146.)

"I think I'm getting used to it," I admitted. Blossom had spent a nerve-wracking four minutes in the McDonald's drive-thru. She had pulled down her hoodie a hundred times. On the other hand, I was starting to forget what I was wearing altogether. Perks of actually wearing pants, I guess.

"That makes perfect sense for a little diaper-dependent baby girl from Academy Town~"

It was definitely not Blossom's best tease, but she was still recovering from her ordeal in the drive-thru. Once she'd sat down in the car initially, and Amy had seen the pants situation under her cashmere sweater, the little brat of a girl had occasionally taken to lifting the hem of her sweater just to see how much of her diaper was riding above the waistband of her shorts. Like a curious and playful child. And every time, it made Blossom red faced all over again. So the drive-thru had been an icing on that embarrassment cupcake, for sure.

But at the same time…

"I think I could get used to it. Maybe with some different pants…"

"Or any pants at all?" I teased. "You know, I was thiiiiis close to just lifting your shirt and checking your diaper when the guy at the drive-through was handing you our drinks."

"Amy!" Blossom whined. She was doing that a lot recently.

"This is what you get for dressing yourself," I shrugged. "Next time maybe you'll ask for an adult's help."

"And where will I find one of those?" Blossom asked, sticking out her tongue.

I stuck mine out in return.

Stories often didn't detail dynamics like this one; there was almost always a philosophically unambiguous notion of "this character is the Big" and "this character is the Little". Beyond that, the CG better never ever wear a diaper or their air of mysterious authority would be killed. But what Blossom and Amy had was different, and it didn't fit into those storybook tropes. Blossom was a switch, and she was just as happy to be wearing diapers as she was to be putting someone else in them. She was also happy as a clam having a power dynamic, or not having one, or even having this nebulous mutually-assured-teasing that the two of them had right now.

"You know," Blossom began to iterate on her own thoughts, "in stories, it's never like this. I don't think I've ever read a story where two girls just, like, they both wear diapers, they're both kinda big and kinda little. They go on like a road trip or something, tease each other, have fun. I guess maybe it doesn't make for good story narratives? But it sure does make for a good life."

"I think a lot of ABDL stories set people up for unrealistic expectations of real relationships," I said. "Like, you aren't going to just find a Mommy to adopt you and take care of you forever, you know? That's such a huge emotional and financial responsibility. And, like. Would you even want that? How many years would it take for you to get bored of playing baby? I don't think I'd make it a week..."

"A month for me, maybe," Blossom thought out loud. "Well, it depends if I can still have sex."

"Depends on the caregiver, I guess."

"I could get by with just grinding on a big teddy bear or whatever, like you see in all that art on Twitter?"

"You'd get bored," I said confidently. It was strange how much I knew about Blossom's sexual interests, as someone who had never had sex with her.

"I would," Blossom admitted, laughing a little. She took a few fries out of the bag and put them in her mouth. "I need more... for lack of a better word, stimulation."

"Fair." I opened up my box of McNuggets and one of the barbecue sauce containers. Blossom had teased me for ordering off the children's menu. That was probably why I'd ordered them.

"So, are you going to tell me why we're going to New York?" I asked after a few minutes of eating.

"Nope. I'm going to leave you guessing all the way. It's like edging for your curiosity! And by the time we get there, you're going to need to know so badly that you won't even remember you're in a diaper or to try and lift my sweater up in inopportune places."

"Absolutely not," I said flatly. But if Blossom didn't want to tell me where we were going, it didn't matter to me. I was only on this trip to spend time with her. And anyway, doing something outside the beach house was interesting. Even if I was in a diaper.

"I promise you're gonna love it, though. I mean, I'm pretty sure you will. I promise that I'm pretty sure you will."

Blossom beamed and used one hand to lift the front of her sweater to adjust one of the errant crinkly edges of the diaper's very tall waistband. Seeing a diaper juxtaposed against a pierced belly button was never ever going to get old.

"Maybe you should write a diapered Thelma and Louise story?"

"I've never seen it," I admitted. I knew a bit from random pop culture things, but the movie was pretty old. "I do think about what I'll do after writing Academy Works though. Probably something less... high-concept."

"Maybe a Diaper Dimension story?" Blossom offered, only half serious.

