# chapters

path: 111131131111211122
author_id: rugal
title: A Little Faith
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Before you make a decision you go back to the book that sits on the work table and to look it over. Though horrified you'd still had the wherewithal to grab the book and make sure the page turned. But once you did you hadn't even bothered to check it, placing it on the table and getting out of Spencer's mask as quickly as possible. You hunch over the table and look at the list of ingredients and to your surprise it's the same stuff you'd been using for the last few spells just in even smaller quantities.<br/>
<br/>
So you get to work grabbing the required quantities of graveyard dirt and hair and all the other things you've become well acquainted with by now, make the sigil as shown in the book, place a bowl on the sigil, all of the items in the bowl and light it. You see a small purple cloud followed by the now familiar purple flames which disappear almost as quickly as they had appeared. Inside is something that looks like paint and looks to be the same color as the Faith statue.<br/>
<br/>
From what you can tell after looking at the book again it appears that this pedisequos paint is supposed to be applied to the inside of a mask. So you look around until you find a brush and dip it in. Because it's immediately on hand -- as you'd set it on the workbench when you started gathering the materials for the spell -- you then grab the mask of Faith and use the brush to paint the inside. In a few seconds it's dry to the touch and the same off white color as everything else you've seen related to those statues.<br/>
<br/>
So it looks as if the spell is done which means all you have to do is place the mask on the book, then lift and aren't surprised when the page turns. You read the back of the page and you almost let out a whistle. Near as you can tell, if you put this mask on, say, Caleb then he'd turn into Faith of course. But it'd be a lackey-Faith no different than if you had placed a mask onto either of the statues.<br/>
<br/>
That causes you to snap out of the near reverie you'd spent the last little while in. It's almost scary when you think about it, how lost you get when working on these spells. So absorbed in the work that you almost forget everything else around you. Everything like what you'd done to poor Faith. You curse yourself for that and take another look at the statue of her. You feel nothing but regret over what you've done and after a few moments of contemplation decide that the best course of action is to put on Faith's mask.<br/>
<br/>
After all given what you did to her why should you be able to just go home like nothing happened? Why should you think that you can just put the mask on her pedisequos and then pretend like everything is normal? It wouldn't be the real girl, it just be a fake and that's not normal. You don't know Faith Becker, you'd never talked to her, never shared a class with her and when you saw her you only vaguely thought that you might have seen someone who looks like her around school.<br/>
<br/>
But whether you knew her or not is beside the point. You still did something terrible to her. In a way you took her life from her. By putting on her mask and living as her she'd be taking your life from you. In a way, by making a mask of yourself and placing it on her pedisequos she'd also be taking your life from you. That'd be a fair punishment given what you did.<br/>
<br/>
You look around the basement, find some of the blanks you'd stashed away and grab one. You strip yourself, place the mask on your face, then on the pedisequos once you've come to. Since everything in the mask is as up to date as possible you don't even have to bother explaining anything to your double. You merely have to tell him to get dressed and then wait for you by the truck.<br/>
<br/>
Once he's gone you grab Faith's mask. Then you lie down and place it on your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You awaken with a start and like a bolt you're already sitting up. What happened? Where are you? Why are you... that shocks you. Then you look at where you are and you're even more shocked. You shiver, less from how cool it is and more because you're suddenly feeling scared. Why are you naked? Why are you in a dark, dank basement? Why can't you remember how you got here? The last thing you remember is that dumb, ugly caveman tailing you to your car, disappearing, and then coming back and that's it.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, that's it! <i>He</i> did it to you. You always knew Jeff Spencer was no good and that's why you tried to avoid him whenever you were at the Warehouse. That's why, if he was ever the person to have to "take care" of you, you never attempted to show any weakness. No fear, no arguing, maybe a snide comment but that's it. With the others you'd do that but not with him. Because the truth is Jeff Spencer frightens you; he absolutely does. He's big and strong and ugly with a head that's as vacant as his stare and you do <i>not</i> want to piss him off. You've seen those true crime documentaries, you know what happens when a girl gets on the wrong side of someone like Jeff Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
Better to just comply and get it over and done with as fast as possible. But today just wasn't your lucky day was it? He's kidnapped you, taken you back to his house and chucked you in the basement waiting to do god knows what to you. You shiver once more. You don't want to think of it, don't even want to imagine it. You want to scream and call for help but if he's gone this far then you don't think anyone would hear you anyway. No you need to stop and collect yourself and think of a way out of here.<br/>
<br/>
So you do just that. You stop, you take a few deep breaths and focus. Then you groan with relief. That was almost as scary as being in Spencer's head. But, you can already feel, Faith Becker's mind is nothing at all like his. It's just very confused and very scared over what it fears may be happening and feeling groggy that definitely was strong enough to suck you in for a moment. But you're back and no worse for the wear.<br/>
<br/>
But you're thinking like yourself exclusively. If you're going to be Faith then you can't do that. You need to think like her and act like her until you can more easily flip that switch on command. So you concentrate and find her mind and much like with Spencer's you begin to mold it around you, like wearing a suit of Faith armor.<br/>
<br/>
You raise a hand and realize it's Faith's hand and your hand. You look down and marvel at the breasts, nice and plump, while simultaneously wondering why you care so much. You take your hands and run them through the long, loose curls and at the same time complain about how much of a pain in the ass it's going to be to wash and that you need to get more conditioner because you're almost out.<br/>
<br/>
With your new outlook you're able to quickly and easily put on her clothes though there's nothing down here to make sure that everything is in place and you curse that her purse is still in her car so you can't touch up your makeup. But overall everything seems fine so you gather up some masks, the pedisequos paint and brush and the book and head up the stairs. Once you're out you tell Will to drop you off at the Warehouse so you can get Faith's car and head home.<br/>
<br/>
On the drive there you try to talk to him completely in character and as you do you wonder why you've never seen him around school before because he looks and is acting a bit immature and you can't help to think that it's actually kind of cute.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Ugh!" you groan loudly as you close the refrigerator and walk out of the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
"What?" asks Hope, lounging on the couch, as she looks up from her phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Mom and dad didn't order anything before they left?" you ask with annoyance.<br/>
<br/>
"Why would they?" she retorts. "You said you were going out so they probably assumed you were getting something. What are you even doing back so early?"<br/>
<br/>
"None of your business," you snap. "Guess I just have to make a fast food run."<br/>
<br/>
"You really think so?" she asks. "Because from what I'm seeing I don't think you need any more burgers."<br/>
<br/>
You glare at her. "What's <i>that</i> supposed to mean?" you growl.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just saying that you should worry less about pizza dough and more about how doughy your stomach's getting," she says with a snicker.<br/>
<br/>
You let out an indecipherable noise in frustration and march off to your room. Can you believe it? You, a high school senior, getting picked on by your little sister? She's only thirteen yet she acts like she's so much better than you and she's always got some kind of catty comment. Why? Because <i>she's</i> popular? Because <i>she's</i> a cheerleader? <i>She's a smart-mouthed brat is what she is</i>, you think as you flop down on your bed. She's in the eighth grade and it's not like middle school popularity means anything. No, it'll probably vanish once she's in high school.<br/>
<br/>
Won't it?<br/>
<br/>
You feel antsy. You don't like getting teased by your little sister nor do you like the favoritism your parents show her. You're the older sister so it'd be nice if she treated you with a little more respect. Yeah, it'd be nice and you could make sure of it. After all, sitting in your closet is the stuff you brought back from the basement. Put a mask on her, put some of that paint in it and voila, no more bratty sister.<br/>
<br/>
But that still wouldn't wouldn't affect <i>your</i> popularity. That still wouldn't stop the favoritism. But you've got a way of changing that too. All you'd have to do is copy her and then you could be Hope Becker, popular cheerleading golden child, while she gets to be the unpopular senior with a shitty reputation. Oh but she wouldn't be aware of that would she?<br/>
<br/>
And what's more there's something at the back of your mind that feels anxious and hesitant. Should you really use that stuff on your own sister for reasons so petty?</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311112111222
author_id: rugal
title: Hope Floats
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>That anxiety, that little voice that's questioning things? You shove it down, turn around and ignore it. Instead you push yourself off of your bed and head into the closet where you grab one of the blank masks you'd taken. You look it over, then reaffirm that this is what you want to do. You head back out into the living room where Hope is still on her phone. You walk up to her and, not even saying anything or giving her time to even notice anything, push the mask onto her face.<br/>
<br/>
She slumps and you're suddenly stuck by the realization that you don't know when your parents are going to be home so you can't really make a change out here in the living room. You decide to carry Hope back to your room and though she's smaller and not particularly heavy she's total dead weight and you're not particularly strong either so you give up before you can get her off.<br/>
<br/>
Instead while it copies her you head back to your room and grab what you'll need to coat the mask. Then you head back out to the living room and wait. It's a few minutes -- you're not sure how long -- before the mask reappears. You scoop it up and coat the inside before placing it back on her face. Her eyes flutter open, she grabs her head and groans. "What happened?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Hope?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" she replies as she looks at you. "What do you want?"<br/>
<br/>
She seems fine but did that paint do what you suspected it will do? You should test it. "I want you to tell me I'm pretty," you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
"You what?" she asks incredulously as she stares at you and suddenly you're terrified that it didn't work. But your fears are quickly conquered. "You're pretty. Is that what you wanted?"<br/>
<br/>
Well she said what you asked but you don't like the tone. "Not really," you answer. "I want you to say it again but I want you to mean it. No attitude. You feel bad about teasing me, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Her face is contemplative for a second and then softens. "Yeah," she says softly, "you're pretty Faith. Sorry for saying that to you earlier."<br/>
<br/>
You're thrilled, it's worked perfectly. So this is what it's like to have a sister who doesn't act like smug brat. Instinctively you reach over and pull her in for a tight, sisterly hug. "I'm glad to hear it! Apology accepted!" you exclaim before pulling back. "Alright so then I want you to go back to your room and get out of those clothes," you say. She looks at you oddly. "Well you think I'm pretty now so I'll let you see what it's like," you smile sweetly. "But I'm not really going to be able to fit in your clothes so I'm going to need you to change into mine. So go back to your room and text me when you're ready."<br/>
<br/>
Hope doesn't say anything, she just nods, gets up, grabs her phone and heads off to her room. You head back to yours as well which is across and a little down the hall from hers. In there you get to work on stripping out of your own clothes taking everything, underwear included, then grab the pajama pants and loose tank top you usually sleep in and throw them on. Soon after you get a text from Hope saying she's ready.<br/>
<br/>
You head into the hall and knock on her door. She opens it just enough to peek her face out and you shove your clothes towards her. "Here, put them on then tell me when you're done. I'll be back in a few minutes," you say.<br/>
<br/>
She accepts them and closes the door while you head back to your room. Then you sit down on the bed, reach up to your face and pull the mask off. You wake up a few minutes later and feel weird because this isn't your room and these... these are definitely <i>not</i> your clothes. But it doesn't take long to remember what's happening and suddenly you want to kick yourself. You're going to subject someone else to the same thing you subjected Faith too? What the hell is wrong with you?<br/>
<br/>
Well you know what the problem was this time you realize as you look at Faith's mask. Again you'd allowed the emotions of the person you're impersonating to get the better of you. Faith's own insecurities overwhelmed you leading you to... this. You should just back off and remove the mask from Hope but now you're wondering if Faith's mask might not be as safe as you thought either and plus you're already too far ahead to really change things, you feel.<br/>
<br/>
You grab Faith's phone and open it and there's a text from Hope saying she's ready. You sigh, stand up and head over to her room. She opens the door you make your way in. She looks a bit confused at your appearance and she also looks ridiculous in clothes that are too big for her. But you say nothing and simply reach out and pull the mask off. Hope collapses and you catch her and gently place her on the ground. She looks normal and is breathing though she seems unconscious.<br/>
<br/>
That's a relief. It means these new masks, while making people into lackies, doesn't do to them what the last spell did. It's just a temporary thing that disappears when you take the mask off. That makes you feel a little less bad about what you're doing as you place the mask of Faith on her face.<br/>
<br/>
Faith appears where Hope was and pushes herself up. "Wow," she says before she spots you. "Oh, it's you. The guy who took me back out to the Warehouse and the guy who..." she stops and then giggles. "You look ridiculous in that you know? But it's kind of cute. And I have to listen to you..." She leans in and places her arms around your head and smiles. "You wouldn't even have to order me to, you know."<br/>
<br/>
But you push her away. "Just go back to your room," you tell her and with a pout she heads back. You grab the new mask and check the name on the back: <i>HOPE LAUREN BECKER</i>. You sigh. This isn't what you'd planned on at all and things feel like they've gotten out of control. You can only hope that a middle schooler has an easier mind to handle as you raise her mask to your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You finish putting on the last touches of make up and then appraise yourself in the mirror. For a second you're a little taken aback because you can see why people say you and your sister look similar. Your faces are both a bit broad and your noses are a bit wide and puggish. But your hair is lighter and straighter and you do a better job of using your makeup to highlight what you want highlighted and downplay what you don't.<br/>
<br/>
Most importantly you're skinnier and in better shape. Your sister isn't <i>fat</i>, you've seen way bigger girls even at school, but she's bigger than you to be sure though you can't help but to admit that you wish your own boobs were bigger like her's and that you hope your chest hits its own growth spurt by the time you're in high school. You'd never tell her this though because teasing her and getting under her skin is really easy and really fun.<br/>
<br/>
Besides you're not going to be able to be the bratty little sister for a whole lot longer since by this time next year you'll be the only one of your parents' kids left in the house. Your older brother's already been gone for two years at a college out of state and Faith's likely moving out after graduating. Things are going to change for you a lot next year so you want to enjoy being spoiled while you can.<br/>
<br/>
Your phone buzzes and you pick it up with excitement, are happy when you see the name and quickly send a response back. You give yourself another quick look over and, satisfied, dash out the door barely saying goodbye to your parents. You meet Molly Whitaker, another cheerleader and one of your best friends, with an excited hug and hop into her mom's van. The two of you are then off to the mall.<br/>
<br/>
Once there you meet up with more friends like Kylie Schroeder and Lauren Greenwald and a few more cheerleaders like Katie DeLuca and Harper Phillips and wander around the stores and talk and chat and gossip. About boys you think are cute and about other girls. You and your cheerleader friends can't help but complain about what a bitch Taylor Kimball's been ever since Zack Fielding, who she likes, started going out with Lisa Wheaton.<br/>
<br/>
Lauren chimes in to say that Ashley Lim, one of the smartest (and smuggest) girls in school, has been acting the same for the same reason and all of you shudder and laugh at the thought of Taylor and Ashley teaming up to steal Zack.<br/>
<br/>
You're lost in conversation when something in one store snaps you back to reality. You see a boy with his mother helping him to pick out some clothes and you have to do a double take because it's Robert Prescott, a boy that you share a couple of classes with. Not that you've ever given him much thought but... well, you have. Because you don't just share some classes with him, he's your brother.<br/>
<br/>
Mentally you curse yourself as you realize this whole thing sort of wrapping your own mind in another's isn't working out the way you want it. First with Spencer, then with Faith and now with Hope you've found yourself more absorbed in and smothered by them than anything. You need to create a little bit of distance, enough for you to reach out and touch their mind but not so close that you find yourself sucked right in.<br/>
<br/>
As you look away from Robert you find that you're able to keep the conversation with Hope's friends going while not losing any of yourself in the process. Then a thought hits you. It was seeing your brother that pulled you back. Hope doesn't talk to him; doesn't know him beyond being a boy in class. But she could. She could march right over and talk to him and get to know him a little better. Which might be a little weird for her at first but could be great for you because that familial connection might just be the anchor you need to make sure you don't start drifting again.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114
author_id: rugal
title: The Female of the Species
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You decide that maybe some more doppelganger mischief might be fun but you demure on using Caleb for it for a multitude of reasons. On the one hand you've already gotten him in trouble and it took much apologizing on his end to hopefully fix the damage. You can't help but feel just a twinge of guilt at that and decide that any shenanigans will be kept a bit lighter; nothing, you hope, as extreme as calling Stephanie Wyatt a bitch right to her face or creeping on girls who very clearly do not want the attention.<br/>
<br/>
On the other hand becoming Caleb now feels a bit played out. You know him enough that you feel you could probably do a well enough job impersonating him without adding his brain to his mask. The two of you are such social nobodies that even all of the mayhem you caused last night barely seemed to register so what would be the fun in doing anything if nobody's going to really care? To that end you also rule out Keith as a possible target.<br/>
<br/>
James Lamont and Carson Ioeger? Well they're only slightly better off socially than you or Caleb though on the other hand they get up to mischief of their own so anything you do might not be as shocking. Jenny Ashton? She certainly has a much higher social ranking than anyone else you might consider a friend given that she's best friends with Yumi Saito and in tight with people like Cindy Vredenburg and the Garner twins so anything you do as her would be bound to cause a splash. But that might cause too big of a splash because after all her friends are directly opposed to Chelsea Cooper and anything you might do as her could be used by the cheerleading queen as ammo against both Jenny and her friends.<br/>
<br/>
Besides could you even become a girl? It's a two part question. The first is simple: if you had a mask and it had a girl's image on it would it be able to turn you into her? The answer seems obvious but maybe it'll only allow you to become someone of the same gender. Maybe the magic isn't strong enough to make a change that big; changing from Will Prescott to Jenny Ashton would certainly be bigger than Will Prescott to Caleb Johansson.<br/>
<br/>
The second part is more mental. If it worked could <i>you</i> become a girl? As you'd just contemplated a switch from Will to Jenny, for example, would be big not just physically but mentally as well. It would be a far more different, far more alien experience than becoming another guy. Plus if you used one of these bands and had the girl's brain you'd inherit everything she knows and would that also mean you'd inherit her... you shiver at that. You're very assured in your own heterosexuality that you don't want to contemplate the idea of doing things with another guy as a girl.<br/>
<br/>
So you toss that thought aside and after a bit of thought conclude that the interest trumps any potential drawbacks. You want something really different now, something more exciting that opens itself up to even greater fun. You want to see just what these disguises can do and how complete they are. So you'll try and find a girl, copy them both with a mask and a band and see where that leads you.<br/>
<br/>
As for the new spell? Well you're not sure how into the idea you are of having to dig up and haul around a bunch of graveyard dirt, at least not as you are now. So you decide to put it off for the moment but do come to the conclusion that after this whole deal is done you might want to look into copying someone in much better shape if only to make the dirt digging task a lot easier.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've got the money so you take the trip out to a few stores to grab material needed for not only making a couple more masks but a couple more bands as well. It's as you're coming out of Ace Hardware with some material and putting it into the bed of your truck that you suddenly get the feeling that there's someone behind you... and it's confirmed just a second later.<br/>
<br/>
"Heya!" exclaims a small, high pitched voice which, when accompanied by the tap on your shoulder, causes you to yelp and jump in surprise. That same voice giggles and it's a familiar sound you realize. "Sorry, did I scare you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, no not scared just... just surprised," you say with a nervous laugh. That causes only another giggle from your unseen companion and you're now certain you've heard it before. So you turn and are both surprised and not surprised to see Cassie Harper standing there. "So, what's up Cassie? What are you doing out here?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I'm the one who should be asking <i>you</i> that," she says with a large smile.<br/>
<br/>
"Um, well I just had to stop by Ace and pick some things up," you tell her. "I'm helping, uh, my little brother. He's got an art project he has to do for school and I'm picking up some stuff for him."<br/>
<br/>
Cassie's eyes light up at that. "Aww, that's really sweet Will!" she exclaims with apparent delight.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway what about you? I wasn't really expecting to see you out here."<br/>
<br/>
"I work here," she says as if it should be obvious to you. "Well, not <i>here</i> but right over there," she says and points to a store near the end of the next building with a sign that reads Thrifty Nifties. "Actually I just went on lunch break, or I guess dinner break because it's later in the afternoon," she giggles, "and that's when I saw you."<br/>
<br/>
She looks at you in a way that's... expectant? Like a puppy who's waiting for a treat. Maybe puppy is a good descriptor for Cassie because she's certainly small and certainly cute. Her hair is long, wavy and fiery red and held back a bit by a hairband. Her eyes are large and if not gray then certainly a very grayish blue. Her smile is large and bright and when she looks at you it gives the impression of anxiously biting her lip. Her face is also covered in freckles that only serve to enhance her youthful qualities and thus make her appear even more puppyish.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, well if you're on lunch and I'm already here do you want to maybe, I don't know, hang out?" you ask and immediately you facepalm. There's a reason "puppy dog eyes" are a thing and you doubt she was doing it intentionally but you just felt compelled, overwhelmed by her cuteness as you were, to ask her.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you want to...?" she asks in surprise then her eyes light up even more and her face is practically beaming. "Okay, yeah! There's a place here in the plaza that's really, really good. I'll treat you but just this once!"<br/>
<br/>
You spend the half hour of Cassie's lunch break at The Coldest Cut, a tiny delicatessen that makes (you have to admit) some very good sandwiches. You don't say too much yourself as you'd forgotten how much of a chatterbox Cassie can be and she practically dominates the conversation. Not that you have a bad time, you're fine sitting there and letting her talk.<br/>
<br/>
As the time limit of her break comes up you get ready to say your goodbyes and leave but not before she stops you. She pulls a small notepad and a pen out of her purse, jots something down, rips the page off and hands it to you. The two of you say your goodbyes and she says she'll see you on Monday. Only when you're back in your truck do you take a look at the paper and nearly do a double take.<br/>
<br/>
It's her phone number.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Back at the elementary school basement you get to work on making the masks and bands. It's not a long process now that you know how to do it and being in the unused basement means you're at no risk of attracting attention from the popping and smoking the of the masks as they're being made. But once they're done your anticipation falls. It took you days to polish just one mask and now with more than one and with school it might take you all week to get everything completed.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder if there's a better way but after a few minutes of thinking you can't come up with anything. You've got Caleb's mask here though and loathe as you are to admit it he's smarter than you so maybe he might be able to come up with a better way.<br/>
<br/>
You pop the mask on and after ten minutes of solid thinking you hit upon an idea: maybe a car buffer would work. It's something you'll have to try tomorrow though because afternoon is turning to evening and light in the basement, even provided by one measly lightbulb, isn't that great now. So you take off Caleb's mask, lock up and resolve to maybe get a lamp when you can afford it.<br/>
<br/>
Sunday means church and while you're always anxious enough as is during service the excitement of getting back and trying that buffer idea makes you even antsier. It's the middle of the afternoon by the time you're able to get back and takes some cajoling of your dad to convince him to let you borrow the buffer (this time it's a friend's art project). Rushing back to the school basement, you get to work on an unpolished mask. It takes a moment but you get the hang of working the buffer and after about 45 minutes you hold a shiny blue mask in your hands.<br/>
<br/>
The wonders of modern technology you suppose.<br/>
<br/>
The question is who do you use it on? You don't really know any girls besides Jenny and you don't have any way of reaching her to get her alone and the get the mask on her. The only other female you could try it on is... your mom. Something about that seems wrong and you're not sure you'd want to risk getting her in trouble, although being an adult would certainly give you more freedom and if nothing else it gives you a face to hide behind to get someone else.<br/>
<br/>
If only you knew... wait, you do!<br/>
<br/>
Cassie! She gave you her number yesterday. Maybe you should contact her and see what she's doing. If you can hang out with her you could certainly slip a mask on her and a face as disarmingly cute and innocent as her's would be the perfect one to use when engaging in mischief.<br/>
<br/>
But would you be getting her in trouble too if you did anything? Maybe you should spend the afternoon around town trying to find someone else. Someone you either don't know or who might be a little more "deserving".</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142
author_id: rugal
title: A Little Ginger
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The idea of becoming your own mother isn't terribly appealing beyond as a test to see if a mask can be used to disguise yourself as the opposite sex. That seems like it'd be a waste of a mask however because otherwise it just seems weird. What benefit would you even get out of her face anyway? You're not about to go out for a night of partying as her because that would just be nonsense and if you got her in trouble who knows how well it could be fixed; and if that trouble somehow seeped into your parents' marriage? Yeah you don't want to think of yourself as responsible for any possible future marital problems.<br/>
<br/>
At most you could hang around changing rooms and restrooms with little issue to find another girl.<br/>
<br/>
This also presents the issue you have with the idea of just roaming town until you find someone: most places will be public and filled with lots of people. As a guy you can't just hang around the womens' changing rooms and bathrooms either. You may be a nobody but that's better than being known as the pervert who hangs around changing rooms to creep on girls.<br/>
<br/>
Your best bet to get anyone would probably be the Warehouse because there's enough noise and action going on and enough booze flowing that someone passing out would hardly get a reaction. Well you assume that's the case anyway because you've only heard stories and have never been yourself. A scrawny twerp like you would probably be eaten alive at a place like that.<br/>
<br/>
But Cassie would fair better... probably. Has she ever been to the Warehouse? You don't know but you figure a girl, especially a cute and cheerful girl like her, would light up just about anywhere she is so if you wanted to have fun at the Warehouse as a doppelganger and test out what the masks can do, if you wanted to get someone alone in order to even get a mask on them...<br/>
<br/>
You pull out your phone and are thankful that you added her number to your contacts yesterday because you don't think you remembered that paper. You type a message, a simple "what's up", but hesitate before hitting send. You're feeling nervous, but why? It's just Cassie and she's never been anything but kind to you. <i>She</i> gave you <i>her</i> number so she wants you to contact her; she's not going to bite your head off if you do. It's not all some elaborate ruse by her.<br/>
<br/>
Is it?<br/>
<br/>
No, of course not! You finally hit send and then wait anxiously for the reply. Your anxiety has skewed your sense of time so you don't know how long it actually takes but a reply does eventually come.<br/>
<br/>
<i>nothing much! u? =)</i><br/>
<br/>
Well that's positive so it gives you the confidence to keep going. <i>same. was wondering if you're free?</i> you send. The reply is quick and just a series of question marks so you press forward. <i>i liked hanging out yesterday and wanted know if we could meet up,</i> you respond.<br/>
<br/>
This time you're more acutely aware of the time and it's at least two to three minutes before a response comes through.<br/>
<br/>
<i>have work in an hour and im getting ready so cant go anywhere right now,</i> she replies and you immediately feel yourself fall. A moment later though another response is sent. <i>if u wanna come over we can hang out though.</i><br/>
<br/>
That stuns you. Come over? To her place? Is that what she's saying? You text her as such because you can't really believe she'd just invite you over to her home. The response is quick this time.<br/>
<br/>
<i>yes! just us in my room... ;)<br/>
j/k about that! =P<br/>
or am I?<br/>
i am!<br/>
maybe. hehehe XD<br/>
btw u know where i live?</i><br/>
<br/>
You have to admit that you don't so she sends it your way. You tell her that you'll be over as soon as possible an excitedly gather up the mask and the band -- you can seal it and glue the band to the mask when you come back -- shove it into a tote bag you used to bring some of the stuff over and head to the address that she gave you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Cassie lives just off of Borman, almost directly across from Westside, in a house that isn't the fanciest but isn't bad either. Maybe comparable to your own home you'd say. Nervously you knock on the door and nervously you wait until Cassie, not looking the least bit nervous, opens the door, greets you with a large smile and invites you to follow her in and back to her room. As you follow her you have to admit that though her proportions aren't the most generous the tight khaki pants she's wearing certainly do a good job of highlighting certain... assets of hers.<br/>
<br/>
Unlike your house the Harper home is only one story so you follow her down a hallway. There's a door partway down (a bathroom she tells you) and two doors on either side of the hall at the end. One's a guest room and the other, she says as she pushes open the door, is her room. You want to be amazed but in all actuality it looks like the type of room any teenager would have albeit geared more towards a girl than a guy. The most notable feature is a sewing machine tucked into the corner; for when she wants to modify old clothes she tells you when she notices you looking at it and says it's a small hobby.<br/>
<br/>
She tells you that she still has to finish getting ready but that she shouldn't be more than a few minutes and leaves. You're now alone in her room unsure of what to do so you take the mask and band out of the bag and look them over. The mask is the same brilliant blue that it was earlier which means it should work once you place it on her face. The band should be fine too which means...<br/>
<br/>
Which means if this works then once you've copied her face and mind and put the two together you'd have a complete Cassie Harper disguise. You'd look and sound like her, you could think like her and do things how she would do them which is good because you imagine that even if you looked like her you don't think you could imitate a girl perfectly on your own. Not so much in what Cassie knows but in the subtle differences between how a girl might talk or how she might move. Suddenly your struck by the image of petite Cassie lumbering around like Gordon Black and it's a pretty ridiculous thought.<br/>
<br/>
That leads to your next thought which is that if you're going to go out as her, have some doppelganger fun and see if you can pull off the impersonation you'll need clothes, preferably ones she wears which means stealing a bit the same way you stole some of Caleb's. But you don't know when she'll be back so you don't dare do it now and instead sit and wait impatiently while using your phone to check the internet.<br/>
<br/>
Finally though the door creaks open and Cassie steps back through. You're not sure what's different really as she's still wearing the same pants and the dark turtleneck she was wearing when she greeted you and her hair is the same as well. Maybe the mystery of what girls do to "get ready" is something you'll learn as well.<br/>
<br/>
She notices the mask on the bed and you pick it up. This is what you were helping your brother with you tell her. She tells you that it's sweet that you're so willing to help him and asks if she can see it. So you go to hand it to her but instead, very quickly, thrust the mask past her hands and to her face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Orange hair falls into your face and down past freckled shoulders stopping just a ways down small but perky (and also freckled) breasts. Your hand traces down a stomach that, while not toned, is smooth without any hints of anything beyond the very nominal amount of pudge you'd expect on anyone who's not an athlete. Further it goes past your waist and down to your crotch where notably there is the distinct lack of any male equipment. Instead your hand goes further where there's only a slit and folds that you begin to trace...<br/>
<br/>
And quickly stop as a jolt runs through you. These are Cassie Harper's hands running over her body and down into her pussy. But it's not Cassie moving them. <i>It's Will Prescott,</i> you think. <i>Will Prescott is running my body and doing what he wants with it!</i><br/>
<br/>
You feel joy swell within you at the thought of that and have to shake yourself back to reality because those are not your thoughts but instead coming from the brain within the mind band that's attached to the mask that you're now wearing. If there was any doubts you had about masks being able to disguise someone as a member of the opposite sex then they've been erased because you are one hundred percent Cassie Harper, or Cassandra Marilyn Harper as the mind band had read, in both mind and body.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie, the real one, didn't remember anything about why she fainted and seemed in fact far more focused on the concern you'd shown her and the fact you stayed with her during the ordeal; something she seemed really grateful for. In fact while she was out you pilfered a pair of pink panties and a matching bra, a pair of tight jeans, a tight white shirt, a black cardigan and a pair of flats that Cassie had tucked in her closet.<br/>
<br/>
They're clothes that you now take the time to get dressed in and when that's done use a hairband you swiped (the same you saw her wearing yesterday actually) to push your hair back and spritz yourself with some perfume, the last thing you "borrowed" from the girl while raiding her room.<br/>
<br/>
It actually makes you feel a bit bad to be stealing from her like this but you resolve that it's all part of the plan. And what plan is that? Well to have some fun as Cassie's doppelganger and acquire a few new faces from the two other masks you've since polished. But where? You're not sure. Cassie's not popular exactly but she's friendly and outgoing so her mind tells you she gets along with lots of people. You could cruise around town or go out to the Warehouse even though Cassie, you now know, has never been.<br/>
<br/>
But her brain also tells you something else: she has a crush on you, a very large one, and suddenly you're feeling guilty that your fun might get her into trouble. Maybe you should just go back to the next spell.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111422
author_id: rugal
title: Prepping for a Party
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The same line of thought that prevented you from going around town earlier and led you to the Warehouse as a possibility in the first place is back in play. Cassie could get you many places and into groups with many people. If sauntered up to people in a store or coffee shop or wherever it wouldn't be seen as unusual for her. But getting them alone? You don't want to have to wait around restrooms and changing rooms all day or sit in the corner of a Starbucks until someone who looks good enough decides to powder their nose. You got the mask of Cassie to have some fun and there's certainly nothing fun about that.<br/>
<br/>
So the Warehouse it is though the problem then comes from the fact that things don't really start there until nine or ten o'clock. Thrifty Nifties, from what Cassie's brain is telling you, closes at nine on Sundays. You'd liked the idea of playing her while she was pre-occupied and that puts a bit of a dent in that idea. At the same time though it's not like she goes out to the Warehouse so you'd be under no worries about having her spot you. Well when you put it like that there's not really a problem.<br/>
<br/>
You've still got time to kill until then so you decide that it'll be best to get out of the mask until you need to put it on again. You do groan at that because it means the time spent in getting ready and dressed and everything has been wasted. So you strip off the garments, give yourself one final appraisal, tell yourself that you'll need to come down here with the mask for a little "fun" of your own some time and finally remove the mask from your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Once you're back to yourself and dressed in your clothing another groan escapes as you realize you're going to have to tell your parents (in other words your dad) that you plan on going out. That means making up another story about hanging out with friends.most likely. Still it's not like you have a choice because if you stayed out and didn't tell them (him) then you'd be in deep shit. So you gather up what you believe you'll need -- the blank masks and bands, the sealant, the glue and the brush -- and shove them into the bag alongside Cassie's mask.<br/>
<br/>
At home you don't even have time to so much as greet your parents before you notice your dad's stern glare from the living room. You're not sure what you might've done this time to earn it but you're sure that he'll tell you and indeed he does as he demands to know where the car buffer he loaned you is. That catches you off guard but you realize you can tie it into the excuse you were going to give your parents in the first place. You tell him that it's still with your friend because he wasn't finished with what he needed it for.<br/>
<br/>
The glare turns into more of a scowl and you apologize, profess that you weren't thinking but said that it seemed easier to let him have it for now instead of lugging it back and forth as he's very trustworthy. You say that after dinner you're actually going back over to his place to help him finish up and you promise to bring it back with you tonight. He starts to say something but your mother pokes her head up from the book she's reading to give him a stern glare of her own and say his name.<br/>
<br/>
Your father wants to argue but you can tell he knows that it would be pointless and he was beaten before he ever started. So he reminds you to have it back here by tonight and you reiterate your promise to him before going up to your room.<br/>
<br/>
Flopping down on your bed it's yet another groan you let out. You don't think he'll lend you the buffer again and instead tell you that if you need to use it then you can use it in the garage. You don't want to buff masks here however especially not with a nosy little brother around; that sounds like a headache waiting to happen. So you'll have to figure out what to do about that buffer.<br/>
<br/>
At the same time you'll have to figure out what to do about Cassie. Your time in her mask revealed to you the romantic feelings she harbors towards you. It's nice to know that there's someone who does care about you like that and you could certainly do far worse than her. At the same time however you're not sure about dating anyone. Your thoughts are still preoccupied with Lisa and as sweet as Cassie is she's no Lisa... well not right now at least; but she could be. If you could get a mask of Lisa and then put it onto Cassie then you'd certainly have a shot.<br/>
<br/>
It wouldn't be the same Lisa granted but that same Lisa spent all summer with you acting as your girlfriend then insisted she never was so would that be a bad thing? Lisa Yarborough's looks with Cassie Harper's mind; you can't say that doesn't sound appealing. But that's for another time and quite frankly sounds ridiculous. What would you do with the real Lisa? Put her under Cassie's mask? It's all pie-in-the-sky fantasizing anyway so you push it from your mind. Instead you browse the internet and watch videos. When dinner time comes you eat and go back to what you were doing when you were done.<br/>
<br/>
Finally you check the clock on corner of your laptop's screen. It's around a quarter after eight and you figure that it's time to get going. You gather everything and, saying goodbye to your parents, head out the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The Warehouse is exactly what it sounds like: an old, unused warehouse in the north side of town, a largely industrial area that has definitely seen better days as its largely run down and surrounded by the types of neighborhoods that one tends to find in towns (or areas of them) whose glory days are long past.<br/>
<br/>
To say it's unused as well is perhaps not the best way to put it. Unused for its original purpose is more like it. The place has, over the years, become a local hang out for high schoolers looking to party it up and has evolved from simply a warehouse where parties are thrown into the Warehouse, a place that holds a near mythical and maybe even mystical place in the minds of Saratoga Falls' teenagers.<br/>
<br/>
You're glad you left early because by the time you get to the Warehouse the parking lot is already beginning to fill up. If you had left an hour later then doubt you'd have been able to find anything which means either parking somewhere and hoofing it or just giving up for the night. You find a space farther away from the building and while you're not anticipating the walk (even though it's not <i>that</i> far) it's needed because you don't need a lot of people around you while you sit in your truck and change.<br/>
<br/>
You grab Cassie's mask from the bag and stopping just a moment in anticipation you raise it to your face. You're not aware of how long you were out for and from your perspective it seems almost like the blink of an eye. What you are aware of however is the fact you feel much smaller and are practically swimming in your clothes. <i>These are Will's clothes,</i> you think to yourself as Cassie's thoughts and feelings come on strong.<br/>
<br/>
Without thinking you're hugging yourself tightly both because of Cassie's contentment at her situation and because you have to admit that having her body feels good. It's vastly different from being a guy but it's not worse. You feel very soft and... you can't describe the other feeling. Comfortable? It's not physical but mental like the same sort of feeling you'd get wrapped in a soft blanket. Maybe that's just a product of Cassie though and another girl would feel different.<br/>
<br/>
You take a hand and begin stroking and twirling a bit of your hair, a habit you're picking up from Cassie's mind. You're still not sure what you should do about her crush on you. The idea of swapping her with Lisa or someone else seems ridiculous but you're not sure that you're up to actually asking her out either because you're not sure how <i>you</i> feel about <i>her</i>.<br/>
<br/>
You push those thoughts away once more however because you've got more important things to do. You divest yourself of your clothing and you're blushing furiously even though there's no one around you because you're sitting there nude in your truck. Very quickly you grab the panties and slip them on and the bra comes almost immediately after. Getting the jeans on is more of a pain because you don't have a lot of room to maneuver in the cab but eventually you're able to pull them up. The shirt, cardigan and flats are much easier. Last, much like earlier, comes the hairband and perfume.<br/>
<br/>
You look at yourself in the rear view mirror and it's an odd thing to actually see those large gray eyes and the freckled face looking back at you and mirroring what you do. But you look nice, maybe not quite the kind of look that people would think of at the Warehouse but if anyone could pull off hanging out here looking like this then it's Cassie. You flash yourself a smile and are glad that it displays the same brightness and warmth as the ones you've seen her give.<br/>
<br/>
You shove your normal clothes down onto the passenger side floorboard, grab your tote bag, hop out of the truck and make your way up to the building. The bag has everything you'll need to grab some more faces for more doppelganger shenanigans so you should be on the look out for anyone who seems interesting enough to copy. But that thought of swapping Lisa and Cassie... it <i>is</i> intriguing you have to admit. Maybe you won't swap them but what about using these masks to swap two people here? That could prove amusing.<br/>
<br/>
But at the same time you also came here to have fun and you're starting to think that if you worry more about finding people to use the masks on you'll neglect the fun of going to a party as someone else. Maybe you should hold off on the masks and just worry about having a good time tonight.</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114223
author_id: rugal
title: Fiesta de Mascaras
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You toss whether or not you want to worry about the masks over and over in your head before finally coming to the decision to worry about faces later and you're far more interested in seeing if you can pass yourself off as Cassie without anyone noticing anything really wrong; that and just enjoying yourself for the night. You're only about a fourth of the way to the building so you make a quick dash back to your truck, toss the bag in and lock up before heading back to the building.<br/>
<br/>
As you come up to the building you see a small handful of guys, large and intimidating, standing around the entrance. You don't recognize all of them and figure they must be Eastman students but you certainly recognize two of them.<br/>
<br/>
Jeff Spencer is large and thick and a compelling argument against the theory of evolution. His brains are inversely proportional to his strength and any time you've overheard him talking it's in sentences that are short and not overly complex. George Mendoza meanwhile is tall and brawny; intimidating in spite of his baby faced appearances. He's not the smartest around but certainly a fair deal smarter than his compatriot.<br/>
<br/>
Both are thugs and goons and regular tormentors of not just you but of nearly anyone they cross at school. You'd spit on them if you could but that would be horrifically out of character (and would earn you a trip to the hospital under normal circumstances) so as they glower you can do nothing but smile at them as you pass by and enter the Warehouse proper; it takes everything to not want to throw up at that.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It might still be relatively early, maybe around nine thirty at this point, but the Warehouse is no less active. People are dancing, there are bartenders serving drinks to patrons and a band playing loud music. It's a bit of a sensory overload and you're feeling overwhelmed right off the bat. It's only a voice that snaps you back to your senses. You can only mutter a confused response as you look to see who's talking to you. Melissa Adams giggles as she repeats her question.<br/>
<br/>
"I said that I don't think I've ever seen you out here," she says loudly to try and speak over the music.<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, yeah this is my first time out here," you reply with nervous laughter. "But I got off of work and didn't feel like going home just yet so I figured why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll look out for you then. Come with me," she says as she grabs your hand.<br/>
<br/>
Melissa's a girl who you yourself only vaguely recognize as "the cute brunette" who sits a few seats over from you in your eighth period astronomy class. Cassie knows her much better however and if she's not talking to you then she's talking to Melissa and Beth Tanner and the two get together outside of school every so often so as she brings you to a back corner and a dilapidated booth to a group of people that you're not quite as familiar with you don't feel as uncomfortable as you think. Though Cassie's natural sociability likely helps.<br/>
<br/>
"Cassie Harper at the Warehouse? I can't believe it!" exclaims Brianna Gould, one of the others that Cassie recognizes due to sharing a class with her.<br/>
<br/>
You can do nothing but giggle. "Like I told Melissa I didn't want to go home yet and I've never been here so I figured that I should fix that," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't really strike me as the Warehouse type though," Brianna says as she motions to a shaggy-haired boy who slides his beer across the table to you. You can only pick it up and regard it curiously. "I just want to see if you can drink it," Brianna grins.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie has never had a taste of alcohol in her life but when in Rome you suppose so with a shrug you raise the bottle to your lips and take a large sip... that promptly causes a coughing fit once you've swallowed which causes laughs as you hand it back. "I guess it's an acquired taste," you joke.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah I don't think she's Warehouse material," Brianna laughs.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh stuff it Brianna," replies the non-Melissa girl that sits to your right who you recognize as Mia DeWitt from second period. She turns her attention to you. "Don't listen to her," she coos sympathetically as she clasps your arm, "it's just some hazing they do to those who aren't alcoholics. I got it too when I first started coming."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, same," replies a skinny doe-eyed girl, her short hair dyed a brilliant turquoise. "I don't do anything so they're always on my ass."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you fucking kidding Lori?" asks the boy as the turquoise-haired girl, Lori you suppose, can barely keep a straight face.<br/>
<br/>
"Lori's the worst of all of us!" declares the girl hanging off of him. "She does shit that none of us would ever touch!"<br/>
<br/>
Melissa grasps your other arm and leans in close. "Yeah if you're going to hang out here don't be like her unless you want me babysitting you because you're freaking out," she says while staring and grinning right at her.<br/>
<br/>
"That was just one time," Lori protests in a tone of voice that's flat and disconnected from what she's saying. "Also months ago. I'm used to that stuff now."<br/>
<br/>
And so goes the first hour or so of your time at the Warehouse. You hang out in the booth with Melissa's group that includes Mia, Brianna, Lori Sherman, Rebecca Sykes and Eric Harlen as you eventually learn. When the band playing finishes the singer, an Eastman student named Ricky Jeffries, comes over as well to nuzzle with and sloppily kiss Lori. You're largely overwhelmed and thus quiet at first but gradually you're able to loosen up and enjoy taking part in their conversations though you temper Cassie's inclination to keep talking and take things over.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually the music begins to change to something more booming and pounding and the booth starts to clear out as everyone heads out to the main floor to dance, either with their significant others (as the Eric-Rebecca and Ricky-Lori pairs do) or with whoever they can find. Cassie, by nature, is not much of a dancer so you largely just copy what you see other girls doing as you move from guy to guy.<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure how long you're on the floor before you end up with a blonde who makes an opportunity to get to know you as the two of you dance. The two of you eventually make your way to another booth where you continue to talk and are joined by a few of his friends. You eventually find out he's a junior named Timothy Hyland and a member of the JV soccer team. He's certainly handsome and very nice and you find yourself getting caught up in Cassie's own feminine emotions as you find yourself hanging off of him.<br/>
<br/>
Nothing worse happens than you grasping him and laying your head on his shoulder but eventually another girl, a sleepy-eyed but serious looking girl, makes her way over and glares hard at the two of you. Quickly you scramble off of him and Timothy's quick to apologize to her and claim nothing happened. Feeling like you've done something wrong you excuse yourself and get up. You're caught by another member of the group, a rather well put together hispanic boy, who tells that she's Natasha Cabot, Timothy's girlfriend. He assures you that you haven't really done anything since their "relationship" is basically nothing.<br/>
<br/>
You thank him but still feeling bad about potentially screwing things up between the two of them you continue on your way eventually making your way back to booth where Melissa's group had gathered. You hang out with them a little bit longer until a little after eleven before telling them that you have to get home and excusing yourself.<br/>
<br/>
It's only when you get back to your truck that you notice your phone on the seat. You'd forgotten it in the truck and your face falls when you see that there's a missed call from your dad.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You moan as you wake up and remember last night. Not that you didn't have fun and you're certainly not hung over. No, because you'd missed your father's impromptu check-in you'd gotten chewed out when you'd arrived home. Your protests that you'd accidentally left your phone in your truck and that it's not that long past your curfew and even the offering of the car buffer you remembered to grab from the school basement aren't enough to turn things in your favor.<br/>
<br/>
It's only from the intervention of your mother, bless her, that you're saved from an outright grounding. Instead you're expected to be home by nine the rest of the week and you'll have to do extra chores over the weekend essentially picking up what your brother would have otherwise done. You still think it's a little pointlessly harsh and unfair but you don't argue and instead apologize and accept the punishment. And for as much as your mother stepped in for you she still gives you her own stern talking to afterwards about responsibility.<br/>
<br/>
The curfew is doubly annoying because it means that getting the dirt needed for the next spell is going to take much longer. You're resigned to having to get it yourself and even if you could get, say, Gordon's face that doesn't mean you can sneak out at night.<br/>
<br/>
That likely also means no Warehouse parties as Cassie come the weekend either. Speaking of which, you're curious to see what the follow up to last night is. You grab your phone and check the Westside x2z feed and just like you figured, Cassie's appearance at the Warehouse has raised eyebrows and caused chatter. It's largely positive though initiated by the likes of Mia and other members, you presume, of that clique of students as they hope to see her out again some time.<br/>
<br/>
But there's one picture that gives you concern. It's a picture of Cassie hanging off of Timothy Hyland. Homewrecker, ho, skank... those are some of the comments attached to that picture and you suspect they're largely coming from that Natasha girl and any friends she might have.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly you're not feeling as good about last night.</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142231
author_id: rugal
title: A Little Gaslighting
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't like that Cassie's now taking heat, minor as it might be, for something that was both an innocent mistake and <i>your</i> innocent mistake. Caleb was at least sensible enough to be able to largely fix your screw up but Cassie's more emotional and you don't know if she'd have the same sort of approach to solve this problem or be able to let it pass. Maybe it's the chewing out by your parents that's still fresh in your head but you decide that if it's your fault things are screwed up then it's your responsibility to fix it.<br/>
<br/>
You need time to think and do something and you want to start on both as soon as possible so you brush your teeth and liberally apply deodorant but skip the shower and breakfast. You simply tell your mother (for your dad's already left for work by this point) that you need to meet someone before school.<br/>
<br/>
You hop in your truck and head over to the basement that's begun serving as your base of sorts. You make your way in and look to see the four masks that you left on the table last night: Caleb's, Cassie's and two blanks as well as two blank mind bands. How are they going to help you help Cassie? If you could get one of these masks onto that Natasha girl you could... well, what? Then there'd be two Natashas. A doppelganger might be a good act of revenge but that might make things worse too.<br/>
<br/>
Thinking a little bit more you're hit upon something that should at least hold you over until you can figure out what exactly to do with Natasha. You grab one of the blank masks and look at it. Brilliant blue, no image though and no band stuck to the inside. You worry about wasting a mask since you don't think you have the money for supplies for another but you'll worry about that later; getting this done is more important. You've seen how both Caleb and Cassie both dropped so not wanting the same to happen to you you clear room on the table, lay back and press the mask to your face.<br/>
<br/>
When you come to you grab the mask that now contains your face and seal it; you don't bother with a mind band because you're pressed for time before school starts. Even if you've still got about ninety minutes before the first bells will be ringing you operate under the mindset that every second counts.<br/>
<br/>
You reach into your pocket and pull out your phone where you bring up Cassie's number. You shoot a text to her.<br/>
<br/>
<i>mornin. whats up?</i><br/>
<br/>
The response is fairly quick. <i>getting rdy lol u?</i><br/>
<br/>
Well the tone seems normal so maybe she hasn't checked the feed yet though of course tone can be near impossible to detect through text. Still it seems positive so you decide to dangle the bait. <i>had fun w/ u this wknd,</i> you say. <i>can we talk b4 school? in person?</i> Just in case that's not enough you drop another piece in front of her. <i>some stuff i wanna talk to u about.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>oh!?<br/>
OKAY!!!!<br/>
where? @ the school?<br/>
<br/>
the old school/comm center in acheson<br/>
u kno where that is?<br/>
<br/>
um i think so? lol<br/>
<br/>
well theres a basement, its like a hideout<br/>
my truck will b out front<br/>
the basement door is unlocked just come in<br/>
<br/>
ooooh... kay gimme 20?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The knowledge of her crush helped you since it gave you a fairly good idea of what buttons to push to get her mind racing. So impatiently you mess around on your phone and as twenty minutes nears you grab Cassie's mask off of the table. You'll need to switch with her but you can't just throw your mask on lest you ruin her clothes so you're gambling on the mind band in her mask working to pick up any new memories between yesterday afternoon and now and hopefully giving you time to undress her.<br/>
<br/>
You lean against the wall and crouch down for what feels like an eternity. A light shines down eventually and Cassie's voice calls out. You hear her footsteps down the stairs and eventually they reach the hard basement floor. You can see her in front of you. She doesn't seem to have noticed you so as quickly as you can you spring up and before she can react you reach around and jam the mask on her face catching her as she falls.<br/>
<br/>
Quickly you begin to divest her of her clothing and you feel yourself redden (and stiffen) when she's down to her underwear. Having it for yourself and seeing the real girl are too different things entirely so you have to close your eyes as you remove the bra and panties. You then go and grab the mask of yourself from the table and wait for Cassie's to reappear. It's a few moments but you see a glow from her face and the mask begin to emerge as if coming up from a body of water.<br/>
<br/>
You quickly grab it once it's out and holding it in one hand and your mask in the other you quickly put your mask on her and a second or two later the now familiar blacking out sensation comes as you put her's on.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She, or rather he you suppose, is still out when you wake up so as quickly as you can you remove your now loose clothing and put her's on. It's a warm day today so the outfit is, thankfully, little more than a simple shirt and shorts that you're able to get on in no time. It's then a matter of sliding your own underwear onto the naked double of you (and again you feel yourself redden at this) and the cargo shorts. You manage to sit him up -- for Cassie's brain wants to default to Will so it seems easier to just go with it -- and just as you're getting the shirt on does he finally begin to groan and stir.<br/>
<br/>
Well you pulled it off last night but can you convince the real deal that <i>you're</i> the real deal? Hopefully his groggy state will make it a little easier. So you close your eyes, breathe deep, then give your best combination worried and relieved expression. "Will!" you cry out when you see his eyes flutter open.<br/>
<br/>
"Wha..."<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head trying to get the cobwebs out and you leap forward grabbing him in as tight of a hug as you can. "Oh gosh, Will! You're okay! Oh my gosh I'm so glad!" you wail in joy.<br/>
<br/>
"What happened?" he grumbles still getting his bearings.<br/>
<br/>
"You invited me down here but I guess as you were coming to greet me tripped and fell hard to the ground," you explain. "You were out and I... I was so worried," you begin sniffling and clasp him tighter. "I thought that you were hurt real bad and I didn't know what to do and oh gosh I'm just so happy to see that you're back and you're not hurt and..."<br/>
<br/>
"O-okay okay, calm down," he says as he looks over at you. His eyes go wide from shock. "M-m-me!? Wh-what's going on!?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, you!" you exclaim.<br/>
<br/>
"N-no, I mean... you're me!"<br/>
<br/>
At that you back off a bit enough to look at him. You give him a queer look. "I'm... you? Will that doesn't make any sense. I'm me. I don't know how I could be you."<br/>
<br/>
"No you're... I mean I'm," he stumbles over his words. "You look like me, like how I l--". He stops as he seems to notice something. He reaches up a hand and feels his throat, then his hair. Hands run across his face. "I... why do I sound like Will?" he asks in disbelief.<br/>
<br/>
"Um, because you're Will silly?" you giggle.<br/>
<br/>
"But that doesn't make any sense!" he cries.<br/>
<br/>
However you grasp him again. "Oh Will, I think that fall must've knocked you loopy," you tell him. "Maybe you should go to the nurse when you get to school and see what she can do." You pull back again and give him your best puppy dog eyes. "Please? For me? Because I don't want to think that you got a bad concussion or something."<br/>
<br/>
He can only stare at you in disbelief for a moment or two but finally you see his face slacken and something like acceptance or more likely resignation shows. "Okay, alright. I'll go there when I get to school," he relents.<br/>
<br/>
"Thank you!" you exclaim as you grab his hands. "You know, I don't have work today," you tell him with a bright smile. "You said you had fun hanging out so let's do it again? But a little more serious this time. Like a date."<br/>
<br/>
"A date?" he asks in surprise but you seem to have successfully broken him down. "Okay, sure. We can, uh, get something quick to eat."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, it's official!" you cheer. "We're official!" you then add before pulling his face close to yours and planting a large, deep kiss on his lips.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're still not sure that you're ready to date anyone so soon after the fiasco with Lisa but there are worse people to have as a rebound than Cassie you suppose. Besides she deserves something nice for you putting her through all of this so once any possible heat has died down and you switch back you intend keep the relationship going.<br/>
<br/>
But that's for some indeterminate time in the future. A couple of days? All week? You're not quite sure how long this Natasha thing will take to play out. You could just ride it out but you want to be a little more proactive in dealing with it and maybe get back at her just a little bit for disparaging your now girlfriend. The obvious solution is to pull another switch putting her in either your or Cassie's mask while using her's to play damage control.<br/>
<br/>
However two switches like that seems like it might complicate things a little more. Since you're in the mood to right some wrongs however maybe you can do something to make it up to Caleb for the mess you made. You'd have to admit the part you played and reveal everything to him but maybe it'd be better to try and recruit him into helping you. Let him swap with Natasha, do damage control and from there the two of you can have some fun with the book together.<br/>
<br/>
As the first half of the school day draws to a close when you enter fourth period English (and flash a smile at Will), another boy catches your attention: Josiah Shank, a weird nerd even by weird nerd standards. The thought you had back at the Warehouse last night is suddenly in your head. If you really wanted to get back at Natasha and have some fun while things died down maybe you could switch the two of them.</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111423
author_id: wordsmitty
title: How a Woman's Mind Can Affect Yours
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You wished there was a mirror in the old elementary school basement where you went to become Cassie. It's not so much that you want to see yourself as Cassie, but that Cassie wanted to make sure that she looked her best for Will because . . . because she so desperately wanted Will to like you - <i>her!</i><br/>
<br/>
There seemed to be so much more to Cassie from her mask and band than you ever got from being Caleb. Maybe because you and Caleb knew each other for so long and were so similar, obviously both being boys as well as friends for years sharing adventures. Not only have you swapped genders, but you didn't have lots of shared experiences or the same type. Getting to even know a girl personally or as more than an acquaintance hadn't ever happened. Well, you had quite a bit of interaction with your adopted cousin, Umeko, while you were growing up - still do, but not like you know much about what girls do or think or like.<br/>
<br/>
The only girl you spent much time with was Lisa. Over last summer you hung out, but you never got to know much about each other. It was just talking of general happenings or last year's school or what video games you played with your friends or what your brother did to annoy you. Cassie's memories and ideas are so much more complex.<br/>
<br/>
Not only does she have family and relatives, but she knows and is friends with many at school. She does things with them, too, not just knowing names of people in your classes like you do. You knew she can use a sewing machine to make things, but she also likes drawing (from the images in her memories, she's pretty good, although she just thinks they're average). She has a job she enjoys, and she knows how to ride a horse from a camp she went to when she was twelve.<br/>
<br/>
There's lots of happy memories, but you stopped yourself from going too deep or becoming too intimate. Actually, you felt a bit strange until Cassie's thoughts told you what was happening. They came at you in spurts, sometimes rambling like she talks. Knowing she's with Will right now had you on a peak that only Will could possibly take higher by . . .  You shook that off.<br/>
<br/>
What would it be like to have Cassie as a girlfriend you wonder. Just considering it, made your Cassie side shiver even more with joy. Cassie is cute enough physically and has a wide range of interests, many similar to some of yours. Her chattering ability would definitely not leave long silent voids. That made your face warm with a blush. Obviously she's not like your previous crush, Lisa, with her ...<br/>
<br/>
<i>Damn straight I'm not like that bitch.</i><br/>
<br/>
Where'd that come from? You didn't think Lisa was a ...<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, she is. The way she treated Will. Leading him along all summer just using him to keep a couple jerks away. Then dropping him when it was safe to pick up some classier guy to show off for her senior year.</i><br/>
<br/>
Cassie's memories spun into focus various conversations with her friends as well as some that included Lisa that she overheard. One in particular pressed forward.<br/>
<br/>
<i>He never really matured. Like a plant with stunted growth. Always wearing dated clothes that must have been a hand-up from his middle-school brother. [laughing] He was like a puppy. You know, one that follows you around and you can get to do anything. Well, if it's trained, but he didn't seem trainable or understanding, at least on anything that, you know, you really want, and I don't mean physically. I wouldn't ever do that or anything close with him. A puppy's a dog. I'm not about to kiss a dog.</i><br/>
<br/>
You felt hurt, but Cassie's anger was raging. It was all she could do then to not tell Lisa off, and she had some good retorts that she would never, ever speak to anyone. The rest of that day Cassie thought up many ways to get back at her, embarrass her, or just get rid of her. Several were quite ingenious and others fantastical as her memories replayed. Fortunately, Cassie was not a vindictive person, and by the end of the day, she was back focused on how to get Will Prescott to notice and like her.<br/>
<br/>
As Cassie's memories overtook your mind, you relived the times trying to get Will's attention, some pretty obvious flirting that Will never even recognized. But now that you have him inside you, you can explain to him your feelings, and he will finally understand. He will want to be your boyfriend. A happy sigh settled over your body from ginger hair to purple-painted toes.<br/>
<br/>
The two minds danced tightly together, overlapping with interweaving thoughts. You wandered over to pick up Will's shirt, dropped before he merged with you. It's just a cotton t-shirt, but it's one he wore, and it felt and smelled so nice as you held it to your face - until forcing it back onto the table reasserting your true, Will's, control.<br/>
<br/>
If you didn't realize your real self, you could easily believe that you were Cassie, especially being in her body and clothes, and that you as Cassie had just been infused with a mental impression of Will's mind. In fact, Cassie's vivid imagination was not opposed to that being a reality. Her reading was partial to fantasy and some science-fiction, and she even dabbled in writing her own stories like that.<br/>
<br/>
Oddly enough, she also had a knack for video games or, at least, a logic in her for solving puzzles, mysteries and magic stories which she once used to embarrass your brothers into stop teasing you. Classes include Advanced Latin, that's like a puzzle and enjoyable to translate. But first period, although Walberg is terrible, is the best because Will is there.<br/>
<br/>
<i>There's a mirror out in Will's truck where I can . . .</i><br/>
<br/>
* * * * <br/>
<br/>
It was half an hour later before you finally felt you'd gotten a grasp on keeping Cassie's and your own mind and thoughts separate. It became an interesting exercise as you wandered the basement - her mind asking questions about where you were and the grimoire and supplies on the table. Eventually, everything just snapped into place, and you found it easy to switch back and forth on who had control and what you did with her body.<br/>
<br/>
This is when you suddenly realized that Cassie's body was aroused. It had been this way ever since you put on the mask even though you didn't recognize it. Obviously, she was this way when you were at her house together and created her mask. Other than making a mental note to be careful what condition a person was in when you slap a mask to copy someone, you needed to decide what to do about this right now.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie had no qualms about what she would do if in a safe place in this condition with Will Prescott, or at home with her bedroom door locked. You hadn't actually been thinking along those lines. You just wanted to play act being her and see if anyone could tell or to create some situation that might embarrass or get her in trouble like you did using Caleb's mask.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly, you wonder why you hadn't been more interested to explore having a female body. You're sure that Keith and probably Caleb would spend most of a day seeing what it felt like in all different ways. Well, different ways that they would do to themselves, at least you hope. You doubt that you could let some guy be - <font class="size25" style=""><span class="clgrey"><i>unless it was Will</i></span></font> - intimate with you. A warming grew in your crotch.<br/>
<br/>
Just like from wrestling with Cassie's mind, you knew that you could be totally immersed in the person in the mask and do just about anything that they would. You could do stuff that they wouldn't. The latter was clear from your past night being Caleb. But would you go so far as to letting a guy shove his dick in you. <font class="size25" style=""><span class="clgrey"><i>If it was the right guy like Will.</i></span></font><br/>
<br/>
Images of Will sifted back in forth from Cassie's mind. It was just enough to tempt you as well as turn you off depending on whose perspective came to the front. However, there was also another thought that popped up at the same time: Maybe Cassie would be good as a partner. Having her mind gave you a good insight that she would willingly participate and she knew Latin. The question that you needed to answer was whether you wanted to have her as a girlfriend to satisfy your own urges, or to go further. Maybe it would be fun to use masks as a pair instead of just alone like you planned.<br/>
<br/>
Here you had started to just go out as Cassie and see what havoc you might cause either on purpose or just by letting it be known that she had a body-double wandering around town. Now that you know her feelings for you, you're leaning away from making trouble like you did with Caleb. That was OK, but lacked any lasting excitement and even screwed Caleb more than you meant. You could still have some fun pretending to be her, though.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it would be best just to put her mask away and try to get someone else. Or just move on to the next spell in the book since you've proven genders aren't fixed. She's such a chatterbox; could you trust her with such a secret? She might just turn you in as a pervert even if you hadn't done anything with her body. Plus, how do you explain to Cassie that you made a mask of her becoming her body-mind twin and invading her personal thoughts. <font class="size25" style=""><span class="clgrey"><i>Be honest.</i></span></font><br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114234
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Where confessions lead
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>There was just something about the way Cassie admired you that you just couldn't use her body out-and-about and definitely not in private. You could use her knowledge and skill with the spells, although she may not be strong enough for digging up graveyard dirt. You're not even sure you could shovel four hundred pounds or even how much that was. What if it's wet then weighed less when it dried and wasn't the right amount? What would be the right volume? The instructions didn't specify.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Most likely it would be regular soil just moist enough to compact, not wet nor dry.</i><br/>
<br/>
Cassie's help, like that thought, would be good as you get further into the book. Obviously, her mind could approach these things a little more logical than yours.<br/>
<br/>
The other evening that you first spent with Cassie played back in your mind, but it was from her perspective - getting her thoughts and feelings: How much she wanted you to join her, and you did. How she wanted you to listen and smile and add little bits, and you did. How she wanted you to say you enjoyed being with her, and you did. How she wanted you to contact her to get together again, and you did, although you didn't ask for her number. She was worried that she had thrust it on you, but you used it and did just about everything that she hoped you would, at least with clothes on. <br/>
<br/>
No matter how much your teenage male self urged you on, delving any further into her memories was not what you should be doing. Right now your issue was getting all the ingredients for the spell. Being her will just distract you, so you might as well get back to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
As you peeled off Cassie's clothes, an excited quiver ran through you. Not sure whether it was you or Cassie initiating it, you hastened to switch back, but the cold air suggested it best to put your own clothes on before removing the mask. This drove Cassie's enthusiasm even higher. The sensation of your grubby clothes sliding over her bare skin warmed you with Cassie's happiness. Her feelings and thoughts were so strong that you paused on the floor, caught in the sensations of arousal between your legs and fullness of your breasts with hardened nipples being caressed by your shirt with every breath. Finally you grabbed, recited and pulled. It was like a plunger sucking your face until all thoughts stopped.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
The lights at the shopping center where Cassie worked gave your truck's cab an funky orange interior. Your eyes stared at nothing as your mind kept churning how best to tell her what you had done - maybe. At least to find out if she might be interested in magic disguises, or something, if she didn't think you're nuts. Well, it all depended if she would accept that you tried out her body without her having you arrested for being a ...<br/>
<br/>
"Will! What a surprise to find you here." You almost hit your head on the roof. "You're not stalking me - are you?" A head of florescent tangerine hair framed a smiling, freckled face that continued without a pause as she peered up from the bottom of the door's window. "That would be OK, I guess, so I wouldn't have to keep stalking you."<br/>
<br/>
You almost had your tongue back out of your throat from the previous shock, but she kept going.<br/>
<br/>
"Not that I'm really, actually, stalking you. It's just that, um, it's nice that our paths cross, like here and school in English and with Astronomy. It's like the stars have destined, to, um, cross us like this."<br/>
<br/>
With her slowing, you pull your courage and interject, "Um, yeah. The stars. They seem, ah, bright tonight, and might, yeah, be good to see. Looking up at them. I mean, the constellations and things."<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes went glassy along with a sigh as she stepped back pointing her chin skyward. You thought she was about to swoon, and bolted from your truck. The door swung into her causing her to teeter away. Fortunately she bounced off another car but kept twirling like a top peaked with a red glowing ball, until you caught up to her in the middle of the next row.<br/>
<br/>
"Cassie? You OK? Not about to faint again or anything are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Will," she sighed, then became very alert. "Um, no. I'm fine. Wonderful. The stars and yah-um, everything." Her lips formed a smile across a glowing face, and her blue-gray eyes were reflecting a weird salmon color as she stared at you. "It's like magic. Things coming together as if foretold in an ancient book." She blinked then looked away as she continued. "You know, how the planets align and form connections, as they say about astronomy." Her face then turned upward. "Like sparkling images or clouds that look like, um, ah ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Things, rabbits or flying dinner plates." That made her giggle and look back at you. "I thought, maybe, we could try to find some things we're learning in Astronomy class, you know. Unless, ah, do you have to get home?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, eventually, I probably should show up before my parents put in a missing person's report, although I understand the police won't take those unless you're gone for at least forty-eight hours, not that I can really stay out until Tuesday, but it's not imperative that I get right home. Just not too late since it's a school night. I usually take the bus through town and have to connect, anyway, which takes about an hour unless I stop at a coffee shop or diner for a snack. For some reason standing around the store always makes me hungry, more so than when I'm running crazy doing chores around the house. I often wonder if non-physical activity is more draining, like our bodies were meant to keep moving rather than sit around like in school all day. They really should have more field trips."<br/>
<br/>
The typical Cassie rambling finally broke for a breath so that you could insert a suggestion of going some place to talk since there was little time earlier (when you knocked her out to copy her in a mask). Starbucks was crawling with late-nighters, so you got a couple drinks and pastries to go. It wasn't hard to convince her to park at the old elementary school where the athletic fields would be dark enough to see the stars. <br/>
<br/>
 * * * *<br/>
<br/>
"Do you believe in magic?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother changing shy mice into bold stallions?" She wiggled her eyebrows but didn't stop. "Or like slight of hand, quarters behind your ear, and all that smoke and mirror stuff, misdirection? I saw one of those shows once when I was in middle school. I know that they stuff rabbits and birds in a secret compartment and felt a bit bad for them, but it's like a job, they get room and board, I guess, but I wonder if they get to hop around or are stuck in cages all day when not up some magician's sleeve."<br/>
<br/>
"Um, more like real magic - things that science can't explain but actually happen. Maybe being able to change, ah, from one form to another"<br/>
<br/>
"So, stuff like witches turning into black cats or a full moon bringing out the werewolf in ..." Suddenly she jumps back against the truck's side door. "OH MY GOSH! You're not, not, a, a, vampire about to turn into a bat and thuck my blahd?" She turned her head to over-emphasize exposing her neck then gradually relaxed. "Yeah, guess not. I have seen you in daylight, I suppose, <i>unless</i>."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not exactly. At least the bat thing. It's over-rated anyway. Now the blood." You  smirked and took hold of her hand. That just sent her into a fit of giggles. When she calmed a bit, you added, "But what if there is a way to turn into someone else? Like, maybe I could turn into you?"<br/>
<br/>
You mentally kicked yourself for adding the last, but it just escaped.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shapeshifter magic. There was that old X-files episode where the guy sired kids with tails, and he replaced Mulder near the end, almost got Scully seduced. Are you Mulder or a shapeshifter who just looks like Will Prescott? I think I'd be good as Scully, red hair and all, I mean. Whether I'd be that practical?" She twists her mouth in thought.<br/>
<br/>
"What if there was, is a way to be able to transform. A book that describes how to copy a person and then use that to be physically and, um, imitate them."<br/>
<br/>
"Plastic surgery and mental training like in those spy stories. James Bond is so sexist. I guess anything is possible, although anything that's really," she air-quotes,"magic, you'd have to prove it. As they say, proof is in the pudding which I've never really understood unless what they mean is that making pudding is proof that you can make pudding but would chocolate be different than say ..."<br/>
<br/>
You stopped her with, "I can prove it. But." You held back. This was where you come clean and hoped she doesn't consider that you were James sexist-vampire Bond.<br/>
<br/>
From under the seat, you pull the mask and hold it out to her. "This is what ..." You swallow and inhale, but she starts before you can finish.<br/>
<br/>
"My name. My whole name. And an image of me." She turns it side-to-side. "It's like a hologram inside. That's so sweet, Will. It's, it's, sort of pornographic."<br/>
<br/>
Oops. The image didn't have clothes and turning it looked down and around from the face. You began to wonder what lockup would be like. Probably not as bad as what your dad would do to you or whether he would let your mother bail you out. You were sure that he wouldn't.<br/>
<br/>
"I like it. It's so amazing. Thanks, Will." She jumped across the seat and gave you a big kiss. The surprise froze you for a few seconds before you reciprocated and started tasting the strawberries. The next several minutes got your blood heated and moving to your crotch which started to take control. You knew that Cassie would eagerly let you do it because you had already been in her mind. But you still needed to explain that it wasn't a gift, that it was a mask, and there was so much more. Maybe you should just show her.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142343
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Pudding
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You'd never really been kissed before. Well, full-on lips anyway. Or with movement. Her lips were massaging yours, pushing and pulling slowly, urging yours to dance with them, and they did, somewhat awkward at first. You wondered if you were doing it right. Pucker and suck or whole mouths engulfed like the movies? You compromised in-between. It was nice and exciting as you tried to keep in-step. You didn't know how to dance either.<br/>
<br/>
Her hands were firmly on your neck. Yours tentatively found their way around her back and ran gentle circles there. The material slipped around her skin until you felt her bra, a single line all the way across. No clasp! <i>Was it a front hook?</i> That was thrilling, but for later, maybe. Your hands overlapped and glided to her warm sides. You felt her breathing.<br/>
<br/>
Something moist and firm slid along your lips, caressing them as her lips parted. You would have been frozen in surprise if some natural instinct hadn't taken over. Maybe it was the strong taste of strawberries that your tongue found. It was wonderful. You had never felt this way with Lisa. She hadn't even really given you a chance to kiss her even when you tried for a goodnight peck. The only kiss had been to her hair when she was leaning on your shoulder once.<br/>
<br/>
Lisa fled your mind as Cassie wiggled closer pushing her chest into yours, poking you with two aroused nipples. The steering wheel was crushing your ribs, and something was jamming into your guts.  <br/>
<br/>
<i>The mask. She thinks it's a gift. Well, maybe that would be OK. She'd probably just hide it with the naked image - or show it to her best friends! What if someone found it or tried it on? Her brothers!</i><br/>
<br/>
Your hands had been working their way forward but immediately stopped. Cassie must have sensed something as she pulled away, releasing your lips with one last lick. When your eyes opened, her face seemed so happy. Her hands were on yours at her waist and seemed poised for more.<br/>
<br/>
"Cassie, wait. I need to explain more about the mask." Those puppy dog eyes joined her lips in a pout, and you almost gave in. "Let me finish - please." Reluctantly, she settled back on her side of the cab, and you took a deep breath. <br/>
<br/>
Holding the mask, you began, "This is what made you pass out earlier. It wasn't an art project or for my brother. It's, ah, a thing of magic that I put into your face to copy you; then if you wear it, it will transform you."<br/>
<br/>
The skeptical look she gave you was far better than expected. However, she didn't say anything which was just too unlike her. She just looked at it seriously, turning it in her hands.<br/>
<br/>
"What will it transform me into? Or will it just enslave me inside the crystal and release the holo-duplicate? Or what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not to transform <i>you</i>. It would transform me, or anyone else who put it on. This mask would make me look just like you, completely."<br/>
<br/>
"Why would you want to look like me? OH MY GOSH! You're really gay and want to be a girl. Shit! And here I thought you'd be the perfect boyfriend. I was so hopeful that you liked me and we could be girlfriend and ... now girlfriend."<br/>
<br/>
You think she's going to burst into tears, but after a few moments she's laughing.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Will. You can't expect me to believe that even if I am Crazy Cassie Harper?"<br/>
<br/>
Relief came quickly as you realized that she wasn't going to dial 911 and have you locked in the loony bin. In fact, she seemed open, joking about it and herself. You knew now that there was only one way that you were going to convince her.<br/>
<br/>
"If I put it on, then you'll see. Will you believe me and not freak out or panic? I don't want to be a girl. It was just a test to see if this magic worked for a girl. I'm sorry that I did this to you, and I hope you don't mind that I borrowed some of your clothes while you were unconscious."<br/>
<br/>
"You what?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oops.</i> "Just a few things to wear that would go on a girl so I wouldn't be naked. That's all. I swear."<br/>
<br/>
"So now you're a cross-dresser - but not gay."<br/>
<br/>
There was some sparkle in her eyes even as the rest of her looked so serious. This was just going to get worse if you continued to explain, so you took the mask and lifted it toward your face.<br/>
<br/>
"It's going to knock me out for a bit, so don't panic, and please don't run off."<br/>
<br/>
"Will, I'm beyond panic. I think I'm sitting here either with a wonderfully imaginative person or with someone who can do something that's scary fascinating. I'm not sure why I would leave."<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
Cassie's face filled your vision when you came around. <i>Who's that imitation of me, and where's Will? Does he have some other girl already that looks like me? Where am I? Why am I with her?</i> A feeling of despair swept through you followed by the desire to get rid of whoever the competition beside you was.<br/>
<br/>
"Will. It's true. You, you turned into a girl, to me. I believe you now. But, but how?"<br/>
<br/>
That brought your own mind forward, and you sat up. Your clothes were so loose with pants unfastened and down past your rear. Your t-shirt was up exposing your freckled breasts, nipples prominently extended. Immediately, you covered up.<br/>
<br/>
"Oops. Sorry," she almost giggled. "When I saw you change, I had to make sure that it wasn't just the mask on your face."<br/>
<br/>
"You stripped me?" Your voice sounded strange yet familiar, and your own Cassie mind fired up with indignation again at what this other girl had done to you.<br/>
<br/>
"Just, um, a little peek. It's not like it wasn't something I hadn't already seen." A short pause, then she giggled, "I can't believe that I said that; but - it's me. You're really me. Wow! Amazing. Fantastic. I've wondered what I looked like. I mean, from another's viewpoint rather than just a mirror, and here I am, two of me. Twins. This could be fun."<br/>
<br/>
You were too surprised at how well she was taking this. You're sure that you would have freaked out if she had turned into a copy of you. Actually, that thought did freak you out enough that it hid behind the Cassie mind, but it was now calm knowing that she, you, it, was just an alternate to Will Prescott and everything was fine.<br/>
<br/>
