Devish Thoughts

You were sure you might feel guilty about this later but you couldn’t help yourself from pressing the button.

You had already gone against your desires only moments ago when you resisted kissing Grace so you weren’t planning on going against them again so soon. The effect should slowly build up over the course of half an hour so you wanted to be able to at least have some semblance of a conversation before she started acting in a way that you could manipulate more easily.

You continued to eat the food in front of you with a renewed appetite and you ended up finishing your plate quicker than expected. You were sure Mom was expecting you to drag your feet so you used the time to go to the kitchen before cleaning your plate and the cutlery that you used.

Once finished, you snuck up to the door to the living room and saw that Mom was watching TV while she waited for you and she hadn’t noticed that you were nearby. You had never really tested how powerful of an effect this would have on her but you decided to use it right away. You had to back up to get at least 2 metres away from her but other than that you were good to go. You were a bit curious about that restriction but it wasn’t something you could solve any time soon so you quickly put it out of your mind.

Activating ‘Can't get you outta my head’

When you took another peek round the corner of the door again, you couldn’t tell if anything had changed with her. You briefly considered watching her but you were losing time to have a semi-normal conversation so you knocked on the frame of the door to get her attention.

“Are we still okay to talk?” you asked innocently, watching Mom quickly turn her head towards you when she noticed your presence.

“S-sure” she replied, sounding less confident than she was before clearing her throat, attempting to regain the authoritative tone she had earlier.

She patted the seat on the sofa next to her and invited you to sit down, trying to keep a stern expression on her face.

“Now, you better have a good reason why you’ve come home so late, and if you lie and say you just lost track of time studying, then you and me are gonna have a falling out” she demanded, sounding no less annoyed than she was before.

If you hadn’t seen her stumble slightly only a few seconds ago, you might have believed the effect had stopped working. You knew she might not accept your answer right away buy you had no reason to lie or hide about your whereabouts so you just told her the truth like Grace had wanted you to.

“There's a reason I didn’t tell you this but let me apologise first. I should have given you a better explanation and told you I would have been a lot later than expected or called you again to let you know so, I’m sorry” you apologised, lowering your head slightly before looking up to see Mom still silently waiting for an explanation. You let out a small cough in embarrassment but quickly organised your thoughts.

“So this morning when I said I went for a run, I went to Emma’s and spoke with Grace” you started, watching Mom crease her eyebrows at the seemingly sudden change of topic before you continued.

“I know we hadn’t fully discussed this properly yet but I asked her if she had any positions open at the gym as I thought getting a part-time job there would be something I’d enjoy and I thought you would have less reason to say no if you knew who I was working with” you explained, keeping your eye on your mother and seeing that she was looking at you a lot less intensely.

She stayed silent for a few seconds as she processed what you told her before she finally started to speak.

“Why did you feel the need to go through all the effort to hide something like this?” Mom asked, confused about the unknown reason you mentioned.

“I didn’t want you to know because if I told you before I had an interview with Grace, then she might feel somewhat obligated to give me the job just because you were aware of what was going on. I also didn’t want you to feel weird around her either in case she said no to having an interview, which I had today and is the reason which is why I was so late getting home”

“Okay I can understand why you felt the need to do that but I’m still not happy with it. Something like this wouldn’t be something me or Grace care enough about to ruin a friendship” Mom replied, staying silent for a moment to collect her thoughts before she spoke again.

“So… can I take you telling me all this as a sign that you got the job?” Mom asked, suddenly no longer sounding angry at your whereabouts and staring at you waiting for your answer.

“I would have had to tell you even if I didn’t get the job, but yes I got it. I had my first training shift and everything seemed to go well but I am on a probationary period just in case” you revealed, getting a proud smile from Mom before her face went back to being stern.

The quick change in expression confused you but she continued to look in your direction as if studying you.

“Hold on for just a minute” she said, holding up her index finger and rushing out the room.

You wanted to ask what she was doing but she was already out of the room by the time you had started to speak. You stood up from the sofa and went to the door, poking your head round the frame to see where she went. You saw the swish of her hair as she walked in the direction of the kitchen but she went out of sight almost as soon as you saw her. It didn’t take long for Mom’s voice to echo through the hallway and you realised she had gone out the room to take a call on the house phone.

From the way she was talking you could immediately tell that it was Grace on the other end of the line. Knowing how the two of them could talk for hours on end you walked back into the living room and plopped yourself back onto the sofa before turning your attention to the TV that Mom had been watching before you entered the room.

You wanted to relax and wait for the two of them to finish but you had no idea how long the two of them were going to be talking and with the 30-minute timer of Mom’s active effect slowly dwindling, you might need a new plan of action. Mom was probably trying to get Grace to confirm if you were telling the truth and given how you had been acting around her recently, you didn’t blame her for being a little bit suspicious. You checked your phone to see how you were looking on time before deciding you didn’t want to leave it up to chance for when Mom would come back.

Activating ‘Calling Bell’

You waited a few minutes before you used her level 1 active, just to make sure she had actually been able to get to the topic of your whereabouts with Grace so that the call wouldn’t be a complete waste. Lowering the volume on the TV allowed you to make out the sound of Mom saying goodbye and wrapping up the call before hearing her footsteps get louder as she returned to the living room.

She walked into the room and sat down beside you once again, not noticing that she had placed herself a lot closer to you than she had before.

“Looks like you were telling the truth but why did you call me back in here so quickly?” she asked, making you realise the ‘calling bell’ would now make her more likely to listen to your request now that she had sat down next to you.