Baby Talk

Thank you Have some more!     42. At the End of the Day “Tess!” Ffrances yelled again, and finally managed to catch the young girl’s attention. She turned and saw that the blanket was now full of stuff, as if they were having a picnic. She stumbled a little as she stopped running, but caught herself and jogged back over to see what was happening. The blanket was thick and woolly, and it was spread half on the lawn and half on the tiled path. One edge was along the edge of the raised area immediately outside the conservatory; the area that she’d heard Gabby refer to as the ‘deck’ before. She didn’t quite know what the word meant, besides understanding that a whole bunch of countries had their own interpretations of the concept, but she didn’t need to think about that now. It was just another word she didn’t really understand, and that was a feeling that should be common to a kid as young as Tess was supposed to be right now. Today, the deck seemed to have turned into a kind of table. There were plates and bowls set out along the edge, so that a baby sitting on the blanket couldn’t quite reach to knock them over. Ffrances handed out paper plates, and little wooden forks that looked like they were designed to return to nature if dropped in the grass. The food itself was a selection of buffet type stuff, some cold but mostly fresh, hot food. As Tess sat down, she realised that the blanket was somehow warm as well, and a hot breeze was blowing over them. “We’re going to be watching the sunset over dinner,” Ffrances explained, “so it’s sure to get cold. It’s already a little chilly now, and the forecast says we’ll have frost tonight. So I turned on the conservatory space heater. There’s a vent so you can keep the space outside a little warmer.” “Wow,” Tess beamed, impressed that the grown-up knew so much. And as soon as she recognised that thought as another childish one, she was laughing at herself. It was incredible how much her thoughts were changing. They enjoyed dinner. Tess recognised some of the things on offer, like steamed dumplings that were being kept hot over some kind of kettle thing, but there were others that she didn’t even know the name of. She had to try a little bit of everything, and she found herself thanking Ffrances at every possible opportunity. She didn’t know if that was for the food, or the hypnosis, or just for protecting her from Gabby’s prank, but she knew that she was extremely grateful. The sunset was spectacular. They apparently had the perfect amount of clouds, so there was something for all the brilliant colours to shine on, but the sky wasn’t hidden. Ffrances enjoyed it too, but most of her attention seemed to be on trying to feed a fussy baby. Gabby might have got what she always wanted, but she wasn’t taking it well. Maybe that was the point; she could be selfish and obstinate, and because she was a baby everybody would only try to make her happy. Tess, on the other hand, was serving herself and didn’t need to ask for grown-up help with anything at all. It felt so good to know that she could do it all by herself. * * * “How does the hypnotised thing work?” Tess asked, as she started to feel full, and wanted something to focus on other than the remaining treats in front of her. “I mean… not like all the special stuff. But like, what can it do?” “Almost anything you can imagine,” Ffrances answered. “It can’t really change things, but it can change what you see. Help you to do things, or feel things. It can’t turn you into a real baby, but it can make it feel real to you. And it’s something I’d love to talk about more, but I think you’re too little to understand properly now. It’s hard to pick words you would know.” “Can I ask you to do it more?” The question was out there in the world before Tess even knew what she was going to ask, and she immediately wished she could pull the words back into her mouth and swallow them. That had to be asking too much. “Maybe. If it’s just for fun. But that’s certainly not something you can ask when you’re so little like that.” “I’m big enough!” Tess pouted. “I’m nearly…” and then she was struggling to think. She felt like a big girl because she was nearly eight, but somewhere in the back of her mind she could remember that she was almost double that in reality. “Is it because I’m too little, or just I’m not my real age?” “Both. But I didn’t expect you to see the difference. Would you like me to tell you again how small you are, so you don’t need to think about all the scary grown-up stuff?” “No!” Tess gasped, and then wondered if she’d seemed too harsh; did she sound scared? She didn’t want to offend Ffrances, or imply that she didn’t trust her. Or worse, let her think that Tess didn’t actually like this kind of play. She took a deep breath, and