145.)

Showering happened. I was wet, so I needed it. And since we weren't coming back to the beach house, we had to clean everything up and put our stuff away. It was actually nearing our departure time when Blossom finally said:

"So this is supposed to be a diapered road trip..."

"Yeah, I know." I faked a smile and finished zipping up my bag.

"It doesn't have to be," Blossom added.

"No, I... I dunno. I want to. I think? I'm just..." I paused, half out of embarrassment and half out of not knowing exactly what to say. In the end, I kept it simple. "I've never been outside in one?"

"Me neither! I'm objectively excited to be, because in my brain it feels like one part 'I have a secret and you don't know it' and one part 'sex inside a mini golf windmill'. It's fantastic, but it's also pretty nerve wracking!"

"Uhh... yeah, I'm still stuck on the 'what if someone sees'." Which was kind of silly because I didn't dress like Blossom Brixley. I dressed like a normal person, with full-length pants and a winter coat.

"No one's going to see you," Blossom encouraged. "You don't even have to get out of the car until we get to the hotel."

"Well, if we need to stop..." Blossom looked at me and I thought about what I'd said. Right... no need for bathroom breaks. That did make me feel a little better.

"What if we need gas?" I asked.

"I can do it."

"What if the car breaks down?"

"You can stay in the passenger seat while they tow us."

"And if we get carjacked?"

"I'll tell the people with guns to close their eyes until you get out of the car."

Okay, that made me laugh.

"Okay, sure. Diapered road trip."

"Yes!"

Blossom did a little fist pump and bounced visible on the balls of her feet; bounciness was a natural side effect of her cheerleader heritage.

"You know it's never occurred to me which parts of my outfits will even FIT over a diaper..."

"Oh jeeze..." I hoped my jeans would fit. Though if they didn't, I could just wear pajama pants. I wasn't getting out of the car anyway, right?

My anxiety was a little too high to let Blossom change me, and it was a little too high to let me change her. So we each took a diaper to our respective rooms - though as the weeks went on, it felt like we were sharing my room more and more - and changed ourselves.

Thankfully, my jeans did fit. It was tight though. I turned around in front of the full-length mirror to see if I could tell. Maybe around the crest of my butt, near my thighs. But if I wasn't looking for a diaper, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I paused on my way out of the bedroom and looked at the closet door. Would it be presumptuous...

Better safe than sorry, right?

I waited in the kitchen for Blossom, shuffling a little in place. The tightness of my jeans reminded me of the onesie. I felt a little warm and color filled my cheeks. I couldn't believe I let Blossom talk me into this...

It took Blossom significantly longer to get herself diapered and dressed, but that was much more a function of the latter than the former. Blossom loved her tight and taut tummy, and she loved her toned thighs and ass. That meant that a lot of her clothes were designed to show off those parts of her body.

Like her short-shorts.

Or her low-rise jeans.

Or her shorter skirts.

In the end, what she wore today was... well, the best she could manage.

Blossom was wearing a pair of short shorts, and they were extremely low-rise at the waist level. In fact, there was probably a full three inches of diaper peek visible all around and above the waistline of her shorts. Her cure for this was to wear her most oversized cashmere sweater; it had sleeves that came down and eclipsed her hands, and it hung so low that it covered the entirety of her short-shorts and came midway down her thighs. It was a look she always loved because it made it out like she wasn't wearing pants at all. But this was the first time she'd had to wear it to cover something she didn't want people seeing.

When Blossom came out of the bedroom, she was blushing deeper than I'd ever seen. It looked like she wasn't wearing pants at all, and I honestly wondered if she was. No way she just had that sweatshirt on and a diaper, right? But the color on her cheeks...

Then she said something I wasn't sure I'd ever heard out of Blossom Brixley's mouth.

"I'm not so sure about this anymore..."

"No way you're backing out," I said sharply, maybe a little too sharply. I got a little defensive, but I think she needed more reassurance. So I corrected myself.

"You look fine. Nobody can tell, for sure."

"Mmhmm..." Blossom was avoiding eye contact.

"Well..." I'd never seen her act like this before. It was a little humbling. "Don't you have leggings? You could wear those."

"Nothing better than my shorts," Blossom admitted.

I didn't have leggings either. But what I did have...

"You could wear my pajama pants if you want? They have a string to tighten them. I know they aren't exactly cute, but..."

"I..."

