Chapter 5 - Buttons: A Look Back
"Honey, I'm going over to Beth's for a little while," Mom called through the door. "She's lonely without the kids."
"Have fun," I called back. She was making things really easy. I grabbed the camera, and put on an outfit I knew Isaac liked to see me in. In the bowl by the door, there was a key to our mail drop box on a red string so it would be harder to lose. I knew the mailbox was empty, but I needed a reason to be out in the hallway. Isaac wasn't the only one who could make up false reasons to be out there.
I walked into the hallway, whistling and spinning the string and key. If he was watching, and he usually was, he'd know what I was doing and that I'd be right back. He'd also know that mom was out. Downstairs, I checked the empty mailbox and waited a moment to steel myself. I knew I needed to run into Isaac for my plan, but I wasn't thrilled about it.
I took the stairs back up a bit louder than normal to make sure he knew I was coming. Sure enough, he was between the stairs and my door when I reached the top. "Hey Isaac," I said casually.
"Are you home alone right now?" I knew he knew I was, and the question was dripping with sexual innuendo. I knew what he wanted, and he knew I knew. I was about three feet from him when the smell hit me. He was even riper now than he had been earlier.
I coughed. "Dude, no. You reek. Seriously, take a shower and wash your clothes. This is gross and unsexy." I pulled out the camera and snapped a picture of him, then turned it around to show him himself in the viewfinder. "Can you not see it? I'm going to go ahead and add the ground rule of no sex unless you've showered that day and have on clean clothes."
He recoiled slightly and then sniffed himself. "That bad?" he asked with a chuckle.
"That bad," I confirmed. "Also, that shit you pulled with Mason earlier? That wasn't cool. Cut that out. I don't like having to lie to my friends about us, and they'd never understand the truth. Can you please not come at me when I'm with company?"
He looked sullen now. Good. He needed boundaries. "Anything else?" he asked.
I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his shoulder. "Isaac, I'm going to tell you this as someone who actually cares. You need to take better care of yourself. I'm concerned that you're spending too much energy on me and not enough on you. Leave your apartment once in a while. Get some exercise and fresh air. It's spring and it's getting warmer out there. It's the perfect time to start fresh new activities."
"Is that what you want?"
"No, Isaac. You're not getting it. Don't do it for me. Do it because it will make you happier and healthier. This is just for you and your well being. What I want is for you to feel happy and healthy. Could you at least try to do some self care?"
He looked at his feet. "You really care about me that much?" he asked.
Did I? Maybe I was just seeing someone beaten down by their own mental state. I mostly just wanted him out of my face and to stop obsessing over me, but if it led to him finding some sort of peace, maybe I did want that for him. "Yeah," I said with a gentle push against his shoulder.
He looked up and over to me with an awkward half smile. I snapped a quick picture and showed it to him. "You see this face?" I asked him. "This is the real you. This is you not trying so hard to impress me and just being real: being yourself. It's way more attractive to me than the bravado you were putting on earlier." I passed him and unlocked my door. "I don't think you have time to clean up and do laundry before my mom gets home, so don't rush things. Just think about what I said, okay? Do some more stuff to make your life better that doesn't require me."
"I will, Zac. I will. One more thing, though. Is there one thing that's easy to change that would be a turn on for you?"
I sighed and looked him over. "Short, nicely styled hair and a clean shave are a plus." I winked at him and closed the door before he could go further.
Back at my room, I started working. Mason had been right. I was able to connect the laptop to the printer with a USB cable, and I quickly found an image I needed. I printed off and projected a copy of a Ken doll I needed for the projector setting I wanted to try, and then proceeded to pop its head off. I printed off the second picture of Isaac, the one with the shy smile that was almost approaching cute. I placed that in a baggie with the doll head.
This particular setting would use the mind of the person in the picture with the head, from the moment the picture was taken. However, the picture I bagged with the doll's body would be the physical form the imago would take. Of course I was going to try Mason's body with Isaac's mind.
I knew just which picture I was going to use as well.
Certain aspects of what I like were decided from birth, like my desire for other boys. I had memories from an incredibly young age about being infatuated with other boys. It wasn't sexual back then, just a fascination that never went away. I'd have them on my mind long after getting home from school, and some of them would make me more nervous than others. Those were the pretty ones, and they were the ones that haunted my nights.
