The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

An Offer You Should and Do Refuse

Previously: "The Right Plan with the Wrong Guy" 

You're sitting in the elementary school basement: you and Caleb leaning uneasily against a work table, and Gordon Black sitting cross-legged on an old desk. He's holding a mask in his hands -- the one you put onto and got off of him. It's almost nine o'clock on a Wednesday night.

You and Gordon wound up at the old school after you told him about the magic book and the masks and what you could do with them. He seemed skeptical, and calmly explained all the things that he would do to you for the rest of your school career if you did not show him the book and your tools and convince him of the truth of what you'd told him. So you called Caleb and told him to take the mask off and come out to the elementary school. Gordon had surprised him outside the basement door and hustled him down. After a very short conference, your friend had grasped exactly what was going on, and how you and he came to be in this mess.

What's remarkable -- and more than a little scary -- is how serenely Gordon has taken all of this. He hasn't yelled or hit anyone. He hasn't called anyone names. He hasn't freaked out over the magic. He has just questioned you closely and looked at the book, the masks, and the ingredients.

Maybe it's because you didn't force him to threaten you, and just volunteered everything as quickly as you could. The fact is that Gordon has never given you any trouble at school: It's not like he is with Carson Ioeger and James Lamont, who he regularly hustles off for abuse. In fact, it's pretty clear that he knows nothing about you, and you even have to remind him twice what your and Caleb's names are.

That doesn't mean he's friendly. A couple of times, when you'd fallen into a stammer, he'd bent his head toward you in a threatening manner, and you have the definite impression that he's put aside all his contempt and antipathy for you only because he wants you to explain this stuff to him with a minimum of confusion.

And all of this has led up to a jaw-dropping challenge. "So which of you little pricks wants to go home as me tonight?" he said.

"Beg pardon?" you gasped. Gordon snorted. "What do you mean?" Caleb asked.

"Just what I said. You got this thing." Gordon lightly brushed the mask. "You were wearing it earlier, you looked just like me. Could fool anyone. Anyone at my house, anyone at school. You could fool my dad, my teachers. Fuck, you could even fool -- "

He stopped. All three of you knew what was going through his mind.

He leaned back with a wide smile under hooded eyes. "You could fool my girlfriend. Fool her, fool around with her?" He sucked a tooth, and with an ape-like paw mimed squeezing a breast. (Or maybe it was an ass cheek.) "Hell, you could get her out of her clothes, get out of your clothes. I'd let you, too," he added with a smirk. "If you managed to get her in the mood. The only way to do that, though -- " He chucked a finger at you. "She's pissed at me because I didn't use your face as a brush to paint the side of a portable. But you get her to forgive me for that, and I'll let you collect the reward. Up to and including blow jobs and doggie style."

You stiffened. Caleb did too. You don't know how much he stiffened, but you stiffened all over.

"So, which one of you dipshits wants to go home as me?"

Now you shift uneasily on your feet. There's got to be a trick. Especially given that cock-swelling offer he's included. Maybe he's just waiting for one of you lunge at it so he'll have an excuse to murder you with a clear conscience.

So you look at your feet and let your head sink. Your heart thumps. No one says anything.

Then Caleb speaks. "Yeah, I'll do it." He even says it in that insolent, honking voice he uses when he's being extra pushy. "I already tried it out this evening, you know, so I'm already kind of used to it."

You watch him and Gordon out of the corner of your eye, ready to dive out of the way if a fist come flying in his direction. But Gordon just hands him the mask. "Are those your clothes," he asks Caleb. Caleb is still in the clothes he bought at the thrift shop, and only the fact that he's sitting on a table keeps the big shorts from sliding off his skinny ass. "You got some others around here? More your style?"

"Out in my car. Why?"

"Because if you go home as me, who goes home as you? Right?" Gordon grins. "Or can you stay out all night?"

"Uh, I can call my mom, tell her I'm spending the night at Will's."

"No, turnabout's fair play," Gordon says. "It is turnabout, right?"

