# chapters

path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121
author_id: seuzz
title: Girls with Plans
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Sydney listens with arched eyebrows as you outline your plan for Amanda.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," she says when you're done. "I guess you're the best judge of Amanda and her friends and how it will all go down."<br/>
<br/>
"You think it won't work."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say that."<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates, and resumes carving runes into the metal band. "It sounds to me," she finally says, "like you'll piss a lot of people off. But are you really sure they'll respond the way you think?"<br/>
<br/>
You squirm. All of Amanda's instincts are to snap at Sydney, to tell her that <i>of course</i> it's going to go the way you want. But you yourself have to acknowledge that there's a difference between giving people their lines in your imagination, and being confident that they'll say them in real life.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going to do this," you say. "The point is to screw with Blake. The rest of it doesn't matter."<br/>
<br/>
"Still, maybe you'll want some help?" She brushes her fingertip over the metal band. "We're going to have another set of masks by tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
"There's not really a part for you."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure there is. One of Amanda's girlfriends. Kelsey, maybe. She sounds like she could use some managing. Or one of these other girls. Or— I don't know. Maybe your boyfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"What?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Sure, your boyfriend. The whole thing depends on him not losing his shit—"<br/>
<br/>
You almost strangle yourself on your Amanda's outrage.<br/>
<br/>
"First of all, Sydney," you say, and you hate how ragged your voice sounds, even in your own ears, "Nothing depends on Ricky not losing his shit. Let him lose his shit, who gives a fuck, it'll just be more drama, which is fine. Second—" You tick off a finger. "Second, he's not going to lose his shit, because Ricky doesn't do <i>anything</i> I don't let him oo. And third," you go on, overriding her interruption, "are you <i>freaking serious?</i> Do you even know what he looks like?"<br/>
<br/>
A nasty smile slides up the side of her face. "We said a long time ago, Will, that it wouldn't matter what we looked like inside these masks. We'd still be—" She bites on her grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, here, take a look at him!" You grab for your phone. "But even if he isn't— Even if you don't think he's—" <br/>
<br/>
You fall silent as you scroll through your album, and a very large album it is, too, with lots of selfies of yourself alone or with friends or at special places, or pictures of friends and of special places, or of random people or things that Amanda has snapped and uploaded to Instagram or other social media.<br/>
<br/>
But there's not one picture of her boyfriend. A faint chill settles between your shoulder blades.<br/>
<br/>
So you go online to find one. Sydney watches with puzzled amusement until she gets bored and goes back to working on the new brain band.<br/>
<br/>
"Here." You thrust the first photo you can find under her nose. "He's the one on the right. The other one is Seth Javits."<br/>
<br/>
"I know who Seth Javits is," Sydney says. "Oh," she says as she studies the screen. "I know him, I've got him in my Environmental Science class."<br/>
<br/>
"He looks like a frog, doesn't he?"<br/>
<br/>
"He does not, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, he looks like a prince that got turned into a frog, then got changed back, but the reversion spell didn't totally take."<br/>
<br/>
"Stop it. There's nothing wrong with him."<br/>
<br/>
"So you seriously want to <i>be</i> him."<br/>
<br/>
"Not permanently. But we need recruits and he could work. He looks really respectable—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God, is he."<br/>
<br/>
"—and I kind of like the idea of turning these clean-cut types into worshippers of Baphomet."<br/>
<br/>
You play your last card. "But he has a cock, Sydney!"<br/>
<br/>
"So? that's not a deal-breaker for me. It could be fun. I assume it is, guys are always trying to have fun with their peckers. Right?" She grins. "If you can have fun trying this stuff out—" She grabs and tweaks one of your boobs. "I can have fun crossing the line too!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't come to any decisions. In fact, you're so unnerved by Sydney's suggestion that she might play a guy—and Amanda's boyfriend!—that you cut the work session short. Sydney seems to pick up on your discomfort, for she gives you a lingering, open-mouthed kiss before letting you leave.<br/>
<br/>
You go back home only long enough to change into a new and looser-fitting dress. At school and at parties Amanda prefers clothes that are tight and constricting—the better to show off the figure she has striven so hard to attain—and especially likes anything made of leather, anything that has been crisply starched, or anything made of silk. It's a look that attracted some pretty unseemly attention—creeps sidling up close to whisper that they'll bring the handcuffs if she brings the whips—but it also seems to work pretty well at scaring the more casual creeps away. Amanda just has to give them a freezing look, and most guys wilt.<br/>
<br/>
But with her friends on a study date (which is where you're heading out for) she can put on something more comfortable. But still you will wear high-heeled sandals.<br/>
<br/>
It's Anthony's turn to pick the study venue, so at around about six-thirty you pack up your books and drive out to Balducci's Pizza, picking up Rachel and Brooke on the way. There's a dozen of you—the same kids who partied at Kelsey's last night—and you push together two large tables and unpack books. Amanda got most of her homework done Friday afternoon and evening; most everyone did, actually; and it's a good thing, too, for this "study session" is mostly given over to internet browsing on cell phones, ogling of the college students (furtively by the girls; less furtively by the guys), and watching the sports shows that are playing on the TVs hanging in the corners of the room. You finish off the little math homework that was left over while nibbling the cherry tomatoes off a gloppy and indifferent salad.<br/>
<br/>
Most of the time you spend watching Geoff and Lisa out of the corner of your eye, and watching Kelsey watching them. By the smoldering, slit-eyed glower that disfigures her face every time she glances over at them, you confirm your suspicion that the coming week is going to be rough for them.<br/>
<br/>
But why?<br/>
<br/>
Well, because Geoff is too good for Lisa; and because she's too good for him. That's what Amanda's gut tells you when you calm down enough to listen to it.<br/>
<br/>
And it is just a gut feeling, though one that Amanda and Kelsey have gossiped over indirectly. But you'd bet anything that this week Kelsey is going to start saying those kinds of things to other people.<br/>
<br/>
You get confirmation the next morning on your way in to school.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're wearing silk today—another dark one-piece dress that clings in a filmy way to your hips and thighs and bosoms—and black patent boots with spike heels. You cast a frigid glance at the asshole kid (probably a junior) in the football jersey and hockey hair who whistles at you in the parking lot. You're scarcely less cold to Deanna Showalter, who a moment later pops out from between two cars as you are stalking by and falls in next to you. "Oh my God," she gushes, "you're going to have start carrying mace if you keep coming to school dressed like that."<br/>
<br/>
"Dressed like what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like— Nothing." Deanna snickers through her nose. "I wish I could pull it off. But hey, I heard things got <i>really wild</i> at Kelsey's party this weekend."<br/>
<br/>
<i>You would have to </i>hear<i> about it, wouldn't you,</i> you think, <i>since Kelsey banished you until further notice for taking some compromising pictures at the last one she let you into.</i> "Where'd you hear it got wild?" you ask. "Because it didn't."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I just saw some chatter online. About Geoff and Lisa."<br/>
<br/>
You're wearing sunglasses, so she probably can't see your eyes flicking over at her. <br/>
<br/>
So Kelsey must have been up late last night, probably after you went to bed, posting her thoughts on Geoff and Lisa, because you didn't see anything like that online before you went to bed. And Kelsey knowing what Kelsey knows, she obviously dangled it out where she knew Deanna would be sure to hook onto it.<br/>
<br/>
She's a terrible gossip, Deanna is. Her idea of fun is to scurry around, letting everyone know what everyone else is doing, and then scurrying off to tell everyone else what everyone else thinks about the things that everyone else is doing. There's no malice in it—she is too sweetly stupid to be malicious—but if you want something to go viral at Westside, better to give it to Deanna than to put it on Twitter.<br/>
<br/>
"Pictures," you tell her. "Pictures or it didn't happen."<br/>
<br/>
She bites down hard on a smile. "Can't you give <i>me</i> a picture, Amanda?"<br/>
<br/>
So you stop and turn on her. <i>If this is what Kelsey wants,</i> you tell yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it doesn't hurt me if Geoff wants to use Lisa for an easy lay-up," you say, "and if Lisa's okay with being his easy lay-up. It's not like anyone gives a shit. You wanna say they got wild last Saturday," you continue as Deanna's mouth falls open, "then say they got wild last Saturday. Except Lisa wouldn't know wild if she was standing in the middle of a zoo in the middle of a tornado, and Geoff's idea of wild involves leaving home with less than a full tank of gas. For them, sure, they were swinging from the lamp fixtures all night long. For the rest of us, they might as well have been knitting mittens. I've got to get to my locker, Deanna," you close with a snap, "and I'm not talking about this where anyone can hear."<br/>
<br/>
You don't have to, not after talking about it to her.<br/>
<br/>
And on your way to your locker you spot Blake at his. His friend Erik is looming behind him. Neither one sees you walking up.<br/>
<br/>
So you have to poke Blake in the side of the hip to get his attention.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211
author_id: seuzz
title: When Troubles Pile In
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You have to poke Blake a second time before he turns to face you; behind him, his friend Erik Carstairs smirks over at you.<br/>
<br/>
It's weird being this close up to Blake. Weird to have him looking down at you blankly without knowing that you're really the guy (he thinks) who stole Sydney out from under his nose. Weird to have the scent of his hoodie and the musk of his skin floating up your nostrils. Weirdest of all to look into his face and to be able to think, <i>I know you, Blake, I know all about you, I've been you. I've been inside your head and I've been inside your skin and I know what it is like to be you. And if I wanted to I could be you again, here, at school with your friends or at home with your family, and no one would guess it wasn't you anymore. Because I would look and talk and strut and smell just like you. <br/>
<br/>
You asshole.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he growls back. His dark, watchful eyes rake you from ankles up to your eyebrows in one hard, fast glance.<br/>
<br/>
"So when are you going to ask me out?"<br/>
<br/>
It's the line you settled on last night as you were trying on dresses to wear while making the approach. It seemed the kind of coldly confident line that Amanda would use on a guy if she absolutely knew that he was crazy for her, and if she was interested in him. <br/>
<br/>
Blake blinks once, slowly. Behind him, Erik stifles a guffaw. You say nothing, but only frown from under a lifted eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
Blake sucks in a cheek. "What do you mean?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think I mean? Are you ever going to ask me out? Because you don't act like you are."<br/>
<br/>
Blake blinks again. Erik shoves him in the shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know it was a thing," Blake says.<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't know what was a thing? Asking girls out?"<br/>
<br/>
"No." He glances around, then leans in close, so that you feel his breath on your face. "I didn't know it was a thing I could do with <i>you.</i> Asking <i>you</i> out."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
His expression tightens. "So, are <i>you</i> asking <i>me</i> out?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I'm asking when you're going to ask <i>me</i> out. You don't have to, you know," you continue. "You've done a freaking great job of not asking me out all year so far, and all last year too. It's like one of the things you do best, not asking me out. Maybe you stay up late getting extra practice at it, not asking me out?"<br/>
<br/>
Behind him, Erik claps his hands over his face and slides out of sight to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
You tilt your chin and peer up at Blake. "I'm not telling you that you have to ask me out, whatever your name is," you tell him. "That's totally up to you. But if you're going to ask me out, can you at least give me some idea of when that might be?"<br/>
<br/>
His jaw works. "Um," he says, "later on today?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's fine," you say. "Was that so hard?"<br/>
<br/>
With a sniff you turn your back on him and stride off to your first-period class.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Which is Sociology with Mr. Walberg, the same first-period class you had when you were Will Prescott. A sloppy, straw-headed kid answering to that name is already slumped in a desk when you walk in, and his eyes dart expectantly up at you. You only give him the briefest of glances—which is more than Amanda usually gives you—before taking your seat in front of Kelsey. After hanging your bag on the back of the chair, you lean over her desk to say, "Deanna heard all about Geoff and Lisa Saturday night." You cast a meaningful glance past her, to where Geoff and Lisa are sitting, studying their cell phones.<br/>
<br/>
"Fsh, no surprise," Kelsey mutters. "What's she saying?"<br/>
<br/>
"That things got wild at your place."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God!" Kelsey whips around to glare at the two lovebirds, then leans in to hiss at you. "I wasn't going to say anything about it to them, you know—"<br/>
<br/>
"Why not, it was your house they were dry-humping each other in, right in front of—"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I don't want to be a <i>bitch</i> about it, Amanda. But I guess I'm going to have to. God! You know, if they'd just gone and done it in the laundry room or something, that would have been— Well, no. I <i>was</i> going to say it would have been alright, nothing a little air freshener couldn't have cleared up. But if people are <i>talking</i> about it—"<br/>
<br/>
"You can't let it get around," you agree. "You don't let that kind of thing go on at your place. Not like the stuff Meghan lets go on at <i>her</i> parties."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey's eyes glint. She'll never thank you for it, but for the rest of the week that'll be the line she's bound to try trot out: <i>I don't tolerate that kind of shit at my place. If people want that kind of action, Meghan Farris will be glad to oblige.</i><br/>
<br/>
Kelsey hisses at you a little more, and when Brooke sits down behind, she turns to hiss at her, demanding to know what she's heard and what she's said about Geoff and Lisa. By the look of confusion on Brooke's face, you can tell that this is mostly all new to her.<br/>
<br/>
And behind Brooke you watch out of the corner of your eye as Caleb sits beside Will and totally ignores his former best friend.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's humbling to discover that Mr. Walberg's class, which was one of the most challenging on your schedule, is Amanda's designated blow-off class. But after his Sociology class you have a solid run of AP classes: AP Calculus, AP Physics I, AP German IV; and after lunch AP English IV and AP European History. Only at the end of school do you have a study hall of sorts: Student Congress. It should be given over to research and mock debates, but Mrs. Wendt turns a blind eye by letting the members break up into "committees" to "study" "legislative issues"—which is a fig leaf for forming study groups where one kid does all the work while everyone else does homework. <br/>
<br/>
But then: <i>It's the way most committees work,</i> she has said the class. <i>A couple of people on the committee do all the work and the rest try to catch a free ride and hope they don't get caught out. It's up to you whether you want to make the same gamble.</i><br/>
<br/>
That's why your "committee" is made up of yourself, Kelsey, and Ricky, with Ricky doing all the work. He won't dare fuck anything up, not with his girlfriend and her best friend riding on his ass. That leaves you and Kelsey free to concentrate on math homework.<br/>
<br/>
But Kelsey's got other news when she slides into the seat next to yours. "Is Sydney McGlynn still pestering you?" she asks. When you shrug—yes, you got a text from Sydney asking to meet up after school; but you're not going to admit to that unless there's profit in it—she says, "Well, get together with her. You and me and her. This afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
Across the table, Ricky glances up. He's poker-faced, despite clearly noticing that <i>he</i> is not included in Kelsey's directive. "Why would you want to do that?" you ask Kelsey.<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't hear what happened to her boyfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
"Boyfriend?" A penny drops. "Oh."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>did</i> hear!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I just forgot she had one."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey smirks. "Well, maybe not for long she won't. David Kirkham got hold of him at lunch."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, shit.</i> You were basically hoping that Kirkham wasn't going to follow through on his threats. But you keep your expression neutral. "What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I want to find out. It was about Sydney, from what I heard. David was going on about her, like—" She glances around and leans in close. "What he wanted to do to her, and how much she was going to love it." Her glance turns very prim and very knowing.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God." You shudder in horrified sympathy for your double. Really, better him than you, but it so easily could have been and should have been you. "Freaking creep."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what I want to know is, is she going to stand for it?'<br/>
<br/>
"Who, Sydney? What can she do?"<br/>
<br/>
"She can break up with Will for a start. It would be best for him anyway. She's totally out of his class," she adds with a sniff.<br/>
<br/>
Anger boils in your veins, but you affect to be neutral. "What, you want to try talking her into breaking up with him?"<br/>
<br/>
"We should just explain the facts to her."<br/>
<br/>
"Since when do you give a shit about Sydney? Or about <i>Will?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
She gives you a withering look. "I don't. But like I say, we should explain the facts to her. Like the fact that her boyfriend is going to break up with her sooner or later and probably sooner. Because Will is <i>not</i> the kind of guy to stand up for himself against guys like David."<br/>
<br/>
You clench your toes inside your boots. "I'll see what I can set up," you tell Kelsey.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're on your way out to the student parking lot when someone catches your elbow. It's Erik Carstairs. "Hey," he says with a smirk. "You serious about going out with Blake?"<br/>
<br/>
You jerk away. "I didn't say I was going to go out with him. I said—"<br/>
<br/>
"Cut the shit. Are you looking to trade in your current boyfriend for a new model? 'Cos you <i>are</i> dating someone."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney wants a mask, preferably this afternoon. Erik has just put himself down as fourth on a list of potentials.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111
author_id: seuzz
title: A Girlfriend Becomes a Best Friend
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I sure hope it was your idea to come talk to me and not Blake's," you tell Erik, "and I sure hope he doesn't know about it. 'Cos it's a chickenshit move for a guy to send his friend to talk to a girl when he should be talking to her himself."<br/>
<br/>
Erik turns very red, and punches a locker door. Then, with a glower, he stalks away.<br/>
<br/>
It was probably a mistake to piss Blake's friend off that way, but you're willing to trust your instinct—Amanda's instinct—that it will actually goad Blake into declaring himself.<br/>
<br/>
At least, that's now the only gamble you can take.<br/>
<br/>
But you needed to get rid of Erik, for there's someone else more important for you to meet up with.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Can't these girls ever get anyplace on time?" Sydney grumbles to you an hour later. She's perched on her windowsill, looking down into her driveway. "When I get invited to someone's house—"<br/>
<br/>
"You know what Kelsey would say if she heard you saying that?" you interrupt. "She'd say you're an entitled brat who expects everyone to drop everything for your convenience." Sydney makes a face at you; you step up and brush a bang from her face. "But Kelsey's one to talk. She's always late because <i>she's</i> an entitled— Well, you'll find out for yourself soon."<br/>
<br/>
You and Sydney hold each other's gaze. For a moment you hesitate, wondering if she'll find it weird for you to kiss her. <i>Oh, hell,</i> you decide. <i>After last Saturday she'll find it weird if I don't.</i> So you put your face into hers and pull gently at her lips with yours. She kisses you back. You tug harder, and your hand goes to the back of her head as she slips an arm around your shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
You nuzzle for a bit, even after breaking off, but you're interrupted soon enough by the sound of a motor below.<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey, like Amanda, drives a BMW, but hers is brand new, and it's a convertible. She's got the top up, though, and the gleam off the tinted windshield prevents you from seeing into the cabin. A text pops up on your cell: <i>I'm here.</i> You roll your eyes, and tell Sydney she should go downstairs so Kelsey doesn't have to risk straining her finger by ringing the bell. "She sounds so lovely, Will," Sydney tells you at the doorway. "I can't thank you enough for suggesting I turn myself into this girl."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you're the one who—" But Sydney is gone before you can finish your protest.<br/>
<br/>
You pace the room with arms tightly folded across your chest, double-checking out of the corner of your eye that the new mask is at the ready on the bed. You just have to get it on Kelsey; the one that copies Sydney is in the bathroom, prepped and ready to be slapped onto the victim.<br/>
<br/>
A murmur of voices outside the door gives you a rush of anticipation; it opens and Sydney and Kelsey come in. Kelsey is smiling brightly, and her eyes dance with a keen light. "Oh my God, this is so gorgeous," she gushes. You cringe inside. Her tone isn't obviously insincere, but Amanda's ears are tuned to pick up the hidden emotions: humor, disdain, and embarrassment for Sydney's house and room.<br/>
<br/>
"I love your ceiling," she says. "It's so high, makes the whole room so light and airy. And look at that," she adds, marching up to the window. "You look right out over the driveway." That will be the height of hilarity when she gossips about it later—a girl whose bedroom is <i>right over the garage,</i> like a chauffeur's. There will be much laughter over it, and she might even have to brush a thin stream of snot away with the back of her hand from laughing so hard when she recalls it. <i>Poor Sydney,</i> she'll marvel, <i>she doesn't even know how declasse it is!</i><br/>
<br/>
Except it won't be Kelsey when you leave here with her. It will by Sydney in a Kelsey mask.<br/>
<br/>
Well, maybe she'll giggle about it anyway.<br/>
<br/>
You watch with a tight smile, waiting for some sign from Sydney that she's ready for you to make a move. But she just listens and answers Kelsey's questions and asks some of her own like a good hostess. She even asks you what you'll have when Kelsey (rather pointedly) asks her for a sparkling water; "I'll have whatever," you tell her, and she beams.<br/>
<br/>
"God," Kelsey says after she's gone. "I'm so sorry I'm late."<br/>
<br/>
"No you're not."<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>am.</i> Leaving you here alone with her. Here."<br/>
<br/>
"Her place is nicer than mine," you dryly observe.<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey gives you a look. "It's not about what you've got, it's about what you pretend you've got. You and your family don't make any pretensions, Mandy," she continues, using a grade-school nickname that Amanda hates and shook off years ago, and which Kelsey only revives when she's trying to be <i>just-us-girls intimate.</i> "But this place. Tch. They live on the wrong side of Rambling Oak," she concludes with a knowing look. That's the rich people's equivalent of "wrong side of the railroad tracks," meaning "Too close too town." "What have you told her?" Kelsey asks when you don't reply.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. I got here just before you did."<br/>
<br/>
"Tch. Well, I think we need to be diplomatic. Not say anything to her about Will, it'll just make her defensive. We need to tell her about some guys we can set her up with."<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw falls open. "Way to spring this on me, Kelsey. Who am I supposed to tell her she should be dating?"<br/>
<br/>
"It doesn't matter. Just someone plausible. Anyone who comes into your head. No one that's going to hang out with us, though," she adds, giving you another look. "Just follow my lead," she says as the door opens and Sydney returns with two bottles of water. "Thanks so much!" Kelsey chirps at her, and puts out a hand.<br/>
<br/>
And that's all you can take. You snatch up the mask, and before Kelsey can grasp the proffered water, you grab her from behind and push the mask into her. All the strength leaves her limbs, and she drags you with her as she collapses to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney yells at you a little for having jumped in that way—"I wanted to be the one to do it!"—but soon forgets it as she helps you haul Kelsey onto the bed. "She's in pretty good shape," she mutters as she tugs Kelsey's jeans off.<br/>
<br/>
"She was a cheerleader up until this year. She was going to be captain of the squad."<br/>
<br/>
"What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"Chelsea Cooper happened," you snicker. "She still does gymnastics though, and she plays tennis."<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't seen her at afterschool practice."<br/>
<br/>
"You wouldn't, Sydney. She goes to a private academy."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's shy about looking at Kelsey directly after the clothes are off, but you settle back against the desk to drink in the form of Amanda's best friend. Kelsey is slim and sculpted by workouts, with tight abs and strong muscles in her slender arms and legs. Her breasts are large and well-formed, and her brunette hair falls in long, tapered strands past her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess this is where we make a new version of me," Sydney mutters after the mask has come again. She's been glancing nervously at the bathroom all this time, but not until you make a move toward the door does she pre-empt you by ducking into the bathroom to get the mask of herself. Still, she hesitates over Kelsey once she's back with it in her hand.<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to do it for you?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
She winces, and for a moment it looks like she's going to leap on Kelsey and jam the mask onto her. But instead—and it still surprises you when she does, despite your offer—she thrusts it at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," she says, sounding breathless. "I'll be in the bathroom. Finishing up." She yanks the mask of Kelsey from your hands and runs into the bathroom without waiting for your reply. The door claps shut behind her with a bang.<br/>
<br/>
And now you find yourself feeling shy about putting the mask onto Kelsey, and summoning into existence another Sydney McGlynn.<br/>
<br/>
Why is that? You'd rather puzzle over that question, you find, than push past it to complete the spell.<br/>
<br/>
You've done worse: Somewhere in town is a duplicate of Sydney's stepfather. You've done the same: Somewhere down in Acheson is a duplicate of yourself.<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney's stepfather deserved to be turned into a <i>pedisequos.</i> And Will Prescott ... Well, he's just a stupid teenage boy.<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney is special. She's your girlfriend. Making another one of her wouldn't be like doubling a good thing. It would be like making her less special, somehow, almost as if you're dividing her in two. <br/>
<br/>
And what if—<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh God.</i> Your mouth puckers up into a perfect "O" of horror.<br/>
<br/>
What if you find yourself just as attracted to—or even more attracted to—her duplicate than to her? The duplicate will look just like her, and will act like her. Whereas Sydney will be imitating and channeling Kelsey Blankenship.<br/>
<br/>
So for the longest time you're unable to move, as though petrified in amber. The mask becomes very heavy in your hands.<br/>
<br/>
Not until there's a flicker of movement under Kelsey's eyelids can you stir. And then it's with a shiver of horror that you step up and place the mask onto Kelsey.<br/>
<br/>
Her face vanishes and Sydney's appears. Her eyes pop open, and she does a double-take at you. Then, when she lurches up onto one elbow, she does a double-take down at her exposed body.<br/>
<br/>
"Will?" she says in a do-not-fuck-with-me tone of voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"What is going on?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you know?" An icicle of fear shoots up your spine.<br/>
<br/>
Fake-Sydney sweeps the bedspread over herself, to hide her nakedness. Her eyes narrow into slits. "You didn't have to take my clothes off to copy me into that mask, did you? Because I don't remember taking them off before we—"<br/>
<br/>
The bathroom door opens, and Kelsey Blankenship looks out. She and Sydney lock eyes.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111
author_id: seuzz
title: A Girl Who's Unsure of Herself
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Will?" says the thing that looks like  your girlfriend. She pulls the bedspread tighter around her naked form. Across the room, the person who looks like Kelsey Blankenship peeps out from between the bathroom door and the frame with an anxious look.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," you say, "everyone here just keep calm." You point at the girl on the bed. "What do you think is going on here?"<br/>
<br/>
She bites her lip. "Um, I thought we were getting together to—" She winces at the girl behind the bathroom door.<br/>
<br/>
"That's right," you say. "That's what we're doing and that's what we did. You're the ... um ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God!" the <i>pedisequos</i> squeals. <br/>
<br/>
"Will," says the girl who looks like Kelsey, "what is going on out here?"<br/>
<br/>
"We seem to be having a little identity crisis."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, can you give me Kelsey's clothes while you're taking care of it?"<br/>
<br/>
You want to tell her that she's got to help, but she's looking more than a little freaked out herself, so you scoop up Kelsey's things—which are neatly folded in a small pile—and hustle them over to her. She takes them, and shuts the door in your face.<br/>
<br/>
You turn to the Sydney who is scrunched up on the bed. She is very pale beneath her fading tan, and her eyes are very wide. "Um—" you say again.<br/>
<br/>
She covers her face with her hands. "Oh, God," she says. "I should have known this was going to happen."<br/>
<br/>
"What was?"<br/>
<br/>
She looks up at you from between her fingers. "That I—" She swallows. "That I—" But she can't get any further. When she drops her hands, you see that her eyes are puffy and red.<br/>
<br/>
Before you can find any words, she jumps up—showing you her small, taut body in all its naked beauty—and runs to the dresser. "Never mind," she mumbles. "I should get dressed and just get on with it. Just get on with being—" She swallows again.<br/>
<br/>
You ache all over as you watch her fumble herself into panties and bra and t-shirt and jeans. She is acting just like Sydney would. Or, rather, like Sydney would if she had just discovered that she wasn't the real Sydney, that she was a fake version of herself, created to take her place and keep it warm while the real girl is off being someone else.<br/>
<br/>
You are torn between the urge to put your arms around her and comfort her, and the intuition that you should leave well enough alone. <i>It's not real,</i> you tell yourself. <i>Nothing about it is real. It's just doing the things that Sydney would do, but it doesn't really feel or think anything.</i><br/>
<br/>
But that's a hard belief to hang on to when it keeps sniffling and brushing its hair from its face and intentionally not looking at you.<br/>
<br/>
Very quickly it is dressed, and it lifts a brave face toward you after it has a pair of ratty sneakers tied onto its bare feet. "Okay, Will," it says, "I suppose my job now is to just carry on like nothing's changed. I suppose that's what—" There's that same heavy flutter at her throat. "What I'm going to be told to do," she concludes somewhat lamely. "So I'll—"<br/>
<br/>
She turns toward the bedroom door, but before she can reach it the bathroom door opens and Kelsey Blankenship comes out. Her expression is wary and her tread tentative. Again, the two versions of Sydney McGlynn freeze when they see each other.<br/>
<br/>
You break the silence with "Look, you're going to have to say something to each other," and when neither one answers, you say, "There's nothing else for me to do here." That only earns you some grimaces from the girls.<br/>
<br/>
And that's enough for you.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm serious," you say as you brush past them. "Whatever you need to say to each other, work it out without me. As long as I'm here, I'm probably stopping you."<br/>
<br/>
You go down the stairs and out the front door. You get in your car, and because it's no fun waiting in a warm car for who knows how long the Sydneys will be at it, you pull out into the street and just start driving.<br/>
<br/>
You don't stop until you're on the other side of the city at Cafe Oro, the ritzy coffee bar that is Amanda's and Kelsey's favorite hangout.<br/>
<br/>
Even though you feel that you made the right call in running out on that scene in Sydney's bedroom, you can't help dreading the sequel. What words will Sydney have for you when you see her again, under the influence of Kelsey's personality? Luckily (or not) you're not given long to wonder, for you've just sat at a small table by a window looking out over Fells Lake when a text pops up from Kelsey's account: <i>Where are you?<br/>
<br/>
Cafe Oro,</i> you reply. <i>Meet me up here?</i><br/>
<br/>
Your first inkling that things are even more dire than you'd feared comes when Sydney replies, <i>Where's that?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"I'm sorry, Will!" Sydney exclaims once she's seated across the table from you at Cafe Oro. "I've never heard of this place before!"<br/>
<br/>
"Amanda," you correct her. "Let's keep our names straight."<br/>
<br/>
But it's going to be hard thinking of the girl sitting across from you as anyone but "Sydney," despite her having the face and figure of Kelsey Blankenship, and despite her sounding nettled and exasperated.<br/>
<br/>
You had to give her directions—Imagine! Giving Kelsey Blankenship directions to The Shoppes at Fells Lake!—and she was looking blown and pissed when she came bustling in. It's not unusual for Kelsey to have a blustery expression when she appears, but today she is disordered all over with "off" notes.<br/>
<br/>
Her clothes aren't on right, for a start. Oh, she's not wearing her sandals on her hands and her skirt over her head. But her lines are crooked, and your eye keeps traveling up and down the front of her blouse to find the button that (you're sure) has been slipped through the wrong hole. Her skirt was twisted just a little too far to the side, and the tiny braids in her hair flow in the wrong direction, like she's wearing a wig that hasn't been set on straight.<br/>
<br/>
Her expression is wrong, too. Kelsey "gives ulcers instead of getting them," as the saying goes, but there's real worry in her gray eyes, and her frown is softer than is its wont. There's a tentativeness in her movements, and she keeps twitching her shoulders, as though the straps of her bra are binding or slipping off.<br/>
<br/>
She's also much more soft-spoken. She's exasperated, yes, but with fear rather than anger.<br/>
<br/>
And you can't blame Sydney—for despite the fear and worry and exasperation, she still radiates Sydney's air of confidence and ease—for being upset. Not only has she no knowledge or memory of Cafe Oro, as Kelsey should have, she has no knowledge or memories of anything that Kelsey should.<br/>
<br/>
"Does it feel like there's a block?" you ask after she's explained the depth and dimension of her ignorance. "Like, there's something between you and—?"<br/>
<br/>
"No! I don't think so." She sips from her coffee, holding it with both hands—another non-Kelsey habit. "It's like, there's just <i>me</i> inside here. What's it feel like for you?" Her glance turns sharp.<br/>
<br/>
You have to shrug. It's like you're you and like you're Amanda, all at once, all at the same time. <i>Like those optical illusions where the picture can look one way or another,</i> it has occurred to you. <i>Like a rabbit or a duck, depending on how you want to see it.</i> Sometimes you can force yourself to think in a very Amanda-like way, and sometimes you can force yourself to be yourself. But sometimes you slip from one to the other without realizing it.<br/>
<br/>
Right now you're trying to balance between the two. As Will Prescott you have grave sympathy for Sydney; but Amanda has a cooler head in a crisis. "Maybe if we got you to relax," you suggest. "Just forget about what's going on, who you're supposed to be. Like when you try to remember a name or where you put something. If you concentrate you can't get it, if you relax it'll come to you."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney makes a face. "Hard to forget what's happened. I feel funny all over." She rolls her shoulders again.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like I'm wearing the wrong clothes. I am, sort of, these aren't mine, you know. But like I'm in the wrong body." She frowns. "I had the same feeling when I put on that mask of your friend, but I figured it was only because, you know, it was a guy's body."<br/>
<br/>
You glance around. She's talking in a low voice, but it's not a subject that should be talked of aloud. Luckily, the tiny cafe is almost empty.<br/>
<br/>
"You couldn't get Caleb's memories either," you remind her.<br/>
<br/>
"So what is it with these masks, that you can get them but I can't?" The question is querulous, but her tone isn't. "Is it because you're the technical owner of the book?"<br/>
<br/>
The thought had occurred to you. But then, why would the masks work to make the physical disguise but not the mental disguise? "Maybe we should run some experiments. But let's give the mask a chance to do its work first. You can stay out all night if you have to."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know if I can," she protests.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm telling you that you can. Kelsey's parents let her run around doing whatever, you can stay over at my place if you want. But what happened with your <i>pedisequos</i> after I left?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wish you hadn't run out on us like that," she grumbles, "but we're okay. It was freaking weird, I'll tell you that much."<br/>
<br/>
"It was weird for me too."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney nods, and gazes vacantly past your ear. She sips some more coffee, then says after setting the cup back down, "I had to give Nicholas a good talking-to."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"So he'd leave the fake me alone. I could see it in his eyes, Will, when we ran into him in the living room. He was like a rabid wolf, and he wanted to tear into her."<br/>
<br/>
Fear shows in her eyes. "I'm starting to think I'm not cut out for this impersonation business."</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112
author_id: seuzz
title: A Call Across the Dimensions
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Don't let it get you down, girl," you tell Sydney. You lay a hand over hers. "This doesn't sound like you."<br/>
<br/>
"Who does it sound like?" she snaps back. "Or who <i>doesn't</i> it sound like? You mean it doesn't sound like me, or it doesn't sound like Kelsey?" She stumbles a little over the name of the girl whose face she has stolen.<br/>
<br/>
"It doesn't sound like either of you. But come on, let's finish up here and go back to my place." You gather up your stuff, despite Sydney's frown. "I haven't done any of that—" You shy away from uttering the name "Baphomet" in public. "The stuff you wanted me to set up in my closet." You give her a knowing look. "The girl I know would be all into helping me with that."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And most of her confidence has returned once you're back at your house and she has that dildo-shaped "meditation wand" in her hand. Almost she could pass for Kelsey with those who know the girl intimately, except that she lacks the bossy edge that Kelsey is never quite without.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, we'll put the door here," she says after thrusting aside the outfits hanging inside the walk-in closet. "You'll have to draw it yourself, you know," she continues, and thrusts the wand at you. "Just trace a rectangle from the baseboards up to, you know, eye level or something, then back down."<br/>
<br/>
You do as directed; the tip of the wand leaves no mark on the wall, but it shivers a little in your hand as you drag it loudly across the paint and plaster.<br/>
<br/>
"Now," Sydney says, holding a sheet of paper out for you to study, "draw these symbols around the perimeter."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not sure I'm copying them correctly," you admit after you've scratched the third invisible symbol onto the wall. "I'm not even sure I'm putting them on the right side of line."<br/>
<br/>
"You're doing fine," Sydney says. "I'm watching."<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't you say something about a chant I have to perform?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not until you put up the second set of symbols. Which reminds me, do you have a—?"<br/>
<br/>
She's interrupted by a rap at the bedroom door. You exchange a worried glance, then press the wand onto Sydney as you go out to answer the knock.<br/>
<br/>
It's Amanda's mom—a chunkier iteration of her daughter, and a perpetual incentive to stick to her diet regimen—asking if Kelsey is staying for dinner. You make a show of shouting the question to Sydney, and she shouts back in the affirmative. "Any chance of your parents going out?" Sydney asks when you rejoin her. "Because the chant makes a lot of noise."<br/>
<br/>
"We could cover it up with some music?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I was going to suggest. But it would be better if they just didn't hear anything."<br/>
<br/>
You wonder what it could possibly sound like—something really horrible and demonic?—and suggest suspending operations until you have the house to yourselves. Sydney agrees, but makes you finish the first set of symbols before breaking off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
During the break you seize the opportunity to straighten out the lines on her clothes, then set her in a chair at your vanity table to brush and correct her hair. You also have her take out her phone and go online while you work: "You should at least try to catch up on Kelsey's social accounts."<br/>
<br/>
"Why? I don't think I'm going to stick it out as her."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you are. At the very least, you should look over her things. It might stimulate the memories."<br/>
<br/>
So she scrolls through the internet while you touch her up all over and tell her what she is supposed to know and what she is supposed to think. About Brooke Galloway, for instance: "She worships the ground you walk on. I don't know why, because you're always belittling her. Not that I blame you. Brooke barely knows her left foot from her right." Olivia Byrne: "Her parents are friends of hers, and that's the only reason you're friends with her. Oh, hell, all our parents are friends of each other, we all know each other through the country club. But she's got a good head on her shoulders." Rachel Burton: "She sweet but she's dumb. Not book dumb, she gets good grades. But you have to <i>explain</i> things to her."<br/>
<br/>
And the boys? Anthony Kirk: "He's super-smart and super-arrogant." Geoff Mansfield: "Super-smart and super-arrogant." Martin Gardinhire: "Super-smart and super-arrogant."<br/>
<br/>
"All of the guys are like that?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, just those three. Except Anthony's got a right to be super-arrogant, he's going to get a golf scholarship <i>and</i> an academic scholarship at one of the Ivy Leagues. Geoff's as smart as Anthony, but he's more of an asshole about it. Martin's problem is that he can't get laid."<br/>
<br/>
"How is that a problem?"<br/>
<br/>
You give one of her strands a sharp tug. "Maybe I should have turned you into my boyfriend, then you'd know why not getting laid is a problem for a guy."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I what I meant was, you make it sound like it's a personality disorder."<br/>
<br/>
"With Martin it is. If he got laid he might not be such a stuck-up prick."<br/>
<br/>
"Kelsey's sure got herself a charming set of friends."<br/>
<br/>
You grunt. "They're just hyper-competitive. And like I said, they all know each other through the country club, if they didn't— Well, I don't know who they'd be friends with. Maybe no one."<br/>
<br/>
After that you tell her a little more about Ricky and about Amanda's history with him, and about Brent Pruitt, who is super-smart but not super-arrogant, and so gets kicked around by everyone else in the group.<br/>
<br/>
You don't tell her anything about Lisa.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But despite all these attempts to stimulate Kelsey's memories, Sydney says she's not picking up any up. But she's a quick study, and when texts start rolling in from friends and acquaintances after dinner, she's able to answer them in a way that at least sounds in character. But the crisis comes when you start to do homework together, and you glance over at her paper long enough to see that there's something seriously wrong with it. "Oh my God," you murmur.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Your handwriting. It's not Kelsey's."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney looks down at her paper, and freezes.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, don't panic," you start to say, but she scrambles off the floor and onto your bed, where she thrashes while grabbing at her face.<br/>
<br/>
"Get it off me," she growls. "Get it off me, this isn't going to work, I can't—"<br/>
<br/>
You wrench her hands away. She glares up at you, breathing heavily.<br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow, after school," you promise her, "if you're still blocked we'll switch the masks around. You can go back to being yourself, and Kelsey will— Well, we'll figure out something about Kelsey. But just give it twenty-four hours, Sydney, just give it a chance to—"<br/>
<br/>
"I won't be able to fool anyone at school, Will!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you will. You look just like Kelsey, you dress just like her. You think people won't know you're Kelsey? You think they'll spot you for an imposter? Bullshit. I bet none of them will notice a thing. Just give it a chance."<br/>
<br/>
She grumbles some more, but relents when you tell her that she can stay out until midnight with you, and that you'll even go home with her in order to make sure she gets into the right bedroom at Kelsey's place. As for the night's homework: It would be out of character, but Kelsey can afford to miss one day of it.<br/>
<br/>
Around about nine, you decide you can't put off work on the portal anymore, parents or no parents. So you put on some music, stuff a comforter in the cracks under your bedroom door, and shut yourself inside the closet with Sydney. She gives you the meditation wand while holding the instructions so you can both read off them.<br/>
<br/>
"The actual pronunciation isn't really important," she explains. "It's not magic words. It's more like a call, like shouting out 'Here I am' into the dimension on the other side. But, you know, try to get the sounds somewhere in the ballpark."<br/>
<br/>
You nod while quietly shivering at the idea of shouting "Here I am!" to a demon while outlining a door for it to come through.<br/>
<br/>
"Ready?" Sydney says. "The first one goes like—"<br/>
<br/>
And what comes out of her mouth is the most horrible noise you've ever heard.<br/>
<br/>
It's not the actual sounds that are horrible, or the squealing tenor of her voice. But there's a note behind and inside it: something sub-human and animalistic. <br/>
<br/>
Worse, it's the sound of something that was once human, but is now just an animal. <br/>
<br/>
It's the squeal of a thing that was once a person but has thrown itself back onto its four limbs, shat its humanity out of its hindquarters, and turned itself into a pig.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think I can say that," you stammer when she's done.<br/>
<br/>
"You have to try, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"But—"<br/>
<br/>
"Try!" And she frowns in a way that Kelsey Blankenship would have frowned at you.<br/>
