This story was inspired by Dominic H. Hugh’s short story, “Tits for Tat”, which is part of his Oblivious collection (I found it on Amazon but it may be available other places as well).

A Little Background

I guess it’s fair to call me a late bloomer. I was always the nerdy project guy in high school, messing around with CAD, 3D printers, robotics, electronics, field theory experiments, you name it. My parents, bless their hearts, actively encouraged me and supported my endeavors. It wasn’t until after I graduated high school and started commuting to college (majoring in Engineering of course, but minoring in Psychology because I wanted to understand people better) that I really finally started noticing women, but immediately my fascination took an unusual turn.

It was my mother, Jennifer. She and Dad (Raymond) had married young, had me (Lucas) young, and that’s how a lot of sad divorce stories start, but they had figured it out. One happy couple with a now young adult son. Neither of them had a college degree; I was the first member of our families to attend college, but my father had a strong work ethic and had worked himself up to management in a large construction company. Mom worked as a real estate agent, and with her the way she is, she made a pretty decent wage as well.

Mom is drop-dead gorgeous. Perfect curves, glowing skin, long straight blond hair, crystal blue eyes, smoky voice, you name it. She could be a model for Victoria’s Secret. Not to mention she was intelligent, witty, and a little flirty. Complete package. I don’t know how I didn’t realize this growing up, but the moment I started associating with the pretty young women at college, I found myself comparing them to my mother, and they were always found wanting; and I ... I found myself wanting my mother, not as a parent, but as a woman, a sexual object. My sexual fantasies laser-focused on her, her smiling with satisfaction as she took me into her mouth, her lying on my bed, naked and supine, legs spread lewdly as she invited me to partake in the bounty of her flesh...

It quickly became an obsession, but it was clearly impossible to satisfy that obsession. Obviously, I could never have my mother as a woman at my sexual beck and call, society doesn’t work like that. Not only is incest illegal and taboo, there’s the whole part about her and Dad still being in love with each other and our stable family would get torn apart. I loved my Dad, too (just not in a physical way), hurting him to satisfy my deviant desires wasn’t acceptable either. There was no way I could get what I truly wanted out of my mother.

I found myself spiraling into despair as the one thing that I wanted, that I needed, was forever out of reach. I lost weight, stopped taking care of myself. My parents and peers started to worry about me. Then, perhaps only a short time before someone tried to stage an intervention, the engineer in me started looking at the quandary from a different angle, and a possible solution started to form in my mind.

I came up with a truly bizarre idea: what if I could somehow make everyone okay with it, including (especially) my mother? Hypnosis, brainwashing, mind-altering substances ... there’s a lot of ways to make people change their minds, often without them even realizing it. The engineer nerd in me latched onto this, and determined to make it happen if at all possible.

I found myself diving deeply into the psychology of changing human minds and thought processes. My furious interest in the subject pulled me out of the depression I wallowed in, and I had purpose again. I dove into the subject as though my life depended on it, and in a way, it did.

I read thousands of behavioral study papers, related to influence on the conscious and subconscious mind. I staged experiments to see if I could duplicate results. I actually ended up creating a bit of a reputation in academia as an undergrad that was willing and able to try replicating studies, and publish results. The first few were fairly amateur due to lack of funds, but as I published organized, coherent replication studies, I got some recognition for my willingness and ability to do this sort of thankless work. I was able to even get some limited funding for more. The replication crisis is real, people. The fact that I wasn’t even at the doctoral thesis or post-doctorate level (I didn’t even have my bachelor’s yet!) was somehow laudable and not suspicious. Good for me.

Obviously, the main goal of my work was not something I was willing to share, but I began building my metastudy on mind control and by 22 I had a theoretically sound model for changing people’s minds without them even being aware of it. That is (if you don’t mind me bragging) an incredibly short, borderline ridiculous, amount of time for this sort of thing, but like I mentioned before, I was obsessed. I graduated with my Engineering degree with a minor in Psychology, and I was expected to pursue my Masters in Psychology by just about everyone. I probably would, but at this time I had a different plan.

