The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

ILFs in Odd Places

Previously: "A Little Night Music" 

Your mom is perched, petrified, on the edge of the sofa when you step back inside. Anxiety knits her brow.

"It's all fine," you tell her as you shut and lock the door behind you. "I guess he'll call you, like, tomorrow or sometime. How about you bring him over, like, Tuesday night. I'll fix us all supper."

She just stares at you, speechlessly. After the moment has grown awkward, you stump off down the hall.

* * * * *

There's no question about jacking off that night. The personality you're riding isn't in the mood, and after going to bed you stare out of his eyes at the dark ceiling for a good long time. As for you yourself ... Well ...

After you've calmed down and put a little distance between yourself and the evening's crisis, you are disquieted to recognize just how much in control you weren't. In the cold, objective night, it seems less that you were reining Kirkham in, than that he was using you to rein himself in. Oh, you're not worried about losing a grip on who you are. You know absolutely that you are Will Prescott and that "David Kirkham" is just a ... an NPC that you're impersonating. But in the heat of the moment, when you are "acting the part" ... Well, it was the same thing over at Cruz's place. You had to be Kirkham, so you zoned out and just let yourself be him, and you didn't leave the zone until you were back home listening to the sound of lovemaking in the bedroom across the hall. And then you had to drop back into the zone.

(And how do you know you're not "in the zone" now? Because your body doesn't feel like your own, but like something that you're wearing. You avoid touching yourself because it's a little icky.)

But that complication—wondering how and when you might lose yourself too much in a moment—is nothing to a thought which you handle it very gingerly, like nitroglycerin, lest it cause someone to blow up.

It's the recogntion (which Kirkham has never looked square in the face) that his mom is a MILF. And even then only technically, because at thirty-three she looks like she can hardly qualify as an M. You wonder how many times she's been mistaken for Kirkham's older sister.

And the fact that you only now noticed seems further proof that Kirkham's tentacles are more tightly entwined with your mind than you had suspected.

* * * * *

Sunday morning.

You're up at eight for another jog. This one you take slower and longer than yesterday's, with an extra lap, so that you're later than usual getting back home. And your procrastination pays off: the car is gone and there's a text from your mom on the phone, telling you that she'll be gone all day and won't be back until suppertime. You have the place to yourself even after you shower, but you're still not in the mood to amuse yourself.

So you spend the balance of the morning and the early afternoon doing homework. Tad shows up around twelve-thirty, having gone to church with whatever dork friend he had his sleepover with, and you churlishly remind him that he has homework as well. You text Kelsey's number, asking her to keep you apprised of anything going on, but she only texts back a thumb's up emoji, which makes you wonder irritably what your girlfriend is up to.

The answer comes at around two-thirty, shortly after you've finished your school work and are scrounging in the kitchen for ideas for what to fix for supper. That's when Kelsey texts to ask if you can come out to her house.

If u pick me up, you reply. Moms got car. Then you nearly leap from your skin when she replies, Lisa is out here. You start to reply, then back up to hit her number.

"Hello?" Kelsey answers, sounding tentative and quizzical.

"Yeah, what's this about Lisa being out there? You doing something?"

"Well ... yes. I—"

"Look, don't do anything until I get out there. Shit, you can't come pick me up, can you?"

There's a pause. Then Kelsey says, "Can we call you back in about five minutes?"

Your heart slows to a crawl, dragged down by a sensation that feels remarkably like dread.

It's ten minutes before she calls back, by which time you've settled on mac-n-cheese for dinner and are back in your bedroom, pacing. "Here," Kelsey says, "someone wants to talk to you."

Then: "Hey, Will," a low, thrumming voice says. "Do you want us to come pick you up?"

It's the voice of Lisa Yarborough.

* * * * *

She just invited Lisa out to Kelsey's, Sydney tells you after you've recovered yourself far enough to ask what happened. Just invited her out and hit her with a magic band and took care of the rest by herself. That was the Kelsey-bot (or whatever it's called) that texted you while Sydney was still unconscious under the new mask.

