Chapter #9Who Goes There? by: Seuzz   You boggle at Beth. Nothing is making sense.
As you watch, she gets a smoky look on her face, and arches her back and grabs her boobs with both hands. She groans and says, "Wanna make out some more?"
"Beth?" Your voice cracks.
She blinks once, heavily, and her hands fall and her expression relaxes. "Yeah?" she says, sounding more like herself.
"Is that ... you?" you stammer. "Beth?"
"Yes," she says. "Sure. If that's who you want."
"What do you mean, If that's who I want?" you squeal.
A great shiver runs through her, and her limbs flop and jerk. Her head falls to the side. You stifle a yell as with glassy eyes she is overwhelmed by spasms.
Then she freezes, and resumes a normal pose. Her face is empty, though, when she speaks.
"I'm Beth Larter," she says tonelessly. "I'm Zachary Dillon. Who do you want me to be?"
With infinite caution, you bend to grip the top of the car door, and put your head just inside the window. "Beth?" you ask.
A little life comes into her face. "Yes?"
"Are you ... pretending to be me?"
Slowly at first, then harder, that tremble returns, and Beth begins to spasm. Her eyes roll back in her head.
This time, though, you react with a fury. You lunge with both hands at her, grabbing her by the head and pulling you toward her. Her jaw drops bonelessly open, and you feel something rising in your throat. Your eyes roll up and the world goes dark and—
* * * * *
The sun has long passed its peak and is falling across the western sky, and you are standing by that pool at the base of the small limestone cliff, chucking pebbles into it. You are dressed again, but the other one was still pulling on clothes when you clambered out of the back seat. You glance back, and see that they are sitting on the hood of the car, studying the screen of their phone.
They.
They look like Beth Larter, having her body and boobs and face and hair, and they are wearing her clothes and studying her phone. But who are they? You could never get an answer, and every time you asked, they fell into that fit, like they were going to shake themselves into a jelly and fall apart.
And "they" did that not only when you were asking the body of Beth Larter, but when you were asking the body of Zachary Dillon that question to.
Back and forth multiple times you passed through them, at first provoked by rage or passion, at the end provoked by frustration. Each time you woke inside one body you found only yourself, and the dead impression of Beth with you. And from the other body came only the arbitrary, dead-eyed answers, "I'm Beth" or "I'm Zachary" (and you got both answers from both bodies) or that seizure when you pressed them. You were chasing a ghost, or yourself, or an empty place, it felt like. In neither body did you find an echo or gleam that felt like Beth Larter. Only that dead impression.
And always "they" seemed docile and ready to please you.
Finally, in desperation to force Beth (if she was there) to the surface, you commanded her take off her pants, and you took off yours, and you jammed yourself up inside her from below as you held her on your lap. She was warm, but she quickly got hot and sloppy, and she panted and groaned pleasurably. And when you came you fell back senseless, only to wake impaled upon a cock, looking down into the pale face of Zachary Dillon. His eyes rolled back forward as they opened, and he smiled up faintly at you.
You almost broke down sobbing at that point. As furious as you had felt at Beth for playing this game, you felt worse—emptier and lonelier—now that you are sure that she isn't around anymore, that the only thing left of her is that husk of memories and personality you've been hauling around with you.
Regretfully, with neither passion nor anger, you covered Zachary's mouth with your own, and let the world darken as you shifted back to your own body yet again.
You stroll over to join the other one. They glance up from the phone and tonelessly inform you that, "Beth has been getting messages."
"You're Beth," you tell them.
"Okay."
"I'm serious," you insist with some irritation (and a little fear). "You're! Beth! Beth Larter! Okay? I want you to act like her, be her. I don't want any more of this, 'I'm Zachary' or 'I'm whoever' bullshit!"
"Okay," she says, and now she sounds like a "she" and not a "they." Her tone turns surly. "Am I supposed to be okay with what we just did?"
