✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

137. My Cause for Concern

"Fancy seeing you here." For a moment I was disoriented, until I felt the strength of the hand on my shoulder, and identified the seductive voice. Only Ffrances would talk to me like that, and I really shouldn't have been surprised to see her. Especially not when I was getting lunch in the charity cafeteria at the hospital, where volunteers provided often-delicious food to the overworked nurses and overstressed families of patients to raise money for whatever would make the Pine Ridge site just a little more pleasant.

"I wanted to see you. I was watching the door, waiting for you to come in so I could pounce when you're not expecting me."

"Turns out I'm still the apex predator. How did you know I would be in the café? I brought sandwiches from home today. You would have missed me if I'd actually eaten them."

"Me too. Guess I'm psychic." I'd fixed myself a packed lunch as well today. But when I came to eat I could see that they were a bad choice. I could tell that the pâté was off as soon as I had opened the bag, and I'd sent Ffrances a text warning her to check her lunch before eating it. I'd guessed that she would go to the cafeteria if she wasn't sure if her food was good. But it seemed that she hadn't seen the text yet, and had come here without my advice.

"Smart. But if you're looking to ambush me, you should remember that I spend a lot of my time trying to reassure physio patients, so I need to be in the gym. That means you should be watching the back door."

"I'll remember that next time. You're just making it easier for me to overpower you, you know?"

"Oh, I don't think you could manage that. Not until I want you to."

Finally she released my shoulder, and sat down opposite me. She put down a tray as well, with two bowls of what looked like some kind of sausage casserole, a tall mug of frothy coffee and a little pot of tea. That reined my ego in a little, to realise that while I had been watching the door like a hawk waiting for her to arrive, she'd had time to stand in line and buy dinner for both of us. She must have been close enough to see that I didn't already have food on the table, not just coming in through the other entrance but standing a couple of paces away without me noticing while the volunteer at the counter fixed our drinks.

"I checked out that forum," she said. "And the stories you've been reading, as well. And I've sent a private message to Little Vicky with a couple of questions that I feel I would need to ask before going to that kind of event. But there's at least one person I know who'll be there, so I'm pretty confident."

"That's great," I said with a smile. "I don't know Vicky that well, but she's friends with The Author's Little Sister – that's her username, I guess you've seen her – who seems like a really great person. So friendly with everyone, I'm sure you'd like her. So who do you know?"

"You wouldn't know him. Lars Enfield, one of the guys I went to for advice about incorporating hypnosis into... fun activities. He used to be a trauma therapist, but these days he makes a living writing scripts for sexy-voice hypnodommes. You know, the ones who sell CDs that are supposed to turn you into a slave or a baby for the night. Or JOI stuff, pretty popular."

"Oh, cool. I bet by now you can give him some pointers too," I said. Despite my curiosity, I wasn't about to ask what JOI meant. She said it like a word I should know, but I was completely in the dark. And I wasn't even sure if I wanted to learn more. But I was sure that if it was something that interested my Mistress, she would have no problems telling me.

At that point, the chirp from my phone was a welcome distraction. I didn't know what to say next, but didn't want to make things awkward. So I sipped my drink, and looked at who was emailing me. It could well have been work related, so I knew that being a little distracted from Ffrances wouldn't be out of the ordinary. But as it turned out, it was just Tyler Walthamstone again.