The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Faces Under Faces

Previously: "Day of the Jackass" 

You start very slow, slower even than you've done in the past with her. You pluck at her lips with yours, keeping your tongue inside your mouth, and you don't linger but take a series of quick, toothless bites. When she grabs your arm, you slide a hand under her shoulder and pull her closer to you.

Bit by bit, millimeter by millimeter, you broaden your sweep of her face, moving from her lips to her upper lip and nose, to her cheek and eye and temple. Her lips move down to your jaw and neck. She strokes and grips your bare shoulders and naked back, and she writhes gently on the bed as you palm the side of her belly and her thigh. You pull back long enough to let her shrug off and hurl aside her jacket, and you lose more minutes kissing the tops of her breasts while she ruffles your hair and tickles your ear. You kick off your shoes, then stand up off the bed to unbuckle and pull off her sandals while staring her down with watering eyes.

She spreads her knees, and you clamber up between them to hover over her and kiss her more deeply.

Your cock is rigid but docile as you lay it upon her, but she groans beneath it and runs her hands restlessly up and down your back. When you put your face into the side of her neck to nuzzle and bite, she begins whispering in your ear.

"I'm fantasizing about you, Will," she says. There's an ache in her voice. "I'm fantasizing about you, Will, not about—" She gasps as you bite gently into the side of her throat.

"It's you with me, here," she groans. "I got this guy on top of me, and he's doing things to me I'm loving. But I'm fantasizing it's you, Will, that you're the one doing it to me, 'cos you're the one I want!" She throws her arms around you, and squeezes your hips between her knees. "He isn't here, it's you."

You slide your arms under her, and pull her close.

"Because it really is you, Will. He's just a glove. And—" She cries in the back of her throat. "And I wish you weren't even wearing the glove!"

You pause to pull back and peer into her face. "You want me to take the mask off?"

She stares at you, then closes her eyes and arches her back.

"Don't stop," she gasps. "You don't have to take the mask off. I can see you through it!" She lifts her hips to push at you.

And for you, suddenly, it's like a veil has been pulled away. It's Kelsey under you, but she doesn't look like Kelsey anymore. She looks like Sydney. Golden haired, bright-eyed, wise-faced Sydney. You shut your eyes and hold the image as you plunge back on to her.

And after you are out of your clothes and your cock is inside her and you are pumping hard as she yells into your ear, it is still the face and form of Sydney McGlynn that you feel yourself fucking.

* * * * *

You only do it the one time that way. Oh, of course you do it a second time, because Sydney is aroused and unsated despite cumming. For that second time, though, you have to let Kirkham off his leash, to ravage her fast and quick. You don't tell Sydney that's what you've done, though, and she doesn't seem to notice the change, as it's your name she roars when you bring her to a second climax.

But Kirkham doesn't go back in the box afterward, though his personality becomes more pliable after being sated. And you don't drape yourself in his personality, either. No, it is, in a weird way, like being in a three-way—or what you imagine a three-way to be like—as you and Sydney lay naked with the sheets covering you up to your wastes, for it feels almost like Kirkham is relaxing in the bed with you too.

Sydney brought some cigarettes, and though it's a non-smoking room you light one and pass it back and forth as you talk.

"She was all wrong for you, Will," she says after blowing out a long stream of smoke. "Lisa, I mean."

You blink, and grunt, "I thought she was right for me."

"No, what you thought was that you had a girl in your life, finally. You thought she was going with you, and that's what made her 'right' for you." She takes another drag, and hands you the cigarette. "You're a lot happier with me."

"Yeah, well ..." You take a drag so that Kirkham won't say anything horrible.

"You'd be happier with almost any girl, Will. Even with Kelsey."

You turn to stare at the side of her head. "You serious? Kelsey?"

"I didn't say you'd be happy with her, only happier." She takes the cigarette back. "You'd've died of boredom with Lisa, but you wouldn't be bored with Kelsey. You'd be miserable, but you wouldn't be bored."

You turn back to the ceiling. "What makes Kelsey the way she is?" you ask.

