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It seriously gives me the chills, but I think that is the point.

57. My Disappointment Tess looked as cute as ever when she arrived back home. She was smiling, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t get a chance to interrogate her, because I was trying to quickly turn over an omelette that had stuck to the frying pan and was about to burn. And she didn’t stop to talk in the kitchen either, which was unusual for her, but ran straight upstairs and I heard the bathroom door slam. “Good to see you, too,” I muttered. She had said hi on the way past, but hadn’t paused even for a single step. My best guess about the reason was that she’d realised how utterly desperate she was, and nothing could come between her and the bathroom. That must mean that the little pervert had kept his hands to himself for once. Once there was no longer a chance of her needing an accident, she could easily have realised how badly she needed to go. But whether the boy had behaved, or the suggestion simply didn’t work as I had hoped, would be much harder to figure out. I couldn’t rest easy yet. But I had a plan that I was sure could tell me what I needed to know. “Guess she’s in a hurry,” Ffrances answered me. “Don’t be mad with her. She’s had a long day, and it could have been pretty stressful.” “Why? Did that little punk–” “She didn’t say anything about Spike,” she cut me off, and I knew she wouldn’t want me to raise that particular subject again until I digested what she had to tell me. “She’s had some drama with another girl at school. Queen bitch cheerleader type, I gather. Been harassing some of Tess’s friends. She was trying to be vague, not to go into any personal stuff, but I gather this girl’s been picking on gay kids. Well, Tess has a way with words. What I think the kids would call a sick burn, and queen bee ran off with her tail between her legs. But now she’s feeling guilty about it.” “I wish she could talk to me about things like that. Adults should be able to deal with bullying, it shouldn’t be down to the littlest one to sort things out by herself.” “But they’re not really that little,” she reminded me. “And Tess is happier being able to deal with things on her own. She might end up needing some emotional support afterwards, but the impression I got was that she’s happy about being able to stand up for herself.” I couldn’t really argue with that. I didn’t want Tess to be standing up for herself, because that could only bring her closer to deciding she didn’t want to be babied anymore. But I knew that as soon as I mentioned making her a permanent baby, I would no longer have Ffrances’s support. It would take a lot of work before either of them was ready to accept that. “Okay, I guess. But I want to protect her. And the more she gets used to dealing with things directly, the harder it will be for her to let go of that attitude so she can be little.” “Maybe. But that’s her decision to make. I think another afternoon of regression might help, if she still wants to go down that path. I’ve been half expecting her to ask to celebrate Christmas as a little; that’s one childish activity that I always wished was open to adults, even before you told me about this… interest. But she hasn’t said anything, so perhaps waking up wet occasionally is all she wants.” “Or perhaps she’s too embarrassed to admit what she really wants,” I offered hopefully. It might not be so easy to convince Ffrances of that a second time if Tess didn’t cooperate, but I still had a few more tricks up my sleeve. “She said she wanted to talk to you, right? Was that about reinforcing the suggestion?” “She wants to change it,” she said slowly. “She’s embarrassed to tell me the details, but I think she might want to change the focus a little. Perhaps something less inconvenient than bedwetting, like talking to her toys. I’m not sure yet, but it reassures me that she’s still enjoying the experience. I think I’ve only seen her ask for an accident twice, and it’s been almost a month. Plus once she asked to not have an accident, of course, taking away her temptation. Perhaps she isn’t enjoying it as much as she expected.” “She’s asked me a few more times. For both, actually. She seems to be regulating herself pretty well, so I think if she wants to do more little things, we don’t need to worry about her overdoing it. I’d be happy to do whatever she thinks might help her. Let me know when she asks, okay? I wonder why she doesn’t ask more when you’re here, I hadn’t actually noticed that. Maybe because it’s a different dynamic; she feels more childlike already with two parental figures, and has less of an urge to be a rebel? Or perhaps because she knows I’ve got the Mommy gene. Like, even if she doesn’t know anything about BDSM yet, she can feel the strict dominatrix aura you put out, and she knows it’s not the same as the kind of play she wants.” “I’ll tell you,” she said carefully, avoiding any chance of misunderstanding, “if that’s what she wants. Or if I think you need to know, for her safety. And I was wondering the opposite. Like, she