The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Costume Party

Previously: "The Next Spell" 

You glance over at the clothes Chelsea indicated--some tight jeans, sandals, a light pink blouse, some underthings. Your first real dress-up opportunity with a mask.

But as a girl.

Nothing wrong with Kelsey, except for the smug, arrogant attitude that goes with her being an Ivy League-bound AP student from a rich family. But she was also a cheerleader up until last year, like Chelsea. You wonder how Chelsea got a copy of her. "Chelsea!" you call. No reply. "Chelsea!"

She must already be inside the other mask.

Well, there is another way to find out how she got a copy of Kelsey.

* * * * *

You wake, feeling unpleasantly drained, and flinch at the salty, grimy stench that fills your nostrils. You groan and grind the heel of your hand into an eye. The last thing you remember--but at the same time it feels like ages ago--was Karl leaning in close to you with a knowing smile. Then someone grabbed you from behind--

You bolt upright.

No, the last thing you remember was laying down on a gym mat in the school's "fuck room" and putting a mask of Kelsey Blankenship to your face. Fearfully, you look down at yourself. Night is settling in, and the lighting is dim, but you can make things out well enough. Thin arms, lightly tanned and downed with hair. Polished, manicured nails. You brush the front of your t-shirt, which is distended by twin bulges, neither very large. A lock of hair falls into your face, and with an irritable gesture you push it back.

"Oh, you're awake!" You start at the voice, and look over to see Karl Hennepin--his face framed by great, puffy clouds of soft, curly hair--grinning at you over the top of a crate. "You can start changing--I'll be done in a minute."

Your head swims as you sit up. The crush of incompatible memories makes it very hard to think. "What party is this we're going to?" you ask.

"Guy named Joshua Cheswick is giving it. He goes to Eastman."

Kelsey has been to Joshua's house, and you frown as you picture the scene. She'd like to go. So why wouldn't she be out there tonight?

Then another picture forms, and you almost jump out of your new skin.

"Jesus!" you yelp. "Kelsey and Karl?" You gape at your partner, who is fastening a thin silver chain around his neck. "At the Donna?"

He--she?--freezes. "What are you asking?"

"I'm asking if--" You gulp. Why would you have to ask when you can actually remember them making plans? "They're going out to the Donna tonight, right?" That's a cheap-ass motel on the southwest side of town, where couples can hook up.

Karl--it's hard not to think of Chelsea as "Karl," for she looks just like him--resumes buttoning up a flower-print shirt. "Did you already know about that, Will?"

"Of course not! How would I?"

"You mean ... you remember? Because you're Kelsey?"

"That's what these masks are supposed to do, right? Make us just like them?" You shiver a little. Except for these clothes, you could completely pass for Kelsey. In fact, you're going to try to.

"Huh. Well, of course you're right. It just, um, took me a little longer to remember what was up with them after I put on the mask. With you, it's like it was bang out of the gate."

His words puzzle you. Chelsea can only have woken up a minute or two before you. But you dismiss it with a shake of your head.

"Okay, so they're going to be, um, busy with each other at the Donna tonight." You can't help flinging Karl a dirty look when he laughs. "But aren't there going to be some people out at Joshua's that we know? That Kelsey and Karl know, I mean?"

"Oh, sure. That'll be part of the fun. Come on, start moving. I've almost got my shoes on." He ducks behind the crate.

"You're not trying to fuck thing up for them, are you?"

"Probably we're doing them a favor," he shouts back. "We'll be giving them an alibi."

That's true. Kelsey doesn't want anyone knowing that she and Karl have been banging each other in cheap motel rooms since the start of August. "So what made you decide you wanted to do this?" you call out as you start tugging off your clothes.

"I just thought you might want some fun. You don't go to many parties, do you, Will?"

"No," you admit. "So these are Maria's clothes?" you ask as you pick up the jeans. "Whose clothes are you wearing?"

"Mine. I made a thrift shop run." He steps out from behind the crate, dressed in distressed black jeans, ratty Converse sneakers, and a rag-like, button-down shirt. "I had Gordon grab his hat off him, though," he adds, perching a shapeless felt fedora atop a bouffant of hair as soft and capacious as the head of a dandelion. "It wouldn't be Hennepin without the hat."

