Sophie Magnusson - 41 year-old

-Present-

BEEP

BEEP

Jerry picked up Sophie's items one by one, his heart stuttering as each object reminded him that 'Mrs. Magnusson is right there.' He noticed the granola bars, olive oil, frozen fruits, and tried not to stare. The family pack of ice cream she purchased almost made him squeal.

With each item, however, his infatuation betrayed him. His eyes kept returning to her, kept drinking her in sip by sip. Pathetically, he hoped that his out-of-control ogling just might go unnoticed. Glance. He marvelled at the intricate swirls of her brunette curls, the glint of intelligence in her eyes, the round swells beneath her sweater. It was one of those cable-knit ones with a hood and dangling drawstrings. Glance. Glance again. The sight of her stirred the memories. He could almost feel them again. Glance. He couldn’t help himself. Glance. Each tiny side-eye inadequate in it's detail registered nonetheless and saved away for later.

Sophia Magnusson, meanwhile, was growing increasingly unnerved. Not only was this perv unable to look her in the eye, but he seemed terrified. But he simply wouldn't stop being such a weirdo! Her intuition was scratching at the walls of her mind, trying to place this bearded cashier. Glance. Glance. Glance. He seemed too nervous for it to be because of her looks. 'Eyes up here bud', she almost said aloud to the boy when she felt a wave of deja vu. She's seen him before. But where?

She decided to stop trying to hold his gaze. Each beep accompanied by a little flutter from his eyes, mocking her inability to place him. Meanwhile, Jerry Poole's mind was caught in a spiral pulling him towards the past, to a few hours of his life he had obsessed over for so long. He almost pulled a muscle in his neck tearing his gaze away from her big boobs. Damn.

"Uhmm... bags?" Jerry asked, his voice squeaking as he made eye contact and became aware of the somehow-not-murderous-just-kinda-pissed face of Mrs. Magnusson.

Sophia blinked stoically. “Yes, three should do, thank you,” she said, her voice steady. Then, almost flirtatiously, she fiddled with the tip of her sweater's drawstring. It just to happened to be laying right on top of her left breast. Jerry was once again transfixed. "Ahem." She cleared her throat.

Jerry jumped as if struck by lightning before bagging her groceries at a frantic pace. Somehow eye contact with her had given him control again over his gaze, for the next sixty seconds his eyes never looked above his hands. Bag after bag got filled, Sophia suppressed a smile while watching him intently. 'How do I know this dork?' But unease still rumbled in the back of her mind.

Jerry too, uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze, struggled to play it cool, his hands shaking slightly. As he handed Sophia the receipt, their fingers brushed for a fleeting second, sending a jolt through them both. In Sophie's case, that was the unsettling sense of forgetting something. For Jerry it was the thrill of touching a Magnusson girl again. And then something else happened that affected Jerry very deeply. Almost as fleetingly as they had touched, Mrs. Magnusson squeezed her tits with both hands.

Then she scooped up all three bags and hurried off. Jerry was left in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the store, though his eyes were locked on her retreating butt. She wove her way past the other shoppers and out the door, her pace picking up with each step. Jerry's heart sunk with every inch she moved away from him, the dejection of another faceless interaction holding him hostage long after Sophia's sexy silhouette disappeared into the drizzle of the warm, rainy night.

Sophie, dripping in the upholstered comfort of her minivan, absentmindedly brought her hands back up to her chest and rested on her damp sweater the moment she sat down. She watched Jerry through the windshield, the falling rain creating psychedelic lines down the glass.

From her vantage point, the check-out lanes were visible through the windows of the illuminated store. And now that she had some distance from the cashier, she found herself picking through her memory, trying to place him. Every darting glance, every stuttered sentence, every shaking hand, seemed to invite her to remember. She cupped her annoyingly large (sometimes) breasts through the fabric of her clothes and slowly began to caress herself.

Her hands massaged as though possessed, brushing her thumbs over her nipples, squeezing and lifting, there was a purpose to them – a purposeful pattern that had nothing to do with her pleasure as she tunneled deeper into her thoughts. An insistent question gnawed at her, who was that cashier? Why did he seem eerily familiar? And what was the source of the disquiet he stirred in her? Her heart lurched at her inability to connect the dots, leaving the silence to echo with drumming rain. As her thoughts swirled and intensified, so too did her attention on her breasts. She should go back in there and--

Suddenly, the licentious display was interrupted by the shrill ringtone of her phone. The brightly lit screen displayed her daughter's name, Melody.

She cam back to the immediate reality - the smell of smell of storm and the grainy humidity. With a sigh of release, she picked up the call on her car's speakers. Glancing one last time at that cashier's silhouette, she drove off.

"Hi, Mel," she began, her hands now on the wheel. And as she listened to her daughter complain about some guy in her pre-law program the boy in the grocery store became an afterthought, a knot to untangle another time.

-Three Years Ago-

The late spring breeze wafted through the open patio doors, carrying the scent of blooming azaleas and the light banter of Sophia's twin daughters, Melody and Harmony.