tried a more measured answer: “No, thank you. I’ve enjoyed today, but this stuff is super interesting. I want to talk about it, I want to be big enough to talk about it. We’ve done running around the garden and having fun and all that stuff. Can I be a big girl now? Please?” “How big? I’ll give you the choice.” Then Tess hesitated, because she knew her first choice would have been her real age, but she wasn’t eager to let go of her first trance so easily. “I don’t know,” she eventually answered, selecting a candy cane from the little plate  of desserts and starting to suck it. “I want to be big enough to talk about this stuff. It’s exciting, and it’s useful too, and I can’t wait to talk about it. So how old do I have to be?” “If you mean talking about things you want me to do next time you two are being little ones, you would have to be fully grown up. And you’d have to have half an hour to properly settle into thinking normally again. But if I clear the suggestions out of your mind, it won’t be easy to get back into your headspace. We were going to spend the evening watching cartoons, unless you have more homework. I might have asked you to try babysitting the little one. Now, if you’ve had enough for today, I can bring you back to normal. But I won’t do another fantasy trance the same day, so then you’re stuck with your real age, at least until Monday evening. Perhaps longer. Do you want out?” “It’s not that. I mean, it’s not like I don’t like it. I really want to try being… different things. But I really, really want to know more about it. And talk about different things we could do. Oh! But I don’t want to disturb the baby. It looks like she’s nodding off now, with food all over her face. Can I be really me even if she wants to stay like that? I’ll still be young enough to be a babysitter, if that helps.” “Okay. I think you’ve thought this through a lot. And you’re showing a lot of maturity. I could help you let go of that, but you seem pretty sure you’re ready to grow up, and I only ever give people what they want. So… you come out of your headspace, all back to normal, and little Gabby can stay a baby for the rest of the day. You can be a big sister or babysitter, tease her a little, and we’ll all watch cartoons. And in half an hour, I think I’ll trust that you are thinking clearly enough to let me know what you really want. Agreed? Last choice to turn back if you want to be little later today. It might be a while before we’re all free to do it again.” “I’m sure,” Tess nodded, and resisted the urge to giggle like a little kid. She was a big girl now and she wanted to prove it. “Okay then. Now, just watch my fingertips. Focus on them, and see how hard it is to keep following them. How easy it would be to let your eyes lag behind, and find yourself reminded of the metronome, when you just didn’t have the energy to keep following it. Do you remember how it felt when you started nodding, and then you just didn’t have the energy to raise your head, so you just kept listening and…” 43. Another Compromise Nobody laughed when Wide Joe walked into a lamppost. The show they were watching wasn’t slapstick, and the comedy 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.” “I understand. I can’t ask for like an instant fix. And now I found out what it can be like when that stuff is influencing my thoughts, I’m not sure I’d trust myself not to overuse it. It’s like I’m looking into a whole new world, where things are possible that I never thought could be. I love that feeling even if I don’t understand why, and I don’t want to be the cat killed by curiosity. As weird as it is, when Gabby told me I was two I was just about as excited as I was scared. So, I understand not wanting to discuss what I want in that state. I need to be thinking clearly, and I might not be when I’m feeling… stressed.” “Okay?” “So what you said before. I want you to…” Tess trailed off, and took a deep breath. It was hard to think clearly, it was so embarrassing even saying this. But she knew that Ffrances could help her, probably more than any doctor could. She could make the problem go away, even if she put restrictions on how it would be used. “I want to be in control of my bedwetting,” she said, and felt the blush setting fire to her face. But now she was over the first crest, it was easier to coast through the rest of the explanation. Like a roller coaster rumbling down a shaky track, descending from the point where it had been too late to turn back. “Or, because I might not have the self control to avoid overdoing it, I want to put somebody else in control of it. Can you make it so that if I’m feeling stressed, if I’m worrying too much or not sleeping, I can ask you and you can tell me to…” “Tell you if you’re going to have an accident or