Yes, he should

Jaden opened his mouth to protest, he couldn’t just sleep, not after all that, but she laid a finger over his lips.

“I mean it. I’ll look into this device. What it’s capable of. How it works. As a psychologist, I know hypnosis, deep trance states, suggestion implantation, but overriding someone’s will this completely? Especially someone as strong-willed as Dr. Moreno? That shouldn’t be possible with ordinary techniques. This… this is something else.”

She picked up the fob carefully, turning it over in her fingers, studying the single red button and the tiny lens.

“I’ll figure it out. You’ve done enough tonight. Trust me.”

Jaden ate reluctantly, mostly pushing rice around the plate while his mom watched with quiet concern. Every bite tasted like cardboard. When he finally pushed the empty plate away, she sent him upstairs with a gentle nudge.

Hot water pounded his skin, steam filling the bathroom, but it couldn’t wash away the memories. Gemma’s mouth, hot, eager, relentless. Elena’s tits pressed against his back. Priya’s moans. Isabella grinding like she was born for it. His cock reacted traitorously, twitching and hardening under the spray as the images replayed in vivid detail. Shame burned in his chest, guilt for getting hard, for cumming so fast, for even considering Zack’s deal for one second. He jerked himself roughly, angrily, coming again in less than a minute with a choked sob, forehead pressed to the tile.

When he finally shut the water off, towel around his waist, he padded down the hall to check on her before bed.

Her bedroom door was cracked open. Soft blue light from her computer screen spilled into the hallway.

Nadia sat at her desk in a silk robe, glasses reflecting the glow, the fob connected to her laptop via a thin USB cable. Charts and waveforms flickered across the screen, some kind of analysis software she must have pulled up.

She looked up when he peeked in, offering a small, reassuring smile.

“It seems to use a very specific wavelength of light,” she said quietly. “Narrow-band, pulsed, something that bypasses normal visual processing and embeds false memories and behavioral directives directly into the neural pathways. Almost like it rewrites belief structures on contact. I’ve never seen anything like it outside theoretical papers on optogenetics and memory manipulation. It’s… terrifyingly advanced.”

She paused, studying his face.

“But I’ll stay up and keep working on it. You need rest, Jaden. Go to bed.”

She stood, crossed to him and pulled him into a quick, tight hug, arms around his shoulders, cheek against his damp hair. Then she pressed a soft peck to his forehead, just like she used to when he was little.

“Sleep. I’ve got this.”

A little of the knot in his chest loosened. He nodded, mumbled a tired “Love you, Mom,” and shuffled to his room.

He crashed onto the mattress without even turning off the lamp, exhaustion finally winning over the adrenaline and shame.