Evolution Read online

  Masks: Evolution

  By Hayden Thorne

  Published by Queerteen Press

  Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.

  Copyright 2014 Hayden Thorne

  ISBN 9781611525694

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.

  * * * *

  Masks: Evolution

  By Hayden Thorne

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 1

  It was time for Peter’s “tennis lessons.” I stared stupidly at the stopwatch he handed me and scratched my head. “Um—what am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Time me.”

  “Doing what?”

  Peter stepped aside and waved a hand around the room. “I’m supposed to cover every room of the house from top to bottom. You know, literally run around each room without knocking over furniture and knickknacks or breaking anything valuable. I end my run here.”

  I stared at him. “That’s it? Seriously?” I scratched my head again when he nodded and shrugged, a sheepish grin forming. “Don’t you and Trent have something like a secret underground hideout where you play with your superhero toys and dry clean your costumes and stuff?”

  “Eric, my parents might be rich, but they’re not billionaires. Besides, I think having a special underground lair for superhero training and stuff is cheating. We’ve got a lot more obstacle courses above ground. I mean, you’ve seen my mom’s antiques. She lives for those things. I use them for agility training,” Peter said with a faint blush and a devious little chuckle. “Gives her a coronary every time, but what can I do?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Do you change your start and finish lines? After a while, I’d expect you to memorize every inch of each room. You’d be flying through your house without much of a challenge.”

  “The rooftops,” he answered quickly and confidently. “I go way above ground and make use of the neighborhood or any given area in the city—well, outside downtown, anyway. If you happened to look up and catch sight of a weird blur flying from one rooftop to another, that’d be me. As far as maternal coronaries go, that’s even worse.”

  I was impressed. “So—who used to time you before I found out about your powers?”

  “Whoever happened to be at home. Sometimes I’d just leave the stopwatch on the mantel over there,” he said, pointing at the polished mahogany mantel behind me, “and then stop it once I ended my run. The results when I did that weren’t as accurate as when someone else was keeping time, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  I continued to stare at him, not only feeling impressed, but moved and downright proud.

  “It’s really not as high-tech as you think, Eric. I’d give my soul to have all the gadgets you see in all those comic books, but life doesn’t work that way.” He cleared his throat. “Trent’s not too happy with the lack of comic book awesomeness, actually. Even with a tricked out bike and the swanky bachelor pad he owns, he still whines about the ‘lack of proper facilities.’ But if it’s any comfort, we do have a pretty big basement here, and that’s where I mess with gadgets and stuff. Sometimes Trent joins me there since he’s got his own corner of superhero stuff set up. It’s just safer for him to come here and use the basement when doing undercover communications with the police department and the mayor’s office. So I guess in a way we do have an underground lair—like the Bat Cave. Only not very impressive, tech-wise, and a little dustier.”

  “Magnifiman goes all EMO over this? Seriously?” I nearly doubled over in laughter but checked myself when I saw how serious Peter was.

  “Everything about being a superhero around here—”

  “Or a supervillain?”

  Peter nodded. “—is purely accidental. Sucks having to grasp at straws from the get-go.”

  “I don’t think it’s accidental to those geneticists who screwed around with you guys.”

  He nodded again, a faint shadow of pain flittering across his features.

  I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze and tried to steer the conversation away from a subject that obviously still hurt him (and maybe always would). “Okay. I get it. Why’d your mom try to make such a big deal about your hideout and training base or whatever when I had dinner with you guys? I don’t see anything embarrassing in using your own house for your superhero training.” I grinned. “Actually, I kind of find that cool. Everyone expects big, secret hideouts for superheroes, not run-of-the-mill houses, dusty basements, or even alleyways or whatever.”

  Peter shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess she wasn’t sure how much you knew about me and Trent and was trying to protect us.”

  I’d long learned that Peter’s references to going down a chute when he transformed were actually metaphorical. When he transformed, he felt like he was going down a chute—a rush of light and wind, a blink, and that was it. Calais in sexy spandex, ready to open a can of whup ass. He was totally embarrassed admitting the truth to me when I asked to see the chute. He said he wasn’t sure at first what it was he was going through during the transformation process and at one point actually believed he was sliding down something. The more his powers were refined, though, the more aware he was of the process and was seriously embarrassed by his mistake.

  I must admit to being at first disappointed by the reality of his transformation, but in the end, everything actually sounded pretty awesome, and I hoped to be able to watch him change someday, feeling proud all over for being chosen to be his boyfriend.

  “That’s cool.” I picked my way through the furniture, antiques, and knickknacks, my canvas sneakers squeaking on the shiny wood floor. I stopped when I reached the mantel and turned around. “Okay, this’ll be the end of the line for you. Ready?”

