Chapter 6 -- The Truth
"You wanted me," he said softly.
"I was a minor with a crush on a high school senior," I spat at him. "You touched a child. You played with a child's dick. You brought a child to his first orgasm. Do you get that?"
"You're legal."
"Now! I'm legal now! I wasn't legal during 8th and 9th grade, even part way into this school year! I wasn't legal for the summers in between when you were here every fucking day my mom was working, sometimes even twice a day!" I was whisper-yelling, remembering not to make it carry to the other apartments. I could see the spittle fly from my mouth to hit him in my rage.
"So is that what this is? Are you going to fuck me in this underage body to get your revenge?"
"No, because: I. Don't. Fuck. Kids!"
"Singular," he said. "Just you. You're the only one." I knew it was the truth, since he was currently unable to lie. Small consolation, though.
"Why me?" I asked.
"You were a sweetheart, and you kept cuddling up to me. I finally gave in and let you kiss me. Everything we did, you started."
"You were a grown up in the eyes of the law. Letting me do that was criminal. You should be in jail right now."
"But I'm not," he pointed out. "Why is that?"
"Because I'm not ready to be out of the closet, and this will absolutely tell the world. Because sixteen year old me has no self esteem and thinks he deserved to be molested by a child predator. Because I'm so fucked up in the head now that, despite what you did to me, I'm still trying to look out for you, and I have no idea why. Because, as mad as I am at you, I still want to find a way to have sex with Mason, despite the fact that he doesn't want me, making me just as broken and needing to be locked up as you."
"So what now," Isaac asked from Mason's young body. "Where do we go from here?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do," I admitted. "You're not going to exist. The world doesn't need a second copy of you." I turned the dials and deleted him.
I took the photo of fourteen year old Mason to the kitchen, pulled out a match, and burned it to ash. I had to open a window to make sure the burning chemicals could escape. I had the picture of just the jeans, but I'd never have the chance of bringing that version of him into the world again. He was sixteen now, and would only get older and better.
I took some time to settle down and then realized I probably still had time before Mom got home. I brought my companion Mason back to the world, with no restrictions, of course.
"I don't know how long till Mom gets home, but go pee while you can." He darted out to the bathroom and I stood outside the door. "She's visiting your mom because she's lonely without you two."
"How long has she been gone without you letting me out?" he asked.
"A couple hours," I told him. "I had a therapeutic yelling session at a copy of Isaac. You would have been proud of me."
"I'm not going to be proud of you on that front until you get his ass thrown in jail," Mason said, punctuating it with a toilet flush. He washed his hands and came back out to me.
"That would mean me coming out to the world," I told him. "Not ready for that step yet. Public is public, and details will always creep out somehow, especially if they try to interview him."
"I don't like him walking free. What if he goes after someone else?"
"He won't. He told me while forced to tell the truth that I was the only one. It's not kids he likes, it's just me. Doesn't make it right, I know, but it does make him harmless."
"He's tasted blood. He's going to want more," Mason said.
"That's your opinion, Mason. I don't feel the same way. I really think this was a one time thing."
"God, you're so oblivious." He stomped past me into my room, opening the computer.
"And you're judgmental AF," I retorted, closing the door behind me. I reclined on my bed and made a play at reading the manual some more.
We were like that for a whole hour before Mom came home. Mason closed the computer and covered it back up, then nodded so I could snap a picture of him, then I hit the button to delete him. Nothing happened. I opened the box and it was empty.
Mom knocked on my door.
"One minute," I called out. Where had I put the current Mason picture? I didn't remember taking it out of the box after bringing Mason back. Had he taken it? No time to ask.
"Everything okay?" she asked. Mason flattened himself and slid under my bed before the door opened.
"Mom!" I yelled. "We talked about this! God, I should climb on the bed and start playing with myself just to spite you."
"Don't be gross, honey. Beth sent a lemon bar for you and I thought you might want it."
"Thanks, but that doesn't forgive you barging in here for the second time today." I set the lemon bar on the desk.
"Still my apartment and my child," she reminded me.
New tactic. "And here I thought you wanted to have a good relationship with me. This is the kind of thing that makes kids not talk to their parents once they're old enough to get away."
"Nice try," she said. "You don't nurse someone back to health from starvation if you don't care for them. Sorry, but you've already shown you love me too much to get rid of me."
I sniffed the air. "You're drunk," I said. She booped my nose with her finger. "Go to the bathroom and then to bed, young lady. Sleep it off."
"Yes, warden," she replied with a clumsy salute before leaving my room. I could hear the chuckling from under my bed once the door closed.
He put his arm out with a photo in his hand. It was the one I'd been looking for. He had it on him? What kind of a game was he playing? "Are you trying to get caught?" I whispered at him.
