Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.
*****
*All characters are 18 years or over*
Stephanie's daughter Christina trudged into the house, her boots muddy, her face dirty, her body smelling of sweat, her overalls stinking of hovercar oil.
'Christina!' Stephanie scolded. 'What boy would date a girl smelling like a car repair shop.'
Christina just marched up the stairs. 'The sort of boy who'd date a girl *working* in a car repair shop,' Christina grunted. 'And it's Chris!'
'Working!?' Stephanie yelped.
Christina barked to their home's central AI:
'Anima! Play "Hot Stuff for My Tomboy"!'
'Gladly, Chris,' echoed Anima's tinny, feminine voice as the smashing drums, ripping guitar, and indecent lyrics drowned Stephanie's protests.
Christina slammed her bedroom door. Stephanie flopped onto the living room sofa. What had Stephanie done to deserve a tomboy? If Christina were trans - if she were a boy - her behaviour would be acceptable. That's how it was for Stephanie. Stephanie's daddy worried she was an effeminate boy - but gladly she was just a good, feminine girl.
But Christina was a girl. Stephanie often wondered whether a rogue time-traveller from the Department of Inter-temporal Affairs had swapped her baby with one of those awful shrews from the 20th and 21st centuries. In the 26th century, men had been men and women had been women for as long as Stephanie, and her grandma, and her grandma's grandma's grandma's grandma could remember. Men manned the space stations, dug the energy mines, harvested the AI synapse fields, and the female employment rate was 14% throughout the free world. (And most of that percentage was the manly part of lesbian marriages.) The wifey stayed home while the hubby worked.
Her hubby... That's started it, her husband... passing...
That's when Christina, her darling docile girl, became the nineteen-year-old, oil-reeking, trouser-wearing tomboy she was today. Without her father's spanks and scolds to check her, Christina's whims overpowered Stephanie. Stephanie blubbered into the couch's arm rest, when she heard a -
DING DONG!
Anima's drone flew down to Stephanie's face and showed her who was at the door. The delivery man!
Christina's whims *had* overpowered Stephanie, but not anymore.
**
Stephanie treated the box as if it were her grandma's wedding dress. It was a small box with a picture of hairbrush on the front. It looked just like the packaging of any other high-tech comb. But big colourful words boasted its powers:
'Dr Champak Kumar's Wünder-Comb'
'Tames Tangles and Tomboys!'
On the back of the box was a before and after photo of a big-bottomed, buxom girl in her twenties. In the before photo, the girl scowled and was dressed in a rude T-shirt and ripped jeans. In the after, she was smiling and wearing the most darling dress. Stephanie imagined Christina wearing that yellow, floral dress, and almost swooned.
Stephanie held the hairbrush in one hand, the manual in the other. The manual's first twenty pages were 'Addressed to Fathers' and used big, complicated phrases like, 'behavioural adjustments pursuing socially and personally optimal femininity' and 'subliminal conditioning in concert with positive and negative reinforcement'.
Thank God, the manual's last five pages were 'For Mum'. The pages were light pink and decorated with flowers. They were written in short sentences and short words. How swell!
It read:
'It seems your daughter is a bit of a menace. Don't worry. Buying my Wünder-Comb is the right first step. My daughter used to be a menace. Against my and her mummy's wishes, our darling daughter Nadia went to college.'
Stephanie gasped.
'I spent six months making my first Comb. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I barely left my lab. I just wanted to save my girl. I finished the Comb just before Nadia's first law exam. I told her I finally accepted her decision to be a lawyer. And then I told her that when I was in college, studying to be a gynopsychobiologist (that's an expert on women's brains), my mother would comb my hair before exams for luck. I told Nadia that, as her father, I would comb her hair for luck. (I bet you can see where this is going!)'
Stephanie giggled. 'Oh, yes, I can Dr Kumar!'
'I brushed her hair and brushed away all her studies and ambitions. When I was done, I asked if she wanted to be lawyer. And you know what Nadia said? She said, "Oh, no, daddy! I want to marry Benny, and keep his house, and cook his meals!" So, I ordered her, as her father, to fail tomorrow's test. And Nadia, my cute, precious, *tamed* girl, failed with all her heart. She doodled flowers and puppies on test and answered every question with poems about Benny. Don't you wish your daughter could be so sweet?'
'Oh, yes, Dr Kumar!' yipped Stephanie. 'Oh, yes-'
Christina's bedroom door swung open. Rock music avalanched down the stairs. Christina came running through the entryway.
'Where do you think you're going at this hour!?' yelled Stephanie.
'To see Hassan,' grunted Christina.
'Hassan?'
Christina ordered Anima to kill the music and fetch her a beer. 'Hassan! My boss at the car repair shop. I'm asking him out.' She drank the beer in one gulp. 'Only boy - only person - who respects me. Says I'm his best mechanic.' She glared at her mother. 'Wish me luck. Or don't.' Christina went to the bathroom.
A boy! Christina was finally showing interest in boys! She wasn't so far gone. But then the joyous butterflies in Stephanie's chest tumbled down dead. Christina was going to ask *him* out!? A girl working was blasphemy, but a girl making the first move was - well - it was the death of romance! Stephanie speeded through the manual's remaining pages.
When Christina came back to the living room, heading for the door, Stephanie said, 'Christina! I can't stop you. But - oh, dear - but going to a boy with your hair in a mess! Work where you like, wear what you like, but as your mummy, you must let me comb your hair!'
Christina's hand froze on the doorhandle.
'And if I let you, you'll stop going on about my life? You won't fucking call me Christina no more?'
'Yes... just please, sit down on the sofa.'
Christina sat. Stephanie asked Anima for a mirror. A drone hovered in front of Christina and showed a high-def video of her face.
Stephanie started combing Christina's hair. Christina would grunt or yelp whenever one of her many, many tangles was pulled. Half a minute in, Stephanie turned on the hairbrush to setting No. 1.
'What the fuck!' said Christina.
'Oh, it's just a little vibration, you scaredy cat,' said Stephanie. 'Just a scalp massage.'
Actually, it was a personality massage. As the hairbrush thrummed, it played relaxing music, laced with powerful subliminal messages. Stephanie didn't understand how it worked, but who was she, a housewife, to doubt the advice of a gynopsych... a jinobyebye... a doctor for girl's brains.
Stephanie examined Christina's face in the drone's video display. Christina's eyelids drooped, her lips parted, and her head sagged.
Still combing, Stephanie said, 'There, won't Hassan find this so much better?'