At the same age everyone else was starting to think about dates and kissing and stuff, I was thinking the same thing, but it was always with another boy, and always with one of the ones that made me nervous.
One evening, when I was in fifth grade, I was watching tv with Mom -- some show she loved where high school kids broke into song like ten times an episode. I hadn't been following closely, so I didn't have any idea who these kids were or why everything was a musical number. Then something magical happened. One very pretty boy told the other very pretty boy that his musical number made him feel a certain way, and then they kissed. They kissed like men and women kissed in the movies when they were in love.
My mom screamed with glee. Apparently this was something she'd been wanting to happen. I felt slightly out of breath. "That can happen?" I thought it was in my head, but it must have come out of my mouth.
"Sometimes two men or two women can feel about each other the same way mommies and daddies feel for each other. That's called being gay. These boys are both gay, and they've been flirting for half a season. Finally, they're getting their first kiss," Mom explained.
That clicked it for me. I was gay. I was super gay. I wanted a kiss like that in my life, and the list of boys I wanted it with was extensive. And Mom...she was cheering for it. "So this is something you like?"
I remember the look of horror on her face. "I have always supported the gays and I always will. Who told you that it was wrong?"
"No one," I said. "I never saw anything like this before and I was confused. People think it's wrong?"
She pulled me in close. "Too many people, Zac. There's too much hate in this world. Remember when you were learning about the racism toward the blacks in the south during the fifties during Black History Month? People like that are still around, and they treat the gays as badly as they do the blacks. A lot of religious people hate the gays too. It's a hard life for them if they want to live openly as themselves."
She told me to stay where I was and went to her room, bringing her Iron Rapids high school yearbook with her. She opened it to a page near the back. The picture was a boy in a tuxedo, kind of blurry, but good enough to know he was pretty. "This was my friend George," she told me. "He was gay, and I adored him. I was the only one, though. He got picked on every day for being who he was. I tried everything I could think of, but I could never get it to stop. The teachers and administrators were all born and bred in Iron Rapids, and thought that the behavior was normal, that it was George's fault for being gay. But being gay isn't something you can just turn off."
Her voice got shaky. "During our senior year, George's truck ran off the road and crashed into a tree. He didn't make it. I think the other boys did something to make it happen, but the police refused to investigate, calling it an accident. That's why I bailed as soon as I graduated. I couldn't stand that backwoods town and their small-mindedness." I could see the tears dripping down her cheeks.
Her hand stroked the page. "I paid for this memorial with my own money, and even then, I wasn't sure if it would make it into the final printing. The only thing I could make happen in his favor was after his death. What people like you and me can do, though, when they're alive, is let them know they're safe with us to be who they are. Will you let them know that they're loved?"
"Yeah, Mom," I said. "I don't think that'll be a problem." I'd be the champion at loving the gays.
Other aspects of what I like have been fostered and grown within me, like seeds growing into flowers, with roots buried so deep into who I am that, even at sixteen, I knew they'd never get dug out.
When I was little, my mom had this unhealthy obsession with overalls, the ones with the bibs and straps with buckles. It's all she would put me in, and I hated them. The clasps were a hassle for my little fingers to work, and I always needed an adult to help me when I needed to use the bathroom. None of the other boys wore them, and, like I said, I was infatuated by the other boys.
I started telling Mom that they were itchy, and the next time she went shopping, she brought home a pair of jeans. But the design on them was different than the ones the boys wore. This was a curvy one that was only on the ones girls wore. I was mortified. I told her that these were itchy, too, and she traded them in for a pair of sweats. I'd seen a couple boys in sweats, so I grudgingly accepted them. They'd have to do, even though what I really wanted were the jeans the other boys were wearing.
Throughout elementary school, sweats were all she would buy me, so that was all I'd wear. Meanwhile my desire for jeans kept growing. They became linked with everything I was infatuated with. The boys I liked the best would come to school wearing the jeans with that curved V I learned belonged to Levi's, but for most of the boys, the back pockets were blank. I'd associated the blank pockets with hot boys, and Levi's with extremely hot boys.
During the summer before middle school, I was shopping with her and picked out a pair of jeans like the other boys wore. Blank pockets, but I'd definitely take them. "I thought you didn't like jeans," Mom said.
