Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Ch. 01

Summertime finally made its debut, letting loose a wide crowd of students to the freedom of fun, relaxation, part-time jobs, internships, and overall time to spare on their own desires. That is, for everybody aside from Calvin.

Keeping his groans to himself as he sulked in the passenger seat of his mother's car during their drive to his aunt Jade's house as they did every summer, Calvin begged the same question he did before and during every commute out of town to his aunt's house this time of year: "You seriously can't trust me alone at the house this time mom?" That is, every year of his young adulthood, when a boy his age ordinarily doesn't need to be babysat by their aunt for the season.

"Sweetie, we talked about this," Calvin's mother explained yet again, biting her irritation toward her incessant son and holding onto her patience for just an hour more before they arrived at her former sister-in-law's abode. "Mommy going out of town for work every summer is just part of my job. I can't have you home alone the whole time. Besides, this is the only time of year you get to see your dad's side of the family."

"Can you really call my one and only paternal aunt my 'dad's side?'" Calvin rolled his eyes as he held up his air quotes in his fingers. "I don't have a 'dad's side,' I have what's left of one: aunt Jade."

Calvin's mother let a quiet sigh out of her nose, aware that her son wasn't being snarky as a method of mourning the loss of his father before he was born but acted this way out of sheer disrespect toward his aunt Jade. "Look, you know your father and aunt Jade didn't have any other family besides each other. Without your father around, your aunt Jade doesn't have anybody in her bloodline except for you. So as long as you're living under my roof, I will be the one to decide on where you go when I'm out of town for work over the summer. You've been going to your aunt Jade's every summer your whole life! This isn't anything new Calvin. I would hope you'd learn to enjoy it by now."

"It's just..." Calvin didn't know how to put his experiences with his aunt Jade into words. "There's... There's nothing memorable about going over there! Every year it's the same thing with her: wake up, say hi, go to bed, repeat."

"Oh c'mon now," Calvin's mother didn't believe a word of her son's reason for disliking his yearly summertime visits to his aunt Jade house. "You're exaggerating. You seriously can't remember one good thing about your time spent with aunt Jade after all these years?"

It's true; Calvin's memory of his time spent over the summer with his aunt Jade was foggy at best. "I dunno," Calvin shrugged, trying to remember anything specific. "It's just so boring there that anything between waking up and going to bed feel like trying to remember a dream you had. It's like I can almost remember... but really, there's nothing exceptional about spending time with aunt Jade."

"Well," Calvin's mother replied, "You know what they say about 'almost.'"

"Yeah yeah," Calvin scoffed as he turned to look out the passenger window and move on from this hopeless topic into silence between the two.

The car pulled into Calvin's aunt Jade's driveway of her well-kept upper-middle-class abode in a nice suburb hours away from Calvin's mother's house. He begrudgingly lugged his bag out of the trunk and slumped to the front door where his mother rang the bell.

Aunt Jade was clearly eager for her nephew's arrival, and greeted the pair between the 'ding' and the 'dong' of her doorbell. "There's auntie's favorite little nephew!" aunt Jade beamed with a hug and a slew of kisses all over Calvin's face. "Ugh, you need to stop growing young man!"

"Hi aunt Jade," Calvin replied in a neutral tone, trying his damnedest to mask his irritation.

His mother flashed a quick glare in her son's direction, telling him to keep in mind the loneliness his aunt Jade likely feels after the loss of her brother- Calvin's father- decades ago.

Calvin picked up on the silent message his mother sought to convey and turned his act around so as to not break the heart of this lonely older woman who just wanted a family. All loathing aside toward these annual summer-long visits to his aunt Jade's house aside, Calvin was at least sympathetic. "S-Sorry, I uh... I just woke up," Calvin lied to excuse his absent matching excitement that his aunt Jade felt.

"Oh that's okay dear," Jade replied with a hand wave to brush off any of her nephew's worry. "I know it's a hike for you two. Thank you so much for driving all the way up here to drop him off so we can spend some nice quality time together," Jade said to her former sister-in-law.

