The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

At Play with Chelsea Cooper

Previously: "Guess Who!" 

The rest of the day is weirdly empty and anticlimactic after the excitement of the morning. You return to a beautiful house in the leafy southeastern part of the city—not far from where your aunt and uncle and cousin Umeko live, actually—where your new father is napping in the living room while a gross brother (this one older, in college) slouches on a love seat watching a ball game on his cell phone. Your new mother, like your old one, is knitting, but she gives you a bright smile as you come in.

Upstairs, you throw yourself onto your bed with your cell phone, to start catching up on texts and social media posts that you've been ignoring. It's some time before you look up to glance over a bedroom that is both very new to you and very familiar. It's done up in peach tones, with fluffy curtains at the window and a four-poster bed where—you shudder with a mix of disgust and delight—Chelsea has let her brutish boyfriend finger-bang her into muffled orgasms while the family downstairs watched TV. There are stuffed dolls on the chest of drawers, and an ornate vanity table with mirror (a bequest from a deceased relative) on the far wall, next to the door to the private bath.

In the meantime, there's those texts and posts to consider. Most of them are from Kendra and Gloria, your two "loyal" lieutenants who gather all the gossip for you at school. They want to know if you believe that Dane was telling the truth about Gordon getting into some "bad shit." Kendra says she believes it; Gloria is far more skeptical. Both tiptoe around the obvious question: Is goofball Gordon someone that you want to continue dating? Particularly in light of the social posts they direct you to, where you find photos of Gordon in strange living rooms, splayed out with a dopey grin on his face and stringy, party-hearty skanks like Brianna Gould and Rebecca Sykes perched on his lap, making kissy faces at the camera. In most of the shots, Gordon has a doobie hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

Part of you delights in your handiwork. Another part—a part you picked up from Chelsea—is both furious and mortified. Kendra comes closest to stating the obvious course of action when, after linking to one photo in which a girl with green hair seems to be giving Gordon a blow-job while your red-faced boyfriend goes cross-eyed with delight, she says, Ur going to kill him rite? To that you reply: Not ur business kendra.

Steve and Jason are more circumspect. In fact, there's no messages at all from Steve. This is hardly a surprise, since he and Chelsea loathe each other to their bones' marrows, and she asked him to come to the gym today (and he came out) only because they have a mutual interest in seeing that Gordon gets clean and sober. Chelsea and Jason, if possible, hate each other even more, but Jason is oily through and through, and has hit you with a couple of texts promising to "look into things for you, Chels" as a follow up to Dane's interrogation.

There's also some needy and tiresome texts from Meghan Farris. She's planning to throw a big party in two weeks, and she is desperate to confirm that you will be there.

But you really don't want to deal with anyone and anything. It's just too boring when set next to the excitement of what you've done. So you text Kendra and Gloria, telling them that you've got to shut down for the afternoon to "detox," then turn your phone off. You pop your head out to the head of the stairs to shout down that you'll be in the bathtub. Then you lock yourself behind two sets of doors and disrobe.

Good as it felt to get into Chelsea's clothes this afternoon, it feels even better to get out of them, and after dropping them in the hamper—and turning on the bath water, which you spike with some oils and salts—you scratch and rub yourself all over and turn to the big mirror over the sink. The girl in it smiles back at you dreamily.

Oh, look at you, Chelsea, you murmur to yourself as you twist this way and that, admiring your firm bosoms and hard buttocks. You go up on tiptoe to give yourself a better view. Is there another girl at school half as sexy as you? I don't think so!

And it's all natural, too. Oh, you've heard rumors of rumors that circulate at school, that your nose isn't real and neither are your boobs, that you've had implants here and nips and tuck there. Rumors you've repaid by spreading much more likely stories about Cindy Vredenburg and Kelsey Blankenship (and Kendra and Gloria, who need keeping in their place). But no, not one bit of Chelsea has been touched with a knife or a needle! All that she's done to give herself that sculpted tummy with the scoop where the shallow navel rests ...

And the bowl-like hips with the velvety lips ...

And the hard, strong thighs and calves ...

