Sophie ♥

18.) Blossom finally let her character drop and she looked at Mia with a bashful smile and her own flushed cheeks. For a moment, neither of them said anything, and then Blossom rubbed the back of her head. And her words? Not the most elegant, but that was okay. "See? I knew you'd like it. I hope I did okay, I've never really played an established character before." "Yeah..." I sounded so far away. I was warm, but without Blossom's skin on mine, I felt cold too. I felt like something was missing. I shook my head and tried to think about something else. Sports? No, let's not go down that rabbit hole again. "I think I need some water," I said. I still sounded very far away. It wasn't until I was halfway across the room that I realized I hadn't given a very positive impression of all that. So as I got to the kitchen, I stopped, turned around, and smiled. "That was a lot of fun." "Oh thank goodness." Blossom hadn't realized it, but she must have been holding her breath. Mia's endorsement meant the world to her; it had been like waiting for a score to be given at the regionals for her cheer squad in high school. Her racing heart began to calm. "I know I wasn't strictly on script, but I hope it showed you that this might be a good idea?" "Yeah, I think so..." I got a glass from the cupboard and put it under the faucet. I didn't realize I was trembling, just a little bit. Once the glass was full, I held it in both my hands and went back to the living room. "You know," I said, running through the scene again in my head. "You really knew that speech by heart. That one the Matron gives Kione. That was really impressive." She could have improvised some of it for all I knew, but it was still really on point. "I've only read it like a hundred times - it's one of my favorite 'caregiver speeches' from any of your stories. Maybe not like #1 absolute favorite, but picking an absolute favorite is impossible anyway because you write such quality stuff. But definitely one of my favorites." "Yeah well... I think that enthusiasm is hard to fake." I took a sip of my water and checked my fingers. I wasn't trembling anymore. "I suppose this isn't all just a prank then, huh? You really are into all this?" On a conscious level, I knew that. But this was the first time I felt like I could assuage my irrational fears. "I am one thousand percent into this." Blossom laughed when she said that, because she was just so... relieved, that for the first time Mia had expressed some degree of trust in her. Some belief. And that maybe meant her guard wouldn't always be up so gosh darn high. "I promise, I'm not some sinister prankster. I'm just a googly-eyed fangirl who wants to know you so bad. I'm not sure if that's any better, but I promise once you get to know me you'll see I've got some merit!" "Yeah, I think you do." I took another sip of water and let out a long sigh. Gosh, that was a wild ten minutes. "So you do that a lot? I mean, not like that... but the roleplay thing?" I had never done anything like that before! "I've got some experience, yeah. Sometimes you just wanna be someone else during sex, or a scene, or a date, or something. Sometimes you need to be so you can enjoy something you have trouble reconciling. Sometimes it's just fun to be the girl next door that the pervy lesbian neighbor wants to corrupt. This is my first time doing any play in this space, though." Which to Blossom, pretty much put them on the same level together. "Well... I'm glad I could be your first." Probably the only 'first' I would be for Blossom Brixley. But it felt special, like I had carved out a place in her heart. I found a blank part of her soul and wrote my name on it. Or, well, I wrote "Mia Moore". The rest of the night was comparatively tame. We did turn the TV on, and sure enough there was internet. We had leftover scones and talked about ways to turn the plot of James and the Giant Peach into an ABDL novel. It already had the 'lost childhood' vibe, and the big peach could be replaced with a big baby bottle or something. We finally agreed that Miss Spider and Mr. Grasshopper would make the best caregivers, and that Mr. Centipede was a brat waiting to be diapered. That night in the guest bedroom, I ran through the scene I did with Blossom again and again. Forgetting my lines. The fake diapering. Breaking the script. Her words. Her lips. I knew it was just because she was the first person I ever did Little stuff with. I knew I didn't like her like that. I knew she didn't like me either. We were having fun. Adults have fun. They don't need to be in love to find each other sexy, right? I rolled over and buried my head in the pillow. I wished I was at home, in my own bed. I wished I had diapers or something. I wished I could put my hand between my legs without feeling weird or guilty. She got off to my stories all the time, right? Wasn't it fair that I got off to one of hers? But not here. Not in some stranger's bed, with her in the next room. I needed to focus on something else. So I pulled out my laptop and tried writing. Chapter Seven. Aya woke up wet, as she always did. Her mind glossed over the night before, of Mommy Moo's nipple in her mouth, of the soggy diaper between her legs, and the feeling of her hand under her blanket before bed. Her diaper crinkled softly as she pressed up against it with her fingers. A shiver ran up her spine. Her thoughts escaped reality and dove into fantasy. Of Mommy Moo carrying Aya around on her hip through a country home, bouncing with every step and squishing her soaked padding against her caregiver's side. Of Mommy Moo's lips, pressing against Aya's forehead, against her cheeks, but whenever they strayed too close to her lips Aya would get a pacifier instead. Backspace. I wasn't bored this time, but it felt wrong. It felt out of character. Aya wasn't me. Sure, she found Mommy Moo sexy - just like I found Blossom sexy - but Mommy Moo represented something greater. Aya wanted to be a good girl. I wanted to be a bad one. I closed my laptop and fell back into bed. Another sleepless night was ahead of me, I could feel it.

17.) Okay, I knew this part! Kione came out of the pink berry haze and found herself playing with those blocks. We had skipped forward a little bit, but that was probably a good thing. The little bit of a break from Blossom's words had allowed me to reset a bit. I felt a lot more like myself. So, in a very Kione fashion, I stumbled to my feet and tried to imagine what it was like to be standing in front of Blossom in a wet diaper. "I don't belong here," I said sourly, balling my hands at my sides. My irritated voice wasn't as powerful as Kione's, but I thought I did an okay job. Perfect! Perfect! "My my, that was one very quick and sudden tantrum ~ hands balled up, sour voice, pouty face? Matron sees you dropped your binkie." She knelt down in front of Mia, picked up the invisible item from the ground, made a show of twirling it just the same way the Matron did in the story, and held it out for the girl. "I don't need a bink..." I felt my face get hot again. "A pacifier. Or a diaper! And... um..." I couldn't remember what Kione said, so I improvised. "I don't have tantrums. I'm an adult." Okay, the adult claim was a little bit too cliche, and I felt silly the second I said it. I should have studied the script better... Now this was a part of the story that Blossom knew well, not least because this particular speech had been something she'd touched herself to a lot. "It's dinner time." Pause. "You made a deal with your Matron, and if you're too little to follow through on your deals you must be very small indeed." Her own cheeks grew a little warmer with every line she spoke, because this really got her going. "And that means you're preferring to stay inside instead of going out to play. Perhaps you're an infant. Perhaps tummy time on the playmat day in and day out is more your speed. Perhaps you're telling your Matron that you would rather never go and play with your friends, that you would like to just lay on the floor and cry, and be carried around." Blossom could definitely carry Mia around, too; she was just as good at the bottom of the cheer stack as she was at the top. How would Mia react? To be picked up, and hipped? Like in a story, but for real life? Blossom bit her lip. "And maybe tomorrow, because you're so vulnerable, and so small - an infant, remember - you'll be so helpless that you'll wake up a different color. And all your pretty Blueberry friends will forget you, every single one. Because you'll be too small for even the smallest of the small." Silence, for just a second. And finally. "Although... perhaps you're only fussing because you're soaking wet, could that be it? Could it be that you're not an infant at all? Instead, you're a baby, and you just forgot the difference because you're fussy? Could it be that you'd like to go out and meet your friends and tell them all about your day?" I didn't write that. Did I? So much of it sounded familiar, but the way Blossom delivered the words... each one felt heavier and heavier. When she was done, I felt fragile like glass. I felt like a gentle breeze would blow me away, like a girl made of dust. And when I didn't answer, when I forgot to play along with the scene, Blossom stepped forward until we were nearly touching. I took half a step backward and almost fell over. My knees felt weak. In that moment, Kione's thoughts and feelings were about survival. She had to agree, because the alternative was so scary. That was her thing: she was always scared. She needed a guiding hand to push her along, something to be right so she never had to be wrong. On the other hand, in that moment, I wasn't thinking about survival. I was thinking about the opposite. I was thinking about falling further down the rabbit hole. I was thinking - just as I thought when I wrote the scene - about what would have happened if Kione had talked back. "You don't..." Wow, my voice sounded weird. Meek. Small. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You don't scare me..." So that wasn't how the story went, but that kind of only made it more exciting to Blossom; the amount of times she'd read stories and wished for a character to push more, to get punished more, to get taken apart brick by brick and rebuilt as someone new, someone obedient, someone broken in the hottest possible of ways? Innumerable. No script. No guide. The scene would have ended now, with her being sent outside after admitting she was a fussy baby. But Blossom's head swirled with potential. "Everything scares you, dear. An adult knows their fears, and manages them. You're ruled by yours, you're controlled by yours, and that's why you need someone to take you by the hand and make you obey, to control you so your fears don't." Obedience was always a part of the Academy, and Blossom knew it full well; she knew how much it turned her on, she knew how much she'd craved being Bala over and over and over. "You're too scared to be an adult, you're too scared to be a grown-up, to be in panties, or even to be any other color. You're a Blueberry, because you're the smallest, the most helpless, the most frightened. Will you choose the dark, the fear, the alone? Or will you take Matrons hand and choose to obey. To be my good little Candy. My good girl." Take her hand. A good girl. Even without the connotations of Academy Works, Blossom knew all the right words to say. I'm too scared to be an adult, to be in panties, to be anything on my own. I needed her. "I... I am an adult... I am... um..." It wasn't an act; my resolve was faltering. My cheeks were hot and Blossom was so close to me. I took another step backwards, but she followed with a bright, condescending smile. Gosh, she could play a Matron in a movie adaptation or something; she had just the right sort of presence. "You're not an adult, and you're not a big kid, and you don't want to be. You're afraid and your fear is telling you to tell Matron fibs, and good girls don't tell fibs," Blossom advanced on Mia, and she reached her hand out, she put it on her cheek, and she did something she didn't expect to do - she pressed her thumb between the girls lips. Maybe just to see if she'd yield. Maybe to see what would happen. Mostly because she wanted Mia to suck her thumb. Awkward. So awkward! But Blossom's thumb slipped between my lips like butter across a hot pan. It pushed down on my tongue just like the pacifier I had hidden in my bedside table. I felt my back hit the wall - the one with the big wave - and I felt like I was tumbling and crashing along with it. With her thumb in my mouth, she tilted my head up so I was forced to look her in the eye. "You're a Candy. You're not a person. You're a baby. You're not an adult. You belong here, in the Kindergarten. You were never meant to be anywhere else. And if you're good, if you obey, if you do everything right for your Blueberry friends...you'll finally be happy." Blossom wanted to say "Mia" at the end there, she wanted to be talking to Mia, she wanted that so very much, but it would break the scene, wouldn't it? And this was about teaching Mia how to roleplay, how to roll with it, how to let her imagination go. Her thumb was still between Mia's lips, and she spoke very clearly. "Are you ready to be good? And to go play? To be a little diaper wearing, helplessly wet, binkie-in-lips, smallest-of-the-small, perfect little Candy role model? Nod your head." This was perhaps a little more Nana Porter than Matron, maybe. Blossom would analyze her performance later. I nodded my head. I could have argued that she made me, with her thumb between my lips. She lifted her hand, she lowered her hand. She made me nod. But she didn't. I nodded, because I was ready to be good. I wanted to go play. I felt Blossom's lips on my forehead. Warm, like the October sun on the beach when we were tanning. Warm like cinnamon scones fresh out of the oven. Warm like her hand in mine as she led me through the living room with purpose and precision. Then, when she was done, her thumb came out of my mouth. I looked up at her with glossy eyes, a little out of breath, like I'd just climbed a few dozen stairs. Wow…

