Chapter #35The B-word and Her Beau by: Masktrix   You open the camera on your phone and look at your new face. Chris is handsome – would Abi Steiner settle for less? – with naturally shaggy hair that always threatens to be a few centimetres from breaking school dress code. He’s taller than you, though his natural slouch makes him seem shorter, and a darker tone of skin from regular time spent outdoors.
“How do I look?” you ask. Chris’ relationship with Abi is simple: she likes being in charge, and he likes being told what to do. Neither of them are tied to each other, and Chris doesn’t feel the relationship has anything that will last beyond Xavier’s. The truth is she’s a little too crazy for him, but for now it’s all benefits and no complications. She wants to go to Miami, and Chris wants to study music production in Los Angeles.
“You’ll pass,” Niamh says, looking at you and gripping your tie to tighten it. You smirk, and deliberately loosen it again. Chris Fiore hasn’t been able to dress smart for his entire life. “OK, ‘Chris’. Tell me something about yourself.”
“Uh, I’m the one putting together the playlist for the party tonight.”
“Party tonight?”
“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you about Todd Baldwin’s party? I thought that’s why you wanted to be Abi. We – that is, Chris, Abi and Todd – are hosting a secret bash down in the Backwoods. You’ve been preparing for it all month.”
Niamh shakes her head. “You didn’t say anything, Will. And I don’t remember it at all… although it’s kind of coming to me now. This is incredible. It’s so addictive, slipping into everyone’s secrets. I get why you love it so much.”
You smile. “We should get to chapel.” You look over at the stirring Will Prescott. “And he needs to get to Westside.”
The golem scrambles to gab his clothes. “Where am I, boss?” he asks. “Is it far?”
“This is the back of the Prof. X School for Gifted Christians,” you say, resulting in a light punch on the arm from Niamh. “Car’s out front. If you hit the I-62 you should get there for first period if you hurry.”
“Aw, c’mon, man. Can’t you ever make my life easier?”
Niamh laughs. “I thought you said golems weren’t sassy?” You toss him the car keys, and tell him he’s meeting his girlfriend Niamh tonight, rather than going out for Halloween. He seems disappointed, though not that much, when you explain he’ll just be spending the entire evening playing console games.
“Actually, Will,” Niamh says the golem departs, “It’s OK to kiss me.”
The golem grins, collects its things, and heads off. You watch it leave, and prepare to step into your role. Abi’s hand juts out to block you.
“Will,” Niamh says. “I wasn’t talking to the golem.”
You smile, stoop, and place Chris’ lips on Abi’s. Niamh reciprocates briefly, softly, before shaking herself and passing her hand in front of her face. “OK. Let’s go be a b-word.”
***
“What you working on, man?” Lucas Tanner sits down in front of you in the music room. You look up from your laptop, and turn it around.
“Programming for tonight,” you say. “Whole thing will run off here. I’m just setting up a playlist and adjusting everything so we don’t get too much bass reverb, or that’ll wake up everyone. Can’t really help some of the music leaking out, but I was thinking of staying put down by the Lodge. Master's out of town, so the only real worry is anyone in the main building.”
“Sorting it out in class is a bold move.” Lucas is invited to the party, although Chris knows he’s not into the same lifestyle as Abi. Nobody is into the same lifestyle as Abi. Goddamn she makes one beautiful train wreck, though. Lucas just doesn’t care what other people do as long as it won’t affect his GPA. He’s the prefect that’s most easy going, and Chris is glad Lucas is assigned to his floor. On the floor above, Dalton Reeves treats the dorms like they’re a military academy, complete with spot inspections and rigidly enforced lights-out times.
“Well, my class project happens to align with the playlist I’m planning,” you shrug. “Musical influences of trance. It’s like how you can trace about half of hip-hop back to the Amen break.”
“Amen break?” Lucas looks at you sceptically. You close the laptop.
“The drum solo in Amen, Brother by the Winstons. Look, don’t put me in charge of the music if you’re expecting whatever’s on the Hot 100. My playlist, my rules.”
“Abi and Todd sign off on this?” You smirk.
