The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Becoming of Heather Brown

Previously: "At Home with the Browns" 

You? Become Alec Brown's mom? It's too wild.

But it makes sense, from what Sydney has told you.

You gulp and nod. "Okay, but—"

Brownie wheels before you can finish and swings into the bathroom.

You hold your breath to keep your heart from erupting out the back of your throat.

One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six ...

Brownie shuffles backward, butt first, into the hall, then straightens up. "All ready for you, Will," he says.

With trembling knees you grasp the edge of the doorsill, and look around it into the bathroom.

Brownie's mom is curled up on the bathmat, laying on her side with her feet pulled up under her. The red-and-black bandana has gone askew, and her mouth hangs open.

Brownie shoves you shoulder first through the doorway, and you stifle a cry as you catch yourself on the edge of the vanity to keep from tripping over Mrs. Brown.

"I don't know how long we got," he says. "Dad and the twerps—that's Micah and Riker—are out getting new football gear, and Eric's still up at the school. They could be back in five seconds or five hours. Well, not five hours," he corrects himself. "But it'd be best if your truck wasn't here so we don't have to explain anything. Best, you know, if it was just Mom and me home all day." His brow furrows. "You were gonna say something? You started to say 'But' back there."

"Like it matters now," you mutter. "But I can't hurry the mask up." You point at Mrs. Brown's face.

"You can start getting her clothes off," he retorts. "I'd help, but there's only room for two of you in there and besides, it's my mom down there, and that'd be fuckin' squicky."

He pops you another blow to the shoulder, drops the plastic bag on the vanity, and pulls the bathroom door shut on you.

You stare at the door for a second, then with a quick shiver you lock it.

The bathroom is tiny, with maybe just room for two people to stand between the vanity, the toilet, and the bathtub, and the sprawling Mrs. Brown takes up almost all the floor space. So you have to squat over her as you struggle to undress her.

You start by pulling the sweat pants down off her, and then the bandana. But she's a dead weight on the floor, and you've no room to maneuver. So after getting her t-shirt (North Carolina State) tangled up around her boobs and in her arm pits, you give up and step inside the bathtub to wait for the mask to finish copying her. At that point, you figure, you can just drop your own mask onto her and let your pedisequos finish undressing. It doesn't look like anything will tear.

In the meantime, you study her.

It's impossible to tell how tall Mrs. Brown is, but she's not a big woman. She's got large thighs, but they look firm, not flabby, as do her smooth calves. Her boobs—what you can make out of them—are fat and hefty. Her slack face reveals no personality, and you can't make out if it's pretty or not, but she doesn't look unattractive. There are some fine lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, if you look carefully enough, but her chin and jawline look firm. Her hair is long and straight and mousy brown, and there's an awful lot of it splayed out on the tile by her head.

Long minutes pass, and your legs have begun to stiffen, before the mask reappears over her face and drops with a clink onto the tile. You snatch it up and examine the inner surface. The name HEATHER MICHELLE CONWAY BROWN flares off it in blue letters.

You set it in the sink for now and fish inside the bag for the mask you made of yourself before coming out. You have to balance uncertainly over Mrs. Brown—feet astride her hips—as you stoop to lodge it onto her face.

Abruptly, her form is replaced with that of a skinny kid with hairy legs. You almost fall over as his eyes open and he turns to look up at you.

For a moment you hold each other's gaze. Then with a grimace and a blush, he scrambles back from you, sitting up and knocking his head against the wall by the tub.

"Jesus," he mutters. "You know how fuckin' weird it is to blank out and then wake up to see yourself staring down at you?"

"No weirder than the reverse," you retort. "You know where you are? Know what's going on?"

"What is this, a pop quiz?" He gives you a black, resentful look. "How he fuck should I—? What's this shit I'm wearing?" He grabs at his crotch, and his dick pops out from behind Mrs. Brown's thong underwear. "I feel like I'm—"

"We're at Brownie's house, okay? Don't you remember the plan?"

"Plans could've changed."