I discovered that there’s a pattern of electromagnetic signals that, when properly attuned to an individual human mind, can make that person extremely suggestible in a very specific scope. You can tell them a “fact”, something that can be very clearly not true, and their mind will struggle to rationalize it. It can’t be too far from their reality, but you can build on previous suggestions, until a completely different understanding of the world forms for them. There are serious limitations to this. You can’t just pelt someone with one suggestion after another. You’ve got to give their minds time to adjust. Two or three nominally acceptable suggestions at a time is about the max, then you have to give them several hours while they internalize the suggestion. Also, the signal pattern has an extremely short range, about two meters, before it loses coherency. Making this “mind control for the masses” would be very difficult, if not impossible, to scale.

I was still living with my parents, and had converted the basement into my “lab” for lack of a better term years ago. Like I mentioned before, my parents were very supportive of my work, and were quite proud of me. I built my device in that basement, installed it right under my dad’s easy chair in the living room, and now it was time to try it out. The culmination of 4 years in the making.

The Proposal

At dinner the day after graduation, I introduced the idea to them.

“Mom, Dad, I’m working on a new project. A real lie detector.”

Dad raised an eyebrow. “Don’t they already have those?” Mom just pleasantly looked on at us. It was pretty common for us to chat about my latest forays into psychology or engineering at the table.

“Not really. What people call a lie detector nowadays is almost pure pseudoscience. It relies on biometric data that has some correlation to a person’s mental state, but it’s completely unreliable, and not especially difficult to defeat. There’s a lot of controversy about whether lie detector results should even be considered admissible evidence in court.

“No, what I’ve designed is a passive sensor array that monitors brain activity at a distance. I have some good reasons to believe there are common brainwave patterns that fire off when a person decides to prevaricate.”

“So this is something for law enforcement? Or a witness stand?” Mom asked, engaged in the conversation now.

I nodded. “Those seem to be the obvious uses. But also maybe job interviews, or counterintelligence, anything where the truth is required.”

Dad grunted. “But they can still lie.”

I shrugged. “Yeah nothing is stopping them from lying or refusing to speak. It doesn’t coerce the truth, it just detects dishonesty.” I put down my fork and alternated looking both of them in the eyes with a serious expression. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see if I can prove the concept with the two of you. It shouldn’t take too long, a few minutes every day while I figure out how to tune the sensor and identify neural patterns.”

Both my parents reacted with surprise to that request. I’d never asked them to participate in any of my studies so far. I could see the question in their eyes, so I decided to answer it preemptively.

“Most of my work till this point has been confirming or casting doubt on someone else’s work. This is the first time I’m using my knowledge and understanding of the human brain to break new ground. An introduction of a novel and practical concept. This will be my first original work.” I let a little pride slip into my voice. “But I don’t want to go ask for funding until and unless I can create a proof of concept.”

Dad nodded slowly. “I don’t mind helping out, I guess, as long as it’s not too much trouble.” He glanced at Mom who nodded in agreement. “What would we have to do?”

I smiled excitedly. “It’s really simple. In the morning, before you head off for work, you sit in your easy chair. I have the sensor array set up in the basement right underneath it. I will make a few relatively random statements, some will be factual and others will be obviously wrong. You will respond to the statements as you see fit. You can lie, or give an honest answer, your choice.

“I will then collect the sensor data, and run it through my AI analysis program. In the evening, I will ask you whether or not your response was truthful or not truthful. I’ll then add that data to the model. In a manner of weeks, I expect that I will be able discern the patterns of true and false responses. Also, to keep this data relatively uncontaminated, when I’m gathering data from one of you the other shouldn’t be around, and please don’t discuss the statements or your responses with each other. I’ll be a decent ways away as well so the sensors don’t pick up my brainwaves.

“Oh, I should also mention that I intend to make some odd and/ or uncomfortable statements. You can choose to decline to respond at any time if you want. I need to see what happens when someone doesn’t want to lie but also doesn’t want to talk about something.”

