The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Ghost of Boyfriends Past

Previously: "Friend Zones" 

It comes surging back to you in memory as Adam's musk—a mix of weed, beer, unwashed clothes, and his skin and hair—fills your nostrils. The night Leah lost her virginity to him.

It was almost a year ago, at a party at Brianna Kirschke's house. It was crowded, with too many to control, because Brianna had managed to talk her mom and dad—who are barely on speaking terms with each other—each into thinking that the other would be on hand to chaperone. So the lights were low and the music thumping and lots of kids from the then-junior class were bumping and scraping and groping at each other in the half-light. Leah was a little freaked by it, but also excited, like a dog that has found a pack of other dogs at the park.

Gradually she became aware that Adam Dortch was watching her. His hair wasn't such a landmark back then. Now it is an immense thatch, teased and combed and plumped up to the size of a small tumbleweed. But back then he wore it draped in long, curly locks around his shoulders. Still, though he didn't stand out so much, she felt his eyes on her in the living room and then in the dining room. When she came out of the bathroom he was in the hallway, pretending to study a picture hanging on the wall, but he turned as soon as she appeared, and smiled and said "Hey" to her.

They talked and he got her a drink and then gradually, like a sheepdog nudging the flock toward the pen, he guided her into a corner where he could stand over her and peer down, and she had a choice either of submitting or of shoving him away. She chose to submit as he pressed and squeezed her in the sides and around the shoulders with his long fingers. When she squirmed and sighed in response, he put his lips to her cheek and ears, to alternately blow and kiss. He wedged her deeper into the corner, pinning her there.

After sating himself with kisses, he pulled her onto the backyard deck, to unashamedly—despite or maybe because of the encouraging hoots of onlookers—feel and grope her up and down. But Leah didn't mind. It excited her to be mauled in front of others, it made her warm and ardent all over, and the bites to her neck left her weak and flushing. When Adam put his mouth over hers, she opened to him and aggressively went after his tongue with her own.

Only after the catcalls had died down did Adam suggest that he and she move back into the house. At first she thought that he was going to withdraw, or at least moderate things, but he instead pulled her back into Brianna's bedroom, and then into her private bathroom. Only later did Leah learn that the signals had all been worked out in advance between Adam and some of his friends—this was something they had done before—and so because there was a screen of guys outside Brianna's bedroom door, no one bothered them as he unbuttoned Leah from her clothes, and peeled off and unzipped his own. He was already wearing a condom, so she relented, and like a carpenter hammering a picture to a wall, he did it to her standing up, against the space between the toilet and a linen closet. Afterward, still inside her, he pulled her tightly to him, crushing her in his arms.

There was not much talk between them afterward of what it might mean or where it might lead. With her friends, Leah only admitted that it had happened while trying to spare Brianna the embarrassment of admitting where—though Brianna surely knew, and the air between the two girls was very chilly for a couple of weeks—and word spread among all her friends, and farther, because Adam wasn't shy about telling the guys in his own extensive circle. (For a month or two afterward she was pestered by guys she barely knew, and sometimes didn't know at all.) As for Adam, he did seek her out at the next party they were at together, but he didn't push himself on her even while being, or pretending to be, polite and interested. Leah herself didn't chase him but she didn't discourage him. Not that it did either her or him any good.

But it did have an effect. Where before Leah's crushes had been limited to liking boys with cute notes and great hair and strong thighs, now she found herself admitting that she had a new criterion to judge them by. They would have to have fat, strong, powerful cocks, and not be shy about using them on her.

Nor was she shy in telling her friends that that's what she'd want and need.

* * * * *

You're tempted now to grab Adam by the neck and bend his face to yours and to paint the side of your face with your tongue—just to see what he'd do. (And whatever he did, you'd laugh at him.) But you resist. Instead, after grinning at him for a count of five, you say, "Your hair is looking really great these days."