... has been to work at shaping and toning them. Aerobics every day, and step-masters, and a few weights. As for the giant jugs with their rosy tips ...

And the dainty fingers and niblet-like toes ...

The firm chin and the button nose and the tumbling locks of golden hair ...

... Well, those she was born with. Every one of them the product of kindly nature and good genes, well-tended by healthy eating and good exercise.

You gasp, and bury your face in your fingertips to muffle the sudden gale of laughter.

No, actually, it's all a fake, you reflect as you grin wickedly at your reflection through your fingers. If people really knew what I looked like under this thing ... You snort so hard that a booger shoots halfway out your nose.

You wipe it away, then use the toilet. Wiping your frontside down, afterward, is a new experience for both you and Chelsea. New for you because ... dur! New for Chelsea because you take a gasping pleasure in rubbing the paper over a piece of fleshy real estate you've long fantasized over.

Then into the hot, steamy tub, to linger and rub yourself inside and out with velvety fingertips. The climax you bring yourself to is a gentle one—a lovely simmer that bubbles over rather than explodes—but it leaves you relaxed all over, so that afterward you fall into a hazy doze that lasts until the water has turned tepid. It's with a groan—and a sense that you'd probably need a Swedish massage or something to get all the stress of the day worked out—that you clamber from the tub, and it's tiring work to dry yourself off. After that, you decide to make an early night of it and dress again in flannel pajamas. Sunday nights are usually "leftover night" at the Coopers, and when dinnertime comes you pad downstairs to improvise yourself a low-calorie Italian meat sauce over some low-carb pasta. You take it upstairs to eat so you don't have to deal with your grubby brother.

* * * * *

"Great job today, guys!" you exclaim at the end of cheerleader practice the next morning. "Well, as good a job as we can expect," you add, and dismiss the other girls with a clap of the hands even as they exchange sulky looks.

Everyone is sweaty and disheveled from the workout you put them through—not just tumbling routines, but also a fifteen minute jog around the inside of the gym. Eva Garner's hair, which hangs in loose, blonde curls like yours, is sopping and looks like it's going to slide off the top of her head, and sweat stains splotch the tops of Lin Pol's and Yumi Saito's leotards.

So you're ending class ten minutes early so everyone—yourself included—can get a quick shower before the final bell rings. You take the nozzle farthest in the back, so that you can watch all the other other girls—

The sexiest girls at Westside. Except for Michelle Estrich, who's just kind of Ehh.

—soap and lather and rinse themselves down.

Then, after a quick dry-off, it's into a simple ensemble of flannel shorts, floppy t-shirt, and sandals. You knew you were going to work the squad hard today—no reason not to get your new life and job off on the wrong foot!—and came prepared. Inside, you titter while watching Lin and Kendra and Gloria wrapping their still-damp bodies up inside some tight, sleeveless blouses and clinging legging.

It's mean of you, you know. But one reason Chelsea Cooper is the hottest girl at school is because she always looks better than anyone else. And one reason she always looks better than anyone else is because she can set it up so her nine closest rivals—okay, eight closest rivals, not counting Michelle "Ehh" Estrich—look like they came to school wearing the wrong set of clothes.

Also, it's revenge. You heard Lin and Yumi murmuring about Gordon and this weekend and Can we give Chelsea some of what he's been smoking, and it really pissed you off, though you pretended not to hear.

Maybe Gordon's heard the talk, too. Because when you swing into E wing after second period, to head for French, you see him—

Giant lummox that he is, he's unmissable with his head bobbing above everyone else's.

—loitering in front of Mr. Rodriguez's classroom. You turn on your heel and stalk the other way. The last thing you want is Dane Matthias, in Gordon Black's body, trying to slobber all over you.

Then you stop. Maybe you should go see what he has to say.

But you'd rather skip. You can go hang out in the library with Eva Garner. Who isn't your favorite person, but at least pretends to be polite around you. You can talk about—

Ooh! You grin with anticipation. I can talk to her about Caleb! And the date she had with him on Saturday! That'd be brilliant!

Next: "Boyfriends Who Are Bad for You" 

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