A smirk formed on Cassie. "Oh, what I could do to my brothers making them think there's an army of me as they try to run through the house and escape, but I'd be in front and behind them, wherever they went I would be there before they got there and all we need is to get you into some of my clothes. Wait. You said you had borrowed some. Where are they, and we can get you fixed up and ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, Cassie." Her rambling made absolute sense as you felt the excitement growing to tease your brothers the way they used to do to you - her. Even correcting yourself couldn't stop the duplicate mind of Cassie in you from blurting, "We need to get identical clothes, though, or maybe like mirror opposites in color or design or something. Maybe we could make something like the special patterns. I really want to make that blouse from last week since it's simple and there's a sale at Fabulous Fabrics on their old silk, though maybe some hideous fabric and make shirts for them that we're trying to force them to wear and ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Will. You know about Fabulous Fabrics and the patterns I have? Even the ones hidden away?"<br/>
<br/>
Your face gets very warm, and your eyes slowly drop from hers as your Cassie part fades. "I, uh, the mask, it copies memories, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Memories, too?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, yeah. Memories, habits, speaking and movement traits, natural reactions. I guess just about everything in your mind."<br/>
<br/>
"So, you know all about ...?"<br/>
<br/>
"Only if I think for it," you quickly add defensively. "I haven't though. I mean gone looking through them or anything. I just tried it on to see if it would work to change genders since I knew a mask worked with me and Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb's in on this!?"<br/>
<br/>
"NO! No. He, ah, I made a copy of him. He didn't know, doesn't know. I, um,  just ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh."<br/>
<br/>
At least she didn't get violent or bail out of the truck, but the silence hung for a while, and you couldn't think how to break it. She probably realized that you were just planning to use her, her body, for some sort of 'fun.' Fortunately, Cassie soon spoke up.<br/>
<br/>
"Cool. I mean, I'm not exactly fine with how you went about this, but you did admit it to me, and that makes me feel very good, about you." She blushes. "Of course, since you're me, I have to assume that there must be a few redeeming qualities in there." With a giggle, her words start flying again, ending up with, "So tell me all about this magic."<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111423432
author_id: wordsmitty
title: A budding - partnership?
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>As you led her down to the school basement to show her everything else, you began explaining how you got the book and tried the spells and decided to have some fun using Caleb's mask. She had insisted that you keep the mask on and even get dressed in her clothes that you had pilfered. She pulled a brush from her purse and then some earrings, but you refused any makeup, compromising on just lipstick - strawberry, of course.<br/>
<br/>
"So this is the grimoire? It does look eerily magical and old, but then I doubt it would look like a plain book in a brown wrapper, although that would seem to be the way that you'd want to disguise it so people didn't know what it can do and start a war over getting it or some sort. There must be some very interesting story with it. Anything about dragons or a young princess who is mesmerized by a teenage wizard who rescues her from a life of boring rummage selling and natty siblings?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. At least I don't think so. I haven't ever tried to look into history or anything. I just started reading and doing the spells. The Latin was a little confusing." If you had had Cassie's mind to start, it would have been easy.<br/>
<br/>
"This picture is like a hologram with all the faces moving. You sure it isn't more modern or, maybe, it's from the future when science and magic have converged in a society of ... 'Own with dinar - possess with blood.' Spooky."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. I had to prick myself to bleed on that thumbprint. I couldn't get it open at first which is why Arnholm sold it to me for a couple bucks."<br/>
<br/>
"OK. So do I have to do the same to turn a page? The rest seem to be stuck shut."<br/>
<br/>
"What?" You grabbed the book and started flipping through the pages. Well, as far as you had gotten. "Nice teasing, Cassie."<br/>
<br/>
"No. Really. They wouldn't turn." You put the book back down on the table with the first spell open. "OK. Maybe it was just my imagination. This is definitely very old Latin and cryptic. Ingredients include using a mirror. Almost corny with that when you're going to catch a reflection in the mask you make. And this looping design is very interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"That's just the one for the first spell - to make the mask. They seem to be some sort of key needed to initiate or complete each spell so it works. You have to place what you make on it before you can use it or turn the next page."<br/>
<br/>
"I see it says to do that. Um, can't turn the page again. See. I'm really trying. I can't even get a fingernail under them."<br/>
<br/>
She's cute, but the gag isn't. However, when you look closely, she's right. She can't open to the next spell. But as soon as you touch the page, you can move it. You both turn and stare at each other.<br/>
<br/>
"Freaky," you say together. Two second later, two Cassie's giggle.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess it is somehow attuned to me. Sorry about me having to turn each page."<br/>
<br/>
"It would be better if we sitting together," she purrs with a smile. You go drag over two old chairs.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I guess you would expect something like that since it's magic, and it doesn't matter that you and I look identical, either. It can tell us apart and even that you don't look like you. Although." She stretched that last word out long. "Do you think it's the clothes? I've read stories about how magic can reside in objects like clothes and books and stuff where stuffed animals come alive and wreck havoc on some people while cuddling up with others until they can be exorcised and the magic put in a safe place." Her eyes twinkle looking into yours as she finished, "Maybe we should switch and see?"<br/>
<br/>
Although you've seen yourself in Cassie's naked body, the teenage Will Prescott quivered with the thought of watching the real Cassie strip in front of you.You were at eye level now, not your usual looking down from being almost a foot taller. A warmth came from below your waist, and the bra tightened. Your nipples were extending again. It was so different than what as a guy you were use to. You hoped that it's your male mind and not that Cassie's body had some weird fetish for herself or - other girls? <i>No. Don't go searching her mind.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Um, yeah. But I doubt that's it," you forced out as your eyes noticed her nipples standing out through her blouse.<br/>
<br/>
"Spoil sport," she giggled. "So I guess it doesn't do any good to steal the book which kind of makes it even more interesting in that the master can keep his apprentices from going through it unless he specifically lets them, assuming he has apprentices which every wizard always seems to have like in Fantasia, but Mikey used the spells to create a mess. You haven't done anything that we need to search out a real wizard to put back in the natural order, have you?"<br/>
<br/>
What you did wearing Caleb's mask did make a good mess of things for him that you hadn't anticipated doing. He seemed to be handling it, so you didn't feel too guilty, any more. Your confession to Cassie had erased that.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so. So far I've made a mask, a sealant to hold the image, a mind band that copies the, ah, mind. Then a glue that holds the two together so they can be used as one." You opened to the current spell. "This is where I am."<br/>
<br/>
She scanned it for a few moments then gasped, "Wow. 'Soil from the ground where rest those expired.' Creepy."<br/>
<br/>
"Four hundred pounds. Enough to fill my whole truck."<br/>
<br/>
"Hardly. Those bags of dirt at Ace are about forty pounds, so only ten of them, but they probably didn't come from a cemetery unless it was one of those like in Poltergeist where the whole development was built on top of it without moving the actual graves and the spirits started haunting the residents. Although you never know where that mulch you got came from and put round your flowers and they grew up overnight like Jack's beanstalk and creep in the window to take the unsuspecting and replace them with pod people." She pauses briefly. "I assume that it's this kind of dirt for a reason."<br/>
<br/>
Cassie has the most vivid imagination tied to her ability to talk forever without seemingly have to breathe. The strange thing is that with her mind, you can follow exactly how fast her thoughts are moving that connect everything. It's not really blabber but just a very active mind.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's your plan for obtaining this soil of the dead or are you just planning to replace me for a while?"<br/>
<br/>
"Replace? No, I, ah, never was going to do that. Besides who would you be. I was just testing to ..."<br/>
<br/>
"What better test than to take over for someone? I could be you while you're me. Be a good test of us together."<br/>
<br/>
You shuttered at the thought of trading places. Even with her full mind, you were not sure you could pull it off. When you played Caleb, you were not with anyone who knew him really well. But if these things do give you all the little traits and thought processes as well as memories and looks, you should be able to do it. It would be a good test, and you do have a blank mask and mind band ready that you could use to make one of yourself. But then she would have access to all your (perverted) memories.<br/>
<br/>
"Unfortunately I don't have a mask of me." <br/>
<br/>
"Hmm. Would it take much to make one? Although if we had some, there's a few people that I would love to take over and make some improvements in their lives with a little alteration of how they act and check out the parties and people they associate with or spend a night at the Warehouse to see what it's really like but as someone else. Ever think of doing that? I understand that any girl can get in the Warehouse. It's the boys they scrutinize. I, uh, I've never been, actually."<br/>
<br/>
"Um, no." You hoped your warm cheeks didn't give you away. "Just been thinking about dirt. Digging and lugging ten bags seems exhausting. Never been to the warehouse, either."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. A dirty mind," she smriked. "You don't currently look equipped to shovel much in a cemetery. More like screaming through it as the spirits pop out of the graves and chase you towards the freshly dug one."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" You both laugh. "But you're right. I need to take this off and get back to myself and get you home."<br/>
<br/>
"So how do you get it off? I couldn't find any secret tab or tattoo button or hidden zipper like on body suits or anything anywhere."<br/>
<br/>
"Just how thoroughly did you inspect your body when I was out?" You gave her an accusing look but couldn't stop the Cassie in you from smiling. "You know, I just want to know what you might do when I take it off and Will Prescott lies unconscious for a few minutes."<br/>
<br/>
"I promise to be good. Really. Scouts honor." She crossed her fingers and held them up.<br/>
<br/>
"Were you ever a girl scout, and isn't crossing fingers like safety when telling a lie?"<br/>
<br/>
She uncrossed and shook her head as she came over and draped her arm over your shoulders. "Look, Cassie. You really need to be careful around this Will Prescott guy. I hear he's got an underground hideout where he lures unsuspecting girls by pretending to be them."<br/>
<br/>
"Truthfully, I think it's Will Prescott that better be careful with that Cassie Harper girl." You both giggle.<br/>
<br/>
You were having more fun than you've had in a long time. Cassie really was a wonderful person. Hopefully, that was your thoughts and not your Cassie-self. You were glad that you didn't just use the mask to have fun as her and let her deal with the consequences like you did Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
It might good to have a partner to work on the spells in this book. The Cassie inside you knew that Cassie was more than willing. In fact you weren't sure if that's what was making you want to. But your own self was more worried if she could keep quiet. After all, this was chatterbox Cassie.<br/>
<br/>
Question is, should you make a mask of yourself and let her try it on? It's only fair. Then she could help get the dirt as your twin.<br/>
<br/>
"I still think it would be fun to torment my brothers. Wait! I got an idea. You said you had a mask of Caleb. I could wear that and help dig up a few graves."<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114234323
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Afer Effects
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><a onclick="$('#dropNote1').toggle (200);" style="cursor:pointer;color:#0000ff;" title=""><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Please read the previous few chapters before proceding.</span> <span style="font-size:8pt;opacity:.75;text-decoration:none;">▼</span></a><div id="dropNote1" style="padding:0px;display:none;"> <span style="font-family:times new roman, serif"><span style="line-height:1.4;">Will is the Solo Magician, going on his own through the book. He's gotten a mask copy of Caleb then a mind band and used them to go out and be Caleb - acting like a jerk and setting off animosity towards his friend. While getting supplies Saturday, Will runs into Cassie Harper who offers him her phone number. Wondering if the mask can actually change a person's gender, on Sunday Will meets Cassie and sneaks a copy of her body and mind.  However, when he dons it later becoming fully a girl, he finds out that she has a crush on him, and he gives up on his plans to impersonate her like he did Caleb.  Instead, he meets her later and admits what he did and that he stole some of her clothes, too. To prove it, he puts on her mask. Cassie is amazed and thrilled at this, even having Will dress up as her then asking to let her wear a mask of Will. Will declines since he doesn't have one of him and takes her home.  The following starts Monday morning.</span></span></div> <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
The morning alarm opened your consciousness to watching a fuzzy dream of yourself undressing. It slowly crawled over your feet toward your reclined body. Your eyes locked with his in great anticipation. As you two converged, you reached down to guide him between your thighs to . . .<br/>
<br/>
<i>What the? HOLY CRAP!</i><br/>
<br/>
Your eyes shot open to displace the vision with a view of your empty bedroom down your bed. Panting and your heart a rattling snare drum, you flailed at the covers and looked down. Through your boxers rising majestically was a massive redwood, solid and stretching skyward, or ceiling-ward in any case. It looked larger than normal in your delicate fingers with dark painted tips.<br/>
<br/>
"Ahrwk!"<br/>
<br/>
A choking gasp and blink brought back your bony digits with ragged nails. All you could do was stare in wonder then drop your head back on the pillow confused. You've had some weird sexual dreams, but hallucinations were new, especially of being outside your body while it advanced on you. Desperately needing to empty your bladder, you breathed deep to relax and willed the massive timber back to sapling size so you could get down the hall to the bathroom without being spotted with your turret erect.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
It took much longer than expected getting out of the house, and now your truck was zipping through the student parking lot and up over the curb into the auxiliary lot - the bare dirt at the end where late-comers have to park. Fortunately, there was no one in the way to slow you down then or as you sprinted to the school as you heard the warning bell signaling a couple minutes until tardy.<br/>
<br/>
You were only planning a quick shower, but in your haze you started to shampoo your hair which you rarely do. Then you kept switching shirts and pants, glancing in the mirror, then changing again for the right look instead of just grabbing whatever was closest. That dream must have really fucked your brain.<br/>
<br/>
Swinging around the outside since you couldn't be running down the halls, you darted in the door and slid to a stop along the second set of lockers where you knew yours would be - sixth one in, under school spirit sign. As you spun the dial, it felt strange, and you looked up.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wait. When was there a "Dragons Rule" poster above my locker?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Shit!" you muttered to the empty hall as you glanced down it. You were in the wrong wing.  Your locker was across the school. Why did you come this way and think your locker was here? Fortunately, your first class was just around the corner. You didn't really need anything from your locker, so a fast walk got you through its portal just before the lockdown signal chimed.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
"You were cutting it pretty close this morning. What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"He was probably sawing timber," Keith replied to Caleb as he joined you walking to the next class he shared with you.<br/>
<br/>
"I was awake in plenty of time."<br/>
<br/>
"Not what I meant."<br/>
<br/>
You looked at Caleb who appeared bedraggled and morose. He just shrugged, obviously not knowing what Keith meant either. Then he turned off towards his second period.<br/>
<br/>
"So, you do anything over the weekend to discuss today?" Keith asked as he scanned and ducked like prey in a stampede. "Mike, Carlos, and me watched that one about shape-shifting demons that were posing as hot girls. They had gotten the director's cut with X rating." He smacked his lips.<br/>
<br/>
That reminded you about what you'd done with Caleb's mask, then getting one of Cassie and turning yourself into a copy of her - not quite being a demon, though, hopefully.  Then you felt guilty and met up with her, confessing about them to her. <i>Damn</i>. You hope she has kept quiet about them. The way she's always blabbering about everything constantly.<br/>
<br/>
Last night after you had changed back to yourself, you took her home. It was quite a relief that she didn't press anything or hold it against you. In fact you both seemed quite alike, like maybe this mask merging session emphasized compatibility. When you got to the front door, you kissed, just like you had been wanting.<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, Will. Where you headed?"<br/>
<br/>
Ahead of you was the Arts wing like usual, but then you realized that wasn't where your Film as Literature class was.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry. Was day-dreaming, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, those demon babes were quite dreamy."<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, this is it.</i><br/>
<br/>
Cassie was in English IV with you, the fourth period class you were headed to. You're tense and fidgety unsure about how you're going to handle her. Was she now your girlfriend because you kissed - and have seen her naked body even if it was the body you were wearing at the time. You hadn't thought much about it, at least since last night before you went to sleep shooting a giant load into a sock.<br/>
<br/>
That wasn't how you felt about her, though. Not as sex, although that would be great. But last evening, something had clicked between the two of you. Friends? Maybe friendship, at least, or more. You weren't sure.<br/>
<br/>
She had talked the entire ride home explaining about her family and life. As you replayed it all while you continued on auto-pilot down the hall, you figured you knew more about her from that than was probably in the mask, although memories from a person’s mask always leave when it’s off. You were mostly paying attention unlike when you sometimes tune-her-out in school when she babbles on. She had suddenly stopped talking just as you turned down her street, and you had to look over to make sure she was still there.<br/>
<br/>
"But," she paused sounding and looking embarrassed. "You know all that and, and more." It took you a few moments to understand what she meant before you replied.<br/>
<br/>
"Only when the mask is on and I try to think of something. All those memories in it fade quickly unless I was actually part of them or knew them already."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh good," she sighed. "I thought I may have been just boring you rambling on like I have."<br/>
<br/>
You felt very relaxed with her after all was explained and done. She's attractive, as well. Not like Lisa, but Cassie really likes you, and you wondered how you didn’t see the signs from her. Obviously, Lisa didn't really care for you, or not enough to not dump you.<br/>
<br/>
Yeah. Cassie could be your girlfriend. It made you smile as you looked over. Cassie was now next to you and almost being forced into the doorframe as you turned into the classroom.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, hi. I, ah, didn't see you before."<br/>
<br/>
"You looked pensive, so I just walked along quietly."<br/>
<br/>
Your brain stumbled into your mouth with, "You can do that?" Immediately you tried to choke back the words as your face turned very warm.<br/>
<br/>
She giggled back ending with a wink, "You might be amazed what I can do."<br/>
<br/>
You felt like most of the room was watching, and heard, as you followed her across the room looking down. That just set your focus on her swaying skirt, knowing exactly what everything was like underneath. Immediately, you looked away hoping no one noticed checking her out.<br/>
<br/>
As you took your seat next to Caleb, Cassie's best friend, Beth, caught your eye, giving you, then Cassie, a knowing look and wink. Cassie sat next to you with Beth beside her. They immediately fell into a quiet conversation, and you felt the panic start again.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Has she told Beth? What if Cassie mentioned you dressing like a girl and how that could be misinterpreted if Beth didn't know you were wearing a mask to pretend to be Cassie and in Cassie's clothes that you had stolen after knocking her unconscious to make a copy of Cassie for you to see what it was like to be a, er, no. Just to see if the mask would work changing genders, which it did and it wasn't all that different as you found out and it was fun, with Cassie there, but . . .</i><br/>
<br/>
"Yo. Will. It's English."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's words stopped your rambling mind as he pointed to the Sociology book you had gotten out.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, yeah. Thanks. Mind was wandering."<br/>
<br/>
"I do that all the time." Cassie started then paused before adding when you just blankly stared at her. "My mind. Wandering. Might go anywhere."<br/>
<br/>
Her twinkling eyes had you hope that you weren't blushing. "Yeah," you chuckled. "No one wants that."<br/>
<br/>
"Nice one there, Will," Caleb quickly pointed out your blunder, not that you meant it that way. However, it didn't bother Cassie.<br/>
<br/>
"You're looking nice today," she started then added after a beat. "Not that you don't normally not look good. I mean, as a guy you're quite fine, and, ah mean, well kept, not just cute or anything, ah special, like . . ." Beth's elbow in her side halted her.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, you were both saved as class started, letting your red faces fade.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142343231
author_id: wordsmitty
title: A Double Date Gets Scheduled
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're half expecting Cassie to appear at your side as you head to seventh period, Astronomy, that you also share with her. She accompanied you for lunch with Caleb, who was avoiding the usual group of Carson, James, Jenny, etc. so he didn't get teased more about last week’s escapades of his double - you. As he sulked out from English, your guilt had you join him even after agreeing to lunch with Cassie. Lucky for you and Caleb, her cheerful ramblings helped or, at least, distracted Caleb so that he was in much better spirits as you parted.<br/>
<br/>
And it felt great to you, too, knowing that she liked you. It perked up the rest of your day. Even when you saw Lisa and Mansfield together, there was no festering empty longing or bitterness inside you. Instead, Cassie popped into your thoughts. It wasn’t the same way that you thought of Lisa all summer which made you briefly ponder exactly what was your relationship with Cassie. Friend? Girlfriend? Magic partner? Body double? You couldn’t tell, at least not yet. It might take some more time together, and that idea felt good, too.<br/>
<br/>
Well, she didn't pop up in the hallway but did spring from her seat to wave at you when you came in, indicating an empty seat next to her. However, you eyes immediately landed on the girl on the other side of the empty seat, Stephanie Wyatt. Even slumped over and engrossed in her phone, Stephanie's posture radiated solid confidence in the bright polo shirt and dark shorts, sneakers and white ankle socks. Her arms were toned and tan as well as her legs. Her figure gave you a short quiver of excitement followed quickly by fear from what you'd said to her Friday even though she thought it was Caleb leaving her a comment about treating you better.<br/>
<br/>
Taking the seat between them, you calmed yourself and smiled at Cassie. While dropping your pack underneath, Stephanie glanced over to see who it was but then did a double-take making you tense, above the waist this time. She always seemed tough and aloof of you which is what made you confront her as Caleb, and now you felt another tremble as she put her phone down and leaned towards you.<br/>
<br/>
"Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I don't recall ever doing something to you to upset you; but if I did, ...." Her phone rattled, and she quickly looked down then gave it a grunt, pushing it away. Even her phone is more important than finishing with you.<br/>
<br/>
"Something wrong?" popped from your mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. Just trying to get help moving some furniture, if I could get a truck."<br/>
<br/>
"I've got a truck." This surprised you as much as it did her, but it was too late to rethink it.<br/>
<br/>
"Could you, would you help me after school? For a little while?"<br/>
<br/>
You couldn’t think of any plans, so, "Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks, Will. I owe you. Maybe we can stop somewhere afterwards." With a sort of smile, she went back to her phone.<br/>
<br/>
From fear to euphoria was quickly turned to regret as you saw Cassie as the bell rang, a sad puppy dog seemingly shooting poison darts at you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit. I forgot she was here and everything. She probably thought we'd get together after school.</i><br/>
<br/>
A nervous fret manifested. If you pissed off Cassie, she might talk about the masks. Then again, who would believe Crazy Cassie with the way she rambles and has such a vivid imagination. No one. Well, except maybe Caleb. He's still trying to figure out this double-sighting of him plus what he saw under his bed when you smacked the mind band on him.<br/>
<br/>
The Man in the Moon seemed to be rolling his eyes at you from the projection screen when a folded paper bounced across your notebook.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I thought we'd be together after sch o_o l?</i> with those puppy eyes in the last word.<br/>
<br/>
"Forces of gravity keep everything in balance unless ..."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Unless you do something to upset things,</i> you think. But how can you put them back in balance? Your mind began spinning thoughts as the universe left you orbiting in your own world.<br/>
<br/>
You shouldn't just drop Stephanie, or she might just go back to thinking you're a dope or creep or asshole. But maybe you could just delay things until you work it out with Cassie. You didn't mean to dump Cassie by offering Stephanie help, but you hadn't committed either. Maybe she'll understand. You can just meet up with her later. Or maybe she can come along. Two girls squeezed into the cab of your truck with you. That tickles your fancy.<br/>
<br/>
Of course, this incident gives her leverage to push to wear a mask. You could let her, you guess. You haven't made one of yourself, yet, if she pushes for that. But there's always Caleb's. Or ...<br/>
<br/>
What if you made a mask of Stephanie? Cassie could help and then wear it. Or you could wear it and surprise Cassie or just go around treating everyone like dirt the way Stephanie does and get people pissed at her. Or even prank Caleb as her. Although, Stephanie seemed to be trying to be nice earlier.<br/>
<br/>
"Beyond the solar system, ..."<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
You didn't fare any better at the end of class. Before you could talk to Cassie, Stephanie leaned over to get your phone number. Cassie jerked her books and purse and marched out without giving you a second glance. However, Stephanie just wanted to text you where to meet her in an hour and a half since she had to settle some things first. That should give you time with Cassie to make sure things were OK.<br/>
<br/>
After diving out the classroom door, you spotted Cassie going down the hall and were able to chase her through the throng until she stopped at a locker and opened it. What you're going to say or do was still unformed in your head, but you knew that you needed to assure her that you weren't dropping her for Stephanie or anything so she wouldn't spill anything about the masks or you in her clothes. Should you offer her a ride home, or maybe to work if she was headed there? You tried to recall if she said what days she worked which she probably did and you probably didn't pay attention. She's in two classes with you, so you could study in the library or somewhere. But did her note imply you two doing something with the masks.<br/>
<br/>
Standing behind her motionless, you were staring up blankly at a school spirit poster of "Dragons Rule" when she turned around surprising you and herself.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Will. Um, I, ah, thought, you, ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Er, no. I, um, was, ..."<br/>
<br/>
"OK, Cassie. I'll catch you tomorrow," Beth inserted between you. You hadn't even noticed that she was there also. "Not my place to stop the two of you from being tongue tied with words - or otherwise.” She smirked before heading off.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie was beet red and quiet when you turned back at her. You didn't mean to embarrass her but were fumbling for words to explain why you were there. Before you could start, Cassie spoke.<br/>
<br/>
"Terrible punster that Beth. Not like we're headed off somewhere alone together or anything like that since you already have plans, and we wouldn't be doing anything like that or anything anyway, not that I gave the impression that we would or anything, or wouldn't, I guess, which is why she might have thought that we would since you just showed up here and she didn't want to interfere since she knows about what I think and you found out what I think which I think I probably shouldn't be thinking since you ..."<br/>
<br/>
"About that and helping Stephanie. I didn't mean for that to brush you off for this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
She took in a breath before sighing, "I know." She looked down then giggled. "I probably should have worded that note better, being a sort-of-writer, sort of. I just hoped that we could spend some time today, you know, about this and that and things and us and whatever, and she, sorta, just jumped into what I was thinking - although I'm sure she wasn't - but I just, um, never mind."<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, yeah. Look. I'm just meeting her later to move some furniture, but we can still do something, now, or more ." Cassie perked up at that, and it made you want to try to keep that going. "You can come, too, when I help her, if you want. I won't make you help move stuff, probably, unless,” you joke as the two of you start walking.<br/>
<br/>
"OK. Sure. I don't have work today. Can we stop by the, ah," she leaned in and whispered, "secret hideout?" Backing off she didn't give you time to answer. "I'd really like to know more, try something, make something, do something, be something!" She was getting more animated as she spoke, eyes flashing, and voice climbing in emphasis that you felt she was yelling, although she was really speaking softly so no one would overhear.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111423432313
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Questionable Crazy
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>By the time Stephanie texted, Cassie had been able to make a mask with your help in the old school basement where you kept everything. Fortunately, you remembered about the stink it created and had it vent by a window near the restrooms upstairs. She was disappointed that it wasn’t shiny blue like the one you used to copy her, so you got out the finished mask with mind band you’d made a while back to let her see what it would look like when polished.  As you answered the text and got directions from Stephanie, Cassie hid away most everything like you had, and then you two locked up and headed over.<br/>
<br/>
There wasn't that much stuff at Stephanie’s - a table and chairs plus a bureau - which easily fit in your truck bed. You were glad to see Stephanie also straining to lift it with you proving she wasn’t exactly this super-human she appeared to be or that you had this image of her being. But she was more help than her brother who eventually gave up and went back with Cassie to carry the chairs. Since it seemed you and Stephanie could handle the unloading, she opted to ride with you and Cassie telling her brother that she’d get a ride home from the store. Her dad owns a furniture store, Argosy Furniture, and has lots of extra space in the attached buildings that are part of it. So off the three of you went into downtown Saratoga Falls.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
While driving from Acheson, where Stephanie also lives about a mile from your house and down by the river, Cassie was rambling as usual and Stephanie seemed transfixed on her phone - as usual - occasionally giving a grunt or "yeah" or something that kept Cassie content. The traffic kept your attention since it was rush hour, although not as heavy as if you were out near Fort Suffolk when everyone scrambled out of there after they played taps and lowered the flag for the day.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn't until Cassie pulled something from her purse and the sun glinted off it with a blue sheen that you started paying attention, becoming a bit concerned when you saw what it was.<br/>
<br/>
"Been working this art project. Pretty cool, huh?" Cassie held the thing at you causing panic that she might press it too close and knock you out while driving. There's a honk, and you swerve causing the blue to flash closer. Instantly, you jerked away.<br/>
<br/>
"Cassie, I'm driving!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Pretty nice though, right." She swung it over at Stephanie. "It really shines, but it's when you look close that you can see the magic in it." She held it in front of Stephanie's phone. "How about it? Doesn't it just make you tingle with all the sparkling color?"<br/>
<br/>
The traffic was too heavy to try to stop her, and you almost rammed another car when you turned to see. "Cassie!" you cautioned.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, yeah. Nice.” Stephanie muttered trying to get her phone around it, but Cassie countered titling it this way and that as she talked. <br/>
<br/>
"Just watch how the sun hits it and all, the shape of a face, like reflecting yours. It's just about translucent to see through, but it has to be real close, and it will fit against your face and be perfect for a party or going out without being recognized, although it probably needs the right clothes and all - blue sparkly shoes, of course. So you can look closer and feel the coolness. Oh, what a pun 'cause it’s neat looking and also cool temperature that it feels nice especially on hot days when you just want to relax and ..."<br/>
<br/>
There was another honk. You turned hard to get back in your lane and jostled everyone about. When you looked back, Stephanie was slumped against the door.<br/>
<br/>
"What the fuck, Cassie?"<br/>
<br/>
"So that's how it's done, huh? Easy peasy. How long did you say it takes? We can just drive around, or I know. Circle back to the old shopping center we passed a few minutes ago. We can wait there, then return coming through here. Right turn."<br/>
<br/>
The lane you were in forced you down the side street, and your confused state just automatically followed her command like you were hypnotized and just trying to recover your own control. All you could do was repeat yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"What the fuck, Cassie?"<br/>
<br/>
"So that's how it's done, huh? Easy peasy." She giggled then added, "Relax, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"How can I relax!" you shrieked. "You just knocked Stephanie unconscious. She's going to wake up and wonder what we did to her. How can we explain it? She'll kill us or maybe even ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Red light." She pointed turning your head before you slammed the brakes.<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't this fun? It's good to be on the other side and not sprawled out so some guy can do whatever he wants."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't do anything. I swear. Cassie, please don't tell. What do you ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Green light."<br/>
<br/>
There’s a horn toot before your truck lurched forward as you hit the gas.<br/>
<br/>
"I know, Will. I trust you." She smiled and turned putting her hand on your arm. "Trust me. We can make her think it was just a bump in the road if we're going by about the same place."<br/>
<br/>
You're not so sure but needed to get your heart rate down under 200. While driving to the parking lot, Cassie explained that she took the mask to use on her brother, but got this idea to get it on Stephanie. After pulling into a space in the empty last row facing a wall of bushes, she apologized profusely then pulled you in for a kiss when you turned off the engine. That just started your engine as her tongue invited yours to a long, slow drive.<br/>
<br/>
The two of you made out, redirecting your adrenalin lower, and only stopping when there was a thunk of something hitting the floor. Your calm slowly faded as Cassie retrieved the mask, and you both stared at the name and 3D image floating in it: STEPHANIE MICHAEL WYATT.<br/>
<br/>
"Too bad we didn't bring the 'Cassie Harper' mask or I could switch with her. That would be a lot of fun."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, we just tell her she hit her head on the dash while playing with her art project."<br/>
<br/>
"And that made her switch bodies with you?" you screeched.<br/>
<br/>
"She'd be Crazy Cassie with her overactive imagination just thinking she has memories of Stephanie."<br/>
<br/>
"That's, that's, that's insane! She'll also know about last night and the masks, so we'd have to tell her and, and, and ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Spoil sport," she pouted then giggled. "Just kidding. We can decide later which one gets to be Stephanie." You tensed, befuddled at the idea as she gave you a sly wink. "But think how much fun it would be to have two Cassie Haper's <i>or</i> two Stephanie Wyatt's."<br/>
<br/>
"Not sure which would be worse," you sighed.<br/>
<br/>
"You better!” she barked then laughed before pulling close again.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
Amazingly, it all worked out to Cassie's plan. You were able to drive back over the same road, and Cassie pinched and shook Stephanie awake just past the spot where she used the mask.<br/>
<br/>
"Watch the driving, Will. Try not to swerve into the big potholes and knock us around. You Ok. Steph?"<br/>
<br/>
She was, and fortunately didn't hold anything against you, although she was definitely glad she could get another ride home. You got the furniture unloaded into a spare room going through a side door of what looked like an empty building next to the furniture showroom. With that done, Stephanie thanked you and said she’d get with you some time to pay you back. Cassie gave you a smirk and wink at that.<br/>
<br/>
"So now can we use the mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"NO! I mean, no. It has to be sealed first."<br/>
<br/>
"What if it isn't?"<br/>
<br/>
“Ah, well, I think it said something about combining images, but we'd have to check the book."<br/>
<br/>
She glanced at the dashboard clock. "It's getting near dinner time. Maybe we should stop for now, although I don't have anything pressing except a little homework. What do you want to do? Would be nice to get something to eat and relax."<br/>
<br/>
It's been such a wild ride, that you almost wanted to just lock everything up including Cassie. But you don't have to be home for dinner if you let them know. Homework? <i>Pshbt</i>.<br/>
<br/>
You could go back to the basement and check the book or seal the mask, although you're not sure what you'd do with a Stephanie Wyatt mask and less sure what Cassie might. You'd need some more clothes to wear it since you gave Cassie back the ones of her that you took, unless you did something without clothes. You wonder if Cassie would wear it and you could … <i>Was that what her smirk and wink was about?</i> You try to shake that off as your pants get very tight in the crotch.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it was time to take a break from it all and just have a dinner and a date. You still weren't sure what your relationship was, even after that make-out session. It might be time to find out, and just have a normal evening together. You were really hungry - for some food.<br/>
<br/>
As you headed to Panera, the words in the book about merging images in a mask played in your mind. What would happen if you merged images or even merged a female and male image?<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114234323134
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Making the right choice
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your truck purred to a stop. The engine's warmth would take a while to cool even in the brisk fall air. Same would go for you. It was the best evening you'd had in a very long time.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie was true to avoiding anything of the mask or magic while you shared dinner at Panera, instead talking about school, Saratoga Falls, the weather, and life. Or at least Cassie did. You mostly listened and found yourself drawn in and enjoying being with her. Was it better than last summer? Lisa didn't talk as much, and you hardly could think of things to say, so it was a lot of dead time. If you hadn't been enthralled to be with her, it would have been boring. Were you boring? Maybe that's why Lisa broke up with you.<br/>
<br/>
Well, Cassie doesn't think you're boring, and she thanked you for the date with dinner. Literally. She insisted on paying for your "date," which was her word. Afterward she's the one who suggested driving somewhere to look at the stars, calling it a "study date" for Astronomy. Most of the stars you saw were in her eyes around making out.<br/>
<br/>
With a joyous sigh, you hopped out and grabbed your backpack from behind the seat. As you swung it to your shoulder, there was a 'clink' reminding you of the mask still inside. It made you smile at how that came off, no longer panicked or upset, endearing Cassie to you.<br/>
<br/>
You still hadn't decided who to add. Maybe you could get it on Robert to merge his body with Stephanie's. That sounded gross actually. Would it be girl or boy, or hybrid. A picture popped in your head of Robert with long hair and boobs, then Stephanie with a dick. You definitely didn't want a hybrid; however, you doubted that if this was real magic that it would create those visions.<br/>
<br/>
Your wonderful mood started to fade as you walked towards the house. Inside your dad was probably waiting to grill you about staying out on a school night and how you should get a job. You mom was bound to coo and ask all sorts of prying questions about the date and Cassie and when she'll meet her and make it all mushy. Robert will just tease you about how he gained parents' points by being there doing something you were suppose to do.<br/>
<br/>
So, once the front door was silently closed, you kicked off your shoes to softly trek down the hall and up to your room, hopefully, unnoticed.  The house was strangely quiet; just the TV on in the living room. You peaked in and saw your mom.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh. Right. It's her night to watch that show she's following, and everyone else has burried themselves until it's over.</i> A glance at your phone said that will be another forty minutes with your dad in his study and Robert in his room.<br/>
<br/>
Swinging your pack to the other shoulder caused another 'clink.' You froze and looked, but your mom was motionless. In fact, her head was back on the chair and her mouth open. She'd fallen asleep, tired out from all the housework and dinner and everything she does.<br/>
<br/>
The TV light flickered, making her hair shimmer and highlighting her features. It was such a peaceful scene. <i>Too bad she'll miss the show. Maybe I should show her how to watch it online during the day.</i> For now, though, she was completely out, and nothing will wake her. <br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
"So, Prescott, I hear you sped through town yesterday banging up a couple chicks, almost killing everyone."<br/>
<br/>
It's Carson Ioeger as you're having lunch together on the front grass with Keith, Jenny, and James. Caleb would normally join you but he's <i>persona non grata</i> since you used his form to lift that cash. You just took a bite of today's meatless burger special and couldn't do anything more than grunt without spewing veggies everywhere.<br/>
<br/>
"Will, doing <i>two</i> babes?" Keith blurted having no hesitation with his mouth full. "No way!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hardly call Chatterbox Harper and Stern Stephanie Wyatt hotties unless they were set on fire. I doubt Prescott has a torch that can do that," Carson added getting high five from James before brushing Keith's projectiles off his shirt.<br/>
<br/>
"I ..." you started but Carson talked over you.<br/>
<br/>
"I overheard how Prescott here did the LaMans through the potholes on Main throwing them around to impress them with his lack of driving skill."<br/>
<br/>
"That's not true!" Jenny broke in, swatting his shoulder. "Will was just helping Stephanie move some furniture."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, he was trying to mask his intent to knock them unconscious and get them in his truck's bed under the table."<br/>
<br/>
Jenny swung again saying, "You guys are sick twisting what Cassie said."<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Prescott. What was your real motive?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably took pictures of their boobies bouncing," Keith inserted before another bite.<br/>
<br/>
You're too confused to stammer out more than, "That's ... you guys .... she's ... they're ... I ..."<br/>
<br/>
"See. He's confirming he's got an image of them."<br/>
<br/>
"That's enough. It's not what she said, and you shouldn't be listening in on other people's conversations anyway," Jenny reprimanded.<br/>
<br/>
"And how do you know if you weren't ..." They scooted away as she hurled her hand again. You just ignored them. Fortunately, they changed to go on about some project they were planning.<br/>
<br/>
Did Cassie tell everyone about knocking Stephanie out? Or was it more, or nothing? You'd like to believe that it's just James and Carson exaggerating, but Cassie's reputation for rambling on could mean it slipped. Unfortunately, there's no way to find out before your last class of the day you share with Cassie.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
Cassie didn't pop up beside you going to Astronomy, and she wasn't in a seat when you went in. This waiting to find out was killing you. How could she start telling everyone about your trip with her and Stephanie and what happened. Anxiety and anger just kept building as you got out your book.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi, Will," she purred with sparkling eyes and a sweet smile.<br/>
<br/>
You just blurted, "How could you?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"About yesterday. You and me. What we did," you whispered back not wanting more people to know.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean? But, but, I thought we were ..."<br/>
<br/>
She's cut off by Mr. Cash starting class.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
Before you could get your book in your bag, Cassie was out the door. It's a repeat of before to chase after her. An obstacle course to just get to the hall, then searching which way she went. She'd disappeared. You were about to give up when you realized that you knew where her locker was. Charging off, you swam against the current, weaving in and around trying not to bump too many, unless they're smaller, lower grades. <br/>
<br/>
Charged with energy and focused tight on your mission, you just dodged Lester Pozniak (aka bully "The Molester") who appeared in front of you with a big smirk,  telling him, "Not now Lester."  It's three steps before you realized what you'd done, but something about getting to Cassie drove you on. When nothing grabbed and jerked you back, you must be safe, for now. You'll probably have to deal with Lester tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
Beth saw you coming, giving you a stern look before saying, "Well, here he is now."<br/>
<br/>
The locker door crashed shut as Cassie turned toward you. Her expression was a puppy that just got yelled at.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow and timidly asked, "Cassie, can we talk?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'll catch you later," Beth dropped then disappeared.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie and you both went to pick up her bag and almost bonked heads. You won the grab then took her hand. Fortunately, most everyone had cleared out, so it wasn't far before you noticed an open door and lead her inside.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry, Will. I thought we had something together. If you aren't interested ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? What? What are you talking about? I had a great time. I enjoy being with you. Definitely interested. It's just," you paused and looked around before continuing quietly. "It's just about knocking up, er out Stephanie and the ..." Pause. "Mask."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't. I would never, Will. I like you and respect you and want you to like me. I never told anyone about the you-know-whats-it or Stephanie passing out or any of that. I might have mentioned to Beth about a wild ride, rambling through downtown and swerving around traffic like Mr. Toad's Ride and screeching to stops and starts, revving that <i>big powerful engine</i> with male testosterone and, and, and." She can barely hold back the giggles until she takes a deep breath. "And how <i>gentlemanly</i> you helped Stephanie. And." She looks down. "How we, ah, saw stars. At least, I did."<br/>
<br/>
When she looked back up, you're seeing stars again twinkling in her eyes. That's all you see. There's that warm feeling again you had getting home last night. It's quiet, like last night, too. Her eyes got bigger, and closer, and brighter until both of you closed your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
"You did what? I can't believe it. There must be something very strange and weird inside that plain, innocent-looking person you are pretending to be. Or maybe it's because you've been corrupted by some evil and can only be saved by finding a true and honest person that uses her wiles to break the spell with her own sorcery, unless she is also enchanted to become a coconspirator and soul mmm, ah. Like that."<br/>
<br/>
Cassie was with you as you pulled out of the Westside parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's the plan? Are we headed to the secret lab or going on a special mission to uncover the destiny buried within our school books? Is it ready? Can we make it ready and use it? How about getting a few minds to use for fun and profit? What about my mask? What should we do with it? What happens if I try it on? If I break a leg then put it on will it put my leg back in order. What about you? What's next?"<br/>
<br/>
All good questions that you should consider and would like to figure out. At least your paranoia was gone. You were sure you can trust Cassie and did enjoy her enthusiasm, but maybe you needed to figure out what to focus on so nothing else crazy happens.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142343231344
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Tests and ...
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"First, I don't have to be at work until five-thirty, and it only takes twenty minutes driving vice over an hour, bus and walking. Even with rush hour traffic, there's plenty of time."<br/>
<br/>
You were driving towards Cassie's house, which is only a few blocks from school, but she was trying to convince you to go to the elementary school basement and masks.<br/>
<br/>
"Second, we can't do anything at my house, even homework if it actually comes down to that, because my brothers will be there, and they will just annoy us or spy on us or tease us and then later tease me and tell their friends who will tell their friends and eventually your brother who will start teasing you and tell your parents who will start asking questions and want to meet me and ... When do you plan to introduce me to your parents? I'm sure I can arrange for you to come to dinner with us sometime this week. They're already curious about this mystery person and why I haven't brought you inside and introduced you and think that maybe you could be some sort of weirdo who might just be trying to get into their daughter's clothes."<br/>
<br/>
She stopped so suddenly that your head jerked right to find her stifling giggles.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, yeah. I get it."<br/>
<br/>
"If they only knew that you already had but not how they think," she snickered. You just rolled your eyes and turned down her street. "Come on, Will. Don't you really want to see what the new mask is like, who it creates, what it creates, whether it has two brains? I wonder if it would be schizophrenic or be like those split personality stories where one is a normal high school student and the other is ..." She got quiet backing against the door, "a psycho?"<br/>
<br/>
"I did feel the draw to the dark side when I put on <i>your</i> mask." Cassie poked your shoulder and tilted over as far as the seatbelt allowed to hug your arm. "Oh, alright." You cruised past her house, swung through the neighborhood, and headed to Acheson.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
"This is too exciting. Aren't you excited? There's so many things we can do. We gotta do them. Well, we don't have to. We could just go to the store and buy stuff to make things and maybe dinner then clean the dishes, unless we use paper plates. Better put those on the shopping list, along with plastic silverware. Napkins, too. Will we need containers for leftovers? Oh! We're here."<br/>
<br/>
"All the stuff is inside, so no shopping needed."<br/>
<br/>
"Except my mask, but - got it here in my bag. Thought there'd be an opportunity to use it plus keep it safe less my brothers find it and put it on." She cringed at that thought.<br/>
<br/>
"Use it? On who? Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, well, me for one. You for two. What happens if I put it on again anyway since it's already me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Have you already tried it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Thought about it, but what if I can't get it off? I'm not sure about that grip." She twisted her arm over her head and reached down while wiggling the fingers of the other in front of her. "And the hocus pocus words. I should write them down. It would be crazy if I got stuck in it."<br/>
<br/>
"It's a copy of you. I'm sure you could survive for a while being Cassie Harper."<br/>
<br/>
"But what if it reverts my mind to when it was last on you and I forget everything that's happened since or your mind takes over and I think I'm you wearing a mask of me? Or if I cut off my finger, and it puts it back on? People might notice, although that would be really good, actually, puttin' it back on."<br/>
<br/>
"We could shave your head and see?"<br/>
<br/>
With a shocked look, she's about to speak when you answer, "OK. Enough crazy talk. Be serious for a minute, or more. You want to try your mask on and then have me put it on again, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, yeah. Aren't you curious about what might happen?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess, but I really don't want to cut anything as an experiment."<br/>
<br/>
"OK. That was just an option that popped up as sometimes do. But," she gave you a serious look, "but, I'd really like to try being changed into something."<br/>
<br/>
"The new, merged mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can I? Please? I just wonder what it's like to be someone else. I've fantasized about that before, but it's one thing to pretend and do dress-up, but to actually change physically and also have their memories and stuff."<br/>
<br/>
You had postponed it the other day, but now there was the new mask. You'd also like to see what the merger with Stephanie will look like, and you do wonder about Cassie putting her mask on since you'd worn it.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
While you sealed the new mask with some glaze you made from ingredients on hand, Cassie tried on her mask. It only knocked her out for about five minutes then came out. No physical changes that either of you could tell. She said she felt the same, although she now had double memories from both perspectives of when you put on her mask to show her.<br/>
<br/>
"So it must update memories. That could mean losing a finger ... Want to try that now?" you asked her.<br/>
<br/>
"I think we can skip that. Let's move on to the new mask."<br/>
<br/>
"You're sure? We have no idea what variant of Stephanie you might turn into."<br/>
<br/>
"Or if my mind might be overtaken by hers and wondering how I was abducted to the secret lair of Will Prescott. What would happen then?"<br/>
<br/>
You really didn't want to think about what Stephanie could do to you if she thought that, but Cassie just smilled. Although you had misgivings, you handed the merged mask to her which just lit her face like a little kid Christmas morning.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11113113111423432313441
author_id: wordsmitty
title: ... Trials
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Ahwg. OW! Will, help." Cassie just shot up after about ten minutes from donning the new mask and being unconscious. With difficulty, she pulled her blouse over her head, barely able to get it above her now enormous chest which was severely straining the bra. "Unhook me." She turned her back.<br/>
<br/>
For a couple seconds you're frozen and unsure. "Hurry, Will this thing's killing me. It makes it worse if I reach behind me." Your fingers seemed allergic to the material and fumbled getting a grip. Finally, you got one, then two hooks released. "What's taking so long?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why do they have so many hooks?" you barked in frustration just as the last one came loose.<br/>
<br/>
"Ahhhh.  So much better. I know Stephanie isn't that much bigger than me, so it must be .." She stopped when she saw you staring at her. She's holding her new, large breasts with her arms crossed and straps falling off her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
But you're not looking at those. It's her face. She looked late twenties, early thirties. The brunette hair was just a little darker than your mom's. The face was the same shape like Stephanie's with a small chin. The eyes were perfectly spaced and bluish-brown pupils like your mom's. Her nose was slim and flared at you as her lips parted.<br/>
<br/>
"What's the matter?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um, nothing. Although, um ..." You quickly glanced down at her chest and flipped your wrist at them before looking back into her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, yeah. Gimme your shirt. This bra is too tight and my blouse would just make these things poke stretch points in it."<br/>
<br/>
One breast almost escaped as you handed her your shirt and her finger did a spinning gesture to turn you around.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad that all of us otherwise are about the same size. Good golly! These are huge. Oh well. Good thing I didn't wear skinny jeans today. Might have busted a seam or cut off circulation, not that she's fat or anything, but I can feel Stephanie and your mom have bigger thighs, stronger, more muscular." It came out sounding a bit envious. "Maybe in the future we'll need to strip. At least I had my shoes off or they'd be aching as much as these monsters were. OK. You can look. What do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
Trying not to stare at the balloons in your t-shirt, you replied, "Well, you definitely don't look like Stephanie or my mom but there's bits of each. Looks like you split the difference in age."<br/>
<br/>
"So that would make me look like I'm ...?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, thirty, about, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool. Now I just need an ID to go clubbing." Suddenly she swirled around and dashed across the room to the old mirror that was there. "Nice. Your mom must be an M-I-L, er, I mean very attractive. It definitely helps Stephanie's looks."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. OK. Thanks. Um, whose memories do you have?"<br/>
<br/>
Her staring off for half a minute indicated she was checking, but then she shrugged.<br/>
<br/>
"No one. I only have my own."<br/>
<br/>
"Really? I wonder why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well maybe it takes longer when there's more than one.  OK. Time for you to see what changes happened in my mask."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
By this time, you knew resistance was futile. Taking up the mask, you lay down on the floor and dropped it onto your face.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
When you awoke, there was a strange woman pulling on pants, and Will was gone. Had he let someone else down here? No wait. Those clothes were what Will had on. He had gotten angry at me at school for something then apologized, and we kissed, and I got him to take us to try my mask on me, and that must be the mask of Stephanie and his mom.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, good. You're awake. We need to get going soon. Notice any differences?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wait. That's not me. I mean I'm Will in Cassie's mask.</i> "Um, I've got Cassie's latest memories through this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"That's good to know. It must update when I used it."<br/>
<br/>
"Too bad we didn't shave your head to check that," you replied as you sat up and felt the bra and air over bare legs. "What's more, I'm wearing your clothes. And something's on my ears." You reached up and felt earrings. "How'd ... why ... ?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, the skirt was a little snug, too, so I thought I'd switch."<br/>
<br/>
"And the earrings?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, as long as you were being Cassie in her clothes, you might as well have the full effect."<br/>
<br/>
"Full effect? What else? Did you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I cannot tell a lie. Well, I could, but I prefer just embellishing the truth, although in this case the hard truth is that, yes. You're fully made up and ready to head to work, which we really need to do so you're not late. You, Cassie, are always so punctual and reliable that ..."<br/>
<br/>
"WHAT? I can't ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you can. You look like Cassie, You sound like Cassie, You have Cassie's memories and clothes and purse." She handed it to you. "So you must be Cassie and able to go to Cassie's work. It's only a few hours, and ..."<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111131131114234323134412
author_id: wordsmitty
title: An evening at Thrifty Nifties
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You tried to resist, but everything was against you, especially it seems just being Cassie. She is very responsible, and half your brain - the Cassie half - told you to get going before you were late. The other half was split on the idea, actually was enjoying being in Cassie's body wondering how it felt out in public. Cassie's memories calmed your fear of not being able to carry it off.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, your parents were fine with you skipping dinner again which was the last excuse you could use.<br/>
<br/>
It was a quiet ride across town. Jackie, the name Cassie decided for the merged body she had now, drove. She dropped you on the far side by the bus stop and told you she'd be back to get some clothes; it would be best to not be seen arriving together.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi, Mrs. Hartlane. Hi, Susanna."<br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Hartlane owns and runs Thrifty Nifties. She started a thrift business before you were born as a means to help the less fortunate in town. It started in an old shed on their farm just south of Acheson. Her husband, Jake, had sold most of the land to a developer for enough they could retire, just boarding a few horses as hobby cash. Their land still abutted Suffolk Wilderness where folks could ride the trails.<br/>
<br/>
During the economic downturn, the same one that resulted in the eliminating the need for the portables at school, she moved to the current location, getting an exceptional long-term deal that she likes to brag about. It was more than the space needed then, but over the years, business has boomed, filling all of the two thousand square feet.<br/>
<br/>
Susanna is Susanna Stilwell, an Eastman student, that's been here less than a year. You - Cassie - had only had a few conversations since she's always on an alternate shift, usually right after school whereas you did evenings and some weekends. It made sense since Eastman was just across the highway and down a little. The bus went by it. Cassie knew she loves music, plays the clarinet, and wants to study at the best musical college she can once she graduates. The term "musical college" always made Cassie giggle thinking of it like a stage show where everyone's life is always singing and dancing all around campus. Yep. That's the personality that got you here and now you were her.<br/>
<br/>
"Bye, Cassie. I've got half of today's drop-offs sorted. Fortunately not too many. Bye, Mrs. Hartlane. See you Thursday."<br/>
<br/>
"Bye, Susanna. Well, Cassie, looks like it might be a light evening."<br/>
<br/>
However, Cassie's memories and personality spoke up.<br/>
<br/>
"There's still the summer collection that we need to work on before it gathers dust all winter. Too bad there aren't more indoor pools or global warming hasn't turned us into a tropical climate with some banana and coconut trees, although I'd worry about them dropping on people or making them keep looking up and slip on the peels, but it would probably be an acceptable price to pay, not that I don't enjoy the fall colors and the occasional white landscapes, but it would be so much better if that would happen and stay in the seventies. Maybe someone can invent warm snow so it wouldn't melt. Anything special you want me to start on? Oh, and how's your husband and the horses doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're doing fine, my dear. Jake sprained a muscle trying to toss a hay bale over the fence like he was still thirty. Nothing serious. A hot bath and a massage, and he was back to acting thirty again." She smiled up into the shelves for a few moments obviously remembering something. Cassie's mind flashed you an image that you pushed aside about old people doing that.<br/>
<br/>
"How about you straighten the shoe section then hit the sorting."<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
<i>How do the pairs get so separated. Do people try just one and drop it off halfway down an aisle? Maybe they can move on their own and were tying to find their way back to the original owners sort of like dogs crossing the country to get to the home they remember?</i><br/>
<br/>
Your mind opened to the middle of a moon-lit night with shoes walking down sidewalks and across fields to find the little girl that so loved them until she outgrew them or found some new fashion to wear and tossed them aside. Now they're hunting her down to take revenge on those newcomers she wears. A shoe battle ensued, kicking and knocking things over until ...<br/>
<br/>
<i>That's a nice pair. Hadn't seen them before. Darn! Two sizes too small. Stupid big feet.</i><br/>
<br/>
Catching Cassie running loose in your mind, you tried to refocus, but it made you wonder about how far can a person's copy in the mask can go. Memories and instincts, learned muscle behavior, personality. You just lost yourself in Cassie doing a task she knows well and her daydreams becoming your own. Would it be possible to get so overtaken that your real self might be hard to surface?<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
It was almost seven when you heard voices out front while finishing the sorting, then someone came into the back. "Hey, Cass. How's it going?" It was Beth.<br/>
<br/>
"Doing well. What brings you across town? Did you come to tell me that Westside is burning down, and there's no school tomorrow?"<br/>
<br/>
"No such luck, but more serious. You never answered my texts, and after Will dragged you off while you were so upset, I wanted to make sure ..."<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't dump me in the river after we made out in the Home Ec wing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Made out. Do tell. I guess the disagreement wasn't big enough for make-up sex."<br/>
<br/>
You batted her shoulder and giggled, or rather Cassie's instinctive reply was that.<br/>
<br/>
"If not, why are your earrings wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're on the wrong ears. Did they come off while you, you know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beth, please. You know this is the first real, serious interest I've had. I want it to be special 'cause you know why."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well you might be the only senior girl. Then what were you doing that you never replied to any texts?"<br/>
<br/>
"That does seem odd, doesn't it. I don't remember getting any texts." You went over to the locker with your purse and took out your phone. It didn't come on. You were going to charge it after school.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Harper. That's the oldest excuse in the world. You expect me to believe that you just made out at school then took the bus across town and never checked your phone once?"<br/>
<br/>
"What can I say. His kisses made me ditzy?"<br/>
<br/>
"Cassie," Mrs. Hartlane called.<br/>
<br/>
"Gotta get to work." You took her arm and both walked out front.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you help this lady while I get these folks checked out." Mrs. Hartlane was at the cash register with two others waiting. You instantly recognized the "lady."<br/>
<br/>
"C-c-certainly," you stammered trying not to freak out. <br/>
<br/>
"Hi. I'm Jackie." Cassie held out her hand.<br/>
<br/>
You fumbled taking it and answered, "I'm Cassie."<br/>
<br/>
"And you are?" to Beth.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I'm Beth, but I don't work here."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not interrupting, am I?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Not at all. I was just leaving. Nice to meet you, Jackie, and I like the shirt."<br/>
<br/>
"Thank you. A friend loaned it to me until I could find something better." Jackie winked at you.<br/>
<br/>
Panic bubbled up enough that you were petrified until Beth said goodbye and left.<br/>
<br/>
"I was looking at this bikini and pants but couldn't tell if the size was right. The lady at front said I could try it on, but someone would have to watch." She paused watching your eyes go wide before ending, "That I bring everything back out."<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, um, yeah, okay, sure. The fitting room is this way."<br/>
<br/>
When you reach the corner, you hiss, "A bikini? What the hell? Beth recognized the shirt and earrings!"<br/>
<br/>
"As good as a bra for now. Couldn't just buy some clothes without locking these ladies down. What about the earrings?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're in the wrong ears according to her."<br/>
<br/>
Jackie stared at you for a bit before her eyes popped. "I usually put them on in front of a mirror. So when I did them earlier - bingo, reversed image. Oh, well. Time for lockdown."  She bounced her chest which made your male side warm up, but you just rolled your eyes and took some deep breaths to relax.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
A little after nine, you said goodbye to Mrs. Hartlane and went to look for Cassie. Nowhere in sight. After a couple minutes scanning the lot and storefronts, you trudged towards the bus stop since it would look odd waiting in front of the store. Cassie actually enjoys the bus stop, listening to traffic as she checks messages, except with a dead phone that won't happen. You never told Cassie so she could be trying to text you right now with instructions you'll never get or maybe something happened to her like crashed Will's truck or got pulled over without any ID and put in jail.<br/>
<br/>
You wondered if she planned to have you go home as her and to school tomorrow as well, and for how long after that. You can't miss curfew and stay out all night. Your dad will go ballistic. Maybe it would be safer to hide out as Cassie, live her life while she, while she, what? Lives a new life as Jackie somebody?<br/>
<br/>
Looking out the bus window while you waited for the departure time, a pickup bounced into the parking lot and swerved through it heading your way. Sure enough, it was Will's truck, and he's driving like a maniac to come rescue you. How sweet, although you had half a mind to just stay on the bus and see if he follows. That would be so cute. Besides you paid your fare.<br/>
<br/>
The truck's headlights flashed enough to break you loose from Cassie's mind. The way she drove, she obviously knew she was late and was trying to get your attention. However, since she tricked you into this evening, maybe it would be fun to ride it out and make her panic for a change.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111311311142343231344121
author_id: wordsmitty
title: Parental Dealings
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're driving towards the old school. You'd never driven a truck before - Cassie hadn't - but it thrilled you in her mind, getting even closer to adorable Will with his truck. Pushing her mind aside, you struggled making her body work the controls. Your boobs were almost hitting the steering wheel because your boy brain made movements that shifted her body ways you didn't expect. After a few blocks of back and forth's in your head, fits and bumps, and Jackie adding pointers, you finally reached an equilibrium on the road and in your mind. Still you kept finding a smile on your face.<br/>
<br/>
Cassie had met you beside the truck wearing the new clothes - a white three-quarter sleeve crop-top that the bikini pattern could almost be seen. Jackie's large breasts were very obvious pulling the material up to show even more of her well-toned and tanned mid-rift. The dark capris hugged her hips and accentuated her legs. You were getting aroused and wondered if Cassie would ..., but pushed that thought away.<br/>
<br/>
Basically, Jackie <i>ordered</i> you to drive. Her actions and tone were brusk and direct as she handed you the keys. Trying hard to be calm and distinct, she slowly explained; no rambling or wandering dialogue. She would take off the mask on the way to be awake when you got to the clubhouse. She'd explain more then, but just know that this evening was obviously for your own good with a little mature responsibility in Cassie's job.<br/>
<br/>
You were pretty well dumbfounded at this and her complete change of personality until you realized, and she confirmed, that little bits of Stephanie's personality were creeping in. Not much, and no memories per se, but it was confusing her. It frightened her that it night take over unless she could manage control and wanted out. At least the mind band sort of works, but it must take time (maybe due to the merging?), although it can't be confirmed without her remaining in it, which there wasn't time for tonight.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
As you traveled to Cassie's, she was back in standard mode.<br/>
<br/>
"So, what do you think? Were you able to manage everything? You were quite expert at helping Jackie, and it didn't seem that Beth had any idea about you - or me." She giggled, "That was so fun especially seeing me at work, dutifully helping. I guess that must be how a mother feels seeing her offspring handling responsibility. Too bad your mom's memories didn't come through or maybe they did, just subconsciously, and that's why I felt so good about seeing you help me, not that it's also good to know that I'm doing such a good job even if it's you as me. Maybe you could sub more often so I could ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Stop. Wait. What? Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
She giggled, grabbed your arm and leaned over to put her head on your shoulder. She sighed then was quiet the rest of the way to her house. She felt good against you.<br/>
<br/>
The quiet ride gave you time to think. You actually enjoyed being Cassie this evening even though she pushed you into it. You wondered what more you could do, even school, and knew you wouldn't mind doing it again. Maybe it could be a real date with Will next time.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Whoa there. That must be some residual effects.</i><br/>
<br/>
After kissing Cassie good night, you pretty much floated home. Even Robert's pestering, you just brushed off. You can't imagine how Cassie deals with two annoying brothers. Maybe you could learn some pointers if you spend time as her at home.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Not again!</i> You stopped that thought.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the week went fine. Cassie met you or you met her several times each day. Life was good, and you no longer noticed Lisa each day or who she was with, or cared at all. Cassie never brought up anything about the masks, and they slipped from your thoughts. <br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
You're not in a good mood as you head to Cassie's for your Friday date. Your dad had been his usual overbearing self after spotting you heading out in your nice shirt and slacks.<br/>
<br/>
"And be home by curfew."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Eleven PM."<br/>
<br/>
"It's not a school night, why ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Responsibility. You can't be dragging a girl out late on a first date."<br/>
<br/>
"But it's not really our first date. We've done things together before."<br/>
<br/>
"And you've been home by curfew each time. This is no different."<br/>
<br/>
"This is ridiculous. Cassie doesn't have curfews on weekends. Her parents let her ..."<br/>
<br/>
His face and voice went stern. "If I had a daughter, she'd be ..."<br/>
<br/>
The rest was lost in a clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen and your mom's voice calling. "Harris. Need you in here, Now."<br/>
<br/>
You dad gave a gruff glare for a second then marched away.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
This was your first visit to the Harper home with Cassie's parents. It was older than your house, probably built in the fifties when Saratoga Falls was expanding and before Westside was even planned. Cement steps and stoop were covered by a separate peaked overhang jutting out from the house. A large plate glass window to the right side (living room) with one small window beyond from the kitchen. Left were a couple single, regular windows, probably two rooms.<br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Harper greeted you, smiling and freckled. Her hair was curly and light brown with features that you would recognize as Cassie's mom anywhere. Mr. Harper was just a bit taller than you, dark hair with a touch of gray and slightly receding. He had a strong handshake that Cassie had warned you, so you squeezed firmly with him before he sat you down to talk until Cassie came up behind you.<br/>
<br/>
"So, Will, what are your intentions with my daughter?"<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Harper had been rather casual up until then, asking the usual questions about school, family, plans for after high school - you really should start thinking about that. Cassie said you might get the third degree but not to worry about it. You didn't know what to reply about intentions, though. Fortunately, Cassie just appeared and took over.<br/>
<br/>
"Gee, Daddy. This is just the first date, and Will is just going to act very gentlemanly, like he has when we've met after school or he's gone to my work. We're just going to talk then he'll drive out somewhere secluded where he'll get me out of my clothes." She paused a beat. "So he can put them on and pretend to be me."<br/>
<br/>
<i>What the Hell, Cassie?</i> <br/>
<br/>
Mr. Harper slowly turned his piercing gaze from a most innocently looking Cassie. Was she just ribbing you about wearing her clothes?  But you were in her body at the time. Does he really think you do that?<br/>
<br/>
"So. William," he interrogated. "Is that true?"<br/>
<br/>
There was no way you could admit to this, but how to explain. Your mind started to fizzle under Mr. Harper's stare, and the weirdness of it all seemed to melt words out of your mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Um, no sir. Not exactly, sir." You swallowed trying to move the lump from your throat. He just waited.<br/>
<br/>
"You see, we, ah, swap bodies first, then ah, before putting on each others clothes, that is."<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he pauses a few seconds before his expression lightens. "OK then. Anyone who can keep up with our Cassie's imagination should be able to survive a date with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Daddy!"<br/>
<br/>
"It's OK, Cass. If he's going to swap bodies then, seeing you ..."<br/>
<br/>
"ARTHUR!" Cassie's mom exclaimed.<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your eyes closed, Will," he insisted while winking at you. "That's an order. Now get out of here and have fun."<br/>
<br/>
Cassie literally dragged you along as she ran out. You just barely heard her mom, "I don't know which of you can be worse."<br/>
<br/>
Once in your truck, Cassie grabbed you and tried to suck your lips off while her tongue searched for your Adam's apple. You eventually pushed her away and drove off telling her that her parents were probably watching.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm so glad that you decided that we are going to swap bodies tonight 'cause that will be so much fun that I can hardly wait and maybe I should start losing my clothes and ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa! Whoa. Whoa. Whata you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
She froze and gave you those puppy dog eyes. "You told my dad we would swap bodies. You know he's going to expect a new daughter when you go home as me."<br/>
<br/>
"I just said that so he didn't think I was a cross dresser."<br/>
<br/>
"So instead you want him to think you're transgender?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I've proven that I can be either," you smirk with a tap at her arm.<br/>
<br/>
* * * *<br/>
<br/>
By the first quarter's end, Westside was up by three touchdowns, and the crowd was already thinning. A discussion ensued among Cassie, Beth and some other friends about where to go.  There were a couple parties and, of course, the Warehouse, the high school version of a nightclub, run by high-schoolers and ignored by the police and most parents. Unfortunately, it's too early for most parties and definitely for the Warehouse that doesn't usually get going until eleven, but it does last almost all night.<br/>
<br/>
At eleven, you'll never get there with your curfew, and you admitted that to Cassie. She consoled you with a hug and kiss just as your phone went off.<br/>
<br/>
<i>curfew canceld. back by dawn <img alt="*Wink*" border="0" class="emoteZ" height="15" loading="lazy" src="https://images2.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/e21/wink.png" style="" title="Wink" width="15"/> mom</i><br/>
<br/>
You double checked to make sure it was her cell, before you smiled and showed it to Cassie.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's do something fun." She briefly put her hand over her face to indicate what she meant.<br/>
<br/>
The idea of now being able to be out most of the night had your head spinning. Besides parties or the Warehouse as yourselves or masked, there's also the next spell that needs 400 pounds of cemetery dirt that you two could get. That may not be the fun she meant, though, especially as she opens her purse to show you a blank blue mask, the one she made the other day, now polished and ready. <br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111132
author_id: seuzz
title: Concussing Keith
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>If Caleb is a junior scientist type, Keith is like the guinea pig the scientist likes to torture.<br/>
<br/>
And once that metaphor suggests itself, you realize that Keith, not Caleb, is the perfect test subject for that mask.<br/>
<br/>
So you go looking for him at his locker.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He's not there, and you fidget and fume while waiting for him to show up. Finally, you give up and turn back to your own locker.<br/>
<br/>
You manage to shove yourself ten feet through the smelly mass of students before you bump into Keith. "Where the fuck were you?" he demands over the rumbling mutter of the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
"Waiting for you at your locker. Where the fuck were you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Looking for you at— The fuck do you want?"<br/>
<br/>
"Guys!" a hoarse, female voice hollers. "Can you keep the fucking cursing to a fucking minimum?"<br/>
<br/>
You look over your shoulder. It's Mrs. Wendt, one of the Health teachers. She's short and she's pudgy, and she's grimacing hard as she tries to squeeze her way through the churning student body. You step aside to let her pass, and she doesn't even glance at you, let alone thank you.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, I wanna hang out with you this afternoon!" you holler at Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Cool! I love being popular!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wind up over at South Creek Park, between the municipal athletic fields and Stewart's Hole, which is a large manmade pond with ducks and geese and fish and small woodland back behind it. You and Keith amuse yourselves by chucking rocks into the water. He bitches about Caleb some more while you look for an opportunity to tell him about the thing you're carrying in your backpack.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, you just shoehorn it in. "Oh hey, I got something I wanna show you," you say as you squat to unzip your pack.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that why you were carrying that thing around?" Keith asks.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "You see me carrying my backpack around? I was wondering why you brought yours out."<br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't you ask what I brought it out for?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs again. "I don't give a shit."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes and pull out the mask. "I, uh, found this thing at the hobby shop," you improvise, for at the last minute you decide to shy away from telling him that you made it. (It would lead to too many questions.) "You know, Halloween's coming up and—"<br/>
<br/>
"No it isn't. It's like four months away."<br/>
<br/>
You do a rapid mental calculation. "Six weeks."<br/>
<br/>
"Close enough."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. But what do you think?" You brandish the mask. "For Halloween?"<br/>
<br/>
"Psht. It's like six months away, what are you worrying about—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just try it on, jerkwad. See what you look like in it."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay."<br/>
<br/>
That kind of acquiescence is the absolute last thing you were expecting. Still less were you expecting him to grab the mask from you and lift it to his face. But that's just what he does. "There," he says. "What do I—?"<br/>
<br/>
Then he pitches forward like a felled tree. At least you manage to grab him as he falls, but he drags you to the ground with him in a heap. "Boowph!" you gasp as his elbow punches you in the diaphragm.<br/>
<br/>
You scramble back and blink down at him. His face has gone slack and his eyes are vacant. His limbs are boneless. You glance all around, looking for the mask. And when you can't find it, you scramble to your knees and roll Keith over to look under him.<br/>
<br/>
It's gone.<br/>
<br/>
And Keith is out cold.<br/>
<br/>
And the magic gives you a very long time to panic about what it all means.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So it takes your brain who knows how long—minutes; hours; days?—to whirl and gyre uselessly around the few plain facts you can grasp.<br/>
<br/>
One: Keith is lying flat on his back, limp and staring like a dead fish. He is breathing, though, and he has a slow but steady pulse. But no matter how you pinch and poke and smack him, he won't respond.<br/>
<br/>
Two: The mask has vanished. It didn't fall to the grass, and it didn't roll down the slope into the pond.<br/>
<br/>
Which leaves you in a very public pickle. You have the pond bank to yourself for fifty yards in either direction, and only occasionally will a jogger or a power-walker or a fat lady with her dog go striding along the nearby bridle path. But you're sitting on the grass with a friend who looks to all the world like he's dead, and the thingummy that did it to him has disappeared.<br/>
<br/>
And once your brain has fully processed these facts, it shuts down. All you can do is sit on the bank, staring at Keith, and hoping that some miracle happens before someone stops to ask you what's wrong.<br/>
<br/>
That gives you plenty of time to look at Keith, and to wonder what's wrong with him. There's a lot to go over.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, it's not like he's seriously handicapped in any way. Not even in the personality department, which is where most criticisms can be lodged. You like Keith. He's your number-two best friend, after Caleb, and stands a lot higher than whoever would be your number three best friend.<br/>
<br/>
Because, let's face it, you don't hang out with that many people.<br/>
<br/>
Still, if you hang out a lot with Keith, it's largely because not a lot of people will hang out with him, and you're conscious of the fact that he does come in a clear second on your own private hit parade. What's wrong with him?<br/>
<br/>
Well, not to be shallow about it, but he's kind of ugly. Not mirror-breaking ugly. More like stupid-ugly. His dark hair is shorn in an unflattering buzz cut, and he has beetle brows and red-and-brown splotches on his face. He doesn't brush his teeth every day, either, and neither does he shave. But while it's true that you don't shave often either, your wispy facial hair is at least concentrated in the right spots: upper lip and chin. His sprouts out in all kinds of places.<br/>
<br/>
He's skinny, too. Again, like you, but he's bony with big elbows and knees. <br/>
<br/>
As for his personality: He's just dumb. He's always about five seconds too slow to catch on to what anyone says, and his slang is at least two years out of date when it isn't just hilariously misapplied. Nor is he book smart, as he's just skating by with Cs in classes that are no harder than yours.<br/>
<br/>
And he has no shame about talking about horny he is, or about what kind of girl he'd like to do it with and how he'd do it with them. He openly gawks at girls that are way out of his league—and, let's face, that's a huge proportion of the female population.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, the longer you think about it, the more depressed you get that you're friends with him and not with a better class of high school student. Because what does it say about <i>you</i> that you haven't got those friends either?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you lose yourself in these reflections, which is better than panicking. And you're calmly studying Keith's complexion, and wondering how much oil it must be exuding for it to be so shiny, when his face turns blue and loses all its detail.<br/>
<br/>
You almost shit yourself until you recognize what it is. It's the mask. It's now sitting on Keith's face.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow your heart, which has tried climbing up the back of your tongue, and gingerly pick the mask up. Keith is still unconscious, but it looks more like sleep now, maybe because his eyes are closed.<br/>
<br/>
So what happened? You've no time to figure that out before you're distracted by the mask in your hand. It is gleaming hard, and as you study it you realize that the rippling reflections of sunlight do not all move in the same way as you turn the mask this way and that. Some of them seem bonded to the surface. <br/>
<br/>
You look more closely, and you gulp.<br/>
<br/>
It contains a face. Like a ghostly 3D image, a face is floating inside the mask.<br/>
<br/>
Not a generic face, either. It's the face of Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
You turn the mask this way and that. It is a 3D image, for it gives you a glimpse of the sides of his head, and under the chin, and of his crown. When viewed from the right angle, you can even make out his neck and part of his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Holy fucking shit!</i> This mask thing contains a copy of your friend!<br/>
<br/>
At least, you assume that's what it is.<br/>
<br/>
Keith still hasn't stirred when you shove the mask back into your pack and zip it up. Cautiously you slap at his face. "Keith. Keith!"<br/>
<br/>
He mumbles something, and his brow furrows. He opens his eyes and frowns at you. "Mwuh?"<br/>
<br/>
"You okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why, what—?" He blinks, then bolts upright. He looks around wildly. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, man. The, uh— I think you passed out or something."<br/>
<br/>
"The <i>fuck?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Maybe we should—"<br/>
<br/>
Keith scrambles to his feet. You follow. He looks around, then locks a glare on you. "The fuck did you do to me, man?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't do anything! I just—"<br/>
<br/>
"Stay the fuck away from me, Will!" He runs off, hands and feet flapping like a gooney bird trying to take off.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, that's convenient,</i> you reflect. Easier than trying to shake him off your shirt tail.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Later that evening.</i> <br/>
<br/>
It's been a good day's work, even if it left one of your friends pissed off at you. After touching the mask to the grimoire, you found that you could turn the page. On the reverse you found an explanation for what the mask does and how to use it, and on the next page you found a new spell. You already had the ingredients on hand for it, and with them created a kind of magical sealant.<br/>
<br/>
If you seal the mask, you'll be able to put it on and turn yourself into a copy of Keith. If you don't, then you can create an entirely new "person" by adding other copies of people to it. <br/>
<br/>
Choices, choices.</span></div></div>