"Oh, fuck. So what do you remember? And keep your voice down." You kick off your shoes as he makes a face at you.

"Well, I remember the plan, dickweed," he says. "Brownie— Sydney— Last thing I remember is lying down on that table in the basement, and her—him—dropping a mask onto me. So if nothing's changed since—"

His expression falls as he pulls the sagging bra from out beneath his t-shirt. He frowns at it.

Then his eyes pop.

"Oh, no! Fuck!" he gasps. "I thought Brownie said—! Please tell me he's got a sister," he pleads with haggard eyes. "Or someone's girlfriend! Please tell me you didn't—!"

"No, that's his mom's," you retort as you yank off your own shirt and unbuckle your belt. "And shut up. Right now there's just the three of us to be—or the four, if you count his mom in spirit—but the rest of the family could be back any moment. Just get out of those things and into these," you continue as you pull off the last of your things, "and don't worry about who's riding around inside you."

He glances down, as though expecting to see Mrs. Brown's bosom erupting from inside his own, then scrambles to comply. "Well, I guess it sucks more to be you than to be me," he says. You don't dignify that with a retort.

After he's in your clothes, you listen at the door, then open it and push him out. "Go find Sydney. Brownie," you correct yourself. "Whatever she tells you, do it. Probably she's just gonna send you home, tell you to just be, well, me, until you hear from us."

"Am I gonna get to see you again?" he asks. A nasty smile slides up one half of his face.

You just grimace at him, and shut the bathroom door.

That leaves you alone with a bag of masks and supplies, and Mrs. Brown's clothes. In other words, with nothing else to do but to finish transforming yourself into her.

With trembling hands you pop open the tub containing the goop that will seal up the mask, and apply its contents with a brush you brought. Then you pack everything up carefully again, and on an impulse hide it in the cabinet under the sink. You separate out her clothes, fluffing and loosely folding them. You give yourself one last quick, look in the mirror; a pale kid with straw-like hair and chin whiskers peers back. He looks like he's about to shit himself.

But finally, with nothing else to do, you lay out on the bathmat, nestle your back into it, and hold the mask over your face. Mrs. Brown's name looms very large, until you shut your eyes and lower it onto your face.

* * * * *

You're very cold when you wake, and a small but intense migraine pulses just above and behind your left eye. You groan, and heft yourself up onto an elbow and roll yourself onto your side. Something heavy tries sliding off your chest, but get hung up. You blink and frown and look down, wondering vaguely why you passed out.

Then you look down and realize that you're cold because you're naked.

Memories and realizations open up and sluice over you. You wilt under them, and feel yourself drowning as the fill and flood you. The light goes dim and fuzzy, and a hard chill rattles you from your shoulders to your toes.

My name is Heather Brown.

Except it isn't, and that knowledge fills you with a quiet t but overwhelming despair.

No, I'm really a boy—that's all he is, just a boy!—named Will Prescott, who my son Alec brought home and helped him turn into me.

Except that's not Alec anymore, either. It's another stranger.

An imposter.

Your grip the edge of the vanity, and heft yourself up and onto your feet.

And soon we will all be imposters.

You raise your eyes, and one of those imposters stares back at you from inside the mirror. A blank but intense expression is frozen onto her face.

She's naked, but there's nothing there you haven't seen. The boobs still full, and only just beginning to sag. The hips and butt that have lost their tautness but not yet their shape. The fat that has begun to pad the abdomen but not yet hidden the figure.

The firm chin and mouth and eye of the colonel.

The colonel.

You clench your fists, and your gaze hardens.

If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right.

Brusquely, without bothering or gloating over it, you bend over to whip up the thong underwear, and slide it up and over your legs to snap in place. You pull your sweatpants back on, strap yourself back into the bra, and pull on the t-shirt. You wind your hair back into a loose braid before settling the bandana back around your head.

You pick up the scrubber, give the toilet bowl a few last, quick strokes, then flush it.

Then, with the scrubber and the bucket in your hands, you march out into the house that is yours, from the rafters to the foundation.

Next: "The Straight Attitude" 

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