looked through your posts about this littlespace stuff on FriendSpace, right? So she knows you have the maternal energy to play with her. Maybe she sees me as a kind of referee, or a facilitator. Not a participant. Or if she has good instincts for those things, she might think I’m a rival for your attention. If she knows I’m–” “Sshhhh,” I interrupted with a finger on her lips, as I heard the clatter of footsteps charging down the stairs. “Not in front of the little one.” Tess had finished all her homework already, while I was still pushing the last few pieces of food around my plate. She suggested watching another of those terrible movies, but before we started she had a few more things to ask Ffrances. It seemed like my girlfriend was the fount of all knowledge today. Tess explained that she had seen a French film advertised at the Upper Ashfields Regal, which seemed to be very similar to the Shaaark! cartoon series she remembered from a few years back. And now that she knew all those shows were connected by the iconic character of Cerberus Shark, she wanted to know if Ffrances knew about the movie. “In Upper Ashfields?” she seemed amazed. “I’m dragging you along to see that before it finishes, babe. We can’t miss it.” She went on to explain that the cartoon series had been an extremely loose adaptation of MK’s Millhouse Underground series of comic books, but had quickly struck out in its own direction after the first year, making new plots based on their almost unrecognisable versions of the characters. But the administration had been very sloppy with international copyright registrations, ensuring that in Canada they could only control third party use of the characters if it was in the English language. She didn’t understand all the legalese, but apparently a significant number of fans had analysed the documents at the time. And some no-name Canadian-Korean animation studio had decided to make a movie, without any understanding of the property they had their hands on. “They knew it was based on MK’s comic books,” Ffrances explained. “And she knew that there were dedicated fans who’d buy everything he put out. So they reached out to one of the companies who’d made those movies last century, and still held an option on some of the rights. They licensed the story-only rights to a single 96-page story that they hadn’t even read, because it was the cheapest option, and gave an animation team a copy of that story, with instructions not to use the artwork. And they gave them a bunch of Shaaark! episodes too. So, a bunch of Korean writers and animators, trying to make a movie that’s faithful to both the original comic and the loosest of loose adaptations in the TV series, with the translation from English to Korean to French done entirely by computer. Well, you can guess how well it did at the box office.” “Wow. Is it really that bad?” “I don’t know. It’s not a big name, so the pirates weren’t racing to film it in theatres. It bombed so hard that it was screened for one week only. And, of course, it was never shown outside of Canada. So it’s like a myth, this movie that was made but hardly anybody in the fan community has seen it. How could anywhere even have it? I mean…” “I can guess,” I grinned. “Claughton Innovative owns way more rights than they’ve owned up to. Like, they want to turn this into a whole multimedia franchise, not just a single movie. It’s quite possible they’ve picked up some rights to Shaaark! too. They’re on a big contract with SYL for all kinds of miscellaneous business services, and SYL owns half the amenities in Upper Ashfields. Maybe they’re testing what the public thinks of it. Like, if a weird badly-made movie based on MK’s books might work, now that–” “Oh, wow,” Ffrances interrupted, staring into space as the pieces connected in her mind. “It’s The Clockwork Don, isn’t it? I only just realised. Out of everything I’ve read, I think that same story is probably the one that comes closest to the story in Tags. I don’t know what kind of weird stealth marketing this is, but they must be planning something. I need to see if anyone else on the mailing list has clocked this.” While she started typing to friends on her computer, more excited about this than about anything since those tickets had first fallen into my lap, I turned the TV on and started browsing for something to watch. Tess seemed as relaxed as ever, and we all enjoyed chilling out to some random stand-up show. Nothing to tax our brains today, but I thought that we had already had enough excitement. It was close to midnight when Tess stretched and said she needed to go to bed soon. I glanced across at Ffrances, and wondered if she was thinking the same I was. Would Tess have the courage to ask for what she wanted tonight? “Would you like us to say the trigger phrase?” Ffrances asked, surprising me just a little. “Well… it would help me sleep better,” Tess answered. “If you don’t mind, that is. But it’s no big deal.” “Well then. Tess, you’re going to have an accident tonight. Sleep well!” “Thanks,” she answered with a smile. “You too. See you in the morning.”

I love it.