path: 1111321
author_id: seuzz
title: The Two-Faced Kid
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>As far as you can follow it, the mask you made works like this: If you put it on someone's face, then it will "absorb" a copy of their body into it. (It will also knock them unconscious while it does that, which is convenient if you don't want them slapping at you, but inconvenient if you're out in public with them.) If, after that, you put the mask onto another person, it will "absorb" a copy of them too.<br/>
<br/>
But it won't store the copies separately, the way you can save different word processing documents on a computer. Instead, it merges them and mixes them all up to make a "body" that is halfway between the two. This is also convenient, you reflect, if you want to make a disguise that doesn't look like anyone in particular.<br/>
<br/>
Keith Tilly is certainly homely enough that his looks could only be improved by mixing them up with someone else's more handsome features. Yours, perhaps?<br/>
<br/>
But that would be a distraction from your research. You have already performed the next spell in the book—the one that makes up a kind of paste—and you apply it, as directed, to the inner surface of the mask.<br/>
<br/>
It goes on clear, like rubber cement, so that the mask itself looks unchanged. But if the book is correct, then the mask is now "sealed." That means it will no longer absorb new body types. Instead, if you put it on, you will turn into a duplicate of Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ewww.</i><br/>
<br/>
But, at the same time, <i>Hrmm.</i><br/>
<br/>
Disguises are fun things. Disguises as other people, people that you know, are a prank waiting to happen.<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" your dad calls. "Your mother needs you!"<br/>
<br/>
It's too late in the day to do any pranking in a disguise. Besides, you need time to think up a good one. So you shove the mask into the tottering pile of books and papers on your desk and run downstairs to take out the trash.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Tuesday morning. Second period. Mr. Hawks's Film as Literature class.</i> Keith blinks at you as you enter the classroom, then looks ostentatiously away.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck's biting you?" you demand as you slump into the desk next to his.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm still pissed at you."<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"'About what'," he sneers. "You're so dumb you don't even remember what you did to me yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't do anything to you yesterday! Are you talking about that thing with the mask? That wasn't my fault!"<br/>
<br/>
"Whose fault was it, then?"<br/>
<br/>
"No one's! It was just this mask that I had! I don't even know why you tried putting it on."<br/>
<br/>
Keith wheels on you. "Because you asked me to!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you grumble. "Jesus. I'll make it up to you sometime."<br/>
<br/>
"Lemme borrow a pencil?"<br/>
<br/>
"If that's what it'll take to make you happy again."<br/>
<br/>
"It won't, but it's a start."<br/>
<br/>
So you hand over an extra mechanical pencil from your bag. You can't help but notice he's got a couple in his pencil case, but you bite your tongue. It's pretty obvious he's just trying to make you grovel.<br/>
<br/>
And you're willing to do a little groveling if it'll keep him talking so he'll tell you what you want to know. "What are you doing this afternoon?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno. Not hanging out with <i>you,</i> you ... <i>rapist!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Christ, keep your voice down!" You look around quickly. The room is mostly empty, but two girls back in the corner cover their mouths and lean in close to whisper to each other. "But if you're not hanging out with me, where <i>are</i> you going to be? You know, so I don't accidentally run into you," you add sarcastically—though in fact that's exactly what you want.<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno," he mumbles again. "Hey, did you watch that video?"<br/>
<br/>
"What video?"<br/>
<br/>
"The one I asked you to watch, dumbass."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't ask me to—"<br/>
<br/>
But Mr. Hawks has stepped up to the front of the room, and a moment later the bell rings. When class ends, Keith is still being a dick, and he pointedly tells you that you can eat lunch with Caleb. "You two deserve each other."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It's a YouTube channel," Caleb informs you when you're eating with him. It's just the two of you, in a shady outside corner where you're unlikely to be hassled. "You're not missing anything."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I figured it was YouTube, since, you know, it's a <i>video.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't snap at me, Will," Caleb says. "You've already got Tilley pissed at you."<br/>
<br/>
You mumble a quasi-apology, which gets a snort from him. "But I don't know why he's pissed at me," you say. "And he's acting like I know whatever the fuck he's talking about with this video. He didn't tell me anything about it, even though he thinks he did."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe he did and you just don't remember. I forget most of what he says right after he says it," Caleb says. "Easier to take him that way."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you talk about me this way behind my back?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb doesn't reply as he takes his cell out and thumbs at it. "Here," he says as he hands it to you. "That's probably the video he was talking about."<br/>
<br/>
It opens with cheesy spinning effects, then dissolves to a guy sitting in front of a beige wall. You recognize him from English class, which you had just last period, but can't quite place the name.<br/>
<br/>
"Carlos Montoya," Caleb tells you when you ask. "Watch, Michael Hollister will come on in a minute."<br/>
<br/>
It's more than a minute, though, as Montoya—a buffed, goofy-looking guy in a pink t-shirt and a short faux-hawk—slaps a flyswatter about the set. You can't make out what he's saying, though, because the sound is tinny and you're sitting outside. "The fuck is this supposed to be?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"A movie review channel," Caleb explains. "Re-review. They talk about movies. New movies, and lots of old classics. They're talking about 'The Fly' in that one."<br/>
<br/>
That would explain the antics with the flyswatter, you'd guess. The title sounds vaguely familiar, but you've never seen it and don't really know anything about it. "Why is Tilley so interested in the video? Why does he think we are?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because he's got a cameo in it," Caleb says. "Can you hear what they're saying?" You shake your head. "That's Keith talking in the background, yelling 'Help me, help me!' because he's this little fly and they're trying to kill him with that flyswatter."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at the screen, trying to figure it out. "So this movie they're reviewing is about a talking fly? What is it, a Pixar thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's an old horror classic. Came out in the nineteen-eighties."<br/>
<br/>
"So it's not a Pixar?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beats the fuck out of me. You're the one supposedly taking a class about movies."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You turn it off without watching the whole thing, because it looks pointless and dumb. But you do go in search of Tilley after lunch, and you slather him with a lot of oily praise for the video and his part in it. "Caleb told me about it and we watched it and it was awesome," you tell him. "Tell me the next time you make one. How'd you get hooked up with these guys?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I hang out with them sometimes," Keith says. He sounds like he's trying to play it cool, but it's obvious that he's absurdly flattered by all the melted butter you're pouring over his ego. "They're talking about asking me to make a video of my own for their channel." He shrugs and tosses his head. "'Cos, you know, of my talent."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool, I hope you do," you say. "So what are you doing this afternoon?"<br/>
<br/>
He finally seems to have forgiven you—good, because you don't think you could stand sucking his cock any harder than you already have—and he says he's thinking about going to see a movie. Which one, though, he's not sure yet. "You know, so I'll have something to talk about if Mike and Carlos ask me. Wanna come?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. No, I don't think I can commit," you tell him with pretended reluctance. "My folks need me home early this afternoon. But come tell me what you see later, so you can practice doing a review." You clap him on the shoulder and hurry off to class.<br/>
<br/>
And now that you know where Keith is likely to be, you have a good idea of where not to be yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you are <i>not</i> at the Silver Cineplex up by the mall. You're on the other side of the city, down south close to where your dad works, parked behind a Carl's Jr. You are spread out over the bench of your truck, back against the passenger-side door and your feet up next to the steering wheel. You have Keith's mask in your hands.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have any of Keith's clothes, so the disguise won't be perfect. But you did make a point of putting on the kind of shit that he wears—jeans and a dark t-shirt—and you've dropped your ball cap into the foot well.<br/>
<br/>
If the mask works right, all you have to do is put it to your face, and you'll turn into a doppelganger of Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
<i>If</i> the mask works right. That's the rub. You've been careful up until now to experiment on other people. But now you have to try it out yourself—unless you want to share the secret of the grimoire with other people.<br/>
<br/>
There will be time later to decide to do that.<br/>
<br/>
Your hands and feet are numb with anticipation as you pull the mask toward your face. You close your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Its surface is surprisingly warm as it touches your skin, as though it's been sitting in the sun. It's heavy, too. Then it starts to melt. And it feels heavier and heavier as it melts, as though it is pushing into your face ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake with a start. Someone is tapping on the window behind you. You rear up and turn around.<br/>
<br/>
One of those guys from the video is grinning at you through the window. "Hey Keith! 'T'sup?" he calls.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11113211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Understudy
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You rear back with a thumping heart and almost brain yourself on the roof of your cab. The guy at the window just keeps grinning at you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>What's his name? Mickey? Mark? Marcos?<br/>
<br/>
Oh yeah! Mike!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you call back, and swallow hard. <i>Stop panicking!</i> you tell yourself, though you're not sure why you are.<br/>
<br/>
Mike makes a motion like he wants you to roll down the window, so you twist the key in the ignition and punch the window button. <br/>
<br/>
"What are doing here?" he asks. "Thought you were going to see a movie."<br/>
<br/>
You stare back at him. When the hell did you ever talk to this guy? You weren't going to the movies. In fact, you were going to stay as far away from the theater as possible, because Keith was—<br/>
<br/>
You sphincter loosens so suddenly you actually fart.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Yeah," you stammer. "Uh, changed my mind, gonna go catch something later."<br/>
<br/>
"Then you should come out to the studio," Mike says. He holds up a paper bag with the Carl's Jr. logo on it. "I got us some shit to eat."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a terrifying suggestion: Go along with some of Keith's friends while disguised as Keith.<br/>
<br/>
Because that's the situation you've woken up in. You may be dressed in Will Prescott's clothes, but when you glance at the rearview mirror, you see Keith Tilley's face.<br/>
<br/>
<i>He thinks I'm Tilley. Because I look just like Tilley. I am Keith Tilley's doppelganger.</i><br/>
<br/>
And that makes the offer too tempting to pass up. <br/>
<br/>
Because the whole reason you put on the mask was so you could wander around in public with Keith's face, doing random shit while gleefully reminding yourself, "All these people think I'm Keith."<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? It's not like these guys can suddenly accuse you of being a fake, of being an imposter who's only disguised as Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," you reply, and for a moment you feel a stab like cold steel into your guts. <i>What if you're out of character already, and Mike starts to wonder about you?</i><br/>
<br/>
"So where's your car? Who you hangin' out with here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, my friend Will," you gasp. "You know Will?"<br/>
<br/>
Mike shakes his head. <i>Fuck you too,</i> you think. "Yeah, he's inside, we stopped to get something. I mean, he wanted something. Me, I'm just chilling." You shrug stiffly, and start to shake all over. This pretense is going to be harder than you thought.<br/>
<br/>
"So bring him along," Mike says. "I gotta get back now, I'll see you there." He turns to go.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, hey, wait!" You hop halfway out of the cab. "Can't work it that way," you stammer, "because, uh, Will wanted to go do something else at the, uh— But I'll go tell him I wanna bail. It was gonna be kinda lame anyway." You jerk your shoulders. "Will's kind of lame, actually." Internally, you kick yourself, then watch Mike closely to see how he reacts.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't, except to ask if you need a ride. "Okay, go tell your friend you're coming with me,"  he says when you nod. "But don't take forever, okay?" He saunters off toward a compact car in the corner of the lot.<br/>
<br/>
You rub your palms on your jeans, then lean into the cab to retrieve your keys before hurrying into the restaurant.<br/>
<br/>
Why did you have to try on the mask in public, in a fucking parking lot of all places? Why didn't you go someplace private? These are the questions you ask yourself as you duck into the men's room. You need to think things through more carefully next time.<br/>
<br/>
<i>If there is a next time.</i><br/>
<br/>
You're tempted to go tell Mike that your friend is being a big baby and that you'll have to go off with him instead. But after splashing a little water on your face, you raise up and catch sight of yourself in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Keith Tilley looks back at you.<br/>
<br/>
Jesus, you've never been this close to his scabby face.<br/>
<br/>
It's pocked over here and there with things like crusted-over zits, and spotty blemishes like malformed freckles. His beetle brows are dark and thick. You push aside a ragged spot in one and find a deep scar. Your dark, bristly hair looks like it was cut with an electric razor by a blind man. Your lips are chapped, and your eyes are flat and dull.<br/>
<br/>
You can hardly believe that you're friends with a guy who looks in such need of a good scrubbing. Or (as Seth Javits would have it) a good beating. In truth, when you get this close, you kind of understand Javits's attitude.<br/>
<br/>
But though Keith has always struck you as being kind of dumb, you don't remember ever feeling this skeezed out by him. What is the deal? Is this what <i>everyone</i> sees when they look at Keith? And if so, why did you never see it before?<br/>
<br/>
You straighten up and blink and regard yourself with a grimace -- an expression that makes Keith look even uglier. Oddly, though, it makes you like the face better.<br/>
<br/>
Then, in a flash, you get an idea: Maybe it's a kind of "uncanny valley" effect. The problem appears to be with your eyes. Though they look like Keith's eyes, they seem dead. They can never quite get the eyes right in a CG movie when they're trying to make a human being. Is that going to be a problem with the mask? It's like a CG-generated illusion, and it can't get the eyes right?<br/>
<br/>
Your brow crinkles, and that movement catches your eye, drawing you out of the thoughtful reverie.<br/>
<br/>
You catch sight of yourself again, and now there's more life in your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, Jesus!</i> Is that the problem? Is the problem you and not the mask?<br/>
<br/>
"Be like Keith," you murmur to yourself, and a little sneer distends your lip at what a gross thought that is. (But maybe Keith would think the same thing if forced to "Be like Will.") "Be like Keith," you repeat. How hard can it be to be a dumbass? <i>Be like Keith.</i> You've hung out with him enough you should be able to do a passable imitation.<br/>
<br/>
You settle back on your heels and lift your chin like Keith does when he's trying to be cool. He's got this weird "chin chucking" thing he does when people get sarcastic with him. "T'sup," you ask yourself. "Yo. Wha. T'sup?" (Keith sometimes has delusions that he's ghetto.) What did he say to you the other day, when the subject of Javits's girlfriend, Cindy Vredenburg, came up? "Damn straight I'd fuck her. Scrape her out clean. Put one of them 'Man at Work' signs on her chest and -- "<br/>
<br/>
<i>Eesh. Too exaggerated.</i> "Just relax," you tell yourself, and you shut your eyes, take a deep breath, and let the tension drain from you.<br/>
<br/>
When you open them again, it's the closest approach yet you've made to capturing his look. Confident. Swaggering.<br/>
<br/>
Punchably stupid.<br/>
<br/>
It'll have to do. You chuck your chin at yourself, and saunter out the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So what're we doin' today?" You shove your hand into the burger bag for a fistful of fries. Grabbing other people's food is one Tilley's most annoying habits, but Mike says nothing about it, maybe because he's concentrating on driving.<br/>
<br/>
"Watching a movie, probably," he says. "So I guess you're not getting out of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever. Oh hey, when're you gonna let <i>me</i> do a video?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought that's how come you were going to the cineplex this afternoon. So you'd have something to do for us."<br/>
<br/>
"So maybe I could do something about this one instead. Or, I dunno, maybe I'mma go see something tonight. Like I give a fuck, you know."<br/>
<br/>
That draws you a mildly reproving glance, but Mike says nothing.<br/>
<br/>
You almost say something when he abruptly turns into the parking lot of a rental storage complex, but you hold your tongue. Then, after he's punched in a code that opens the gate to the units, you decide you've waited too long to ask what the fuck he's doing. So you don't.<br/>
<br/>
You glance back at the sign as he drives in. "Top Self Storage" it says. And there's a caret and an "h" inserted between "S" and "e" in "Self" so that it's been corrected to say "Top Shelf Storage." <i>The fuck?</i><br/>
<br/>
Mike parks in front of a unit and gets out with the food. You follow. Should you be querying this? Keith is a stupidly nosey motherfucker, and it would be out of character for him not to ask why you're at a fucking storage complex. But Mike is acting like this is normal, so you decide to hold back.<br/>
<br/>
He punches a code into a key pad, and opens the door. You follow him into a lobby that is refreshingly cool -- air conditioned. Mike strides down a long corridor lined on both sides with sliding metal doors. <i>Hm. So these units have their entrances on the </i>inside<i> of the building instead of the outside.</i><br/>
<br/>
Halfway down are two doors that are raised. Mike steps into the first. "Yo, food!" he announces.<br/>
<br/>
You try to keep your eyes from popping out.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, it's not the most astonishing sight. But the unit contains a weight bench and barbells and long foot locker. Mike's friend Carlos, in shorts and t-shirt and sneakers, is lying on the bench and doing butterfly curls with a couple of very heavy weights. He drops them and sits up. "About fucking time," he grumbles. He starts a little at the sight of you. "Hey, I didn't know you were coming. T'sup?"<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't know myself. T'sup yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a little small talk, the gist of which you barely follow, between Mike and Carlos, then they lead you into another bay with an even bigger surprise: the studio set that you recognize from the YouTube video. You keep your reactions mute, and only grunt and mumble in a friendly kind of way when some rolling chairs get pushed out, a big-screen TV is turned on, and a DVD is slid into a player.<br/>
<br/>
And that is how you wind up watching the dumbest movie you've ever seen.</span></div></div>