16.) I stepped out into the living room. It was about as surreal as the Chapel itself, with the big wave on the wall and the kitchen in view. Everything was unbelievably white. I tried to imagine the wooden floors of the Chapel. Then I saw Blossom. Matron. She sure had the height for it... Blossom, for her part, had spent the few minutes it took for Mia to go away and return practicing a voice for her Matron performance. She always imagined them sounding soft-spoken, but a little amused, and that was the tone of voice she went with. She looked at Mia, and with the fluidity of water filling a cup, she began her performance. "It looks like somebody isn't feeling well," she took a few steps to close the distance, smiling that Queen-of-England-smile with reservation. "I bet the berries helped, huh? Are you feeling better?" "I... um..." Did I have a line? No, I didn't think so. I was just supposed to nod happily. So I nodded and tried to smile, but the smile fell short. I was nervous. My heart was racing. Blossom was feeling a little giddy, because the way that Mia nodded with bashfulness struck a chord with her, even if it wasn't perfect to the story. "And did you pick that outfit out all on your own, dear?" Encouraging; praise in the form of prose. Blossom was having a blast already. "I... yes?" I could feel the blush on my cheeks. The way Blossom spoke was so precise, so flawless... it was staged, but it sure didn't sound like it. I shook my head and bit my lip. Did I pick out that outfit all on my own... yes, and... shoot... "I forgot my line," I admitted nervously, looking away from Blossom. I was just dragging down her performance. Why was I even here? Blossom leaned in very close and whispered directly in Mia's ear, using her non-Matron voice. "It doesn't really matter what Kione says, because the Matron is going to respond the same either way. You're doing great!" Standing back up to her full height, Blossom deliberated over moving to the next line and sparing Mia the stress, or giving her a chance to improv. From what she knew of Mia, it was a 50/50 on what was the right move. She'd give her a few seconds to try, and then step in if she couldn't. Her smile of encouragement was completely genuine. "I um..." Berries. Dumb. Silly. Thoughtless. Easy to manipulate. I faked another smile and tried to sound more like... well, like Blossom in high school. "Y-yeah... I picked it out all by myself! Um... I'm gonna..." No, that's not right. "Dun tell anyone, but... see?" Then Kione flipped up her skirt, right? I wasn't wearing a skirt. I stared blankly at Blossom before reaching down and grabbing nothing and pulling it up. The whole thing must have looked so stupid from her perspective. I felt so stupid. My heart was racing and I felt queasy. I just wanted to stop playing... To show solidarity in the improvisation, Blossom adjusted her lines and smiled warmly. "That's lovely, child. You're such a good girl to ask for a diaper. I'll get you changed right away." Blossom reached into her pocket and pressed the button she'd lined up on her phone screen, which turned each of the lights in the living room and kitchen a different color; her little contribution to try and mimic or reference the lights Kione saw in the chapel. The lights really caught me by surprise. Not in a bad way, though. I knew Blossom skipped some stuff, but her mistake actually made me feel a little better. Wait, where were we? "I, um... I didn't ask for..." But Kione was enamored with the lights when they came on, so I let them distract me. I looked away from Blossom at the kitchen light, then at the living room light. The hues mixed in the middle. It was kind of pretty... "That's right, sweetheart, the lights are pretty. How about you tell me which colors you see?" This would have been when the Matron gave Kione the pacifier, but Blossom didn't have an analogue. If she'd thought ahead, she would have brought a ringpop at the store! For now she made do, and reached across to Mia's lips and pressed against them with her finger, symbolizing the insertion of the binkie. I felt a little heat on my cheeks. I didn't remember the colors from the story, but it was easier to use the real colors in the room. Would that be okay? If Blossom could improvise, I could too. Right? "Um... blue, um... aqua... and um... red... and... pink..." I kept looking up at the lights as Blossom moved around me, taking me by the hand. I wasn't sure what happened after this in the story. Kione wet herself and she was changed into a diaper, but neither of those things could happen. I was in uncharted waters. While Blossom had become an experienced performer all through high school, Mia was every bit the wallflower Blossom had been in middle school. She knew how hard this was. Staying in character, Blossom recited her line. "Oh sweetheart, it looks like I was a little too late... and you were such a good girl, suggesting diapers. I hope you can forgive me." She gestured downwards to the floor, where an imaginary puddle might have been. Even though I didn't wet myself, the way Blossom delivered the line felt so... real. I looked down at the spot between my feet, but there was no puddle. Nonetheless, I knew, in the scene, there was. I blushed. Even the thought of wetting myself like that... "I... um..." "I hope you can forgive me," Blossom repeated, prompting me. "I forgive you," I said shyly. That was what Kione said, right? I felt so far away from the script... By this point, Blossom was positively buzzing with excitement all throughout her body. Although this didn't involve actual diapers, and it was all imaginary, and it was basically reading from a script in her head... this felt so exciting, like she was opening a door and getting to see what was on the other side. She was reenacting a scene from Academy Works with Mia-fucking-Moore! "Well thank you, you're such a sweet girl my dear." Warm smile. Pause. Let the praise sink in. And continue. "You couldn't help it, could you? Will you tell your Matron that? Can you tell Matron that you really couldn't help it?" "Um... well, I..." I didn't know Kione's line. I didn't even know if Blossom was still following the script. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't tell if I wrote it or not. But I knew Kione was too far gone on those berries to argue. She would agree. So I nodded my head. "I couldn't help it, Matron..." "Now, child," Blossom said as the Matron, "people who can't help but wet themselves are called babies, so what does that make you?" Pause. Kione excitedly proclaimed that she was a baby here, but Blossom wasn't sure if Mia would be able to get out of her own way long enough to do that. Either way, she'd roll with it. "Well, I... I didn't mean..." Kione's line was slipping my mind. Honestly, everything about that story was slipping my mind. Blossom felt a lot taller than she usually was, which was already quite tall, and I was feeling a little lost. I didn't feel like Kione, but I didn't really feel like myself either. She wanted me to say I was a baby, right? But I'd never said that out loud before… "That's right sweetheart! You're a baby! And a clever one at that, too." Blossom improvised that entire line, but she reached out and pat Mia on the head. She stroked Mia's hair gently, the way the Matron had done to Kione, as she tried to remember her next line. Her hand patted me on top of my head, then her fingers twirled my hair. Her other hand reached out to lightly brush my cheek and I blushed deeper, looking away from Blossom entirely. I was full of butterflies. "And because you're my baby, I'm not going to punish you. Because babies don't know any better. So you'll do something else for me, won't you dear?" She was almost certain she fucked that line up, but the spirit of it mattered more than one hundred percent literary accuracy. The important part was for Blossom to lead Mia the way that the Matron led Kione. "Y-yeah... okay... I'll do something..." Was this still part of the scene? I couldn't think clearly anymore, but I knew Kione's mindset. Agreeable. Easy to twist. Just like my hair. Let her twist me. As Blossom spoke, she was confident enough in her words, but each word made it feel like this scene was less and less about Kione and the Matron, and more and more about Mia and Blossom. She was incredibly turned on. "Your Matron is going to put you in a diaper, darling, because you're a baby and babies wear diapers. And because you're new to diapers, Matron is going to leave you in just your pretty button down shirt and your diaper, so everyone can see it." Her words were thick and syrupy, absolute and warm the way she'd imagined the Matrons to be. "That way, if you forget that you're a baby, your friends can remind you." "Uhhuh... my friends can remind me..." Remind me that I'm a baby. Remind me that I'm in diapers. My face was hot and my heart was pounding, but it felt like everything was in time with music. It felt like a dance, and she was leading. Mia was drifting, like she was a puppet with strings attached, swaying to Blossom's words, and she was loving every moment of it. She held an invisible object in her hands, about how she imagined holding a diaper might look, and held it out for Mia to see. For Kione to see. "It's so cute, isn't it, little one? It's going to match everything in your wardrobe. It's going to look so very cute on a tiny Blueberry," completely ad libbed, adapted from Kione's thought processes; Blossom was super proud of herself. "Come over here, little one. Matron will get you diapered." "Um... I..." I wanted to argue. I would argue! But I wasn't me. I was Kione. Kione would argue! But not Kione after taking those berries. Actually, I wouldn't argue either after taking those berries... so I followed Blossom to the center of the living room, where she sat me down on the floor. My cheeks were on fire. This was so silly, and yet... Blossom laid Mia down on the floor and – channeling the scene from the story – knelt down between Mia's legs. Blossom lifted Mia's ankles up, then set her back down. She faked the pulling of tapes and placing them, one by one, on the front of Mia's jeans. She'd read a lot of diapering scenes in stories, okay? Once she'd done with that, Blossom stood up and smiled with beaming but reserved pride. "There's a good girl. Now you play with your friends for Matron, okay?" Blossom stood up and stepped away. She wished she had toys. Blocks. Anything. What she did have were smart light bulbs, and so to mimic the passage of time she took out her phone and began to cycle the light colors gently from one hue to another, changing constantly, but slowly, trying to harken those feelings Kione must have been feeling. Maybe in the future she could get Mia high? Or more? What did pink stuff feel like, anyway? The diaper change was weird, and having put myself in a diaper before, I don't think it would work quite the way Blossom wanted it to. But it was very cinematic, and I felt very small. The lights changed colors and I watched Blossom play on her phone for a bit. I wasn't sure what to do next. What was I supposed to play with? Without toys, without diapers, without a pacifier, this scene did feel like it missed a little bit, but Blossom was hoping that her performance helped with that. She waited a few minutes and then faded the lights back up to dim beige. The next Matron line was something about... a quick and sudden tantrum, but Blossom needed to bridge it because hours were to have passed. It was completely on Blossom to try to match the quality Mia Moore's dialog. No pressure. "My, darling, you've been playing for hours and you're absolutely soaked through. It's such a good thing that Matron diapered you, isn't it? Or the chapel floor might be positively flooded. It's clear where you belong, isn't it?" It wasn't Blossom's finest improvisation, but all she needed was for Mia to throw a bit of a tantrum. And maybe for her not to notice that Blossom was turned on.

15.) We went grocery shopping after dinner. I got baking supplies and Blossom split the cost with me. When we got back to her beach house, the sun was already setting and the ocean was growing darker by the second. I started unpacking the groceries and wondered idly when I would get to do something like this again. Blossom said next weekend, but maybe she misspoke. She couldn't come out here with me every weekend, right? She had a life. She had real friends. "Do you want some help when you bake?" Blossom asked. "I'm okay with cooking but I've never baked before, and trashy reality TV has taught me that they're way different." Blossom was, more or less, making conversation. She sat on the barstool at the island and watched as Mia put stuff away; Blossom was sucking on a lollipop she'd picked up at the store and twirling it between her lips. "Oh, uh... no, it's alright. I really only do it when I feel like it." It was like I told Blossom before, I just did it to keep my hands busy. It wasn't a hobby or anything. It wasn't like writing. Once I finished putting things away in reasonable spots – and moving around a few things in the kitchen with Blossom's permission – I retired with her to the front room with the big wave wall and the big window. There was a sofa and some chairs and a TV that we had never turned on. I didn't even know if this place had wifi; I didn't bother to ask. The drive up here, the eating together, the putting lotion on each other and laying on the beach; nothing felt quick as intimate to Blossom as sitting down next to Mia on the sofa did. The world was quiet for a moment, just the sound of the waves softly lapping at the sand, and neither Mia nor Blossom said anything for a moment. Another moment passed, and Blossom decided to play a hand. "You said you've been having trouble writing, right? And you also said that a lot of stuff that works in stories doesn't work in real life. And I'm wondering.. if getting to play with some of those ideas and concepts... might help inspire you?" "I don't understand?" Play with the concepts? How could I play with a concept? It's not like I could simulate the Academy or anything. Then again, if I could, writing about it would probably be pretty boring. "I mean if you were thinking about like... things for scenes in the stories but you were unsure how it might actually feel, I'm saying that I'd.... be open to experimenting with that with you. Or just... anything, really. I just think you're working from theory a lot of the time, right? So you have to come up with stuff based on pure imagination, which you do incredibly well. But you have writer's block, so maybe playing with someone else could help inspire you?" "You want to play with me?" I was certain I misinterpreted what she said, but her nod dispelled that certainty. She was serious? "Well..." I inched a little away from Blossom without really thinking. "I think that's cool and all, but... we don't really have anything to play with?" No diapers, no baby stuff. Not even a schoolgirl uniform. "And you've never done any of that kind of stuff." Baby stuff, that is. "And I've never done it with anybody else around." Which might give me a panic attack now that I thought about it. "And what would we even... do?" So that was a sobering question. Both of us were quiet for a moment, thinking about that. What exactly does ageplay look like in the real world, especially when both of us were Littles? "We roleplay," Blossom offered. "We... pick a scene from one of your stories, and we play it out. In real life. And see how it goes? And if it's fun, maybe we can extend past that and do some new things, and maybe help inspire your writing? And if it's not fun, we both know we tried and that's cool too." "This seems like a terrible idea..." How would we roleplay an Academy Works scene in real life? Were we supposed to pretend? I wasn't a very good actress! The more we talked about this, the worse it felt... I kept trying to wrap my head around it, but the whole thing was too abstract. If Blossom wanted to try this, I needed something a little more definitive. "What scene?" I asked. If we could get that far, maybe I could say "no" more confidently. "I'm not sure - maybe something from Academy I because it's pretty early in the oeuvre and it's very two-character based. Or something from Academy T because diapers are more of a 'this is a part of life' thing in that one, so it's more slice-of-life than origin-story." Truthfully, Blossom hadn't figured she would have to come up with a specific example, but she definitely had her favorite scenes. "I don't see how we can do any of these," I said quietly, sinking a little into the sofa. Even if we found a scene - like one between Ai and Nana or Talita and Claire - how could we reenact it? We didn't have any baby stuff! And even if we did, it didn't sound very fun; it sounded terrifying. "Okay, let's think about this another way," Blossom tried. "You told me that you're worried about retreading territory, about writing the same scene over and over, and that's a part of why you're stuck where you are in Academy A. So let's pick something really basic, something that's a given from baby stories, and roll with that. I know we don't have like... diapers, or clothes, or anything like that here, but we can still think about it." Blossom did realize she had no idea how to put a diaper on an adult, but that was a minor technicality. "So like... okay, putting someone in a diaper for the first time. That's pretty iconic, right? It happens in I, and in B, and in K... and I don't think T because Tali was full bimbaby when we meet her, but like, it's a common trope, right? We could do the uhh... oh," she snapped her fingers, "the scene in K where Kione eats the berries and goes and sees the Matron? I can be the Matron? Or you can? And this could be really good for you because you can see how fun roleplaying can be with kink stuff. And it's good for me because I haven't done much with ageplay." Okay... okay. Yeah, okay. The way she worded it, it almost made sense. Obviously it wouldn't actually work, because we didn't have magic berries that made you wet yourself and we didn't have diapers to change into, but the concrete example was actually really helpful. I nodded along with her explanation. "So... we act out the time Kione gets brought into the Chapel, and the Matron changes her into a diaper? But we don't have diapers, so it's like... pretend?" "That's right, it can be all entirely roleplay. And trust me when I tell you that you're going to feel weird and foolish and stuff at first because that's how it feels at first, but you just have to get over yourself and go with the flow and you will have a lot of fun. The amount of times I've had to roleplay some guy's slutty step-daughter, or some girl's sexy sapphic roommate, or whatever, you get used to it pretty quickly." "I think I need to re-read this scene..." I sighed, trying to map out the movements in my brain. Blossom loaded up the PDF of the story in response to Mia, and she scrolled to the appropriate scene and handed her phone to the author. Chapter Seven. She walks in the Chapel, the Matron comments on her not feeling well. Kione's a total idiot, because she had all those berries. She stumbles over her words. She says she's going to go pee behind one of the hills at the Kindergarten. The Matron ignores her, saying she asked for a diaper. Kione doesn't understand. The Matron puts her pacifier between her lips and lays her down. The Matron distracts her. Kione wets herself. "Woah, I'm not actually wetting myself!" I said without thinking. There was nothing saying I would be Kione, but I didn't want Blossom wetting herself either! I wouldn't know what to do about that. "Well, obviously - we don't have any diapers. But we can pretend. It's just a proof of concept, Mia. And if we don't like it, we never need to try it again. But I think this could really help with your creative process!" Being a switch, Blossom would have been happy in either role, but it was certainly easy to say that when all the stakes are imaginary, wasn't it? The Matron role in this case was definitely the less embarrassing one to play, after all. "I dunno about this..." The rest of the scene was just a lot of teasing. Kione's all hopped up on berries so she really doesn't even react; she just goes along with it. Of all the scenes Blossom could have chosen, it was rather tame... "Baby steps, Mia Moore. What's the worst that can happen? It doesn't work out? That's fine. But if it does, if we both have fun, that opens a lot of doors for our future hangouts." Never before had Blossom Brixley had to try so hard to get someone to want to fool around with a kink with her before, that was for sure! Even if this scene was pretty benign. "Just try and get in the headspace of Kione. Let yourself be in the role." Be Kione. Okay. I'd done that a thousand times. I gave Blossom her phone back and tried to remember writing Academy K over the summer. A lot of time spent in my room. Research on hallucinations; I really wanted to represent a serious mental health condition properly. Anthropological social worker. Empathetic. Afraid, but too afraid to show it. Deep breath. Okay... "So... how do we...?" Obviously Blossom would be leading this little play. Oh this was going to be fun! Blossom had touched herself to this scene more than once and the dialog was pretty firm in her head, even if she wasn't a thousand percent accurate. She stood up from the sofa, and helped Mia up. "You go into the bedroom, and then come out of the door into this room, and then you'll be Kione huffed up on pink berries, okay? I'll be the Matron." The opening line was… "Looks like somebody isn't feeling well," Blossom remembered, followed by "I bet the berries helped, huh? Are you feeling better?" Yeah, she could nail this. And she was already so much taller than Mia, so it fit the scene well. "Go on, don't be shy, we'll start as soon as you come through the door." I went into the bedroom - Blossom's bedroom on the first floor, not the guest room on the second. The bed was made. I wonder if she slept on the covers or if she made the bed herself. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Kione... but on that pink stuff. Pink stuff hit everyone the same, mostly. Hard to think. Easy to trick. I nodded my head and opened my eyes. Okay, here goes nothing...