"Of course!" Calvin's mother smiled. "And thank you as always for taking him off my hands while I'm on my work trip."

"Trust me," Jade said as she leaned in to Calvin's mother to pretend to fill her in on a secret. "I'd keep him year-round if you'd let me," she laughed heartily to give off the impression that she was kidding.

Calvin's mother shared in the laughter and said her goodbyes to her son and his aunt Jade. Her car door shut and pulled out of Calvin's aunt Jade's driveway, leaving her son in the eager hands of his aunt for the next three months.

"Well," aunt Jade said as she wrapped her arm around her nephew and gripped his shoulder almost possessively. "Let's get you all settled in then."

Calvin followed his aunt Jade up to the guest bedroom where he normally stayed. "Make yourself at home as always dear," Jade insisted as she leaned in the doorway and watched as her nephew went to unpack his bag and populate her guest bedroom dressers with his things.

Upon opening up the wardrobe to store his clothes, Calvin was met with a rack of dainty frilly French maid uniforms of a variety of colors. "Uh..." Calvin froze in confusion and mild discomfort. "A-Aunt Jade?"

"What is it dear?" Jade responded with her ceaseless smile, absentmindedly studying her nails.

"What... What's all this?" Calvin asked, feeling some suppressed recollection start to trickle back into him.

"Hm?" Jade perked up, feigning her ignorance toward her nephew's inquiry. "Oh those?" She let out a chuckle toward Calvin's visible discomfort. "Those are for the help. I usually store the maid's uniforms in there over the year when you're not home with auntie. Don't you remember dear?"

Calvin tried his damnedest to recall, coming close to remembering a similar conversation held at the start of his previous visit to his aunt Jade's house. He wasn't sure if this same miscommunication happened just a year ago, or the year before that, or five years ago, or ten, or even every year when he found himself stuck with his aunt all summer long. Still, he answered his aunt's question honestly: "Um... Almost..."

"Well," Jade smiled as she sauntered over to her naïve nephew standing at his open soon-to-be wardrobe for the summer. "You know what they say about almost, right? That it only counts in..." Jade leaned in to whisper the old adage into her nephew's ear and remind him of where 'almost' only ever really counts: not in his memory of his summers spent with his aunt over the years, but in: "Horseshoes... and hand grenades." Her lips never left her nephew's ear as a wide eager bright red grin stretched across her face, gently biting the tip of her tongue with her pearly white teeth in giddy pent-up excitement.

Suddenly, the Calvin described up to this point thus far turned off, and tucked itself away into a mental prison his aunt Jade had built for him years ago. In Calvin's place awoke his aunt Jade's decades long project she'd been working on and perfecting to her liking over the course of Calvin's whole life during his time spent with her over each and every summer; one that Jade only had the opportunity to enjoy whenever she had her nephew all to herself: Cici.

Jade stood up straight from her leaned position into her nephew's ear and placed her hands on her hips in another annual triumphant display of victory. "How are we feeling dear?"

Calvin turned around to look up at his aunt Jade and smiled. "I'm feeling good auntie!" he said, giddy in his tone.

"That's good dear," Jade smiled as she pat her nephew's head. "Now, why don't we get you out of those pesky boy clothes and get you into your uniform for the summer?"

"Aw auntie," Calvin pouted without showing signs of fighting back. "Do I have to dress up as a girl? I don't wanna be Cici again all summer, I wanna be Calvin and dress in my boy clothes!"

Despite the effort Jade put in to ensuring her nephew's mental captivity as her subservient and wholly obedient French maid all summer long, she found difficulty in subduing Calvin's natural personal opinions. After molding her nephew to at least sound pleasant when he fought back against her demands, Jade accepted Calvin's distaste toward the humiliation she put him through every summer and grew to enjoy it knowing that her helplessly hypnotized and completely brainwashed little nephew would obey her every command, no matter how embarrassing, degrading, and utterly mortifying the task, no matter how much he spoke up about it.

"Now now Cici," Jade insisted, smiling but still reprimanding her nephew. "Do as you're told and listen to auntie now. Take off those boy clothes of yours and get yourself all dolled up looking nice and pretty for auntie like you do for me every summer!"