How did Blossom want to say that she wasn't the kind of girl who could wear pajama pants outside in public, but it was okay that Amy did? How could she say that without sounding mean about it? She decided, inevitably, to just bite her lip and shake her head.

"I don't think so. Anyway, I'm wearing warm clothes, right? Your mom would be so proud?" Despite her attempts at levity, it was clear that Blossom was still quite bashful.

"Maybe you need help picking out your clothes in the future," I teased, attempting my own levity. It was a little like a dripping faucet than a waterfall, but I think combined we were making a good effort to alleviate the anxiety of the situation. Blossom screwed up her nose and stuck out her tongue playfully.

"If you picked out my clothes, you'd have me in midriff tops, booty shorts, and the thickest diapers you could find, one hundred percent of the time!"

"I know what I said," I smiled coyly. In that moment, I felt like I had the kind of smile that Blossom had sometimes: that mysterious smile. I wondered if she was as enamored with mine as I was with hers.

We both stood there for another fifteen seconds, not saying anything in particular. We knew what the next step was, and neither of us wanted to take it. Outside. Outside, in diapers.

But finally, Blossom steeled herself and grabbed her keys off the counter. I waited awkwardly with my backpack. I watched her put her shoes on, staring at the backs of her thighs. I wanted to lift her shirt so badly. I wanted to see what she was wearing under there. I wanted to see her diapered bottom again. But I just stood in place as she put her hand on the doorknob. A moment of hesitance. Then she pulled it open and stepped out into the cold winter morning.

I waited for a few minutes. I knew she would come back, because her bag was still by the door. But maybe she wouldn't. Maybe on her way to the car a tall woman with her tall husband walked up to her. Their car broke down just up the road and they were looking for a phone. Blossom fumbled for the phone in her pocket, but the tall woman was quick to comment on Blossom's unreasonable winter attire. They demanded she go inside this second and get a coat.

When the three of them - the couple and Blossom, came back in - I was standing right there. I looked to Blossom for answers, but she didn't have any. The woman sternly shared some words with Blossom while her husband approached me and asked my name. My information. I fumbled for the details and he took the gentle initiative of checking my ID for me. But my ID was in my backpack, and so were the spare diapers I brought for Blossom and me.

The man returned to his wife and showed her what he had found. Both of them looked at Blossom and me, staring like deer in headlights. And simultaneously, the woman approached Blossom and the man approached me. She lifted Blossom's shirt and the man unbuttoned my pants. They each checked our diapers.

"Still dry," the woman said, pleased.

"They must have just changed," the man said, "because there's no way little girls like this can stay dry for very long."

I would try to argue, or Blossom would, but the two of us were quickly silenced with a stern look or a word of warning. As they explored the beach house, they would find my pacifier in my backpack. They would ask where we kept our spare diapers. They would find the onesies and the baby bottle in the trunk. Blossom and I would keep telling each other that we should call the police, that we should ask them to leave... but something deep inside of us refused. We just let the couple do whatever they wanted. We let them treat us like little girls. We wanted them to.

But when Blossom came back inside, she was alone. The water and heat were turned off. The car in the driveway was warming up. Blossom was a thousand shades of pink, between the embarrassment and the cold.

"So?" I asked. "Any strangers try to kidnap you?"

"Sadly no. But if I'm going to be sent away to some mysteriously rich couple's basement house in the suburbs to be turned into a full time baby girl, I definitely need my sister Amy with me for comfort and kisses~"

Her response was quick and witty in a typical Blossom Brixley way, and she didn't even bother to question the peculiarity of the initial question - she just rolled with it. That was one of the best things about Blossom Brixley: she'd just roll with practically anything.

Blossom finished getting her stuff together, turned off all the lights, and waited by the front door with me. I was wrapped up in my coat and looking awkwardly at the driveway. Cold air was spilling into the house.

"This feels momentous," I said, more to myself than to Blossom. My mind whirled with the thought: I can't ever take this back. I can't come back from wearing an adult diaper outside. Soon, it might be normal. Soon, maybe I'll forget what panties are like. But I shook the growing fantasy from my head and replaced it with a stupid question instead.

"Do you think this is what Neil Armstrong felt, when he stepped off the moon lander?"

"Pshhh," Blossom said, mimicking the sound of an old-timey radio. "One step for baby. One giant leap for babyhood."

"Ha." She was joking, but it sure felt that way. But other than the symbolism, there wasn't anything to fear. Nobody was around. The car was a few dozen feet away. So I took that giant leap and headed to the car. Without incident.