The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Submerged Identities

Previously: "Girl Meets Boy" 

Sydney looks vastly amused when you ask if she's okay with letting Blake be one of her five.

"Sure, I'm actually digging this," she says as she stretches the limbs and back of her new body. "I went to the gym this morning and did Blake's workout." She flexes a hard bicep. "And fuck me, I actually got a boner while scoping myself out." She scoops you into the crook of her arm and smooches the side of your head; you nearly gag as the rangy sweat of teenage jock envelops you. "Now how about let's go get you a girl so we can go someplace and—" She nuzzles you hard.

You twist inside her embrace. "So let's go get one," you gasp.

"Cool. I was hoping you'd be up for a little sex swapping." She slaps your butt. "And I know just who I want you to be. Just let me, uh, get me out here"—she pulls out a cell phone while keeping you locked in an iron embrace—"and we'll set it up."

"Do I get a say in who it's going to be?"

"No, but you'll like her. Andrea Varnsworth."

You freeze.

Andrea Varnsworth is the captain of the swim team, a cool, aloof brunette with a body that's been sculpted by thousands of laps in the water. Her face is a little hard—and in the slant of her eyes one can almost glimpse a Cossack—but from the neck down she is probably the sexiest girl in the school. She flaunts it, too, without seeming to care or notice, by frequently attending school in short-shorts and halter tops.

"Andrea, huh?" you croak. "Is she someone that Blake, uh ...?"

"That Blake, uh, what?" Sydney gruffly demands as she concentrates on the phone.

"Has he gone out with her before?"

"No, but he'd love to. Fuck, wouldn't you?"

"Well, um, yeah."

"Then you're gonna like being her. Right? Come on. Let's get the stuff made up, whatever we need so we can get out of here." She pulls at her nose. "Ol' Blakey doesn't mind the stink so much, but we're gonna get caught one of these days."

* * * * *

A quick assembly line is all it takes. Cut the ingredients, mix them in a bowl, fire them over the sigil, pour it over the convex mirror. Repeat nine times. Another assembly line provides the basic memory strips; and you make up a bunch of sealant and golem goop. She whips you through the process, and she's already breaking things down and packing them up while you're still making up sealant.

And she has time to do all that while checking her cell phone for messages from the fake-Sydney she left to occupy her place.

"She's set up to meet Andrea out at the school at three," she reports at the end of a series of back-and-forth texts. "Shit, that doesn't give us much time. Especially with the other guys showing up."

"What guys?"

"The other swimmers."

"A practice?"

"I 'unno. But we need to meet her early, before they show up. Put some fuckin' hustle in it, Prescott!"

You grimace. The stutter at her name now seems all that's left of Sydney herself; the rest is buried under Blake's personality.

But his swaggering mastery is useful at the other end.

* * * * *

You drive out with her in a gigantic red pick-up truck that makes yours look like a toy, and park in the corner of the student lot near the gym. Blake points at a VW bug and a sedan. "Fuck, lookit that. Black and Patterson up in that loft of theirs, sucking each other off, I betcha. You know, we oughta look into getting access up there."

"With masks?"

"Whadj'a think I meant?"

Your lips twist. "You wanna be Gordon?"

"You wanna be Chelsea?"

"I'll settle for Andrea right now."

Blake claps your thigh. "You're gonna like it, man. There's something, I dunno, freeing ... about getting into someone else's life." He stretches and grunts. "You can let loose stuff you didn't know you had in you."

You give her a sidelong look. With her arms thrown over the back of the bench and her knees spread, it's like she's releasing a funk of testosterone into the truck cab. Originally you were worried that Sydney wouldn't want a mostly-boys lineup for her half of the Brotherhood. Then you were worried that she was being overwhelmed by Blake O'Brien's personality. Now you're starting to think that she maneuvered you into letting her take Blake's mask—and that she wanted Blake for one of her aliases all along.

Because being a jock is letting her release "stuff she didn't know she had in her." But maybe she suspected she did.

What will you find out about yourself when you're inside Andrea?

The chance to find out comes almost before you're ready for it. "Hey, here she comes," Blake says, craning to watch something in the rearview mirror.

You glance back. An old compact is prowling across the lot in your direction. "How do you know it's her?"