"Yes auntie," Calvin groaned so gently as he disrobed and opened the wardrobe drawer to pull out some frilly lacy panties with a little pink bow at the center, holding them up to his aunt Jade to ask, "Will these do auntie?"

"Those are perfect dear," aunt Jade answered with a nod of approval as she lounged onto the bed to watch her brainwashed nephew get changed into the frilly emasculating French maid garb she forced him to wear. "Pair them with the matching garter and stockings for auntie. And the pastel pink satin dress. You know how much auntie loves to see your outfit match perfectly."

"Yes auntie," Calvin said with a mild but gentle tone of defeat as he complied. "Do I get to wear a wig today auntie?"

Aunt Jade smirked with the answer already in mind, but feigned consideration with a short, "Mmm.. No, I don't think so. Only good girls who don't talk back to auntie when she tells them to take off their boy clothes and put on their maid uniform are allowed to wear wigs."

"Oh but auntie..." Calvin groaned after slipping into the garter and stockings that matched his frilly panties. "Everybody will know that I'm a boy! Oh please let me wear a wig with my uniform auntie! Oh please? It's so embarrassing being seen like this; dressed up as my auntie's little French maid without a wig on. Everybody knows I'm a boy in a dress without the wig. Please auntie?"

"No more backtalk young lady, or I'll have you accompany me to the store without your wig again!" Jade scolded, still smiling and gentle in her tone. "And it's not just a dress you're wearing, it's your uniform. Isn't that right Cici?"

With a look of defeat, Calvin accepted his punishment in donning his emasculating sissy French maid uniform without a proper wig to mask the fact that he is indeed a boy beneath his pastel pink satin skirt and frilly white apron. "Yes auntie."

"Good girl," Jade said as she hopped up off of the bed and swiped the matching headpiece that went with her nephew's embarrassing maid's uniform she made him wear for her every summer. "Now, come here and let auntie put on your headpiece before you go do your makeup."

"Yes auntie," Calvin said as he brought himself to his knees before his aunt Jade in such a smooth motion he wouldn't be able to perform as himself without his aunt's lifetime of hypnosis activated in him.

Jade studied the humble demure of her nephew knelt on the floor before her like she was royalty. A strong proud sense of victory tingled in her body from head to toe, witnessing her nephew don the gaudy and humiliating French maid uniform she made him put on all summer, every summer. His poise, his posture, his emasculation, and best of all, his utter embarrassment in this helpless yet wholly obedient state. All of it she'd been working on through years and years of hypnosis with every summer visit from her nephew; only ever activated out of his control when he heard the activating phrase: 'Horseshoes and hand grenades.' Easy enough to slip into conversation naturally, yet uncommon enough that he likely wouldn't hear it often in the world outside of his aunt's home. And if he did, Jade made sure that Cici knew the sound of her voice, and when it was okay for this hidden part of Calvin's psyche to come out.

In an almost ceremonial descent, just like she loved to do every year, Jade lowered the matching headpiece to her nephew's humiliating French maid uniform she made him wear onto his head, and gave it a proud pat to ensure its placement atop Calvin's head; one that would not be allowed to enjoy the unnerving comfort of a wig that aided in hiding his masculinity and fooled the world into thinking that the bright eye-catching frilly French maid tending to the cleanliness of Jade's home- along with any other demands she gave him- was not in fact her nephew forced to dress in such a degrading sissy maid's uniform for her against his will.

"There," Jade said proudly as she basked in her nephew's shame and embarrassment. "Now, you remember how to put on your makeup like auntie likes, right Cici?"

"Yes auntie," Calvin replied in defeat and hopelessness.

"Good girl. Go put your face on and meet me downstairs for your usual conditioning." Jade sauntered toward the bedroom door as she explained, "Auntie has to make sure her little nephew stays good and malleable for her every year now doesn't she?"

To which Calvin- now mentally driven by his aunt's hypnotized pet Cici- knew to respond: "Yes auntie," with his well trained, "Thank you" toward his aunt's annual hypnosis sessions that brought him to this degraded state.