"Thanks," he says, and gingerly touches it on the side. Big mistake—it wobbles a little, and that side of it deflates a little, like a balloon. "It's kind of a pain," he says, oblivious to the damage he's done to it, "but girls dig it."

"Does Kathryn like it?" Kathryn Greathouse is a junior, and the last rumor you heard about Adam was that he and she were circling each other like hungry dogs that had mistaken the other for a juicy bone.

"Huh? Oh, sure." He affects a nonchalant shrug, but it's unconvincing. "But, you know—"

"Hold still," you tell him, for a wild temptation has overwhelmed you. Carefully you reach up with both hands, as though to catch a butterfly between them. Adam freezes and eyes you warily. But he's too slow and you're too fast. You clap your hands onto his immense bouffant, and bat and shake it until it falls into silky ruins around his ears. He shouts and grabs at his own head.

"Sure we can do something on Friday!" You laugh at him. "If you don't mind me doing that to you again!" You turn back to your locker long enough to pull the last of your books out, and slam it shut. Adam's face is red, but he's grinning at you too. You smack and rub at his crotch as you push past him into the crowd.

* * * * *

Will texts you after school to say he'll be waiting in the school theater. As is typical, you manage to pick up Brianna and Genesis on your way to your locker after last period, and they will not be shaken afterward, so they come trailing after. Even when you tell them you're going to stop in the theater, they come in with you.

Will is standing just inside the doorway, checking his phone, when you come in. Maybe you're still buzzed from your run-in with Adam, or maybe you're in a mood to make a scene in front of Leah's girlfriends, but before he can react you snatch the cap—your old cap, which you returned to him at lunch—off his head and drop it onto your own. "Where do you want to sit?" you ask him.

Like a cornered mouse, he darts his eyes between you and Brianna and Genesis. "I thought we were going to find Chris and—"

Am I drunk? you wonder as you grab him by the hip and squeeze his ass cheek. He jumps. "Come on," you murmur as you steer him by his butt down the side aisle. "We need to sit down and shut up before Charles comes back to yell at us. Are you coming?" you ask Brianna and Genesis, who are grinning at each other. They hang back a moment, then follow.

You push Will into a seat a few rows back from where Charles is slumped. He glances back at you, does a double take, then returns to staring at the empty stage. Voices sound from backstage, but he doesn't move.

"What are we doing Friday?" you hiss into Will's ear.

"What?"

"What are we doing Friday?" you repeat. "You and me. Friday. Doing something. Because it's Friday?"

"Are you asking me out?"

"I was hoping you'd ask me!"

Will visibly gulps. "I, uh—"

You clamber up onto top of him and sit on his lap. Brianna, two seats over, gasps and stifles a laugh; on the other side of her, Genesis stares with her jaw hanging open. You give them a dirty look and point. "Eyes that way!" you hiss at them. "This is none of your business!" Their eyes pop, then with a giggle they look away.

"Are we doing something together Friday?" you murmur in Will's ear. The scruffy hair tickles your nose, and the scent warms you all over, so that you feel yourself prickling. "You always do something Friday," you remind the person who once was Leah Simmons, "and I'll be fucked if I stay in when I can be out— Do you want to do something with me, or do I have to go find Adam Dortch and tell him, yes, I'll go out with him on Friday?"

"Adam?" he grunts.

"Yes, Adam." You smush your lips into his ear and mumble while nuzzling him. "You remember Adam." You pinch him lightly a couple of times. "You remember you and him. Or would you rather go find him now, like this, the way you are now, and try it a second time? I've heard rumors he—"

Then you bolt up with a gasp. One thought will trample on the heels of another. Adam, with his hair, is stamped by the same mold as Adrian Semple, who is one of Charles Hartlein's sometime boyfriends. It suddenly occurs to you that if you want to do something to shock Jack back into normality, telling Charles that his sometime-boyfriend Adrian went off after lunch with his frenemy Jack might do it.

Next: "Getting to Know All About Me" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"