This is so funny because unofficially Mia and Blossom live in New Hampshire! The beach house is in Maine. We actually found real houses in the area to use as templates for the houses in the story.

14.) Eventually the timer went off and Blossom and I returned to the beach house. I didn't really see a difference in my skin, but Blossom assured me it took a few hours. I changed back into some real clothes and Blossom did the same. The mood had certainly deteriorated, and I felt at fault for that as well. I wondered how far it was to the grocery store: I could get some blueberries. "Wanna go out for dinner?" Blossom asked. "There's a town up the road. They have some good seafood stuff. Do you like seafood?" "Shellfish," I said. "Not fish fish." "Well you're in luck, they have fantastic shrimp, and lobster, and oysters and other stuff." Boys had this notion that oysters were an aphrodisiac, and the amount of times Blossom had been taken out to get oysters for dinner in the hopes that it would make her put out was beyond the number of fingers she had to count on. Stupid boys, anyway – if she was going on a date, she was planning to have sex, come on now. So it was a little amusing that she was the one suggesting this place to Mia Moore - not because she wouldn't sleep with Mia, because given the chance she absolutely would, but because it was such an innocent suggestion this time. "You've baked me cake and scones and fed me for the past two days so this one is on me." "If you're sure..." I didn't like someone else paying for my meals, but I knew how expensive seafood could be. Maybe it was best if I just let her do it, just this once. And if we went into town... "Could we stop at a grocery store? I can pick up some blueberries and eggs and stuff." She was almost out of yeast, too. "We sure can stop at the grocery store, as long as you're a good girl and don't try to sneak things into the cart when I'm not looking~" This was an experimental response. Not about diapers, not even strictly about the whole kink thing; it was just some playful teasing to see how much Mia could handle before she got in her own way. Blossom was nothing if not persistent. I gave Blossom a bit of a look. Classic teasing. But... well, it was kind of nice. I didn't want to discourage her, so I stuck out my tongue. Playful, right? I hope she saw it as playful... but I wasn't a little kid, even if I liked pretending sometimes. All those mannerisms? They probably looked stupid on me. "Let's just get going," I muttered, trying not to think about it. "You're so stinking cute." Blossom screwed up her nose into a crinkly faced smile, but she let things go from there and began to systematically close windows and lock up the beach house. She held the front door open as she slipped into some chunky heeled sandals and waited for Mia to step outside. The town was only a ten minute's drive away. If I had the energy, I could probably walk there and back in just a few hours. That was good to know. It wasn't a huge town, but it had a handful of restaurants and a shopping center. A big looming grocery store was the biggest building in the square. Blossom pulled into the unpaved parking lot of a large shack. It had signs in the windows advertising different fish things, and a big wooden display near the front door. No neon lights, nothing flashy. If it wasn't for the handful of cars, I would have assumed it was closed. "So one thing to know - this is the best seafood place I've ever been to. They only take cash, they only do seafood, fries, and coleslaw, and they don't accept tips. But their stuff is always super fresh and yummy and high quality. I'll order for you - no fish, but everything else okay?" Blossom had a system; she was pansexual and high-femme, so both the boys that wanted to date her, and the kinds of girls that wanted to date her usually wanted to be in control. Ergo, she would usually let them order, and that meant having a stable of venues under her belt where she liked most of the menu. Ordering for herself, let alone for someone else? That was a rare delight for Blossom. I didn't expect anything fancy, and the place sure lived up to that expectation. The tables were wooden and old, and most of the seats were either benches or hard wood chairs. There was no sense of decorum and it was weirdly loud for such a small restaurant. Blossom and I sat by a window that looked out at the beach, though it was far enough in the distance that it wouldn't really be called a "view". "Thanks for this," I smiled. I couldn't say I honestly trusted Blossom in entirety, but she was sure working her way there. "Thanks for hanging out with me," Blossom said. "I know a big part of you probably wants to run far away from my tall and leggy ass, so I appreciate you giving me a chance even if I come across like a hopeless fangirl half the time." As she talked, Blossom filled out a paper order form from a pad attached to the menu and checked several boxes before tearing it off and taking it up to the counter. She was back a few moments later and sat back down. In her summer dress, with her fancy heels and designer purse, the bottle-blonde cheerleader stood out like a sore thumb in this place, but nobody said anything about it. Honestly, it seemed like people were content to mind their own business. "No, I uh... I don't really get to talk about my story stuff. Or uh... any of that stuff. So it's nice to talk to you about it." We had a lot of Academy Works discussions already and it felt a lot like the weekend had tilted us into private talks. Maybe that was why I asked: "So you've never told anyone? Like, friends or...?" "Never once. And I mean, I have other kinks, and a lot of the people I date or sleep with have their own things. But this one... has always felt pretty private to me. Like I couldn't trust anyone with it, which I'm sure is a feeling you know. The munches have been nice, but you know the way I compartmentalize the circles of my life, so the people I know from them would never know where I went to school or anything." "I never thought about that..." She kept everything in her life separate. I was probably the first thing that intersected two different spheres. Of course, when she had to choose, she would put me in the same camp as those people at the munch. That way, she could still talk to me about Academy Works. But I already knew too much. I knew where she went to school. I knew about her family. I almost felt guilty for ruining her system, and guiltier still for complaining about her ignoring me. Of course she ignored me. I'd ignore me too, if I was in her shoes. "Other kinks, hm?" I asked, tilting my head with a smile. "Do tell." I knew about her mind control thing; we talked about that in the car. But I didn't see how she would be able to do that in real life, and she was talking about people she actually slept with. "Oh, there's a bunch. I had a thing for girls worshiping my feet for a while, but then guys got all mixed up in it and it got weird and I kinda drifted from that. But a lot of stuff like... dehumanizing stuff, petplay, dollplay, that kinda thing. I love latex, too, but I don't really get to indulge that – again, guys tend to make it weird. Oh, I've done a lot of impact play, floggers, whips..." As she recounted, Blossom marked them off on her fingers, like she was going down a numbered list. It was a kinda endearing mannerism for the rather sophisticated girl. "And then there's the basics: restraints, wax, power exchange, pegging... just the usual suspects." "Right, the usual suspects." I rolled my eyes. She was such a slut. For a brief moment, I wanted to make fun of her. I wanted to tie her actions in with a lack of self-respect or immorality. I wanted to blame her for the kind of disrespect women get from men in this country. But I didn't, because there was nothing wrong with being a slut. My instinct to hurt her was paradoxical and innately human, because – to be honest – I kind of wished I was more like her. "I think kinks are an inevitable part of exposure to many partners and experiences; everyone has their kinks, and it's becoming more and more socially acceptable to share them. So people do. When I first got to high school and I was popular for the first time, I was so shook by the stuff people talked about. Like the first time a boy talked about anal, I was so squeamish about the whole thing. But it's all just another way to feel good. That's all this is, it's all any of this is. It's a way to feel good, to feel complete, to feel seen, or whatever else." Blossom smiled and looked over at the counter to see if she could see their food order coming yet or not. Nothing yet. "So then why not tell people about this kink?" I asked, motioning to the both of us, to our table, to the abstract concept that brought us together. "It's just another way to feel good, right?" I wasn't trying to trap her in a corner, but I was curious what her answer would be. "Because I don't tell people about my other kinks unless they've already told me. You're an exception, honestly, because if Miss Wax-my-Tits and Mister Peg-my-Ass told me about their kinks, I'd tell them I was into that, but I wouldn't tell them the other stuff. It's all about circles, Mia. The fact I've told you like half of my kinks is pretty rare." And why be so secretive at all when she'd been so positive about it? Well, though Blossom was sex positive and kink positive, not everybody else was. Until society caught up, she'd have to have limits. "Good point..." I tapped my cheek in thought. I never really thought about other "kinks" I had, but I suppose a lot of what I wrote about in Academy Works transcended the basic ageplay thing. Mind control, hypnosis, spanking. Even just dominance and submission. I mean, the whole point of the Academies was obedience, not "make adults into babies". "To be honest though, I think I'd be too scared to do any of my kinks with someone else." Just then, a waiter came by and dropped off a few rolls of bread at our table. I quieted down until he left. "I'd probably just do whatever they liked." "And what if that person's desire was to do what you liked? Would you indulge them?" Blossom picked up a bread roll, still warm and steaming, and moved it to a plate in front of her along with a pat of butter. "Or what if that person was some hot cheerleader type who's touched herself to stuff you've written about, and would probably be down to reenact pretty much anything you've written? Not naming any names, of course." Grinning, Blossom took a bite of the bread. The first question was compelling, but ultimately pointless. Doing what I liked was just a cop out. After all, that's what I was doing, wasn't it? I would do what someone else wanted to avoid doing what I wanted. The second question though pushed her hypothetical too far. I rolled my eyes and gave Blossom that look she gave me earlier: you're being difficult. "I don't care if you get off to my writing; I figure most people have. That's kind of the point of smut, right? But that's not the same as actually doing it in real life. Actually, most of what I write about isn't even possible." Sorry Blossom, pink hypno milk and magic markers that make you dumber aren't real. "It depends on the kind of play, doesn't it?" Blossom asked. "If we're talking purely physical play without emotion or scene-setting or role-play, then yeah a lot of it just comes down to the basics. And I know some stuff isn't going to translate well to real life, but given I don't have any experience with any of it, all I can really do is speculate, right? I'm just saying, I'm open to the idea of a lot of things. A lot." A staff member approached and Blossom hushed as a large basket of shrimp and lobster and crawfish, peppered with oysters and scallops, sitting on a far too large bed of thick cut french fries, was slid into the middle of the table. As quickly as he appeared, the man left, and Blossom beamed at the food. She hoped Mia liked this. I couldn't tell if she was being serious. She wasn't, obviously. I mean, of course she wasn't! But her insistence... the barrage of jokes... but that's what they were. Jokes. I started with the scallops, which were incredible. The shrimp was great too, but Blossom had to open up the lobster for me. Honestly, I had never had lobster before, and it seemed like too much work for how it tasted, but it was still really good. All the while, while we ate, I thought about what she said. Roleplaying could supplement some of the less plausible things, right? Was that how that worked? But even so, I wouldn't actually want to do any of it. I was thinking about Nana giving Ai an enema in Academy I, and a shiver ran up my spine. Things in stories weren't the same as things in real life. Things we found hot in fiction weren't exactly the same when they became reality. While eating, Blossom took some time to admire Mia. The way she ate, the way her eyes went wide when she liked something, the self-conscious way she'd turn in on herself when she thought someone was looking over their way, and the shy way she would steal glances up at Blossom in return. She was so curious what the other girl was thinking, but Mia was a steel trap. Blossom didn't let it get to her. "You're starting to tan, you know; it looks amazing already. It won't last more than a week or so, but next weekend we'll do it again, and we'll build it up. You're gonna look so hot, Mia Moore." Although she'd let the topic shift, Blossom was still thinking about the stories, about kinks, about fucking around with Mia... Mia was having trouble writing, right? Maybe Blossom could help inspire her.

