The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Patty-Cake with Patterson

Previously: "Falling Into Clover" 

You totter and sway on legs you are unaccustomed to, at a height you've never achieved without a stepladder. Then a sense of familiarity sweeps over you again, and you steady yourself. For a long moment you hold yourself very still, lest that sense of vertigo overwhelm you again.

Then you let out your breath, and your lips compress into a hard line.

God damn it! you fume to yourself. She did it to me again! In a cold rage you scoop up ad sort through the pile of clothes folded neatly at your feet: loafers and wool socks; Levis; and a black t-shirt. You are angry enough for two as you dress. Angry enough for William Martin Prescott, and for Steven Perceval Patterson.

There's not much point in looking for Chelsea—she's long since flown, if she's smart—but a quick glance around the corner of the gym confirms that that bicycle is gone. With a hard grimace you wheel toward the side door and yank it open.

The interior of gym is dark, lit only by the glow of the city filtering through windows high up under the rafters. It is silent too, when you pause to listen. Then your shoes squeak on the hardwood floor as you stalk for the stairs to the loft. These you take two at a time, making as much noise as you can. You pause outside the rough-hewn door, then rap on it twice with a knuckle before twisting the handle and kicking it open with your foot. You have to duck your head in order to enter.

You blink in the half light from the single bulb that hangs in the middle of the loft, and a stink of sweat, unwashed clothes, and grungy male bodies washes over you. It's like perfume, and for a moment you savor the musk. Then you charge in.

A naked and disheveled Jack Li is half-standing, half-crouching on the other side of the loft. His eyes go wide, and his hair visibly crawls atop his head, as he looks up at you. Then, his face a mask of shock and horror, he straightens all the way up and faces you head on.

You can't stop yourself from face-palming. "Oh, God damn it," you mutter aloud.

"The fuck?" Jack says in a horrified whisper.

"Is it just you up here," you demand, "or is there someone else?" You glance around the loft, peering around and over the crates and cabinets, the discarded gym equipment, the junk of decades that has slowly migrated up those narrow steps. "Hey," you snap at him when he just stares at you without answering. "I asked if there's any other motherfuckers up here, or it just you?"

Even by the light of the one bulb, you can see him turning green, and his lips peel back into a rictus. His eyes glitter.

But you just pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh.

"I'm going to make two guesses as to what your real name is," you say. "No, fuck that, I'm only going to make one guess, because you wouldn't be looking at me like that if you were who you look like." You drop your hand to your hip and give him the hardest, don't-fuck-with-me stare you can muster.

"Your name is Steve Patterson, isn't it? And this"—you point to your chest—"used to be your body."

* * * * *

He is almost feral, and you have to be hard with him. A couple of times he almost flies at you, but you deter him by leaning into his rage with a cold fury of your own, and by looming over him with his own body. He sweats all over as you talk, and you can tell that he would like nothing better than to rip the skin off your bones with his fingernails. But fact by fact, revelation by revelation, you force him to accept the situation—and to accept that you are his only hope of getting out of it and back to normal.

"I'm going to fucking kill her," the still-naked Jack Li hisses as he paces the loft like a caged tiger. "I'll grab her by the fucking throat and beat the back of her head—"

"Yeah, get in line," you interrupt. "But it's not gonna do any of us any good if we can't get ahold of that book she says she's using."

You glance around. And though you know it's pointless, you start opening up the cabinets and looking inside them.

"So first we get the book," Jack says. "And then we—"

"Shut up. No one's killing anybody. First we get the book. Then we figure out what the fuck we're going to do with it."

"What? Like what?"

You straighten up, and glare coldly down at him.

It's hard to believe that this is Steve Patterson you're talking to, and not just because he now looks like Jack Li. His anger and confusion you can understand. His thirst for vengeance burns in your chest too.

But the way he is boiling over, his bad discipline: It doesn't just make you anxious, it makes you embarrassed. It makes you want to bark, Get a motherfucking grip! at him.

"Just what I said," you tell him. "First we get the motherfucking book. Then we motherfucking figure out what we're going to motherfucking do with it." You advance three steps on him, and it both gratifies and humiliates you a little to see him take half a step back. "And if you don't stop panicking like a queer with a gerbil stuck in his asshole, I'm going to slap you until you remember who you're supposed to be."

He shows you his teeth, but he's trembling all over too.

"Now, first of all, get dressed," you tell him. "You've freaked out long enough, and I'm sick of it. You need to get home and get to bed. If this works the way it worked with Jack and me—"

You pause.

But why is it working this way? you wonder. Why do I right away get Steve's memory and personality—because, you recognize, you are certainly not acting like yourself—and he doesn't? Like Jack didn't get mine? It makes you uneasy.

"If it works like it did with Jack and me," you resume, "you won't get Jack's, you know, upstairs shit until tomorrow."

"The fuck do I want his upstairs shit for?" the other demands. But at least he has moved over to where Jack's clothes—neatly folded, as Steve's were—even if he makes no move toward putting them on. "I don't want his gay shit—"

"You don't want to get in any trouble—"

"Don't I?" His chin tilts.

You regard him levelly.

And then you shrug.

"Fuck yourself, then," you tell him. "Frankly, I don't give a shit. I don't even like you, man, so if you wanna go hang yourself from a rafter because now you're a gay little ass-clown, go ahead. Won't hurt me any, and Jack, well— He'll learn to cope. He's already learning to cope with being 'Will Prescott'. Only thing I ask, if you do jump in front of a tractor trailer, is leave a note behind saying that Chelsea gay-baited you into it."

You scratch your nose and turn for the door.

"I'm gonna head down, but I'm gonna text Chelsea before I go, so you'll have, like sixty seconds to get dressed and down and catch me before I drive off, if you change your mind about killing yourself and want some tips about getting through the night. Otherwise, fuck off, and if we see each other at school, don't make eye contact, unless you want your asshole screwed down onto something bigger, sharper, and a hell of a lot less sexy than some football player's cock."

You go out the door without waiting for a reply.

* * * * *

You are in fact tapping in a text to the real Jack Li—the one with your old phone—when you hear the gym side door close, and from the corner of your eye glimpse the shadowy figure emerge. It pauses at the corner of the gym, then shuffles over to where you are leaning against old family sedan that Steve Patterson drives.

He stands very sullenly there, until he finally loses patience at the way you're ignoring him, and asks, "Where are you going now?"

"Out to the Two of Clubs," you mutter back. "Score a little action, maybe go home with a cougar." You grin at the frosty silence that is his reply. "z'what you were gonna do, right, before you got that text from Chelsea?"

"Fuck you, you—"

"This is what we gotta do, you fucking numbskull," you retort, straightening up to your full height. "It's why we gotta get you home and into bed so you can sleep yourself into your new—" You flick a finger at him. "Because we're gonna fix this, and we don't want any problems for ourselves after we fix it. Do we? You wanna get your life back, Steve, and find out I fucked it up while you were gone, 'cos I didn't act like you were supposed to act? I know how to be you, douchebag, and I'm going to be you, so when this is over you can look around and say, 'Yeah, I'm back and it's like I never left.'

"But it works both ways. I'll take care of you, and Jack'll take care of me, and that means you—" You punch him in the chest with a hard finger. "Have to take care of Jack. And don't worry about it. Jack hasn't got a boyfriend, and the fact is, the hardest part of being Jack is gonna be playing gay with all the girls that are going to be all over you."

* * * * *

The strain of acting like Patterson in front of the guy leaves you with the shakes after he's gone, but it also leaves you aroused. You weren't really planning to hit a club, but your speech about "acting like" each other has left you jazzed.

Next: "Seduced by Steve Patterson" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"