✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

43. Another Compromise

Nobody laughed when Wide Joe walked into a lamppost. This wasn't slapstick comedy, and the humour normally came from wordplay as well as surreal situations. But two seconds later, Tess and Ffrances started laughing at the same moment. Tess wasn't quite sure why the sudden impact had suddenly become funny a second later, but it seemed to have caught them both the same way. She was actually finding it a little painful to laugh now; the muscles in her face were starting to ache from smiling so much, a problem she'd never imagined could be real.

She wasn't programmed to laugh now, she was sure. Gabby was, and started giggling every time the others did even if she didn't actually understand any of the jokes. Tess was free to be amused on her own terms, having let her mind clear over the course of an episode and a half since she was unhypnotised, as well as a refreshing shower. Right now the laughter seemed to be caused mostly by Captain Kairo doing things that straddled some line between genius and madness. She'd heard once that laughter was the brain's response when there was no logical way to make sense of a thought, and the creators had been spectacularly good at it.

Once the fit of giggles had subsided, she looked at Gabby again. She was back to adult size now; or at least Tess was no longer seeing her as a baby. But she was still babbling incoherently, staring at whatever moved in front of her, and wearing a diaper with no apparent shame. It was incredible, and now it was only too easy to believe when Ffrances said that the older cousin had no idea if they were talking about her.

"She's loving this, isn't she?"

"I expect she is. It surprised me, I never expected her to be into being a baby. Thought you might end up doing it on your own, until we talked earlier. I was half expecting that she would get cold feet and drop out between the trance and the adventure this morning. Maybe she would have done, if she'd been aware of how far it was going to go."

"I don't think she would," Tess shook her head. "But you're her girlfriend, you should know her best. In any case, I'm pretty sure she's loving it now. Even if she's a cranky baby."

"Yeah. You learn something new every day."

"I think I learned more than you did. There's so much... it's hard to process it all."

"I'll bet. For one thing, you found out that if you have the courage to ask for something, we're never going to judge you. And it might just happen."

"Well, I..." Tess started, and then hesitated. She'd pretended she wanted to become a little younger because she'd wanted to help Gabby reach her dreams. Ffrances knew that, didn't she? "You know I only did this for Gabby, right? Being a little kid isn't something I'd be into on my own. I don't need to ask for the things I want, because I can get them for myself. That's half the fun. Except..."

"Finding that you loved being a brainwashed little one?"

"One part of it, anyway."

"Well, if you can separate it out in your mind, the parts you want and the parts you don't, I'm sure I can help you. And I think we've had a lot more than an hour since you've been back to normal, so I think that anything you say now is your own choice. So if there's something you want to let me know... like changes you might appreciate if we try this again..."

"Yeah. Well, there's one thing I was going to ask. Gabby said before that you might be able to help me. I didn't think it was possible, until I saw what you could do to her. And until I realised you'd done something without me remembering."

"I remember. Do you have the courage to say it aloud? I want to help you, but I want to be absolutely sure that I'm not going further than what you really want. And that you understood what I said before about not overusing hypnosis in circumstances like this."