I had to confess my younger self's deception. "I hated overalls, and then you got me girls jeans. I never hated jeans. I hated your taste. Sweats were something you didn't mess up, so I lived with them." Sometimes, as a kid, I was a shit head.
Without a word, she tossed the jeans into the cart. That's when I saw the Levi's display. I was trying to take us there, but Mom stopped me. "Nope. We don't have that kind of money. I need to get you stuff that I can keep replacing as you outgrow it. Those are for kids who have two working parents with good jobs. See the price on these?" She showed me the tag. "Look at the sale price sign for those over there." They were `on sale' for over five times the price of what I had.
"Wow. Okay, these will do," I admitted, giving her no more fight. She smiled down at me. Looking back, I knew that it was the first time she knew that I understood and was working with her.
"Come on," she said, taking us back to the off brand display. "Pick another color that you like. We'll get two."
Middle school came and, finally dressed in something I liked, I met Chris: black, smiling, and full of positivity. He was the type of kid that made it easy to make friends with. He was all easygoing charm and coolness. It wasn't surprising that, when we got to high school, Chris made all the friends. He didn't really drop us, he just had more friends than he could keep up with, and we sort of became part of the crowd.
It was through Chris that I met Mason and the others. I liked all of them, but Mason was something else. My crush on him took off like a rocket and never came down. He was all of the most beautiful things I liked about all the other boys, put together into one person. I made sure to sit near him and be in groups with him when we had classes together.
I was also there for him during that first month when his parents divorced. His dad moved across the country, and the rest of them had to move into my complex. We became even closer after that, riding the bus to and from school every day. Was our friendship founded on my unrequited crush on him? Maybe, but I didn't really understand the concept of using people back then. I just liked him and wanted to be near him, and he liked me back and wanted to be near me.
The weather got colder and he came to school one day with that curved V on his backside. The pair was loose and long on him, but he managed to keep them for all of middle school. Those were the ones he wore on that Intro to Spanish field trip: the one I'd had Time Girl take a picture of.
I pulled the picture out of the envelope. Two years, and we'd grown so much. Looking at the picture now, I didn't feel the same infatuation. I just felt nostalgia. I looked at the Levi's: faded dark blue with almost an acid wash look to them. They were snug on him by the time the picture was taken, and the bottom just barely reached his sneakers. That was the last time he fit into them. I was kind of sad. The fact that I had no desire to bring him out of that picture, because he just looked too young now, made me regret wasting a photo on that version of him.
It didn't have to be a complete waste. I loaded the picture into the projector by itself and set it to have no will of its own. Fourteen year old Mason stood in my room, only coming up to my nose. Damn he'd grown a lot.
"You're safe here," I told him, knowing he was in there. "I've made it so you don't make a lot of noise or try to run away, because I'm sending you right back in a couple minutes, completely safe and unharmed. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he said, his voice higher and more childlike. Had it really deepened that much? Damn.
"This may seem like a really weird thing, but I want to get a picture of just your pants," I told him. "I'm going to turn my back and face my bed. You take them off and throw them at me. I'll take the picture and then throw them back and you can put them back on. I'll never see you in your underwear, okay?"
"Okay," he said. He looked confused and nervous, but not terrified. Good. That was exactly what I was trying to avoid. I turned my back, listening, and soon the pants flew past me. I laid them out to get a good shot, and then sent them back over my shoulder as promised. "I'm done," he said. I returned to the projector and deleted the Imago.
I printed that new one off, along with a couple of others I didn't want my Imago Mason stumbling across and slid them into the envelope Time Girl had given me. I deleted the pics from my camera.
I pulled out the other two Time Girl pictures: both from early winter of the current school year. Both of them had Mason in jeans, but not just any jeans.
We had a friend in middle school named C.T., and the boy was sexy. He's the one I would have obsessed over if Mason hadn't been so perfect. He'd wear these jeans that, even though they weren't Levi's, they had something about them I didn't understand. The front of them sat differently, and the way the fly was patterned was different. It had a faded strip along the outer edge instead of the multiple stripes down the middle most jeans had. The middle instead was a smooth solid color, with a slight bit of wear denoting circles.
I'd been noticing that type of fly in the pictures of celebrities. Something about the way it formed to the body down there was extra spicy. Sometimes, if the pictures were angled right, I could see there was a second flap inside the first, But I had no idea what it was for.
