154.)

Blossom and I were an hour out of New York City when I finally decided to talk about what happened that morning. I was still trying to wrap my head around it. The Color Factory visit helped a lot, but that didn't change the way I acted.

"I'm really sorry about all that... about getting upset and stuff. Usually I'd bake something if I got that anxious, but I couldn't, and... I dunno. I just freaked out..."

"I actually didn't think about like… what might happen if you didn't have your coping mechanism, and I made the pretty dumb choice. In retrospect, I should have gotten us an AirBnB with a kitchen or something and brought supplies."

Clearly, Amy wasn't the only one who'd been thinking about it.

"No, it's not your responsibility to micromanage stuff like that," I sighed. I sunk down in my seat. I remembered the trip down to New York, when we were both in diapers. That was nice. Now we had to stop for bathroom breaks.

"Last night... really freaked me out," I mumbled.

"Too intimate?" Blossom asked.

"I guess? I woke up, and I remembered everything, and I just... I got so scared. I'm still scared..."

"Intimacy can be scary, babes. Like, both practically because it's literally being as close to someone as possible, and then all the attached social stigma and pressure and oh no what does this mean and frick are things different now? And our brains are seldom nice about that stuff."

"I guess..." I sighed.

They were quiet for a moment longer. Then, Blossom finally asked:

"So, is there any reason you're afraid of it? Of being intimate with someone?"

I looked up at her. She would turn her head and face me every so often when driving, just to check my expression. Then she would turn back to the road.

"This is the part where I tell you how I got a teacher fired or made some girl depressed, right?" I said lazily. "Or that I have like, sexual trauma or something. That's how it goes in stories. But, the truth is... there's not a reason."

"You sure?" Blossom asked, a little skeptical. "Usually there's a reason for things."

"There's not a reason I'm Little," I shrugged. "My childhood was fine. I felt loved and supported. I didn't have a dad, but I didn't really care about it. Nobody rushed me into toilet training or whatever. I'm just Little because I am."

"So you're a Little because you are, and you're afraid of intimacy because you are, and you're dating me because you are. Things that are the way they are, right?"

"Right," I agreed.

"But do they have to be that way?" Blossom asked. "Being a Little is something you wanna be. Dating me is something you wanna do. But what about being afraid of intimacy; is that something you want? Or is it something you'd wanna change?"

"It's not that easy," I sulked. "And I'm not exactly afraid of intimacy. It's more like a trigger."

"For what?" Blossom asked.

"For... I don't know. Screwing something up? That's what I'm afraid of. Saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing... and somewhere along the way I decided sex stuff has to be one of those things I do perfectly. Like taking a test."

Blossom tried to say something, but I interrupted her.

"But I'm not good at sex stuff. I'm not good at kissing. I know I'm inexperienced, and that's a big part of it, but I just... what if I do something wrong? What if I do something you hate? Or I violate your consent without thinking? Sex is like, the shortest path from a good person to a bad one. If Mother Teresa didn't hear someone use their safe word, half the world would hate her."

Blossom listened intently as Amy laid bare her concerns, her worries, her irrationalities and otherwise. When she finished speaking, Blossom even gave her a few moments of pause and space before she decided to respond.

"I mean, you make pretty good points there. I think there's a lot of social politics tied up in something that is, at its core, an expression of passion between two or more people. But like… babes, there's some degree of trust here, you know? Like a trust fall."

"I know," I sighed. "And I do trust you. Which is why, like... we do what we do. Diapering, kissing, whatever. But when things get too serious, my mind races with all these thoughts. How I'm gonna screw it up. How I can't make you feel... uh. Feel good. Or what if you hurt me, or you do something I don't like? How am I supposed to tell you? If I say no, then you might not want to do it anymore. Or I might make you feel guilty for just trying something new. Or I might make myself feel guilty, or... or something. It's just a lot. And in the moment, sometimes I get a little lost. But this morning... it all came crashing back down, and... and..."

All of that was spoken in a long ramble, with very few pauses for air. I felt stupid just for talking about it. I was starting to feel carsick. Or maybe it was just a sick feeling in general.

"Thank you for sharing that, babes. For real. And like, I get that. You know, especially early on with us, I got all kinds of the same feelings. That time you thought I was being too crass, and it was making you feel weird? I beat myself up over that because I think most people do. But I also wanna tell you like... I don't blacklist. If you don't like something, and you tell me, that's not going to remove it from the table forever. I might think of other ways to approach it, or find out why you don't like it. But if I did bring it up in the first place, I'm probably into it that, and so like... obviously I'd love if you were."

She was talking around in circles. She didn't mean to.

"I guess what I'm trying to get across here is that exploration has an exciting side, and a scary side. And it's okay to see both sides."

I nodded my head. She was right. It was exciting... kissing Blossom for the first time. Diapering each other. And last night... I bit my lip.

