✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

88. My Helpful Side

This chapter is dedicated to Dewayne; with thanks for all your support on Patreon. Sorry to anyone else who was hoping for a dedicated chapter on the first of the month; they will come out over the next few days, as fast as I can write them. As an apology, I paused billing so you shouldn't be charged this month.

I hadn't expected Tess to be angry about the potty. I'd put a lot of thought into how to present it so that she wouldn't be mad. But I hadn't thought that she would want to use it today; while she was in control of her own triggers, I wouldn't be able to get her so far into that headspace. I'd been thinking that it would be clear it wasn't the main present, even if it happened to be the largest. It was a cheap plastic thing, an off-brand replica of something made by one of the big childcare firms, and it would have been easy for her to assume that we'd simply bought it as a joke. She was a little kid, and she insisted she wanted Ffrances to be littler than her, so obviously treating her like an actual toddler was the next illogical step. And then when she'd gotten used to there being one in the house, I might have teased her about it or something. Or slipped some diuretics in her drink, waited until she was desperate, and then locked the bathroom door. Some plan would surely have emerged.

I'd known Ffrances's response from the start. She would say that she wasn't that little; even regressed, she wasn't going to be interested in something so embarrassing. It would be left on one side, only thinking about it at all because Tess had been triggered to envy what her sister received.

It had shocked me when Ffrances said she wasn't big enough for a kid's potty. But it kind of made sense. And it reminded me again why I didn't want her taking risks with hypnosis; it was too powerful to take lightly. But it could help Tess figure out how she was supposed to behave, and I knew that was a good thing. She gave me exactly the options I wanted. By the time she was staring at the box (while Ffrances danced around with the discarded sheet of wrapping paper), I knew that she would be getting really excited about being able to use the thing, like a kid who'd never been able to before.

Of course, it would be more comfortable than she was expecting; if she'd thought about it at all. For all the cheap-knock-off styling, this was actually a premium product from BKS. Childish, sure, and smaller than a regular toilet, but subtly larger than an actual child's one. Perfect for a little who wanted to feel she was smaller than her actual size. I didn't know how far into that headspace Tess was now, but I knew it wouldn't be long before she could appreciate all the efforts I was making for her.

Tess was visibly excited about the present, fumbling with the flaps on the box in her haste to get it out. I couldn't believe her enthusiasm, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I knelt down beside her and offered a hand to hold the box still while she extricated the contents.

"I can do it," she said, pushing my hands away. "Ffrances said I could try it first. She's not as big as me, you should of got me one first!"

"Of course. You're such a big girl, aren't you?" I reassured her, and took my hands away. She was just like a little kid, and I wanted to encourage her to get even deeper into the role. "Are you sure you want to try the potty? You–"

"Yes! I'm a big girl and I can..." she mumbled, still trying to get the box open.

"Need a hand getting it out of the box? I think you're supposed to have an adult to put it together for you."

"Are you..." she mumbled, still apparently struggling. "Are you trying to make me littler again so I can't open stuff like Ffrances?"

"I wasn't. I just know those things are fiddly, and they're designed for somebody who has an adult to help. But... if you want to need help, I can say that too. Would you like to try that?"