not?” Ffrances suggested, after Tess’s speech ground to a halt prematurely. “Yes, that. So if I feel like I need your help I can ask, but it’s out of my hands so I won’t overuse it.” “That’s a very mature decision.” “Does it have to be like… yes or no?” “What would a third option be?” “Well, if I ask and you think I’ve been relying on the suggestion too much, you could tell me that you’re not going to… do everything for me. Then I can take some kind of… precautions myself.” Tess looked down at her hands, and interlocked her fingers. The cartoon had ended now, and Gabby was giggling at the commercials before the next episode. She really didn’t understand why it would be beneficial to make a hypnotic suggestion that would actually cause her to wet the bed if Ffrances thought she was asking for help to stop it too often. But she wasn’t an expert, so she knew there had to be a reason for it. “That’s an option,” Ffrances answered. “But from everything I’ve seen, I think it would be better for your mental health in the long term to have both options together. Because even if we tell you to make your own decision most of the time, there’s a possibility that you might get an answer you don’t want. The possibility, or perceived possibility, creates an emotional imperative against asking too many times. And believe me, I would never actually do that unless I thought you were really being excessive. I’d give you plenty of warnings before you got that far, if I even considered it. It would only be an option if I thought you were in a state where taking matters into your own hands would be harmful. Like using drugs that some amateur pharmacologists on the Internet might say are harmless.” “I promise I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Tess said; although a part of her was wondering what kind of drugs could help with this problem. “I swear, I won’t use drugs unless a doctor recommends it.” “I understand. But the existence of the option could be a deterrent from overusing hypnosis. And to my surprise, I found two peer-reviewed studies supporting something Gabby had picked up on the Internet: That giving the same person both options can actually make the triggers more effective. I guess, on some unconscious level, it’s easier to believe that someone can make you wet your bed if you’ve also seen proof that they can stop you. And vice versa.” “I guess,” Tess mumbled. “So. You give me two suggestions. You can tell me not to… to do that, and I won’t. Or you tell me that I will, and I can’t help it. If I ask too much, you’ll just tell me I’m asking too much, you won’t force me unless you think I’m risking my health. And maybe… I don’t know. Just in case I end up being too nervous to ask, if you think I’d benefit from it, would you tell me anyway. Trigger me, is that the word? Or do I have to ask?” “You would be okay with that?” “I’m not so sure. But you said I can’t use it often, right? I don’t want to misjudge it and end up using it less, either. I mean… if it’s not an everyday thing, then an occasional surprise could be a nice treat. A load off my mind, so I don’t have to worry about it one night.” “I understand. And that’s certainly something I can do. I probably wouldn’t say the trigger without asking, at least until I have more understanding of how it makes you feel. But you already spoke to Gabby, so she might be able to guess better.” “When she’s not being childish and competitive,” Tess added, with a quick nod at where her cousin was trying without much success to put her hand in her mouth. Ffrances agreed, and they discussed a few other details, which was still stressful for Tess because of the difficulty she had even saying the words. But she knew what she wanted, and Ffrances already understood, so they came to a conclusion. And even when they’d agreed that it wasn’t a good idea to experiment with more than one set of suggestions in a day, Ffrances thought that it would be reasonable to have Tess staring at the metronome one more time before bed. She wouldn’t say the trigger phrase today, she was keen to point out. But she could start to set it up, ready for a little more hypnosis tomorrow to make sure that the suggestions behaved as intended. Tess didn’t like being a baby. She was sure about that now. But she was just as sure that, between the unexpected thrill of curiosity about hypnosis and the end of her bedwetting problem, she knew that she would remember today as one of the best days of her life.

I like the story .

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I like that he is being treated like a toddler , he is all most as small as a large pre- schooler ....in my eyes . I love the story

Not a clue.  Something quick. I got asked to usher for a service for a Pastor's convention here in town.