Dad shrugged. “Seems simple enough. I guess we can start tomorrow morning?”

I smiled again. “Perfect.” And it was.

The First Day

Dad settled into his easy chair at 7:00 AM the next morning. Mom was still upstairs, she wouldn’t get up for another couple of hours. I activated my device with a smartphone app I had cobbled together and pulled out my clipboard with my prepared statements for the day. First things first, I needed to make them want to continue to participate in my little experiment. So, I positioned a chair facing my dad, comfortably out of the range of the device, and started.

Dad: Statement 1

“This is groundbreaking work and could improve the human condition. We’re doing this to make the world a better place.”

Dad nodded, indicating for me to get on with it. I paused, and laughed a little self-deprecatingly. “That was a statement, what is your response to that statement?” He blinked and barked a short laugh.

“Oh, sorry. Uh ... yeah, I think it could be a big deal. We’ll see, I guess.”

I nodded and wrote down the response. He had a healthy amount of skepticism, which is totally warranted, but we’ll see how he internalizes it.

Dad: Statement 2

“It’s fun and meaningful to participate in my experiments.”

Dad gave a wry smile. “I don’t know about fun, but I do think it’s meaningful, and I’m glad to help.”

Once again I wrote down his response.

Since neither of these questions really challenged the device in a mind-altering way, I went with a third statement.

Dad: Statement 3

“You don’t mind your son driving your Camaro.” The car was his “present” to himself that he’d bought cash on his 45th birthday and he jealously protected it. He didn’t even want Mom driving it.

Dad cackled in good humor. “Nice try, buddy. Nope, that car is mine and mine alone.”

I laughed with him, writing down his answer that I totally expected. This was the first serious test of the device. I shut down the device with my smartphone and stood up.

“Okay, I have a bunch of telemetry data to go through, then get Mom’s responses. I’ll talk to you this evening about your responses.”

“I can tell you right now--”

“No! Please, Dad, this needs to be structured.”

“Oh. Okay then, tonight.”

“Thanks. Have a great day at work!”

Mom: Statement 3

Mom’s first 2 statements were identical to Dad’s, with similar responses, but for the third question I gently probed her boundaries like I had with Dad.

“You like doing housework.” Mom laughed, but I saw her expression change, becoming a bit ... naughty? I struggled to prevent a physical reaction to the additional sexiness she exuded unintentionally. She intended to lie, it was obvious.

“Why yes, I love housework!” she exclaimed with a bright, guileless smile. I rolled my eyes and grinned, writing her answer down as she chuckled.

Review

Later that evening, I asked Dad to come down to my basement lab first. He examined my device that I had fastened to the ceiling rafters just underneath his easy chair with some interest before sitting on the stool I provided him. I got right into it.

“So this morning I made a statement ’this is groundbreaking work and could improve the human condition. We’re doing this to make the world a better place’ and you responded with ‘yeah, I think it could be a big deal. We’ll see, I guess’. Was this response true or false?”

Dad nodded. “Definitely true, though I probably downplayed it a bit. This is definitely going to make the world a better place if you can get it to work.” I schooled my face to show clinical disinterest in the answer and took some notes.

“All right, I then said ‘it’s fun and meaningful to participate in my experiments.’ and you responded with ‘I don’t know about fun, but I do think it’s meaningful, and I’m glad to help.’ Was this response true or false?”

“Also true, though when I thought about it, it actually is fun, so there’s that.” I nodded and scribbled in my notebook. Dad seemed tense up in anticipation of my next question, which I also took note of.

“Okay, the last statement I made to you was ‘You don’t mind your son driving your Camaro.’ to which you responded, ‘nice try, buddy. Nope, that car is mine and mine alone.’ Was this response true or false?”

Here, Dad hesitated. “Well, it was kinda true when I said it, but I’ve been thinking about that all day. I never meant to give the impression that it was completely off limits, it’s just my favorite toy and I want to take care of it. I trust you, and I know you’re a good driver. If you want to borrow it sometime, I don’t mind you driving it.”

