The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Girl for Prescott

Previously: "Like a Boss" 

I miss him, Will, Sydney said. It gives you a pang.

"Well, he misses you too," you say, and reach across to clasp her hand between yours. "So if we wanna go off, you and me, like we did yesterday—"

"That's not what I meant," she says, and pulls away. "Unless you're talking about going somewhere and taking off that mask and being yourself again, for a little while."

"We could do that," you say. Your heart leaps up.

"That doesn't fix the problem with him." she snaps. "With the guy we left back in your place. I wanted him and that girl to go out together, Will! So, you know, when we took the masks off and would be ourselves, we'd still be together."

"Well, why can't we?"

She gives you a look, and starts scrolling through her phone. You suspect what she's going to show you long before she finds it. "It must've been your asshole buddy Chen," she says when she shows you the x2z thread that is exploding with news that Will Prescott and Sydney McGlynn were going out but have just busted up. "I don't know why he cares so much, but who else knew that would say anything? It wouldn't have been, um, me who said anything about the break up. Would it have been Will who said something?"

"No." You glower at the screen. "God damn it. I'll find out from Chen what the fuck he was thinking."

"That still won't solve our problem about what we're going to do about them. The other 'us'."

Except it does solve it, doesn't it? In the sense that there is no solution—Will Prescott and Sydney McGlynn are now busted up—so why worry? What you and Sydney should be worrying about, it seems to you, is where to put her so that you and she—that is, she and David Kirkham—can start fucking each other blind.

You're about to broach the topic when Kelsey, her eyes flicking over at something behind your shoulder, go wide. She raises a warning finger, and you tense.

"Hey Kelsey," a familiar and loathsome voice says. "We were actually talking about whether we'd run into you here."

You glance up and over, and your toes curl. It's Geoff Mansfield, and Lisa Yarborough is with him.

* * * * *

You didn't stick around long. Kelsey had tried inviting Mansfield and Lisa to join you and her, but you quickly scuttled away. It rattled you to realize how much they still bothered you.

Mindy texts you around dinner time, reminding you that you had plans to meet after school. But you're preoccupied with thinking about Sydney, and even though Kirkham would basically fuck anything, Mindy doesn't compare to Sydney, so you put her off by saying that you're stuck at home and can't get away. You briefly toy with the idea of putting Sydney behind a mask of Mindy and setting her up with your doppelganger, but you quickly scotch it, and the evening peters out uneventfully.

* * * * *

Dorothy Harmon is again hanging out next to the student parking lot when you arrive the next morning. You don't stop to talk to her, but you do sidelong ogle her as you glide past. Dorothy is like a skankier cousin of Lisa, it now occurs to you. Her hair, like Lisa's, is long and soft and brunette; her eyes are green; and her skin pale and smooth. But unlike Lisa, who dresses up, Dorothy dresses down, in jeans short (very short) that show a lot of leg, t-shirts emblazoned with band names, ratty sneakers, and usually a striped, ska-themed ski cap. She is ripe and luscious, which is why she stirs Kirkham's blood, and her resemblance to Lisa stirs yours. If you put Sydney behind her face and inside her body and clothes, it would give your pedisequos a steady, desirable girlfriend—albeit one not as desirable as Sydney herself—that Kirkham could also secretly fuck (while you were inside him), and Sydney would be able to satisfy herself with you in two different, equally ardent forms.

The thought, once it clarifies itself, stops you in your tracks in front of the gym, almost as though your swelling cock had bumped into a hard, invisible wall. You turn back toward the breezeway, then lean against the wall to watch for Dorothy. She looked like she was waiting for someone, and if that someone was a guy ...

Well, in that case you might have to improvise another mask for yourself, replacing him with another pedisequos. Or—you roll the toothpick from one side of your mouth to the other as you turn the idea over in your head—you could do unto him what you did unto "Will Prescott". Take him aside for a couple of private beatings, then slip Sydney in for Dorothy, and have her dump his ass because he wasn't man enough for her. Yeah, you think as you flick the well-chewed toothpick away and pluck another from the front pocket of your shorts. That'd be fun.

