The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Counterstrike!

Previously: "Girls With Plans" 

You sink back in your chair and flick your eyes between Michelle and Alexis. They stare back at you.

Both of them wear a very expectant look, but that's all they have in common. Alexis—small, thin, fragile—shows fear in her eyes. Fear that you'll say no? Or fear that you'll say yes? You still have enough of a sense of her personality (like a quickly evaporating residue) to guess at the terror and confusion she must feel at having so much arcane knowledge thrust at her in such a short time.

But Michelle looks very calm. With her sitting beside Alexis you're reminded again of what a big girl she is, tall and well-proportioned with the muscles of an athlete. Her face is a little hard and her dirty-blonde hair is a little too flat for her to be conventionally beautiful, the way a cheerleader (like Chelsea) is supposed to be, and from your time as Alexis you think you can guess now why she's more popular with the junior class than the people her own age: She is dominating in a rather "motherly" way. There's nothing "motherly" about the sober expression she has turned on you now, but in a way that makes it worse. She looks more like a teacher than like one of your peers.

And she's expecting you to say something.

"Well, I guess that makes sense," you stammer as you slump in your chair. "But, um—"

"Awesome," Michelle declares in a very flat tone while holding your eye. "So what do we need to do?"

"Now, hang on," you protest. "This is—! This is a pretty big thing! We need ... Um ..."

"Yes?" Michelle says after you trail off. "What do we need?"

You lick your lips. "We need a couple of days. Like, to make the stuff," you lie. "And, uh, to talk about, uh—"

"Talk about what?"

"Talk about what we're going to do!"

Michelle's lips twitch into a mirthless smile. "We're going to do to Chelsea what she did to us," she declares.

You realize now that, under her very calm and adult demeanor, Michelle must be seething with anger and hatred of Chelsea Cooper.

"Well, sure," you stammer, and start to tremble all over. "But for how long? And whatever Alix is going to do—" You glance at the girl. "How long is she going to be someone else?"

Michelle glances at Alexis, who shrinks up.

"Alix can decide that on her own," Michelle says. "And Chelsea—" Her gaze goes distant for a long, hanging moment. "Till the end of the year."

You let out your breath, which you didn't realize you'd been holding. "Okay, that seems fair. Just a couple of months, then—"

"End of the school year," Michelle says.

Your mouth falls open. "Like, start of June?" you squeak.

"Sure," Michelle says. "I think that'll be good. It's her senior year. Probably the most important year of her life, to a girl like Chelsea." She lifts her chin. "I think she should lose it."

A cold spot forms around your heart, and you feel your breath laboring. Yeah, Michelle must really hate Chelsea.

"What about you?" Michelle says, and her voice jerks you back into the moment. "What are your plans?"

"Mine?"

"Sure. Isn't that one of the big things you think we should talk about, think about?"

"My plans?" you repeat.

"You wanted to turn yourself into another person. You changed your mind about Alix. But maybe there's someone else?"

Dizziness washes over you. You had more or less assumed (now that you think of it) that putting Alexis and Michelle back to normal would spell the end of your adventures. Certainly you didn't expect that Michelle would be suggesting that you steal another person's life.

"Well, I hadn't thought about it," you confess.

"Then think about it. How long will it take you to get things ready?"

"I dunno. A couple of days?" Your head is too much in a whirl to say anything else.

"Can we do anything to help speed things up? Can you get started tonight?"

"Tomorrow," you croak. "After church. I have to use that basement to make the stuff."

And that's more or less all that gets said before Michelle dismisses you. But you do finally get a chance to speak to Alexis before you're shooed out the door.

It has been bothering you, naturally, that although Alexis can look at you, she won't speak to you, and lets Michelle do all the talking. It makes sense, you suppose. In her place, you probably wouldn't want to talk to the person who had stolen your life and trapped you under an alias and given you a twenty-four-hour case of amnesia. But you have to talk to her, before you can feel like you've truly squared accounts.

