The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Sons and Lovers

Previously: "Dark Talk on a Dark Night" 

You are aching with cold when you wake, and your head is awhirl, as though you've woken suddenly from a very deep sleep. It's dark, too, when you wrench your eyes open.

It takes a moment to orient yourself, but that just leaves you even more confused. How did I get in—? Am I down in the complex's laundry room? you wonder. A smell of dust and grease fills your nostrils, so it must be some kind of storage space or work room. But how did you get here (wherever "here" is) when the last thing you remember is sliding into your bed and pulling the covers up over your shoulders?

A chill wave washes over you as you sit. You touch yourself, and blanch when you find that you're naked.

Completely naked!

Instantly, the word Rape pops into your head, and the chill strikes to your very core.

At least you're not tied up. Cautiously you lever yourself to your feet and feel about. Your eyes are getting used to the dark, and when you peep out from behind a divider you see sunlight streaming in through some windows high up in a cinderblock wall. You stub a toe as you slide out into a large room. It is stuffed with old furniture—tables, chairs, school desks, bookshelves, and other junk. Are you in some kind of basement?

You frown at the sense of deja vu that enwreathes you. Basement. I've been here before, you think. But when?

The answer comes like a hammer blow to the top of your skull. You cry out in shock, and catch hold of the nearest bookshelf to keep from falling over.

I'm not Meghan Rennerhoff! you remember as the room swims about you. My name is Will Prescott! Except I am Meghan Rennerhoff because—

You suck in a deep, ragged breath as the world and your place in it comes into a sharp focus. Somehow, it feels even more three-dimensional, as though you are looking at it out of more than one pair of eyes. It has even more depth.

Take the school basement, for example. It is strange and scary to the eyes and mind of Meghan Rennerhoff, for whom it is a flat and featureless backdrop of broken furniture and cold dust. But to the eyes and mind of Will Prescott it is a clubhouse where you carry out occult experiments.

Or take this body. To Will Prescott it is a strange and lumpy thing, with curves and bulges that you are not used to, and your muscles squirm under the skin. But to Meghan Rennerhoff it is a toned, poised and well-balanced body. You straighten up and shake your hair back, letting yourself settle into it, as though into a familiar and comfortable chair.

Yes, that's better, you decide as you look around the basement again. My God, you add as you clutch a firm, pear-shaped breast, this isn't bad at all!

Even the thought of Jamie Rennerhoff, waiting anxiously outside, doesn't bother you anymore. Little twerp! you snicker to yourself with a motherly indulgence.

You dip back into the corner to retrieve the clothes that he brought out for you. He knew what I'd like, you reflect as you flap out and pull on the sports top and the spandex shorts, and you enjoy the feeling of taut, tight thighs and calves as you pull them on. No doubt that Meghan Rennerhoff looks good for her thirty-two years, and she feels good too. It's too bad you won't be able to hit the gym today, because the workout would—

You bolt upright as if hit by another hammer blow. The gym! You actually could hit the gym today with no danger of running into Meghan Rennerhoff, for she won't be there, she'll be off with—

Your mouth spreads into a rictus, and you thrust the thought away.

As natural as it is to think Meghan Rennerhoff's thoughts and to shiver at her anticipations, you're enough of your own self still that you're not quite ready to indulge in her fantasies of what's waiting for her in Cody Lake's apartment.

* * * * *

Jamie springs to his feet as you come out of the basement with the gym bag over your shoulder. You pull back a long strand of hair and smile at him narrowly.

"You. Little. Troublemaker! Come here!" You march up and grab him about the neck. He's taller than you, but with a gasping laugh he quickly folds in half as you tuck him under your arm and drill a quick, light noogie into the top of his head. "I can't believe what you did! Your own mother!"

You let him up, and he falls back against the side of the old family-style sedan that his mom helped him buy for his seventeenth birthday. He blushes furiously as his mouth rips wide in a gigantic grin. "So?" You put a hand on your hip and smile at him. "You have anything to say for yourself?"

"Um ... Sorry?" He looks like he's about to faint. Or hyperventilate.