"It's so fucked up, because... I don't feel safe with you sometimes."

"Oh? I'm sorry..." Blossom sounded a little worried.

"No, I mean. Even though I trust you, I don't trust myself. What if I misread the situation, or I don't listen properly, and you get hurt? Or what if I can't say no when I'm supposed to? What if I let you hurt me, because I want you to get what you want?"

"So it's less you don't feel safe and more that you don't feel secure?" Blossom clarified.

"I don't know?" I didn't know the difference. "I'm just a coward. I'm scared to do things wrong, so I don't want to do them at all. And relationship stuff is the worst of it. At least on a test, nobody hates me if I fail. Other than me, I guess..."

"Hey, cupcake? You can only fail a test if it's graded, right? If the test isn't graded, then there's no consequence. And I'm not grading you on sex, alright? We'll do what we do, and it'll go the way it goes. And we'll do our best to not violate each others' boundaries, and if one of us screws up somewhere, we'll just talk about it. We've got pretty good communication, doll."

"The fact that it isn't graded makes it worse," I sulked. "At least when I fail a test, I know it..."

"So I should grade you?" Blossom asked.

"No. That sounds super weird."

"Hm..."

After a moment of silence, I decided to clarify my intent with this whole conversation. Obviously Blossom was trying to help fix it, but it wasn't really a fixable problem.

"Listen, I've been dealing with this for basically my entire life. You're not gonna solve it on a car trip. It's okay. I just wanted to explain... I don't want you to be mad at me for how I acted."

"I wasn't mad at you. I'm still not mad at you. I'm actually pretty proud of you for sharing! And for pushing yourself, last night, even though you were afraid."

After another moment of silence, I asked tentatively: "Did I do anything I shouldn't have done...?" A part of me was afraid of the answer.

"Not even once. And I don't want you to confuse that answer with a platitude, or with me saying there weren't things I'd have liked more of; when you wanna discuss it I'd be more than happy to talk about my sexual appetites in detail. But you sure didn't do anything wrong."

I nodded. So I didn't push her too far, or violate her boundaries. I knew intrinsically that Blossom was a bit of a slut. Not in a bad way, but she got around. I didn't have to worry much about sex with her. But the baby stuff was new... it was something she hadn't done with anyone else. I didn't want to do something that made her regret being with me.

"Consent is so ephemeral." I was mostly musing out loud. "It can be there, then it can be gone. For no reason. And that's great, because, like... that is what makes play mentally safe. But I'm always so scared of doing something, and then it's suddenly gone. Even if you stop right away, there's still those few seconds... that lag time... how am I supposed to feel secure when it's unpredictable like that?"

"You have to trust me to take care of me; trust me that I'll communicate it to you if there are problems. I'll make sure you're not wandering alone into the dark with this. Just the same as I trust you to tell me those things about you. It's just trust, baby girl."

"Trusting you is easy," I sighed. "Trusting myself is the hard part."

"That's what check-ins are for," Blossom offered. "And you're pretty good with check-ins, too." She looked over her shoulder before merging into the adjacent lane.

"I guess so...

She was right, in a sense. Any time we did an intense scene of any kind, I always felt scared of going too far or hurting her. But I asked if she was green, and she said yes. Sometimes, she would ask the same about me. I think I was usually honest... if someone asked. It was safewording on my own that eluded me.

"How are you feeling now?" Blossom asked. "Any better about last night?"

"I think so? I'm still fucking terrified of hurting you. Or hurting myself. But I guess it's nice to have a framework. I should have checked in last night... I didn't think about it."

"You probably should have checked in this morning," Blossom posited. "If you didn't think about it, you probably didn't need to. But it's always appreciated."

"Yeah... maybe you're right..." I really did blow everything out of proportion. I'd never been so stymied by my lack of baking before. It really came as a surprise how badly I needed it...

"But hey, nobody's perfect, babydoll. I should have checked in with you too, right?" A lot of people dealt with sex the way they'd deal with a radioactive object; a topic best to be kept at arm's length. Blossom dealt with sex the way she dealt with conversation; effortlessly.

"I would have just snapped at you," I sighed.

"Maybe. But I still should have checked in."

"You wouldn't have to check in with Becky. Or you know, anyone who isn't me."

"I check in with Becky, Amanda. Seriously." Blossom delivered that instantly, with a very serious tone.

"You do...?" I didn't know why, but I really didn't expect that. Blossom did mention once that Becky was kind of insecure too.

"I do."

"Hm... alright then." I tended to assume all the frustrating or sour parts of a relationship were Amanda-specific. It was so easy to think of myself as the problem. But I guess sometimes it's just circumstance.

"How much longer?" I asked.

Blossom checked her GPS. "Two hours, give or take."

"Ugh... well, stop at the next rest area. I gotta pee."

"Note to self," Blossom said, speaking into an imaginary tape recorder. "Next time, more diapers."