<br/>
So you turn to the portal, touch the invisible door with the tip of the wand, and scream.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Eeooworgch-hwee!</i><br/>
<br/>
A hard tremble runs through you.<br/>
<br/>
"Now try it again," Sydney says, "and this time trace out the symbol while you do it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Around the perimeter of the portal you trace the symbols while screaming like a frightened brute. Physically, there's nothing to it, but you're wrung out when you're done, and gratefully accept Sydney's suggestion that you go out for a chai. Even so fortified, you feel a wreck, though you keep her out until it's past eleven. Not until it's nearly midnight do you follow her home and lead her upstairs to her bedroom to put her to bed.<br/>
<br/>
Your own house is dark when you return, and you creep quietly and tentatively back to your room. Inside you shut the door and turn on the light.<br/>
<br/>
Is it only in your imagination that you see the closet door pull itself noiselessly shut?</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121
author_id: seuzz
title: Demons by Night, Demons by Daylight
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You stare at the closet, and your hand twitches on the knob of the bedroom door.<br/>
<br/>
<i>It was my imagination,</i> you try to assure yourself. <i>Just nerves. The door didn't close by itself. It couldn't have, it would have made a noise, it would have gone </i>thump.<i> I would've heard the door dragging across the carpet.<br/>
<br/>
And so what if it did? It was just the change in air pressure as I came in the room.</i><br/>
<br/>
You could check. You could test the door, you could look inside the closet.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't. For you can't shake the impression that it was <i>pulled shut</i> from within.<br/>
<br/>
You watch it from the corner of your eye as you undress, and you don't put your back to it, even when you sidle over to flick off the light. The room vanishes into shadow. You stumble with trembling limbs onto and into the bed. For the first time since you were very little, you are actually afraid that there's something in your closet.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, that was the point, wasn't it?</i> you remind yourself as you wrap the sheets tight about yourself. <i>That's what Sydney said, the point is to make yourself believe there's a portal in there, for Baphomet to come through.</i> At the time you didn't think much of it. Or, at least, you didn't realize exactly what it would feel like: to imagine that behind one door there is another, and that on the other side of that door is a thing snuffling at the cracks for a way to get in.<br/>
<br/>
You hide under the covers. Sometime later, when you aren't looking, you fall asleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're woken early from a deep sleep and a dark dream about swimming through cold, underground channels by the chime of an incoming text. You squint at your phone through a fog of early-morning darkness and just-dispelled sleep: <i>Meet me at Borman McDs asap.</i> It's from Kelsey's phone.<br/>
<br/>
You groan and turn over and only with supreme willpower stop yourself from falling back asleep. <i>Now, Sydney?</i> you mutter into your pillow. <i>You can't wait to switch out of Kelsey's mask until after—?</i> You look at your phone, and cuss when you see just how early it is.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney said ASAP, so you're at the McDonald's on Borman Road just after they open, a little after six. A cup of hot and bitter coffee acts drives sharp spikes into the back of your eyeballs, but your limbs are dragging. Your humor isn't improved by the fact that Sydney doesn't appear for almost another forty minutes.<br/>
<br/>
Or is it Sydney? The girl who strides in has all the imperious hauteur of Kelsey Blankenship. Her eye is sharp and her frown cloudy as she drops her bag with a bang on the Formica tabletop in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
But you're not to be intimidated. "Where the fuck have you been?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't cuss at me, Amanda. I was getting ready. I've been up longer than you."<br/>
<br/>
You glance her up and down: a men's buckskin shirt with fringe dripping over the chest; a dark jeans-skirt with beading up the side; and cowboy boots. When she tucks back a strand of her hair—intentionally so, you'd bet, so you'll notice them—square turquoise earrings glow dully in her lobes. And is she wearing a thin head-band—a leather string—up just over her hairline?<br/>
<br/>
"Am I to take it," you ask her, "that you and Kelsey got acquainted last night?"<br/>
<br/>
She gives you a look as she unzips her pack.<br/>
<br/>
"I woke up a little after five," she says, "in a perfect panic attack because I hadn't got my homework done. I was actually up and at my desk and starting my first math problem when I remembered who I am and who I'm supposed to be, and which one is which. God, Will." She presses her temples between her hands. "How do you keep it straight?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just go with whoever has the strongest feeling about what's happening. Right now, for instance, I'm feeling like telling you to go fuck yourself for dragging me out of my house without so much as a shower—"<br/>
<br/>
"I've got homework to do, that's why you're here," she says as she pulls out her Statistics book. "I can't do it without someone around. Besides, we've got stuff to talk about."<br/>
<br/>
"What stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will and Sydney," she says. "And David Kirkham." She gives you a very knowing look before turning to go buy some coffee.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Jesus, Will," she mutters when she's back. She's bent over her homework, but she keeps glancing up at you as she scribbles out her math problems. "You didn't tell me <i>that</i> happened yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"I figured it wasn't going to be a problem, I'm not him anymore. I mean, that's not <i>me</i> that Kirkham—"<br/>
<br/>
"It might be you, later on. You might want to go back to being yourself, at least for a little while. Also—and I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want you getting jealous in a weird way—but that guy you left behind in your place is a real sweetheart."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" You tense all over.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. He's just like you. I wanted to take him home yesterday and cuddle with him and pet him and rub him and play with him, like a puppy. He's adorable."<br/>
<br/>
"Gee, thanks. Makes me regret what I'm missing out on."<br/>
<br/>
"The point is, I don't like what happened to him. David didn't have any right—"<br/>
<br/>
"Kelsey doesn't give a shit," you remind her.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not officially, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure it'll blow over. Kirkham had his fun, he'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's not what I hear. I hear—" She glowers at you, as though you were the bully who beat up her boyfriend. "Kelsey heard that David was promising to come find him again today too, give him the same treatment. And you know David, he's the sort to keep those kinds of promises. Besides," she continues, "it's all of a piece with what those pee-oh-ess friends of Blake were doing to you. And what are we going to do about <i>them?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Blake and his friends? I told you, I'm going get Blake to ask me out, and I'm going to go out with him—"<br/>
<br/>
"While still going out with Ricky?"<br/>
<br/>
"—and cocktease him all the way until he's forgotten about me and has gotten a raging case of blue balls from Amanda."<br/>
<br/>
"That doesn't do you any good, Will. It doesn't do your <i>pedisequos</i> any good. Blake wasn't even one of the guys at the portables, according to you, and David wasn't one of them either. You left your <i>pedisequos</i> in a real shithole."<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you want do about it? I mean, I know you know what <i>Kelsey</i> thinks should be done. You and me should break up." Your lip curls hard.<br/>
<br/>
"And you didn't tell me about that, either. <i>Jesus,</i> there's a lot you didn't tell me."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't think—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like about you and Lisa," she barrels on. "What were you <i>thinking</i> at the party on Saturday? <i>Jesus!</i> No wonder you kept staring at them."<br/>
<br/>
You squirm. "I didn't know I was staring at them. I was baked out of my mind."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you were. Do you want to do anything about them?"<br/>
<br/>
"No! Why would I? I'm going out with <i>you</i> now."<br/>
<br/>
"Which brings us back to where we started. You and Blake. You and David. You and all the assholes that want to break us up."<br/>
<br/>
You nurse your temple and the headache that is blooming inside it. "I'm too exhausted to think about this right now, Sydney. Can you just do your homework, and I'll—" You stifle a sudden yawn.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, promise me you'll <i>think</i> about it, Will. These people we're pretending to be, they're not our permanent identities. There's eight more out there we need to convert, and after they're converted, we might just as well go back to being ourselves. And when we do, I want us to still be together. Together and happy." <br/>
<br/>
Her expression turns grave. "It's funny, Will, but hanging out with your <i>pedisequos</i> yesterday, it reminded me all over again of how adorable you are. I want to be back with <i>him</i> at some point. Only I want it to be <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney's words give you a hard thrill, so that you don't share with her your doubts about returning to the life of Will Prescott. With five (or more?) lives under your control, why should you? Except to be with her, of course ...<br/>
<br/>
You hang out with her at the McDonald's until it's time to head out to the school, so that you're still an unshowered mess in a t-shirt and old jeans when you tramp into Sociology. Anthony gives you a sideways grin when he saunters into the classroom. "Rough night last night, Amanda?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you," you mutter back. He snickers. Kelsey is smirking when you glance back at her. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"You really do look like shit, Mandy." The light dances in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck,</i> you think. <i>She's going to be in character.</i><br/>
<br/>
So you're in a surly mood when you go looking for Blake. It's between third and fourth when you at last corner him at his locker. "Hey, I thought you were going to get back to me yesterday," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a quick look up and down, but his expression today is unreadable—a bad sign. "I did," he grunts.<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit. I didn't see you at all."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I guess that was my answer." He slams his locker shut, and with another quick glance brushes past you.<br/>
<br/>
"It's for the best," Kelsey tells you later that day in Student Congress, after you've texted her the news. "I told you, it wasn't going to work anyway."<br/>
<br/>
You glance at your boyfriend, who is blinking blankly at the talk. "No one likes it when you say 'I told you so'," you tell Kelsey.<br/>
<br/>
"But lookit, they're all used to it anyway," she says with a smirk. "But what you need to think about now is what to do about those guys we were talking about this morning. That one did it again today. And this time he hauled the other one out to the portables to do it."</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211
author_id: seuzz
title: Surprise Admirer
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You've got food for thought as you leave your last class of the day, and you shake off Ricky—who has followed you to your locker and is clearly trying to worm his way into an embrace or kiss by asking you about your mood—with the excuse that you have a headache and need to go lie down in a dark room someplace until it passes.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have a headache of course, and your bedroom is well-lit, but you sprawl on your bed with your face to the ceiling as you thumb your way through various social media sites, looking for clues about how to contact David Kirkham (who Amanda hasn't got any contact with). That sewer known as x2z seems the likeliest place to find him—surely he's posted memes and gifs of him pulling the tail off a dead rat, or something horrible like that—but you are soon forced to conclude that if he likes to scull through that turgid lagoon of bilge water and vomit, he has done so under a pseudonym.<br/>
<br/>
(Speaking of which, while you're there, you log in long enough under one of Amanda's five aliases to leave a couple of nasty notes in the streams of a couple of her friends, including the admonition to <i>just die in a fire already why dont you?</i> on a photo of Brooke Galloway's seventh birthday party. Brooke really chaps your—Amanda's—hide, and the poor girl has broken down more than once on seeing what BritneySpanksWHS has posted in one of her streams.)<br/>
<br/>
But it's on Pinterest, of all places, that you find Kirkham. He apparently has a page there and everything! Only two followers but—<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh. Wait.</i> The page is in his name, but the description makes it clear it's maintained by a fan. Or a stalker. <i>My secret husband and all about him and what makes him the most special to me,</i> it says under the blurry profile picture.<br/>
<br/>
Interesting! you think, and wonder that you've not come across or heard about it before.<br/>
<br/>
There's only about fifty photos or so on it. All but a handful of them, clearly, were secretly snapped—catching him at his locker, trudging through the hallways, glaring sullenly at the front of the classroom. Many of them are blurry and almost all of them are badly framed. <br/>
<br/>
Only two of the photos are any good, and one of them is a group photo: him and four other students, standing around a piano and holding string instruments. In it, he is grasping a cello by his neck, like he's about to wrench it over and break it, and in the other photo (a studio job, it looks like) he is also holding a cello while daunting the photographer with a you-wanna-make-something-of-it-motherfucker? stare.<br/>
<br/>
You text Kelsey a link to the Pinterest page with a querying <i>?????!!!!!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Sure, he plays in the school orchestra," Kelsey tells you when you talk directly a little later. "Didn't you know that, Amanda? Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"I try not to pay attention to Kirkham, no matter what name I answer to," you retort. "How long has that shit been going on for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Since middle school, at least. I can't believe you didn't know! He even plays in a string quartet. With Preston, when they make it a piano quintet."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Preston Spinks.</i> Now <i>there's</i> a name to conjure with. Preston Spinks takes college classes, and has been to national piano competitions. He also has <i>absolutely nothing to do</i> with Kelsey and Amanda and her friends if he can help it.<br/>
<br/>
Or, at least, that's how he acts. <i>Stuck up prick.</i> Like, you'd really have to be an arrogant asshole to look down on Kelsey and her friends.<br/>
<br/>
But Kelsey is still speaking. "This is interesting," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd call it horrifying."<br/>
<br/>
"Stop sniffing your own farts long enough to listen to what I have to say. This Pinterest site is interesting, is what I mean."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think we could use it against him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Or use it to get <i>to</i> him. Have you thought anymore about what you want to do about him, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it gives me the idea that he might be worth recruiting. For the Brotherhood."<br/>
<br/>
<i>He's certainly nasty enough for a Satanic cult,</i> you think. "You weren't thinking about that before?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, were you?" She sounds surprised.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, I try not to think about him. But when you said we should do something about him, I guess I just assumed—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, <i>I</i> assumed you were just going to do something indirectly to him, like you were planning to do to Blake. But recruiting him would be the straightest way to get him to leave your <i>pedisequos</i> alone. Let me think about it," she says, "and you also think about Blake and his friends."<br/>
<br/>
But you don't. You've already decided that Kirkham is priority one.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>It's Meghan Farris,</i> Kelsey texts you the next morning. <i>I bet the whole school knows by now.</i><br/>
<br/>
"I had to send that link to <i>everyone,</i>" she groans as you and she stride into the school the next morning. (Head back, tits out, hair flowing; it feels <i>great.</i>) "But it finally came back to me that it has to be Meghan who owns that page, based on which classrooms some of the pics were taken in, and from what angles."<br/>
<br/>
"I can't fucking believe it," you reply. "Except I totally can. If anyone's out there just begging to be a victim, it's Meghan."<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey turns toward you long enough to show you a duck-face smirk. Meghan Farris is the most desperate wannabe in Westside. There isn't a club or a clique she hasn't tried clawing her way into, only to climax in cringe-making failure. <i>Like how she tried out to be a cheerleader at the start of the year, even though she is as flat as a plank of wood and hasn't taken a gymnastics class since seventh grade.</i> You cringe all over again as you think of the way she face-planted onto the gym's hardwood floor—in front of hundreds of student spectators!—as she tried to do a cartwheel.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, she hasn't updated it in a year," Kelsey observes. You and she come to the front doors of the school, and pause there to talk, waiting for someone else to fling the doors open so you won't have to. "So maybe she's over him." She snickers. "I hope she is. Or maybe I hope she isn't," she corrects herself. "No, I hope she is. That'll make it even <i>more</i> embarrassing when David tries hooking up with her. Because, you know, he's <i>bound</i> to have heard how—"<br/>
<br/>
"What about Meghan as a recruit?" you interrupt. Kelsey looks surprised. "I'm serious. She'd be ... unexpected. Wouldn't she? Does she seem like the typical kind of girl who'd be—"<br/>
<br/>
"Totally not!" Kelsey declares.<br/>
<br/>
"Which would make her perfect?" you press, for no good reason other than a kind of intuition. Kelsey looks thoughtful. "Besides—" Two boys finally trudge up and open the doors, pulling them open far enough that you and Kelsey can dart inside behind them. "She's so <i>flipping</i> desperate to belong to something, and our little club would be—"<br/>
<br/>
"So exclusive!" Kelsey finishes for you. "Okay, I see <i>that</i> idea. But you're supposed to be thinking about David," she chides. "Unless you've been thinking about Blake, and this is part of that."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm just thinking about David. But I'm also thinking long-term, I guess. Isn't that what's important to you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's so sweet of you!" Kelsey gushes with cloying gratitude. She gives you a quick squeeze about the shoulders. "But I'm also thinking long-term," she continues in a much steelier tone. "And I'm thinking how in the long-term we have to protect a certain person by dealing in the short-term with someone else."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kirkham is in the same second period AP Calculus class as you, and you watch him out of the corner of your eye. He slumps in his desk with his arms clasped and with a truculent expression on his face behind his sunglasses. It's the same pose he always strikes, so if he's heard about the Pinterest page that Meghan has devoted to her "secret husband," you can't infer it from his body language.<br/>
<br/>
You also share a class with Meghan—seventh-period AP European History. If anything, you regard Meghan with even more disdain. Kirkham is hateful, but he demands respect. (And Amanda would also confess, if forced have to, that he exudes a charisma of danger; also he has great legs.) But Meghan is just sad. She's pretty, you suppose, but in a helplessly generic way. Her dark hair falls in a flat sheet just past her shoulders; her smile is wide but has no distinction or personality; and her glasses (which look like they cost twenty dollars at the Lenscrafters up at the mall) are windows that crookedly block access to her eyes instead of framing and illuminating them. She also has no chest, and her legs are too skinny.<br/>
<br/>
<i>She'd be the perfect girlfriend for Ricky,</i> you think. Bland, soppy, and pathetically desperate for acceptance without the force of personality or talent to earn it.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney is right. You need to deal with Kirkham. The direct route—grabbing him and turning  him into a <i>pedisequos</i>—would be the best method. But if you turned his one-time secret admirer into a <i>pedisequos,</i> and used her to lure him into a trap, that could be a bank shot bringing some additional benefits.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111
author_id: seuzz
title: Ambush at the Donna
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So I was thinking about that stuff we were talking about earlier," you tell Kelsey when you connect up with her again in Student Congress. (And again, as usual, you leave it to Ricky to handle the actual assignment work while you and your girlfriend do homework and other stuff.) "I think you're right, we need to take care of it as soon as possible."<br/>
<br/>
Ricky lifts his face from his paper to look at you from under his eyebrows. You return his look with a veiled glare of your own, and he puts his face back down again.<br/>
<br/>
"Glad we're on the same page," Kelsey says. "Thought about how? And, like, where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nn-nhn." You both fall silent for a bit, and you get on your phone to check out updates on the social media sites in between checking news stories. Kelsey, it appears, does the same. After ten minutes, she says, "I know how to handle it."<br/>
<br/>
"How?"<br/>
<br/>
She answers by tapping into her Notepad app and showing it to you. <i>Donna,</i> she says. <i>Try talking to dk after class today get him out there.</i><br/>
<br/>
You can't help making a face. Is Sydney seriously suggesting that you try inviting him out to that ratty old motor court for sex?<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, you are able to think of another ploy.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The Donna Motor Court is an ancient—like, eighty years old; seriously—motel on the south side of town. You—Amanda—have heard it did a thriving business sixty or so years ago, when State Highway 126 (which is also Twentieth Street) was one of the major intra-state thoroughfares, before the interstate went through. But some traffic must still filter past it, for it is still in business. But it mostly survives (Amanda has it on good authority) as a sex pit: the kind of place where couples can illicitly commingle for an afternoon or evening, paying steeply by the hour.<br/>
<br/>
Making the rumors even more delicious: the place is owned by the family of Kim Walsh, who is the squeaky-clean student council president, and one of the girls who hovers around Kelsey and Amanda.<br/>
<br/>
It's closer to five than to four-thirty—the time you were supposed to rendezvous with Sydney—when you pull into the parking lot of the Donna. Amanda herself has never availed herself of the place (too expensive; besides, she has no interest in consummating things with Ricky, and she is too discreet to cheat on him that far and that openly), but she has been to the Donna to see Kim. The last time she was out, Amanda sniffed at the cracked asphalt; now you note with a raised eyebrow that the cracks have been patched with tar. <i>Sex trade must be on an upswing,</i> the thought comes to you from Amanda's side of your joint brain.<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey's car is parked in front of the office, and Kelsey detaches herself from the wall to approach as you pull in next to her BMW.<br/>
<br/>
"All set up," she tells you as you get out. "I even had time to stow the stuff in the room."<br/>
<br/>
"I texted and <i>told</i> you I got held up at home," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't <i>say</i> anything, Mandy," she sighs. She glances back over her shoulder at the office. "I'm glad you showed up before David, though. I told Kim we wanted the room for a study party, and this way—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sure she didn't believe you."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, but it's not like it matters," Kelsey snaps. "But it sounded better than 'Amanda and I want a room so we can have a three-way with David Kirkham.' I mean, if you want to go in and tell her that, fine. Invite her to drop in while—"<br/>
<br/>
"What about adding Kim to the Brotherhood?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kim?" Kelsey blnkes, then glances over her shoulder at the office again. "Huh. Maybe. This might be a good spot for headquarters," she muses. "But we'd probably have to add her dad too, and the rest of the staff—"<br/>
<br/>
"Anything wrong with that?"<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey arches her eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
"You surprise me, Will," she murmurs between frozen lips. "It would be a sensational set up for the Brotherhood, but I just assumed you'd want hot bodies and cool identities. Adding a couple of middle-aged dad bods and a cleaning woman the size of a sofa—" She jerks her chin at something behind you, and you turn to look. A Mexican woman with the body shape of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is exiting one of the rooms across the way.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe just Kim," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Why am I talking about turning Kim Walsh into a </i>pedisequos<i>?</i> you wonder as you follow Kelsey down the covered walk toward the rooms. <i>Kim never did anything to me. Kim is a nice person! Meghan never did anything to me either, and I was thinking about—<br/>
<br/>
No,</i> you realize with a small shudder. <i>All of that came from thinking with Amanda's brain. Maybe I should get out of her head.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's Room 14 that Kelsey leads you to. The interior has a closed-in, musty smell, but it's clean. The walls are bare, of whitewashed cinderblock, and the room is furnished with a king-sized bed, a table with a chair, and a short bureau with a flat-screen TV. A plastic sack is already sitting on the bed.<br/>
<br/>
"Is this the room Kelsey usually does it with Karl in?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," Kelsey replies. "She doesn't pay any attention. You want to wait outside so David will know where to find you? What was the story you gave him, anyway?"<br/>
<br/>
"I told him that someone was 'pinterested' in him, and that if he wanted to find out who, he should meet me here at five." You check the time on your cell phone. "Speaking of which—"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That was exactly the story you told Kirkham. Amanda has, like, a photographic memory for where everyone has their lockers, and she had noticed him at his earlier in the year, so you had no trouble finding him after school.<br/>
<br/>
"So everyone's talking about your secret admirer," you told him as you leaned against the locker next to his. He turned to give you a hooded stare from behind his sunglasses. "You have any idea who she is?"<br/>
<br/>
He went back to changing out his books. "You talkin' about that Pinterest bullshit?" he muttered.<br/>
<br/>
"I know who she is," you replied. "Do you know? Do you <i>want</i> to know who's been finger-banging herself every night while thinking of you?"<br/>
<br/>
Then Brophy Maddox barged in. "Hey, can we make this a threesome?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm gonna make you swallow your own hairy ballsack if you don't fuck off," Kirkham told him. Maddox backed away.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, there's a chance of a threesome," you assured Kirkham. "Definitely more than a chance. But you'd have to supply the cock." You uncapped a pen and pushed your way into his locker, where you wrote <i>The Donna, 5 pm, today</i> on the back cover of one of his spiral notebooks. Then you added <i>One chance</i> and underlined it. "I'd hate to have to tell the girls that you're too much of a chickenshit to show up," you told him, then marched off.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it was that little show of power that has left you, almost drunkenly, acting and thinking like Amanda for the last ninety minutes or so.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Its ten after five when he shows up, and it's on foot—with his head down, kicking at the asphalt he trudges across the hot parking lot with the swagger of a cowboy on his way to the saloon for a whiskey, a hand of poker, and quick fuck with a whore. He doesn't look up at you until you are standing toe to toe. Then he lifts his face, and in a low growl says, "Okay, so where is the bitch?"<br/>
<br/>
"In here." You grasp the door handle to Room 14, but it's locked. You make a face and press and push at it, then remember that Sydney gave you the key card. You blow a strand of hair from your face as you use it on the lock.<br/>
<br/>
"After you." You stand aside and with a sweep of your hand invite Kirkham to enter. He gives you a surly side glance, then pushes into the room. You start to follow, but bump into him just inside the door, where he has stopped.<br/>
<br/>
You would have too. Sydney McGlynn—not Kelsey Blankenship, though she's wearing Kelsey's clothes—is standing next to the bed. She grins at Kirkham. "Hey," she says.<br/>
<br/>
You have to push Kirkham forward a step so you can get far enough inside to close the door behind you. <br/>
<br/>
"Th' fuck?" Kirkham mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"I know. It surprised me too," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit. This is your first month here in town," Kirkham bluntly informs Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wow, the fucker's really on the button,</i> you think. "That's okay, she makes up for lost time," you tell him, and hug him from behind. He stiffens inside your arms. "And as for that threesome—" you add as Sydney saunters up to him with a blinding smile. She shakes out her golden hair and raises a hand—<br/>
<br/>
But there's something wrong. She's not carrying a mask. Kirkham also seems to sense danger, for he twists inside your embrace, and bashes your nose with the back of his head. So you don't see the actual strike. All you know is that he is suddenly very heavy, and he almost drags you to the floor as he collapses.<br/>
<br/>
"What the—?" you ask Sydney, and look past her to see that the mask she brought is still sitting on the bed. <i>Is this some kind of special Baphomet spell she used on him?</i> you wonder.<br/>
<br/>
"Wow, that went off perfect," she tells you, ignoring your half-question. "What do you want to do with him? Just zombify him? Or do you want to get into the mask? Do something together while we're here?" She brushes your arm.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Driver's Seat
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"What did you do to him?" you squeal at Sydney as you step over the prostrate body of David Kirkham. "You didn't hit him with a mask, did you? I didn't see—"<br/>
<br/>
"Half of one." She bends over to grab Kirkham by his ankles. "The metal strip. You know, the part that copies— Are you going to help me out here?"<br/>
<br/>
Together, you drag him into the middle of the room by the foot of the bed. There's no way, even working together, you'll be able to haul him up onto the bed, so that's where you leave him.<br/>
<br/>
There is a mask on the bed, but when you turn it over you find it has Kelsey's name inside it. "So where's the one we—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Inside the bag. So are we just going to turn him into a <i>pedisequos?</i> Or do you want to take him for a spin from the inside?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, we can just turn him into a thing." You dig inside the plastic grocery bag that Sydney brought. It contains a plastic tub—the slave-making goop—and a mask. But the inner surface of it, you find on turning it over, has no metal strip inside it. "So we'll have to finish putting the thing together?" you ask Sydney. "After the, uh—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. I thought, you know, he'd see the mask coming, but if I just used the metal strip— It's so small—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, okay, that's smart. It was just a surprise." You pause. "It was a surprise finding <i>you</i> here instead of Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought it would be more plausible."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney stares down at Kirkham. His turquoise polo shirt is bunched up around his chest, exposing a flat stomach with some visible muscles, and his glasses have half-fallen from his face. She kneels to pull them off and to shift his head so that he's staring at the ceiling instead of the bottom of the bedspread.<br/>
<br/>
"He's not bad looking," she says. "It's too bad he's such an asshole."<br/>
<br/>
You shudder a little. "I think he looks like cancer."<br/>
<br/>
"That's only because you know him better than me. You know, I think Kelsey kind of liked him? He had that bad boy thing going for him." She gives you a side-glance. "Isn't Amanda into that kind of guy?"<br/>
<br/>
You shiver again. "She knows him better than that."<br/>
<br/>
And yet, beneath the shiver of loathing there may be a shiver of a different kind. One of anticipation. <i>In a few minutes, David Kirkham is going to be one of us, under our control.</i><br/>
<br/>
Then you think, <i>Wait. Under </i>whose<i> control, exactly?</i><br/>
<br/>
"I just made up the generic stuff," Sydney says when you ask her, "so we'd just have to add the hair afterward, depending on who wanted him. If you don't want to be him, I'll take him for one of mine. Besides, I'm already undressed for it," she adds as she fingers a long strand of golden hair.<br/>
<br/>
You both fall silent, and when it gets awkward you troop into the bathroom to relieve yourself. You were very jumpy the first time you had to pee and pat your frizzy bush dry after claiming Amanda's face for yourself, but haven't thought much of it since. Now, for some reason, you are self-conscious about it again, and fold the toilet paper up very carefully into a neat square before wiping yourself down. <i>I miss my dick,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
Then, after a moment's thought, you unspool another length of toilet paper, fold it equally carefully, and give yourself another pat down, though you don't need it. <i>Yes, I miss my dick,</i> you think as you rub and dig the tissue deeper into the tangle of hair. It's like worrying at a wound—it hurts but it also feels good as you remember what you gave up. <i>A cock. I need a cock again.</i><br/>
<br/>
You suck on your lower lip and draw down a deep breath when you feel a warm flush start to spread down below. <i>That's enough of that,</i> you tell yourself, and drop the tissue into the toilet. <i>You're just thinking about that guy out there,</i> tell yourself as you button up and wash your hands and study your expression—a cold pout under the dark, straight bangs—in the bathroom mirror. <i>There's a guy out there and he's poisoned with testosterone,</i> you tell your reflection, <i>and you're thinking about how you cut off your manhood in order to get this face, and so you're thinking about how much you miss it.</i><br/>
<br/>
Except you don't miss it. Or you didn't miss it, until now.<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney," you say as you come out of the bathroom and put out the light. "I think maybe I will—"<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney is sprawled on the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. You rush to her side. "Sydney? Sydney!" But she doesn't respond as you chafe her wrists and slap lightly at her face. You cast a terrified glance down at Kirkham, but he's still out as well.<br/>
<br/>
Not until you notice that the blank mask is gone do you start to put the pieces together.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"God, you guys are so disorganized!" Kelsey fumes as she helps you pull the last of her clothes off the still-unconscious Sydney McGlynn. She has kicked off Kirkham's clothes, which she woke up in, and gave an exasperated sigh when you told her that you needed her help getting Sydney undressed. "Couldn't you have figured all this out before—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will you please shut up?" you retort through gritted teeth as you yank the panties off your girlfriend.<br/>
<br/>
"You can ask me to, but I don't have to, Mandy," Kelsey retorts. "Oh, excuse me, I mean, <i>Will!</i>" She looks disgusted enough to spit.<br/>
<br/>
Well, she's right. It is kind of a clusterfuck. As soon as you realized that Sydney must have put the blank mask onto Kirkham in order to copy him, and put the metal band onto herself—though why she did that, you'll have to ask her when she recovers—you started thinking ahead to what would come next. You were terrified of Kirkham waking up, so you looked for the mask of Kelsey. (Her mask was already treated with some of the <i>pedisequos</i> paint.) After the mask reappeared on Kirkham, you carefully peeled it off him, then laid Kelsey's mask onto him. The girl materialized instantly, and groaned and squeaked and whined when she sat up. She was disgusted to find herself on the floor, and demanded to know whose clothes she was wearing, and how she got into them. With a minimum of explanation, you informed her that she was a <i>pedisequos,</i> and that there'd be hell to pay from her mistress if she didn't help you. She only rolled her eyes and demanded that <i>you</i> help <i>her</i> get into her own clothes.<br/>
<br/>
Is she going to run off once she's dressed? Fortunately, she doesn't have a chance to, for all your shaking has woken Sydney up, and the girl sits up with a glare. "The fuck?" she demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Good, you're awake," you say, and point to the fake Kelsey, who has frozen in the middle of putting on her bra. "Can you tell Kelsey to get herself a better attitude?"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney stares at you, then turns to stare at Kelsey. For the longest time (it seems) she says nothing. Then she snorts, wipes her hand across her eyes, and says, "Go home."<br/>
<br/>
No one moves or says anything until Kelsey asks, "Are you talking to—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm talking to <i>you,</i> bitch! Go home! And keep your cum-sucking mouth shut about this!" she shouts after the half-naked girl as she stumbles backward toward the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, Sydney!" you gasp.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up," she snarls. "I—"<br/>
<br/>
Then she freezes with her hand before her face. Slowly she turns it this way and that. Her eyes go very wide, and her mouth falls open.<br/>
<br/>
A wave of goosebumps ripples up your back as Sydney gently cups and squeezes her right breast. "Oh, fuck me," she gasps, and she swims across the bed and flies across the room for the bathroom. She flicks the light on, but doesn't shut the door.<br/>
<br/>
You remain frozen in place, half hunched where you were when she woke up. You count the seconds by the pulse inside your ears. <br/>
<br/>
After a count of seventy, Sydney comes swaggering out. Yes, there's no mistaking it. She is <i>swaggering.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Hey Prescott," she says, and her voice is at least half an octave lower than normal. "You look fine like that, a fuck-load better than you usually do. But so do I." She squeezes her breast again, and closes her eyes. An expression of pain and ardor washes over her face.<br/>
<br/>
Icy fear closes around you. Your mouth and throat don't want to work. "Ss- Sydney?" you finally squeak.<br/>
<br/>
She shivers all over, then smiles.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, Will, it's me," she says, and with a sigh she settles onto the foot of the bed—a beautiful naked girl. "Oh, God, but—" She covers her face with her hands and shudders from her crown to her toes, as though struck by lightning. "Wow!"<br/>
<br/>
"You put on the, um— from David's—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yeah, I know what I did. I wanted to see what would happen. Like, if I put on one of those things without putting on the mask. Because, like, you can do that. You don't have to wear both of them."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." You feel a little relieved, but not much. "And?"<br/>
<br/>
"And what?" she asks. "It worked. I've got— Oh, man! All at once! Just woke up with all his . . . and his— Mmm!" She cups her breasts and lifts them to stare down at them. "Not like when I put on Kelsey's mask, or your friend Caleb's. Jesus!" She looks up. "Where's—?"<br/>
<br/>
Before you can react, she snatches up Kirkham's mask, and the supply bag, and runs into the bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He's naked, and his cock is like a dowsing rod as he emerges from the bathroom. He gives you no quarter.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's make it official between us, Will," he says as he grabs the back of your neck and pushes his face into yours. "No more of this cock-teasing bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
Then David Kirkham chomps down hard on your lower lip.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Cherry, Hung with Snow
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>David Kirkham grips your lower lip between his teeth. He pushes you backward. You bump into the bed and tumbled backwards onto it in a heap. When you finish bouncing, he is straddling you—your hips pinned between his knees and his hands pressing on your shoulders. His face hovers only a foot or so above your own.<br/>
<br/>
His naked except for his shades, and his smile is cruel and impudent. "It's perfect, you know, us doing the thing in a motel room," he gloats. "We can do what this place was meant for."<br/>
<br/>
"Ss-Sydney?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be a pussy, Will," he says as he gives your right breast a hard caress. "Just let me inside Amanda's."<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney!"<br/>
<br/>
"Role-play, God damn it," he mutters. "Don't tell me this girl isn't into guys like—"<br/>
<br/>
He dives in to bite the side of your neck. The bed seems to lift up under you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Role play? Is she serious? Her as David Kirkham? And you as—?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Trust me, Will," Kirkham says as he sits up his knees. He clasps your breasts. "Go along with me. It's going to be— <i>Nnngh!</i> Good!"<br/>
<br/>
You close your eyes, gulp, and give a short nod. <i>Just make it quick,</i> you silently plead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He makes it very long.<br/>
<br/>
He starts by prying your legs apart. You're wearing a dress with a short skirt, but he pushes it up and out of the way as he works dry, hot hands over your inner thighs, rubbing and caressing and tweaking. Then he pushes the hem of your dress up and over your belly so he can get his hands onto your frillies. <br/>
<br/>
After he's decided you're warmed up, he unhooks the belt from around your hips, and pushes your dress up over your boobs. You squirm as he slides his hands under you, and hoists you to a sitting position so he can unbutton your dress at the back. While you're sitting up, he pushes his mouth to yours, and forces his tongue inside for a long, slow, sucking kiss.<br/>
<br/>
It's so intense that you don't even notice—until it falls off—that he was unhooking your bra.<br/>
<br/>
After pulling your dress off over your head, he drops you onto your back again and lays over you, crotch to crotch, and fondles a bare breast, flicking the nipple with a horny thumb.  After he's massaged your nipples erect, he puts his mouth to them to suck and nibble and nip at them.<br/>
<br/>
Then he's up, bouncing to his feet. He stares down at you with that same mask-like stare and lets you drink in his lean, muscled nakedness for a long moment. He is still brown from the summer, from the waist up, but white around his pelvis, save for the dark penis that is straining at you like a hungry python.<br/>
<br/>
Then he leans over you, and jams his fingers up your pussy.<br/>
<br/>
He works you and works you, and you grunt and groan as he loosens and lubricates you, but he doesn't stop, even after you're arching your back and trying to pull his hand inside you. He climbs onto the bed next to you, and bites you up and down your neck and jaw. Not until you have begun to squeak, and your back and shoulder muscles are spasming, does he climb between your legs and guides his cock into you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, God!</i> Now you try to squirm away as that hard, rigid shaft slides in, like a steel cylinder into a too-tight sleeve. It hurts, like it's tearing away tissues as it pushes deeper in, and you bite back tears. Kirkham slides a hand under your lower back and supports you as he pushes rhythmically inside you, sinking deeper and deeper with each thrust.<br/>
<br/>
Then he's coming, hard and fast, and you have to stifle a cry.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"God <i>damn it,</i> but these things are powerful," Kirkham grunts to himself. He's laying beside you, staring up at the ceiling, fondling his flaccid penis. "No wonder—"<br/>
<br/>
He almost passed out atop you, crushing the air from your lungs, and you had to shove and thrash beneath him before he raised up, rolled over, and fell off. His glasses went askew, and his mouth hung open. The back of his throat buzzed.<br/>
<br/>
You let him doze there while you winced and tried to will the pain away.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, it hurt. But there was something wonderful about the hurt, too. <i>You needed to be hurt, Amanda,</i> you told her. <i>You deserved a good reaming.<br/>
<br/>
And don't pretend you didn't enjoy it at some level.</i><br/>
<br/>
Still, it was very tender down there after he was done, and after gently touching yourself with your fingers, you pulled put your knees together and tried to relax, the better to douse the burning tissues. Long minutes passed with neither of you moving or speaking, until with a snort Kirkham rubbed his nose and made that brag about the power of the penis.<br/>
<br/>
"No wonder what?" you prompt him. You expect the answer to be something like, <i>No wonder guys are always thinking of their cocks</i> or <i>No wonder guys can't control themselves.</i><br/>
<br/>
But instead he says, "No wonder that's the shape they use for the wands."<br/>
<br/>
<i>The wands? Oh yeah.</i> She means that magical dildo you're supposed to use to open a portal for Baphomet.<br/>
<br/>
You get a slight chill. <i>Would Baphomet be worse than David Kirkham?</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>"Nnnggghhhhnnnnnn,"</i> he groans as he flaps his penis some more. "You're gonna have to give me a few minutes before we do it again."<br/>
<br/>
"We don't have to."<br/>
<br/>
He turns his head. "Why not? Don't tell me you came."<br/>
<br/>
"No, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"I aim to satisfy, girl. I'm not surprised you—" With a grunt he heaves himself onto his side to look at you, and slides a palm over your thigh to touch your bush with his fingertips. "I'm gonna get you off, girl, even if we have to spend the next twenty-four hours trying. Be fun for me, anyway, trying to make it fun for—" He leans in to kiss the side of your breast. "In fact, how about you try <i>not</i> to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sydney!"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"What?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Try looking at it from my point of view."<br/>
<br/>
"I am." He cuddles closer. "And what I see is that—" He kisses you on the side of the mouth. "David Kirkham." He kisses you again. "Is fucking." Kiss. "You blind." Kiss. "Because David Kirkham." Kiss. "Is now your love slave." He covers your mouth with his and pinches your pussy.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but—" you say when he lets up.<br/>
<br/>
"Him and us are on the same side now, sweetie." He pushes his fingers back inside you. "We're on the same side, inside and out, and I—"<br/>
<br/>
"But I'm in here." You tap your chest. "Inside ... Amanda. And it's not as comfortable as you seem to think it is."<br/>
<br/>
He frowns, then pulls his hand free and examines his fingertips.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus," he says. "You're a mess."<br/>
<br/>
"What?" You half sit up.<br/>
<br/>
But he pushes you down. "Just relax. Don't go exploring. I'll clean you up." He heaves himself  off the bed and pads into the bathroom, where he runs some water into the sink. He emerges a minute later with a wet washcloth, and climbs between your legs again to dab and massage it into you. It's not nearly as soothing as he seems to think it is, but you say nothing.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, alright, I get it," he says as he works. "But <i>Jesus!</i> This asshole is, like, perfect for us. Perfect for the Brotherhood. Poster art for them. Knows what he wants, goes for it with both hands, is all about unlocking all his potential, and making the rest of the fucking world acknowledge it by fucking it until it screams."<br/>
<br/>
You lift your head. "Is <i>that</i> what it's about?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "Sure. So that's what makes him perfect for it. Kelsey too. She'd run over someone with her car if there was, like, a Stanford scholarship in it for her. I felt her soul, man, after I'd been in her awhile. I can feel this fucker's soul, too." His eyebrows go up. "Can't you feel Amanda's soul?"<br/>
<br/>
You answer with a shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"This is who we want," he goes on. "Guys like this. Guys who <i>like</i> this. Guys who will—" He jabs a finger up inside you, and you flinch hard. "Fuck whatever they fucking want."<br/>
