The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Hot Takes from Chelsea

Previously: "A Little Self-Immersion" 

Do you want to be my girlfriend? Seth Javits (a.k.a. Chelsea Cooper) has asked you.

You grunt and look away.

Your body—the body of Steve Patterson—wants to run away. It wants to run, and it hopes that Javits will follow so that it can punch Javits in the mouth before resuming its flight.

But your mind—the mind that is still yours, under the heavy, smothering layers of Steve Patterson's personality—is intrigued. Seth Javits is someone that you hate. He's a showboating bully who delights in tormenting your friend Keith, and you and Caleb sometimes as well, for the sheer pleasure (it seems to you) of asserting himself. You are in no way attracted to him.

But it is Chelsea grinning at you from behind his smug, horsey face, from behind his light hazel eyes. And you did promise that you'd fuck her no matter what she looks like. You could make that promise because you felt that desire in your loins and in your bones and in your soul.

But when you shift your gaze back onto her, you only grunt again and say, "We'll talk about it up in the loft."

* * * * *

First, though, you ask how her transformation into Seth went.

"We did it out in his truck after the party was winding down," she says. "We parked behind a convenience store, did it there. I asked him first about where he lived, and what to say to his parents when I saw them, 'cos I was worried it would go like with Chen, you know, that I wouldn't get his memories right away."

"And?"

She doesn't answer, for she is preening and studying her new body in the big mirror that's shoved into a far corner of the loft. Seth is six-foot-one, and proportional (unlike Patterson, whose height makes him lanky), and he works out, so he's got good, showy muscles that she's been flexing. Right now she's hiked her jersey up to just under her chest, and is running her fingertips over Javits's hard six-pack. (He was voted "best abs in class" last year.) She shifts from foot to foot, twisting on her hips, to get a look at her strong, well-shaped legs. And she tilts her head from side to side as she studies her long and horsey face.

"So what happened?" you repeat.

"Huh?" She glances momentarily at your reflection in the mirror before returning her attention to her bellybutton. "Oh, yeah, it happened just like with Chen. Didn't remember anything until after I woke up this morning. Then—"

She settles back on a heel to smirk at herself. Then she turns to give you a smoky look over her shoulder. "Bro remembered he had a court date this morning."

You roll your eyes.

"Yeah, I'll turn myself into a girl for you," you retort. "Maybe she won't be skeeved out by you acting this way."

Seth sniggers and saunters up to you.

"Fuck me like this?" he murmurs in a low voice while looking you up and down. "And I'll fuck you like that?"

"Later." You lay a hand on the side of his neck and shove him to the side. "Who do you have in mind?"

For a moment he looks hurt, then resettles his features.

"For a girlfriend?" His gaze goes briefly distant, then a wicked light flares within them. "Kendra was fun the other night." But before you can veto that suggestion yourself, his face falls, and he vetoes it himself. "But I don't want you there."

"Why not?"

"I dunno." His eyes dart. "Kendra's a snake. Gloria's a snake. But I don't— I don't need you there."

So this is going to be about "need," huh? you think, and settle back to see where it will all lead.

"If I was just going off of where Seth'ld like to wet his dick—" He sucks in his lips, and his eyes rove the room. "Well, there's Sydney McGlynn. She's probably tops on his list. "Eva Garner, but that probably won't work, not with her being friends with Cindy and all."

His eye twitches.

"Um, Phoebe Beauchamp. Olivia Byrne. Ooh!" He gasps. "Andrea!"

Then he winces. "Yeah, Andrea," he mumbles, and turns a little white and a little furtive.

"Something happen between Javits and Andrea?" you ask.

"No! Just—" He hesitates.

Then he bursts out with a spiteful, "I'm allowed to be jealous, Will, even I'm if looking like this!" So shrill is his voice that it almost sounds like Chelsea's own.

"Calm down," you tell her. "You can fucking be Andrea, if you want. So fuck being jealous."

Still, her mood remains dark even as she resumes rattling off names.

"Yeah, so, Christine and Olivia. Jamie. Sophie Van den Berg." She sighs. "Catherine Muskov. This girl, Karen, he's had her in some of his classes. That Chinese girl, Shelby whathername, she's on the volleyball team."

"What about the basketball squad?"