"Try again." You reach up to pull and pinch his nose between two knuckles. Pinocchio's nose always grows when he tells a lie, is the family lore behind this gesture. Jamie's knees buckle, and he sinks into a crouch as he gasps back spasms of labored laughter.

"Come on, Buddy," you tell him, using the nickname his mom used on him when he was little. "You wanted to go shopping with me. Let's go."

"I can't!" he gasps. "I can't ... move!" He clutches his stomach.

You sigh at him. It's like he's a little boy again, you think. I wonder if I spoiled him?

The years unroll in your memory, back to when you carried him in your belly through your sophomore year of high school, then forward through the rest of high school as you raised him (with your parents help) when he as a toddler. Jamie was a mischievous baby, but you didn't believe in corporal punishment, and he had this winning way of looking just contrite enough that you didn't even want to yell at him. And when you left California, hitchhiking east, it was like you were partners on an adventure together, rather than a mother running away with her six-year-old to start a new life.

"Come on, up you come." You put out a hand when his spasms have subsided. He wipes tears from his eyes and lets you heft him to his feet. "Who's driving? Wait, hang on."

You dip into the gym bag and pull out the billfold. You frown briefly at it. It's your spare, which you keep in the bottom drawer of your dresser. "Are you going through my things when I'm not home?" you demand.

"Ye-es." Jamie starts gasping again, and he ducks and jumps back when you dart a hand out to tweak his ear.

"What other trouble are you getting into?" you tease as you open the billfold to examine the contents. No driver's license, you note. But it contains three back-up twenties and the spare credit card.

And also one of the credit cards you carry in your primary billfold. You give him a quick look of exasperation when you realize he went through your main billfold as well.

"Well, you're driving," you inform him. "Wait, do I have the list? Okay," you add when you confirm that you transferred your shopping list from your pockets to Meghan's gym bag. You march around to the passenger-side door, and give Jamie a look when he hangs back. "Come on, Buddy," you tell him. "This was your idea."

He rubs his eyes clear, but he's trembling as he gets in behind the wheel.

* * * * *

At least he manages to control himself once you start hitting the stores, and you march down the list and from supplier to supplier with quick dispatch. Once you've got all the goods packed in the back seat, you celebrate the mission's success of by treating both him and you to double-dip waffle cones from Baskin-Robbins (a treat that the real Meghan Rennerhoff never indulges in). You park next to the municipal athletic fields to eat them.

You and Jamie are speculating vaguely on what the new spell might create when you spot Chip Flanagan sauntering across the parking lot toward you. He's grinning at you from behind his sunglasses.

You take a deep breath and roll down the window before putting on Meghan's brightest smile. "Hey!" you chirp at him.

"Hey there," he rumbles back, and without waiting for an invite he leans in to pull a kiss straight off your chocolate-stained mouth. "Sweet," he murmurs. While you're still recovering, he looks past you to nod at Jamie. "Hey there, champ."

"Hey yourself," Jamie mutters back. His expression has stiffened.

"You change your usual dance club?" Chip asks you. "I don't see you around anymore."

"Oh, I got tired of Vaqueros. I've been going to Legends." The words come easily, but your heart is hammering in your chest. I'm flirting with a guy that Jamie's mom used to regularly fuck!

"Boring," he snorts. "Where you hanging out tonight?"

"I was gonna stay in. Netflix and chill."

Chip leans in further, putting his face close to yourself. "You need company," he says, and it's not a question.

Every one of Meghan Rennerhoff's instincts is to tell him to get his ass over to your place by seven, and to tell Jamie to go hang out at his cousin's. But obviously you can't do that. And Chip keeps talking, so that it's not until some of his twenty-something guy friends join him that he breaks away for the game of touch football he came out to the fields to play. God, he's got a sexy ass, you can't help thinking as he swaggers off.

You glance over to tell Jamie to start the car, and freeze when you see the slit-eyed grimace on his face.

Oh my God, you and Meghan Rennerhoff realize simultaneously. He's jealous!

Next: "The Hangover" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"