13.) I couldn't believe I was lathering Blossom Brixley in tanning oil. The only world where I thought that would happen was if cheerleaders became the dominant caste and nobodies like me were their slaves. Before I could become enraptured in a new fantasy, I shook my head and grabbed my towel. I wrapped it around my stomach and stood awkwardly in the corner while Blossom finished up. I still had to help with her back, but that was a lot easier than her front. There was a lot more that Blossom wanted to do and say, there was a lot more she could have leveraged from that moment, but she didn't want to make a mistake. So Blossom did the uncharacteristic thing of restraining herself. Once the two were both lathered up, Blossom took Mia by the hand and led her down onto the beach to find a spot to lay down. Blossom made a note to make sure Mia had a proper swimsuit next time, because she couldn't wait to see her with tanlines. "Alright, lay down here on this towel." "This is kind of public..." I lamented. "We couldn't do this on the deck?" "Probably," Blossom shrugged. "But it would take longer." "I'm okay with that," I said, but she gave me a look. One of those "you're being difficult" looks. I had gotten enough of those in my life to recognize them right away. So, with a sigh, I laid out the towel and sat down on it. I unfolded the towel around my stomach and laid on my back. "So I just lay here?" I asked. "Yup. Close your eyes. Sometimes we wear sunglasses but that has its own risks, so we're just going to do closed eyes today." Blossom was already pretty tan. Mia wasn't at all. 30 minutes today, tops, and then she'd take her new friend inside and rub her down with moisturizer to keep her skin happy. "Once you get your own swimsuit," Blossom said, "the tanlines on your bottom half will look better. Right now it'll just look like shorts, which is fine, but there are sexier underwear lines to have tanned into you. Trust me." "I don't see why it matters," I said passively, laying there with my eyes closed. "No one is going to see my legs." Under the heat of the sun, it was actually a rather warm October day. I thought I would get cold closer to the water, but so far that wasn't the case. "Oh I don't know about that," Blossom teased. "If you wear a diaper when you're here next week, I might see them." Blossom wore a cheeky smile, even though both of them had their eyes closed and neither could see it. She liked to imagine Mia was blushing when she said that, and she also hoped that nobody else had been close enough to hear. I didn't know what to say. We'd talked about the whole diaper thing in theory. We talked about my stories, and the kind of things we liked about them. I knew she had never worn one before. She knew I had. But the implication of us doing so together - of me doing it? I froze up. A part of me continued to wonder if maybe it was all a trick. She puts me in a diaper, snaps a picture, and then blackmails me. But maybe I had just read one too many stories... "Mia?" Blossom asked, after a long silence. I nodded, but I didn't say anything. Both our eyes were closed, and I knew she couldn't see, but I felt too queasy to talk. Thankfully, Blossom had no such issues. "It's okay if you don't want to," she said. "I was just teasing." Wasn't the whole point of going to that munch to make friends like Blossom? I wanted to play with someone local, didn't I? I thought I did. But now that it was here in front of me - now that it was Blossom Brixley of all people... "Roll over," Blossom said quietly after what must have been forever. I did so. On my stomach, I could open my eyes. My skin felt a little tingly, but not in a bad way. Actually, the heat and the light of the sun was starting to feel relaxing. I turned my head to look at Blossom. Her eyes were still closed. Her bare ass was mooning the ocean. Her top was tied in impossible knots. Her face was soft and quiet. She looked like she was asleep. She looked so... unthreatening. "I'm nervous," I admitted. "I know it's stupid and mean, but I just keep thinking... this is a joke. That you want to hurt me..." "I know, and I deserve that opinion of me," Blossom muttered. "I was a pretty awful girl in high school, and I'm really not much better now. I got my status by stepping on people lower on the social hierarchy - of course you're going to be afraid." There was something in her voice, a sort of tone of... well, remorse, mostly. Maybe something else. "I promise I'm not out to hurt you." Was there a way she could prove that, though? Was there a way that Blossom could prove to Mia that she wasn't just looking to humiliate her, or embarrass her, or black– Hah. There sure was. "I'll wear one if you do, and I'll let you take pictures. So you'll have something on me. And then you can feel less at a disadvantage." "No, that's..." I put my head down on the towel and sighed. The truth was, even if I had pictures of her in diapers, she could probably play it off like a prank or a joke or something. Blossom just had that kind of magnetic energy. It was hard to oppose her. There was no security in blackmailing her. And besides... "I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to distrust you. And I don't want you to be afraid of me just because I'm afraid of you." "I wanna improve your life, Mia Moore. I wanna be your friend, I wanna show you my world in little pieces, I wanna know more about yours. I wanna help you work out your writer's block, or whatever it is. I just wanna know you. You've been a pretty big part of my life, in this weird parasocial way. And I'd like it to be less weird, and more real. Does that make sense?" Blossom knew the timer would go off soon and it would divert the conversation, so she was eager to make at least some inroads. "I know..." I sighed. "I'm trying..." Maybe trying wasn't good enough. Maybe I wasn't capable of being her friend, or maybe I wasn't capable of being really honest with anyone. I couldn't even tell my best friend. How was I supposed to share this stuff with someone like Blossom? "We can take it slow," Blossom offered. "If you're sure," I sighed, but I didn't feel much better. I felt like it was inevitable that I would sabotage this friendship. Even if she didn't want to humiliate me or use me to get more Academy Works stuff, she wanted someone to play with. I couldn't give her everything she wanted. Maybe I couldn't even give her anything she wanted.

12.) The afternoon brought with it a deep malaise. I didn't know what people usually did at beach houses. Swim? The water must be freezing in mid-October, and I didn't bring a swimsuit anyway. I sent my mom a text to let her know I didn't die, but that was about all I had planned. Luckily for me, Blossom was a bit more prompting. "It's not that warm today, but the sun is high and the sky is clear and I wanna work on my tan. And you're going to work on yours too." It was pretty on-brand for Blossom to be assertive like that, so it sounded natural. But tanning was definitely a part of her world and not Mia's. To say Mia was pale was to say that milk was pale; it was an absolute understatement. But Blossom thought she would look hot with a tan, and it might help her confidence a little as well. More than that, so far this trip had been all about Blossom stepping her toes into Mia's world, and it seemed fair to turn that around a little.. "I don't tan," I said. "I think I just burn?" My mom took me down to Florida once and that was a bad time. Well, the theme parks were great: it was the next two days that sucked. "And isn't tanning bad for your skin?" I should look it up... Blossom shook her head. Mia might have known a lot about writing, but this was something from Blossom's life. "Rocket Scientists and Kindergarteners, remember? This is something I'm really good at. It doesn't matter how pale you are, or how easily you burn, anyone can tan. I'm going to be in charge, so you can get some color on that skin." This was a lesson that mousy little chestnut-haired middle school Blossom had to learn without a mentor to help. Mia was lucky! "The FDA says tanning has no health benefits whatsoever and greatly increases the risk of skin cancer." I was reading off my phone. "It also ages you faster. So like, the opposite of our kink." Honestly, I didn't know people actually did tanning in the real world. I thought it was just one of those things from TV shows that didn't translate well into modern life. But when I looked up from my phone, Blossom was pouting. "It's not about health," she said. "It's about looking hot. Everyone is going to age anyway, so you might as well do the things that make you look hot while you're young." And, Blossom kept this part to herself, tanning couldn't be any worse than sitting in front of a computer screen all day. "Pleeeeeeeaaaaase? I wanna share a part of my world with you, Mia~" She was really good at pouting. I was already the charity case here; could I really afford to be a stick in the mud too? So I sighed and relented. "If I get skin cancer, I'm blaming you." "Deal!" Blossom said, and hurried off to the downstairs bathroom. I looked up a few more facts about tanning on my phone, but none of them were making me feel any better, so I put my phone away. Then I remembered the reason I wasn't going swimming. "I don't have a swimsuit," I called after Blossom. "Don't you need a swimsuit to tan?" "You can tan in anything," Blossom called out from the other room, "but whatever's covered won't tan. So that's how you get sexy tan lines." "I don't know what makes a sexy tanline..." Or who would even see them. Honestly, they sounded like a nuisance, and I'd managed to go the whole summer without getting burned. I really was a kindergartener and she was the rocket scientist in this matter. Why did that thought give me butterflies? Blossom was much taller than Mia, and much more endowed in many of her areas, so her swimsuits weren't likely to fit her new friend and that was a major conundrum. "A lot of my family members leave swimsuits here for when they come up, so give me a little bit and I'll see if any of them will fit you." Eventually Blossom came back with some tanning oil and a set of swimsuits. They were mostly straps and bits of cloth, but there were a few pairs of swim trunks too. I took one of them - a boy's set of blue trunks - and held them up to my hips. They would probably fit. "Usually you want skimpier to get really nice tan lines, but this is your first time and you'll probably get some color in like half an hour or an hour or so because you're pretty pale. So we can work with the trunks this time. and get you something sexier for next time." Blossom was pretty giddy about this. She was getting to share some of her expertise with someone she looked up to; it felt like a privilege. "Whatever you tan in is going to be pretty obvious," Blossom continued. "We used to make boys from the associate frat house tan in bikinis as part of their pledge hazing stuff, and they'd have these dainty little tanlines for weeks. It was super hot." "So it's like a brand or something? A, uh... temporary tattoo. I guess I can see the appeal." That wasn't really in my strike zone, but a blushy baby tattoo could be sexy. Like a "change me" tramp stamp? Though I supposed tans didn't quite have the same finesse as a tattoo. "Wear this for your top," Blossom said, tossing me a bikini. "T-shirt tans make you look like a farmer or something." "Gotcha." I was more of a one-piece swimsuit kind of girl, but maybe a bikini top and trunks would be okay. That was a look, right? Not that anyone would see these tan lines anyway. I left Blossom alone to change in the downstairs bathroom. The straps on the bikini took me a while to understand, but I figured out that if I tied them first and slipped it on afterward it was a lot easier. Finally I was dressed and standing in front of the bathroom mirror. My stomach hung out a few inches. I tried to suck it in, but I wasn't sure I could hold it like that all day. Ugh, I was so disgusting... I grabbed a towel off the bathroom hook and wrapped it around myself, just over my boobs. It hid the top half of the swim trunks and a lot of my skin. I could take it off after I laid down outside, when gravity would pull my stomach in for me. When Blossom returned from the downstairs bedroom, she was dressed in what might only be describable as an array of string and very little fabric. Her bikini top did its best to provide some coverage for her ample chest, but she wasn't far from a public indecency charge. Her bottoms did provide coverage in the front but disappeared in a string up between her butt cheeks. This was a woman who had every bit of confidence in her body. She had a few tubes of liquids in her hands and she set them down and began to explain. "This is sunscreen, it's going to stop you burning. This is tanning oil, it's going to help keep you moisturized. And this is tanning accelerant; it helps filter the UV so your skin gets what it needs to tan at a higher rate." She looked Mia up and down and smiled. "Oh I can't wait to see you with a tan." "Uh... sure..." I'd seen Blossom mostly naked before. Who hadn't, am I right? But she was the kind of girl who would suntan at the football field after school. I remember a lot of guys going there just to watch. At the time I thought it was just to get attention from boys, but I didn't think we would get much attention if we stayed on the deck. That being said, though I had seen it before, Blossom's body was certainly something to be admired. Her skin was already lightly tanned and smooth as silk by the look of it. Her legs went on for days and her breasts were the kinds of things I would write about in stories. She couldn't quite challenge Mommy Moo from Academy A, but she was getting there. I didn't realize I wasn't listening until Blossom was done with her speech. "Sound good?" she asked. "Uh... alright...?" I had no idea what sounded good. Maybe I had agreed to let her diaper me and feed me on the deck. She'd untie the Gordian knot of her swimsuit and put her nipple to my lips. My face felt hot. Why did I let my mind run away with stuff like that?! "Fantastic. Drop your towel so I can do you, okay?" Mia stared at Blossom. Blossom tilted her head in curious expectation. "I can't put your lotions on if you have that towel wrapped around you, and you don't wanna be in the sand when I rub stuff all over you cause that's no good for anyone. Once I've done you, you can do me, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, Blossom set the other two bottles down and held the sunscreen in her hand, ready to rub her fingers all over Mia's body. "Right..." I sucked in my stomach and unwrapped my towel. I must have looked like Picasso's Weeping Woman beside Canova's Psyche. It was one of those liminal moments where, if someone was looking in on the both of us, they might assume we weren't real. How could she and I be in the same space? What god would allow that? Blossom rubbed her hands together and rested them on my shoulders. I looked down at my feet and held my breath, trying to think about something other than her oily fingers sliding down my bare arms. Sports. Red Sox. Red Wings. Red cheeks. Spankings. Stern words. Loving words. "I know what's best for you". Lathering me up. Tanning oil on my skin. Branding me, coloring in my cells. Darker, artificially. Sexiness in artificiality, a double standard. Sexy on a white woman, but what about a Black woman or a Latina? Isn't tanning just racial tourism? Isn't this kind of insensitive? My moral compass spun so fast that the centripetal force knocked me square out of erotic fantasy. I was suddenly very thankful for my near-debilitating progressivism, because I really didn't want Blossom to know that she was turning me on. Mia was predictably quiet as Blossom rubbed the sunscreen into her skin, and she stayed quiet as the much taller girl moved on to the tanning oil, and then to the accelerant. Despite her silence, Mia was trembling a little bit the entire time. Did Blossom scare her? No, that probably wasn't it. She probably just wasn't used to the feeling of the lotions on her skin. "Mia? Mia Moore?" Blossom snapped her fingers to get her friend's attention. "I said it's your turn to do me now." "R-right... sorry..." I was covered in oil from my face all the way down to my feet. I felt slimy, like Pad Thai noodles. My glasses kept sliding down my nose, and when I tried to push them back up I left a little smudge on the lens. Blossom showed me what oils to use and how to use them. Then I lathered my hands in them and started on Blossom's shoulders. She was taller than me by a good degree, and I had to raise my hands a little higher than I expected to get the sides of her neck. When I got to her chest, I hesitated. There were straps going every which way, and I didn't really know how to get oil between all of them. Thankfully, Blossom seemed to notice. "Just put your hands under them," she said. "The straps will stop me from tanning in those spots, so you want to put the oil everywhere." "Right..." That made sense. But as I put my fingers under the straps, I realized it was a lot like groping under someone's shirt. Or, in this case, under their bra. I avoided her boobs the best I could, but the sides of her breasts and her cleavage still showed. I'd never touched another girl's boobs before. I had touched my own, which was how I got a lot of the descriptions for my stories. Hers didn't really feel any different, not on a physical level, but they also felt very different at the same time. It was intimate. It was the kind of precursor to a kiss or something in a story. It was the kind of thing a boy did to a girl to make her lose her breath. But Blossom didn't lose her breath; I lost my breath. I pulled my hands out from under her bikini top and took two steps back, almost tripping over my own feet. I had stopped focusing on holding in my stomach. My cheeks were burning red. Blossom seemed to notice how flustered the entire experience had made Mia, and she mercifully finished up around her breasts as she turned to look at the blushing girl. "You're so fucking cute, Mia, my goodness. Don't feel bad, my body tends to have that effect on everybody - boy or girl or otherwise. You're only human, after all, right?" She winked and made a kissy gesture with her lips. It might have seemed self-aggrandizing or arrogant, but Blossom was playing it up to try and minimize Mia's discomfort. Clearly some part of Mia was into her, and that made Blossom's head spin with all sorts of fun thoughts and ideas. "I'm just not used to like... touching people like that... it's not you..." I was lying. I mean, I was telling the truth, but that last part - the part about it not being her - that was a lie. It was definitely her.