path: 111132112
author_id: seuzz
title: And You Come Back a Star
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Fuck," Mike sighs when the movie is over. "That was awesome."<br/>
<br/>
"Fucker!" Carlos slams a hard fist into Mike's arm, and his friend yells. "You <i>fuck!</i>" Meaty blow after meaty blow rains on him as Mike yelps and laughs. "Where the fuck did you get the fucking idea we should—?"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you bitching about?" Mike squeals. "It was great!"<br/>
<br/>
"It sucked!"<br/>
<br/>
"Keith, tell him it was great!"<br/>
<br/>
"That was the worst movie I ever saw," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
Mike giggles. "Sure. That's what made it so great."<br/>
<br/>
"It" was some monster film made in the late 60s with a lot of English actors you never heard of, including one woman who was supposed to be sexy but looked like a man in a bad wig. The plot didn't make any sense—it started with a cruise ship being caught in a hurricane, then graduated to it being attacked by killer sea weed, before ending up in a pitched battle with giant crabs and scorpions and pirates dressed in conquistador helmets and KKK robes.<br/>
<br/>
You're able to kick back and grin without risk to your cover as Mike and Carlos argue the merits of the film. Carlos thinks it's stupidity was incompetence; Mike thinks it was genius. Comparisons to other monster movies get bandied back and forth. All of it goes over your head, so you wind up concentrating on the guys.<br/>
<br/>
They're a real contrast: Carlos is Hispanic, of course, but of a thoroughly Americanized sort. And even with his muscles—which are solid but not bulging—he radiates a geekiness that is closer to your kind of style than to any other. His grin is wide and easy, and even his faux-hawk has an endearing goofiness. But his voice is deep, and just the sound of fist-against-flesh tells you he can pack a powerful wallop when he wants.<br/>
<br/>
Mike, meanwhile, has a more Irish look. His pale-red hair is chopped short, and his face is very ruddy. He also has a bright grin, and pale blue eyes that stare. He's a little more awkward in his gestures than Carlos is, and he stutters and stammers and spits when he starts talking too fast.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder how Keith got to know them, and why he never mentioned them to you.<br/>
<br/>
Then you wonder why he's apparently never mentioned you to them.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
While the argument is still raging, your phone bleeps. It's a text from your mom: <i>Are you coming home for dinner?</i><br/>
<br/>
Shit. You got so wrapped up you forgot about the time. "Hey guys, I need to get home," you announce.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, thanks for hanging out," Mike says. "What?" he adds when you don't move.<br/>
<br/>
"Can I get a ride?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares, then jumps up. "Sorry. Where's your car?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Up at the Silver Cineplex, of course.</i> "You can just take me back to the Carl's Jr. I'll text Will, get him to meet me there."<br/>
<br/>
"Right, that reminds me," Carlos says, and from the desk drawer he takes a fat envelope and pulls out a ten; your mouth waters at the sight of a batch of twenties it was keeping company with. "Here's paying you back for the other day."<br/>
<br/>
But Mike slaps your hand back as you reach out to take it. "Dude, he owes us for his part of the fries and burgers."<br/>
<br/>
"That's not ten dollars," Carlos retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"He still needs to pay!"<br/>
<br/>
"So how much do you think he ate?" Carlos nods at you. "What kind of change you got for a ten?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, look, forget it," you say. "We'll just call it even. Uh, cheaper than going to a show, you know, and I still got a movie out of it."<br/>
<br/>
Carlos shrugs and drops the envelope back into the drawer. Mike claps you on the arm. With a careless wave and a chuck of the chin back at Carlos, you follow him out.<br/>
<br/>
But he stops before getting into his car, and turns back to the door. He cusses under his breath as he taps in the code again.<br/>
<br/>
For whatever reason, you're focused on the keypad when he does so, and can make out the 4-digit code: 1776. <i>Easy to remember,</i> you reflect. <i>But why would I need to?<br/>
<br/>
Maybe on account of all that money you saw in there,</i> comes the disconcerting answer.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a mostly silent drive back to the Carls Jr. until Mike pulls up next to your truck. "So what movie you want to talk about? For your audition video?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, uh, I dunno. Somethin' with boobs, you know. Big old balloons." You mime fondling a pair, as Keith is wont to do. "I'll think about it."<br/>
<br/>
"You want something with boobs, talk to Josiah, he's got a fucking database."<br/>
<br/>
You nod vacantly as if the remark made sense to you, thank Mike for the afternoon, and lever yourself out of the car. You exchange a wave as he pulls out, then saunter into the restaurant.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Josiah?</i> You shake your head over the unfamiliar name. It's like Keith has a whole separate secret world you never even suspected existed.<br/>
<br/>
You don't need to use the head, but as long as you've got a moment, you want to check yourself out in the mirror again. An employee is washing his hands when you enter, so you busy yourself at a urinal by pretending to pee. When you pull your zipper down, you discover, to your amazement and horror, that Keith's schlong is almost as ginormous as he's always bragging about.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, the guy doesn't take long at the sink, and you quickly zip yourself up and lean into the mirror after he's gone.<br/>
<br/>
You've still got Keith's face, of course. The spell said nothing about a time limit, or any dangers of the thing slipping off. And anyway, someone would have been bound to notice if something had gone wrong with your disguise.<br/>
<br/>
So it's all still there: the crusted-over zits and the ugly freckles and the whiskers in weird places. And the eyes are more alert now, more alive, more real. The expression is a little wrong, though. More thoughtful than any expression than you're used to seeing on Keith's face.<br/>
<br/>
But you pulled it off. True, all you did was keep your mouth shut and listen for Keith's name. But that was enough. No one ever gave you a funny look or suggested you were acting strange.<br/>
<br/>
A little smirk creeps onto your face, and that leaves you looking even more like Tilley. You lean in toward the mirror and let the smirk widen. "Who's a bad mofo?" you murmur to yourself. "Fuckin' Keith Tilley is, that's who is, motherfucker." You dance slowly about the restroom and pump your fists over your head.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Naturally, you pull the mask off before going home. It's a trickier operation than you thought it would be, and you almost panic in the truck cab when you can't find the piece of paper that has the magic words written on it. (It's some weird phrase that's supposed to be chanted three times.) But you find it drifted under the truck's bench, practice it a few times, then lay back, grasp your face across the brow, and pull while repeating the words. Your fingers slip off, and you have to try it three more times, with mounting fear, before it takes.<br/>
<br/>
It's like tearing the front of your skull off, and then you're unconscious, you suppose, for you're groggy when you open your eyes. You have to go back into the restroom to splash water on your face to fully wake—and also to make sure you've got your own face back. It's a relief to see it in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Dinner is on the table when you get back, and your mom, dad and brother are already eating. Your dad glowers at you, but he must be in a relatively good mood, because that's all he does.<br/>
<br/>
Then after helping to clean up, you go upstairs to do homework.<br/>
<br/>
Also, to look at the next spell. It was fun pretending to be Keith, and you're eager to see how to expand on the trick.<br/>
<br/>
But anticipation quickly turns to dismay. The next spell—again, the book gives instructions but no explanation for what it does—requires a lot of materials that you don't have on hand, and a quick look online shows that you'll need more money than you've got on hand in order to procure the supplies.<br/>
<br/>
You lean back and drum your fingers. You doubt your dad will lend you funds. You doubt any of your friends will lend you the funds. You don't want to get a job if all you need is fifty dollars or so for a single project. What you need is a quick, one-time source of money.<br/>
<br/>
You try hard not to think of that envelope of money in Carlos's "studio."</span></div></div>