<br/>
You grimace. "So you want to <i>be</i> him now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well. No." But he doesn't sound sincere. "But I don't want him house-trained, neither. I don't wanna turn him into a pussy, Will, just 'cos he bugs you."<br/>
<br/>
He tosses the washcloth away and climbs between your legs again.<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>want</i> him to bug you, Will," he murmurs as he puts his lips close to yours. "I want him to bug the fuck, and fuck the bug, out of you. And I want you to love it, because he's one of <i>us</i> now. One of our finger-banging finger-puppets."<br/>
<br/>
But it's not a finger that he bangs you with.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"We gonna make this a semi-regular thing?" he murmurs in between nuzzling your shoulder. He is standing behind you, in his jeans again but shirtless, as you study your put-together-self in the mirror that sits over the dresser. You are both flushed and pale, and look like you've been ridden hard. Because you have been. Four times.<br/>
<br/>
You cradle the side of his head with a palm while holding your own gaze in the mirror. "You mean in secret, like Kelsey and Karl?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why'z it hafta be secret?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because Amanda has a boyfriend."<br/>
<br/>
"You could break up. Or we could add Ricky. Doesn't matter to me. Fuckin' cheat on him all you want, that could be fun. Just so long as we do this a couple of times a week, here"—he kisses your shoulder—"with these bodies. Or, I dunno, equivalents."<br/>
<br/>
That could get very expensive. Earlier you were talking about adding Kim to the Brotherhood. But maybe you should add one of Kirkham's friends, to put you on the same level as him. Or ... Blake? The strategy that handled Kirkham could handle him.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111115
author_id: seuzz
title: Fantasies, Plausible or Not
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>David Kirkham feels like he's warming up to take you a fifth time, but you tear yourself away. "Do we owe anyone anything before we check out?" you ask. He's still shirtless, but you're dressed and ready to take off.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, babe," he pouts. "Where you goin'? We can still—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going home. I told you. You even put your pants back on."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, maybe I got back into 'em too soon." He leers. <br/>
<br/>
Then he sighs. "Fine, you can take off. I'll collect what they owe us."<br/>
<br/>
"What <i>they</i> owe <i>us?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I— Kelsey— I paid for a night, but we're staying the night. Unless—"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, then I get a rebate on the unused part." He puts his hands on his hips. "That's the kind of place this is."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'd say you got your money's worth." You turn to the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, Will, you're not pissed at me, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm not pissed at you. I'm being in character. I'm kind of worn-out, Sydney. Amanda—" You touch the front of your skirt.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Kirkham chortles. "She's <i>tight</i> down there. Like chipping open an ice floe."<br/>
<br/>
You glare. "Anyway, I have to go."<br/>
<br/>
"Be sure to use the wand tonight," he calls as you turn to the door again. "Think of <i>me</i> while you're—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus,</i> you exclaim to yourself as you wrench the door open. You totter out to your car and fumble the keys into the ignition. You glance in the rearview mirror as you pull into the street, in time to see Kirkham, in shades but still shirtless, swagger out of the room and turn toward the office.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You spend a long time on your back, cradling the polished wooden wand between your breasts, after you've gone to bed. The ceiling is dim and gray, and you seem to stare through it, into a dim and gray expanse above and beyond. The blankness seems empty but oppressive, as though emptiness itself, if gathered and massed in one place, might acquire weight.<br/>
<br/>
You had Kirkham's penis between your breasts this afternoon, and he came there, splooging all over your neck and chin. The memory of his cock, and what Sydney did with it, warms and excites you down below, despite feeling fucked to raw and bloody rags.<br/>
<br/>
But as you hold the dildo-shaped wand between your breasts you do no more than lightly run a fingertip up and down the shaft. You're too distracted and bemused with other thoughts to concentrate on the wand. Sydney texted you this evening. Some dick pics as an appetizer, because she couldn't help herself, but then with some advice. <i>Think about what you want, Will,</i> she said, <i>while working with the wand. Give yourself a goal to focus on. The power needs something to concentrate on or it won't flow. Make the thing you want specific,</i> she continued. <i>Something you can picture, or imagine yourself holding or touching.</i><br/>
<br/>
Then she sent you another dick pic, this one of her acquired penis, rigid and straining, measured against the length of her wand of Baphomet. <br/>
<br/>
<i>A goal to focus on,</i> you think now as you stroke the wand. <i>Something specific.</i> But your mind is as blank as the ceiling above. <i>What do I want?</i><br/>
<br/>
But it's hard to concentrate on what <i>you</i> want when there are two of "you" to answer: Will Prescott and Amanda Ferguson. And even if one of you has a sharper and more concentrated ambition—to get into a great college, preferably one that rejected all of your friends' applications, and to graduate Westside with a higher GPA than them—that's not something that you can "picture" or "hold." <br/>
<br/>
(Although, suddenly, you get a vivid picture of Kelsey, her face flushed and twisted with anger, clutching in her claw-like hand a crumpled letter of rejection from Harvard. A shiver of <i>schadenfreude</i> ripples through you.)<br/>
<br/>
Money, influence, independence ... These are all things that Amanda prizes, and you nestle deeper in the bed as your mind gropes toward pictures of what these might look like. <br/>
<br/>
Then you stiffen as you see it in your mind's eye.<br/>
<br/>
You are standing on a wooden floor under a high ceiling, facing a wide, floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window. There's a table at hand—a flat, severe, modernistic design of tubular steel painted black, with a snow-white lacquered top. Two narrow, high backed chairs, also molded of white and black, stand at attention at either end. Off to the side is a kitchen, also also painted in shades of ebony and ice. Through the window you are looking down on water from a great height. It could be a river or it could be a bay, but the banks are steep and green, and beyond these soar glass towers of silver and gold and azure against a blazing blue sky dappled with cottony clouds. It could be Seattle or it could be San Francisco. It might also be Austin. But it is expensive and it is chic.<br/>
<br/>
You know the spread, of course. Amanda saw it in an architectural magazine, and studied it enviously until it burned itself into her memory. But this is no memory of a glossy photograph. You are standing inside this apartment. That is your slim laptop open on the table, piling up with business emails and appointment reminders. And you are wearing high heels and a starchy business suit with a short skirt, with your hair falling flatly to your shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
Nor was it part of the photograph when you imagine a door opening behind you. In this fantasy—to which you are a spectator, not a creator—you turn around to face a living room just as flat, angular, and cold as the rest of the apartment. A door has opened and a man has come out. He is in pajama bottoms, and his meaty, hairless chest is bare. He is golden all over, including the mane of blonde hair that tumbles messily to his elbows, and the rugged, black-speckled growth of beard on his cheeks and jaw. He is barefoot.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hey, morning,</i> he says in a baritone rumble. <i>You're up early.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>I have an early meeting,</i> you reply.<br/>
<br/>
He glances at a side table. <i>Got time to drop me somewhere?<br/>
<br/>
Call an Uber and charge it to me. You going to the gym?</i><br/>
<br/>
He nods, then pads into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. The tendons in his massive forearms ripple under the skin.<br/>
<br/>
The dream vanishes with a start, as though you've shocked yourself awake, and you stiffen all over.<br/>
<br/>
Is there something in the bed with you?<br/>
<br/>
Yes there is. It is between your breasts.<br/>
<br/>
Carefully, you lift the wooden wand drop it to the floor. For one horrible moment it felt warm and alive against your skin. But even after you've cast it away, you shudder and huddle under the covers. For it is all too easy to imagine it wriggling blindly across the carpet toward your bed, like a fat, gasping worm.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kelsey—the fake version Sydney left behind—is frosty and short-tempered with you all morning, and rather than abase yourself by pleading with this robot, you turn a cold shoulder to her as well. The other girls in your group—Brooke Galloway in particular—pick up on the bad air between you two, but they don't say anything. The boys don't say anything either, whether they've noticed or not.<br/>
<br/>
You spend the morning steeling yourself against a text from Kirkham, but it's at your locker that he appears. "Hey babe," he says, and leans in to press against you. He is so close you can smell the cinnamon on his breath, and see the fine hairs of the mustache he can't manage to grow. "We gettin' together again after school?"<br/>
<br/>
"Text me."<br/>
<br/>
"What you got to be snippy about?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, am I snippy? I guess it's because I'm not exactly comfortable talking to—" You curve a lip at him, but don't speak his name. "Here at school. More particularly at my locker."<br/>
<br/>
"We got a school project we're working on. I'm tutoring you in Statistics."<br/>
<br/>
"It's calculus class we're together in."<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm also taking stats." His own lip curls. "You wanna bone up on it. Bone up on some other things, too."<br/>
<br/>
"It seems unlikely." You start shoving books into your locker so you can get away.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, shit." He brushes a hand through his hair. "Then I guess we're gonna have to find someplace else for you to be, so we can hang out without it being—" He spits out the word. "Unlikely."<br/>
<br/>
When you don't reply, he says, "I'll shoot you some names later."<br/>
<br/>
Then he turns and pushes his way back into the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney is being very passive-aggressive or something, because it's not until late afternoon that you get a text. You're at a coffee shop with Ricky and Anthony Kirk when it comes. You only glance at it long enough to take it in, then lay your phone aside. <br/>
<br/>
So it's late that evening, at home, when you settle in to see who he's suggested you change places with.<br/>
<br/>
The first name comes with an explanation: <i>Ximena Calderon, x gf.</i> Most of the rest are girls too, so you know where Sydney-plus-Kirkham's mind is. Only one of those other names, Mindy McAdams, is familiar enough for you to have a vivid impression of: a busty, trailer-trash red-head.<br/>
<br/>
There is one male on the list, though: "Kirkham's little bro." You text Sydney back to explain her thinking.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Single-mom house,</i> she replies. <i>We get Kirkham's little bro, we get control of the house basiclly. Can hang out anytime together.</i><br/>
<br/>
Interesting. You also query the other two girls she listed. Diana Dunnigan, she explains, is in a string quartet that Kirkham plays in. Alana Ocampo, he tells, you is just a "sexy slut."<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121111154
author_id: seuzz
title: A Girl to Drive Boys Mad
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You quickly dismiss the idea of turning yourself into Kirkham's "little bro." Kirkham himself is awful enough on his own, even with Sydney in the driver's seat, and you remember how you used to treat your own little brother. So there's no way you want to be the younger sibling in <i>that</i> relationship.<br/>
<br/>
As for the girls Sydney named ... You have to jump into social media to get a look at them. But the first one you find is so arresting that you stop right there.<br/>
<br/>
Alana Ocampo is luscious. There's really no other way to describe her. Technically, she is already is "jailbait," but she also looks and dresses the part. With her large, dark eyes; her weak chin; her shy smile; and her long, tangled brown hair, she doesn't need makeup to look enticing; nor does she appear to be wearing much makeup, save for a very pale lip gloss, which makes her even more naturally alluring. She's dressed provocatively too, in very short, ragged-chopped jeans shorts; a black XXL t-shirt with what looks like a band name printed on the front; a heavy canvas camo jacket that's at least five sizes too large for her; and a camo-pattern ball cap that she's turned brim-side backward. She's coiled up in the corner of a classroom with no way to gauge her size, but if she stands more than five feet tall, you'll eat the hat she's wearing.<br/>
<br/>
She looks very messy. <i>Hot and messy,</i> to tell yourself. In other words, the opposite of Amanda.<br/>
<br/>
And that's what convinces you to not even look at the the others.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Alana,</i> you text Sydney back. <i>I like her look.<br/>
<br/>
I like it too,</i> the reply comes back. <i>I'm jerking off to her now.</i><br/>
<br/>
You suppress a shudder, and tell Sydney you're turning your phone off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are hot and bothered all the next morning as you prep for school. In the shower you feel extra tingly all over, and turn the shower head to pulsate and hammer yourself with needles of scalding water. It's like a flipping a switch, and your loins begin to boil. Pretty soon you give up to temptation, and hang onto the shower head with one hand as you push a soapy-sodden sponge at and into yourself. Even a flashback to the hotel room, to David Kirkham atop you, thrusting himself inside as his hot breath rolls down your face, doesn't break the mood. Maybe it even turns the temperature up, for the memory morphs into fantasy, of a muscular and very horny Kirkham stepping into the shower and clasping you from behind.<br/>
<br/>
Yesterday was painful, and you didn't much enjoy it. But could it have unlocked something inside Amanda?<br/>
<br/>
You shudder a little. <i>I hope it's Amanda and not me,</i> you think as your knees weaken, <i>who wants to feel David Kirkham kissing the back of her neck!</i><br/>
<br/>
You are still shaking all over after getting out of the shower and drying off, and that fire is still burning, so you dress more provocatively than usual. The white hose you pull up and over your legs is the only gesture toward respectability, and they lose even than when matched them with the skimpy, short-skirted purple dress you pull over yourself, and the black, knee-high leather boots. You cinch a skinny leather belt, hardly thicker than a shoelace, around your waist to give your curves some contour, and plump your lips under an extra-shiny gloss. Your dark hair you comb out flat and let air-dry so that you won't look too styled—only styled enough.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Nice,</i> you think as you turn around and around to study the effect in the mirror and straighten the fall of your skirt over the shelf of your butt. <i>The only people who'd fuck with me are the ones who'd </i>want<i> me to fuck them over. With a riding crop. Amanda,</i> you tell yourself as you touch up a spot on your lip, <i>you guessed what you had, but you didn't know for sure until you let i<i>me</i> slide you on like a sock.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You feel the eyes on you as you stalk across the parking lot toward the school, but that just makes you to walk taller and throw more sway in your hips. At the breezeway entrance, you turn to casually survey the effect you've caused, but your attention is hooked and drawn by the quartet of boys trudging along toward you.<br/>
<br/>
You know them, of course, for they are part of Amanda's gang. Anthony Kirk, Geoff Mansfield, Martin Gardinhire, and her boyfriend, Ricky Golia. The first three are looking up at you from under their brows; Ricky doesn't even look in your direction.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, whatever,</i> you think even as you flinch a little from the chill that palpably wafts off them. "Hey guys," you say as they reach you. "Talked to Kelsey yet?"<br/>
<br/>
"We just got here," Anthony says as he and the other brush past. You sniff at their retreating backs as they trudge past. <i>What's their problem?</i><br/>
<br/>
At least Kelsey, when you catch up to her in first period, doesn't cold-shoulder you. In fact, she is so full of cheer and friendly feeling—complimenting you on your outfit and prattling about the upcoming Saturday-night party at her place—that it leaves you bristling with suspicion. <i>Did Sydney tell the fake-Kelsey to be nice to me?</i> you wonder. Because Kelsey is usually this bright and empty only when she has or is about to slide a shiv between someone's vertebrae.<br/>
<br/>
Anthony and the others are still cold to you in second and fourth period, and by the time the lunch bell rings you are so rattled that you nudge Anthony on the way out the classroom door. "Come talk to me while I change out books at my locker."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm hungry," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"It'll be just a minute, my locker's right over there," you snap. "It's about tomorrow night at Kelsey's" With a shrug, Anthony follows you over.<br/>
<br/>
"Actually I lied," you tell him as you start unloading your backpack. "It's not about the party, it's about how come you and the boys are giving me the treatment."<br/>
<br/>
"What treatment?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't bullshit me. Brent's the only one talking to me, so I <i>know</i> you and Geoff and Martin have a bug up your assholes. What is it?" You turn a hard frown on him.<br/>
<br/>
But he doesn't flinch. He just holds your eye and says, "Where were you Wednesday after school?"<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck does that matter? It's my business, wherever I was."<br/>
<br/>
"It's not Ricky's business?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. If it's not yours, it's not his—"<br/>
<br/>
"You were at the Donna."<br/>
<br/>
You have to swallow the sudden tickle at the back of your throat. Anthony's eyes narrow.<br/>
<br/>
"You were at the Donna," Anthony repeats. "Don't lie and say you weren't."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not lying! I'm not saying anything, because it's not—! Not—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Not what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not your business!"<br/>
<br/>
"But is it Ricky's?" Anthony asks in an infuriatingly calm tone.<br/>
<br/>
"That's not your business either, whatever is with him or me!"<br/>
<br/>
"Did you tell him you were going to be at the Donna, with David Kirkham?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!" Your face feels scorched with the heat of your embarrassment.<br/>
<br/>
"If you and Ricky wanna, you know, each have something on the side—"<br/>
<br/>
"Does <i>he</i> have something on the side?"<br/>
<br/>
Now Anthony can't stop himself from sneering. "Would you be mad if he did?"<br/>
<br/>
"He wouldn't," you snarl back. "So I don't even know why I asked."<br/>
<br/>
"My point," says Anthony, "is that if you're going to do something like that, it's not fair if you don't, like, set it up with Ricky first so he can be okay with it."<br/>
<br/>
<i>What fucking business is it of Ricky's who I go off and have a fuck with?</i> is you want to scream. Except it would be too stupid and absurd, given that he's supposed to be your boyfriend.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, as Anthony starts to turn away, you ask, "Who told you all about it? Was it Kim? If that little bitch—!"<br/>
<br/>
"If Kim knows, she hasn't told anyone, and no one's told her. If you wanna know who it was, it was—"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Sure I told her to tell her friends," Kirkham sniggers. "What's the fun in keeping something like that a secret?"<br/>
<br/>
It's lunchtime and you've not eaten yet. Instead, you are hiding in a toilet stall in the E-wing girls' restroom, talking by phone to Sydney. Where she is, you don't know.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you <i>crazy?</i> And getting <i>Kelsey</i> to be the one who—"<br/>
<br/>
"Just trying to make your life interesting, babe," he chortles. "Anyway, Kelsey would'a told the others anyway, 'less I told her not to. She's that kind of girl."<br/>
<br/>
"I know what kind of girl Kelsey is!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then why are you surprised? You shoulda seen it coming."<br/>
<br/>
"But not from ... <i>you!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I toldja, I'm trying to keep things interesting for you. Anyway, it won't be for long. Or did you forget about—<i>rrhhmmm</i>—Alana? I got that all set up for this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"This afternoon?"<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that what I said?"<br/>
<br/>
"I mean— That quick?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. She knows a good lay when it comes up and says <i>I wanna fuck you so bad.</i> We're meeting at the portables right after last period. So, you know. Stick around."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney's news doesn't dampen your anger, but it does shut you up. <i>Okay,</i> you tell yourself as you close the connection with trembling fingers. <i>At least it won't be </i>my<i> problem anymore.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Or maybe it will. Because while you're waiting in the library after school for a phone call from Sydney, Ricky comes in. He has a look on his face that you—Amanda—have never seen before. He looks ... determined.<br/>
<br/>
"I was gonna call you," he says as he pulls out a chair. "But here we are. We have to talk."<br/>
<br/>
And just then your phone buzzes. Instinctively you pick it up, but Ricky seizes your hand and forces it back down to the table. "We have to talk, Amanda," he insists.<br/>
<br/>
<i>So we have to talk,</i> you think. <i>Give me twenty minutes and you can talk to Amanda, but I'll be somewhere else.</i><br/>
<br/>
Because you saw the call was from David Kirkham.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211111542
author_id: seuzz
title: That Kind of Girlfriend
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Sydney—you decide—can wait. She was using Kirkham's mouth and brain to say all kinds of disgusting things about Alana Ocampo, and she can damn well use Kirkham's mouth and cock on the girl herself until you can turn loose from Ricky.<br/>
<br/>
(At the same time, in the back of your head, you are pretty certain it's Amanda's instincts rather than your own that are kicking in here.)<br/>
<br/>
So even as the phone buzzes and vibrates, you cover it with your hand and concentrate on Ricky. "Is this about yesterday?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-huh."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you or Anthony or anyone else figure out that maybe Kelsey is full of shit?"<br/>
<br/>
Ricky reddens. "You mean she Photoshopped those pictures?"<br/>
<br/>
Now you feel yourself redden. <i>Kelsey took pictures? Was Sydney from the very start planning to use Kelsey to backstab you?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Look, I don't know what business it is of yours—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, then, why are we even going out together?" Ricky settles back in his chair with folded arms.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, Ricky. Why are we?"<br/>
<br/>
His flush deepens. "Okay, if that's the way you feel—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shut up. I'm just saying, us going out together doesn't have anything to do with, you know—" Your face feels like it's going to burn off the front of your skull. "With whatever I want to do with whoever and wherever. That's all something else."<br/>
<br/>
Ricky stares, and his voice is husky when he speaks. "Then why are we going out together?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because— Jesus! You think I want to go out with <i>David Kirkham?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Now froth is showing on Ricky's upper lip. "So— What, all you wanted to do is <i>fuck him?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Psshhh! It was Kelsey's idea."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, the—! The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't ask me about this, Ricky. I don't even want to have this conversation."<br/>
<br/>
Again, he stares, then shakes his head in disgust and starts to get up. "Where are you going?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
"You said you don't want to talk."<br/>
<br/>
"About <i>this.</i> But you don't have to go away mad."<br/>
<br/>
"<i>How the fuck else am I supposed to go away?"</i><br/>
<br/>
A hard voice calls from the other side of the library: "Hey, shut up over there!"<br/>
<br/>
"You shut up!" To Ricky: "Sit down like a fucking adult, Ricky. You're the one who wanted to talk."<br/>
<br/>
He drops back down into his chair. You suck in a deep breath, and try to organize your feelings—which are quite firm and clear—into coherent thoughts.<br/>
<br/>
"We started going out together— When? Our sophomore year? Because we were friends. Well, so this is what we do together. When there's something at the country club or some family function, or a <i>thing</i> that Kelsey or Anthony or someone wants to do, we go to it with each other. We go do things together when there's a thing to go do. We go out together. That's what it means when we say we're 'going out together'." You hook some pretty vicious finger quotes in the air when you use the phrase. "Now, where in there does it say anything about what else I can or can't do, where and with who? Including the Donna and including ... whoever."<br/>
<br/>
Ricky's mouth falls open, and he stares. "Well," he stammers, "I just assumed—"<br/>
<br/>
"And what do they say about assumptions, Ricky?"<br/>
<br/>
He blinks behind his glasses. Then his lips peel back. "So, if I went to the Donna with, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
Your own lip curls, but you don't utter the obvious thought: <i>Who would go with you to the Donna, Ricky? You're short, you've got a doughy body and a spotty complexion, and you dress in cheap khakis and polos.</i> Instead, you tell him, "Be my guest."<br/>
<br/>
He blushes again, and his eyes dart angrily.<br/>
<br/>
Your phone has stopped ringing by now, but you're ready to wrap things up with Ricky regardless. "Anyway, that's where we are," you tell him as you get to your own feet. "We're friends who go out to places together. And to be totally honest, Ricky, if we're friends, I would have expected a little more support and consideration from you, than this bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
You haul up your bag and stalk off while he is still staring bug-eyed after you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>God damn it, Amanda,</i> you marvel to yourself as you push into the nearest restroom. <i>Maybe I am going to miss being you. Well, not that it matters too much,</i> you add as you smirk at your reflection and resettle your dress. <i>I can slide you on and off whenever I want. And that's the goddamned truth!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You really were impressed with the bitch-on-wheels personality that burst out when you let your fake Amanda personality have its head, and maybe you're still a little drunk on it, because you indulge in a pee and some washing and touching up before turning your phone over and returning Sydney's call. And you tap your toe impatiently until Kirkham picks up.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck! Where are you, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "I'm still at the school, Sydney. Where are you? At the portables? With—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes! No point in your coming out here now, though."<br/>
<br/>
That surprises and alarms you. "What happened? Where's Alana?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck off! No!" He seems to catch himself. "I'm sorry, I'm just excited. Pissed off, but—" He sighs. "Just wait for me out at your car."<br/>
<br/>
"Something go wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll talk about it when I find you."<br/>
<br/>
There's a growl in his voice, but you just roll your eyes. "Listen, I just got through talking my 'boyfriend', and I don't feel like—" But the line has gone dead. You make a sour face at the screen. Then, after touching up your makeup again and cooling your hands in a sink full of water, you swing your pack onto your shoulders and exit the restroom.<br/>
<br/>
And you also stop at your locker to reorganize your book bag instead of heading straight out to the parking lot like Sydney asked.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So Kirkham is waiting by your car when you emerge into the late afternoon daylight. But he's not alone. There's a guy with him. His back is to you so you only make out his shock of coffee-dark hair and varsity jacket until, at a gesture from Kirkham, he turns.<br/>
<br/>
Your frown deepens. It's Marcos Rivera.<br/>
<br/>
He's not someone you or Amanda know well, and she only knows him by casual acquaintance because he often hangs out with Marc Garner. They're on the soccer team together, but you have the vague impression that the two are "best buds" of some kind. Anyway, he's a handsome son of a bitch, with a lean, slightly foxy face and dark eyes that flash impudently; his grin, when he unfurls it, is sharp, white, and very hungry.<br/>
<br/>
But he's not smiling now as you approach. Instead, his expression is hard and wary. But not so hard and wary that he doesn't give you a very open and appreciative look up and down.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you coolly greet them. "That's my car you're getting your butt-prints on." You reach between them for the car door handle.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham takes out the toothpick he's been nursing and tosses it away. "Where were you?"<br/>
<br/>
You glance sidelong at Rivera, then answer, "In the library, if it's any of your business. With my boyfriend."<br/>
<br/>
"Was your phone turned off?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Were you trying to call me? Maybe you misdialed if you were, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Turn off the Amanda act, Will. If you're gonna be her then I'm gonna be David, and then I'm gonna punch someone in the throat and there's an eighty percent chance it's going to be you. Okay?"<br/>
<br/>
You freeze, then slowly slide another sidelong glance at Rivera. "Um—"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't worry about him. He's one of the fakes now. A pedisequos."<br/>
<br/>
The news, of course, startles you. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that's how come I was calling you. I had to improvise when— Shit." He glances past you. "That's your boyfriend and some of his other friends coming out of the school now— Don't look! But you're gonna burst your hymen all over again if they see us together, aren't you? Fuck. Meet us over at the, uh— Taco Famoso. Like, now." He pokes Rivera in the ribs. "Come on, you fucking lettuce-picker. I'll buy you a burrito you can go down on." Rivera shoots him a quick, surly glare, but dutifully trudges after. You stare at them a moment, then slide into your car.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was all Kirkham's fault, Sydney tells you later, when you're parked in one of the drive-in stalls at the nastiest fast-food place in town. You're sitting in your car while she leans against the side and talks to you through the rolled down window while munching on a Frito pie. (You're too wise to order anything from a place that delivers the trots faster than it delivers the food.) Rivera, the subject of conversation, is slumping mulishly in the passenger-side of Kirkham's car.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Kirkham's fault,</i> Sydney stresses, not her own. The fact is that David Kirkham knew that Alana Ocampo was taking it every which way from Marcos Rivera, but he just thought Alana was being a slut and Marcos was being a man-whore. He didn't realize that they were actually going out together.<br/>
<br/>
And not "going out together" the way you explained it to Ricky.<br/>
<br/>
But anyway, after Sydney propositioned Alana, and she agreed to meet him at the portables after school, she apparently ran off to Marcos to tell <i>him</i> about it. And so, when Sydney got to the portables, she found Marcos, not Alana, waiting for him. And if Marcos was in a frisky mood, it wasn't because he was looking for a good fuck, it was because he was looking to fuck David Kirkham over real good.<br/>
<br/>
It might have even gone badly for Sydney except that she had a blank mask out and in hand when she rounded the corner. After quickly after realizing what was up, she got it onto Marcos.<br/>
<br/>
That's why she was so urgently trying to call you. So you could get out and, if you wanted, claim Marcos as one of your own. Instead, when you didn't pick up, Sydney had to make him one of hers.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it'll work out," she sighs. "With Marcos, we can <i>definitely</i> get to Alana."<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111115421
author_id: seuzz
title: Delayed Gratifications
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Can we get Alana tonight?" you ask Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, why not? It's a Friday night, her and Marcos prob'ly got plans."<br/>
<br/>
You glance over at Marcos, who is slumping in Kirkham's car with his phone out and his feet up on the dash. "Well, maybe you better make sure of that," you tell Sydney. "Because— Well, I thought Marcos already had a girlfriend." You wrack your brain for a name. "Cristina Ramon?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess they broke up. Well, I'll go talk to the fucker." Kirkham saunters off back to Kirkham's car and climbs in.<br/>
<br/>
It's while you're waiting and watching that the drive-in intercom buzzes and speaks, even though you never pressed a button. "Can we take an order from you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ew, why would I want to do that?" you retort. "I'd rather eat dog vomit than any of the crap you sell here." You get no argument; you get no reply of any kind, in fact.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham has thrown away the Frito pie and slid in a new toothpick when he returns to your side.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I could make him," he sighs. "But Rivera tells me he's supposed to go out the Warehouse tonight with Cristina. I don't fully get what the situation is, but he says there'd be hell to pay if he doesn't. He can set something up with Alana tomorrow, though."<br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow night?" You're supposed to help Kelsey set up for her weekly party then.<br/>
<br/>
"Anytime. Afternoon sounds like it'd be better."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. Well, let me know."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney snorts softly. "You gonna answer your fucking phone if I call you?"<br/>
<br/>
You twist the key in the ignition. "Bite me, David."<br/>
<br/>
Before you can roll the window up, though, Sydney grabs at the door. "What are you doing tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably fighting with my boyfriend again."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I don't got plans. None I can't change." The toothpick rolls from one side of his mouth to the other.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
His cock is a hard shaft up inside you, and you are screwed down tightly atop it. He doesn't shift and he doesn't thrust; and if you feel him pulsing, it might only be your imagination.<br/>
<br/>
But David Kirkham grips you tightly by the hips and stares up into your face. You have to bend your face over his, for there's hardly room in the back seat of his car for you to straighten up.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe that's why you're just sitting here, screwed into each other and breathing hotly and moistly onto each other's faces. But when he suggested the coupling, he suggested it as <i>only a coupling.</i> "No coitus, babe," he grunted as she helped you onto his lap. "We just hold it. Just hold it. As long as we—" He swallowed thickly. "We can."<br/>
<br/>
<i>And why?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Got a theory." With a hooked finger, he helped you peel down your white hose. "You do it ... hold it ... don't do anything, just ... hold it." He unbuttoned the front of his jeans, and you felt rather than saw Kirkham's swelling penis rising like a rocket to a gantry. "Hold it in inside you. You just hold me inside you. And we hold it ... and hold it ... and hold it." His face when you brushed it with your palm was feverish, and His bangs when you pushed them back felt wet. "Not doing nothing, just straining to hold it. Then ... Well ... It'll happen without trying. Just cum all at once. Sudden. Instant." He kisses you between your breasts. "And I'll blow the top of your head off."<br/>
<br/>
"Where'd you get this idea?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shhh. Don't talk. Just concentrate ... on—" He gurgled in the back of her throat as you opened your legs and slid slowly and gently down onto him. "Ohhhh!"<br/>
<br/>
Now you are settled firmly onto him. Your mouths are open to each other, but you don't kiss, but breathe and pant heavily onto each other. He grips you by the hips, and with one hand you grip the back of his neck and with the other clutch a fistful of his hair. And you concentrate on his cock.<br/>
<br/>
It is fat. It is hard. And it is deep up inside you. It's like a chisel that's been tapped into a crack between two tightly pressed stones, and just by the force of its presence is wedging them apart. You feel yourself loosening, melting, dripping down him, and though you don't will them, slow-moving pulses tighten and relax around his shaft. You are hot and prickly all over, as from a jungle heat, and humidity seems to rise and swim about your head. Your hair feels limp, and if you touched it you would expect to find it sopping.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually, he says, "Unngghhh."<br/>
<br/>
"Coming?" you murmur.<br/>
<br/>
"Nnggh. Think I'm losing it. Can't hold onto it."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't." You grip his hair more tightly. "Cum. Push. Make me cum. God damn it, I want you to make me—"<br/>
<br/>
He rises, pushes, thrusts. You push back, driving yourself more deeply onto his spike. One, two, thr—<br/>
<br/>
Then there's a hanging moment, and he explodes up into you like artillery fire.<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, you kiss long and deeply, and then, though he keeps his clothes on, he peels your dress off you, rolls you off and onto the seat, and curls up to kiss and suckle at your breasts. It leaves you giggling, and you choose that moment to tell Sydney about your talk with Ricky in the library. But she's not interested, and when you're done she turns her face from your nipples just long enough to mutter, "Shut up, no one here is interested in Amanda's personal shit."<br/>
<br/>
But you giggle again. "Maybe after I'm wearing Alana's face, I'll try seducing Ricky. Oh, no, yick! Never mind, I just grossed myself out!"<br/>
<br/>
Sydney tells you again to shut up.<br/>
<br/>
All in all, a pretty nice night, and much less creepy than you were afraid it was going to be.<br/>
<br/>
After all, you were parked in a very dark spot in the middle of the Masonic cemetery—a place, Sydney said, where no one was very likely to stumble over you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next morning you go for an early run around the neighborhood, then back home you shower and change into fresh, soft sweat pants and hoodie. Then—as that ambitious little workaholic bitch does every Saturday morning—you settle into getting your homework done perfectly. Come Sunday night you'll review and correct it all again. <i>Oh, but I'll be someone else then,</i> you remind yourself, <i> it'll be one of those pedi-whatsits doing Amanda's work.</i> But still you do this morning's work now. It'll be a good excuse to dodge Ricky or anyone else if they call.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you can't help going online to see if there's any talk about you and David, or you and Ricky. To your surprise, there isn't any, which you wonder at.<br/>
<br/>
It's a little after noon before you get a call, but it's not from who were expecting. "Hey," Marcos Rivera says in a low voice when you pick up. "I got it set up with Alana. I'll be out at her place a little after one. You come by, and we'll take care of her then."<br/>
<br/>
"Did Sydney tell you to set this up?" you ask, feeling no little trepidation.<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause, then a short laugh. "It's me, Will," Marcos says. "I'm here now."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, for Christ's sake!</i> "When did you do this? And why didn't you tell me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I did it at four o'clock this morning. That's when Marcos left the Warehouse and dropped Cristina off at home. I told him to meet me out in front of his house, and I did the switch there. Slept off the party and woke up a little while ago, all ready to deal with Alana an' shit."<br/>
<br/>
"Have you got the mask and stuff to do the—"<br/>
<br/>
"I got it under control, Will. Don't stress out on me. One o'clock, okay?" He gives you the address. "You're meeting me to pick up some stuff I got in the car for Kelsey's party. That's the story to get you in the door. Not that it matters, my little biscuit's not gonna argue, but that's the story if she asks. Later." So abruptly, he's gone.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm gonna have to get me a personality that can deal with Sydney,</i> you tell yourself as you put the phone back down. Then you remember that you're Amanda Ferguson. If <i>she</i> can't handle Sydney—<br/>
<br/>
You bite your lip. <i>It must be Sydney herself,</i> you decide. <i>And me.</i> She can just boss you around like no one's business.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Alana Ocampo lives in a crappy little apartment complex in the northwestern part of the city, just off the interstate. You look at it with no little loathing and fear as you park in front of her unit. <i>Place is probably full of crack dealers and junkies,</i> you think with a shudder. <i>I hope she's used to it.</i> You hurry as fast as you can from your car to her door without actually running.<br/>
<br/>
It seems like forever before there's a thump of footsteps in answer to your knock, and the door opens a crack. Marcos—his hair an uncombed tangle—blinks stupidly at you, then grins as he pulls the door wider. "Hey, Amanda!" he croaks. "You got here quick."<br/>
<br/>
"Quick as I could," you mutter as you squeeze past him. The living room, you find, is dinky and musty, but reasonably ordered. More so than Marcos, who besides his bedhead is shirtless and sockless and wearing only a tight pair of jeans.<br/>
<br/>
"Lemme just go tell Lana I gotta take care of this thing with you," he says, then blinks as he looks past you into the apartment. "Oh, hey, there she is," he says, and you turn to find a small girl peering at you around the corner of a doorway. "Hey, Lana, you know Amanda from school, right?" He pushes past you and pulls the girl out into the room. "This is my niña," he says as he catches her around the waist from behind and pulls her close. "Because she's a little thing"—he kisses the side of her head—"and she's a girl"—he kisses the other side of her head—"and she's <i>my</i> little girl." He squeezes her until she squeals.<br/>
<br/>
This is how you get your first good look at the girl you're about to become.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121111154211
author_id: seuzz
title: Into and Out of Character
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>She's small, smaller even than the impression you got from the online photo. The crown of her head would barely top your shoulders, and her slimness is accentuated by the length of her hair, which falls almost to her elbows. Her head looks almost too big for her body, and her eyes are almost too big for her head. As for her assets ...<br/>
<br/>
Well, they're hard to make out, because she's dressed in an overlarge purple sports jersey (Number 73) that hangs on her like a poncho, with the hem almost to her knees and the short sleeves almost to her wrists, and whatever breasts she has are lost in its billowing folds. She is bare-legged and barefoot, and shifts awkwardly inside Marcos's embrace while smiling shyly at you.<br/>
<br/>
It's a moment before you realize you're staring, and you find your voice. "Hey." Then you have to clear your throat, because it's suddenly filled with phlegm. "We have any classes together?" you ask her.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so." Alana gasps as Marcos nuzzles the side of her neck. "Um—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll get yer stuff," Marcos says. Without releasing her, he shuffles Alana sideways back into the other room. You hear a murmur of voices, and a zipper, and the creak of a bed frame. A moment later, Marcos puts his face around the corner and crooks a finger at you. His smile is wicked.<br/>
<br/>
You totter over to join him in the doorway. He hangs an arm over your shoulder as he pulls you inside.<br/>
<br/>
It's a bedroom, very small, with hardly enough room for the messy, twin-sized bed and bed-stand. The floor is dappled with clothes, and there's a tang in the air, like that of sour, unwashed bodies.<br/>
<br/>
Alana, eyes open and unseeing, is lying on the bed.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think?" Marcos says into your ear, and bites it. You jump.<br/>
<br/>
"Nice."<br/>
<br/>
"Real nice." He crowds you up against the doorframe, and you feel his swelling cock through the front of his jeans. "You're nice too. Like this." He puts a hot cheek against yours.<br/>
<br/>
"You ever stop thinking about sex, Sydney?"<br/>
<br/>
"You keep sticking me with guys who can't stop." Now he's rubbing his crotch against yours. "And you're too shy with me, Will. It's like you think you're gonna break."<br/>
<br/>
You clasp him around his bare shoulders and lift your head so he can get at your throat. This is nice, having a hot guy pushing himself against you, and having a body and organs that twinge and smoke in answer. You rake your fingers through his hair and let your knees weaken.<br/>
<br/>
But Marcos breaks off. "Come on," he says, and tugs you over to the bed. "Let's get you out of your things."<br/>
<br/>
"We gonna fuck?" you ask. "While the mask is copying the girl?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't know we got time." He pushes you onto the bed, almost onto Alana. "Or room." He bends to pick up one of your calves, and you fall backward to bounce off the girl. "No, looks like we don't got room. But don't worry about that." Gripping your foot, he helps you swing around so that you're lying next to the girl. "Besides, after we send Amanda on her way, we can pick up where Alana and me left off when you got here." With a leer, he reaches over to pull up the front hem of Alana's shirt. As you could have guessed, she's naked from the waist down.<br/>
<br/>
And she shaves.<br/>
<br/>
Marcos unties and pulls off your shoes while you wriggle out of your sweat pants and panties and shirt. He reaches behind to expertly unhook and draw off your bra. Then you topple back, and Marcos bends over you to put his muzzle in your bush. His tongue—wet and alert—darts around, exploring for a moment, before withdrawing.<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm," he says on straightening up. He picks up your hand and plays with your fingers. "Anything you want to tell Amanda before we send her away?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... Just do what she would do, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, about her and Kirkham? She gonna bust up with Ricky, start going with Kirkham?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know." You groan. "I don't want to think about it. It's a mess, and thank you so much for that."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you were telling me last night that you and Ricky were breaking up."<br/>
<br/>
"You weren't interested, so what do you know? I was telling you that Ricky was gonna break up with her, but I told him— Well, I don't know what I told him. Except that if I wanted to fuck another guy, it wasn't any of his business who I fucked or if I even did fuck another guy."<br/>
<br/>
"Her and Ricky never fucked, did they? Amanda, I mean." Still, he is playing with your fingers.<br/>
<br/>
"No. The other day was her first time with any guy."<br/>
<br/>
"No shit," he chortles. "That's how come I guessed her and Ricky never got nasty with each other."<br/>
<br/>
"Well," you sigh, "if nothing else, I think I taught Amanda to like it and want it."<br/>
<br/>
A slow, sharp grin spreads across Marcos's face. "Which is just the way we wanted it, Will. The good news is—" He nods at the girl beside you. "You won't have to teach <i>her</i> to like it too. She already digs it. Digs it hard and filthy."<br/>
<br/>
You're about to ask what's up with Marcos and Alana, but he suddenly bends to reach past you, and when he straightens up he's got a mask in his hand. "This has been fun, Amanda," he says, "but it's time to say goodbye. Will, I'll see you on the other side."<br/>
<br/>
You shut your eyes as Sydney bends and reaches for your face. Her fingers close about your temples and tug. For a moment you feel yourself swimming in inky darkness, then you know no more.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake as though surfacing from deep water, and for a long time (it seems) you lay very still with your eyes tightly shut. Your limbs are heavy, and when you do shift them they are also stiff. <i>How long have I been asleep?</i> you wonder. <i>And where's Sydney?</i><br/>
