16.)

I stepped out into the living room. It was about as surreal as the Chapel itself, with the big wave on the wall and the kitchen in view. Everything was unbelievably white. I tried to imagine the wooden floors of the Chapel. Then I saw Blossom. Matron. She sure had the height for it...

Blossom, for her part, had spent the few minutes it took for Mia to go away and return practicing a voice for her Matron performance. She always imagined them sounding soft-spoken, but a little amused, and that was the tone of voice she went with. She looked at Mia, and with the fluidity of water filling a cup, she began her performance.

"It looks like somebody isn't feeling well," she took a few steps to close the distance, smiling that Queen-of-England-smile with reservation. "I bet the berries helped, huh? Are you feeling better?"

"I... um..." Did I have a line? No, I didn't think so. I was just supposed to nod happily. So I nodded and tried to smile, but the smile fell short. I was nervous. My heart was racing.

Blossom was feeling a little giddy, because the way that Mia nodded with bashfulness struck a chord with her, even if it wasn't perfect to the story.

"And did you pick that outfit out all on your own, dear?" Encouraging; praise in the form of prose. Blossom was having a blast already.

"I... yes?" I could feel the blush on my cheeks. The way Blossom spoke was so precise, so flawless... it was staged, but it sure didn't sound like it. I shook my head and bit my lip. Did I pick out that outfit all on my own... yes, and... shoot...

"I forgot my line," I admitted nervously, looking away from Blossom. I was just dragging down her performance. Why was I even here?

Blossom leaned in very close and whispered directly in Mia's ear, using her non-Matron voice.

"It doesn't really matter what Kione says, because the Matron is going to respond the same either way. You're doing great!"

Standing back up to her full height, Blossom deliberated over moving to the next line and sparing Mia the stress, or giving her a chance to improv. From what she knew of Mia, it was a 50/50 on what was the right move. She'd give her a few seconds to try, and then step in if she couldn't. Her smile of encouragement was completely genuine.

"I um..." Berries. Dumb. Silly. Thoughtless. Easy to manipulate. I faked another smile and tried to sound more like... well, like Blossom in high school. "Y-yeah... I picked it out all by myself! Um... I'm gonna..." No, that's not right. "Dun tell anyone, but... see?"

Then Kione flipped up her skirt, right? I wasn't wearing a skirt. I stared blankly at Blossom before reaching down and grabbing nothing and pulling it up. The whole thing must have looked so stupid from her perspective. I felt so stupid. My heart was racing and I felt queasy. I just wanted to stop playing...

To show solidarity in the improvisation, Blossom adjusted her lines and smiled warmly.

"That's lovely, child. You're such a good girl to ask for a diaper. I'll get you changed right away."

Blossom reached into her pocket and pressed the button she'd lined up on her phone screen, which turned each of the lights in the living room and kitchen a different color; her little contribution to try and mimic or reference the lights Kione saw in the chapel.

The lights really caught me by surprise. Not in a bad way, though. I knew Blossom skipped some stuff, but her mistake actually made me feel a little better.

Wait, where were we?

"I, um... I didn't ask for..." But Kione was enamored with the lights when they came on, so I let them distract me. I looked away from Blossom at the kitchen light, then at the living room light. The hues mixed in the middle. It was kind of pretty...

"That's right, sweetheart, the lights are pretty. How about you tell me which colors you see?"

This would have been when the Matron gave Kione the pacifier, but Blossom didn't have an analogue. If she'd thought ahead, she would have brought a ringpop at the store! For now she made do, and reached across to Mia's lips and pressed against them with her finger, symbolizing the insertion of the binkie.

I felt a little heat on my cheeks. I didn't remember the colors from the story, but it was easier to use the real colors in the room. Would that be okay? If Blossom could improvise, I could too. Right?

"Um... blue, um... aqua... and um... red... and... pink..."

I kept looking up at the lights as Blossom moved around me, taking me by the hand. I wasn't sure what happened after this in the story. Kione wet herself and she was changed into a diaper, but neither of those things could happen. I was in uncharted waters.

While Blossom had become an experienced performer all through high school, Mia was every bit the wallflower Blossom had been in middle school. She knew how hard this was. Staying in character, Blossom recited her line.

"Oh sweetheart, it looks like I was a little too late... and you were such a good girl, suggesting diapers. I hope you can forgive me."

She gestured downwards to the floor, where an imaginary puddle might have been.

Even though I didn't wet myself, the way Blossom delivered the line felt so... real. I looked down at the spot between my feet, but there was no puddle. Nonetheless, I knew, in the scene, there was. I blushed. Even the thought of wetting myself like that...

"I... um..."

"I hope you can forgive me," Blossom repeated, prompting me.

"I forgive you," I said shyly. That was what Kione said, right? I felt so far away from the script...

By this point, Blossom was positively buzzing with excitement all throughout her body. Although this didn't involve actual diapers, and it was all imaginary, and it was basically reading from a script in her head... this felt so exciting, like she was opening a door and getting to see what was on the other side.

She was reenacting a scene from Academy Works with Mia-fucking-Moore!

"Well thank you, you're such a sweet girl my dear." Warm smile. Pause. Let the praise sink in. And continue. "You couldn't help it, could you? Will you tell your Matron that? Can you tell Matron that you really couldn't help it?"

