The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Forebodings of the Future

Previously: "Many Models" 

I'm going to come back next year as one of the new cheerleaders, Chelsea said. That's why I need a mask of her.

Well, of one of them.

Chelsea is now sprawled unconscious on the makeout mat, under Seth Javits's slack and staring face. It will be a few minutes before she wakes up. Her golem, and the golem of Gordon, have left, leaving you alone in the loft with Steve and your own thoughts.

And the big mirror, into which you are staring now.

What is there for me after I graduate? Chelsea asked in a hurt tone of voice when you demanded to know why she wanted to return to high school in the body of another girl. College? And what for? So I can get some kind of job, and hope I meet someone I can fall in love with? Or stay at home like my mom? Have kids?

I'm good at this, Will! she said, indicating with a broad sweep of her arms the loft, the school, her friends, you, and everything else on the school property. If you were good at something, how would you feel if someone said that you had to give it up forever? Well, I'm good at high school! And if some people get to be happy doing their jobs all their lives, why don't I get to? Why don't I get to keep doing it?

You could only reply, We should talk about it, to which she had made a face and ordered Seth onto the mat so she could pull of his face.

Which was fine. At least it has given you a few minutes to gather your scattered and bewildered thoughts.

So what am I going to do after high school? you ask your reflection (which is Kelsey's, still). It's a question that has always made you desperate and jumpy. Go to college, I guess, is the immediate answer. It will have to be an in-state school so you can get in-state tuition. Probably Keyserling, so you can live at home.

But for what? For what kind of life afterward will you prepare, what kind of life have you been preparing for? None that you can think of.

It's so different with Kelsey. She's got it all planned out. Applications prepared for all the Ivy League schools, plus a few non-Ivy possibilities as a fallback. She's going to major in political science, with maybe a minor or two in related fields. Work for a non-profit or some other kind of NGO after getting her degree. Then either a move up the ladder at one of these, or a lateral step into government service. Eventually, so she plans, she will run for public office, at the state level at least, but she's already got one calculating eye focused on the US Congress.

You catch sight of Steve's reflection deep in the mirror, leaning against the far wall behind you, eyeing you. He has a plan too. His dreams are a little less focused, as he has planned nothing more detailed than a course through business school and then into the corporate world. From there, he will ruthlessly improvise.

You summon him over to stand beside you, gazing into the mirror, and wrap his arm around your torso while pulling yourself close to him.

Kelsey and Steve could be a powerful couple, and you feel the attraction between them. Kelsey has admired Steve's confidence and power from afar, but has held aloof on account of his reputation, and because she didn't want to attach herself to the best friend of Chelsea's boyfriend. Steve, meanwhile, will fuck anything, and if Kelsey is probably not a ten in his judgement, she would certainly be an eight or a nine.

Was I really going to give up these two? Or even one of them? you guiltily ask yourself now that you have the far future firmly in view. You have been improvising with the masks from situation to situation, and never thought beyond the end of the semester, let alone beyond graduation. So you were shocked by Chelsea's plan to hijack another identity—and an identity after that, presumably, and an identity after that—for her own personal use, but were you ever going to do anything different? And what would be the difference between hijacking a series of identities so as to remain perpetually young and perpetually in high school, and hijacking another identity so as to become that person forever afterward?

And would you stay that person all the way into the old folks' home? Or would you start over again, as Chelsea has said she would do?

Questions and questions and questions, and you're not given time to answer them before Seth stirs and pries his eyes open.

* * * * *

You ride Seth's hard, burgeoning shaft, screwing yourself deeper onto it from above as he thrusts it deeper into you from below. You grip his shoulders tightly, and his face twists up in agony as you dig your nails into his flesh. But is it agony or is it ecstasy? His tight, hard grin; his clenched eyes; his furrowed brow beaded with sweat. This could be torture for him. Or it could be the torture that precedes the kind of explosive climax that tears a man's soul free of his flesh.

You are sweating too, and you itch inside your clothes, for although Seth is buck naked, you only pulled your panties off before setting over him and opening yourself to him; your jeans skirt is spread over the top of your thighs and his lap, and your tight, velvet shirt binds like a corset. You encourage him with little squeaks and screams that are only hints of the real squeaks and screams you are bottling up for when you cum. A fire seems to catch within you where his flesh grinds against yours, and as it spreads you begin to melt. "Oh God, Seth," you gasp as your head is thrown back with anticipation. "I'm going to— Going to—!"

And it comes. He pushes just an extra fraction of an inch deeper, and touches a spot. A shriek erupts from your throat and you go rigid all over. Then, in a kind of froth, you jam yourself harder onto him, greedy for every millimeter of his shaft, praying for the explosion that—

He cums, and it seems to take the top of your head off.

* * * * *

You had surprised Chelsea, on her awakening, with the demand for satisfaction, and she had been slow at first to respond to your caresses and kisses and mewling little pleas.

Partly, you just wanted a good fuck. But mostly you were thinking that you could use sex to get in under Chelsea's defenses. Isn't that what girls use it for all the time? To put a guy into a mood so that they (the girls) can get what they want?

Afterwards, when you've cast off your own clothes and are lying naked with your head on Seth's chest, and his arms entwined upon your back, you broach the earlier topic.

"I understand why you want to stay in school, Chelsea," you tell her. "What you said makes a lot of sense. But what if I can't stay here with you? Would you let me go?"

Seth doesn't answer right away, but runs light fingertips up and down your spine.

"Why can't you stay here with me?" he finally asks.

"Because I want to go with Kelsey. Or with Steve. Or, maybe someone else."

"You'd leave me?"

You lift up so you can look him in the face. Then you lie back down again.

"Would you leave me?" you riposte. "Let's not make this a contest. Who's more stubborn than who. I just— You have to understand me, too."

So you explain: Unlike Chelsea, you have no talent for high school. You have only a few friends, no social life to speak of, are taking mostly easy classes, and aren't doing so well even in them. Plus, you swim in the muck at the bottom of the social hierarchy, with bullies and assholes hassling you. Why would you want to stick around for more of that?

But, Chelsea challenges you, you could stay in high school as someone who is good at it. Good at it the way she is. The way Kelsey is. The way Seth is.

But you could leave with me after graduation, you tell her, as someone who is good at things outside high school.

But I don't want that, Chelsea says. That wouldn't be me. That would be the other person.

And though actual realization comes later, when you're at home getting ready for bed, that is when the truth of the difference between you and Chelsea becomes clear.

Chelsea wants to be herself. She only wants a new identity so that she can stay as much the way she is right now, for as long as she can.

But you don't want to be yourself. You want to be someone better. And you are willing to be them all the way out of school and into life.

Put that way, it becomes clear why Chelsea will never yield, and will never follow you out of and away from Westside. And it becomes clear why, if you and she are to remain together, you would be the one who had to compromise by staying behind.

If you want to be someone better, you have to do so by staying behind, by becoming someone else who actually is "good at high school."

It's a compromise that would sicken Kelsey, who as much would want to be herself as Chelsea wants to be herself, but whose sense of self will take her far outside and beyond high school. You feel her sickness at the thought.

But you are the one in charge. It will be your decision. Not hers, or Steve's, or of any other mask you might put on.

At least it's not a decision you have to make right away. You have the rest of the school year.

Next: "Chelsea 2.0" 

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