<br/>
With that thought your eyes pop open, and you sit up with a grunt. You're lying on the same rumpled bed in the same dingy bedroom where you last laid yourself down, but now you have it to yourself. You draw your knees up and rub your calves.<br/>
<br/>
Your hairy calves.<br/>
<br/>
That's not quite right, and you frown. <i>Shouldn't I be—? Wasn't Sydney supposed to—?</i> You gingerly touch your face, and find the familiar old whiskers on your upper lip and chin. <i>The fuck? Did something go wrong?</i><br/>
<br/>
You fumble around the bed, searching for a mask or some clothes or for something under than the strange sheets to cover your nakedness. The bed frame squeaks and groans. You freeze at the sound of footsteps in an outer room, and your heart goes sideways in your chest when Marcos Rivera steps into the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
But he just gives you a short smile and says, "Oh, you're finally awake."<br/>
<br/>
"How long was I out for?" you grunt.<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno. Ten, fifteen minutes. How you feel?" He sits on the bed next to you.<br/>
<br/>
All the stiffness has vanished, and you feel as alert as you ever have. "Fine. Something happen? I thought you were supposed to put, whatsername, the mask—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I got it. Well, out in the living room, with her things. I just thought maybe you'd wanna be yourself a few minutes before making the switch." Tenderly, he brushes your hair back from your brows. "Or maybe I just wanted to see your face, Will."<br/>
<br/>
Your blood runs a little cold. It's your girlfriend, Sydney McGlynn, who is so affectionately stroking you. But she's got Marcos Rivera's narrow, foxy face, so you want to scramble away at the same time that—dammit!—you are more than a little turned on.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you don't fight it when he leans into lightly kiss you on the lips, and you even kiss back, though you're very tentative.<br/>
<br/>
Marcos snorts softly. "Yeah," he drawls. "It's a little funny for me too. Well, fuck me for missing you, Will." He slaps your bare thigh. "You had a little too much of the Amanda thing going. I wanted to talk to <i>you</i> more'n you'd let me."<br/>
<br/>
You could say something about how she was more like Kirkham than you liked, but instead reply, "I kinda had to be, didn't I?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess. And I won't mind so much if you get into being Alana. It was <i>Amanda</i> I was getting kinda tired of."<br/>
<br/>
You glance around. "What time is it? Shouldn't I go ahead and—? I mean, what if someone comes home?"<br/>
<br/>
"They won't. Her grandpa—that's who she lives with—works until, like, six. But she's got work in—" He glances at his phone, which he's gripping. "Shit. Yeah, you better get ready." He gets up.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Work.</i> That sounds like fun (not). To cover your dismay, you say, "I guess I'll finally figure out what's going on with her and Marcos after, um, I put the mask on."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "Yeah, well, maybe not even then. It's pretty complicated. Try not to freak out, Will," he says from the doorway. "It's gonna be a different kind of life for you."<br/>
<br/>
You swallow at his words, and you swallow again when he steps back into the room with a mask and that oversize jersey. "Want me to do it for you?" he asks as he settles back beside you.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You wriggle down until you're flat on the bed again. "But—"<br/>
<br/>
"I want you to know, Will," Marcos interrupts, "that I'll look out for you the whole time you're, um—" He bites his lip. "And remember, you don't have to be her for long. We can find you someone else real quick. There's lots of other people out there for you to be."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit, what am I getting into?</i> you wonder. Your eyes are locked on Marcos's, so you don't even see the name on the inside of the mask before he lowers it onto your face.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211111542111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Girl at the Drive-Thru Window
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You wake with a start and are halfway off the bed almost before you know where you are. <i>What time is it?</i> you wonder. Also: <i>What happened to Marcos?</i><br/>
<br/>
You blink stupidly as you try to place yourself, and absent-mindedly push a long hank of hair from your face—<br/>
<br/>
And that's when your heart leaps into your throat even as your stomach plunges.<br/>
<br/>
You grasp that lock of hair and hold it up to examine. The color is a deep, luscious brown, and the ends are neatly trimmed. The fingers with which you clasp it are small with tapering fingernails that glint with a translucent polish. You glance down at your chest.<br/>
<br/>
You've got breasts. Small ones, pointed with almost-upturned tips, like bananas. But they are definitely breasts, and they are a light, creamy brown, as is the rest of your torso. Your stomach is smooth and flat and curves inward, and your bellybutton is like a little scoop in wet sand. And below that— <i>Huh. Alana shaves. Wait, I knew that, didn't I?</i> You touch the spot with an exploratory fingertip. It is tender, and pulses with hungry life.<br/>
<br/>
<i>So where did Sydney get off to again?</i> you wonder. But it's Marcos's name you call. In answer (you suppose) comes the sound of a toilet flushing. But it's another minute before he appears in the doorway, and by then you've wriggled back into the jersey.<br/>
<br/>
It belonged to Alana's older brother, when he played high-school football six or seven years ago. A lot of her clothes are hand-me-downs from a brother who is a foot taller and many pounds heavier than her.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey there," Marcos says as he come in. You put out your arms and he slides between them, embracing you and kissing the side of your neck. "How you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"I woke up, and you weren't here." His bare torso is warm as you clasp him.<br/>
<br/>
"Nature called." He rubs the small of your back with his knuckles and squeezes your ass through the shirt. "Memories?" He kisses you again.<br/>
<br/>
"I think so." You sniff the side of his neck. It's a familiar scent, warm and tangy with an undertone of sweat. "We were— Mmm!" You clasp him tightly. "You had your fingers up inside me when that girl knocked at the door."<br/>
<br/>
It comes to you in a flash of memory: looking back at the the cold-faced Amanda Ferguson as she stared haggardly at you.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanted so bad to put something else up in there. But—" Marcos kisses your neck again, and this time there are teeth in the kiss. "I was expecting that knock, you know. And I wanted to save it for when—" He kneads at you through the shirt. "When it could be both of us here, like this."<br/>
<br/>
Your mouth finds his, and you kiss long and deep and wetly, with tongues and teeth and lips. You are quickly aflame, and grind yourself against him. "Oh God," you groan. "My pussy hurts so bad."<br/>
<br/>
"We got time to squeeze one in?"<br/>
<br/>
"Time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Before you have to go to work."<br/>
<br/>
You can hardly concentrate for the pulsing lust churning you, and it's a moment before you can place what he's talking about. "Oh, shit. What time is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Almost two."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, I gotta get ready." You sigh.<br/>
<br/>
He squeezes you tightly to himself, and you feel a rock-like cock pressing you through your jersey and the front of his jeans. "I can drive you there, that could give us time to— Nngh!"<br/>
<br/>
"Or you could take a shower with me."<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm. We haven't done that."<br/>
<br/>
You giggle. "None of us have. You, me, Marcos, <i>or</i> Alana!"<br/>
<br/>
"We could do a lot of things they never did." He kisses the side of your head. "I can think of about ten right off the top of my head."<br/>
<br/>
"Your head or Marcos's?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're the same one now, babe," he softly answers.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
In the event, you don't shower together, and without Sydney to distract you, you take as much time as Alana would, soaping and washing yourself all over with a giant sponge, squeezing it into every tight place on your body. She washed her hair this morning, so you don't have to deal with that, except to tie it up into a bun in back. When you emerge at the end of it all in your McDonald's uniform, Marcos is back in his red t-shirt and shoes. He puts his arm around your torso as you lock up and walk out to his car.<br/>
<br/>
"You gonna be able to pick me up tonight like you said?" you ask as you buckle yourself in.<br/>
<br/>
"Like I said?" he echoes as he starts the car. "I didn't <i>promise</i> I would—"<br/>
<br/>
"You did! You said you'd take me to work and pick me up."<br/>
<br/>
"Depends on if I can get away from Mamacita."<br/>
<br/>
"Bring her with you. I'll give you free fries and shakes."<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm!" He takes his eyes from the road long enough to seize your chin and give you a quick kiss on the lips. "You really know how to turn me on."<br/>
<br/>
"So will you come pick me up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. I'll tell Mamacita I promised you. But she has to come too."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay. I like Mamacita." You scratch your ear. "She likes me too, doesn't she?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." He does a quick double-take at you. "You think she doesn't?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think she does. I just wanna be sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, give her free fries and a shake, and she'll like you for sure. And, you know, she'll like you for sure, Will, if we—" He scratches you under the chin, and grins.<br/>
<br/>
You brush him away. "It's too soon to think about that, Sydney. I just got <i>here!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a quarter to three when you arrive at work, which is plenty of time to get your head in the right place for the next nine hours. Martina Torres is taking an order at the front counter, but she briefly catches your eye and smiles as you come in the door.<br/>
<br/>
First stop is the restroom for a last, quick pee and touch-up to your look. The charcoal-gray blouse and pants do nothing for you, but you greedily consume your new reflection anyway. Big, soft brown eyes. Wide, shy smile. Smooth skin. Alana hasn't seemed to age much since her freshman year, and it's no wonder she's had to beat back attention from the boys almost since she was thirteen years old.<br/>
<br/>
Except, it's less that she's "beaten it back" than that she has flitted from one boy to another.<br/>
<br/>
Take Kenzo, for instance, who is emerging from the men's restroom at the same time as you step out of the women's. He jerks a little, then grins and nods at you, but you don't say anything to each other—not even a quick "Hi"—as side by side you stride toward the kitchen. Kenzo was Alana's boyfriend last year, when he was a senior at Eastman High, and he's the one who got her this job at McDonald's. It was an amicable break-up, but it still got awkward when he started dating Daniela, another crew member at the restaurant. Luckily, the job is busy enough that you hardly have time for more than small talk with him or anyone else.<br/>
<br/>
And speaking of the busy job— <i>I'm sure glad Alana knows what she's doing,</i> you reflect as you slide in the earpiece and settle in at the drive-thru station. "Welcome to McDonald's, will you be using any of your reward points with us today?" you coo at your first customer. <i>If my dad—Harris Prescott—could see me now,</i> you think as you tap in the order. <i>With an actual weekend job.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, and tits.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Mr. Medrano's talking about moving me up front, cashiering in-store."<br/>
<br/>
"That's cool. Isn't it?" Marcos wrenches a bite from the hamburger you snuck out to him, along with the two shakes and fries for him and Trina. It's a little before midnight, and you're helping sweep and clean the place. But your own shift will end when the restaurant closes, so you're not putting your back into it, and are loitering near the booth where Marcos and his Mamacita are scrunched up with their arms around each other's shoulders, feeding each other fries.<br/>
<br/>
"Depends on the reason he wants to move me," you reply. "There were some guys pulled in around nine, and they were, um, talking to me at the window."<br/>
<br/>
Marcos's face falls. "Yeah?" His voice hardens. "What kind of talking?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you know. Guys cruising at nine o'clock on a Saturday night. Anyway, Mr. Medrano heard them—"<br/>
<br/>
"And what'd he do?" Marcos's eyes flash with anger.<br/>
<br/>
"He put his head around the corner and told them to drive on, we wouldn't be serving them."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' right on."<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate. You were only making small talk when you started telling Marcos about all this, but it sounds like he's going to take it the wrong way. So when he asks, "Is that how come he's thinking of moving you? So you don't have to deal with creeps at the window?" you only nod and cut it short.<br/>
<br/>
A few minutes later, you've pushed the mop into the opposite corner of the restaurant, next to the napkin and condiments station, when Kenzo makes a beeline at you. "Is that Marcos over there?" he asks you in a low voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
He pauses. "Did you two break up?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
He glances back over his shoulder, at where Marcos and Trina are sitting. "Well, who's that he's with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's Trina. Trina Murillo. She goes to school with us."<br/>
<br/>
Kenzo blinks at you, and again glances back over his shoulder. "So— The way they're sitting together—"<br/>
<br/>
You glance over, in time to see them nuzzle deeply at each other. Kenzo's puzzlement suddenly makes sense.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that." You smile at him. "It's complicated, Kenzo. But it's okay."<br/>
<br/>
You don't elaborate, and he looks doubtful.<br/>
<br/>
*** Continue this storyline? Or back up to a previous choice in the branch? Vote in the poll!: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2298738-BoM-Poll-The-Path-to-Brotherhood" target="_top" title="Where does the story go next?">BoM Poll: The Path to Brotherhood</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2298738-BoM-Poll-The-Path-to-Brotherhood" target="_blank" title="Where does the story go next?"><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a>  ***<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112
author_id: seuzz
title: From Bitch to Bully
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"What did you do to him?" you squeal at Sydney as you step over the prostrate body of David Kirkham. "I didn't even see you hit him with a mask!"<br/>
<br/>
"I hit him with half of one." She bends over to grab Kirkham by his ankles. "The part that, you know, copies— Are you going to help me out here?"<br/>
<br/>
Together, groaning with the exertion, you and Sydney drag the deadweight of David Kirkham's body to the foot of the bed. There's no way, even working together, you could haul him onto the bed, so that's where you leave him.<br/>
<br/>
But what does Sydney mean by "half a mask"? There is a mask on the bed, but when you turn it over you find it has Kelsey's name inside it. "So where's the one we made for Kirkham?"<br/>
<br/>
"Inside the bag," she says, jerking her chin at the plastic bag sitting nearby. "So, are we just going to turn him into a <i>pedisequos?</i> Or do you want to take him for a spin first?"<br/>
<br/>
You don't answer right away, but dig inside the plastic grocery bag. It contains a plastic tub—the slave-making goop—and a brush and, most importantly, another mask. But its inner surface, you find on turning it over, has no metal strip inside it. "Where's the rest of it?" you ask. "The metal bit?"<br/>
<br/>
"Inside <i>him,</i>" she says with a faint but grinding patience. "That's what I hit him with. I figured it'd be easier than if I tried punching him the face with a mask."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." Put that way, it makes sense. "So we'll have to put it together afterward?" you ask. "Copy him with the thing, then with the mask, then put them together?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," she says. "I guess that's the plan." Something in her distracted answer makes you look up.<br/>
<br/>
She is staring down at Kirkham, and you follow her gaze. His turquoise polo shirt is bunched up around his chest, exposing a flat stomach with some visible muscles, and his glasses have half-fallen from his face. She kneels to pull them off and to shift his head so that he's staring at the ceiling instead of the bottom of the bedspread.<br/>
<br/>
"He's not bad looking, you know," she says. "It's too bad he's such an asshole."<br/>
<br/>
You shiver. At first you think it must be a shiver of loathing and anger at the half-compliment Sydney has paid your nemesis. Then you realize there was a deeper thrill inside the shiver. <i>In a few minutes,</i> you think, <i>David Kirkham is going to be under our control. A skin puppet with our hands inside him, working him.<br/>
<br/>
Or,</i> you then think, <i>It could be </i>me<i> inside him, working him.</i><br/>
<br/>
You look up at Sydney from under your eyebrows. <i>And that's the girl we both want. If I was being him, we could both have her.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Why'd you take Kelsey's mask off?" you ask her.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm?" She looks up from Kirkham with a distracted expression. "Oh. Well, I thought, you know, he's interested in me. I thought it would help us get the drop on him, surprise him, if he found <i>me</i> waiting." A gleam comes into her eye, and she cocks her head. "You're not jealous, are you, Will? Thinking I was—"<br/>
<br/>
"You can do whatever you want, Sydney," you say, and feel yourself flushing. "And it was probably the smart thing to do."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Will." She smiles at you through her sigh. "If I was into him, you think I'd have helped you do <i>this?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You suck on your upper lip, and take the plunge. "Well, if you're grossed out by him, would you hate it if I, uh, switched from Amanda's mask into his?"<br/>
<br/>
She stares at you. Then she throws her head back and laughs for sheerest joy.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You start by tugging all the clothes off Kirkham: his black Skechers slip-on shoes; socks; jeans and boxer shorts; and shirt. So stripped, he reveals a lithe, strong body, though padded over with a layer of baby fat. You're struck by how almost hairless he is, save for the tangle inside of which nestles his trouser-worm. He is olive-complected all over, even around his hips and crotch, though they of course are a lot lighter than the rest of him, and he's got visible tan lines on most of his limbs.<br/>
<br/>
Given that he's being copied two pieces at a time, he's unconscious for a long time, which gives you plenty of time to strip off and fold Amanda's clothes into a pile, and to lay back on the bed with Sydney bending over you. "Do you want me to put David's mask straight onto you?" she asks, "if I'm done putting it together before you wake up? Or do you want to wait and do it yourself?" You ponder the question, then ask her to wait. "I'm glad you said that," she says. "I've been missing your face. Your real face." She brushes your forehead gently with her fingertips, then grips it. You clench your eyes shut and brace against the sensation of feeling your face torn from the front of your skull.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are like a puddle of limp muscle when you wake, and for a minute or two you lay exhausted with your eyes closed, letting strength and consciousness slowly return as you turn over in your mind where you are, where you're coming from, and where you're going. <i>I'm at the Donna,</i> you remind yourself, and I'm in the middle of changing places, from Amanda Ferguson to David Kirkham.<br/>
<br/>
You feel your brow beetle a little with puzzlement. <i>I am in the middle of the change, aren't I?</i><br/>
<br/>
Like running your tongue over your mouth to explore a cavity, you feel for Amanda's memories. It's not hard to find your own memories from being her mask—talking with "Kelsey" and Blake; talking with Kirkham; walking into the Donna. Memories back farther than that? If you concentrate, you can remember some of the things you remembered when you were Amanda, but they feel hazy and uncertain, like you're not sure if you dreamed them or not. As for anything else ... Well, it's too exhausting. So you satisfy yourself that you're no longer Amanda by draping a heavy hand over your chest, which is flat with a patch of wispy hair between your pecs.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Rrgh,</i> you think. <i>I'm gonna miss having breasts.</i><br/>
<br/>
As for Kirkham, you explore around, looking for memories, perhaps of coming to the Donna, but you don't find any. At least, not before you are interrupted by someone bouncing onto the bed nearby. You crack your eyes open to find Sydney peering into your face with a smile. "Wake up, Will," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm." You smile at her, and come fully awake with a deep breath, but you don't move, except to lift your head and glance around. "Where's—? Is it just us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. I put Amanda's mask onto David and sent her away. She just left, in fact."<br/>
<br/>
"She obeys your orders?" You feel your brow furrow.<br/>
<br/>
"No, not really. But I don't think the <i>pedisequos</i> wanted to be here. She kept looking over at you, and I don't think it's cause she was scoping you out."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, rub it in," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
"Rub what in?" Sydney frowns.<br/>
<br/>
"That I'm no great prize."<br/>
<br/>
"Sweetie," Sydney says. "Amanda's a snot and a cunt. And I wouldn't let her take you as a prize anyway, not when you're <i>my</i> big prize." She puts her mouth to yours, and gently but wetly smooches it. "That's why I wanted you to"—<i>smooch</i>—"give me a few minutes alone with you."<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm," you grunt again, but more pleasurably. You kiss her back when she goes in for a third time, and chase her back up when she lifts her face. Deeper and more wetly, hungrily, you kiss, and you throw an arm around her to pull her down. Your cock rises until it stings.<br/>
<br/>
But after a minute or two of this, Sydney breaks off and sits up. Her face is flushed.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I gotta stop this," she pants. "You need to finish getting changed."<br/>
<br/>
"How come?" You paw at her.<br/>
<br/>
"Because"—she swallows thickly—"I think I told you, I want to keep my, um, virginity. At least, my own virginity, I don't think doing it inside a mask will make a difference. I think— I don't know for sure, but I think it ... has advantages ... in this business." She briefly cradles the side of your face. "And if I keep doing this with you my willpower's gonna crumble."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help leering. "You mean your willpower against my Will power?" You grasp your cock.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oooh! Almost a mistake!</i> A spasm runs through you, and almost—you can feel the hair trigger vibrating—almost your cock goes off, splatting something onto the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
But Sydney doesn't seem to notice. "Oh, ha ha," she snorts. "I'm shutting you up with David's mask now."<br/>
<br/>
She bounces off the bed and you glower after her. <i>You're such a tease,</i> you think. <i>And d'you think Kirkham would respect you and your—?</i><br/>
<br/>
You're caught up short by a cold feeling in your chest. It was really easy, at times, to slip into Amanda's personality. Will it be just as easy to slip into Kirkham's? And if so, are you quite sure you won't ... um ... <i>impose</i> yourself on Sydney the way you're afraid the real motherfucker might have?<br/>
<br/>
You have to wonder if Sydney is reading your thoughts when she comes back with a mask in her hands. "Don't go too far away, Will," she says as she sits on the edge of the bed. She pauses a moment to glint at you, then lowers the mask over your face. You flinch and shut your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're naked, and you're erect. She's asleep, on the bed next to you. You run a light fingertip up the inside of her thigh.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fucking Kelsey.</i> It would be quite a way to wake her up, by cumming inside her. And you have to wonder if that's how come Sydney put Kelsey's mask back on after putting Kirkham's onto you.<br/>
<br/>
You'd love to accept the implied invitation.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122
author_id: seuzz
title: Making the Bully Your Bitch
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You had woken with a start, and for several long moments lain on the bed, blinking at a strange ceiling. But you hadn't been confused for long. David Kirkham's memories were like a swampy pool puddling in the back of your head as you rested and gathered your wits. All you had to do was sink back into them, and let them fill and soak into you.<br/>
<br/>
And when they'd filled you ...<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck me,</i> you thought as you raised a hand and turned it this way and that, studying it as you flexed your fingers. You made a fist, and felt a strong, hard bicep bunch up. You snorted softly to yourself, and sat up.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you found the girl sleeping on the bed at your side. She was naked, same as you. She had Kelsey Blankenship's slender, summer-tanned form, and instantly your cock sprang to attention.<br/>
<br/>
You stroke her inner thigh again, now with your palm, then clasp it firmly. Kelsey's expression—blank and languid as she drowses—doesn't change. But her mouth somehow becomes even more inviting.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This fucking cunt.</i> You've watched her from afar all through high school, lusting for her and resenting her, knowing that there's an uncrossable ditch between you, one dug by the girl herself. Her and her fucking country club set, swanning around and trying not to look at, let alone touch, guys like you.<br/>
<br/>
And then when you found out she was regularly coming to the Donna, and letting Karl Hennepin fuck her ... <i>Jesus!</i> What the <i>fuck</i> was a cunt-faced bitch like Kelsey doing, opening her snatch to a goober like Hennepin? It was crazy, infuriating. Could he give her a good fuck? Could he give her a fuck even a tenth as good as you could?<br/>
<br/>
You'd more or less told him that one day when you were ditching class, out by the portables. You'd just come out with it, no one had even been talking about it, but the longer you looked at Hennepin the hotter and sicker you felt, until you just flat out asked him what Kelsey tasted like, and what he was doing with her, and did he actually fucking think he was any good at any of the things he was doing to her.<br/>
<br/>
It didn't go over well. Roth was there, and he told you to shut the fuck up, and you almost clocked him in the face but held back because there's a bridge between you and him that you don't want to torch. So you let it drop but glowered at Hennepin and burned a couple of cigarettes until he got the hint and moved on. Anytime you see Hennepin around it just pisses you off all over again.<br/>
<br/>
And now here you are with Kelsey. Alone. Alone and naked.<br/>
<br/>
Except it's not Kelsey, and you know it's not Kelsey anymore than you are David Kirkham. And it's that knowledge that probably keeps you from mounting her while she's still asleep.<br/>
<br/>
Instead you stroke her and kiss her, all around and practically on top of her pussy, until with a faint groan she begins to stir. You lay down next to her, propped on an elbow, and cradle the side of her head with your free hand. She turns toward you, and her eyes crack open.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm?" she says, and then, "Ooh!" and then, "Hey!" She reaches over to stroke the side of your face. "Interesting."<br/>
<br/>
But now that she's awake, you can't wait anymore. Your cock has been throbbing gently but insistently all this time.<br/>
<br/>
You lean in and cover her mouth with yours. She grunts in surprise, then opens her mouth to accept your tongue and your teeth. You pull and bite at her, thinking as you do so, <i>I'm finally getting it. I'm finally gonna bust loose inside Kelsey Blankenship. I'm gonna make her scream.</i><br/>
<br/>
You shift atop her and slide a knee in between her thighs. She hesitates as though surprised, then pulls her legs apart, and you roll over between them. Supporting yourself on one elbow you glower down into her face as you explore with your straining dick for the gash hiding inside her bush. When you find it, you reach down to guide yourself in, then lift yourself up to loom over her. She gasps and grunts. "Jesus, you're not wasting anytime, are you?" she says. You don't dignify that with an answer.<br/>
<br/>
Inch by inch you slide deeper into her, forcing her open. She's dry as you enter, but she gamely goes along with you, lifting her hips to drive herself more deeply onto your spike. Once you feel yourself firmly mounted, you plunge your face into the crook of her neck, to kiss and nip. She nearly comes off the bed beneath you, and at last the juices start to come. She groans and pants as you begin to rhythmically pump at her, but you restrain yourself until she has caught up to you. Then you feel the moment you begin to overtop yourself, and linger momentarily as though atop a precipice—then you are falling into her, hard.<br/>
<br/>
But she doesn't scream. She just whimpers and squeaks. It disgusts you, but you finish with a drawn-out sequence of bangs, squirting as many final drops into her as you can.<br/>
<br/>
Then you go boneless atop her. She gasps, and shoves at you until with a groan you roll off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're still sprawling on the bed, legs spread with a cock gently bobbing back to attention, but she's almost dressed. You'd cuddled for awhile after regaining some little strength, but then she suddenly got very brusque and businesslike, and said she had to go. It left you resentful, but there's no fucking way you were going to humiliate yourself by arguing.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want me to call Amanda, have her come back here?" Kelsey asks as she fumbles through her bag to pull out a hairbrush.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
She pauses to give you a look. "You want <i>me</i> to stay, is that it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can if you want."<br/>
<br/>
She sighs, and starts to brush out her hair. "What's your deal, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You snort, then grind the heel of your hand into an eyeball. "I dunno," you admit. "You should take off, though, if I'm not gonna be any fun."<br/>
<br/>
She gives you a smirk. "You <i>were</i> fun, right after I woke up."<br/>
<br/>
Maybe that's it. It was anticlimactic. You wanted to force yourself onto Kelsey, but she was too accepting, and she didn't yelp like you wanted. Also, she's not the real Kelsey.<br/>
<br/>
You study her from under your brows. That's really Sydney, you try telling yourself, and even though you know and feel it's not Kelsey, you can't quite believe it's Sydney either. <i>People being other fucking people,</i> you sourly muse. <i>What a pathetic puke you'd have to be to want to be someone else. To get what you want by </i>not<i> being yourself. What's the point? Take all you can get, because you get what you deserve.</i><br/>
<br/>
"So what are you going to do about Will Prescott and Sydney McGlynn?" She has finished brushing out her hair, and turns that smug and so-very-Kelsey-like smirk onto you.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, I guess." You suck in a cheek. "That was the point of this, right? To get Kirkham off'a them."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. But I told you—" She comes over to sit on the edge of the bed, and strokes your calf. "We wanted David for the Brotherhood. He seems like a such a perfect recruit." A trace of a frown flutters over her face. "Or does it seem like we were wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. We weren't wrong." You're suddenly aware that you've crossed your arms defensively, but you don't relax. "But I just—" You rub your eye again. It's frustrating knowing that something is off, but not be able to figure it out. "I guess I just need to get used to this."<br/>
<br/>
"You having a hard time getting his memories, or something?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I think maybe that's the problem. I got 'em too well. Got all of 'em—got all of <i>him</i> too good."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno." You shift restlessly. "It's like he's in me too deep, and— I dunno," you repeat, then blurt out, "He's not fucking happy about being turned into a fucking meat puppet." <i>Especially by a fucking little cum-puddle like Prescott.</i><br/>
<br/>
Kelsey purses her lips. "So who's in charge, Will?" she asks. "You or him?"<br/>
<br/>
And with that she stands up, hikes her purse onto her shoulder, and strides for the door. "I paid for a night in this room, Will," she says. "In case you don't understand how it works, when you check out, they'll refund you the unused hours. But you can hang out here as long as you want."<br/>
<br/>
She flashes you a quick smile—a real bitchy, Kelsey-like smile—and goes out the door.<br/>
<br/>
You glower thoughtfully after her. <i>Yeah. So who is in charge, man?</i> you muse.<br/>
<br/>
You hike yourself up with a grunt and pad into the bathroom. You put on a light, and check yourself out in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes are dark hazel under a strong, lowering brow, and you've a well-shaped nose over a small mouth that easily settles into something between a smirk and a sneer. Your thatch of dark brown hair—thick as a haystack—parts roughly in the middle, and falls over your ears and the top of your neck.<br/>
<br/>
You've a body to match the watchful glower that's your natural expression: strong and lithe but not sinewy, with smooth skin that isn't soft. You shift on your feet, and lean back to return the asshole in the mirror the same "fuck you" stare he's giving you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yeah, you just keep on being mad at me, motherfucker,</i> you tell him, and your lips work a little as you think it. <i>But I'm in fucking charge of you now. Yeah, I'm </i>wearing<i> you, motherfucker, like a fucking skinsuit, and I got my fingers so far up your asshole I'm finger-banging your brain. Ain't a goddam thing you can do about it, either.<br/>
<br/>
I'm running your machine now, Kirkham. Me, Will Prescott, that cum-puddle.</i><br/>
<br/>
Your sneer deepens. <i>Enjoy it while I drive you around.</i><span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221
author_id: seuzz
title: At Home as David Kirkham
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You hike the pack onto your shoulders, slam the car door, and roll the toothpick over to the other side of your mouth, all in one smooth motion. You snort softly as you turn a contemptuous eye onto the school.<br/>
<br/>
It's Wednesday morning, the start of your first full day as David Kirkham, Semi-Professional Asshole. It should be more than second nature to you now, you should actually be a little bored with the impersonation. But you still feel a thrill of anticipation as you swagger toward the school.<br/>
<br/>
From the Donna yesterday you went home to the dinky little house that Kirkham and his little brother share with their mom. Her name is Margaret, and she's a registered nurse. It would have been easy enough to blow off Kirkham's chores and schedule, but you felt a cocky need to do and act exactly like him, to prove to the inflamed dick whose body and personality you're driving around that you can do things just as good as him, just the way he does them.<br/>
<br/>
So when you got back to his place you banged a fist on Tad's door and busted in without an invite. He glared up resentfully from his desk, pencil poised over the notebook. "Just checkin' you weren't jerking off," you told him. "I'll have supper ready in about thirty minutes." You could tell he'd like to flip you off, but he just glowered until you shut the door.<br/>
<br/>
Back in the kitchen you put some instant rice on to boil, then sliced up some pork and vegetables for a quick stir-fry. Kirkham is not a "cook", but he spent the summer with his grandmother, and she taught him a bunch of relatively easy recipes for meals that seem a lot fancier than they actually are.<br/>
<br/>
You started your homework even while the meal was cooking, and buckled down into it while gobbling dinner down across the table from Tad, who having finished his own homework was scrolling through his phone. Afterward, you put him to cleaning up the kitchen while you spread out books and papers to power through your own schoolwork. Kirkham may be a thug and a reprobate, but he is also (you discovered to your chagrin) very good at some very hard classes, especially math, being that he's taking both AP Calculus and AP Stats. You were finished by the time Margaret Kirkham got home at nine, and were already back in the bedroom running scales and arpeggios up and down a cello. That's something else (it pisses you off to admit) that he is surprising at: Not only is he talented at the cello (he's even studying with a university professor) and appreciative of classical music in addition to the more metal forms of pop, but he is good enough to play in the school orchestra, the elite chamber orchestra, and in a privately organized school string quartet.<br/>
<br/>
You got up the next morning satisfied that you've got Kirkham well in hand. He is now like a powerful steed who communicates his power to you, his rider, so that you feel bolstered and strengthened by his strength, which you can turn outward at the world or inward to control him. But he's still a little wild, and you can tell he needs watching if he's not to slip from your grip and carry you along on his instincts. So you gave yourself the same little talk this morning as yesterday, as you dressed after your shower. <i>You just fucking watch yourself,</i> you growled as you pulled on some tan shorts and a fire-engine red polo; socks and the slip-on Skechers. <i>Remember who's working you by the short hairs. You don't so much as fucking twitch 'less'n I give you permission, cocksucker. Fuck, I don't even give you permission to twitch,</i> you reminded him as you spritzed the tinted glasses and carefully wiped them clean. <i>You don't twitch. I do the twitching for you.</i> There was a little gloating light in the eyes that reflected back at you in the bathroom mirror, but they vanished as you slid on the tinted shades. It's like sliding on a mask: hide the eyes, and you hide the only part of Kirkham's hard-featured face that's open and vulnerable. You slid a flavored toothpick between cheek and gum, grinned at the effect, and swaggered back to your bedroom to finish packing for school.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham had a tough time in elementary and middle schools, and it was there that he learned to be ruthless with his fists, and to give no quarter. He was small for his age, and he is still on the small side, and for that reason (probably) the bigger guys thought they could push him around. But he doesn't give without giving back triple. He trained himself to box bare-knuckled, and to keep fighting, hard, even when hurting, even when it feels like something is broken. Eventually, everyone learned to steer clear of him.<br/>
<br/>
And as for why he now bullies the weak: Contempt, you suppose. At least, that's what you feel when you let his instincts ripple forth. Guys like Prescott and Johansson and Tilley (and Dortbruch and Padilla and Church; and Stratton and Winkler and Osbourne; and ... and ... and ... so many of them) just make you tired at how boneless they are. Even the toughs who skip class and hang out at the portables would get the treatment from Kirkham, if he thought he could get away with it. In fact, just last week he lipped off at Kyle Kent, who's got muscles and a spastic lack of self-control. Kent came at him, but Kirkham dropped him with three hard, bone-jarring blows to the gut, cheek, and kidney. "An' that's what ya fuckin' get," he spat down at the panting, vomiting Kent, "f'r bein' a pointless, dumb fuck." But Kirkham only felt disgust and anger, not hatred, at Kent and the waste of meat and oxygen that pointless, dumb fucks like him represent.<br/>
<br/>
And now here you are, and there's Kent loitering by the back of the Drama wing with Dean Stratton and Dorothy Harmon. On an impulse, you swerve toward them. "The fuck are you all waiting around for?" you challenge them. Kent ignores you, but the other two wince slightly. "Seen Chen yet today?" you ask. That would be Gary Chen, the school's big drug supplier, and the closest thing Kirkham has to a "best friend." When no one answers, you ask, "How y'all fixed up for weed?"<br/>
<br/>
That at least gets you an answer. "Fine," Stratton grunts, and continues squinting off into the parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
You shuffle up close to Dorothy. "How about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm good," she says, not looking at you.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I got a stash of my own. Not for sale. Cut off the top, best of the batch." You shuffle up even closer, and she flinches a little. "You ever want some, just come look for me. We can split a pearl after class. Y'ain't gonna do better," you breathe on her.<br/>
<br/>
She smiles weakly at you through a hard wince.<br/>
<br/>
You back up. "Whenever you want. Kent!" He darts you a murderous glance. "Loosen her up for me, will ya? Make yerself useful." You turn and trudge off for the breezeway leading into the school.<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a moment to realize just who you talked to, what you said, and how you said it. It makes you briefly giddy. <i>Fuck, I did that, I said those things?</i> You finger the toothpick, and chomp down hard on it as you grin to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Then you quickly squash yourself. <i>Don't be such a fucking goober, Prescott. Remember who you are.</i> Still, you can't stop from smirking a little as you pull out your phone and shoot a one-handed text to Chen: <i>where f r u?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He must've been skipping his first-period English class too much recently, because that's where he's on his way to when he replies, and tells you fuck off when you press him to come out to the portables with you. It's your study hall this period, but you always do your school work the night before and do it right, so first period is for you a time to relax and find your groove before classes start in earnest.<br/>
<br/>
Justin Roth is skipping his first period, though, and so are Cody Wooten, Brad Murphy, and Spencer Osbourne, who are all clustered around Roth by the portables when you go out there. "Hey man!" Osbourne chirps at you. You ignore him and his smirk: he's a suck-up who won't stay down no matter how many times you push him. The others are silent save for Roth, who faintly smiles and rumbles a "'T'sup" at you drop your pack near his feet. You answer by pointing at the freshly lit cigarette dangling in his mouth, and after a fractional hesitation he hands it over to you to take a long drag on.<br/>
<br/>
That's what you like about Roth. He's got the kind of cool that makes it seem like he's not taking shit from you even when he knuckles under. And that's why, as you hand the cigarette back, you tell him you've got a couple of buds for him, and when he asks "How much?" you tell him "Gratis."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck," Osbourne chortles, "you got any gratis grass for me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I got a fucking hard on you can suck on." You continue to concentrate on Roth as Osbourne sniggers nervously. "Hey, y'ever score with Dorothy Harmon?"<br/>
<br/>
Roth looks momentarily lost—a not uncommon look for him; he's so often stoned or drunk or just lost in thought that one can never be sure he's paying attention—and before he can answer, Osbourne giggles. "Dotty? I scored with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
"No, seriously, at a party last May. End of year thing at Eric Harlen's place."<br/>
<br/>
You regard him for half a moment, then reach over to grab his scruffy blonde hair at the top of his head. He gasps and sits up very straight.<br/>
<br/>
"Then tell me about about her pussy," you growl. "How hot, how wet, how soft, and how stanky it was."<br/>
<br/>
But Roth interrupts Osbourne's stammer: "If I was you, I'd be lookin' at Meghan Farris."<br/>
<br/>
You frown, then remember the girl who thinks of Kirkham as her "secret husband."<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Lizard King
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"If I was you, I'd be lookin' at Meghan Farris."<br/>
<br/>
So says Justin Roth, and the words are like a cold punch to the heart. <i>How fucking far,</i> you wonder, <i>has that Pinterest shit about being her 'secret  husband' been spread around?</i><br/>
<br/>
Before you can react, Cody Wooten asks, "You breaking up with Mindy, man?" and Spencer says with a sniggers, "Yeah, you cheatin' on yer 'secret wife'?"<br/>
<br/>
You still have hold of his hair as you smack him hard across the face. He yells, and you smack him again, this time so hard you knock him from your grasp. He scrambles away.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!" he snivels. "What's your fucking problem?"<br/>
<br/>
"My fucking problem is you, and I'm <i>your</i> fucking problem." You rise to your feet and haul him upright by the front of his windbreaker. "How bad you feel like getting fucked over, you little douchebag?" You double him over with a hard punch to the gut, and he falls to his hands and knees, gasping and coughing and spitting up.<br/>
<br/>
You drop back to the ground, and snap your fingers at Roth while holding out your hand. He stares at you, then with a soft snort plucks the cigarette from his lips and hands it over again.<br/>
<br/>
"I ain't breakin' up with Mindy," you tell Wooten after exhaling a long cloud of smoke and handing the cigarette back to Justin. "'Cos I ain't goin' with her. We're just havin' fun."<br/>
<br/>
"Must be nice, havin' that much fun," Justin rumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you. Ain't like you not havin' that kind'a fun."<br/>
<br/>
"Like to know who with," he snorts.<br/>
<br/>
"You want whatserfuck, my 'secret wife'?" You glare at Spencer, who is crawling—coughing and gasping—back into the circle.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, the fuck is your problem there?" Roth asks. He takes a long drag on the cigarette, then holds it out to you. "If I had some girl postin' stuff about me, how I'm all, like—"<br/>
<br/>
"She's a fucking stalker."<br/>
<br/>
"So? You can still fuck her."<br/>
<br/>
"You know who she is? She's nothing. Skinny like a rail, no tits. No snap, no zazz—"<br/>
<br/>
"She got a pussy? You can still fuck her."<br/>
<br/>
"She ain't the type to let me near it." You offer the cigarette back to Roth, but he shakes his head, and you finish it down to its filter. "Fuckin' waste of time," you snarl as you toss the butt away, "and it pisses me off. You got anything more to say, motherfucker?" you ask Spencer, who has been making weak gargling noises. He shakes his head. "Then the fuck are you doing here? Fuck off."<br/>
<br/>
"He doesn't have to go anywhere." Justin holds your eye until you shrug. "What are you in a fucking mood for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno."<br/>
<br/>
"You're talking like you're not getting any."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting plenty—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then what's your fucking beef?"<br/>
<br/>
You half-turn to Spencer. "My fucking beef is cocksuckers who think they're funny." He ducks his head, and continues to hold his tongue. Justin grunts. Then with a sigh he leans back and changes the subject by asking if anyone's going to the football game this weekend.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But you keep your mouth shut and let your mind wander as the others talk about sports. <i>I'm looking at the world through Kirkham's eyes,</i> you find yourself marveling. <i>I'm driving him around and acting like him, and no one here knows I'm not him.</i> The disassociation—the feeling of floating free of your body and impersonation—grows so intense at some points that you have to surreptitiously clap a palm over a hard bicep, or grip a strong calf, to remind yourself that you're still here and still in control.<br/>
<br/>
And you find yourself coolly studying Spencer Osbourne from behind your shades. You've never known him very well, but you've had him for a lot of classes before this year, going all the way back to middle school, and you know him to talk to him. You've always thought of him as a jerk and a slob, and he has sometimes showed you a mean, sniggering streak. But you've never disliked him enough to ever think about hitting him, or even talk to him the way you've talked to him this morning.<br/>
<br/>
(Also, you'd have to admit, he wouldn't have taken it from you, and you have no confidence that Will Prescott could have come out the other side of a fight as the winner.)<br/>
<br/>
But now here you are, casually and contemptuously slapping Osbourne around, and he only crawls back for more. <i>Pretty fucking powerful.</i><br/>
<br/>
And that sense of power begins to pulse even harder after the bell has rung, as you're swaggering through the hallway toward your AP Calculus class, and you recognize the back of Caleb's curly head bobbing off a little ways ahead of you. You blink at it, then test Kirkham's own instincts. He has none: apparently he thinks so little of Caleb that he doesn't think of him at all. But the memory of what you did to Spencer—and of what he has done to you—come back, so you shift the toothpick from one cheek to the other and push ahead after him.<br/>
<br/>
