Saturday, October 15

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.