"I doubt it," I laughed. "I'd worry too much about 'doing it right' or something. Someone would send me a message on Twitter about how I described 'maturosis' wrong." That was a Diaper Dimension thing, right? I'd only read one or two of those stories; they weren't really my jam. One of my favorite parts about forced regression stories was the fall, and it almost felt too easy with giant women and the world against you.

"Oh gosh yeah, I couldn't even imagine. I'm not a writer or anything but I think if I were I'd be way too intimidated to write in someone else's world or with someone else's characters. I'm an engineer; I like things to be precise and accurate and I'd never feel like I could be accurate like that."

Blossom liked conversations like this, because talking about nothing was honestly the truest way to learn everything about a person.

"I have a lot of respect for people who write fanfic," I admitted. "I mean, that's so much pressure. I sometimes feel like I take the easy way out by writing everything myself."

"You definitely aren't," Blossom laughed.

"I know," I said. "I just feel like that sometimes."

We drove for a while before Blossom had to pull over and get gas. She sat in the driver's seat with the engine idling, watching the people all around her. She was probably waiting for more people to leave.

"Nobody is going to see," I tried to encourage her.

"It looks windy," Blossom said nervously.

"Hold the bottom of your sweater. It'll be fine. And you'll never see any of these people again anyway, you know? Think of it like... a thrilling... sex thing." I had no idea what I was talking about, but I hoped I said the right combination of words so that her mind could make its own fantasy.

A thrilling sex thing.

Huh.

"Like minigolf windmill sex? Hmm... alright."

"Uh..." She had said that before too. What the fuck was minigolf windmill sex?

Blossom braced herself for a moment, and then in one motion she opened the door to her car and got out of the driver's seat. She'd never see these people again. There were no spheres to touch. And if someone did see and if they did know her? Would it even matter to people that Blossom Brixley wore diapers? Plenty of guys liked being called Daddy anyway, right? So she stood up and she stood proudly, hands on her hips like a superhero.

Just for a second anyway, before reality caught up with her and she hurried off to fiddle with the gas cap, holding down her sweater with the other hand.

It wasn't that long, but it must have felt longer to Blossom. Not only was she outside in a diaper, around other people for the first time, but also she didn't have pants on and it was freezing. When she finally got back in the car, she was pink again and she quickly fumbled to turn on the car for some heat.

"Once again, no strangers kidnapped you," I mused. "ABDL stories really have misled me."

"I know, and like, not even some truck driver with a crib in the back of his semi? Not even a single proposition from anyone? I'm beginning to think I'm losing my attractive qualities, cupcake. People ought to be all over this crinkly piece of booty."

Her hand was shaking just a little bit as she'd fumbled with the keys, but once the car was running and the heat was blasting, she seemed a bit less cold and a lot more calm.

"I think it's pretty cool..." I said. "Ordering food. Pumping gas. Driving all the way to New York in a diaper? I can tell you're anxious, but you just... do it anyway. I'm kind of jealous, actually."

"Yeah?"

That caught Blossom off-guard, but she did have an affection for being impressive to people. Being impressive to Amy - to Mia Moore - was extra satisfying. So she smiled and nodded her head.

"It's like, nerve-wracking, but also kind of fun? Like, I don't want anyone to know, but also I kinda super do? Like I wish someone saw, and made a big scene of it, and teased me, and all that kinda hot fantasy stuff. Even though I think I might actually die if that happened."

"It's funny how we want stuff in our heads that we don't really want in real life, you know?" I knew we had talked about that before. Probably a dozen times. But if I let anybody else babysit me, spank me, and diaper me, I would probably say it a dozen times to them too. It was a diffusion of wants, a distancing between Real Life Amanda and Play Time Amanda. I don't know why, but it was very important to me that Blossom knew those were distinct.

"Do you ever have trouble telling the difference?" Blossom asked. "Like, between what you really want and what you think you want?"

"Sometimes," I shrugged. "But it's probably a good thing. Thinking we want something means we try new stuff. Like, if I think I want a pumpkin spice latte, then I might order it. And if I don't like it, I won't order it again. Or, I guess... not for a while."

"And if you want to be regressed into a little baby girl who needs her diapers~" Blossom teased.

"Well... then I might try roleplaying that with my partner." That was the first time I used that word. It felt weird. "And afterward, I might realize I want to just cook dinner together or watch TV, not be a regressed baby."

