# chapters

path: 1112312221222
author_id: seuzz
title: A Golem Goes Shopping
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The thought of letting a duplicate of yourself—even if it is one under your control—go around pretending to be you just sounds too creepy and dangerous. Caleb only shrugs when you explain this to him. Afterward, you remove the mask from the golem, hide the clay body in the back, and go home.<br/>
<br/>
The next day at school is a little weird; you keep feeling like you're having an out of body experience, and you find yourself wondering if <i>this</i> is what it is like to be a golem. Is it conscious? Does it have feelings and desires and needs? If you yourself were a golem would you know it? Well, of course, you'd have the <i>feeling</i>—the compulsion—to obey someone. And you don't.<br/>
<br/>
(Except Mr. Hawks in second period, who is so intimidating that you can barely bring yourself to look in his direction, let alone disobey him.)<br/>
<br/>
You are also haunted by the absence of Eva. In fact, she and Jessica and Marc are all absent from school. By the end of the day you are so freaked out that you are almost ready to destroy the thing at the elementary school. You grab Caleb after last period and tell him to meet you at the school right away.<br/>
<br/>
You beat him there and swallow really hard when you find the lock is off the door. You sneak in very carefully, in case the maintenance crew is inside, but you find it is empty. Your relief is temporary when you discover that the golem body is missing.<br/>
<br/>
When he arrives, Caleb finds you on the floor, rocking on your hips and close to hyperventilating. Between gasps for air you tell him that you can't find the golem body. "How did it get out?" you keep repeating. "We took the mask off. How did it get out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe someone found it," Caleb says. He looks around and frowns. "No, that can't be it. The rest of our shit is here. Except—"<br/>
<br/>
"Except?"<br/>
<br/>
He bites his lip. "One of the masks is missing."<br/>
<br/>
The blood drains from your face. "Christ," you murmur, and you feel darkness closing in around you. "It's me. I'm the golem. I really am the golem. I'm the fake." You start hiccupping. <br/>
<br/>
Caleb stares at you, and then slaps you hard. "Get a grip, dude. What are you babbling about? You're not the freaking golem. It's the Eva mask that's missing. Your mask is ... Well, it's right here." He takes a mask from his backpack. <br/>
<br/>
You stare at him, then stagger weakly to your feet. "How—?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a noise at the door, and Eva walks in. She is holding lots of shopping bags and looking very stylish in some new clothes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your hands are at Caleb's throat before you can stop yourself. "You did fucking <i>what?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
He slaps your hands away, but backs away. You feel your eyes bulging. <br/>
<br/>
"I just thought we'd get a start on the next project. I didn't mean for anything to go wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't <i>mean</i>? Well that's a fucking relief! What would have happened if you'd actually meant things to go wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, they're not so bad if you think about it. We dodged a bullet—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to have bullets flying at me that I have to dodge, you fucking moron!"<br/>
<br/>
He gives you an impatient, disgusted look and turns back to the Eva clone, who is humming softly to itself while laying out the spoils of its shopping trip.<br/>
<br/>
So here's the story you finally piece together: Early this morning Caleb had gone over to the clubhouse and put on your mask, then put the Eva mask on the golem. He had a new blank mask and had ordered it to start polishing it up. The golem had pretended to obey. But (Eva had told you) golems can sense when they are dealing with the magic-user and when it's just someone in disguise. So after Caleb left for school the golem—bored with its job—had wandered off. It took a chance on the Garner house being empty, and had taken a long—a very long—walk over there. Sure enough, no one was home, so it had broken in, lifted Eva's conveniently abandoned ID and credit card, rifled some cash from her siblings' rooms, and then caught a cab into town and splurged on a new wardrobe. <br/>
<br/>
"Why didn't you lock it in so it couldn't get out?" you demanded of Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought that it would obey me," he retorted. "Besides, suppose someone came and found her locked in here. It would look like a kidnapping. With the lock gone, she could pretend she'd just wandered in."<br/>
<br/>
You have to concede that he makes sense. But still. "What are we gonna do with this shit?" you gesture at the clothes. Eva gives you a dirty look. "We have to take it back."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's ... it's stealing.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a little late to be acquiring a conscience about stealing stuff, isn't it?" Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"Besides, I bought most of it at clearance events," Eva says. "No exchanges, no refunds, no store credit." The smile she flashes you is both sweet and poisonous.<br/>
<br/>
"But what are we gonna do with it all?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb scratches his head. There is silence for a good long time. He flips through the book. Eventually he speaks.<br/>
<br/>
"You know, there's one thing we could do," he says slowly. <br/>
<br/>
"Don't you fucking dare suggest that we replace Eva with a duplicate!"<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face and points to the first spell. "We've overlooked this part of the spell with the masks. If we don't seal one, we can keep adding images to it. We haven't tried that out."<br/>
<br/>
"So?"<br/>
<br/>
"So, how about we make a new person? A new girl?"<br/>
<br/>
"What? Why?<br/>
<br/>
"Here's what we do," he says, warming to his explanation. "We use the new mask to copy Eva again, or some other girl who's about her size. We add at least one more girl, maybe a few more, who are also about her size and proportions. Seal it, give it some kind of personality with a mind strip. Voila, we have a brand-new person we can put on the golem."<br/>
<br/>
"And what good does that do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, then we'd have someone who can use these clothes," he says slowly, as though addressing a very stupid person.<br/>
<br/>
"We could also give them to fucking Goodwill! I'm not complaining about the clothes—"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you were. You asked me what we were gonna do with the clothes."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not complaining about that!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then what <i>are</i> you complaining about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know any more!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shrugs. "So what's wrong with my idea? We make a new person. She could be your new girlfriend." His smile grows lopsided. "She could be mine."</span></div></div>


path: 11123122212221
author_id: seuzz
title: Pygmalions Two
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It sounds like a goofball scheme: "Where would this person live?" you ask. "Here in this basement?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'd get her a job someplace," Caleb replies. "Then get her an apartment. Maybe fake up some parents for her, eventually?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's a huge freaking project. All that kind of stuff needs, like, documentation and shit. I doubt there's anything in the book about faking up birth certificates."<br/>
<br/>
"Will you stop being so negative," he cries in exasperation. He pulls a metal band out of his backpack. "We just find a bureaucrat who knows that shit and do a mind swipe. That'll tell us what we need to know."<br/>
<br/>
You boggle. "Jesus, you were making a new mask, and you've got another mind band? How many of those things do you have going?"<br/>
<br/>
"I used to be boy scout, remember? Be prepared."<br/>
<br/>
You start to make a retort, and then fall silent. Now that you think about it, Caleb's come up with a really intriguing idea, and it seems a lot less sketchy than duplicating and replacing real people. <br/>
<br/>
And so you agree to it. Over the week that follows, the pieces start coming together:<br/>
<br/>
First you make up a couple of metal bands and make trips to various government agencies; it's tricky, but on different pretexts you manage to get close to some key bureaucrats in their offices and jump them in order to get copies of their memories. Some of the minds you grab prove to be kind of gross and you don't have a lot of fun putting their heads inside yours, even temporarily—a sudden, vivid memory of the fat Social Security caseworker having sex with his equally fat wife leaves you shuddering with nausea at one point—but with the help of those disembodied minds you are able to hack into government databases and insert the necessary fake documentation for your new person. <br/>
<br/>
The real trouble comes with figuring out who else to copy when making this girl. Some decisions are pretty easy. For instance, you are able to quickly compromise on a name by inventing a quasi-anagram on your own names: Celia Bea Williams. For her body, you figure you can get get another copy of Eva (or Jessica), and you're also limited by the wardrobe you have on hand, so you pretty quickly settle on a small selection of girls who you can add to mix: the cheerleader Yumi Saito; student council president Kim Walsh; and any classmates you are on good enough terms to get close to, like Cassie Harper and Deanna Showalter. You figure that adding two or three of these to a mask that contains Eva will result in a girl that doesn't look too much like any of them, especially since they range in looks from the Japanese Yumi to the red-headed Kim. <br/>
<br/>
No, the real trouble comes with giving her a personality. Caleb points out that mind strips are not able to combine the way masks can, so you're going to have to use the personality and memories of a real person. "If our experience with the golem of you and of Eva is any guide," he says, "then the new person is going to have a personality just like the person in the mind band. Which means they are going to act and feel like that person would if they got shoved into a new body."<br/>
<br/>
"But they'll be a golem," you point out. "We can tell them what's going on, order them to pretend to be this new person."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," says Caleb. "But they still might freak out. It better not be a hysterical personality."<br/>
<br/>
It's a good point. "Well, that rules out using as Eva, then," you remark. "Probably Cassie, too"<br/>
<br/>
"We could also use a personality of someone totally different. Some girl with a dog's face, for instance. This girl we're making is going to be smoking hot, you know, so if we found a girl who'd be totally happy to wake up in a body like we're making—"<br/>
<br/>
You raise an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be easier to get a mind band off someone we're using for the body? Do the mask copy, then do the mind copy, all at once? I mean, if we use Yumi's body, well, she's pretty level-headed."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, in that case," he says, "why not use Lisa?"<br/>
<br/>
You start, and he points at the table, where the mind band for your ex-not-quite-girlfriend has been resting unused all this time.</span></div></div>


path: 111231222122212
author_id: seuzz
title: The Fall Girl
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"No."<br/>
<br/>
"But—"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"If we—"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb sighs. "You really need to get over her."<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm trying. How can I, though, if I've got her brain stuck in this new body we're making."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb grumbles something that sounds like an acknowledgement. "Then who?"<br/>
<br/>
You drum you fingers. The mask is ready—in fact, by forcing the golem to work nights too you've actually gotten a total of three polished blanks made by this point—so you suggest concentrating on getting the body images. "We'll worry about the personality after that."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
A study date with Cassie Harper gets you her image inside one of your blanks; the next night Caleb is able to add Deanna Showalter. Eva is harder to get; she hasn't been to school in several days, and then even Jessica and Marc disappear for a stretch. When they return it's with shocking news: Eva has been put in a private hospital. Her siblings are close-mouthed, but the few people they share details with are not similarly shy about gossiping about what's going on: <br/>
<br/>
Someone stole her credit card and driver's license and ran up huge bills on a shopping spree. That was bad enough, but one of the clerks at the department store remembered the shopper, and when Eva went in with her mother she asked Eva about the purchases and whether she was happy with them. One thing led to another; security footage was examined; and Eva's story of a "theft" exposed as a lie. After an awful series of confrontations with her parents, she broke down in hysterics and had to be taken to the emergency room. She is now in an institution that is something halfway between a treatment center for troubled youth and a lunatic asylum. <br/>
<br/>
"We have to do something," you tell Caleb after third period. You've arranged to skip classes with him because you are so horrified by what has happened.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you suggest," he says peevishly. "We can't confess to what we've done."<br/>
<br/>
You fiddle with the metal band in your pocket; you'd brought it to school on the off chance that you could use it on someone. "We have to make it clear that Eva isn't crazy, that she's not responsible for what's going on."<br/>
<br/>
"And how do we do that without confessing?"<br/>
<br/>
You are thinking so hard and so quickly that you practically vibrate. You bounce on the balls of your feet and excitedly shake your finger in Caleb's face.<br/>
<br/>
"Eva's locked away, right?" you say. He nods. "But what if she showed up at school. Nonchalantly. Came in for one period, emptied her locker, talked to a few people, and then left?"<br/>
<br/>
"You mean bring the golem to school?" Caleb's eyes bulge.<br/>
<br/>
"Just for one period. Dozens of eyewitnesses to spot a girl who looks and acts just like her. Hell, she can drop off the driver's license and credit card in the office before she leaves. The real Eva is locked away, so she has a total alibi. Everyone would have to know it was this weird-ass doppelganger who was doing all this shopping and stealing and shit."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb licks his lips. "It's an awful risk."<br/>
<br/>
"It's just a golem. We can make another. And before we send it in, we can order it not to say anything about us, in case it does get caught."<br/>
<br/>
"It's still a horrible idea."<br/>
<br/>
"We have to do <i>something</i>."<br/>
<br/>
The familiar, odious voice speaks from behind you. "What you ladies have to do is get back to class."<br/>
<br/>
You wheel. Lester the Molester smirks down at you.<br/>
<br/>
You start to bolt, but he grabs you by the arm and twists it. You gasp. "Tch, tch," he says. "If you had muscles instead of Silly Putty in those biceps, Prescott, I couldn't do this, you know. Don't you try running off either, Johansson."<br/>
<br/>
Something in you explodes, and you swing your free hand at him. You're vaguely aware that you're holding something in it, so you flub the attempt to make a fist. Lester doesn't even flinch. There is a weak but satisfying smack as your open palm connects with the side of his head ...<br/>
<br/>
... and the smile still plays on his face as he sinks to the ground in a daze.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, we're gonna have to get to Mexico before he comes to," Caleb gasps. "Come on."<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on," you shout. "I hit him with the mind band. I didn't mean to, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"The hell?!"<br/>
<br/>
"I had it my hand when I swung. I didn't realize it, I was just trying to slug him. We gotta wait for it to come back."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb bounces nervously on his feet—and so do you—until the band reappears on his face. He's still in a daze as you snatch it up and run off. It seems best to ditch the rest of the day, and you do.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's the start of a chain of disasters. After more argumentation, Caleb gives in and you send the golem to the school to clean out Eva's locker. It doesn't return. Some discreet post-school phone calls tell you what happened: She was spotted by Marc and Jessica and then detained at the office (probably on a pretext) until the police arrived; cell phones, Twitter, and Facebook are in an uproar over the amazing resemblance between the real Eva and the strange girl who was carrying her stuff and talking just like her.<br/>
<br/>
"We have to do something," you tell Caleb in the clubhouse.<br/>
<br/>
"That's how we got into this mess!" he explodes. "Those are the exact same fucking words you used, too!"<br/>
<br/>
"But it's not safe leaving her—it—in the hands of the cops!"<br/>
<br/>
"You ordered her not to say anything, right? Not to tell anyone about us!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but who knows what she—it—might let slip."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb slaps his forehead. "You should have thought of that before sending it to the school. In fact, you <i>moron</i>, that's exactly what I thought and exactly what I said, and you <i>still</i> insisted on sending it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, you were right! So we have to undo my boneheaded plan!"<br/>
<br/>
"With one that's even more boneheaded? Leave well enough alone. Besides, how are you going to get her out?"<br/>
<br/>
You look around and start pacing. Gradually an idea starts nibbling at you, phantom memories from the mind bands you'd swiped off those administrators. You stop and stare at the old library catalog where you've stored them. "Lavelett," you say. Caleb looks puzzled. "Paul Lavelett. The Social Security administrator. He knows the police chief. He can call him, find out where the girl's being held."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you babbling about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll put on the mind band, call the chief—"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have his voice."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll say I have a cold. I'll find out where she is. I can even say that I've got info on her."<br/>
<br/>
"They're not just going to let her go because some asshole calls in—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, here, I'll tell them that I think I know who she is, that I've got a ... a neighbor or a nephew who can ID her, that I'm sending the guy over to have a look and a talk with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Shit, you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I go over, see her alone. Take the mask off her and leave. All that's left is a pile of clay and a <i>really</i> kooky mystery."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb buries his face in his hands. A long argument ensues, at the end of which ...</span></div></div>


path: 1112312221222121
author_id: seuzz
title: Jailbreak for a Golem
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Even with the mind band, it takes you a little while to figure out a line that might work on the police chief. The phone conversation (which you conduct over a pay phone near police headquarters) is argumentative, but eventually the chief agrees to let Lavelett's witness see and interview the suspect.<br/>
<br/>
The chief gives you the stink eye when you're shown into his office. "Hi, I'm Jeff Henderson," you introduce yourself. "Uncle Paul said you'd be expecting me."<br/>
<br/>
"And your relationship to the girl is?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think I met her inside a video store about a week or so ago. We wound up at a party. She said her name was Jean or something."<br/>
<br/>
The chief rolls his eyes. "Kid, that ain't much."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, if I could just see and talk to her a minute."<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head heavily, but shows you to the cells. The fake Eva is laying very quietly on a cot. "Oh God, not <i>you</i>," she groans.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess she recognizes me. Could I have a minute alone with her?" The chief looks up at you—he has to look up, because you are wearing the Jeremy Richards mask—and holds up two fingers. Two minutes? Plenty of time.<br/>
<br/>
"So you recognize me under this thing, huh?" you murmur to her as you sit on the cot. <br/>
<br/>
"Great plan you had, boss," she says sarcastically. <br/>
<br/>
"Well, let's see if we can't fix it." You reach over and tear the mask off her face. She is instantly replaced with a mass of clay that fits badly inside the clothes it had been wearing.<br/>
<br/>
"Tell the chief I was wrong about her," you tell the duty sergeant as you hurry from the cell block with the mask under your jacket. You are just outside when you hear someone yelling for you.<br/>
<br/>
You bolt down the sidewalk and around some buildings and into a dark alley; you can hear footsteps following close behind. Quickly, you reach up to your own forehead and with a shaking voice say the magic words and rip the mask away. Just in time: strong hands close on your shoulder and whip you around. Three cops, one of them the chief, glare down at you. They all blink stupidly, look around, and then charge off in another direction. Your chuckle is shaky but hearty as you dash back the other way to meet Caleb at the car.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It'll be interesting to read the news aggregators this week," you laugh with Caleb afterward. You are at his house rather than the clubhouse because he mom is out. "Of course, we'll have to make a new golem."<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't say anything, being wrapped up with the book. After a moment you snap your fingers under his nose. He comes around with a start.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," he says, "but look at this." He points to the new spell, and flips back and forth between it and the golem-making spell. "Even without a translation you can tell it's the same set of ingredients."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I thought it looked familiar," you say carelessly. With all the planning over the past few days and your excitement about making a new person, you'd not really looked closely at the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I think this might be a different golem-making spell," he says. "Except ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Except?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it calls for a lot less graveyard dirt."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's a plus. Let's do it instead of the old golem spell, then."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but it also calls for a human body."<br/>
<br/>
You freeze. "A corpse?"<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head. "That's what the word looks like, but the translation makes it sound like it's supposed to be a regular person."</span></div></div>


path: 1112312222
author_id: rugal
title: Try to seduce some cash out of Scott.
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Dude!  Let's go!" Caleb says in the most insistent tone he can muster. "Get rid of them!"<br/>
<br/>
You hold up a finger to silence him.  "No, just give me a minute." you say, "I've got this."<br/>
<br/>
You walk over to Scott and Mindy, a sultry smile on your face.  Scott, you can see, is looking right at your incredibly toned stomach as you bought one of those sweat suits that is obviously designed to look good and sexy on a girl. Eva's got a rather compact body, short but with large breasts, wide hips and a large, toned ass.  She's extremely fit, due to being very health conscious, with a toned, athletic body and the slightest hint of muscles present on somebody who works out quite a bit.  That, as well as her pageboy style haircut, is about the only way to tell Eva and her sister (who has longer hair and is noticeably thinner) apart.<br/>
<br/>
"Eva, you're looking as stylish as ever." comes the icy barb from Mindy.  She's a taller girl and rather cute, thin with a small chest, icy blue eyes and long, wavy brown hair.  She's one of the nicer girls in school from your experiences with her but she has a sharp tongue and isn't afraid of speaking her mind.  "Is there a reason you're over here or are you just looking to cause trouble for us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Your words cut, Mindy, but it's more like a papercut: slightly stinging but really annoying." you shoot back smugly, "And no, I'm not trying to cause any trouble though if you keep running your mouth..." Eva has a personality that can at best be described as acerbic.  She can be notoriously bitchy with a penchant for running her mouth and threatening to throw down with anyone who gets in her face because of it.  It's a threat that nobody has taken her up on as the fact that she also practices at a local MMA gym tends to cause people to back off before they even start.  Even Chelsea Cooper, head cheerleader and queen bee of the school, makes it a point not to piss Eva off.<br/>
<br/>
"Girls, c'mon." Scott says stepping inbetween the two of you, "You don't need to be doing this here." After Mindy and you have calmed down (though you weren't actually pissed, just playing a role) he turns to you.  "What do you want Eva?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I just needed to talk to you about something." you say as you flash a wry smile, "But not here.  I want a little privacy."<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, Eva... me and Mindy were actually gonna--" he starts.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh forget her." you say, the smile still on your face as you notice Mindy getting an irritated expression out of the corner of your eye. "It'll only take a minute and it's REALLY important.  Please?"<br/>
<br/>
Scott looks at you, then over at Mindy before shrugging his shoulders.  "Okay, fine.  Whatever.  Let's go."<br/>
<br/>
With that, you grab his arm and head off to a hidden off maintenance area behind the bank.  You take a quick glance back to look at Mindy who's absolutely fuming at this point.  She stares daggers through you before yelling out, "Fine!  I'll just talk to Caleb here!  I'm sure he's got all kinds of interesting things to say!"  You respond to that by flashing her a smirk and putting a little extra wiggle and sway into your steps.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<br/>
"So what is it you wanted?"<br/>
<br/>
The two of you are standing in the hidden off maintenance area.<br/>
<br/>
"Ohhh, not much.  Just a little bit of cash." you state.<br/>
<br/>
Scott grimaces a little.  "That's it?  THAT was what you needed to talk to me about in private?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well yeah.  My gym membership fee is coming up and I'm a bit short on it." you explain.<br/>
<br/>
"Gym membership?" he asks, "The regular one or the MMA one?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm... both?" you say, "I really don't have enough to cover both of them, or even one, and I can't lose out on both of them.  It'd make keeping in shape a whole lot more difficult and that'd be a bad thing, don't you think?"<br/>
<br/>
You emphasize this by stretching your arms behind your head and arching your back a little placing emphasis on both your large breasts and ass.  Scott is obviously enjoying what he sees and you can see that he's close to coming around.  "Okay, say I give you the money. A.) How much would it be and B.) Would I ever get repaid?"<br/>
<br/>
You smile sweetly at him.  "Hmm, I'd say $50 would be enough to cover everything.  As for repayment... well, maybe I might go out to eat one night and might be looking for a little company."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you saying a date is how you'd repay me?" Scott asks, a grin on his face.<br/>
<br/>
You smile back at him, "No, that's what YOU'RE saying.  I'M saying that I might want to grab some food with a friend.  Make of that what you will."<br/>
<br/>
Scott can't hand over the money fast enough and as you stuff it inbetween the band of your sweat pants and your waist, you run a hand throw Scott's shaggy, dirty blonde hair.  "Thanks Scotty, you're a sweet guy."  You then grab his face, pull it towards your, and plant a large, deep kiss on him.  "Mmm, real sweet." you smirk after releasing the kiss.<br/>
<br/>
And you're overcome by urges.  Scott is a wide receiver for the football team and as such is quite good looking.  A nice tan, shaggy dark blonde hair, tall and quite toned.  He's quite sexy you think... or is that what Eva thinks?  Letting her psyche up to the front so you can pass as her is very and Eva's mind is screaming out about how hot this guy is.  So is her body.  She's had her share of sexual partners, a rotation of three or so guys that she knows she can go to for a quick fix and rotate in and out when she gets bored with one.  She's not a slut, or she doesn't think of herself as one, but she quite enjoys sex and the euphoric feelings that wash over her when engaged in it.<br/>
<br/>
You're still yourself but between the hormones and the memory or mind or psyche or whatever you want to call it, getting swept up into being Eva Garner is not the least bit difficult.  And "Eva" is practically screaming for a quick round with Scott.  You nearly gave in to the Jeremy-disguised Caleb earlier but Scott is proving to be much harder to resist.  And you have to admit you're own curiosity may be getting the better of you as well.</span></div></div>


path: 11124
author_id: seuzz
title: Conspirators Three
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Caleb's eyes nearly bulge from his head. "Are you crazy? We can't try these things on ourselves!"<br/>
<br/>
"All I mean is, you know—" It's hard to frame the thought without sounding like a churchy dweeb: <i>If it's dangerous, we shouldn't test them on other people.</i> "Ah, fuck it," you grumble. "Let's get Tilley out here."<br/>
<br/>
"Keith?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know another one?"<br/>
<br/>
"God, I hope not. But what do you want—?"<br/>
<br/>
Then Caleb blanches. "<i>Keith?</i>" he exclaims. "You want to test it out on <i>Keith?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"We gotta test it out on someone, you said." <br/>
<br/>
"Keith's a friend!"<br/>
<br/>
You've already got half a text typed in, but you pause to glance up at Caleb. "Lemme test it out on an enemy, then? Mansfield?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb makes a face. "Okay, get Tilley out here," he grumbles. "But we <i>tell</i> him what the thing is! Maybe he'll have an idea for what we can do."<br/>
<br/>
Then his face falls. "I must be losing my mind," he mutters. "Tilley with an idea? It never happens."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Jesus," Keith sneers as the turns the mask over and over in his hands. "You're shitting me."<br/>
<br/>
It's a common refrain with Keith Tilley. <i>You're shitting me,</i> he said when you told him you were going out with Lisa. <i>You're shitting me,</i> he said when you told him you squeezed out a B-minus in Algebra II last year. <i>You're shitting me,</i> he says when you tell him you've got a few extra dollars and want to go do something fun with it. He's a congenital sneerer, even when he doesn't really mean it.<br/>
<br/>
So you don't take him seriously now. But how seriously does he take <i>you?</i><br/>
<br/>
"See, that's what I said when Prescott told <i>me,</i>" Caleb is now replying to him. "But he showed me how he made it, and now we got this one, too." He holds up the mask that he made under your direction.<br/>
<br/>
Keith glances at it. "Dude." His lip continues to curl. "It isn't even the same color!."<br/>
<br/>
"That's 'cos we just made it and we have to polish it," you retort. You snatch the mask—which is a glowing blue, in contrast to the dingy off-white of Caleb's—from his hand. "But this one's finished, and we're trying to figure out what to do with it."<br/>
<br/>
"What do I look like, an interior decorator?" Keith sniggers, and glances between you and Caleb. Then he rolls his eyes as neither of you join his laugh.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it's magic," you start to say, but Caleb interrupts. "We'll show you how to make one, if that's the only way to make you take it seriously."<br/>
<br/>
"Eh, sure," Keith says. He shrugs his bony shoulders. "I got nothing better t'do today. Oh!" He snaps his fingers. "'Cep' I was—"<br/>
<br/>
Whatever he was going to do goes unstated, because Caleb nearly hauls him off his feet to pull him over to where the book and your supplies are. "Will?" he asks, and you trudge over with a sigh to supervise.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's not long before you're starting to regret getting Keith involved, because he snickers and makes lame cooking jokes all during the process. Where Caleb, though skeptical, was open-minded about it when you showed him, Keith seems convinced that this is all a practical joke at his expense, and is determined to show that he's not taken in by pretending to be in on it. Long before you have finished mixing the ingredients, you have the urge to slap him on the back of the head.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I knew this was all bullshit," he snorts as he turns the hemispheric shell around in his hands. "So what am I supposed to do now? Say 'abracada—' <i>Whuuuughh!</i>" He almost jerks off his feet and does a full body spasm as the shell drops from his fingers with a clatter. He blinks down at it, then bends over to peer at it.<br/>
<br/>
Because, as with the other two, it's not a shell anymore. It's a mask. You and Caleb exchanged tired but satisfied glances behind his back.<br/>
<br/>
For a long moment he doesn't say anything. Then he straightens up with a smirk. "Yeah, that's a pretty good trick," he says. "How'dja do it?"<br/>
<br/>
"We told you, it's magic. Or something."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but how'd you pull it off? Making the switch?" He shuffles his hands around in mid-air.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck this, Will," Caleb snorts. "I knew it was gonna be a waste with him."<br/>
<br/>
"No, come on, I wanna know how you done it!" Keith protests.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, forget it, man," you retort. You are suddenly very tired, of Keith, of the masks, of the book, of everything. "I'm going home." You sweep up the book and trudge for the door. Caleb follows.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, where you goin'?" Keith calls. "Come on, guys, don't go away mad!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not mad," you retort over your shoulder. "I'm just sick of you and your shit!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, where are we going?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm going home. You can fuck off."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you leaving? I can't even lock up this place!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't give a fuck."<br/>
<br/>
The last you see of Tilley, he's standing in the doorway of the basement, looking dumbfounded, as you twist the key in the ignition and start your truck with a roar. You shoot him a quick glare before throwing the shift into reverse and driving off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He texts you later that night, asking if he can call and talk to you direct, and since you were never mad at him, just sick of his shit, you tell him yes. "Dude," he says after you pick up. "Whaddaya got to be pissy for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not pissy," you snap, for you're starting feel pissed-off all over again. "I'm just sick of—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I think I'm the one who's got a right to feel pissy!"<br/>
<br/>
"You?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! You haul me out to that place with some line of shit, and you try to prank me with this 'Oooh, we got some magic shit to show you' line, and then when I call you on your bullshit you don't even come clean. You're being, like, a sore loser."<br/>
<br/>
The phone almost slips from your nerveless hand. "Well, maybe I didn't come clean, 'cos I didn't have anything to come clean about! It's just like me and Caleb were telling you! But if you just wanna, you know, fuck off, or tell us to fuck off—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want anyone to fuck off, man," he whines. "I just wanna, you know, be in on the joke!"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what we were trying to do!" you yell into the phone. "Trying to get you—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, keep it down!" he interrupts. "I got you on speaker!"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, what do you want, Keith?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a heavy silence. Then, with a sigh, he says, "Okay, just give me the story and the rest of the story. Whatever you were going to tell me back at the place."<br/>
<br/>
"It's like we were telling you, I found this book—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, hey, you got the key to that place?" he interrupts. "'Cos I put the padlock back on before I left."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And that's what it's like talking to him. Even though he stops with the lame jokes and snide asides and pretends to take you seriously, he will make stupid interruptions. But you doggedly push through, all the way to the point of explaining about how you have to polish a mask to finish it, and then put it on someone to "absorb their form." "We didn't know what to do about that," you conclude. "That's why we called you out, Caleb and me. To show you in case <i>you</i> had an idea." <i>And that was the dumbest idea that </i>we<i> ever had,</i> you silently add.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-huh," he says. "Well, I don't know what's so tough about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Why? What would you do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just put it on and see what happens."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but it could be dangerous."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, you take your life into your hands every morning when you wake up. You take your life into your hands every time you go to <i>school,</i>" he mutters. <br/>
<br/>
That's true: Westside High is full of assholes.<br/>
<br/>
"But look," he says, "you just keep me posted. Don't do anything without you telling me, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you interested?"<br/>
<br/>
If he notices the sneer in your voice, he doesn't react to it. "Sure I'm interested," he assures you. "I was interested this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't believe any of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't mean I wasn't interested."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next day is Sunday, which means church. Umeko has a recital, which makes about five minutes of it bearable, and then you have lunch with her and your aunt and uncle. Sot it's nearly two-thirty before you can change out of your church clothes and into something more comfortable.<br/>
<br/>
And it's while moving things from pocket to pocket that you realize you have lost the key to the basement padlock. It must be inside the basement, you conclude with a groan. And you groan louder when you remember that Tilley said he put the padlock back on when you left.<br/>
<br/>
You've got a text from Caleb, asking if you want to meet at the basement, but now you're feeling grouchy and put out. You'd have bring some bolt cutters or something to get in, and then buy a new padlock.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe you just don't want to deal with it today. It's not like anyone else is going to be able to get in before tomorrow.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241
author_id: seuzz
title: At the Mercy of a Dumbass
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You might as well take care of the basement now as later, but you're too lazy to. So you tell Caleb that you just want to be a vegetable the rest of the day, and that you'll pick up where you left off on Monday. Besides, until you figure out what you want to do with that one mask, there doesn't seem to be much point in polishing up two more.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith is looking very smug on Monday morning when you see him second period. He's holding something up between his fingers as you trudge in, but you ignore him until after you've dropped into your desk. "You left this in the place on Saturday," he says.<br/>
<br/>
You blink at the dirty copper key he's holding out, then take it with a mumbled "Thanks." "Yeah," Keith drawls, "you're kind of careless about that place."<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't been back there since, like, a year."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but you're still kind of careless." There's a gleam in his eye as he says it, a gleam you don't like, but he doesn't elaborate. Instead, he changes the subject. "Oh, I talked to Mike and Carlos about you yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"Mike and Carlos?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You know, Hollister and Montoya."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, them." You can place the names as a couple of guys you vaguely know, and who you share English class with. "What about them?"<br/>
<br/>
"I talked to 'em about <i>you,</i>" Keith says. "About doin' extra credit in this class."<br/>
<br/>
"You what?" You turn around almost all the way in your chair to stare at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" He gives you a pitying look. "You know you need it. I mean, <i>I</i> do, and if I do then you do too!"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face, but don't argue. "What kind of extra credit?"<br/>
<br/>
"Makin' a video for 'em!"<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of video?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck! For their channel!"<br/>
<br/>
"Mr. Tilley," a deep voice booms out, and you turn to see the teacher, Mr. Hawks, glaring at you and Keith from behind his desk. He's tall, sere man with piercing gray eyes, close-cropped white hair, and a frown like a thunderstorm. He looks like he must be seventy (though a well-preserved seventy), but he still looks like he has the sinewy strength to snap a mouthy high-school student in half with his bare, gnarled hands.<br/>
<br/>
"This classroom is not rated for gutter talk," he growls, his voice deep like a couple of boulders grinding against each other. "Still less for gutter talk carried out at a shout. Take it outside if you must persist. And if you do take it outside," he darkly adds, "take an absence for the day."<br/>
<br/>
After he's turned back to his paperwork, you glance back to find Keith shrinking so far down in his chair that he's practically on his shoulder blades.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've forgotten what Keith told you in second period—and would have ignored it if you hadn't—but when you get to fourth you hear your name shouted, and look over to see Mike Hollister beckoning to you.<br/>
<br/>
Mike is one excitable-looking dude. His hair is a reddish gold trimmed back into short spikes, so that his scalp looks like it is on fire, and the impression of burning is only amplified by his choleric coloring. He is always flushed in the face, from a light pink when he's relaxed to a fire-engine red when he's excited. Right now he looks somewhere in between, like a just-ripening tomato. His pale eyebrows fade to invisibility against his reddening brow.<br/>
<br/>
"Keith was out at our studio yesterday, talkin' about you and him maybe making a extra credit video for Mr. Hawks's class," he says. "'Z'at true?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink at him. "I dunno. What did he say?"<br/>
<br/>
"Wha'd he say?" Mike looks surprised. "What I just said. That you and him maybe want to make a extra credit video for Mr. Hawks."<br/>
<br/>
You make a face. Loathe as you are to admit it, Keith is right, you could use some extra credit in a class that you thought was going to be easy. "Well, how would that work?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," Mike says. "Only me and Carlos— Hey!" He nods at someone behind you, and you turn to see Carlos Montoya sauntering up. Carlos is one of those guys who could be Hispanic, Italian, or just a very tanned dude. His only other notable feature is the slight fauxhawk that he's shaped his coffee-colored hair into. "I was tellin' Will here what we were tellin' Keith yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"What, about gettin' a couple of cheerleaders on the channel?" Carlos says as he drops heavily into a desk.<br/>
<br/>
"No! About how they could make a extra credit video."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure." Carlos turns a friendly but rather tired gaze up at you. "You and Keith just come in, by yourselves or together, and we'll film you talking about whatever movie you want. We'll put it up on the channel, and you give the link to Mr. Hawks. But after that we're gonna private it or take it down. You got a movie picked out?"<br/>
<br/>
All of this is news to you, of course. "I barely even talked to Keith about this!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well, get it straight with him and then let us know." He turns back to Mike. "Dude," he groans, "I was up till two editing!"<br/>
<br/>
You go over to your seat by Caleb, who asks what you needed to talk to Hollister and Montoya about. "Keith's being a dipshit again," you mutter. "Oh, did I tell you? He almost locked my key in the basement yesterday. Yeah, when he put the padlock back on. I left the key down there, but he found it before he left or something." Caleb grunts, and asks if you want to go out to there after school. "Sure," you sigh. "But let's not tell Keith."<br/>
<br/>
But it turns out Keith has something to tell you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So, I mean, I just saw her out by the athletic fields! Sitting on the bleachers!"<br/>
<br/>
Keith's face is chalky white, and his eyes are bugging out of his head. His voice is strangled.<br/>
<br/>
And if this is him now, after calming down, you wonder what he must've been like in the midst of a real panic.<br/>
<br/>
His phone call came just as you were pulling into your driveway. He was nearly hysterical, and you had to tell him multiple times to calm the fuck down. At last, he made it clear he wanted to see and talk to you and Caleb. Where? After gulping down a couple of lungfuls of air, he suggested the old basement. And he asked you to call Caleb. He wouldn't say any more.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb had a good long wait before he drove up. His car wobbled and bumped to a stop like it was driven by a drunk, and Keith himself was visibly shaking as he got out. His eyes were staring and his mouth working, and it was some time before you could get even a word out of him. At last, in drips and drabs, it came out.<br/>
<br/>
He'd been loping out to his car, which was parked out in the sticks at school, when he chanced to spot her sitting on the bleachers looking out over the athletic fields. And he had with him that blue mask you had polished up and shown him—<br/>
<br/>
Oh, right. He had to explain that bit too, how he came out to the basement on Sunday and fiddled the padlock open and looked around, and on a lark he took that mask out with him along with the key you'd left there. He kept thinking about what you'd told him about the mask, about how it would "absorb the form" of someone who put it on. He still didn't believe you, of course, but he thought it would be funny if he pushed it into someone's face and then told you after that he'd tried it out on someone and nothing happened—that'd really call your bluff.<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, he tried on himself first, and nothing happened except that when he put it on his face it cut off his oxygen, or maybe he was a lot more tired than he thought he was, but he suddenly woke up as though from a deep sleep with the mask still resting on his face. That didn't prove anything, of course, so he took it to school with him today. He mostly forgot about it, but as he was going out to his car he saw her up on the bleachers by the athletic fields, by herself, bent over her phone. So he got the gleefully wicked idea to try sneaking the mask onto her as a joke. He always kind of liked her, and even if she got pissed and starting punching him, it would be fun to laugh and run away from her ...<br/>
<br/>
So he managed to sneak onto the bleachers and got behind her without her really paying attention to him—she was <i>really</i> into her phone—and he got the mask onto her and—<br/>
<br/>
Keith almost goes to pieces when he comes to this part.<br/>
<br/>
Well, it was like the mask mashed down inside her face and disappeared! And then she fell over and almost rolled off and under the bleachers! He barely caught her, and he freaked out and just sat over her trying to wake her up, but she never did, and he couldn't find the mask and he didn't have any idea what was going on, and—<br/>
<br/>
He's almost weeping as he describes this part of things.<br/>
<br/>
—and he was on the point of going to find someone when suddenly there was the mask again, resting on her face. He pulled it off her but by now he was so scared that he just took the mask and ran to his car and drove off and called you.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't even know if the girl's alright.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb look at each other. The thing to do, of course, is to check up on her, by calling her first. Except you don't have her contact info. And, anyway, you're as scared of her as Keith says he is, and you don't think it would be fun to get punched out.<br/>
<br/>
Because Stephanie Wyatt—girl jock; the female equivalent to guys like Seth Javits and Gordon Black—is exactly the type who would punch you.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411
author_id: seuzz
id: ZLNVVT8J
title: Like a Key in a Lock
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Why were you fucking around with Stephanie Wyatt?" Caleb wants to know.<br/>
<br/>
"Why were you fucking around with that thing I made?" is your demand. Caleb nudges you hard.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, I was just pranking someone!"<br/>
<br/>
"And you didn't know what you were doing!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, we wouldn'a known what <i>we</i> were doing," Caleb honks at you as Keith turns red. "So leave Tilley alone. Though the <i>way</i> you did it," he tells Keith, "was fucked up. Stephanie's the last person I'd fuck with. Okay, she's about ninth or tenth on that list, after Javits and Black and Patterson and a couple o' more people. But—"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Keith yells. "I don't care about—! The things is, what if she's—!" He gulps. "In the hospital? Or—?" He gulps again.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb exchange another in what has been an unending series of glances. "Well," Caleb says, "we'll find out tomorrow, I suppose." Then he turns exasperated when Keith groans. "Then you and Will can go check up on her. Go up to the school again, maybe call or text people who know her—"<br/>
<br/>
Keith turns white. You exclaim, "Why do I got to?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because look at Keith," Caleb retorts. "He can't do it by himself. He shouldn't even be driving." Keith gives him a reproachful look but doesn't argue.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, why can't you go with him? Why me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I'm going to stay here and figure out what we've got." Caleb holds up the mask that Keith filched, and squints thoughtfully at it.<br/>
<br/>
You'd argue, but Keith plucks at your elbow. You relent. "Okay, come on," you growl. "We'll take my truck. But you're buying me dinner!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith is pathetically grateful for your help, but he's also pretty useless, and spends most of the drive up sniveling and apologizing for fucking around with your stuff. "Yeah, well," you tell him hotly, "if you'd actually <i>believed me</i> when I told you about it!"<br/>
<br/>
But as you turn it over in your head, you begin to see what Caleb must have grasped before you did.<br/>
<br/>
Keith had no idea what the mask would do when set on someone. But you and Caleb didn't either. That's why you were so gun-shy about trying it out. It took a doofus like Keith, who didn't believe and who has almost no self-control, to make the breakthrough. So thanks to him you're actually better off than you were before. But the trouble, of course, is: What did the thing do to Stephanie?<br/>
<br/>
The student parking lot is mostly empty when you arrive, but there's still lots of cars belonging to student athletes who have to stay after for practices of various sorts: some of them are out on the athletic fields now. But the bleachers are empty. You try telling Keith that that's a good sign; he mournfully suggests it only means the ambulances and fire trucks have come and gone. You could ask some of the guys at practice if that's true, but they're big and burly and not at all the kinds of guys you feel safe or comfortable talking to.<br/>
<br/>
But there's some people at the tennis courts, so you and Keith wander over there. A few of them are standing around, and you ask them if there's been any excitement, like ambulances or EMS vehicles, but they all look puzzled and shake their heads. Then you ask if anyone there knows Stephanie Wyatt, or knows anyone who knows her, because you're trying to find her and don't have her contact info.<br/>
<br/>
No one can tell you anything there either, but talking to them does jog your memory of having run into her a couple of times over the summer, hanging out with Eva and Jessica Garner. So you text Eva and ... <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Look, she's alive, and that's what you were most worried about, right?" Caleb frowns at Keith. "Look for her at school tomorrow. If she's turned green or is missing a couple of fingers, <i>then</i> you can feel sick. But for now, would you shut up about it?"<br/>
<br/>
So, yeah, long story short, you got a text to Stephanie, pretending to ask of she'd seen someone around after school near the bleachers, and she said she hadn't, and that's where you left it. Keith didn't seem comforted, but you punched him until he said <i>Quit it!</i> and then drove him and yourself back to the old basement. You were much more interested in finding out what Caleb had found, but Keith got in first with his and your news.<br/>
<br/>
As for Caleb's news:<br/>
<br/>
"Lookit this," he says, pointing to the open book. It's the spell but the page has been damaged. Or altered. Anyway, there's an oval stain on it. Caleb didn't put it there, he says, and when you round on Keith he insists he didn't touch your "freaky-deaky magic book" either. But Caleb is unperturbed. "I think it's the book that did it. Some sort of 'spooky action at a distance', when Tilley here got hold of that mask and did something with it. Look." He sets the mask onto the oval, and you are startled to see it is a perfect fit. "Like the key in a lock," Caleb says. "At least, that's what I told myself after I tried it out. And look what happened next." He picks up the mask, and turns the page underneath.<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a moment to realize what he did, and what it means. That page had been stuck to the rest of the book, like all the other pages. But now it turns. Easily and freely. You touch the reverse side, and the page behind, and find no stickiness and no residue. Just clean parchment.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh," Caleb says when you look up at him. "The page was still glued down, or whatever, when I was looking it over after you went. But after I laid the mask down on it, this is what happened." He flips the page back and forth. "Didn't you say that this page"—he indicates the previous one—"didn't come unglued until you stuck your bloody thumbprint on the thingie?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bloody thumbprint?" Keith exclaims in disgust as you nod your head. You also add, "And the first page didn't come unstuck until after I bought the book."<br/>