You catch him just outside the classroom door, and grab him from behind by the backpack; he stumbles as you yank him back. He spins, blinks at you, and turns a little pale. "Mind your fucking betters," you softly hiss at him. When he doesn't react, you lay a palm against his breast and shove him back a step. "You don't come in 'til I'm in my seat. Understand, cocksucker?" He blanches, and goes rigid.<br/>
<br/>
You pad into the classroom like a panther. You have to pass James Lamont—another ex-friend you've got a grudge against—who is occupied with his phone and is turned sideways in his chair with his big feet in the way. You kick at them savagely as you pass by. He glares up at you, but quickly recomposes his features when you shoot him a sidelong glance, and turns forward into his seat. You drop your pack and flop heavily into your desk, and look around with a quivering nose for Amanda Ferguson, but she hasn't come in yet. From the corner of your eye you watch the classroom door, but Caleb is nowhere to be seen. Not until the bell has rung does he come scuttling in to take a seat on the other side of the room.<br/>
<br/>
You cross your arms, slouch in your seat, and grin inwardly as you chew on the toothpick. <i>Lotta possibilities here,</i> you gloat to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Third period is a weightlifting class, which is as physically satisfying as math is mentally satisfying, and you work up a good ache and burn with Tanner Evans and Joshua Call, two of the losers that Kirkham hangs out with for old times' sake. (Also, Tanner is one of the douchebags that helps Chen push and sell his weed.) Then, after a cleansing shower and a change back into regular school clothes, comes the one real bullshit class on your schedule, a Spanish for Reading Knowledge class.<br/>
<br/>
But first, on your way there, you detour into the Arts wing. Mindy is already waiting for you in front of Ms. Willet's classroom.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham and Mindy hooked up at a party a couple of weeks ago. She was with some friends as he pushed by, and called him a reptile to his face. He retorted that she was the kind of girl who probably liked humping lizards. Things escalated from there, until they were in a shadowy patch in the back yard, making out hard.<br/>
<br/>
Mindy is a sloppy, bosomy red-head who dresses in short shorts and halter tops that show off a lot of pale skin—"trailer tail," in the parlance of Kirkham's crowd. She's got a mouth on her and she cusses hard, and she's a biter when she gets excited, and Kirkham has dimples in his back from where her fingernails have dug. She's beneath him (but most girls are beneath him, in his estimation) but she's exciting, available, and puts out.<br/>
<br/>
She's dressed today in a sleeveless, one-piece, baby-blue romper, like an overgrown toddler. Her eyes narrow and smoke when she sees you. She just has time to croak "Hey" before you push her back against the lockers, grab her by the hips, and dive in for a hard, wet kiss. "Rrmm," she growls appreciatively into your mouth. You grip and squeeze her ass.<br/>
<br/>
Neither of you wastes time on words until the bell rings. "See you after school?" Mindy gasps. You reply, "Text you later," and send her into the classroom with a hard slap on the butt. Then it's to class.<br/>
<br/>
After that comes lunch. And that leaves you with a couple of choices.<br/>
<br/>
The first and obvious one is to go looking for Kelsey. You've not spoken to her—Sydney, of course—or even texted her since yesterday afternoon. At first this seemed normal, for what do David Kirkham and Kelsey Blankenship have to do with each other, outside of secretly meeting and plotting and banging each other since being puppetized? But now you're getting restless, and are also worrying that maybe Sydney is miffed at being ignored and is ignoring you in turn. (It would be in character as Kelsey if this is what she did.) So you could try to intercept her at her locker; or, failing that, intercept her at the cafeteria, to let her know at least that you're thinking of her.<br/>
<br/>
The alternate is to intercept "Will Prescott" at his locker and to hustle him off, ostensibly for another beating but actually just to talk to him, to let your replacement know where you are and to figure out how long the fake beatings should continue until it's safe for you to "tire" of them and start leaving him alone again.<br/>
<br/>
Or you could just do what Kirkham usually does, and eat lunch with whoever you can find for company in back of the school.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122
author_id: seuzz
title: Like a Boss
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Of course you know where Prescott has his locker, and the route he usually takes to and from it. So even though the halls are crowded, you've no trouble tracking him down.<br/>
<br/>
<i>What a fucking stupid piece of headgear,</i> you find yourself thinking when you spot his hat bobbing down the hall ahead of you. <i>Like a helmet retards have to wear so they won't hurt themselves.</i><br/>
<br/>
He sees you after you've glimpsed him, and he looks startled.<br/>
<br/>
Startled but not afraid.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't turn and scurry off the other way, but you've no time to wonder if that's bravery or stupidity on his part before you're onto him. He starts to brush past, but you shoot out an arm and wrap it around his throat, jarring him to a stop and bending him back. He chokes and gurgles.<br/>
<br/>
"I got something to talk to you about, man," you hiss at him. "'Spec' you know what it's about. Come on." You swing him around, seize him by the back of the neck and the hem of his shorts, and shove him along in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
You've cleared the halls and pushed him out of doors, leaving other students scattered in your wake, before he speaks. "What's on your mind, boss?"<br/>
<br/>
"Boss." Your laugh is a hiss. "I like that. Shows respect, shows you know your fucking place, you little shit pellet." You kick at his shin as you force him toward the portables. "We're gonna talk about your girlfriend again, man, and where I fit in with you two. Gonna be a surprise when explain th'facts to you."<br/>
<br/>
You bet it will be a surprise, the fake you learning that the real version of him is now David Kirkham. If things like him can really feel surprise.<br/>
<br/>
You're a little smaller than him, and have to peer around his neck to steer, so you don't know he's there until you hear his voice and laugh: "Oh, fuck me, man, what's this all about?" Your heart jerks in your chest: It's Gary Chen.<br/>
<br/>
And then you see him, rising from a squat by the corner of the nearest portable. Chen dresses (and acts) like a classic gangbanger, in baggy trousers and extra-large shirts under an extra-large camo jacket; his hair, which touches his eyebrows, his earlobes, and the top of his neck, his held in place under a dirty ski cap. He has a lynx-like face, and his dark eyes glitter maliciously over a bright, hungry sneer.<br/>
<br/>
"Got a little business with this fucker," you mutter at him as you brush past. "Talk t'ya later." But his footsteps follow, and a light, sickly sweat breaks out on the back of your neck.<br/>
<br/>
You rush Prescott up the sagging wooden steps into the portable Kirkham often uses for these "conferences," and bang him face-first into the door. "Open it, dumbass," you growl, and he scrambles at the knob. You thrust him through into the musty, mildewy darkness on the other side of the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
You hurl him away and spin, trying to slam the door on Chen, but he has slipped in right behind you and is standing just inside the door; the tip of his cigarette glows orange as he takes a drag. "So wha's goin' on?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"None of your business," you growl. " Just a thing 'tween me and this fucker."<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit," Chen says. He takes another drag, then hops over a few feet to glare closely into Prescott's face; the pedisequos is leaning against a rickety old desk, and flinches openly. "Hey, I know this cocksucker. He's banging this hot chick."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I need to talk to him about." The memory—or the absence of one—brushes the front of your brain: Kirkham hasn't told Chen how he's persecuting Prescott. "I been trying to explain to this dumb fuck that him and her are bustin' up."<br/>
<br/>
Chen shoots you a merrily malicious glance. "No shit?" He turns back to Prescott. "So, 'd'he score and now he's dumpin' her ass? Izzat it?" he mumbles around the cigarette.<br/>
<br/>
"Faugh!" You are trembling now at the mistake you've made, but you are now caught in an avalanche of improvisation, and are helpless but to continue the line. "Thought of this little puss-sucker on toppa that girl?" You step up beside Chen. "Makes me wanna puke. Pisses me off, too." Your right hand clenches into a hard fist. "So I'm tryin' t'convince this guy to—"<br/>
<br/>
You punch him in the gut, hard, and it hurts you almost as much as it hurts him.<br/>
<br/>
Well, no, it hurts him a lot more, judging by the way he doubles up and falls to his knees, like Spencer did. But it does sicken you. "Fuck me," you growl at Chen, "I been at it three, four days now, explainin' to'm how he makes me sick, an' how I don't like bein' sick, and how he's gonna stop makin' me sick. But it don't seem to make no difference to the selfish little fuck."<br/>
<br/>
Chen snickers, then leans over to bat Prescott's hat and and grab him by the hair at the top of his head. "You like makin' my man here sick?" he snarls. "You got no fuckin' consideration of others?" He shoves Prescott's head back down. "I guess we're both gonna have to explain it to him," he chortles to you.<br/>
<br/>
Now you are trapped, by Kirkham's own need to preserve face in front of his friend. You bend to put your mouth close to Prescott's ear. "Just tell me you're breaking up with Sydney McGlynn—"<br/>
<br/>
His head shoots up. "Okay, I'm breaking up with Sydney!" he bleats.<br/>
<br/>
You raise up, startled. "Th'fuck'ju say?"<br/>
<br/>
"I said I'm breaking up with Sydney!"<br/>
<br/>
You and Chen exchange startled glances. You keep a shocked silence, while Chen hoots and chortles. "Well, that was easy," he gloats, and punches you in the shoulder. "You can thank me later by giving me a blow job."<br/>
<br/>
But you're too shocked to respond to the jibe. You take another heavy step toward Prescott, who, still coughing and gasping, tries scrambling away. "The fuck did you just tell me?" you hiss at him. "Did you just fucking tell me you're dumping your girlfriend's ass—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes!"<br/>
<br/>
Rage—yours, Kirkham's, some combination—lifts your hand, and you smack him hard across the face. "I'm gonna fuck you up so bad," you tell him in a voice that trembles with an almost hysterical fury. "Starting tomorrow and every day, until you have to come to school with your brain and your guts in a bag because I've beaten them out of you. You—!" You grab him by the hair, as Chen did, and Prescott cries out.<br/>
<br/>
You shove him away and wheel for the door. Chen follows, and tries catching your elbow when you're outside. You jerk away from him. "Hey man!" he calls after as you half-trot, half-run back toward the school. "You got what you wanted, the fuck you—?" But the rest of his words are lost in the roar that fills your ears, and tears of rage and disappointment fill your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You spend the balance of lunch bathing your face in cold water in a restroom. It helps to calm you so that you don't start crying. It would never do to be seen crying.<br/>
<br/>
<i>You asshole,</i> you silently curse your reflection, which reflects in its own dark, deep-set eyes the hatred you feel burning behind your own. <i>Are you fucking proud of yourself?</i> If you were at home, you might bust the mirror with a punch.<br/>
<br/>
But you can't tell who you are most pissed off at: David Kirkham, for being, even under your control, the kind of asshole who would do that to Will Prescott; or yourself, for (in the form of a fake) breaking under the pressure and renouncing your own girlfriend. Neither of them is someone you like. Neither is someone you respect. And neither of them, really, is someone you want to be.<br/>
<br/>
It takes awhile, but caught between these opposing hatreds you do at last find something like a balance and equanimity. But you are mulish and withdrawn during the balance of the school day.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're coming out of the last period of the day—AP Physics II—when you get a text from Kelsey Blankenship, telling you that she has to talk to you. <i>Let's run into each other at Milagro,</i> she says.<br/>
<br/>
It was a calm-sounding text, but the girl is far from calm when you catch up to her at the Milagro Beanfield Warehouse. "What the fuck are you up to?" she shrilly demands. "I got this almost hysterical text from my pedisequos, telling me that <i>your</i> pedisequos broke up with <i>her,</i> because you ordered him to!" Her frown is like a thundercloud. "She said you and <i>Gary Chen</i> beat on him until he promised to! Will!" Her fingers flex and curl like talons. "I thought this was how come we, you know—" She points at you. "So he'd leave you alone!"<br/>
<br/>
You hang your head. "'Z'an accident," you mumble. "I was just takin' him off to talk to tell him, you know, where I was now and what was goin' on. But fuckin' Chen had to tag along, so I had to do the usual act in front of him. And the little pissant actually gave in." You still haven't forgiven him—or yourself—for the way he crumpled, and the way he bleated.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course he did," Kelsey fumes. "He's your <i>pedisequos,</i> he has to obey you!"<br/>
<br/>
"Pff, he didn't know it was me when I—"<br/>
<br/>
"He knew it was you!" Her frown deepens into a glower. "They've got a freaking sixth sense or something about it when it's us."<br/>
<br/>
You blink at her, and your jaw drops a little. He broke up with "Sydney" because he thought you were ordering him to? So it was all your fault? You still haven't processed this revelation when Kelsey says, "So what's your plan now, Will? I thought we'd be looking for someone new for me, someone to go with—" She points at you. "But now I'm kind of thinking I want someone who can go out with Will. Now that he's broken up with 'me'. I'm really starting to miss him, Will," she growls, pointedly.<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221221
author_id: seuzz
title: Ximena Calderon
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>This is the placeholder for a poll. For details, see: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2299619-BoM-Poll-2a-Sydney-Dates-Kirkham-as-" target="_top" title="One in a series of polls to move the story forward.">BoM Poll 2a: Sydney Dates Kirkham as ...</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2299619-BoM-Poll-2a-Sydney-Dates-Kirkham-as-" target="_blank" title="One in a series of polls to move the story forward."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a>.<br/>
<br/>
To vote for this option in the poll, send a tip through the tip form below.<br/>
<br/>
Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form.<br/>
<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212214
author_id: seuzz
id: LMWHHLX6Z
title: Someone Old, Someone New, Something Stolen ...
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You reach for your phone and hover the thumb of one hand over the keypad even as you stroke the underside of your erect cock with the the thumb of your other. What would Sydney think of becoming Lisa Yarborough? Would she be jealous, because you're thinking of your old girlfriend? Insulted and angry?<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a long time to screw up the courage to text her, and when the courage does come, it comes from the sting in your cock you've given yourself as you masturbated. The thought is just too delicious to <i>not</i> propose.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Lisa Yarbro,</i> you text Kelsey. (Courage failed insofar as, finally, you could only spit the name out, rather than the entire idea.)<br/>
<br/>
It's a few minutes before Kelsey replies: <i>What about her?</i> along with a puzzled emoji.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Want u b her.</i><br/>
<br/>
An even longer pause follows before her reply: <i>You want Will to go start going with her again?</i>, followed by a <i>Hmmm</i> as you're tapping in your own reply.<br/>
<br/>
<i>No want her go wi Kirkham he take her away from Geoff.</i><br/>
<br/>
When a further minute goes by without a reply, you call her directly.<br/>
<br/>
"Listen," you growl at her in a low voice, "I've been thinking about it ever since that motherfucker showed up at our table at the coffee shop this afternoon. I wanna fuck him over the way he fucked me over when he took her from me."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney doesn't immediately reply, but there's a note of awe in her voice when she does. "Revenge porn?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, revenge, anyway. I wanna take her away from that cocksucker."<br/>
<br/>
She hesitates. "I guess I could see it," she says. "So, Lisa feels sorry for Will because of what David did to her out at the portables, and she goes to talk to him—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't want her to go with <i>Will!</i> I mean, I do want her to go with me. But, y'know. With Kirkham."<br/>
<br/>
She draws a deep breath. "That would be ... weird," she says. "Freaky. Lisa and David? She's not— He's not her type, Will. I don't think. It would look—"<br/>
<br/>
"Who fucking cares how it looks?" You feel the sweat crawling over you. "We could make it happen, Sydney. You and me. If you're Lisa."<br/>
<br/>
"We could make anything happen," she replies. "Look, I'm not trying to say 'no' to you, sweetie—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then just let me bust 'em up. The way I busted—" You swallow thickly at the painful memory. "The way I busted Will and Sydney up. Lemme haul that faggot off and explain to him how I'm gonna be fucking his girlfriend while he sits in the corner with his limp dick in his hand and watches. An' I explain it to him until he breaks up with Lisa 'cos he can't stand it no more."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." She sounds startled. "So this isn't about Lisa. It's about Geoff."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, yeah," you admit. "But it's about both of them. 'Cos I do want us together, and if you're Lisa—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to think about this, Will," she says. "I'm not saying 'no', but I'm not saying 'yes', either. Not yet. This is—" There's a long, trailing pause before she says, in kind of a rush, "Do you still have feelings for her?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit fuck cunt piss FUCK!</i> You fucking <i>knew</i> it was going to come back to that, and that Sydney would have a jealous spasm or something.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, David Kirkham, though he has the manners of a thug also has the cunning of a cobra.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't got feelings <i>for</i> her, Sydney," you reply. "I just got feelings <i>about</i> her. Y'konw? And my feeling about her is that I want to fuck my old girlfriend, but I want my new girlfriend—<i>you</i>—inside her body when I do."<br/>
<br/>
Sydney again gasps. But this time it sounds like a long, deep moan. "Oh!" she says. <i>"Ohhhhh!"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, so what do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I'm about to cum, Will," she moans. "Oh God, I'm— I gotta get this zipper down." She swallows—a thick, sticky sound.<br/>
<br/>
"Say all that again, Will," she groans. "Tell me all about how you want to fuck your old girlfriend—<i>while I'm in her body!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So that convinces her. She doesn't have anything to "think" about anymore, unless it's to think some more during the night on the slow, careful, grinding sexual fantasy you unfolded her, in which she crawls into Lisa Yarborough's body and and into her life, and unbuttons her clothes and her 'gyny to the hard, probing cock of David Kirkham-slash-Will Prescott. You even describe in loving detail the clothes she'd be wearing—the baby-blue dress matched with white stockings—and how you'd slowly rip them apart down the front, from top to bottom, and mount her as she wallowed in the rags. "You're a beast!" she groaned.<br/>
<br/>
The next morning your muscles are aching all over with sexual anticipation—especially the tight ones webbed about your inner thighs, groin, and ball sack—as you swagger panther-like into the school. You restlessly roll a toothpick about your mouth as you prowl the hallways; pull it out and flick it away; slip a fresh toothpick in; and chew the new one to pulp. You heedlessly shoulder people aside—<i>so many fucking bozos in this school</i>—and when they yell you don't even stop to glower at them. You're a man on a mission.<br/>
<br/>
Until you see her at her locker. Then you stop dead in the middle of hallway, and someone bounces off your backpack.<br/>
<br/>
Lisa is wearing a plum-violet top that nicely complements her dark hair. The hem hangs out over her ass, and she has belted it at the waist with a thin black cord. Below, she's wearing jeans. She standing with her back to you, changing her books out, and the sweep of her dark hair down to her shoulders is like a veil draped over a work of art. Or a curtain to be swept aside to reveal the beauty waiting on stage.<br/>
<br/>
Man, it's like you've still got it hard for her.<br/>
<br/>
You've certainly got a hard on. Maybe you and Kirkham are each only a little bit in love with her, but it adds up to something that hurts.<br/>
<br/>
Almost you quail and pass by. If you do love her, why are you thinking of doing something so terrible as you and Sydney were talking about last night?<br/>
<br/>
So it's her bad luck that Martin Gardinhire slides in right then to talk to her. Fucking dipshit is Mansfield's best friend, and when she turns to smile at him you remember what this is mostly about: Mansfield. You wait until Gardinhire has shuffled off for class, then you push in to lean in where he'd been standing. "Hey," you low-key growl at Lisa, and snap hard teeth down on what's left of the shredded toothpick.<br/>
<br/>
She glances over, and does a double-take at you. "Oh. Hey." She goes back to packing up her bag, and starts to close her locker door. You grab its side and hold it open. She gives you a startled look.<br/>
<br/>
You jerk your chin at her. "You hang out a long time with Kelsey yesterday after I left?"<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes are wide. "Um ... No. She had to go—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I had to go to. Else I would'a stayed."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." She glances nervously past you. "Well, I have to get to class—"<br/>
<br/>
"I got nothing going on after school, you know, nowhere I gotta be. So come hang out with me, same place as yesterday. I'll buy your coffee for you."<br/>
<br/>
She smiles, tightly. "That's okay, I—"<br/>
<br/>
"Pay your own, then, I don't give a shit. But I'm gonna see you out there again at four."<br/>
<br/>
You hold her eye. She looks deeply startled. Suddenly aware that you're almost frozen stiff as well, you roll the toothpick to the other side of your mouth, and flare your nostrils slightly.<br/>
<br/>
She smiles a smile that has a hint of nausea behind it. "Can I bring my boyfriend with me?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude who was with you yesterday? Nah, I'm not into him." You edge up just a little closer. "I'm into <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Her smile widens nervously. "Well, I've got a boyfriend, and, um—"<br/>
<br/>
You roll the toothpick back over again. "He ain't welcome. An' it ain't like he's gotta know you're going out someplace with me." You lift your eyebrows slightly.<br/>
<br/>
There's now an unmistakable tremor in her voice. "That's not what I meant. What I meant was—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, lemme explain to you what <i>I</i> mean." You edge in very close, so close that the scent of her soap and face powder tickles your nostrils.<br/>
<br/>
"I mean that we should meet up," you tell her. "Talk, hang out, get to know each other. Laugh, look at videos on our phones, talk about who we are and what we like. Figure out that we like each other. A lot."<br/>
<br/>
You pluck the toothpick from your mouth and point it to her. (And you're so close now that almost poke her in the nose.)<br/>
<br/>
"I already know I like you," you tell her. "This afternoon ain't about that, it's about you figuring out that you like me. And after that, well—" You roll your shoulders. "That dude you were with yesterday, he can go looking for some other girl to like him. 'Cos you'll have <i>me</i> then."<br/>
<br/>
You back away, but gently lift your eyebrows as you hold her gaze. "Four o'clock," you tell her. "You could make a note of it in your phone, 'cept I know you won't forget."<br/>
<br/>
You slide the toothpick back in, then turn to shoulder your way through the crowd toward your own locker.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get a text from Kelsey in the break between first and second. <i>Did u talk to Lisa already?<br/>
<br/>
Fuck yeah,</i> you reply. She doesn't answer.<br/>
<br/>
You don't know why she's asking, but it gives you pause. You were thinking of going to look for Mansfield later today, to give him the same "warning and promise" that Kirkham gave you about Sydney. But as the periods pass with no more word from Sydney, you wonder if you should.<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122141
author_id: seuzz
title: Day of the Jackass
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>Fuck it,</i> you decide as you slouch in your sixth-period class. Sydney was right when she said that at least half of your plan involves humiliating the fuck out of Geoff Mansfield. So what does it fucking matter if you've got or don't got Sydney's permission to go find him? When the bell rings you hustle to your locker to stash your backpack, then go looking for your prey.<br/>
<br/>
He's just closing up his locker when you find him, and when he turns around he almost steps on your foot. You shove him in the chest, and he bounces back with a look of hurt surprise on his face.<br/>
<br/>
Mansfield is tall—taller even than Will Prescott—so that you have to lift your chin to look up past his nose and into his eyes. He flushes a little when he recognizes you, but you calmly roll that toothpick around while silently daring him to try pushing past you.<br/>
<br/>
When he still says nothing you show him your teeth.<br/>
<br/>
"That girl you was with at the coffee shop yesterday," you say. "She's mine."<br/>
<br/>
Mansfield stares, then snorts softly. "What makes you say that?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's truth. We had a talk this morning, her and me. It's all settled." You pluck the toothpick from your mouth and flick it away. "Go home to your jerkoff sock."<br/>
<br/>
That flush had drained from his face, but now it reappears. Again, he snorts. "Yeah, Lisa told me you came around—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you already know."<br/>
<br/>
A glitter comes into his eye. It could be anger—he wants it to be anger—but you know it is mostly fear. "You already know," you repeat, "that she's mine."<br/>
<br/>
"If you think that," he says, "maybe you better have another talk with her."<br/>
<br/>
You grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I'm going to have another talk with her, asshole. I'm gonna have lots of talks with her. We're gonna do a lot more together than talk." You pull out a fresh toothpick and slide it between your cheek and gum. "Gonna have the kind of fun never had with her, even if you had the equipment."<br/>
<br/>
His lip curls. But his eyes are watering.<br/>
<br/>
"So I'm gonna tell you what you're gonna do," you continue. "You're gonna step back and away. You're gonna find someplace else to park your ass. The kind of thing like yesterday, you hanging your arm on her at coffee shops?" You wag a finger at him. "That's ain't happening anymore. 'Cos she don't want it. An' I'm a gentleman. What my woman don't like or want, I make sure she don't have to deal with."<br/>
<br/>
You hold his eye, then turn to squeeze your way back into the seething crowd of students.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Of course, you don't expect Mansfield to drop Lisa right away, but that wasn't the point of your talk. The point was to put him on notice that he is in your line of sight, that you are interested in him and Lisa in a way that he isn't going to like, and to give him time to worry about what is going to come next. It gives you a very pleasant feeling, to imagine him shitting himself the way you were shitting yourself when Kirkham was doing it to you.<br/>
<br/>
But on the off chance that Lisa does show up for that date you reserved for her, you drive out to the Milagro Beanfield Warehouse after school and spend a solid hour nursing a coffee while trawling through the muck and filth of x2z and other social media sites. A couple of kids come in, a few of whom you know, but you ignore them. Lisa, though, as you'd predicted, isn't one of them.<br/>
<br/>
At a little after five you get a phone call—a rare event in the life of David Kirkham, who hasn't many friends, and who usually message him. But it's Kelsey, so it's no real surprise. "Hey, 'tsup?" you rumble into the phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are you?" Her tone is querulous.<br/>
<br/>
"Milagro. Waiting for Lisa Yarborough to show up. She's late—"<br/>
<br/>
"She's not showing up, Will," Sydney snaps.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, no shit. But, you know, just in case, I thought I'd—"<br/>
<br/>
"She's off with Geoff someplace. Naturally. That was a nice play you made with them," she fumes. "I was going to get her out to the house and do a switch, but because of those 'talks' you had with them, now I can't get her out there!"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine, but why are you shitting yourself? So we'll do it tomorrow. It'll be Saturday, don't you have a party out at your place every Saturday? That's what I hear, you can do it then."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, first of all—you dingus!—it's a freaking <i>party,</i> how the hell am I supposed to get Lisa alone when there's a dozen other kids around? And second of all, I'm not having the party tomorrow night! We're all going to the school play, including Lisa and Geoff."<br/>
<br/>
"The school play?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, you fucking hooligan! There's a school play tomorrow night—"<br/>
<br/>
"Stop acting like Kelsey, Sydney."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you stop acting like—!"<br/>
<br/>
She catches herself, and after a short silence she draws and expels a deep breath.<br/>
<br/>
"You're right, I'm sorry. Only it's been a stressful day. And I just got out of tennis practice and I'm ready to strangle some of the— No, I'm sorry, let me cool off a minute."<br/>
<br/>
You have time to saunter over to the refill station to get yourself a fresh cup while she's still clearing her head of the worst of Kelsey's Blankenship's personality.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," she says when she comes back on, "I guess I just assumed we were going to get started on your idea as soon as possible, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm in no hurry." You singe your lip on the hot coffee. "I want time to make Mansfield suffer."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. And I wanted to make sure Lisa was going to be on board with what you're, uh, doing. 'Cos we don't want her doing or saying stuff that'll make it, you know, weird if she suddenly changes her mind about, uh, you." She pauses. "That is the plan, isn't it? To make her and David a couple? I mean, out in the open?"<br/>
<br/>
You hadn't thought things through that far. Truth to tell, Kirkham doesn't seem like a one-girl guy. On the other hand, you're not sure you'd ever get tired of banging Lisa if it was Sydney inside her.<br/>
<br/>
"We can figure that out later," you grunt. "You're probably right, we prob'ly want to get her nailed down. But I don't want her breaking up with the cocksucker right away. I want some time to tease the motherfucker."<br/>
<br/>
"Is it you who wants to fuck around with him, Will? Or David?"<br/>
<br/>
You smirk. "Why can't it be both of us? At the same time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." Her tone is very dry. "I got out of Kelsey's head when you asked me to. Any chance I could talk you out of David's?"<br/>
<br/>
Your smirk deepens. "Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Promise?"<br/>
<br/>
"Promise."<br/>
<br/>
She holds the line, and you hold it too. "You there?" you finally ask when the silence has grown awkward.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I'm trying to figure out if I can believe you. I'm also trying to figure out— I don't have anything I'm supposed to do tonight, but I can always tell Kelsey's parents I'm going out to a party or something."<br/>
<br/>
You shift in your seat. "Are you telling me you want to do something?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I want to meet at the Donna again. I'll still be in Kelsey's mask, and I want you in David's. But I'm going to be me, Will. And I want you to be <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's nearly nine o'clock, and the street lamps are burning acridly in the nighttime darkness when you pull into the Donna parking lot. There are a handful of cars in the lot, including Kelsey's BMW. You trudge over to it, and the driver's side window goes down. Kelsey twinkles at you as she hands you a couple of fifties.<br/>
<br/>
She's out of the car when you come out of the office, and follows you wordlessly down to Room 18. The air inside is close but not musty, and the place is clean. Kelsey sashays to the middle of the room while you close the door behind and lean against it.<br/>
<br/>
She's wearing baggy short-shorts and sandals, giving you a look at all of her long and sexy legs. She's also wearing a midriff-baring top, over which she's draped a heavy jacket. Bracelets of silver dangle and jangle on her wrist. She twirls around to give you a good look, then falls onto the corner of the bed with a laugh.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus," she says. "I spent the whole drive over trying to get out of 'Kelsey country,' and the minute I'm in the room it's like she flips back on. She's such a fucking snob and show off." She sighs and sags. "How are you doing, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you standing all the way over there?"<br/>
<br/>
Because that's what you'd do, in your own skin, if you were in a motel room with Kelsey Blankenship. Or with Sydney McGlynn. Because, like she'd asked, you spent the drive over trying to shove your borrowed personality into a box. You never really succeeded. you can feel Kirkham seething in the back of your skull, fuming that what you should swaggering over, pushing her onto her back, pulling down her shorts, and ramming your schwanz inside her.<br/>
<br/>
But that's not what <i>you'd</i> do, and Sydney asked you to be you. So, hands in pockets, you stroll over and sit on the bed next to her. You face each other, neither making a move, until Sydney blushes.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you shy, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes."<br/>
<br/>
"You haven't been shy about kissing me before."<br/>
<br/>
"We weren't in a motel room before, and we weren't going to—" You shrug.<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to start? Set the pace?"<br/>
<br/>
You can practically hear Kirkham jeering at you. <i>Shut up,</i> you growl at him, and put a boot in his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
But he pushes you to this much: You peel off your shirt and toss it away; the cool motel room air prickles on the bare skin of the body you've stolen.<br/>
<br/>
"Just let me be me," you tell Sydney. Gently you push her onto her back, and lower yourself over her to touch your lips to hers.<span class="fhmfnnimf3710"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221221411
author_id: seuzz
id: SSZ9PNP8V
title: Faces Under Faces
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You start very slow, slower even than you've done in the past with her. You pluck at her lips with yours, keeping your tongue inside your mouth, and you don't linger but take a series of quick, toothless bites. When she grabs your arm, you slide a hand under her shoulder and pull her closer to you.<br/>
<br/>
Bit by bit, millimeter by millimeter, you broaden your sweep of her face, moving from her lips to her upper lip and nose, to her cheek and eye and temple. Her lips move down to your jaw and neck. She strokes and grips your bare shoulders and naked back, and she writhes gently on the bed as you palm the side of her belly and her thigh. You pull back long enough to let her shrug off and hurl aside her jacket, and you lose more minutes kissing the tops of her breasts while she ruffles your hair and tickles your ear. You kick off your shoes, then stand up off the bed to unbuckle and pull off her sandals while staring her down with watering eyes.<br/>
<br/>
She spreads her knees, and you clamber up between them to hover over her and kiss her more deeply.<br/>
<br/>
Your cock is rigid but docile as you lay it upon her, but she groans beneath it and runs her hands restlessly up and down your back. When you put your face into the side of her neck to nuzzle and bite, she begins whispering in your ear.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm fantasizing about you, Will," she says. There's an ache in her voice. "I'm fantasizing about <i>you,</i> Will, not about—" She gasps as you bite gently into the side of her throat. <br/>
<br/>
"It's you with me, here," she groans. "I got this guy on top of me, and he's doing things to me I'm loving. But I'm fantasizing it's you, Will, that you're the one doing it to me, 'cos you're the one I want!" She throws her arms around you, and squeezes your hips between her knees. "He isn't here, it's <i>you.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You slide your arms under her, and pull her close.<br/>
<br/>
"Because it really is you, Will. He's just a glove. And—" She cries in the back of her throat. "And I wish you weren't even wearing the glove!"<br/>
<br/>
You pause to pull back and peer into her face. "You want me to take the mask off?"<br/>
<br/>
She stares at you, then closes her eyes and arches her back.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't stop," she gasps. "You don't have to take the mask off. I can see you through it!" She lifts her hips to push at you.<br/>
<br/>
And for you, suddenly, it's like a veil has been pulled away. It's Kelsey under you, but she doesn't look like Kelsey anymore. She looks like Sydney. Golden haired, bright-eyed, wise-faced Sydney. You shut your eyes and hold the image as you plunge back on to her.<br/>
<br/>
And after you are out of your clothes and your cock is inside her and you are pumping hard as she yells into your ear, it is still the face and form of Sydney McGlynn that you feel yourself fucking.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You only do it the one time that way. Oh, of course you do it a second time, because Sydney is aroused and unsated despite cumming. For that second time, though, you have to let Kirkham off his leash, to ravage her fast and quick. You don't tell Sydney that's what you've done, though, and she doesn't seem to notice the change, as it's your name she roars when you bring her to a second climax.<br/>
<br/>
But Kirkham doesn't go back in the box afterward, though his personality becomes more pliable after being sated. And you don't drape yourself in his personality, either. No, it is, in a weird way, like being in a three-way—or what you imagine a three-way to be like—as you and Sydney lay naked with the sheets covering you up to your wastes, for it feels almost like Kirkham is relaxing in the bed with you too.<br/>
<br/>
Sydney brought some cigarettes, and though it's a non-smoking room you light one and pass it back and forth as you talk.<br/>
<br/>
"She was all wrong for you, Will," she says after blowing out a long stream of smoke. "Lisa, I mean."<br/>
<br/>
You blink, and grunt, "I thought she was right for me."<br/>
<br/>
"No, what you thought was that you had a girl in your life, finally. You thought she was going with you, and that's what made her 'right' for you." She takes another drag, and hands you the cigarette. "You're a lot happier with me."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well ..." You take a drag so that Kirkham won't say anything horrible.<br/>
<br/>
"You'd be happier with almost any girl, Will. Even with Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
You turn to stare at the side of her head. "You serious? Kelsey?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say you'd be <i>happy</i> with her, only happier." She takes the cigarette back. "You'd've died of boredom with Lisa, but you wouldn't be bored with Kelsey. You'd be miserable, but you wouldn't be bored."<br/>
<br/>
You turn back to the ceiling. "What makes Kelsey the way she is?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
You feel her turn to look at you, but you keep your eyes turned upward. "What makes anyone the way they are?' she retorts. "It's just them being them. Kelsey's a bitch, and David's a thug—"<br/>
<br/>
"He's not a thug," you growl, and surprise yourself in saying it.<br/>
<br/>
"He's not? Could've fooled me. Could've fooled Geoff and Lisa and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, stop it."<br/>
<br/>
"Aw," she mewls. "Am I hurting his fee-fees?"<br/>
<br/>
You give her a dirty look. She smirks back.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you mutter, and pluck the cigarette back. It's burning low, so you suck it down to the filter, then sit up and turn over to grind it out on the bedside stand. "He's more complicated than people give him credit for."<br/>
<br/>
"Really." She rubs your back—which is David Kirkham's. "You mean he's a thug <i>and</i> an asshole <i>and</i> a dickweed <i>and</i> a goon?" You glare at her over your shoulder. That smirk reappears on her face. "I will say that I like him better without his glasses."<br/>
<br/>
You snort, then roll back into the bed. She turns onto her side and rests a palm on your bare, hairless chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Have you gotten close to him, Will?" she asks. "I mean, obviously you have." She sniggers. "You've gotten inside him. But you're talking like—"<br/>
<br/>
She cuts herself off, and raises up. Her expression falls.<br/>
<br/>
Then she snorts. "Oh God, you've started being <i>him</i> again!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Except you're not being him.<br/>
<br/>
At least you don't think you are, not even with Kirkham being so close—it really is like he's in bed with you—because it doesn't feel like he's the one doing the feeling and thinking. You're not <i>being</i> him. It's more like—<br/>
<br/>
Well, it's more like you're <i>defending a friend</i> when Sydney's gibes start to bother you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yeesh,</i> you think. <i>Suddenly Kirkham and me are friends?</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, it's true that you understand him better. You know how he thinks, what he feels. How and why other people and things make him feel that way.<br/>
<br/>
And the shit part is, a lot of how he thinks and feels makes sense when you look at it the way he does.<br/>
<br/>
It even makes sense if you look at it the way <i>you</i> do.<br/>
<br/>
Take the way you slapped Spencer Osbourne around at school the other morning. Why did you do that? Because you were acting the part of David Kirkham, and Kirkham thinks Spencer is a lousy joke. A spoiled, snickering, lazy, douchey joke who thinks he's smarter and funnier than he really is. And the thing is, you agree with him! Exactly and absolutely! That's why you typically avoid Spencer! The only difference between you and Kirkham is that he's less willing to put up with Spencer's shit, and more willing to smack him down. And that difference isn't about how you and him feel, but about his being bolder and more open about acting on those feelings.<br/>
<br/>
And that's a difference that—you'd wince to admit—reflects better on him, probably, than on you. He's got the guts to do what you would shrink from.<br/>
<br/>
Same with his attitude toward a lot of the clown show that is Westside High. He hates guys like Gordon Black and Roy Nelson and the Molester for the same reason you hate them, because they tried riding him in middle school and their freshman year. Again, the difference is that Kirkham wouldn't put up with their shit, and he did something about it; and again, that's a difference that you'd have to grudgingly give him more credit for than you'd give yourself.<br/>
<br/>
Even his likes—and there are people he genuinely likes—are for reasons you'd have to credit him for. Take George Basham, or Nathan Cruz, or Preston Spinks. Probably, if you knew them yourself, you'd resent them for their money and their smug superiority, the way you resent Mansfield. But Kirkham respects them. Basham may be country-club rich, but he works smart and hard at managing money his parents have given him and made him responsible for. Cruz (even Kirkham would admit) is a dick, but he pushes himself through some hard classes while also playing first chair violin in the orchestra <i>and</i> second fiddle on the school's swim team. Kirkham isn't jealous of Spinks's musical talent. Rather he is <i>awestruck</i> by it.<br/>
<br/>
Even Chen, who is about as slimy as they come, gets big props from Kirkham for soldiering on despite some pretty shitty life circumstances.<br/>
<br/>
Because though David Kirkham respects talent, what he admires is <i>work</i>, and he especially likes those who work hard to make their talent pay off.<br/>
<br/>
No surprise he has so much contempt for a wet sack of dog sick like you.<br/>
<br/>
Idly, you wonder what he'd think of you now, with what you've done.<br/>
<br/>
And it's like he answers from the pillow next to your head.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'd fuck you up and take it all away from you. I'd wear your fucking face and use it to do things to your friends and family.<br/>
<br/>
I'd be a supervillain and make sure they blamed it all on you.</i><span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212214111
author_id: seuzz
title: Money Matters
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>It's nearing midnight, and though neither David Kirkham nor Kelsey Blankenship has a curfew, it seems best to wind things up. Sydney is disappointed—"We paid for the whole night and most of tomorrow!" she groans—but you remind her that she'll want to get most of that money back because she'll have other things she'll want to spend it on. <i>Like a coupla more afternoons or nights here,</i> you tell her. That brightens her mood.<br/>
<br/>
But she texts you, like a needy girlfriend, after you're home and getting ready for bed. <i>That was fun want do it again.<br/>
<br/>
Do it every nite babe if we had the bodies,</i> you assure her.<br/>
<br/>
<i>We could get some.<br/>
<br/>
Think abut it after Lisa.<br/>
<br/>
Want do it again with Lisa. You and Lisa like tonite.</i><br/>
<br/>
You find yourself hesitating, then thumb back. <i>Sure</i> and add <i>Going to bed now.</i><br/>
<br/>
Sydney chirps back, <i>Me too</i> and some emojis.<br/>
<br/>
You're in the bathroom, stripped to your underwear and brushing your teeth as these texts come in, and after shutting the phone off you look in the mirror. There's a sly but querying gleam in the eye of the guy who looks out at you from the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Me and Lisa,</i> you think. <i>But which me?</i><br/>
<br/>
The question gives you a chill, and you lean forward to growl at the face in the mirror, "You only think you're in control." <br/>
<br/>
Sure. But which one of you is saying it, and which one is he saying it to?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Saturday morning.</i><br/>
<br/>
Kirkham hasn't got a gym membership, so he works with weights at school. On weekends he jogs.<br/>
<br/>
It's a cool and cloudy day with rain in the forecast, but as you step outside at a little after eight, you are dressed in nothing heavier than cotton shorts, sneakers, and a t-shirt. The Kirkhams live in Caleb's ratty neighborhood, close to where Orlando Road crosses the railroad tracks, so it's a decent but not daunting jog over to the athletic fields near South Creek Park. You take the jog out at an easy pace, then put the pedal down once you're at the fields. And when you catch yourself slacking—because Kirkham's in more than decent shape, and can take the strain a lot better than you yourself could—you push down hard, crushing it in a way that even Kirkham would find a little excessive. <i>Think you're hot fucking stuff,</i> you growl at him as a fissure of fire opens in your side. <i>I'll make you hurt, and make you hurt some more!</i> At the climax of your third jaunt around the fields, you have to throw yourself onto the ground, gasping, for a minute or two before you can get up to walk it off. You hurt—but it's a good kind of hurt, almost an orgasmic hurt—as you jog slowly home.<br/>
<br/>
Tad and your mom are up when you get back, but Tad has biked off by the time you're out of the shower and dressed in fresh jeans and a white, clinging, short-sleeve sports jersey emblazoned with the screaming, jagged-tooth skull of a moose (or maybe it's a deer) with claw-like antlers curling over its brows. Your mom glances at it with a poker-faced expression, and returns to unloading some groceries.<br/>
<br/>
"I can get that," you tell her. "You went around the corner while I was washing up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I'll get this, you fix your breakfast."<br/>
<br/>
"I need to get stuff out anyway, I can put this away." Firmly, you wedge her away from the sacks.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs, and says nothing but watches as you put away the canned vegetables and boxed mixes while getting out the pancake mix and some eggs and raw patty sausage. "Want me to fix some for you?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I ate," she says, sounding offended. She pauses. "You have practice this afternoon?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yea'p. I think we might have something set up at the country club," you improvise. "Was talking to this girl, her folks are members, they might be able to set us up a gig." You continue to dodge her eye as you assemble your breakfast. "Could be good for a couple of hundred dollars."<br/>
<br/>
"You need to have more fun in your life, David," she says.<br/>
<br/>
Now you do glance at her. "I'm having fun. I'll be having fun at practice."<br/>
<br/>
"You work so hard."<br/>
<br/>
"I like working hard."<br/>
<br/>
