The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Clothes Make the Woman

Previously: "Ambushed Again" 

This is the second time you've assaulted Coach Schell. Could she track you down in the library? Probably not. But why take the risk?

Besides, it's Friday, and your last class of the day is only Astronomy. You decide to bail early.

You take the long way around the front of the school—dodging the gym completely—to the student parking lot, and dive into your truck. You take a long look around, to see that you are unobserved, then wedge yourself into the passenger-side foot well, where you will be out of sight to any except the most determined snoopers. You take out the brain-band you got off Coach Schell.

Of course you do: A complete disguise will require clothes, and the best way to find a suitable set of clothes to go with a Coach Schell disguise, you figure, is to consult the mind and memories of Coach Schell herself.

You study the band for a minute before hazarding the experiment. No particular instructions came with the band, but you're pretty sure that you should press it to your face, probably the forehead, the same as you did with Coach Schell. But that's not what causes you to pause.

Instead, you are wondering what exactly is going to happen. Will the band change your mind around completely, the way the mask changed your body? Will you think that you're really Roberta Catherine Schell? Will you freak out when you find yourself inside the body of a teenage boy?

Or will it work in some other way, like a computer terminal containing her memories that you'll be able to access if you concentrate?

Well, the only way to find out is to try it. You take a deep breath, and slap the metal band onto your forehead.

It's like you've opened a door into your brain, and something very black and heavy heaves itself through and into you. It grabs you and pulls you down into darkness.

* * * * *

The world is a blooming and buzzing confusion when you open your eyes, and your head is spinning. When you reach up to steady it, you bust your knuckles on something, and curse.

The heck is going on? Your legs are squeezed up next to your chest, and you feel like you're sitting wedged inside a small, tight space. Your first instinctive thought is, Am I in the toilet again? Fuck, how much did I have to drink?

Then the world comes into focus, and you see that you're inside a vehicle of some kind. There's a bench here, like a truck bench. Hang on, you're in the foot well of a truck? The hell?

But now that the world is in focus, your mind quickly follows. With a rush of relieved recognition, you see that this is your truck, and remember that you jammed yourself in real good here while experimenting with that—

Oh, fuck. That metal band. Where—?

With a tight grimace you pull yourself up and onto the seat. No metal band clatters from your lap onto the floor mat, so you shove open the passenger-side door and clamber out. You feel a headache coming on—something is pounding inside your skull—and with gritted teeth and clenched eyes you search the foot well and under the seat.

Okay, maybe the band went inside you, the way the mask did. You rub your forehead. It's slick with sweat, but it feels like flesh, and it pulls away slightly when you tug at it. But if you put it on, why haven't you got Coach Schell's memories?

You look at the foot well and that reminds you of that toilet stall. Your sorority sisters shoved you inside on in the student union, once, when you got drunk off your ass your sophomore year and—

The world reels, and you grab your head and catch yourself from toppling over.

Except you are falling. Vertigo seizes you as you feel yourself plunging stomach-first into an abyss. Images rush at you—like the ground rushing up at a skydiver with a failed parachute—and you sink to your knees. There's a great collision inside your head—a crash—the world shatters—then it flies together again.

Your heart is banging at the front of your throat when the sensation passes. The world is just as it was before. You are crouching next to your truck in the student parking lot of Westside High. It's eighth period, and you ought to be in Astronomy.

Or teaching Personal Fitness 5c in the gym. A hard tremble passes through you.

You stand back up again and look down at yourself. You know what to expect. Strong, tanned legs, probably clad in tight sweat pants. A full bosom. Hair down to your elbows. You see instead the skinny, hairy legs of a high school boy in cargo shorts, and a chest and stomach as flat as a washboard. You pull your hat off and feel at your hair. It is short—well, short for Cathy Schell—and feels in need of a hard beating with a good hairbrush.

But this body too is not unexpected. For you know who you are. You're William Prescott. But you feel Roberta Catherine Schell's memories clinging about you, like a heavy cobweb. You've only to pluck at a strand, and not only that memory but a host of associations crowd in on you.

Like, where do you live? A little house on Cressmore Drive, just outside the "student ghetto" area south of the university. You and three of your sorority sisters rented it your last year in college. When you returned to Saratoga Falls after a disastrous stint in Boston working for an educational publisher, you found it was available for rent again, and took it. Mrs. Langkampf was quite pleased to see you return. You and your sisters were the last good tenants she'd had there ...

If you could get in there, you'd know exactly where to find some of Coach Schell's best clothes. And you do know how to get in there: Cathy keeps a spare key under the birdhouse in the backyard.

You check your phone. Assuming that Coach Schell doesn't take sick and go home early, you've got at least a thirty minute head start on her.

You jump back into your truck and gun it for the street.

* * * * *

Cressmore Drive, like all the streets in that quarter of the city, curls and curves like an "S" that's trying to tighten itself into a spiral; you'd never find it if you didn't have Cathy Schell's instincts to guide you. Her house is a little brick duplex with a small yard in front and a small yard in back. It belonged to Mrs. Langkampf's brother—an optometrist who kept his practice in one half while living in the other—until he died (at a young age, she informed Cathy) and left it to his sister. Having a house of her own, Mrs. Langkampf now rents it out.

You park in the makeshift driveway and glance about. There's a couple of girls walking down the other side of the street—college students on their way home, it looks like—but otherwise the coast is clear. You hop out and trot around the side of the house to the back. A trim little wooden birdhouse sits on a pole just inside the yard. You smile to yourself as you pry the house off and filch the key from the little hollow in the top of the pole. So clever of Thomas to think of making that its hiding place!

Thomas! There's a less welcome jolt of memories, of Thomas Luna and his hot, bare chest and his meaty arms and his granite-like cock thrusting itself deep inside you as you clench him tightly to yourself and shriek at the ceiling—

You shake your head clear of the vivid memory and jump onto the porch. You insert the key, and the lock slides back with a soft snick. Then you're inside.

You step into a small living room dominated by a love seat and a giant flat-screen TV, but you waste no time gawking at a set up that is as familiar to you as your own house. You trot down the short hallway to the bedroom. You whip open the closet door and the top dresser drawer as you mentally dress yourself.

Okay, bottoms and a bra, only one of each, because I'm not going to be camping out inside them for more than a few hours at a time, probably. One pair of jeans, one pair of ankle socks. One polo shirt and one t-shirt and ... Oh, dammit, okay then, one crisp white blouse. In case I want to look pretty when I go out.

I am going to be going out, right? What's the fun in looking like and dressing up as Cathy Schell if I don't do it in public?

Jewelry? She'll miss it. You can go without. Shorts? All up at the school. No, wait—

You dash around a corner into the laundry room, and from the hamper you pull out some blue cotton shorts. You sniff them. Not too bad. A shiver runs through you—it's Cathy's scent on them.

Anything else? A hair band? Friendship bracelets? What about money? Any cash? No, Cathy will have her billfold at school, and the emergency sugar bowl was empty when she checked it yesterday. She half expected a moth to fly out of it, you remember with a rueful half smile.

Okay, this'll have to do. Get this stuff and yourself out while you can, Cathy! Er. Will!

You race out the back, lock the door, return the key to its hiding place, and with legs about to collapse from adrenaline overload leap back into your truck. You gasp out a laugh of relief as you roar down the street.

But what comes next? It's Friday, and you know where Cathy will probably be: with her boyfriend, out eating and drinking and dancing before returning to his place with him. You know where to go to avoid her.

If, that is, you're going to go out in public in this disguise.

Next: "Being Cathy Schell" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"