Saturday, October 15th 11.) Saturday morning, I played idly with the keys on my laptop. I had slept in one of the spare rooms upstairs. It was quiet, with nothing but the faraway lapping of waves to lull me to sleep. If I were writing this story, maybe I would have wet the bed or something. Sounds of water as you're drifting off to dreamland? There was something there. But truthfully, I had never wet the bed before, not even on purpose. Chapter Seven. Aya woke up wet, as she always did. The sounds of faraway waves had maybe too much of an effect on her, and after so long at the Academy she never stood a chance. Backspace. Aya woke up wet, as she always did. The lantern above her was still flickering in the bright sunlight. She rolled over and checked her alarm clock, round with a little bell on the top. She wasn't late to class this time. Backspace. Aya woke up wet, as she always did. The lantern above her was still... Still. Always. Repetition. This was always my problem when I was writing: the second things started getting monotonous, I got bored. So many other writers could just repeat the same scene over and over about a little boy filling his pants or a little girl getting fed in a high chair. But me? Once I wrote it one time, I felt like I had nothing more to say. Maybe that was why all the Academy stories were so short. Backspace. Aya didn't wake up wet. For the first time in months, her diaper was dry as a bone. A bone? Aren't bones technically wet? I mean, they're surrounded by blood and muscle and stuff. What a stupid simile. Backspace. I fell back against the pillows and looked out the bedroom window. It faced the driveway, and I could see Blossom's car in the distance. I wondered if she was awake. Mia woke up dry, as she always did. The laptop screen in front of her was still glowing in the bright sunlit beach house bedroom. She pushed it aside and rolled out of bed. She wasn't late for anything. Maybe there was pastry flour in the house and she could make some scones for breakfast. Blossom hadn't had the best night of sleep in her life. Maybe it was the fact it wasn't her own bed, and she always slept the best in her own bed with her own sheets and her own three pillows (soft, soft, firm). Maybe it was because the ocean had its way of always being present in the way that trains running in the city weren't. Maybe it was because she wasn't cuddled up in someone's arms, although with Blossom's patterns on dating and one-night-stands, that was more the exception than the rule. Probably, it was because her literary hero was asleep in the next room. If this were an Academy story, maybe Blossom would have gotten up and snuck into the room with Mia, rubbing her eyes sleepily and saying she had bad dreams. Or maybe she would have cuddled up with Mia and Mia would have wet the bed and blamed Blossom for it, just so she'd be punished. All those thoughts made her loins warm beneath the sheets, and it was only after she'd taken care of that train of thought that Blossom had finally gotten some rest. When the sun came up, it felt like she'd time traveled and no time had passed at all. But at least she was rested. She looked at her phone and at the weather forecast. Hot and sunny. Maybe she'd get some tanning done today. Maybe she'd see what Mia wanted to do. Something smelled good; was Mia cooking? Blossom finally stopped putting off the inevitable and got up out of bed to investigate. The kitchen was stocked with a lot of staples, and thankfully that was all scones really needed. Eggs were the only things lacking, and one of the neighbors next door let me borrow a few. We didn't have any fresh fruit, so I settled for cinnamon. When Blossom finally came out of her room, I was on my third tray. I had to throw a couple of them away, but I still had twenty or so left. I slid one of the fresh ones onto a plate and pushed it across the island counter toward Blossom. "You should keep frozen blueberries," I told her before saying 'good morning'. At least she had frozen butter. "Blueberries?" Blossom tilted her head, curious about the context, but the sweet baked good on the plate pushed in front of her helped her still-sleepy brain to fill in the blanks. She slid up onto the stool, still dressed in her pajamas - a cute white top with a big flower printed across her boobs that didn't go quite down past her belly button and revealed a lot of her taut tummy, and a pair of pink powerpuff girl pajama pants - and smiled gratefully. "You made breakfast? You are so fucking sweet, Mia. Do you want me to get a pot of coffee on?" "Oh... I guess so." I wasn't exactly a coffee drinker, but with enough sugar and cream anything could be good. I usually got those super sugary drinks at Starbucks, and Lin always made fun of me for ordering 100% sweetness when we got boba. So Blossom - her plate and scone in her hand - went to obtain the coffee pot from one of the cupboards and I started kneading the dough for another batch of scones. "Did you sleep okay?" Blossom asked. Without waiting for an answer, she said, "I never sleep the best in a bed that's not my own. I know, I know, Blossom Brixley who's slept in half the beds on campus, you'd think would be better at it by now. But unless I'm cuddled up to someone, my brain and body both whiiiiine about the bed no matter what." She plugged the coffee maker in and filled up the reservoir with water. It was actually a little surreal because she felt like she was going through the motions of the morning after having fucked someone, but her and Mia Moore hadn't even shared the same bed. "I wasn't thinking that," I said absentmindedly, folding the dough over and trying to ball it into the right shape. I cut it into triangles like a pie. Scones were one of the easier things to bake, and one of the first things I learned how to make. Baby's First Baked Good. Was there a story idea there? While last night's conversations had eventually gotten to the point of feeling free and easy and open, Blossom was beginning to realize that Mia had clammed up a little since then. That was fine; everyone has their own comfort levels with conversation. Blossom would just have to work a little harder. "We should take our coffee and cake out onto the beach and eat breakfast together." "Alright," I agreed. "Let me set a timer." I put the scones in the oven and set a timer on my phone. It worked out, since Blossom was just finishing pouring the coffee. I used some of the heavy cream that I had put in the scones in my coffee and dumped more-than-acceptable amounts of sugar. It wasn't good, but the bitterness went nicely with the sweet scone. The beach was a lot busier. It was late morning and people were trying to hold onto the last bits of summer. The sun was bright and hot and the sand glistened as vapidly as the ocean in the distance. Sounds of children filled the air. I sat on the same chair I sat on the night before and balanced my coffee up on my plate. "I should get the end tables," Blossom thought aloud to herself, looking for a place to put her own coffee. "You can probably reach the banister from there," I offered. Her chair was closer to the stairs. "You're so clever, Mia Moore." Blossom reached up and set her coffee down on the banister and then addressed her scone. "You have got to hand it to the English, making a cake you can eat for breakfast." She happily took a bite and made an even happier noise as she indulged herself. Blossom did express her love for cake already, so she didn't feel the need to be too overly gushy about it this morning. Regardless, she couldn't help but layer on a little praise. "This is so good! I oughta marry you, because whoever does is gonna be one lucky person." "Ha..." She was flattering me. I took a bite of mine and chewed it for a little too long. Not a lot of flavor. The cinnamon wasn't coming through the way I wanted it to. Better than the first batch, though. I washed it down with coffee and leaned back in my chair. Someone was flying a kite in the distance. "So you like baking?" Blossom asked. She was chewing, and it came out a lot more like 'though yew lie bathing'. Note to self: dry scones elicit babytalk. Pink berry scones, perhaps? "Not really," I shrugged. "But it keeps my hands busy. And if I'm doing something, why not try to do it well?" "That's a pretty good perspective to have on life, I think. Mia Moore: Philosopher." But there was something beneath the surface that Blossom couldn't ignore any longer, so she came out and said it rather than beat around the bush. "You seem pretty down this morning. Do you wanna talk about it?" "Down?" I had to parse that for a second. Like, depressed? Did I seem that way? I didn't feel depressed. Maybe a little anxious... but that was because of– Oh! I could actually talk about that with Blossom! I was so used to skirting the topic. "I was trying to write some Academy Works this morning, but I'm not getting anywhere," I admitted, taking another sip of my coffee. "Nothing I write feels good enough." Blossom's eyes lit right up at that revelation, because the idea that she might get to be privy to the writing process - or even help it along - made her entire face tingle in delight. She managed to keep a cap on her excitement though. "Well, what's the problem," Blossom asked. "What feels not-good-enough about it? Maybe talking with me can help?" "Uhh... I'm not sure?" I sunk further into my chair. Talking out loud about this kind of stuff had never happened before. Everything about my process was internal. I never even spoke out loud to myself. "You're caught up, right?" Caught up in this case was six chapters into Academy A, the fifth story. How could I be bored just six chapters in? Regardless, Blossom nodded. "Well, I feel like Aya's conflict is kind of over with," I explained. "Obviously there's a lot more I want to say about her, but... well, you know what Owen Dennis said about Infinity Train?" Blossom shook her head. "Have you seen Infinity Train?" I asked. She shook her head again. "You should watch it," I encouraged. "Anyway. Owen Dennis is one of the creators and he said something like... when you write a story, you're writing about a hole in the protagonist's soul. And for the ending to be good, you have to fill that hole. So sequels are kind of stupid because you have to make a new hole that's more important, which trivializes the first story. Also, it's boring. That's why all the Academy Works stories use different protagonists, so I'm not dealing with the same thing over and over. That's what Infinity Train does each season." Listening intently to every word, Blossom nodded her head and listened and soaked it all up. She didn't know anything about this show Mia was talking about, but the logic presented seemed pretty solid. "I never really thought about that, but that's kinda why most sequels suck, huh?" Most. Not all. Blossom did have her favorites. Knowing why each Academy story was about a different protagonist though, that gave her the kind of insight that she'd never really considered. She twirled the ends of her blonde hair and pursed her lips in thought. "So...the setting for Academy A is so fricking cool, and also creepy. But it's creepy in that 'I don't know why this is creepy' kinda way, liiiike... oh! It's unsettling! That's a better term. But the cast is pretty strong so far. You did a diaper pooping scene in like the first chapter, so it's already an avant garde narrative, right? You don't have to fit a mold here." The casual commentary on a grown woman pooping her diapers was really awkward, and it brought a bit of heat to my cheeks. I took another bite of my scone and slipped further into the chair. "I think the messing scene in chapter one was probably rushing it," I admitted, "but after Academy K, I felt kind of guilty." I made the readers wait thirty-thousand words before Kione messed herself, and a lot of people only read diaper smut for that kind of thing. Academy K had less engagement than the other three stories, and that didn't strike me as coincidence. I didn't want to bore my readers again. "I don't think it felt rushed at all," Blossom argued. "And I also don't think you waited too long for it to happen in Academy K either. Because I'll be the first to admit that it definitely gets my thighs warm to read stuff like that, but without the context of the character it doesn't have any meaning. Like, it meant different things for Ai, Bala, Talita, Kione, and Ayoka. I love that you approached them all so differently, and at the same time, they all got me all hot and bothered. That's something to be proud of, right?" There were people further down on the beach, but the thing about having a beach house was that people who didn't kind of ignored you. Blossom also didn't think anyone wanted to eavesdrop on this conversation anyway. "I guess..." Despite Blossom's reassurance, I was still doubtful. The longer something goes on, the less likely people are to read all of it. I felt like Academy K was a bit of a bottleneck. Maybe I should just stop writing... but I hated when ABDL stories went unfinished. "Anyway," I deflected, "I'm not sure what to do. I know what needs to happen in this story; I just have to get there." "Do you ever write out of order?" Blossom asked. "Work your way backwards?" "I know a lot of writers do that, but I'm very linear when I write. But it's worth a shot, I guess." "I bet it could be helpful to try." Blossom nodded in agreement, although there was definitely something else bothering her a little. Something that wasn't sitting quite right. She pursed her lips and thought about it, thought about how to approach it, how to be tactful and careful, but in the end she just decided to ask her question rather bluntly. "How come you don't like your own writing, Mia? You always seem skeptical when I gush about it, and your own assessments of it are always pretty negative." "Isn't it like that for all writers?" I shrugged. "We are our own worst critics. Aren't you critical of stuff you do? Like cheerleading or something?" I didn't know a whole lot about Blossom's hobbies. "Partly because you know what is good cheerleading and I don't, so when I compliment you, is it really that validating? It's like a kindergartener complimenting a rocket scientist on getting to the moon." "That's fair, I suppose - but cheerleading is a bad example because we don't need to be self critical when all our friends and teammates are so critical of us already!" Blossom laughed, but Mia didn't. "I'm not a writer, but I do read a lot of smutty stories so I think that's gotta count for something, right?" At the end of the day, though Blossom knew Mia was right, she was just a kindergartener when it came to writing. That thought was kinda hot though. When the timer on my phone went off, I got the scones out of the oven and let them cool. We had thirty or so scones laying about the kitchen and I really didn't have anything to do with them, so I started sealing them on trays with plastic wrap. There was no way Blossom would finish thirty scones, but they would make good snacks throughout the day.