<br/>
"You have to perform some action connected to the last open page," Caleb declares, "in order to get it to turn. The completion of a spell, or something like that. And you have to—" He hesitates. "Show it, to the book, that you did it." His manner, so confident up to now, falters a little.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's it say over here?" you ask. You point to the reverse side of the spell that made the mask. It's covered in Latin writing, and you fumble for your phone. Keith, despite looking very whey in the face, crowds close.<br/>
<br/>
"I was in the middle of checking on that when you guys got back. So far it's said something about 'absorbing the form' of people when you put the mask on them. Which we knew, and which we now know how to do." He gives Keith a look. "And it also says that you can keep 'absorbing forms' until you seal the mask."<br/>
<br/>
"And what does that mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's where I was when <i>you</i> guys got back."<br/>
<br/>
So the three of you crowd close around the book, each one entering the sentences into a translation app on your phones and arguing over the translated sentences. Eventually you converge on a common interpretation:<br/>
<br/>
A mask will copy and hold the form and image of someone when you lay it on their face. Then, if you seal it, anyone who puts the mask on will transform into the image of the copied person. But before you seal the mask, you can lay it onto other people. Each time you do this, the images inside the mask merge into new images, into the faces and bodies and forms of people who combine and synthesize and average out those faces and bodies.<br/>
<br/>
"So it appears that this dumbass," Caleb says, glaring over at Keith with twitching eyebrows, "managed to put his form and Stephanie's form into the mask, and now they're all gooped up with each other." Keith grins nervously.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, and I think I see them," you announce. "Look!"<br/>
<br/>
You had reached the same conclusion as Caleb, and got out the mask to examine it. It glows and shines with highlights, which run and pool over its shimmering surface as you turn it this way and that. But some of the highlights don't shift, and as you stared at them you realized they made a pattern, and then a form. They come together, under the surface, as a ghostly face.<br/>
<br/>
It's hard to read the face, except to see that it has the usual features: eyes, nose, mouth, brow, chin, cheeks, and hair. It's got more character than the generic features of the mask itself, but it doesn't look like anyone, though if you sort of squint, it does sort of look like Keith. Everyone is very quiet as you pass the mask back and forth to each other.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we do now?" you finally ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Seal it up?" Caleb suggests.<br/>
<br/>
"How do we do that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Look at the next spell," he replies, and turns to the book. The newly exposed page looks much like the previous one, with a list of ingredients and instructions at the top and an intricate sigil dominating the bottom half.<br/>
<br/>
A quick translation tells you nothing about what the spell is supposed to do, but you have all the necessary ingredients on hand, and quickly complete it. The result is a bowlful of a runny sort of paste. When you lift the bowl off the sigil, the page beneath flutters, and you turn it. The reverse confirms what you suspected and hoped: You now have a sealant that, if brushed onto the inner surface of a mask, will seal it and allow it to be worn.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," Caleb says, speaking for you all. "One of us should go home and get a brush. And then, well—" He takes a deep breath. "Do we try it out?"<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111
author_id: seuzz
id: ZHDZSFNS9
title: Your New Face
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"It's almost suppertime," Keith says, and checks his phone. "Shit, it's past suppertime at my place! I wonder if my dad's been ..." He starts swiping and tapping at his phone. Caleb also takes out and looks at his.<br/>
<br/>
This would be the perfect reason to shut things down for the evening, but you're not ready to give up.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't need to go home," you tell the others. "I told my mom I'd get something to eat with you guys. But I can run back to my place and get a paint brush, and be right back."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods. "You do that. But if we're not here when you get back, don't try anything."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not <i>that</i> stupid," you retort, and cast a meaningful glance at Keith. But he's absorbed in his phone and doesn't notice.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It only takes you fifteen minutes or so to get home, find a paintbrush in the garage, and get back to the school, where you find Keith and Caleb both waiting: they had talked to their dad and mom, respectively, and made arrangements to stay out. You're all very quiet as you huddle in the darkening basement and, by the pooled lights from your cell phones, apply the sealant to the inside of the mask.<br/>
<br/>
It goes on smoothly and dries quickly, and though the paste is an off-white inside the bowl it  goes on transparently, so that the mask is just as blue as it was before you started. There's a nervous moment afterward, as you all look at each other. Keith hollowly suggests putting the mask away and not doing anything with it, because it's too "dangerous"; Caleb brushes him off by saying that the book hasn't fucked you over yet, but does suggest drawing straws. Then you brush <i>him</i> off, by saying that you'll volunteer. You hesitate and almost change your mind, though, when Caleb asks if you're going to take your clothes off first. "Might want to," he dryly observes.<br/>
<br/>
Well, it's not like you haven't been naked in front of guys in P. E., so you pull your shorts and shoes and t-shirt off and lay yourself out on the dusty conference table where you've been doing your work. "Hang on," you say, stopping Caleb who is advancing on you with the mask. "If this thing does change me— Well, how do we change me back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Book has instructions," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," you say with a quaver in your voice, "soon as we get it on me, let's try to get it off. Okay?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods. "Want me to put it on you? Or you do it yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
"You put it on me," you decide. You're starting to shake, and your palms feel slick with sweat. "Hang on." You take a deep breath, then close your eyes. "Okay," you murmur, and steel yourself against what might be a dreadful thing.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment you feel nothing but a faint swish of air against your cold, bare skin. Then you feel a light pressure on your face: the mask settling into place. For a fraction of a second it sits there. Then it grows very heavy. And heavier still.<br/>
<br/>
And heavier still.<br/>
<br/>
At the same time a paralyzing warmth spreads through your limbs. It's quite pleasant, actually, as though you have been lowered into a vat of warm honey. A deep drowsiness steals over you, and you just have time realize you are falling asleep when you are overwhelmed by darkness.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are woken by a gentle shaking of the shoulders, and by a voice calling your name. You come out of sleep with a start, and are sitting up on your elbows almost before you are conscious of yourself.<br/>
<br/>
It is very dim and you are chilled all over. The faces of Caleb and Keith float in the darkness, lit by the gem-like lights from their phones. You blink stupidly at them, and try to raise up. You fall back but catch yourself, then push yourself up again. By the time you are sitting, though, you feel almost fully awake again. "Jesus," you mutter as you rub an eye. "Was I asleep?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Caleb says. "How do you feel?"<br/>
<br/>
"A little groggy, but— Oh my God!" The afternoon and evening's events come crowding back. "The thing! On my face! What did—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Calm down, it's okay," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"What did it do? Did you get it off me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we got it off. But come look at yourself."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart almost explodes out of your chest. "What happened?" you gasp. "What did it do to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're fine, Will! I just mean, we got it off you, then we put it back on. So we know we can get it off. But— You gotta see this."<br/>
<br/>
A hard shiver of fear runs through you; despite Caleb's soothing manner, you are terrified of what you might find. He says you are now wearing that mask—your hands instinctively go to your face, but they touch nothing but flesh—and you have no idea what it has done to you.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb helps you up while Keith hangs back, and when you are sitting upright Caleb hands you your phone. The camera is on, and a dimly lit face fills the screen.<br/>
<br/>
Your first thought is that the lens is turned toward Keith, because the face on the screen looks vaguely like his. But then you realize it's not pointed at him, nor is the face there mimicking his movements. It's not until you stick your tongue out to nervously lick your lips, and the face in the screen does the same, that you realize who it is. You freeze.<br/>
<br/>
It looks like Keith, but at the same time not quite. The face isn't as narrow, the eyes not quite so dull and droopy, the lips not quite so thick. And there are two distinct eyebrows instead of Tilley's quasi-monobrow. The hair is also a little longer, a little thicker.<br/>
<br/>
But one thing you can say for sure: You don't look anything like yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"How does it feel?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... okay, I guess." You actually feel a little disassociated from yourself, a little light-headed.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you feel like you're wearing a rubber mask? Like your skin is fake?"<br/>
<br/>
You touch then scratch your cheek experimentally. "I don't think so." You close your eyes, to get the picture of a "fake face" out of your head, and touch and tickle your face some more. "No, it feels like ... real skin."<br/>
<br/>
"Your voice is different," Keith pipes up. "Dude, is that what I sound like?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," Caleb answers. "You don't sound like yourself either," he tells you, then cocks his head. "Well, sort of. Maybe."<br/>
<br/>
"What about the rest of me?" You look down at yourself, but can't make out much. Tentatively you drop your hand to your crotch and explore the patch of wiry hair. You flinch, but it's a relief when you feel something fleshy down inside it.<br/>
<br/>
"I think we should take it out and get a good look at it," Caleb says. "It's too dark in here."<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to take the mask off?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean we should go out someplace. With you like this. We still need to eat," he adds, as though that's the important thing.<br/>
<br/>
"I can't go out like this!" you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because ... People will see me!"<br/>
<br/>
"So? What'll they see? Just a guy."<br/>
<br/>
You see his point, but it still frightens you a little. <i>People will see me ... but they won't know it's me!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Will, get dressed. I'm starving."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wind up taking Caleb's car, with him driving and Tilley in the front while you hunch in the back. Your clothes fit you fine even though Caleb noted that you have lost at least an inch or two in height. You can't help touching yourself a little on the drive, to get a feel for the rest of your body. You've got less hair on your body now: you're smooth-chested for a start, and your forearms and calves are downed with light, thin hair. Your arms and your legs feel better toned and shaped, too. That must be an influence of Stephanie's body, for she's a strong-limbed athlete whereas you and Keith are both on the scrawny side. At least you don't have boobs (though your chest seems to have some definition). You can't shake the feeling that there's something really squicky going on, but it's also exciting. You squirm in place and have a hard time sitting still on the drive out.<br/>
<br/>
You wind up at the McDonald's on Orlando Road, not far from your house. While Caleb and Keith order, you duck into the restroom to get a better look at yourself under some bright lights.<br/>
<br/>
The face that looks back from the mirror now looks a lot less like Tilley's. It's fuller and—not to put too fine a point on it—more handsome than Keith's, though it's enough like his that you know you won't get flirted with unless the girl is very drunk. The greatest resemblance is in the eyes, which like Keith's are heavy-lidded and slightly frog-like. But even there there's a subtle difference which comes out when you relax. Keith just looks dopey and a little stoned when he's chilling, but there's a cooler confidence in this face's eyes: a hint of a <i>Don't fuck me with me 'cos I ain't impressed</i> attitude—something else that probably came from Stephanie's influence on the mask.<br/>
<br/>
The guys are at a table when you come back out, and you drop into the booth opposite them. Keith winces at the sight of you while Caleb thoughtfully munches a fry and studies you narrowly. You feel like a walking science project.<br/>
<br/>
After sucking down a mouthful of hamburger, Caleb points at you and says, "We need a name to go with that face."<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"To introduce it if we crash any parties."<br/>
<br/>
"What parties?" Keith asks. "This is Monday."<br/>
<br/>
"This weekend," Caleb says, as you ask, "Why are gonna crash any parties?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you wanna go out and have fun?" Caleb says. "You can't have fun with it at school. But we could get in trouble at parties, you know, without any blowback, if we weren't looking like us."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, dude!" Keith exclaims in an awestruck tone.<br/>
<br/>
"We've only got one mask," you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"And two more back at the school, that just need polishing," Caleb says.<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111
author_id: seuzz
id: EP9RBY938
title: Faces All Around
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>No one you know comes into the restaurant, so the meal is actually pretty boring. Afterward, you all return to the school so you can take off the mask. Caleb shows you how: it involves grasping your own forehead with your forefingers at one temple and your thumb on the other, and pulling while chanting some weird phrase three times. The first few times you try, your hand slips. But eventually you succeed. The act of taking the mask off knocks you out, but you emerge restored and apparently no worse for wear. <br/>
<br/>
Keith is hot to take the mask home so he can try it out, but you and Caleb refuse to let him, telling him it's too risky, and he sulks when you press the newest mask onto him with orders to start polishing it up: <i>The sooner you get it polished,</i> Caleb tells him, <i>the sooner you can start having fun with us.</i> Caleb takes his own nearly completed mask home also. The false face that Keith made you leave in the basement, hidden inside a desk drawer along with all your supplies. You then break for the night.<br/>
<br/>
You yourself take the book home with you, but you don't get much time with it, because your dad is instantly on your ass about your homework. You make a half-assed job of it, because you don't have much time before bed and you want to at least glance at the next spell. It's a disappointment when you do, for a quick study of the ingredients shows that it calls for a completely new batch of materials, which you don't have the money for. Caleb probably doesn't have the money for it either, which would leave you at Keith's mercy. But you suppose that something will turn up, maybe after you've finished those other masks.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith is kind of a dick at school the next day, peevishly asking you in second period if you and Caleb are gonna take the "thing" out and have fun with it after school while leaving him with "scut work." You'd like to tell him to suck it up, but content yourself with telling him that the sooner he gets done working on his "thing" the sooner you all can go out and have "fun" together.<br/>
<br/>
Still, he's got the sulks at lunch, which may be in part because you warned Caleb that he was in a mood, and so instead of going off to eat with just the three of you (as you commonly do), you and he decided that you'd all be joining Carson Ioeger and his friends out on the quad in front of school.<br/>
<br/>
Carson and James Lamont are a couple of math-science whizzes, but they are more than that. They're troublemakers, the kind of guys who use their smarts for pranks at the expense of the jocks and bullies of the school. (They once somehow managed to glue Seth Javits's shoes to the floor of the school library while he was still in them.) They are tall and lanky, like you and your friends, but also sharper and more insolent. They don't scare you with their brains and their arrogance, but you are always aware, when you're around them, that they are smarter and more confident than you are, and that they know it.<br/>
<br/>
It's never just them out front at lunch, though. Almost always they are joined by Paul Davis, a quiet, dark-haired kid who's like their pet, and Jenny Ashton, a loud-mouthed tomboy who James openly has a crush on but who studiously ignores him.<br/>
<br/>
Today—Tuesday—they are lounging on the grass with sandwiches, chips, and apples, and are waspishly gossiping about a celebrity visit. "You'd think it was Tom Cruise or RDJ who stopped by," Jenny is saying. She's hunched cross-legged over her cell phone with her long brunette hair hanging almost over her face. (The red ball cap she usually sports is lying on the grass by her knee.)<br/>
<br/>
Carson is leaning on his elbow, long legs stretched out, jawing on a sandwich. "Maybe it <i>was</i> one of them," he muses. "Has anybody ever seen them and this other guy in the same place at the same time?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nobody knows who he is," Jenny retorts. "Except the drama club. They're the only fans he's got, probably," she snorts.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, as he plops down, asks what they're talking about.<br/>
<br/>
But they ignore him. "How come Tilley's always getting credit for our shit?" Carson asks him. "Nice to see Seth let you come down off the gym roof," he snorts at Keith.<br/>
<br/>
Keith glares. "Fuck you, man," he says. "I almost broke my neck getting down."<br/>
<br/>
"Serves you fucking right for glory jumping."<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>told</i> Javits it wasn't me that glued his books together, but he didn't believe me!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, he's a dumbass," James says. Like Jenny, he is hunched over his phone. "We even made a point of doing another glue prank so he'd know it was us again."<br/>
<br/>
"He's got it in for me, is all," Keith mutters darkly. It does seem like there's hardly a week goes by that Seth Javits, a rangy basketball player with a nasty streak, isn't hassling Keith. "He told me the next time he sees me he's gonna use my face for a backboard."<br/>
<br/>
"Looks to me like he already did," Carson drawls. Keith flips him off.<br/>
<br/>
"But who were you talking about a minute ago?" you ask Jenny. It makes you tired to hear Keith complain.<br/>
<br/>
"Paul Griffin."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly," she says as Carson laughs asthmatically. "He was on a TV show. <i>Enchanted U.</i>" You shrug at the name. "Anyway, he went to school here way back when, and he's back in town visiting family or something, so he stopped by to say hi, and the <i>whole freaking drama department</i> is peeing themselves over it." She squints at you. "You still hang out with Laura MacGregor?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink at a name you haven't really thought of in a year or more. Laura used to hang out with you and Caleb and some other people, but you wound up taking totally different classes and sort of drifted apart without noticing, you now realize. When you shake your head, Jenny says, "Huh. I thought you guys were going out for awhile."<br/>
<br/>
"No," James jumps in, "that was Lisa Yarborough." He's still hunched over his phone, so he doesn't see you flip him off.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway, Laura's one of the ones making an O-face every time his name gets mentioned," Jenny says. "It sets my teeth on edge."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know why you're paying attention," Carson says.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos they're all over my feed," Jenny grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"What's this guy's name again?" Caleb asks. He's taken his own phone out, and taps at it when she repeats the name. "Is he still in town?"<br/>
<br/>
"Beats the fuck outta me. Why do you wanna know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because he's a celebrity. Even a minor celebrity, you know—"<br/>
<br/>
"If you ever caught me," Carson loudly announces, "creaming myself over a 'minor celebrity,' I'd kill myself from the shame of it."<br/>
<br/>
After lunch, as you're heading back into the school, you ask Caleb why he's so interested in this Paul Griffin character. In answer, he takes out his phone and shows you a picture. It's of a raven-haired guy with a piercing gaze: handsome enough, you suppose, in a TV actor kind of way. "So?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"Just thinking it'd be an interesting kind of face to have in a mask," he muses. "I'm gonna have mine done in a day or two." He glances around, and that's when you notice that Keith has drifted off. "We'll be lucky if Tilley's got his done by the end of the year," he snorts.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You and your friends had talked about meeting at the old school after classes, but Keith has made himself scarce. So it's just you and Caleb out there for the first half hour or so, with Caleb tugging his lip as he studies the next spell, when you hear a crunch of tires outside. A moment later the basement door bursts open and Keith comes clattering down the stairs. "Guys!" he gasps with a grin. "I did it again! 'Cept this time I knew what I was doing!"<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb stare at him dumbfounded, and even after he's held up the mask you have to ask him what he's babbling about.<br/>
<br/>
"This thing!" he enthuses. "I finished it last night and brought it to school today just in case, and I had a chance after school, so I grabbed it!"<br/>
<br/>
This still doesn't make any sense, and it somehow makes even less sense after Caleb has wheeled, shoved his way through a lot of desk drawers, and pulled out the mask you were wearing last night. You do a double-take between it and the mask in Keith's hand. Like the one you made, it is a deep, glowing blue.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up," Caleb tells Keith as the latter starts babbling again. "Is that—? Is that the mask you were supposed to polish? How'd you get it done so quick?"<br/>
<br/>
"With a car buffer," Keith says. "You know, one of those things you use on a car, buffs it all up after you wax it?"<br/>
<br/>
"You used a—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that what you guys did?" He snorts when you and Caleb exchange a glance. "Yeah, you guys were all, like, it'll take you a week to finish, and I knew you were full of shit 'cos it only took <i>me</i> an hour—"<br/>
<br/>
"So why were you bitching this morning about being stuck with 'scut work'?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I knew you and Caleb were just giving me shit to do so you two could ditch me or something," Keith retorts. "So I went out and made my own fun. I tracked down Jenny after school, like I did with Stephanie, and look!" He points at the mask.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb glance at each other, then scramble over to grab the mask from him.<br/>
<br/>
"So," Keith asks smugly, "which one of you assholes wants to put your face in it with hers?"<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113
author_id: seuzz
id: VJ9K52DGZ
title: Keith Does It Again
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Fuck me!" Caleb exclaims. "You got— You got <i>Jenny's</i> face in here? Jenny Ashton?"<br/>
<br/>
Keith answers by grinning like a dope. You ask, "How'd you fucking manage that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I talked her into it," Keith smugly answers. "I ran into her out in the parking lot after school, followed her over to her car, told her I had a thing I found online—"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
His story draws barks of surprise and horror from you and Caleb, but it seems like it all worked out. Keith showed her mask, somehow tricked her into putting it on, and then skedaddled with it. He gets more and more smug as he relates the tale.<br/>
<br/>
"So," he concludes. "What you guys wanna do wi'tchit? Or maybe, 'cos I'm the one made it, I should decide." <br/>
<br/>
And when neither of you answer, he pulls the mask from Caleb's resisting fingers. "Y'know," he says as he examines it, "seems to me we'd <i>ruin</i> it if we mixed either of you fuckers' faces in it—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God," you moan. He glares at you.<br/>
<br/>
Then with a sneer he hops his butt onto a table, pushes the mask to his own face, and topples backward. Caleb leaps forward to catch him before he can bang his head, and lowers him gently onto the table top.<br/>
<br/>
"Nice going, Will," he snorts at you.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Now we're gonna have <i>two</i> masks fucked up with his face."<br/>
<br/>
"How is that my fault?" He just gives you a look. "Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, alright,"  he grumbles, "he was prob'ly going to do it anyway. Fuck." He glares down at Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's gonna have Jenny's face in it too," you say. "It won't be all bad."<br/>
<br/>
"No, but it's gonna look enough like him that it's gonna be useless. They're all gonna look like him." He picks up the mask he hasn't quite finished polishing yet. "A car buffer,  huh," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"We could make some more masks," you say. "If it doesn't take any more time than Keith said—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't believe him," Caleb snorts. "But it's worth a shot."<br/>
<br/>
So while Keith lays unconscious on the big table, you and Caleb move to a smaller table under the windows, and use up the last of the materials to make three more masks. Keith is still asleep, his face hidden by the reemergent mask, when you and Caleb finish the basic casting. "You have a car buffer at your place?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I'm pretty sure I don't." Caleb squints over at Keith. "Fuck," he mutters. "If I ask him to polish up one of these, he'll just want it for himself."<br/>
<br/>
"So how do we split the work up?" you ask, and pale when Caleb gives you a meaningful look. "No fucking way, man," you protest. "If I have to do all three of these—"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll give him one," Caleb says. "You do one, and when you're done you can loan the buffer to me. That way we each get one, at least."<br/>
<br/>
Then with that settled, you go over to wake Keith up.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
 "Oh my God," Keith gurgles as he studies himself. "I got boobs!"<br/>
<br/>
"I wouldn't be too proud of them," Caleb snaps. "Any guy who'd wanna fondle <i>those'd</i> have to be desperate." He glances at you as though to say, <i>Am I right or am I right?</i><br/>
<br/>
He's mostly right, but no so right that you don't get a hot and confused feeling as you look at Keith. The sight of any girl, no matter how flat and skinny, is arousing when she's naked.<br/>
<br/>
After waking Keith, you all had crowded around to watch as Caleb sealed the mask up. Keith wanted to disrobe before putting on the mask, but Caleb forced it on him while still clothed—<i>No one wants to see your snake,</i> he honked—and you and Caleb had a good few minutes to critically study the face that replaced Keith's.<br/>
<br/>
It was not a pretty face and it was not a handsome face. It was like the face of transexual, and it was hard to tell which way the transition had been made. The shape was vaguely feminine—the bones were smaller and less pronounced, and a little rounder—but Keith's own features bulged through: slightly frog-like eyes under heavy eyebrows; a flat honker; and a large mouth. The hair was a dark brown—darker then Jenny's, lighter than Keith's—and only long enough to cover the ears and the back of the neck: again, the mask's seeming compromise between Keith's closely shorn buzz cut and Jenny's thick, shoulder-length mane. You and Caleb exchanged worried, skeptical glances over Keith's prone body.<br/>
<br/>
He looked better when he—or she; a quick pat down confirmed that he had female sex organs now—woke up, but only just. When animated, Keith's new face didn't look quite so dull and dead. On the other hand, the feminized Keith looked almost as dopey as the old one.<br/>
<br/>
<i>The feminized Keith.</i> You wince inwardly to reflect that that's what he looks like: As though he were unchanged, but had only let his hair grow out while taking a regimen of feminine hormones.<br/>
<br/>
But Keith acted delighted, especially after wriggling out of his shirt to expose his breasts—tiny things that dangled and pointed like baby bananas—and bush. He had hardly any meat on him, or curves.<br/>
<br/>
"That's prob'ly just because we copied Jenny," Keith says now, even as he hefts and fingers his breasts. "You know, she's flat as a board—"<br/>
<br/>
"She is not," you gallantly interrupt.<br/>
<br/>
"And what's this 'we' business?" Caleb demands. "You were the one that copied her."<br/>
<br/>
Keith only shrugs. "You're just jealous," he says, "'cos I'm the one wearing it."<br/>
<br/>
"You won't catch me putting it on," Caleb retorts. Then: "Stop that!" as Keith, his eyes rolled up quizzically, puts a hand to his bush and pushes an exploratory finger around inside it.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you," Keith says. His expression continues puzzled even as he worries more quickly at the spot between his legs. "You don't like watching, take it outside."<br/>
<br/>
"You can do that later!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, when?" Keith clamps his tongue between his lips, and his brow furrows, as though he's trying to work out a complicated math problem in his head. "I can't do this at home."<br/>
<br/>
"You do that every night!"<br/>
<br/>
"Only in my imagination," Keith mutters. "And not to myself, to another girl."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, come on, Will." Caleb grabs at you. "Unless you wanna stay and watch."<br/>
<br/>
"Cost ya five bucks if you do," Keith says. He's closed his eyes, and his hand is working with greater and greater force.<br/>
<br/>
So you flee the basement with Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You expect him to bitch some more about Keith, but he turns very businesslike instead.<br/>
<br/>
"Interesting," he says. "Did you notice the difference between the first mask we made and the second?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're both ugly like Keith," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Not that. First one was Keith and Stephanie. Second was Keith and Jenny. But the first one had a dick, and the second one ... didn't." He looks at you. "One was male and the other female."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Yeah, so?"<br/>
<br/>
He looks disgusted.<br/>
<br/>
"So why was that?" he says. "They both used Keith, and both them used a girl. Why wasn't the sex the same?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ar-En-Gee?" you suggest after a moment's thought.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," he grunts. "But it's worth investigating."<br/>
<br/>
"Investigating?" you echo. "How?"<br/>
<br/>
"We've got some more masks in there," he says. "We try them out on more people."<br/>
<br/>
You feel your eyes nearly pop from your head. "Are you crazy?" you exclaim. "It was only by accident—because Keith was a dumbass—that we got away with—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then I'll do it," he says. "And I bet Keith'll help me."<br/>
<br/>
So you give in with a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb's plan is simple, though it fills you with dread. You and he and Keith will each take a mask up to the school, and just as Keith got Stephanie and Jenny alone, the three of you will each try to get someone else alone and get a mask onto them.<br/>
<br/>
"We're going to try to do this logically," Caleb tells you, in his most professorial manner. "Try to get a girl. After that, we'll put our own faces in, and see of all three of them turn out female. If you do get a guy, well—" He winces slightly. "Then you'll have to try to also get a girl, so we can see if it turns out to be a guy."<br/>
<br/>
You part for the evening a few hours later, with you and Keith taking masks (him one, you two) to polish up with a buffer.<br/>
<br/>
You are anxious and sweaty the whole next day, and you can tell that Caleb is too, though he tries to hide it. Only Keith seems confident, probably because he's done this twice before and gotten away with it. "Don't be such a bundle of nerves, dude, I can help you out if you want," he assures you. <i>Don't you be so fucking cocky,</i> you want to retort.<br/>
<br/>
By the time the final bell rings, you've got the shakes, much to Caleb's disgust.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not gonna be worth anything," he says, "if you go to pieces."<br/>
<br/>
"I can do it."<br/>
<br/>
"Go slap some cold water on your face."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you. You know it's only gonna take one of us to fuck things up," you add in an undertone.<br/>
<br/>
"And it's gonna be you if you don't— Fine, you can come with me. We'll help each other out." He turns away with a snort.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fucker,</i> you think. <i>I can do it myself.</i><br/>
<br/>
But can you? Maybe you should go work with Keith. Or go looking for Jenny. You're sure you can get Jenny alone.<br/>
<br/>
Then you spot Stephanie, pushing her way through the crowd, and it occurs to you: Wouldn't it be a kick if I got a copy of Stephanie too, the way Keith did?<span class="meklfklmf259"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131
author_id: seuzz
id: PDWZ3L3YF
title: Three Perfect Scores
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Going off by yourself is dangerous and dumb, you decide. <i>We should work in pairs,</i> you tell yourself. <i>It'll be safer that way.</i><br/>
<br/>
You try your best to ignore the sharp, sneering little voice in the back of your head that tells you you're being a chickenshit, and run after Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, let's go  together," you tell him. "One of us can be a lookout." He casts you a look of thinly veiled disgust, but says nothing.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are we going?" you ask after passing the cafeteria, for Caleb is walking with a very determined stride. "The parking lot? Athletic fields?" That's where Keith caught Stephanie and Jenny.<br/>
<br/>
"Theater wing."<br/>
<br/>
"Theater wing?" you echo.<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I said." When you don't query further, he adds, "We might be able to catch someone backstage."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Makes as much sense as anything else,</i> you reason.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The theater wing is right next to the gym, where asshole basketball players and others will be gathering for post-class practice, but Caleb confidently crosses the quad with you trotting alongside. Directly inside is a long but shallow lobby, and another set of double doors. Caleb pulls these open as well, and leads you in.<br/>
<br/>
They open onto the back of an auditorium that slopes gently down to a stage. The lights are up but dim, so you have no trouble making things out. There's some business going on onstage—lots of students milling about and talking. A few them you recognize, vaguely, but Charles Hartlein—a snide and very out-of-the-closet senior whom you quietly detest—is the only one you can put a name to.<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm, doesn't look like he's here," Caleb mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"Who's not here?" you ask. Caleb doesn't answer, but nudges you and points.<br/>
<br/>
At the back of the auditorium, sitting and facing the stage so that her profile is toward you, is a girl. She's a very beautiful girl, with a mane of long, thick, soft black hair draping her head and shoulders. She has a pert nose and large, dark eyes. Her expression is both intent and strangely empty.<br/>
<br/>
You recognize her instantly, of course. She's Maria Vasquez, and she's a cheerleader.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb slips into the very back row of the auditorium and starts walking toward her, but she doesn't react. It takes you a moment to realize what he's up to, and by that time he is dropping his pack into a seat almost directly behind Maria. Still she doesn't react, even when he starts unzipping the bag, being utterly absorbed in something down on stage. You glance over to see what she is looking at—<br/>
<br/>
And when you look back she has fallen to one side with her head hanging at a weird and uncomfortable angle. Caleb is straightening up behind her.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God,</i> you mutter to yourself, and hurry forward. But Caleb stops you with a warning glare.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh Jesus, oh fuck, oh shit,</i> you frantically mutter under your breath. You can't help glancing between Caleb and Maria on the one hand, and the stage down below, whipping your head back and forth. Will someone down there look up and notice something? Will they come up to investigate? Will they find Maria unconscious, and try to revive her, or call the paramedics? There are so many ways this could go wrong!<br/>
<br/>
But when it does go wrong, it goes wrong in a totally unexpected way.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It doesn't take long for Caleb to get totally exasperated with you, and start signaling that you should go looking for someone backstage. You only grimace back, because it's one thing to pop a mask onto someone sitting all alone in the back of an auditorium, and another to try sneaking backstage when there's a dozen people on the brightly lit stage. But at last you give in, drop your bag into a seat, and take your own mask out.<br/>
<br/>
You are just girding yourself for the job ahead when the door behind you opens, and someone charges in.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart flips over in your chest when you see who it is.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea Cooper is the head cheerleader, and she is right out of a Hollywood teenage comedy's idea of what a cheerleader should be: Small but bosomy, with strong legs, wide hips, a tight tummy, and a great mane of blonde hair that tumbles about her shoulders in loose curls. She has a button nose, a soft mouth, and dreamy eyes that curl up adorably when she smiles. She knows how to work these assets, too, on a gym floor or in a classroom, and every step she takes has the tiniest extra bounce in it, like she is only one squeal of enthusiasm away from launching herself into a gymnastics routine, flipping feet over head and twirling her skirt up around her ears.<br/>
<br/>
She also has a reputation for being the meanest, cattiest, nastiest, and snottiest girl in school, and she's got a psychotic basketball player for a boyfriend. People who get crossways with her have a habit of transferring to other schools.<br/>
<br/>
So your eyes nearly pop with horror when she brushes past you, making straight for Maria.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb also does a double take at her, then looks over at you in horror. You can only think, <i>How fucking fast will Chelsea have us killed when she finds out what we did to her friend?</i><br/>
<br/>
You have no memory of making a plan, or even of having a thought. It's instinct, not cunning, that catches you up and hurries you forward in Chelsea's wake, the mask in your outstretched hand as you reach for her ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Dudes," Tilley says as he struts into the old school basement an hour later. "You are <i>soooo lucky</i> you texted me when you did!" He puts his fists over his head and does a little spin. "You won't be-fucking-lieve who I got on my way out of school!"<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb exchange mischievous glances. "Who?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, no one. Just Lin. Fucking. Pol."<br/>
<br/>
He raises a single finger tip to the ceiling and looks very smug.<br/>
<br/>
"So," he continues, after gloating silently for a moment or two, "after you two all get done drying your slobber off my knob, we can talk about—"<br/>
<br/>
"Maria Vasquez," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
The name catches Keith off guard. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Maria Vasquez," Caleb repeats. "I got Maria Vasquez."<br/>
<br/>
Keith's face falls. "No fucking way," he sputters. "You're shitting me!"<br/>
<br/>
"Nope, I got Maria. In the school theater. Where'd you get Lin?"<br/>
<br/>
"In the parking l— <i>No fucking way!</i>" Keith reddens. "You're full of shit!"<br/>
<br/>
"Keith," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>What?</i>" He briefly glares at you before going back to glowering at Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Chelsea Cooper."<br/>
<br/>
"What about—?" He does a double take at you, then flushes even more deeply. "What about Chelsea Cooper?" he growls.<br/>
<br/>
"I got Chelsea Cooper." You don't fight to keep the smug look off your own face.<br/>
<br/>
Keith now turns almost purple. He extends both middle fingers at you and Caleb, and shoves them into your faces. "No! Fucking! Way!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He might have  believed you if you and Caleb hadn't high-fived each other. After you did that, he was sure you were just lying. Not even when you show him your masks, and the distorted images contained within them, does he believe that they were Chelsea and Maria. "So how the fuck are we supposed to prove it?" Caleb finally demands in exasperation.<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno," Keith sullenly replies. "That's your problem."<br/>
<br/>
"The only way to prove it," Caleb barks, "is to seal them up like this and put them on."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Keith sneers. "Wouldn't that be a shame? Turnin' yourself into a copy of Maria and Chelsea." He snickers. "Which you can't do, onna'count of you didn't get no copies of Maria and Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb glowers.<br/>
<br/>
"He's got a point," you tell him. "And, um, why would we want to mess up what we've got? I mean." You've been holding the unsealed mask of Chelsea in your sweaty hands all this time. "I mean, what if it turns them into ... guys? I'd rather play with Chelsea's boobs!"<br/>
<br/>
"We're doing an experiment," Caleb says, though he doesn't sound quite so sure of himself anymore. "We were going to mix, um, our faces ... male faces ... into these to see if the resulting, um, forms were ... female or male."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you reply. "But lookit what we got." You look to Keith for support.<br/>
<br/>
His mask is resting on the table in front of him, and he taps it with forefinger.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' yeah," he says. "I ain't fucking this shit up. I want me some China girl fun bags t'play with!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
If only he hadn't said that. You are instantly revolted, and regret being on the same side of the question as him.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, you don't want to give up the chance of putting on a mask, looking in the mirror, and seeing a naked Chelsea Cooper grinning flirtatiously back at you.<br/>
<br/>
And yet and yet ... You don't much like the idea of Keith putting on a mask, and looking into the same mirror and smirking back at you with Lin's face. He's been so smug about getting copies of Stephanie and Jenny.  He'll be insufferable now, with an unaltered mask of Lin.<span class="fngigffkfmk3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311
author_id: seuzz
id: UKL8QD4N4
title: Guys Into Dolls
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Okay, you're right," you tell Caleb. "We're supposed to be doing this like a science experiment. So let's, you know—" <i>Get this over with before I change my mind.</i><br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks surprised. <br/>
<br/>
So does Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" he exclaims. "Why would you want to—? I'm not givin' up what I got here!" Again, he taps the mask, which is resting on the table top in front of him.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb snaps his fingers at Keith and holds out his hand. "Come on, give it over," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Keith," you say in a warning tone.<br/>
<br/>
"You gonna mess up that mask of Chelsea?" he exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
That was all the distraction Caleb needed. While Keith is staring, bug-eyed, at you, he snatches the mask up off the table. Too late Keith scrambles for it. "Give it back!" he yells.<br/>
<br/>
So Caleb does. By smooshing it into Keith's face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Motherfuckers," Keith snarls in an undertone for about the twentieth time since waking back up. Only quick thinking on your part saved him from cracking the back of his skull on the table when he passed out on his feet. You caught him in mid-air, and fell under him to the floor, banging your shoulders and hips up bad.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shut up," you mutter back at him. "It's for science." <br/>
<br/>
"Fuck science. I—"<br/>
<br/>
"If we give you another mask to play with," Caleb says, "will you shut the fuck up?" He is concentrating on sealing up the last of the three masks you have now finished adapting.<br/>
<br/>
"Play with it how?" Keith asks darkly.<br/>
<br/>
"However you want. Use it to get another copy of Lin. Or whoever."<br/>
<br/>
"Chelsea?" Keith asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Whoever," Caleb repeats.<br/>
<br/>
You look between them, your mouth hanging open. Could Caleb possibly be serious about giving Keith <i>another</i> mask to play with? You've only got one more!<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, here we are," Caleb says as he hands the mask to you. He looks around your group. "We gonna do this now?"<br/>
<br/>
You all exchange glances. The grumpiness has evaporated from Keith's face, and now he looks wary and a little nervous. Caleb is calm. As for you—<br/>
<br/>
The mask seems to burn in your hands, and you get a tingle up your arms to your elbows. Keith, when he woke, was hot with demands that <i>he</i> should get Chelsea's mask on account of the <i>fucking bullshit way</i> Caleb double-crossed him. <i>Fucking assault!</i> was what he called it. But Caleb (and you, of course), held firm that each of you should use the mask that you used up at school. And that means you are holding a mask that mixes your features with those of Chelsea Cooper.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I'm ready," Keith says. "Fuckin' waste that it is." Before you can react, he picks up the mask that is sitting on the table by his hip. He lifts it to his face and it vanishes there. Again, you and Caleb have to leap over and grab him before he can fall off the table and break his neck.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm gonna fucking kill him," you mutter as you lower him onto the table top. "Or next time, I'm just gonna let him—"<br/>
<br/>
Then the words die in your throat, and you have to swallow them, as you look down to see who it is you're holding.<br/>
<br/>
It's Lin.<br/>
<br/>
Well, not exactly Lin, but close. Her eyes are closed and her face is slack, but her features are feminine, and her dark hair is long and thick. Your gaze travels down the length of her body, and there's no missing the bulges under the plaid print shirt where her breasts would be. The rest of her is slim, but the overall shape is impossible to make out inside of Tilley's baggy jeans.<br/>
<br/>
The sound of Caleb's labored breathing pulls you back to the present. Like you, he is bent over the unconscious body, staring at it closely. "Well, what do you think?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
He starts. "Huh? Oh. Well, um—" He points to Keith. "Another case of, um, it making turning out to be a girl."<br/>
<br/>
"It looks a lot more like Lin than the other one looked like Jenny," you observe.<br/>
<br/>
"You think?" Caleb says. He hovers his palms over Keith's forehead and chin, making a frame around his face. "Still looks to me a lot like Keith."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe."<br/>
<br/>
"Best to wait for him to wake up."<br/>
<br/>
"Yechh. You remember what he got up to with Jenny's mask."<br/>
<br/>
"We'll hold him down if we have to." Caleb looks at you. "You ready to go?"<br/>
<br/>
You swallow. "Sure, I guess." You look around for your mask—which you flung aside when you went to catch Keith—but then Caleb says, "Maybe we should wait for Keith to wake up. Do it one at a time."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever, man." You scoop up the fallen mask from the floor, and slump into a chair. Caleb glances around before taking a seat of his own. After fidgeting for a bit, you each take out your phones.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>It's something about his eyes,</i> you find yourself thinking as you study Keith's reflection in the mirror. <i>And his nose. His mouth. Hell, it's just his whole face. It fucks up everything.</i><br/>
<br/>
The resemblance to Lin didn't entirely vanish when he woke up and got up, but the figure who is twisting and turning and admiring herself in the full-length mirror looks less like Lin than she did when she was passed out. Only the softer, smaller bone structure in the face, and the thick, tousled hair keep you from just seeing Tilley in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, there are more subtle variations. Take those eyes, for instance. Lin is Chinese-American, but Keith's froggy eyes have changed that. If you had to peg this girl's ethnicity, you'd say she looks more Hispanic than anything else. Her nose is fuller and flatter than Lin's, and her mouth bigger, with more pronounced teeth. In fact, her expression when she saw herself in the mirror—eyebrows shooting up, eyes bulging, mouth gaping—reminded you of a jackass caught in mid-bray. <i>Hee-haw, lookit me, I'ma gur-url!</i> it seemed to say.<br/>
<br/>
But her hair softens her features. Give her some makeup, stop her from grinning, and she might even be attractive. She certainly has bigger, sexier breasts than the Keith-Jenny mix did.<br/>
<br/>
And Keith is absurdly pleased with this look.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God," he moans in a throaty but feminine voice as he grips and fondles his exposed breasts. "I could snack on these all day!"<br/>
<br/>
"So you've said," you retort. "Just keep your hands out of your pants." And yet you can't resist sneaking a glance at his hips and his ass which, now that she has stripped down to boxers, reveal a very pleasing shape.<br/>
<br/>
"When Johansson wakes up," Keith says, "you should take off, let him me have a little special time wi'ch each other. You know?" he snickers.<br/>
<br/>
"Take that up with him." Yet you can't help wincing, for the fact is, the longer you look at this girl, the more stirred you feel. It leaves you jumpy, and you turn away to take another look at Caleb, who is still passed out on the old, banged-up conference table.<br/>
<br/>
He wound up going second, laying himself out more carefully after Keith woke up. You know better, now, than to make instant judgements about the changes. But you're pretty sure that Caleb's transformation will be more ... successful ... than Keith's. As with Keith, the mask has given him a feminine form. But if he doesn't look much like Maria, he looks a lot prettier than Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," Keith says, "what're we gonna do for clothes?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"For when we go out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go out?" you echo, and turn to look at him. "You mean in public?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure! This's fun. But I wanna, you know, go out and be seen!"<br/>
<br/>
You can't keep the smirk off your face. "Why, so some creep can hit on you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!" He looks offended, but then his expression turns thoughtful. "Although—"<br/>
<br/>
"Forget it." You turn back to Caleb, who is beginning to stir. "This is just for science."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You were right that Caleb would turn out prettier than Keith, but also right to (mostly) withhold judgement. The girl who rises off the table is very feminine, but her face is animated by Caleb's quick expressiveness, so that you could almost guess it was him anyway.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus," she says as she studies herself in the mirror. She pushes and squeezes at her cheeks and chin with the palms of her hands. "I wish I knew what kind of algorithm the masks use to come up with these things. I don't see anything in here that looks like Maria. Or like me."<br/>
<br/>
That is true: where Keith's mask blended his features with Lin's, Caleb's mask seems to have cancelled out their faces to come up with something new.<br/>
<br/>
For instance, he and Maria both have large, prominent eyes, but this girl's eyes are small and narrow, and when she relaxes she looks prim and amused. Her mouth is large but her lips are small, so that they almost disappear when she sets her jaw. Her nose is small—another difference from both Caleb and Maria. All that remains of your friend is a dancing intelligence in the dark eyes; Maria is more fully represented by the light brown complexion, and the long, thick brown hair that falls to the top of her shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
As for the rest of her: Well, again, it's odd. Both Caleb and Maria are relatively tall compared to their peers, but this girl is short. She seems to have retained all of Maria's other attributes, though: She's got big, fat breasts like artillery shells; her hips are wide; and her thighs and calves—which you get a good look at after Caleb has peeled himself down to his boxers—are very muscular. It's almost as if the mask retains all of Maria's attributes from the neck down, but has squashed and exaggerated them slightly. But, overall, there's no chance of her being confused with Maria if anyone sees her.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, dude," the girl who is Keith says, and you flinch when she touches your shoulder. "Your turn. Let's see how much you can fuck up Chelsea Cooper's face wi'ch yours!"<span class="meklfklmf259"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111
author_id: seuzz
id: B3XSKM3CM
title: Who Will? Chelsea Will!