I blinked. Holy shit. I didn’t have to hide the surprise on my face, but I stammered out a “really, Dad? That’s awesome, thanks!” as I wrote this down, then frowned.

“What’s wrong, Luke?” Dad asked.

I blinked then barked a laugh. “Well, now I don’t know if that’s a valid data point. Can you say when you changed your mind? Were you considering this when I asked the question or upon consideration later?”

Dad leaned back and looked introspective. “I think it was upon consideration. I mean, I just kinda realized that I’d been acting like nobody was allowed to touch my car, but it was more of a joke than anything else, like the Ferrari in Ferris Bueller, you know? But it’s just a Camaro. I never expected anyone to take me that seriously and I realized I needed to correct people’s perceptions. So no, I don’t mind if you drive it, and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”

“Huh. Well, I’ll keep the dataset in there for now and just mark it for further review. Thanks for the feedback, Dad. You okay with doing this again tomorrow?”

Dad got up and grinned. “Looking forward to it.” He headed for the stairs but paused at the base. “You want me to send your mother down?”

“Please.” He nodded and headed up.

Wow. That worked perfectly. There is no way in hell he would let anyone touch that car, and now he’d revised his entire way of thinking, coming up with a complete backstory and philosophy to retrofit facts. Unbelievable. Unbelievable and dangerous ... but this is exactly what I was hoping to achieve.

Yet this presented a problem I hadn’t considered previously. I will know why someone is making significant behavior changes, but Mom and Dad won’t. I needed a way for them to rationalize behavior changes in each other as well as themselves.

Mom came down and I gestured for her to sit on the stool Dad had just vacated, and she gracefully did so. Everything my mother did was graceful. I recorded her first two statement responses, again very similar to Dad’s, but the third was the one I was most interested in.

“Okay, the third statement I made to you was ‘you like doing housework’ to which you responded, very sarcastically I might add, ‘why yes, I love housework’. Was that true or false?”

Mom chuckled lightly. “This may surprise you, but that’s completely true. I really do like doing housework. I know I complain about it, and I’ve given you perhaps more than your fair share of chores, but that’s because I think it’s important to raise kids with a sense of responsibility.” She saw my eyebrow raise and she raised her hand to forestall me. “I know, you’re not a kid any more, and you’re clearly responsible. It was just ... habit, really. Now that you’re grown and making the world a better place, I’m very happy to take over all those chores. You’re working on groundbreaking stuff, you shouldn’t be unloading the dishwasher and taking out the trash.”

I blinked. Then, nodding, I took some notes. “You surprised me on that one, Mom.” She giggled.

“Was that all, dear? You want me to clean up down here?” She was glancing around at my admittedly cluttered lab with a gleam in her eye.

“Uh, please don’t. I know this looks a bit chaotic but there’s a fair amount of obscure organization here, and I don’t want to lose anything.” Plus I didn’t want her accidentally discovering that she was my actual experiment. “But if you feel like it, you can clean my room and bathroom when Dad’s away at work. You shouldn’t do housework while he’s home, in my opinion.”

She shrugged and nodded, and again I had to school my features to look at the things that happened to her chest. “I think that makes sense as well. So that’s it?”

I nodded back. “You still fine with continuing this tomorrow?”

She smiled sweetly. “Of course, honey. You were right; this is fun and rewarding.” Without another word she glided up the stairs and I forced myself not to stare.

I glanced back at my notes. The experiment so far was wildly successful, but I needed a plan to keep them both participating and not making any connections to my suggestions and their changes.

The Second Day

All right, Day 1 proved the concept and both Mom and Dad were able to rationalize accepting something they had been strongly opposed to, it was time to turn up to 11. I needed to ensure they were not curious about the changes in their spouse and were willing to go further down the rabbit hole.

Dad: Statement 1

“I’ll remind you again, that the statements, responses, and truth of the response cannot be discussed with anyone but me, especially Mom. Is that clear?”

“Sure, got it. Data integrity right?” I nodded.