You feel her turn to look at you, but you keep your eyes turned upward. "What makes anyone the way they are?' she retorts. "It's just them being them. Kelsey's a bitch, and David's a thug—"

"He's not a thug," you growl, and surprise yourself in saying it.

"He's not? Could've fooled me. Could've fooled Geoff and Lisa and—"

"Okay, stop it."

"Aw," she mewls. "Am I hurting his fee-fees?"

You give her a dirty look. She smirks back.

"I dunno," you mutter, and pluck the cigarette back. It's burning low, so you suck it down to the filter, then sit up and turn over to grind it out on the bedside stand. "He's more complicated than people give him credit for."

"Really." She rubs your back—which is David Kirkham's. "You mean he's a thug and an asshole and a dickweed and a goon?" You glare at her over your shoulder. That smirk reappears on her face. "I will say that I like him better without his glasses."

You snort, then roll back into the bed. She turns onto her side and rests a palm on your bare, hairless chest.

"Have you gotten close to him, Will?" she asks. "I mean, obviously you have." She sniggers. "You've gotten inside him. But you're talking like—"

She cuts herself off, and raises up. Her expression falls.

Then she snorts. "Oh God, you've started being him again!"

* * * * *

Except you're not being him.

At least you don't think you are, not even with Kirkham being so close—it really is like he's in bed with you—because it doesn't feel like he's the one doing the feeling and thinking. You're not being him. It's more like—

Well, it's more like you're defending a friend when Sydney's gibes start to bother you.

Yeesh, you think. Suddenly Kirkham and me are friends?

Well, it's true that you understand him better. You know how he thinks, what he feels. How and why other people and things make him feel that way.

And the shit part is, a lot of how he thinks and feels makes sense when you look at it the way he does.

It even makes sense if you look at it the way you do.

Take the way you slapped Spencer Osbourne around at school the other morning. Why did you do that? Because you were acting the part of David Kirkham, and Kirkham thinks Spencer is a lousy joke. A spoiled, snickering, lazy, douchey joke who thinks he's smarter and funnier than he really is. And the thing is, you agree with him! Exactly and absolutely! That's why you typically avoid Spencer! The only difference between you and Kirkham is that he's less willing to put up with Spencer's shit, and more willing to smack him down. And that difference isn't about how you and him feel, but about his being bolder and more open about acting on those feelings.

And that's a difference that—you'd wince to admit—reflects better on him, probably, than on you. He's got the guts to do what you would shrink from.

Same with his attitude toward a lot of the clown show that is Westside High. He hates guys like Gordon Black and Roy Nelson and the Molester for the same reason you hate them, because they tried riding him in middle school and their freshman year. Again, the difference is that Kirkham wouldn't put up with their shit, and he did something about it; and again, that's a difference that you'd have to grudgingly give him more credit for than you'd give yourself.

Even his likes—and there are people he genuinely likes—are for reasons you'd have to credit him for. Take George Basham, or Nathan Cruz, or Preston Spinks. Probably, if you knew them yourself, you'd resent them for their money and their smug superiority, the way you resent Mansfield. But Kirkham respects them. Basham may be country-club rich, but he works smart and hard at managing money his parents have given him and made him responsible for. Cruz (even Kirkham would admit) is a dick, but he pushes himself through some hard classes while also playing first chair violin in the orchestra and second fiddle on the school's swim team. Kirkham isn't jealous of Spinks's musical talent. Rather he is awestruck by it.

Even Chen, who is about as slimy as they come, gets big props from Kirkham for soldiering on despite some pretty shitty life circumstances.

Because though David Kirkham respects talent, what he admires is work, and he especially likes those who work hard to make their talent pay off.

No surprise he has so much contempt for a wet sack of dog sick like you.

Idly, you wonder what he'd think of you now, with what you've done.

And it's like he answers from the pillow next to your head.

I'd fuck you up and take it all away from you. I'd wear your fucking face and use it to do things to your friends and family.

I'd be a supervillain and make sure they blamed it all on you.

Next: "Money Matters" 

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