Popular, charismatic, and athletically gifted, her daughters had always attracted the 'cool' crowd; their camaraderie primarily consisted of fellow athletes and promising student council members. Boys weren't typically part of the picture to Sophie's knowledge. After all, they seemed more focused on their sports scholarships and university prospects.

So, when one evening a few days before their senior finals, Melody and Harmony arrived home with a considerably nerdy looking boy in tow, Sophia couldn't help but be surprised.

There he was - Jerry. Cowering underneath a mound of textbooks that dwarfed his scrawny body, blinking anxiously behind thick glasses. He was a stark contrast to her blossoming daughters, who carried off their sun-kissed glow and athletically toned bodies with natural grace. He ... how could she put this so it wasn't insulting... lacked the 'confident stride' or the 'athletic build' she had come to expect with her daughters' friends.

The twins, charging towards the pool house with their unusual guest, seemed unabashed. "Mom, this is Jerry. We need to study for the math final," Harmony explained in passing, her tone lined with an odd mix of enthusiasm and awkwardness that Sophia found notable. Melody gave her a similar glance. They both looked so much like she had at their age, yet they had their late father's lighter hair and blue eyes.

"Alright," she responded. "Just remember, dinner is at seven!" The girls chorused a reply and disappeared into the pool house with their new friend. Something about them all alone together tugged at her motherly instinct. She wanted to intrude and poke her nose into their business, but they had become a little touchy about that again since they turned eighteen. She sighed and began to prepare the meal.

It was several hours before Sophia's intuition spiked. There had been limited movement from the pool house and the twins' usual liveliness seemed quelled. At seven on the dot the girls and Jerry joined her for dinner and made absolutely no conversation, with her kids jumping in to answer any question she had about him. Some answers made sense: that he was incredibly smart made sense since he was here to help the girls study, she liked that. Some were surprising: he runs marathons and is a black belt, this scrawny kid? Then, the moment her back was turned all three were thanking her for the food and retreated to the pool house once more. Very very weird behavior. She wasn't sure what she thought of this quiet, furtive, bespectacled shrimp but she knew something was amiss. She hoped the girls weren't bullying him.

As 10pm approached with still no sight of the girls, Sophie decided it was time to go check in and send this kid home. In her expensive loungewear, she exited the back door and strode past her pool. With each step closer the muffled sounds from within began to take shape. Then what she heard next rooted her to the spot, snaking icy tendrils of dread through her veins. Jerry’s strained yet joyous voice filtered through the closed windows.

"...is your favorite pastime when you aren't together. Ok? Hm, very good girls. I never thought I'd have a girlfriend as hot as you, let alone two! Ok enough, lean back." She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Frozen, should she go? Should she interrupt? Was this ok? She didn't like the tone of his voice one bit, that was for sure. She took a two more steps toward the door even as as it became clear that whatever the three of them had been doing a moment ago, Jerry was now jerking himself off. Choppily and out of breath he continued. But his next words made Sophia's blood run cold, making her freeze on the spot a second time.

"I want to play with your memories again, but I have an idea."

Oh god no. Her twins had it. They had it. Oh fuck. She hadn't taken her pill today.

"I'm not saying this right now, you're actually just imagining it even though it's totally one hundred percent true. So you don't ever need to remember me saying this ever again for any reason even though it's true. Ok." He let out a nervous chuckle. "I make your tits horny. Your tits are so horny for me." His voice grew tight. "When I'm around your tits want my attention and you will let them have it." He released a sound halfway between a guffaw and a growl. "Yeah. Yeah. Fuck yeah. The thought of me makes you touch your tits, you can barely resist um the need to rub your big fucking titties for my entertainment when you think of me. Ok, you're done imagining." He groaned and Sophie almost gasped at the sound of her precious daughters laughing in delight. "Now what I'm saying is actually happening."

Sophie shook her head, and had a better idea. What he was saying was actually happening and she knew she might be susceptible at that very moment. This was something they had prepared her for, she was her own woman. She wouldn't be taken advantage of. She gritted her teeth and grabbed her breasts. Her daughter's giggling voices beat in her ears as she quietly ran back inside. Her heart pumped frantically as she recovered her phone and dialed the emergency number for the Institute. Then she would call 911.

Called Autosuggestive Disorder, Chronic Facillicitorosis, Être né hier, or Absolute Gullibility Syndrome: the disease had run in her family on both sides, but it was kept secret from the public. In the last 20 years a new treatment has come out. It involves a pill that causes the AGS afflicted individual to imprint for about 24 hours on the next person they see, called a Chaperone. For that period of time, the AGS will only manifest for that Chaperone and no other. In some cases spouses or family members act as Chaperones, but most sufferers prefer the mirror technique.

The mirror technique allows a sufferer to look in the mirror and become their own Chaperone. Then, using a script, they are able to talk themselves into more normal skepticism and a more normal life.