"Supper was good last night."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks. We can have pork chops night, if you'll let me pick up some pork chops."<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't answer right away. When she does, she says, "Money's tight. Your grandmother's offered to take Tad in for a little while."<br/>
<br/>
You turn to stare. She returns you a very serious look. You lean against the counter and put a hand on your hips.<br/>
<br/>
"You tell me I need to have more fun in my life," you say, and feel the hair on the back of your head rising in anger, "and that I work too hard, but now you're fucking telling me our money problems are so bad—"<br/>
<br/>
"We just need to economize, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine. I'll give up my fucking lessons with Dr. Lewis. I'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want you to do that!"<br/>
<br/>
"—get an after school job."<br/>
<br/>
"David!"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me. I must be fucking slacking, if we don't got enough money that Tad has to go off—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just telling you that she offered!"<br/>
<br/>
"—and transfer to another fucking middle school in the middle of the year!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I won't send him to your grandmother!"<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking right you won't. I told you, I'll get a fucking job, I'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"When did you start cussing so much?"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face and look away. The pans aren't hot enough for you to just start making breakfast, so you chew your lip and fume.<br/>
<br/>
"As for getting a job," your mom starts to say, but you interrupt: "You talk to Tad about going to Meemaw's?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Well don't. I'll talk to him about it. And I'll ask around at school, does anyone know about any after school or weekend jobs."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't want that, David. You want time for your music."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! Which is how come I'm gonna look for a job. 'Cos there's no point in keeping up my cello shit if I don't got Dr. Lewis."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression darkens with puzzlement. "Aren't you good enough now? To me, you sound—"<br/>
<br/>
"There's good, and there's being good enough," you snarl as you turn back to the stove. "Being <i>good,</i>" you repeat as you beat the pancake batter around with a spoon, "and being <i>good enough</i> to fool people who don't know shit."<br/>
<br/>
Your mom winces and withdraws.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't know what exactly the financial situation is with the Kirkham's. You have no idea what the utility and rental expenses on the house are, and your mom does most of the shopping so the food budget is a mystery. You know that she still has medical school loans to repay, and you suppose that that is why there are periodic money squeezes. Last summer, for instance, she dumped you and Tad both onto your grandmother, who lives on a farm northwest of Adaburg, because she said she couldn't get ends to meet. And now she's wanting to send Tad out there again, for his last semester of middle school.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe you should have it out with her, tell her that you're taking over the money management. Maybe you couldn't do any better, but you'd feel less impotent and whipsawed.<br/>
<br/>
It gives you indigestion, but you wolf down breakfast anyway.<br/>
<br/>
Only afterward does it occur to you that this isn't really your problem.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your mom needs the car, so at one o'clock she drops you off at Nathan Cruz's for practice with the string quartet. You trudge in through the open garage door, not bothering to knock. Voices from the nearby study tell you that Aaron Polk and Diana Dunnigan are already here.<br/>
<br/>
The quartet came together last Christmas, when Dr. Heinz suggested reviving the Westside High String Quartet. She put Nathan in charge, and when he asked you to join, you told him you'd rather go down on Dr. Stemple than join an official school string quartet. When he said it would have to be you as the cellist, or the quartet wouldn't happen, you retorted that him and you should form a private quartet and do your own thing—fuck the school. He got very gleeful at the idea, especially when you started popping off with some of the bold-as-shit modernist pieces you could play, and topped it off by proposing to call it the "Cannibal String Quartet." He wouldn't go that far, but you did accept his compromise—hell, his suggestion gave you wood—when he counter-proposed "Wendigo String Quartet."<br/>
<br/>
And that is why you and him, and Aaron and Diana, are all wearing shirts emblazoned with a demonic, skull-faced moose-monster. It's your string quartet's logo.<br/>
<br/>
Nathan is fiddling on his phone, but he looks up long enough to chuck his chin as you enter the study, whose furniture has been all pushed back to make room for the four chairs and music stands. Aaron, the second violinist, is a quiet and intense junior about whom, even after two years, Kirkham is undecided. He's second only to Nathan as a fiddle player, and he has a quiet intensity that doesn't bug you. But he has a computer-nerd vibe, and you're pretty sure he's frightened of you. But Diana Dunnigan, the violist, is a sophomore who has zero fucks to give about anything that might get in the way of having fun. She grins up at you with a mouthful of mutant teeth and giant gums.<br/>
<br/>
"You go out to the Warehouse last night?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, I crashed in a motel room with a girl," you growl as you settle into the chair next to you. Having zero fucks to give means that Diana is forever trying to flirt with you.<br/>
<br/>
Her face falls. But then it brightens again. "Are you going to the school play? I am."<br/>
<br/>
That by itself would be a turn-off, but you pause. Sydney told you that her gang, including Geoff and Lisa are going. Maybe you should too.<span class="fhmfnnimf3710"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122141111
author_id: seuzz
id: BST4G3DVF
title: Music Matters
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"I got plans," you mutter back at Diana. "Probably go out to the Warehouse. Or pick up another girl and another motel room." <br/>
<br/>
You are busying yourself with unpacking the cello, but out of the corner of your eye you catch Aaron studying you with an intent but empty look on his face. <i>I wonder what goes on in him?</i> you briefly wonder, and almost instantly dismiss the thought that there are easy ways to find out.<br/>
<br/>
Diana is starting to talk again, but Nathan interrupts. "Hey, I got something I want you guys to listen to," he calls out, and gestures you all to gather around his chair. He's got his phone balanced on the music stand with a video teed up.<br/>
<br/>
"You know there's this arts festival thing coming up in December," he says, "and I'm pretty sure we can get a slot in it. I mean, fuck me, it's a twenty-four hour arts slam, and there ain't enough arts in this town for two hours," he snarks. "Anyway, I got an idea what we could do for it." He touches the screen, and tiny, tinny music starts to play.<br/>
<br/>
It opens with a short, repetitive, dissonant motif, like a dentist scraping at a tooth with a metal hook. It's so repetitive, in fact, that after twenty seconds you growl, "Does anything fucking happen, or is this it?" Nathan hushes you as the music shifts into a series of slow, dissonant glissandos. You quickly peg it as something modernist and serial, probably from fifty years or sixty years ago. Not radically avant-garde, because it doesn't sound like any of the string players are using a hacksaw instead of a bow. But there's no direction to it, no pattern, no rhythm, and no reason as instruments jump in with a bang or slide out with a whine. Basically, it's music to piss people off: shit that sounds smart and intellectual because it's ugly and inscrutable. Like abstract painting, but for the ear.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I dig it," you say after a minute or so. "Perfect for arts festival fuckery."<br/>
<br/>
Nathan frowns up at you. "You don't like it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure," you shrug. (Kirkham is never one to gush over what he likes.)  "And they'll dig it at the festival. They won't understand it, so they'll think it's better than it is. You got the sheet music?"<br/>
<br/>
"I can find it."<br/>
<br/>
"You better, if we're gonna play it. What is it, anyway?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's by a guy named Charles Wuorinen."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, find me the sheet music." You wander back over to your seat. "I wanna look it over before I commit to anything."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. He's got a piano quintet, too," Nathan adds. "You can find it on YouTube. Way killer. If we can get Spinks to throw in—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck me, Spinks? Ask him who he wants me to go down on. I'll go down on whoever, if Spinks does something with us." You fit the cello between your knees and tap the strings lightly with the bow before tuning up. Nathan snickers as he puts his phone away.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Though the Wendigo Quartet, under your and Nathan's prodding, leans heavily toward the modern, the alien, and the atonal, you're not all avant-garde all the time, because you do want to get money for playing, and most people don't like spending money (or time) to have their ears shredded. So the piece you're working on now, though by Hindemith, is one of his accessible works. For three hours you work through the first two movements, practicing and polishing and arguing over interpretation. When it's over, after Aaron and Diana have left and you're waiting for Chen to pick you up, you and Nathan relax in the garage—sitting on a big freezer—while passing a bottle of a microbrewery beer between you.<br/>
<br/>
"You said you spent last night in a motel room with some girl?" Nathan says.<br/>
<br/>
"When'd I say that?"<br/>
<br/>
"When you came in. Jesus!" He swallows a great mouthful of beer, and belches.<br/>
<br/>
"I just said that to shut Diana up." You tug the bottle from his tight grasp.<br/>
<br/>
"It was Mindy, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Could'a been." You tip back the beer.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
He's hunched over, staring with watering eyes out the garage at nothing in particular. Nothing in particular out in the street, that is: you're pretty sure in his mind's eye he's undressing some girl or other. He wipes his forearm across his forehead. "If I could get Madison into a motel room," he mutters. Still staring at nothing, he wrenches the bottle back from you.<br/>
<br/>
"You just gotta be firm," you tell him as he pours another deep draught down his throat. "Look her in the face and tell her what she wants."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes, their whites showing, swivel like marbles to lock onto yours. "You don't know Madison. I could beg, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't <i>beg,</i>" you sneer. "You beg, you lose. And I guess you didn't hear me. I didn't say to tell her what <i>you</i> want. You tell her what <i>she</i> wants. Which is—" You lean in at him and lift your eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
"But she <i>doesn't</i> want it," he groans.<br/>
<br/>
"Then what are you fucking around with her for?" You hop off the freezer and turn to give him your full attention. <br/>
<br/>
"If she's one of the ones that don't want it, fine, you might as well try to fuck a wall," you tell him. "But there ain't that many of <i>them.</i> More of 'em out there," you grumble, "who don't deserve it than who don't want it. So does she want it or doesn't she?" You instinctively feel for a toothpick. But you left them all at home.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, eventually, I assume, she—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then what are you waiting for? Tell her she wants it now."<br/>
<br/>
"I can't do that!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you're fucked." When he only stares back with boggled, watering eyes, you add, "Work on turning her loose, man. <i>I</i> could get her to turn loose. Fuck, give me ten minutes with her, I'll turn her into a waterslide. A hot, sudsy, dick-sucking water slide I'd have to beat back with a garden hoe to keep off me."<br/>
<br/>
Nathan's eyes narrow, and his skin tightens until you can see the skull beneath.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that how you get a new girl into a motel room every weekend?" he hisses.<br/>
<br/>
"No, 'cos I don't get a new girl every weekend," you retort. "Too much filth out there. B'sides," you boast, "I like using 'em up, and that takes time. Turn 'em inside, turn 'em outside, turn 'em upside down. Do a Disneyland on 'em, take every ride there is. They ain't Kleenex, they don't turn to mush the first time you—" You ram the air with an up-thrusting fist.<br/>
<br/>
"But I dunno," you sigh after Nathan only stares at you. His lips are bloodless. "Maybe you need a new girl. You sure as fuck could do better. You <i>were</i> doing better last year."<br/>
<br/>
Chen picks that moment to pull up. "I gotta take off," you tell Nathan. "Find me that sheet music for that guy you want us to do. What's his name again?"<br/>
<br/>
"Charles Wuorenin."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me, you're gonna have to spell it. Text me a link to the shit you're thinking about us doing, including that one we wanna rope Spinks into. Any real chance him doing it with us?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, maybe. It's pretty out there."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you grumble. "Fucker's still got his head up Brahms' big ass. Tell him I'll give him a blow job before <i>and</i> after we do it, if he does it with us."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, no! I'm not telling him that!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, tell him something. Oh, by the way," you add as you edge your way out. "I was talking to Kelsey Blankenship last night. She's got an in with the country club, she might be able to swing us a gig there. Maybe we could give 'em a dry run of the whatsisfuck you  want us to do for the art fest."<br/>
<br/>
You slipped that "last night" in because you wanted to see what Nathan would do with it, and he doesn't disappoint. "Was she the one you had in the motel room?"<br/>
<br/>
"One of 'em, at least." You let him catch only a glimpse of your poker face before turning and swaggering off toward your ride.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
All that talk of girls and fucking, of course, is a wild exaggeration. But there's enough truth in it that you'll never be called on your bullshit. If people can only find one case of your talking a girl down from sneering to snogging (that would be Mindy), and if there are only two or three girls who will admit to going to a motel with you (that would be Mindy and Ximena and maybe Molly Shaw if her tongue got loose enough)— <br/>
<br/>
Well, that's enough to establish your cred. People always assume that what they see and hear and know is only the tip of the iceberg. Which means, mathematically, that you must have steamed ten girls out of their panties, and deflowered twenty to thirty out at the Donna.<br/>
<br/>
You only wish.<br/>
<br/>
Chen's got other stuff to do, so he drops you off. The house is empty, so you change into loose shorts and a floppy t-shirt, then prop yourself on your bed with your phone, a webpage of porn, and a hand down the front of your underwear. Fifteen slow, succulent minutes later and you're ready for the sock. Afterward, with the light off, you stare at the ceiling and mentally edit the images you jacked off to into a coherent movie. You wish there was a way to download it from your brain to your hard drive so you could watch it whenever, but maybe the technology will be there some day.<br/>
<br/>
Without your noticing, you fall asleep.<br/>
<br/>
You only know that you slept because your muscles are stiff when you wake, and the room is dark. You fumble for the phone and see that it's after seven. <i>Damn,</i> you think. <i>Sun sure sets early these days.</i><br/>
<br/>
Sydney told you the school play starts at eight, and though you told Diana you weren't going, you could still make it. Otherwise you'll have to wait until Monday to step up your campaign against Geoff.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221221411112
author_id: seuzz
id: GHFK7WPXN
title: A Mother's Love
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You're feeling stiff and boneless after your nap. So you prop yourself up on the bed without turning on the light, and watch some videos with the sound down soft. Music, movie bits, random shit, even some sports clips.<br/>
<br/>
It isn't quite eight when you hear the front door open and voices in the living room. One of them is your mom's so you assume the other is Tad's, until it speaks up and sounds much deeper than your brother's. You pause the video and listen intently. Yes, it's your mom, and a man. But who? There aren't any men—no uncles or neighbors or social friends—in her life. At least, none that she brings home.<br/>
<br/>
Well, none since that one fuck-head she had around the house a couple of times when you were ten. He wasn't over that often, and then he was never over at all.<br/>
<br/>
A light chill settles over your joints as memories you never troubled over, and so never made any deductions from, start to click into a pattern.<br/>
<br/>
And you find yourself paralyzed as footsteps and voices come down the hall. They pause near the junction where the doors to three bedrooms meet. Then your mom murmurs something, and your door knob fumbles and twists. The door opens a crack, holds, then closes. Your bed is not in line of sight, so you don't see who it was—and they don't see you. After it closes, your mom speaks again, this time loud enough that you can make out the words <i>out with friends</i> in the jumble.<br/>
<br/>
Then you hear her bedroom door close.<br/>
<br/>
You feel very stiff all over, so stiff that your joints seem to crack as you click off your phone, lay it aside, and resettle yourself on the bed. You draw your knees up and push your face into them.<br/>
<br/>
<i>The fuck am I going to do?</i> you wonder.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's forty-five minutes before you hear voices again, and another ten before you hear a bedroom door creak open. They're talking in low voices, loud enough that you could make out the words if you wanted to. But you keep the pillow over your face.<br/>
<br/>
It was really tough for the first ten minutes or so, waiting to find out if there were going to be noises, or if two doors between you and them would be enough to muffle them. Ten minutes in which you turned over and pushed your face into the pillow while clenching a hard fist.<br/>
<br/>
Ten minutes before remembering that it's not <i>your</i> mom with a strange man in her bed, about to take him up her pussy.<br/>
<br/>
Then it just became really awkward. A bit of a fight, too, as you had to push Kirkham back down when the bedsprings began to groan. You flipped onto your side and listened with a grimace as they rocked, and paused, and rocked again; fought to keep from jumping at the occasional stifled shriek; clenched your eyes shut and tried not to visualize it when there was one long, last quick burst of bedsprings, followed by a long ritardando. You flipped onto your back and let the sweat pour off as you gaped at the ceiling. When the voices resumed, you picked up the pillow and casually tried suffocating yourself with it.<br/>
<br/>
Because by that point you and David Kirkham were commiserating with each other.<br/>
<br/>
You couldn't keep him out of your head completely, and with mordant curiosity you would probe at the memories or test drive the emotional reactions, and then he'd come roaring back to the surface.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham never knew his father, and his mom never speaks of him. If he or Tad ever asked her about him, they must have been young, because there are no memories of the question, only an impression that there never was a father, except biologically. When, with blunt curiosity, you asked yourself if David and Tad even have the same father, the swift reaction was brutal: like your impersonated personality was trying to kill you by provoking a stroke.<br/>
<br/>
As for that one guy from years back—what was his name? you can barely remember his face—it's pretty clear now what that was. And though you can find no memory of saying anything, you do remember the hostility that David felt for him. And when David Kirkham doesn't like someone— Well, that person would probably feel it. And even at ten, you'd bet Kirkham was someone to handle carefully.<br/>
<br/>
After the voices have moved back down the hall, you sit up. "Are you going to be okay?" you ask yourself in a murmur, and it is Will Prescott who asks it. You let yourself fall backward into your impersonation, and it is David Kirkham who surfaces to answer, "I'll be fine," you growl, "but someone else isn't going to be." You heave yourself off the bed and trudge for the door.<br/>
<br/>
The house is silent and dark when you emerge. Also empty. The front door is ajar, and when you put your eye to the peephole you see your mom and some guy, arms around each other, standing next to a car in the driveway. You suck on a tooth for the entire length of time it takes them to kiss each other goodbye. When your mom turns back toward the house, you trudge over to drop heavily onto the sofa, which faces the door. You stretch your legs out, crossing them at the ankle, but take great care not to cross your arms. Instead, you drape one along the arm of the sofa, and the other along the back.<br/>
<br/>
Your mom flicks on the light when she comes in. There's a contented smile on her face. <br/>
<br/>
Then she looks up and sees you.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!" she exclaims and leaps about three feet into the air. She puts her hand to her chest to settle her breath, and stares boggle-eyed at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Where's the car?" you calmly ask her.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"The car," you repeat. "If that guy brought you home—"<br/>
<br/>
"How long have you been here? You weren't here just—" She point down the hall.<br/>
<br/>
"I got home around four or so."<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes widen. "All the lights were off," she stammers.<br/>
<br/>
"I fell asleep. Was in my bedroom."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression turns wary. "How long were you asleep?"<br/>
<br/>
"I woke up before you got back. Yeah, you looked in my room." You miss having a toothpick to roll around, but take comfort that your tinted glasses are hiding your eyes. "You didn't see me."<br/>
<br/>
"I saw your lights were off."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I didn't feel like turning them on. 'Specially not after I heard you bringing company in."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, honey," she says, and her face twists up with motherly sympathy.<br/>
<br/>
"So how long's this been going on?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... With Robert, you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Iz'at his name? Robert who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Robert Hamm. He's—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go on."<br/>
<br/>
She pauses to give you a direct look. She is still pale, but she is beginning to master herself.<br/>
<br/>
"He's one of the physicians at the clinic," she says. "You've met him, when you've come out. He's the—"<br/>
<br/>
"So how long've you been playing doctor with each other?"<br/>
<br/>
A spot of color shows in her forehead, and her eyes harden.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have to explain myself to you, David. I'm your mother—"<br/>
<br/>
"I just wanna know how long he's been fucking you," you tell her, "and whether he is going to keep on fucking you. Is it going to be a regular thing, is he going to start showing up here even on days he's not fucking you, am I going to have to get used to seeing him around? Or is—?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't get to talk to me like that, David!"<br/>
<br/>
"These are obvious questions," you retort. You are keeping an iron grip on your voice, but your chest is like a furnace. "Totally appropriate, if I'm going to understand what's going on." You shrug with your hands. "So explain to me what's going on."<br/>
<br/>
Her lips peel back, but she looks everywhere in the room except at you before answering.<br/>
<br/>
"We've been seeing each other for a couple of months," she starts to say.<br/>
<br/>
"You must'a been seeing him around longer than that," you retort, "if he works at the clinic with you, like you said."<br/>
<br/>
She nearly chokes, then reaches for the door.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have stand here for this," she snarls. "I don't have to—! If you want us to be a family, David—!"<br/>
<br/>
"You want us to be a family?" you ask. You chuck your chin at the door. "With him?"<br/>
<br/>
She freezes, breathing heavily.<br/>
<br/>
"I like him, David," she says through gritted teeth. "I'd like it if I didn't have to—" She almost chokes on the words. "Sneak around with him."<br/>
<br/>
You lift your chin. "Who says you gotta sneak around?" you softly ask. "You worried about me, what I think? Who says I give a shit? But maybe <i>he</i> wants to sneak around. Maybe got his own reasons to."<br/>
<br/>
"Listen to yourself, David! <i>That's</i> how come we have to 'sneak around'!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? For how long?"<br/>
<br/>
She starts to reply, then catches herself, and draws a deep breath.<br/>
<br/>
"You're a big part of my life, David," she says. "You and Tad are the biggest part. But I do have a part of my life that is mine. Just as I assume <i>you've</i> got a part of your life that I'm not part of." She gives you a very pointed look.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "Makes sense," you say. "So if you can bring someone home, I can too, right? Fair's fair, isn't it?" You tilt your chin further.<br/>
<br/>
"No," she says, "it's different. Besides, if you wanted to start doing that, what about Tad?"<br/>
<br/>
"What about him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Would you bring someone home when he's home? Exactly," she says when you shrug. "And I'm thinking about Tad when—"<br/>
<br/>
"Where is he, by the way?"<br/>
<br/>
"Tad? I sent him to a sleepover with a friend. I assumed you'd be arranging your own sleepover," she adds with a glower.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine, so we'd be careful about Tad, both of us," you say. "Then—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm always careful about Tad." She holds your eye. "Why do you think I asked your Meemaw to take him in next year?"<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212214111121
author_id: seuzz
id: FPN74HG2S
title: A Little Night Music
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>Why do you think I asked your Meemaw to take Tad in next year?</i><br/>
<br/>
That's what your mom said, and it's a minute or two before you realize the question has left your jaw hanging open. "Wait, what?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sending Tad to live with your Meemaw for a couple of months," she says in a very even voice, "so I can figure out if Robert and I can live together."<br/>
<br/>
"Live together," you echo. "Like?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like under the same roof."<br/>
<br/>
You lift your eyebrows. "Uh huh. Where? And where am I while you're—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Here," she says. Her voice hardens. "Or if you've got someplace else you can—"<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, whoa! You mean <i>here</i> here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, here! The lease on his apartment is up at the end of December—"<br/>
<br/>
"Wait! Fuck me! Is this cocksucker looking for a way to <i>save on rent?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes blaze.<br/>
<br/>
"David," she says, "I'm going to call Robert to come pick me up, and I'm going to wait for him outside! I'll be back in the morning. And if you can't <i>talk calmly about this then without being a little— a little—!"</i><br/>
<br/>
You leap from the sofa and stalk into the kitchen. She goes out the front door, banging it shut behind her. You pace the house, mastering a temper that is not yours and trying to look at things with a cold, reasonable eye.<br/>
<br/>
Of course you understand why Kirkham is upset to learn that his mom is banging someone from her work. But to learn on top of that that she's bringing him in to live with them ... while kicking her other son out of the house ... Well, even you are shocked.<br/>
<br/>
So what are you going to do about it? David Kirkham wouldn't know what to do, except maybe burn the house down. Well, you can stop him from doing that. But you would feel awkward staying the night here, oppressed by worries and angers that are not your own. And you'd just be kicking the conversation down the road until tomorrow morning.<br/>
<br/>
You wheel for the door and charge out to join Mary Kirkham on the front sidewalk, where she is hugging herself against the cold night air while studying the screen of her phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Listen, just answer me one question," you tell her. "Why are you sending Tad to Meemaw's?"<br/>
<br/>
Her expression is tight as she lifts her face from the phone to look sideways at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Because as hard as it would be on you, David, to have Robert with us, it would be harder on Tad."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought it was because money was tight. That's what you told me this morning, Meemaw offered—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's what I told you. And then I was going to tell <i>you</i> about Robert, and how he was going to move in and help pick up some of the expenses."<br/>
<br/>
"So is that how come he's really moving in? To help with the money?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," she says. "We're doing okay financially. But I wanted an excuse for putting some distance between him and Tad—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Pfah!"</i><br/>
<br/>
"What was that for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Go on."<br/>
<br/>
Her chin is trembling when she replies.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm doing this," she says in a low and very controlled voice, "because Tad is even more fragile than you are, David. And you've just proved to me that you are <i>very</i> fragile. You and your brother—" She stops to brush away a sudden tear with her fingertip. "You've had me to yourselves your whole lives—"<br/>
<br/>
"I can handle you having a boyfriend!" you explode. "I think Tad can too!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think you can! Else, why have you been acting like a jealous—? Like you're jealous?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not jealous! I just don't like being lied to!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I wasn't trying to lie. I was just trying to keep things quiet."<br/>
<br/>
You kick at the ground, and glare at the car headlamps that are sweeping up the street toward you. But it's someone else, and they sweep past with a swish of tires.<br/>
<br/>
"David—"<br/>
<br/>
"Go inside," you tell your mom. "I don't want you going home with this cock— With this guy. I don't want you going away mad. I wanna talk to the guy, alone."<br/>
<br/>
"No. I don't want you—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna bite him! I'm not gonna hurt him, I'm not—!" You take a breath. "I'm just going to tell him I know all about him and you, and that Tad's gonna know about him and you too. And that everything's gonna be okay with him and us. Except if he ever decides to be a son of a bitch. 'Cos then they're gonna have to take out most of his bowels if he's ever gonna get back his stethoscope from where I'm gonna put it.<br/>
<br/>
"And," you continue, lowering your brow, "if he can't handle me telling him that, 'cos he's such a delicate flower, or because he's a dickweed who knows he's in for trouble from me, then we'll find out. Tonight. Instead of later. After he's been living here and we have to repaint the living room because of what I've done to him."<br/>
<br/>
Your mom stares, then says "Jesus" under her breath and totters back into the house. You take up station at the end of the driveway. Behind the car, which—it suddenly startles you to see—is parked there. But you don't give any thought to the logistics of how the guy and your mom were getting around.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You had an iron grip on Kirkham during that talk with your mom, and you've an iron grip on him still when the dark sedan comes sweeping in. But you are giving Kirkham his head and doing little more than reining him back from saying or doing something really regrettable.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you're David," Dr. Robert Hamm says after rolling down his window at your approach. "I remember you. Your mom—"<br/>
<br/>
"My mom's inside, and she's staying the night here," you bluntly inform him. "So you can turn around and go back home." His smile turns glassy as you lean on his car and bend to address him.<br/>
<br/>
"I got home this afternoon," you tell him, "and I was here when you and my mom came back. I don't know what your bedside manner is like, doctor," you continue as his smile freezes into a rictus, "but based on what I heard, I can make some pretty good guesses about what your general 'bed technique' is like."<br/>
<br/>
You tap the roof of his car as you talk. He listens with an expression that, as you continue, deepens into one of fascinated terror.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't like it when my mom screams. You understand, it's not a sound I like. Makes me wanna grab whoever's making her scream, and kick his spine out through the front of his stomach. Sorry, can't be helped. Basic human reaction. Even when I know the screams are—" You shrug. "Aren't the kind she minds making, right? Okay?<br/>
<br/>
"So here's how it's going to work."<br/>
<br/>
He visibly swallows as you lean in toward him.<br/>
<br/>
"My mom tells me you're planning to move in with us at the end of the year. And that you think you're gonna be kicking my brother out to live with his grandma. And me, you think I'm going to be a total pussy and let you do all this. Uh uh. No."<br/>
<br/>
You bang the roof of his car your knuckles.<br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow you're going to explain to my mom that you've changed your mind and won't be moving in with us after all. And my brother isn't going anyplace either. Oh, you can still bring your ass over, as much as you want. Glad to have you over. We'll have dinner parties and party games afterward. We'll play fucking charades.<br/>
<br/>
"But you're not spending the night at our place, not once, not ever again. Not even if you send Tad to another sleepover and arrange an orgy for me with the entire fucking high school cheerleader squad. If you and my mom wanna figure out if you can 'live together'"—you hook some air quotes with one hand—"then she can try it at your place. Fuck it, she can move in with you, I basically been taking care of me and Tad solo already. Then eventually, if you and my mom figure you can live under one roof without killing each other, we can try it out here. See if we can all live together without me killing you. But we're gonna try that out later rather than sooner.<br/>
<br/>
"Also, we're not gonna have no more sneaking around, no more secrets. I'll tell Tad myself that our mommy has a new boyfriend, and that he's—" You grind to a halt and have to remaster yourself. "That he's getting sloppy-happy with her. Don't worry about him, he knows how it works. It's just that—" <br/>
<br/>
You lean in closer to whisper hoarsely at the man.<br/>
<br/>
"We don't want him looking at his mommy's bedroom door every goddam time he walks past it and thinking about what kind of fuckery is going on on the other side of it. Do we?"<br/>
<br/>
You stand back up. "I know you understand that. I know you're trying to be a good guy about it. So I'll even tell you how you be an actual good guy. You're gonna tell my mom you changed your mind about moving in, because you got to thinking about Tad and how unfair it is to fuck him up by chucking him into a new middle school in a new town for half the year, just so you can do the horizontal happy with his mommy without worrying you're giving him psych issues. And that the way to handle Tad is for you to keep your distance and to have your fun at your place, not ours. Because you're just that kind of fucking saint.<br/>
<br/>
"So that's the way it's going to be, doctor. Else I'm gonna have to tell my mom I really don't like you and don't think you're good for her. And if you want, I can give you the names of some other people I really didn't like, and they can tell you if they enjoyed being not liked by me.<br/>
<br/>
"Have a good night."<br/>
<br/>
You pat the hood of his car, step back, and gesture him to run for home.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122141111211
author_id: seuzz
id: A2MZTGT38
title: ILFs in Odd Places
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Your mom is perched, petrified, on the edge of the sofa when you step back inside. Anxiety knits her brow.<br/>
<br/>
"It's all fine," you tell her as you shut and lock the door behind you. "I guess he'll call you, like, tomorrow or sometime. How about you bring him over, like, Tuesday night. I'll fix us all supper."<br/>
<br/>
She just stares at you, speechlessly. After the moment has grown awkward, you stump off down the hall.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
There's no question about jacking off that night. The personality you're riding isn't in the mood, and after going to bed you stare out of his eyes at the dark ceiling for a good long time. As for you yourself ... Well ...<br/>
<br/>
After you've calmed down and put a little distance between yourself and the evening's crisis, you are disquieted to recognize just how much in control you <i>weren't</i>. In the cold, objective night, it seems less that you were reining Kirkham in, than that he was using you to rein himself in. Oh, you're not worried about losing a grip on who you are. You know absolutely that you are Will Prescott and that "David Kirkham" is just a ... an NPC that you're impersonating. But in the heat of the moment, when you are "acting the part" ... Well, it was the same thing over at Cruz's place. You had to be Kirkham, so you zoned out and just let yourself be him, and you didn't leave the zone until you were back home listening to the sound of lovemaking in the bedroom across the hall. And then you had to drop back into the zone. <br/>
<br/>
(And how do you know you're not "in the zone" now? Because your body doesn't feel like your own, but like something that you're wearing. You avoid touching yourself because it's a little icky.)<br/>
<br/>
But that complication—wondering how and when you might lose yourself too much in a moment—is nothing to a thought which you handle it very gingerly, like nitroglycerin, lest it cause someone to blow up.<br/>
<br/>
It's the recogntion (which Kirkham has never looked square in the face) that his mom is a MILF. And even then only technically, because at thirty-three she looks like she can hardly qualify as an M. You wonder how many times she's been mistaken for Kirkham's older sister.<br/>
<br/>
And the fact that you only now noticed seems further proof that Kirkham's tentacles are more tightly entwined with your mind than you had suspected. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Sunday morning.</i><br/>
<br/>
You're up at eight for another jog. This one you take slower and longer than yesterday's, with an extra lap, so that you're later than usual getting back home. And your procrastination pays off: the car is gone and there's a text from your mom on the phone, telling you that she'll be gone all day and won't be back until suppertime. You have the place to yourself even after you shower, but you're still not in the mood to amuse yourself.<br/>
<br/>
So you spend the balance of the morning and the early afternoon doing homework. Tad shows up around twelve-thirty, having gone to church with whatever dork friend he had his sleepover with, and you churlishly remind him that he has homework as well. You text Kelsey's number, asking her to keep you apprised of anything going on, but she only texts back a thumb's up emoji, which makes you wonder irritably what your girlfriend is up to.<br/>
<br/>
The answer comes at around two-thirty, shortly after you've finished your school work and are scrounging in the kitchen for ideas for what to fix for supper. That's when Kelsey texts to ask if you can come out to her house.<br/>
<br/>
<i>If u pick me up,</i> you reply. <i>Moms got car.</i> Then you nearly leap from your skin when she replies, <i>Lisa is out here.</i> You start to reply, then back up to hit her number.<br/>
<br/>
"Hello?" Kelsey answers, sounding tentative and quizzical.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, what's this about Lisa being out there? You doing something?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well ... yes. I—"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, don't do anything until I get out there. Shit, you can't come pick me up, can you?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. Then Kelsey says, "Can we call you back in about five minutes?"<br/>
<br/>
Your heart slows to a crawl, dragged down by a sensation that feels remarkably like dread.<br/>
<br/>
It's ten minutes before she calls back, by which time you've settled on mac-n-cheese for dinner and are back in your bedroom, pacing. "Here," Kelsey says, "someone wants to talk to you."<br/>
<br/>
Then: "Hey, Will," a low, thrumming voice says. "Do you want us to come pick you up?"<br/>
<br/>
It's the voice of Lisa Yarborough.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She just invited Lisa out to Kelsey's, Sydney tells you after you've recovered yourself far enough to ask what happened. Just invited her out and hit her with a magic band and took care of the rest by herself. That was the Kelsey-bot (or whatever it's called) that texted you while Sydney was still unconscious under the new mask.<br/>
<br/>
You're irritated that she didn't call to consult with you first, but say nothing about it. Besides, she's got a little technical news to explain. She put the mask together separately instead of all at once, kind of like you and she had done with Kirkham in the motel room. Then she put the mind strip on first, and got Lisa's memories, then put the mask on to complete the transformation, so that she is able to be "Lisa Yarborough" immediately instead of having to wait for memories to come like with Kelsey. You grunt that that's pretty clever.<br/>
<br/>
"That's why," she continues in Lisa's soft, tentative tones, "now I think about it, maybe we shouldn't come get you. I mean, I don't know if anybody would see us, but we're not supposed to be— I mean, the way you hit on—" She giggles. "On me at school. And what you did to Geoff—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, how are they taking that?" you ask. Now that the switch has happened, you are actually feeling weirded out by talking to your current girlfriend in the form of your ex-girlfriend, and would prefer not to see her right away. And a "business talk" with Sydney, even in Lisa's voice, would bother you less than her being flirty over the phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, they haven't really talked about it," she tells you. "I mean, Lisa told Geoff what happened at her locker. He told her not to worry about it, that that was just—" She giggles again—"David Kirkham being his typical asshole self. But then you did that thing with Geoff— Actually, you know, he didn't tell her about it, but she heard about it. And she didn't tell <i>him</i> she heard about it, because she didn't want him to worry about her knowing. But it made things kind of strained last night at the play. Oh, by the way, you should have come out. We could have played an extra scene for everyone there!"<br/>
<br/>
Her gurgling laugh makes you shudder a little.<br/>
<br/>
"I had stuff going on here," you curtly inform her. (Privately you wonder which would have been more harrowing, a "scene" with Lisa and Geoff or the one that got acted out last night.) "What did Lisa think of what I told her? You know, her and me going out?"<br/>
<br/>
"She thinks you're a creep. Well, that David is. You're not going to be able to <i>talk</i> your way into her panties, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, then, what's the fucking point of all this?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. "Well, there's Geoff," Lisa says. "You still want to fuck him up, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. So is that what this is about, now? Just fucking him up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos that would fuck up all my chances with Lisa, wouldn't it? Of her and me— You and me— Her and Kirkham riding off together."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, hold on, Will, I didn't say—"<br/>
<br/>
"Would she go out with me—with Kirkham—if I talked her boyfriend into dropping her?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, but— Hang on, give me a minute!"<br/>
<br/>
So you do, even though the long, awkward silence nearly kills you.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," she says slowly when she resumes, "I think— Yeah, if you— <i>Oh! Yeah!</i> That's the way to do it!" she exclaims. You rub your temple.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so," she continues after organizing her thoughts. "You should go find Geoff tomorrow. Do whatever— I mean, I'll leave it up to you what you do to him. Just don't ... break anything."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna leave it up to me or not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, fine, I won't break anything. But what then?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, do something to him. Then on Tuesday do something again."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"And then— Well, I'll call you or something."<br/>
<br/>
"To plot some more?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. It'll be <i>Lisa</i> trying to talk to David. About what he's doing. And we'll go out someplace to talk, and that's when—" She hesitates. "Well, you're going to have to come up with something good to tell me so that I'm, you know, kind of confused afterward. Not mad at you. Like I'm ... sort of impressed."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, okay, and then?"<br/>
<br/>
"And then we play it by ear. You making Geoff miserable, and me becoming more impressed with you!"<br/>
<br/>
You don't answer.<br/>
<br/>
"You think that won't work?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. We'll find out. I mean, we can always <i>make</i> it work, Sydney—"<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want to get together tonight to talk it through? Maybe practice?" She pauses. "At the Donna?"<br/>
<br/>
She asks the question very softly, the way Lisa would. It sounds exactly like Lisa. For half of a very dizzying second, you lose touch with reality and think that is her.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh boy,</i> you think as your desire suddenly surges and fills the cracks between your joints with testosterone and lust. <i>It would be really dangerous to the plan if we got caught. People would really have a lot of questions.</i><br/>
<br/>
But it feels like you haven't seen Sydney in forever, even though it's only been two days. And isn't what she's offering exactly what you said you wanted when you started this plot? A chance to fuck your girlfriend while she's wearing the body of your ex-?<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221221411112111
author_id: seuzz
id: Q3HSL5MCN
title: An Ex- Marks the Spot
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"We'll have to play it by ear," you tell Sydney. "I'll have to see when I can get the car back—"<br/>
<br/>
"I could pick you up," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"We can't go in the same car, in case someone sees us."<br/>
<br/>
"Kelsey could pick you up. I could drive myself out."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't want anyone seeing your car at the Donna, <i>Lisa</i>. You're not the kind of girl who goes to the Donna.." <i>At least, not before this afternoon,</i> you silently, mordantly add.<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"Just lemme call you back later. Maybe I can get a ride from someone else. And Kelsey can give you a ride out there."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay." There's a lingering pause. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you out there, Will," she says in that soft, wistful tone that Lisa like to talk in. "I've been missing you."<br/>
<br/>
You rest your forehead against your bedroom wall and clench a fist as your cock unfurls. "Been missing you too, babe."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Jesus!" Gary Chen snarls after you're on the road. It's a little after five, and you've just told him where you want him to drop you off. "You want me to play fucking chauffeur and take you out where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't bust your hymen, man. I don't even know if anything's gonna be happening."<br/>
<br/>
"At the fucking Donna?" His voice is nearly a strangled shriek. "Then why the fuck—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just meeting Kelsey Blankenship out there—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Fuck!"</i><br/>
<br/>
"—and it's about the fucking country club and the string quartet, dickface!" You glower at him. "We got a chance for a gig out there, that's what we're meeting to talk about."<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft! At the Donna? How fucking clueless do you think I—?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know who owns the Donna, motherfucker? The fucking student council president! Kelsey's got business out there with her, or something, that's why she wants to meet out there."<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit! Or you wouldn't be going out there!"<br/>
<br/>
You glare at him, but bite your tongue.<br/>
<br/>
But after Chen has fallen back into a mulish silence, you do congratulate yourself on the improvisation. Almost everything you knew while being Amanda Ferguson has faded, except for a few cold "facts" which you retained. Kim, and the office at the Donna where school-related meetings are sometimes held by Kelsey and her gang, was one of them.<br/>
<br/>