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You are pleasantly drowsy when you wake, and you stretch your limbs and arch your back with a grunt and groan. It takes you a few seconds to place yourself, even though the smell of dust, cold metal, and grease instantly tells you that you are in the old school basement. But why you are there ...<br/>
<br/>
With a sharp gasp you remember, and a pang of dread and anticipation ripples through you. <i>Oh my God I put on that mask and I turned myself into—!</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, into what?<br/>
<br/>
Your noises have brought the other two over: the two girls who are Caleb Johansson and Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
Both of them look Hispanic, with light brown complexions and manes of soft, dark brown hair. But the resemblances end there. Caleb is shorter and her features smaller. There is a smug, watchful expression in her dark, narrow eyes, and her lips compress with amusement. Keith's features are bigger and coarser, especially about the eyes, which have a slight frogginess to them. Her mouth is wide with prominent lips. She too looks amused, but there is another look there as well—a kind of veiled sneer.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, come on, Will," Caleb says, and puts out a hand. "Come look at yourself."<br/>
<br/>
You nearly faint with excitement as you let her—yes, Caleb is most definitely a "her" at the moment—pull you up. You feel off balance, and it's a shock when you realize it is from the shifting weight of your chest. You glance down at your t-shirt, and jerk in shock. You've got boobs! Instinctively grab and steady them as they slide around.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Caleb drawls. "We're gonna have to get us a couple of tit-slings, if we're gonna dress up like this very often."<br/>
<br/>
Your shoes fall off as you swing your legs off the table, but your shorts cling to your hips, bunching up uncomfortably. With one arm tucked under your breasts to support them, you totter and reel your way over to the mirror where you've all been taking turns studying your transformed selves. You catch your reflection out of the corner of your eye as you approach, but only have an impression of blondness before you shut your eyes, for you want to get the full effect in one blow. You take half a dozen more small steps before you feel Caleb pull you to a stop.<br/>
<br/>
You suck in a deep breath, and open your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea Cooper looks back at you.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, it's not Chelsea Cooper exactly. In fact, the longer you look at your new face, the less of Chelsea you see and the more of yourself. But you can definitely tell who the girl was you merged your face with. She definitely improved your looks, and you also wouldn't say that you ruined hers.<br/>
<br/>
The biggest difference is in the hair. It is as blonde as Chelsea's—a bright, shimmering gold—but there seems to be less of it, and it is a lot shorter, being bobbed at the bottom of your neck. Otherwise: your face strongly resembles hers, but seems to be a little longer and a little narrower, with stronger bones. Your complexion is lightly splotched with soft freckles. There's a furtiveness about the eyes, even when you smile, and the smile seems a little toothier. All in all, it's a more mature face—the kind of face you could imagine Chelsea having when she reaches her mid-twenties.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb seems to have been thinking the same thing, for she says, "You look like her cousin. Or her older sister."<br/>
<br/>
"What about the rest'a ya?" Keith asks.<br/>
<br/>
She and Caleb weren't shy about stripping to their boxers, so you do too, peeling off and tossing away your t-shirt and squirming out of your cargo shorts. Your heart beats in your chest, with a mix of excitement and disappointment.<br/>
<br/>
Disappointment, you'd have to admit, because you haven't got the soft, sculpted, and perfectly squeezable body that you know (or imagine) Chelsea Cooper to have. You are taller and leaner. (If Caleb's mask squashed Maria's proportions, to make her more exaggeratedly female, this mask seems to have stretched Chelsea's, making you less feminine.) But at least you have large and well-shaped breasts, and your stomach curves inward to make a flat washboard through which it is easy to feel (though not see) the abs. Your hips are also narrower than Chelsea's. But your thighs and calves are strong though slim, and when you go up on your toes, to see the effect of high heels, you'd have to confess that not only are the legs your best feature, they are an awesome feature! You are going to have to wear short skirts and heels if you go out in public.<br/>
<br/>
"I miss the hair," you say as you pat and touch your 'do.<br/>
<br/>
"It keeps you from looking too much like Chelsea," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"And that's a good thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"If we go outside, it will be."<br/>
<br/>
"Are we going to do that?" You look between Caleb and Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Eventually," Caleb says with a shrug. "Don't you want to?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well ... sure, but— We'd need clothes, right? And makeup?"<br/>
<br/>
"We could do it without the makeup. As for the clothes, we can borrow some."<br/>
<br/>
"From who? None of us has a sister," you point out, "and I'm not putting on any of my mom's things!"<br/>
<br/>
"Would you put on some of my mom's clothes?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude! No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we're going to have to put on some girl's clothes."<br/>
<br/>
"We could buy some?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gives you a look. Even on this new face, it is a look you know well. "That'd be expensive," she says. "You have the money for it?"<br/>
<br/>
You grimace, then freeze when you catch the expression on your reflection in the mirror. It's ... adorable.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I don't want to put on any 'mom clothes'," you insist. "If we're going to do it, I say we do it right. Right, Keith?"<br/>
<br/>
"Gyuh?" She looks up with watering eyes from your breasts, which she has obviously been ogling.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we're going to have to set some priorities," Caleb says. "How much money have you got?"<br/>
<br/>
"Me? Twenty, or thereabouts," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Keith exclaims. "I can't believe you don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how much've <i>you</i> got, jerkwad?"<br/>
<br/>
"About a hundred," she boasts. "And I can get, like fifty more from my dad if—"<br/>
<br/>
"What about you?" you ask Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
She sighs and crosses over to sit on the conference table. She's still dressed only in boxers, so her breasts droop over her stomach as she slouches.<br/>
<br/>
"I got a hundred or so. I gotta use it for gas money, though. I mean, if I started taking the bus to school, or if one of you started giving me rides—"<br/>
<br/>
She breaks off and covers her breasts with her forearms. With a start, you realize you had been staring at them. It's chilly in the basement, and her nipples were hardening and rising.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, we could do that," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
"The point is," Caleb continues, "that's not a lot of money. And we got projects." She nods at the book, which is resting atop a nearby cabinet.<br/>
<br/>
"Such as?"<br/>
<br/>
"Such as, well—" She starts ticking off her fingers. "If we want a decent set of clothes to go with these, um, looks we made for ourselves, that's an expense. Also, if we want to make more masks. And there's the next spell in the book, it needs stuff we don't got and would have to buy."<br/>
<br/>
"What do we need more masks for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, dumb question," Keith sniggers. You shoot her a quick glare.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, one thing we could use masks for," Caleb says, "is getting some more faces. But this time we'd start with guy faces, then put girl faces in second. To see if— I mean, I think we've pretty much confirmed that, usually, when you start with a girl face, you get a girl mask. That's happened four out of four times now. But we should also test to see what happens when we start with guy faces."<br/>
<br/>
"We don't need to do anything like that," Keith sneers. "I mean, why would we?"<br/>
<br/>
"For science," you say as Caleb gives Keith a look, even though you don't feel any more enthusiastic than Keith sounds.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, so, we gotta prioritize," Caleb says. "What are we gonna do? Make masks, do the new spell, or buy clothes and accessories?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith is all for spending the money on clothes, but neither you nor Caleb wind up expressing a preference, though you suspect Caleb wants to go on to the next spell. You remove the masks and part for the evening without coming to any decisions.<br/>
<br/>
"I did come up with a wild idea while I was eating dinner," Caleb confesses to you afterward, when he calls you up while you're doing homework. By his tone you can tell that he thinks it's kind of a good idea, but wants to float it as a trial balloon before proposing it. "We show this stuff to some other people. Who've got money."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, no!" you exclaim. "I kinda regret telling Keith about this stuff! And it could get outta control real fast if we spread the word around too much."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, no one would say anything," Caleb says. "Especially who we show it to."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a very pregnant pause before he says, "Some adults."<br/>
<br/>
"What adults?" you ask as your stomach plunges. You get this sudden vision of showing this stuff to your mom and dad, and trying to explain it to them. You'd rather be arrested for drunk driving.<br/>
<br/>
Another pause. "I was thinking some of the teachers at school."<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Teachers?"</i> you exclaim. "Are you out of your freaking mind?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, probably." He sounds defensive. "But hear me out." He coughs.<br/>
<br/>
"I was thinking," he says when he resumes, "of some of the female teachers. The, uh, older ones. Don't you think they'd be interested in, um, renting or buying those masks we made? You know. For putting them on and going out and, um—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, <i>God!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," he sighs, "I can tell you're not impressed. Maybe it is stupid. Don't tell Keith I said anything about it."<br/>
<br/>
You promise you won't, and instead ask if he's had any ideas about what to make a "priority." It turns out you were right: His instinct is to move on to the next spell.<span class="fngigffkgfm3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111
author_id: seuzz
id: T8NWC4GZ6
title: Keith Finally Does It
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You don't want to get stuck in a three-cornered fight, and you also don't want to side with Keith against Caleb. So even though you'd kind of like to continue playing around with what you've got, you agree to Caleb's proposal.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to see if I can swing getting the stuff myself," he says after you tell him your decision. "I don't wanna have to ask Tilley for help. He's being grabby enough as it is. But I told you, this is, like, my gas money." You agree to give him a ride home from school tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith jerks his chin in greeting as you come into second period class the next morning. <br/>
<br/>
"So, I'm gonna go out and pick me up some new threads this af'ernoon," he drawls as you settle into the desk in front of him. "Wanna come with?"<br/>
<br/>
You give him a steady look. "New threads for who?"<br/>
<br/>
"For me," he replies, but rolls his tongue around puckishly in his cheek.<br/>
<br/>
"Me and Caleb decided we're going to do something else."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you and Johansson can do whatever you want. Me, I'm—"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought we were all in this together."<br/>
<br/>
He reddens.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you and Johansson can do whatever you want," he repeats. "And if you, uh, wanna share what you pick up, I'll share what I pick up." He tilts his chin.<br/>
<br/>
"Look," you say, "we can't just each go off and do our own thing—"<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you gonna buy enough 'threads' for all of us?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "We can share."<br/>
<br/>
"But what if we all want to go out together?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs again. "Well, then, I guess—"<br/>
<br/>
You catch Andy Tackett, in the next row, listening to you.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll talk about it later," you tell Keith, and turn around. "Caleb'll probably have something to say to you about it too."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, Johansson can—"<br/>
<br/>
But at that moment Mr. Hawks rises to begin class.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't say anything to Caleb when you see him in English, and nothing much gets said at lunch either, except that Caleb asks Keith if he wants to tag along with you and him when you go out to get the supplies for the "next spell." Keith only shrugs and says he's got "other plans" for after school. You bite your tongue.<br/>
<br/>
But as you're walking with Caleb out to your truck, you say, "Keith told me he's going shopping."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, for what, a new face?" There's the briefest hiccup between you, as though the world has stuttered a few frames. "I need to come up with a different set of insults," Caleb mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he is kind of shopping for a new face," you reply. "He's going for some 'new threads'. For the 'new face' he's got."<br/>
<br/>
You expect Caleb to blow up, but he doesn't say anything. His silence in fact is rather thoughtful, and when you start the truck he says, "Hang on."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just wait for Keith to come out."<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to help you kill him?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gives you a look, then climbs out of the truck.<br/>
<br/>
"No," he says you and he thread your way through the traffic that is grumbling through the lot. "Fact is, I was thinking about using some of my money to pick up a few, uh 'threads' too." He looks at you sidelong. "Cheap t-shirts and workout shorts, stuff like that. If we have enough money left over," he adds.<br/>
<br/>
"Really?" He has shocked you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. I mean, I did a little online looking last night, to see what it would cost to get what we need, and I don't think it'll take all the money I've got. If we have enough left over, we could pick up some really cheap things at a second-hand store, or at Good Will."<br/>
<br/>
He pulls to a stop between two cars, and hefts his bag into his arms. He unzips it, and pulls a mask halfway out to show you. "I even brought this along," he says. "One of us can put it on in a changing room, and the others can bring him things to try on. Even if we don't wind up getting anything, we can at least get some ideas. And it'll be fun," he adds with a slightly embarrassed smirk.<br/>
<br/>
"So you want to get Keith, take him with us?"<br/>
<br/>
"I figure we should." He squints and looks around the lot. "So where the fuck did he park?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You find Keith's car and text him to come meet you, but he replies that he's going to be "busy" up at school for a little while. After talking it over, you and Caleb decide to kill a little time by making a run back to the old basement to fetch the other two masks you made: that way you and Keith can also test out your masks in a changing room. You collect the masks, but something seems "off" as you search for them, though it's not until you're back in your truck that you realize what it is. "What's wrong?" Caleb calls as you leap from the cab and race back to the basement. He follows, asking what you're doing, but not until you've gone through every obvious hiding place in the basement do you look up and answer him.<br/>
<br/>
"That last blank mask," you tell Caleb. "It's not here."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb glances around, looking puzzled. "It's gotta be here," he says. "In fact I remember putting it—" He points at a cabinet, whose shelves are now bare, and his frown deepens.<br/>
<br/>
"You know what I think?" you say. "I think Keith snuck it home with him yesterday. You told him he could have it to do 'whatever' with."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb turns a little pale, but only says, "Well, we'll ask him when we see him."<br/>
<br/>
"And you know what I else I think? I think he took it to school. What did he say in his text? That he had stuff to do after school? Since when does Tilley stay after to do stuff at school?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb cusses and runs for the truck. You race after him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Not until you're almost back at the school does Keith reply to the texts Caleb is shooting him. "He says in the E wing bathroom," Caleb announces as you swing violently into the school parking lot. "And we can come 'help him' if we want."<br/>
<br/>
"Shit. Does he say who he's got?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nope. Jesus, that dipshit is gonna—" Caleb braces himself against the console as you brake to a hard stop right up against the school. The parking lot is almost empty now, but there's still a score or so cars, and the sound of voices carries from the athletic fields as you and Caleb sprint for the doors.<br/>
<br/>
The hallways are empty, and the clatter of your feet echoes as you run for the E wing restrooms. Keith didn't specify which restroom he is in, so you and Caleb are struck dumb when you burst into the boys' restroom and find it empty. You stare at each other, and Caleb has pulled out his phone to thumb in another text when you punch him in the chest and mutter "Girls' restroom." You burst out into the halls just in time to see Keith come out of the other restroom.<br/>
<br/>
And he's not quiet about it. "Quit it!" he yells. "Let go!" His face is a ghastly, sickly white, and his eyes roll in panic.<br/>
<br/>
He is struggling against someone who is trying to drag him back into the restroom; bent double, with his arms outstretched, he looks like he's swimming against a strong tide. A moment later, as Keith struggles out a few more steps, his captor comes into view.<br/>
<br/>
She's a small girl, skinny and pale, with dark hair that falls from a neat, center part to frame her narrow face. She's dressed in jeans and a peach-colored blouse. But her most distinctive feature is the pair of dark, horn-rimmed glasses perched on her face. She is bracing her feet against the slick floor, trying to stop Keith from fleeing by keeping tight hold of his shirt.<br/>
<br/>
"You come back here!" she is hollering. "What did you do to her? You fucking—! <i>Whadidju do?"</i><br/>
<br/>
Keith's eyes pop when he sees you and Caleb. "Guys! Help me!" he yelps.<br/>
<br/>
But you are paralyzed. Even after you take in the blue-white mask that Keith is clutching, your brain still refuses to do the math.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb is quicker. He leaps past the girl, squeezing into the restroom. She shrieks at him as he passes, then turns a white face on you. "Hey! You! Help me out here! This guy assaulted—! It's assault! A girl in there! <i>Get a teacher!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Get her off me, Will!" Keith cries.<br/>
<br/>
And still you are paralyzed, even after the girl starts yelling for help at the top of her lungs.<br/>
<br/>
Until a pair of hands reaches behind her and grabs her by the face. She goes limp and lets go of Keith, who catapults across the hall to bang into the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"What the hell is going on out here?" a voice yells, and a burly teacher comes charging down the hall toward you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Well, Caleb with some quick thinking manages to save you all from Mr. Muniz by pretending it was you and him and Keith who were screaming at each other, but Mr. Muniz insists that you all leave. Caleb hustles you and Keith outside, but stops at the corner of the quad, where he hauls off and punches Keith in the side of the head. "You stay here, you dumb motherfucker," he snarls. "And you keep an eye on him," he tells you. "I gotta go back inside and get something." Keith sniffs and whines at you, until you shut him up with a glare.<br/>
<br/>
It's some minutes before Caleb comes back out, and he is white as a sheet.<br/>
<br/>
"They found the two girls in the restroom," he says. "They're okay, but we're in deep shit."<br/>
<br/>
"They know what we did?" Keith asks, hollowly.<br/>
<br/>
"No. But that girl who was hanging onto you is gonna pop a gasket when she looks in a mirror."<br/>
<br/>
He opens his bag to show you that the mask he was carrying inside it is gone.<span class="fngigffkfme3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111
author_id: seuzz
id: YM7MPWR55
title: A Girl with Two Faces
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You stare into Caleb's half empty book bag. It takes you a stupidly long time to realize what he's telling you.<br/>
<br/>
"What did you <i>do?</i>" you yell when the realization finally strikes.<br/>
<br/>
"I did what I had to!" he hollers back. "I had to shut her up before any teachers came and caught Keith with—" He glares murder at Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but now—! That girl!" You point at the school. "Are you saying she's—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, she's wearing that mask I made, of me and Maria."<br/>
<br/>
You grab your head. "Jesus! The fuck? Wh-what are the teachers saying? Who's with her?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what's going on in there now, but when I went and looked, they just had the two girls out in the halls, checking on them to see that they're—"<br/>
<br/>
He breaks off to do a double take at Keith. Then he flushes, and growls, "Maybe you better take off, you fuckwit!"<br/>
<br/>
Keith looks dumbfounded. "How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because they're gonna be looking for the guy who 'assaulted' that girl in the restroom, that's how come! And you're—"<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't have to say anymore. Keith wheels and flaps off for the parking lot as fast as he can run.<br/>
<br/>
"And you and me," Caleb says, turning to you, "are gonna have to go back in and see if we can fix things."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb's notion of "fixing things" doesn't extend further than finding that girl. You yourself are full of questions that you don't bother to ask, because you know Caleb won't have any better answers than you. Questions like, <i>What happens when that girl looks in a mirror?</i> and <i>What happens when she tells the teachers that she's got 'the wrong face'?</i><br/>
<br/>
Caleb slows up when you reach the junction with D wing, and peers around the corner. Then he tells you to go back to F wing and follow it down to the main corridor at the other end: "In case the girl goes out the back way," he explains. "Meet me at E wing."<br/>
<br/>
The hallways are deserted, but a few of the teacher's doors are still open, so you keep quiet, even as you peer inside a few of the rooms as you pass. You reach the main corridor at the other end of F wing—the main spine of the school, where most of the wings meet—and shake your head at Caleb when you see him coming out of D wing. Together you approach the entrance to E wing. But it's empty too.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb tells you to guard the doors leading out to the tennis courts and to watch the length of the main corridor: that girl, if she tries to leave, is likely to come that way. He meanwhile takes off at a sprint to explore the rest of the school. A few minutes later he texts to ask you for an update; you tell him you've seen nothing; he replies that he's going to make another circuit.<br/>
<br/>
It's while he's making this circuit that you get an idea: a dreadful idea, but at least it's an idea. You make your way back down to E wing, pause in front of the door of the girls' restroom, then slowly push it open.<br/>
<br/>
Someone is in there, sitting against the far wall with her face buried in her knees. She looks up quickly with a ghastly, fearful expression. Her cheeks are stained with dried tears.<br/>
<br/>
She has the face that Caleb made with the mask.<br/>
<br/>
You glance up and down E wing, then beckon to her. She only stares back, terror in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Come <i>on!</i>" you hiss at her. "I know what's going on! If you want help, you have to come with me!"<br/>
<br/>
She scrambles to her feet, but shrinks back against the wall. "Who are you?" she asks in a small, quavering voice.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm a guy who knows what's going on! I know about—!" You wave your hand in front of your face. "Did you tell anyone else about this?"<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"About <i>this!</i>" You point to your face, then to hers. "Did you tell them—? The teachers—? What did you tell them? You've looked in a mirror, right?"<br/>
<br/>
She bites her lip and says nothing, but her eyes widen.<br/>
<br/>
And so you lose all patience with her.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I can leave you here, and then what are you going to do?" you hiss. "Are you going to go home looking like that? What are your parents going to say? But if you come with me, I can fix it! I promise, I can change you back!"<br/>
<br/>
Warily, she detaches herself from the wall and totters toward you. She pauses when you beckon impatiently, so you jump into the restroom, grab her by the elbow, and haul her out. Thank God she seems to come alive, and lets you pull her along as you race through the school.<br/>
<br/>
"Where are we going?" she asks in a voice that shakes with fear.<br/>
<br/>
"Out of here," you reply. "Where's your car?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have a car."<br/>
<br/>
You stumble to a stop. "No car?" you ask. She shakes her head. "How were you going to get home?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was gonna text for a ride. My mom—"<br/>
<br/>
"Will!"<br/>
<br/>
You look around. Caleb is coming out of B wing, and he stops and stares, bug eyed, when he sees you.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, let's go out front," you tell the girl. "Don't worry, it'll all be over in just a few minutes."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb falls in beside you as you dash down B wing, which is the fastest way outside. "What are we doing?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Fixing things," you breathlessly retort. "It's what we want, isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but—" But he apparently doesn't know how to finish that sentence, and falls silent.<br/>
<br/>
You all three come bursting out the front doors next to the office, then wheel to the right toward the library. Around the front corner of the latter you should be invisible from most of the school, even if you are totally exposed to the street.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I need you to sit down," you tell the girl once you're in place. "On the grass. Against the wall."<br/>
<br/>
She has recovered some of her spirit, though, and wants to argue. "What is all this?" she demands. "Who are you? How do you—?"<br/>
<br/>
"We can talk about it after we fix it. You want it fixed, right?" you repeat when she just thrusts out a belligerent lower lip. "Then sit down."<br/>
<br/>
With a darkening expression she complies, and you bend over her, putting your hand to her temples. "Close your eyes," you order, and after she's fluttered her lids shut, you rip the mask from her face.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't wait to explain anything to her. As soon as you have the mask in hand, you grab Caleb by the shoulder and take off. "Where was she?" he huffs as you sprint for the parking lot. "What did you tell her?"<br/>
<br/>
"I found her in the E wing restroom and I told her I could change her back. I don't know what she told anyone else. And I don't wanna know." You hope that this will be the end of it, for you don't know the girl and you've never seen her in any of your classes: she looks like a sophomore or a freshman. Maybe she won't recognize you if she chances to see you in the hall; and if she does, you hope she'll be too freaked out to approach you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After the excitement of the afternoon, neither you nor Caleb feel like doing anything else, so you drop him off at his place and go home. You don't call or text Keith, but he calls you after dinner, full of self-pity after the phone call he got from Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, I wasn't trying to fuck anything up," he snivels.<br/>
<br/>
"No, but you managed to," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"It could'a happened to you or Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe, but it happened to you." Still, you'd have to confess that he's right, and make a mental note to be extra careful if you ever try to use one of those masks again. It really is just massive good luck that you and Caleb got out of the theater without discovery, and that Keith managed the trick twice before.<br/>
<br/>
"You and Johansson don't gotta hold a grudge," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"We're not holding a grudge."<br/>
<br/>
"Johnasson is! He says he's not gonna let me touch any of this shit ever again!"<br/>
<br/>
"He's gonna take your masks away?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he didn't say nothin' about that. But he says he's not gonna let me make any more!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe that's for the best. I think we've got enough."<br/>
<br/>
"At least I got this other one out of today's disaster. 'Cept I'm gonna have to seal it up. Unless—"<br/>
<br/>
"Unless what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, unless we take up to school tomorrow, and try puttin' a third—"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! Listen to yourself! You're not—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, alright!"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't even take it to school, you hear? We'll pick it up at your place tomorrow, after class, and take it—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm serious, Keith! I'm gonna fuckin' search your bag and your locker and your car tomorrow, to make sure you didn't bring—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, dude! Jesus! You don't gotta go after me like you're— Like you're <i>Johansson</i> or something!"<br/>
<br/>
So he doesn't bring the mask with him to school the next day. But he manages to fuck things up anyhow.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb only glowered at Keith the next day before lunch, then stalked off in another direction, so you it was just the two of you eating together. He was very morose and apologetic, to the point that you finally told him gruffly to forget it.<br/>
<br/>
But he looks even more miserable when he catches up to you after school. He looks boneless and unstrung, like marionette with all but one string cut, when he comes shambling up to your locker after the last bell.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he says in a barely audible voice. "This is Teresa. Turns out we have science class together."<br/>
<br/>
You frown at him.<br/>
<br/>
Then you see a girl peering out at you from around his shoulder. It's the same girl, in the horn-rimmed glasses, that had hold of him yesterday. And she's again got a death grip on the tail of his t-shirt.<span class="fmmkminghj369"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111
author_id: seuzz
id: WM25T3DDC
title: Some Awkward Explanations
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Your eyes nearly pop with horror from their sockets. "What the fuck, man?" you hiss at Keith.<br/>
<br/>
He says nothing, and neither does the girl. She only stares at you, gimlet-eyed and unwinking while tightening her grip on the tail of Keith's t-shirt.<br/>
<br/>
Briefly you consider punching her the face until she lets go of Keith, then running. But common sense prevails. If she found you today, she can find you again tomorrow or next week.<br/>
<br/>
You glance around, hoping for a miracle. But even though it's Friday and the halls are bouncing with happy crowds, it does not contain such a miracle.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, come on," you growl at Keith and his new friend. "Let's go someplace to talk."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wind up in back of the school, between E and G wings. The girl—her name turns out to be Teresa McNeal—keeps a tight hold of Keith the entire time, and she glowers at you both.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanna know what all that was about yesterday," she snarls in a low, shaky voice when you ask her what she wants. "And if you don't tell me—" Grimly, she wrenches at Keith's t-shirt. "I'll go to the teachers and tell them I found the guy that assaulted that girl in the bathroom yesterday!"<br/>
<br/>
Keith turns very pale.<br/>
<br/>
"We can't talk about it here," you tell her, playing for time.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, where?"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face and glance around, wishing that Caleb was here. He likes to take charge, and you have the awful feeling that he's going to yell at you no matter what decision you make.<br/>
<br/>
"There's an old school in my neighborhood—" you start to say.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going anyplace there's not other people around."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, where would <i>you</i> like to go? We can't talk about this, like, in a crowded place!"<br/>
<br/>
Her lips disappear into a compressed frown. "Municipal library."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! We can't go there, they don't let you talk—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Municipal library," she repeats fiercely, "or I start screaming for a teacher!"<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just take her to the library!" Keith says in a strangled voice.<br/>
<br/>
Your phone dings with a text: Caleb, wondering where you are.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you tell Teresa. "The library. You told me yesterday you don't have a car—"<br/>
<br/>
"This asshole can give me a ride," she says, and tightens her grip even harder on Keith's t-shirt.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb takes the news with surprising calm when you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"It was too much to hope she wouldn't spot us at school," he says with a sigh after you're in your truck. And when you suggest ditching her at the library, and texting Keith, telling him to run, he shakes his head. "We gotta face it, gotta explain things to her, hope we can convince her to keep her mouth shut." In fact, he texts Keith to tell him that you'll be a little late meeting them at the library, because you'll need to go to the old school and to your houses to collect the book and the masks to show Teresa. "I also told him," he adds, "not to be a dumbass who tries running away."<br/>
<br/>
So it's nearly four-thirty when you get to the library, and wind up in a secluded corner in the very back, where two small, low couches sit next to each other at right angles. Teresa—who seemingly hasn't blinked once since you met her—sits on the edge of one of these, watching and listening with an intense absorption as you (haltingly) and Caleb (more fluently) describe the book and the experiments you've been carrying out. Keith slumps uselessly nearby.<br/>
<br/>
"So, no one was ... assaulting ... anyone," Caleb somewhat lamely concludes at the end of it all. It's a very hollow statement, and really unconvincing after the confessions you've made about knocking girls out in the parking lot and the school theater. Your skin also prickles as you reflect on how weird and perverted it all sounds when explained to someone outside your circle. Teresa has said nothing—not one word, not one question—during the entire ordeal, but only stared and listened.<br/>
<br/>
And now that you're done, she only stares some more, as though trying to will more out of you through sheer intensity.<br/>
<br/>
Then her lips compress, and her breath whistles in her nose, and she glances up at the ceiling before saying, "So let me try one of these masks out." There's steel in her voice.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb look at each other. Caleb leans forward toward her and says, "Um, you, uh, tried one out yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"<i>You</i> stuck it on me. Or that's your story," she retorts. "I wanna try one out myself."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"That one!" She points at one of the masks you're holding in your lap. "I wanna see if this bullshit—"<br/>
<br/>
"You know it's not bullshit," you insist. "Yesterday—"<br/>
<br/>
"Give it over," she says. "Or he—" She points at Keith, and with a grimace you hand over the mask before she can finish uttering her now familiar threat.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," Caleb says. "All you have to do is put it onto your face. Then— Where are you going?" he asks, for she has gotten up.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not doing it here," she declares.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, where—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Somewhere else. Don't worry, I won't leave with it. You stay here," she snaps as Caleb starts to get up. He sinks back down and watches with a pale face as she stalks off.<br/>
<br/>
"This is beyond fucked up," you whisper to Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"It's been beyond fucked up for awhile now," he replies, then leans past you to slap at Keith, who winces and sinks deeper into the sofa. "Which mask did she take?" Caleb asks you.<br/>
<br/>
You pick up and squint at the other masks one by one. "Keith's, I think," you conclude. (Keith had brought both of his with him to school.) "The one he used on Lin, you know."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods, then addresses Keith: "Who'd you use that other mask on yesterday, in the bathroom?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno," the thoroughly miserable Tilley replies. "Just some girl."<br/>
<br/>
"Just some girl," Caleb cruelly mimics back. "Dumbass."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think Teresa knows who she was, either," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Just as long as <i>she</i> doesn't grab Keith in the hall. It'd be a hell of thing if we showed all this stuff to this girl, and Tilley <i>still</i> got arrested and expelled for sexual assault."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus!" Keith sighs, and tries to wad himself up into yet a smaller ball of misery.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
A quarter-hour passes, during which none of your trio have much to say to each other—each of you being preoccupied with his own thoughts—before Teresa returns. She doesn't look like Teresa, though. She looks like a toothier and more disheveled version of Lin Pol—and a Lin Pol who has squeezed into clothes a couple of sizes too small for her.<br/>
<br/>
She's not back long, though: only long enough to demand instructions for how to get the mask off. Again, you leave it to Caleb to explain. This time he quietly follows her at a distance, and returns to report that she's gone into the women's restroom. He doesn't even have to look at Keith for the latter to once again huddle up defensively.<br/>
<br/>
It's coming up on six before Teresa appears again, in her own face, looking a little hot and blown. Her dark hair has lost a lot of its shine, and is tousled in a way that isn't sexy. She doesn't look at any of you, but only says that she's ready to go home. "I'll go with you guys," she says to you and Caleb without looking at Keith. "You're better company." You all look at each other, unfold yourselves from the sofas, and trudge out.<br/>
<br/>
"So, we're really sorry about this," you tell Teresa after you've clambered into your truck, with her sitting on the far side with Caleb between you. "We were just, um, like we said, experimenting."<br/>
<br/>
"You could have hurt someone," she says in a very flat tone. "You could've hurt <i>me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, we tried fixing it!" you retort, and you would have said more about how you could have left her in the school restroom yesterday without helping her, but Caleb nudges you hard.<br/>
<br/>
"You're right," he tells her smoothly. "I told Keith yesterday we weren't going to do this thing anymore."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help jumping a little. It sounds like Caleb is telling her that you're not going to be experiment with any more spells.<br/>
<br/>
And it sounds like she's taking it the same way. "So what are you going to do with that book? And all the stuff you made?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," Caleb says after a moment's hesitation, "we can't just get rid of it. Someone else would just find it, and then, you know, it would all start over again. I guess the thing to do," he says after another brief hesitation, "is to just hang on to it but not do anything with it."<br/>
<br/>
It might be your imagination, but you think you hear a slight snort from the other side of him.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I think you definitely need to be more careful," Teresa says. You squint past Caleb, and see that she's sitting up very straight with her arms crossed. "What you need is someone watching you and making sure you don't do anything stupid again."<br/>
<br/>
For a long moment, no one says anything. Then Caleb, with great delicacy, says, "Do something ... again?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not fooling me," Teresa says. "You're not gonna stop with this stuff. But you need someone to keep an eye on you."<br/>
<br/>
Another pause. "Like who?" Caleb asks, as though he can't guess the answer.<br/>
<br/>
"Who do you think?" Teresa retorts. "I'm in."<span class="fmjggefeffee3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111
author_id: seuzz
id: CCL6Z9MNW
title: New Partner, New Spell
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"In?" You echo Teresa's word with a yelp. "Whaddayu mean you're 'in'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just what it sounds like," she says. "You're a bunch of perverts who need watching, and I'm going to make sure you get watched."<br/>
<br/>
You almost drive off the road and onto the curb as you and Caleb exchange horrified glances.<br/>
<br/>
"Um," he begins carefully after turning back to her. "If we promised that we'd—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shut up," she snaps. "Whatever you're going to say, I don't believe you. But I'm not going to stop you. You wanna have fun doing this stuff, go ahead. I know why you're doing it, and it's not because you're—" She gives him a withering look. "Gender fluid. But if I tried to stop you," she continues with a shrug, "you'd just get pissed at me and try doing something horrible. So I'm not going to stop you. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, or what you can't do. I'm just going to stop you from being a bunch of fucking morons about it. <br/>
<br/>
"You're taking me home now, right?" she adds after the awkward silence that follows has gotten even more awkward.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Things could have gone a lot better, but they also could have gone a lot worse. You and Caleb agree on that when you talk later that night.<br/>
<br/>
There's not much else you agree on. You are aghast at having this Teresa McNeal girl shove her way into the fun. Never mind that she's going to try to shut things down now that you're finally set up to have a little fun. She herself is clearly going to be no fun to have around. <br/>
<br/>
And as for Keith, you tell Caleb that you want to cut him out of things completely. He's come real close to fucking things up before—like when he got the mask onto Stephanie—but this time it's cost you too much. He needs to be made to hurt.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, though, takes a much more optimistic view. He agrees with Teresa that you all have been too careless, but he thinks she won't shut things down. After all, she said she doesn't think she can stop you. So all you have to do is keep pushing, and she'll always give in. "But," he says, "she'll push back, and we kind of need that."<br/>
<br/>
As for Keith, Caleb says it would be bad tactics (and very unfriendly) to cut him out. Keith also knows what's going on, he points out, and it's better to have him (as the expression goes) inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.<br/>
<br/>
So you give in, but you also tell Caleb that <i>he</i> is going to have to be the one working to keep Teresa happy. "I don't even want to look at her!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next day is Saturday. Your dad gives you a few late morning chores, and some errands to run, but that's okay, because you still need to buy those supplies you need for the next spell. As there's no hurry getting the things back for your dad, you're able to get everything done in one very long and extended trip, with Caleb along for company. You're feeling no better about having a new partner, and it dismays you when Caleb texts Teresa (he and she exchanged numbers before you parted yesterday) to tell her that you will be performing a new "experiment" if she wants to come supervise. You make no comment, but Caleb must have read your mood though, for after sending the text he says, "Inside the tent pissing out, Will."<br/>
<br/>
It doesn't improve your mood much that you wind up having to pick her up. At least Caleb is along too, and he's the one who talks to her, telling her about the old school basement that you are using for a base. You expect her to yell about that too, telling you that you shouldn't trespass, but she doesn't say anything at all.<br/>
<br/>
Keith is waiting at the school when your trio arrives. He looks on edge, and his eyes roll with discomfort as Caleb opens the door and ushers Teresa inside. "Dude," he murmurs hoarsely at you, but you snarl at him to button it.<br/>
<br/>
You and Keith end up sitting hunched on the conference table while Teresa, looking very prim and serious, sits in an old, dusty office chair whose springs squeal and croak every time she shifts her weight. Caleb stands at the center of your makeshift circle with the book, in the manner of a teacher.<br/>
<br/>
"So, like I told you yesterday," he says, as though speaking solely to Teresa even though he is addressing you all, "the book doesn't tell you what a spell is supposed to do until you actually perform it. Kind of dangerous, I know, but as long as we're careful—" He shrugs. "And I read through this next one pretty carefully, and it doesn't look like something that could blow up in our faces."<br/>
<br/>
He looks at Teresa, as though waiting for comment, but she only waits for him to continue.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he says lamely, "I guess we can get started."<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you, but you only evenly stare back. He got you all into this predicament—well, Keith did, but Caleb is the one who's trying to make it work—so he can do the rest of the work himself: or so you figure.<br/>
<br/>
The supplies you bought include some small rolls of zinc and copper; some mercury; a couple of pocket mirrors; and a steel-nib pen. You supplied the cutting shears from home.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb starts by cutting out two strips of zinc and mercury, each about five inches long and one inch wide. He lays one of the pocket mirrors (mirrored surface up) atop the open book in the middle of the sigil, and covers it with the strip of copper. He dribbles a drop of mercury onto it, then covers it with the strip of zinc and the second pocket mirror (mirrored surface down) to make a kind of sandwich.<br/>
<br/>
He takes a quick glance around the room, then picks up the steel-nib pen and begins scratching some figures into the back of the mirror. Despite yourself, you get up and crowd over to look, and the others join you. Caleb is copying some runes, supplied by the spell, onto the back of the mirror. You all back away, though, and Caleb himself pauses, when the "sandwich" begins to hiss malevolently. <br/>
<br/>
He presses on, though, and after only a couple of minutes he completes the runes. He chokes a little as that hissing abruptly ceases, then with another wary glance around the company he lifts the mirror. He blinks at the result, then gingerly picks it up between a fingertip and thumb.<br/>
<br/>
Where there were two metal strips, now there is one. It is now a silvery color and (so you find when Caleb passes it around for each of you to study) very thin and flexible, almost as flexible as paper.<br/>
<br/>
"What does it do?" Teresa asks. She's the only one saying anything.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not done yet," Caleb says. "There's some more runes that have to be carved into it.<br/>
<br/>
"Let me see," Teresa says, and barges past Caleb to examine the spell. She pores over it intently, glancing between the book and the metal strip, which she has taken from Caleb. When she's apparently satisfied, she picks up the steel pen and sits down with it and the strip to copy the runes onto it.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn't work, at least not the way you all would have expected. Though it's quite easy to dent the silver strip with the pen, the lines she puts onto it quickly spring back and fade, leaving an unblemished surface. Harder and harder she works at it, pushing the pen so deep into the strip that you expect it to punch a hole in it. After ten frustrating minutes, she has only succeeded in putting one stroke into metal, and that is so faint that you have to hold it up to the light to see it.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you sure you did it right?" she demands of Caleb in a waspish voice.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm pretty sure I did," he replies, just as waspishly. "That ain't natural," he adds as he points to the strip. "Copper and zinc and mercury? They don't go together to make—"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," she interrupts. "I'll just work on it at home."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should all work on it," Caleb suggests.<br/>
