The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Flirting with Disaster

Previously: "Teasing the Cats" 

You're thoughtful as you slowly dress in Jordan's clothes after you have his mask back on. It is clear that he is as puzzled by what happened last night as you are.

It started here, in Blackwell's house, when Jordan found himself suddenly transported from one bedroom to another, with that fat professor standing close and giving him an even closer, harder stare. Whatever astonishment that "Jordan" might have felt was soon overwhelmed as the fat man explained some pertinent facts to him, namely, that he was bound by the fat man's will and required to carry out his instructions. Those instructions proved not to be onerous: Jordan was to leave this house and do as pleased with three caveats, namely, to never so much as hint to anyone that he had been to this house or had met a "Professor Aubrey Blackwell"; to return Sunday morning by noon, and earlier if possible; and to spend the evening at Vaqueros, a club on Twentieth Street, where if he chanced to meet her he was to pay close and affectionate attention to Lucy Vredenburg.

"Of course, I instructed the golem in such a wise," Blackwell tells you a little later, when you talk to him in the library. "It was to facilitate that connection between you and Miss Vredenburg that I thought you were so interested in making. I knew that she would be at Vaqueros yesterday evening, so I arranged for your young man here to meet her there. Now it will not be awkward for you, as he, to call or otherwise arrange a, ah, rendezvous with her in future, if such be necessary."

You stare at Blackwell. What he says makes sense. But it feels like he's pushing Lucy on you harder than you're pulling.

Besides, he's made things kind of awkward for Jordan. "You know this guy already has a girlfriend, right?" you tell him.

"Does he?" The professor gives you a quick, appraising glance up and down. "I assumed he was a 'young stud'," he says, his lips twisting satirically around the phrase. "Unattached and undesirous of commitments."

"Well, he does have a girlfriend—"

"Is he unwilling to cheat on her? Are you unwilling to cheat on her?" the professor asks from under arched eyebrows.

You feel yourself reddening. Blackwell is the last person in the world you want to talk to about your cock and where you (or Jordan) might like to park it. With a mutter you cut him short and say you'll deal with it. "As long as you're back here by four-thirty," he reminds you as you turn to leave.

* * * * *

"Where the fuck was your head last night?" Jack snorts as he hands you a beer.

K. T. giggles. "Sounds like he was getting a head job!"

You make a face as you pop off the bottle cap and tip back a bitter mouthful. It's not the beer that makes you flinch, though. It's K. T. and his lame-ass quips that you'd like to push out the window.

You're sitting in the second-floor commons room of the house where he and Jack live. It's an old Victorian pile, two stories of white-and-green gingerbread with a tower surmounted by a copper cupola. It stands on Borman Avenue, across the street from the university campus, one of a dozen such houses built by the city fathers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Now, most of them are university housing, their spacious suites chopped up into small, dorm-style rooms, with kitchens and bathrooms shared among half-a-dozen tenants or more. There's eight guys squeezed into 406 Borman, two to a room, and half of them, including Jack, are on the lacrosse team.

Kieran "K. T." Kaminski, a roly-poly sophomore with a fringe of beard, a beanie, and a sweaty need to be "one of the guys," isn't on the team. But he's sunning himself in the second-floor commons room with you and Jack as though he's welcome.

"Fuck," you groan from the beanbag chair you've flopped into. "You saw her. She was coming on to me! Didn't you ever—? When you and her was back at Westside—? C'mon, man you can't tell me you and Lucy didn't at least once—"

Your voice fails under Jack Hunter's hard stare. He's two years older than you, and he was the captain of the lacrosse team at Westside when Jordan joined it as a sophomore, and he has been a kind of big brother to Jordan ever since. Jack is one of the few guys that Jordan easily wilts in front of.

You hang your head now. "She never paid any attention to me back in high school," you mumble. "So if she wants to dance with me all of a sudden—"

"Did she even remember you? From high school?"

"Sure she did."

"Sure she did!" K. T. echoes with a grin.

"Shut up." To you: "You think she could be serious about you?"

"Lucy? I dunno. Maybe. Why not?"

Jack snorts. "She didn't pay any attention to you back in high school," he reminds you.

"Oh, come on, man, that's—!"