path: 1111321123
author_id: seuzz
title: Twice a Thief
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Hey, are you talking to me again?"<br/>
<br/>
That's your question for Keith when you plop down next to him in second period the next day. That dumb face of his curls up in an expression of scornful befuddlement. Privately, you make a note to practice it inside his mask the next time you have it on.<br/>
<br/>
"When the fuck was I not speaking to you?" he demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Yesterday. And the day before, on account of fuck if I know."<br/>
<br/>
"Because of that shit you pulled on Monday," he shoots back. "And fuck-wye-eye—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck-wye-eye? That's an expression you'll have to remember to use the next time you're impersonating him. You were having the hardest time talking like him yesterday.</i><br/>
<br/>
"—so just remember that!" Keith glares sullenly at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, can you repeat that part in the middle?" you ask. "After that thing you said, that fuck-wye-eye thing," you explain as Tilley enpurples. "I was thinking how clever that was, how I want to start using it."<br/>
<br/>
His glower deepens with suspicion, but you put on your most innocent and pleasant smile. Slowly he loses the eggplant coloring.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I just made that expression up." He says it in a grumble, but he sounds pleased underneath. "Right now. Sometimes these things just come to me, you know. On account of my talent."<br/>
<br/>
Somehow you manage to keep a straight face. "Yeah, I've noticed. You're pretty good at coming up with this stuff."<br/>
<br/>
Andy Tackett is sitting behind Keith, and it's hard to not catch his eye, for he's openly listening with unhinged astonishment—and barely concealed hilarity—at Keith's ludicrous boasts.<br/>
<br/>
"So what did you say after you said that? That 'fuck-wye-eye' thing."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, nothing." Keith shrugs. "What are you doing after school?"<br/>
<br/>
"What I was gonna ask you. Hey, how about you and me skip eating with Caleb again. He's being totally gay for Carson and James these days."<br/>
<br/>
Across in the other row, Tim Gerard clucks his tongue and gives you a dirty look. "You shouldn't use expressions like that, Will," he says. "It's homophobic and it's hate speech."<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," you tell Tim. To Keith: "What I meant to say is, Caleb is being homosexual with his engorged penis up Carson's and James's asses these days."<br/>
<br/>
Tim makes a noise, and Tackett doesn't look like he approves either. But Keith high-fives you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So in this way you manage to talk Keith into meeting you at the IHOP by the movie theater after class. You set a rendezvous time of four-thirty, which will not give you enough time for what you mean to do, but will keep him out of the way and put him in a place where you can text him plausible excuses.<br/>
<br/>
At a little before four you pull your truck into the loading alley behind the Carriage Hills Shopping Center, which is just on the other side of the Carl's Jr. you parked at yesterday. You learned your lesson from that experience and have sought out a more isolated spot in which to put on the mask.<br/>
<br/>
Ten minutes later you wake in Keith's body again. You check yourself out in the rearview mirror, and practice that face you saw him pull in Mr. Hawks's class. It looks unconvincing, but that's probably because you're trying to "act" like him in a vacuum. Just wait till you have an opportunity.<br/>
<br/>
Five minutes later you are in front of the Top S(h)elf Storage complex. You don't have a code to get into the complex itself, so you swagger into the office. "Yo," you ask the girl at the front in your best imitation of Keith Tilley being an insolent prick. "I'mma s'posed to meet a guy inside the complex here. Name of Carlos Montoya." You chuck your chin at her. "I don't got the code to get in."<br/>
<br/>
It's pretty obvious from the way her expression cools that you've made a bad impression. But so what? She points down a short hallway. "You can get in going through the door in back."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks, babe," you say, and shoot a wink at her. She's in her thirties, at least, and pretty fat, and her resemblance to a pile of ice cream stacked onto a denim-clad cone only increases as her frostiness deepens. You swagger out that back door and across the lot to the climate-controlled building.<br/>
<br/>
It worries you that there's a car parked out front, but you press on. You punch in the door code—1776—and saunter inside. It worries you more when you notice that the doors have locks on them: for some reason you were assuming that because they were on the inside of the unit that they wouldn't.<br/>
<br/>
You slow up as you near the center of the building. There are doors open right around where they were yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
You peek into the first one. Carlos is there, sitting on his bench in a muscle shirt, doing curls. He looks over, does a double take, and grins.<br/>
<br/>
Or maybe it's a grimace. There's not a lot of happiness in it, and it's a hefty weight. "Hey man," he grunts.<br/>
<br/>
"Yo. T'sup?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ungh." Carlos drops the weight with a clang and clasps his bicep while making a face. "Thirty reps, man," he says. "How many can you do? Oh, are you not crazy anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
"When the fuck was I crazy?"<br/>
<br/>
"This morning, fucker. About that movie we watched yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit. They must've talked to Keith about that fucking weird-ass movie he was supposed to have watched with them.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Nah, I was just jerking your chains. Oh, and fuck-wye-eye—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yes!</i><br/>
<br/>
"—I'mma decided you're right and it was ass on a shit sandwich."<br/>
<br/>
Carlos gives you a queer look, then shrugs. "Yeah, well, you didn't have to call it 'no fucking movie', though. That wasn't called for."<br/>
<br/>
"When did I call it 'no fucking movie'?"<br/>
<br/>
"When we talked this morning." Now he's sounding exasperated. "You said you watched no fucking movie with me and Mike yesterday, and then you—"<br/>
<br/>
"Right. 'Cos I was like, pfft! You get it." It seems like the right moment, so you try out that hyper-scornful look.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. But it's the 'fucking' that hurt. I mean Jesus, even I didn't like it, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure. But for your inf— I mean, fuck-wye-eye, I said that—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck-wye-eye, what the fuck is this 'fuck-wye-eye' you keep saying?" Carlos picks up the weight again, this time in his left hand.<br/>
<br/>
"It means eff-wye-eye. Like, for your information. But, you know, for your <i>fucking</i> information." You demonstrate by thrusting out your crotch. "Yeah," you say as Carlos's eyes bug out. "It's a new thing I'm'a tryin' out, on account of my talent. Gonna get everyone using it, collect me a quarter every time someone says it."<br/>
<br/>
"In ten years you'll be able to buy a Kit-Kat bar."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, for fuck-wye-eye, I already got Will Prescott using it. What are you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"My workout."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean after. I'm not that big a dumbass." Your cell rings.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno." He grunts as you check your phone. "Got some stuff with Philip to work on. You?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bleeps the fuck outta me." <i>Is it your imagination, or are you actually doing pretty good at coming up with Tilley-level kinds of verbal stupidity?</i> "Hang on." You text Keith back a short note telling him you got caught by someone. "Say, 'at reminds me, about that ten dollars you tried giving me yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"You still want it?" Carlos asks. "Mike was being a dick, on account of he hated that we didn't think that movie was an Omega threat level of awesomeness."<br/>
<br/>
"Love to take it. And can I borrow, like, fifty from you? I got someone I wanna impress."<br/>
<br/>
He flinches in mid-curl. "Fuck, I'm impressed you got the balls to ask, but sure. Hang on."<br/>
<br/>
So you wait for him to finish three sets of ten reps, then follow him into the other bay. This wasn't how you intended to get money from him, but it comes to the same thing, since it's not like you're going to pay him back. "Who are you trying to impress?" he asks as he hands it over, along with the ten, to make an even sixty.<br/>
<br/>
You waggle your eyebrows. "That's for my fuck-wye-eye. And after, when I tell you who, it'll be your turn to fuck-wye-eye. I mean, be impressed."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After changing back into your own face, you send Tilley a note saying you got trapped at home by your mom and won't be able to meet him. Then you hit a couple of supply stores for the shit you need. After dinner you tackle the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
It takes several hours, for after prepping a metal strip over the sigil, you have to carve a bunch of runes into it. This takes forever, and it's coming up on one o'clock in the morning before you lean back, pop your neck, and drop the strip onto the book to test whether you're done. To your relief, the page turns loose, and you eagerly turn it over to find out what you've made. There's only one line printed there, a Latin phrase which translates as "To know the mind of another."<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a moment to puzzle out what it means. Then your jaw drops.<br/>
<br/>
It copies minds! That's got to be what it does! As a mask copies the body, this doohickey must copy minds, so you'll know what other people know.<br/>
<br/>
Put something like that together with a mask, and you'd have a complete disguise.<br/>
<br/>
Or you could use it just to snoop and learn things that would be useful.<br/>
<br/>
Like when a certain storage bay is likely to be empty, and what the combination to the lock on it is.</span></div></div>


path: 11113211232
author_id: seuzz
title: The Minder
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>With a copy of a person's body, and a copy of their mind, you could have yourself a complete and perfect disguise of them!<br/>
<br/>
But you're not really tempted to make up a complete disguise of Keith. In the first place, his face is ugly enough without steeping yourself in the sewer that you know is his mind. In the second place, you are already doing a pretty good imitation of him even without his memories. And in the third place, you'd rather use the thing you made to find out how to get in to Carlos's storage bay to get that money he keeps in his desk.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So when you see Keith the next morning in Mr. Hawks's class, you ask him about where Carlos and Mike hang out.<br/>
<br/>
"Pft, I ain't talkin' to them no more," he scornfully declares. That sounds like good news, until he explains that it's on account of Carlos says that he (Keith) borrowed some money that he (Keith) absolutely didn't. "It's the steroids doin' it to him," he says. "Fuckin' up his brain, turnin' him gay—"<br/>
<br/>
Tim, in the next row, shoots a slit-eyed side glance at Keith, but says nothing, and you don't interrupt Keith either. "So I'm done with 'em," he concludes. "Fuck 'em."<br/>
<br/>
You play very sympathetic and tell him it's all probably for the best. "We should all hang out this afternoon," you say. "You and me and Caleb. If you're talking to him again."<br/>
<br/>
"When wasn't I talking to Johansson?" he demands. You search his face for satire, but he looks genuinely offended.<br/>
<br/>
You mumble something about it "seeming" like he was mad at Caleb, but Keith snorts and tells you that you're high. "Or, I dunno, maybe you been taking too many steroids." He paws at your bicep; you jerk away. "Naw, that can't be it," he says with a leering grin. Ropes of spittle spread between his filmy yellow teeth.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You forgot that you actually share fourth-period English with Carlos and Mike, but you ignore them. You're also silent during lunch, preoccupied as you are with figuring out how exactly you want to make your upcoming play with them, and talk to Caleb and Keith only long enough to establish that the three of you will meet up at Potsdam Park by the river at around 4:15 before figuring out where you will go from there. That will put Keith on as nearly the opposite side of town from Top Shelf Storage as it is possible to get. For though it sounds like there's no chance of him crashing in on Carlos there, you want to be sure.<br/>
<br/>
You are taking a chance on Carlos actually being out at the complex when you call on him, and on him being alone, but you figure that if you don't catch him there today, you can catch him there tomorrow or later on in the week.<br/>
<br/>
But luck is with you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yo!" you call out as you swagger into Montoya's workout bay at a little after four. He's laying back on his bench doing butterfly curls again. "So how comm'a you mad at me?"<br/>
<br/>
Carlos does a double-take at you and almost drops one of his weights. Then he snorts. Not until he's done eight more reps, though, does he speak after dropping the dumbbells. "The fuck are you doing out here?"<br/>
<br/>
Well might he ask Keith Tilley what Keith Tilley is visiting him for, after the way they had a fight before school about sixty dollars that Keith Tilley says he didn't take. (Keith shared the details with you and Caleb at lunch.) And he's asking you this because, as has become your custom, you are visiting him while dressed up as Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
"I comm'a to give—" You pause. It occurs to you that you're sounding more Italian than ghetto. "Give you summa your swag back, on account of you don't wanna gimme any." You slap two tens and a five onto the corner of the chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Fucker!" Carlos snarls. "So what was all that this morning about how I didn't lend you no money?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos of who you were asking me in front of, dumbass!" This invented excuse pleases you inordinately. "You make me lose face, man, I'm not gonna—"<br/>
<br/>
"Lose face in front of who?" he demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, that's who. Not your business. And there's your money back, I'll get you the rest back when—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want the fucking money—"<br/>
<br/>
"What <i>do</i> you want, then?"<br/>
<br/>
Carlos glowers. "I want you to not be such a fucking—" He struggles to come up with an appropriate epithet. "Wanker!" he finally settles on.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I can do that," you tell him, and chuck your chin. "Want some help? Me spot you, or somethin'?"<br/>
<br/>
Carlos mutters something and lays back on his bench. He picks up the weights.<br/>
<br/>
Before he can move, you've got that metal strip out of your pocket and slapped onto his forehead. You figure that's where it should go, if it's going to copy his brain. It vanishes into him, just like a mask would; the weights slip from his fingers with a sharp <i>clang</i> and roll across the floor. You retrieve them and set them by his limp hands, then stand in the doorway of the unit, arms crossed, and watch the door into the building while waiting for whatever the fuck is supposed to happen inside the storage bay to actually happen.<br/>
<br/>
It takes ten minutes, by your cell phone, to do it, which is about as long, you've noticed, as it takes for you to wake up after putting on a mask or taking one off. That metal strip reappears and slides off with a tinny clatter to the concrete floor. You scoop it up and watch Carlos for signs of life. He's breathing, but his eyes remain shut, so you return to the doorway. Another ten minutes pass before you notice him stirring.<br/>
<br/>
You saunter back over to where you were when you hit him with the magic. "So you want I should spot you?" you ask, as though twenty minutes hadn't passed.<br/>
<br/>
Carlos twists around and blinks up at you. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Spot you. Habla ingles, man? Do. You. Want. Me—?"<br/>
<br/>
Carlos sits up and clutches his head. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. You tell me what the fuck?" But despite your casual insolence, you feel your heart beating. <br/>
<br/>
But after a minute spent glowering at the floor, Carlos lays back on the bench with a sigh. To your third query of "Do you want me to spot you?" he growls, "I don't care what you do."<br/>
<br/>
"In that case, I'mma go home," you tell him. He only picks up the weights, and you can't tell if the grunt he gives is directed at you or at the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You meet Keith and Caleb at the park and give them a story about getting held up at home, then gleefully sabotage every attempt at coming up with something to do so that you can get home to try out the new thingamajig. You already looked at it in your truck. The runes you so painstakingly carved into it have vanished, to be replaced by blue, glowing Roman letters that seem to float above the surface of the metal: CARLOS ENRICO MONTOYA Y ALVAREZ, they say. You're stymied from trying it out immediately by an early supper, which you gobble down; then you hide out in your bedroom behind a locked door. You lay out on the bed, and after failing to still your hammering heart you lay the band on your forehead.<br/>
<br/>
The ceiling goes out of focus, and you feel your eyes crossing as you strive to stay awake ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But do you pass out? You're not certain.<br/>
<br/>
At the very least, you drift into and out of that bizarre twilight state where your brain half-doodles and half-dreams. An upwelling reminiscence about the time your family missed a connecting flight in the Houston airport while on your way back from Disney World smoothly segues into a fantasy of standing on the tarmac at a small airport and watching as your father, dressed in tan fatigues, gets onto a giant, prop-driven airplane.<br/>
<br/>
That fantasy is still floating in the forefront of your brain as you sit up. "Will!" your brother calls from the outside hall, and he bangs on the door. "Dad wants you to take out the trash!"<br/>
<br/>
"Why can't you do it, you little fuck," you mumble, but you hop off the bed anyway. You're halfway to the door when you grab at your forehead. <i>That metal band! Where is it?</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, it's not stuck to your forehead, and when you wheel around and look it's not by your pillow and it's not on the floor. You're searching under the bed when your dad hollers "Will!" in that tone of voice that carries the unspoken imperative "Now!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm coming!" you holler back, and tear out of the room. "Sorry, I was in the middle of a, uh, calculus problem," you lie as you barrel past your frowning father. "Trash, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Then, in the doorway to the kitchen, you wheel to stare at him. <i>That's not my dad!</i> a voice screams inside your skull. <i>My dad is—!</i><br/>
<br/>
You gulp, and the sudden fear that grips your chest and throat has nothing to do with the frown your father is turning on you. "You seen a ghost?" he growls at you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yes.</i> And no.<br/>
<br/>
You see it vividly, though it happened more than ten years ago. Your father, in fatigues, boarding a military transport parked on the runway at the Saratoga Falls Municipal Airport. It was taking him to the Middle East.<br/>
<br/>
He never came back.<br/>
<br/>
But that wasn't your father. It was Carlos Montoya's father. You remember seeing him leave for his final tour.<br/>
<br/>
<i>You have Carlos Montoya's memories!</i><br/>
<br/>
You suck on your lips as you take the garbage outside, and replace it with a fresh sack.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You know now that there's almost five hundred dollars in Carlos's desk. You also know there are surveillance cameras in the building. Do you grab the money? And if so, under whose face?</span></div></div>


path: 111132112322
author_id: seuzz
title: Carlos Lends a Hand ... a Brain ... and a Face
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Carlos Montoya has five hundred dollars in his desk up at the Top Shelf Storage complex. If it was honestly gotten, you might be tempted to leave it alone.<br/>
<br/>
But it's not honestly gotten. Though it's not exactly ill-gotten, either.<br/>
<br/>
It was the second week after the start of school that Erik Carstairs, one of the football players, pulled Carlos aside and asked him about the complex and how much it cost to rent a unit there. <i>Depends on the size,</i> Carlos told him. Smallest and cheapest is a hundred-fifty a month.<br/>
<br/>
Erik didn't like that. He asked if he could rent a corner of a unit for fifty bucks a month, for nine months. <i>To store what?</i> Carlos asked him. Just a duffel bag, Erik said. That I can get to when I need to.<br/>
<br/>
Carlos said he'd hold onto the bag in one of his own units, and Erik brought him the bag the next day, along with four hundred and fifty dollars: payment in advance. Carlos put it in his workout bay, and gave Erik the combination to the lock.<br/>
<br/>
Three days later, he got fatally curious and looked inside the bag.<br/>
<br/>
On top were a bunch of dirty gym clothes. But Carlos, foolishly, dug deeper.<br/>
<br/>
That's when he learned where the Westside football squad keeps their stash of weed.<br/>
<br/>
The very last thing Carlos Montoya needed was for his uncle (or for anyone else) to find that stuff in his unit. But his uncle had a unit of his own, and Carlos had the combination to it, so that's where he moved the duffel bag. It's well-hidden, in a unit stuffed with greasy machinery and battered furniture and forgotten cardboard boxes. Carlos put it in a remote but accessible corner, and showed Erik the new location.<br/>
<br/>
He knows Erik has been in and out of the unit a couple of times since then, but otherwise he has done his best to forget about where that cash stash came from, and he's tried not to touch it. Unfortunately, he's reminded of it every time he pulls a couple of dollars out of it.<br/>
<br/>
He'd been inside his desk just before you arrived. And that's why this story is at the tip of your brain after putting that metal band onto your forehead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith hasn't talked to Carlos, and from the way he was talking in Hawks's class, it sounds like he'll never talk to them again. (But that's Keith for you. Unless Carlos holds a grudge, Keith will be best friends with him again by Saturday.) So you could hit Carlos yet again while under Tilley's mask. But you've stirred up so much trouble that you decide to make the next approach under your own face.<br/>
<br/>
But you need an excuse, so Friday morning, in fourth period, you slide into an empty desk next to Carlos's and introduce yourself. "Keith tells me your uncle owns a rental complex."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he says, and if his expression doesn't register joy at the mention of Keith Tilley's name, it doesn't betray anger either. "Best in the city."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool. Oh, speaking of cool, he says you've got a climate-controlled building? How much are the units there?"<br/>
<br/>
"One-fifty a month."<br/>
<br/>
"Keith says you're usually around there in the afternoons. Can I come by there after school sometime, look at something?" You arrange to meet him that afternoon.<br/>
<br/>
And you'll be ready to meet him because, indirectly, of his own help.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was while walking through the garage after you took the trash out that you looked down and saw the car buffer. You were still wearing his brain band, so when you thought to yourself, <i>Huh, I wonder if I could use that to speed up the polishing process,</i> it felt more like one of his thoughts than one of yours.<br/>
<br/>
You wasted no time testing it out. You hauled some supplies down to the old, abandoned elementary school a few blocks from your house and, by flashlight, made up some new masks. Back home, you parked yourself in the garage and tried a car buffer on one.<br/>
<br/>
Forty-five minutes later, you were done.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Friday. Four-thirty.</i> Carlos has given you a code to use on the front gate, and he's given you the door code too. But you don't need them. You copied the numbers down when you still had his brain band on. <br/>
<br/>
He greets you at the door and shows you inside; because you had familiarized yourself with what he knows about the complex you are able to ask questions that make you sound quite informed, and Carlos looks suitably impressed as you ask him for various technical details. You also impress him when you ask about the video equipment that he and Mike have in his studio, and ask if you can join them for a Friday night movie. "We won't start till around six," he tells you, "and I have to do my workout first." But he agrees to let you hang out in the studio until then.<br/>
<br/>
And, as you'd anticipated, he calls you in about fifteen minutes later to ask if you can spot him while he works with the barbell. He usually skips that part of the workout when he doesn't have a spotter, he explains, and since you're available ... But you're happy to help, and as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and grasps the barbell, you pull out the blank mask from inside your shirt and drop it onto his face.<br/>
<br/>
"You ready?" you ask him after he's opened his eyes again. Just like yesterday, when you were here in Keith's mask, you pretend like no time has passed when in fact Carlos has been out for thirty minutes, during which you copied his body into a mask and put that brain band back onto him. (You're gambling it will refresh itself with all his current memories.) As six o'clock approaches, you offer to fetch food for the night, and he gives you some money from his cash stash; when you get back, you find that both Mike and Philip Fairfax have arrived. You hand the sacks of burgers and fries to them and ask them to tell Carlos that you got a text from your dad and won't be able to stay for the movie. They sound genuinely regretful at your missing out, and Carlos even sends you a text later asking if you'd be up for a movie on Saturday afternoon. You tell him you will try to make it but will have to see.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb and Keith independently text you later that evening to see if you want to get together. You decline, for you are in the middle of dealing with the next spell. You had already studied it while up at the school on Thursday, after making the second mask, and had seen that it required no ingredients you didn't already have on hand. As the dusk deepens, you mix the ingredients in a small bowl outside the garage by the garbage bins; then you set the bowl on the sigil contained in the book and plunge a match into the mess. The result doesn't stink at all, and creates a thin paste that, according to the book, can be used to attach a brain band to a mask. You consider marrying Carlos's brain band to his mask, but decide to keep them separate for now: his brain has been pretty useful, and you might want to use it without disguising yourself as him.<br/>
<br/>
Upstairs in your room you pore over the next spell in the book. Your heart sinks as you translate the ingredients and look them up on line. You will <i>definitely</i> have to grab Carlos's cash pile in order to afford this stuff.<br/>
<br/>
Worse than that, you will have to make a trip out to the <i>graveyard,</i> of all places, because the recipe calls for four hundred pounds of graveyard earth.<br/>
<br/>
But worst of all, after mixing all that stuff up, you'll have to set it on fire. There is <i>no freaking way</i> you'll be able to do that in your bedroom or anywhere near your house.<br/>
<br/>
Two ideas come to you as you ponder where to complete the spell. One is to sneak it into the basement of the semi-abandoned Acheson Community Center. Another is to use one of the school portables. <br/>
<br/>
A third option comes to you after you put on Carlos's brain band: Use a storage unit at his complex.</span></div></div>


