The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

When Yumi Met Gary, Part 1

Previously: "A Man of Two Minds and Half Out of Both of Them" 

You run light fingertips over your body, and flex in different directions. Your muscles are lean, smooth, and hard. Your olive-colored skin—no baby fat on this frame—stretches tightly over them. You snap white teeth at your reflection, and your eyes glint like mica.

Your pants fell off again when you sprang for the mirror, and the rest of your clothes are piled up on the foot locker nearby. You quickly snap on tight boxers, haul the trousers up around your hips, and drop onto the weight bench to pull on the heavy woolen socks. You're sweeping up your t-shirt when Jessica looks in from the hall. "Hey, babe," you greet her; your upper lip peels up in a leer.

Her expression turns black and pinched. "Are we feeling better?" she asks.

"Oh, fuck yeah!" You flex one arm. Your biceps aren't huge, but they bulge appreciably. When she only glowers in reply, your stretch back in a way that throws out your smooth chest. "How's your bod treatin' you?"

She rolls her eyes. "When you're done jerking off," she says, "come next door. Jenny needs instructions."

So you grab up your boots, hooking them and your shirt both into the crook of your arm. Jessica shrinks back as you swagger up; you lean into her face as you pass, and snap your teeth at her. She gasps. You chuckle.

Maria and Eva are in the studio, studying a third girl—Jenny Ashton—from behind their crossed arms. Jenny is dressed and looking very alert, but also a little put out, as though the others haven't been telling her anything she wants to hear. She does a double-take at you as you saunter in, and pulls in a sharp breath.

"Yo, so I'm wanted in here?" you say.

"Uh huh," says Maria. "Jenny here—"

"Will?" Jenny squeaks. "Wow." She peers at you. "You look just like him!"

"I fuckin' should," you retort. "These girls are pros at what they do. Aren't you?" You pinch Maria on the butt, and she squaws. "Chillax," you tell her. "I'm feeling a lot better now. I guess we got business needs doing?"

"Right," she says, and rubs her skirt. "Jenny—"

"What's the deal with Yumi?" Jenny interrupts. "How'd she get mixed up with you? With Gary, I mean?"

Is that all that's got her excited?. "She texted me yesterday afternoon, wanted to know if I'd meet up with her at the mall. I was all like—"

The memory of yesterday afternoon rolls back over you, as vivid as burning sheet lightning.

* * * * *

"Hey." You jerk your chin at Yumi, who's standing at the mall entrance. She looks up from her phone, and puts it away. "So, you got an emergency or something?" You dart your eyes about the parking lot. Trouble, you tell yourself in an under-the-breath hiss. Yumi Saito wouldn't be calling you unless there was trouble. Either she's deep in it, or she's setting you up for some.

"No, no emergency," she says. Shallow dimples show in her cheeks. "I was just lonely, bored, wanted company. So I texted you." She smiles up into your face.

"Uh huh. Wyncha call your girlfriends?"

Her eyes narrow even as her smile broadens. "You want me to? Send you away, call some of my girlfriends?"

You shrug and glance away. This is not anything you expected, and not anything you're prepared for.

Girls do not flirt with you. Girls cringe and turn away when they don't just ignore you. Or they try to out-bluster you, they get in your face and challenge you to take them and do something with them. And that's almost worse, because it's only the tramps—the fat ones who live in trailer parks, the ones with no hope of anyone better than you and who are sure that you've no hope of anyone better than them—who open themselves to you, who with reeking desperation dare you to sink yourself into them, like a plunging wreck seeking the bottom of a swamp.

And, sure as fuck, it's never one of the cheerleaders who texts to you to come out and see them.

Yumi grasps at the zipper of your coat. "Look at me, Gary," she pouts. "Did you really drive all the way up here so you could not look at me and not talk to me?"

Your cock tingles but doesn't stir, and you've the terrifying impression that it's looking up at you and asking what it should do. Hey boss, you want I should stand up or anything? Or would that be a waste of time?

The moment hangs.

Then in a flash of clarity you realize you can do one of three things.