"Fine, throw away what you got with Elise—"

He breaks off as the commons' room door flies open and Tyler Hendrickson storms in. Hendrickson is six-foot-three, a senior, an ex-Marine, and twenty-eight years old. Everyone (even the irrepressible K. T.) wilts when he enters a room. "That better not be my private stock you're drinking," he growls at Jack as he crosses to the dorm-sized refrigerator.

"I can buy my own," Jack retorts.

"Anyone seen Sheehan this morning?" Hendrickson pulls out a beer, the same brand as you're drinking. Matthew Sheehan is his roommate.

"No," Jack says. "What do you—?"

"I left him with two girls at the bar and he didn't come back last night." He crosses over to glare out the front window.

"Sweet!" K. T. laughs. Jack starts to say, "So what do you care that—?" but Hendrickson slams the window up and leans out to yell.

"Haynes!" he shouts. "Get your fucking ass off my fucking car, you fuck!"

"Go fuck yourself!" a voice floats up hoarsely from below.

"Who shoved a bee up your asshole this morning?" Jack asks. Hendrickson only gives him a cold glare before charging out of the room.

K. T. snickers. "Shit, Tyler's just pissed that Sheehan got himself a threesome while he's stuck with Allison!"

"Like Sheehan's even popped his cherry yet," Jack retorts. To you: "Would you jump into a threesome, if you had someone like Allison for a girlfriend?"

K. T. tries answering for you: "Fourth man in a threesome? Sure he would! Cos that's, like—"

"I told you to shut the fuck up."

You groan as you clamber to your feet. "Look, just forget I even came by. Last night with Lucy was just flirting, okay?" Jack looks skeptical. "You know, if Elise asks."

"Just fuckin' watch yourself, man," Jack says. "'Cos it'd be so easy for you to fuck things up with her."

You cast a pained glance at K. T., and gently pluck at Jack's shirt. He follows you out to the narrow landing at the head of the stairs.

"Listen," you pant, "any chance you guys could get rid of K. T.? I mean, get him to move out?"

"Love to."

"Can you?"

"How come?"

"'Cos my folks, uh, want me to move out, and I'm gonna need a place to stay. Also, if you hear of any jobs that're open— Like, are they hiring at White Fang?" That's the outdoor equipment store Jack works at.

Jack's eyebrows lift. "Jesus, man, sounds like they are throwing you out of the nest."

You squirm on your feet. "I don't know yet if it'll actually work out that way. Things are, uh, weird back home at the moment. But it's got a good chance of happening. And, uh, it might be the best thing anyway."

Jack claps an arm around your shoulder.

"I'll keep a look out, but you should look for other places to move into. 'Cos even if we got rid of K. T., you really wanna room with LaDuke?"

You stare at him, then flinch. Nathan LaDuke, that smirking Long Island asshole, is about ten times worse than Kaminski.

* * * * *

The house is quiet when you get back home, but not quiet enough. As you stand, listening, in the kitchen, you hear someone snuffling and sniffing in the laundry room. There's a clink of glass against glass. You creep over to look through the doorway.

It's your mom. She's pouring vodka into a drinking glass, refreshing the cranberry cocktail. She sees you in the corner of her eye and jumps, sloshing half her drink all down her front. "What the hell?" she sputters.

"Sorry, I heard—"

You break off to look her up and down in astonishment. She is dressed in a short-sleeved green dress that shows lots of thigh and arm. Her hair is piled up, but the pile is listing a little to one side. She wobbles on her feet and tries hiding the vodka bottle behind her back. Then she flushes and brings it back out. Two more shots glug into the glass.

"Are you okay?" you ask.

"I'm fine! Here!" She holds out the bottle, then yanks it back. She looks down. "Shit, I gotta go change." She sets the bottle and glass on the dryer and totters toward the door. You scramble back, gaping as she wobbles past. She's wearing stiletto heels, and you cringe with each step she takes, expecting her to fall off them and break an ankle. "There's lasagna in the fridge for your lunch," she calls as she mounts the stairs.

You're still staring up the stairs after her when Chelsea, also in a short dress (this one yellow) comes bounding down. "Oh!" she says, and she stops in mid-bound when she sees you. "Are you coming to lunch with us?"

"Are we going out?"

"Mom— No one told you?" She gives you a critical look up and down. "Well, you should change if you're going with us. And I wish you would," she adds in a low voice. "Gordon's supposed to be there too."

Next: "A Sunday Lunch with Scrambled Seating" 

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