10.) I got up from the stool - which really didn't do anything for my height - and followed Blossom to the huge doorwall. The sun was down and the water in the distance was barely distinguishable from the inky blue sky. The deck was wooden, with a little set of stairs leading off to the beach. Blossom had to go down the stairs and around the house to get the lounge chairs out of the shed. I offered to help, but she told me I didn't have my shoes on. She wasn't wrong. I waited, leaning on the edge of the banister, looking out at the water. It was quiet. Peaceful. I bet I could get some good writing done in a place like this... With some pride in her posture, Blossom unfolded the wooden lounge chairs, checked them for cobwebs, and set them in place. She then went inside, opened a closet door just inside the kitchen, and came back with a couple of wave-printed cushions for the lounge chairs. "It looks prettier during the day, I promise." Oh, that reminded her! She looked up under the porch ceiling and reached up, turning on a purple bug zapping lantern; it was probably high enough that most girls would have needed to stand on a chair, but not Blossom. It made her a tad bit self conscious. Nonetheless, she sat down on the lounge chair and put her feet up. "Come on, sit! You're so stuffy, Mia; relaaaaax, get comfortable. I wanna hear your story!" I sat on the chair next to Blossom, crossing my legs and looking out at the water. The purple hue of the lamp above us washed out the horizon and it was hard to see the water. "I was talking to a guy online," I started. "We used to roleplay together. I was like, thirteen? He said he was sixteen, but I said I was sixteen too, so who knows. It wasn't sexual or anything, not at first. We were both into Harry Potter, so we made up our own school where we were both mages. Then one time there was a spell that turned me into a kid or something for the day, and all the teachers were treating me like a kid. By the next year I was reading stories on sites I shouldn't have been on." It was kind of a dull story. "I've never read Harry Potter ~ I wanted to, but it turns out the author is a bit of an awful witch and not like the 'cast a spell and turn you into a baby' kind of way, but the really bad way, so I never got the chance." Blossom looked up at the bug light and then out at the ocean and then at Mia Moore, sitting an arm's length away. Was this a dream? This had to be a dream, right? "I totally lied about my age when I was that age too, because obviously. And I used to think people would take me more seriously if I capitalized the first letter of every single word; my heavens I must have been obnoxious. Do you still talk to the boy?" "Nah, we lost touch after a few years... I think our interests kind of took different routes. I was on more of the ABDL stuff, and he was kind of..." I didn't know how to phrase it; I'd never talked about that guy out loud before. Back then, I had such a limited vocabulary. "Kind of submissive? And it's hard to be submissive with someone who wants to act like a child." "Ah, I totes understand. It's hard when dynamics don't line up right, because you can kind of force it for a while but eventually you both notice how uncomfortable you are and you're left wondering if it's even worth it, am I right?" Blossom did have a tone hinting that she'd had at least one awkward dynamic mismatch in her life, and rather than let it hang out open in the air she elaborated a little bit further. "Ya girl Blossom here is a Switch, and I still sometimes end up in relationships where things don't work out dynamics-wise. Like, he'll want someone who's only submissive or she'll want someone who's only dominant, or it'll be some edgelord who thinks that safewords are the devil or they mean you're not committed or whatever the fuck." "Ew." "Very ew," Blossom echoed. "I guess I didn't really get into the whole sex thing until later," I said, playing with my fingers in my lap. "I think most of my teens was just playing baby. It started as a kid, then a toddler, and eventually diapers got introduced. Lots of roleplays; that was how I learned to write. Roleplaying and reading. I sure didn't learn it from school." "What about now?" "Now what?" I asked. "You said you didn't get into the sex thing 'until later'." "Oh." I guess I did say that. "Yeah, probably around fifteen or sixteen. I still don't think baby stuff is all that sexy, not objectively. But it's sexy if you're forced into it. Hypnosis, conditioning... like you were talking about in the car. Or just someone strong, who knows what they're doing. That's why there aren't any ABDL characters in Academy Works, I guess. It's not hot if someone already wants it. I mean, not to me. To other people, probably." "Obviously I can only speak hypothetically based on the stories I like, but I probably agree with you. There's a big yes to the idea of forcing, or coercing, or conditioning or training - have I mentioned how much I love that word? It's so fucking hot. Training someone to wear diapers, or act like a baby." Blossom fanned herself a second before continuing. "Obviously there's lots of value in pretending or roleplaying too; there kinda has to be. Once a person likes it, they like it, and they'll probably only want to be forced to like it if they like it. The game itself is really fun; you just have to suspend disbelief and play along. Buuuuut... also? There's some appeal to me in the idea of training someone like Talita who accepts it, who likes it, but who also remembers when she didn't and that's pretty hot too. Bala was kind of the opposite because she's trained to like it, and also made to remember liking it so it's a really hot reversal." It was hard to tell under the purple light, but Blossom was blushing. "Also, being made to wear diapers in everyday situations, even if it's just under clothes and people can't really tell but maybe they can? Wow." I had to laugh a little. Gosh, she sounded like such a fangirl, talking about my stories like that! She was just so excitable. "What?" Blossom pouted, looking over at me. "Nothing," I smiled. "I just haven't talked about this stuff in person before. It's different than talking online. More personable. And with Blossom Brixley, no less." "Kink doesn't care how stacked you are, or how popular," Blossom said wisely. "It just gets inside your head like a sexy lil' brain parasite and that's that." Blossom leaned back in her chair. "Is it good different?" "Hmm?" "You said talking in person is different from talking online?" Blossom reminded. "Is it good different?" "I think so?" I looked over at Blossom, then looked down at my hands and smiled. Even if we couldn't be friends in the real world, this beach house was real enough. I could have stayed on that porch all night, but the sun had gone down a while ago and it was getting cold. I checked my phone: 45 degrees. I pulled my arms into my hoodie - out of the sleeves - and wrapped them around myself to prolong the moment. "I'm cold, too," Blossom smiled, without looking over, "I'm scared if we get up and go inside, suddenly you'll be gone, and that'll be that." The two of them were quiet for a few more moments, and the gentle waves lapped at the sand melodiously. Eventually, the cold would win. Maybe it would be now. Maybe Blossom should get up, and lead the way inside; she wasn't dressed for the chill of the breeze off the water, that was for sure. "We've got all weekend?" I offered, still looking out at the horizonless void. "The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow." "If it's nice tomorrow, I'm totally going to get you out on the beach to tan," Blossom said with a smile. "Come on, let's go inside and I'll order some delivery - cake only works for dinner if it's pink, so let's get some real food." Blossom stood up and stretched her arms above her head before turning to slide open the door wall. I didn't want to leave that moment, I really didn't. But if I stayed there, then I would miss out on all the other moments waiting for us. I couldn't risk that, so I got up and followed Blossom inside.

