The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Ella on the Loose

Previously: "Guys You Could Be In To" 

"Oh, just thinking about things," you tell Cameron after retrieving your attention from a million miles away. "Hey, can you look over my math homework, tell me if you see anything wrong with it?"

You were thinking of Nathan Elliot when Cameron sat down, and were following a free-associative train of thought. You started with Nathan, and thought of Sydney becoming him, which developed into a fantasy Nathan pulling you onto a bed and rolling you under him and feeling for the zipper on the front of your jeans; and then he was inside you, swelling and thrusting while grinning one of Sydney's most gleeful grins into your face as you gripped him between your knees. And then, like a cut between shots in a movie, it was you who had your cock—Nathan's cock—inside Ella, and she was groaning and writhing as you speared her to the mattress, while Autumn—or was it Sydney herself?—rode piggyback on you, kissing and nipping at the back and sides of your neck. How much fun would it be to be with two girls, and yourself as a strong, tall, popular lacrosse player with stamina and more stamina and stamina on top of that?

That's when the solution to that vexing problem—who should be Ella's boyfriend?—clicked into place. It doesn't matter who her boyfriend is, not if she has a secret one drawn from the five guys you end up picking for yourself. She could have five secret boyfriends!

You duck back into that reverie while Cameron studies your homework, and you pay little heed as he picks out and points out mistakes to you.

* * * * *

You don't mention any of this to Autumn as you are (again; this will probably turn into a regular thing) applying your makeup in the girls' restroom before first. Instead, you talk to her about putting together a "study group" for Thursday night, and that you will try to steer things so that Jenna and Nathan attend, so that you can maybe get Nathan by himself for her.

"It would be easier to start with Jenna," Autumn murmurs as she applies some blush lightly to her cheeks. You and she have to speak cryptically, as you are pressed up close on one side by other girls similarly at work over the sinks. "Then if I was her—got with Nathan—then you and Nathan."

"I thought you wanted Nathan." You murmur that through frozen lips as you lean in at the mirror to carefully apply some mascara.

"I want to help you pick. Doesn't matter if it's you or me, just as long as it's Nathan—or someone—who can help you. I'm just saying what's easier. And Jenna should be part of it so we can talk."

Her logic is unassailable, but you feel reluctant to surrender to it, and reply only that if you're going to do something tomorrow night, you will need "the stuff" to do it. "Can you work on that tonight?" you ask her. "I've got that stupid concert tonight."

She promises that she will. As you walk together, side by side, from the restroom, she slides an arm around you to give you a hug that probably looks only sisterly, but which is taut and trembling with some suppressed emotion.

* * * * *

In first period you have to concentrate on classwork—and on Maggie, who is still slyly insinuating that this "study group" you're putting together is actually for something else, and wants to know if it "means anything" that Reece Palendech is going to be there. It means I need to buckle down and start doing better at my math! you retort. But then in second-period math class, you let your attention drift, so that you are completely wrong-footed when, halfway through class, Mr. Van sends you to the board to work one of the problems. Jenna and Haley smirk and titter when you, crimson-faced, are told to sit down and pay better attention.

Well, who wants to pay attention to math anyway? Ella wouldn't, and you don't either. (You didn't pay any attention last year when you took Algebra II/Trig, and you've forgotten it what you did learn, so that you are in as bad a place as Ella would be.) And you've got the dilemmas that Sydney left you with to ponder.

Why don't you just bite the bullet and make the switch with Nathan, which as Sydney so rightfully points out would be the easiest and most logical thing to do. I would be Nathan. She would be Jenna. We would screw and plot and screw and take a break and screw some more, and when we were putting our clothes back on we'd decide who the next people are that we'd add as Brothers. Who the next couple we would be when we got together and screwed.

But something is holding you back. You told yourself that you want to scout out possibilities, using Ella (who you've already got) and Nathan (whom Sydney will be) as lookout posts. But you find yourself still wavering, and have further decided that there is no reason to pick out anyone specific as a boyfriend for Ella.

But you've got at least four of your five girls picked out; picking out guys is the next major task; and if Ella is a poor place to make that decision from, why not move into a guy now? Why not move into Nathan, like Sydney keeps suggesting?

You are forced to conclude that you are enjoying your time in Ella too much. You intentionally dressed today in workout shorts and a floppy t-shirt, so that you could enjoy the feel of your body, particularly the feel of your hot palm on the bare skin of your strong and silky thighs. You keep catching yourself in the act of tossing your thick hair back, and clutching and patting it into place, and when you catch guys looking at you—as you caught Carl Dortbruch sneaking a stare at you in first period—you smirk and glint back at them with a look that you're certain says, You think I'm cute, and I know you think I'm cute, and I'm so pleased that you think I'm cute.

I don't want to give this up, you think with a shudder of relief when you finally put it squarely to yourself. And when you look at Jenna—your long-lost sister—you think, And I want to be Ella when that is Sydney, so that me and Sydney can be "long-lost sisters," and we can hang out talking about boys and sports, and doing each other's makeup, and squealing when she tells me about Nathan and about how awesome he is!

I can have one girl for myself, right? you tell yourself. And Sydney could have one guy? If she wanted? But if she didn't, then the girl-boy balance would go out, from five girls and five boys to six girls (fiver for her, one for you) and four boys. That would be fine. But which four boys? (Or five, if Sydney actually did want one for herself.) That takes you back to where you started. Which guys?

"Have you ever heard Maggie talk about who she might be interested in?" you ask Jenna and Haley when math is finally over. "'Cos I'm trying to put together that study group for tomorrow night, and when she heard that Reece Palendech might be there, she asked me about it, and I think she was trying to get me to ask her out to it."

Reece and Maggi? Gasps and squeals of delight.

* * * * *

In third period Danielle asks if you've got a date for tonight, and you tell her that you'll be going with Chuck Johnson. It's from her that you learn who the full cast of attendees will be, and it sounds so tedious that you almost tell her, right there, that you've changed your mind about going. It's all orchestra kids, save for Christine and her date Patrick. (Even Nathan Cruz, who is on the swim team with her, is an orchestra kid.) Not that you (or Ella) have anything against the orchestra kids, it's only that they are tedious.

"So don't go," Autumn tells you at lunch when you groan about it all. You are sitting out on the bleachers by the athletic fields again. "Or use this mask I'm making tonight to switch with someone else, then send Ella to the concert, and you and I could—" She reaches over to stroke your back.

A tingle runs all through you. "Yeah, about that," you croak. You hesitate, then seize the topic by the horns and tell her that you want to keep Ella for yourself, as one of your impersonations. You expect Sydney to show shock and surprise, or at least to giggle over it, but she takes it all in stride. More than in stride, she says, "I was wondering when you were going to figure it out, Will," she says. "That you wanted to keep Ella for yourself," she explains when you ask what she means. "I was afraid I was going to have to explain it to you!"

That makes you a little mad, but then you just laugh it off, so relieved are you at Sydney accepting it. As for what that does to your lineup, she says that you'll talk about it later. "But what are you going to do about tonight?" she asks.

Go to the concert, you start to reply with a shrug. The shrug comes out, but the words don't.

Sydney could use your help making another disguise, and with your help you could get one made in time for the concert. If you used that mask not on Nathan but on someone else—on your own date, Chuck Johnson; on a boyfriend for Autumn; on a "secret boyfriend" for Ella; or on Maggie or Jenna or another girl on the softball team—you could (temporarily?) slip out of Ella and into them, and send fake-Ella to the concert.

Vote on how to continue the story: "BoM Poll: Ella on the Loose" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"