path: 1111321123223
author_id: seuzz
title: Money Mine
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Though you and your friends successfully broke into the basement of the old Acheson Elementary School a year ago, and spent a couple of weeks playing around in it without being discovered, you don't want to risk being caught inside it—even if you're disguised as someone else while you're down there.<br/>
<br/>
It would be an even worse idea to use the school portables.<br/>
<br/>
But the storage complex? There's several unrented units inside the climate-controlled building. Yes, it would be dangerous setting a fire inside one of them, and you could get in a lot of trouble if you—<br/>
<br/>
Another thought occurs to you. Two thoughts, in fact. You put plans on a backburner as you think through them.<br/>
<br/>
And there's nothing else you can do tonight anyway, so you take out some of the mask supplies and idly start working on another brain band. Carlos and his friends will probably be hanging out inside the complex until midnight at least, so you'll have to wait until morning anyway before going in to get his money out of the desk.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The alarm on your phone wakes you at eight o'clock. You fumble and curse at it as you try turning it off: the apps aren't where you expect them to be. And when you flip over in bed, something seems off about the ceiling. You raise up and look around. The room you're in is like something out of a nightmare: familiar, but totally wrong. The desk is on the wrong side of the room, and where's the floor lamp that should be next to your bed?<br/>
<br/>
You blink stupidly for a solid minute as you and your bedroom reacquaint yourselves with each other. You drop your head back onto the pillow with a groan, then grab at your forehead. <i>What are those magic words? Oh yeah.</i> You mumble them and pull, and mumble and pull again, but the night sweats—and the momentary panic you felt when waking up—have left your face slick with perspiration, and it takes four attempts before you can pull Carlos's brain band out of your head.<br/>
<br/>
Then, ten minutes later, after you've stretched and rubbed yourself awake, and gone into the bathroom to take a morning shit, you put it back on. You might as well be armed for the day. But you're not going to fall asleep again while you've got someone else's brain lodged inside yours!<br/>
<br/>
You shower and dress, and the morning's activities come with more than a little bit of a "squick" factor. It's your body, and you're still yourself, but you're also doing it, as it were, with Carlos-tinted glasses.<br/>
<br/>
So you can't help noticing how shallow and bony your chest is, and how undeveloped your arms and legs are. It's a pathetic patch of hair you've got sprouting up and down your breastbone—Carlos has a mighty rug—and you grimace twice over as you soap around your package. The Carlos personality you're carrying around is really not keen about touching another guy's junk; and your own personality burns with shame as it compares your own cock (which you've never thought you had anything to be ashamed of) with Carlos's memories of his own fat sausage.<br/>
<br/>
Then both personalities wince as you remember the mighty snake that Keith keeps in his shorts.<br/>
<br/>
It's nine o'clock when you head out with a bagel between your teeth and make straight for the storage complex. Diane's car is already in front of the office, but you've no business stopping to talk to her, and you punch in the all-purpose gate code to get in. You drive into the very back of the complex and park where you will not be seen.<br/>
<br/>
Only then do you crouch down in the passenger-seat foot well and push Carlos's mask onto your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're very cramped when you wake, and it's not just from jamming yourself down into the foot well. Your clothes are bunched up all over, and you grimace until your face hurts as you unbend yourself and pop the front button on your cargo shorts. <i>Dammit, you still have a lot of weight to lose!</i><br/>
<br/>
Okay, it's not that Carlos is fat, though he was a roly-poly kid all the way up into his sophomore year, before he decided to get serious about looking better. That's what all the working out and the eating right and the jogging are for. And he has slimmed down a lot. But he's still just a little husky around the midriff—a very stubborn spare tire that refuses to melt off—and his torso and hips (you and he both judge) will always be bigger than yours. So not only do you have to keep the button of your shorts unhooked, you have to pull the zipper down to half-mast. At least your shoes aren't too tight, and the tent-like t-shirts that you wear are actually a better fit on Carlos's frame.<br/>
<br/>
You move the truck up a couple of yards, then dismount and walk the rest of the way to the climate-controlled building. <i>1776,</i> you tap into the pad, and with a whoosh pull the door open.<br/>
<br/>
Halfway down the central hallway, you break into a sudden, sweaty sprint, gripped as you are by a spurt of panic that maybe Carlos might show up while you're inside.<br/>
<br/>
At the door to the studio you quickly twiddle the combination lock open and lift the door. Without bothering to turn on the light you advance on the desk and yank out the top, left-hand drawer.<br/>
<br/>
The envelope makes for a satisfyingly meaty handful.<br/>
<br/>
Business transacted, you drop the gate and snap the lock shut. Though you don't run, you keep up a quick stride all the way down the hall—and keep your face neutral and your eyes forward when you come in range of the security camera mounted over the door. Outside, you blink at the sunlight and a quick gust of wind, then turn back to your truck. You move it back to where you'd parked before, and tear the mask off your face.<br/>
<br/>
Total time elapsed as you exit the complex: twenty-seven minutes.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder if there is a spell in the book that modifies masks so they don't knock you unconscious for so long.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are four hundred and eighty-seven dollars richer as you exit the Top Shelf Storage complex, and then you are two hundred and fifty-nine dollars poorer when you're done shopping. The supplies include some pretty volatile chemicals—bad enough that it would never do for you dad to find them in the back of your truck—so you wrap them up under a tarp and drive out to Caleb's to kill as much of the afternoon with him as you can. After Keith texts to ask about weekend plans, you and Caleb drive over to his place to work out on his game machine. <br/>
<br/>
And the clueless Caleb has to ask him at one point, "How come you're not off making another video with your friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck!" Keith barks. "I'mma done wit' them assholes! Fuckin' crazy is what they are!" With lots of cussing he tells you and Caleb about Cocksucker Carlos and Motherfucking Mike and how they're "gaslighting" him by claiming he watched movies with them when no fucking way was he anywhere out at their studio, and accusing him of borrowing "a hundred dollars" off them when he did no such thing. <br/>
<br/>
You barely catch yourself from correcting him: it was only fifty dollars.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe you deserve it," Caleb observes when he's done.<br/>
<br/>
"Deserve fucking what, asshole?" Keith exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Whatever's got your panties in a twist. Hey, can you please kill that guy over there?" he asks you, and points to the screen at a sniper that's got him and Keith pinned down behind some dun-colored, chest-high walls. <br/>
<br/>
"Some people got no fucking respect for other people," Keith grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking A," you agree, and high-five him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You stretch out the gaming session until suppertime, then goad your friends into going with you to get some burgers. You cruise up and down Twentieth Street before coming to rest at a Mexican restaurant, where you park yourselves in a room with a TV in the corner and watch some football highlights on a sports channel while gobbling down quesadillas on top of your burgers. You stick it out there until you begin to sense the hostility of the server at the way you're taking up a table without ordering anything substantial, then leave. But that's not until you've argued with Caleb and Keith about leaving a tip—they want to stiff him—but Carlos worked as a busboy over the summer and sympathizes with the server, so you feel goaded by your alternate personality into dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table. Caleb wants to know where you scored the kind of cash that you can be so generous (you paid for his meal, too) and you casually tell him your dad has been feeling generous.<br/>
<br/>
It's gotten dark by now, so you take Caleb home. You also have to take Keith home, but instead of proceeding directly there, you stop by the athletic fields out by Stewart's Hole—the place where you put that mask onto him. "What are we doing here?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna try something out," you tell him as you dismount. He joins you with a puzzled look. "I wanna try this, uh, jujitsu move this guy was showing me."<br/>
<br/>
"Pft, what are you, high?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm serious." You place one hand on his bony shoulder, and dip the other into your pocket.<br/>
<br/>
Keith brushes you back. "In the first place, dude," he says, peering down his nose at you, "I call bullshit on you and your 'jujitsu moves'." He actually puts air quotes around the phrase. "And inna second place—"<br/>
<br/>
Quick as a cobra (you fancy) you strike at his forehead with the blank brain band you'd palmed, and catch him as he falls.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After he's woken and cussed you out and you've dropped him off, you drive out to the cemetery. There's some dirt out there you need to pick up.<br/>
<br/>
Four hundred pounds of it.</span></div></div>


path: 11113211232231
author_id: seuzz
title: Piled Higher and Deeper
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>As you loft the last sandbag into the back of your truck, you give thanks—for about the fiftieth time tonight—for having copied Carlos Montoya into a mask. There is no freaking way you'd have got this part of the job done this quickly and this painlessly without putting yourself in his mask.<br/>
<br/>
YouTube video reviewer, busboy, ditch digger ... Carlos has done a little bit of everything since entering high school. It was the latter experience that warned you not to underestimate the amount of time it would take to fill eighty sandbags with dirt, and certainly not to underestimate how hard it would be. And you're glad that he has put on some muscle and given himself some stamina over the past year, because even after pacing yourself you feel exhausted by the job.<br/>
<br/>
The graveyard you raided is the old Masonic Cemetery on Farm Road, near the river. You killed your head lamps after driving in to it and prowled all the way back to the corner farthest from the major roads. You didn't waste time, and went to work on the nearest grave.<br/>
<br/>
You started by cutting out and removing the turf, then digging into the soft, loamy earth beneath. Much to your relief you did not have to dig very deep at all, and when you decided that the hole was getting uncomfortably large, you chopped away some more turf and spread your effort wider. You worked slowly, but the night air was warm and close, so you wound up tossing your shirt aside. Then, since your unbuttoned shorts were drooping, you cast them off too, and finished the job dressed only in boxers, socks and shoes.<br/>
<br/>
The part of you that is Carlos Montoya preened a little at that.<br/>
<br/>
So you weren't too exhausted when you cinched up the last sack. Five hundred pounds, not four hundred, is what you loft into the back of the truck, just to be on the safe side. You remind yourself to buy a set of kitchen scales tomorrow so you can be sure that you measure out enough but not too much for the spell.<br/>
<br/>
It's still an hour before your curfew, so you make it out to the storage complex in plenty of time. Customers aren't supposed to enter after ten, but Carlos's code gets you in the gate—and his face will show on the camera, if anyone inquires about it. With the help of a handcart it only takes you three trips to transport all the supplies for the next spell down to the bay where Carlos put Erik's duffel bag; you shift things around so as to make room for your stuff, then hide it again by moving boxes back into position.<br/>
<br/>
"What did you do all day?" your dad asks when you're back home and on your way up to your room. You haven't seen him since breakfast.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, hung out with guys, did stuff," you tell him. He frowns in a distracted manner, but says nothing else as you mount the stairs to your room.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You'd love to sleep in the next morning, but it's Sunday and you have to get up early to shower and dress in itchy trousers and shirt. Robert is a pest on the drive out, but the low point comes when your cell phone goes off right in the middle of the service, which earns you a very black look from your father. "So I forgot to turn it off!" you exclaim on the drive home. "No one ever texts me on a Sunday morning!"<br/>
<br/>
Because usually it's only Caleb or Keith who are texting you, and neither of them are ever awake before noon on a Sunday.<br/>
<br/>
But it looks like you've made yourself some new friends. Mike Hollister wants to know if you'd like to come out that afternoon to watch something with him and Carlos. <i>maybe do a video for it for ex cr for your film class? hint hint,</i> he adds.<br/>
<br/>
Well, sure you can, and you tell him so. After lunch, you go up to your bedroom to put on Carlos's brain-band, then head out for an afternoon at the movies.<br/>
<br/>
Mike and Carlos are already there, and Philip Fairfax joins you just a few minutes later. Fairfax is a computer/science brain, and he looks the part in his white t-shirt, khaki trousers, and black-framed glasses. He's not especially interested in movies, and his part in the YouTube effort mostly consists of running equipment while his friends horse around in front of it. But he was intrigued by this week's offering so he is sitting in on it with you. His expression shows bemused curiosity as the TV springs to life.<br/>
<br/>
It's a cult movie from the 1970s that Mike and Carlos have chosen: <i>Picnic at Hanging Rock.</i> At any other time you'd have cut your own head off to get out of watching it: It's an Australian movie, set more than a hundred years ago, about some school girls that go missing, which is the kind of thing that's about as far as you can get from the comic book movies that you prefer to frequent. It is also incredibly quiet and incredibly slow, and it doesn't make a lick of sense.<br/>
<br/>
But you're wearing Carlos's brain-band, so you know it by reputation and are prepared for the worst, and as the film drools across the screen like cold molasses you shut your own brain off and let Carlos do your thinking for you. And he's intrigued—titillated even—by the hints of rampant lesbianism and by the eerie mood. When four girls in their white frocks, in slow motion, walk around a boulder and disappear from view, even as one of a classmate screams wordlessly at them, you and Carlos at the same time let out an awestruck, "Whoa!"<br/>
<br/>
The movie is only two-thirds over, though, when you are distracted by the sound of desk drawers opening and closing. "Dude, what are you doing?" Mike asks. "Dude," he repeats when Carlos says nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Then the lights come on and everyone turns to look at Carlos. His eyes are very wide, and he is frowning deeply. "The cash," he says, and pulls open the left-hand drawer. "I can't find it."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you looking for it for?" Mike says. You keep your own expression carefully neutral.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not looking for it! I was just getting something out and I noticed it was gone!" His brow furrows. "Did you move it somewhere?"<br/>
<br/>
Mike raises his hands. "I don't touch it, 'cos I don't want you freaking out on me!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not freaking out! I just want to know—" Carlos slams the drawer shut, then rapidly ransacks the others.<br/>
<br/>
Philip stops the playback on the TV. "When was the last time you saw it?" he asks in a calm, almost flat voice.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't fucking know! I don't get into it 'cos we're trying to save up for—"<br/>
<br/>
The others start talking over him, telling him to calm down, which only riles Carlos up further. He shuts them up, though, when he slams his palm on the desktop. "Keith!"  he says. "That fifty dollars I gave him the other day, that he says he—!" He flushes deeply, so that his face almost turns purple. "Fucker!"<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's conscience, or maybe you just like screwing with Carlos, but you jump in here so he won't drop all the blame unfairly on Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
"This money you're talking about," you say. "Is it the stash you used to pay for those burgers when I was out here the other day?" Carlos only blinks at you. "Remember? I came out to look at the storage units, and then you gave me some money to go out and buy some food 'cos we were gonna watch something?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Mike says. "When was that? Thursday?"<br/>
<br/>
"Something like that," Carlos says. You don't like that he has fixed a very steady gaze on you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we watched the old <i>Clash of the Titans,</i>" Mike says.<br/>
<br/>
"Was this before or after you gave that fifty to Keith?" Fairfax asks.<br/>
<br/>
"After," Carlos says. He is still staring at you, and his expression darkens.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you see the money after that?" Fairfax asks.<br/>
<br/>
Carlos's eyes narrow on you. Then he jerks the drawer open again and puts his hand inside it. His frown deepens.<br/>
<br/>
"You gave me some money," you prompt him. "You got it out of an envelope. Did you put it back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably," Carlos mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"And I went I got the burgers, but then I had to go home, so I gave them to Philip and Mike when I ran into them outside. Right?" you ask them. They nod.<br/>
<br/>
Carlos sinks back in his chair. "Right. Then Saturday—"<br/>
<br/>
But you don't listen as he reconstructs the weekend. It's enough that you've convinced him of your alibi: You couldn't have stolen the money, since he still had it in the desk after the last time you left. And neither could Keith, since he was banished days before that.<br/>
<br/>
He and the other two talk about it, with Philip trying to get Carlos to walk through everything he did since Friday afternoon. It kills any hope of watching the rest of the movie—which doesn't exactly ruin your day—and when Carlos storms out of the unit, saying he's going to go look at the security footage, Mike tells you that you might as well leave. <br/>
<br/>
"I hope you guys find it," you tell him. "How much is missing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Close to five hundred dollars," Mike says.<br/>
<br/>
"Whew! I'd be really pissed too if someone took something like that much off of me!" you agree.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At home you glue Keith's brain-band into his mask so that you'll have a complete Tilley disguise (should you ever want one), and give some thought to the next stage in your plan: getting a storage unit at Top Shelf.<br/>
<br/>
You could rent one under your own name. That would be easiest. Alternately, you could use your Keith disguise.<br/>
<br/>
But you could also use Carlos's own knowledge of the complex to find and use an empty bay. That would save you at least a hundred dollars.</span></div></div>


path: 111132112322313
author_id: seuzz
title: Life with a Magical Buddy
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You shoot Mike a text after supper, asking if Carlos's money turned up, then asking what they're doing. <i>Party by river,</i> he replies, but he doesn't know if Carlos will be showing up. <i>Pissy mood,</i> he explains. So you text Carlos directly, asking where he is and what's up. But he never replies. While waiting, you pass the time by copying out the sigil for the next spell into an old art sketchbook. The spell calls for piling dirt and chemicals onto the sigil, and you don't want to risk damaging the book by using the sigil in its pages, as you've been doing up to this point.<br/>
<br/>
That done, and with still no word from Carlos, you decide to chance running into him at the complex. You drive out, and put on his mask.<br/>
<br/>
But the place  looks deserted as you search out an unrented climate unit. Once you've found one, and got it open, you quickly transfer your supplies. You lay the sigil in the middle of the floor and, one bag at a time, measure out and pile onto it the graveyard dirt. You pour over it the other ingredients: flammable liquids and powders and even a hank of your own hair that you had cut off before putting Carlos's mask on.<br/>
<br/>
Into the midst of this mess you stick a long length of fuse cord—a precaution that you suspect came from Carlos's brain band while you were out shopping for supplies—and trail it into the hallway.<br/>
<br/>
You contemplate the unit for a long moment, wondering if you're really going to go through with setting all that rocket fuel on fire. But the spells have worked so far, and you were very careful in setting this one up. There were no cautions in the grimoire about blowing the pile up in an open field; but then, there have been no cautions at all.<br/>
<br/>
You light the fuse, then book it as hard as you can out the door and into your truck. You twist the key in the ignition, and with a blast of the motor peel out to the gate. You jab the exit code into the keypad with a feverish finger and pray that, if there's to be an explosion, it happen after the gate is open.<br/>
<br/>
But there is no explosion. Across the street, facing the complex, you drum your fingers on the steering wheel.<br/>
<br/>
You wait five minutes, then drive back in.<br/>
<br/>
The fuse cord has vanished when you re-enter the climate unit, and on light tiptoes you approach the open door of the unit you've appropriated. A wavering, purple-hued glow lights up the wall opposite. You peer around the corner into the unit.<br/>
<br/>
That great pile of earth is afire, with great blooms of purple flame furling off it and licking at the ceiling. <i>That can't be good,</i> you think, until you approach and notice that there's no heat coming off it. You even stick your hand into one of the flames. It's as cold as the surrounding air—maybe even a little chillier!<br/>
<br/>
After watching, mesmerized, for a solid minute you decide there is no danger of burning anything down. And the fire is utterly silent as well, so no one should notice it. After giving the thing another look over, you pull down the clattering metal gate and lock it.<br/>
<br/>
The complex is utterly still, and however hard you listen or peer about, you see no sign that anything occult is happening nearby.<br/>
<br/>
You return to your truck, and after stopping at the Acheson Elementary School long enough to pull off Carlos's mask, you return home.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Fucker, you said you weren't going to watch it," Keith mutters as you and he saunter out of your second-period Film as Literature class. "It" was <i>The Searchers,</i> the John Wayne movie that was the topic for the day's class, and which you discussed with such fluency that when you were done Mr. Hawks could only stare hard at you without speaking.<br/>
<br/>
"I changed my mind, watched it late last night," you reply. Except you didn't. You didn't need to, and you were entirely truthful when you told Keith you weren't going to watch it. But Carlos has watched it, and he written a term paper on it, and you're still walking around with his brain inside yours. He may not be notably smarter than you, but he is much better prepared for certain classes and topics than you are.<br/>
<br/>
Also, you feel a kind of restful confidence as you steep inside his mind. (Or is it his mind steeping inside yours?) He's not nearly as jumpy as you are.<br/>
<br/>
Take what happened just before first period. You were late getting to school, so you were struggling down the hallway to Mr. Walberg's without Caleb for company when you spotted Lester "The Molester" Pozniak heading your way. Your first instinct was to turn and scamper off in the other direction.<br/>
<br/>
But it was like you felt Carlos sneering in the back of your head, and then you felt something like contempt for Pozniak. Oh, sure, you've never liked him, but you don't think you've ever felt <i>contempt,</i> so that must have been the influence of Carlos's brain band as well.<br/>
<br/>
So you advanced on him, and even gazed directly into his piggy-eyed face as you passed.<br/>
<br/>
And he let you pass! He did nothing to stop or hinder you, he didn't grab you by the back of the shirt or even whap you on the back of the head! <br/>
<br/>
Was it because you showed such cool courage? Or was it just because you were both too squeezed in by the surging crowd for him turn around?<br/>
<br/>
Well, whatever the reason, you made it to Sociology okay, and you felt good about it.<br/>
<br/>
You feel a similar lift at the start of third period, when you brush past Joshua Call and Jeff Spencer when entering Mr. Peters's classroom.<br/>
<br/>
You're more nervous, though, when you approach Carlos himself in fourth period, to ask about the fallout from Sunday afternoon. "Did you find your cash stash?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head. To your question, "Did you look at the security footage?" he hesitates, then drops his eyes and shakes his head even harder. "You really should check it," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"I did," he snaps. "What I meant was, there wasn't anything on it. I mean, no one I recognized."<br/>
<br/>
"So it was a stranger, you think?"<br/>
<br/>
Carlos gets a very dark look, and out of the corner of your eye you see Mike shaking his head at you. Their friend Josiah watches and listens with very wide eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, shit, I'm real sorry, man," you tell Carlos. "Lemme know if I can do anything for you." He just sinks deeper into his seat, and you return to where Caleb is waiting for you. When he asks what all that was about, you tell him about Carlos losing some money inside the studio he keeps at the storage complex. "And there wasn't anybody on the security footage he recognized."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Except himself,</i> you silently add with an invisible smirk.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your hopes that the new spell would be quickly completed are dashed when you look in on it Monday night and find that it is still burning. The book says it won't be completed until the fire goes out and cannot be relit, but says nothing about how long that will take.<br/>
<br/>
So the week passes without incident or excitement. Each night at around eight o'clock you drive out to the complex, put on Carlos's mask, and check on the spell. Tuesday night you're disappointed again, but on Wednesday your heart briefly rises when you see the fire has gone out. But when you put a lighter to it, purple flames again bloom off it. The same thing happens on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday you don't dare go in at all, lest you run into the guys.<br/>
<br/>
So you occupy yourself with making more masks and brain bands.<br/>
<br/>
At first you have no plans for them. In fact, you're not even sure why you're bothering to make them. But as the week wears on, certain blurry desires and intentions start coming into focus.<br/>
<br/>
It's the brain band you're wearing. You've taken to wearing it twenty-four hours a day, despite your promise not to fall asleep inside it anymore. But the fantasies it gives you! You always felt like you were a total pervert for the kind of things you imagined doing with girls. But Carlos!<br/>
<br/>
First of all, there are the feet. He adores girls' feet, the smaller the better. He especially likes niblet-like toes, and most of your fantasies these days start with peeling the shoes and socks off a girl like Eva or Jessica Garner, or Chelsea Cooper, and cleaning out the spaces between her toes, then giving her a foot bath and a foot massage before applying polish to the nails.<br/>
<br/>
But that's pretty tame, and Carlos doesn't mind sharing those fantasies with Mike even if his friend teases him over them. But the hair fantasies are a lot more involved—and much dirtier, at least in your own private opinion.<br/>
<br/>
Carlos likes a hairy girl. A great mane of thick hair, busy eyebrows, even a faint moustache is a huge turn on. He loves a bush that needs a weed-whacker. But married to this turn-on is a further fetish about giving the girl a close, frothy shave right up to the edge of the bush.<br/>
<br/>
So that's the part that follows the foot massages: shaving the girl's legs with hot, soapy lather, then clambering onto her, putting his face into her thick head of hair, and jamming his root through the verdant jungle and into the rich, loamy hillock beneath. He can work himself up really hard with these fantasies, to the point that you're almost scared of tearing a hole in your jerk-off sock.<br/>
<br/>
So that's what the masks are for: copying a girl. Or several.</span></div></div>


path: 1111321123223131
author_id: seuzz
title: A Highly Cinematic Ambush
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You've been polishing up the masks in the garage, and your dad has asked you what they are and what they're about. "Helping a friend on his art project," you told him. When he asked what you're getting out of it, as you seem to be doing a lot of the work, you replied, "Twenty dollars for each one." <br/>
<br/>
That shut him up.<br/>
<br/>
By Saturday morning you have five of them polished, and you've also made three more brain bands. But who to use one on?<br/>
<br/>
The answer comes indirectly. Over the last week you and Carlos's psychology have gotten very comfortable with each other. This morning, for instance, you blasted yourself unconscious when you came while imagining yourself being sucked off by Kristin Ramona who, in this particular fantasy, had just finished lubing a car and was caked with grease and grime from head to foot as she went down on you.<br/>
<br/>
The oddball consequence is that you and he both feel much more confident than either of you would have probably felt with asking a girl out. <br/>
<br/>
You have always been shy and skittery with girls, which is why you drifted along with Lisa Yarborough over the summer without actually ever asking her out or talking about dating. (Strange: While you have been preoccupied with magic masks, your resentment of the heartless way she dumped you has almost entirely vanished.) But the same air of cool collectedness you get from Carlos, that let you face down the Molester earlier in the week, also leaves you much less shy about calling up a girl and asking if she wants to go do something.<br/>
<br/>
From the other direction: Despite the way he's slimmed down and bulked up, Carlos still thinks of himself as the fat geeky kid that he was all the way from late elementary school through the end of his sophomore year. But now, the copy of him that sits in your skull sees something dramatically different when he looks in the mirror. He sees <i>you.</i> And even if you are skinny, with a crooked grin and a thatch of unruly hair, it's a much more handsome image than the self-image he still struggles under. And <i>he</i> would certainly have an easier time asking a girl out from behind your face than his own, even with his much improved looks, for then it wouldn't feel like <i>he's</i> the one running the risk.<br/>
<br/>
And how does all this point toward Mia DeWitt as the girl to ask out? Simple. She's in your Film as Literature class, and you've noticed her paying closer attention to her as your own comments and remarks in that class have improved. "Carlos" takes it as a reflection on his own intelligence, and you're just happy to have a girl as cute as that looking at you.<br/>
<br/>
So after chasing down acquaintances of acquaintances of friends, which ultimately gets you a contact number for her, you text her a little before noon and ask if she's up for hitting the Silver Cineplex with you. It's a new horror picture called <i>Cravenmoor,</i> something in the <i>Conjuring</i> style, but it's scoring well on the review metrics. You're pleased when Mia says she'll be happy to catch the 3:15 showing with you. You're even more pleased to find that the auditorium is mostly empty. <br/>
<br/>
"I hate a crowded theater," you observe as you advance down the aisle with your popcorns and Cokes.<br/>
<br/>
"You do?" Mia exclaims. "I <i>love</i> it when it's crowded! The bigger the crowd the better!"<br/>
<br/>
"But all the noise, all the talking," you complain as you follow her into the center row. "It's so distracting."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what makes it great! Not the distraction, I mean. The excitement! The buzz!" You sit and arrange your snacks. "When the audience is into it, all together, like a giant party!"<br/>
<br/>
You're about to argue that the movie-going experience shouldn't be a party but a rapturous immersion of the solitary consciousness into the carefully constructed mise-en-scene of the cinematic artist, but <i>thank God</i> you're distracted by Mia herself at that point. She has turned fully sideways in her chair to gaze at you as though ... well, as though you were a carefully constructed mise-en-scene and she was rapturously trying to immerse herself in you.<br/>
<br/>
Mia DeWitt might or might not be an artist, and she might or might not be artistic. But she presents herself as one. Delightfully so.<br/>
<br/>
It starts at the top of her head with a beret. Not a store-bought beret, but a hand-knit one, stitched out of brown wool, with a gold pin set in it. Today, despite an autumnal chill, she is wearing a white, sleeveless blouse that clings tightly to her curves, over which she has draped a tan, sleeveless vest of brown leather. Her jeans are black and skin tight, as you couldn't help noticing as you followed her into the theater. She's a tiny girl, and she would be smaller if it weren't for the high-heeled boots she is wearing.<br/>
<br/>
She has an hourglass figure balanced at the top with torpedo-shaped breasts and at the bottom with grabbable hips. Her skin is flawless and still slightly tawny from the summer sun. She has a small nose and small mouth under large, dark eyes in a heart-shaped face. Her makeup is muted—she seems to be wearing only lip gloss, for example—and long locks of soft brown hair trail messily down past her jaw.<br/>
<br/>
So as she turns sideways in the seat you are struck dumb, both by the sight of her giving you her undivided attention, and by a sudden, vivid fantasy in which she hurls her popcorn to the floor, climbs over the armrest into your lap, and takes your lips and tongue between your own while throwing her arms about your neck.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I like seeing movies with friends," you croak. You shift in your seat so as to relieve the pressure on your straining cock. "That's fun."<br/>
<br/>
"But the crowd!" she insists. "Isn't that how you know you're in a really great movie? When it grabs everyone the same way, and they're surging and rolling along with it? When everyone's, oh!" She gasps. "Laughing and crying and screaming and yelling all at the same time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds more like a rock concert."<br/>
<br/>
She puts her popcorn on the floor, then leans over the armrest at you. You're half convinced that she <i>is</i> about to climb into your lap as she puts her face close to yours. "Do you ever go to the Warehouse?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," you gasp. "What's that got to do with movies?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Just asking." She grins—an adorable sight, for her mouth is so small. "Are you going out tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"I, uh, haven't made any plans."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going. A bunch of us are." She grips the armrest with both hands, and for one frantic moment you are absolutely convinced she's about to loft herself over it and into your lap. But she keeps to her side, and rocks back and forth. "I'd love it if you came."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd love to come with you," you blurt back.<br/>
<br/>
She wags a finger in your face. "That's what <i>you</i> said," she chants. Your brain is burning so hot it feels it might melt, so it's not until after the lights have dimmed that you realize the double-entendre you accidentally dropped.<br/>
<br/>
You're enjoying your time with Mia so much that you almost change your mind about what you're going to do. Only the fear that you might fuck things up with her, and lose her without gaining any souvenirs, causes you to persist. So after the previews are well and truly underway, you excuse yourself, saying that you want to get some nachos.<br/>
<br/>
Instead you run outside to your truck and fetch one of the blank masks. Back inside the theater, after letting your eyes readjust to the dark, you creep into the row behind Mia. She's absorbed in the screen, and you get the mask onto her without difficulty.<br/>
<br/>
Then, while the mask copies her, you go out to get your nachos, and your nerves so give you the munchies you almost finish eating them before the mask reappears on her face with a bluish glow. You catch it before it can fall off, and scamper back outside to return it to your truck. Back in the theater, you nestle in close to her before she can awake.<br/>
<br/>
All this happens before the previews and commercials have even finished playing, so Mia wakes up before the movie has even started.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't seem to have noticed what happened, either, except to remark on how nice it is to see a movie without having to sit through twenty minutes of coming attractions.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She walks beside you on the way out of the theater, and bumps up against you a couple of times. You wonder if you're supposed to put your arm around her, but content yourself with asking what she's up for doing now. "Going to hang out with some girlfriends, talk about you," she says, and she laughs when you let out a squeak of surprise. "You're going to see me at the Warehouse later on," she adds.<br/>
<br/>
"I am?"<br/>
<br/>
"You promised you'd be there."<br/>
<br/>
You don't remember making any such promise, but you ask when and how you should meet up with her. "We're gonna have a party at Eastman before we head out," she says. "Follow the noise till you find us out back of the school."<br/>
<br/>
"What time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Any time after seven. It'll be eleven, probably, before we head out."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you're vibrating all over as you clamber into your truck, and you sit there watching with slack-jawed lust and excitement as Mia drives away. Slowly you lose all feeling from the neck down, except in your cock, which is where all the nerves in your body seem to have concentrated.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually you come out of it, though, and check your texts. There's an invite from Mike for an afternoon movie at the complex, which surprises you. You text back to see what he and Carlos are doing that night. <i>warehouse,</i> he says.<br/>
<br/>
How fortunate!<br/>
<br/>
So at nine o'clock you sneak into the storage unit to check on your experiment. The fire is out again.<br/>
<br/>
This time, it doesn't relight.</span></div></div>


path: 11113211232231312
author_id: seuzz
title: O Lackey Man!
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're torn: Go meet up with Mia? Or stick around to study this ... thing ... that you have made?<br/>
<br/>
After giving it some thought, you realize that you don't really have a choice at all. Your Saturday night curfew is midnight—and it doesn't matter how hard you argue with your dad; it will be midnight, he's said, until you're no longer living at home—which means there's no point going to the Warehouse if you're only going to be there an hour or so. Nor do you have enough time to study up on this thing <i>and</i> meet up with Mia and her friends at Eastman, for you'd have to go home to get the grimoire while changing in and out of Carlos's mask. By the time you got done with the changes of face, it would be practically eleven o'clock anyway!<br/>
<br/>
So you return home—after peeling Carlos's mask off again—to grab the book and every last magical scrap and supply that you have, in case you need any of it out at the unit. You hustle back out to the complex where—after putting Carlos's mask back on again; this is getting pretty tedious—you re-enter the unit to see what you've made.<br/>
<br/>
It started off as a pile of dirt, but as it burned it shrank and tightened up into a log-like cylinder. Privately, you dubbed it the magical dildo, right up until the moment that a great rent up the middle tore it almost in half, and two smaller rents opened on either side, at which point the label "dildo" didn't seem funny anymore and actually made you squirm a little.<br/>
<br/>
Now, you give it a hard critical stare, for it doesn't look like much and you have to wonder if you fucked things up. You try turning the page in the grimoire—the surest way you know to tell if you've executed a spell correctly—and nothing happens. You're thinking of how you're going to haul the thing to the dump when you get the idea to press the open book onto the dingus, the way you pressed the masks and brain bands onto it. <br/>
<br/>
And when you do that, the page flops open. You sigh with relief.<br/>
<br/>
But you're still mystified as to what the thing is, and settle cross-legged onto the floor as you bend over the reverse of the spell. There's a fairly large block of Latin there, and the Wifi signal is spotty, so it takes you a long time to figure it out. Intimations that you've got something really special on hand don't come until you translate the word "pedisequos." It turns out to mean something like "retainer", "footman", "attendant", "page."<br/>
<br/>
Or "lackey."<br/>
<br/>
The hair on the back of your neck starts to rise. <i>Lackey, eh?</i> You like the sound of that.<br/>
<br/>
Further reading tells you that it works by putting a mask onto it. The thing will then take on the shape of the person contained within the mask, and it will obey you "entirely", "completely", "wholly", "utterly" and "totally." <br/>
<br/>
You pull a mask out of the satchel.<br/>
<br/>
Now that you know what it is, you see the intended shape of it. That big rent up the middle? It separates two leg-like limbs. The tears that flank it: those make the arms. The bulbous thing at the end, like a lumpy onion? That would be the head.<br/>
<br/>
As you look over the instructions again, you groan to see that you have to "polish" it first. Fortunately, after rubbing at it, you decide that "polishing" just means getting some of the fine powder off it, and with your shirt you get it quickly rubbed down to a glossy shine.<br/>
<br/>
Then you squat next to it, steeling yourself to the great test to come. It's Keith's mask you're holding, you now see. You turn it face up and place it on the head of the thing.<br/>
<br/>
It vanishes, as smoothly as if you'd dropped a plate into a pond. <br/>
<br/>
Instantly you are looking into Keith Tilley's face. As you gape, his scabby features pull together into a frown, and he opens his eyes. You scramble back as he does a double take at you. "Carlos?" he says as he sits up on his elbows.<br/>
<br/>
First thought: <i>Oh yeah, I'm wearing Carlos's mask.</i> Second thought: <i>Shit! Does that mean he's going to imprint onto Carlos as his master, like a baby bird imprinting onto its mother?</i> "Uh, sort of," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck you mean 'sort of'?" Keith looks around. "The fuck am I? Is this a—?" He gasps as he gazes down the length of his naked body. "Did you take my fucking clothes, you fucking queer?"<br/>
<br/>
Wrong-footed as you are by the sudden appearance of this panicked and argumentative doppelganger of Keith Tilley, you don't fully lose your composure. "You have to obey me," you tell him, and jab a finger in his face. "Totally!"<br/>
<br/>
"I do?" His face twists up, then falls into an expression of slack-jawed horror. "Oh God, I do, don't I?"<br/>
<br/>
"You do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't I?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hit yourself in the face," you order him, and he turns very red even as he bangs himself in the jaw with a loosely coiled fist. "Harder," you tell him. "Harder!"<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck are you making me do this for?" he cries.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, stand up! Spread your legs." <i>Yikes!</i> Now that python he's got for a schlong dangles before you. "Jog in place. Now some jumping jacks. Deep knee bends! Faster!"<br/>
<br/>
For a couple of minutes you put him through the paces, noting that no matter how much he complains—and boy, this lackey-Keith can complain just as lustily as the real guy—he does what you say as quickly as you say it. He's almost sobbing by the time you tell him he can stop.<br/>
<br/>
"What the fuck is this?" he gasps as he collapses back onto the cold, concrete floor. "What did you do to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not Keith Tilley," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck! It's hypnosis, isn't it? Now you're gonna convince me I'm a chicken!"<br/>
<br/>
That would be very amusing, but you refrain. "What's the last thing you remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"Doing a bunch of fucking dumb gymnastics!"<br/>
<br/>
"Before tonight, I mean. Before you woke up here."<br/>
<br/>
"Pft!" He glares and hangs his head. When he speaks again, it's in a muted mutter. "I was out at the athletic fields with Will. You know, Prescott? Anyway, he wanted to show me some kinda jujitsu thing." He makes air quotes around "jujitsu," just like he did out at the fields. "Before that, we were eatin' quesadillas."<br/>
<br/>
That was the night you got the brain band onto Keith, which means your lackey remembers nothing since that night. But that's alright. You only put his mask onto the pedisequos as a proof of concept.<br/>
<br/>
Your eye goes briefly to the mask of Mia DeWitt. If lackey-Keith will punch himself in the face on your command, what might lackey-Mia do? You shiver with anticipation.<br/>
<br/>
But anticipation is enough for now. You've unlocked another spell, and as long as you've got the book, your supplies, and the storage unit to yourself for the night, you might as well make the most of them. Instead of replacing Keith's mask with Mia's on the pedisequos, you tell your lackey to keep quiet and sit in a corner while you do some reading.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next spell turns out to be practically a duplicate of the previous one. A quick comparison shows that it uses almost all the same ingredients as the spell that made the pedisequos, but it only calls for forty pounds of graveyard earth rather than four hundred. One at a time you assemble them, until you've only two left to procure: a hank of your own hair, and something new which you haven't translated.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," you tell lackey-Keith, "I'm going to knock myself out for a couple of minutes—"<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't freak out or anything. Because I'm wearing a disguise. I'm not really Carlos Montoya. I'm your friend Will."<br/>
<br/>
"You're fucking crazy is what you are."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut it. I just don't want you freaking out." Lackey-Keith shrugs and sits back in his corner with a smirk. You watch him for a minute, weighing whether he's going to be trustworthy, before laying back and grabbing your own face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Fucking hell, man," Lackey-Keith says after you're awake and have shaken the shadows from your brain. "You got another face or something under that one?" He actually looks impressed with you. Horrified, but impressed. "Is this, like, fucking magic or something?"<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, Lackey-Keith is as dumb as the real one, and you don't dignify his question with an answer. You cut off some of your hair and toss it into the bowl. Then, with your cell phone, you tackle the last item to be translated.<br/>
<br/>
You almost drop the phone when the translation comes back: a human body.<br/>
<br/>
<i>A corpse?</i> you wonder. <i>Or a living person?</i><br/>
<br/>
Then you wonder, <i>Why am I even trying to figure it out? Like it matters? Am I going to execute a spell that calls for either one?</i><br/>
<br/>
So distracted, you don't hear the soft footfalls behind you, and you shriek and leap when a voice speaks. "The fuck are you—?"<br/>
<br/>
It's Carlos. The real guy. Standing in the door to the unit, staring at you with a face turning black with anger.<br/>
<br/>
As you scramble up to your knees, your knuckles touch a mask.</span></div></div>


