The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Magician and His Money Woes

Previously: "In Bed as a Stranger" 

You're woken by a pounding at your door, and a voice on the other side.

"Muh?" you reply.

"Are you getting up?" It's your mom. The knob rattles, and she knocks again. "Will?"

"I'm awake!" you lie, and rub your eyes deeply. "What time is it?"

"Are you going to take a shower this morning or are you going to—?"

You cast about for your phone, and blink stupidly at it when you find it. 7:47 the display says.

"Shit. I'm coming!" you holler, and kick off the sheets. Something tumbles from the bed to the floor.

The night's adventures come rushing back, and you fall to the floor to grab the mask back up. It looks undamaged, and you hastily shove it into the bottom drawer of your dresser. "I'm coming!" you shout, even though your mother has ceased battering at your door, and you hop from foot to foot as you slide into your boxers again. It's good to have a cock again, you think.

Then you add, But I still want some breasts to play with.

Well, that'll be for tonight.

* * * * *

You take one of the fastest showers ever and race to school with a Pop-Tart between your teeth and your hair still sopping with water. You make it to Mr. Walberg's classroom with five minutes to spare, but trip over a desk as you run into the classroom. Geoff Mansfield smirks at you and Kelsey Blankenship rolls her eyes. Cocksucker, you mutter under your breath. Sloppy bint.

Caleb also smirks as you fall into your desk. "What, did you take your shower in a car wash this morning?" he chortles.

"Fuck you, I woke up late."

"I woke up late too, but you don't see me looking I have to squeeze Lake Superior out of my hair. Jesus, when are you going to get that 'do of yours a trim?"

His question reminds you of the haircut your dad demanded you get. "This afternoon," you reply with a glower. "Or I dunno. This week sometime." You slump in your seat and cross your arms. "My dad told me to get it cut."

"Christ, you talk like you're getting a tooth pulled or something."

You shrug and slump lower in your seat. You never liked going to the barber. You'd probably wear your hair down past your shoulders if your parents let you get away with it.

Or maybe not. With your slim build, you'd probably just look like an ugly girl.

And that reminds you that you've got that mask up in your bedroom.

Now when you slide further down in your chair, it's to give your cock room to run.

* * * * *

So you're distracted all morning. It's easy to be distracted when you get to watch movie clips in a dark room during second period, and your third and fourth period classes are a lot of bullshit. And you've got plenty of thinking to do.

You've discovered that magic is real. You've got a magic mask at home—one that turns its wearer into a copy of Coach Schell—to prove it. There are lots more spells in the book—you're only two spells in—but you can't get to them except by executing them. And that takes money.

Probably you could still get that job at your dad's work, but you've already made yourself look foolish over it. Neither Caleb nor your dad will give you a loan.

You haven't asked your other good friend, Keith, if he can lend you anything, and you rectify that oversight at lunch. He just snorts.

"What do you need money for?" Caleb asks. It's just you and him and Keith, together as you usually are, in back of the school. "You asked me yesterday for a loan."

"You change your mind?"

"No."

"Then I haven't changed my mind about telling you," you retort. "It's just a project."

"You don't have projects," Caleb says.

Keith raises his hand. "I got projects."

"Mike and Carlos have projects," Caleb corrects him. "You just hang off their shirt tails."

Keith turns red. "I am too part of their channel!"

This catches your attention. "What channel? What are you talking about? Mike and Carlos who?"

Keith's flush deepens from cherry to plum. "Fuck you," he snarls, and snatches up his lunch.

"Where are you going?" you ask as he stalks away, but he just flips you the bird over his shoulder. You turn to Caleb. "The fuck is his problem?"

"His problem is you don't pay any attention. He was talking about his movie review channel he's got up on YouTube. Well, it's not his, it's Mike and Carlos's, as I was reminding him—"

"I didn't know about this."

"You were there when he told us about it, Will."

"When?"

"I dunno. Sometime within the last eighteen years."

You roll your eyes. "Well, he shouldn't take it out on me."

"Go tell him that." Caleb stretches out on his side, and pops the last of his sandwich into his mouth. "Then hit him up again for a loan."

"Fuck you."

"He's your last chance, Will. Though if you tell me what this project is, maybe I'll lend you something out of my savings."

Except Tilley isn't your last chance. There are two more guys you know that you could ask, and after telling Caleb you'll be right back, you dash around to the front of the school.

And that's how it happens that you spot Coach Schell at her car, in the teacher's parking lot. For a moment you gape. Then you whip around so she won't see your face. Your heart thumps hard.

But you do peep over your shoulder at her. She's tugging a large cardboard box out of the back seat, and it looks like she's having some trouble with it. But she finally hefts it into her arms, bumps the car door shut with her butt, and goes striding off toward the gym. You note the vehicle she's driving: a green Honda minivan.

Why do you take special note? You're not sure. You just do.

And you're distracted again when you talk to Carson Ioeger and James Lamont about borrowing some money off them. You don't even plead when they refuse.

* * * * *

You pass the rest of the school day in a thoughtful mood. You need money to continue your research, but you've no prospects of getting any. But it occurs to you during math class that that's not quite true. Will Prescott has no prospects of getting any. Could Coach Schell get any?

Oh, but how? During the thirty minutes or so that you amused yourself inside her mask, you never learned anything about her, except for the shape of her body. Maybe you had her boobs, but you certainly didn't have her brain. You got no impressions about where she lived or who she knew, or even what her first name is. To get any money off her, you'd need more than her ... Well, more than her face. You'd need her keys or billfold, or at least access to them. (But if you had access to them, would you even need her face?) The best you could do is like you tried doing with your friends: Use her face to beg money off the other teachers.

But it's not like you could even do that. You don't have any clothes to go with Coach Schell's face, so unless you want to walk around the school naked while panhandling for spare change, you can't even use that mask.

Still, you're intrigued enough by the idea that during your study hall you log into the school's website to check out her teaching schedule. "Cathy Schell" is her name, it turns out, and aside from third-period lunch and a free seventh period, she teaches P. E. classes all day.

If you could get some clothes—from your mom's closet, maybe?—then after school, when she's left for the day—

And you know what she drives now, so you'd only have to check the teachers' lot for her car to know if she was still on campus.

—you could wander the school, cadging money off the other teachers, the way you tried cadging some off your friends.

Couldn't you?

Except it still seems awfully risky.

By the time you get home, it feels like you've war-gamed out all the possible scenarios without reaching any decisions. You're antsy and still in need of something to do. For a lack of anything better, you break out the mask ingredients and use them all up. The process creates a terrible stink, which you blow out of your window, but it also creates three more blank masks. You make a face as you contemplate the job it will be polishing them up.

And for what? You already have a mask on hand, one that's polished and that's got a face inside it. What would additional masks accomplish? Except ... You could use them to copy and impersonate someone else? An impersonation that would stand you a better chance of getting some money?

You heft one of the blanks thoughtfully.

Then with a sigh you drop it on your bed. Caleb has said he'll loan you some money if you tell him what this "project" of yours is. You bet he'd be really eager to lend you the money if you showed him the masks and the grimoire.

Next: "A Matter of the Mind" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"