  Peter strolled up to me, hands in pockets, eyes narrowing. “What’s in it for me?” he asked, his voice dropping once he stood a few inches away.

  My jeans tightened as usual. I thought I could feel my pupils dilating. Now wasn’t the time to be horny, though, with the fate of Vintage City at stake. “You’ll be a better superhero,” I replied. I sucked as a liar, by the way.

  He traced my mouth with a finger—lightly, slowly. He knew how to play dirty; he knew that I knew it; he knew that I knew that he knew it. “That’s it? How boring.”

  “Okay, a kiss,” I bleated.

  He stepped back, smirking and looking a hell of
a lot more wicked than I’d ever seen him. Too bad that he wasn’t in superhero gear. Then again, if he were in costume, I’d have kept him from his daily agility training, and not once would I regret it, oh, no.

  “I’m ready,” he said, turning around to face the door.

  My hand slightly shook as I raised it, stopwatch poised. “Okay. Ready—go!”

  My thumb pressed the button, and Peter vanished, literally, from the room. It was a bizarre moment, and I guess I totally had to get used to it. One second his figure was there. Then there was this weird optical illusion type of thing in which his figure, or the lines of his figure, suddenly blurred, and colors mixed with each other till Peter appeared to dissolve before me. His hair, his shirt, his pants—they all seemed to drip downward, like a melting multi-colored candle, till nothing was left but empty space.

  I didn’t know how long I stood there, gaping at where Peter used to be, my hand raised with the stopwatch ticking away. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath till I felt my lungs hurt. I shook my head, started breathing again, and turned my attention back to the time.

  “Eighteen seconds. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twen—”

  A flash of light, the world suddenly turning upside-down, a thump, and a stiff surface pressing against my back. I yelped, gasped, and blinked the crazy swirling room away and found myself lying on the floor in front of the mantel. Peter lay stretched out on top of me. He grinned as he took my hand and made me press the stopwatch’s button.

  “Twenty-five,” he said. “That’s a record for me. Then again, the incentive’s pretty good this time.”

  He kissed me, and I still hadn’t gotten over my shock. I felt the warmth, the softness, the moistness of his mouth and tongue, but I was still all wide-eyed the whole time, staring at the ceiling before he filled my vision with his flushed, smug leer when he raised his head to look at me.

  “What the—”

  “What, are you complaining?” he asked, looking almost drunk with that whole leering smugness thing. “I forgot to mention I promised my parents to do better with my time. I’ve cut it down by a couple of seconds, and I want to do even better. Without screwing up an antique or two.”

  “You broke an antique?”

  He sniggered, blushing. “I did, more than once. That’s why my time’s much slower than what’s possible for me.”

  “Well, at least you’re working on agility and stuff, or whatever you call it when you move fast and avoid breaking things.” I was growing more aware of a very happy pressure below the waist, with Peter lying on top of me like that. I contemplated raising his reward a few notches right then and there.

  He stumbled to his feet, though, pulling me up with him despite my dizziness. Then he whipped out a small notebook from his shirt pocket and scribbled stuff down, no doubt the results of his run. Talk about organized. And anal retentive. Or obsessive-compulsive. Whatever. One of those, anyway, or maybe all three.

  “Uh, okay,” I stammered while he took his place again. “Time to beat his twenty-five seconds. Ready? Go!”

  Twenty-four-and-a-half seconds went by this time, with Peter careening into the living room, snatching me off the floor and nearly slamming me against the wall when he claimed his prize.

  No words could accurately capture the gratitude I felt when I realized Peter had taken care to slow down his speed by several nanoseconds (or whatever they were called in the world of hyper-speed) when he literally swept me off my feet to make sure I didn’t get injured (too much, anyway) during his trophy presentation. At least my skull stayed safe because he used one of his hands to cushion it against the wall. It was the same kind of care he’d used when he’d tackled me to the floor just a few seconds earlier, come to think of it.

  I must say, though, despite the shock, confusion and growing soreness all over my body, I was getting really turned on by Peter’s tennis lessons. He pressed me against the wall, and I was happily giving him my own version of a Wimbledon Grand Slam Title.

  We were breathing hard when we broke the kiss.

  “Does this mean when we finally—you know—do it, it’ll only take us half a second before it’s over?” I panted.

  “Ha-ha, very funny,” he said. I could feel how excited he was. But I knew it was a bad idea despite the chance we had, with his family away at work and the housekeeper enjoying the afternoon off.

  Sucked being me sometimes.

  “So how does everyone know you actually covered all the rooms in the house? You could cheat, you know, hide in some room anywhere and wait things out for a few seconds before coming back here,” I said as Peter took his place for one more lap.