You're irritated that she didn't call to consult with you first, but say nothing about it. Besides, she's got a little technical news to explain. She put the mask together separately instead of all at once, kind of like you and she had done with Kirkham in the motel room. Then she put the mind strip on first, and got Lisa's memories, then put the mask on to complete the transformation, so that she is able to be "Lisa Yarborough" immediately instead of having to wait for memories to come like with Kelsey. You grunt that that's pretty clever.

"That's why," she continues in Lisa's soft, tentative tones, "now I think about it, maybe we shouldn't come get you. I mean, I don't know if anybody would see us, but we're not supposed to be— I mean, the way you hit on—" She giggles. "On me at school. And what you did to Geoff—"

"Yeah, how are they taking that?" you ask. Now that the switch has happened, you are actually feeling weirded out by talking to your current girlfriend in the form of your ex-girlfriend, and would prefer not to see her right away. And a "business talk" with Sydney, even in Lisa's voice, would bother you less than her being flirty over the phone.

"Well, they haven't really talked about it," she tells you. "I mean, Lisa told Geoff what happened at her locker. He told her not to worry about it, that that was just—" She giggles again—"David Kirkham being his typical asshole self. But then you did that thing with Geoff— Actually, you know, he didn't tell her about it, but she heard about it. And she didn't tell him she heard about it, because she didn't want him to worry about her knowing. But it made things kind of strained last night at the play. Oh, by the way, you should have come out. We could have played an extra scene for everyone there!"

Her gurgling laugh makes you shudder a little.

"I had stuff going on here," you curtly inform her. (Privately you wonder which would have been more harrowing, a "scene" with Lisa and Geoff or the one that got acted out last night.) "What did Lisa think of what I told her? You know, her and me going out?"

"She thinks you're a creep. Well, that David is. You're not going to be able to talk your way into her panties, Will."

"Well, then, what's the fucking point of all this?"

There's a pause. "Well, there's Geoff," Lisa says. "You still want to fuck him up, right?"

"Sure. So is that what this is about, now? Just fucking him up?"

"Well—"

"'Cos that would fuck up all my chances with Lisa, wouldn't it? Of her and me— You and me— Her and Kirkham riding off together."

"Well, hold on, Will, I didn't say—"

"Would she go out with me—with Kirkham—if I talked her boyfriend into dropping her?"

"No, but— Hang on, give me a minute!"

So you do, even though the long, awkward silence nearly kills you.

"Okay," she says slowly when she resumes, "I think— Yeah, if you— Oh! Yeah! That's the way to do it!" she exclaims. You rub your temple.

"Okay, so," she continues after organizing her thoughts. "You should go find Geoff tomorrow. Do whatever— I mean, I'll leave it up to you what you do to him. Just don't ... break anything."

"You wanna leave it up to me or not?"

"Will!"

"Alright, fine, I won't break anything. But what then?"

"Well, do something to him. Then on Tuesday do something again."

"Uh huh."

"And then— Well, I'll call you or something."

"To plot some more?"

"No. It'll be Lisa trying to talk to David. About what he's doing. And we'll go out someplace to talk, and that's when—" She hesitates. "Well, you're going to have to come up with something good to tell me so that I'm, you know, kind of confused afterward. Not mad at you. Like I'm ... sort of impressed."

"Yeah, okay, and then?"

"And then we play it by ear. You making Geoff miserable, and me becoming more impressed with you!"

You don't answer.

"You think that won't work?" she asks.

"I dunno. We'll find out. I mean, we can always make it work, Sydney—"

"Do you want to get together tonight to talk it through? Maybe practice?" She pauses. "At the Donna?"

She asks the question very softly, the way Lisa would. It sounds exactly like Lisa. For half of a very dizzying second, you lose touch with reality and think that is her.

Oh boy, you think as your desire suddenly surges and fills the cracks between your joints with testosterone and lust. It would be really dangerous to the plan if we got caught. People would really have a lot of questions.

But it feels like you haven't seen Sydney in forever, even though it's only been two days. And isn't what she's offering exactly what you said you wanted when you started this plot? A chance to fuck your girlfriend while she's wearing the body of your ex-?

Next: "An Ex- Marks the Spot" 

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