“Are you kidding me? Of course not. This falls into the category of ‘pointless detail’. Todd arranged this shindig just because he thinks it’s how to keep up his social status, and Abi’s doing it because she loves being at the center of everything. Me? I just want us to all have a good time.” Whatever that means, whatever that takes.
You open your laptop again, but Lucas doesn’t go. “Chris?”
“Yeah, man?”
“If it gets out of hand, we stop, right? Saturday’s still got a handful of morning classes, and Mr Foster can sense a hangover a mile away.”
“You think Abi’s going to risk her reputation with the X-men over a stupid party?”
Lucas looks serious. “I think I’ve seen Abi get into a state where she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“So have I.” Chris’ mind wants to smile as he dredges up times when he knows she’s out of control and hasn’t done a thing to stop it. For the first time, you despise the skin you’re in. You get back to your playlist.
***
You’re sat around the back of the amphitheatre, cigarette butts scattered like detritus or flicked down by the entrance to the old storm cistern. This is where some of the sixth form go to smoke, a habit disliked but largely ignored by the staff if it’s done out of sight. Of course, Abi Steiner can’t afford a tell-tale nicotine stain or the smell of stale smoke on her blazer, and Chris doesn’t vape around her. As no one is around, it’s a convenient place for you to talk.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight?”
Niamh, or Abi as it’s easier to think of her, sighs and rolls so that she’s draped across your chest. Chris’ fingers instinctively grip her hair, twisting it like a silk in a loom as you gaze down on her. “I don’t know.”
“I thought you had a plan?”
Niamh reaches up, using her slender fingers to stroke under your chin. “I did,” she says. “But I don’t know whether to go through with it. It’d be so easy. All day, I’ve had her thoughts trickle through. At lunch I was so, so awful to Kristen Wright-Wallace. I just… I didn’t even think about it, it was like instinctive cruelty. I think, right now, if I wanted to turn on Abi Steiner I could do it like flicking a switch.”
As a demonstration, she sits up and grabs your collar, pushing you hard against the amphitheatre wall. There’s an imperious stare in her eyes as she she rams her mouth against yours, thrusting her tongue deep down your throat even as her fingers tighten into the nape of your neck. You feel only what Chris Fiore would feel: Abi Steiner, wild and unpredictable, taking and not asking. You struggle for breath.
“That… is Abi.”
“Of course it’s fucking me,” Niamh snaps, breaking free. “Who the fuck were you expecting? That prissy bitch Niamh Stirland?” She grips you even harder. “You’re going to think about me all night now, Chris. Or Will. Both of you. I want both of you to think about me.”
You cough, a little flushed. Then, with a blink, Niamh’s usual smile is present and Abi has gone.
“See? It’s easier than it was this morning. Ask me anything about her. I know it all. Like how much she’s looking forward to this party. This brain of hers is full-on cuckoo. Someone’s gonna catch ‘em in the act.”
“So what’s the problem?” you say. Niamh gets up, straightens her blazer, and sits down beside you.
“When I chose Abi, I just wanted to play about for a day as her. But this party tonight... I don’t want to do drugs like she would, but I could fake it and pretend to get trashed. I could act like she’s still a train wreck tomorrow, humiliate her in front of everyone in chapel. I could leave a few of her tablets out on her bed, expose her secret stash in the wall, change back, and watch as no-memory Abi gets expelled. It wouldn’t be hard, and the world would be a better place.”
“We could do that,” you agree.
“But… it’s evil, Will. Oh, she’d do it in a heartbeat, but I don’t know if I could ruin someone’s life like that – even hers. So maybe we should stay as these two and not do anything. Saturday, I want to see Shelly. It’s non-negotiable. But after that, it’s going to take a while before we can crack this book of yours, and we should get better at playing other people.
“So I was thinking… have you ever played hide and seek? Saturday, we change out of Abi and Chris and let ‘em sleep off what they think is a monster black-out from the party. Then, over the weekend, we make two new masks. And, here’s the thing! Monday morning, we swap into someone else at Xavier’s, but we don’t tell each other who. We only tell your fake Shelly, and we just try and stay in character for, I dunno, a couple of days. Then, come Wednesday, we reveal who we are.”  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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