9.) The beach house was "Brixley Family" incarnate; it sat half on the sand, on top of short stubby stilted legs a few feet high, with a railed deck that looked out onto the water at the rear of the house and stairs that led down onto the beach. The outer walls had the appearance of a log cabin painted white from the outside, but it was only a facade. The interior was pretty standard. A living room, a few bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom; all very open plan and airy with pastel painted walls that evoked the sky and the sunset. Blossom led Mia to the door, unlocked it with a code, and then turned to leave again. "You can go inside," she said. "Check out the deck at the back too! I've gotta turn on the propane tank and power meter, so I'll be right back." "Uh, okay..." I had my backpack slung over my shoulders and the cake in my hands. I looked out at the beach; the sand was white and flat, leading up to gentle waves and a whole lot of water. The coastline was empty with the exception of a couple holding hands and walking along the water's edge. I wasn't that surprised; the sun was almost down and the weather app on my phone said it was 55 degrees. I stepped into the foyer and kicked off my shoes. The kitchen was easy to find. Actually, the whole floor plan was pretty open, with a huge glass door wall facing out onto a deck, overlooking the water. But the most interesting part about the beach house wasn't outside: it was the accent wall. It was only a few minutes before Blossom followed Mia into the beach house and she flicked a light switch on and then off to make sure it was working right, then did a discrete little fist pump that she'd gotten it right. "There's a part of me that says 'Blossom, get your things out of the car now', but a much louder part of me says, 'you're not the boss of me Blossom's internal monologue, you don't tell me what to do'." Although she wasn't sure exactly how much of that Mia had paid attention to, because she seemed totally enraptured by the Wave Wall. The Wave Wall was a large, tacky mural that took an entire wall of the living room from floor to ceiling, painted to look like a crashing wave. Blossom had loved it as a little girl, but the design goal hadn't really stood the test of time. "This is... big." The whole wall was a painting, and it was also incredibly detailed. If I hadn't been able to step up close and touch it, I might have thought it was a billboard or something. I'd obviously underestimated the wealth of Blossom's family. Though this was her uncle's place or something, right? "It sure is!" Blossom laughed. "And you can't escape it. You'll be in the bathroom trying to wash sand out from between your toes and you'll look out into the living room and wow there it is. The Wave Wall." The way that Blossom talked about the Wave Wall did make clear that she had some degree of disdain for it. "Well, uh... cake?" I held out the tray. "Right!" Blossom took it from me and set it down on the kitchen counter. I followed her, because... well, what else was I going to do? I wasn't even sure why we were here. To hang out? To be friends? Probably just to talk more about Academy Works or diapers or whatever it was two kinky college girls did. The sun was setting, but the bay faced south; it wasn't that impressive. "I should probably cut you a slice because you're clearly too baby to be allowed to use a knife, right?" Blossom winked with a friendly smile. But it was more than just a casual comment of teasing, or a gentle ribbing; it was a proper test of the waters. She didn't really know what Mia liked in person. Yes, Blossom's teasing had painted her as 'the big' but maybe Mia didn't want that. Maybe Blossom didn't want that. Maybe this would all be nothing in the end. Blossom made sure to keep her expectations open and tempered. "Oh, uh..." I felt my face get a little hot. I'd written that line like a dozen times, and I'd probably read it a dozen more, but no one had ever said it in the real world. Wait, did people actually say that in the real world? Ugh, I needed to go to more of those munch things... "I'm, um..." Not that hungry? "Sure..." Blossom grinned happily, clearly pleased with herself, and the gentle heels on her boots clicked on the tile floor of the kitchen. She leaned over to get plates from a lower cabinet and then stood up to get cutlery from the drawer. She opened the cake carrier up and tilted her head left and right as she lined up the knife, as though getting it dead center was the most important thing in the whole world. And then with a smooth elegant motion, she sliced the cake down the middle. With two more deft cleaves, she cut and served two slices of cake, then gently sucked the frosting off her thumb with a coy smile. This was so surreal. She was here with Mia Moore! I took my plate and sat down at the kitchen bar, on a little stool. It creaked a little and I suddenly felt a little self-conscious about my weight. I knew it would probably creak for Blossom too, but... well, maybe not. Blossom reached over and gave me a fork and I took a bite of the cake I'd made. A little dry; slightly overbaked. At least the frosting turned out okay. Blossom took a bite of her slice and rolled her eyes back in delight, licking the fork as she pulled it out of her lips. "Oh this is so good! I love cake so much! You should totes have an Academy story where they like kidnap the Candy with drugged cake. Or or! Where the cake just makes you baby? Or it's addictive? I'm just saying, even if I knew all that, I'd probably still eat it because I'm such a slut for cake. Of course if this were an Academy story, the cake would have to be pink." "Pink cake... yeah, I haven't done that one yet." Pink food was a recurring theme in Academy Works, and it always made the eater into a dumb, giggly baby. It was inspired a little bit by milk from another diaper story I'd read. I took another bite of cake and smiled up at Blossom. This was actually kind of nice. "I think it would probably taste like pink milk. Like that not-really-any-natural-flavor-but-we-tell-our-kids-its-strawberry kind of flavor? Like Red Velvet Cake but it's Pink Baby Cake. You can use that one, uncredited, don't worry!" Blossom had the goofiest, happiest smile on her face while she ate. She was genuine. "I know the whole 'drug that makes you act like a baby' thing is a trope, but what can I say? Gotta write what you love." Blossom finished her piece before me; if she ate cake like that, how did she stay so thin? When I was done, she took the plate from me and rinsed it in the sink along with her own. I kicked my feet. Friends with Blossom Brixley. I sure didn't see this coming. "I always love when the pink stuff comes out," Blossom said. "I totes didn't see the berries coming in K; those were awesome. Kione would have just been so much happier if she stayed blissed out on baby berries, I'm jus' sayin'." Blossom was a tall girl; it wasn't so obvious on the train or in the car, but at the college among others it was pretty clear. Here, in the beach house, it was also pretty clear. But the fact she wore boots with a small heel today - and actually really liked heels in general - was her way of owning what a lot of girls would see as a negative characteristic. She leaned over the counter and put her weight on her elbows, smiling at Mia. "So tell me what else you love about writing, Mia Moore~" "Uh..." I looked up at her and then down at the countertop. I didn't know why, but it was hard to meet her gaze when I was talking. When she talked, I could look at her just fine. "I dunno... I like the psychology of it, I guess? How do you make an adult do what you want? Obviously treat them like a baby..." That was sarcasm, but my tone didn't land that well. "So if I wanted you to tell me more about what you like, I'd have to treat you like a baby then?" Blossom put her finger and thumb on her chin like the thinking emoji and paused for dramatic effect in that pose. I blinked. Was that a joke? Obviously it didn't land either... maybe we were both off our game. "Anyway..." I brushed my hair away from my cheeks, still avoiding eye contact with Blossom. "What about you? Didn't you say you... like... haven't done the whole... baby thing before?" It wasn't common for Blossom to cause an awkward social situation, so maybe that hit her a little harder than it would most people. She pouted about it too, pursing her lips and standing back up. Maybe she was just trying too hard here. What was she expecting of all this, anyway? This was her literary idol; she had to do better if she wanted to make a good impression. What was the question? Oh. "Oh! Yeah. I've only read the stories online and gone to a few munches. It does make me feel like I'm not like a true fan sometimes." "When did you... know?" I didn't know what kind of answer I was expecting. Something recent? Maybe then I could chalk all this up to a stupid fad. Maybe some dude called her princess one too many times in the bedroom and she wound up on DailyDiapers after a night of boring internet searches and a half-bottle of wine. Or maybe she would say forever. Maybe she snuck into her little sister's crib when she was five years old, or she would steal pullups when babysitting her neighbor. The truth was, I still couldn't put Blossom Brixley in the same camp as me. We weren't anything alike; why would we share this? "That's a big question!" Blossom said. There was a lot of vulnerability tied up in that question too. Blossom knew full well that she had to be willing to give some of that up if she was going to earn the trust of her new friend. "I was in middle school, and I didn't have any friends, so I spent a lot of time online. I was always too shy to enter chat rooms or whatever because what if people asked how old I was? Or what I looked like? Or wanted me to call them, or tried to trace my computer or something; my Dad would have kicked my butt!" Blossom laughed, but it was clear that this was some pretty deep stuff for her; that this was personal. "I read a lot of forums and stuff, and sites with stories. It was usually romance stories, not even kink stuff, but I never really liked the ones where there was this traditionally pretty girl or whatever because that so wasn't me. And one day I saw this story about a girl who just never grew up. Like, she got older, but she didn't grow up, and people loved her for it. She had binkies, and wore and used diapers, and she had a biiiig crib and a Nanny and it was just... I wanted that! And the girl in the story wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, and I thought hey Blossom maybe that could be you. Maybe you're more of a Bubbles, did you think of that? Then it kind of spiraled from there." The Powerpuff Girls reference wasn't lost on me, and... weirdly enough, it was kind of poignant. Blossom was the leader, the one who always had to keep cool and make everything okay. Literally, since she got ice powers or something. Bubbles was the baby of the group. Everyone always treated her like a kid, and... well, she kind of acted like one too. I mean, there was that one episode where she threw a tantrum about being too cute, but even that was kind of cute. "You didn't have a lot of friends in middle school?" I asked. She sure had a lot of friends in high school, but I didn't know Blossom before then. We went to different middle schools. "Not at all! I was a kind of shy, awkward, tall girl that nobody really wanted to be friends with. Everyone else got hit with the puberty stick and I was just this flat chested muppet with braces whose Dad would plait her hair every morning, because bless his soul he sure did his best. I had these glasses too, and I really liked them because they were pink but they did not look good. Back then I didn't really care though." Oddly enough, Blossom seemed more comfortable talking about that part of her life than the fact that she had looked up pervy stories at the same time. "Ah, so I'm basically middle school you, minus the dad." I mean, I didn't have braces and my glasses weren't pink, but enough of the parallel lined up. I laughed at my own joke, but Blossom didn't. "Middle School Blossom would have given anything to be you, Mia. You're curvy, you're talented, you have people who want to see your creations, and you're so much prettier than I think you think." A girl like Blossom, tempered in the fires of high school drama and shallow expectations of image-is-everything, didn't need to lie about that. Heck, she probably didn't even know how to lie about that. And in high school, she'd been the kind of girl who'd been a bitch to people who were less pretty than she was. She wasn't proud of it, but it had been known to happen. "Uh... thanks..." Blossom's earnest tone was really not what I expected. I looked down at my lap and played with my fingers. My face felt hot. I didn't understand how someone like her could find someone like me pretty... Blossom smiled and bit the corner of her lip as she winked - Blossom was a winker - and then got back on track with the important stuff. "So, Mia Moore, I've told you my Baby Girl Origin Story, so now it's your turn to spill! Do you wanna go sit on the deck with me? Watch the water while we talk?" "Uh... alright."

