The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Unmasked Desires

Previously: "Faces All Around" 

"Fuck me!" Caleb exclaims. "You got— You got Jenny's face in here? Jenny Ashton?"

Keith answers by grinning like a dope. You ask, "How'd you fucking manage that?"

"I talked her into it," Keith smugly answers. "I ran into her out in the parking lot after school, followed her over to her car, told her I had a thing I found online and showed it to her—"

"You showed it to her?" Caleb turns pale.

"It's not like I was showing her my dick, dude," Keith retorts. "Though my dick's a lot more impressive than—"

"Just go on," you interrupt.

Keith frowns at you, then snaps his fingers and resumes. "Oh yeah. So I showed it to her, told her a story about finding it online and buying it and, I dunno, just kind of talked her into putting up to her own face. Yeah, I'd'a freaked out over what happened if I hadn'a already got some idea what was gonna happen."

"So what did happen?"

"It just went into her face. Which is still gonna take some gettin' used to, you know." He sniggers nervously. "And she toppled over and I caught her."

"This was in the middle of the freaking parking lot at school?" Caleb demands.

"Chill out, man. We were standin' next t'her car, no one saw. I caught her and lowered her down to the ground, then got her car door open and kinda humped her— I mean, I kinda pushed her up into her car and closed the door on her. Pretty fast thinking, if I say so myself."

He is getting more and more smug the longer he talks. You're not sure how much of this you can take.

"And then, after awhile, the mask popped out ont'er face and I picked it up and ran like a motherfucker. So." He jerks his chin at the mask in Caleb's hand. "What you guys wanna do wi'tchit? Or maybe, 'cos I'm the one made it, I should decide." His chin acquires a slightly aggressive tilt.

You and Caleb exchange another in what's been a whole series of uneasy glances. "Well, what's your idea what to do?" you ask Keith.

Tilley sucks in his lips, then reaches out to pull the mask from Caleb's resisting fingers. He turns it over and over in his hands, then leans pack to squint speculatively at you and Caleb. Then he says, "Y'know, it seems to me we'd ruin it if we mixed either of you fuckers' faces in it like we did, er—" His eyes widen, and he stammers to a halt.

"Yeah," Caleb drawls, "the way you ruined it when you added your face to Stephanie's." Keith reddens. "Thing is," Caleb continues, turning to you, "we couldn't put on a mask that looks like Jenny and go out to a McDonald's or anyplace like that, not like we did yesterday. I mean, if it looks just like Jenny—"

"Maybe it won't," you reply. You're not sure why you're arguing, except that you're having a hard time organizing your thoughts. "Maybe it'll be just different enough, the way the other mask was just different enough—"

"That's because there were two faces in it. This one"—he taps the mask in Keith's hand—"is just Jenny's."

"Whatever," Keith says, "I'm the one made it, so I think I should—"

"Okay, so what do you wanna do?" you ask him. He blinks and falls silent. "Yeah, that's what I thought, you don't know what—"

"Well, gimme a minute!" he hollers, and falls into a sulk. "I don't wanna fuck it up," he says after a moment's thoughts. "Let's just close it up. Close it up and see, you know, if—" He licks his thick, chapped lips. "How much like Jenny it—"

"Okay," you say, and look at Caleb.

He stares back, then shrugs. "It's all an experiment," he sighs.

* * * * *

You've got plenty of that sealant paste left from yesterday, so you don't need to make up anymore. It hasn't hardened or thickened, either, and it goes just as smoothly onto the new mask as it did into the old. The only nasty part of the process is the way Keith leans in on you, breathing heavily in your ear and smacking his mouth with anticipation.

"So who wants to try it out?" you ask when you're done. You were the guinea pig last time, but if the other two both decline you suppose you're up for being the experimental subject again. And for a moment it looks like you will be volunteering again, for they both hang back.

But then Keith puts out his hand. "Gimme," he says. "I mean, it's my mask—"

"Damn straight it's yours," Caleb honks, "and damn straight you're gonna be the one to try it out. You don't get to—"

"Alright!" Keith yells at him as he takes the mask from you. "I told you I would!"

"Just as long as you know you should," Caleb retorts. "I wanna see what happens to that world-famous penis of yours after you put on the mask of a girl."