60. Heading Home When Tess looked down at her phone, she saw that Ffrances had sent her a text message five minutes before. She probably hadn’t felt the vibration while she was still getting changed; or maybe she’d just ignored it because all of her friends used Clatter or XV, and the only texts she usually got were some kind of marketing. In any case, she quickly checked what it was and saw that Ffrances would be waiting for her on a little bit of waste ground adjacent to the hospital. She’d included an image too; a map of the hospital with a wobbly line drawn on indicating the path from one of the wards to the appropriate gate. It seemed Ffrances knew that Spike’s brother was a patient, and had looked up where he was going to be. Tess felt guilty again. She should have gone with Spike to visit Nik. She wanted to consider herself a friend of the family; or at least the part of the family that wasn’t drunk, high, narcissistic, or all three. But she couldn’t go back there now, not after she had run away. That would have made it even harder to explain where she had gone; and she still didn’t have any ideas what she was going to say. She had a lot of thoughts about what she could do or say, but she couldn’t come up with anything that actually made sense. In the end she tapped out a single line message saying she was sorry, and would explain later. She was surprised to find that she meant it. It was the most humiliating thing possible, but she didn’t want to have secrets from Spike. Even this one. It would be a long time before she could bring herself to tell him the whole story, but she knew that she wanted to find a way to be honest with him eventually. Before long, Tess found the appropriate gate. It was where they had come in when visiting Spike a couple of weeks before, but she was sure that without the map she wouldn’t have been able to find it again. Beyond the gate was a little area with scrubby brown grass underfoot, broken by many irregular furrows and tree roots. She started walking across the space to the far side, but then saw that Ffrances was standing off to one side, waving to her. She turned and headed in that direction, and found the car between the trees, just at the side of the main road. “I got Gabby’s message when I was pulling out of Clemont Avenue,” Ffrances explained. “I figured it would be easier all around if I pick you up, so I turned off the main road here. It’s not supposed to be a parking space, but the police don’t care if you pull in to pick somebody up. Saves going right round the perimeter, anyhow.” “Thanks. I was just coming down with Spike. We had a lot to talk about.” “I heard. He brought his brother in this morning. That’s a boy who really has his head screwed on. I hope the kid’s recovering.” Tess glanced down, and realised in a second that she didn’t want to meet Ffrances’s eyes. She should have gone in with Spike. She’d met Nik before, and he seemed like a decent kid; another friendly face would have been good for him. But she had run away, and she couldn’t admit that right now. “Anyway, we should be getting home. I think Gabby will have dinner ready by now, and after today..” “Yeah,” Tess nodded, and climbed into the passenger side of the car. They drove off, and were on the main road back to Palmerston before Ffrances spoke again. “So, Gabby said you had something you wanted to ask me.” “Yeah,” Tess nodded. “I was wondering… about the hypnosis thing. If you could…” “You want to make it stronger?” Ffrances asked. “Gabby said it might have not worked last night. But if that’s the case, it’s not so easy to change. First you’d have to work out why it’s having problems. Like is there some physical or psychological–” “No, no,” Tess interrupted. “Sorry, but… it’s not that. I just wanted…” Then she took a deep breath and hesitated. Would Gabby notice that she’d changed back into her school skirt when she got home? Would either of them see the lack of socks? If she mentioned daytime wetting now, it would almost be like confessing what had happened to her, and she didn’t think she could bring herself to do that. “I was wondering if it could work a little differently,” she said. “Just in the… I guess you’d call it logistics? How you trigger me? There was a change I wanted to make, but I’m not sure. I think I’m still too embarrassed to mention what it is.” “That’s okay. You know what will work for you better than I do. And don’t worry, the details are always flexible. If you can describe what you want, unless I can see some health consequences with it, I would be happy to help you. Just let me know when you’re ready.” “Thank you.” Tess didn’t know what else to say, and they rode in silence for what seemed like several minutes. It had been a hard thing to ask for, and now she felt like the world was waiting for her to raise the subject again. “Did you have a good day? I hope Spike enjoyed his birthday, aside from the problems with his brother.” “It’s not actually his birthday,” Tess answered, even though that wasn’t the question. “Not until Wednesday. But it was the best time for everyone to get together. A lot of people are doing things next week.” “Still–” “Actually… I’m supposed to be seeing him again Tuesday night. There were a few things we wanted to see tonight, but nobody except me and Chloe had seen Tags. But Spike asked me to go with him to catch one of the others. Is that okay?” “Would it be easier if I tell Gabby? We should probably let her know if she doesn’t need to prepare dinner for you, but I understand you’re nervous talking to her about things that involve Spike. Is it just the two of you this time?” “No!” Tess blurted out, and then wondered why she had been so nervous. She knew Ffrances wouldn’t worry, even if she told the whole story. But as soon as she tried to explain, more words came tumbling out. She said rather defensively that it wasn’t a date, and that Evan and Kim would be there too. And somehow she ended up telling Ffrances all about letting Mindy think the opposite, and the things Mindy had said about Chloe and Rachel, as well as about fans of the movie, and her general obnoxious behaviour. It felt like she just kept on talking, always having one more thing to say. And just as she was about to ask if Ffrances knew about a Shaaark! movie, she felt the car stop and glanced outside the window. They were home. “I need to get changed,” Tess blurted out quickly, as they walked towards the house. “Can you make sure Gabby’s not mad at me for taking so long? And once you’ve eaten… remind me to ask you about this French movie.” She saw Ffrances nod, and then dashed into the house and straight upstairs, before Gabby could comment on her wearing her school skirt again, or anything else that could hint the evening had gone so differently from what she had expected.

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