Then one day we were at C.T.'s house and he was lying on the floor. His shirt was pushed up so the bottom of his abs were showing, but I could clearly see that his fly was mounded up and my line of sight was perfect to see there were buttons inside.
The plan that day was to go swimming, and since we were all boys, we all changed in the same room. All of us but Mason, of course, who excused himself to the bathroom. C.T. popped his fly open right in front of me, and I got hard right there. I had to excuse myself to wait for the bathroom as well. They were all ready before me, and headed downstairs and outside. Yeah, C.T.'s family had a backyard pool.
I was behind the others by that point, and all alone bringing my clothes back to C.T.'s room. His jeans were just lying there in a heap on the floor and I couldn't resist. I ran my fingers along the fly, inspecting every part of it. That was my new ideal. It took me another year to learn that Levi's made a button fly, and, in my eyes, their 501s became the hottest thing a guy could wear.
Those were what Mason was wearing in the two pictures. When the weather cooled off this past fall, Mason sported two separate pairs of 501s that someone must have dropped off at Goodwill. One of them was a light blue, like the sky on a summer day, and he wore a white sweater that zipped up and a lime green t-shirt under it. I remembered this outfit so clearly the day he wore it, and, most times, it was what I pictured when I closed my eyes and Isaac was sucking me off.
The other photo had the white pair that I'd only seen once. The long sleeved ribbed black shirt that hugged his torso was not one I remembered, but damn, he made me weak looking at him like that. I tucked the pictures back in and hid the envelope in my seldom used underwear drawer.
Neither picture was the one I chose to put in the bag with the ken doll's body. Instead I used the one I'd just taken of Mason when Mom got home, the current imago version. I set the dials as the manual told me to, triple checking to make sure I had every symbol on every dial exactly as they were in the book. Just as a precaution, I added the setting for will-free.
I hit the GO button.
Mason, in the now very wrinkled blue button up and khakis from the dance, stood before me. "State your name," I said.
"Isaac Davis," he said. Excellent. That was what I wanted to hear.
"Isaac, you are a projection, pulled from the picture I took of you in the hallway. The real you is in your apartment, unaware of any of this. I have made this copy of you to only be able to do things I allow so you don't get unruly. Do you understand?
"Yes," he said flatly.
"You may only answer with the truth. No lies or half truths are allowed. How do you feel right now?"
"I have to pee," he said. Shit. I'd forgotten that Mason's body was ready to burst when I took the pic.
"This way," I told him, taking him to the bathroom. "You may use the restroom, wash up, and then come back out when you're dressed again."
He did as commanded, and came out clean. "Now, how do you feel?"
"Confused and upset," he said.
"Why?"
"Am I in Mason's body?"
"Yes."
"Are you into him?"
I decided not to lie. "Yes."
A hurt came to his eyes that I'd never seen on Mason's face. It was the kicked puppy look Isaac would give me every time I said no to him, but much cuter because it was Mason doing it. "Am I here to have sex with you in this body? Is he the one you've been wanting all these years?"
"Yes," I admitted.
He started crying. "You don't want to be with me. You want to be with him, but because he doesn't want you, you gave him my mind. That's...that's really offensive and hurtful."
"You don't want to have sex with me?" I asked.
"No. Not like this. Not only does it hurt that you'd rather have him, but, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, it's not fair to him. He says no so you just slap another brain into him that would say yes? This is wrong. This is so very very wrong, Zac."
"I could just tell you to do everything to me you've been fantasizing about doing," I said.
"And as your puppet, I'd be forced to do it," he replied. "That doesn't make it right."
I was getting pissed off. He was supposed to want me, not get offended. I grabbed the camera and snapped a picture, then deleted the current Imago. I swapped out the body photo with another, and the head photo with the one I'd just taken of the Isaac/Mason mix. I wasn't done with this guy.
When I hit the GO button, fourteen year old Mason stood before me. "You may talk," I said.
"What body am I in now?" he asked.
I took him to my standing mirror. "Still Mason, but fourteen. Do you want to have sex with me now?" I asked.
"Zac!" he gasped in disgust. "He's fourteen and you're sixteen. You want to do that to a kid?"
"It didn't stop you three years ago when you were eighteen and my babysitter!" I yelled at him. "I was thirteen then! Thirteen!"
Author Notes:
So...who had that last part on their bingo card?
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