Chapter #38The Fake Fairfax by: Seuzz   "The mask of me," Fairfax repeats as you try to find your voice. "You know what to look for?"
"The mask that has your name in it?"
"Right. Put it on her after—"
You clench the phone tightly and feel your eyes bulging. You're looking at Stephanie—sprawled out in the concrete hallway—but your panting anxiety has nothing to do with her. "But that'll turn her into you, won't it? I mean, make her into the, uh, Beta-Philip?"
"Exactly. Because I just remembered we don't have the Beta-Will ready yet."
"Sure we do!" You scramble back into the storage unit and fling back the lid to the footlocker. "You guys used it to—"
"Will. Will!" Fairfax's voice, normally so measured, cuts through your eardrum. "You need to calm down. First of all, if you put the Beta-Philip into action, he can help you out with everything. I can't get over there right now—I need to get back to the dinner table, but he can walk you through everything. Second, yes, we have a Beta-Will, but you can't put it on Stephanie. She'll wake up, but she'll— Coming!" In the background some water gushes, and you guess that Fairfax has flushed a toilet. "Look, he'll explain when you show him your mask and explain about Stephanie."
The line goes dead before you can tell him that the Beta-Carlos was being totally unhelpful and maybe the Beta-Philip will be too. You sit back to study your body-to-be.
Even unconscious, lying on a heap, Stephanie Wyatt has poise. Though her legs are splayed out and her arms tumbled in a heap, she looks as though she only has to pull them in to leap up and to her feet. You shoot a nervous glance at her eyes. They are half-closed—her mouth is hanging open as well—and they stare unseeing at a point on the wall next to your feet.
You half-expect them to dart over to glare at you.
A hard shake passes through you, then you grasp her by the feet and drag her into the bay. You pull the door down, then arrange your victim into a semblance of order. That means pulling her shirt and windbreaker down and straightening her arms beside her.
Then, with nothing else to do, you pull her shoes off. Then her socks. Mike's gloating cries echo in your memory.
Her Levis.
You are shaking hard all over, and can hardly get your fingers to work, as you unbutton the fly and pull them open. White panties show. The jeans are tight on her ass and legs, but with some firm tugging you get them off her.
You almost swallow your tongue. That's not quite a thong she's wearing, but it might as well be. Her legs lose their tan up near the top of her thighs, but there's a duskiness all the way up to the panty line—maybe from summer swimming. You put your palm to her inner thigh. It is warm and (as you expected) firm.
You push back your cap and run your trembling fingers through your hair.
It would be too hard to get the windbreaker off her, but you unbutton the plaid work shirt she's wearing underneath it, exposing a concave abdomen with faint ridges about the abs. Her bra is beige and very business-like.
You sit next to her, by her head, and watch her face while waiting for something to happen
It seems ages before Stephanie's face starts to glow, and then a bluish mask appears on it. You wipe your own face with the tail of your shirt, and gingerly peel the mask off her. Her eyes have shut.
You turn the mask over, and start at the name: STEPHANIE MICHAEL WYATT.
Michael?
Your eyes can't help but dart to her panties. It's a stupid thought, and there's no bulge down there that you can detect.
But now you've got an excuse to look.
Shame-faced, you hook a finger into the front of her panties and peer inside. A dark tuft of hair shows.
You twitch hard and release the panty with a snap. If there's any story behind or to that masculine middle name, you'll wait to find out.
* * * * *
Okay, Fairfax said you needed to put his beta into circulation. You search the footlocker, and in a trice have pulled out a mask with his name on it. You lay it onto Stephanie, and it instantly vanishes, like a rock into a pond.
Her face, which has always had a slightly boyish cast to it, becomes mannish, and the tight, chestnut curls are now a red buzz cut. You rear back as the eyes snap open.
Philip Fairfax peers up at you. "Will?" he asks, and sits up on his elbows.
"Hey." You gulp. "You, uh, you know you're the beta. Right? Beta Philip?"
He crinkles his brow and stares down the length of his body. You follow his gaze just long enough to spot the definite bulge under Stephanie's panties before wrenching your eyes back to his face.
