Day One
Test subjects arrive at the cabin on Monday. Primary subjects are Irish-American siblings, Aoife and Cillian, secondary subject is their mother, Maeve. Cillain has wavy red hair, Aoife auburn-blonde hair. Maeve's hair is naturally strawberry blonde, the color fading from it in her older age, but she has started dying it red again.
Each of the subjects have signed a release in return for free stay in the cabin for a week, though they have not been informed of the nature of the experiment. They know they are being monitored. They do not know about the aphrodisiacs. Conclusions based on experiment must include this information.
The first day is largely uneventful. The family gasp as they enter into the huge living area, the home theater screen on one wall, the fireplace on another, cozy and inviting. Cillian and Aoife wander down the hallway to explore the house while their mother gravitates toward the kitchen. The siblings marvel at the gym area, the indoor pool, the sauna. On the other side of the house, Maeve finds the door down to the wine cellar. The siblings stop in the recreation area, looking over the pool table and karaoke booth with shared joy. Their mother finds the library and a comfortable chaise lounge chair.
I follow them on the cameras.
The siblings find the bedrooms at the end of the hallway. They spend a few minutes debating which bedrooms they want.
"In the morning, the sun will be shining through those windows," Cillian says.
"Yeah, but imagine how pretty it'll be at night, the moon shining off the snow," Aoife says.
"Until some creep walks by your bedroom window," Cillian says.
"This far up in the mountains?" Aoife asks skeptically. "Unless you're coming around to look in my window, I think I'm pretty safe."
Cillian laughs nervously for a moment.
"They did say we'd be monitored," he says. "Just shout if you see someone with a camera wandering by."
"I think I'll be alright," she says with a blush and a smile.
They hear Maeve coming up the hall and step out.
"How are the rooms?" Maeve asks.
"Really nice," Aoife tells her. "We were going to give you the one on the end, it has a big bathroom and a Jacuzzi tub."
"You two are so sweet," Maeve says. "I love this place, there is a fully stocked kitchen, there is a wine cellar, there is a library, I can't wait to spend the whole week relaxing. Let me put my suitcase up and get changed. What are you two going to do?"
"I was going to hit the gym and then go for a swim," Aoife tells her. "I swear I didn't intend for that to rhyme."
"I was going to pop open a beer and play some pool in the rec room," Cillian says.
"It's a little early for beer, isn't it?"
"We're on vacation, it's never too early for beer," Cillian says.
"Alright, well you two have your fun and meet up in the kitchen around 6ish so we can throw some food together."
"I'm gonna get changed too," Aoife says, stepping into her bedroom. "Maybe I'll pop by the rec room after my swim?"
"Yeah," Cillian says. "We'll shoot some pool, sing some karaoke."
"You're on," Aoife says.
Maeve and Aoife close their doors. Cillian waits a moment, before closing his door too. While his mother and sister disrobe in the bedrooms beside and across from his, Cillian engages in one of his favorite pastimes: incest porn.
Cillian undresses, pulls out his laptop and a pair of earphones, and lies down on the bed. I log the websites he visits, the videos he watches. Aimee Waves, Ellie Skyes, Olive Wood, Tatum Christine. I turn the camera off before he starts.
On another screen, Aoife undresses in front of the mirror, checking herself out. She pulls her shirt off and flexes the muscles in her arms, before running her hand over her flat stomach. She pulls off her pants and turns around, looking at her own ass in the mirror.
"He's got to notice," she says to herself. "How could he not notice?"
She pulls some swimwear out of her bag, a pink two-piece, and a pair of workout shorts which she pulls up over the bottoms. She takes a couple of the provided towels and heads down the hall to the gym.
Their mother slips off her traveling clothes and switches into more comfortable house clothes, a pair of soft pants and a tank top with no bra. While she's not as attractive as her daughter, in this researcher's opinion, her body is still attractive. Her ass and her breasts are full and plump, her nipples a pale pink. In her younger days, she must have turned a lot of heads. I imagine she still does, some days.
The three head off to their own isolated activities. Cillian pulls a beer from the fridge in the rec room and puts a soccer game on the TV before absently shooting pool. Aoife uses one of the tension machines in the gym, then goes for a short dip in the pool. Their mother curls up in the library and reads for a few hours.
After a couple hours, Aoife finishes her swim. She showers off and wraps herself in a robe, before heading back up the hallway. Her bare feet leave prints on the marble of the floor. She peaks into the rec room, watching Cillian playing pool for a few minutes, before heading back to her bedroom. She puts on a white skirt and a pink top and walks back to the rec room.
"Got room for one more?" she asks.
"Always," Cillian says.
"Who's up?" she asks, pointing at the television.
"Boston," he says. "New England Revolution."
"Your team?"
"Go Revs," he says.
"Go Revs," she says.
She grabs a beer and a pool cue, and Cillian racks the balls.
"Your break," he says.
He stands behind her and watches as she lines up her shot. His eyes move down to her ass while she bends over, then back up to the table as she sends the cue ball flying across the green felt, breaking the collection.
They never make it to karaoke this day.
In the evening, Maeve bakes some chicken and bacon while the siblings cut some vegetables. At the end of it, they have a nice small meal for the three of them. They sit and talk around the dining room table, names I don't recognize from their files. Family friends, it sounds like. Pete, Natalie, Ben, Jane.
After dinner there's a small fight over the living room TV. Cillian says that with a TV that size, they should watch something good, a thriller or an action movie. Aoife wants to catch up on one of her shows, some fantasy drama in its fourth season. Maeve says they can alternate days, just someone pick something. Cillian concedes to Aoife. She starts from the beginning of the season and talks through the first couple episodes, catching her family up on the plot points that she thinks are interesting.
"So these two are the main characters. They're siblings, but they don't know it yet. Their mom was a sorceress and their dad was a berserker, and they became royalty after a kind of civil war, leading to them getting their own kingdom. But the other royalty didn't see them as legitimate royalty and raided their kingdom, so the siblings were split up when they were still children. But now there's this apocalyptic threat in the form of the Empty Men, you'll see them here in awhile. They're from a different dimension, I think? The writers have said there's a big reveal, so I'm guessing it's magic related or something. But now the siblings are on a quest to try to shut off the source of the Empty Mens' power, and they both have their parents' magic, but she's also a berserker and he's also a sorcerer, so they're even more powerful than they otherwise would be."
Cillian opens another beer, Maeve sips her wine. Cillian is sitting at one side of the couch, while Aoife is sitting almost at the other side. Maeve reclines on the love-seat by herself.
After few episodes, Maeve announces that she's going to go lie down and read, leaving the siblings alone in the living room. Aoife watches Maeve walk down the hallway and shut her door.
"Hey," Aoife says, a mischievous smile on her face.
"Hey," Cillian says, looking at her with interest.
Aoife gets up and goes to grab her purse. She pulls out a cigarette case and produces a marijuana cigarette, a joint.
"Want to get high?" Aoife asks.
Cillian looks off down the hallway, as if to check if their mother's door is still closed.