"Um... well, I..." I didn't know Kione's line. I didn't even know if Blossom was still following the script. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't tell if I wrote it or not. But I knew Kione was too far gone on those berries to argue. She would agree. So I nodded my head. "I couldn't help it, Matron..."

"Now, child," Blossom said as the Matron, "people who can't help but wet themselves are called babies, so what does that make you?"

Pause. Kione excitedly proclaimed that she was a baby here, but Blossom wasn't sure if Mia would be able to get out of her own way long enough to do that. Either way, she'd roll with it.

"Well, I... I didn't mean..." Kione's line was slipping my mind. Honestly, everything about that story was slipping my mind. Blossom felt a lot taller than she usually was, which was already quite tall, and I was feeling a little lost. I didn't feel like Kione, but I didn't really feel like myself either. She wanted me to say I was a baby, right? But I'd never said that out loud before…

"That's right sweetheart! You're a baby! And a clever one at that, too."

Blossom improvised that entire line, but she reached out and pat Mia on the head. She stroked Mia's hair gently, the way the Matron had done to Kione, as she tried to remember her next line.

Her hand patted me on top of my head, then her fingers twirled my hair. Her other hand reached out to lightly brush my cheek and I blushed deeper, looking away from Blossom entirely. I was full of butterflies.

"And because you're my baby, I'm not going to punish you. Because babies don't know any better. So you'll do something else for me, won't you dear?"

She was almost certain she fucked that line up, but the spirit of it mattered more than one hundred percent literary accuracy. The important part was for Blossom to lead Mia the way that the Matron led Kione.

"Y-yeah... okay... I'll do something..."

Was this still part of the scene? I couldn't think clearly anymore, but I knew Kione's mindset. Agreeable. Easy to twist. Just like my hair. Let her twist me.

As Blossom spoke, she was confident enough in her words, but each word made it feel like this scene was less and less about Kione and the Matron, and more and more about Mia and Blossom.

She was incredibly turned on.

"Your Matron is going to put you in a diaper, darling, because you're a baby and babies wear diapers. And because you're new to diapers, Matron is going to leave you in just your pretty button down shirt and your diaper, so everyone can see it."

Her words were thick and syrupy, absolute and warm the way she'd imagined the Matrons to be.

"That way, if you forget that you're a baby, your friends can remind you."

"Uhhuh... my friends can remind me..." Remind me that I'm a baby. Remind me that I'm in diapers. My face was hot and my heart was pounding, but it felt like everything was in time with music. It felt like a dance, and she was leading.

Mia was drifting, like she was a puppet with strings attached, swaying to Blossom's words, and she was loving every moment of it. She held an invisible object in her hands, about how she imagined holding a diaper might look, and held it out for Mia to see. For Kione to see.

"It's so cute, isn't it, little one? It's going to match everything in your wardrobe. It's going to look so very cute on a tiny Blueberry," completely ad libbed, adapted from Kione's thought processes; Blossom was super proud of herself.

"Come over here, little one. Matron will get you diapered."

"Um... I..." I wanted to argue. I would argue! But I wasn't me. I was Kione. Kione would argue! But not Kione after taking those berries. Actually, I wouldn't argue either after taking those berries... so I followed Blossom to the center of the living room, where she sat me down on the floor. My cheeks were on fire. This was so silly, and yet...

Blossom laid Mia down on the floor and – channeling the scene from the story – knelt down between Mia's legs. Blossom lifted Mia's ankles up, then set her back down. She faked the pulling of tapes and placing them, one by one, on the front of Mia's jeans.

She'd read a lot of diapering scenes in stories, okay?

Once she'd done with that, Blossom stood up and smiled with beaming but reserved pride.

"There's a good girl. Now you play with your friends for Matron, okay?"

Blossom stood up and stepped away. She wished she had toys. Blocks. Anything. What she did have were smart light bulbs, and so to mimic the passage of time she took out her phone and began to cycle the light colors gently from one hue to another, changing constantly, but slowly, trying to harken those feelings Kione must have been feeling.

Maybe in the future she could get Mia high? Or more? What did pink stuff feel like, anyway?

The diaper change was weird, and having put myself in a diaper before, I don't think it would work quite the way Blossom wanted it to. But it was very cinematic, and I felt very small. The lights changed colors and I watched Blossom play on her phone for a bit. I wasn't sure what to do next. What was I supposed to play with?

Without toys, without diapers, without a pacifier, this scene did feel like it missed a little bit, but Blossom was hoping that her performance helped with that. She waited a few minutes and then faded the lights back up to dim beige. The next Matron line was something about... a quick and sudden tantrum, but Blossom needed to bridge it because hours were to have passed.

It was completely on Blossom to try to match the quality Mia Moore's dialog.

No pressure.

"My, darling, you've been playing for hours and you're absolutely soaked through. It's such a good thing that Matron diapered you, isn't it? Or the chapel floor might be positively flooded. It's clear where you belong, isn't it?"

It wasn't Blossom's finest improvisation, but all she needed was for Mia to throw a bit of a tantrum. And maybe for her not to notice that Blossom was turned on.