<br/>
Her brow lowers. "What, you all want to come over to my house," she says, "and look over my shoulder?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, what I mean is— We got enough stuff here to make a couple more. We can make another one for each of us, and work on it. Then we can compare notes. Maybe one of us'll figure out how to make it go faster. Or maybe I did mess up the first one, a little bit," he adds.<br/>
<br/>
Teresa looks skeptical, but accedes, which leaves it to you to point out that you've only got one of those steel-nib pens. Caleb shrugs carelessly. "We got enough cash left we can buy a few more," he says.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's after dinner, and you're up in your room scraping runes into a metal band—one that Caleb made before your quartet broke up for the day—and listening to music on your computer when your phone dings with a text. It's from Teresa, and you can't stop yourself from making a face. She is asking to meet.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Feel like got off wrong foot,</i> she replies when you ask her why. <i>Get know each other.</i><span class="felfmnhfhh3710"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111111
author_id: seuzz
id: LPWGQ677J
title: Sunday at the Park with Teresa
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You don't really want to see Teresa, but it would seem rude if you turned her down flat. So you split the difference, telling her that you're busy tonight but suggesting you meet for coffee or something tomorrow afternoon. She agrees. You, of course, hope that something will come up in the meantime that will let you cancel.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But at two o'clock the next day Teresa is sitting in your truck beside you. "Do you have one of those masks with you?" she asks as she buckles herself in. "Then let's go get one," she says when you shake your head. Doubtfully, you turn the truck back toward Acheson.<br/>
<br/>
"I got that thingie done last night," she continues. "You? How hard was it? Same here," she says when you tell her it took you a couple of hours because you couldn't get the runes to stick in the metal. "I wonder how come that is." You shrug, and ask where she wants to go after you pick up the mask.<br/>
<br/>
You wind up at Squeezin' Freeze, a juice shop near the university. On the drive over, and then over a couple of frozen "faquiris," you tell each other about yourselves.<br/>
<br/>
She of course wants to know if you're into the occult. You tell you're not, especially. It's just that you found this book and it looked interesting, so, like Caleb says, you're carrying out "experiments" with it. "I'm not into the occult either," she says in a tone that smacks of self-satisfaction. "But I like fantasy. And science fiction."<br/>
<br/>
"Harry Potter?" you suggest.<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face. "I'm more into Lord of the Rings. Game of Thrones." She mentions a few more titles, none of which you recognize. "It's really weird, finding out stuff like in those books is real," she says. Then she adds, with a shrug, "Well, I guess it wouldn't be weirder than if aliens showed up."<br/>
<br/>
You don't hate the time with her, but the more you talk, the more convinced you are that you'll never warm to her. She cops a faintly superior attitude, like she's talking to a dumb sophomore boy, and even though she says she wanted to get together to "get to know each other better," she doesn't seem much interested in you, and talks much more about herself. Not that there's much to find out about her, after you've learned about all the places she's traveled to (including Japan and South Korea), and her favorite movies and books, and why she thinks that video games are bad for the imagination. By the time she gets around to admitting that she doesn't have a lot of friends, the revelation neither surprises you nor arouses your sympathy.<br/>
<br/>
At the same time, you find yourself relaxing your guard. She talks very matter of factly about the stuff you're playing around with, almost in the way Caleb does, but even more deeply and thoughtfully. She wonders how much of this kind of stuff is actually known to people with the power to use it, and what they might do with it. These masks, for instance, would be perfect for spies to use, and she wonders how many government or corporate conspiracies have been pulled off with them. And if magic is real, and there's other types of magic, she suggests, and it's controlled by only a small number of people, that would explain why such a small handful have all the money and control all the things.<br/>
<br/>
So though it creeps you out a little to hear her rambling on so calmly with these paranoid reflections, it also reassures you that she won't be stepping too hard on the fun that you and your friends were hoping to have, and by the time she seems ready to wrap up your afternoon, you have decided that Caleb was right: Mostly, she's just going to pump the brakes on your hijinks, not try to stop them altogether. She seems too interested in what can be done with the book and the stuff it makes.<br/>
<br/>
Nonetheless, it's a shock when she suggests getting that mask out of the truck and going around the block to a second-hand goods store. "You want some clothes to go with it, don't you?" she says when you ask what you're going to do.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Second Pickins is only a step above Good Will, and you can't help crinkling your nose a little at the offerings. But Teresa says that she's the one doing the buying, and that she's on a budget on account of she wants to buy some things for Caleb and Keith too. "You know," she explains, "so we'll all be friends." So you don't argue.<br/>
<br/>
She starts by guiding you into the back, where there's a changing room that feels and smells like a moldy closet, where she shuts you in with the mask and orders to put it on. You don't disrobe, and crouch in a corner with your knees up close to your nose as you push the mask onto your face—<br/>
<br/>
—and a wave of nausea washes over you when you wake up to find that you've toppled over onto your side. Groggily, you text Teresa to tell her you're awake. When there's a soft knock at the door, you open it a crack to let her in.<br/>
<br/>
"I picked out a couple of things," she starts to say, then catches herself and does a double take at you. "Oh my God," she mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, I guess," she stammers. "Only I— That is you, isn't it? Uh, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You nod.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. Wow. I, uh, haven't seen this—" Her eyebrows go up. "Who, uh, did you copy? With the mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"Me and Chelsea Cooper."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know who that is."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't?" That flabbergasts you. "She's the head cheerleader."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, okay, that explains it. You just look a lot like— Well, someone in my class." She cocks her head to study you, then shakes her head. "Okay. Well, I picked out some things, but I wanted to, um, see what I had to work with. Hm. Take off your shirt." Somewhat shyly, you comply. It feels very awkward showing your boobs to a girl, but Teresa is obviously trying to take it like it's no big thing, so you try to keep calm too.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," she finally says after studying you up and down and making some faces. "I've got some ideas. I'll be back."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't I go with you?" After all, you might have some ideas too.<br/>
<br/>
But she shakes her head. "You're dressed all wrong."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It only take three trips for her to outfit you: once for the top and the shorts, and twice for some used sneakers that will fit your demure little feet. The charge comes to less than forty dollars, though that rises after you've made a stop at Nirdlinger's, the big department store, for a pair of panties and a bra. Then, at Teresa's suggestion, you drive down Thirtieth Street to South Creek Park. There, in the parking lot, she leaves you to wedge yourself down in the footwell, where you will put the mask back on and put on the clothes before joining her for a walk around the big pond there.<br/>
<br/>
You are prickling and shaking all over after you wake again and start putting on the clothes. First are the panties, which are tight, and then the bra, which it turns out is probably a size too large. Then you pull on the gray cotton shorts that ride down to the middle of your thigh, and the black-and-white striped short-sleeve shirt. You run your fingers through your hair to straighten up before clambering from the truck. A ratty pair of faded pink sneakers, slipped on over bare feet, are the last to go on after you have reached the grass.<br/>
<br/>
Teresa is waiting, standing by herself a little ways off toward the edge of Stewart's Hole, watching you with a wry smirk as you make your way toward her. Your carriage feels all wrong, and your hips wobble in a way that leaves you lurching slightly. You are also unbalanced up top, feeling yourself pulled slightly forward by the weight of your breasts. You feel a sickly grin spreading over your face as you come up to Teresa.<br/>
<br/>
"You look adorable, Will," she smirks, then looks past you. "Those guys out on the soccer field are watching you."<br/>
<br/>
"What?" you gasp, and wheel to glance over your shoulder at the nearby athletic fields, where a couple of dozen guys in shorts and jerseys are shouting and running up and down. "Oh, Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
"It goes with the territory," Teresa says. "Come on, let's go hang out in the gazebo."<br/>
<br/>
That's a large, vaguely Oriental-ish structure in the middle of the pond, connected to the shoreline by a long pier. It smells of damp redwood, and a faint odor of wet decay hangs under its eaves.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you think, Will?" Teresa asks after you are leaning against a railing and looking out across the parking lot at the traffic on Orlando Road. "What do you think of how the other half live?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God. It—"<br/>
<br/>
Well, you don't know what it's like. On the one hand, you feel the same as ever, though the world might be slightly bigger (and Teresa seems taller). The main difference is that all your weight is redistributed, making it awkward to stand and walk without feeling like you're about to topple over.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, the way the weight is redistributed ...<br/>
<br/>
You've got boobs, and you have to fight the urge to support them with one forearm while touching them gently with a free hand. You've got hips that you want to palm and caress. You've got strong and shapely legs that you want to stretch and massage. Most of all, there's the <i>lack</i> between the crook of your thighs: an empty spot where you want to slide a hand in to rub and rub and rub.<br/>
<br/>
"You need to learn how to drive it," Teresa says when you say nothing. "Or we can take a short cut."<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of short cut?"<br/>
<br/>
Her smirk deepens.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know for sure what the next spell does, but I can make a pretty good guess. If you'll leave it to me—get me the one you made, and the ones Caleb and Keith made—and I'll show you."<span class="meklflgfkg259"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111111
author_id: seuzz
id: Z7NXLV246
title: Two in One
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Though you trust her more, you're not ready to turn everything over to Teresa.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you tell her. "This is still a group project."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you trust your friend Keith not to mess things up again?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like the way he messed up with Noelle in the bathroom the other day."<br/>
<br/>
You make a face and don't answer.<br/>
<br/>
"So I'm pretty sure these metal strips we made, you're going to have to put them on people the same way you put the masks on people."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"It'd be easier for me to do it."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think they do?" you ask with a sigh.<br/>
<br/>
She regards you primly before speaking.<br/>
<br/>
"I think they copy memories. And if you want to know how to drive around in a girl's body— like this one—" She points at you. "You want to know or remember how to do it."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Oh, God!</i> It almost knocks you off balance to think of it. Not only wearing a girl's body, but having the memories that tell you what to do with it.<br/>
<br/>
You don't answer Teresa right away, and she doesn't press you. Instead, the two of you take a walk around the pond and park.<br/>
<br/>
It's a warm day, with temperatures in the low eighties under partly sunny skies: warm, though not unseasonably warm, for the end of September. It's very pleasant to have the sunlight and fresh air prickling on the bare arms and legs of this girl you have created. You are very self-conscious, to the point that you become slightly paranoid that the spell will shatter, evaporating the illusion you have generated and exposing you. But unless and until that happens, you take as much glee as you can in tottering along the path that winds around the large pond. <i>No one who saw me would recognize me,</i> you think. <i>They'd think I'm just a random high school girl!</i><br/>
<br/>
When you come around the far edge of the pond, and are returning toward the gazebo, you catch sight of those soccer players again, and again you feel exposed. <i>What if they came over here and started to flirt?</i> you ask yourself in a panic. <i>I wouldn't know how to act!<br/>
<br/>
Except I would,</i> you reflect a moment later, <i>if I had some memories to go with the body.</i> What would that be like?<br/>
<br/>
"Tell you what," you tell Teresa when you're heading back to your truck. "You try to use the, uh, the one you made. Then I'll trade you the one I made for that one, and you can, uh, use the other one. And I'll talk to the other guys about you doing the same thing with theirs."<br/>
<br/>
Teresa considers this, then declares it an acceptable compromise.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You say nothing about this immediately to Caleb or Keith, even after the former suggests getting everyone together after school to compare notes on the items you made. When you text her, Teresa says it will be after school before she can get the "thing" onto someone, so you arrange with the others to meet up at around seven. You, though, give Teresa an earlier time, so that you can talk a little before the others arrive.<br/>
<br/>
You're all set, then, when Caleb and Keith get there. After some quick talk about how all of you had a hard time of it getting the runes carved into the strip, you tell them that you and Teresa already used one of your strips to unlock the next page, and are able to show them the reverse of the spell. There is only a single sentence there, which appears to translate as "To know the mind of another," which seems to confirm Teresa's suspicions about what it does.<br/>
<br/>
And then she shows you all the metal strip she took to school today.<br/>
<br/>
It has acquired an oily sheen since being used, but the big change is that the runes have vanished from it, replaced by Roman letters that, like blue fire, seem to hover just above the surface of the strip: MARY LOUISE BOUCHER.<br/>
<br/>
"Just a girl I have in a couple of my classes," Teresa sniffs when you ask who she is. "I caught her in the bathroom after school." It might be your imagination, but you think catch her sneaking a glance at Keith.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb maybe caught the same glance, for he asks, "Did you get caught?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"How did you do it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just snuck up behind her. It's kind of like with the masks, except I touched her on the back of the head with it." Now it's you she gives a side glance to. "I had a gut feeling about what these things do."<br/>
<br/>
"So is there a way to seal it up?" Caleb wonders aloud as he takes the strip from her. He turns it around in his hands. "If I put it on, will it mix up my memories with hers?"<br/>
<br/>
"Only one way to find out," Teresa says.<br/>
<br/>
He and she hold each other's eye. There's a kind of "dare" going, you can tell. <i>You want to 'experiment' with this stuff,</i> she is telling him. <i>So go ahead and experiment!</i><br/>
<br/>
It makes you uneasy, and almost you reach out with a shout to stop Caleb as he drops into a chair with the metal band. But it's like you are paralyzed, and no one says anything as he lifts the strip to his face and presses it to his forehead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Everyone sits around mutely, waiting for Caleb to wake back up. Keith is a chalky white, and his eyes roll in their sockets. You squirm with anxiety. Even Teresa looks pinched and worried. Every few seconds or so, it looks like someone is going to say something, but no one does.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, you can't stand it anymore. You have no idea what that thing is going to do to Caleb—and you also worry that something could go wrong and maybe he'll never wake up no matter how long you wait. So with a jerk you reach forward to shake him.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you doing?" Teresa asks, as though it weren't obvious. You just massage Caleb harder.<br/>
<br/>
He is unresponsive until you begin to grip and squeeze his shoulders, and rock him back and forth in the chair. His brow furrows and he frowns. But it's not until you lightly slap him on the cheek that his eyes pry open and he peers blearily about him. You sit back to watch him closely.<br/>
<br/>
For a long moment he says nothing. His gaze is distant and his frown deepens. Gradually his eyes focus, and he looks around the room, at you and the others, with an expression of puzzlement, as though he is trying to place your names and faces. The look of confusion clears after a moment, but he continues to frown, and his gaze retreats inward again. Now he looks like he is trying hard to remember something.<br/>
<br/>
Suddenly, with full-body spasm, he exclaims, "Oh my God," and sits bolt upright. His eyes pop and bulge, and his breath comes in short gasps. All the color drains from his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb?" you ask, cautiously. He turns to stare at you, but he is looking straight through you. "Caleb?" you repeat. "Buddy?"<br/>
<br/>
He blinks rapidly, the sags all over and his mouth falls open. He groans and covers his face with his hands. "Caleb?" you ask a third time, and glance anxiously at the other two.<br/>
<br/>
The third repetition of his name seems to do something, for he drops his hands and sits up again with a sharp intake of breath. Now his eyes are bright and searching. His mouth parts into a slight smile, and he lurches onto his feet. For a moment he sways there, then lumbers past you, aiming for the big mirror in the corner, where your trio had studied your disguised, female forms. "Oh, Jesus," he says and flinches slightly as he stares, boggle-eyed, at his reflection.<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb, man, you got to talk to us," you urge.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" he says, and looks vaguely in your direction. "Oh. Yeah." A shady grin spreads over his face. "Whoa."<br/>
<br/>
"What's going on with you?" you press.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, nothing," he replies in a voice that trembles slightly. He squeezes his head between hands. "Only I got a girl named Mary Boucher in here with me, that's all." He giggles, in tone that doesn't sound at all like the guy you know.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But he is the guy you know, and he proves it pretty decisively once you get him to calm down. "Oh, stop giving me those looks," he honks at you when he finally loses his patience. "I told you guys, I'm me. I just got ... something extra ... up here."<br/>
<br/>
He's got her memories, all right, this girl that Teresa caught with the new spell. He can tell you all about her, totally and fluently: What her name is, where she lives, what classes she's taking, all about her family and her friends. It all comes rattling out, like coins from a slot machine when you hit the jackpot. More than that, though: Even as he continues to insist that he is who he always was, you can't help thinking there's a slightly ... femme ... quality to the way he is holding himself. There's a tilt to his hips, and a sing-song whine in his voice that has never been there before. His expressions pop and shift a little more quickly, and he giggles and titters like he has never giggled or tittered before.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I guess maybe I've picked up a little of her personality," he says when you suggest that he's got more than just the "facts" of the girl in his head. "I do feel skin of like, well—" He squirms. "Like I've got another skin underneath this one. Like—" He squirms again. "Like I'm wearing a mask of <i>myself.</i>" He suddenly goes very rigid and closes his eyes, and takes a couple of deep breaths. He's a lot calmer, a lot more like himself, when he opens them again. "But I can keep it under control," he says in a much firmer voice.<br/>
<br/>
But as eerie as it is to see what it's done to him, you want one of these things for yourself now.<span class="ijfifgfjgf2610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111111
author_id: seuzz
id: UY27N7PMR
title: Personality on Parade
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Teresa did a good job of getting one of those metal bands onto one of her classmates, so you're happy to outsource her job again; and Keith agrees to let Teresa do it for him as well. Caleb has one now, but he consents to give her the blank one he made in trade for it.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll try to get 'em for you guys tomorrow," Teresa tells you. "If you remember to bring them to me at school." There's something very sniffy and smug about the way she says it.<br/>
<br/>
She has to go home for dinner—her family eats relatively late—and since you brought her out, you also drive her home.<br/>
<br/>
"I think I'm going to try to get one of the girls in my first-period class," she tells you on the drive home. "It's Intro to Acting, you know. I think that'd be a good choice, since you guys are going to be 'acting' with these things. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right," you agree.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you going to do with them?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you confess. "Do like we did yesterday, I guess, and go out in them?" You shoot her an inquisitive look.<br/>
<br/>
"You could even crash a party this weekend. Wouldn't that be fun for you? Going to a party as a couple of girls?"<br/>
<br/>
That does get a rise out of you, though at the same time you get a dreadful anticipation of having to fight off some horny guys. Though, could that be fun as well? It gives you a shiver of delight to imagine yourself cockteasing and then rejecting some asshole on the basketball team, and then disappearing by removing the mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb is in a mask when you get back to the basement, and is admiring himself in the mirror. It's the mask he made for himself, mixing his face with Maria Vasquez's.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think?" he asks as he twirls before you, clad only in a t-shirt and his boxers. His breasts wobble and flop about. "Now I got a personality to go with it!" He smirks and fluffs out his dark mane of hair.<br/>
<br/>
The sight gives you a hard-on. The girl's light-mocha skin is clear and beautiful, and even if her features are small and her expression smug, she is quite beautiful. Sexy, too, with those breasts and those short, powerful bare legs. But the illusion is even more shattering than before, because Caleb is fully indulging the female personality he donned with the metal band. So he twirls and prances and cocks his head and smirks coquettishly at you. His voice is rich and deep for girl, but with a sexy croak.<br/>
<br/>
"So I'm going to call her Maria," he says as he twists on his bare feet. "I got to, you know 'cos I used Maria in the mask, and I've got this Mary Boucher girl to go with her." He twists to stare in the mirror again. "Totally doesn't look like her." He claps his hands onto his ass—a nice, plump, and pronounced ass  it is, too—and bends at the waist to put his face close to the mirror. The front of his t-shirt falls open so he (and you; and Keith, who is sitting rigidly still on a nearby table, staring as though he'd die if he glanced away from Caleb) can stare down the cleavage of his dangling boobs in the reflection. "But this is better. Oh my God, Mary would kill to have a body like this."<br/>
<br/>
"Who is she?" you ask. It's a dumb question, one you're not even interested in. But you've got to at least pretend you're engaged with something other than eye-fucking your gender-bent best friend.<br/>
<br/>
"Who, Mary?" Caleb casts a smoky glance back at you over his shoulder. "Just a girl in the sophomore class. I told you about her."<br/>
<br/>
"You told me her class schedule and where she lives. That's not— That's nothing!"<br/>
<br/>
"She's just a girl." Caleb straightens up. "Tall and skinny, like a giraffe. She was always, like, the tallest the person in her classes, all the way back to elementary school. Mm." He pulls his hair behind his head to study the effect, then fluffs it back out. "That's one reason she'd love to have this body. She's short. Well, shorter.<br/>
<br/>
"And Mary's totally white bread," he continues as you lapse back into a paralyzed silence. "No color. Get this, she plays the <i>bassoon.</i> Fuck me. You wouldn't catch Jazmin Colon playing bassoon. Oh my God! If I looked like this— If she looked like this, none of the guys would even <i>glance</i> at Jazmin!"<br/>
<br/>
"Who's Jazmin?"<br/>
<br/>
"Girl in the sophomore class that Mary's obsessed with, 'cos she's a hot chile pepper that gets the sophomore boys all riled up. Oh, fuck me, this is perfect!"<br/>
<br/>
He dances about some more, pumping the air with his arms and letting his breasts fly and flop all over the place.<br/>
<br/>
"You need some clothes," you say, and ignore the hurt and angry look of shock that Keith shoots you. "I mean, if we're going to go out in these things. Teresa bought me some on Sunday, when we met up," you add.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb stops in mid-prance to stare at you. For a moment he looks very blank. Then a cunning expression comes over his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," he drawls. "What's going on with you and Teresa?"<br/>
<br/>
"What? What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think I mean?" He sniggers meaningfully. "All meeting up here early today, and you picking her up and taking her home. And she bought you some clothes?"<br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself turning red. "It's nothing. She needs a ride, I gave her a ride. And she wanted to meet this weekend to try to, uh, break the ice between us."<br/>
<br/>
"She wanted to break the ice with <i>you,</i>" Caleb titters. "Me and Tilley didn't get no invite to go along and go shopping."<br/>
<br/>
Now you face is hot. "There's nothing going on! I don't even like her!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks even more amused. "Don't go breaking her heart, Will. Question isn't whether you like her. It's whether she likes you!"<br/>
<br/>
You open your mouth to reply, then freeze when you see the expression on Keith's face. He is openly gaping at you, and you can see the thought forming behind his eyes: <i>Dude, you're totally going to make a play for her, aren't you?</i><br/>
<br/>
"How about you take that thing off," you bark at Caleb. "And get that girl out of your head! It sounds like <i>she's</i> the one I'm talking to!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb laughs, but consents to turn himself back to normal.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It gives you the cold sweats to consider that maybe Teresa is "interested" in you. Never mind that she isn't very attractive—she's not ugly, but she's very plain and very severe, and seems to have no interest in making herself look better—there's her personality. She is cold, condescending and humorless. What could you say, how would you react, if she declared herself, or starting acting as though you and her were ... friends?<br/>
<br/>
The only comfort you can take is that she is so awkward and stiff that she's unlikely to actually try anything.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you feel anxious and tetchy all the next day as you anticipate hearing from her.<br/>
<br/>
"So, she's going to take me shopping," Caleb tells you at lunch. (You had noticed him texting someone just before class.) That's a relief, until he adds, "Actually, she wants to take us all shopping, after we're all kitted out." He casts Tilley a disdainful look. "I wonder what the hell she's going to do with <i>you.</i>" Keith winces.<br/>
<br/>
"Did she say anything about the, uh—?" You wipe your forehead with your fingertips.<br/>
<br/>
"No. I just asked her if she'd take me shopping like she took you"—thankfully there's no snigger in his voice when he says it—"and she said she wanted to take all of us. She wants to see our personalities too." He rips a bite out of his sandwich, and he adds, with his mouth full, "I wonder if she's going to get one for herself."<br/>
<br/>
"She could stand to have a personality," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
"I was talking about a doohicky." He regards you thoughtfully. "Maybe you could get her one."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm serious. We could all chip in. One of us could get a metal doohickey onto a girl in our class. Another could make her a mask. Well—" Again he glances at Keith. "It would have to be you or me who did that. You know, make her up a new persona, like we're getting."<br/>
<br/>
"She doesn't seem much interested. Except for us."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, interesting, that. Maybe she's a lesbian."<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" You perk up. "You think so?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "It's interesting she's helping us with this stuff. I wonder if she'd be helping us if we were, you know, copying guys." He shudders a little.<br/>
<br/>
"I suppose we could ask her if she wants a mask and shit," you allow.<br/>
<br/>
"It would be polite," Caleb agrees.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Teresa doesn't ask you to wait for her after school, but you do anyway, and you send her a text telling her that you'll be in the library.<br/>
<br/>
She comes running in, breathless and a little pale, at around four-thirty.<br/>
<br/>
"I got them," she gulps, and plucks nervously at your shoulder. "Come on."<br/>
<br/>
"Something go wrong?" you ask in alarm after you've come to life again. You start packing your things as she shakes her head.<br/>
<br/>
But she comes clean after you're on your way to the truck. "They saw me," she admits as you're trotting across the front quad toward the parking lot. "I got Mary yesterday without her seeing me. But today—" She gulps again.<br/>
<br/>
"What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
She shakes her head and repeats, "They saw me. They couldn't stop me but they saw me. Crap. I should've been, like, disguised," she mutters.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Too late now,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
"Here," she says when you're in the truck, and she thrusts a metal band at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Is it the girl in your acting class?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. But I this one 'ld go better with that, um, face you made. The other one, from miy class, I'll give it to Keith."<span class="felfmnmfhh379"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111111111
author_id: seuzz
id: ST9YC7YGR
title: Mad About the Girl
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You flip the band over to examine the name on the other side: MADISON MICHELLE CRAWFORD, it says.<br/>
<br/>
"Who's this?" you ask Teresa.<br/>
<br/>
"Put it on and you'll find out," she says. She is still pale and hasn't recovered her breath, but she is putting a braver face on things. "Well?" she says when you don't move. "Are we going?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug and start the truck.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb and Keith are at the old school when you arrive, but neither of them has changed, and both of them look at you and Teresa curiously as you come down the steps into the basement. At first you think they must be silently speculating about what might be going on between you and Teresa, but that fear is dispelled by the looks of eager relief they show when you dangle the metal band at them.<br/>
<br/>
"Someone named 'Madison' for me," you tell them. "And for Keith, Teresa's got ... um ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Avery Ayala," she says. She hands a metal strip to Keith, who in his excitement nearly drops it. "Girl in my first period class." She gives you a sidelong look. "Madison is one of her friends, and she surprised me in the restroom."<br/>
<br/>
There's a moment of awkward silence as everyone looks at everyone else, as though waiting for a starting pistol. Caleb's the one who finally ends it by saying, "Well, do you want to try them out, or don't you?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
When you wake it's like breaching the surface of the ocean after a long and deep dive. Your eyes roll open and you suck in a great lungful of oxygen. Your heart is beating hard, but you lay very still and stare at the dim and dusty ceiling as you wait for—<br/>
<br/>
Well, for what?<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm going to put the masks on you after you put the other things on,</i> Teresa had suggested as you and your friends looked for spots to stretch out on. <i>To save time.</i> So you should be in your other body now—the one you "Chelsea-fied" with a mask. So that will be a change, in addition to—<br/>
<br/>
You tense all over, and do the mental equivalent of cautiously stretching your limbs, feeling for other changes. The last thing you remember is lying back and laying your palm, which clasped the metal band, onto your forehead. So shouldn't you also have—?<br/>
<br/>
<i>What's that?</i> You suppress a short gasp at what sounded like a voice calling. But you're sure you didn't hear a voice, at least not with your ears. It sounded like it was inside your skull. Does that mean—?<br/>
<br/>
You are suddenly seized with terror, by the conviction that there is someone lying on the table next to you. Why is that scary? <br/>
<br/>
Because she—<br/>
<br/>
And it is definitely a she, you are sure of that for some reason.<br/>
<br/>
—is going to wake up any moment. And when she does, and she looks over at you—<br/>
<br/>
You feel a shriek rising in your chest, and shut your eyes and throw your head from side to side as—<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Oh my God," you gasp as you study yourself in the mirror. You cup your face—this strange face that you have never seen before—between your hands and furrow your brow at your reflection. "I'm—!"<br/>
<br/>
But you're at a loss to finish that sentence.<br/>
<br/>
Both of you are at a loss. You and Madison Crawford both.<br/>
<br/>
There was a long, fraught moment when she woke inside your skull. And it really did feel like something was worming around inside your skull, that someone was trying to unfold herself there, and trying to slip her limbs inside of yours, like she was trying to put you on like a skin suit. And then her mind opened to yours, and it was like a supernova went off inside your head, as the radiance of her thoughts and memories filled yours.<br/>
<br/>
But then the radiance—the intense feeling that <i>I am Madison Crawford and what the hell am I doing here?</i>—had faded, leaving with only the cold and impersonal memories. But you found after a moment's startled introspection that you could "wear" these, and that they also hung together to make a personality. It was a limp personality until you filled it with your own. And then ...<br/>
<br/>
Well, then it was like you were Will Prescott <i>and</i> Madison Crawford, and you could shift from one to the other as easily as shifting your weight from one foot to the other.<br/>
<br/>
You are balancing halfway between them now as you stare at your face. You feel Madison's wonder and shock, which makes it new for you all over again. It's a pretty face, though bonier than you would like. And you grimace at the hair, which is <i>just way too short!</i><br/>
<br/>
You are jostled hard as Keith elbows his way up to the mirror, and you flash him a quick, dirty look.<br/>
<br/>
Then you stifle a giggle. <i>Oh my God!</i> you think. <i>Poor Avery!</i><br/>
<br/>
You can guess what "she" thinks by the way Keith boggles at her reflection: The froggy eyes, the donkey teeth. Though you feel Madison's disappointment with a face that isn't nearly as adorable as her own, you look comparatively good next to your friend.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, on the other hand ...<br/>
<br/>
He's in his mask again, too, but is sitting in a chair and smirking openly at you and Keith as you fight for place in front of the mirror. You give him a dirty look as well.<br/>
<br/>
Then a mood of mischief overwhelms you.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Mary!" you gush as you turn toward her. "Oh, wait." You dimple at her. "I forgot. It's 'Maria' now, isn't it!"<br/>
<br/>
She smiles tightly at you, but says nothing.<br/>
<br/>
You sashay over toward her, and it takes you a moment to realize how natural it now feels to walk on wide hips with wobbling bosoms. More than natural, it feels good. You go up on tiptoes, and easily retain your balance as you smirk down at Caleb. "<i>Definitely</i> an improvement for you, I'd say," you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
"Wish I could say the same for you, Madison," she retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"It's good enough." Still on tiptoes you hop lightly from foot to foot, indulging the urge to <i>almost</i> turn a cartwheel. "Only I'm not Madison, am I? I guess I should come up with a—"<br/>
<br/>
Your eye falls onto Teresa, who has retreated into a corner and is studying you with beady eyes, like a badger under a hedge.<br/>
<br/>
Or a wolverine.<br/>
<br/>
You see her now, with Madison Crawford's eyes, and you know who and what she is.<br/>
<br/>
Nerdy, unpopular, anti-social, stiff-necked. Teresa McNeal doesn't try to be fit in, and doesn't even bother to hide the contempt she feels for the other people in her class. No one even bothers to play cruel pranks on her anymore, like they did in middle school, because she just retorts with withering, scornful looks. She's a girl who's too proud to belong.<br/>
<br/>
But that doesn't mean, you'd bet, that she doesn't want to.<br/>
<br/>
Your emotions balance on a knife's edge for just a moment, before falling onto the positive side of the court. You put out your hands and beam at her.<br/>
<br/>
"There she is!" you exclaim. "Oh my God, what are you hiding over here for!" You traipse up, ignoring the way she shrinks back, to seize her by the hands and pull at her. "Oh, come <i>on,</i> Teresa! We're all having fun, you should have some too!"<br/>
<br/>
Though she mulishly resists, you at last pull her onto her feet and drag her over to the circle where Caleb and Keith, frozen and watchful, are waiting.<br/>
<br/>
"Everyone," you coo as you fold your arms around Teresa from behind; she stiffens in your embrace. "You remember Teresa, from school? Teresa?" There is so much sugar in your voice that you almost choke. "You know Mary. And Avery. And me! Oh, this is so cool!" You squeeze her.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm glad you're having fun, Will," she says in a tight, dry voice.<br/>
<br/>
"I totally get why you gave me Madison's thingama-jiggy." You release and move around her, to return to the mirror, where you touch your face and push your bangs around. "Madison's going to be head cheerleader when she's a senior, did you know that, guys? Or when she's a junior, if she can swing it. Can you imagine, being captain of the cheerleading squad two years running?" You smile at your reflection, then force yourself to relax into it, so that it enwreathes your face instead of erupting there. "So, I kind of have Chelsea's face now. And her body." You turn from side to side, marveling again at how sexy your bare legs are. "Now if I had some makeup, and if I could do something the freak with my hair—"<br/>
<br/>
You wheel back onto Teresa, who is listening to you with a pained and tired-seeming smile. "You promised to take us all shopping again, right?" you ask her. When she nods, you add, "Can we do that now?"<br/>
<br/>
"We can't go out dressed like this!" Keith protests.<br/>
<br/>
"You can't!" You bubble with laughter. "But I got my stuff here in the basement. You and Caleb pull your masks off and put your clothes back on. I'll change. And then we'll all head out!" You beam at Teresa. "Okay?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You all wind up in Keith's car, with him and Caleb up front while you and Teresa cuddle in the back. "Cuddle" isn't the wrong word, either, for you snuggle up right next to her and tuck your arm into hers.<br/>
<br/>
"Listen," you tell her in a low voice, "me and the guys were talking at lunch bout what we could do for you. You know, to show how much we appreciate your helping us out? So, what can we do for you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want anything, Will," she says.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Bullshit,</i> you think. There is something in this that's a turn-on for you.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I can think of one thing we're going to do," you tell her. "We're going to crash a party this weekend <i>for sure,</i> and you're going to come with us. The only question I got is, do you want us to make you a mask to go in or not?"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to do that," she stiffly replies.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Don't have to,</i> she said. Interesting choice of words. Not <i>No, don't do that.</i><span class="jfflmijgfk269"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111111111
author_id: seuzz
id: N9VTQXY4W
title: Three Little Maids Are We
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Once again you go to Second Pickins (after a brief stop at Teresa's, so she can pick up some money), and you handle Caleb and Keith the way Teresa handled you: They take the masks into a changing room, and you bring them outfits to try on.<br/>
<br/>
You don't rely on Teresa, though, for you've got your own ideas now about what will suit them. (And although Teresa did a good job of outfitting you—to the surprise of "Madison," who wouldn't have figured Teresa to know anything about what looks good—you also keep an eye out for items that would suit you as well.) It takes you awhile to pick through the clothes with a close and critical eye, and Caleb and Keith are both groaning with impatience by the time you bring them your choices. And though  they blanch and bleat at what you show them, you remind them that they are not spending their own money, and that Teresa is on a tight budget.<br/>
<br/>
It works out well enough: Though they could look better, you do think you picked out some good stuff for them. Both could pass for Hispanic with their creamy tans, so for Keith you pick out a sleeveless, forest-green shift that you match with a brown belt to give "her" figure a little shape, while for Caleb, with "her" more athletic build, you bring navy blue cotton shorts and a deep purple hoodie with an amateurish copy of the Eastman High mascot (a screaming eagle) on the back. Both girls have to make do with cheap sandals for footwear, and they wear their purchases out the door.<br/>
<br/>
And if the clerk notices that two guys came in and didn't leave, and that two girls left without ever first coming in, he doesn't say anything.<br/>
<br/>
From Second Pickins you go to Nirdlingers to pick up undergarments, then make a long side-trip to Walgreens for some cheap makeup. <br/>
<br/>
Then, fully outfitted, and having texted your folks that you'll all be eating out with friends, you drive out to a McDonalds, to make your public debuts as a quartet of high school girls.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"God, I can't believe we're having to split three kids' meals between us," Keith moans as he eyes himself critically in the mirror of the women's washroom. He leans forward to apply a little more mascara to his eyelashes.<br/>
<br/>
It was the first thing you and your friends did on arriving at the restaurant: you took your latest purchases into the restroom so the other two could put on their bras and panties, and so all three of you could apply some makeup to soften your features.<br/>
<br/>
You can only do the most basic touching up, using lighter touch than Madison would even wear to school, but enough to take the edges off the more masculine planes of your face. A little powder covers up the worst of the pores and blemishes that you hadn't even noticed the first time you checked yourself out in the mask, then a little blush to bring some color to your cheekbones, and finally some lip gloss. You still have to wince over your hair, which is too short and too flat atop your head. And your teeth are too big and your eyes still too furtive. Only when you smile do your features knit together pleasingly, into an expression that conveys a kind of sexy, fun-loving glee, and you resolve to grin and coo and gurgle as much as you can get away with in order to keep the look going. The makeup does help a little, though the feminine personality you are wearing isn't sure whether to be pleased or bothered that it makes you look so much older than your years: early to mid twenties, rather than late teens.<br/>
<br/>
"I could eat two Big Macs by myself, I'm so starved," Keith continues to moan.<br/>
<br/>
"That's because you're eating for two," Caleb says. He's gone much lighter on the makeup, and is studying his final look in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
"What does that mean?" Keith demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Just what it sounds like," Caleb retorts, and starts to close up his stuff.<br/>
<br/>
Keith pales under his tanned features, and palms his stomach with both hands as he frowns down at himself.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, don't be such a snackpie," you chide him as you turn your head from side to side, to see if you're finally satisfied with the effect you've achieved. "He just means you're eating for yourself <i>and</i> for ... this girl. What <i>is</i> your name going to be, anyway?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" Keith blinks at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" you mimic cruelly. "Okay, I guess we'll all go out there and call you 'Keith' in front of the whole restaurant staff. 'Keith.' 'My dude.' 'Man.' Tch! I mean, the fuck do you want us to call you when we're out in public like this?" You straighten out the lines of your white-and-black striped shirt. "Caleb is 'Maria', remember, and I've decided I'm going to be 'Mickey'."<br/>
<br/>
"Where are you getting <i>that</i> from?" Caleb—Maria—demands.<br/>
<br/>
"From 'Michelle.' That's Madison's middle name, and when she was little her parents called her 'Mickey.' On account of she was a little tomboy." <i>Until she pitched a fit and demanded they stop it.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, alright," Maria says. "Keith, you can be 'Linda'."<br/>
<br/>
"How come? That's, like—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you fucked up Lin's face when you merged it with yours! Or, I dunno, you can come up with your own."<br/>
<br/>
"No, her name is Linda," you insist. "It just makes sense. Oh, for fuck's sake, here!"<br/>
<br/>
You grab Keith—Linda—by the shoulders and haul around to face you, then snatch the mascara from her hand. "Hold still," you order, and begin to delicately apply a little more to her lashes. They are short and stubby, and you can't do much with them, but at least she looks like she's got lashes by the time you get done.<br/>
<br/>
"There. Now, if you want a Big Mac instead of half a kids' burger and some fries, you can drive home and get some of your own money, and freak your dad out when you go in looking like this. So come on." You grab up your stuff from off the sink. "Let's get back out there before Teresa starts wondering what's happened to us."<br/>
<br/>
Teresa already has your orders spread out at a four-top Formica table in the middle of the restaurant, and she doesn't really react when your trio comes sauntering out to join her. You all settle around the table and snatch at the pile of fries and the small hamburgers that Teresa has already sliced in half.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," you observe as you glance around the restaurant, which is doing a good if not heavy business, "everybody from school comes in here." You munch on some fries. "I bet if we hang out here long enough, some people we know will come in."<br/>
<br/>
"God, I don't want them to see us like this," Linda gasps.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not like they'll know it's you, you dumb bitch," Maria says.<br/>
<br/>
To which you add, "Except they will if you don't stop acting like a lame-ass doofus who's scared he's get caught out cross-dressing. Come on, man," you continue as Linda stares, "didn't you put on one of those doohickies? I know you did, I saw you, so I know you're supposed to be acting like Avery Ayala, if it's doing its thing. So stop embarrassing <i>us,</i> and start getting into some kind of character," you finish with a growl.<br/>
<br/>
Linda stares at you with a hanging mouth. Then she shuts her eyes and furrows her brow. For a moment she tenses, then slowly relaxes. There's still worry in her eyes when she opens them again, but it's as if the shadow of another personality has settled over her.<br/>
<br/>
She is still anxious and a little frightened, though. "I just don't want any guys showing up," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"I do," you reply, and look around again. "I hope it's guys from school we know, too. I wanna see if we can get to talking with them, make an impression. Get them to tell us about some parties happening this weekend, invite us out to them."<br/>
<br/>
"God, you are so into this," Linda says with a kind of awestruck horror.<br/>
<br/>
