Erika's Revenge

Chapter 3
Customer Service

Chapter Description: Erika sends a text and Kelly makes a call. (a bit smaller than the past few chapters but I think that it's necessary to break this one off for pacing reasons)

    Students occupied the halls between class; some hustled, some lounged about, some rifled through their lockers, and some loitered in the bathroom. Erika swapped books from her bag with books in her locker, she closed her locker and began heading to class when she heard her phone ping. Seeing a text from her mom she became excited for any news regarding Rob, so she opened her phone.

{Mom: Made brownies}
{Mom: Grab some when you get home}

A bit disappointed she put her phone back in her pocket, until she remembered that she hadn’t sent the screenshot to her mom. Her mom would probably ban Rob from seeing Jenny for a bit, and confine him to the house, which would only make her job easier. So she opened the phone back up, flipped through her screenshots, grabbed the right one and sent it. All she had to do was wait until her mom responded and that would be that. Erika entered Advanced Spanish, took a seat, and waited with a smug grin on her face.

…

Rob scrolled through his phone as he sat in the back of class, trying to take his mind off of the 2 texts from his mom he had received earlier. Rob knew that she’d probably found the sheets which is why she wanted to talk with him, and he was putting off coming up with an excuse to give her. So he sat in the back of class scrolling his phone as his teacher gave a lecture on the scarlet letter. She clearly didn’t want to be there and neither did he. He was antsy and didn’t know why, he needed to leave and come up with an excuse and staying there only made him more nervous, at least that’s what he thought. He bounced his knee up and down as if he was holding something in that needed to be out soon. 

A panic attack maybe?

Whatever it was, it was setting him on edge.

…

Kelly fumed as she sat on the phone, Rob lied to her the other night so he could spend time with Jenny. The worst part to her was that she believed him, she thought he would actually stay home and watch his sister rather than go out and galivant around with his girlfriend who she knew he was having sex with. And for what? To betray Kelly's trust? She was done and she meant it, she felt proud of herself as she stared on at the pamphlet on the counter. Alone in the kitchen with her arms crossed she felt like she ruled over everything.

        Ethan was at work, meanwhile Rob and Erika were at school. She didn’t have anything to do, Rob and Erika had always been tidy ever since they were kids so she typically didn’t have much to clean up after. Except Rob’s sheets; Rob was a bedwetter for a bit when he was a kid so this didn’t surprise her. However from the screenshot that Erika had sent to Kelly she knew that Rob would have a lot of explaining to do. So Kelly sat in the kitchen as she waited for someone from Dr. Herschel’s to pick up.

“Hello Dr. Herschel’s here, how may we direct your call?”

Kelly jumped a bit after the anticipation welled up inside her, “Oh! Uhm, hello I was calling because I received this pamphlet in the mail, and was wondering if I could get a bit more info on the process you guys use.”

“Certainly ma’am, and were you interested in having your child retrained or were these just questions?”

“Just a few questions.”

“Ah well let me redirect your call to our customer service line.” Immediately there was the quiet tone of a piano playing on the other end of the call. As Kelly sat there she considered what this meant. If she retrained Rob from infancy; that would mean caring for him in a way she hadn’t in years, and as she thought about it she began to feel nostalgic. She loved feeding Rob and carrying him around, she would sit in his nursery and watch him drift to sleep as Ethan napped on their couch. She missed having a baby around the house, and was looking forward to the day when Rob or Erika finally had children of their own so she could care for them. Sometimes at night she would dream of breastfeeding Rob or Erika again, and her biggest regret was getting her tubes tied as soon as she did. 

“Dr. Herschel’s customer service, what can I help you with?”

Erika broke out of her daydream, “Hi, I received this pamphlet in the mail and was wondering; what’s the process that you use to retrain a child.”

“Oh well I can answer that for you ma’am. After you commit to retraining with us, we mail you a series of DVD’s that instruct the child, as well as a series of substances which make the instructions stick on a subconscious level by using an intoxicated state to make their subconscious moldable to your liking. When you commit we’ll as you a series of questions about the child, some good times you two had, and some bad times that you two had. This will allow us to make certain behaviors by the child rewarded with positive reinforcement via Dopamine in the child’s head. The degree of the retraining is decided solely on you, and we have options ranging between Ten years old and Seven months, which is as low as we can do without causing permanent damage.”

She paused, “Right, and for the accelerated training, how does that work?”

“Well, we give the parents which would be you in this scenario, instructions on how to retrain them into adulthood. An infant typically takes Ten to Fifteen years to retrain, meanwhile a Ten year old can take as little as two, this is because at a younger age we’re stripping more and more fundamental aspects of the child’s personality from them; essentially remaking them as a person.”

Kelly looked back at the door to the laundry room, left ajar enough that she could see the sheets tumbling around as the washer ran it’s spin cycle. She looked down at the floor, pausing, unsure of how to ask this next question, eventually pushing herself forward emotionally. “And what would that mean?”

“What would what mean, ma’am?”

She sighed, “Retraining them into infancy.” she put her head in her right hand.

Am I really going to make Rob act like a baby again? With no say from him?

“Well; since a large part of being an infant is letting their parents take care of them, we reinforce that their mommy and daddy are good and letting them do whatever they want to the child is good. After about two sessions of tapes they’re typically subservient in every way; this includes being fed, changed, and bathed by their parents. Then we make the idea of doing anything that anyone older than ten could do seem too confusing for them, as well as making them ask for help for anything from those older than Ten. Then we start the final steps, which is removing the ability for them to do anything such as walking, talking, anything that someone above the age of four could do. Then we implement the final step which is to erase everything outside of the ability to recognize people closest to them. This is all done with a combination of the DVD’s and substances. By the end they should act as if they were little infants who need their mommies and daddies. Does that answer your question?”

Kelly’s face was red from embarrassment as it rested in her palm. She kept imagining Rob acting like a helpless baby in need of her to change him. “Yes.” she paused, “Is it ok if I call you guys back?”  

“Certainly!” the woman ansered with a pop, “Take all the time you need ok?”

She sighed, “Thank you, have a nice day.”

“You as well ma’am.” and she hung up the phone. 

Rob? As a baby again? Even if he couldn't follow simple rules I can't just make him into a baby again. Why did I ever consider this.

As she asked herself that she felt a headache coming on, knowing that she would be in a terrible mood if she stayed up she decided that it was time for a nap. So she took 2 ibuprofin with a cracker and a glass of water, then went up stairs. She took her robe off, set her phone on silent, and then lied in her bed and drifted off to sleep. As she drifted off her phone began to ping, with no noise she couldn’t notice it if she wanted. 

It was two texts from Rob, asking her to come pick him up.