"Yeah, I know who I am," says Beta-Fairfax. He sounds a little more sarcastic than the real one. "Even if I didn't—" He rubs his eyes, and grunts. "The costume would be enough to tell me." He sits up with a sour expression. "So where's my alpha, and whose clothes am I wearing?" He pulls distastefully at the windbreaker and shirt, then scowls at the bra. "I'd expect this kind of jackassery from Jason Lynch or Seth Javits," he mutters. "But from you and my alpha? I'm ashamed of you guys."
You explain matters to him. It takes only a minute, for he is very quick to grasp the implications.
"Yes, I see," he says. He gets up and peels off the panties—luckily, the tails of the work shirt suffice to cover his ass and junk. "The problem, apparently, is that we haven't outfitted your mask with a control layer. That's what it needs to be a full-fledged beta and not merely a disguise."
"Show me what you mean?"
"Sure." He rummages through the footlocker and extracts a mask. "See, Josiah's mask is all set to make a beta," he says, pointing to the inner surface of a mask that he's showing you. Josiah Shank's name floats in blue letters above the surface. "See the color? Your mask—" He turns over another mask, one that has your name in it. "Doesn't."
Yes, the difference is obvious to the eye: Shank's mask, on its inner surface, is an off-white. Yours is a polished blue. "This coating is what makes the mask into a beta when you place it on a person. So when you put, uh—" He winces. "Philip's mask on Stephanie— You said it was Stephanie Wyatt, right? When you put his mask on her, it swallowed her up and left the beta personality. But when someone puts your mask on, it just rests on them, as a disguise. If you'd put your mask on her, and she'd woken up, she'd just be all, like, what the fuck Will, how come I look just like you?"
So that was a narrow escape. "So how do we put that control layer thing into my mask?"
"There's a recipe for it." From the bottom of the locker he pulls out the infamous book. "Give me, oh, ten minutes and I'll have it assembled. Oh, I'll need some of your hair." From the locker he takes out a pair of scissors. "In the meantime, you need to close up Stephanie's mask."
"Oh. Right! I know how to do that, at least, and I know where the stuff is."
"Hair first, Will," says the beta. You quickly oblige by tilting your head and letting him snip off a lock.
In their haste to get into their impersonations, Mike and Carlos had left the tub of mask sealant in the other bay, along with the paintbrush. You discover that the stuff goes onto a mask pretty quickly and dries quickly too. Beta-Fairfax is still assembling his stew when you get back. But he's close enough to being done that you don't have time to change identities before he summons you over.
"I don't know that it makes a difference," he says, "but we're using your hair so maybe you should be the one to do the incantation." He points at the work station he's set up in the corner, consisting of a bowl of wet powders resting on an open page of the book. "You just have to run your fingertip around the circle on the page three times, then set the stuff in the bowl on fire." He hands you one of those gooseneck lighters.
With your heart in your throat, you do as he directs. The flame doesn't immediately flick on, and you have to push the button three times before it catches. There's sharp sizzle, a pungent odor, and when you look in the bowl it contains a loose slurry. "Now you just paint that stuff inside your mask, and you'll be set."
That, too, takes only a minute. You cock your head and study Beta-Philip. "Now, how do I switch you out for Beta-Will?"
"Like this." He takes your hand and guides it to his forehead, placing your fingers so that you are grasping him about the temples. "Now all you do is say the following words three times fast, then pull, like you're tearing something off me." He gives you a nonsense string of syllables, like something out of some foreigner's version of Dr. Seuss. "Let me lay down first," he says. "Good luck," he add as he settles back. "And I guess I'll see you on the other side." He smiles wryly at you.
You're a little ambivalent about dismissing Beta-Fairfax. He's serious, like his original, but very helpful. You can't help wondering if your Beta will be more like him or more like the very sassy Beta-Carlos.
But after a few pulls, and some corrections to your pronunciation by Beta-Fairfax, the mask comes away in your hand. Stephanie returns.
Your heart lunges a little as you drop your mask on to her face. If you fucked up ...  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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