"That's 'cos Mickey's got the right idea," Maria says. "Oh, that's her name, by the way," she tells Teresa. "She's Mickey, I'm Maria, the other one is Linda."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you do?" Teresa says with wry irony. "I was wondering who you all were when you just plopped yourselves down here."<br/>
<br/>
You grin at her.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Alas, even though you hang out at the restaurant for an hour, no one you know shows up, and even when you drive around, poking your noses into various coffee shops, you don't find anyone. The evening winds up being a bust.<br/>
<br/>
Except, of course, for the fun of gossiping and giggling girlishly as you make the rounds. By the end, you feel like you've grown to know the new personas for your friends: Maria is the smart-mouthed cynic who talks with a lazy boredom and needles you and Linda. Linda is shy and twitchy and seems ill-at-ease with her looks, and is easily flustered—a lot like the real Avery Ayala. You're not sure exactly how you come across to the others, but in your own mind you're the alpha queen, the one who comes up with all the ideas and shoves the others into going along. You're also the last to conclude (with vast reluctance) that the night has come to an end.<br/>
<br/>
And Teresa?<br/>
<br/>
She is very quiet and simply goes along with everyone, and though she doesn't look distracted or bored or even particularly awkward, you are pretty sure she's not having much fun.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe you should do something about that.<br/>
<br/>
It would be easy, you figure. Just make her a new persona. Caleb can give you the metal doohickey he made (he forgot to bring it to give it to Teresa), and you can get it onto a girl at school.<br/>
<br/>
And there won't be an issue with getting caught: Not if you take the mask of "Mickey" to school tomorrow, and change into it during seventh period.<span class="fenlefeeh3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111111111
author_id: seuzz
id: CN2BNFR8W
title: Making a Fourth Maskateer
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>Wednesday morning.</i><br/>
<br/>
You're still packing up for school when there's a hard rap on your bedroom door. "What?" you shout. Your heart nearly explodes from out of your chest as you hurriedly stuff the bra into your backpack.<br/>
<br/>
The door opens and Robert puts his head in. "Mom says to get it in gear, you're going to be late."<br/>
<br/>
You flush. "I'm not going to be late!" you snarl. "It isn't even eight o'—"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you have to drive Dad to work?"<br/>
<br/>
You stare, then cuss. You forgot that your mom has to take his car in to be maintenanced, which means that you get to drop him off.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm almost ready," you tell Robert, and follow it with "Get out!" when he hovers dubiously in the doorway. He smirks at you as he withdraws.<br/>
<br/>
With hammering heart, you shove the rest of Mickey's clothes down into your backpack.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you are way late getting to school, and decide to just skip first period. Skipping classes is sometimes a dangerous thing, because there's no telling who might be hanging out in the library—your preferred "class ditching" venue, because you can make it look like you're doing a study hall—but it turns out there's no one in there worse than James Lamont.<br/>
<br/>
He's concentrating on his phone when you come in, and starts a little when you materialize at his side. "What are you doing in here?" you ask as you set your pack down next to his.<br/>
<br/>
"Study hall," he waspishly replies as he shoves his phone away. "What are you skipping for? Still mad at Walberg on account of your grades?"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face, and ask, "How do you know I'm skipping Walberg?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus. Because you're in here instead of in there?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean— Oh, never mind." You take out your own phone and plop down next to him. "So what are <i>you</i> even doing at school? If I had study hall first period I'd just come in late."<br/>
<br/>
"What have you got that's better to do than come to school?"<br/>
<br/>
"You mean <i>you</i> don't have anything better to do?" you jeer. "What a sad, sad life you lead, Lamont."<br/>
<br/>
Now it's his turn to make a face. "Just as sad as yours, I guess," he grumbles. He puts his phone away and starts digging books out of his pack.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't feel like you have to study just because I dropped in," you tell him, and ostentatiously lean back with your phone squeezed between your palms. "I'm not."<br/>
<br/>
He hesitates, and you brace yourself for another jibe about your grades, but it doesn't come. Instead, with a muffled sigh, he opens his math book and starts poring through it.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I wonder what James would do if he had a mask, if we showed him and Carson these things,</i> you wonder as you squint at him over the top of your phone. <i>Would he and   Carson go along with us, doing the same things? Or would they—?</i><br/>
<br/>
You sigh. Probably they'd grab the book from you and kick you out so they could do their own stuff with it. They're even more snobby about the science stuff than Caleb is, and if Caleb got mad at Keith for fucking things up, you can only imagine what Carson and James would do to him—and by extension to you, because you get the impression they think you're as big of an idiot as Tilley is.<br/>
<br/>
You can't stop a little twitch from popping onto your lips, though, when you imagine James using the metal "memory strips" to get inside the head of Jenny Ashton, the girl he has a crush on, to find out what she really thinks and feels about him. <i>Fuck him and his whole "superior scientist" thing,</i> you think to yourself. <i>With girls he's just as big of a hopeless loser as—</i><br/>
<br/>
"The fuck are you smirking at, Prescott?" James growls, and you realize too late that you were staring at him, and he's caught you.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," you reply, and sink a little deeper into your seat. Then, to placate him, you add, "I was just remembering the time you glued Javits's shoes to the floor."<br/>
<br/>
James grimaces, but you can see it in his eyes: He's flattered.<br/>
<br/>
As for you, you know now whose brain you're going to copy for Teresa.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb, when you catch up to him, is pissed off because you forgot that you had to pick him up for school, and so he had to call Keith for a ride. He's not mollified by your story about giving your dad a ride to work—<i>You're such a fucking scatterbrain, Prescott,</i> he growls—but he's not so mad that he doesn't eat lunch with you. You ignore him, though, because you've got business to talk over with Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"That mask you fucked us all up with last week," you say to him by way of introducing your topic. "You know the one," you add as his eyes bulge and his throat turns green. "The one you used in the bathroom, and Teresa caught you and yelled 'Rape' about."<br/>
<br/>
He flinches. "Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, it happened. But what'd you do with the mask. Fuck me!" You feel yourself pale. "You didn't <i>leave it</i> with her, that girl, did you?"<br/>
<br/>
"The one I was making? No, I got it! That's how come Teresa caught me, because I was, um—" Now he turns very red. "She came in while I was, uh, getting the mask off her. The  other girl."<br/>
<br/>
You glance at Caleb, who is staring very levelly at Keith with a cheek bulging with unchewed, unswallowed sandwich. Keith glances between you. "What?" he demands.<br/>
<br/>
"What were you doing with her?" Caleb asks around his mouthful. Keith crimsons very deeply, and gasps like a gutted fish. "Never mind," Caleb mutters. "I think I get the idea now, and I <i>don't</i> want the picture."<br/>
<br/>
"I—! No!" Keith hollers. "It was just— the way I was, uh, squatting over her to get the— the— the—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want a picture, Keith!"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, alright!" you jump in. "Jesus, I don't want a picture either, and I also don't want— Look, I just wanna know what you did with that mask."<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," Keith mumbles. "Got it at home. You guys wouldn't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I want it."<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"For Teresa. I want to do her up a thing like we got. You know. Face and new personality and everything."<br/>
<br/>
Now you feel yourself changing color as your two friends turn to stare at you.<br/>
<br/>
"We were talking about this!" you protest to Caleb. "About getting—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your voice down!"<br/>
<br/>
"About getting Teresa some, you know, stuff." You hike your shoulders in a quick shrug. "So this's what I'm doing." You turn to Keith. "So 'cos I don't wanna make up a totally new mask—<i>and</i> because I don't wanna fuck things up more by, you know, trying to rape a girl in the bathroom—"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't trying to—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will you both shut up?" Caleb hisses. He glowers at Keith, then at you. "What are you planning to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, Tilley's got that mask that's already got someone in it, right?" you explain. "So we just have to put Teresa's face in it to make a new face, like we did with ours, and then she's got a new look. And for personality—" <br/>
<br/>
You snap your fingers, because it kept slipping your mind up to this point.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you bring that metal doohickey like we all made, like I asked you to?" you ask Caleb. "I'm gonna use it to get her a new personality to go with her new look."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's eyes bulge, but it's Keith who speaks. "Oh," he jeers. "So it's okay if <i>you</i> rape a girl in a—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut! Up!" Caleb says. "Will, you just got through saying that you didn't want to—"<br/>
<br/>
"We don't got a fresh mask, and we don't need one. But I can get the personality today, though, if you brought—"<br/>
<br/>
"Leave to Teresa," Caleb says. "If she even wants this, she should be the one to do it, not you, because—"<br/>
<br/>
"I brought a disguise, so it'll be safe." You pull over your backpack, unzip it, and tip it toward them so they can see the edge of "Mickey's" mask. "I'm gonna put this on seventh period, and then—"<br/>
<br/>
"You should still leave it to Teresa," Caleb says, and purses his lips.<br/>
<br/>
"She hasn't got a disguise!"<br/>
<br/>
"You can loan her that one."<br/>
<br/>
"What's the difference between me wearing it and her wearing it? Besides, I won't even have to go in any bathrooms to—" You glower at Keith. "I got it set up, I'm meeting Jenny Ashton after school in the library."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks bewildered. "What's Jenny got to—?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's the one I'm gonna pop the dingus onto. Gonna copy."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks pained. "You should still give Teresa her choice," he says.<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I will," you say. "I'll give her Jenny's thing-a-bubby, and if she doesn't like it we'll make her— I'll make her," you correct yourself, "a new one and she can use it on whoever. But I don't think she's going to <i>say</i> she wants one. I think she does want one, but she doesn't want to <i>say</i> she does." You shrug. "So this is a way of helping her get over the hump."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shakes his head, but with a sigh he unzips his pack and takes out the metal strip he told you he'd bring.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And yet you are hesitant, and as seventh period begins your will begins to waver. Maybe Caleb is right, and you shouldn't just spring a personality onto Teresa, even though Jenny's personality—strong-willed and independent—seems like it would mesh with Teresa's while bringing some much-needed sparkle. Maybe you should just give the strip to her and let her use your mask to copy someone of her choice.<span class="fngigffkfli3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111111111112
author_id: seuzz
id: LP3PCQZWX
title: A Sex Change at School
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>It's just nerves,</i> you tell yourself. But though you've decided to go ahead, your stomach is fluttering hard. <i>It just makes sense to do it this way,</i> you tell yourself. <i>I'm not taking any choices away from Teresa. I'm just, you know, helping her get started and maybe saving her some trouble.</i><br/>
<br/>
Still, your legs are trembling when, ten minutes after the seventh-period tardy bell has rung, you find yourself standing in front of the nearest girls' restroom. Because <i>that</i> is where you'll have to change.<br/>
<br/>
Gingerly, standing well back from the threshold, you push the door open a foot. "Hello?" you call into it. "Anyone in here?" If there is, you tell yourself, you'll tell them that you're looking for a particular girl, and then run find another restroom. But there's no answer, so you edge closer and push the door open some more. "Anyone in a stall?"<br/>
<br/>
Still no answer.<br/>
<br/>
You glance up and down the hallways to make sure the coast is clear, then bolt inside and dive into the farthest stall. You lock yourself in, and balance yourself atop the toilet, wedging your backpack sitting on the bowl between your knees so no one will see so much as your feet.<br/>
<br/>
Quickly you haul out the clothes and mask and metal band. (You decided to play it safe by going all the way.) Even more quickly you push off your shoes and pull off the rest of your clothes, stuffing them for the moment between the toilet and the wall. <i>Jesus, please don't let anyone come in and find me like this, doing this,</i> you pray as with trembling fingers you start to pull on girl panties that are too small for you, and a bra that drapes listlessly across your narrow chest. The look, you glumly suppose, is only slightly improved by pulling on the gray cotton shorts and the black-and-white striped short-sleeve shirt. Once that's done, you drop down and wedge yourself between the toilet and the wall and lift the mask to your face. Now, at least, if someone finds you, it will be a girl in girls' clothes they find, not a girl in boys' clothes or (so much worse!) a boy in girls' clothes.<br/>
<br/>
The mask, as it touches your face, seems to drag your head forward and down, and you topple into darkness ...<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake to a feeling of nausea, and with a really bad pain in your neck; your head reels when you lift it. For a long moment you huddle where you woke, nursing the various pains and trying to will them into going away. Eventually you feel well enough to move, and with a lot of grunting and creaking you push yourself to your feet.<br/>
<br/>
That helps, though you sway and have to put your hand against the wall to keep from toppling over. You suck in a deep breath and look around.<br/>
<br/>
You're in the toilet stall still, and there's no noises from without, which is good. Your clothes fit more loosely on you now, which is also good, but you have to hike up your shirt and rearrange your breasts inside the cups of your bra. (<i>Breasts,</i> you think, <i>I've got breasts again!</i>) You touch and push at your hair. <i>Should I freshen up?</i> you wonder, then decide that, no, you should finish up the disguise by putting on the memory strip. "Mickey" will know better than you how to get things arranged. So with a silent groan you drop back down to the floor and pull out the metal doohickey. You study the name again—MADISON MICHELLE CRAWFORD—as you try to make yourself as comfortable as you can.<br/>
<br/>
It's funny, but everything of the girl has vanished from your head, save for a few obvious and memorable biographical points. She is a sophomore who wants to be a cheerleader, and she's the queen of a rather buzzy bunch of sophomore girls obsessed with who is up and who is down and who is going out with whom. (She's besotted with at least one particular guy, but you can't remember who, and even yesterday you didn't pay much attention to the crush.) She's also kind of judgey. But the rest of it? She's left hardly so much as a bruise on your memory and consciousness.<br/>
<br/>
But you do remember what it was like yesterday when you woke with her inside your head. That wasn't very fun until you got used to it, and you're not looking forward to repeating the experience. But with a sigh you reflect that the sooner you get it over with, the sooner you'll be able to get out of this really shitty and compromising position inside a toilet stall. So you close your eyes, grit your teeth, and touch the metal band to your forehead.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Gawd,</i> you grumble as you touch and pull at your hair with the comb. <i>I have </i>got<i> to figure out something to do with this!</i> You make a face at the comb as well. <i>And this bullshit isn't helping either!</i><br/>
<br/>
It's not like you even ever use the comb that you carry from habit around in the hip pocket of your pants, but thank goodness it was there so you could at least straighten out your hair a little. You told yourself while wincing at your reflection that it didn't matter how you looked, that you were just wearing this face long enough to ambush Jenny Ashton. But it quickly became a matter of morale, at least to "Mickey." <i>I can't go hang out in the library looking like </i>this! you groaned to yourself. And after that, there was no fighting it, not with the quick-and-dirty makeup kit on hand, which you packed this morning on the principle "better safe than sorry." But even as you applied eyeliner and lip gloss and a little powder you were silently snarling at yourself for taking so much pointless trouble. Probably it would have been safest to leave the makeup at home, because you can't help resenting the way you're giving in to "Mickey's" instincts.<br/>
<br/>
And they came quick. Unlike yesterday, when Madison Crawford's memory swept you away, like an avalanche of boulders, today they came to you with a freshness and clarity, as though you were simply remembering things that you had almost forgotten that you had forgot. So too came this rather pushy personality. But it doesn't feel any more alien or overpowering for that fact. It simply feels <i>easier</i> to think like "Mickey" when you're looking like this.<br/>
<br/>
When you are at last only half-unsatisfied with your looks, you stand back from the mirror and give yourself a critical once-over. Your nose and mouth are still too big and too freckled, but as long as you smile the effect is warm and girlish, such that you can see the influence of Chelsea Cooper's face inside of it. In fact, as you touch your face here and there, you flatter yourself that if you could just get your hair the right length—short enough or long enough; this middle-of-the-road crap ain't cutting it—you could be one of the lookers of the sophomore class. Particularly—you break into your most girlishly gleeful grin—if you let Madison's most adorably giggly and girlish traits out. It gives you a good, hard, pleasurable shiver all over to imagine yourself as one of the pretty girls, one of the popular girls, one of the girls all the guys want to hang out with and that all the other girls envy!<br/>
<br/>
Too bad the wardrobe is all wrong. The top and the shorts fight each other. The top needs to go with some good jeans—something faded and distressed—while the shorts belong with a sleeveless workout shirt: something thin with a plunging neckline.<br/>
<br/>
Well, it's what you've got and what you've brought. And you remind yourself again that you're only in disguise until shortly after school, when you'll hit Jenny with that metal band. You've already given Caleb the keys to your truck, and he'll be waiting in it, to give you your getaway when you come scampering out of the school.<br/>
<br/>
You scoop up and stow all your stuff in your pack, then take a deep breath before marching over to the restroom door.<br/>
<br/>
Then, as you step into the hallway— <i>Ulp!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Because <i>he</i> is trudging past as you yank the restroom door open. Trudging past with head down, and you almost barrel into him as you come out. And even though you catch yourself, you nearly trip over your own feet.<br/>
<br/>
<i>He</i> looks up from his own feet to glower briefly at you, then stops to do a double take at you. His expression freezes.<br/>
<br/>
Then it takes you <i>way too long</i> to realize you are gaping at him.<br/>
<br/>
You blush all over, and duck your head and run for the library, where you dash for a table in the farthest corner, hurling your pack onto it, and throwing yourself into a chair to bury your face in your pack.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh Jesus, Madison! I mean, Mickey! The freaking freak did you let yourself get caught that way for?</i><br/>
<br/>
Of all the freaking-freak bad luck, you had to come out of the restroom just as—<br/>
<br/>
Just as—!<br/>
<br/>
<i>Just as Micah Freaking Larson was walking by!</i><br/>
<br/>
Okay, Micah Larson is not Madison's big, obvious, open crush. That would be Ethan Clayborne, and it would have been even worse if you'd opened the door all unawares and hurtled into <i>him.</i><br/>
<br/>
But maybe it is worse that you almost ran into Micah, who is Madison's super-secret, super-shameful crush, the crush she would kill herself and her whole family before confessing to. So maybe it's worse that you got caught staring slack-jawed at him.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, it's all over now,</i> you tell yourself. Bad luck, and he just took you by surprise, that's all. After your heart has quieted down, you lift your head, and start to open your backpack.<br/>
<br/>
That's when you hear the squeak of rubber soles behind you, and turn to find Micah Larson himself looking quizzically down into your face.<br/>
<br/>
He followed you into the library!<span class="fngigffkfnf3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111111111121
author_id: seuzz
id: D8Q3TTNRH
title: Crushed by Another's Crush
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Micah Larson jerks his chin at you. "T'sup?" he says. A hooded curiosity shows on his face as he studies you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi," you gasp back at him.<br/>
<br/>
Then you tear your eyes away and dig inside your bag while trying to ignore him. But you feel your face turning hot as you fruitlessly paw through your old clothes, trying to find a book—any book!—to pull out.<br/>
<br/>
You do at last pull out a notebook, and then because you can't help it you glance up at Micah. He seizes the chance with another jerk of his chin. "M'name's Micah," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi," you say, and duck your head to stare at the open notebook. It takes you a stupidly long time to realize you've got it turned upside down.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, so what's your name?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit shit shit shit shit!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Mah— Mickey," you stammer as you turn the notebook around. It's full of math notes and equations, but you haven't got a pencil, and besides, it's notes from weeks ago. You almost tear the paper as you flip violently forward to a fresh sheet.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, so what are you, a junior? That's what I am."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Fuck me fuck me fuck me!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I'm a— a—" A sudden idea comes to you. "You know I don't go to school here!" you blurt.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" That's so interesting he pulls out a chair and sits down next to you. You flinch. And yet you can't <i>not</i> glance at him even as you strain to keep your eyes bent onto the notebook. <br/>
<br/>
"So what are you doing here if you don't go to school here?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Micah Larson, you have heard, is bad news. He runs with a rough crowd, likes to get in trouble, and he doesn't just cross boundaries, he erases them and doesn't put up new ones. He is dangerous to know, not because he's violent, but because he has neither an "off" switch nor a steering wheel.<br/>
<br/>
He is also dreamy-pretty in a bad boy way.<br/>
<br/>
Which is weird, because to Madison—who otherwise fantasizes about clean-cut, stacked-with-muscles hot-bods like Ethan Clayborne—should look down on him as a scruffy low-life. Micah is on the short-and-slight side, with a skinny frame and stringy hair that he wears down to his shoulders under a too-big, backward-turned ball cap. He favors sleeveless shirts that show off wiry arms, and too-big pants whose cuffs almost swallow the tops and back of his scuffed and scarred hiking boots. In short, he grooms and dresses like the delinquent loser he is, the kind who skips most of his classes to hang out by the portables smoking pot—and not because it's cool but because he has no other ambition than to get high and dodge the pain of learning.<br/>
<br/>
But he's also so pretty! He has a soft, vulnerable face, with big, dark eyes that are watchful and a little haunted—like a puppy that wants, but is too wary to ask. They give him the air of a child—almost a male waif—instead of the delinquent that his reputation suggests.<br/>
<br/>
At least, in the pressure of the moment, that's the only thing that can explain your desire to take him in your arms, to coo and cuddle him, and brush the hair from his face and kiss life's little wounds away from his lips. That's the kind of thing that Madison, to her own horror, has caught herself fantasizing as she's watched him from a distance in the Personal Fitness class they share.<br/>
<br/>
So it's a hell of a crush—for yourself as well as your borrowed persona—that you are suffering now.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's also a hell of a thing (you discover) to be a natural talker. You find you can't shut up once you start explaining your first lie, and you can't stop adding new lies, and filling in the details of those lies with yet more lies, all while being unable to drag your gaze away from Micah's open and curious stare.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm waiting for a friend," you stammer. "Jenny, uh, Ashmore?"<br/>
<br/>
"You go to Eastman?" A crease of puzzlement disfigures his clear brow.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm— I'm homeschooled." You twirl your finger in the air to indicate what a stupid thing it is to be "homeschooled."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's cool," he says. "My mom tried homeschooling me when I was, like, ten. She had to give up. What's your name?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, Mickey. It's a nickname for, uh, Michelle."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, that's cool,"  he says. (It seems to be a catchphrase with him.) "Micah and Mickey," he murmurs. "Micah and Michelle. You let anyone call you 'Michelle'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, uh, my grandmother—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Wouldj'a let me call you 'Michelle'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno. Maybe 'cos it comes out easier. 'Micah'n Michelle."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I mean—"<br/>
<br/>
"So where d'you live?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oof!</i> "Um, down south of town. Kind of close to the wilderness."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, you go out there a lot?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well ... Sometimes—"<br/>
<br/>
"I like to hike out there sometimes. Go out, get myself lost, do some thinking. We should go out'n do that together sometime. Whaddaya do when you're not studying?"<br/>
<br/>
So you are forced to establish that you like to swim and ride your bike and sometimes hike in the Wilderness, and that you've got friends at both Westside and Eastman, and that you want to be a graphic designer or maybe an interior decorator when you grow up, and that naturally you're terrified of going off to college (though maybe it won't be too bad if you wind up going to Keyserling) and that you don't think there's anything wrong with being homeschooled, only that it is kind of hard to meet new people except through the friends you already have but sometimes it's hard keeping connected with them.<br/>
<br/>
And the whole time Micah listens with a sober interest, pushing you just enough that you can't stop making up answers, while offering very little about himself, save that he has a weekend job bagging groceries at Eagle Foods, and that he has two cousins who attend Eastman. Twin brothers, in fact, but they're not identical and no one has any trouble telling them apart.<br/>
<br/>
But then comes the moment that you're dreading, when he asks for your number. You have no number to give him, of course, save for "Will Prescott's," and how would you explain that? But when you try to demur, telling him that you don't think you'll be seeing him again, he casually bats away your excuse.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you're gonna see me," he says. "I 'unno," he answers when you ask him how. "I just know it. Like when you feel something's gonna happen for sure. So gimme your number, 'cos I'm gonna call you." And when you finally tell him that your mom checks your phone and won't want to see calls or texts from strange boys (which you hope will be a turn off for him) he just tells you to give him your x2z.com handle, and then takes your phone and sets an account up for you when you tell him you don't have one.<br/>
<br/>
"You gotta be sure to check it," he says as he give the phone back. "You won't see my DM if you don't."<br/>
<br/>
The bell rings soon after, and he saunters coolly away, leaving you exhausted and trembling.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After that, your ambush of Jenny Ashton is almost an anticlimax. You wait until she's she's settled at a library table with her phone, then sneak around to touch her on the back of the head with the metal band. She falls forward, and you catch her and arrange her to look like she's napping with her head on the table, and watch her. (During the time you're waiting, you send her a text telling her that something came up and you won't be able to see her after all about that "girl Caleb is interested in".) The danger is that one of her friends might come looking for her, but nothing happens during the ten minutes that she's unconscious, and when the metal band appears on the back of her head you pick it up with forefinger and thumb, confirm that her name now appears on it, then make the fastest dash ever for the parking lot and your truck. You throw yourself, panting and gulping from all the adrenaline, into the passenger seat.<br/>
<br/>
"How'd it go?" Caleb asks as he turns over the motor.<br/>
<br/>
"Got it, no problem," you reply between gasps. "Worst part was waiting."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" he asks. "Some guy come in and flirt with you?"<br/>
<br/>
You whirl with a squeal. "How'd—? Who told—?" you demand before you can stop yourself. You gape at Caleb as he gives you a mild look.<br/>
<br/>
And you gape at him just a little too long: long enough for him to make the deduction.<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa!" he says as his eyes widen. "You <i>did</i> get flirted with!" He grins. "Didn't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I—! Shut up!" you yell as Caleb howls with laughter. "It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my idea! Anyway it wasn't flirting—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure it wasn't!" he chortles. "But tell me all about it, man! I'm not puttin' this thing in motion until you do!"<br/>
<br/>
So, with red-faced grimness, you relate the absolute minimum about how you were followed back into the library by someone from one of Madison's classes, and how he spent all of seventh period talking to you. And when you get to the part about the guy setting up an x2z account for you—or for "Mickey," actually—Caleb insists that you check it right then and there for DMs.<br/>
<br/>
And, God damn it, there is one:<br/>
<br/>
<i>Me n cuziens doing party F nite want u and ur frnds all cum.</i><br/>
<br/>
"What?" Caleb asks in answer to your guttural, "Oh my Gawd!"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing!"<br/>
<br/>
You try to put the phone away, but he's stopped behind a dozen cars waiting to exit the lot, and is able to reach over and wrest the phone away from you. He chortles over it, and over your burning face.<br/>
<br/>
"We're going, Will," he says. "DM him back, saying you're coming."<span class="fnjgkgile3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111111111212
author_id: seuzz
id: GXD7RLK5N
title: The Party Gang
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You gasp at Caleb. "I'm not going to some party with— with—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course you are," he retorts. "You're the one who was all hot yesterday to hook up with some cute guys."<br/>
<br/>
"Micah isn't cute!" you holler. Then you blush, because of course Madison thinks he is.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it doesn't matter. There'll be some cute guys there. Some guys, anyway." He chortles again. "You might even get lucky."<br/>
<br/>
"C—! <i>Dude!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb laughs. "You're going, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"You can't make me!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, but I'm going, and you won't want to miss out on that."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not going to—! Wait. You are?" You blink in confusion. "As one of the girls?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, I wanna see what it's all about. Wasn't that what we were trying to do yesterday? I wanna go <i>out</i> in one of those things, man! Get myself all rigged up and go out and— Nnh!" He squirms behind the wheel in a way obviously meant to relieve the pressure on a swelling cock. "And if you're not going, you can lend me your mask." He glances at you, then does a double-take. "Or fuck, just <i>give</i> it to me if you're not going to fucking do something with—"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I'll go! But I have to go as 'Mickey'! You have to go as— Whatsername!"<br/>
<br/>
"Maria. We'll get Keith to go along too."<br/>
<br/>
You slouch in your seat, sulking, despite yourself. <i>Way to railroad me, dude,</i> you mutter to yourself. You close the x2z.com app, then on an impulse turn on the camera so you can study your—Mickey's—face.<br/>
<br/>
And because you're still trying to squirm out of it, you mutter, "And where the fuck am I supposed to know you from? Maria from?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know me from school," Caleb says. He's finally reached the front of the line of exiting cars, and swings your truck out onto Borman Avenue, gunning it hard to accelerate for the city and home.<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>don't</i> go to school," you retort. "I told him I'm homeschooled." <i>That Mickey is homeschooled,</i> you silently correct yourself. But, staring at your face—that tomboyish variation on Chelsea Cooper's face, one that adds bigger bones and a splash of freckles to her wide smile and dancing eyes—it's surprisingly easy to slip into thinking of yourself as "Mickey."<br/>
<br/>
"So I'm just a friend," Caleb says. "Jeez."<br/>
<br/>
"But where do <i>you</i> go to school? Can't go to Westside," you jeer, "or else he'll come looking for you."<br/>
<br/>
"So let him come looking. It's not like he'll find me."<br/>
<br/>
"He'll ask about your classes! Or someone will. If it's a party. See? So we shouldn't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then I'll tell him I go to Eastman."<br/>
<br/>
"He's got cousins at Eastman," you retort, and surprise yourself at remembering that detail. "They're gonna be there too."<br/>
<br/>
"Fine! He checks his blindspot, then swings sharply into the other lane as the car in front of him brakes to a stop. "I'll tell 'em I live in— I dunno, Adaburg, or some shit hole like that. They got a high school there, don't they?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, we play them this Friday."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb does a double-take. "Since when do you pay attention to football?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't." Then you wince. "Madison does, though."<br/>
<br/>
"Oooh!" Caleb chortles again. "Okay, so I'll be from Adaburg. Or maybe I won't. Jesus, Will, we're just going out to have fun, we don't gotta <i>be</i> anyone!"<br/>
<br/>
But as you pout into the lens of your phone—and as the image on the screen pouts back—you find yourself thinking, <i>Mickey deserves to be someone. She deserves to be ... real!</i><br/>
<br/>
Though what that means—what <i>you</i> mean by it—isn't clear, even to you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb drives the two of you out to the old school, where you're set up to meet Teresa and Keith. Despite staying after school, you get there first, and with more ambivalence than you pretend, you strip yourself of the mask and clothes and return to your own form. Caleb gives you a beady-eyed glance as you're zipping up your trousers, and because you can guess what he's thinking, you flip him off.<br/>
<br/>
There's a good reason, it turns out, for Keith and Teresa being late: They stopped at Keith's to get that extra mask Keith has, and on the drive over Teresa put it on, to mix her face into it. Her manner and attitude are very prim and correct while explaining all this, and she gives no sign of being either happy or unhappy to be included in the mask shenanigans, and she is similarly businesslike when she asks if you made a "brain copy" of someone to go with it. Feeling a little green, you hold the strip out to her.<br/>
<br/>
"And who's 'Jennifer Ashton'?" Teresa asks as she studies the name on it.<br/>
<br/>
"Jenny? She's—" You look to Caleb and Keith for help. For what can you say? Jenny Ashton is Jenny Ashton. Jenny is base. Jenny is who she is and no other.<br/>
<br/>
"She's a friend of ours," Caleb says. "Kind of a tomboy. I mean, she's pretty and all," he adds in a stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Keith grins at him. "You think so?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. Prettier than before what <i>you</i> did to her face!"<br/>
<br/>
"What did Keith do to her?" Teresa asks as Keith's expression curdles.<br/>
<br/>
"He put a mask on her. She was one of the first. Didn't we tell you? I think we did," Caleb insists as Teresa frowns at him. "Well, we got one that's got this doofus's face mixed in with Jenny's, and one that mixes his with—" Caleb looks to you, puzzled. "Who's the other one?"<br/>
<br/>
"Stephanie."<br/>
<br/>
Teresa stares. "You mean you didn't have to make this one, you had some others around?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well," you say when an uncomfortable silence yawns before you, "we just thought you'd want one that, uh, uses your own face in it. Same as we did with ours. The others are sealed up already."<br/>
<br/>
"Hmm." Teresa looks very prim. Then she holds out the new mask to you. "I guess you should seal up this one, then. I'll put it on, then—" She cocks her head. "Maybe you guys could put on the other two? So I can look at them? Because to be honest, I'd like a choice."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith and Caleb are the ones who don the other masks, at the same time that Teresa puts on her new one. That leaves you alone. You give a little thought to joining them by putting "Mickey" back on. But they're not going to be in their masks long, so you don't.<br/>
<br/>
You can't help wondering what Teresa will say when she hears about you and Micah Larson, and the invitation you got. She was okay with going out with you all yesterday, and she didn't say anything against trying to run into people. But maybe she figured you weren't going to anyway? Will she be cool with going out to someone's actual house? Also, how much will Jenny's personality change hers? You're not sure you saw much of a change in Caleb's personality yesterday when he was being "Maria," and Keith was just quiet while he was being "Linda." Your personality kind of changed, though. There was definitely something ... liberating ... about being Madison. Will Teresa find it "liberating" being Jenny? Or will she hate it?<br/>
<br/>
It makes you so antsy that you have to leave the basement, so you drive home long enough to drop off your books and get an ETA from your mom about dinner. Having supper plans will be a good excuse to cut things short, because you're nervous about having to face up to what all has happened today.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone's awake when you get back, but you have no trouble telling who is who, not only on account of their clothes but on account of their faces.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb is the easiest to pick out, because he's the only male in the group. True, he does look a lot like Keith—too much, probably for his or anyone else's comfort—but there's enough of Stephanie's face mixed in with Keith's that, when animated by Caleb's impatience and faint contempt, he doesn't look like a dumbass and a pushover, the way the real Keith so often does. He's studying the other two with his hands on his hips, with a rather waspish expression.<br/>
<br/>
Keith, in the "Keith plus Jenny" mask, is obviously feminine, what with her softer face and longer hair, but she still suffers from Keith's bulbous eyes, and her nose is too big. She is just standing there with dangling arms, blushing faintly under the scrutiny of the others.<br/>
<br/>
As for Teresa:<br/>
<br/>
You don't know what the other girl looked like, but she must have had a rounder—or at least shorter—face than Teresa, because this new girl has a face almost like a circle. It is a rather babyish face—soft, with big eyes—but complicated by strong traces of Teresa's own features and personality. Those big, babyish eyes, for instance, are watchful and a little hooded, and the mouth is tight, even when it smiles. It's a rather "knowing" face, more like that of a young woman than of a sophomore girl. Her hair is shorter than Teresa's, falling just to the bottom of her neck, but it is similarly straight and a mousy brown color.<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure that it's a pretty face. And in fact, the longer you look at it, the more you think you prefer Teresa's own face.<br/>
<br/>
She seems to have doubts too, for after staring critically at herself in the mirror for a minute or so, she turns to ask your opinion.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think?" she asks. "I can't pick between this one and that one."<br/>
<br/>
You're about to reply when you realize she's not pointing at Keith, in the feminine face, but at Caleb in the masculine one.<span class="fngigffkfnj3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111111111112121
author_id: seuzz
id: RNDSQ9R52
title: Other People's Heads
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"What?" you exclaim in answer to Teresa's question. "That one?" You point to Caleb, and she nods. "Um, that's— Uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"This one's got a penis, Teresa," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
She gives him a withering look—or, at least as withering as she can manage with her babyish face.<br/>
<br/>
"And what's wrong with that?" she says. "If you guys can parade around in boobs, why can't I—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus!" Caleb says, and Keith blurts out, "That's totally different!"<br/>
<br/>
"How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because, uh—" Keith's eyes water a little. "Help me out, guys?" he pleads to you and Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, you can do whatever you want," you tell Teresa with upraised palms. "No judging! But we thought if we were all gonna hang out, you know— Well, we thought it'd be easier if you were a, um, a girl too." You feel yourself reddening.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," Teresa says, very matter-of-factly. "I'll go with this one when we go to the party." She squeezes her face between her flattened palms, as though straightening it out.<br/>
<br/>
You look uneasily between her and Caleb. "Caleb told you about that, huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"The party Friday night."<br/>
<br/>
"No," Teresa says. She looks at Caleb. "I was just talking about any party. Is there a party Friday night?"<br/>
<br/>
"Might as well tell her about it, Will," Caleb mutters. "You stuck your own foot in it."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Teresa says she's totally interested in going to a party, as long as she gets to wear a "different face" to it. (She also says she is going to get some use out of the Keith-Stephanie hybrid at some point, and even casually mentions that maybe you all should make some "guy masks" as alternates for yourselves, a suggestion that you would support for Keith and Caleb, but which leaves you feeling a little insulted.) You try to explain to her a little what Micah Larson is like, and what his reputation is. But Madison's memories are fading quickly away, so that you only have an impression of what she thinks of him, and don't do a very good job of it. Not that Teresa seems fazed. She says that'll only make it "more fun" to meet him, hang out with him, then ditch him and disappear forever.<br/>
<br/>
"You need to stop thinking these girls are real," Caleb tells you later that night, when you're talking on the phone. You were doing homework and texting him, but the texts—expressing doubts about what you're going to be doing—got thick enough and long enough that he just called you to talk direct. "So what if we get in trouble," he honks. "It's not gonna come back to us, because it won't be us! And it won't come back to the girls 'cos they're not real either!"<br/>
<br/>
You're way too embarrassed to say that you kind of feel like Mickey is a real girl—at least while you're wearing her mask. So you just mumble that he's right.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' straight I'm right," he retorts. "Even Tilley gets this. And Teresa— Gotta say I was surprised she's going along with it."<br/>
<br/>
You admit you're surprised too.<br/>
<br/>
"Good thing, too," he says. "Otherwise we'd have to do it behind her back. And if she's along, she'll help keep us outta the worst trouble, so that'll be good."<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of trouble are you thinking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, going off and getting in a back seat with some guy."<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" you exclaim, and almost drop the phone. "You're not fucking serious!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not fucking serious about myself," he retorts. "I'm not fucking serious about Tilley either, and I ain't worried about Teresa. Whoever's face was already in that mask Keith made, it didn't do her no favors. I'm fucking worried about <i>you,</i> though."<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Me?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"I was watching you all last night, when we were out. You got really sore about there not being any cute boys around you could flirt with."<br/>
<br/>
"I was just being in character!"<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm thinking about you being in character while in a back seat someplace. If you take that same character with you Friday night—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna get in a back seat with no guy!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb sniggers. "Are you in the dining room, shouting where your folks can hear you saying this shit?"<br/>
<br/>
You barely restrain yourself from hurling the phone at the wall.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't worry about me, motherfucker," you snarl. "Don't worry about me now, don't worry about me Friday night!"<br/>
<br/>
He sniggers again.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I won't," he says. "I'll leave you to Teresa. Although maybe that won't be so safe either. Jesus, you hear her talking about putting on that spacky mask Keith made outta Stephanie Jockstrap? Jesus," he says again. "Maybe <i>we</i> need to start sittin' on <i>her.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be alright Friday night," you fume.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, you'll be alright Friday night," he says. "But will you be alright tomorrow?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" you demand, anxiously. "What's tomorrow?"<br/>
<br/>
"You got homework do. And I'm trying to think how fucked up it's gonna be with you spazzing out this way while trying to do it."<br/>
<br/>
You take that as an invitation to close the line, and you do.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But the real trouble—if trouble it is—comes from Teresa. She catches you at your locker between classes on Thursday and suggests another shopping trip.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have any money," you protest. "Not really."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll pay," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"How come?" You feel your expression darken with wariness.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you need something for Friday night, Will. That guy already saw you in your one set of clothes. You need some others."<br/>
<br/>
Alarm ripples through you. "What does that matter?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus. Maybe guys go around wearing the same shit every day, but if you're gonna be a girl—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Quiet!"</i> you yelp, and quickly glance around.<br/>
<br/>
"Nobody's paying attention, Will. Come on, I'm trying to do you a solid here. That's what you'd call it, right? A 'solid'?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess. But—"<br/>
<br/>
"Great. I'll meet you out at your truck, we'll go over to Second Pickins again, or maybe the rag shop up by the mall. We'll have to pick up your shit on the way out, of course."<br/>
<br/>
Only after she has gone do you realize that Teresa seemed a little more ... vibrant ... than usual.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I wore that thing to school today," she confesses when you and she are driving into town after school, and you ask why she was cursing so much when she was at your locker. "You know, the one of your ... friend."<br/>
<br/>
"Jenny?" you say. "Oh."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. I took it off at lunch, though. I was getting really aggravated with people." Her brow furrows. "I almost kicked Madison in Geometry class." She gives you a sidelong look.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that's Jenny," you agree.<br/>
<br/>