8.) It was almost five thirty when Blossom's ritzy sedan pulled into my driveway. I already talked to my mom about going away for the weekend, but I left a note on the counter all the same. I had my phone, in case she needed to call me. Blossom said they had service up there. "Have you ever thought about car seats?" Blossom asked. Yes, that was the perfect greeting for the author you idolize and adore when she sits down in your passenger seat. Blossom was often like that though, very stream of consciousness. That was why a lot of people thought she was a ditzy bimbo, that and her big rack and blonde bleached hair. She would just blurt things out because she'd been thinking about them. Mia closed the passenger door and reached for her seatbelt. Blossom was wearing very very short denim shorts that looked even shorter because she had legs that refused to quit. She paired that with a white tank top straining over her large chest and a flowy red cardigan that she had pulled down off one shoulder. Topped with her large round sunglasses and straw hat, she looked ready to hit the beach despite the fact summer was long since over. Even if Blossom didn't know how to dress for the occasion, she sure knew how to dress. "Car seats?" I asked. "Like little kid ones, but in adult sizes," Blossom explained. "I bet they'd sell on Etsy or something." "Uhh... I mean, I guess so." I was always a passenger. I mean, I had a driver's license, but my mom and I shared a car. Sometimes I could borrow it in the evenings, but riding shotgun was kind of the norm. A carseat would probably make the otherwise boring experience a lot less boring. "You don't have car seats in Academy Works," Blossom mentioned offhandedly. "There aren't any cars in Academy Works," I countered. It looked like all her pent up question-asking was about to come out in full force. I checked the back seat: no one was hiding to jump out and laugh at me. "What's that?" Blossom asked. "Uhh..." I looked down at the tray in my hands, with the plastic dome over the top. "Cake? I was bored, so I made it. I hope that's okay?" Maybe Blossom didn't eat cake. She sure looked like the kind of girl that would scoff at carbs or something. "I love cake soooo stinking much!" Blossom said unexpectedly. "That's so awesome. I'm going to spend a weekend with Mia Moore and the cake she made; that's so hot." Now, admittedly, Blossom meant 'hot' here as a term to mean 'really good' or 'pretty great', but also she did find it a pretty attractive quality in a person for them to make cake for a road trip. She was positively glowing, and her sunglasses only served to accentuate the definition of her cheekbones. And her lipstick - a bright red - only served to make her smile all the more apparent. "Thank you?" Well, that was a lot more enthusiasm than I expected, but it was appreciated all the same. I set the cake tray on the floor of the car and put my feet on either side to keep it steady. Blossom pulled out onto my street and started toward the freeway. Two hours in a car with Blossom Brixley: what could go wrong? "I'm surprised that there aren't any cars in Academy Works," Blossom said. "I guess it makes sense that there aren't any in I or B, but in T there's a whole town. There's a lot of potential there. Like in this one other story I read, the girl had an accident in the car on the way to visit her friend, so her friend obviously had to put her in a diaper and baby her." Blossom was as exuberant as usual, and thankfully that didn't distract her from driving. Her stereo showed the name of a song playing from her phone, but she had deliberately turned the volume down so she could talk with Mia. "Do you ever read stories by other people?" Blossom asked. "Yeah," I shrugged. "I mean, not so much anymore. I think I get discouraged, seeing how good other people are at writing. Like, you know Personalias? I feel like he writes an entire story before I can finish a single chapter. That guy is non-stop." That was the first time I said Personalias's name out loud. I said it like two different words - Person Alias - but maybe it was supposed to be Personal-eeus? Person-el-eeus? It was strange, introducing my baby brain to the world of sound and speech. They felt incompatible. "What, uh... about you? I guess you must have other favorite authors?" "I've read a lot! There's that one Baby Dolls story by Fifers, but it hasn't had an update in ages. AB Alex has really nice short stories." "Agreed," I said. "And there's Sophie and Pudding," Blossom went on, "but their style takes some getting used to because it goes back and forth. But the colors help! I used to like Princess Pottypants too, but I don't think I've read anything by her in a long time." Talking about this stuff out in the open was a little bit surreal, because until very recently this circle of Blossom's life was a pretty solitary one. It wasn't uncomfortable though, and saying the words out loud didn't feel that weird. It was just a new thing, and that newness was also exciting in its own way. "Ha, yeah. Everyone writes in the Diaper Dimension. I'm not a huge fan." Did I sound jealous? I was jealous, but I didn't want to sound like it. I mean, who didn't want every ABDL author writing in the universe they made up? No one else wrote in the Academy Works world. Though I guess I didn't leave a lot of room for it... "I don't mind it," Blossom said. "I think a shared universe is pretty heckin' cool, but a lot of those stories make the world their whole gimmick, so they feel pretty samey. I love your stuff because it's all so different. None of the Academy stories feel alike!" "Thanks..." I sighed. Blossom had to hit the brakes kind of hard to avoid an annoying driver who tried to cut her off. I was glad I had been holding the cake tray between my feet, or it would have gone flying off my lap. "But I mean, all the Academies are in the same world. They are the same... uh... organization?" Was that the best word? "So are there twenty-six?" she asked. "One for each letter?" "I think so." That was a tidbit that probably would never appear in the written work. Maybe I was starting to trust Blossom after all. "There are what, 1500 Candies?" "1508," Blossom corrected. "Nine if you count Angela." "You shouldn't count Angela," I smirked. I felt like a cat with a secret. "And there are sixty-ish Candies in K and A." "Which is..." Blossom did the math faster in her head than I could have done on paper. It was kind of impressive. "A little over 25 Academies." "So the math checks out," I shrugged. "But you're not writing 26 stories," Blossom said, almost like a question, but it had the wrong inflection at the end of the sentence. "Nope. It won't take that many to tell the story I want to tell." "So did you plan out the entire roadmap from the start?" Blossom asked. "Or have you been winging it as you go?" "We're just going to shotgun Academy Works questions for two hours?" I asked, breaking her train of thought. I was just joking, but Blossom got a little flustered. Her cheeks took on a splash of color and she tightened her hands on the wheel of the car. "I'm sorry. I must sound like such a little simp, huh?" Blossom actually wasn't too used to being called out, joking or otherwise, and it took her a few moments to figure out how to stick the landing on this one. In the end, she settled on adjacency. "Well, what other stuff have you done? What else are you into? Tell me about the real Mia Moore!" "Uh..." On the list of things I wanted to talk about, Academy Works was at the top. Me? I was at the bottom. So I decided to deflect back to her original question. "I had a plan when I started writing, but I think a lot has changed since then. Maybe the core story is still the same? But all the pieces are different." It was kind of weird how things evolved over time. "Oh hey now," Blossom said, "I was a cheerleader and I don't even think I'm flexible enough to have dodged like that!" Which really only made Blossom more interested in knowing the answer! Something she'd learned on the train that first evening had been that brute-forcing things with Mia wasn't the cleverest idea, though, so she decided to do some give and take. "Okay I'll go first! I love mind control and hypnosis stories, especially when the person is fully aware of what's happening to them. Certain words, like 'conditioned' or 'trained' are super mega ultra hot by association." No wonder she liked Academy Works... "Can't we just go back to talking about my stories?" I whined. Those were more interesting anyway! "One thing about you first," Blossom countered. "Ugh... I dunno..." Mind control was definitely up there on my list of kinks. I played with my fingers in my lap and tried to answer her question. "I don't really read a lot of stories anymore? I usually make up my own?" She looked over at me out of the corner of her eye, raising an eyebrow. I sighed. Gosh, this sucked. "I see a photo or a piece of art or something and I make up my own story to go along with it. Like, how did they get to that point? What happens after the picture?" And now it was my turn to blush. "See!" Blossom said gleefully. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it? And that's super interesting and totally charming. You undersell yourself so much, Mia Moore; you're such a curiosity." Boldly, Blossom put her hand on Mia's knee in encouragement and winked at her. "Uh... thanks..." I shrugged her hand off me and sunk further into the chair. "Can we go back to talking about Academy Works now?" "Totes!" "Actually, I had a question for you." It was the first bit of initiative I took since getting in the car. "Shoot," Blossom said. "Did you like the first one? Academy I? I try to write the stories as their own little standalone vignettes, since like… I know a lot of people just want to get off to this stuff and writing long-form stories can get in the way of that. I just want everyone to have fun reading them, even if they don't get the whole plot, ya know? But I dunno. Maybe they aren't good on their own?" After that comment, I was actually thinking about going back and editing all my posts to specify that the stories must be read together. If Blossom had needed to think about the answer, it must have happened quickly because her answer came at the speed of a gameshow contestant hitting a buzzer. "Mia Moore, if Academy I hadn't been so amazingly good, I wouldn't have read it. The whole thing is a masterclass in both meeting and subverting expectations, like the cupboard thing and the Flopsity thing. And it's like how movies become a series after the first one, like Star Wars? Star Wars had to be really good, because it might have been the only one. But it also had to be a good first entry to a series if it did well, and that's what Academy I is. It's a collection of extremely hot scenarios with a fun, curious protagonist. The undercurrent of mystery is just icing on the cake." After gushing about it, Blossom summarized: "It definitely stands alone." "Even though it doesn't answer any questions?" I asked. "The fact that it asks them at all makes it better than most diaper stories. Plot isn't exactly the metric by which you judge a diaper story." I nodded. Maybe Blossom was right. If kink stories were about plot, we wouldn't have so many 'my wife wants a baby' stories. We wouldn't have so many people who liked reading about it. Maybe I was being too hard on myself; I wasn't trying to win a Pulitzer. I just wanted ABDL stories to be more than fap rags. In a vaulting contest of expectations, the bar was so low that an actual baby could crawl over it. At least I was trying, right? So why couldn't I shake the suspicion that I was digging under that bar? I didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Did you have any other questions?" I asked, which was a stupid thing to say. Blossom's questions had no end. I kept thinking she would get sick of asking about my stories, but she didn't. I had doubted her motives before getting in the car, but by the time we arrived at the beach house I was well and truly convinced: Blossom Brixley was a fangirl of my diaper smut. "Wait, how many more stories is "a few"? Two more? Three more?" Blossom put the car in park and turned to me with undivided attention for the first time in two hours. "I dunno?" I shrugged. "Something like that?" On the drive, we talked about my inspiration for writing Academy Works in the first place: a video game called Xenosaga. My mom got me a PlayStation 2 when I was in middle school and I fell in love with the game. There was one character - MOMO - who was a little girl with a magical girl battle mode. I think she contributed a lot to my liking of Little stuff. More importantly, Xenosaga was a wild narrative and psychological roller coaster. It was based on some stuff by Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche, the fathers of pretentious college kids everywhere. It also had a lot of biblical inspiration. Xenosaga - which was actually three games - also had a prequel game called Xenogears, but the game was so complicated that they had to make a guide book in Japan called Perfect Works. I thought that title was elegant, so I named my series Academy Works in reverence. Perfect Works had six parts, but I wasn't confident that I could wrap up Academy Works in only six stories. I was already halfway through the fifth one and there was a lot left to say. Blossom didn't know anything about Xenosaga or Carl Jung or Friedrich Nietzsche, which was probably a good thing. I didn't want her to get her expectations too high; I wasn't as pedantic or as visionary as my source material. I was, however, more comprehensible. "So if you aren't going to use all the Academies... how do you feel about someone else doing it? Writing stories in those places?" "Uhh..." Like how people write in the Diaper Dimension? "I'd be flattered." "But Academy Works is kind of intricate, right?" Blossom asked. "Would they be non-canon?" "Hm." I had never thought about that. "No, I think they could still be canon. The Academies are there to make obedient Candies, but not all of them are important to the main plot. So if someone wanted to make like... an Academy J story or something, they could design the Academy and fill it with whatever characters they wanted. And that could be like... a side-story?" I kind of liked the idea, to be honest! "Like Paradox Space." Blossom nodded in understanding, and Mia looked at her blankly. She shook her head dismissively and smiled with her painted lips. "Come on, let's head inside."

Friday, October 14th 7.) Blossom and I texted all week, and almost none of it was about Academy Works. Actually, any time we got on the topic of baby stuff, she kept saying "I'll talk to you about it this weekend". At first I wondered if she was just shy, but that didn't sound like Blossom. It was more likely that she didn't want to say anything I could screenshot. She didn't trust me. But I guess I didn't trust her either. I re-read that comment on DailyDiapers at least a dozen times. I knew it was going to hurt me, but I couldn't help myself. Maybe I felt like I was missing the lesson, that if I kept going over it again and again I'd figure out what I could have done differently. But the truth is, I think I just wanted to punish myself. I felt like I deserved it. Friday morning, I tried to write. I kept reading and re-reading the last few chapters of Aya's story, but it felt so claustrophobic. I had something else I wanted to say, another piece of the puzzle I needed to get out, but every time I tried it felt awkward and forced. How many people would I be disappointing with this chapter? Instead, I packed my bag. What was I supposed to bring with me? Diapers? A pacifier? I had a sippy cup, but even that felt too incriminating. What if I got into her car and she opened my bag? What if her friends were waiting in the backseat to laugh at me? We never even talked about this stuff, and Blossom had made it clear on the train that she hadn't really done any of it anyway. Munches and online stories were the extent of her experimenting, which was all she could get away with in her sorority house. In the end, I decided to just pack a few sets of clothes. Pajamas, layers, stuff like that. A toothbrush, a phone charger, and of course my laptop. It was only 10:30am when I texted Blossom. >>5pm can't come soon enough @_@ >>I can't focus on writing >>It is very exciting! >>I used to say 'berry' because I could not make V sounds as a little girl >>And then I got braces and everybody made even more fun of how I talked ☹️ >>So I learned how to Very instead of Berry >>That's some pivotal Blossom Lore for you right there! >>Are you packed for the weekend? We have a long drive! >>But you should always over-prepare because it is best to have something you want and not need it >>Than to need it and not have it! >>Yeah I'm low maintenance >>I have some dough in the fridge too that I'm gonna bring >>I just feel guilty when I can't write >>Not that it really matters?? >>Just that one guy is commenting on A:A >>And I never know how to respond to him Usually I stayed a few chapters ahead of my posting schedule, that way when I got writer's block I had something to show until I got back in the groove. But since A:K finished, I felt like I'd had nothing but writer's block. I was all caught up: posting and writing were in parity. And it had been more than two weeks... >>I am reading it! >>And you know I have been reading since the beginning and I just do not comment >>So I bet there are a hundred others like me! >>Maybe more. >>Imagine! >>But >>You should not feel guilty because you do not owe anybody anything >>We are very lucky to have you and your art! >>A lot of people say that >>But it doesn't really help I looked at the clock again. Six more hours. Maybe if I got dressed up, I could find some motivation to write. I could get in Aya's head. I could feel what she felt. But the anxiety of this trip with Blossom kept pulling me away from that headspace. Maybe I could make her a cake... was that weird? >>I am not very good with helping when people are sad >>But >>I am very determined at most things I do >>So get ready for a weekend of mishandled and poorly implemented attempts of helping with your sad! >>Looking forward to it XD Sad wasn't the right word. I was discouraged. I was a lot like Aya from the new Academy Works story: I wanted to do my best. I wanted to impress people. I wanted to do something extraordinary. Where did I choose to put all that passion? Into writing diaper smut. In the end, I didn't write any of Academy A. Instead, I made Blossom a cake. Actually, I made her five, but I only had one cake container.

If this drums up enough interest, I MIGHT be able to convince Pudding to write an epilogue with me! So make sure to share with your friends. Awww!!! ❤️❤️ We are so flattered!!

6.) I knew the internet was full of thoughtless people. I was just a name on a website. They had expectations of me that I never knew, that I couldn't possibly meet. Hell, I finished Academy I almost a year before that comment came through! And still… I didn't get out of bed on Saturday. Well, I did. I used the bathroom. I made an appearance with my mom, so she thought I was just doing homework upstairs. I ate lunch and dinner with her. Sometimes that's what it means to not get out of bed: to get out of bed only the bare minimum so other people don't worry about you. I read through the comment a dozen times, until I felt so sick that I couldn't read it anymore. "Disappointed." Didn't this guy know what Littles were like? Didn't he know that there was probably no word in the English language that hurt quite like that one? I just wanted to sleep until my skin flaked into paper and my bones dissolved into dust. "It felt like a giant prologue." I guess it was, in a way. It was just an introduction of concepts. I thought it came across well as a standalone story, like a fun little vignette or something in a weird world where you don't fully understand the rules. Like, kids growing up. It was literally supposed to be a metaphor for infancy, for learning about the environment. Or maybe I was just too vague about that. Or maybe it wasn't that good a story. I mean, Uncle Andrew just handed some kids magic rings that threw them into different worlds, but I always thought The Magician's Nephew was a pretty good book. It set up the villain for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I set up Nana a little bit… then again… That commenter aptly pointed out that Nana didn't have much backstory. Or any, I guess. Maybe that was my flaw. But if I told the reader about Nana, they would learn too much about the Academy. They could start inferring things that I didn't want them to infer. I just wanted to start with some ideas and some sexy baby smut. I mean, it was my first real story! And who is this guy anyway? Where are his stories? Why do people always criticize artists and writers and people that make things when they don't make anything themselves? Are they so entitled to think their opinions matter this much? Or do they know how much validation means to us? Are they trying to hurt us? The worst part was that final comment. "Curious to see how the second one is." So he was going to keep reading it. So there was enough incentive for him to keep going. Why? He didn't say a single nice thing in the whole paragraph! He didn't give one compliment, one thing he enjoyed, one acknowledgement of the twenty-eight thousand words that made it worth reading. Why didn't he share any of that? So what's really the point of leaving a comment then? Especially on a story from a year ago? I'm five stories in! I can't just rewrite it. I can't fix it. I can't make it more interesting or more standalone or more engaging. What were the words he used? "Something to latch onto." I thought I was doing that with the whole file at the end! And… I was crying again. It wasn't good enough. I should start over. I could do better. I could give this random stranger on the internet a reason to be proud of me. I could change everything about myself, all for some guy I would never meet. I'd do it. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I'd do it. If I had the fucking energy.