  My brain went into overdrive. I imagined him leaving some kind of time warp-ish trace behind him—the same way motorboats left a trail of bubbles or churning water in their wake—that could be detected and measured with the use of special instruments that only superheroes could invent. Maybe there was a hidden camera in each room that monitored Peter’s progress with special infrared capabilities and whatever else kind of stuff those things were supposed to have.

  Shifts in temperature in each room, maybe? Those could be measured as well, I thought. I was so scientific at that moment, I totally freaked myself out.

  Peter glanced over his shoulder to frown at me. “I never cheat, Eric,” he huffed. “Never.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry. My bad.” I turned my attention back to the stopwatch. “Ready! And—go!”

  Poof! There went my Wonder Boyfriend. I winced and massaged my head with my free hand when a sudden stab of pain ripped through my skull. Oh, great—what a time to come down with a headache. It went away pretty quickly, though, like it never happened to begin with, and I was back to kind-of-sore-but-horny mode again.

  Well, better to be prepared this time for Peter’s award ceremony. I couldn’t afford any more bruising, with Mom getting all suspicious about those fading marks up and down my body the day The Devil’s Trill tossed me back onto my bed, passed out and screwed up. She’d forgotten to bring it up in conversation since, but I figured it was only a matter of time.

  I picked a more comfortable spot in the middle of the living room, where the gorgeous Persian rug lay. I stretched myself out on it, enjoying the feel of soft, froufrou wool, hoping I looked slutty enough.

  “Twenty-one,” I counted, undoing the top two buttons of my shirt while I focused on the stopwatch. I went back and forth over whether or not I should undo my jeans but decided to take things slow and just wait till the next round to strip completely. That was as slow as I was willing to be with Peter. “Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. You just missed your record, Peter. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Slacker! Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine—”

  Something dark materialized above me, and it took an eternity for my eyes to adjust their focus. Little by little, details became clear. A pale, oval face, dark almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, dark hair pulled back in a stylish bun, designer glasses, vanilla-colored power suit. I was so screwed.

  “Eric? Are you okay?” Mrs. Barlow asked from what looked like a massive height. Oh, shit.

  “Hi, Mrs. Barlow,” I said, grinning.

  “I thought you fainted. What are you doing on the rug?”

  “Nothing,” I stammered, quickly fumbling with my shirt with one hand and pulling my collar tightly around my neck for decency’s sake. I could feel the heat rising from my skin. “It’s been a long day. I’m kind of tired and figured the rug would be a nice, you know, bed—sort of.”

  She blinked and moved away as I stumbled to my feet. Dignity? What was that?

  I chuckled, raking a hand through my hair. “I didn’t hear you come home.”

  “I just got here. I’m a quiet walker.” She grinned. “Drives everyone crazy, but I can’t help it. Now, are you hungry? We can have some tea in a bit. I just sent Peter out to get us something to eat. Do you like Russian tea cakes?”

  “Yeah, thank you. Wait. You found Peter?�
��

  “He found me, actually. He was about to run up the stairs when I walked in, and he stopped to greet me,” she replied with a proud little smile. Waving me over, she turned around and led the way out of the living room. “He told me you’re here helping him train. I really appreciate your time. Peter needs all the support he can get from everyone right now, with him coming into his powers and so on. Things have been pretty crazy with him.”

  “It’s no problem. I’m learning a lot, too. I hope to help him and Trent and anyone else like them when the right moment comes. Well, God knows what I can offer. I mean, I’m not a superhero, and other than calling the cops and throwing a few punches when trouble comes, I don’t know what else I can do. Do I sound stupid or something? I don’t even know if I have good aim.”

  Mrs. Barlow laughed and patted my back. “No, you don’t. Sometimes I wish I had the powers my sons have, so I can at least be there with them when they’re being threatened. There’s nothing worse to a mother than feeling helpless when her children’s safety is on the line.”

  I nodded and thought of Mom. “Yeah. I understand.”

  Before long we were in the drawing room. Yep, the Barlow family actually had a drawing room, for chrissakes, and it looked just like the kind of drawing room one would find on a PBS historical drama, only modernized, even though the creepy ancestral portraits were still there. I could feel the disapproving gaze from every pair of painted eyes that watched my progress into the room. The fact I was alone in the company of my Kinda Sorta Mother-in-Law didn’t help me and my growing nervousness. The fact she also walked in on me while I was making myself available to her son in the skankiest way possible nearly made me stop and puke into one of her antique vases. I hoped like hell she’d never, ever get the chance to talk to my mom.

  “Mrs. Barlow, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course! Have a seat, dear. Peter should be back soon.” She sat on a loveseat directly across from me, leaning back and crossing her legs as she waited. With her glasses on—Peter told me she needed them for driving—she made me feel as though I were going through therapy.