156.)

"You okay?" Stephanie asked, looking down at my hands. She knew that I pulled and picked at my fingers when I was anxious, and today they were patchily covered in bandaids.

"Yeah," I said. "It was mostly baking accidents."

"Is something stressing you out?" Stephanie asked. She also knew that baking was more or less my coping mechanism.

"I'm trying to figure out this thing in..." Had I ever told her about Academy Works? I didn't think so. "I'm writing a story, and I'm stuck."

"Writer's block?"

"Not exactly..." I sunk into the couch a little and played with the rubber bubble popper in my hands. It was a new fidget toy Stephanie got for me; I could take this one home too. When I told her that she shouldn't spend her money on me, she told me how much my insurance paid her. I should be a therapist.

"Well, walk me through the problem."

"Um..." How was I supposed to explain it? "Usually when I get stuck, I know what I want to say, I'm just trying to figure out how to say it. This time, I don't know what I want to say at all."

"I'm not much of a writer," Stephanie admitted. "Could you tell me more about the story?"

"It's an ageplay story... is that okay?"

"Of course!"

"Well... alright." I sat up a little on the sofa and tried to figure out how to explain it. I'd never had to explain Academy Works to anyone who hadn't already read it.

"So basically, there's this organization called the Academy. And they have a number of different facilities, each one aiming to regress the... prisoners? Abductees? Anyway, each facility regresses them differently. Like, in the first story, it was a lot of memory manipulation. Second one was about conditioning..."

"How many are there?" Stephanie asked.

"Five right now. I'm on six."

"Woah." She sounded genuinely impressed. "That's a lot!"

"They aren't very long," I shrugged, but her awe made my cheeks warm with pride.

"So you don't know how to do the regression part?" Stephanie asked. "Why are they kidnapping people and regressing them, anyway?"

"Well, it's kind of a mystery," I said. "The short version is, they need an obedient candidate for their end game. There's like magic markers and stuff too. It's pretty high concept."

"Do all the stories use regression? Aren't there better ways to make someone obedient?"

"Well, I'm into ageplay, so that's what I write," I answered nervously. I knew her comment wasn't a criticism, but it did make me wonder if this was a fair path for the story to take.

"There's more to it though," I went on. "The candidate has to be kind of imaginative, but in the way that kids are. Adults know too much, and we're bound by the laws of reality."

"Huh." Stephanie sat back in her chair. "That's interesting. I never thought about ageplay like that, but I guess playing... or, being Little? It lets you defy reality a little bit."

"True."

"So what's the problem?" Stephanie asked. "With the writing?"

"Oh. Uh. Well, I have a new character. Every story has a new protagonist. And, I dunno. I want to make her... different..."

"Different how?"

"I want her to be a little unlikable," I admitted. "Usually the stories are from the candidate's point of view, so you know what they're thinking. But this story is from a staff member's point of view. I feel like making an adult into a little girl would be annoying..."

"Really? Aren't there people who do that in ageplay?"

"Yeah, but I sure don't get it," I laughed. "I mean, I barely want to take care of myself. Why would I want to take care of someone else?"

"Hm, good point..."

There was a pause. Sometimes therapy just had pauses. Usually the discomforting quiet made me speak up after a while, but sometimes Stephanie said something first. This was one of the latter times.

"Has anyone ever done that with you?"

"Uhhh..." We had never really gotten into what happened between Blossom and me; I just mentioned offhandedly that Blossom was also into it.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Stephanie smiled.

"No, no. It's fine. I was just thinking. I guess sometimes Blossom is kind of like a caregiver, but usually she's just playing a character."

"Do you think she enjoys it?"

"I guess so," I shrugged. "Or she probably wouldn't do it."

"Well, maybe she would have some insight into this caregiver character," Stephanie suggested.

"Maybe..." But I didn't want to give Blossom too much information about Academy Works. I wanted to keep up the mystery.

"I want to ask about your cooking habit for a minute," Stephanie said, checking her watch. We must have been low on time.

"Baking," I corrected.

"Right, baking. You mentioned once that it was something you did with your mom when you were younger."

"Yep."

"Do you know when it started becoming more..." Stephanie paused to find the right word. "Obsessive?"

"Uhh... not really. Probably in high school. That's when my test anxiety got worse."