She's silent for a moment, then says, "Do you like her?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" You swerve a little in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you like Jenny?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well ... Yeah. As a friend."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that all?"<br/>
<br/>
You get a bad chill, and your bowels loosen. "What the hell kind of question is that? Why do you wanna know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just curious."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?" A long-delaying penny finally drops. "Oh my God! Does Jenny wonder that? What I think of her?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I do."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what does Jenny think of me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," Teresa says. "I wasn't thinking about it at the time. I was just wondering now. What do <i>you</i> think she thinks of you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh—! I don't think Jenny thinks of me all that much at all!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm pretty sure she likes you fine, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Likes me how?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, like the way you like her. You do like her, don't you?"<br/>
<br/>
You are far too rattled to speak coherently, but you at last manage to blurt out that you like her fine as a person, only you feel like she's a lot more interested in other things than you.<br/>
<br/>
"So if she paid more attention to you?"<br/>
<br/>
"What does this matter?" you holler.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess it doesn't," she says, and falls silent.<br/>
<br/>
But you find the silence almost as maddening as the conversation.<br/>
<br/>
"Look," you finally blurt out, "it doesn't matter what I think of Jenny, and I don't think it matters what she thinks of me! Because there's nothing that could happen with us!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not with that attitude," Teresa says. "But I wasn't talking about whether anything could happen with you. I was just wondering what you thought of her."<br/>
<br/>
"And what I said, I think she's fine! A little— I dunno. Pushy? She's a total tomboy." You shoot a couple of quick glances at Teresa, who looks like a little gnome perched in the passenger seat of your truck. "I mean, you were wearing the—you said—this morning. You know what she's like."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh. It was kind of fun. Weird, but fun, until I knew I was about to get in trouble. You should try it," she adds. "Make one and wear it to school, see how it makes you see things."<br/>
<br/>
"I've got one," you point out. "The one of Madison."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think you want to wear <i>that one</i> to school. Make a 'brain copy' of a guy."<br/>
<br/>
You feel a little revolted. "Why would I want to do that?"<br/>
<br/>
"To see how it all looks to some other guy. Maybe," she continues, and her tone turns a little dry and ironical. "Maybe copy the brain of some guy who doesn't freak out so much when someone asks him what he thinks of a girl."<br/>
<br/>
That jibe almost sends you hurtling into the traffic coming the other way.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You did bring Madison's "brain copy" with you, but you don't wear it into the shop, but do change into your alternate's mask and clothes before going in. Maybe your time with Madison's head inside your has helped, because you're not nearly as awkward on your feet as you were the first time.<br/>
<br/>
Teresa helps you pick out a very simple shift dress—hardly more than a sleeveless cotton rag, which she accentuates with a thin belt to set off your curves. And then, after that, she suggests hitting the art supply stores. "I've got my mom's credit card," she says, "I told her I'm working on a model for biology. I want to make some more masks."<span class="kpiobmcjop"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111111111121211
author_id: seuzz
id: UBRV9RJDD
title: Party Prep
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You've got enough masks for now, you feel, but you might always need some more later. And so as long as Teresa is offering to pay, why not take advantage of it?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Six-thirty?" Caleb says. "That's kind of early for a party."<br/>
<br/>
It's Friday, lunch time. You and Caleb and Keith are sitting in your usual spot, behind G wing, looking out toward the Agricultural Annex and the baseball diamond. Small knots of students are passing to and fro nearby. None of them, you are sure, are looking in your direction with any great interest, but you're self-conscious anyway, because Teresa is eating lunch with you.<br/>
<br/>
This is the first day that she's joined you and your friends for lunch. None of you said anything when she came trooping up with a "Hi" and dropped herself down next to you, but you're sure the other two were as surprised as you were. No one invited her, and only after she's joined you do you remember that last night, at the old elementary school, while you she was polishing a mask and you were making a new metal strip, that you mentioned that this is when and where you and your friends typically eat.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you say as you chew your sandwich and study the DM Micah sent you giving the part time. "That's what it says." You tap the screen a few more times. "Oh, he says it's a cookout," you add after reading the follow-up DM. "I guess that's how come it's so early. Says we can bring some stuff if we want. But they're doing burgers and hot dogs."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's driving?" Teresa asks. Her question is met with a faint hiccup of a silence as you (and presumably the others) process the implication that she'll be coming too.<br/>
<br/>
"Tilley will," Caleb says after an awkward silence as everyone looks at everyone else.<br/>
<br/>
"Me?" Keith looks surprised.<br/>
<br/>
"You not got a car?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't got gas money," Caleb says, "and it'll look funny if four girls come pulling up in Prescott's truck."<br/>
<br/>
But you've hardly been paying attention, concentrating instead on the link Micah sent to a map app. "Guys!" you exclaim "They've having it out in the middle of Bumblefuck, Nebraska! Way out south and west of here!"<br/>
<br/>
"Lemme see," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on! I'm pulling up street view!" You loose a low whistle as you look at the result. "It's a fucking <i>barn!</i>" You turn the phone around, and let the others study the image.<br/>
<br/>
It shows an immense, open field, bordered by low, wood-railing fences, stretching out for acres and acres. The most prominent building is a large, tumbledown shed a few dozen yards in from the side of the road, but Caleb (after he's taken your phone and played with it) points out that there is in fact a house on the opposite side of the road. It's the only habitation visible, though.<br/>
<br/>
This all leads to speculations about hayrides and horseback riding, but mostly to a sense of puzzlement about what kind of "party" you'll be going to, since the house looks very small. Keith suggests that maybe one of you should go as "a dude, just in case," but you acidly retort that in his mask of "Linda" he won't have anything to sorry about. Which reminds you that you need to tell Michah that you'll be bringing friends, so you DM him back.<br/>
<br/>
And as it happens, he just happens to go shambling by, head down, a few minutes later. "That's him," you tell everyone, and jerk your head in his direction. You cringe as three heads swing around to stare at Micah Larson.<br/>
<br/>
There's a thoughtful silence as they study him, during which you brace yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Girlfriend," Caleb chortles at you. "He's <i>cute!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You pound him the chest while he howls with laughter.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You tell your folks you'll be at a cookout/party until eleven, and drive off to pick up Caleb at around a quarter-to-six. You then drive out to the elementary school to meet Teresa and Keith. This is the second time that Keith has been the one to give Teresa a ride, so you try to work up a little gossip about the two of them, but Caleb shuts it down with a withering glance.<br/>
<br/>
He finds the supplies that you and Teresa bought—you made up six masks, and polished one of them—and asks about them. You tell him it was Teresa's idea, which he takes in with a thoughtful silence. "It just seemed like a good idea to have some extras on hand," you explain.<br/>
<br/>
Once everyone is assembled, there is a little awkward talk, and then you all shuffle off into a corner of the room to change into your aliases. Teresa, you notice, crawls in between some bookcases in search of a hidden cubbyhole, which presumably she finds. You, feeling a lot more nervous than you have yet, huddle up in a corner near the big mirror<br/>
<br/>
<i>This is it,</i> you find yourself thinking after you've got your clothes off and are hunched up with the mask near your face. <i>This is going to be the first time for real. The other times, we were just going out and goofing off. Or I was just putting this on so no one would recognize me. Now, I'm going to be going to a party, as this girl. As if she was a real girl!</i><br/>
<br/>
Almost you feel as if you are turning yourself into someone else—into someone real—as you push the mask to your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Oh, fuck me," you grumble as for the third time in three days you struggle to do something with your hair. It's dim in the basement, but you don't need to see your reflection in the mirror clearly to see that your hair isn't doing what you want it to.<br/>
<br/>
"There's nothing wrong with your hair, Will," says Teresa. For about the fourth time you do a double-take at her reflection. You're not sure you're ever going to get used to the idea that this moon-faced girl is Teresa. "You're just trying to turn it into something it's not."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how about <i>you</i> do something with it for me!" you gasp as you thrust the comb at her. She looks at you, looks at it, then calmly takes it. You burst out with an exasperated sigh as Teresa—who is still almost as short as her counterpart, even as you are almost as tall as you originally were—pulls up a chair she can stand on so she fiddle with your hairdo. But you meekly turn your head this way and that as she touches it up here and there, straightening the part and arranging the bangs.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, Will," says the girl who is Caleb Johansson. She has black hair, Hispanic-dark skin, and a cynical gaze. "You'd think you weren't the prettiest one here. How about you swap with Tilley, if you think you've got it so bad."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you, man!" you growl back at her, and dodge the hurt look that shows on Keith's reflected face. "It's not <i>me!</i> It's this girl! <i>She's</i> the one who cares so flipping much about—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, there's your problem," Teresa says in a very placid tone as she continues to touch up your hair. "Madison's hair is all different. Bigger, bouncier, body-er. Different color, too. You need to remember, you're not her."<br/>
<br/>
She's right, but still you can't help grumbling. "If it was just <i>longer.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"So let it grow out." Teresa pauses. "I wonder if it would."<br/>
<br/>
"Would what?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you left the mask on long enough. Would your hair grow out? And nails, and all the rest. I wonder if they're growing out even when you're not wearing it."<br/>
<br/>
"Now, there's a question worth asking," Caleb says. "Though the big question's got to be, what kind of a freak would Will give birth to if he gets sloppy drunk tonight and lets Micah have his way with—"<br/>
<br/>
She ducks as you pick up an old stapler lying nearby, and hurl it toward her. Teresa, after forcing your head around to face the mirror again, says, "That's a question for all of us, isn't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why, are you planning on—?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. I'm just wondering how realistic these masks are. Like, what if we got X-rays or CAT scans? What would the images show?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, man," Caleb says, and her eyes widen. "Oh, Jesus! What if it's <i>all</i> down inside, underneath. Dude, what if—" Her mouth falls open. "What if you dug around inside your pussy deep enough. Could you pull your cock and balls back out through the front?"<br/>
<br/>
Shrieks of horror and disgust fill the basement.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't look as good as you'd want, but you look okayish, you suppose, when Teresa is done, and you thank her for it. Everyone else is ready to go too, but Teresa hangs back as you're all making for the stairs, saying that she's got just a little touching up that she wants to do before she joins you.<br/>
<br/>
Outside, you're halfway to the car when you stop to wonder if you left some of your makeup downstairs, and return inside. Teresa looks up at you with a sharp, guilty expression when you come in.<br/>
<br/>
"Just looking for something I think I forgot," you tell her. She has thrust something behind her back, and as you approach the mirror you see in its reflection that it is a mask. You hesitate, then turn with a sigh and confront her about it.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment she tries to stammer and bluff her way past you, but relents when you press her.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, it's just an idea I had, Will," she says. "I'm just taking one along in case I see a chance to use it."<span class="fmjgifgemffj3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111111111212112
author_id: seuzz
id: A9SMCX4KJ
title: Mickey Martin Makes Her Debut
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You hold Teresa's gaze for a long moment as she fidgets with the mask in her hand.<br/>
<br/>
Then you sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"Just be careful," you say. "And if you need any help, well— Tell me."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a silent and awkward drive out to the party, with you and Teresa sharing the backseat of Keith's car. Up front, Keith doesn't say much either, leaving it to Caleb to fill the cab with inconsequential chatter, mostly about parties that he—or "she," as he reminisces with his impersonated persona—has been to or heard about. He offers plenty of joshing warnings about guys getting handsy with girls, and especially warns you to be careful.<br/>
<br/>
You don't pay him much heed, though, being preoccupied with Teresa, and what she's got in her purse. Caleb accepted her into your company because (so he said) she would act as a brake on your shenanigans. Yet here she is acting the way Keith had been acting, being both reckless and secretive with a mask. Has Caleb completely misjudged her? Certainly he's misjudged her in one way, and probably you have to, because you never would have predicted her acting this way. Were you fooled by her persona—that of the cool, prim, and prickly high school girl who is certain that everyone else is acting like an idiot and needs sitting on? Is she really a lot more wild on the inside?<br/>
<br/>
Or is she being sucked in by the temptations of the masks? You are now—in your dress, in your makeup, in your boobs and legs and hair—on your way to a party in the persona of a girl. ("Michelle 'Mickey' Martin" is the name you have now fully constructed for her.) Never in a million years, before you found that book, would you have guessed that you'd have it in you to dress up, even to the making of a fake and anatomically accurate body, and go to a party with the intention of acting like a flirty high school girl. Yet here you are. Is it the same thing with Teresa?<br/>
<br/>
Or maybe it is something in between. There was that very awkward conversation you had with her yesterday afternoon, after school, where she was talking about Jenny, and what it was like to wear her personality to school. You were hoping it would give Teresa a little more "sparkle." Has it done more, and unlocked something inside her, something reckless?  You told Caleb that you thought Teresa wanted to do an impersonation, but didn't want to <i>admit</i> to wanting to. Having crossed that line (thanks to you) is she now barreling out of control?<br/>
<br/>
Whatever is going on, you're going to have to watch her.<br/>
<br/>
You glance over at her now, in time to see her pull something from her purse. She lifts her hand to her forehead, and you see a little flash of silvery metal between her fingers. Then her hand drops, her eyes roll shut, and she slumps in her seat.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, that answers one question,</i> you wryly think to yourself. That was Teresa, not "Jenny," you caught stealing the mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The party location, when you arrive, looks in real life like it did online. (Only, y'know, bigger, and three dimensional.) The country road weaves lazily over and along the hollows of some very low, rolling hills, bordered on each side by wooden railings, until you come to a small ranch house of red brick under a low-slung roof, with white shutters on the windows. Next to the house is an open carport, inside of which is parked a big, black truck. Keith is just pulling up to park in front of the house when Caleb points down the road, to where some trucks are parked on the side of road close to that ramshackle shed. "There's some guys down there," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, so?" says Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, drive up there. That might be the guys. You're parking on the wrong side of the road."<br/>
<br/>
Keith grumbles in the back of his throat, and pulls back onto the road. A hundred yards or so up it, he pulls up behind a white sedan, were two boys are perched on the fence drinking out of some cans. They look over at your car with mild curiosity.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb turns around to address you and Teresa (who has woken up) and Keith.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, remember who you are, girls,"  he says, and points a lazy finger around the car cabin. "I'm Maria, this is Linda, in the back we have—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jenny," Teresa says. "Jenny MacNeil."<br/>
<br/>
"Mickey Martin," you say when Caleb looks at you.<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face. "Fine," he says. "Be difficult. I'm Maria Johansson and this is Linda Tilley."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't look like a 'Johansson'," the moon-faced Jenny MacNeil says to the very Hispanic-looking Maria.<br/>
<br/>
"My father was Swedish."<br/>
<br/>
"And your mother?"<br/>
<br/>
"Wasn't." He glances back at the two guys, who are still staring at your car. "And we're not from around here," he says when he turns back around. "We're from Adaburg."<br/>
<br/>
"Except me," you say. "I'm from Saratoga Falls."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus," Keith mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"If anyone asks your biography," Caleb says with no little acid, "be vague."<br/>
<br/>
And with that, he turns around, opens the car door, and gets out. A moment later, you join him.<br/>
<br/>
The pungent scent of wet, new-mown grass engulfs you as you step out of the car, and a quick breeze ruffles your hair. Loud motors buzz in the distance, like mechanical cicadas, and off in the field behind the shed you glimpse two large riding tractors—almost the size of combines—bouncing over the ground, spewing fresh-cut grass behind them. It's not bucolic, but it is definitely the countryside.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," Maria calls out to the guys on the fence. "Is this where someone's having a party?"<br/>
<br/>
You freeze, watching with a feeling of sudden terror and amazement, as she saunters over to the two boys.<br/>
<br/>
Because suddenly it's not Caleb anymore, and when you glance around it's not Keith and it's not Teresa, either. In the car with them, even in their masks, you still couldn't help thinking of them—and even "seeing" them, in your mind's eye—as your old friends. They were just "made up" different.<br/>
<br/>
But now?<br/>
<br/>
Three girls have gotten out of the car. In the lead is a short, stocky, strong-looking girl in t-shirt and shorts, her dark hair cut in a short bob. Her name is Maria, and she's a smart, cynical girl who speaks her mind bluntly, with a glint of knowing mischief in her eye.<br/>
<br/>
Coming around the front of the car to join her is Linda, who is taller and a little more ungainly, a little more giraffe-like. Like Maria, she has dark hair and a Hispanic cast to her features. Her glance is a little more wary, a little more frightened than her friend's, and she fidgets self-consciously.<br/>
<br/>
The last girl, Jenny, is the smallest of your bunch. Her hair is mousy brown and hangs in a limp, straight sheet down to he shoulders. She has a moon-face with a sharp glance, and her lips pucker with amusement. Maria speaks bluntly, but Jenny looks like she could draw blood with a sharp remark.<br/>
<br/>
<i>These are my friends,</i> you think. <i>My girlfriends. We hang out and we do stuff together and we're here to party on a Friday night.</i> <br/>
<br/>
You run a nervous hand up the strap of the little purse dangling from your shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
<i>And I'm one of them. I'm Mickey.</i><br/>
<br/>
Your mouth twists open into a nervous grin as the boys hop down off the fence and advance on you and your friends. Their mouths and eyes sparkle with interest.<br/>
<br/>
A quick, hard thrill runs through you.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This is going to be fun!</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Gnkph!" Maria makes a face after slurping down a mouthful of the cheap beer that you're all drinking. "Oh, it's fine," she hurriedly adds. "I've just had better, but I've had worse." She swallows down another great mouthful, this time without flinching, and cuts a tiny burp. "Pretty good, once you know what you're in for."<br/>
<br/>
"Maria's a beer snob," you explain with a smirk. "Her dad only drinks, like, craft beer, so that's what she steals behind his back." You dimple at her as she makes a face at you.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not a snob," Jared Larson says.<br/>
<br/>
You wrinkle your nose at him, and take another, longer sip out of your own can. "No," you say after lowering it, "but I don't drink beer that much."<br/>
<br/>
Jared's lips curve into an insolent—and slightly bullying—smile.<br/>
<br/>
He and Cody are seniors at Eastman. They are twins, in fact, but not identical, so it's easy to tell them apart. They are both lithe and lean teenage boys, dressed in loose-hung, sloppy shorts and t-shirts, and both keep their brown hair (which dangles in loose curls behind their ears and down the backs of their necks) under control with burgundy-colored ball caps. Jared is the taller of the two, and seems slightly more burly. He has a long, open, handsome face, and his eyes are set in a direct and unembarrassed stare even when gazing openly down at your breasts. Cody is a little shorter, and his manner slightly more furtive and rat-like. He's bothering Jenny, while Jared entertains you and Maria with an indifferent equality of interest.<br/>
<br/>
Or  maybe not so indifferent. Someone shouts behind you, and as you turn around to look, Jared's arm drop onto your shoulder, framing your neck in the crook of his elbow. It rests heavily there as Micah Larson—Jared's cousin—comes striding up the shoulder of the road from where he's parked.<span class="fngigffkgff3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111311111111111112121122
author_id: seuzz
id: L9PJB55PK
title: Meet the Larsons
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Jared's arm rests heavily on your shoulder, loosely clasping your neck in the crook of his elbow. He pulls himself close to you, even as he raises his beer can in a kind of salute to the approaching Micah.<br/>
<br/>
The calculation in your head blazes so quickly you are hardly aware of it, and only after you have nestled a little closer to Jared do you realize what you've decided. <i>Better to let someone from Eastman flirt with me than someone from Westside. It will be easier to keep my distance.</i><br/>
<br/>
(At least, that's what you seem to have thought. Only much later, when you're turning it all over in your head with a sense of puzzlement, do you realize how little sense that reasoning made.)<br/>
<br/>
"Bruh!" Jared calls out to Micah. "Where's the fuckin' brews you were supposed to bring?"<br/>
<br/>
"I need your ID, man!" Micah shouts back. "And a coupl'a twenties!"<br/>
<br/>
"Shit." Jared wobbles on his feet, bumping you as he digs inside his hip pocket to bring out a wallet. Without dropping his arm from around you, flips one-handed through it.<br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself freeze a little as Micah shifts his gaze onto you. There's no surprise, disappointment, or anger in his glance. Just an open-faced look.<br/>
<br/>
He's dressed more or less as he was at school, in a sleeveless hoodie, jeans, boots, and a backward-turned ball cap. His hoodie is unzipped, though, exposing a naked torso with a shallow seam that runs almost from his throat down to his belly button. His chest and stomach are the same nutty-brown tan as his arms and face.<br/>
<br/>
"Yo, Cody!" Jared shouts. You shudder a little as his voice echoes in your ear. "You got our ID? Michah-man says he needs it!"<br/>
<br/>
Micah's gaze shifts, and he holds up one hand to scoop the wallet out of mid-air as it comes flying at him. Then, with a jerk of his chin, he says to you, "You coming?"<br/>
<br/>
Now your guts do freeze, and your eyes fall as you murmur something like, "I'll see you when I get back."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Cody," Jared calls again, in a more civilized voice. "How about you and her go with Micah. You can pick up some stuff on the way back. You want cupcakes?" he asks—almost murmuringly—in your ear. You nod, uncertainly. "Cupcakes and chips. And those brews," he tells Micah.<br/>
<br/>
The latter, with the same cool indifference as he showed walking up to you, turns to lead Cody and Jenny back to his car.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll get the coals going," Jared says, and only now, as you look around, do you see that he's put his other hand onto the small of Maria's back. He pulls and guides you and her toward the shed. "Come help me get them hot."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It turns out that this shed—not the house, which belongs to a different property—is the party site. Or, more specifically, this square mile of open countryside is.<br/>
<br/>
Also, you and your friends are the only guests.<br/>
<br/>
It belongs to the Larsons—these Larsons, the parents of Jared and Cody—and there used to be a house here to go with the shed, but it burned down twenty or thirty years ago. ("You can see the old foundation," Jared tells you, pointing with one finger while clutching a beer can, "over there in that stand of bushes.") It belonged to the boys' grandparents before descending to their father, but their family had their own house, so they just kept the field after the house burned down. They rent it out to horse breeders. They're between renters now, though, so it's empty.<br/>
<br/>
And the cookout isn't a party, exactly, it's an afterwork special thrown by the Larsons.<br/>
<br/>
"That's Micah's brother and one of his friends, out there on the tractors," Jared explains to you and Maria and Linda as he's prepping the coals in one of the biggest grills you've ever seen outside a restaurant. "We all come out here once a month to do clean up. Part of our chores, but we get paid for it, 'cos Josh gets paid for it. Anyway, Trask and Josh mow the field, and me and Cody clean up the shed."<br/>
<br/>
You glance inside the shed, under whose eaves the grill is set up. It is a long, squat building, built of blackened, weather-warped boards under a corrugated roof. There's no panes in the windows, or doors on the entrance. The inside is dark, and a scent of damp earth and mildew floats faintly out from it.<br/>
<br/>
"What kind of stuff needs cleaning up?" Maria asks. She is resting her weight on one leg, her hands on her hips, and you can't help noticing (with a mix of pique and amusement) that she is pushing her breasts out in Jared's general direction. "It's just a dirty old shed, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"We clean out the trash. Wind and stuff blows all kinds of shit inside," Jared says. "We also clean out the spiders nests and empty the rat traps."<br/>
<br/>
"Rat traps!" you gasp. "Ewww!"<br/>
<br/>
Jared grins at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Rats attract snakes," he says. "Wanna see the bull snake we killed this afternoon? We threw it out over there." You gape and shudder as he points. "Cody cut its head off with a shovel."<br/>
<br/>
You and Maria both wail in disgust. But there's a glint in Maria's eye. <i>Gawd dam!</i> you think. <i>She's actually kind of turned on!</i><br/>
<br/>
Anyway, Jared goes on to explain, they do this every month, and afterward they blow part of what they earned the previous month by grilling chops and ribs. He points to a second ice chest (the first, which is open, holds the beers) and tells you that's got the meat in it. Also, a quart of homemade potato salad and a quart of homemade coleslaw. The paper sack next to the ice chests has the paper plates and plasticware.<br/>
<br/>
You and Maria get him to tell you a little more about their family, the gist of which is that they own Larson Landscaping, which is a garden/nursery/lawn care/exterior design company. He's telling you a little about Micah's side of the family—they own an HVAC company—when the roar of tractor motors starts to get deafeningly loud. Jared keeps talking, but you stop paying attention.<br/>
<br/>
Especially when the tractors themselves and their drivers come roaring around the corner of the shed, and drive into it.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Jesus, I can't believe I'm gawping like a teenage girl,</i> you tell yourself as you edge to the side to boggle at the broad backsides of the drivers as they pull to stop and kill the motors. They jump off and briefly inspect the motor housings of the tractors, and the wheels, before turning to come trudging toward the exit. You don't even try to tear your eyes off them.<br/>
<br/>
They are both dressed in work jeans and work boots, and they are both broad of chest, and strong looking. This is particularly true of the one in the blue muscle shirt, whose arms, though slack, boast bulging shoulders and biceps. His shirt, which is sopping with sweat, clings tightly to his plate-like pecs, and sticks to his flat stomach. His blonde hair is long and straight and flows down the side his neck to drape below his shoulders, except at the top and back, where he has pulled his long bangs back into a thin ponytail. His face is hard and regular and handsome, with strong cheekbones, chin and jaw. His eyes are small, and lodged under a powerful brow. He only lacks a hammer—and a beard; he is shaved very smooth—to complete the impression of a young Thor.<br/>
<br/>
The other is much less prepossessing, though his torso, which is wrapped tight in a grayish-green short-sleeved shirt, looks equally as powerful as his friend's. He's not nearly as handsome, as his face is kind of squashed up on one side in a kind of squint, and it is spattered with a spray of brown freckles like buckshot. His hair isn't nearly as impressive, either. He wears it in a mullet (for a start) with bangs sweeping low across his brow while in the back a tangled bush of split ends bunches up in curls against the back of his neck. His lips are badly chapped.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, though he may be uglier than his friend, he has a much more powerful gaze and confident stride, and you have the impression, from the way he walks in front of the other, that he is the dominant personality of the pair.<br/>
<br/>
Certainly he's the one who gives you the boldest and most direct look, and he saunters right up to you until he's almost touching you, to stare down into your face with a smile that is just short of a disgusting leer.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you the girls m'bruh 'vited over?" he asks. His eye roves briefly over to Maria before settling again more firmly on you. "Glad t'ave ya anyway," he says when you don't answer.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Jared answers for you from behind. "This's Maria, 'n that's Mickey 'n Lindsey. This's Trask, my cousin, 'n that's his friend Josh."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Mickey," Trask growls down at you with a gleaming eye. Only slowly does it dawn on you that he's noticed you can't stop silently staring up into his face. "I gotta go hose down, or I'm gonna stink up everything. You wanna help?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bruh," says Jared. "She's helping me with the coals."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure you wanna help me," Trask says, ignoring his cousin. He catches you about the waist with a brawny arm and half-drags, half-carries you toward the corner of the shed. "Faucet's around this way."<br/>
<br/>
You cast a brief, terrified glance back at Maria, but she's too busy stifling a wave of laughter to help you out.<br/>
<br/>
Trask propels you around the corner, to where a metal pipe and faucet sticks out of the ground. He attaches a length of hose to it, and hands you the other end.<br/>
<br/>
"Just spray me down all over," he says as he pulls his shirt off over his head and tosses it away. "You can get yourself wet too, if you want."<span class="felfmnfn379"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411113111111111111121211221
author_id: seuzz
id: LHPTHJHNV
title: The Meat Counter
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You can hardly believe that you're doing what you are in fact doing. You're spraying down a buff, twenty-something man with a garden hose.<br/>
<br/>
Trask Larson has stripped off his shirt, exposing a burly torso with meaty pecs and a stomach that, though it bulges out a little, is still lightly ridged with abs. A great mat of hair spreads across his chest and trails down to his belly button. His arms and shoulders don't have the definition of his friend's, but they are big and obviously strong.<br/>
<br/>
He smirks heavily as you spray him up and down his chest, and turns around and around so you can hit him from every angle. He also lifts first one arm and then the other so you can hit him in his hairy armpits.<br/>
<br/>
You move your thumb off the hose when he jerks his chin at you. "Drop it," he says as he bends to screw the faucet off. "Josh can cool himself off when he turns loose of your friend."<br/>
<br/>
<i>My friend?</i> you wonder, then stagger back a step as Trask drops to pick his shirt up off the ground. The way he bounces down and then up puts you in mind of a gorilla, and you have the sudden fear—or is it desire?—that he'll rush you like an ape and sweep you into his arms.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't put the shirt on, but with another smirk bunches it into a rag and stuffs part of it down into his back pocket. With a curl of his arm, he invites you to follow him back around front. You stagger along with his meaty paw on your hip, but at least he is mindful enough not to pull you close, for the water is still dripping off his bare torso.<br/>
<br/>
Out front, Jared is laying the meat out on the grill while Josh—Thor Jr.—is leaning against the shed doorway, talking casually with Linda.<br/>
<br/>
Maria glances over as you and Trask come around the corner together, and her smile deepens with suppressed laughter.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It surprises you—and relieves you, too—that Trask quickly drops his hand as you join the others, and in fact he doesn't even talk to you that much, instead talking to Jared something going on in the "back forty." The ground seems to be subsiding, and Jared needs to tell his folks how it might need to be filled in before it gets too deep or soft. <br/>
<br/>
He also asks Jared about the state of the shed, and when Jared tells him about the bull snake, he actually goes off to look for it: "Bruh!" he shouts to Josh when he comes tramping back, carrying the dead snake by the tail before him like a trophy. "Look what the Larson ladies killed in the barn!" The snake is black, thick-bodied, and muscular, and it's so long that the other end drags in the grass by his feet.<br/>
<br/>
"Throw it on the grill!" Josh shouts back. "Tastes like chicken," he tells Linda, who is gaping in horror. But Trask, after grinning at you, takes back to where he got the thing, and hurls it away.<br/>
<br/>
The meat is sizzling by the time Micah, Cody, and Jenny get back. They've got three six-packs (two packs of the same cheap beer already being drunk; one pack of another, equally inferior brand) and other goodies: chips, two bags of cookies, and a plastic tray of chocolate cupcakes. These get broken into by Trask and Josh even as the meat's still cooking, and they gobble down most of them between themselves.<br/>
<br/>
"What's your brother and his friend do?" you ask Micah when you find yourself on the edge of the crowd with him. "I mean, I assume they're graduated."<br/>
<br/>
"Trask's graduated," he says. "He works for our folks. You know we own a H-Vac company?" He squints at you, and you nod. "Yeah, he works for them. Josh's still in school, he's a senior."<br/>
<br/>
"At Eastman?"<br/>
<br/>
"McGuffey. He lives in McGuffey, he's one of <i>them</i> McGuffeys, the ones the city's named for. Where do you live?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, Acheson."<br/>
<br/>
"Cool, me too." His gaze is searching but somehow vacant, as though he's unsure if he's interested in you or not. "I'll ride my bike out to your place tomorrow, see you."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, uh, no," you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"How come not?" he asks, and for the first time this evening he seems to look you in the eye directly.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, tomorrow's a bad day. I mean, I'm not gonna be home."<br/>
<br/>
"Where you going? I'll come see you Sunday anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm, I'm going out of town for the weekend," you stammer.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Camping. Up by where my, uh, grandparents live."<br/>
<br/>
"Where's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Cuthbert." You wince inwardly at the name. You lunged for it because you do have relatives in that mountain village: inbred, hillbilly, skunk-eating relatives that you've only seen once and never want to see again.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I dunno where that is," Micah says. "You'll be back Monday, though, for school."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm homeschooled."<br/>
<br/>
"So when're you coming back? I'll ride over'n see you then."<br/>
<br/>
"N-not for a week. It's a long trip. And we're not <i>in</i> Cuthbert, just kind of, um, close to—"<br/>
<br/>
"What's your address?" He takes his phone out.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh inwardly: This is exactly the kind of mess you were worried about getting into, and you wonder if the others are having just this kind of luck as well. <i>What do I tell him when he goes looking for me at some address where I don't live and finds out I lied to him?</i><br/>
<br/>
Then you remember what Caleb said, that "Mickey" and the others don't really exist, so it doesn't matter what you tell Micah and the others. In fact, after tonight, you'll probably never see them again. You can even delete that x2z account.<br/>
<br/>
"Five-thirteen Churchyard Street," you tell him, which is your real address. Then, in a fright, you quickly correct yourself to "Five-thirty Churchyard," so he doesn't actually show up at your place. "And you should text—or DM!—before you come over," you add.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he says as he thumbs the address in. "You ever hang out at the community center down there?"<br/>
<br/>
Your heart goes sideways in your chest. "The— The Acheson Community Center?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah." He looks up at you. "You know, used to be an old elementary school?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh ... I know about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we can hang out there, if you wanna get out without your folks knowing you're coming to meet me." His expression is open, but grave. "We can shoot some hoops if you do that. Or I dunno, just hang out."<br/>
<br/>
You nod, and tell him it's a possibility. Fortunately, you're interrupted just then by a shout that the first batch of meat is ready.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Micah. Jared. Micah's brother." Maria smirks at you. "You little cocktease." She lifts a rib off her paper plate, and sucks the last of the meat off the bone.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut <i>up!</i>" you hiss, and stifle the urge to push your own plate—still piled high with potato salad—into her face.<br/>
<br/>
You're inside the shed, which is dark and dank even with all the light and ventilation coming in through the windows. Maria pulled you in here, as though casually wandering around and exploring as she ate. You didn't especially want to follow—what if there's another bull snake in here?—and now you're really regretting it.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway," you add as Maria scarfs down a forkful of coleslaw, "Jared's at least as much all over <i>you!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You want me to keep him distracted or don't you? So you can concentrate on Micah?" Her eyes glitter with amusement.<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you think this is fun?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos it is!" Her smile turns gloating. "These jerks. These assholes. This is almost as much fun as if it was Patterson or Javits."<br/>
<br/>
You grimace. Sure, you can see the comparison—like those jock-assholes back at Westside, these guys are very cocky. But you don't feel the same animosity for them. This is like pranking someone you don't know. Besides, even though Josh and Trask are built like wrestlers or football players, Micah and the twins are built more like you and your friends, and carry no "gym stink" on them.<br/>
<br/>
You're not given time to reply, though. "Hey," a voice calls from the doorway. It's Jared. "You know," he says as he joins you, "I can't be sure we got all the snakes and rats out. Just so you know."<br/>
<br/>
You and Maria both squeal.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, it'll be okay," he adds. "They won't come out in the middle of everything. And I think we did get 'em all." He catches you by the shoulder as you try to bolt after Maria. "Besides, it looks like it's gonna start raining again, we might hafta move in here anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't wanna stay in here!" You start again for the doorway, through which Maria has already disappeared.<br/>
<br/>
But Jared wraps a restraining arm around your torso. "No, come on, it's okay," he says. "I was coming in here anyway, to put up some lamps. We're all gonna hang out around here until— I dunno, nine or nine-thirty, before heading out."<br/>
<br/>
"Heading out where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Warehouse, probably. Or a party." He looks down his nose—which is long and prominent—at you. "Micah says you're homeschooled?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"You go out to parties much? Ever been to the Warehouse?"<br/>
<br/>
"N-no."<br/>
<br/>
"So maybe we'll just stay out here."<br/>
<br/>
"And do what?"<br/>
<br/>
Jared answers by pulling you close, and kissing you on the mouth.<span class="flfgjfnhge3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111131111111111111212112212
author_id: seuzz
id: AJKDTXLWK
title: A Rescue and Retreat
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"You shouldn't have encouraged him."<br/>
<br/>
You know Maria means it as a joke, but you punch her in the side of the head anyway. Your wrist catches headrest, so it's not much of a blow, and she only laughs unfeelingly.<br/>
<br/>
"No one tried making out with me," Linda says hollowly from behind the wheel.<br/>
<br/>
"Get Will to lend you his mask," Maria chortles. "Or, I dunno—" She turns to glint merrily at you from the front of the car. "Maybe he just knows better how to flirt."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm gonna fuck you up!" you yell, and grab at her face. She rears back, and laughs again.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should take turns sharing masks," Jenny says. "That way it's not just one of us, you know, suffering all the attention."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I don't think Will was 'suffering'," Maria chortles. "Pretty sure he was loving it."<br/>
<br/>
"Stop the fucking car!" you scream, and fumble at the door handle even though you're rocketing back to town at nearly sixty miles an hour. "I'm not gonna sit here and let—"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny grabs your arm. "Calm down, Will," she says. "And you can shut the fuck up now too," she tells Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck Prescott if he can't take a joke," Maria snorts. Only Jenny's restraining hand stops you from punching her again.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're being teased so cruelly because you got caught, and you're not sure it would have been worse if you hadn't. Because if you hadn't got caught, you might have gotten more thoroughly mauled by Jared. But then at least you wouldn't be getting mauled by your friends.<br/>
<br/>
But you did get caught, while Jared had one hand on your hip, the other on your breast, and his tongue in your mouth. It was a thick and busy tongue—a flexible, unhinged muscle, probing the insides of your mouth, and pushing your own tongue around. His lips worked over yours, pulling and sucking, and when he broke off it was only to come up for a quick bite of air before plunging back in again. You made muffled protests, but were too frozen—first with shock, then with a kind of paralyzed curiosity—as you received your first ever French kiss.<br/>
<br/>
And then as you tentatively tried to return it.<br/>
<br/>
When Jared broke off, it was in answer to a voice that you yourself hadn't even heard. Not until you looked around in a daze, and saw Jenny standing in the doorway with a look of shocked amusement on her face, did your position—and an awareness of what you'd been doing—come rushing over you.<br/>
<br/>
Jared tried hanging on as Jenny grabbed you by the forearm and pulled you back outside. The clouds were back and the sky was lowering, and a breeze had come up. Trask and the others were starting to put things away.<br/>
<br/>
"We're gonna take off," Jenny announced in a loud voice. "Linda, Maria, come on."<br/>
<br/>
"We were gonna hang out!" Jared protested.<br/>
<br/>
"Get in the car, uh, Mickey," Jenny said. "I'll get everyone else."<br/>
<br/>
You staggered forward a few steps, then turned to look guiltily back. Jared was staring at you with a wounded but stony expression. Your eyes met, and he hurried forward.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, come on, hang out," he urged as he leaned over you. "Don't let your friend push you around. Let 'em go, you and me'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"We already told some other people we'd be meeting up with them," Jenny hollered as she punched Linda and Maria—who were standing around looking puzzled—into motion. The guys—Trask and Cody, Micah and Josh—stared at you intently, but none of them made a move.<br/>
<br/>
"I gotta go," you protested. "These guys, they're my ride—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll give you a ride," Jared murmured down into your face. "We were all gonna ride out to the Warehouse together—"<br/>
<br/>
"Mickey's never been to the Warehouse," Jenny said. Linda finally staggered forward, though casting a quick, forlorn look back over her shoulder at Josh. Maria, still holding a paper plate, thrust the last of her supper at Trask. The last thing you saw before getting in the car was the glower settling on Jared's face.<br/>
<br/>
Even then, things might have been okay if Linda, in the car, hadn't whined about not finishing her supper.<br/>
<br/>
"You just wanted to keep ogling that meathead you were talking to," Jenny snapped, "while Will was letting that other guy steal second."<br/>
<br/>
In the front seat, Maria whirled to gape at you and Jenny.<br/>
<br/>
"Steal second?" Linda asked in puzzlement.<br/>
<br/>
"He was unhooking Will's bra."<br/>
<br/>
"He was not!" you shouted.<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't notice." Jenny then proceeded to tell the others what you'd been up to with Jared inside the shed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After settling down, no one says much on the drive back to town, and no one argues when Teresa tells Keith to take you all back to the old elementary school. No one looks at anyone else as you all troop into the basement, and separate to change clothes and pull off masks. You are so hideously embarrassed that you want to find a mouse hole and crawl into it. The darkness that swells to embrace you as you pull off the mask is a welcome respite.<br/>
<br/>
But you feel better when you wake, even though you are disoriented. You still wince at the memory of what happened, and of the fight in the car, but it also feels distant, like something in a dream. You are still hunched in your corner, frowning over it all, when Caleb calls your name.<br/>
<br/>
"You and me okay?" he asks in a clipped voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure," you irritatedly retort.<br/>
<br/>
"I was just busting your balls."<br/>
<br/>
"I know." But you can't help glowering at him a little. "You know, man, if you wanna put on Mickey's mask, I'll text Jared and tell him she wants to hook up with him. And then he can come pick you up—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay, I wouldn't wanna come between you and— Ah, fuck it, forget I said that, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
Teresa and Keith are staggering up onto their feet by now, so you shut up. There are a few murmured curses, but most everyone—except Teresa, who is giving everyone else some very direct but silent stares—won't meet anyone else's eyes. You finally signal the time to break things up by telling Caleb you'll give him a ride home.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry I was giving you shit," Caleb says as you're buckling yourselves in.<br/>
<br/>
"It's alright, I shouldn'a got so upset," you reply. You start the truck, and it's not until you're on the street that you add, "I think it was mostly Mickey."<br/>
