Patreon May Exclusive - "Conditioned" - Part 2

After breakfast, it’s Steve’s job to clear the table, a small chore that helps make his family run more smoothly in the morning, so that Mommy can get Brooke dressed and ready for the day.

It’s a school day, but school is at home, and Mommy is the teacher. So there is no yellow bus to catch, there are no friends to catch up with at recess. And that’s okay, because they get more learning that way. Other children can be a distraction, other children can be bullies. Steve can look after himself of course but Brooke is such a sensitive little girl.

In his bedroom, Steve thinks about the next two things he has to do.

Get dressed. Practice his spelling words. The words are listed via the study portal on the homeschool website. He decides to log on to the laptop first, using his fingerprint, which feels like being a secret agent.

Give, take, sit, stand, silly,

The words are easy, except when Mommy reads them from the app on her phone. Steve had better study for the test, but he had better get dressed as well. He hates to disappoint his mother, especially when she thinks he’s such a smart boy.

Always think ahead, says Daddy, because life is like a game of chess and you don’t want to get caught napping. Steve doesn’t know how to play chess, but he’s pretty sure the same rule could be explained with Lego. You have to know what comes next with Lego, you can’t just grab any old piece.

Steve looks down at the pieces on the ground. Maybe you can mix them up, put the back of the fire truck on the patrol car. Maybe you can make a mess. Even if that’s a little silly, he is just a little boy after all.

Such, clean, deep, happy, smile,

Steve’s face looks pinched, as if his breakfast had been lemon juice instead of sweet oatmeal.

He has a lot of questions this morning, and that’s before he even gets dressed, before he gets down to his spelling words.

Apple, treat, wish, such, trick,

Because just where is that crackling sound coming from?

He crouches down, puts his face close to the Lego, convinced that it’s the vehicles, tiny engines rumbling. A silly idea, but also amazing-if-true.

He sniffs. The plastic is silent.

The noise is coming from the bed.

Steve gets on board, sparing a thought for what his mother would say if she came in right now. A joke perhaps, that her little boy needs more sleep. Or something heavier – I need your help, Stevie, I need you to be a big boy.

He shakes his head and focuses on the crackling.

He pulls back the comforter, and it’s imagination time again, enough for him to glimpse the tale of a rattling snake, and then the blue, yellow, and red wires of a ticking bomb.

(Daddy makes the bomb joke when Steve is concentrating on tying his shoelaces. “It’s blue…then yellow….don’t cut the red wire, Stevie, otherwise we all go kaboom!” Daddy takes his shoulders and shakes them, and Steve always laughs, and then Mommy tells them it would be nice to get shoes on and out the door before it’s time to come back home again).

The crackling doesn’t sound like a bomb, or the snake that only exists in Steve’s imagination.

It sounds like the first thought Steve had on hearing it. A broken radio. Like static interference.

Instinctively, Steve lies down.

It’s the pillow.

Steve closes his eyes, listens to the crackle. It’s nothing, it’s a waste of time.

There’s no music. There’s supposed to be music. Steve is used to having music all the time.

Without it, how will he know what to do?

He opens his eyes.

Joy, call, boat, ship, sheep,

Forget the spelling words. No time for second grade.

Second grade was years ago.

He knows this at the same time as feeling two physical surprises. One, the flat, hard disc inside his pillow, the source of the crackling noise. Two, the growing hardness between his legs.

The disc is strange. It is a secret he’s just discovered. Who put it there?

Steve frowns. It wasn’t the goddamn tooth fairy.

And the erection. He reaches down, gives it the lightest stroke, to make sure it’s real; not a snake, not a ticking bomb.

It’s real. Tenting the fabric of his ridiculous pajamas.

And it’s the most normal thing about his morning. Because Steve understands in a heartbeat that he is eighteen years old. There has been a mix-up, a great confusion.

He is eighteen, and Brooke – the girl with the bib around her neck, the girl only just managing to feed herself breakfast – is fifteen.

So why are they dressed this way? And why are their parents treating them like little kids?

Are they under some kind of spell?

Steve groans. No more silly ideas.

This is serious. A conspiracy, a set-up. Someone or something has come into his home and confused the lot of them. He takes his hand away from his crotch and devotes his attention to the disc in his pillow.

He’ll remove it. Show it to Mommy…Mom. Because she’ll know what to do. Because she’s a grown-up.

Steve groans again. He whines. He’s a grown-up as well, eighteen years old. Too old for dinosaurs, Lego, and second grade spelling words.

List, plate, come, mud, love,

He pulls at the pillowcase; the disc appears to be sewn into the material. He gets to his feet and considers how to cut into the cotton.

He looks down; his erection has subsided.

He shrugs. He’ll just take the pillow and show Mom that way.

To be continued...