"Do you remember anything else happening around that time? Anything stressful?"

"Uhh..." I tried to think. "My mom was sick for a few months my freshman year, so we got behind on bills. That sucked. When I was sixteen, I dated a guy I met online. That sucked too."

"Tell me more about that," Stephanie said. It wasn't really a question, but it felt like one.

"Sure, uh... he was older. Like, twenty-two. I know I shouldn't have, but... I dunno. I liked him. He liked me. Back then, that was all that really mattered to me."

"Hm, okay. That's fair." Stephanie nodded. I expected her to chastise me, but she just urged me to continue.

"We didn't have sex or anything." I felt it was very important to tell her that. "We only met up a few times, and it was mostly kissing stuff."

"Did you have strong reactions to kissing back then, like you do now?" Stephanie asked.

"Probably not as strong as with Blossom," I admitted. "But yeah, I was anxious. He just had a way of... getting past that."

"How so?"

I felt a bit of heat on my cheeks. I hated remembering that stuff, but it was also the only real relationship I'd had before Blossom. Despite all the shitty stuff that happened, I still had parts I liked.

"He kind of treated me like a kid? And since he was older, I felt like it was okay to be a kid. Like, not being good at kissing."

"Did he know about your ageplay thing?" Stephanie asked. It was a reasonable assumption, but...

"No, not really. I mean, he talked down to me a lot. He would tease me for acting childish. I got to really play up the whole little girl thing with him, and he would kind of boss me around."

"And you liked that," Stephanie concluded.

"Yeah..." I faked a smile and looked down at my hands. I was nervous talking about it. I knew it was wrong for a teenager to date a grown up. Especially in the ageplay community! But it was hard to regret all of it...

"So what happened between you two?" Stephanie asked.

"Honestly? I'm not really sure. He got distant. I didn't want to bother him. We drifted apart."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"You said the buzz word," I teased. "The thing all therapists say."

"Yeah," Stephanie laughed. "Sorry for the cliché."

"It's fine," I smiled, still playing with the bubble popper. But to answer her question... "I mean, I hated it at the time. I felt like I did something wrong. But looking back, our relationship wasn't very healthy. He was kind of manipulative, and I was a total people pleaser..."

"Manipulative?" Stephanie asked.

"Just, like. Using that..." –was there a better phrase than 'daddy energy'?– "commanding nature against me sometimes. Telling me what was best for me. Sometimes Little feelings are a double-edged sword..."

"I can see that," Stephanie said calmly. She had a calm voice she used when she felt bad for me. It was full to the brim with empathy. I used to hate it, but now I kind of appreciated that she cared at all.

"Blossom doesn't do that though," I said, maybe to assuage her fears. Or to create a delineation in my mind between Blossom and my ex. I didn't like putting them in the same box together.

"Good," Stephanie said cheerfully.

I thought that would have been a good place to end the session, but after another look at her watch, Stephanie asked me something else.

"When you used to bake with your mom, how did it feel?"

"Um... I don't know? Fine?" I wasn't trying to be difficult; it was just a long time ago.

"Like it does now, when you bake alone?" Stephanie asked.

"Not really..."

"How are they different?" Stephanie asked.

I was having a hard time remembering, so I tried to focus on a single instance: when she taught me how to make chocolate chip muffins.

"My mom would give me stuff to do... like, mix this. Break these eggs. Measure out so many chocolate chips. That kind of thing. And I'd do them. Working with my hands helped me calm down."

"Does it feel like you're managing more things now? Since your mom isn't giving you steps piecemeal?"

"No, not really. I'm so used to it that it's easy to just follow the steps. Sometimes I open the oven and I'm surprised by what I made. Like, I forgot I was making cinnamon rolls or something."

"Did that happen when you were younger?" Stephanie asked. She was probing for differences.

"Yes? No? I don't know? Why does this matter?"

"Because you chose to keep baking for a reason," Stephanie answered. "Something about it is important to you."

"It keeps my hands busy," I said flatly.

"A lot of things keep your hands busy," Stephanie countered, nodding to the toy in my hand. But before I could retaliate, she said: "Though we're out of time."

I was almost out the door when Stephanie stopped me with a homework assignment. Try to figure out if there were any differences, baking now versus baking when I was in middle school. I promised I would.