<br/>
"Making out with whatsisname?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. <i>That,</i> yeah, but also me being so mad at you."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it was ... Maria ... Mary Boucher," Caleb says, "who was giving you so much shit. I mean, I was too," he starts to add, but you interrupt him to say it's all okay and to forget it.<br/>
<br/>
Not until you're almost to his house does he say, "You know, those things can be pretty overpowering."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, you start off just thinking, you know, 'Oh hey, I remember what this girl knows, that's pretty cool,' and 'I think I know how to act like her.' And then you start and the next thing you know it's like you don't even remember who you really are."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that's what it's like," you agree.<br/>
<br/>
You sense him giving you a sidelong look.<br/>
<br/>
"So was it fun making out with that guy?"<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm serious, I'm not giving you shit. T'be honest, I'm kind of jealous. I know Tilley was." Caleb snorts. "The way he was hanging onto that football player," he mutters. When you don't reply, he asks again, "So was it fun?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mickey was enjoying it," you say. When Caleb mutters, "Huh," you add, "If you want to borrow her and get back together with Jared—"<br/>
<br/>
"No! I told you that. I was just curious, is all."<br/>
<br/>
When you pull up in front of his house, you ask, "So you want to do that again? Put on the masks tomorrow night, go out and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I dunno," he sighs. "Maybe we oughta take a break. Anyway, we're <i>not</i> gonna do it with those guys. They, uh, they didn't really have any boundaries. That fuckin' bull snake," he mutters with a noise that's half-grunt, half-laugh.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Back home, you rush past your surprised parents and throw yourself into your bedroom, where you brood restlessly, unsure what you feel or even how you want to feel. You are embarrassed and more than a little ashamed about what happened. At the same time you can't stop thinking about it. It's like picking at a scab: painful, and you know you shouldn't do it, but pleasurable at the same time. You finally can't deny that you got a thrill from it all, and that you kind of want to have the same thrill again.<br/>
<br/>
You're just starting to come out of this mood when you get a text from Teresa, asking if you're doing okay. After you tell her that you are, she calls you direct.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I didn't get a chance to tell you in the car," she says. "But I used that mask on someone."<br/>
<br/>
"What?" You bolt upright on your bed.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, your friend Micah. At the grocery store. And I got that brain-copy thing onto his cousin. Anyway, with the mask. Do you want to put your face in it? 'Cos otherwise, you know, I'd put mine in."<span class="fmjgihgfmffe3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411115
author_id: seuzz
id: NYXW52R8N
title: Unmasked Desires
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Fuck me!" Caleb exclaims. "You got— You got <i>Jenny's</i> face in here? Jenny Ashton?"<br/>
<br/>
Keith answers by grinning like a dope. You ask, "How'd you fucking manage that?"<br/>
<br/>
"I talked her into it," Keith smugly answers. "I ran into her out in the parking lot after school, followed her over to her car, told her I had a thing I found online and showed it to her—"<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>showed</i> it to her?" Caleb turns pale.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not like I was showing her my dick, dude," Keith retorts. "Though my dick's a lot more impressive than—"<br/>
<br/>
"Just go on," you interrupt.<br/>
<br/>
Keith frowns at you, then snaps his fingers and resumes. "Oh yeah. So I showed it to her, told her a story about finding it online and buying it and, I dunno, just kind of talked her into putting up to her own face. Yeah, I'd'a freaked out over what happened if I hadn'a already got some idea what was gonna happen."<br/>
<br/>
"So what did happen?"<br/>
<br/>
"It just went into her face. Which is still gonna take some gettin' used to, you know." He sniggers nervously. "And she toppled over and I caught her."<br/>
<br/>
"This was in the middle of the freaking parking lot at school?" Caleb demands.<br/>
<br/>
"Chill out, man. We were standin' next t'her car, no one saw. I caught her and lowered her down to the ground, then got her car door open and kinda humped her— I mean, I kinda pushed her up into her car and closed the door on her. Pretty fast thinking, if I say so myself."<br/>
<br/>
He is getting more and more smug the longer he talks. You're not sure how much of this you can take.<br/>
<br/>
"And then, after awhile, the mask popped out ont'er face and I picked it up and ran like a motherfucker. So." He jerks his chin at the mask in Caleb's hand. "What you guys wanna do wi'tchit? Or maybe, 'cos I'm the one made it, I should decide." His chin acquires a slightly aggressive tilt.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb exchange another in what's been a whole series of uneasy glances. "Well, what's your idea what to do?" you ask Keith.<br/>
<br/>
Tilley sucks in his lips, then reaches out to pull the mask from Caleb's resisting fingers. He turns it over and over in his hands, then leans pack to squint speculatively at you and Caleb. Then he says, "Y'know, it seems to me we'd <i>ruin</i> it if we mixed either of you fuckers' faces in it like we did, er—" His eyes widen, and he stammers to a halt.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Caleb drawls, "the way <i>you</i> ruined it when you added your face to Stephanie's." Keith reddens. "Thing is," Caleb continues, turning to you, "we couldn't put on a mask that looks like Jenny and go out to a McDonald's or anyplace like that, not like we did yesterday. I mean, if it looks just like Jenny—"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe it won't," you reply. You're not sure why you're arguing, except that you're having a hard time organizing your thoughts. "Maybe it'll be just different enough, the way the other mask was just different enough—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's because there were two faces in it. This one"—he taps the mask in Keith's hand—"is just Jenny's."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever," Keith says, "I'm the one made it, so I think I should—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so what do you wanna do?" you ask him. He blinks and falls silent. "Yeah, that's what I thought, you don't know what—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, gimme a minute!" he hollers, and falls into a sulk. "I don't wanna fuck it up," he says after a moment's thoughts. "Let's just close it up. Close it up and see, you know, if—" He licks his thick, chapped lips. "How much like Jenny it—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," you say, and look at Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
He stares back, then shrugs. "It's all an experiment," he sighs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You've got plenty of that sealant paste left from yesterday, so you don't need to make up anymore. It hasn't hardened or thickened, either, and it goes just as smoothly onto the new mask as it did into the old. The only nasty part of the process is the way Keith leans in on you, breathing heavily in your ear and smacking his mouth with anticipation.<br/>
<br/>
"So who wants to try it out?" you ask when you're done. You were the guinea pig last time, but if the other two both decline you suppose you're up for being the experimental subject again. And for a moment it looks like you will be volunteering again, for they both hang back.<br/>
<br/>
But then Keith puts out his hand. "Gimme," he says. "I mean, it's my mask—"<br/>
<br/>
"Damn straight it's yours," Caleb honks, "and damn straight you're gonna be the one to try it out. You don't get to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright!" Keith yells at him as he takes the mask from you. "I told you I would!"<br/>
<br/>
"Just as long as you know you <i>should,</i>" Caleb retorts. "I wanna see what happens to that world-famous penis of yours after you put on the mask of a <i>girl.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Well here! I'll let you get a good, close-up view, then!" Keith flushes and paws at his belt buckle.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God damn it, don't be gross!" Caleb shoves him back agains the conference table. "Keep your pants and clothes on. That's also part of the experiment." He glances at you. "Find out if you <i>have</i> to take your clothes off before you—"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Keith turns very white. "What if my clothes get all fucked up inside me when I put the mask on? Come on!" But Caleb pushes Keith back toward the big conference table and snarls, "You're just looking for an excuse to take out your snake and wave it in our faces."<br/>
<br/>
Keith with a swallow settles back onto the table, and Caleb wrenches the mask from him and bends over him. "Just settle back and relax. If it looks like it's fucking things up, I'll pull it off you fast." Keith licks his lips, and doesn't look reassured, and he tenses up all over even as he straightens himself out. Caleb says, "Ready?" and Keith gives a tiny little nod, and then Caleb covers his face with a mask. You lean forward with a burning curiosity to see what happens—to see what happened to you yesterday when you put a mask on.<br/>
<br/>
The mask is visible for only an instant on Keith's face, and then it vanishes, seeming to drop into him like a flat stone falling through the surface of a still pond. And when it goes it takes Keith face with it. It startles you so that you almost yelp: Where Keith had been, now it's Jenny Ashton.<br/>
<br/>
Jenny isn't beautiful, exactly. She's more "handsome" than pretty, but her face, when animated has a lot of personality in it. Her features are regular and nicely framed by shoulder-length, auburn hair. But when looking into her face when it is slack and asleep, it is easy to imagine that she could pass for a guy if given a boyish haircut.<br/>
<br/>
Except you'd have to do something about her chest. Even inside of Keith's billowing t-shirt, her boobs are pretty noticeable.<br/>
<br/>
But nothing seems to have gone wrong with the transformation as a result of its being done to a fully dressed person, though Caleb pulls and twitches at the hem of Tilley's shirt and jeans just to make sure. He pulls his nose and grunts. Then he wheels on you with a glower. "Why the fuck did you let him push you around like that?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"We should'a been the ones telling him what we were gonna do with this mask. Now he's gonna be a prick about it, gonna think he's running things."<br/>
<br/>
"He was already being a prick," you retort, "because he thought we were ignoring him."<br/>
<br/>
"I was trying to," Caleb says. "And now we're gonna have to <i>sit</i> on him. Look how close he's come to fucking things up already. That thing he did with the mask yesterday, with Stephanie. Now today." He gives you a very serious look.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, like I said," you reply, even though you basically agree with Caleb, "he thinks we're trying to do stuff behind his back. I wanted him to have his way this time, so he'd know we— Look, I get what you're saying," you protest when Caleb snorts. "We'll sit on him. We'll tell him he could do his thing with this mask, but the rest of them, what we do is up to us."<br/>
<br/>
"Up to <i>me,</i> you mean." Caleb's mouth tightens. "I've got the last mask we made."<br/>
<br/>
You nod, but while also thinking, <i>Until we make more.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Ohhh!" Jenny Ashton moans as she rubs her palm over one of her fat, dangling tits. "Hurggh!" Her eyes roll back, and it looks like she's about to start drooling.<br/>
<br/>
It's still late afternoon and there's plenty of dusty light in the basement, and more than enough for Keith to study his transformed self in the old, floor-length mirror. After a panicked moment of checking that he hadn't fused into his clothes, Tilley had patted himself all over, eyes popping in delight at what he'd found, and had scrambled over to the mirror when you pointed it out to him.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God," groans the person who looks just like Jenny Ashton in a voice that sounds remarkably like hers. "I've got tits! Big old— Mmm!"<br/>
<br/>
"What else have you got?" Caleb asks, acidly. "Or maybe don't got anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny frowns at him, then her eyes light up. Her mouth twists into a rictus as she puts her free hand down the front of jeans that are drooping in the front. "Holy—! Oh, fuck me! I—! Jesus! I got a bush down there! And there's a—! Christ, I'm touching Jenny's va-jayjay!" She gasps as she rubs herself behind her zipper. Behind her back, Caleb gives you a look.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck me!" Jenny exclaims after pulling her hand out and sniffing the fingertips. "Let's go out! Let's see if we can fool someone! I wanna see," she babbles as Caleb blanches, "if I can fool anyone into thinking I'm really Jenny!"<span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111151
author_id: seuzz
id: SLPYYWWHQ
title: A Face to Meet the Faces That You Meet
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"You're drunk, Keith," Caleb says. "Come on, let's get you out of that—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you!" Jenny slaps Caleb's outstretched hand away. "You and Prescott got to go out and have some fun yesterday at my expense! Putting on that fucking mutant mask of me." She glares at you.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb reddens, and you can tell he's about to say something that will set off fireworks, so you grab him by the elbow.<br/>
<br/>
"Just go back to molesting yourself, okay?" you tell the glowering Jenny. "I'll talk to Caleb." Her glare only deepens—and it's a creepy effect, seeing Keith's truculent, dead-eyed frown on Jenny's face—and she watches as you pull Caleb over into a distant corner of the basement to quietly conference. It makes you sweat to talk with her glowering at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, man," you hiss at Caleb. "You gotta stop riding Tilley."<br/>
<br/>
"He's acting like a child."<br/>
<br/>
"No he isn't!" You speak as loudly as Caleb did, so Keith will hear your retort as well. Then, almost under your breath, you add, "And keep your voice down. He's listening."<br/>
<br/>
"So let him," Caleb growls, but he does lower his volume. "I want him to know what I gotta say."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you can tell him in your own time. Let's take him out and have some fun. You heard him, he thinks we're leaving him out. Yeah, he's acting like a child, but you don't piss off a child or else he'll throw a tantrum."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb glances over at Jenny, who is still staring balefully at you, and sighs. "He's gonna fuck things up."<br/>
<br/>
"Not if we're with him. Anyway, we're not gonna run into anyone. We didn't run into anyone last night."<br/>
<br/>
"It wouldn't have been a problem last night. That guy we took out wasn't someone anyone knew."<br/>
<br/>
"And it won't be a problem tonight. But if you're gonna have an attitude, maybe you should stay here."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna have an attitude, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"You're having one now. So how about <i>I</i> take Keith out, and <i>you</i> stay here and finish your mask. You said you're almost done."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb grimaces, but nods. "Okay," he says, then jabs you in the breastbone with a long finger. "But Tilley is <i>your</i> responsibility!"<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever, man." You brush him away.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Keith is in a mood even after you tell him that you and him will be going out. "I don't need a babysitter," he snarls, and he sneers when you insist you won't be "babysitting" him. "Besides," you add, "you can't drive anywhere looking like that. You don't have Jenny's driver's license." That's enough to get him to mulishly consent to letting you be the chauffeur.<br/>
<br/>
There's a little trouble with the clothes before you can get away. Keith's trousers are too long for Jenny Ashton's shorter legs, but you take care of that by rolling the cuffs up. There's less to be done about the too-big shoes that flop around on her smaller feet. Worse is the trouser seat of his jeans. "These things don't fit right anymore," she snarls, and she grabs and wriggles her ass around inside the big-seated back of the jeans. "Fuck me, I don't like this." But she glares at Caleb when he suggests she take the pants off and go out in her boxer shorts. "I didn't wear any underwear to school today," she retorts, to which Caleb sniggers, "Even better."<br/>
<br/>
"I swear, one of these days I'm'a gonna go off and punch Johansson in his fucking face," Jenny fumes as she buckles herself into your truck. "Smug, fucking know-it-all."<br/>
<br/>
"He's just worried, man," you reply as you start the truck. "Scared, even. You need to calm down."<br/>
<br/>
"And fuck you too. You and him talking in front of me <i>like I'm a child!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you were acting like one! And we're gonna keep talking about you as long as you're acting like this. Keith, bruh," you plead as Jenny folds her arms and turns to glare out the passenger-side window. "We're all in on this. If we didn't want you along, if we didn't want it to be all of us, we wouldn't have showed you this stuff. We <i>want</i> you along. But you gotta act, you know, more mature about it."<br/>
<br/>
She turns to frown at you. "How'm I bein' immature?" she asks as you throw the truck into gear and push out into the street.<br/>
<br/>
"By acting like this. By pouting, sulking. You gotta be calm, man. Cool. Collected. Try to act like Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean like a smug douchebag."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You roll your eyes, and think, <i>Anything would be better than the way you're acting now.</i><br/>
<br/>
She slumps in her seat, but most of the resentment seems to be leaking away. "I 'unno, man," she says you exit Acheson onto one of the main thoroughfares. "Johansson just rubs me the wrong way sometimes. You do too. You bring me in like <i>two weeks</i> after you find this stuff, and I was just s'pposed to be your experimental monkey."<br/>
<br/>
"No you weren't."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes I was. Don't lie. You didn't know if these things were gonna work and you didn't wanna try 'em on yerselves. So let's get Tilley in here! He's dumb enough, he'll try 'em!"<br/>
<br/>
You wince, for it's almost the truth. "No, that's not the way it was. We didn't know what to do, so we asked you to come in 'cos maybe <i>you'd</i> have an idea."<br/>
<br/>
"Same thing, prac'illy. You only asked me out because you were stuck."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you're part of the gang now, alright? Equal member. And I'll explain that to Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," she drawls mulishly, "the next time you two have some 'quality time' without me."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"What are we coming here for?" Jenny asks as you pull into the lot behind the used bookstore.<br/>
<br/>
"To get a coffee," you say, for Arnholm's shares its building with (among other stores) The Crystal Cave cafe.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, I want a burger!"<br/>
<br/>
"No you don't. 'Cos you're paying for both us, and you <i>don't</i> want to pay for a burger for me."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, who says I'm paying?"<br/>
<br/>
"I am. You're the one who wanted to come out and get something."<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face, but drops the argument.<br/>
<br/>
"Stop it," you mutter as you and she walk side by side across the parking lot, for she's squirming in her jeans again, and twisting them around to resettle them.<br/>
<br/>
"These things don't feel right!"<br/>
<br/>
"Or course they don't. Suddenly you've got a shelf back there. But remember, you're supposed to be a girl, so try acting like one." She still wriggles with discomfort as you turn onto the sidewalk that fronts the building, but at least she's stopped grabbing at her pants.<br/>
<br/>
Inside the cafe, you order the cheapest coffees on the menu and take them into the back. You try steering her into a back booth, but she insists on taking a table toward the front. "Why do you wanna hide?" she snickers.  Gonna try making out with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't make me puke. I know what you really look like. No, I—" You glance around, for she has maneuvered you into sitting with your back to the doorway. "We didn't have anyone run into us yesterday at McDonald's, and I don't want anyone to run into us now."<br/>
<br/>
"How come not? I wanna see if I can fool someone!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what if <i>Jenny</i> comes walking in?"<br/>
<br/>
She blinks, then grins. "Then I'm all gonna be like, Who th'fuck are you? I'm the real Jenny Ashton!" You rub your temple, trying to stroke away the incipient migraine.<br/>
<br/>
You talk some more, and you manage to get him off the topic of Caleb and how he's being treated, and onto the more general subject of magic and how weird it is to find out that it's real. She only grunts, though, so that you have to carry the burden. Gradually it dawns on you that Keith is trying to get into a "character"—like a "girl," probably. So she straightens up, and tucks her elbows in, and holds her cup up near her chin, and a kind of gleam comes into  her eyes and a faint, distracted smile plays on her lips. Confirmation comes when she interrupts you with a girlish giggle and the squeaked exclamation, "Wouldn't it be neat if unicorns were real too? I <i>love</i> unicorns!" It almost makes you throw up.<br/>
<br/>
And then the whole thing collapses around your ears. You don't even have to turn around to know that disaster is looming behind you, not when you see Jenny's jaw drop and her eyes pop with surprise and horror. "Oh my God!" she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?" you ask as your stomach heaves with nausea. <i>"Jenny?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me, no, worse than that! It's Javits!"<br/>
<br/>
You freeze all over. Seth Javits, of course, is a basketball player who specially likes to torment Keith, and who torments you and Caleb when Keith isn't around. If he's here, and he sees you— Well, you're not in school, but that won't stop him from coming by your table and being nasty. And you'll either have to put up with it or you'll have to slink away like a pussy. Either way, you're gonna put yourself on his radar, and chances are he'll come looking for you tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
You can tell it's too late to run by the way Jenny stiffens and straightens up; her eyes roll whitely in their sockets, and her lips peel back from her teeth. All the muscles in your shoulders tighten, and the hairs go up on the back of your neck as you feel a presence behind you.<br/>
<br/>
But the voice that sounds at your shoulder isn't Seth's. It's a girl's.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, Jenny," it coos, and your neck creaks as you twist around to look up at the speaker. It's Cindy Vredenburg, Javits's cheerleader girlfriend. She looks at you, and her smile clouds over a little. "Hey," she says, then turns back to Jenny. "You here on a date or something?"<br/>
<br/>
Before either of you can answer, Seth, carrying a tray, appears behind her. His glance at you is cold but neutral. And it remains cold and neutral when Cindy says, "Can we join you guys."<br/>
<br/>
* <br/>
* <span class="QbcRddgOKK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111511
author_id: masktrixie
id: YF4CW9HZM
title: Coffee With A Fake
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>“Uh, sure,” you manage to say, words tumbling out with more than a little nervousness. Seth’s stare continues to be almost blank as he takes a seat, squeezing in next to ‘Jenny’, setting it down and, with a smile, passing it to Cindy.<br/>
<br/>
It takes every ounce of self-control not to leap away from the table and sprint for the exit. A glance at Keith reveals he must be feeling pretty much the same thing – his body is rigid, almost paralysed in fear, and it only stiffens further when Seth briefly brushes against Jenny’s arm. Any attempt at getting into character seems to have vanished as his lizard brain slips into panic mode, leaving a weird and alien expression on Jenny’s face.<br/>
<br/>
Your brain is scrambling for something to say. “I wasn’t planning on staying long,” you say. “Just wanted Jenny’s advice on a few things, is all.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh?” Cindy says, cocking her eyebrow. “What kind of things?”<br/>
<br/>
“You know, ah, guy, kind of things.”<br/>
<br/>
“And you thought Jenny would be the best person to ask?” Cindy gives a look that manages to wrap up a painful combination of curiosity and sympathy. “Why don’t you share? Maybe I can give you a different perspective. Two heads are better than one, right, Jenny?”<br/>
<br/>
Jenny Ashton appears frozen. But then so does Seth Javits. He’s got that look in his eye, and you know exactly what it means: accepting Cindy’s invite was to bring the pain. Nothing will happen now, of course. But you’ve interrupted his day, and his plans, and he’s going to use this as an excuse to break every bone in your pathetic little body.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, Jenny? Hello?” Cindy gives a wave. Jenny is still petrified.<br/>
<br/>
You deliver a sharp kick under the table.<br/>
<br/>
“Wha! Uh. Right. Yup. Yes. Of course.”<br/>
<br/>
For a moment, Cindy’s attention diverts, and there’s a brief look at Jenny – the kind of lightning-fast girl look that only ever spells trouble. It almost plays out in slow motion: [i]Are we cool? Why are you being so weird? Is it Seth? Is it me? What? What about me?[/i]. Worse, it’s clear that Jenny is giving practically nothing back in the exchange, which only makes Cindy’s brain rattle even faster and harder in whatever doom spiral it’s managed to cook up.<br/>
<br/>
You want to scream. To tell Keith he needs to snap out of it and start acting like Jenny, before this blossoms into some hideous incident and the real Jenny Ashton ends up getting into some stupid girl-war with Cindy. To do something other than stare, fixed and rigid, and the swirl his drink.<br/>
<br/>
Then, after what might as well be eternity, the last person you’d ever expect to help you finally pipes up.<br/>
<br/>
“So what’s the issue with Prescott, Jenny?” Seth Javits says, voice never raising or wavering, just cold and level as he maintains his murder-glare at you. He’s going to kill you. Both of you, and Keith too, if he ever finds him. Purely because he’s being forced to sit here and deal with whatever this is all about.<br/>
<br/>
“Will’s got a girl problem!”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh god, not Lisa, again?” Cindy says, with a roll of her eyes, the tension snapping like a guitar string to the face. You begin to feel cold, as the attention now focuses on you. You want to cave in, implode and vanish. Javits’ look of raw contempt is writ large on his face, so much so for a brief moment you imagine whipping the mask off and revealing Keith in his crossdressing glory as a better victim for torment.<br/>
<br/>
“No!” you blurt, defensively.<br/>
<br/>
“No, shit, naw,” Jenny – Keith says, scrambling equally. “Fuck-naw, nothing like that.”<br/>
That gets a brief glance from Cindy. Not exactly a Jenny Ashton phrase.<br/>
<br/>
“Nothing like that,” you confirm, diverting attention back across the table.<br/>
<br/>
“OK,” Cindy says. “Then like what?”<br/>
<br/>
You gulp. ‘Jenny’ looks helplessly to you, as all the attention on the table shifts and you try and claw your way out of the hole Keith’s landed you in. You manage a cough, and a glance around the table.<br/>
<br/>
“C’mon,” Cindy says, that blond cheerleader smile the only one free from tension around the entire table. “We’re all friends here, right?” She reaches over, and puts a hand on yours. The death-stare from her boyfriend would say otherwise, but Cindy doesn’t seem to have noticed it. In fact, the only thing she seems to have picked up on is that Jenny Ashton is standoffish with her. You can only imagine how that’s going to come back and bite you all in the ass.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, well, OK,” you stammer, desperately trying to think about anything that you’d have to say to Jenny Ashton, or any girl for that matter. Worse, all that’s dancing around your head is Keith’s faux-girl fakery, and comments about pretty unicorns… quickly followed by how badly you want to pound Keith into the ground. You try and think about on whatever else is going on.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually, your mind conjures up two semi-reasonable lies. First, there’s the video with Mark Hollister and Carlos Montoya. The idea was you just talking about movies you like, but maybe you could try and make that a ‘girl problem’. You’re sure it’s just about vague enough that you could bullshit your way into some reasonable explanation. All you’d need is for ‘Jenny’ to have the presence of mind to refuse, and it’d be the end of the drama.<br/>
<br/>
The other isn’t so straightforward: that you’ve got some hitherto unknown cousin coming in from out of town. If the mask with Jenny works like this, you’re pretty sure that the mask with the you–Stephanie Wyatt hybrid will do just the same. It wouldn’t be too hard to pretend that you were hoping to get Jenny to show your ‘cousin’ things to do around Saratoga Falls. With any luck, you wouldn’t even need to prove it with the mask, and Cindy and Seth will take you at your word. And if they don’t, well, at least you know you’ve got a girl disguise you could fall back on. Better still, it's a sure-fire way to get some payback on Keith for landing you in this spot.<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411115112
author_id: masktrixie
id: RN2MJNZD4
title: My Cousin Renee
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"My cousin’s coming in," you manage, before Keith can scrape together the two cents’ worth of braincells he has together to come up with something even worse. "And I was hoping Jenny might suggest some things to do."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn’t your cousin live in town already?" Cindy says. "I thought she was that Chinese girl…"<br/>
<br/>
You nearly fall out of your chair. <i>Cindy knows about Umeko?! Since when does she know anything about me and my family?!</i> But you're too flabbergasted to do anything but gabble. "Umeko is Japanese-American," you say. "And this is another cousin. From out of town. Kind of upstate. The Martin side of the family." You have no idea why you’re stumbling around adding more detail than is necessary; it’s not like Cindy really has any say in this, or interest in your life.<br/>
<br/>
"This cousin have a name?" Javits asks. Why he cares, you have no idea. Then, you realize, he doesn’t: he’s trying to hurry this up so you can get the hell out of here.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, sure…" you say, desperately trying to come up with something. Chai? Mocha? Frappuccino…<br/>
<br/>
"Her name’s Renee," Keith – or rather Jenny – says with that thousand-watt confidence only a complete idiot can muster. "Renee Martin. She’s his older cousin, and was thinking of transferring to Keyserling. But Will’s too much of a nerd for her, so he wanted someone who knows the local scene." Jenny gives a double thumb, and directs it straight to her chest. "That’s where I come in. Right, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, right," you say, hurriedly, beginning to push your chair away in the hope of escape. "Anyway, I…"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you know my sister Lucy is at Keyserling, right?" Cindy interjects, cutting you off. You can see Javits’ eyes roll as he realizes the conversation isn’t over. "She could always give her some pointers about things. Right, Jenny? She’s probably in a better position than either of us."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean, that… no, it’s fine, I’ve got this," Jenny stammers. And you can only see Cindy grow more uncomfortable. Again, there’s that silent glance: the classic ‘have I done something to offend you?’ look that Cindy’s mastered to perfection. "I’ve already given Will some ideas."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, the offer’s there," Cindy says.<br/>
<br/>
"Great, sounds like your problems are solved," Seth says, wrapping things up. "Bye, Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
"Right. Uh… bye," you manage, finally managing to stand. You wait, awkwardly, for Jenny to join you, but she doesn’t seem to take the hint. And, by the time she does, Cindy’s already begun to talk again. You want to sit back down, but the glance from Javits makes it crystal clear that your presence is not welcome, nor required.<br/>
<br/>
Your only option is to leave. And hope to god that Keith doesn’t need babysitting.<br/>
<br/>
Even though you know he does.<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
"You fucking did what?" you blurt. Caleb is just as fuming.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn’t know what else to do, dude! Cindy kept looking at me like I was a fucking alien!" The Jenny in front of you isn’t even trying to be girly (not that Jenny would try anyway). It’s full-on Keith in another body, like some goofy bodyswap movie.<br/>
<br/>
"Because you weren’t acting like Jenny, you were acting like some kind of zombie!"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I had fucking Seth Javits squeezing up next to my thigh! You should have told them to get fucked, dude! This is as much your fault as it is mine! Fuck!"<br/>
<br/>
"OK, knuckleheads!" Caleb says. "Stop yabbering and we can try and figure out what the hell we’re going to do."<br/>
<br/>
It’s a full hour since you left Keith in the jaws of Cindy and Seth. At first, you had no idea what to do – you were ‘Jenny’s’ ride, after all, but after kicking around the parking lot for what felt like an eternity, you managed to swoop in and pick ‘her’ up before the real Jenny Ashton happened to walk by. You thought it was an exercise in damage control.<br/>
<br/>
You had not figured on Keith being an idiot. (Which, frankly, you concede, is probably on you). The truth came stumbling out as soon as you were back in your hideout. It turns out Keith hadn’t been able to resist poking Seth Javits a little while he thought he could get away with it. Years of abuse had amounted to an ‘epic’ slew of sleights and subtle insults as Keith had waged secret war. And it hadn’t taken long for Cindy to haul him into the girl’s bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
"I just thought, like, you know how they all go to the bathroom at the same time? You know that’s a thing? I thought it was that!" he had blabbered. "Like, holy shit girl’s bathrooms are a mess. Anyway, it wasn’t that. Cindy fucking rounded on me, dude. She was all ‘what’s your problem, Jenny? Is it with me, or Seth, or me being with Seth’? So I told her that Seth was an assmuncher, and she should get a better standard of boyfriend."<br/>
<br/>
And started a beef between an oblivious Jenny Ashton and a very irate Cindy. Great job, Keith. Full fucking marks.<br/>
<br/>
And that’s only problem one. Problem two is…<br/>
<br/>
"Where the hell did you get Renee from, anyway?" you say. "It's the dumbest fucking name."<br/>
<br/>
That’s right: the fake cousin that doesn’t exist is another issue you're going to have to fix.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, dude! I was thinking on the fly, OK? And Renee Corrido came into my head."<br/>
<br/>
Of course it did. Renee Corrido, as far as Keith’s concerned the hottest woman on the planet, who landed the role of the leather-clad villain Mistress Darke in <i>The Challengers</i> movies, and makes up for her lack of acting ability with a perfect hourglass figure and ample bosom.<br/>
<br/>
"Name a time when Renee Corrido doesn’t come into your head," Caleb says, pinching his nose.<br/>
<br/>
"Guilty as charged," Jenny grins sloppily, gently massaging her breasts. "Fuck, it’s a name, OK? Who gives a shit what your fictional cousin is called."<br/>
<br/>
"Because I’m going to have to remember that, idiot!" you say. "And what if Cindy tells someone else. Or they ask someone who knows I don’t have a cousin Renee. Not to mention it doesn't exactly sit neatly with my family."<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, you've got a Japanese cousin. And, well… fuck, we cross that when we come to it! Like, we can use that other mask we made and presto! Chango! Instant fake Renee."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean that mask of Stephanie that you ruined by sticking your ugly-ass face into?" you retort. "In the first place, that face doesn't look like anybody in my family, and in the second place, it's the face of a <i>guy,</i> not a <i>girl!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Enough!" Caleb says. "Jesus, I knew it was a bad idea letting you two out. You can’t fucking control yourself, Tilley. And you, Prescott, you were supposed to be babysitting! How the hell did you let this shit boil over?"<br/>
<br/>
"Me? Like I can control this idiot!"<br/>
<br/>
"I’m not a fucking idiot!"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up!" Caleb snaps, again. "Just… we got to think this through. We’ve got to undo this. All of it. And that’s the last time you play little-miss-dress-up without working on a plan, and an exit strategy, beforehand. Got it?"<br/>
<br/>
Keith, sullenly, gives a nod. You nod too.<br/>
<br/>
"OK," you say. "So how do we unpick all of this mess?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, while you too were ruining Jenny Ashton’s life, I finished work on that mask. So we have that spare, now."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe we can use that to solve our problem," you offer. "Make one of Cindy."<br/>
<br/>
"That helps… how?"<br/>
<br/>
"Think about it!" Jenny’s face brightens up as Keith catches on to your idea. "As Jenny, we apologize to Cindy. As Cindy, we apologize to Jenny or stop any backlash. We diffuse this whole time bomb before it blows up in our face."<br/>
<br/>
"Or, hear me out here," Caleb says, "maybe we just chalk this one up to experience and stay the fuck out of it. Jenny’s big enough to handle some high school drama, and in a week all of this will blow over. She’ll be confused as hell, probably pester Will about it, but it’ll pass. Eventually."<br/>
<br/>
You’re not so sure. But, before you can even think about it, there’s a buzz from your phone. You close your eyes and groan.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hi Will. Trust me u do not wnt Jenny helping w ur cousin. I will msg Lucy. W8 for her to give u a call.</i><br/>
<br/>
You show it to the others. "Great, now I’ve got Cindy’s sister wanting to meet my fake cousin," you sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"How does Cindy know your phone number?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
But he's overridden by Keith. "Hey!" He grins. "See, that’s much better! Lucy V is some fine, fine ass…" Jenny Ashton puckers her lips, and offers a French kiss.<br/>
<br/>
"Actually," Caleb says, "hers might be a much safer face to, uh, borrow, if we’re looking to do that. College girls can get away with anything."<br/>
<br/>
"Or maybe we should work on the next spell. Maybe there’s an answer in there that will help us unravel this mess before it blows up in our faces."<br/>
<br/>
The two look at you. "It’s your call, man," Keith says. "I still think it’s safer to handle it at school. We never said when this ‘Renee’ was appearing, did we? And if you need someone to be your cousin, we could use this new mask to make one."<br/>
<br/>
"And, thanks to Tilley here," Caleb snorts, "it's your ass Jenny Ashton is going to be coming after when Cindy starts spreading ‘fake’ rumors about her."<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111151121
author_id: masktrixie
id: F86CXCGH5
title: One Jenny Too Many
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Home life remains a pain the ass. So, after the inevitable family dinner and chores, you sneak on up to your room and get on with studying the book. You decided, in the end, to confiscate the mask from Keith – he’s the kind of idiot pervert who’s almost certain to explore a little if you left him alone, and the last thing you need is him to doze off and his mom to wake him up, only to discover her son is now a dishevelled Jenny Ashton. Instead, his assignment is to find some suitable clothes for a new Cindy, while Caleb’s job is to get the mask on her. You, being the one who got to witness most of Keith’s epic fuck-up, get your turn to be Jenny.<br/>
<br/>
It's a weird feeling. You’ve worn a mask before, of course, when you got the weird thrill of putting on the Keith-Stephanie hybrid. But being a real person? Above all, being a girl? That takes the thrill up a notch. To be able to impersonate someone, to pass yourself off as them? It’s an enticing prospect.<br/>
<br/>
Which is probably why, by the time you head into school, you’ve already cracked the next spell in sequence, not to mention made it.<br/>
<br/>
“What is it?” Caleb asks, turning it over in his hands, fingertips tracing the marks you’ve made on it.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s some kind of mind band,” you say, scratching an itch under your cap. “Way I figure it, you stick this on someone’s forehead, and you can swipe their thoughts.”<br/>
<br/>
“Whoa,” Caleb says. “Sort of a telepathy band? That’d be useful. Very useful.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah?”<br/>
<br/>
“Duh,” Caleb says. “Think about it. You want to know something someone else knows? You got it. Put this on a doctor, you could be a doctor. Want to know Kung Fu? Slap it on a martial artist. Ever wanted to fly a plane? Instant pilot course. Hell, it could get even more dangerous. Put it on the President, and you’ve got the launch codes.”<br/>
<br/>
“Fuck,” you murmur. “There I was thinking it’d just be easier to pretend to be someone else if you know what they’re thinking.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Caleb muses. Maybe there’s a way to glue it onto the mask, or maybe you can seal it inside. Or, maybe, whoever’s spellbook this was was smart enough to figure out that having someone’s face and someone’s mind was crazy-dangerous. Next thing you know, you’re gonna start being them.”<br/>
<br/>
“Which would be fun,” you shrug, leaning against your locker.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah. Anyway, we got work to do. I’ll see if I can grab Cindy this morning. And all we can hope is that doofus Tilley hasn’t monumentally fucked up his one job.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
Keith Tilley wastes no time rushing over at lunch, hauling a bag. “I have you covered, bro!” he says, practically beaming.<br/>
<br/>
“You do?” you ask.<br/>
<br/>
“Fuck, not you, dude, you can wear the same ratty-ass stuff I wore. Slip into my Jenny-panties, y’know?”<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. “Keith, you don’t think Cindy’s going to notice Jenny Ashton is wearing the same clothes two days in a row? That’s the kind of pointless little detail that would stick in her brain.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, shit,” he shrugs. “You could always go up the Dollar Save and see if there’s something in the bin if you feel that strongly.”<br/>
<br/>
You suspect your meagre savings would get you, oh, maybe a single sock. “Just give me the clothes,” you sigh.<br/>
<br/>
“Right!” Keith says, pulling out the bundle. “And for you, my excellent friend… one… pristine…”<br/>
<br/>
You blink. “Where the fuck did you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Girl’s locker room,” he says, smugly. “I was in and out like a ninja, dude. Didn’t even need the Jenny mask to slip right in, and then I just had to use a little Tilley know-how, a little Keith magic.” He hands it over to you Keith. It’s Cindy’s cheerleader outfit.<br/>
<br/>
“You want me to wear Cindy’s cheerleading outfit?” Caleb says, looking at him. “Dude, are you crazy? She’s going to miss this!”<br/>
<br/>
“Then I guess you’d better be quick with Operation Ashton, huh?” Keith snaps back. Then, under his breath: “doofus.”<br/>
<br/>
Caleb ignores him, and sighs, shoving the costume in his own bag. “Well, I managed to get the mask on Cindy without any issue. So at least I’ve done my part. All I need to do is figure out somewhen she’s not around, make my intercept, and get the hell out of dodge. Will, same goes for you, right?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” you say. “I figure I’ll catch her after school. Cindy’s gonna be busy with Seth, and you know Jenny avoids team sports like they’re the plague, so there’s no way she’ll be near the basketball court, or wherever the cheerleaders practice.”<br/>
<br/>
“Right, right,” Caleb nods in agreement. “I guess I – cheerleader Vredenburg – will find her… shit, I don’t know, somewhere.”<br/>
<br/>
“Just text her,” Keith says. “And then, after you’ve done the switcheroonie and smoothed things over, text and say something came up, or you’re running late, or you’ll meet her at the DQ or whatever.”<br/>
<br/>
Caleb rolls his neck back and stares at the sky. “It’s about as good a plan as we’re going to get,” he shrugs. “OK, fine. Let’s get going on this. Keith, just… I don’t know. Just don’t fuck it up, man.”<br/>
<br/>
Keith rolls his eyes. “What the fuck! Like, there’s nothing I could even do to fuck it up, is there? It’s in the hands of you two dweebs now.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
The moment final period ends, you decide to make your play. Cindy, you know, is going to be watching Javits in the basketball court. Caleb, meanwhile, plans to lure Jenny Ashton downtown, all of which means you should have enough separation to make sure the duo never cross paths, even while you impersonate them. Caleb’s much more level-headed than Keith, so you’re sure that if there are any snags, ‘Cindy’ will be able to handle herself. Even if she’s in her cheerleader outfit.<br/>
<br/>
That just leaves you with Jenny Ashton. There are a couple of areas in the school where you figure it’s safe to change, and end up ducking into one of the history classrooms, now vacated and – you are certain – free from staff.<br/>
<br/>
Then comes the moment of truth. First, you slip out of your own clothes, and begin to dress in ‘Jenny’s’ attire. It’s not long before you realize that this is a huge mistake: while she’s a tomboy with quite developed arms and leg muscles, she’s still far slighter than you. Worse, the clothes, distinctly feminine, feel super-odd once worn. As you make you preparations, you realize how beyond dumb your choice was. Caleb’s probably fine back at the clubhouse, whereas you’re stuck where someone could easily walk in on you. At least for this part it’d just be crossdressing…<br/>
<br/>
Then comes the moment of truth. You lie down on the ground, and prepare yourself for the inevitable change about to come – and the temporary black-out – once the mask is pressed into your fa…<br/>
<br/>
You gasp, and blink your eyes open. Hair, longer and softer than your own, hangs on either side. Your teeth feel weird. Your skin feels smoother. And, as you gasp, your voice has shifted up several octaves. Looking down, you see… holy shit! Breasts! And you can’t feel your…<br/>
<br/>
You are Jenny Ashton!<br/>
<br/>
The first transformation was incredible. Unbelievable. You had Keith’s dumb face along with hints of Stephanie. But you were still a guy. This is the next step beyond, and you can’t help but realize how alien it feels. Especially downstairs…<br/>
<br/>
“Will?”<br/>
<br/>
The voice carries, but it’s a whisper. You vaguely recognize its register.<br/>
<br/>
“Will Prescott? Hello?”<br/>
<br/>
You sit up, and scramble to your knees. You glance at your phone, trying to work out who the hell would be looking for…<br/>
<br/>
Will, u still here? Yumi said she saw u come ths way. NEED 2 TALK. Urgent.<br/>
<br/>
Jenny! Of course she’s been looking for you! You were supposedly a witness to what happened with Cindy, after all. It must have taken her all day to pin you down, but now she’s in active search mode.<br/>
<br/>
“Fuck,” you mutter, Jenny’s voice strange and alien in your throat as you try to gather your thoughts. You don’t have long, though. The door to the classroom you’re in is already turning…<br/>
<br/>
“Occupied!” you blurt.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn’t stop whoever’s outside. The door opens… and in walks Jenny Ashton.<br/>
<br/>
For a brief moment, you hope she won’t see you. Then, in what feels like slow motion, she begins to turn, and her eyes grow wide in complete shock.<br/>
<br/>
“What…the…hell…” she says, slowly, as she stares at her exact double, only metres away.<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111511213
author_id: masktrixie
id: MRWWCPC2R
title: Run, Jenny, Run
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Your only hope, you decide is to make a break for it. What else can you do? Jenny stands there, eyes wide and mouth open in stunned shock, as you hurtle first into her, and then out into the corridor, each desperate footfall echoing down the corridor as you burst into a sprint.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey! Wait! Whoever the…”<br/>
<br/>
Jenny’s voice is down the hall, and you can hear her taking off after you. Shit. You’re certain she’s going to end up catching you: Jenny knows how to roughhouse, after all, and she’s far more athletic than you are. But, as you continue to race toward the corridor, you realize that doesn’t matter.<br/>
<br/>
<i>You</i> are Jenny Ashton. You’re identical. And you’re the one with a headstart.<br/>
<br/>
Jenny keeps pace with you for the first few turns, but the moment you start twisting back toward B block, you know you’re going to be able to dodge her. There are too many turns you could possibly take, and too many places to hide. Besides, she’s wasting her breath calling after you, meaning that, if anything, you’re slowly getting away.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually, after a small miracle of actually dodging anyone lingering around the school, you skid into a nearby girls’ bathroom (hey, it fits the body), head to the stalls, and stand up on the cistern.<br/>
<br/>
You wait a good minute, listening for feet on the tiles, before you decide the coast is… Shit. You left your clothes back in history! Quickly, you reach for your phone, desperately tapping out a message to Keith. With any luck, Jenny wouldn’t have thought to go back there.<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