"Of course not. I was looking at it, trying to figure myself out, and I couldn't tell you I had it when she was coming in. I realize now that I could have just handed it to you, but I wasn't thinking. You know how it is sometimes."
"Figure anything out?" I asked.
I heard a thump in the hall. I looked out to see Mom with her head against her door. "Ow," she moaned before opening it and heading inside. Once it closed, I went back into my room.
"Our moms got wasted," I said.
"Yep." His grin was super adorable. I could have watched him all night. He paused for a second then shook his head. "Oh yeah, the picture. When you called me judgmental, it made me think about what you said earlier. Anything with sex or nudity and I get really uptight, and I don't know why. I'm starting to wonder if I might be what you think I am."
"You know, if you are, asexuals are under the queer unbrella with us gays. You'd be part of the family."
"Baby steps, bro. Joining the parades is a bit too much for me. Anyway, I think I have a solution to the door problem." He opened the computer and opened a page with simple eye and hook latches. He printed it off and handed the picture to me.
"Why don't you do the honor," I said.
"Because I tried when you were in the bathroom earlier today and the box zapped me. I think you need the tattoo for that, too. Probably for the best. Imagine how out of control things would get if Frankenstein's monster started making his own monsters, and they made more, and so on down the line. No one would know the full extent of how many there were."
He had a point. If I brought something out I didn't have control of and it learned to use the box, I'd be screwed. I made the latch and handed it to him.
"This would be easier with a guide hole, but that would need a hammer and nail, and it would be noisy." He put the hook into the eye and took it to the door. Taking the eye, he pushed the screw into the wood to make an indent, then used hand and arm strength to twist it deeper and deeper. By the time he had it screwed in, his hands were red and he was shaking them. He grabbed a pencil and marked the spot where the other side would go into the door. "Your turn. I can't do that again.
I started twisting the hook side in and it was painful. I kept letting go because hands weren't meant to put in screws without tools. It took me over twice as long to do mine, and I could see why his hands were hurting. The fact that he knew how to do that made me respect him more. I flipped the latch into the eye to lock the door. It would never stand up to someone trying to force their way in, but it would give a snoopy mother problems.
I went for the lemon bar, but he smacked my hand. "Picture first, man. I want one, too."
"Sorry. Getting tired. It's late now." I got the pic and made him one. They were amazing. "I need to sleep."
"Print me off a sleeping bag or something that we can delete in the morning. If I don't get some real sleep, outside the box, I'll still need it when you wake up. He did a quick internet search and found a shot of a twin air mattress with sheets and blankets and everything. It just barely fit in my room, but we both had a place to sleep.
I woke up before him. I knew I would. I always did when one of us slept at the other's. He was a beautifully heavy sleeper. I could watch him for hours, and I had on occasion. It wasn't destined to last, however. Mom was up and bustling in her room.
I took a picture of Mason and the makeshift bed together, then used the box to delete first him, then the bed, so I didn't unceremoniously drop him onto the floor, though that would have been a funny practical joke. I looked around the room for anything that would give us away before unlatching the door.
The clock said Mom still had three hours before work. She was up early because she passed out early. I grabbed a towel from the hall closet and headed down the hall. I knocked on her door. "I'm going to shower. You need the bathroom?" I asked through the door.
"I'm good. Go ahead." Her voice sounded strained and subdued. Was she hung over? I could have easily conjured her some coffee, but I had no idea how to explain where it came from.
While showering, I tried to think of a way to get food and necessities into the apartment without her learning about the magic or thinking that I was stealing. I was stumped. Mason would think of something. He was the clever one.
My mind drifted to him. What was I going to do with him? Having him with me all the time was both my wildest dream and my biggest nightmare. I loved being with him more than anything, and I never wanted to be without him. But having a constant reminder that I loved someone who didn't love me back was torture. And the Ace part on top of that: a second roadblock.
I finished up and went back to my room to get dressed. I considered printing something out that I wanted to wear, but I had no way to explain it, just like with the groceries. Mom knew all the clothes I owned.
The phone rang in the kitchen, and I heard Mom pass my room to get it. We only had the land line. No cells. Plans cost money we didn't have.
I was just closing my belt around a pair of olive cargo pants that were too big for me when she knocked on my door. "What?" I asked.
"When you're dressed, can you come out here?" she asked.
"Sure." Had she been respecting the boundaries that I'd set, or did she just think I was naked? I had a polo shirt that was white with pencil thin black stripes which was just a hair tight, but I thought the outfit made me look the most like one of the hot boys. The pants weren't jeans, but they were definitely part of my sexy boy fashion.