You get your chance when Alexis, with a murmur, excuses herself to go downstairs, and after a moment's hesitation you ask Michelle where the restroom is. But instead of heading in the indicated direction, you run down the stairs to find Alexis in the kitchen, where she is pouring herself some kale juice.

"Look, Alexis," you gasp out to her. "I just wanted to tell you, face to face, that I'm really sorry about what I did, and that I really do want to make things up to you."

She gives you the same bright, slightly vacant smile that she's been giving you all evening. "Okay," she says.

Is that all? you wonder with a wince. "Are we going to be okay? You and me? Because I, uh—" You can't think of a way to finish that sentence.

Alexis smiles at you some more, then glances over her shoulder. "Talk to me when this is done," she says. "After I'm— And you're—" Her nostrils flare over her widening smile. "You know. It'll be easier to talk when it's ... someone else."

And with that puzzling remark she turns her back on you and leaves the kitchen.

* * * * *

But was the remark so puzzling? You think about it as you toss and turn in your bed that night.

It was obviously really hard for Alexis to look at you, the person who briefly stole her life. Probably it would have been hard for anyone, even someone made of sterner stuff. But it must have been especially trying for Alexis, who you know from your brief stint is very easy to rattle.

But if she could look at you as another person, while herself being another person ... and if that ability came as a gift from you and with your help ...

You turn onto your side and curl up with embarrassment as your cock begins to engorge.

Chelsea talked you into turning yourself into Alexis so that you could find yourself a girlfriend. After Alexis turns herself into another girl, could you turn yourself into a guy who could be her—?

You turn onto your front and bury your face in your pillow. It seems an impossible thought, even a nasty one.

And yet it won't go away.

It torments you still as you slither into the coils of sleep, coming as flashes of fantasy: You talking to a girl who sometimes looks like Alexis Lachance and sometimes looks like someone else. But whoever she is looking like, she still has Alexis's smile.

* * * * *

If nothing else, Alexis's comment has provoked you into making quick work of the masks you promised. You had told her and Michelle, as a temporizing move, that it would take you several days to make up masks to use against Chelsea. But after a night of thinking about it, you decide you want to get it done fast, so as to bring yourself to that reconciliation with Alexis that she hinted at.

You have at the school basement just enough supplies to make two more masks, and you will only need a few hours after church in order to finish them up. You are working at the first memory strips for one of them when a text comes from Michelle: Chelsea is asking me questions. What should I say to her?

Instead of texting back, you call her directly. "What kind of questions is she asking you?"

"Stuff about Cindy and the Garners," she replies. "It's like she thinks I spent this morning with them."

"Probably because she thinks you did," you reply after a moment's thought. "She thinks you're that fake you, and she probably gave, uh, 'you' some orders, probably to spy on those girls."

"So what am I supposed to do?" she asks in a voice that sounds very tight.

"Ask if you can meet her. Up at the gym loft," you add, for you're thinking very quickly. "Tell her that I'm coming too, because we've got some things to talk to her about in, uh, my case."

"What case is that?"

"Just tell her that, she'll understand, she'll think it's about us finding me a girlfriend. You're supposed to be helping me with that." Michelle makes no reply. "We should meet her because I'll have the stuff done, to do the thing to her, tonight."

"I thought you said—"

"I know what I said, but it turns out I had more of the stuff prepped than I thought, so we can cover it. Are you still up for it?"

"Definitely." Her voice hardens.

"Okay, then text that to Chelsea, then text me." Your own heart is beating fast. "Let's get this done." You hang up and wipe the sweat from your brow.

* * * * *

"Good job," you tell Michelle as you lower Chelsea onto the old gym mat. "I don't think she saw it coming." Michelle smiles at your compliment.

"We can put my mask on her for now," you continue, "just as soon as we finish copying her. But someone will need to put on her mask and go home as her."

"I will," Michelle says. "I'll take over for her."

"Maybe Alexis will want to be Chelsea?" you suggest.

"She's picked someone else. I pick Chelsea."

Next: "Flipping a Cheerleader" 

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