But when Dorothy appears she's with Danielle Davis, and the two are laughing as they stride past. It's kind of an odd sight. Dorothy, who smokes dope and hangs out with the trash, and Danielle, who is a classy black girl taking AP classes and playing bassoon in the school orchestra. She's pretty, too, with a profile like an Ethiopian queen and long, straight hair that is tied at the back with a small bow, but then pours down over her shoulders and back. She's dressed in shorts today, and for the first time you (and Kirkham) notice how sexy her legs are.

Danielle or Dorothy? you ponder as you lope along behind them, watching their swaying asses (both equally desirable). Kirkham, you reflect as you explore his memories and instincts, has never really given much thought to Danielle, dismissing her as too "snooty" to make it worthwhile even approaching her. But as a choice for Will Prescott? She would be a much better consolation prize to catch on the rebound after Sydney, and she hangs out with a much better class of friends: If Will Prescott had to hang out with Dorothy, he'd be rubbing shoulders with the Kyle Kents and Cody Wootens of the school—guys who hang out at the portables smoking weed. With Danielle, he'd be hanging out with orchestra kids, who aren't exactly "cool" but who would be more his speed.

So preoccupied, you pass the turn into the wing where your locker is, and have to make a personally embarrassing trek back.

* * * * *

Lunchtime. You're on your way to the cafeteria when you spot Caleb loping along toward you. He either doesn't see you, or does a really good job of pretending he doesn't. You are of course already pissed off at him and looking for a chance to do something to him, but the disrespect he shows you now by not flinching determines you to have it out with him. You wheel and follow him.

He goes out the doors between A-wing and the library, presumably on his way to meet Carson and James and those guys who eat lunch in front of the school. About halfway down the length of the library, when there's no one around, you hurry up behind him and with a hard kick to the back of his knee send him sprawling onto his hands and face.

"Oh, sorry about that, Johansson," you sneer as you bend solicitously over him, and haul him up by grabbing a hank of his tight, curly hair. "My foot must'a slipped. Need any help getting up?" With a hard, private grin you yank his head up, and he gasps. "Tch! You should be more careful," you continue as you grab a fistful of the front of his shirt and lift him onto his knees. "You couldn'a broken your wrist. You know—" You roll the toothpick about in your mouth. "You still might."

You don't really plan to manhandle him anymore, just scare him, but before your threat can sink in, you're struck from behind with a blow that causes you to totter slightly. You wheel with a snarl that dies on your lips when you see it's Jenny Ashton. She glares at you.

For a long moment you hold each other's eyes. Then you ask her, softly and slitheringly, "Can I help you?"

"Back off," she growls.

"Okay." You let go of Caleb and show her your palms. "If you want to help him up yourself—"

Caleb clambers to his feet, and hurriedly brushes past you with his head down. Jenny glowers at you, then follows him. You watch them go, and a smile creases your lips. What if Jenny—friend of Caleb and Carson and James and Keith; your ex-friends who stabbed you in the back—became Will's girlfriend? That'd piss them off!

* * * * *

You feel good about what you did to Caleb. You feel even better later at home, after jerking off into a Kleenex. You got yourself good and excited thinking about where you could put Sydney, and the fun you could have afterward.

It took a long time, at the climax of which (literally) you briefly decided that if Will Prescott is going to drop Sydney McGlynn for another girlfriend, he had to trade up to do it, and that could only mean trading Sydney in for Andrea Varnsworth, the achingly sexy (and hopelessly aloof) captain of the school swim team. But, you reflected afterward, if the Blake O'Briens and Gary Chens of Westside thought he could be bullied out of dating Sydney, they would probably try to bully him out of dating Andrea.

But in the end you decide not to exclude Andrea from your list of candidates.

Anyway, after turning all the possibilities over in your head, you narrowed them down to the ones you really got your attention at school: Dorothy Harmon, Danielle Davis, Jenny Ashton, and Andrea Varnsworth. You're picking up your phone to text Kelsey, when you further reflect that though you can suggest these names to Sydney, you should probably leave the choice to her, and not argue if she comes up with a candidate of her own.

Next: "The Road Back to Yourself" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"