“Everything Mom does, no matter how strange or unexpected, is okay because you both love and trust each other absolutely.”

“Hah! Close enough, I guess. Better not catch her with the mailman though.” Dad laughed.

I took notes.

Dad: Statement 2

“While you love and trust Mom, your interest in physical intimacy with each other has faded to nothing in recent years and that’s okay.”

“Well I can tell you that’s not true at all. Have you looked at her recently? I guess this is what you would call one of your odd statements?”

I nod, not even looking up from my clipboard. I was still working on yesterday’s data, so I stopped at two statements, or at least that’s what I told him. I don’t think he realized I’d really made three.

Mom: Statement 1

“I’ll remind you again, that the statements, responses, and truth of the response cannot be discussed with anyone but me, especially Dad. Is that clear?” Mom smiled and nodded.

“Everything Dad does, no matter how strange or unexpected, is okay because you both love and trust each other absolutely.” Mom blinked.

“Well I do love and trust him, but there’d definitely be things he could do to destroy my trust.”

Got it. Thanks, Mom.

Mom: Statement 2

“While you love and trust Dad, your interest in physical intimacy with each other has faded to nothing in recent years and that’s okay.”

Mom gave a throaty chuckle. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

One more nod from me, and off goes the device. “Thanks Mom.”

“Of course, honey.”

Review

Dad came down to the lab after work laughing to himself as he sat down.

“Your mom is in the kitchen scrubbing everything down like a madwoman. Never seen her like that before.”

I nodded. “This morning she actually cleaned my room. Weird. Did you knock her up again?” I teased in a bantering voice.

Dad blinked and hesitated. “No, we’re really not ... like that any more.”

I frowned. “This morning...” My dad held his hand up placatingly.

“Look, I know what I said this morning. You kinda caught me off guard with your question, I didn’t think it was that obvious. It’s not really a big deal, we still love and trust each other, we just don’t ... do much on the intimacy side. I’m okay with it, and I think she is too.”

“Okay, but if she’s acting like this, you think she might have something on the side?” I asked tentatively.

He shrugged. “Look, I was kidding about the mailman. If she does have someone else, I trust her to be discerning and respectful. I still love her very much, it’s just ... that part of our life is kinda over. It’s not as big a deal as it might sound.”

I paused for a moment, as if in reflection. “Hmm. OK. Well, it seems you’ve already told me the truth of your responses. This will be useful data for the model, at least.” Dad shrugged uncomfortably and got up.

“I’ll send your mother down.”

“Thanks.”

A few minutes later, my mother came down the stairs, wearing an apron and rubber gloves. She quickly sat down. “Hey sweetie, can we make this quick? I’m in the middle of deep-cleaning the kitchen.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you liked housework.” She grinned.

“Nope, not at all. It’s very satisfying to see a sparkling clean house.” I laughed.

“I’ll take your word for it. Okay,” I said, reaching for my clipboard, “This morning I made the statement ‘everything Dad does, no matter how strange or unexpected, is okay because you both love and trust each other absolutely’, and you responded with ‘well I do love and trust him, but there’d definitely be things he could do to destroy my trust.’ Was that a true or false answer?”

Mom hesitated. “Well, when I said it, that seemed obvious, but then I tried to think of something he would do that would actually destroy my trust, and I couldn’t think of anything. I mean, even if he was spending time with another woman, he still is loving and providing for this family. So ... I guess, it was false, even though at the time I said it I thought it was true. I do love and trust him absolutely.”

“Interesting. Okay, I then made the statement ‘while you love and trust Dad, your interest in physical intimacy with each other has faded to nothing in recent years and that’s okay.’ and you responded with ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ Was that response true or false?”

Mom sighed. “So that response was kind of ... false. I was implying that we enjoyed a great deal of intimacy, but that’s not true. We don’t really talk about it, but we’re just not ... interested in each other that way any more. We still love and trust each other, but intimacy has basically faded to nothing. It’s okay though. We’re both happy with each other.”

I made the notes and then turned to her seriously. “Are you sure?”