You run away crying, like a little girl who's been teased by a bully.

You can vomit right in her face.

Or you can grin, tell Yumi you'd love to spend the afternoon with her, and ask where she's planning to do her shopping.

* * * * *

"And then, like, I hung out with her at about eighty or ninety different department stores and helped her pick out a bunch of clothes she didn't buy." You shrug like it was no biggie, and refrain from talking about the way you spent the afternoon nearly choking on your heart. "Then she went to this birthday party that she said I wasn't invited to, but she told me to meet her at this record store afterward. I saw you there," you tell Jenny. Then you wink at her. "Or, I guess, I saw Gary there. 'Dj'you know the motherfucker was almost as freaked out as Jenny was?"

"It still doesn't make any sense," Eva complains. She and the other girls, of course, were listening as well.

"I'll tell you what doesn't make any sense," you retort. "A bunch of dickweeds using this shit to turn themselves into high school cheerleaders when—"

You catch yourself before you can finish the thought: When they could be running out to Hollywood and turning themselves into pop singers or movie stars. Basking in the glare of stadium lights as millionaire athletes. Making betas out of billionaires.

"When what?" Maria prompts.

"Never mind. Point is, crazy shit's bound to happen when you do something crazy like swapping cheerleaders around. You wanna know what Chelsea wants and why she wants it? Send me in to find out. Fuck." You grab for your phone. "Which reminds me—"

Whew! Only a little after five. You've plenty of time before six-thirty, when you're supposed to pick Yumi up and take her out for that dinner date she promised to go on with you. Your heart beats hard, for you still can't shake the feeling that she's not serious about you.

"What were you saying?" you ask Maria. She was making mouth noises.

"I was saying, your job is to break up with her. If you're really going out with her. Do it in a way that she won't go back to Gary after you're out of the mask. If you can do it hard enough and nasty enough, we can probably get you back inside Jenny's mask before you go home tonight."

"Sure, I can probably do that," you allow. You cock an eye at Jenny. "What're you gonna do until then?"

"She can hang out with us," Jessica answers. Her glance darkens. "Unless you've got plans for her."

"Nope." You look around. "Was that the only emergency? Wha'd you need me in here for?"

"Never mind," Maria says. "Just tell Jenny to hang out with us tonight." She prods you again with the request, and you pass it along directly to your first beta. "I'll close up here," Maria then tells the others with a knowing look. Eva and Jessica pull Jenny out of the unit. Maria follows them out into the hall to watch them depart, then returns.

"I guess things are going to be okay with Jenny's beta," she says. "But I wanted you to be sure to give her some kind of orders. Keith has had some problems with Seth, getting griefed by him."

"Getting griefed by him how?"

"Nothing really important. And it's Keith's fault anyway for not keeping him on a leash. But Jenny's beta is different. She— It. Knows things. And if it went out and said the wrong thing to the wrong people, or did something—"

"Yeah, I get." You hop onto the desk so you can pull on your boots—combat-style, naturally, with heavy soles, good for kicking and stomping. "But we got her tied down for tonight, right?"

"Uh huh," says Maria. "We'll keep an eye on her." She pauses. "You know, she said some ... interesting things while we were waiting for you."

"Like what?"

"Like things I'm sure you'll remember after you're back in her mask. Can you meet up with Chelsea tonight? With Yumi, I mean?"

"I got a date with her, in fact."

"Good. First and last date, right?"

She looks you up and down. "Are you ever going to put that shirt on?" she asks your still-bare chest.

* * * * *

You finish dressing out in the Jeep. The thin ski cap is the last touch, and you take a good minute getting it on with the help of the rearview mirror, pulling and adjusting it, tucking hair in here and tugging it out there, getting the hem to sit exactly in a line with your eyebrows. Then you slide on a pair of wraparound rayban sunglasses and grin at yourself.

The fuck's it matter, you tell yourself as you turn the motor over with a roar, that my life's a festering shit pile, when for tonight at least I'm this sexy and got a date with a cheerleader?

Next: "When Yumi Met Gary, Part 2" 

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