15.)

We went grocery shopping after dinner. I got baking supplies and Blossom split the cost with me. When we got back to her beach house, the sun was already setting and the ocean was growing darker by the second. I started unpacking the groceries and wondered idly when I would get to do something like this again. Blossom said next weekend, but maybe she misspoke. She couldn't come out here with me every weekend, right? She had a life. She had real friends.

"Do you want some help when you bake?" Blossom asked. "I'm okay with cooking but I've never baked before, and trashy reality TV has taught me that they're way different."

Blossom was, more or less, making conversation. She sat on the barstool at the island and watched as Mia put stuff away; Blossom was sucking on a lollipop she'd picked up at the store and twirling it between her lips.

"Oh, uh... no, it's alright. I really only do it when I feel like it." It was like I told Blossom before, I just did it to keep my hands busy. It wasn't a hobby or anything. It wasn't like writing.

Once I finished putting things away in reasonable spots – and moving around a few things in the kitchen with Blossom's permission – I retired with her to the front room with the big wave wall and the big window. There was a sofa and some chairs and a TV that we had never turned on. I didn't even know if this place had wifi; I didn't bother to ask.

The drive up here, the eating together, the putting lotion on each other and laying on the beach; nothing felt quick as intimate to Blossom as sitting down next to Mia on the sofa did. The world was quiet for a moment, just the sound of the waves softly lapping at the sand, and neither Mia nor Blossom said anything for a moment. Another moment passed, and Blossom decided to play a hand.

"You said you've been having trouble writing, right? And you also said that a lot of stuff that works in stories doesn't work in real life. And I'm wondering.. if getting to play with some of those ideas and concepts... might help inspire you?"

"I don't understand?" Play with the concepts? How could I play with a concept? It's not like I could simulate the Academy or anything. Then again, if I could, writing about it would probably be pretty boring.

"I mean if you were thinking about like... things for scenes in the stories but you were unsure how it might actually feel, I'm saying that I'd.... be open to experimenting with that with you. Or just... anything, really. I just think you're working from theory a lot of the time, right? So you have to come up with stuff based on pure imagination, which you do incredibly well. But you have writer's block, so maybe playing with someone else could help inspire you?"

"You want to play with me?" I was certain I misinterpreted what she said, but her nod dispelled that certainty. She was serious?

"Well..." I inched a little away from Blossom without really thinking. "I think that's cool and all, but... we don't really have anything to play with?" No diapers, no baby stuff. Not even a schoolgirl uniform. "And you've never done any of that kind of stuff." Baby stuff, that is. "And I've never done it with anybody else around." Which might give me a panic attack now that I thought about it. "And what would we even... do?"

So that was a sobering question. Both of us were quiet for a moment, thinking about that. What exactly does ageplay look like in the real world, especially when both of us were Littles?

"We roleplay," Blossom offered. "We... pick a scene from one of your stories, and we play it out. In real life. And see how it goes? And if it's fun, maybe we can extend past that and do some new things, and maybe help inspire your writing? And if it's not fun, we both know we tried and that's cool too."

"This seems like a terrible idea..." How would we roleplay an Academy Works scene in real life? Were we supposed to pretend? I wasn't a very good actress! The more we talked about this, the worse it felt...

I kept trying to wrap my head around it, but the whole thing was too abstract. If Blossom wanted to try this, I needed something a little more definitive.

"What scene?" I asked. If we could get that far, maybe I could say "no" more confidently.

"I'm not sure - maybe something from Academy I because it's pretty early in the oeuvre and it's very two-character based. Or something from Academy T because diapers are more of a 'this is a part of life' thing in that one, so it's more slice-of-life than origin-story."

Truthfully, Blossom hadn't figured she would have to come up with a specific example, but she definitely had her favorite scenes.

"I don't see how we can do any of these," I said quietly, sinking a little into the sofa. Even if we found a scene - like one between Ai and Nana or Talita and Claire - how could we reenact it? We didn't have any baby stuff! And even if we did, it didn't sound very fun; it sounded terrifying.

"Okay, let's think about this another way," Blossom tried. "You told me that you're worried about retreading territory, about writing the same scene over and over, and that's a part of why you're stuck where you are in Academy A. So let's pick something really basic, something that's a given from baby stories, and roll with that. I know we don't have like... diapers, or clothes, or anything like that here, but we can still think about it."