"Well here! I'll let you get a good, close-up view, then!" Keith flushes and paws at his belt buckle.

"Oh, God damn it, don't be gross!" Caleb shoves him back agains the conference table. "Keep your pants and clothes on. That's also part of the experiment." He glances at you. "Find out if you have to take your clothes off before you—"

"Dude!" Keith turns very white. "What if my clothes get all fucked up inside me when I put the mask on? Come on!" But Caleb pushes Keith back toward the big conference table and snarls, "You're just looking for an excuse to take out your snake and wave it in our faces."

Keith with a swallow settles back onto the table, and Caleb wrenches the mask from him and bends over him. "Just settle back and relax. If it looks like it's fucking things up, I'll pull it off you fast." Keith licks his lips, and doesn't look reassured, and he tenses up all over even as he straightens himself out. Caleb says, "Ready?" and Keith gives a tiny little nod, and then Caleb covers his face with a mask. You lean forward with a burning curiosity to see what happens—to see what happened to you yesterday when you put a mask on.

The mask is visible for only an instant on Keith's face, and then it vanishes, seeming to drop into him like a flat stone falling through the surface of a still pond. And when it goes it takes Keith face with it. It startles you so that you almost yelp: Where Keith had been, now it's Jenny Ashton.

Jenny isn't beautiful, exactly. She's more "handsome" than pretty, but her face, when animated has a lot of personality in it. Her features are regular and nicely framed by shoulder-length, auburn hair. But when looking into her face when it is slack and asleep, it is easy to imagine that she could pass for a guy if given a boyish haircut.

Except you'd have to do something about her chest. Even inside of Keith's billowing t-shirt, her boobs are pretty noticeable.

But nothing seems to have gone wrong with the transformation as a result of its being done to a fully dressed person, though Caleb pulls and twitches at the hem of Tilley's shirt and jeans just to make sure. He pulls his nose and grunts. Then he wheels on you with a glower. "Why the fuck did you let him push you around like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"We should'a been the ones telling him what we were gonna do with this mask. Now he's gonna be a prick about it, gonna think he's running things."

"He was already being a prick," you retort, "because he thought we were ignoring him."

"I was trying to," Caleb says. "And now we're gonna have to sit on him. Look how close he's come to fucking things up already. That thing he did with the mask yesterday, with Stephanie. Now today." He gives you a very serious look.

"Well, like I said," you reply, even though you basically agree with Caleb, "he thinks we're trying to do stuff behind his back. I wanted him to have his way this time, so he'd know we— Look, I get what you're saying," you protest when Caleb snorts. "We'll sit on him. We'll tell him he could do his thing with this mask, but the rest of them, what we do is up to us."

"Up to me, you mean." Caleb's mouth tightens. "I've got the last mask we made."

You nod, but while also thinking, Until we make more.

* * * * *

"Ohhh!" Jenny Ashton moans as she rubs her palm over one of her fat, dangling tits. "Hurggh!" Her eyes roll back, and it looks like she's about to start drooling.

It's still late afternoon and there's plenty of dusty light in the basement, and more than enough for Keith to study his transformed self in the old, floor-length mirror. After a panicked moment of checking that he hadn't fused into his clothes, Tilley had patted himself all over, eyes popping in delight at what he'd found, and had scrambled over to the mirror when you pointed it out to him.

"Oh my God," groans the person who looks just like Jenny Ashton in a voice that sounds remarkably like hers. "I've got tits! Big old— Mmm!"

"What else have you got?" Caleb asks, acidly. "Or maybe don't got anymore?"

Jenny frowns at him, then her eyes light up. Her mouth twists into a rictus as she puts her free hand down the front of jeans that are drooping in the front. "Holy—! Oh, fuck me! I—! Jesus! I got a bush down there! And there's a—! Christ, I'm touching Jenny's va-jayjay!" She gasps as she rubs herself behind her zipper. Behind her back, Caleb gives you a look.

"Oh, fuck me!" Jenny exclaims after pulling her hand out and sniffing the fingertips. "Let's go out! Let's see if we can fool someone! I wanna see," she babbles as Caleb blanches, "if I can fool anyone into thinking I'm really Jenny!"

Next: "A Face to Meet the Faces That You Meet" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"