"And then we stop roleplaying," Blossom finished.

"Yeah, pretty much."

I never thought about it, to be honest. It had plagued me for the past ten years, fantasies about being a little girl again or getting diapered by a friend or a teacher or anyone at all. But it wasn't until I could talk about it out loud with Blossom that I realized...

"Maybe wanting something isn't about how it ends, but how it starts. We come to the conclusion that to want something, it has to be serious or important. That we have to commit to wanting it for a long time, or it's not worth doing. But wanting isn't about forever. Wanting is about right now. It's ephemeral. And just because you stop wanting it later, doesn't mean it wasn't worth wanting at all."

"That's pretty profound, cupcake. And I think you're on the ball with that too. There's a lot I want to experience, but even then, not for very long."

One of the advantages of dating a writer was a high propensity for incidences of spontaneous profundity, Blossom mused.

"Like...okay, I see sometimes people talking about that like... face-sitting stuff, but with diapers, right? And like, every bit of fire in me burns bright when I think about that concept. But the reality is probably that after a few moments I'd probably want it to be over. That doesn't mean it's not worth wanting. You're pretty clever, cupcake, anyone ever tell you that?"

"You, constantly." I rolled my eyes, but Blossom was right. Something like diaper face-sitting seemed so awkward and unpleasant in the real world, but in my head it was curious and interesting. Maybe I needed that curiosity and interest to build up so that it could overcome the awkwardness and unpleasantness. Just for a moment. Just to try it. It only has to happen once until it becomes something you've done.

"I think people are scared of new things because of what it says about them. And that's kind of sexy, like... the 'no going back' mindset of wetting yourself the first time. Or wearing a diaper. Or whatever. It's hot to know that you can't undo that thing you did.

"But so what if you do it? What does it really say about you? So many people wet themselves on accident. Because they're sick. Because they're distracted. Because they're drunk. Because they're curious. And does it mark them as a baby forever? Of course not. So why are we always so scared of trying something new? Or experimenting? Or making mistakes?"

Why was I always so scared of those things? I didn't really know...

"I think we're constantly analyzing those Turn Left moments in our lives, even subconsciously, so when it comes to things like new experiences - especially with kink - we kind of like to imagine that that experience will send us down another pathway. But the truth is that even when you make divergent decisions, it's often like saying goodbye to someone in public and then walking adjacent to each other, awkwardly, to the same parking lot.

"Like, okay, I had three different degrees to pick from for my major, and I picked the one I did, but if I'd picked either of the others then like 95% of things would still be the same. Likewise, if I hadn't followed you on the train that day from the munch, it's easy to think well we wouldn't have any of those, but at the same time... I would probably have figured out how to DM Mia Moore online and we'd probably have been here regardless. Or something similar to here. The truth is that no single decision tends to be mutually incompatible with all the other options, not the way people fear."

Blossom had given this concept a bunch of thought, apparently.

"That's... very smart. It's sometimes hard to remember you aren't just a dumb baby all the time."

She stuck out her tongue again, so I stuck out mine. And after a moment longer to think, I added:

"I think we always want to feel like our choices matter so much, you know? Like, this one decision is so integral. It gives weight to every single moment. It makes life more exciting. More grand. And at the same time, that fallacy makes us think - because every decision matters so much - that we have to be sure to make the right one. Or we aren't living the right way. So we get bogged down with anxiety and choice paralysis and... I dunno."

I wasn't sure where I was going with any of this. I felt like I was just rambling. Maybe I was. Processing, that's what Stephanie would call it.

"I hope I can figure out the right balance of these things," I sighed.

"I think the fun part is that nothing is set in stone," Blossom said. "And if you try out one way and it doesn't work, you can always try another. Hey, who knows, maybe you and I will run away to an island where girls and boys are all babies and we're taken care of by benevolent caregivers? Or maybe we won't. Maybe we'll just have a bitchin' date in New York City. I think as long as you're with me, I'd be just as happy with either~"

Maybe that was the key to all this. Just make decisions that make you happy. Right or wrong, good or bad, as long as it didn't hurt anybody, just do what makes you happy.

I looked over at Blossom as she drove down I-95 toward New York City. I guess my decisions weren't all that wrong after all.