And just to make sure that there won't be more awkward questions, you pull out your phone and text Kelsey to tell her to park in front of the office.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'll tell you how come Kelsey wants to meet at the Donna," Chen grumbles, coming to life again, when you're only a block away from the motel. "It's 'cos she's out there with Hennepin. Or she's gonna be meeting him out there after."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe," you allow. "So how come you're acting with me like a jealous girlfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
Chen gives you a sour, seething look.<br/>
<br/>
"I know what you're thinking, man," he snarls as he wheels into the motel parking lot. "That she'll ask you to stay for a three-way afterward with her and Hennepin."<br/>
<br/>
"'Course that's what I'm thinking. Now that you mention it. Thanks for giving me something to jack off to tonight."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck," Chen hisses as he brakes to a hard stop in front of the motel office.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You have beaten Kelsey and Lisa out there—they have to drive in from much farther away—so you have a good, long wait to yourself, during which you glance inside the office—telling the bald, bullet-headed ex-cop behind the desk that you're waiting for someone—to confirm that Kim Walsh is <i>not</i> there, as that would be really awkward. It's a relief when Kelsey's BMW purrs up and stops. The girl behind the wheel flashes a glinting smile at you.<br/>
<br/>
But your eyes are on the passenger who gets out.<br/>
<br/>
She's wearing that frilly, baby-blue dress you told Sydney about, and white stockings and black pumps. Her dark hair is carefully brushed and coiffed, and a soft, plump smile plays on her lips. "Hi," she says in a soft voice as she comes around the car. The sight and voice of Lisa Yarborough, looking directly at you with glinting eyes and making you briefly dizzy.<br/>
<br/>
The BMW is pulling away before you remember to ask about getting some money for the room, but Lisa takes some fifties from the purse she's carrying and slips them to you. On tottering legs you return to the office to exchange the bills for a room card. Number seventeen, this time. Outside, put yourself between Lisa and the parking lot and, after slipping an arm around her waist, lead her down to the room. The closed-room scent of the Donna rushes out to envelope you as you open the door, and it is by now so familiar that you have an almost Pavlovian reaction to it. It's the scent of sex.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't let you rip this dress off me, like we talked about," Lisa says in a breathless giggle after you've pushed her inside and locked the door. "I'm gonna have to buy a new one if—"<br/>
<br/>
You lunge for her skirts, lifting them with both hands and pulling them up over her waist. "Put your hands over your head," you order, then lift the hems up high enough that you can see under them. She's wearing tight-fitting satin panties, and those white stockings go up almost all the way to her hips. You salivate and stiffen: this is not a way you ever fantasized seeing Lisa before, but the sight now of her soft, ripe flesh so exposed sets off firecrackers in your head.<br/>
<br/>
After a mouth-watering moment of this, Lisa bats at you until you drop the dress long enough for her to undo the cloth belt at her waist. She throws it aside with a gently exasperated smile, then lets you lift the dress up high enough again to expose not only her legs and waist but also her soft stomach and the breasts in their white brassiere. She shifts on her feet as you study her with watering eyes, and only after she's called your name a couple of times do you let the dress fall again.<br/>
<br/>
"Here, let's do this right, if you want to do it this way," she says, and reaches behind to fumble at the back of the dress. "Can you get the zipper?"<br/>
<br/>
You pull it down, and she quickly shrugs the dress off and tosses it to the side. Now Lisa shows herself in bra, panties, white stockings, and black pumps. You sink onto the edge of the bed with a groan as hard as your cock.<br/>
<br/>
"Make yourself comfortable, Will," Lisa says as she pushes you onto your back and straddles your hips with her knees. "I want to show you what you missed out on when Lisa dumped you. And what you'll be getting that she's never given anyone else!"<br/>
<br/>
She gets onto the bed, still straddling you, and in her underthings crouches over you to kiss you deeply. Her hair—it's Lisa's hair, it's scented with her shampoo, and you remember putting your nose into it to kiss the top of her head once—drapes over your face and caresses it. When she lifts up, she unhooks her bra and tosses it aside. Her breasts—drooping, snowy mounds with big, rosy tips—hang like ripening fruit. She cradles them and squeezes them at you. "You want to kiss them, Will?" she asks in Lisa's most lilting voice. "I want you to kiss them." You reach up to pull her down, and she drops them into your face to touch with the tip of your tongue and teeth, to suckle at, and to nip at gently.<br/>
<br/>
She tugs off the panties next, and splays her legs to you can boggle at her bush, and then she pulls off your shorts and underwear while you peel off your shirt. But she's still in stockings and pumps, and you're still in socks and laceless Skechers, as she lowers herself onto your straining shaft with a deep-throated groan.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're finally out of your socks, and she's out of her stockings, when—satisfied physically, at least for the moment—you start to talk. You hesitate, then blurt out, "What did Lisa really think of me?"<br/>
<br/>
You're lying side by side, hands on each other, heads on the pillows, close enough that she has to rear back to focus her eyes on you. "You, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not <i>this</i> asshole." You'd given some thought to taking Kirkham's mask off, but that would have delayed the fun.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't make yourself crazy, Will," she says, and starts to rub your back and hips. With a titter she says, "Just think of what you've got now!"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Rrrmmm!</i> That does start your motor again. And she pulls herself close to you again. But you stall out a little when she asks, "What's Lisa in for with David? I mean, as a boyfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pssht! He's an asshole." You kiss her. "But you got the kind of body he likes. One with boobs." You put your mouth into the small of her throat and throw a leg over her.<br/>
<br/>
She groans appreciatively. "But he's in a string quartet, right? You were telling me there's more to him, right?" She gasps a little as your peel your lips back and put teeth to her.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
"So tell me about him. About his mom and dad."<br/>
<br/>
You sag, and withdraw. Talk about a buzzkill. Briefly—for you're eager to get back to the action—you outline who is in the family. Sydney wants to know where his dad is. You have to admit you have no idea.<br/>
<br/>
And then you make the mistake of mentioning that he might be getting a step-dad, and that leads to telling her all about yesterday and last night with Dr. Robert Hamm. When you're done, Sydney rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling with a distracted smile. Your heart is beating with dread as you ask her what she's thinking.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I was just thinking how convenient it would be if we had a house that belonged all to us. Like Kelsey's or Lisa's. But how doing it with David's family? Replace his mom and brother? And his mom's new boyfriend?" she adds. "We could all play house together!"<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221222
author_id: seuzz
title: sydney's choice
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>This is the placeholder for a poll. For details, see: "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2299620-BoM-Poll-2b-Sydney-Dates-Will-as-" target="_top" title="One in a series of polls to move the story forward.">BoM Poll 2b: Sydney Dates Will as ...</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/polls/item_id/2299620-BoM-Poll-2b-Sydney-Dates-Will-as-" target="_blank" title="One in a series of polls to move the story forward."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a>.<br/>
<br/>
To vote for this option in the poll, send a tip through the tip form below.<br/>
<br/>
Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form. Placeholder text to generate a tip form.<br/>
<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212224
author_id: seuzz
id: VFT7RMZ95
title: The Road Back to Yourself
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>Andrea Varnsworth.</i><br/>
<br/>
That's the full text you send to Kelsey's phone. But after a minute or so, you send a clarifying text: <i>How about I start going out with her?</i><br/>
<br/>
She calls you back directly.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you mind being a little clearer in your texts?" she snaps as soon as you pick up. "What the fuck are you talking about, you going out with Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
You bite your tongue. "I mean," you explain with a rigid calmness, "how about we add Andrea to this coven of witches and whatever we're making, and you can be her, and I can start going out with her."<br/>
<br/>
"And who is 'you', exactly? Because even if—"<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. "Is he wearing a mask when he's going out with Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's actual Will and actual Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't think it was going to be that hard to understand, Sydney."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it is! That's why I'm asking if you can be—"<br/>
<br/>
It's a struggle, but you still manage to keep your temper.<br/>
<br/>
And maybe she can sense that struggle, for after breaking off, she sighs briskly and says, "Sorry, I'm sorry, just hang on, I—" She sighs again. "I got into a thing with Kelsey's mom, and I'm— Just give me a minute to sort myself out."<br/>
<br/>
There's a few moments of labored breathing, followed by: "Okay. So you're saying that we add Andrea, and I switch with her, and you ... go back to being yourself? And we start going out, with me as Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink, for you were more thinking that you'd stay as Kirkham, but get some "side benefits" from Andrea while she was going out with your golem. "Well, sure," you say. "At least, some of the time."<br/>
<br/>
"But I want it to be <i>you,</i> Will," she insists, "if we're going to do this. 'Cos I told you, I miss you."<br/>
<br/>
Actually, she sounds like she's ticked off at you.<br/>
<br/>
But you want to keep her happy, so tell her that, yes, you'll switch out from Kirkham's mask and go back to being yourself. You even agree to make the change-back that very night.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You whip up a quick-and-dirty fried rice for supper, and leave it warming on the stove for Mary Kirkham, then dash back to Acheson, to the old elementary school, while texting your replacement to meet you there. Down in the basement you wrench Kirkham's mask off; you wake feeling weak and anxious; and you shiver as you study the inside of his mask. <i>Fuck me,</i> you think to yourself with a kind of horrified awe. <i>I really was being him!</i> You look up at your doppelganger, who has been idling all this time in a corner with his phone. He seems to sense your gaze, for he looks up to meet your stare with one of his own.<br/>
<br/>
"So, what was it like on your side of it?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"My side of what?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
But instead of answering—<i>What was it like being me while I was being him?</i>—you just gesture him over and tell him to get undressed and spread out on the table. You pull the mask off him, briefly exposing the unconscious Amanda Ferguson, before putting Kirkham's mask onto her. She vanishes, replaced by the lithe form of David Kirkham. His eyes flick open, and he gives you a very steady look before abruptly hiking himself to a sitting position. You step back.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, boss," he sneers. "Don't be such a fucking pussy,I ain't gonna do anything to you."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help squeaking. "No?"<br/>
<br/>
He hops to his feet. "Well, not unless you <i>want</i> me to." He plumps out his lips in a smirk, and advances on you.<br/>
<br/>
"No, that's okay," you stammer. More firmly: "You should get dressed now."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that an order?" He lifts his chin.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs and turns back to the table, where his clothes are piled up.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, this is gonna be fun," he says as he dresses. "You, me, that Sydney." He kisses his fingertips. "Kelsey, the rest of the gang." He pauses after getting his shorts on, and looks over at you. "You should get ahold of Amanda, tell her to take me out to the Donna tomorrow, order us to make an afternoon of it. Get yourself some fine fucking memories"—he points to his temple—"for next time you dress out as me."<br/>
<br/>
"If there is a next time," you retort, for you are feeling rebellious at being pushed around by a <i>pedisequos.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Oh, there'll be a next time, boss," the Kirkham-bot says. He chortles softly to himself, and advances bare-chested on you. "You were having too much fun."<br/>
<br/>
He snickers as he turns to finish dressing.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You were dreading putting on that mask of yourself, to get the memories out of it, but are surprised at how bland and blank they feel when you wake. There's not many memories there. Just vague flashes of classes at school, and of eating alone in a corner because all your friends have deserted you, along one really vivid memory of being hauled out to the portables by David Kirkham and Gary Chen, and being hurt until you promised to stop going out with Sydney McGlynn. And another, equally vivid memory of furtively taking Sydney aside and telling her, "The boss says we have to break up."<br/>
<br/>
But there are no emotions to go with the memories. You were expecting to be hit with pangs of fear, anxiety, nausea, anger, and self-pity. But though you remember <i>acting</i> afraid and angry and all the rest, you don't have any of the emotional "feels" to go with them. The closest you can come to experiencing the gut-wrenching horror of facing down both Kirkham and Chen is by pantomiming it to yourself now. But it has no reality. You are in a thoughtful mood as you return home.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hey, I'm back to myself,</i> you text Kelsey after you've climbed back into your truck. Her reply comes as you're heading inside your house: <i>Great I'm getting Andrea out her tomorrow will switch then and message u.</i> Your guts briefly liquefy and spin with anticipation at the thought of meeting up with Andrea Varnsworth. <i>Who is going to be my girlfriend!</i> you excitedly remind yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you all smiles about?" your mother asks when pass through the living room, and that's the first you realize that you are grinning to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, just 'cos it's Friday," you tell her, and hurry on to your bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're at loose ends the next morning, what with having no friends anymore, so you don't bitch too much about being put to work by your dad with some outside chores. He sends you to get lunch when you're done, and you bother Kelsey with a text while you're out doing that, but her reply doesn't come until you're eating, and then it's just to say, <i>Hold tight still working on it.</i> That leaves you very anxious, and when some video gaming brings no relief you haul out your old bike and ride it around the neighborhood until you've transmuted all that nervous energy into nervous exhaustion, which is no improvement. You are lying on your bed, staring at the ceiling while nursing half of an erection, when your phone chimes. You grab it so quick it nearly squirts from your fingers.<br/>
<br/>
The text is from Andrea Varnsworth.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hi,</i> she says. <i>I'm at Crystal Cave. Want to stop by and pretend like you randomly ran into me?</i><br/>
<br/>
An embarrassing sound, halfway between a groan and a squeal, squeezes out of your throat. Your limbs are atremble with anxiety and anticipation as you tear off your doing-the-chores clothes and change into a nice pair of jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. "Byemomi'mgoingt'meetsumnfrcoffee!" you yell as you fly through the living room for your truck.<br/>
<br/>
Fifteen minutes later your knees are knocking hard as you hobble up to the door of the Crystal Cave. <i>Play it cool,</i> you tell yourself as you pull the door open and step inside. <i>You're just stopping in here for a coffee. You were next door at Arnholms', and you decided to stop in and get a coffee. You weren't looking for anyone</i>—so you tell yourself as you crane your neck to scope out the dining area—<i>so if you just happen to see, say, Andrea Varnsworth sitting by herself at a table, it's a total coincidence.</i><br/>
<br/>
And you are telling yourself all this because, on the drive out, you decided that if Sydney wants to roleplay it—<i>pretend like you randomly ran into me</i>—you will roleplay it to the hilt.<br/>
<br/>
After all, how cool and exciting and fun would it be to run into Andrea Varnsworth, and get to talking to her, and then go off with her, and wind up necking with her—and to have it all be "random happenstance"?<br/>
<br/>
But she doesn't seem to be here, which puzzles you, because she said that she was already up here. Didn't she? You recheck the text, and ... Yes, she says <i>I'm at Crystal Cave,</i> and there's no followup telling you that she's gone someplace else. Did she make a mistake, and is she someplace else?<br/>
<br/>
You glance up at a quick, raucous laugh from the back of the dining area. There's a guy and a girl there. You recognize him from school—though you can't place his name—because he's a real standout, what with his giant, loose-tangled, quasi-afro of poofy hair, which he wears teased up and out, like the hair of a troll doll. There's a girl leaning against his hip, and he's got his arm around her waist. They are talking to someone hidden in a booth.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart plunges and, ignoring the barista who has just asked if he can help you, you move into the dining area and maneuver yourself into the opposite corner. Troll-boy and his girlfriend ignore you.<br/>
<br/>
But Andrea Varnsworth, who is sitting by herself in the booth, flicks her eyes at you briefly before turning back to the other two with a bored, lazy half-smile.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122241
author_id: seuzz
id: YRM8FRKY2
title: Swimming With the Tide
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You hesitate, wondering how to intrude into a conversation where (supposedly) you don't know anyone. But you decide to trust in Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
You sidle up to the booth, and your skin prickles as the guy with the wild hair glances over at you. "Hey," you croak.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey yourself," Andrea purrs with a half-smile. "Welcome to the party." It might be your imagination, but there's a glint of satire in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm, uh, Will. Prescott." If you don't know anyone (supposedly) it seems best to introduce yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so you're Will," Andrea says with cool indifference. "Sorry guys," she says to the other two. "My date's here."<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw drops, and you feel a blush boiling up under your scalp. The other two look at you in surprise. "Date?" the guy blurts out.<br/>
<br/>
"Study date," Andrea says. (Her tone is very soft.) "Hey, stop by my place later on, if you don't got anything else to do. Charles'll probably be trying to start something."<br/>
<br/>
The guy and girl—still with arms around each other's waists—nod and tell her "Later" before shuffling off. You slide stiffly into the booth opposite Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
"You know Adam and Catherine?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I've seen him around." The guy's hair is like a poofy tumbleweed, and it's a sight hard to miss when he goes pushing past in the crowded school hallways. Now that you think about it, you do seem to remember the name "Adam" being associated with him.<br/>
<br/>
"They're going together out now. If you can believe it." Andrea sniffs, then straightens up so that her boobs thrust out. "How do you like it, Will?" she murmurs through unmoving lips. "Is it everything you dreamed of?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Zing!</i> Your cock, which has been panting and quivering all this time, pops out as far as it can in the tight confines of your trousers.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea Varnsworth isn't "adorable," the way a fluffy blonde cheerleader like Chelsea Cooper is adorable, but she may be just about the sexiest girl at school. She's the captain of the swim team, and her body has been honed by the water into a smooth and sculpted figure with hydrodynamic curves and tapering legs. She's got breasts like fat, ripe pears, and smooth, evenly tanned skin. She has a strong jaw and cheekbones, with cheeks stretched tautly between; an aquiline nose; dark, hooded, speculating eyes; and hair the color of chocolate milk that flows in flat but silky tresses to the tops of her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
"How'd you pull it off?" you ask in a low, half-strangled voice. "The switch."<br/>
<br/>
Her expression curdles with disappointment.<br/>
<br/>
"Tch, it was so easy. I just called her out to Kelsey's house, told her there was some school club stuff I needed to talk to her about that impacted the swim team. She didn't want to come, but she came out anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"You sure are acting like her. You've got all her memories and stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
Andrea returns only the hint of a nod. "I did the things separately, like we did with David. I put the memory strip on first, then the mask. I'll take them off and and glue them together tonight."<br/>
<br/>
You are stuck—addled—for something to say, so you ask, "Who are those guys?" and nod at the table on the other side of the dining room, where the other two have settled.<br/>
<br/>
"Adam and Catherine. You know them."<br/>
<br/>
"I've <i>seen</i> them. Seen him. Jesus."<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't his hair great?"<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>like</i> that?"<br/>
<br/>
Her lips purse into the tiniest smile. "I'm just teasing you, Will."<br/>
<br/>
You glance around the room again, confirming your impression that the other two are secretly watching you and Andrea. "So if we're here on a 'study date'—"<br/>
<br/>
"That was just something I said, to get rid of them."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I didn't bring any books, and it doesn't look like you did either."<br/>
<br/>
She drinks from her mug, then says, "I told you, Will. It was just something I said to get rid of them." She pauses. "What do you want to do now?"<br/>
<br/>
You know what you want to do now, and you tell her, bluntly. To your astonishment, she smiles and gets to her feet. "So let's go do it. Now."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She is warm and she is tight, and she squeaks in the back of her throat as you shove yourself deeper into her. She is slim, and she fits neatly inside your arms as you pull her toward yourself, and her own arms grip you tightly. Her bare legs slide up and down yours as she twists herself under you, questing for a tighter, deeper fit. She throws her head back, exposing her long, pedestal-like neck; her face is taut with an agony of unquenched arousal.<br/>
<br/>
Somehow you are aware of all this even as your attention is focused on the hot, aching, rock-like boner you have forced up inside her.<br/>
<br/>
She lives in a small house in a shabby neighborhood where the lawns are weedy and unmowed. She lives alone with her mother, she explained as she let you in, who is a waitress and assistant manager at Ristorante Locarno. "Yeah, hey, come lookit this," she said as you were surveying the strikingly bare living room, which is furnished only with a futon, a desk and chair, a small bookshelf, and a music stand with old-fashioned stereo and tower of CDs. She led you into the tiny kitchen and pulled open a drawer, and you gaped at the messy salad of paper money shoved inside it: fives, tens, twenties, and even a few hundreds all floating loose. "My mom doesn't believe in banks," she explained as she opened another drawer also swimming in cash. "I mean, she does have a bank account, 'cos she needs a place to deposit her paychecks. But these are her tips."<br/>
<br/>
She then led you into the back yard, which is very small and almost entirely given over to a vegetable garden, now picked clean. She pointed where the rows of carrots and potatoes and beets and onions and lettuce and beans had been, and the berry bushes and the tomato vines. You nodded but mostly you were watching her with watering eyes. Despite the cool October air—the temperatures are hovering in the mid-fifties, and it has been raining off and on—she was dressed in a sleeveless halter top that drapes over her boobs and dangles its hem just over her bellybutton; and short-shorts that expose long, strong, slim legs that are bare from her hips down to the slip-on shoes she was wearing without socks. By your estimation, there were only five skimpy pieces of clothing you need to peel off her.<br/>
<br/>
But you acted like a good guest, nodding along to her little tour, until you were inside again, standing in the hall that connects the kitchen and living room and bathroom. She stopped there, and fell back to rest her shoulder blades on the wall, and regarded you from under hooded lids. "I thought you wanted to do something with me, Will," she said in a small voice.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you stepped in close, slid an arm around her waist, and put your mouth to hers.<br/>
<br/>
You stood there a very long time, kissing deeply with loud, smacking lips and rubbing palms over each other until her knees buckled suddenly and she gasped, "Get me to the bed," and you half-supported her as you guided her into the front bedroom, where a messy double bed kept company with a dresser and mirror and a rocking chair. She fell onto the bed and tugged you onto it with her, and you pressed your face into hers while she unbuttoned your shirt and pushed it back over your shoulders. And then she laid there with a small, watchful pout, as you got back up to pull your shirt and jeans off, and kick your shoes off. Then she laid back limply as with a hooked finger you took off her shoes and massaged her feet, then pulled her shirt off and kissed the side of her belly all over; then unbuttoned her shorts and pulled them off her hips and legs; then turned her over so you could kiss her ass cheeks. Finally, you tweaked her bra and panties off, and you pulled off your own boxers, and you stretched yourself over her and between her legs, and with her help you guided your cock into the warm, cocooning embrace she had prepared for you.<br/>
<br/>
And then you really went to work on her.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Don't take this the wrong way, Will," Andrea says later, when you're cuddling, naked, in bed. "'Cos this is kind of an awkward question."<br/>
<br/>
You tense. <i>What if she asks me where I learned to fuck like that?</i> you wonder in a panic. Because much as you'd like to boast that you must just be a natural at it, the fact is that you got through the entire thing, from that first kiss to the final, eruptive climax, by asking yourself, <i>What would David Kirkham do?</i> You don't have his memories anymore, but just imitating the impression you still carry around of him seems to have been enough.<br/>
<br/>
But the question she does ask is somehow even more mortifying: "Are you going to be able to fit in with my friends? With Andrea's friends, I mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like who?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you're going to have to, if we're going to be dating."<br/>
<br/>
"Like who?" you ask again.<br/>
<br/>
"Like Charles. Charles Hartlein. Jelena Petrovic. Fatima Zahedi."<br/>
<br/>
Charles is a very gay theater guy. Jelena plays in a garage band. Fatima is a stylishly bohemian Persian girl.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I better," you mumble. "I don't have any other friends these days."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea raises up and squints at you. Then she puts her head back down.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I could get you in with Adam and Catherine and their friends," she says. "I think you'd be a good fit with them."<br/>
<br/>
The statement surprises you. <i>You mean I've got a choice?</i> you wonder.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221222412
author_id: seuzz
id: KTYGL6PJP
title: In the Wake of a New Girlfriend
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"I don't know those guys," you grunt, and cuddle up closer to Andrea. "Adam and them."<br/>
<br/>
"So you wanna try hanging out with Charles?"<br/>
<br/>
You don't reply right away. <br/>
<br/>
It's clear that, if you're going to go out with Andrea, you're going to have to become friends with some of her friends. But Charles Hartlein is arrogant, snotty, and gay in a way that rubs you the wrong way all over. Jelena Petrovic seems as cool and aloof as Andrea did, and she's always struck you as having some of Charles's arrogance. Fatima ... Well, you don't know her, but she is extremely exotic.<br/>
<br/>
That guy Adam, though, despite his silly hairdo, seems pretty normal.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, tell me about Adam and his friends, then I'll decide," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Adam?" She shrugs in a way that wriggles herself deeper into your embrace, and you start to harden again as her warm skin rubs against yours. "Adam is—"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
There's not a lot she can tell you about Adam Dortch and his circle, Sydney admits, because Andrea mostly knows him only at a distance. So, mostly Sydney can only convey impressions: That he's a louche, cynical party guy, known for cornering girls and taking them out to the river or out to the quarry for a beer and a "bump." That he was on the JV basketball squad his freshman and sophomore years, and was pretty good, being fast on his feet, fast with the ball, and having a good eye and good aim. But he quit, maybe because he just didn't want to do it anymore, or maybe because he was a bad fit with guys like Gordon Black and Steve Patterson.<br/>
<br/>
Lately he's started going steady with Catherine Greathouse, who Sydney/Andrea knows even less about, except that she's not part of any of the obvious crowds, unless she's got a crowd of her own. The only comment she's heard about them came from Charles, and was characteristically catty: <i>He likes a good spanking, and she knows how to give him one.</i> Adam's other friends include Ben Gunnison and Paul Fitzgerald, who you vaguely remember from middle school as a couple of normal-ish dorks, but she's also seen him hanging out at the portables with guys like Cody Wooten and Zachary Herman, who are dumpster fires.<br/>
<br/>
You don't say much while she parcels all this out, and you don't say anything when she falls silent. In fact, you're not thinking about Dortch at all, but about whether you can get away with turning her over and climbing back on top, when she says, "So, what do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you <i>think</i> I'm asking about, you goose!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, them? I—" You shrug. "I dunno. I guess?"<br/>
<br/>
She sighs, and wriggles away from you. "So what are we going to do with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you have to do anything with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because we're going to be hanging out. Because we're going to be—" She strokes your chest. Yet it doesn't get a rise out of you, because she's talking about something that is kind of a boner-killer. "You're gonna have to see and talk to my friends, Will. And if you don't want it always to be Charles and them—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine," you groan. "If you think I'll bond with Adam and those guys, or whatever."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you worried about?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not worried, I—"<br/>
<br/>
"You are worried, Will. I know you just want to be with <i>me,</i>" she says, and sits up, giving you a glorious eyeful of her firm, plump breasts. "And I want to be with you too. But you're also going to have to—"<br/>
<br/>
"I know, and I'll get through it," you assure her. "I'll deal with it."<br/>
<br/>
"'Deal with it'?" She snorts. Then, to your delight, she pushes you onto your back and clambers atop you, to peer down from under those hooded lids. "What's wrong with having friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought we were <i>making</i> friends," you retort. "Like Kelsey and Amanda, and Kirkham, and Andrea here."<br/>
<br/>
She smirks. "Are you saying we could 'make friends' of some of my friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. But later, Will." She looms over you. "Right now, I want you in <i>my</i> world. In <i>Andrea's</i> world."<br/>
<br/>
You groan, and close your eyes, and lift your hips to touch her bush with your lengthening cock. But, to your dismay, she pushes herself off you and clambers out of bed.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are you going?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"To get my phone," she says. "I want Adam and Catherine over here before Charles decides to show up."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Except Charles never does show up. As Andrea doesn't recall until it's nearly too late, he is preoccupied all day and evening with the school play, which is being performed that night. In fact, it's not until nearly five o'clock, when half a dozen schoolmates have gathered at her house, and some pizzas are on their way, that she is reminded of that fact by a text from Fatima. "We have to get rid of everyone," she tells you in a hurried conference in the kitchen. "Can you take them back to your place, keep the party going there?"<br/>
<br/>
You reply with a dubious look.<br/>
<br/>
It's not just that there are a bunch of them. It's that none of them look like the "take home and show to mother" type. You wince at even having the thought, but it's true.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, some of them could get by. Ben Gunnison, for instance, is more or less as you remember him: a short, chubby kid with dark hair and an embarrassed, chortling grin who seemingly only wants to talk about the latest movies in the <i>Challengers</i> Cinematic Universe. Meghan Farris, who rode in on someone's coattails, is a pert little brunette with black-rimmed glasses who doesn't use any language worse than "Gosh" or "Drat it!" And Taran Pritzker, who holds aloof by the music player, has the withdrawn and preoccupied air of an RPG player planning out his next campaign while only pretending to socialize.<br/>
<br/>
But then there's Roy Booth, whose thick, black hair is held down by a backward-flipped ball cap, and whose biceps, wife-beater, and dirty jeans would mark him out as a Jersey thug even if his accent didn't. Isaac Cyrs, also in a wife-beater and and jeans, and a scalp-hugging ski cap, whose flat, cold hazel eyes would be intimidating even if he didn't like to punctuate most of his remarks with a curse word. Rebecca Sykes, whose long red hair drapes over half her face even as her short, black dress fails cover the top of her boobs or the top of her thighs: the latter's coverage she leaves to fishnet stockings.<br/>
<br/>
And they all came trailing in with Adam Dortch. <br/>
<br/>
He's taller and lankier than you remember from the coffee shop, but he looks wiry and strong. His kinky bush of a hairdo has fallen down behind his head, where it seems to float, half-buoyed by whatever alchemy of careful teasing and copious hairspray he uses to give it lift and body. He's dressed as before, in a thin, long-sleeved button-up shirt that looks like it might be silk, because its gray sheen is shot through with leafy, grey-green patterns. He has prominent, almost buckteeth in his grin, but the insolent light in his eye makes him look impudent and confident, not like the dumb-fuck that most of the bucktoothed look like.<br/>
<br/>
And he spends a lot of time letting you get familiar with that grin, because almost from the moment he shows up he is cornering you with questions. <i>What's your name? What classes are you taking? Who're you friends with?<br/>
<br/>
What's the deal with you and Andrea?</i><br/>
<br/>
You're in the kitchen when he springs that one on you, having found you loitering by the sink when he came in with Catherine hugged in the crook of his arm. He does a double-take at you. "You seen a bottle opener around?" he asks as he digs a bottle of tonic water out of the refrigerator.<br/>
<br/>
"I think I saw one out in the living room," you lie.<br/>
<br/>
He tests the bottle cap. "Oh, hey, it twists off." He squints at you past the bottle as he chugs some down. Catherine, pulled close to his side, sizes you up with a cooler and more speculative glance.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Adam says after lowering the bottle, "what's the deal with you and Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
You were dreading this question, but it's still like a punch to the chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
Adam chortles so hard he almost does a spit take. <i>"Nothing?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, she asked me over to hang out. With everyone."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" His eye is very bright and piercing. "Before or after she asked you out to the coffee shop?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, after," you improvise. "We were talking—"<br/>
<br/>
"So she asked you out for coffee?" He smirks like he's got you caught in an embarrassing admission.<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... I went out there and we got to talking. You saw us there."<br/>
<br/>
His smirk deepens. "Yeah. She told me and Catherine to go fuck ourselves so she could talk to you!"<br/>
<br/>
Catherine squirms in his arm. "Adam!"<br/>
<br/>
Your own stammer worsens. "Well, I don't think she, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"And you were here when Ben got here. I as't him." He holds your eye. "You come straight here after you left the Cave?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... yes."<br/>
<br/>
"That was like two hours before the rest of us showed here." The glimmer in his eye deepens.<br/>
<br/>
You're saved from having to explain anything when Andrea herself comes into the kitchen. She pauses long enough to take in the scene, then touches Adam on the shoulder. "Can you go help Taran pick out some music?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
He looks between you and her, then with a cocky grin he struts out, dragging Catherine with him.<br/>
<br/>
That's when Andrea shows you the text on her phone, and says that she needs your help getting rid of everyone. "Then I'll change," she says, "and we'll go see the play."<br/>
<br/>
Before you can reply, though, Adam puts his head around the corner. "Hey, you're goin' out with all us to the Warehouse, right?"<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212224122
author_id: seuzz
id: PFS26YNSP
title: Into the Deep End
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>The Warehouse!</i><br/>
<br/>
The very name gives you a shiver!<br/>
<br/>
You're not much of one for parties or party spots. Oh, you've been to your share of them. But mostly they've been low-key affairs, and you've gone because someone has asked you to come along; or they've been places you and Caleb and Keith crashed out of a sense of boredom and curiosity. You got to talk to some girls at them, but there was never any follow through, and a lot of the time you wound up alone in a corner, talking to some other loser. You don't have the easy way in a crowd that most people seem to have, and you're too often aware of just how awkward and out of place you feel.<br/>
<br/>
As for party spots, you've been out to Legends, which is a dance club, two or three times, but you don't dance. And once, last year, Carson Ioeger and James Lamont took you along when they snuck into a bar. But they called you a dorkis afterward because you didn't do much there (but they didn't do much either, so what right did they have to call you a dorkis?) and said they'd never take you along to a place like that again.<br/>
<br/>
But the Warehouse is a whole other level of party and party spot.<br/>
<br/>
It is, for a start, illegal. Or, you suppose it's illegal. It's an actual warehouse in the city's decaying industrial district, and if it isn't actually abandoned (which it likely is) you can't imagine that the owners are making legitimate money renting it out as a party spot. It's just a building that's been taken over by the city's high school kids.<br/>
<br/>
Every weekend—Fridays and Saturdays—there are giant parties with music provided by a high school DJ or a local band. There's beer and booze and weed and other drugs, and report has it there are rooms upstairs that can be rented at exorbitant prices for a little "privacy."<br/>
<br/>
Nor is there any adult supervision. Security, such as it is, is provided by football players and wrestlers (and the like) from the city's two high schools.<br/>
<br/>
Basically, it's a spot where everyone gets together two nights a week to throw a giant, unsupervised party.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb and Keith drove past it, once, and dared each other to stop. You all three panicked, though, at the last moment, and hurried away.<br/>
<br/>
Now Adam Dortch is assuming that you'll be going out there tonight.<br/>
<br/>
You start to stammer a demurral, but catch yourself, and look at Andrea. Her expression is gnomic, hooded. You hold each other's eye.<br/>
<br/>
Then, in a small, almost inaudible voice, she says, "I'll have to hang out with Charles after the play."<br/>
<br/>
Which is all the answer you need. To Adam you call back, "Sure! What time's everyone going out?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll head over to Eastman about nine, then out there around ten." His expression has turned puckish and knowing, and he jerks his chin at you, and smirks before disappearing back around the corner.<br/>
<br/>
"They're going over to Eastman first?" you query Andrea.<br/>
<br/>
"To park," she says. "Then they'll carpool out to the Warehouse." A tiny smile forms on her lips. "You've never been out, have you, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Have you?" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"A couple of times. Andrea has. Is anyone watching? Behind me?" Her back is to the door.<br/>
<br/>
You shake your head.<br/>
<br/>
"That's t0o bad," she says, and strokes your chest and stomach with a forefinger. You shiver all over, and shiver again when she mimes biting at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Have fun out there," she says. "But not too much fun. Don't let anyone drag you upstairs."<br/>
<br/>
"Upstairs?"<br/>
<br/>
Then, as her expression darkens with amusement, you remember those stories about the private rooms that can be rented.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Andrea pushes everyone out of the house at around seven, and you go home to change into something sturdier. You ask your dad for a relaxed curfew, and when he demands to know how come, you tell him (mostly truthfully) that you'll be getting a ride to someone's house and that you don't know how easy it will be to get a ride back.<br/>
<br/>
"Call an Uber," he tells you, and when you ask for money for an Uber he tells you that maybe you'd better not go at all. But that only stiffens your resolve, and you spitefully decide that if you miss your curfew and he grounds you, you'll just switch places with Kirkham or Amanda. You bet <i>they</i> don't have stupidly early curfews, and maybe no curfews at all!<br/>
<br/>
And that reminds you that, via Kirkham, at least, you can probably get yourself a ride away from the Warehouse in plenty of time. So you text him and order him to remain on standby with a car, then text Adam to see if you can get a ride with him from your house.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, he sends Ben Gunnison to pick you up<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Ben is a chortler and a gigglepuss. He's a chunky kid with a doughy face and dark eyes, and between that and his chuckles, he puts you in mind of the Pillsbury doughboy. Only his voice is too deep, and his talk too full of "pussy" this and "pussy" that.<br/>
<br/>
"You got enough money for tonight?" he asks as he turns onto Twentieth Street and guns the car up to fifty.<br/>
<br/>
"I got seventy on me." And the only reason you've got that much is because your mom, as though sensing that tonight's entertainment would be expensive, slipped you three twenties before you left.<br/>
<br/>
Ben guffaws. "Seventy! Oh man! So you just like to go out there and dance?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I can get <i>something</i> for seventy," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"You can get <i>something,</i>" he agrees. There's a friendly gleam in the glance he shoots you, but his lips curls. "But you're gonna be having fun all by yourself, old son!"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Old son?</i> you wonder, but let the odd expression fly back into the slipstream of the conversation. "How much did you bring?"<br/>
<br/>
"Two hundred. Okay, that's too much," he adds with a chortle. "You're gonna have to help stop me from spending all of it!"<br/>
<br/>
The night has fallen hard when you pull into the parking lot at Eastman High, which is packed with cars and wandering crowds. Bottles are being drunk from, and clouds of weed and tobacco waft into the cold night air. Ben parks, and you follow him  as he wanders through the lot asking if anyone's seen "Adam" or "Chase" or "Landon." You finally find them a couple of rows over, clustered around a truck, with Adam perched on its open tailgate with his arm around Catherine's shoulder. He slaps Ben lightly across the face—which Ben chortles at—and nods at you. "So where's Andrea?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"She's at the school play."<br/>
<br/>
"Shit," he says, and offers you the bottle he's clutching in his free hand. You take it, and a swig of sour beer. He takes the bottle back, then turns to a skinny kid kid with a big nose who's standing nearby, talking loudly to a couple of girls. "So wait," Adam interrupts, and kicks the guy in the side of the leg. "You were saying the mother got eaten by a goat? That's fucked up, man, what happened then?"<br/>
<br/>
You listen long enough to figure out they're talking about a movie, then let your attention wander to take in the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
It's mostly guys, many of them you met at Andrea's: Adam and Ben and Roy Booth and Isaac Cyrs. There's the skinny kid with the big nose, and a guy with a sullen expression under a helmet of thick, blonde hair. Girls are represented by Catherine and Meghan Farris, and three more brunettes with long hair. In contrast to the guys, who are dressed in loud shirts and ball caps, the girls are all dressed more demurely in jeans and heavy blouses; Catherine has a heavy camo jacket around her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
More kids join the gang, and some drift off, during the lazy hour that you are all waiting around. As usual, you feel yourself on the fringes, not knowing anyone and not getting any attention.<br/>
<br/>
Until Nathan Cruz pokes you between your shoulder blades.<br/>
<br/>
You recognized Nathan the instant he showed up, but it took you awhile place him. Which is mortifying after you remember that you know him from your time playing Kirkham. Cruz would seem an odd one to be a friend of the lizard-like Kirkham, for he would seem to belong to the aristocracy of Westside, being both a student athlete (a member of the swim team) and the first-chair violin in the school orchestra. But, in the first place, he and Kirkham respect each other as musicians—they even formed a string quartet together. And in the second place ...<br/>
<br/>
Well, Nathan's opening words demonstrate why he and Kirkham are so tight.<br/>
<br/>
"So, Prescott," he says in a gloating tone. "The fuck happened to you and Sydney McGlynn?"<br/>
<br/>
That's right. Nathan Cruz is almost as nasty as Kirkham is. He's just not threatening about it.<br/>
<br/>
A ripple of anger runs up your spine. "What about me and Sydney?" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
He smirks. "I heard you broke up."<br/>
<br/>
You dodge his eyes. "We weren't ever going out."<br/>
<br/>
Not until you've blurted it out do you recognize the awful echo your words make to what Lisa Yarborough said when she broke up with you: <i>We never said we were going out together.</i> You feel yourself flushing hotly.<br/>
<br/>
Nathan's smirk widens into a sneer. "Funny, everyone thought you were."<br/>
<br/>
"Everyone was wrong. It turns out."<br/>
<br/>
Even when you turn your back on him, he persists, his voice a sneering little hiss. "So who had the wrong idea about what was going on? You or Sydney?"<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122241221
author_id: seuzz
id: ZPCP4KQ5K
title: Woes at the Warehouse
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>Me and Sydney were never going out together.</i> <br/>
<br/>
That's the false confession you made to Nathan Cruz.<br/>
<br/>
<i>So who had the wrong idea—you or Sydney?</i><br/>
<br/>
That was his sneering retort. <br/>
<br/>
No answer would sound good, so you just turn your back and walk away. It may be your imagination, but you think you hear him snicker.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The truck your gang is clustering around belongs to Tony Peterson, a hard-faced wrestler whose scowl is in no way softened by the soft bouffant of curly locks that's piled, like a clown wig, atop his head. When it's time to head over to the Warehouse—and the decision seems to be made all at once, though by no one in particular—he gets in the cab and you and a bunch of others (including Nathan, to your dismay) pile into the bed. There's a lot of happy screaming from the girls as the truck jumps and rockets from the parking lot; the guys laugh as they catch the girls and hold them as the truck swings violently into the street. But you're wedged between two guys, and can only bump shoulders with them as the truck rocks and sways down the boulevard.<br/>