Blossom did realize she had no idea how to put a diaper on an adult, but that was a minor technicality.

"So like... okay, putting someone in a diaper for the first time. That's pretty iconic, right? It happens in I, and in B, and in K... and I don't think T because Tali was full bimbaby when we meet her, but like, it's a common trope, right? We could do the uhh... oh," she snapped her fingers, "the scene in K where Kione eats the berries and goes and sees the Matron? I can be the Matron? Or you can? And this could be really good for you because you can see how fun roleplaying can be with kink stuff. And it's good for me because I haven't done much with ageplay."

Okay... okay. Yeah, okay. The way she worded it, it almost made sense. Obviously it wouldn't actually work, because we didn't have magic berries that made you wet yourself and we didn't have diapers to change into, but the concrete example was actually really helpful. I nodded along with her explanation.

"So... we act out the time Kione gets brought into the Chapel, and the Matron changes her into a diaper? But we don't have diapers, so it's like... pretend?"

"That's right, it can be all entirely roleplay. And trust me when I tell you that you're going to feel weird and foolish and stuff at first because that's how it feels at first, but you just have to get over yourself and go with the flow and you will have a lot of fun. The amount of times I've had to roleplay some guy's slutty step-daughter, or some girl's sexy sapphic roommate, or whatever, you get used to it pretty quickly."

"I think I need to re-read this scene..." I sighed, trying to map out the movements in my brain.

Blossom loaded up the PDF of the story in response to Mia, and she scrolled to the appropriate scene and handed her phone to the author.

Chapter Seven. She walks in the Chapel, the Matron comments on her not feeling well. Kione's a total idiot, because she had all those berries. She stumbles over her words. She says she's going to go pee behind one of the hills at the Kindergarten. The Matron ignores her, saying she asked for a diaper. Kione doesn't understand. The Matron puts her pacifier between her lips and lays her down. The Matron distracts her. Kione wets herself.

"Woah, I'm not actually wetting myself!" I said without thinking. There was nothing saying I would be Kione, but I didn't want Blossom wetting herself either! I wouldn't know what to do about that.

"Well, obviously - we don't have any diapers. But we can pretend. It's just a proof of concept, Mia. And if we don't like it, we never need to try it again. But I think this could really help with your creative process!"

Being a switch, Blossom would have been happy in either role, but it was certainly easy to say that when all the stakes are imaginary, wasn't it? The Matron role in this case was definitely the less embarrassing one to play, after all.

"I dunno about this..." The rest of the scene was just a lot of teasing. Kione's all hopped up on berries so she really doesn't even react; she just goes along with it. Of all the scenes Blossom could have chosen, it was rather tame...

"Baby steps, Mia Moore. What's the worst that can happen? It doesn't work out? That's fine. But if it does, if we both have fun, that opens a lot of doors for our future hangouts."

Never before had Blossom Brixley had to try so hard to get someone to want to fool around with a kink with her before, that was for sure! Even if this scene was pretty benign.

"Just try and get in the headspace of Kione. Let yourself be in the role."

Be Kione. Okay. I'd done that a thousand times. I gave Blossom her phone back and tried to remember writing Academy K over the summer. A lot of time spent in my room. Research on hallucinations; I really wanted to represent a serious mental health condition properly. Anthropological social worker. Empathetic. Afraid, but too afraid to show it. Deep breath. Okay...

"So... how do we...?" Obviously Blossom would be leading this little play.

Oh this was going to be fun! Blossom had touched herself to this scene more than once and the dialog was pretty firm in her head, even if she wasn't a thousand percent accurate. She stood up from the sofa, and helped Mia up.

"You go into the bedroom, and then come out of the door into this room, and then you'll be Kione huffed up on pink berries, okay? I'll be the Matron."

The opening line was… "Looks like somebody isn't feeling well," Blossom remembered, followed by "I bet the berries helped, huh? Are you feeling better?" Yeah, she could nail this. And she was already so much taller than Mia, so it fit the scene well.

"Go on, don't be shy, we'll start as soon as you come through the door."

I went into the bedroom - Blossom's bedroom on the first floor, not the guest room on the second. The bed was made. I wonder if she slept on the covers or if she made the bed herself. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Kione... but on that pink stuff. Pink stuff hit everyone the same, mostly. Hard to think. Easy to trick. I nodded my head and opened my eyes. Okay, here goes nothing...