"Girls' squad? Oh yeah! Well, Kristy, Julia, Samantha. Hope!" His eyes light up again.

"Basically anyone, then. You know the feeling now."

She smirks, and touches your stomach with a fingertip.

"Okay," you continue. "Make me a top five list, and I'll make a list of whose pussy I'd like to slide inside, and we'll compare notes."

She acquiesces with a shrug. Then she returns to the mirror to resume scoping herself out.

You watch her for some moments.

Almost you ask, So how hot was the sex with Cindy? But you bite your tongue. It's not the bad taste of the question that puts you off. It's the sense that it might make Chelsea explode.

* * * * *

Because—you figure later, when you're at the old elementary school, using a buffer to polish up the mask you'll use for the coming impersonation—that's got to be at least part of the reason that Chelsea put herself inside Seth's mask. So she'd know, first-hand through Seth's experiences, how good of a fuck Cindy was, and what she liked and what she liked to do.

And what it was like to jam a hard dick up inside her arch-rival.

Oh, she said it was so she could have direct control of Seth, and steer him away from Cindy and into a girl he could anchor to. But Steve has had much too much experience listening to Chelsea bitch endlessly about Cindy not to see through the excuse. Chelsea's hatred of Cindy is like some great, passionate (but inverted) love affair.

And when you love someone (even if it's love inverted into hatred) you want to know them as intimately as you can. The only surprise is that Chelsea hasn't made a mask of Cindy and usurped her great rival's own place.

The thought will occur to her soon enough, you suppose. Cindy is still after Seth, she'll tell you. She can still hurt him. She'll be hurting me, Will!" You'd best be prepared for that ultimate act of vengeance, and what you'll say when she proposes it. Put your foot down and tell her no? Or give in, like you've done every time so far?

You sigh, and break away from these thoughts to study the mask. There are still a few streaks of white to be pushed out of it, and you resume your work, letting the whine of the buffer smother those thoughts of the future.

* * * * *

It's later, at home, as you hunch over your desk making the memory strip to complete the mask, that you turn your thoughts to the immediate task: picking a girl who would be both a suitable girlfriend for Seth Javits, and a comfortable impersonation for yourself.

Chelsea had texted you a list (conveniently titled, in its very Javits-like way, "Bitches I'd Like to Fuck Long-Term") of five girls. Two of these you had struck off immediately from consideration. Catherine Muskov already has a boyfriend, and you don't want the bother of going through a breakup; and Becky Torres attends Eastman High, and you want to be at the same school as Chelsea.

So after roiling your gut and your loins with the three remaining choices and some alternatives of your own, you text back a counterproposal ("One of These for Me") that keeps three from Chelsea's list, and substitutes Andrea Varnsworth (the sexy captain of the swim team) and Stephanie Wyatt (the star player on the girls' basketball squad) for the two you vetoed.

You expect Chelsea to veto Andrea, on account of the weird reaction she had after remembering her name. But to your surprise, when she does answer after supper, it's Stephanie's name she has struck from your list, substituting that of a different girl on the basketball squad, Julia Paez.

So that's the final five, and Chelsea says she'll leave it up to you pick one from it.

Top of the list, probably, would be Andrea—who is smoking hot and has a cool, veiled, and mysterious personality that no one (that you know of) has been able to penetrate. But you suspect she would be at the bottom of Chelsea's own list, and that Chelsea only included her as a sop to you.

Next would be Sydney McGlynn, who is new to the school. She's blonde and stacked and (from what Steve has seen) has a bright and confident personality. She was a cheerleader at her old school, and Chelsea is probably trying to head off potential rivalry by including her as a possibility. (Also, pairing Seth with the blonde and talented Sydney would be a huge "fuck you" to Cindy.)

Kelsey Blankenship is another old rival of Chelsea's, and of Cindy's as well. She is probably another "fuck Cindy" choice. But given Kelsey's "influencer" status at school, you suspect there is more going on behind that choice.

Phoebe Beauchamp is a slim and sexy soccer player; and she has that Spanish class with Steve, so there would continue to be a connection there. But there's been a lot of drama on the soccer team, and you're unsure you want to get involved in that.

Last is Julia Paez, the strangest choice Chelsea has offered you. You have no idea what is behind that. All you know is that Julia has a reputation for being a little weird.

Next: "Compromising with Kelsey" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"