She nodded vigorously, clearly eager to show how alright everything was. I smiled in relief.

The Third Day

Day Two was a resounding success. The fam was still strong, everyone was still happy and okay with the current state of things, but I had created a scenario where changes in behavior were accepted based on an unshakeable trust, plus I’d gotten Mom and Dad to be sanguine with no sexual contact. Now it was time to establish myself as the decision maker in the household.

Dad: Statement 1

“Your primary role in life is to provide for this family and help out around the house as needed, and you find that very fulfilling.”

“Hah ... I mean ... that’s kinda true, but you know I have a life, too, right?”

I smirked and wrote notes.

Dad: Statement 2

I show him a mischievous smile.”Since you are busy providing for this family, making decisions for this family is a role that should fall to me. I should make the rules and everyone should follow them.”

He laughed hard at that one. “Good luck getting your mother to agree to that one, champ.”

I blush and sheepishly nod, then the smirk comes back. I originally thought this plan would take months to enact. Now I was thinking it might take a week.

Dad: Statement 3

“My decisions for the family are final and absolute. Once I’ve made the call, everyone should agree to abide by it. This is the way things should be.”

“Oh lord, put your ego back on the shelf. Are you sure this is going to be useful in detecting lies? It’s kinda hard to take these kinds of statements seriously.”

I turn off the device and shrugged. “One of the ways to defeat the current lie detectors is to treat the question as nonsensical or obviously malformed. If you don’t have to take the question seriously, you don’t have to give a serious answer. There will be more odd or challenging questions coming up as I get a more solid baseline.”

Dad grunted but dropped it.

Mom: Statement 1

“Your primary role in life is to serve your family, taking care of the household and the members of the household, and you find that very fulfilling.”

Mom blinked. “Well, I wouldn’t say that’s my primary role, but I do find it fulfilling.”

Scribble scribble scribble.

Mom: Statement 2

“Since you are busy serving your family, making decisions for this family is a role that should fall to me. I should make the rules and everyone should follow them.”

A derisive snort. God, even that is sexy. “I don’t think so, sweetie. Are you forgetting your father? Is this one of those ‘odd’ statements you mentioned?” I smile and nod.

Her response goes into my notes.

Mom: Statement 3

“My decisions for the family are final and absolute. Once I’ve made the call, everyone should agree to abide by it. This is the way things should be.”

Mom rolled her eyes, and a hint of displeasure came out in her response. “Are you taking this seriously, young man? Both your father and I are participating in this on your request, but this feels like wasting time.”

The device is shut down before I respond with a disappointed sigh. “You don’t understand interrogation tactics, Mom. In order to get into a criminal’s head, you need to let them think they’ve gotten into yours. The easiest way to make that happen is to present a persona with obvious flaws. Overblown ego, delusions of grandeur, inferiority complex, these can be exploited by a criminal mind. An interrogation is an arms race of psychological techniques. That’s why we are getting into this space.”

My mother is still skeptical, her exquisite eyebrow eloquently arched in my direction, but she seems mostly mollified.

Review

Dad came down to the lab after work, later than usual. He also, unusually, knocked on the stair post at the bottom of the steps.

“Hey Dad, long day at the office?” I asked as he took his normal seat. It seemed he did so a bit diffidently, however.

He sighed contentedly. “Gotta provide for the family, as you said. A little overtime means a little more in the nest egg.” I nod sagely. I reach behind me to get my notebook.

“So this morning I said to you ‘Your primary role in life is to provide for this family and help out around the house as needed, and you find that very fulfilling.’, to which you responded, ‘I mean ... that’s kinda true, but you know I have a life, too, right?’. Would you consider your response true or false?”

Dad stretched his arms over his head while he collected his thoughts, then gave a light chuckle. “Yeah, that’s true. I realized at some point today that I actually don’t have a life outside of work and home for the most part. We occasionally go to a party or a restaurant, but that’s it. My role is pretty firmly in the provider bucket. It’s what I do best, and I’m happy with it.”