in the back of his throat, but you pull yourself off the bed. "I guess we'll just have to play it by ear then. Come on." You smack him in the side of the hip. "Hurry and get cleaned up."

"We should change the locks on the doors," Rob mutters as he staggers to his feet. He catches himself and adds, "That's not a bad idea. If Jordan can't get in, maybe he'll finally move out. By the way, what was all that screaming upstairs about, last night?"

"Just Chelsea pitching a fit because I told her I hired her a tutor."

"You what?"

"Hurry up, hon, you're gonna be late!" you call over your shoulder as you charge out the bedroom.

* * * * *

The great thing about a slow-cooking roast is that it frees you for the afternoon. You got the main Monday chore—cleaning the bathrooms—done before lunch, when you should have been downtown at the gym on one of the weight machines. But you are foregoing Kelly's workout routine today in order to get another project done.

The Book of Miriam, which you took yesterday when you left his villa, is one of Blackwell's prize possessions, for his copy is one of only a hundred still left in the entire world—or so he has told you—and so you need to get it back into his library before he has a chance to notice it missing. It is an exposition of alchemical magic, centuries old, with a long chapter about the kind of guardians that you have been interested in, and so contains variations on the "hex" that Blackwell himself put on you. You doubt you'll be able to master the magic in the course of an afternoon, but at least you'll be able to get a start. You put on a pot of coffee and take the Miriam with you into the dining room.

It makes for absorbing reading, and you doodle out copious notes and sketches as you pore through the chapter. At least half your attention is on the theory of the thing—what exactly a guardian is and how to conjure one—but the other half of your attention busily schemes along in the background, inventing ways of using one against Chelsea. Your original idea, to attach to her the same kind of hex that Blackwell put on you, so that she can see what it's like to be on the receiving end of hatred, fear, revulsion, and abuse, is quickly superseded by ideas that are both nastier and more subtle. By the time you put the Miriam back on the shelf and move to the kitchen to work on the rest of dinner, you have half a dozen ideas knocking around.

But they are interrupted by a text from your doppelganger: Blackwell's looking for you.

You cuss aloud. Though you hadn't exactly forgotten that he was due back in town today, you had managed to completely ignore it while you were working. You put off replying until after you've chopped the ingredients for a vegetable medley. Thirty minutes pass before you text back, Have you told him where I am?

The riposte is swift: Blackwell here, it begins. When you have a moment, please come out to see me.

You cringe. I have a family to feed, you tell him.

That is precisely why I need to see you, as soon as conveniently possible, he replies, and you can practically see the ice congealing on the screen of the phone.

* * * * *

"What the devil do you think you're doing?" Blackwell roars as he lets you into the villa. He is in a gray turtleneck sweater and pants, and his beard seems to bristle with electricity. "Your placeholder has been alarming me with some quite ghastly reports of your actions and intentions!" he continues as, in stockinged feet, he leads you deeper in the house. "As the creature has some insight into your psychology, I have indulged its attempted excuses for your behavior, but I prefer to hear them from you directly. I will also find greater satisfaction in delivering a sharp smack across your mouth than across its!"

Your double is waiting for you in the dark, suffocating living room that Blackwell has led you in to. You glare at the thing, and glare at it all the harder for the undisguised glee that it betrays at your discomfiture. So much for loyalty, you grumble to yourself.

"Well, like I told you before you left town," you tell him. "I messed up on one of the masks and had to make a new one. I messed up by accidentally making a mask of this woman." You point at your face. "Her name's Kelly Cooper, and her daughter—"

But the words seem to catch in Kelly Cooper's throat, and you have to force them out: "And her daughter's the biggest cunt in the high school."

Blackwell looks unimpressed. "I thought you had settled on the Miss Saito as your impersonation."

"I saw a chance to get back at Chelsea, using her mother. I've been making her life miserable. You know." You put a hand on your hip and flip your hair back. "As only a mother can."

Blackwell freezes, and his frown deepens. "You didn't inform me of this change of impersonation."

"You were out of town. I only made the change on Saturday."

Instead of arguing, Blackwell put his hands behind his back and starts to pace. You wait as he trudges down the length of the room.

He speaks slowly when he trudges back up to where you are standing. "Malice, Mr. Prescott," he says. "Malice and spite. Those are the intentions—I gather from you and your placeholder—with which are acting out this impersonation. Am I wrong?" You feel yourself impaled on his sharp glance.

"No." You grind the word out. It's an ugly admission, but you'd have a hard time arguing otherwise. You flinch, expecting your mentor to blaze forth in a hot, harsh lecture.

But he doesn't. Instead, he says, "Is this girl, this ... cunt." His mouth twists around the word. "Is she the only one for whom you nurse these malefic impulses?"

"If you mean, is she the only one I want to get back at ... Well, no. Not by a long shot."

"Is this ... this ... mother of hers," Blackwell says, gesturing at you with a wave of his hand, "the only position from which you can revenge yourself?"

"No," you admit again. "But it's a pretty sweet one. She can't get back at me, for a start."

"But similarly, I have a very hard time getting to you myself," Blackwell retorts with a grimace. "I'm sorry, Will, but much as I empathize with your position and desires, I think you had better find a different target or a different blind from which to strike. We cannot continue your education while you have a household—a household with a husband and children—to manage, and it was to give you an education that I agreed to take you on."

Next: "The Mother of Invention" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"