path: 111132112322313121
author_id: seuzz
title: Recasting Carlos
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're thinking with your fingers, not your head, when you snatch up the mask and lob it at Carlos Montoya. <br/>
<br/>
In what seems like slow motion, you see his widening eyes as you slam the mask into his face. He falls backward into the hallway, hits the door across the way with a sound like thunder, then slides to the floor. His head lolls and his eyes bulge and his mouth hangs open.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" a voice calls behind you, and you whip around with a cocked fist. But it's only lackey-Keith. He scrambles over to your side and stares down at Carlos. "The fuck did you do?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't—! He's okay!" you yell. "See? He's breathing!"<br/>
<br/>
"You knocked him out cold," your lackey exclaims as he kneels next to the prostrate Carlos. <br/>
<br/>
"But he's still alive!"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess." Lackey-Keith gives you a doubtful look. "What'd you do it for?"<br/>
<br/>
Yes, why did you do it?<br/>
<br/>
Panic, you suppose. After a week of getting away with your shit at his place, he finally caught up to you. How could you explain how you got into one of his storage units, and why you were with a naked Keith Tilley? In a flash you imagined him making all kinds of other lurid deductions. <i>You stole his money! You disguised yourself as him! You're a fucking black magician!</i><br/>
<br/>
He can still expose you. In twenty minutes or so, after the mask you jammed into him has fallen out, and after he's woken up.<br/>
<br/>
Your breath is coming in haggard gulps as you glance back into the storage unit, and at the supplies you've been putting together. The next spell calls for a human body. You've no idea what it will do a person. Will it kill him? Turn him into a frog? Give him superpowers?<br/>
<br/>
But at this point you don't care. You drag Carlos into the unit and tear his clothes off  him. You pile all the ingredients onto him. You send Keith (still naked) to the foyer at the hallway to see if there's anyone—like Mike or Philip or Josiah—waiting outside for Carlos to appear. He reports that the coast appears to be clear.<br/>
<br/>
Then when the mask appears on Carlos's face, you put a lighter to him.<br/>
<br/>
The world briefly turns purple.<br/>
<br/>
After you've checked yourself over for burns, you turn to Carlos. Flames consume him from head to foot. You turn away, sick with horror. You dodge your lackey's reproachful looks.<br/>
<br/>
It's going to kill him. You're sure of it. It's going to kill him. And then where will you be? Besides being a murderer. You'll have dispose of the body, but then a search will be launched, and the body will be found and somehow it will all come back to you and not only will be branded a murderer but you'll be a black magician too. You'll be famous, but not in a way that you've ever wanted to be famous.<br/>
<br/>
You're interrupted by this train wreck of morbid fantasies by the sight of a mask laying next to Carlos. It's the mask you put onto him, to knock him out. You pick it up and blink at the name inside it: CARLOS ENRICO MONTOYA Y ALVAREZ. It's a copy of Carlos, like the copy you already made of him, but up-to-date with all his most recent memories, you'd hazard.<br/>
<br/>
A shiver runs down your spine as you look up at Keith. Your lackey's expression turns guarded. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"I was coming in to check up on things," Carlos says. His tone is mulish, and his eyes glitter with anger. You had to order him back when he lunged at you after waking up.<br/>
<br/>
It sure looks like he's back to normal. But as in the case of Keith Tilley—who, still naked, is also on hand—looks are deceiving.<br/>
<br/>
Despite the brainwave you felt as your fingers closed around the mask, you still weren't sure what you were going to do. Okay, you were pretty sure that someone, somehow, was going to have to start impersonating Carlos Montoya. That's why you picked up his mask. But were you going to wear it yourself? Were you going to take Keith's mask off the pedisequos and replace it with Carlos's?<br/>
<br/>
While you were thinking it over, you glanced up and noticed that the purple fire had gone out. You scrambled over to relight it, then stared like a dumbfuck at it when nothing happened.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you noticed that something very funky had happened to Carlos.<br/>
<br/>
He was white all over, but not the splotchy, peach-like color of yourself or Keith. He was a dusty, grayish white, not far in color from the concrete floor he was resting on. It took a moment for the horrifying fact to register: He was now made out of concrete!<br/>
<br/>
Okay, probably not concrete, not literally concrete. It would seem stupid for a magic spell out of a book a hundred years old or more to, y'know, turn a guy into <i>concrete,</i> like he was a highway overpass. But he was a stony color all over, and when you brushed his face a little of that same fine, talcum-like dust as coated the pedisequos came away on your fingertip. His flesh was stiff when you pushed at it.<br/>
<br/>
But was he dead or just transformed? No breath that you could detect escaped his nostrils or lips, but you could detect a very shallow rise and fall in his chest, as though he still breathed.<br/>
<br/>
You laid the book on his chest, as you had done with the pedisequos; as had happened before, the page fell away, and you read of what you had done.<br/>
<br/>
You now have two of the things: one made of graveyard earth, and one made of the kind of the thing that goes in graveyards. Just like the first pedisequos, this thing is a lackey onto which you can place a mask, giving it the form of the person contained in the mask and making of it an obedient lackey.<br/>
<br/>
Why would the book give you two ways of making a pedisequos? More: Why in the hell would it give you a way of making a pedisequos that requires the sacrifice of a human being?<br/>
<br/>
You numb all over when the answer comes to you. It's obvious: It's a spell for <i>replacing</i> someone with an obedient pedisequos.<br/>
<br/>
More conveniently still, it gives you a place to hide the body.<br/>
<br/>
So, numbly, you set Carlos's mask onto the thing that was once Carlos Montoya, and ordered it back when it lunged at your throat. Then you ordered it to explain itself.<br/>
<br/>
So, he came back to the complex to check on things, lackey-Carlos tells you. The security footage showed that someone was coming in every night at around the same time, between eight and nine, after the complex was supposed to be closed for the night. Carlos didn't say anything to his uncle about it, because the person looked suspiciously like Carlos himself. He had come back early this evening, around eight, to watch, then gone off to meet guys before going to the Warehouse. But he'd got a nagging feeling that something was bound to happen. He returned to the complex to check the footage, and spotted your truck. That's when he came in. What the fuck is going on, he demands at the end of his explanation.<br/>
<br/>
You don't answer. You just tell him to get dressed, to open up his studio, and to wait for you there. "Don't text anyone," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
After he's gone you catch lackey-Keith staring at you. "Dude, this is all fucked up," he says. "Are you going to let me go home any time soon?"<br/>
<br/>
"There's already one of you there," you tell him, and when he gasps you shut him by telling him to lay on the ground. You remove his mask and pack it into the bag with the others. <br/>
<br/>
You still have everything else to put away, but you're so sick of the mess you've made that you don't even want to touch it. Instead, you drag out the book again. The spell that turned Carlos into stone doesn't contain any instructions on reversing it—no more than the previous spell had explained how to turn a pedisequos back into dirt and chemicals—but you turn to the newly unlocked spell to see if that gives you a lead.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn't, and it turns your stomach to see that it calls for more or less the same set of ingredients as the last two spells. Except for a human body, for which you are grateful. And it calls for even less of the stuff: no more than a handful of graveyard dirt in this case.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Maybe it's a hair of the dog that bit someone?</i> you wonder.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have any great hopes, but you've nothing else to do, and your curfew is still forty-five minutes off, so you prepare the ingredients and fire them over the sigil. This time the flame sets off a tiny purple mushroom cloud, no more, and leaves in the bowl a wet slurry the same color as the pedisequos in the corner. The page comes away as you lift the bowl from it, and you turn it to see what you've made.<br/>
<br/>
You paint the stuff on the inside of a mask, like a sealant. And no, it doesn't reverse the previous spell.<br/>
<br/>
It's coming up on your curfew now, but you don't move, and stare thoughtfully at the bare pedisequos in the corner. You don't have a mask of yourself, but you could quickly make one. Set it on the pedisequos, and you'd have an obedient twin you could send home in your stead. Then you could go out to the Warehouse with lackey-Carlos.<br/>
<br/>
Or you could set lackey-Carlos's mask on yourself and go out as him.<br/>
<br/>
Or—you rub your eyes, for you are suddenly bone-tired with stress and exhaustion—you could just go home.<br/>
<br/>
... But while sending your pedisequos out as yourself to the Warehouse, where at least it could have fun?</span></div></div>


path: 111133
author_id: seuzz
title: Stonerhenge
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You're not real keen on spending the afternoon with Caleb, as the morning's conversation has reminded you that he can be pretty goddamned sharp. There's a good chance he'll be too smart to go along with you and your "experiment"; and if it goes pear-shaped, he might ream you out good.<br/>
<br/>
So the idea of using one of the school's many stoners as a guinea pig suddenly seems like a good one.<br/>
<br/>
You'll have to wait for the school to clear out a little first, so you park yourself in the library with some homework. There are other students in there, but most of them you don't know, and they're preoccupied with their own work, or with each other—<br/>
<br/>
The guys and girls who are getting kissy-faced are the most annoying, and you move so as to turn your back on the most demonstrative of them.<br/>
<br/>
—but as the clocks hum the library slowly empties out. You've finished your English reading and have made a good start on math when you look up and see that it's almost four-thirty, and that there are only four other people left.<br/>
<br/>
None of them is a stoner, though. So you pack up your stuff and amble back into the school proper.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You start your search for a test subject by making a circuit of the school. Westside High is laid out something like a tic-tac-toe grid, with multiple wings intersecting each other at right angles.<br/>
<br/>
You start by following the main corridor—with its display cases of class photographs and pictures of famous alumni, trophies, winning science experiments, and other stupid whatnot—past the Nurses' Office, the administrative offices, and the cafeteria. You turn left into the English wing and glance inside a few of the classrooms as you lope along, but the teachers are busy with their own work and don't look up as you pass.<br/>
<br/>
The English wing intersects the long, broad central corridor where most of the lockers are located, and you turn left again to cruise up it. Three guys pass you going the other way, but they're in shorts and muscle shirts, and you carefully avoid looking them in the face. Not all the jocks at Westside are sadistic muscle heads, but enough of them are that it's best to make yourself invisible when any are nearby.<br/>
<br/>
Instead of proceeding out the exit at the end of the corridor, you make another left, down the Social Studies wing. Mr. Walberg's door is closed, but the light is on, and you pause to peer in through the window in his door.<br/>
<br/>
The crusty old bastard is sitting at his desk—a doughy man with thinning hair and a gray, walrus-like moustache that trails almost to his chins. He's writing something in long-hand, and as you watch he lifts his head and says something out loud. You shift your position, and see that he's not alone. Dane Matthias is slouching in a desk in the middle of the room.<br/>
<br/>
Dane Matthias and Mr. Walberg. What a pair. It's not hard to read that situation. The teacher is gruff and sarcastic in even his best moods, and every time he looks in your direction you feel yourself straightening up under his frown. Dane, on the other hand, is the guy whose picture ought to appear next to "stoner" in the dictionary. He is never without a goofy, vacant grin under his flyaway platinum hair, and his wardrobe consists entirely of flannel pajama bottoms chopped into sloppy shorts, dirty t-shirts, fuzzy slippers, and a filthy sports jacket.<br/>
<br/>
Dane would be the perfect test subject. You could talk him into anything.<br/>
<br/>
But he's busy with detention at the moment, so you press on.<br/>
<br/>
Your path has taken you back to the library, but you turn right and continue on to a set of double doors that open out next to the Music building. The ground between it and the school proper is deserted, but on rounding the corner of the auditorium you step into a wide patch of ground where it's not uncommon to find clusters of students relaxing in ways that no authority would approve of.<br/>
<br/>
It's presently deserted, but from farther on, in the direction of the portable units, you hear faint voices. You set off in their direction.<br/>
<br/>
The portables are old, ratty and abandoned, and the school grounds would be much improved if they were hauled away. But maybe the administration leaves them in place because otherwise the problem students wouldn't have a place to cluster, and would make more trouble for everyone else.<br/>
<br/>
You wend your way between them and come out in the quasi-courtyard around which they are arranged. Your sphincter loosens when you see who is seated there. You'd back up, but they've already seen you. So instead you slowly walk forward to meet them.<br/>
<br/>
"Ay," calls Justin Roth. His voice is a deep, raspy baritone made raspier by the smoke from the cigarette he's got between his lips. His eyes glint from under heavy lids.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug, and settle stiffly onto the grass with him.<br/>
<br/>
Roth doesn't have a bad reputation, not exactly. But you've always had the impression that people of your type—meaning the kids who come from good homes, who try to stay out of the worst kinds of trouble, and who are just trying to get through school without too much hassle—are best off staying away from him. He has a wrestler's physique, which by itself would make him physically dangerous; worse than that are the rumors that he has ingested more drugs, of the hardest and most dangerous kinds, than the next hundred hardcore users put together. Martin Gardinhire once spelled out the implications to a study group: "Justin'll wake up one morning with three dead girls in the back seat of his car, and no memory of where he put their heads."<br/>
<br/>
And he'd issued that warning because some of the girls at the table were groaning about how seriously hot Roth was. Like, "I become pregnant just looking at him" hot.<br/>
<br/>
But despite his reputation you'd still take his company over that of his companion: Jamie Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
Justin may be dangerous in potential, but Rennerhoff is a giggling little psychopath who hangs out with actual skinheads. He's no bigger than you are, and in raw feats of strength you're pretty sure you could hold your own against him. But he probably fights dirty—he seems like the sort to keep a razorblade hidden in a pocket.<br/>
<br/>
What really makes him scary, though, is his grin. When he unfurls it, the corners of his smile will practically touch his earlobes, and every one of his teeth, even the back molars, will be visible. Basically, he looks like the Joker, and he knows it too, and he plays up the resemblance every chance he gets.<br/>
<br/>
Like right now. His eyes glitter with malice as he grins at you.<br/>
<br/>
Justin takes another drag on that cigarette as you settle onto the grass, then holds it out to you. You hesitate, then shake your head. Rennerhoff giggles as Roth exhales a long stream into the air. "So, the fuck are you still doing on campus?" Justin asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Just hanging out, killing time 'til, you know," you say. "And you guys?" You don't look at Rennerhoff when you say it.<br/>
<br/>
"Hangin' out," Roth rumbles. "Plannin' my next hunting trip."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." He stretches his legs. "Gonna head up into— Nngh." He waves a hand at the horizon. "Stay out four, five days, come back with a deer."<br/>
<br/>
You do a rough calendrical calculation in your head. "When's this?" you ask. "Thanksgiving?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. In a week or two."<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... We don't have a vacation until Thanksgiving."<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff laughs. Shrilly, like a jackal. Roth gives you a sidelong look. "So?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I get it," you say. "So, uh, your folks gonna take you out of school or something so you can go?" You feel the folly of the question even before Jamie laughs again.<br/>
<br/>
Roth grinds the cigarette out on his hip, leaving a burn mark on his jeans. "No."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." There seems nothing else intelligent to add, but you add a thought anyway. "Well, I guess that's kind of cool."<br/>
<br/>
"You think?" Roth drops his head back against the wall of the portable with a <i>thunk.</i> His eyes are bloodshot, and you wonder how wasted he is, and on what kind of fucked-up chemicals. "You wanna come with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who, me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why not? You don't hunt?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, no. I mean, I've never even really been out in the wilderness." You lick your lips.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's too bad." Roth grunts. "You should try it some time." He rubs deeply at an eye and mumbles something.<br/>
<br/>
You catch Jamie grinning at you. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.<br/>
<br/>
With a deep sigh, Roth clambers slowly to his feet. "I'll catch you guys around," he says, and brushes himself off. "Wear orange, so I don't— Uh—" <br/>
<br/>
He trails off, then without a backward look  he shuffles off on a rolling gait, like a cowboy who just got off a boat.<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff stretches out on his side and props himself up on an elbow. "Jesus, you believe that fucker?" he gasps. Then he chucks a chin at you. "Ch'upto now?"<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111333
author_id: seuzz
title: Butterfingers
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Jamie Rennerhoff isn't a "stoner," and he isn't anywhere near the top of the list of people you wouldn't mind fucking with or fucking up. <br/>
<br/>
But he is on it. He may be a beta-class scum-sucker, but he's still a scum-sucker.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This is going to be tricky,</i> you think as you unzip your pack and close trembling fingers around the mask. You have no idea what will happen if Jamie puts it on.<br/>
<br/>
"So I got this thing here," you tell him as you pull the mask free. "I, uh, found it in, uh— And I was going to, you know, show it around to people, maybe Justin or—" <br/>
<br/>
You blush at your stammering idiocy, and almost change your mind.<br/>
<br/>
But Rennerhoff is already grinning at you expectantly. "It's, like, a mask," you lamely conclude.<br/>
<br/>
His nostrils flare and his grin widens.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jump him,</i> you tell yourself. <i>Lunge at him. Get it on him before—</i><br/>
<br/>
"Lemme see."<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff darts his hand out and snatches the mask away before you can react. "Cool," he declares as he turns it over and studies it. "Where'd you find it at?"<br/>
<br/>
You gape. The last thing you were expecting was for him to just <i>grab</i> it away from you. "A ...uh ... thrift shop, or like that?" you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"It needs eye holes." He points. "See?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... Yeah. I guess you could probably punch some into it."<br/>
<br/>
"You know how to do that?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink. This is definitely not going the way you anticipated. "Well ... no."<br/>
<br/>
"I could do it," Jamie declares, and taps one of the eyelids. "This stuff it's made of— What's it made of?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. But I don't want to fuck it up by—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna fuck it up!" Rennerhoff's grin flips over into a frown. "Tell you what, I'll buy it from you."<br/>
<br/>
You almost fall over. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure! How much you pay for it?"<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw falls open. "I— I'm not—" But Jamie is already digging a long hand into his front pocket.<br/>
<br/>
But before you can tell him it's not for sale at any price, a thick voice sounds behind you. "Hur!" <br/>
<br/>
You look around, and flop sweat pops onto your forehead.<br/>
<br/>
It's Jeff Spencer. <br/>
<br/>
There are worse guys at school to run into, but there's something specially terrifying about Spencer. He's a special-ed case, for a start. Or, at least, that's the impression he gives. His eyes are dull and his jaw slack in a way that makes you expect a long, viscous stream of spit to come drooling out at any moment from behind his fat, chapped lower lip. And there <i>must</i> be something wrong with him genetically, for even though he can't be more than eighteen, his close-shorn blonde hair is already receding fast from his forehead. <i>Garbage DNA,</i> you can't help thinking.<br/>
<br/>
He's glaring dully as he trudges up to you and Rennerhoff. "Watcha doon?" he mumbles. <br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," Rennerhoff replies with a light whinny. "Just hanging out. Justin was here a minute ago, but he left."<br/>
<br/>
Spencer's filmy eyes swivel in your direction. "Where's Call?"<br/>
<br/>
"At work?" Rennerhoff says.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck." Spencer's glare deepens. "Said he was gonna meet me here."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit!</i> It's sometimes possible to reason with the Molester; there's barely any reasoning with Spencer; but from what you've seen there is no reasoning with Joshua Call. <br/>
<br/>
"Well, I need to get home," you say with a pretended yawn.<br/>
<br/>
"Me too," Rennerhoff says, and slings his backpack onto his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
But Spencer grabs your shoulder with a meaty hand. "Got a cigarette?" he demands, and his breath, foul with tuna fish, washes over you.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, I don't— <i>G'uh!"</i> <br/>
<br/>
Spencer shoves you against the side of a portable and jams his fingers into one of your front pockets, to grope and fiddle and feel. You almost do a standing high jump onto the roof.<br/>
<br/>
With a grunt he brushes you aside, and stoops to pick up your backpack. He turns it over and dumps your books and papers all over the ground, then kneels to paw through the mess and batter your bag inside and out. "Fuck," he concludes, then hurls it away, and stalks off with a furrowed brow.<br/>
<br/>
Not until he's gone do you drop to the ground and start shoving your things back into your bag. You don't dare look up, and only when you've zipped the bag and stood again on trembling legs do you discover you are alone. Spencer has gone, but so has Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
And not until you're home and recovering with a day-old donut up in your bedroom do you realize that the mask you so painstakingly made is not in your bag.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Naturally, you're damn sure that Rennerhoff ran off with it while Spencer mauling you and your shit. But what has he <i>done</i> with it? That's the question that keeps you awake most of the night.<br/>
<br/>
He finds you the next morning, at the start of third period. He's loitering inside the door of Mr. Peters's classroom, and his eyes pop when he sees you. That Joker-like grin splits his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey man!" he calls out. "So how'd you make out with Jeff yesterday?" He puts his fist out for a bump.<br/>
<br/>
"Um, he asked me for a cigarette," you reply as you awkwardly return the gesture.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then he dumped my shit all over the ground when I didn't have one."<br/>
<br/>
Rennerhoff cackles unsympathetically. "What lunch you got?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fifth?"<br/>
<br/>
"I got fourth. Aw, fuck it." His grin widens. "Meet me out next to the Music building, your lunch period. I wanna ask you about something."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He doesn't have to say what it's about, and you don't have to ask. When fifth period comes you half-run, half-lurch out to the Music Annex. Rennerhoff is pacing by the front corner when you arrive. He chucks his chin at you as you run up, then squats next to his backpack. You join him as he unzips it.<br/>
<br/>
"So I accidentally ran off with your thingamabobby yesterday," he says. "Sorry to leave in in the lurch like that, but it's no fun being with Jeff when it's just you and him, you know? Anyway, like I said, I wanted to buy it off you," he continues as he pulls the mask out. "So I wanna ask you about it. Like, where you got it."<br/>
<br/>
"It's not for sale," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Just tell me where you found it."<br/>
<br/>
"At a shop."<br/>
<br/>
"Where? Because," he continues when you don't answer, "I took it home and was goofing off with it, and something really weird happened."<br/>
<br/>
The hairs go up on your neck. "Yeah? What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, look at it." He thrusts the mask at you.<br/>
<br/>
You take and examine it. It looks like it did yesterday, and you're about to ask what the deal is when you freeze. There's an odd kind of reflection inside it; the light glinting off it has formed something that looks like an image.<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw falls open a little when you recognize it. <br/>
<br/>
It's an image of Jamie Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
"So where'd you get this thing?" he asks.<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11113332
author_id: seuzz
title: The Start of an Unlikely Partnership
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You feel your eyes bulging from your head. It's the mask you made, but it's been altered since yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
At least, you have to assume it's been altered. You don't remember it having a 3D image of Jamie Rennerhoff inside it.<br/>
<br/>
You blink at it a couple of times, and twist it about so that the light plays over it from a different angle. Some of the highlights shift and scatter, but the lines that make up Rennerhoff's face keep their shape. You rub the surface.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you seeing it?" he asks. "Like a face?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool. Glad it's not just me. That's how come I'm asking where you got it."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you <i>do</i> something with it?" you squeak. "'Cos it wasn't like this when I made it!"<br/>
<br/>
His eyebrows pop up. "You <i>made</i> it?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Damn!</i><br/>
<br/>
And yet you're not really sorry you made the slip.<br/>
<br/>
For as you look at Rennerhoff, you don't see a psychotic bully anymore.<br/>
<br/>
For a start, he isn't grinning. Without that horrifying Joker rictus distending his face, he looks like a normal kid, one not even all that different from you and your friends. He's dressed in a plain t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, and his brown hair is actually more neatly cut and combed than yours. His face is lean, and his pointed nose tilts a little bit to the side, but his skin is clear, and he hasn't got any piercings or tattoos or bruises or scars. His eyes are very bright.<br/>
<br/>
But it's his eyes which hold your attention. They are clear, and they show no emotion scarier than curiosity and surprise. There's no leer or sneer in them, none of the careful scrutiny that the Molester shows when he's deciding just how hard to kick you in the nuts.<br/>
<br/>
Hell, you've seen more contempt in the eyes of Geoff Mansfield when he looks at you.<br/>
<br/>
It would be too much to say that you suddenly <i>like and trust</i> Jamie Rennerhoff. But he does look civilized. And, cautiously, you decide to gamble that, if you treat him fair and friendly, he might reciprocate.<br/>
<br/>
"You said you made it?" he asks again as you drop your own bag to the grass.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. What did you do with it yesterday, while you had it?" From your bag you pull out the grimoire, which you brought to school because you felt funny leaving it in your room where your mom might find it.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Goofed around with it. What's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's the book that showed me how to make that mask." You open it to the spell, and blink. A light stain, in the shape of an oval—a <i>mask-shaped oval</i>—has appeared on it.<br/>
<br/>
"Like an arts and crafts book?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You pull at the corner of the page, but it still won't come away. "A really <i>old</i> arts and crafts book," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie says something, but you're concentrating on the book. On a hunch, you gingerly lay the mask atop the open page, atop the stain. When you pick it back up again, your heart jumps, for the page flutters. <br/>
<br/>
There's a lot more Latin on the other side, and on the facing page is more Latin and another funny sigil thing: a circle bound all around with lots of ornate curlicues.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's the deal?" Jamie asks.<br/>
<br/>
You squint up at him. "When you were goofing off with it yesterday, did you put it up to your face? Like this?" You raise the mask, as though to put it on, but are careful to keep it hovering a couple of inches away.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, that's what you're supposed to do with masks, right?"<br/>
<br/>
It's like an avalanche inside your chest: Everything turns loose as you decide to trust him. After all, you've already let him see the book, and he's seen how freaky the mask is.<br/>
<br/>
"I gotta check the book to see what's going on," you tell him. "But can you hang out after school? Don't bring Spencer or any of them along," you add.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," Jammie says. He looks puzzled, but not offended.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You can't skip Calculus, though you might as well have, for all the attention you pay in it. But seventh period brings a study hall, into which you hurl all your energy and concentration as you decipher the pages you have uncovered. The newly uncovered spell remains tightly bound to the pages that follow, but you're quickly able to determine that it is demanding a list of ingredients and giving instructions on how to combine them. A quick comparison to the earlier spell shows that it doesn't call for anything you don't already have on hand.<br/>
<br/>
That leaves you with lots of time to figure out the rest of the first spell. What you read leaves you hopping so hard with excitement that you sprint for your Astronomy class so you can meet Rennerhoff early. He grins when he sees you running up.<br/>
<br/>
But now that grin doesn't remind you of the Joker. It's still kind of creepy, because it's so <i>big and full of teeth.</i> But now he just looks excited.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm skipping school early," you tell him. "Take notes for me in here? And gimme your number, so I can text you where to meet up. I'll have something to tell you then, but I need to find a place no one'll bother us."<br/>
<br/>
"We can use the portables."<br/>
<br/>
"Too many people hang out there. But I got an idea of my own, I just need to check up on it." You pat him on the shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
He replies with a short, whinnying laugh. You return it with a laugh of your own.<br/>
<br/>
Not to mock him, but because you feel the same surge of mad hilarity.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It feels as though you are thinking very quickly, as though your thoughts are super-oxygenated and burning hotly. Otherwise, you probably never would have got the idea for where to meet up with Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
There's an elementary school a couple of blocks from your house. It used to be the Acheson Elementary School, but it closed decades ago. The cafeteria was renovated into a community center, but the rest of the building is abandoned.<br/>
<br/>
That includes the basement.<br/>
<br/>
You found a door to that basement last year, when in a mood of mild vandalism you were creeping all around the grounds looking for something to break. You found an exterior door half-sunk into the ground at the bottom of a short staircase, and next to it a row of narrow windows that peeked out just above ground through the long grass and weeds. The door had a padlock on it, but after fetching a crowbar from home—yes, you really were in a mood to do some mischievous damage—you'd gotten it off and the door open. On the other side you found the other half of the staircase, which led down into a very large basement. It was cluttered up to the ceiling, practically, with old furniture: school desks, conference tables, gymnastics equipment, cabinets, and book cases. It was horribly dusty and set you sneezing as you wended your way between tottering stacks of furniture. These you moved around a little, creating a "hidden fort" against one of the walls, and after leaving you came back with a padlock of your own which you put on the door. A few days later, when you checked, you saw that your padlock was still there.<br/>
<br/>
You showed the basement to Caleb and Keith, and you hung out there off and on with them over the next few weeks, drinking and smoking and snarling cuss words at each other. You even had a makeshift Halloween party when you camped out for the night there.<br/>
<br/>
But it's been many months since you've been back, and you'd almost forgotten about it.<br/>
<br/>
So you're delighted to find that the building maintenance guys are even more forgetful than you. Your padlock is still on the door. You text Jamie the address, then run into Acheson's tiny retail district to pick up some Cokes and snacks.<br/>
<br/>
Your mom is surprised when you walk in only a few minutes after the school bell would have rung, but you fob her off with a story about getting into the parking lot early and hitting an amazing series of green lights. You retrieve the old padlock key from your chest of drawers, and are sitting inside the basement with all the materials you bought to make the mask, when you hear tires on the grass outside.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie's smile is bright but a little lop-sided as you come popping out of the basement. "What is this place?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Secret clubhouse. Come on." You're gratified to find that he's as entranced by it as you first were, though he's a little more destructive, and pushes over a couple of stacked desks with a shrieking laugh. "Now, lemme show you some <i>real</i> fun stuff," you tell him with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jamie is breathing heavily through his nose as he fingers the newly made mask. It seemed like the best way to convince him that the magic is real. There, in his presence, you mixed up the ingredients, fired them, poured them over the mirror, then invited him to hold the hemispherical shell as it twisted itself into the shape of a mask.<br/>
<br/>
"It'll take forever to polish," you tell him. "Like, a week. But this one's all done," you say, indicating the first mask. "And it's already got your face in it. We can seal it up," you explain, "or we can mix your face and mine in it to make a new kind of face."</span></div></div>


path: 111133321
author_id: seuzz
title: Sealing the Deal
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>By his expression it's clear Jamie doesn't know what you're talking about. <br/>
<br/>
"Okay," you tell him. "Just tell me about what  happened yesterday, when you were playing around with that mask I was showing you. What did you do, what happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I was sitting on my bed," he says. "I had it out and was looking at it, and— I just decided to try it on." You must have given him a look, for he blushes. "You never done something like that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like what?"<br/>
<br/>
"So it's a mask, right?" he shrieks. "What else are you going to do with it?" A glint comes into his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"I always liked masks, you know?" he continues in a low, confiding tone. "Always loved Halloween, 'cos of— You know that plastic-y, rubbery smell inside a Halloween mask? I love that smell!" He shivers all over, and grins. "I liked pretending."<br/>
<br/>
You smile back. "Yeah, I get you," you reply. A warm, almost fraternal glow spreads in your chest.<br/>
<br/>
He visibly relaxes. "So I had that mask I got off you, and I just thought—" He closes his eyes and shrugs. "So I put it on."<br/>
<br/>
Then he laughs. "Fuck, man, you know, it's a good thing <i>Jeff</i> didn't get ahold of it. You know? Well, what the fuck, he's so stupid anyway."<br/>
<br/>
You laugh, and as you lock eyes with Rennerhoff you know that you and he recognize it in each other's faces: a shared loathing of the drooling, bullying moron Jeff Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
The moment passes, and Jamie shrugs again. "Anyway, I guess I passed out, 'cos the next thing I knew I was laying on my side and my mom was knocking on the door. She wanted help in the kitchen." He makes a face. "When I got back up to my room, the mask was on the floor, and when I looked at it again I saw that it, uh—" <br/>
<br/>
"Did you try putting it on again?"<br/>
<br/>
He giggles. "No way, man. I kept far away from it. Until this morning, you know, when I put it in my bag." <br/>
<br/>
Then his eyes sharpen. "So what happens if I put it on again?" That wide grin, more nervous now, reappears. "You said something about how it's got my face in it. What happens if <i>you</i> put it on?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, according to book, it would copy <i>me.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"And erase that thing that's in there now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nuh. It says it would mix my face and yours. Make, like, an average of them."<br/>
<br/>
His brow crinkles. "That's weird. So, are we gonna do that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna try something else. The book says you can 'seal up' a mask, and after that you can wear it."<br/>
<br/>
His expression turns wary. "What happens if you wear it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—" You tug at your ear. "According to the book it will turn you into a copy of the person in the mask."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie pales, but that grin flashes to life again. "Yeah?" His voice is a croak. "So, um, whose face are we gonna try it with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, yours is ready to go—"<br/>
<br/>
"We can't try it with you?" he blurts out. "If you put on that new mask—?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not finished yet. See how the color's different? It has to be polished, and that takes a couple of days. We can get started on it, but I wanna check out the next spell now. You mind? You can help me put it together."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jamie is far from reluctant to help; in fact he gets in your way by peering over your shoulder all the time that you're mixing up the ingredients. But he keeps very quiet, too, and you get the impression that he's nervous about where all this is leading.<br/>
<br/>
You ignore him, though, and after opening a couple of the windows you set the bowl onto the new sigil and drop a match into it. Smoke rolls out, but there's no stench like when you made the masks.<br/>
<br/>
And when you lift the bowl, the page comes away with it. You thrust the bowl at Jamie and eagerly flip the page while reaching for your cell phone.<br/>
<br/>
"It's like paint," he tells you.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, don't eat it!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna eat it!" He smacks you on the back of the head. "Who do you think I am, Jeff?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why the fuck do you hang out with him, anyway?" you ask as you tap in short phrases from the book into the translator.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't. Well, I try not to. He hangs out with <i>my</i> friends."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean like Call and Thomason?" You glance back at him. "How'd you get to be friends with them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, well, you know." He rolls his shoulders and looks smug. "Just started hanging out with them one day, got to be a habit, next thing, you know." He shrugs. "How'd you get to be friends with <i>your</i> friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos we like the same stuff. You like the same stuff as Call and them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure! We talk about pussy. Same as you and your friends, right?" There's a little sneer in his voice now.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure." <i>Not that much, though.</i> "But we also talk about other things."<br/>
<br/>
"Like what?"<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Like the meaning of life and the latest stuff in <i>Scientific American.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, bullshit!" His laugh is a whinnying scream. "You're so fucking full of it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. I just mean we just talk about stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I get you. So." He turns shy again. "You gonna tell 'em about this?"<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate. The moment feels both very small and very big. A tiny question that will determine if you can be friends with Rennerhoff. "Probably not," you hazard. "You gonna tell <i>your</i> friends about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck, no!" He fidgets. "So how come you're not doing this with your friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
And you don't. Because it's a really good question. Why <i>are</i> you doing this with Jamie Rennerhoff of all people instead of your friends Caleb and Keith? Or even Carson Ioeger and James Lamont, who are at least serious about the science and math stuff?<br/>
<br/>
Well, sure, there's one obvious answer. You fucked up your try at sneaking the mask onto Rennerhoff without him noticing. So you're working with him on account of an accident.<br/>
<br/>
But as you hold his eye it seems that you see a different answer. You see in his face a reflection of the same mischief that the book is exciting in your own breast.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess it's because it's a secret thing," you say as you turn back to the translation work. "I was planning on checking it out by myself, no one else." Again, you lock your eyes with his. "But maybe it is more fun when there's someone to help."<br/>
<br/>
That grin erupts again across Jamie's face. Now it seems very conspiratorial, and you feel a kindred smile pulling at your mouth.<br/>
<br/>
He props himself on a stool next to you, very close, and takes out his own cell phone. Working together, you get the rest of the second spell, on the reverse of the page, quickly deciphered.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
As you suspected, the translation tells you that you've now made the "sealant" spoken of in the first spell, and after a search of the basement turns up an old brush, you apply it as directed to the inner surface of the mask. It goes on as a transparent layer, slightly sticky to the touch, but losing the tackiness as it quickly dries.<br/>
<br/>
Now it can be worn. <br/>
<br/>
You and Jamie stare at each other when it comes to the moment to test it out. He looks as demented with excitement and terror as you feel. Despite his smile and the light in his eyes, there's a thin film of sweat on his forehead.<br/>
<br/>
It's pretty clear what the next step has to be. The book promises that anyone who puts on a sealed mask will be transformed into the image of the person whose face and body are contained in the mask. There doesn't seem to be much point in getting Jamie to put it on, because even if it turned him into a copy of himself, how could you tell? Still you feebly argue for a minute or two in favor of making the experiment, but he just gives you a look.<br/>
<br/>
So, with nerves jangling and limbs twitching, you lay down on a table top and lower the mask onto your face.<br/>
<br/>
And when you release it, it just keeps sinking down into you.<br/>
<br/>
You would gasp, but you are paralyzed as the mask, becoming heavier by the millisecond, presses into your face and sinks into the front of your skull. But it's rather pleasant actually, and as you lose consciousness it feels as though you are being covered, and then filled, with a warm syrup ...<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 1111333211
author_id: seuzz
title: The Boy with Two Faces
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"G'yum?"<br/>
<br/>
With some such noise you open your eyes. They are very heavy, and it takes you a moment to focus on the madly grinning visage that's pressed close to yours. You shrink back.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Jamie Rennerhoff gasps. "You've <i>got</i> to see this!"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" For half a second you are conscious of nothing but your lack of surprise at being in the company of Jamie Rennerhoff.<br/>
<br/>
Then it comes flooding back: him and the school basement, and the mask, and the fact that you were going to put on the mask to see if it turned you into a copy of him. You come halfway off the desk and scoot back. Your esophagus is like an elevator shaft, and something is joyriding up and down inside it. "What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think it worked!" Jamie cackles.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart almost explodes. Is he saying that you look like him now?<br/>
<br/>
Well, that <i>was</i> the point of the experiment. Still, there's an angry, fearful twitching in your chest as you sit up fully.<br/>
<br/>
You would start by touching your face, but you double-take first at the fingers you are raising. They are long and white and tapering, at the end of a long, slim hand. The nails are a little longer than yours, and they look sharper too, and more polished. Your eye drifts down them and past your hand and wrist to your forearm. It is completely smooth.<br/>
<br/>
As though darting after a thought, your hand flies to your shirt, and you pull back the neck to peer down it. <i>No hair down there either,</i> you think as you look at your chest. Again, it's not like you had a massive carpet of the stuff spreading across your pecs, but at least you had a tuft there. Now there's nothing, unless the one thick hair curling up in the middle of your breastbone is supposed to be your (solitary) "chest hair."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie is breathing hard and making clicking noises as he swallows. You ignore him and his smile, though, to finally touch your face. You can't really tell anything, of course, until you raise your hand to brush bangs that are shorter and softer than yours.<br/>
<br/>
"You want a phone? To look at yourself?" Jamie asks. He sounds slightly strangled, but excitement still burns in his eye.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Wait, I think there's a mirror in the back."<br/>
<br/>
Together you find it, a massive thing, maybe seven feet tall, in an ornate metal frame. You had wondered, on finding it, what use it would be in an elementary school.<br/>
<br/>
Now you're much more interested in what its dusty surface will show you. Jamie follows you over, and practically snuggles up at your shoulder as you gape into it.<br/>
<br/>
Two Jamie Rennerhoffs stare back out at you.<br/>
<br/>
The one in the orange shirt is grinning madly, and his nostrils are flaring. He twists on his feet, and clasps and unclasps his hands.<br/>
<br/>
The other Jamie Rennerhoff is staring back at you with a softly sagging jaw and eyes wide with surprise and maybe a little horror. But he has the same pale skin, rose-colored lips, brown hair, and sharp, slanted nose. You and he slowly breath in synchronized rhythm.<br/>
<br/>
Now you do touch your face. It feels exactly like skin, and it hurts when you pinch and pull at it. You run your tongue along and your teeth. Now that you notice, the inside of your mouth does feel strange, for there are gaps where you're not used to there being gaps, and teeth where you're not used to teeth being.<br/>
<br/>
The clothes also feel a little strange on you, though you and Jamie are of nearly the same build. Your shoes bind a little, and with a grimace you kick them off.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," Jamie says softly, "you could fool anyone if you went out looking like that."<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you could. <br/>
<br/>
Or could you? Your reflection returns a face wearing the wrong kind of expressions. Well, probably Jamie has looked shocked and disconcerted before, but that's not the expression he's got on now.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow again. You've got his face. You could try out his expressions.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, you unfurl a smile.<br/>
<br/>
It seems to take forever, for your lips just keep spreading and spreading and spreading. One row of teeth show, then the next. You stop when your mouth reaches a position that is comfortable.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wow.</i> Your smile is <i>ginormous,</i> and yet it feels perfectly natural.<br/>
<br/>
The smile doesn't reach your eyes, though. There's still something furtive and worried in them. <i>Try to enjoy this, man,</i> you tell yourself.<br/>
<br/>
The light in them changes, and it warms into a gleam you find that you are enjoying it more, so that the gleam warms even more, which makes you feel better, and—<br/>
<br/>
Jamie giggles. Nervously.<br/>
<br/>
"What?" you ask, and turn on him. Fear and excitement mingle on his face. You feel a perverse kind of delight in his reaction, and the muscles on your face tighten into a harder grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, stop it!" he yells, and slaps at you while laughing.<br/>
<br/>
You slap back at him, and laugh too. "Whatsa matter?"<br/>
<br/>
"Take it off!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I like this!"<br/>
<br/>
He leaps back, laughing and staring, then covers his face. "I can't take it anymore! It's too weird!"<br/>
<br/>
You turn back to the mirror, and brush at your hair. Your smile fades a little, and what is left looks very smug and impudent. "Yeah, okay, I'll take it off. But you have to put it on next."<br/>
<br/>
"How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"A deal's a deal."<br/>
<br/>
"What deal?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. But we should check this stuff out every which way." You saunter back over to the table. Your walk feels a little funny, as though Jamie's hips don't work the same as yours. <br/>
<br/>
And speaking of hips, it occurs to you that if you've got his hair and face and fingers and hands and hips, then you're bound to have his junk too. But you don't dwell on corollary, and just hop up onto the table. "Gimme the book so I can see again how to get this thing off." That was one of the things you double-checked before putting the mask on, that there was a way of getting back to being yourself.<br/>
<br/>
It's a tricky maneuver, which involves grasping your forehead with one hand and pulling while reciting some magical words. You have a hard time getting your hand into position, and you wind up letting Jamie work the release, as he has better leverage or something. After three or four fumbling tries, he pulls, and the world rushes away as you fall back into darkness.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are groggy for a moment as Jamie shakes you awake, but on sitting up you feel healthy and whole, and a quick self-examination shows that you are entirely back to normal. Jamie, who had been too preoccupied with staring at you while you had the mask on, now rushes to ask you what it was like. You tell him that you felt normal, not at all like you were wearing a mask, or like your face and body were not your own. You ask him what it looked like as you put the mask on and he took it off. He tells you that the mask seemed to sink into you, and that instantly it wasn't you anymore on the table but him; and that when he pulled at your face he suddenly had the mask in his hand and you were back to normal. In both cases you were asleep until he woke you up.<br/>
<br/>
Then, at your renewed prodding, he gets up on the table and puts the mask on. You're glad afterward that he told you what to expect. Nothing, you suspect, could have prepared you for the sight of the mask sinking into him and vanishing. He doesn't change, though, but neither does he wake up, and for ten heart-ripping minutes you sweat to see what will happen next, and make plans for what to do if Jamie remains unresponsive with staring eyes and a shallowly heaving chest. Then, to your relief, the mask reappears on his face. You tear it off him and shake him awake.<br/>
<br/>
His only response to your report: "Cool!" <br/>
<br/>
It's getting on toward suppertime now, and Jamie says he definitely has to go. As for what comes next: "I'll take a look at the next spell," you tell him. And when he asks what you're going to do with the blank mask that you and he made, you tell him, with more reluctance, that he can take it home and start polishing it. You show him what to do, and warn him that it'll take him most of the rest of the week.<br/>
<br/>
You're quiet and distracted at supper, which is probably for the best, for it means you and your little brother don't fight nearly as much as you usually do. After supper, you surprise your parents by volunteering that you've got some homework to do. Instead, naturally, you tackle the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
To your disgust, it calls for an entirely new batch of ingredients, and the instructions for their assembly are also completely different. When you research prices online, you realize that you don't have nearly enough left in your depleted cash reserves to continue.<br/>
<br/>
Not without Jamie's help.<br/>
<br/>
You're gritting your teeth and getting ready to text him when a text from him pops up. <i>hey got ur thing polished up who we copy next?</i><br/>
<br/>
Of course, you demand to know how he could have possibly finished it so fast. <i>car buffer,</i> he replies. You groan at the obviousness of the technique. You dial him directly when he suggests you talk instead of text.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, so, I got this thing all done," he says in a low, guarded tone. "We should try it out, and I know who on."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"My mom."<br/>
<br/>
You nearly drop the phone.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe he can sense your shock, because he immediately follows it up with a stammering, "But I seen you hanging out with Jenny Ashton sometimes. Or," he adds when you don't reply, "there's this stuck-up girl I think I could get it on."</span></div></div>