<br/>
The Warehouse is a black and dismal hulk, but the parking lot, which is rapidly filling, is washed by the acrid glare of vapor lamps. Tony parks the truck and revs the motor once before killing it, and everyone starts hopping out over the sides. You jostle one of those interchangeable brunette girls when you land. She grins up at you. "Hi," she says. <br/>
<br/>
"Hi."<br/>
<br/>
"You're Will, right? I'm Emmy."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey."<br/>
<br/>
There's an awkward silence, and then her glance and smile falter before she turns away. You can practically read her mind: <i>Jerk.</i> You sigh and follow as the pack moves off toward the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
The double doors are open, and a deep <i>whoomp-whoomp</i> of dance music is spilling out, along with loud voices and laughter. You have to run a gauntlet of muscled assholes in red shirts to get past, and you are both startled and alarmed to see that one of them is Blake O'Brien. If he spots and recognizes you, though, he makes no sign.<br/>
<br/>
Inside, on the left, accessible through a giant doorway, you glimpse a dance hall open all the way up to the roof. There's a stage on the far side, where a DJ and his equipment are set up under colored lights. Crowds of shadowy bodies writhe on the floor between it and you. Opposite is a makeshift saloon under a low ceiling, with booths, tables and chairs, and a bar of plywood sheets and sawhorses behind which stand a dozen kids surrounded by crates of snacks, food, beer, liquor, and more.<br/>
<br/>
Your group busts up into smaller groups, with a few hooking a left onto the dance floor, but most of the rest move into the saloon. Here the group breaks up even further. You stick close to Adam and Catherine, both because he's the one who invited you along, and because Ben—who you feel most comfortable and familiar with—is also with him. To your relief, you're in line to buy nothing worse than a beer, though the price (fifteen dollars) nearly gives you a heart attack. You collect it and follow the strutting Adam (who has Catherine pulled close to his side) and Ben over to a booth already occupied by a guy and two girls, and you all squeeze in together. No one introduces you, though you can't shake the impression that the other three are glancing over at you curiously.<br/>
<br/>
Talk is light, about topics you can't follow, until Adam drawls, "We came out here from Andrea's."<br/>
<br/>
The guy you joined—blonde, soft and burly, but with the friendly, dopey face—looks startled. "Andrea?" he says. "Andrea Andrea?"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>The</i> Andrea," Adam confirms with a cocky lift of his chin. His glance slides sideways toward you. "That's where we picked up Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
That gets you three brief but direct glances. "So how'd you wind up Andrea's?" the guy asks.<br/>
<br/>
"She called me. Us." Adam pulls Catherine closer, and kisses her on the temple. "Said she was bored, wanted someone to come over and hang out."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, why didn'cha call me?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos she was looking for people who aren't lame." That quip earns him a flip of the middle finger.<br/>
<br/>
The girl next to him (who has pulled her dark hair back in a bun) leans toward you with an intense look. "Aren't you going out with Sydney McGlynn?" she says. It sounds almost like an accusation.<br/>
<br/>
You can't quite stifle a sigh. "We went on a couple of dates."<br/>
<br/>
"I heard you were going out together."<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"Prescott was over at Andrea's when we got there," Adam drawls. "Just the two of them."<br/>
<br/>
You mutter, "She called me first," but your words are lost beneath Ben's startled, squealing laugh.<br/>
<br/>
"But you're not going out with Sydney?" the girl presses.<br/>
<br/>
You suck in a deep breath. "No."<br/>
<br/>
That earns you a hard, disbelieving stare. Finally, she shrugs and says, "I thought you were going out with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Where'd you hear that?" Adam asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Reagan Hackett."<br/>
<br/>
Adam swallows a mouthful of beer before saying, "Reagan would know."<br/>
<br/>
"I know, right?" The girl gives you another doubtful look. You shrug and look away. Perhaps sensing your discomfort, the girl next to her changes the topic to Nathan and his girlfriend. It gives you spiteful pleasure to learn that they're unhappy with each other.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But there's worse to come. The group in the booth has split and reformed, and split and reformed again, leaving you with Meghan Farris, Ben Gunnison, and a couple of Adam's friends whose names you don't know, when you feel a hand clamp like a claw onto your shoulder. You look up. You flinch, even before you recognize Reagan Hackett. She scowls down at you and says, "Hey Will, can I talk to you a minute?"<br/>
<br/>
The request is framed as a question, but the way her fingers dig into your shoulder tells you that it's an order. You struggle onto your feet, and follow her over to a corner of the saloon near the back wall.<br/>
<br/>
"What've you been telling people about you and Sydney?" she bluntly demands when she's got you alone.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing."<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes narrow. "You mean haven't been talking about her and you? You haven't been talking to Nathan or—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not <i>talking</i> about her. People've been asking me—"<br/>
<br/>
"So what have you been telling them?" she demands in a steely voice.<br/>
<br/>
"That we're not going out," you confess. "I mean," you stammer as Reagan's stare hardens. "We're not!"<br/>
<br/>
"I know you're not," Reagan says, "and do you have any idea what a shit you were about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Do you have any <i>fucking idea</i> how hard Sydney's taking it?"<br/>
<br/>
You are momentarily bewildered. <i>Sydney? Broken up about our break up? We fucked each other this afternoon! In Andrea Varnsworth's bed!</i><br/>
<br/>
Then you recollect that Reagan must be talking about the pedowhatsis Sydney left behind in her place. "She's better off without me," you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you!" Reagan grabs your ear and a fistful of your hair, and gives you a rude shove. "She liked you, Will! And you—!"<br/>
<br/>
"We didn't hit it off," you improvise.<br/>
<br/>
<i>"What the fuck?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"She needs someone better than me, someone who can—" You glance around. "She needs someone like Blake over there!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, what the fuck do you know—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Am I supposed to go out with her just because you think—?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're an <i>asshole,</i> Will! Maybe she is better off without you!"<br/>
<br/>
She shoves past you, almost knocking you off your feet. Stung, you shout after her, "Did she tell you <i>why</i> I had to break up with her?"<br/>
<br/>
Reagan wheels and glares. Then her expression twists into one of sweet contempt.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," she says. "She says you broke up with her because David Kirkham <i>made</i> you!" She wheels around again and stalks off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Well, that tears it for you. It's pretty clear that's going to be the story all around school, if it isn't already, which it probably is. No wonder you're getting pointed questions from every direction. You're not having much fun anyway, and you don't want any more "fun" like you've been getting. <br/>
<br/>
So you text Kirkham and tell him to come pick you up, then find Ben long enough to tell him that you're leaving—he at least has the grace to look surprised at that—and go out to loiter in the parking lot. You're out there long enough that you have to hide between cars when a pack of red-shirted football players makes a quick round of the lot.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, so how was your Saturday night?" Kirkham asks after you've jumped into his car. He grins at you around the toothpick. "Gotta be fuckin' frank with you, boss, I never pictured you coming out here."<br/>
<br/>
"It wasn't fun. Just take me home."<br/>
<br/>
"Which is where?"<br/>
<br/>
The question floors you, until you realize that David Kirkham had no way of knowing where you live. "Acheson," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
But on the drive out you text Andrea, to ask if she has time to talk. And you almost drop the phone when she asks if you can come out and <i>spend the night</i> with her.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11113113111111111111111112211111111141121211112111221222412212
author_id: seuzz
id: W9Z3WQ5KC
title: Fun and Punishment
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You have to rub your eyes to confirm what the text says. <i>Spend night w me, we'll talk.</i><br/>
<br/>
You hesitate, then reply: <i>What abt ur mom?<br/>
<br/>
She's spending nite w boyfriend. Just me here.</i><br/>
<br/>
You chew on this. It's already past your curfew, so would things go so much worse if you stayed out all night? On the other hand, tomorrow is Sunday, and if you miss church there will be hell to pay.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck it,</i> you decide. <i>How often will I get a chance to spend the night with Andrea Varnsworth?</i><br/>
<br/>
Though the answer, technically, is <i>Lots of chances now, brah!</i> you relax into the flood of excited glee Sydney's invitation has aroused in you. "Turn here," you order Kirkham, and further instructions steer the car back to Andrea's.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't say anything until you tell him to pull over. "So, this's your place?" he asks as he eyeballs the house.<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's Andrea Varnsworth's."<br/>
<br/>
"You're shitting me."<br/>
<br/>
"Nope. I'll see you at school Monday." You start to get out, but the <i>pedisequos</i> grabs your arm. "Do I get to come in?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, boss!" he pleads.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham mutters something under his breath, but releases you. More audibly, before you slam the door shut, he says, "Some motherfuckers get all the breaks."<br/>
<br/>
The porch light is out, but it snaps on and the front door opens as you bound up the steps. Andrea's gaze as she lets you in is hooded as ever, but there is a gleam in her eye.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," she says in her low, throaty voice. "How was the Warehouse?"<br/>
<br/>
"It sucked. How was the school play?"<br/>
<br/>
"It sucked." After a pause, she adds, "And after the play was worse, I had to go out to Charles's with everyone. I just now got away."<br/>
<br/>
"I just now got away from the Warehouse."<br/>
<br/>
You study each other. She is dressed in slim, tight jeans, but is barefoot, and is wearing a black, sleeveless gym top that tightly hugs her swelling breasts. <i>I can't believe this is my girlfriend,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
You step toward her, and she hops forward to meet you. You embrace, rubbing hands over each other's backs, and gently pecking at each other's lips.<br/>
<br/>
"Will," she murmurs when you part mouths enough to let her speak. "Are you going to spend the night with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I have to. Unless you give me a ride home."<br/>
<br/>
You feel her lips curl into a smile. "No chance of that." She kisses you again. "While I've got you here."<br/>
<br/>
She hooks her elbow around the back of your neck and pulls you in tight for a hard, hungry kiss.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Spending the night with Andrea turns out to be quite a bit different from the romp you had this afternoon. She insists on preparing for bed first, by washing her face and brushing her teeth, and she invites you to do the same—except with your forefinger instead of a toothbrush; "I like you, Will," she says, "but sharing toothbrushes is icky"—while she changes into skimpy shorts and a filmy, sleeveless top that hangs down only far enough to cover her nipples. She also insists that you get into a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms before she'll let you into bed with her. You argue about the pajama bottoms—"What is this, a slumber party?"—until she tells you that they are <i>her</i> pajama bottoms, and then you can hardly wait to pull them on.<br/>
<br/>
Then, after putting out the lights, you both bounce into bed and pull the sheets up around before you resume embracing and smooching. She's a lot slower to yield to you, and keeps her knees locked together while mewling that she wants to "cuddle and pet" before getting down to business, and a couple of times you feel yourself starting to drift off even as you have your teeth dug into the side of her throat. Maybe it's because she senses that she could lose you to the Sandman, but she finally gives in and helps you pull off the pajama bottoms, and rolls onto her back so you can mount her. It feels more intimate this time around, more like "making love" and less like "fucking," maybe because it's dark and you're under the covers, or maybe because you spent so much time working up to it. But the climax, when it comes, is no less explosive, but it also comes with a sweet aftermath: a sense not of expending yourself into Andrea, but of being united and bound with her. You feel as though your minds and souls, and not just your bodies, have touched.<br/>
<br/>
The rush and release exhaust you, and after Andrea has pushed you off you must have instantly drifted off, because when you are next aware of anything it's when you wake to find Andrea, one hand braced against your shoulder, straddling you and using her free hand to guide your erect cock into her. You rouse yourself to help, and are rewarded with a bed-quaking climax that ends with Andrea crumpling forward and falling asleep atop you (and with you inside her) with her mouth and nose buried in the pillow beside your ear. You embrace her from below, and close your eyes—<br/>
<br/>
—to wake again briefly as Andrea crawls off to settle in beside you with her arm draped over your chest. You turn onto your side to face her, and her warm breath mingles with yours. You lay awake like this for awhile, listening to the gentle rustle of her breath, wanting but not daring to wake her with kisses and caresses, until you again drift off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're woken by a chiming alarm, and with a grunt and groan fumble about to find it, bumping up against Andrea, who has been similarly roused. She finds the phone first and turns it off before falling back onto the pillows. She peers up at you as you peer down at her. "G'morning," she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
"Good morning," you murmur back.<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm." She puts her palm to the back of your head and pulls you down to touch your lips to hers, briefly. "Wanna fuck around some more?" she asks. "We got all morning."<br/>
<br/>
"What if your mom comes back?"<br/>
<br/>
"She probably won't. But she won't mind. I think she thinks I'm undersexed, she'd think you're good for me. Also, you're not a jockstrap or anything, so that'd be another point in your favor."<br/>
<br/>
"She doesn't like jockstraps?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. I think she'd like you 'cos you're, like, normal. Just a guy." She blinks at you. "I get too many weirdos over here, like Charles."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't really know you, Andrea." You lightly accent the name.<br/>
<br/>
And she titters.<br/>
<br/>
"I know," she says. "Isn't it great? I just gave myself up to you. I don't ever give myself up to a guy. They all hit on me, but I ignore them. But you, I just said, Come over and give me a good fuck, and it happened." She titters again.<br/>
<br/>
"Why'd you do it, Andrea?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
Her mouth curls up into a smile as she closes her eyes and relaxes. <br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," she says. "I guess I just saw something"—she giggles—"magical in you."<br/>
<br/>
You kiss her forehead.<br/>
<br/>
Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see the phone, and the time.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Sydney doesn't want to take you home, but you insist. And after she's up, she agrees that it's probably for the best: If she is now Andrea, she should keep to Andrea's schedule, which means going for her daily swim.<br/>
<br/>
So even after you are dressed, you have to wait for her to pull on a black, form-fitting Lycra swimsuit, and to cover it with blue shorts and a long-sleeve flannel shirt. She glints at you mischievously—for you are sporting an obvious boner—as she slides on some sunglasses and beckons you out the door.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad only glowers at you hard when you fall in through the front door of your place, but you can tell you are in serious trouble because Robert stares at you with wide eyes and a pale face, as though you are already a corpse awaiting burial. Your dad interrupts your explanations by ordering you upstairs to shower and change into your church clothes. Your mom looks haggard when she bumps into you in the hallway.<br/>
<br/>
Church is even more awful than usual, because you can only replay last night's fun in your head while dreading what will come after the service. The drive home afterward is utterly silent, and once home your dad only orders you upstairs to change, and then to wait for him in his study.<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a good ten minutes to anticipate all the ways that he is going to destroy your life, but he is very calm when he finally joins you, and asks you for an explanation. You tell him that you couldn't get a ride home from the party (as you'd warned him might happen) and wound up spending the night there. When he asks where the party was, you tell him it was at the house of a guy named David Kirkham, because you know you can get the <i>pedisequos</i> to cover for you. When he asks why you didn't text him for a ride, you are cornered into having to beg that you hadn't thought of that. He snorts hard at that.<br/>
<br/>
There follows a very short lecture on how badly you scared your mom, and that something like last night must never happen again. He ends by telling you that you're grounded through next Sunday. Then he dismisses you for lunch.<br/>
<br/>
At least he leaves you with your phone, so you text Sydney afterward to tell her what happened. She calls you direct, and laughs that it doesn't matter. "You can always just switch places with someone, Will," she says. "Let your double take the punishment."<br/>
<br/>
Then her tone turns mischievous. "Who do you want to be? One of your other faces? Or someone new?"<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212224122123
author_id: seuzz
id: XT993W9KC
title: Shopping for a Shift
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Andrea's suggestion is not a shock: you were already planning to "let your double take the punishment" even before you went out last night, which is why you didn't worry about spending the night at her place. The only surprise is her suggestion that you get yourself a "new face" instead of switching into one you've already got.<br/>
<br/>
"Like who?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, anyone," she says, and you can hear the shrug in her voice. "One of my friends."<br/>
<br/>
"Like who?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a longer pause on the other side of the line. "Well, there's Charles," she says. "Or—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, hang on, before we—" You grope for words. "You want me to become one of your friends. But I thought you wanted me <i>out</i> of a mask so we could— So you and me—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I want you out of the mask, Will." She snickers, softly. "I'll make you take it off when you're at my house. You'll even be spending the night with me as yourself, and we'll send—"<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, doesn't your mom ever come home?"<br/>
<br/>
She gasps.<br/>
<br/>
"That would be perfect!" she gurgles. "We could switch you with my <i>mom,</i> add her to—! Then we'd have the house to ourselves!"<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to become <i>Andrea's mom?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"It would be perfect!"<br/>
<br/>
You have to take a deep breath before replying. "I'll have to think about it, Sydney. I'll have to think about who—"<br/>
<br/>
"It can be almost anyone, Will. Though if you're going to be one of my main friends, you're probably going to have to be Charles. He's over here all the time anyway. In fact, I'm expecting him—"<br/>
<br/>
"But I could be someone else?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. What about Adam?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>What about Adam?</i> you ask yourself after you've hung up from talking to her. She threw a lot of names at you, but his was the one that stuck.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are not so grounded that you can't drive yourself to school, but your dad does warn that your mom will be expecting you home directly after classes have let out. You promise him you will be.<br/>
<br/>
Then you're out the door, even though it's early, so you can swing by the old school and snag a blank mask, a metal strip, and the stuff to put them together. Because you've got a hunch you'll be using them today.<br/>
<br/>
You didn't have that much of a social existence at school before all this mess started, but you've got less of one now that you are no longer speaking to Caleb and Keith (and Carson and James). But that doesn't matter. You slip into your new seat first-period seat (opposite side of the room from Caleb) and spend the time before class texting Andrea and Adam Dortch to find out what lunches they have. Adam has fourth lunch, but Andrea (hallelujah!) has fifth lunch the same as you. But when you mention this to Adam—explaining that you can't skip fourth period English to have lunch with him and his friends—he volunteers that he's got a study hall that period, and invites you and Andrea to come hang out with him in the library. You hesitate, then reply that you'll talk to him about it later.<br/>
<br/>
"Later" for Adam means the start of fourth period, and because you mentioned to him that you had Ms. Gladstone's class, he is waiting for you in the doorway to her room. His hair, teased until it's standing almost straight up, is visible from the far end of the hallway as you squeeze your way through the crowds to class.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he asks when you meet him. "Where you 'n Andrea hanging out next period?"<br/>
<br/>
"Lunch? Between F-wing and the gym."<br/>
<br/>
"Come hang out in the library. Bunch of us are in there. Lotta swimmers."<br/>
<br/>
"We can't eat in the library."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck that." Then he shrugs. "So me 'n Catherine'll come looking for you. If that's okay," he adds in a tone that suggests he'll be offended if you say it isn't.<br/>
<br/>
You tell him it'll be "cool," then go into the classroom and slump into your desk and text Andrea to alert her of what's to come. While composing that text you glance up to see Cassie Harper gazing at you with an anxious expression. Cassie is a girl you've known for a long time. She's a redheaded chatterbox who is sweet in her way but who easily tires you out with all her inane and meaningless talk, but you are briefly tempted to invite her along to lunch, thinking that she might distract (and maybe even drive off) Adam and Catherine with her unending stream of gabble. But she'd be a distraction to you and Andrea as well, so you plunge back down into texting.<br/>
<br/>
Andrea replies that she's also "cool" with having Adam and Catherine join you for lunch.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Even though you've now slept with her twice (including spending the night with her) you are excited to the point of terror at the prospect of having lunch with Andrea Varnsworth, and you are trembling all over when you explode out the doors leading behind the school. A quick glance confirms what you'd hoped: that Andrea has arrived at her spot before you, and you half-stagger, half-limp over to meet her.<br/>
<br/>
She's sitting under a window with her back against the outer wall of F wing, her legs crossed neatly under her. She's dressed in dark track pants, a sky-blue t-shirt, and a soft gray hoodie (unzipped). She is sitting up very straight so that her boobs thrust out over the inward curve of her tummy, and her chin is tilted up. Her glance is cool but friendly as you approach. You and her both ignore the clusters of students that pass by, seeking out their own eating spots in the pocket formed between F wing, the gym, and the trunk of the school.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," she says as you drop down next to her. "I'm sorry you're grounded."<br/>
<br/>
"It's okay. I got an idea for getting out of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
But then her eyes flick over your shoulder, and she hushes you with a gesture. You glance back, expecting to see Adam and Catherine, but it's a small girl with long, wavy, butter-colored hair who is coming up to join you. With a shock, you recognize her from the class you just left: Bethany Lewis!<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Will!" she chirps as she settles in next to you. Her expression is friendly, but also slightly puzzled, though she seems to be trying to hide it.<br/>
<br/>
"You know each other?" Andrea asks.<br/>
<br/>
"We have English together," Bethany says. "Last period." She smiles at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Will's going to be eating lunch with us from now on," Andrea says. You jump a little, startled by the brazenness of the announcement (and also, truth to tell, shocked at this confirmation that you will be a regular part of Andrea's public life).<br/>
<br/>
Bethany also looks surprised. "Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." Andrea rubs your knee. "He's part of things now."<br/>
<br/>
All the sap rises in you, and you return Bethany's look of surprise with a gaping incredulity of your own.<br/>
<br/>
Before anyone can say anything else, though, Adam and Catherine come wandering up. Andrea greets them with a cool, vague indifference as they plop down to make your trio into a quintet. Adam wastes no time before coming to a blunt point.<br/>
<br/>
"So how come," he asks Andrea, "you hang out here instead of the library?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because they don't let you eat in the library," Andrea says, and rather pointedly opens up the plastic container she's been nursing in her lap. It contains some kind of pasta salad.<br/>
<br/>
"The natatorium, then. Or the gym. That's where some of your other guys hang out."<br/>
<br/>
"Other guys?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mark and Jamie and Rachel."<br/>
<br/>
"I see enough of them at practice," Andrea sniffs.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that Rachel Burton?" you ask, but only because you feel yourself in danger of being sidelined.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You do much swimming, man?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
He grins. "Bet'cher gonna start."<br/>
<br/>
"How was the Warehouse this weekend?" Andrea interrupts while you're scrambling for a reply. "Who was playing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Saturday was dee-jay night. I think it was Robert Vargas. We didn't go Friday." He rubs Catherine's back and smirks into her face. "We did something just the two of us.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you do the other nights of the week?" Andrea asks, with a hint of challenge in her voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Same thing, but not as much." Adam's smirk deepens. You can't help noticing the look of unease that appears on Catherine's face.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you hang out with friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. That's how come we don't do so much of it then."<br/>
<br/>
Andrea's eye flicks in your direction. "Will's grounded this week," she says. "I don't know if he can have people over, but you should go over to his place, keep him company, if you can."<br/>
<br/>
You stiffen, but do your best to hide your reaction as Adam casts a speculative glance at you. "Sure," he says. "We can make it a party wherever."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What did you do that for?" you hiss at Andrea after the bell has rung, and you and she are gathering up your stuff. "That stuff about Adam coming over to my place?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you were trying to become friends with him," she replies. "Or more."<br/>
<br/>
"More?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're looking for a new face," she says through unmoving lips. "If you were him, you could <i>make sure</i> you got into his group. Unless," she adds, as though reading the doubt in your face, "you want to join the swim team."<br/>
<br/>
That gives you a lot to think about sixth period. You have a mask and a chance at a new face, and she's right that Adam would be a good choice. So would the swim team. Nathan Cruz, for instance. Not only would that be sweet revenge on that asshole, but he could tie you back in close to Kirkham. But there are others on the swim team you could pick. Charles Hartlein, of course, is another possibility.<br/>
<br/>
And if you want to spend every night with your girlfriend, there's the really wild suggestion she made this morning: Switch places with Andrea's mother!<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111311311111111111111111221111111114112121111211122122241221234
author_id: seuzz
id: KQN74629C
title: The Candidate Pool
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Seventh period is your study hall. After settling into the library you text Andrea, asking, <i>If I be someone on swim team who should I pick?</i> You quickly add, <i>Not Nathan,</i> because you want ideas besides him.<br/>
<br/>
Her reply comes just as the bell rings: <i>Almost anyone.</i> Which isn't helpful, and you've opened up your browser to look for photos of the swim team, when someone drops into the chair opposite you.<br/>
<br/>
It's Sydney.<br/>
<br/>
Not Andrea. <i>Sydney McGlynn.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Her expression is both anxious and melancholy, and there is a sharp look of disappointment in the glance she turns on you. "I guess the boss really wouldn't want me talking to you," she says in a very tight voice. "But fuck it."<br/>
<br/>
You stare back.<br/>
<br/>
"Reagan told me you were out at the Warehouse on Saturday night," she continues. "She told me you were—" She bites her lip. "You were telling people that we were <i>never really going out.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you reply. It sounds like a groan.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus," she says. "Why'd you have to say <i>that?</i> I mean, breaking up is bad enough, but—" Her glance sharpens. "Did Will—? Did your boss—? Did he tell you to tell people that?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink. It takes you a moment to realize she thinks you're the fake-you that you left behind in your place.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, yeah," you stammer. "He thought— Well, he thought that was, uh, a nicer way of, um, making it sound."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, for fuck's sake!"<br/>
<br/>
You're drawing glances from other tables, so you gesture her to hush herself.<br/>
<br/>
"Did he at least <i>talk</i> to—?" She catches herself, and glances around before lowering her voice. "Did he at least <i>talk</i> to my boss about it first? 'Cos I can't imagine she—"<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't say. He just told me—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's a <i>shit</i> thing to say, you know!"<br/>
<br/>
"How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"How come?" she exclaims. <i>"How come? Will!</i>" Again, you try to hush her. "Because," she hisses, "think how it looks and feels from <i>my</i> point of view! Everyone thought we were going out! <i>I told them—!</i> And now you're going around saying we weren't? And how does that make <i>you</i>—how it makes your boss—look! Like he didn't even care enough about me to dump me! No! We were just <i>never even going out!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yeah,</i> you have to admit as you remember how you felt about Lisa. <i>She's got a point there.</i><br/>
<br/>
"I mean, if we 'broke up'," she continues, "we could at least pretend it was a mutual thing. But—"<br/>
<br/>
"But you already told people I broke up with you," you cut in. "And you told people it was because I said that Kirkham 'made me'."<br/>
<br/>
She catches her breath, then reddens.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what did you expect?" she demands. "You dump that on me, and you dump me at the same time, and I'm—"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't have to tell people what I told you!"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't make <i>me</i> the issue, Will!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not—! Look." You try to put your hand on hers, but she yanks it away. "It was a fuck up all the way around," you plead. "The boss— My boss— He was just taking me out to talk. But freaking Chen came along, and then my boss had to make it look good, so he— He had to 'order me' to break to break up with you. But he didn't think— He didn't know that's what I'd do."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>have</i> to do what he says!"<br/>
<br/>
"I know. But he didn't realize when—"<br/>
<br/>
"You're saying your boss is a dumbass?"<br/>
<br/>
You have no idea what a <i>pedisequos</i> should or should not admit to when it comes to having an opinion of the boss. So you shrug and reply, "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, at the moment, you know— Crunch time—"<br/>
<br/>
"He explained all this to you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... Yes. Later. After."<br/>
<br/>
She snorts. "Well, lucky you. My boss doesn't tell me shit." She looks at you closely. "Do you know where she is? Where's your boss?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... He's still being David Kirkham, but he's getting ready for another move. Don't bother him or go looking for him."<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't going to. You understand, right, that it's <i>him</i> I'm mostly pissed at."<br/>
<br/>
You wince inwardly. "Right. But can you and I at least try to be friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Gonna be freaking hard," she mutters, "considering what my friends have been saying about you. And what <i>I've</i> been saying about you."<br/>
<br/>
You wince again.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs. "But I guess I can tell them that I'm over you. That I just don't want to think about you anymore. Except—"<br/>
<br/>
She looks at you, and tears well up in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Except Sydney has it so bad for you, Will. So I do too!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That final confession leaves you reeling. Sydney hasn't really been coy about the fact that she likes you, but the ... intensity ... of fake-Sydney's cry really astonishes you.<br/>
<br/>
So you're sorely distracted as you wind your way to your last class, and can only blink in confusion when your phone dings with a text that includes four names. It takes you a moment to realize these are the aliases Sydney is suggesting you could assume for the coming week.<br/>
<br/>
While you are puzzling over them, your phone rings. It's Andrea. You press yourself up against the side of the hallway with a hand over your other ear as you answer.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," she says. "You get my text?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Why are you calling?"<br/>
<br/>
"To get an answer, quick. 'Cos if you can get over to my place with a mask right after school, I can probably get one of these guys out there. By the way, why don't you want Nathan?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just wanted some other ideas. But I don't know most of these guys you sent me."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you know Bethany—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know her."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I picked her because I'm kind of mentoring her. Andrea is. I have lunch with her most days, so she'd be a natural. Same with Heaven. Except she's a sophomore."<br/>
<br/>
That gives you pause, but you don't make any judgements yet. "I know Olivia," you say. "She hangs out with Kelsey and Amanda, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right, that's why I suggested her. So there'd be a link between us back to them. Um, you know these aren't just going to be for the week, right? This'd be someone we're adding to—"<br/>
<br/>
There's an outbreak of voices on the other side, and her voice is suddenly muffled.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," she says when she comes back on. "That was— Never mind."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so who's the guy? Mark ... whatever his last name is."<br/>
<br/>
"I just figured you might want a guy, and he's on the team and you didn't want Nathan. And because we were talking about you getting some friends who could be my friends? Mark could do that, I think you'd fit in good with his friends. I'm not so sure about, like, Ethan or Michael."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I'll have to tell you after class. Give me an hour to think about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, if you think you've time."<br/>
<br/>
"I do. I brought a mask with me, I can take it straight over to your place, if you can get—"<br/>
<br/>
"You have to get me a name asap."<br/>
<br/>
You promise her you will the moment the final bell rings.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After Sydney left you in the library, you had gone back online to glance over photos of the swim team, and after falling into your chair in science class, you take your phone out again and examine the roster page.<br/>
<br/>
Bethany you already know, and Olivia Byrne—a curvy brunette—you know as well. Heaven Granberry turns out to be a small, slim girl with long, dark, frizzy hair and a crooked grin. Mark Szymanski is a dopey-looking kid with a buzz cut, and you flinch to think that he's the "kind of guy" that Sydney thinks you'd be a natural friend with; you console yourself with the thought that maybe he's got a fun personality.<br/>
<br/>
You get a quick shock, though, as you're scrolling past the other faces, wondering why Sydney didn't pick them, when one leaps out at you: Jamie Bornholm.<br/>
<br/>
She's a girl who is somewhere between pretty and "striking", with a bold nose and mouth full of big teeth. But her features are symmetrical, and her gaze relaxed; and she has dark-blonde hair that falls in fashionably cut tresses down the side of her face to drape across the tops of her shoulders. Her neck is long and slim and accented (in this photo) with a silver chain on which hangs a shiny pendant. Except for that nose, which makes her face just a little too interesting to be beautiful, she looks quite stylish.<br/>
<br/>
But what makes her leap out is your sudden memory of her from your time being David Kirkham: He knows her, because she is also in the school orchestra—a violin player. It strikes you now, hard, that she, like Nathan, another swimmer who is in the orchestara, could be a link between Andrea (and you) and Kirkham. And you would bet that she (or rather, <i>you,</i> once you've replaced her) could get you in with a better class of new friends than Mark whatsisname could. You remember, from your perch at the front of the cello section, seeing her talking to Yumi Saito and Eva Garner, and if she is friends with them, and if you could use her to make yourself better friends with them ... Why, that would be terrific revenge against Caleb and Carson and Keith and James!<br/>
<br/>
You think about it all through class. Then, as soon as the bell rings, you whip out your phone and text a single name to Andrea:<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111131131111111111111111122111111111411212111121112212225
author_id: rugal
id: MWTPQSVY8
title: A Rainbow of Options
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>We should talk. Talk talk. Not text.</i><br/>
<br/>
You send that off to Kelsey and it's only a few minutes before your phone starts lighting up and buzzing. "Yeah?" you casually say as you accept the call.<br/>
<br/>
"It's me," comes Kelsey's voice, "you said we should talk." There's a small moment of silence—maybe she's expecting you to say something—before she talks again. "So what <i>did</i> you want to talk about?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just continuing what we talked about earlier. You know, about you wanting to see me?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a short pause on her end. "I told you I meant Will, not this... this..."<br/>
<br/>
"Asshole, I know," you respond calmly. "And we agreed that this asshole and his asshole friends made Will and Sydney seeing each other an impossibility."<br/>
<br/>
"It's not impossible, Will! You just need to—"<br/>
<br/>
"I need to what?" you challenge her. "Stand up for myself? Allow myself to get harassed by the biggest psychos in school because I don't 'deserve' to be with someone like Sydney?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, that's not—"<br/>
<br/>
But you're worked up by this point and now you're like a runaway steamroller, barreling through and flattening everything in its path. "I fucking lost <i>everything</i> because of this. Lost my dignity, lost my friends. You're the only goddamn thing I've got left, Sydney, and it don't mean shit because—"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, okay, alright, I get it!" comes the almost desperate response. "Are you mad at me? Are you blaming <i>me</i> for what happened? Do you want to... do you want to break up with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Do I want to—" you start to say with surprise. "No, hell no I don't wanna break up with you! I just mean that when we were talking earlier, about you wanting to see Will, I thought that we can't see each other as each other; it just ain't gonna work. Too much bullshit. Too many jealous fucks."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I didn't get the chance to say it but I was thinking instead that if Will can't be with Sydney, why not let him be with someone else?"<br/>
<br/>
Again, more silence, before Kelsey finally speaks. "So you mean, like, we get a mask of another girl and then we date with me under the mask, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, Will and... whoever."<br/>
<br/>
"Us," she states simply.<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I said."<br/>
<br/>
"No it isn't," she retorts. "I'm not a dim bulb, Will, jeez! I want to date <i>you</i>! Not a <i>pedisequos</i> and definitely not David Kirkham!"<br/>
<br/>
You grunt. "Gonna be hard. Will's got a target on his back as long as he and Sydney are seen as an item."<br/>
<br/>
"Then you tell anyone that asks that you broke up," she says with what sounds like exasperation. "Hell, if anyone asks then Sydney dumped you, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
Well of course, Sydney would dump Will. After all she's on a higher strata than him so it's only natural that her and Will would be a small, weird aberration for her and that she would quickly come to her senses. But something about it still doesn't sit right with you. Maybe because it's putting all of the responsibility onto her and that it could potentially make her look bad.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna tell 'em that," you state resolutely. "I'll tell 'em... fuck, I dunno. I guess if anyone asks then it was just a thing where we quickly realized we were going too fast and decided to break it off. Like a quick fling but we're still friends."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess that'll work for now," Kelsey responds. "Okay, so Will and Sydney aren't a thing anymore. Then who is Will's new girlfriend going to be?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you admit. "I was mulling over a few names but I'm not really sure about any of 'em. I was kinda thinking of letting you pick."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean from the names you were considering?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, maybe," you say as you give her the list of candidates.<br/>
<br/>
"So one of them?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Whoever," you reply. "Think about it. If there's someone else you like better then go with them."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want me to send you my final choice so you can sign off on them?"<br/>
<br/>
You think about it for a moment. "Nah, don't worry about it," you tell her. "I trust you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After fixing up a quick and easy dinner for Kirkham and his mother—one you decline to eat—you then head to Acheson, out to the community center and the basement of the old elementary school that's served as your private safehouse. You text your doppelganger to meet you out there and wait impatiently for him to arrive.<br/>
<br/>
"Took you long enough," you grumble when he finally does and meets you at the door. You practically shove him down the stairs much to his surprise. "Force of habit," you say unapologetically. "Anyway, get your ass outta those rags."<br/>
<br/>
"We're switching?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you get to be Kirkham. Fun for you, right?"<br/>
<br/>
You then lean back and remove Kirkham's mask from your face. Once you've come to you then do the same for your doppelganger. For a brief time the naked, and very lovely, form of Amanda Ferguson is exposed but it is quickly replaced by the much less appealing one of David Kirkham. His eyes flash open and he lifts himself off the table, directly in front of you and in your face.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck are you so scared for?" he asks as you take a step back. "I'm not gonna do shit to you."<br/>
<br/>
"You're... you're not," you stutter.<br/>
<br/>
"Not unless you want me to," he grins as he pounds a fist on the table. "Fuck, it feels so weird. Even though I know you're my boss there's a part of me that still kinda wants to kick your ass."<br/>
<br/>
"N-no, you're not going to do anything like that," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Y-yeah, yes," you answer. Right, he's just a doppelganger. He can't do anything to you unless you tell him to. He can't hurt you. There's no reason to be afraid of him. "You're not going to do anything to me," you say more assertively. "In fact, you're not going to stay away from me at school."<br/>
<br/>
"That so?"<br/>
<br/>
"If Chen or anyone asks, you... got bored," you tell him. "The Sydney shit was like a big finale. You can't really top it so there's no point now. That'll be your mindset."<br/>
<br/>
"Glad you're letting me keep my dignity, boss," Kirkham smirks.<br/>
<br/>
"Well if you want your dignity you should start by putting your clothes on," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
Kirkham, or the doppelganger that looks like him anyway, guffaws but does as you say. Once he's dressed you tell him to head home and remind him to stay away from you unless you contact him. From there, you put the mask of yourself onto your face in order to get the memories of the time that you've missed. To your surprise, there's not really much of anything there to interest you.<br/>
<br/>
Just day after day of the same stuff. A lot of getting the cold shoulder from your friends. Getting beat up by Chen and Kirkham. Having to tell Sydney, that is the doppelganger Sydney, that "your boss" told you to break up with her. At that, you're surprised that you feel nothing from the memory. No guilt or regret or anything, just a numbness like someone going through the motions.<br/>
<br/>
Like someone merely half-heartedly playing the role of Will Prescott.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
In fact, you've been under masks for the last little while so you can't help but feel like you're merely playing the role of Will Prescott yourself. You actually feel a bit weird when you come home, like the feeling you'd get when you'd stay with a relative for a few days and suddenly your home doesn't feel like your home at first.<br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Prescott welcomes you back as you come in and Robert Prescott tries to annoy you but you ignore him and head off to Will Prescott's room. No, once more this is your room and probably by the time you wake up it'll all feel normal again. But what's not normal is the fact that Will Prescott had sent a text to Kelsey Blankenship informing her that he'd moved back to being himself.<br/>
<br/>
And it's even less normal that instead of ignoring Will or telling him to fuck off, your phone buzzes with a response back from her.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh thats good! I was just thinking of names!</i><br/>
<br/>
You text her back to ask if she's made a choice already.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Kinda but I don't know. There's a few I'm thinking of.</i><br/>
<br/>
You ask her what she means by that.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Exactly what I said?</i> she responds.<br/>
<i>I've got a few names in mind. Some I might be able to get tonite &amp; some I can't.<br/>
But I'm having trouble choosing so help me pick.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>What names?</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>Noooo! I want to surprise u!</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>Then how am I going to pick?</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>Red, blue, green, yellow, purple</i><br/>
<br/>
That confuses you and you tell her as such.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Each color is a name I'm thinking of. Pick one.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>How am I supposed to know what each one means?</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>You don't so don't think about it. Just trust me &amp; pick a color.</i><span class="nbsjbfsoatTK"></span></span></div></div>