I found Mom on the couch and sat next to her. "Do you remember Peggy, one of the girls I work with?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Her mom got hospitalized with pneumonia, and now Peggy doesn't have anyone to watch her son, Josh. He's ten and has a Switch, so he wouldn't be any trouble. Plus, she'd be willing to pay you."
"I would, but I have stuff that I'm doing with friends today," I told her. It wasn't true, of course. I just wouldn't be able to spend the day with Mason if I had someone else in the house. "Besides, what would I feed him?" I knew that last part was a jab at her for not having food in the house, but it was a fair point.
She didn't argue with me. "I'll let her know," she said, stiffly. "You can go back to whatever you were doing."
"I can't. I was getting dressed. I don't really want to get more dressed," I joked to relieve some tension. She shot me a look that clearly showed she wasn't in the mood. "I'm out," I added quickly and darted back to my room.
I spent the rest of the time before she left for work reading up on the manual. It turned out there was another setting like the obedience one, but went a step further, but also a step back. The settings would produce what amounted to a mannequin with no thoughts whatsoever. It would be useful if I just wanted the clothes from a model. Theoretically, I could use the mannequin like a sex doll, but the thought bored me. I wanted someone that could touch me back.
A far more interesting set of controls were called aspects. They worked like the doll, but they only transferred parts of the mind. I could put the genius of Einstein into Mason, for instance. I'd have to bring that idea up to him. It was something I wouldn't do without his blessing.
Immediately after Mom left and locked the door, I projected the sleeping Mason, bed and all back into my room, then continued reading as I waited for him to wake up, which took another hour. God, that boy could sleep.
"Morning," he said. "What time is it?"
"Eleven, but I had to skip you forward three hours while Mom was awake and here, so your body thinks it's eight." I paused. "The fact that that sentence made sense is throwing me."
"You and me, both. Mind projecting that bath set I put together yesterday?" he asked.
"Sure." During our solo study time the day before, he'd printed off some toiletries, a towel, robe, and a basket to carry it all. I projected it and we put it all together, taking a picture of the finished product. Now, all we needed was to project the new picture, and Mason would have a bunch of stuff to bathe with -- better than the things we had in the apartment. Once he was clean and dressed, I could delete the set back into non-existence. Then I could remake it clean and new the next time.
"Mind turning around so I can get into the robe?" he asked. I didn't hesitate, and when he was done, I turned to see him in a white robe with a basket of stuff in his arms, looking like he was in a hotel. The outfit he'd been wearing: the khakis and blue button up from the dance, were in a pile on the floor. We calculated that he'd been wearing them for seventeen hours straight, subtracting time skips, before going to bed last night, and he'd slept another nine in them. Since they were part of the picture he'd been summoned in, they'd disappear when I desummoned him.
Once I heard the bathroom door close, I wasted no time latching the door to my room. I stripped down to nothing and slipped his boxers on. He liked them loose, so they fit me no problem. I checked the tag on his pants: 30 X 32. I knew I had trouble squeezing into a 32 waist, and I wasn't shocked that the 30s were snug. Still, there was enough stretch in them for me to squeeze them tight enough to button them. At the hem, they reached almost to my toes, while they barely grazed the tops of Mason's shoes when he wore them. The shirt was a medium, and it stretched open a bit between each button.
I spread out on my bed, reveling in his scent and the feel of his clothes on me. I rubbed myself through the pants, like I was some hybrid of me touching him and him being touched. I slowly unzipped the fly, fishing into the boxers for my dick. I pulled it out and went to town. Wearing the actual clothes that had been on his body, it was like he was touching me all over. I could hear whimpers and moans of pleasure escape my throat unbidden. I stroked furiously, unable to slow myself down with how turned on I was. When I shot, I just let it fly up my chest, splattering his shirt. It didn't matter. He'd never use this copy of it ever again.
The door handle turned, and the door rattled against the lock. Shit! "The fuck, man? Why are you locking me out?"
"Give me a minute," I said, trying not to let it show how out of breath I was. I quickly stripped off the shirt, popping a couple buttons off in the process, then the pants, throwing both into the corner of my room at the foot of my bed. In a moment of kinky genius, I left his boxers on as I dressed back into my own clothes.
I finally unlocked the door slightly out of breath. One look at me and he knew I'd been cranking one out. "Ah," was all he said. "At least you waited until I was out of the room. Thanks for that, I guess."
"Yeah, well, I haven't had much time to myself," I told him. "I had to jump on the chance while I had it. Next time, take a bath or shower longer, okay?"
He barked out a laugh. "That's part of your sex life I can help you with. Now, let's print me off some clothes."
Author Notes:
Will Zac ever figure out how to make this box work for him in the way he wants it to? How can he ethically be with the boy he loves if said boy is ace? Will he play dirty, or will he move on and find another fish in the sea? What do you think he's going to choose?
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