You groan, close your eyes, and take a breath. Then, slowly, begin to tap out a cry for help to Keith. It’s followed by an equally pressing message to Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
<i>ABORT. Jenny is here! She saw me as her!</i><br/>
<br/>
The reply doesn’t come back immediately. In fact, it doesn’t come back for minutes. And, all the while, you sit in the toilet wondering what the hell you’re going to do.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Gt ur stuff. All gd man. Meet u at ur truck?</i> The message, from Keith, is a relief, even as you’re waiting for Caleb’s reply. The fact that it comes between a flurry of increasingly desperate and insistent messages from Jenny Ashton isn’t. You need to come up with something to tell her, and quick.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, at last, Caleb sends a terse response. <i>I cant trust u 2 with anything. Fucking idiots.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
The drive back to the clubhouse is tense. Not because you’re still in the face and semi-replica clothes of Jenny Ashton – the moment Keith found out where you were, you decided to swap back into your Will form. It’s because of what was missing when you started straightening things out.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb is incredulous. “What the hell do you mean you lost it?”<br/>
<br/>
“I just… I don’t know! I wasn’t thinking, I just had to get away from Jenny before she realized I was her twin!”<br/>
<br/>
“Jenny Ashton seeing double isn’t the priority right now,” Caleb says. “It’s what the hell happened to the creepy mind-reading metal strip!”<br/>
<br/>
“I have no idea. I told you, I wasn’t thinking. I assumed I’d left it in my pocket.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, you didn’t, dude,” Keith says. “I gathered up everything in that classroom. Your clothes, your stinky-ass sneakers, your keys, your wallet. Everything you’d left behind while you were playing kiss-chase with Jenny.”<br/>
<br/>
“Maybe it’s still there, it just fell out of the pocket,” you offer.<br/>
<br/>
“Or maybe it flew out of your pocket when Jenny was chasing you around the school! At which point, who knows where the hell it is!”<br/>
<br/>
“Seriously, I cannot trust you two with a thing!” Caleb says, closing his eyes. “There I was, about to do a perfect Cindy, and I wake up as a hot blond cheerleader to a chain of texts saying you’d almost blown it with the girl whose life you’ve already fucked up! I mean, c’mon, dudes, fuck!”<br/>
<br/>
“That can be replaced,” you offer. “It’s stuff you can get at any hardware store – hell, I just raided some bits lying around. Some copper, some zinc, a little mercury, couple o’ mirrors and a fountain pen. The hardest part is drawing the runes right, and it takes forever to scratch ‘em in. Beyond that… well, the band isn’t obviously magical. I think you’d have to actually place it on your forehead for it to do anything. And, even if it does, if someone finds it, and did use it… it’s not like they have the book, or there’s any connection to us. They’ll probably just keep quiet with it.”<br/>
<br/>
“You hope,” Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, yeah!” you say, shuffling defensively. “What else can I do? And in the meantime, I have got Jenny Ashton seeing twins, and I’m not talking about the fucking Garners.”<br/>
<br/>
“Did she definitely see you?” Caleb offers.<br/>
<br/>
You… have no idea. Saw? Sure. Processed? You just don’t know. All you can do is offer a rather lame shrug and hope that’s answer enough. “Fuck knows, man. All I know is she’s been texting me furiously. Wants to meet urgently. I guess this random girl-with-her-face freaked her the fuck out.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, duh,” Caleb adds, pinching his nose. He takes a seat. “OK. So… here’s where we’re at. We’ve got Cindy Vredenburg thinking Jenny Ashton has a beef with her, and she was seen starting one by you and Seth Javits. We’ve got Jenny having seen another Jenny. We have a mask of Keith’s face smooshed with Stephanie Wyatt’s. We’ve got a mask of Jenny, a mask of Cindy, and a metal strip that’s gone fucking AWOL at school. So. What are we going to focus on?”<br/>
<br/>
“OK, I have an idea," Keith says. "It’s dumb, but, y’know, here me out. We focus on getting that strip back. Will tells us where he ran, and we retrace his steps, see if we can find this fucking thing. I mean, we get to school <i>early,</i> before anyone. And we scour the place for that metal hoozits. We go home, get a good night’s sleep, and concentrate on that shit in the morning.”<br/>
<br/>
“Thank god,” Caleb says. “For a moment, I thought you were going to suggest breaking in.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m not a total numbnuts!” Keith says. “You got a better suggestion?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Caleb says. “We abort this whole thing. Oh, I’m sure as shit not going to ignore the masks, but I mean we take this and realize we can’t go fucking around with Westside any more – it’s too easy for something to go wrong and it all point to us. We work through the book, we learn the spells, and the next time we decide to play borrow-the-face we do it somewhere there won’t be consequences.”<br/>
<br/>
“Like where?” you ask.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, we could swap among ourselves. Or… I don’t know, your dad, or your mom.”<br/>
<br/>
“Haw!” Keith pipes up, putting his hands on his hips. “Will Prescott, go to your room, while I play with my big milf boobs…”<br/>
<br/>
“How about we leave my family out of this?” you say, giving Keith a slap.<br/>
<br/>
“Fine,” Caleb interjects. “We pick someone from Eastman. Or we go even simpler. We could grab the identity of someone from Agape or some shit. Think about it: they're all a bunch of pod people anyway, it's not like anyone's going to notice if one robot goes haywire.”<br/>
<br/>
“Still doesn’t help with Jenny,” you add. Once again, your phone is buzzing. “I really should deal with her at some point. Though what the hell I’m going to tell her I have no idea.” You could just blow her off, of course. Or you could meet with her, and come up with some kind of story that’s plausible, and explains why there’s a Jenny lookalike running around. Although what that explanation is, you admit, you have no idea…<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411115112132
author_id: masktrixie
id: UL4X2K2H8
title: An Early Start
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>An early night means you don’t get a lot of work done – either for school or on the book. You do you make a start on a new band, but there’s no time to do the (frankly, laborious) process of scratching out the intricate little symbols over and over. Besides, for some reason you’re exhausted. And you’ve got to be up early.<br/>
<br/>
Morning comes like a slap in the face: no easy, gradual wake-up or soft thoughts toward Chelsea or Kelsey or any other girl. Only the bleat of an alarm, and a need to get to your truck and pick up first Caleb, then Keith, so you can get your asses to Westside.<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t think I’ve ever been here this early,” Keith says, yawning even as he forces a cereal bar down his maw. “Fuck, didn’t even know it opened this early.”<br/>
<br/>
“They unlock well before school starts,” Caleb says, munching on a bagel. The two of them were smart enough to get breakfast – you weren’t exactly hungry. “Y’know, they’ve got meal programs for those who can’t afford it, warm rooms, that kind of deal. Sometimes some of the sports teams come in early and get some practice in before first period.”<br/>
<br/>
You yawn, even as you pull up in the largely deserted lot. “Well, we’re not here for either of it. What’s the best way to do this? Split up?”<br/>
<br/>
“Probably,” Caleb says. “Where did you say you were?” You map out the route you took. It’s a pretty straightforward one, if with a few sharp twists and turns. “OK,” Caleb says. “I’m not doing a girl’s bathroom. You start there, I’ll start at history, we’ll work our way along.”<br/>
<br/>
“And what am I going to do?” Keith asks.<br/>
<br/>
“I guess you’ll figure it out,” Caleb says, with a shrug. “C’mon, let’s get going. First one to find it, texts.”<br/>
<br/>
Except no text comes. You start in the stall you ended up hiding in: nothing. Then the girl’s bathroom, followed by a slow, zig-zagging sweep of the corridors. You check everywhere, even in the corners where fire doors swing in case the band was shoved to the side by someone opening them. There’s nothing – nothing except you, the tap of your feet on the floor, and the occasional, distant rattle of someone else skulking around Westside far too early in the morning.<br/>
<br/>
It's twenty minutes before you run into Caleb, coming the other way.<br/>
<br/>
“Anything?” he asks.<br/>
<br/>
You shake your head. “No. You?”<br/>
<br/>
“Obviously not,” he says, closing his eyes. “Fuck, they must have swept it up and put it in the trash. Where the fuck has Tilley got to, anyway?”<br/>
<br/>
It’s ten minutes later you have your answer: and it stinks. Keith Tilley looks deeply unimpressed, and smells far worse, as he reaches you. “Well, if it’s in the fucking dumpsters, it’s not anywhere we or anyone else is going to find it,” he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
“Shit,” you say, wrinkling your nose. “You looked in there?”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, someone had to, and it wasn’t like you two asshats were going to get yourselves dirty. So yeah, I did. Fucking reeks. Didn’t find any sign of it, though. Fuck, I need to head to the locker room and get a shower.”<br/>
<br/>
He’s not kidding. You just nod, close your eyes, and sigh.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, fuck,” Caleb concludes, unnecessarily. The mind band, it seems, is gone.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
“Will!” Jenny Ashton comes barrelling full-speed toward you down the corridor. It’s pretty much impossible to duck out of the way, even as she neatly jumps to a stop in front of you, bobbing a little. It’s weird seeing her in the flesh – for a brief moment, you even wonder if you’re seeing her, and it’s not just Caleb playing a stupid joke.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, hey,” you manage cautiously. “Sorry I didn’t reply to your texts, I was kinda busy…”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, well, they were ‘kinda’ urgent, Will! We need to talk.” There’s an anger burning in her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, what, uhm, about?”<br/>
<br/>
“About this stupid rumor! Cindy Vredenburg is going around telling everyone I told her she should break up with Seth! Which, honestly, she should, because he’s a jackass, but that’s not the point! I didn’t say it! And I don’t know why she’s insisting I did! Worse, her asshole boyfriend is lying through his teeth, too! He’s saying I did say all that shit! And they’re saying you were there, too! So… for the record. Did I have coffee with you two days ago? Or are they full of shit?”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh…” you fluster. And flap. There’s no real dodging this. “Uh, no. You didn’t have coffee with me. I don’t know why they would say that.”<br/>
<br/>
“Nor do I!” Jenny says, shaking her head. “Yumi told me it’s spreading through the cheerleaders and the fucking sports teams! I don’t need this kind of pointless shit, Will. Especially…” she pauses for a moment.<br/>
<br/>
“Especially?”<br/>
<br/>
She leans against a nearby locker, shaking her head and staring up at the ceiling. “Especially because last night I went to look for you, and I saw the weirdest thing. Was told you were down in one of the history classrooms for some reason. And when I got there… I saw…” she blanches a little. “You know what, I don’t know what I saw.”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, what do you mean?” you say, scratching your cap.<br/>
<br/>
“I mean…” Jenny bites her lip. “You know what, I don’t know. Do you believe in ghosts?”<br/>
<br/>
“Ghosts? Uh…”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, Will. Like… ghosts of… yourself. You know, like people see before tragedy. I thought it was hooey, but… last night… I saw a girl that…” she swallows. “She was me, Will. I saw myself. And then this other me ran down the corridor. I chased it as far as B block before it, uh, she, just vanished.”<br/>
<br/>
You swallow a little. So, that’s what Jenny thinks. “Uh, ghosts don’t usually run away,” you offer. “Don’t they just walk through walls?”<br/>
<br/>
Jenny pinches her nose. “I don’t know, Will. I just know something super-weird is going on, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. First this Cindy bullshit, then that… I feel like someone’s walked over my grave.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
An arm juts out straight in front of you as you make your way between classes mid-afternoon. It almost takes your head off, but, then, that’s the point. Another hand, firmly on your rib cage, shoves you hard against the wall.<br/>
<br/>
“The fuck you lying for, Prescott, you little fucking weasel?” Seth Javits is, as always, straight to the point.<br/>
<br/>
Your lizard brain goes immediately into flight-or-fight mode. And there’s no point in trying to fight Seth Javits, so you just end up scrunched against the locker, a cold sweat bursting out on your brow. You wish you could vanish. A fist slams into the wall an inch from your ear.<br/>
<br/>
“I asked you a question, cocksucker. Why are you lying?”<br/>
<br/>
“About what?” you manage, only to find the hand on your chest twist into a fist that grips and tugs and tears at your shirt.<br/>
<br/>
“About being with Jenny Ashton the other day. Your fucking cousin Ricky or some shit. Jenny’s saying she wasn’t fucking there. That it never happened. She’s calling Cindy a liar. You wouldn’t be dumb enough to call my girl a liar, would you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, no,” you say, shaking your head.<br/>
<br/>
“So be a fucking man for once in your worthless, sad fucking life.” To hammer home the lesson, Seth hammers his fist home: straight into your stomach. You gasp for air, collapsing into a slump on the floor as you close your eyes and sigh. Shit. You have no idea how to extricate yourself from this mess. And you’ve got a feeling it’s only going to keep going around in circles until you can figure some way to break out of it. You never should have let Keith near that fucking book.<br/>
<br/>
You claw yourself up, catching your breath as you gather your things once more, and prepare to head to class. You look around, hoping to find a familiar face that you can fall in behind.<br/>
<br/>
Except, glancing around, you see something else that catches your attention. Something far more important.<br/>
<br/>
It’s hanging, loose and free for all to see, on a piece of bungee cord that dangles like bait on a line from a rucksack, sported by a student you don’t know who’s bouncing past you down the corridor. The metallic sheen is almost dazzling to your eyes it skips past, and threatens to vanish into the crowds of Westside once again.<br/>
<br/>
It’s the missing mind band.<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111151121321
author_id: masktrixie
id: T3QWYGJHG
title: This Band Is My Band
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You race through the corridor after the bag. It’s a typical hall in between periods, with a mass of bodies going this way or that as students make their way between classes, bunched into talkative groups chatting about the latest TV show, movie, homework assignment or whatever else their niche interests fall under. The girl in question is in a whole bunch of smaller heads, and you figure they’re a group of freshmen or sophomores.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey!” you say, squeezing through. “Hey, wait up!”<br/>
<br/>
That doesn’t work. Why would it? It could be addressed to anyone. “Hey… girl!” Again, could be anyone. This one is black, afro hair styled under a simple Alice band, and she’s talking animatedly to two boys about their biology assignment. ‘Hey, black girl!’ isn’t exactly something you’re comfortable shouting, so in the end you settle for: “Hey, Alice Band!”<br/>
<br/>
That gets her attention. She turns, and looks at you, eyes filled with confusion and uncertainty. The two boys think about hanging back, but carry on toward class as she waits for you to catch up.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey! Sorry to yell, I just don’t know your name. I’m Will. Will Prescott.”<br/>
<br/>
If that’s supposed to elicit her name, it doesn’t. She just looks at you with steadfast, unwavering confusion. She’s under five foot tall, and dressed like she’s going to a church, rather than school – right down to a peach-colored thin sweater and pleated skirt. Dark brown eyes look at you curiously behind red-lined, cats-eye glasses.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh… OK?” she finally manages.<br/>
<br/>
“Your… thing…” you say, pointing to the backpack. “That’s a cool thing.”<br/>
<br/>
It takes her a moment to realize what you’re talking about. Slowly, she unswings her rucksack, holding it up by the strap, the mind band hanging loose and bouncing on the bungee cord. You can see, now, it’s been fixed by a crocodile clip, securing it tight to the outer straps of her pink-and-cyan bag. It’s so close, you could just reach out and snatch it… although it’s likely to cause a scene in the middle of the hall you really don’t want.<br/>
<br/>
“Thanks,” she says, eyes still darting around, as if she’s expecting some joke or punchline at her expense.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, uh, it’s a trend right now,” she says. “Y’know, you decorate your satchel with cool things you find? A few of the girls started it, buying up little plushies on keyrings. Actually, I think Alexis – y’know, Lachance? – she started it when she came back from Niagara Falls with this little cute panda, very adorable. And it just kinda evolved.”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh…” she looks a little sheepish. “I mean, it was in the hall. I was putting some books back in my locker from my solo clarinet, and it was there. And I thought it was kinda neat, you know?”<br/>
<br/>
“It is,” you agree, hand reaching out for the strip. “But it’s also mine. Something me and my buddies have been working on, after school. We dropped it last night… well… it fell off… and…”<br/>
<br/>
“Prove it,” the girl says, swinging her pack away. She looks up at you with a defiant glare.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, what?” you blurt.<br/>
<br/>
“If it’s yours,” she says, “then prove it. Tell me what it is.” She folds her arms, and stares you down even more. You can tell already she’s never going to budge. However this kid is, she’s made of an iron will.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s an… art project…”<br/>
<br/>
“I mean exactly,” she says. “Or better yet, show me a receipt. You’ve got a receipt for this, right? This thing you supposedly own?”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, no, I actually made…”<br/>
<br/>
“You made it? Then you can tell me what it is, right? What are all the cool little symbols on it?”<br/>
<br/>
“They’re… nothing… just…”<br/>
<br/>
“Sooooo,” she says, not blinking. “You can’t show me a receipt, you can’t tell me what this thing you’ve made is, you can’t show me any proof that you did this at all. You just want me to give you this cool thing I found, on your say-so. Here’s an idea. Can you even tell me where you lost it?”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh… no,” you say. “Just…somewhere at school, after classes. I don’t…”<br/>
<br/>
“Then,” she says, turning her head up a little, “I got better things to do than have to put up with some senior shakedown. I guess it’s finders keepers. And if you really did make it, doesn’t look like it’d be hard to make it again, huh?”<br/>
<br/>
And off she goes, leaving you stranded in the hall with a dumb look on your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
“Found out who your problem kid is,” Caleb says, as you regroup at the clubhouse. “Wasn’t too hard: there aren’t a lot of black students in the school. Her name is Erin Richardson. Apparently, she’s a total kiss-ass: good-as-gold student, sort of a wannabe Kim Walsh, signs up for all the extracurriculars, maintains high grades. Surprised she didn’t just hand it to you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Must have thought I was shaking her down,” you shrug.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, like your scrawny arms can do that to anyone,” Keith says, reaching over to give your bicep a squeeze. You slap his hand away. “I don’t know her. Some rando freshman who won’t matter until we’re long gone out of this place.”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, she’s not ‘some rando freshman’ anymore,” you sigh. “At least the Jenny problem’s kind-of-sort-of-not resolved.” You’re sure it’s going to come and bite you in the ass again, though: between Jenny and Seth is not somewhere you want to be.<br/>
<br/>
“At least,” Caleb says, “you mean it’s not going to get any worse. At least, not in the next 24 hours. At least, at least, at-fucking-least. Seriously, dudes. We’ve got a magic book that can turn us into anyone, and so far all we’ve done is start a rumor about Jenny Ashton, have Jenny stumble into her evil doppelganger, and lose the next hoozits to some freshman! We’re the kings of ‘least’.”<br/>
<br/>
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, dude,” Keith mutters.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, gee, thanks for that insight, Keith! So, moving on. I guess Erin Richardson is our next point of focus. Then, maybe, finally, we can get on with experimenting with this book, huh?”<br/>
<br/>
“I could always just make another mind band,” you offer. “Actually, I can do that anyway – not like I’ve got a hot date tonight. We should make a whole bunch of extra stuff, actually. More masks, more bands. Just in case.”<br/>
<br/>
“Agreed,” Caleb says. “That’s a good idea. Shit, I want a go. I haven’t even tried on my Cindy disguise yet. And…” Caleb pauses, and slaps himself in the face. “Shit. I never returned the uniform! So now Cindy’s going to be getting it in the neck for losing it from Chelsea. Or, worse, people are going to figure there’s some cheerleader outfit thief about.”<br/>
<br/>
“No one’s going to figure that,” you say. “Just… I don’t know, put it back, everyone will assume she just mislaid it. And we’ll just have to come up with some different clothes she might wear.”<br/>
<br/>
“Until then, you could always turn into her and walk around naked,” Keith says. “I sure as shit wouldn’t object.”<br/>
<br/>
He narrowly misses the nearby object Caleb chucks at his head. “Fuck you, Tilley! And focus, huh? So, c’mon, guys. We need to get our mind band off this Erin Richardson kid. What’s the plan?”<br/>
<br/>
“We could just take it off her,” Keith says, suddenly raising his arms up as you look at him incredulously. “I don’t mean violently! God, I’m not fucking Javits! I mean we wait until the freshmen are in gym class and grab it. Or we pay a freshman to do it for us.”<br/>
<br/>
“Pay? With what?” you observe. “Which – I should point out – also makes buying it off her out of the question.”<br/>
<br/>
“Will’s got a point,” Caleb says. “Plus the first thing that’s going to happen is she’s gonna bitch to someone, and the finger’ll get pointed straight at us.”<br/>
<br/>
“OK, so, let’s be even more direct,” Keith counters. “Make a mask, slap it on her. Then take that mind band and put it on her as well. That ways, we can see what happens if we combine the two.”<br/>
<br/>
“You want to walk around Saratoga Falls as some preppy freshman?”<br/>
<br/>
“Wouldn’t be my first choice. But as a guinea pig, you got to admit she could work. It’ll let us figure out what we’re messing with. She’s as good a face as any in town; and if she’s so obsessed with her perfect academic record she’s probably always home studying or at some club. They’d be no risk running into someone.”<br/>
<br/>
“Too risky,” Caleb says, picking his teeth. “We need to play this clever. My suggestion, is we don’t ask her at all.”<br/>
<br/>
“What, like, ask Kim to pester her for it?” Keith sniffs. “Why would Kim help us. Other than, y’know, she likes helping.”<br/>
<br/>
“No, doofus,” Caleb says. “I mean ‘Cindy’ asks her for it. Someone like Richardson isn’t going to refuse a cheerleader, is she? You know how the school hierarchy goes, and Cindy’s barely one step below Chelsea fucking Cooper. Might as well use that fucking cheerleader outfit while I’ve still got it. What do you think, Will?”<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111241111511213212
author_id: masktrixie
id: BRMGL478V
title: Caleb Explains It All
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You stare. Partly in astonishment – even after you know the power of the masks, this is still incredible – and partly because the figure in front of you is, well, gorgeous. Cindy Vredenburg is one of the hottest girls in school. In Saratoga Falls. That you’ve ever encountered.<br/>
<br/>
And she’s there, smiling at you, dressed in her cheerleader uniform. Well. Mostly in her cheerleader uniform. Her pumps are different, and… well…<br/>
<br/>
“Next time we do this, I’m going to need a bra,” Caleb says, looking at you both.<br/>
<br/>
“I dunno, man, I really don’t mind you without,” Keith replies. Caleb – Cindy – frowns in disgust.<br/>
<br/>
“C’mon, Tilley, it’s me! Don’t make this weird. And if I see either one of you popping a boner, I am going to kick your ass so bad…”<br/>
<br/>
“How the hell would you kick our ass?”<br/>
<br/>
“Duh, I’d ask Seth to do it for me.” Cindy smiles triumphantly, and bats her eyes a few times.<br/>
<br/>
“He’s got you there,” you say, appraising the new cheerleader on the block. Caleb’s doing this better than Keith. Hell, better than your first outing as Jenny, too: he’s not trying too damn hard. Instead, he’s just… being normal. It’s not exactly Cindy’s mannerisms, but it’s also not exactly… not, either.<br/>
<br/>
The girl in front of you picks up one of the pocket mirrors you’ve brought along. Last night, you decided to start work on the mind bands, as well as a few new masks. You also tested it out, before Caleb completed his transformation. And that, in itself, was a whole experience.<br/>
<br/>
You volunteered to be the guinea pig. Figuring the same thing might happen with the mask, you’d lain down on the floor of the clubhouse, and placed it on your head. Then, like a shot, you were gone: the world dark, until, moments later, your world snapped open again. Except it had been a lot longer than a few moments. And the band had changed, too: your name, writ large on it.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, that’s awesome,” Caleb had said, helping you up. Though, in truth, the next step – Keith putting it on – was even more awesome. The moment he shot up, he had a huge, sloppy grin on his face.<br/>
<br/>
“Dude! I know… I know everything you know! It’s like some kind of psychic connection! It’s literally a mind-swiper!”<br/>
<br/>
“You mean… just… like, my personality or…”<br/>
<br/>
“I mean like I know where you keep that sock. You know the one. I know where the book is. I can remember our conver… oh, that’s weird! I can remember that conversation from the other day, only I remember looking at me, having it! Fuck. I know everything. I know what lame shit you put in the time capsule, I know your… hooooly fuck!” He bursts out laughing. “I know about a certain special crush you have…”<br/>
<br/>
It was Caleb who had to kerb your desperate attempt to pound Keith and shut him up. Eventually, a pact had to be made: the Will Prescott mind band would stay with Will Prescott. And as for Cindy…<br/>
<br/>
“You’re sure you’re up for this?” you ask the erstwhile cheerleader. “I mean, the last two times we tried this, we fucked it up. Badly.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, I know,” Caleb says. “But let’s face it: the last time we tried it, it was you and Tilley.” Cindy’s smile blossoms on her face, as she shrugs, and pats out her hair. “Time to watch and learn how a pro does it, guys.”<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">***</div><br/>
<br/>
There’s not much for you to do other than wait for Caleb – or rather Cindy – to report back. So, with a sigh, you decide to work on the book. Sure enough, the next page is open… and it doesn’t take long to realize it’s pretty similar to the second spell: how to glue a mind band in place. Figuring you might as well get on with it, you decide to while away the time getting an industrial polisher on some more masks. And, when Caleb still hasn’t reported back, you stick a mask on yourself, too. Sure enough, the mask and the band glue together… and your name floats eerily inside it, like the answer inside a magic eight ball.<br/>
<br/>
“One perfect Will Prescott disguise,” you muse, even as your phone vibrates. There’s a message.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Meet me @ the clubhouse.</i><br/>
<br/>
Keith and Caleb are both already there by the time you return, mask in hand to show off the latest discovery. Caleb is clutching the missing band.<br/>
<br/>
“Child’s play,” he says, waving it. “In fact, I went above and beyond when it comes to this little assignment. You assholes should have seen it: I was on fire.”<br/>
<br/>
“What does that mean?” you ask. Caleb beams.<br/>
<br/>
“It means,” he says, “Operation Cindy was a complete success. First, Erin Richardson. That was easy: she was still in extracurriculars. Wasn’t even a hassle to pressure her for the band: she wants to be a cheerleader, for some reason. Popularity, I guess. Anyway, told her that you were my friend, and that you had lost some art project and were really upset about it. Put the guilt on thick, like peanut butter and jello on a sandwich. Practically shamed her in front of her friends about it.”<br/>
<br/>
“And you weren’t caught?” Keith says. Caleb frowns.<br/>
<br/>
“Fuck no! I told you, that was the easy part. The next part… that was the part you two owe me for. Because… I do not ever want to have to go through what I did for your knuckleheads ever again.”<br/>
<br/>
You wait for the punchline. It doesn’t come. “OK,” you sigh. “I’ll bite. What did you do?”<br/>
<br/>
“I got cuddly with Seth Javits.”<br/>
<br/>
“You did what?” Keith says, tongue sticking out as he makes a faux gagging noise. You’re a little uncomfortable, too.<br/>
<br/>
“Seth and the guys were in the hall, and I heard that Cindy and her friends were already in town, so I decided to play double or quits. I told Seth, in front of everyone, that Jenny didn’t mean what she’d said, that we were cool, that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and to draw a line under it. End of story. Job done. No more Cindy Vrendenburg, Jenny Ashton mystery beef.” He mimes dropping a mic. “Like. A. Boss.”<br/>
<br/>
“You think everyone’s going to buy that?” you ask. Caleb shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
“Why not? If Cindy says anything else, it’ll crush her credibility, and she’s not going to waste that on Jenny Ashton. The rumors are going to fly like winged monkeys around the school that whatever the fuck was going on is over, so Jenny’s clear. And no one is going to be any the wiser. Plus…” Caleb grins, smugly. “I even managed to get the cheerleader outfit back to the locker room. All in all, everything is tied up in a beautiful, Johannsson bow. You’re welcome, both of you. Just admit that I am the Chosen One when it comes to these masks.”<br/>
<br/>
“I guess,” Keith sighs, clearly less than enthused by Caleb’s home-run level of success.<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, good work, man,” you manage to add. If it’s true. Caleb’s smarter, and much more grounded, than Keith, but all of it sounds a little too neat and too perfect to be a completely accurate version of events.<br/>
<br/>
“See, guys, this is why you leave it to a pro. And while I’ve been solving all of your damn problems off screen, what have you two managed to accomplish?”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ve got another pair of masks on the go,” Keith says. “Will brought over a load of materials, so I got bufferin’. One’s ready, should have another one tomorrow.”<br/>
<br/>
“And I decided to delve a little further in the book,” you say, fishing the mask out and turning it over, before passing it to Caleb. “This one’s me. Not just my face… it’s got my mind, too. So I guess if someone wanted to go around pretending to be me, it’s pretty much the full upgrade.”<br/>
<br/>
“So why don’t we try that?” Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
“Try what?”<br/>
<br/>
“Try being you!” he says, with a laugh. “Look, Keith’s got a mask ready, and you’re working hard on those bands. So why don’t we have some fun, and play a little switcheroo. Someone gets to be you, and you get to be someone else. Fuck, isn’t that what we were building up to anyway?”<br/>
<br/>
You shift a little. “You… want to be me?”<br/>
<br/>
“Well, either me or Tilley, yeah. And you’ll be either of us. That way there’s no chance of us being caught or some dumb shit like that, we just get to live as the other for, let’s say 24 hours. See what it’s like for the other half. C’mon, you have to admit that it’d be fun?”<br/>
<br/>
It’s an interesting idea. But you’re also curious about the next page of the book. So far, the spells all seem to have made sense: disguise, lock disguise. Mind, lock the mind with the disguise. But you have no idea what would come next in that sequence. And whoever gets to be ‘Will Prescott’ is going to be the one to have the first chance to look at it…<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1112411115112132122
author_id: masktrixie
id: FN6K8TFK2
title: Underneath Keith
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Dude," you say, "this fucking thing doesn’t work. I’m getting absolutely jack."<br/>
<br/>
Of course, it’s not <i>you</i> saying this. Even though he’s got the same face – which, frankly, is terrifying – along with the same shaggy hair, and is wearing your clothes, right down to the cap. He’s got your (empty) wallet, your ID, the keys to your truck.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean it’s not working?" Caleb asks. For the past half-hour, you’ve gone through the process of getting everything set up for the switch, with Keith getting more and more excitable (when not unconscious). And now, wearing your face, he seems to have lost all enthusiasm.<br/>
<br/>
"Will must have fucked up the mask," the Will in front of you says, folding his arms and slouching against the wall. "The band definitely worked. And obviously the mask works, because look at <i>me</i> over there! But I’m not getting a single thought in his head."<br/>
<br/>
"That’s weird," you say, scratching your cheek. The acne there itches like crazy, and it takes a lot of mental effort to pull your hand away. "I’ve got every single one of your thoughts."<br/>
<br/>
It’s deeper than that. When Keith tried the band earlier, you figured it was some kind of mind-reading gimmick: you didn’t know how it’d work, but you assumed that it would be intrusive thoughts, or a library of memories to conjure up, like closing your eyes and trying to remember what happened in a movie. It’s nothing like that, though; the moment you put on the mask and vanished into Keith’s subconscious it was way too intense, dude. You didn’t just have access to Keith’s thoughts. You thought you were Keith. It took a good few seconds, as Caleb glanced down at you concerned, to snap out of it and remember what was really going on.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? What am I thinking of now?" Keith says, folding his arms.<br/>
<br/>
"Boobs, dude. You’re always thinking of boobs. Occasionally an ass. Mostly boobs."<br/>
<br/>
"Pick a…"<br/>
<br/>
"Color? You were going to say color. Anyone else would go ‘pick a number’. But I told you, dude. I have your thoughts. It’s totally insane. I am you."<br/>
<br/>
"Holy shit," Caleb remarks. "So why isn’t Will… I mean while isn’t Tilley getting the same thing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck if I know, dude," you both say in unison.<br/>
<br/>
Keith reaches down, and begins fumbling in his pants. "Hey, man, look, I’m touching your junk."<br/>
<br/>
"Aaaaaand you can stop that," Caleb says, with a sigh. "OK. So what are we going to do? Abort? It’s obvious the Will mask is faulty somehow. You must have fucked up with the paste."<br/>
<br/>
"I can’t have," you protest. "I did the same thing to this mask. And besides, the next spell unlocked."<br/>
<br/>
Did it ever. The next spell is a strange one. You’re pretty sure it makes… well. The book describes it as a ‘pedisequos’, which you still aren’t too sure about. Some kind of rock monster. It requires a few things. The first – and the easy part, which you’ve already got before you did the switch – was a lock of hair. The second part…<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we need to talk about that next part," Caleb says. "Where the fuck are we going to get that much ‘grave dirt’. I mean, does the book seriously expect us to raid a cemetery?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, why not?" Will – no, wait, Keith says. "It’s not that hard. We just go down to the old Masonic Cemetery, down by the river. No one’s going to notice if someone starts digging up a few clods of earth, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"This isn’t a few clods, dickhead. This is going to be… like, a whole truckload of earth," you interject. A quick flash of Keith’s thoughts, intrusive as they are, indicate he has absolutely no idea how much earth is required. Caleb, meanwhile, is leaning into his science background, and seems just about ready to measure it out.<br/>
<br/>
"Keith’s right…. I mean, Will is right," Caleb says. "We’re going to need his truck."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean," Keith says, a goofy grin emerging on your face, "my truck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Since when do you know how to drive my truck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, which one of us has your license," Keith your old face and body says, laughing. "C’mon, it’s going to be easy."<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
You’re back, sore and stiff, two hours later. The graveyard raid was not, like everything else Keith suggested, easy. Getting in unnoticed wasn’t a problem, and fortunately Caleb’s garage had a few shovels for his mom’s yardwork that you were able to grab on the way over, to make everything faster. But the sheer quantity of earth wasn’t what you expected. Even with the three of you taking turns – two digging, one loading onto the truckbed – it took an hour to get the dirt. And that’s assuming it’s even the right thing. By the time you were loaded, in the dark, and drove off – wildly, and barely keeping the truck on the road – you were all stiff and sore.<br/>
<br/>
"This better be worth it," Keith complains, stretching his arm around, trying to rotate it in a way that makes it comfortable, at least. "Whatever this next spell is, given what a bust the last one was. Think I might call it a night, anyways."<br/>
<br/>
"What, and just leave this… here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, not like we’ve got the rest of the ingredients," your dirty, exhausted face says. "Besides, don’t you have a curfew or some shit?"<br/>
<br/>
You search Keith’s brain. ‘You’ were supposed to be home half an hour ago. As for yourself… "You still don’t know?"<br/>
<br/>
Keith knits your eyebrows together, trying to concentrate. "Uh… like… eleven, I think?"<br/>
<br/>
You look at Caleb. "He’s never going to pass as me, my mom’s going to see straight through him in the morning."<br/>
<br/>
"Don’t be a tool!" Keith retorts. "For starters, why would anyone think I’m not you. I look like you, sound like you, smell like ass like you. Besides, I’ll head to school straight off. In my truck. And see you losers there."<br/>
<br/>
"Just…" you pinch your borrowed nose. "Just don’t fuck up my life, OK?" You don’t have any tests coming up, and your assignments are all done, so you’re confident that there’s nothing for Keith to fuck up except your social cred… which is already rock-bottom.<br/>
<br/>
"You mean tell Yumi you want her to be your Yumi-Mommy? Have a breakdown in the cafeteria and scream for Lisa to take you back? Climb on your desk and show them your moon?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keith," you say, slowly, your words sounding odd coming out of his mouth, "I’m warning you, don’t try anything. Two can play that game."<br/>
<br/>
"Relax, man! I’ll be a model Will Prescott, I swear."<br/>
<br/>
"In that case," Caleb says, brushing the dirt off his hands, "I suggest we get on with this. Remember, guys: this is a test. Don’t fuck it up. The whole idea is to see if you can pass yourself off as each other. Because if you can, well… who knows where this is going to take us."<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11124111151121321221
author_id: masktrixie
id: AN24FBSBP
title: The Life of Keith
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You wake up, and for the briefest moment, you want to go through your normal routine. You want to stretch out, reach for your special sock, enjoy a few moments of pleasant thought about a couple of girls… but something smells like crap. And it takes a few moments to realize it’s you.<br/>
<br/>
Keith Tilley. This is your room. And it’s a mess. Clothes scattered in piles, along with comic books, half-thumbed textbooks for your courses (which, let’s be honest, you’re failing hopelessly at), and your own collection of private junk, all the better to conceal the three (no, four? Five?) dirty magazines you have stashed around the place at any one time. <br/>
<br/>
On your wall, you’ve got pin-ups of actresses in bikinis, along with a Little League pennant (though why, considering you were in right field and barely did anything to win it, and even then it was almost seven years ago, you have no idea). And your mouth tastes of ass. <br/>
<br/>
You roll out of bed, groaning as you make your way to the bathroom, and turn on the shower, dodging the quick spurt of freezing cold. Instinctively, you scratch your nuts, only to pull your hand away because that’s not your nuts. And then you lean into the wall, and let the finally emerging heat of the water unknit some of your muscles. <br/>
<br/>
Breakfast this morning is the breakfast of champions: a pop tart. Pizza for breakfast isn’t so much a necessity as a lifestyle choice, and one your dad – your only parent – makes clear is not a healthy one. <br/>
<br/>
“You got any tests today?” Jack Tilley asks, glancing up from under his plaid shirt and cap. <br/>
<br/>
“Uh, no,” you say, sniffing a little as you grab the pop tart from the microwave. “Just your standard Friday.”<br/>
<br/>
“OK. Mill’s got me pulling a double, you OK handling yourself for dinner tonight?”<br/>
<br/>
You nod. Keith’s brain has surprisingly little going on in it (yes, Caleb calls him a dumbass, but the reason it bothers him is that he knows it’s a perfectly valid complaint). “Yeah, can do.” <br/>
<br/>
“OK. Have a good day, now. Oh, and whatever the heck you were doing last night, can you at least take your shoes off before you come in? Got mud all over the hall. What was it you were in late for?”<br/>
<br/>
“Side project. With Will and Caleb. Sorry, I’ll make sure I wash up next time.”<br/>
<br/>
“Just be sure you do,” your dad says. And, weird as it seems, with Keith’s mind in control, you really do feel he is your dad.<br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
“Sup.” Will Prescott heads over to you. For a brief moment that washes over you, you wonder if that’s Keith’s best impression of you, slouching along the hall as he leans in to your locker. Except, as you look a little deeper… it’s a pretty good impression. <br/>
<br/>
“Hey, Will,” you manage, giving it some of Keith’s usual level (or lack of) enthusiasm for the morning. “What you get up to last night? Hot date? Some kind of genius scientific breakthrough?”<br/>
<br/>
“Nah,” he says, with a shrug. “Just crashed, honestly. Thought about playing a few games but I was exhausted. Plus my mom was on at me to clean my room again this morning. So that was fun.”<br/>
<br/>
He leans in. “Oh, and I got all of your memories. Came to me in the middle of the night.” <br/>
<br/>
“See, dude!” you say, with a hit of his shoulder and Keith’s grinning enthusiasm. “I told you it would work! Am I a genius or what?”<br/>
<br/>
“I’m going to vote for ‘or what’,” Caleb says, swinging up behind you. “For starters, I could have been anyone. Jesus, don’t tell me having his numbskull brain is dulling your own senses.”<br/>
<br/>
“Fuck you,” you manage in unison. The new Will Prescott gives a grin. “Actually, kind of weird having a whole new set of ideas up in here. You’re going to have to try it, man. Maybe we can do a three-way.”<br/>
<br/>
“I wouldn’t ever say three-way,” you say. “That’s on you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Uh-huh,” the new Will says. “Just relax. I can fold my arms and sink into happy obscurity in all my classes with the best of ‘em. Later, guys. Catch you at lunch?”<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shakes his head, watching as the new Will Prescott walks away. “Mark my words,” he says. “This is going to end in trouble. I love the guy, but he’s just not built for anything that requires even the most basic semblance of responsibility.” A little light flashes in Caleb’s brain, and you can see a glint in his eye. “Speaking of which, I’ll catch up with you later. Keith.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, later,” you say, turning to head down the corridor… only for a hand to smack every single book out of your grasp, sending texts and homework scattering to the floor. <br/>
<br/>
“Watch where you’re going, loser,” Seth Javits and his fellow lunkheads say, barging you out of the way and, as usual, into the wall. You rub your shoulder through the beaten tee that you’re wearing, and frown. It is as usual. And it’s something Caleb’s probably never appreciated. <br/>
<br/>
***<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the day as Keith is an eye-opener, and not always in a good way. Things you’ve always just known or taken for granted are a struggle in his mind, almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle upside down, and you have to take your time to really focus. Your concentration, too, fluctuates wildly, dragging your thoughts around in circles, freestyle doodling in your mind. <br/>
<br/>
Lunch is surreal, running into Lamont, goofing around with Keith’s voice and mannerisms even as he does his best version of you. Is that how you’ve always behaved? Is that how you carry yourself? It’s so different compared with how you’ve always perceived yourself, and yet it feels accurate – and Keith’s thoughts confirm it, too. It’s surprising to realize how he views you, and how he remembers the same adventures and scenarios. It’s even more of an eye-opener to realize that Keith might well peek through your own mind, and see how you’ve been thinking of him, too.<br/>
<br/>
“So,” Caleb says, as you gather to soak your big ol’ pile of dirt in preparation for the next stage – lighting it. “How did you find it, dudes?”<br/>
<br/>
“Weird,” you say. “I spent half the time thinking about girls, half the time thinking about my junk. Plus I can’t hang here too long – I’ve got to get to Keith’s deadbeat job.”<br/>
<br/>
You are looking forward to a night selling donuts and coffee about as much as the real Keith.<br/>
<br/>
“At least I have some money!” Keith says. “You know how hard it is, having to act with your broke ass all day?” Your face pauses in thought, before grinning. “Actually, that was kind of fun. Uh, so: good news, looks like Jenny’s cool with you. Bad news… I might have told Lisa a few things you never would have.”<br/>
<br/>
You flush with embarrassment, even as your mind races, trying to work out what the hell that even means. “You did what!”<br/>
<br/>
“Relax,” the new Will says. “I made you look good. And,” he turns to Caleb, “I fixed your thing, too.”<br/>
<br/>
“What thing?”<br/>
<br/>
“The Salopek job, Will,” your double says, folding his arms. “That’s the advantage of being you: I can do all of the stuff you really should have. Help a guy out, y’know?”<br/>
<br/>
“That’s not what we agreed!” <br/>
<br/>
“Oh, chill out, OK? It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Besides, I’m the one dealing with it right now, aren’t I?”<br/>
<br/>
“Speaking of,” Caleb says, “I really need a go with all of this at some point. So far I’ve just kind of let you two idiots fumble around. I want a mind band, too.”<br/>
<br/>
“You can be Keith,” you offer. “I could be you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah, because I want to be Keith!” Caleb snorts, even as the Will-appearing member of your trio flips him the bird. “Anyway, we should get this thing alight. Any idea if it’s going to explode?”<br/>
<br/>
“No idea,” you both say, before the other-you continues. “We’re using your hair, dude. So why don’t you do the honors, while Caleb and I get back?”<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes, and take the lighter. The duo back away from the pile you’ve made, while you lean forward, the small flame approaching the mound… which then bursts into a row of dancing, colored flame.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, I would say that’s a result,” Caleb says. “Hey, why isn’t it hot?”<br/>
<br/>
“What do you mean?” Keith says, approaching. “Huh…” with terror, you watch as your double sticks his hand near the flame… and then into it! “Check it out!” he says, waving his palm through the flickering mass. “It’s not even real fire! It’s just some kind of illusion! How long does this shit have to burn for?”<br/>
<br/>
“Doesn’t say,” you say. “As you know. I guess… we just have to keep it alight until it’s finished. Whatever it is.”<br/>
<br/>
“OK, in that case, one of us should probably watch the thing,” Caleb says. “We grab a sleeping bag, take shifts? I can handle the first one. And…”<br/>
<br/>
“And what?” you say.<br/>
<br/>
“While you do that, I want a mind band too. You can’t expect me to sleep on this shit. And no, I don’t want to be Keith.”<br/>
<br/>
“So, what, you want to be Will?” <br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” Caleb says, nodding. “I want a go with the Will mask. And you can be me.”<br/>
<br/>
“And what am I going to do?” you ask. “Just keep being Keith?”<br/>
<br/>
“For now,” Caleb nods. “But seeing as you’ve drawn the short straw,” once again, Keith flips the bird with your finger, “how about this. Obviously, we’re going to impersonate other people with this, right? I mean, what’s the point otherwise. So… you can pick the next person we’re going to copy.”<br/>
<br/>
You think for a moment. You have a mask of Cindy and Jenny, but you’ve already caused enough hassle there. But perhaps they could give you an opportunity to get close to a real target. You feel that you owe Seth Javits payback: perhaps you could do it as him. Or, as Keith, Cindy or Jenny, you could easily grab a member of staff. That’d give you some leverage at school, after all.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, there’s another obvious choice. Keith lives alone with his dad. Perhaps you should think about moving your base of operations to an actual house… and maybe getting a mask of Jack Tilley is an obvious next step…<span class="cpohbcpohbMK"></span></span></div></div>