"I know her car, man. Don't you? You don't ever lurk back here, scope out what cars which girls are driving?"

"Sounds stalker-ish. Ow!" You nurse the spot on your thigh where Blake struck you.

"She got here before Sydney," your very masculine girlfriend says, "but that's okay, 'cos we beat her here. Come on." He grabs up a plastic bag. "But let me take the lead. You hang back. Story is we're up here to shoot hoops or something, okay?"

"Or something," you mutter as you hop from the cab.

You follow several paces behind as with a panther-like swagger Blake crosses over to Andrea's car and leans on it to tap at the window. "Hey, 'chuptoo?" he asks as the window comes down, and drops to his haunches. "Yeah, I heard there was some kind of party happening up here." The plastic bag rattles as he pulls the mask from it. "Thinking maybe you might wanna—"

The mask flashes in the sunlight as he thrusts it through the window. The moment hangs, and then he beckons you to join him.

"Go 'round and get in the passenger side," he says as he hands you the plastic sack. It contains a mask, a paint brush and a container of golem-making goop.

You gulp, and on trembling knees scramble to the other side of the car. A musty smell envelops you as you slide in, and you are struck with the unaccountable thought that its owner doesn't keep her car vacuumed out.

Andrea Varnsworth is slumped in the drivers' side seat, her face turned from you. She's wearing a purple, button-up shirt, open at the front to disclose a black, Lycra swimsuit, and lime-green short-shorts. Her long, brown legs are bare and unshod except for flip-flops. Blake ducks his head through the window and twitches back Andrea's collar to leer at her bust. Then he winks at you.

Oh Jesus, you think as you look Andrea up and down. In a few minutes that's going to be me! You pull back her shirt for a closer look. A dragon's head—the Westside mascot—is emblazoned over the right breast of her one-piece swimsuit.

Andrea is tall, almost as tall as most guys, but she's proportional as a girl throughout. Her hips, though slim, bulge outward; her stomach curves inward; her breasts would fit comfortably inside a loosely-cupped hand. Her neck is long and smooth, and her fingers—which are curled up in her lap—are tapering.

"So there's the other me," Blake says, glancing over his shoulder. "I need to go talk to her. We'll keep watch out here, try to keep people off you until you've made the switch."

You nod, and reach across Andrea's prone form to raise the driver's side window.

* * * * *

It seems to take forever for the mask to copy her; and yet you're surprised when it reappears on her face and falls into her lap. She gasps. Fortunately, you've already got the mask prepped—the one that contains a copy of yourself—and you quickly slam it onto her.

The change registers instantly. Then you're looking not at Andrea, but at a straw-headed teenage boy with bony limbs. He sits up and does a double-take at you. "The fuck?" he says, staring.

"Andrea?"

"Andrea?" he echoes with a furrowed brow. Then he looks down. "Oh, fuck!"

He scrambles backward but hits his head on the roof of the car. He gapes a moment, then gingerly touches himself. A glint shows in his eye when he looks back up at you, and his voice is filled with a hushed awe. "Andrea?" he says. "Are you telling me we got Andrea Varnsworth for the, uh—?" He swallows.

You nod. "You're in her things. She's—"

"Oh, fuck!" He gropes himself. "You're saying that under here I'm—?"

"Come on, get out of her stuff." You're already kicking off your own shoes. "Before someone comes."

Without seeming to notice what he's doing, he starts to strip. "Who's coming? Where are we?"

"The school. There's a swim party."

"Whoa! Do I get to come?"

"You don't have a swimsuit."

His face falls. "How come?"

"'Cos I didn't think to bring one."

"Well, if I run home and get it, can I—"

"Strip!" you bark.

He complies, then as he's putting your clothes on, you bend over Andrea's mask and apply a layer of golem-making goop to it. From your head you twitch a little hair and burn it into the blackened inner surface, turning it gray.

That last step takes a minute or so to complete. When fake-Will whines again about joining the swim party, you tell him to go join Sydney and Blake. Then, after you've got the car to yourself, you slide over behind the wheel and pull Andrea's swimsuit over your legs and up and around your hips, torso and shoulders. It's a bad fit. But—

You cradle her mask in your hand; her name floats in blue letters over the inner surface.

—in a minute it will fit much better.

Next: "Swimming with Andrea" 

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