* * * * *

It's mostly Eastman students crowded into Joshua Cheswick's basement rec room, whose dark recesses thump with a techno beat, and whose ceiling and walls dimly reflect the neon glow of dozens of rave sticks. And none of the Westside crowd attending--pretentious arty types, mostly, and musician wannabes--are the type to get along with Chelsea (or vice versa), which makes the sight of the Karl-disguised Chelsea perched on a sofa and laughing with them very odd. She looks like she's enjoying the pretense immensely.

She looks more comfortable than you feel. Despite the tequila, you are tense and nervous. It doesn't help that you know why you feel this way. I'd rather be off alone with Karl, just the two of us, like we planned. And I don't want anyone here figuring out we're together.

So where the other partiers gradually pair up and fall onto dumpy sofas and beanbag chairs to cuddle and nuzzle and rub at each other, you pass the time talking.

"I never got a chance to congratulate you on the debate meet last April," a sharp-faced girl says by way of blunt introduction before giving you her name ("Lisa Rickover.") "You really schooled Alyssa on the drug war topic."

"Still didn't keep Eastman from beating us," you sniff, and look past her ear.

"It pissed Alyssa off, though. She says it was because she was arguing the opposite of her personal beliefs."

"Well, I think they should all be legalized, so I was arguing the opposite of mine. I guess that makes me the better debater." That's another reason you're tense: You can't help feeling bitchy. You fairly itch with bitchiness.

"It was nice seeing her taken down a peg. She's a friend of mine, but sometimes she can be insufferable. Your friend's a good dancer," Lisa continues, nodding at Karl, who is dancing exuberantly in the middle of the floor: arms and legs pumping hard and rhythmically, head tilting and jerking, hands spreading and splaying. He seems to know the song, for he anticipates its pauses by jackhammering to a stop and then resuming right on the beat. "Is he on the cheerleading squad?" Lisa asks.

"What makes you ask that?"

"Because of the way he moves. He's a natural."

"Yeah, well, he doesn't get along with the head cheerleader, so there's no way he could get on it anyway."

"He should move over to Eastman. If your team won't have him, Alyssa would snap him up."

Before you can reply, Karl struts over, takes you by the hand, and pulls you to your feet. You are stiff and awkward at first, but gradually loosen up. It feels good as his hands slide up and down your slim sides.

* * * * *

"So, you have fun?" Karl asks. It's close to midnight, and you're driving the two of you back to Westside.

"It was interesting." You were wound too tight to have fun. "How about you?"

"Oh, I had a blast." He giggles. "A little dancing, a little drinking, a little--" He mimes taking a hit on a joint. "I've done it before, with Gordon, you know. But it's different when you're doing it with the guys. And when you are one of the guys!" he laughs.

"This is a side of you I never suspected," you tell him. You hope you don't sound prim.

He doesn't reply right away. But when he does, there's a wistfulness in his voice.

"Sometimes," he says, "I get really tired of being Chelsea Cooper. Perfect cheerleader, girlfriend of the basketball captain. Don't get me wrong, I worked hard to get all that, and I'll work at keeping it. But," he groans, "no way I could ever go to a party like that, dance like that, drink like that. Get wasted like this."

"That's how come I'm driving."

"You don't like me much, do you?" he says with sudden heat. "Kelsey, I mean. Well, she wouldn't, not after I--" He catches himself. "And you know, if I had her fucking brain and money I'd be pretty goddamn smug about it too."

"Do you want me to talk to you like Kelsey would?"

"Do you like me, Will?" Karl asks. I mean," he continues without giving you a chance to reply, "I know you wanna fuck me. That's basically what I promised you, right, when I asked you to fix Gordon? I said you could fuck me."

"I haven't got him back yet." And you're drunk.

"Oh, Gordon," he sighs. "I feel sorry for him. Sometimes. Sometimes I wanna kill him. But God, he knows how to turn my motor." He writhes in the seat. "He wants too much of it though. 'Course, I can kinda sympathize now." He grabs and adjusts the crotch of his pants. "This ... thing you guys carry around. How do you keep it from driving you nuts?"

Great, a question that has baffled philosophers, theologians, and teenage boys for millennia. The follow-up question is even worse, though.

"I'd kinda like to know what it's like from the guy's point of view," he says, plucking at your thigh. "Would you like to know what it's like from the girl's?"

Like she said earlier-- Kinky.

Next: "A Conversation with Caleb" 

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