path: 11113332111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Mother of All Suggestions
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Jamie's suggestion—his mom!—flabbergasts you, so you can only stammer in reply. "Well, you know, I was figuring we, uh, that we'd, mm, try it out on me."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the fun in that?" Jamie retorts. "We already know it works on guys. Besides, if we try it out on you, what do we got? Just masks of you and me."<br/>
<br/>
<i>But you want to try it on your mom?</i> you want to blurt out. <i>Like that would be fun?</i><br/>
<br/>
But the alternative is to try to get it onto someone at school. You tried that with Jamie and look how <i>that</i> turned out. So it would probably be safest to do it with someone at home. And since he's already suggested his mom ...<br/>
<br/>
"You serious about trying it out on your mom?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." But he sounds guarded.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, if you think that'll work," you concede. "I mean, if you can do it without getting, you know, caught. It's just to, uh, test it out," you add, more for you benefit than for Jamie's.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah I know. So you cool with me doing that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm down with it if you are." You gulp a little.<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome. So I'll see you tomorrow, let you know if it worked."<br/>
<br/>
"You're going to, uh, try doing the thing tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, like, <i>yeah!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, remember you have to seal it up before you— we— can test it out."<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. "So can you bring that shit over tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll give it to you at school tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, come on!"<br/>
<br/>
"I got a stupid early curfew on weeknights," you lie. "By the way, you got any money?"<br/>
<br/>
"For what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Supplies. I'm looking at this new spell"—you glance over at your desk, where the grimoire is sitting—"and I don't think I got enough to cover what we need to buy."<br/>
<br/>
"So bring out the other shit, and I'll give you my cash stash tonight."<br/>
<br/>
You pinch the bridge of your nose. "I don't need the money tonight. No, okay," you interrupt yourself, and hop off your bed. "I'll be out there as soon as I can. Where's your house?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sweet!" Jamie gives you his address. "We'll go shopping tomorrow. What's the new spell do?" <br/>
<br/>
"Dunno. Have to do it first before we find out."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie squeals like a stuck baby pig.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"S'gonna be s'way cool when it's done," Jamie says. He nods and thrusts his head in and out like a chicken. "S'way cool," he repeats.<br/>
<br/>
"We don't know what it does yet," you retort. Your temper is a little short, because it seems like you're the one doing all the work.<br/>
<br/>
It's Wednesday afternoon, and you're back at the elementary school basement, and have just finished forging two samples of the new item: a metal band that shimmers with a greasy light. But you are far from finished, for the bands need to have some runes carved into them, and as you concentrate on scraping at one of the bands with a steel nail file, you have the feeling that it might take as long to scratch the runes as it took you to polish a mask. And this time a car buffer won't be able to shorten the job.<br/>
<br/>
"It's gonna do something way cool," Jamie assures you. "Dat book ain't let us down yet." <br/>
<br/>
You grunt. <br/>
<br/>
It's not quite fair to complain that Jamie's not helping. You and he split the shopping list between you so you could cover the ground in half the time, and after you used the book to forge one of the bands, he used it to forge the other. Still, he's made no move toward adding runes to it.<br/>
<br/>
"So whadja think of my mom?" he asks after a lengthy silence.<br/>
<br/>
You tense. That was another reason you suggested splitting up to do the shopping. It kept you in separate cars in separate parts of the city. You just knew he was going to talk about what he must have got up to last night.<br/>
<br/>
It was his mom who answered the door last night when you went over to his place. She looked too young to be his mom, and at first you took her for a friend of the family. It wasn't until Jamie popped up behind her shoulder that you saw the resemblance between them. They have the same narrow face and narrow nose, and when she smiled you saw the same spread of piano-like teeth. But where Jamie is pale with short, rust-colored hair, his mother has an olive complexion, and long, black hair. She looked Italian or Greek. Mediterranean, anyway.<br/>
<br/>
"She was nice," you tell Jamie.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. What do you want me to say?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno." He hops up onto the table and jogs a leg. "The mask worked, did I tell you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, in Astronomy." That's when you decided to suggest splitting up for the shopping trip.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yeah." He nods again. "I can bring it out and you can borrow it if you want."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Okay, what's the polite reply to that?</i> you wonder. <i>That's okay, you probably don't want me turning myself into your mother?</i> Or: <i>Dude, that'd be awesome. She is such a MILF.</i><br/>
<br/>
Because, yeah, Meghan Rennerhoff is practically the dictionary's illustration of a MILF.<br/>
<br/>
What was she, fourteen when she had Jamie? She didn't look like she's in her twenties, but to your (confessedly amateur) eye, she didn't look like she was that much farther on the other side of thirty. It was dim inside their foyer, but she didn't look like she had an obvious lines on her face, and her hair looked lustrous. Her body shape, inside a white, sleeveless blouse and distressed jeans, had curves in all the right places. It hadn't occurred to you, until you saw her, that there was fun to be had by putting on a mask of a girl. But you twinged hard when you thought how it was <i>Jamie's mom</i> who got you to see that.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what I'd do with it," is what you finally reply.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie sniggers. "You'd put it on."<br/>
<br/>
"I get that. But I got people at home."<br/>
<br/>
"So do it here. Or do it after everyone's gone to bed. That's what I did."<br/>
<br/>
<i>I really don't want to know what you did,</i> you want to retort. And yet, you are getting stiff (and not just from stress) the more he talks about it.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just concentrate on one thing at a time," you tell him. "You wanna try your hand at finishing the other one of these?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, sure." He hops to his feet and grabs at the other band. But he stops to check his phone first. "Tch. I gotta get home. Early supper tonight."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna copy down the runes, so you can work on it after supper?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, I s'pose." He digs through is pockets. "Hang on, I'll go get a notebook outta my car."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jeez, he's like an even skankier version of Tilley,</i> you find yourself thinking while he's gone. You were scared of him before, but now he just seems dopey, the way Tilley is. That makes him easier to be around at least, even though he's trying your patience the way Keith does. But then you remember that he hangs around and is friends with guys like Joshua Call. So there must be a touch of the genuine psycho in him. <i>Best to keep on his good side,</i> you remind yourself.<br/>
<br/>
So when he hops back down into the basement, you tell him, "Look, if you don't got time to work on the thing, I can handle it myself."<br/>
<br/>
"No no," he protests. "If I get it done, maybe I'll try it out."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't know what it does."<br/>
<br/>
"You're gonna work on yours?" he asks, and you nod. "So when you get done, you gotta check the book to find what it does?" Again, you nod. "So text me when you get done, so I'll know what to do with mine."<br/>
<br/>
You can't think of an objection, so you nod. And since you should get home too, you pack up to accompany him out.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm serious about the mask thing," he shouts out to you as you get into your cars. "Maybe this weekend we can get together, have some fun with 'em."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus.</i> Your stomach plunges. <i>What kind of fun does he want to have with masks of himself and his mom?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It doesn't take as long to finish the runes as you'd feared, but between them, your homework, and helping your mom clean up the kitchen after supper, it's well after midnight before you push the crick from your neck, press the completed band into the book, and turn the page to find what you've made.<br/>
<br/>
There's only a single sentence on the other side, but it seems easy to translate: <i>To know the mind of another.</i><br/>
<br/>
But what does it mean? It's not until you've crawled into bed that a plausible answer comes to you. If a mask copies the form and body of another person, perhaps this metal band copies their mind—their memories? That would be a way of "knowing the mind of another." And it would complement the mask.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie's eyes light up the next day before school when you share your surmise with him.<br/>
<br/>
That afternoon, at the elementary school, you are able to whip out the next spell with the stuff you've got on hand. It's a simple thing that makes a glue you can use to attach one of those metal bands to the inner surface of a mask. That way you can copy and wear both at the same time.<br/>
<br/>
But the spell after that throws you back on your heels. The prices of the ingredients, when you check them out online, are completely out of your budget, and out of Jamie's too.<br/>
<br/>
But he's got an idea for handling it. "My 'mom' can buy the stuff," he grins as he makes air quotes around the word "mom." "We can go shopping Saturday with her credit cards. You can go as her. Or I can go as her and you can go as me."<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 111133321111
author_id: seuzz
title: Dark Talk on a Dark Night
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't want to get between Jamie and his mom's mask. But the way he keeps pushing it at you, he might get offended if you keep pushing it away.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I'll go as your mom," you reply with what you hope sounds like casual indifference. "That'll be simpler than—"<br/>
<br/>
But his eyes are already lighting up. <br/>
<br/>
"Awesome!" he exclaims, and he leaps off the table he's been lounging on. "So, gimme one of them brainy-bandy things, and some summa that glue, I'll fix the mask right up for you! Oh my God!" He bounces around the basement on the balls of his feet. "This is gonna be so cool!" He chest-bumps you, knocking you back into your supplies, and the two of you have to spend the next ten minutes cleaning up the mess.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You schedule that shopping trip for Saturday, but there is one vital item on the list that you won't be able to purchase: four hundred pounds of earth taken from a graveyard. Jamie tries to wriggle out of helping you get it—he says there's some parties he wants to hit instead—but you insist on his helping. So, on Friday night, you meet up with him at a little before nine behind the Masonic cemetery on the west side of town. He's brought a box of sand bags to use in hauling the dirt away.<br/>
<br/>
It's nasty, sweaty work, and it's particularly ugly because you've decided it's best not to take any chances, and break open the turf over a grave. Jamie has no more stamina than you, and soon you're both puffing hard as you dig. But it's not as spooky as you'd feared it might be—the swish and rumble of road traffic dissipates whatever sinister mood manages to gather—and not even Jamie's stab at a clumsy, improvised ghost story gets a rise out of you. If anything, it just makes you giggle, which sets him off giggling, and pretty soon you're wheezing away like a couple of asthmatics.<br/>
<br/>
You pack the bagged dirt in the bed of your truck and transport it back to the school basement. Jamie had said he was planning to hit a party after helping you move the dirt, but now he says he's too wiped out to move. But he has the strength to go up and bring down a bottle of vodka from his car. Each of you takes a swallow, then you both settle atop the old conference table to nurse your aching muscles.<br/>
<br/>
It's almost pitch dark in the basement, and the stuffy air smells of dank and dirt. Here, you feel, you could get spooked by a ghost story. The only sound is the scratch and scrape of your jeans as you and Jamie stretch your legs out and shift to get comfortable. But if the darkness could, with a little effort, be charged with menace, it is also conducive to intimacy and confession. If Jamie asked you a personal question, you almost might be relieved to answer it.<br/>
<br/>
So you ask <i>him</i> a personal question. "Your dad wasn't home when I stopped by your place the other night," you say. "Was he working late?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," Jamie says. "Maybe. He lives on the other side of the country, though."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Is your mom divorced?"<br/>
<br/>
"Neh. Just not married." The vodka bottle gurgles.<br/>
<br/>
"She never married your dad?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nn-nn."<br/>
<br/>
"So where's he live?"<br/>
<br/>
"California, but he comes out to visit sometimes."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie relates this without enthusiasm, but he doesn't sound resentful either, so you push on. "What's he do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Teaches English at a university."<br/>
<br/>
"So he's a professor?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Seems kind of weird,</i> you think. It's hard to square your stereotype of college professors with this picture of a guy fathering a child and letting the mother move thousands of miles away.<br/>
<br/>
But before you can figure out a tactful way of asking more, Jamie jumps in with questions of his own. "What about your family? Who's in it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just me, my mom and dad, and my little brother. He's in junior high."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh. What about <i>your</i> mom? Is she hot?"<br/>
<br/>
You almost jump out of your skin. "Dude!"<br/>
<br/>
Jamie snickers. "Come on, man. You gotta know if she's hot or not."<br/>
<br/>
"I try not to think about it! Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he says with a note of resentment in his voice, "thing is, I don't know any guys whose moms are hot."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, don't go looking at mine!"<br/>
<br/>
"So what about <i>your</i> friends' moms? You got some friends, right? How come I not met anyone you hang out with?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Because they wouldn't believe I'm hanging out with a guy who hangs out with psychotic freaks like Jeff Spencer.</i> "'Cos I've been hanging out with you, working on this stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"So how come you not shown 'em this stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno. Who's your friends?"<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb Johannson, Keith Tilley. Carson Ioeger and James Lamont," you add when the first two names elicit no recognition.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yeah?" Jamie's voice lights up. "I know them. They hang out with Jenny Ashton." The bottle gurgles again, then you feel him nudging you in the shoulder with it, so you take it. "You met their moms?"<br/>
<br/>
"What's your deal with moms?"<br/>
<br/>
He snickers again. "Ain't you never heard of MILFs?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You shift uncomfortably.<br/>
<br/>
"So you know any? 'Cos I don't."<br/>
<br/>
You suppress a sigh as one affirmative answer comes instantly to mind, and cover your discomfort by taking a pull on the vodka. "Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?" Jamie's question sizzles with electricity.<br/>
<br/>
"My friend Jeremy. Former friend Jeremy," you correct yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" If the word came inside a word balloon, that balloon would probably glow like neon. "So tell me about her."<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. It's been a couple of years since I seen her."<br/>
<br/>
"But you remember her," he urges.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. She was just shaped nice," you stammer. "All I remember is— Oh, <i>fuck.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" Now Jamie's voice is charged with hysterical anticipation.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. But the darkness makes it easier to answer. "The first time I ever felt funny about a girl was over at his house, looking at her."<br/>
<br/>
The darkness rings with Jamie's shrieks of laughter. "That's awesome! And you <i>don't</i> talk about MILFs?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not with my friends! Do you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure! It's one of the things we're always talking about. Who's got a MILF and how you'd like to fuck her!"<br/>
<br/>
"But you said none of them have a MILF for a mother! So who do you talk about? Do they talk about <i>your</i> mom?"<br/>
<br/>
Instantly you regret it. <i>Why the fuck did I ask that?</i> you yell at yourself. <i>Now he's gonna think I want to fuck his mother!</i> You brace yourself against being punched in the head.<br/>
<br/>
But when Jamie speaks again, he says, "Well, <i>yeah!</i> 'Cos I got one! I know she's hot!"<br/>
<br/>
You're staggered, and the only reply you can make is, "Well, I guess your dad thought she was hot, too."<br/>
<br/>
Okay, maybe <i>that</i> was the wrong thing to say, because there's a chill in his voice when he says, "Sure, I guess. <i>Everyone</i> thinks she's hot."<br/>
<br/>
And maybe you did put your foot in it, because when you say that you need to get home, Jamie with a short sigh says that he's going to try making it to a party. "See you here tomorrow around eleven?" he suggests. You grunt an affirmative, and together you trudge up and out into the cool night air.<br/>
<br/>
At home, you pass your mom in the living room, where she's watching TV. You do your best not to notice if she's hot or not. But you have the feeling that Jamie would put her in the former category if he saw her.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jamie is thirty minutes late getting to the elementary school the next morning. But what he lacks in promptness he makes up in cheerfulness. "Got all the kit you'll need," he chortles as he hefts a gym bag out of the cabin of his car. "Mask, clothes, everything!"<br/>
<br/>
"Your mom's not going into town, is she?" you ask as you take the bag from him. "We don't want to run into her."<br/>
<br/>
"Nah. Saturday afternoons she's got spinning classes and shit out at the gym." Jamie jerks his chin at you. "So you gonna go get changed so we can get started?"<br/>
<br/>
You turn toward the basement door, but turn again at the top of the steps to stop him following you down. "Give me some privacy, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude! I know what she looks like! I put the danged thing on myself!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, that was you. This is me." You ignore his groans and cusses, and pull the door shut behind you. But even though he stays outside, you hunt around for a dark corner out of sight of the windows to make the change.<br/>
<br/>
You start by emptying the bag. Besides the mask it contains a sports top, spandex shorts, ankle socks and running shoes. You have to wipe your brow. Despite your reservations about this whole thing, you are getting excited, and your fingers are stiff and numb.<br/>
<br/>
Next, you strip off your own clothes, and with trembling hands neatly fold them all up and lay them aside. Last, you lower your bony ass into a cold, dusty corner, and raise the mask. The name MEGHAN MARIE RENNERHOFF floats above the inner surface.<br/>
<br/>
You suck in a deep breath, and pull it toward your face. Its curves seem to latch onto yours—there's a moment everything hangs—then like a living thing it seems to open a mouth and suck you inside itself.</span></div></div>


path: 1111333211111
author_id: seuzz
title: Sons and Lovers
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You are aching with cold when you wake, and your head is awhirl, as though you've woken suddenly from a very deep sleep. It's dark, too, when you wrench your eyes open.<br/>
<br/>
It takes a moment to orient yourself, but that just leaves you even more confused. <i>How did I get in—? Am I down in the complex's laundry room?</i> you wonder. A smell of dust and grease fills your nostrils, so it must be some kind of storage space or work room. But how did you get here (wherever "here" is) when the last thing you remember is sliding into your bed and pulling the covers up over your shoulders?<br/>
<br/>
A chill wave washes over you as you sit. You touch yourself, and blanch when you find that you're naked.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Completely</i> naked!<br/>
<br/>
Instantly, the word <i>Rape</i> pops into your head, and the chill strikes to your very core.<br/>
<br/>
At least you're not tied up. Cautiously you lever yourself to your feet and feel about. Your eyes are getting used to the dark, and when you peep out from behind a divider you see sunlight streaming in through some windows high up in a cinderblock wall. You stub a toe as you slide out into a large room. It is stuffed with old furniture—tables, chairs, school desks, bookshelves, and other junk. Are you in some kind of basement?<br/>
<br/>
You frown at the sense of deja vu that enwreathes you. <i>Basement. I've been here before,</i> you think. <i>But when?</i><br/>
<br/>
The answer comes like a hammer blow to the top of your skull. You cry out in shock, and catch hold of the nearest bookshelf to keep from falling over.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm not Meghan Rennerhoff!</i> you remember as the room swims about you. <i>My name is Will Prescott! Except I </i>am<i> Meghan Rennerhoff because—</i><br/>
<br/>
You suck in a deep, ragged breath as the world and your place in it comes into a sharp focus. Somehow, it feels <i>even more</i> three-dimensional, as though you are looking at it out of more than one pair of eyes. It has <i>even more</i> depth.<br/>
<br/>
Take the school basement, for example. It is strange and scary to the eyes and mind of Meghan Rennerhoff, for whom it is a flat and featureless backdrop of broken furniture and cold dust. But to the eyes and mind of Will Prescott it is a clubhouse where you carry out occult experiments.<br/>
<br/>
Or take this body. To Will Prescott it is a strange and lumpy thing, with curves and bulges that you are not used to, and your muscles squirm under the skin. But to Meghan Rennerhoff it is a toned, poised and well-balanced body. You straighten up and shake your hair back, letting yourself settle into it, as though into a familiar and comfortable chair.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Yes, that's better,</i> you decide as you look around the basement again. <i>Fuck me,</i> you add as you clutch a firm, pear-shaped breast, <i>this isn't bad at all!</i><br/>
<br/>
Even the thought of Jamie Rennerhoff, waiting anxiously outside, doesn't bother you anymore. <i>Little twerp!</i> you snicker to yourself with a motherly indulgence.<br/>
<br/>
You duck back into the corner to retrieve the clothes that he brought out for you. <i>He knew what I'd like,</i> you reflect as you flap out and pull on the sports top and the spandex shorts, and you enjoy the feeling of taut, tight thighs and calves as you pull them on. No doubt that Meghan Rennerhoff looks good for her thirty-two years, and she feels good too. It's too bad you won't be able to hit the gym today, because the workout would—<br/>
<br/>
You bolt upright as if hit by another hammer blow. <i>The gym!</i> You actually could hit the gym today with no danger of running into Meghan Rennerhoff, for she won't be there, she'll be off with—<br/>
<br/>
Your mouth spreads into a rictus, and you thrust the thought away.<br/>
<br/>
As natural as it is to think Meghan Rennerhoff's thoughts and to shiver at her anticipations, you're enough of your own self still that you're not quite ready to indulge in her fantasies of what's waiting for her in Cody Lake's apartment.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jamie springs to his feet as you come out of the basement with the gym bag over your shoulder. You pull back a long strand of hair and smile at him narrowly.<br/>
<br/>
"You. Little. Troublemaker! Come here!" You march up and grab him about the neck. He's taller than you, but with a gasping laugh he quickly folds in half as you tuck him under your arm and drill a quick, light noogie into the top of his head. "I can't believe what you did! Your own mother!" <br/>
<br/>
You let him up, and he falls back against the side of the old family-style sedan that his mom helped him buy for his seventeenth birthday. He blushes furiously as his mouth rips wide in a gigantic grin. "So?" You put a hand on your hip and smile at him. "You have anything to say for yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... Sorry?" He looks like he's about to faint. Or hyperventilate.<br/>
<br/>
"Try again." You reach up to pull and pinch his nose between two knuckles. <i>Pinocchio's nose always grows when he tells a lie,</i> is the family lore behind this gesture. Jamie's knees buckle, and he sinks into a crouch as he gasps back spasms of labored laughter.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Buddy," you tell him, using the nickname his mom used on him when he was little. "You wanted to go shopping with me. Let's go."<br/>
<br/>
"I can't!" he gasps. "I can't ... move!" He clutches his stomach.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh at him. <i>It's like he's a little boy again,</i> you think. <i>I wonder if I spoiled him?</i><br/>
<br/>
The years unroll in your memory, back to when you carried him in your belly through your sophomore year of high school, then forward through the rest of high school as you raised him (with your parents help) when he as a toddler. Jamie was a mischievous baby, but you didn't believe in corporal punishment, and he had this winning way of looking just contrite enough that you didn't even want to yell at him. And when you left California, hitchhiking east, it was like you were partners on an adventure together, rather than a mother running away with her six-year-old to start a new life.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, up you come." You put out a hand when his spasms have subsided. He wipes tears from his eyes and lets you heft him to his feet. "Who's driving? Wait, hang on."<br/>
<br/>
You dip into the gym bag and pull out the billfold. You frown briefly at it. It's Meghan's spare, which she keeps in the bottom drawer of her dresser. "Are you going through my things when I'm not home?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
"Ye-es." Jamie starts gasping again, and he jumps back when you dart a hand out to tweak his ear.<br/>
<br/>
"What <i>other</i> trouble are you getting into?" you tease as you open the billfold to examine the contents. <i>No driver's license,</i> you note. But it contains three back-up twenties and the spare credit card. <br/>
<br/>
And also one of the credit cards you carry in your primary billfold. You give him a quick look of exasperation when you realize he went through your main billfold as well.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you're driving," you inform him. "Wait, do I have the list? Okay," you add when you confirm that you transferred your shopping list from your pockets to Meghan's gym bag. You march around to the passenger-side door, and give Jamie a look when he hangs back. "Come on, Buddy," you tell him. "This was your idea."<br/>
<br/>
He rubs his eyes clear, but he's trembling as he gets in behind the wheel.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At least he manages to control himself once you start hitting the stores, and you march down the list and from supplier to supplier with quick dispatch. Once you've got all the goods packed in the back seat, you celebrate the mission's success of by treating both him and you to double-dip waffle cones from Baskin-Robbins (a treat that the real Meghan Rennerhoff never indulges in). You park next to the municipal athletic fields to eat them.<br/>
<br/>
You and Jamie are speculating vaguely on what the new spell might create when you spot Chip Flanagan sauntering across the parking lot toward you. He's grinning at you from behind his sunglasses.<br/>
<br/>
You take a deep breath and roll down the window before putting on Meghan's brightest smile. "Hey!" you chirp at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey there," he rumbles back, and without waiting for an invite he leans in to pull a kiss straight off your chocolate-stained mouth. "Sweet," he murmurs. While you're still recovering, he looks past you to nod at Jamie. "Hey there, champ."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey yourself," Jamie mutters back. His expression has stiffened.<br/>
<br/>
"You change your usual dance club?" Chip asks you. "I don't see you around anymore."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I got tired of Vaqueros. I've been going to Legends." The words come easily, but your heart is hammering in your chest. <i>I'm flirting with a guy that Jamie's mom used to regularly fuck!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Boring," he snorts. "Where you hanging out tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was gonna stay in. Netflix and chill."<br/>
<br/>
Chip leans in further, putting his face close to yourself. "You need company," he says, and it's not a question.<br/>
<br/>
Every one of Meghan Rennerhoff's instincts is to tell him to get his ass over to your place by seven, and to tell Jamie to go hang out at his cousin's. But obviously you can't do that. And Chip keeps talking, so that it's not until some of his twenty-something guy friends join him that he breaks away for the game of touch football he came out to the fields to play. <i>God, he's got a sexy ass,</i> you can't help thinking as he swaggers off.<br/>
<br/>
You glance over to tell Jamie to start the car, and freeze when you see the slit-eyed grimace on his face.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God,</i> you and Meghan Rennerhoff realize simultaneously. <i>He's jealous!</i></span></div></div>


path: 11113332111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Hangover
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You flinch at the glimpse you've gotten of Jamie and his mother, and suddenly you want to get out of this mask. "Okay, we got the stuff we went shopping for," you tell him. "Let's head back to the school."<br/>
<br/>
He twists the key in the ignition and guns the motor. There's a hard, surly expression on his face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You change out of Meghan Rennerhoff's mask as soon as you are back in the basement, waking afterward in a dark corner with the scent of grime and dust in your nostrils, and a grinding ache in your temples. You clamber out—naked—to find Jamie perched on the corner of the big conference table, studying his cell phone. But you see that he kept himself busy while you were unconscious, for all the stuff you bought is now unpacked and lined up on the table beside him.<br/>
<br/>
Neither of you spoke on the drive back, and you watch Jamie warily as you dress yourself back in your own clothes. He concentrates on the screen of his phone and only glances up briefly when you shuffle over to deliver his mom's clothes and gym bag back to him. But his eyes flick up no further than the collar of your shirt as he wordlessly takes them.<br/>
<br/>
You suck in your lips and search for something to say. You settle on business: "So you wanna work on the next spell now, or pick it up tomorrow?"<br/>
<br/>
Jamie jerks his shoulders and bends his face to his phone again.<br/>
<br/>
"It, uh, it was a good idea you had, for getting the stuff. If you don't want to stick around to help, I can do it myself," you add when still he says nothing.<br/>
<br/>
"No, 's'okay," he says. He looks up and brushes a bang out of his eye, but he still won't look directly at you. "If you wanna work on it now we should work on it now."<br/>
<br/>
But he doesn't move, and neither do you, until with a shrug of the shoulders you shuffle over to the sandbags piled up at the bottom of the stairs. You glance around, looking for an open space to pour the sand out, and with a sigh start to shift furniture about. After a moment, Jamie pitches in to help.<br/>
<br/>
Neither of you talk, but the temperature between you does seem to warm as you work. The next spell, like the previous ones, has to be executed in the sigil in the book, so you lay the open book on the concrete floor and pour the dirt out on top of it. Then you add the expensive powders and liquids that you bought with Jamie's mom's credit cards. You hesitate when it comes to the point of lighting the stuff on fire—there's a lot of explosive fuel soaked into the dirt—but when you don't make a move, Jamie wordlessly pries the lighter from your grip and bends down to set it to the dirt. A great purple flame  noiselessly blooms about you, but so quickly does it dissipate that you have no time to react, let alone panic. Instead, you stare and blink at the violet fire that silently wafts and licks at the dirt pile. Jamie—who is acting as stiffly and thoughtlessly as a marionette—sticks his hand into one of the flames and holds it there. Then he drops his arm.<br/>
<br/>
"How long's it going to take?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you confess. "The book said something about ... Well, I'm not sure I remember." (You were so intent on getting the spell started that you neglected to study it carefully.) "But I think it said something about how the fire might go out, and you'd have to relight it until it didn't relight no more. So who knows?"<br/>
<br/>
Jamie nods and twists on his feet. After a few minutes of staring at the fire he hops up onto the table again, to stare at it some more with his knees tucked up under his chin. As you start to clean up, he says, "You can go home if you want, I'll stay here and watch the thing."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to do that."<br/>
<br/>
"I kind of want to."<br/>
<br/>
"You want to be alone?"<br/>
<br/>
Jamie stares at the fire, then shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
You suck hard on your teeth. You wish you knew what to say. More fervently, you wish you weren't stuck here in a situation where you have to worry about what to say.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell you what, I'll straighten up," you tell him, "and then I'll have to go home for a bit. But I'll come back later this afternoon, catch up with you and this thing. I'll bring over something to eat."<br/>
<br/>
"You got money?" Before you can answer, Jamie pushes his mom's gym bag at you. There's some cash inside it, you remember."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll spring for it myself," you tell him. "Or, I'll bring sandwiches and chips from home."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs again, and you return to picking up the basement. But you hear him sigh deeply as you mount the steps to leave.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your time at home is torture of a different kind. You try to occupy yourself with homework, but your mind keeps returning to the morning's expedition.<br/>
<br/>
You find it hard to shake your memory of—and pleasure in—the impersonation, at least right up until the end. Meghan Rennerhoff didn't have the tight, compact body of some of the girls at your high school—the Chelsea Coopers, the Cindy Vredenburgs, or the Yumi Saitos; girls with skin like stretched latex and muscles like hard rubber—but she was trim and taut and curved in all the right places. And on top of that you knew how to carry that body, and enjoy it, the way Meghan Rennerhoff likes to carry it and enjoy it. Not as a bag to be hauled around, or as a lot of limbs to be thrown around (which is how you feel about your own body), but as a mature, confident woman comfortable with herself and with her effect on men. Even now, outside her mask, you catch yourself leaning back in your chair and shaking back phantom tresses of hair, and your hand keeps wanting to rise to cup and fondle a baggy breast.<br/>
<br/>
But you still can't help wincing at that remembered "effect on men," and at the look you saw on Jamie's face as you were talking to Chip. It's not something you want to think about, let alone confront. It's like a black shape glimpsed in a dark landscape through a grimy window—a thing you can't make out clearly but fear you will recognize if you look at it directly. And yet you glimpse it again and again, and shy away from it again, as your hand goes to your crotch to massage the erection you give yourself as you think of the loamy mound that you had for a little while inside your shorts.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie texts you at a little before six to say that fire is still burning and that he has to go home; you ask if he wants to get together tomorrow. He takes a long time to reply, and finally says that he'll text you in the morning to check in. You give him thirty minutes to clear out, then return to the school to check on the basement yourself. The fire is still burning, silently and without heat, and you curl up to watch it for an hour or so before leaving it for the night.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You have church the next morning, but Jamie doesn't text you until early afternoon anyway, shortly after lunch, to ask about the fire. When you say you haven't been over to check, he says he'll meet you there around two-thirty. You beat him over there by about five minutes.<br/>
<br/>
Whatever his problem was yesterday, he seems to have recovered his spirits, and there's no moodiness to manner. "Shit, this thing's gonna take forever, innit?" he says as he grimaces at the fire. "I don't wanna waste the day. Whadda you wanna do?" He hops on the balls of his feet.<br/>
<br/>
"We could make some more masks," you suggest.<br/>
<br/>
"M'neh," he retorts. "That's a lot of work."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna go see a movie? Go back to my place and play on my Xbox?" Jamie only makes a face. <br/>
<br/>
So you suck in a cheek and <i>go there.</i> "You wanna do something with the masks we already made?"<br/>
<br/>
He cocks a sharp eye at you, and for a moment you think you've gone too far. But he goes back to staring at the burning dirt pile.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess we could make some new masks," he says at last. "That was fun yesterday, going out and pretending. If we got some more masks, you know, we could go out and pretend to be some other people."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You turn with relief to the supply pile. "Like who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Girls," Jamie says, and you can hear the grin in his voice. "There any girls <i>you</i> want to hang out with? Like, we could go around, with me hanging out with you like you hung out with me yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna hang out with me as a girl?" you ask in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." Jamie smirks. "Or you could put on that mask of me and we could hang out that way. You as me and me as a girl." His smirk deepens. "Come on," he goads you, and kicks you lightly in the shin. "Who's some girl you wanna go hang out with."<br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself blushing.<br/>
<br/>
Jamie suggested Jenny Ashton when you were making the second mask. He would probably go for her.<br/>
<br/>
And then you're stuck for any other suggestions. Sure, there are girls you'd <i>love</i> to hang out with—Chelsea Cooper, Cindy Vredenburg, Andrea Varnsworth—but there's no way you could get a mask of one of them. And the girls you could masks of, you're not much interested in.<br/>
<br/>
Except for one: Your ex-girlfriend, Lisa Yarborough.</span></div></div>


path: 111133321111114
author_id: seuzz
title: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You can pick," you tell Jamie.<br/>
<br/>
"Nah, come on." He nudges you again with toe. "Who you want?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can pick!" you repeat. Louder, to cover the stammer in your voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Whassamatter?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing's the matter! I just— I'll let you surprise me is all."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie laughs. "Fuck, man, you don't want me surprising you!" You glare, but he just grins. "You got a type?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not fat. Look, it's probably not a good idea trying to copy anyone at school," you tell him. "We'd get caught."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "So we don't copy 'em at school."<br/>
<br/>
"Where, then?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno." His smile tightens into a smirk. "Look, you seriously wanna leave it up to me?" <i>No,</i> you think, but you shrug. "Okay, I'll pick you some'n. I'll pick you some'n good."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pfah! You want me to surprise you or don'cha?"<br/>
<br/>
You surrender yourself into Jamie's hands with another helpless shrug and fall onto the supplies to start making a mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The first hour or so passes without conversation as Jamie busies himself polishing a new mask while you concentrate on carving runes into a new metal band. But after he's got the mask polished and has nothing else to do, Jamie starts talking again about girls. He asks you who you like. You fob him off with the usual suspects—the cheerleaders and some of the girls on the swim team—which he enthusiastically endorses. But then he asks you, with guarded glee, if you've ever "done it."<br/>
<br/>
You suck in your upper lip and bend your face closer to the runes. "Got a blow job at church camp one summer."<br/>
<br/>
Jamie gasps, then explodes in a squealing laugh. "<i>Church camp?</i>" he shrieks. "That's awesome!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. It, uh, wasn't much," you confess. In truth, you didn't even cum, being too scared of being caught and too freaked out about what was going on to be really engaged in it. "You?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, yeah, I get blow jobs," he says with what sounds like casual braggadacio. "Up at the Warehouse, you know. You hang out up there?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug without looking up. You don't want to admit that you've never been out to the most dangerous party spot in the city.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you know how easy it is to get laid up there," Jamie drawls. "We should go hang out there some time after school. More fun than hanging out around here," he sniffs. Then he sniggers. "You get more blow jobs up there."<br/>
<br/>
Your sphincter loosens. As dangerous as the Warehouse is on weekends when it's packed with unsupervised high school students drinking and dancing and puking, you hear it's even worse on weekdays when it's the hangout of people like Jamie's other friends.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't pursue the topic, though, and changes back to talking about girls, and you tell him about some of the girls you hung out with over the summer. He's impressed—gasping and squealing with delight—when you drop the names of girls like the Garner sisters, and Cindy Vredenburg, who, yes, you <i>did</i> sort of hang out with while you were hanging out with Lisa Yarborough (though she seemed to make a point of ignoring you). He sniggers sympathetically when (with a derisive snort) you admit that you didn't "do anything" with them. But you notice he doesn't press you further on your sexual history; and you also notice that he doesn't volunteer the names of the girls he supposedly gets blow jobs from up at the Warehouse.<br/>
<br/>
Then, after a fallow silence, he stretches out on the conference table to stare at the ceiling and describe to you, in a low voice, what he'd like to do with a girl.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd lay 'em out flat, you know," he says. "Flat out on their back. I'd start by pulling down their shorts and then their panties. But I'd leave everything on them up top. Save it for later, you know." He snickers. "Like, you don't open all your Christmas presents at the same time, right? So I'd sniff 'em out first," he continues, "then eat 'em out. Lots of tongue, licking hard, licking deep. Like, really snorf it up."<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Snorf?"</i> you think. You make a note to never use the word when trying to describe the sex act.<br/>
<br/>
"Then after I got them good and wet I'd go up and dry hump them for a while, just to give them a feeling of what's next. You know, really <i>grind</i> it into them. Nngh! After that, that's when I'd pull off her shirt and bra, grab hold of her boobs and suck on them. Nibble. Titties and teeth.<br/>
<br/>
"By this time, you know, they'd be begging for it, and that's when I'd pull off my things and go in. Jam myself up deep and hard. She'd have her legs around me, and I'd go in— Bang!" He claps his hands together.<br/>
<br/>
And then he starts over again, imagining it from a different angle, and then from a different angle after that. In the front, in the back, on the top and on the bottom, upside down and right side up, hanging from below and thrusting hard from up on top. You are drenched with a sympathetic sweat long before he's done.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway," he says after he's concluded and has let the heavy steam dissipate in a long silence. "That's what I'd do."<br/>
<br/>
"Me too," you agree. "But I gotta finish this thing." You stretch and push the crick out of your shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't talk about this stuff as much as other guys do, do you?"<br/>
<br/>
You try not to wince. "I guess not."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay." Jamie picks up the blank mask and holds it over his face. "This stuff's a lot cooler than, you know, just talkin' about pussy."<br/>
<br/>
A hard prickle runs up your spine. <i>Where is this heading?</i> you suddenly wonder. <i>Is he going to suggest putting on masks of girls and ... you and him doing with each other the kind of stuff he was just now describing?</i><br/>
<br/>
And what are you going to say if he does suggest that?<br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting hungry," you tell him. "I should go home."<br/>
<br/>
"Me too." Jamie lays the mask down and sits up with a groan. "You done there?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'll have to bring it to you at school tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool." He smirks. "Gonna have a great surprise for you."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help shivering. But is it with fear or anticipation?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You finish up the metal strip after dinner and glue it into the mask. The next morning at school you slip it to Jamie, who again promises to get you something "really great" with it.<br/>
<br/>
"So how'd the great time capsule project turn out?" Carson Ioeger asks at lunch. Keith heard a rumor that Cindy Vredenburg might be eating with Jenny and her friends, so he pushed you and Caleb into taking lunch out front with them. But if there's any truth to the rumor, it's because Jenny has gone off for a private conference with Cindy, for neither girl is sitting on the grass with you.<br/>
<br/>
"Got an an A," Caleb brags. He's been insufferable since first period, when Mr. Walberg handed back the papers you turned in on Friday. "Got an extra commendation for 'creativity'."<br/>
<br/>
"Was it worth any extra points, this commendation?" James Lamont asks. With a critical eye he examines the insides of the sandwich he's just taken a bite from.<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"Then bee-eff-dee." James jams the sandwich back into the paper bag with a sound halfway between a snort and a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"You know how hard it is to get a compliment out of the old walrus?" Caleb demands.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not hard if you're halfway competent," James stares at Caleb's chips with an openly covetous expression. "He says nice things to me at least twice a week."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, if I was blowing him every day after class I bet he'd say nice things to me too!"<br/>
<br/>
"What about you, Prescott?" Ioeger asks. "You been awful quiet over there since the topic came up."<br/>
<br/>
"I did okay," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
"Will got a C-minus," Caleb chortles.<br/>
<br/>
"C-plus!" you exclaim. James cackles.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus," Carson snorts. "Whadja do, Prescott, bite down the last time it was your turn to blow him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you guys!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will turned in a hair dryer for the capsule." Caleb grins. "His paper blew too. Hot air."<br/>
<br/>
"Izzat how come we not been seein' any of you?" Keith asks. It surprises you to see he's paying attention, for he's been craning his neck and staring off at the school building. "Working on that paper?"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm talking about how come we ain't seen nothing of you in, like, a week." Keith breaks off his search for Cindy long enough to give you an even look. "Not after school, not on weekends—"<br/>
<br/>
"It takes a lot of time and candlepower," Carson observes, "to compose an essay justifying the bestowal of a hair dryer unto posterity."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, whaddaya say to that, Prescott?" James snickers.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I'd have something to say," you retort, "if he talked like a human being instead of an old book."<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, Caleb tries to make nice with you. "Fucking Ioeger," he says as you trudge back into the school together. "Fucking waste of time. Fucking Tilley and his rumors." When you don't answer, Caleb asks, "So what are you doing after school?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, come hang out at my place. Tilley's right about that at least, we haven't done anything together in awhile. Whatcha been busy with?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug and don't answer.<br/>
<br/>
But the temptation is there. After yesterday's talk with Jamie, you feel like maybe you need to insert a bit of a buffer between you, and you'd feel more comfortable with this stuff with the masks if one of your friends, at least, was mixed up in it with you.<br/>
<br/>
On the other hand, what if that drives Jamie to bring one of <i>his</i> friends in?</span></div></div>


