✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

74. My Discretion

I skimmed through the recordings on my computer. There were two of them, so for much of the day I was jumping ten minutes at a time, searching for any sign of conversation. If both recordings were silent, I knew I would need to turn up the volume in the hope of hearing something from another room. When there was conversation on one of them, I listened more closely to see what they might have been talking about; but none of it was of any real interest to me. Just small talk. Some of it was interesting, especially as it reminded me that they still wanted to see the Shaaark! movie. I made a note on the top of a pad at the side of my computer; if Carter could manage to get a special screening for the people in my office, I wanted to bring my family along. So I could see if Ffrances's body language would give me any hints about who this mysterious little was.

That was something I needed to talk to them about, and there were other things that were interesting to me. But they weren't the hypnosis I was looking for, so once I was sure what they were talking about I skipped five minutes ahead, and repeated. There were so many things in the conversations I wanted to listen to, but there weren't enough hours in the day to monitor every conversation; it would have taken a whole other day, even if I didn't have two separate sets of recordings to listen to.

And then I heard it; the trance I was waiting for. I skipped back a little to make sure, and heard Tess asking how well it would work. Ffrances went over the suggestions again; what Tess had asked for, and the other details that Ffrances suggested in the name of making the suggestions more potent, or safer. I smiled to myself as I realised they were still talking from opposite points of view; Ffrances thought that Tess was looking for a suggestion to make her have accidents, while Tess wanted to stop them. She had kept on saying how she wanted to be in control, but Ffrances just assumed that meant she was drawing a line between suggestions for incontinence and regression, like they were different desires. I could congratulate myself for setting that up; without the misdirection Tess would never have been able to admit what she really needed.

They did the trance, using a very similar induction to the day before. Ffrances was getting used to working with Tess now, I thought, and had already formed an opinion on what would work the best. And then she went on with the suggestions I expected. She told Tess that she was going to have an accident whenever someone she trusted said the trigger phrases. I could tell her that she was going to have an accident, or order her to have one. I could tell her that it would happen like a baby, or that she would still be grown up. I could tell her that it would surprise her, or order her to have an accident. And those variants could be used in combination. And then I grinned, as I realised what she was actually saying. Tess had wanted to be more confident, I thought, but she had asked for exactly the wrong thing. She had given me another tool to embarrass her with, and I knew now that she would never be able to step off this path of regression. She didn't even suspect that I was causing her accidents, or she wouldn't have asked for that change.

It was the most dramatic turnabout she could have requested, and if I'd thought I should have expected it. But at the same time, it was completely out of left field. Even when Ffrances started giving the modified suggestions, I hadn't realised what the change was. It had seemed unimportant to me, just because Tess's request had come from a place of not really understanding how the triggers worked. And perhaps more interesting, Ffrances didn't know either! She was sure I had only considered using the trigger when Tess asked for it, in which case Tess could have never made that particular mistake. She had given me all the power I had wanted. I took a moment to pause the recordings, and then noticed the faint sound of breathing behind me.

"Find what you wanted?" Ffrances asked. I couldn't believe that she was there; that she had heard me spying on what was supposed to be private. With Tess, I could have turned it around. Made out that it was all for her own good, maybe even got her to feel guilty about intruding so that she would be more likely to do what I asked in future. But Ffrances could see through all of my tricks, and the only reason she hadn't already guessed my plan was because Tess was unable to give her the right clues. I couldn't trick my girlfriend; I wouldn't even be able to lie to her if she suspected I was going to try.