You suck in your lips, and bite them. The thing is docile, obedient, but you don't like doing its thinking for it. Can't you just be 'Beth', god damn it! you think.
And, as though stung by your thought, Beth slides off the hood of the car.
"I should make you walk," she says. "But come on, I'll give you a ride back to your place."
Shocked, you follow, and get in the passenger-side seat. Your mind is in such a whirl that you say and do nothing until she has pulled up in front of your house. But instead of ordering you out of the car, she waits for you to speak.
"Are we going to see each other school tomorrow?" you ask.
"That's up to you," she says, very matter-of-factly.
You have no answer to that. So you climb out of her car and walk toward your house. You turn to watch briefly as Beth drives away.
* * * * *
Your mom is looking much less stressed and exhausted than she was looking this morning in the wake of last night's slumber party, but it's not until you're halfway to your bedroom that you realize the oddity of that thought: You weren't here this morning, you were at Beth's. But now you do remember this morning. You remember the morning here and at Beth's both, with an equal vividness.
With a feeling of mystification and curiosity, you re-enact the morning here that you now remember.
You strip down to t-shirt and boxers and lay on your bed, remembering the feeling of waking up, and of the sluggish exhaustion you felt after a night of being constantly woken up by muffled shrieks and shouts, and running feet, from the bedroom next to yours. You get up and go into the bathroom, where you again shower (and you feel you need it after the dirty grind you had with Beth), soaping yourself all over and shampooing. Out of the shower, you clean and scrub your face at the vanity while watching your own expressions. Back in your bedroom you dress in track pants and a t-shirt, and go down to the kitchen to get yourself a snack, just as you had dressed such-like and gone down to get breakfast. Back upstairs, you laze on your bed with the phone for a minute until you change back into khakis and the black Oxford, just as you did after the text from Beth came in.
You re-enact the morning in fast forward, comparing your feelings and reactions now to those then. You can find in your actions and feelings no discrepancy, and no recall of those feelings of amazement, fear, gloating, or panic as you went through at Beth's. At no point can you find a hint of a memory of acting here like you acted there.
Beth was never here, you think. It's a thought that fills you with dread and astonishment both. I was acting like myself—I was even talking to my mom, when I was grousing about all the noise last night, like myself—when I wasn't here. But no one else was here either!
It gives you a feeling of vertigo.
I was at Beth's, and there was no one here! Now I'm here ... And there is no one at Beth's?
The fear and anger that you felt toward "Beth" at IHOP vanishes, to be replaced with astonishment. And a feeling of glee—the kind of gleeful relief that you felt as a kid when you got away with something at school.
And a sense that you can continue to get away with it.
* * * * *
But whatever is going on, it is so strange that you don't dare act on it, at least not yet. You spend the balance of the evening texting with friends on the phone, talking about the party at Amanda's. You learn that you are in fact the object of gossip, it having been noted that you and Beth went off together and didn't come back; and some rumors are circulating about something happening in the car, so Monica has been telling people something. You report that, yes, you started to make out with Beth, but that she was drunk or something and got sick and ran off, and that you were so embarrassed on her behalf that you went straight home. So, no, nothing happened.
But after you've gone to bed—
You are nervous as you lay staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to enfold you. Will you wake up again in Beth's body?
The fear that might happen is gradually replaced by a hope that it will, and you take your rising cock in your hand as you imagine it happening. But something else begins to engorge as well, something in your chest. With terror but also curiosity you let it build, heaving inside your heart and choking you. With a quick spasm, your mouth jerks open and you feel your eyes roll back as something rises out the back of your throat, like last night and this afternoon. But it hangs there after filling your mouth and half-pouring past your teeth and lips.
Trembling hard, you climb from bed, and quietly make your way to the bathroom. Not until you've turned on the light do you realize your sense of vision is back. You look in the mirror, and almost faint dead away.
Your head is thrown back, face toward the ceiling. And rising from your throat like a serpent is a glistening blue pseudo-pod. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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