You can sense it: Caleb is about to backpedal. But Gordon reaches across the narrow space to grasp and pull him to his feet; the shorts fall down around his ankles, and only the dangling hem of the over-long shirt keeps Caleb's nethermost regions from showing. "Let's go get them," says Gordon.

You remain in the basement, shivering in the dark, as the other two go upstairs and outside. You hear car doors open and close, and then there's a very long silence. That gives you plenty of time to construct dark fantasies about what might come next.

You've not given a lot of thought to what you could do with the masks. You can't get memories in them, which restricts the kind of mischief you can get up to, but you've already gotten in trouble by trying to "double" someone. You dread what Gordon Black -- arch-alpha, arch-bully, arch-captain of the basketball squad -- could do with the masks. And yet now you're on the cusp of discovering exactly what he is capable of.

Right now, for instance, it sounds like he's getting ready to go home as Caleb. Maybe that's the horrible thing he's planning to do. Instead of punishing you by beating you up, he'll punish you -- or Caleb, in this case -- by fucking things up for him at home or school.

Well, it'll be Caleb who suffers the brunt of it, at least at first. Maybe tomorrow, when Caleb shows up in Gordon's body and Gordon is in Caleb's, things will be more even.

Oh, who are you fooling? If Caleb tried to even things up, Gordon would just return it all with interest once he was back in his own body.

You're trying to see a way around or out of this predicament when you hear a car engine start: the Bug, it sounds like. The motor revs, and pulls away from the school. When it's mostly silent again outside, you cautiously mount the steps to the door. And you've just about reached it when it suddenly slams in your face. While you're gaping at this you hear a scrape of metal. With a shout you tackle the door and find it locked. "Gordon! Caleb!" You bang on the door, but it doesn't budge. "I'm in here!"

But there's no reply.

You hop down to the floor below and clamber onto a desk to peer out one of the ground-level window. Through it you can make out Caleb's car but nothing else. You call a few more times, but only get silence in return. Where did Gordon go?

You take out your phone and call Caleb. Instantly you hear his ringtone coming from outside the school. You curse but let it ring. No one picks up.

Well, this is a fine pickle. Gordon has trapped you in the basement and gone off who knows where. Caleb hasn't got his phone, and you haven't got Gordon's number so you can call him. No one else knows where you are, and you'd have a hell of a time explaining yourself to anyone that you could get to come and let you out -- after they brought a locksmith. You slump onto the floor and spend a couple of minutes giving in to despair.

You still haven't come back out of the black mood when you hear a scratching from above, and the creak of the door opening. You look up. "Yo, Prescott," a familiar voice calls.

"Caleb?"

"Yeah, sure," he says. "Where are you?"

"Down -- " You cut yourself off. Is that really Caleb?

Cautiously you get up and go to the foot of the stairs. A figure stands at the top. By its size and general height it looks like your best friend, Caleb Johansson. "Who do we have first period?" you ask him.

"What are you asking me that for? Come on up so we can talk. You need to explain some stuff to me anyway."

After a moment's hesitation, you mount the stairs.

There's enough light outside that you can make him out pretty clearly. It's Caleb all right -- physically, at least. The short, tightly curled hair. The strong and slightly hooked nose. The protuberant lower lip. The gangly frame. He's even got the slightly uncertain stance of your friend, the tendency to shift from foot to foot. He peers at you sidelong. "What?" he says.

"Nothing. It's just -- " You decide it must really be Gordon, and plunge ahead. "Well, you're pretty convincing, I guess."

"Good. Your friend says I can stay out late, till midnight, at least. How about you?"

"My dad yells if I'm not home by eleven."

He checks a cell phone. "Then let's go hit someplace, and you fill me in on Johansson so I don't fuck anything up. Where's your car?"

His words so shock you that you don't answer, not until after he's struck you hard across the face. "Back at the library," you gasp while nursing your cheek, for the action was completely out of character for the person he looks like.

"Then let's go camp out there. Come on."

Next: "Role Reversals" 

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