17.)

Okay, I knew this part! Kione came out of the pink berry haze and found herself playing with those blocks. We had skipped forward a little bit, but that was probably a good thing. The little bit of a break from Blossom's words had allowed me to reset a bit. I felt a lot more like myself. So, in a very Kione fashion, I stumbled to my feet and tried to imagine what it was like to be standing in front of Blossom in a wet diaper.

"I don't belong here," I said sourly, balling my hands at my sides. My irritated voice wasn't as powerful as Kione's, but I thought I did an okay job.

Perfect! Perfect!

"My my, that was one very quick and sudden tantrum ~ hands balled up, sour voice, pouty face? Matron sees you dropped your binkie."

She knelt down in front of Mia, picked up the invisible item from the ground, made a show of twirling it just the same way the Matron did in the story, and held it out for the girl.

"I don't need a bink..." I felt my face get hot again. "A pacifier. Or a diaper! And... um..." I couldn't remember what Kione said, so I improvised. "I don't have tantrums. I'm an adult." Okay, the adult claim was a little bit too cliche, and I felt silly the second I said it. I should have studied the script better...

Now this was a part of the story that Blossom knew well, not least because this particular speech had been something she'd touched herself to a lot.

"It's dinner time."

Pause.

"You made a deal with your Matron, and if you're too little to follow through on your deals you must be very small indeed."

Her own cheeks grew a little warmer with every line she spoke, because this really got her going.

"And that means you're preferring to stay inside instead of going out to play. Perhaps you're an infant. Perhaps tummy time on the playmat day in and day out is more your speed. Perhaps you're telling your Matron that you would rather never go and play with your friends, that you would like to just lay on the floor and cry, and be carried around."

Blossom could definitely carry Mia around, too; she was just as good at the bottom of the cheer stack as she was at the top.

How would Mia react? To be picked up, and hipped? Like in a story, but for real life? Blossom bit her lip.

"And maybe tomorrow, because you're so vulnerable, and so small - an infant, remember - you'll be so helpless that you'll wake up a different color. And all your pretty Blueberry friends will forget you, every single one. Because you'll be too small for even the smallest of the small."

Silence, for just a second. And finally.

"Although... perhaps you're only fussing because you're soaking wet, could that be it? Could it be that you're not an infant at all? Instead, you're a baby, and you just forgot the difference because you're fussy? Could it be that you'd like to go out and meet your friends and tell them all about your day?"

I didn't write that. Did I? So much of it sounded familiar, but the way Blossom delivered the words... each one felt heavier and heavier. When she was done, I felt fragile like glass. I felt like a gentle breeze would blow me away, like a girl made of dust. And when I didn't answer, when I forgot to play along with the scene, Blossom stepped forward until we were nearly touching. I took half a step backward and almost fell over. My knees felt weak.

In that moment, Kione's thoughts and feelings were about survival. She had to agree, because the alternative was so scary. That was her thing: she was always scared. She needed a guiding hand to push her along, something to be right so she never had to be wrong. On the other hand, in that moment, I wasn't thinking about survival. I was thinking about the opposite. I was thinking about falling further down the rabbit hole. I was thinking - just as I thought when I wrote the scene - about what would have happened if Kione had talked back.

"You don't..." Wow, my voice sounded weird. Meek. Small. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You don't scare me..."

So that wasn't how the story went, but that kind of only made it more exciting to Blossom; the amount of times she'd read stories and wished for a character to push more, to get punished more, to get taken apart brick by brick and rebuilt as someone new, someone obedient, someone broken in the hottest possible of ways? Innumerable.

No script. No guide. The scene would have ended now, with her being sent outside after admitting she was a fussy baby. But Blossom's head swirled with potential.

"Everything scares you, dear. An adult knows their fears, and manages them. You're ruled by yours, you're controlled by yours, and that's why you need someone to take you by the hand and make you obey, to control you so your fears don't."

Obedience was always a part of the Academy, and Blossom knew it full well; she knew how much it turned her on, she knew how much she'd craved being Bala over and over and over.

"You're too scared to be an adult, you're too scared to be a grown-up, to be in panties, or even to be any other color. You're a Blueberry, because you're the smallest, the most helpless, the most frightened. Will you choose the dark, the fear, the alone? Or will you take Matrons hand and choose to obey. To be my good little Candy. My good girl."

Take her hand. A good girl. Even without the connotations of Academy Works, Blossom knew all the right words to say. I'm too scared to be an adult, to be in panties, to be anything on my own. I needed her.

"I... I am an adult... I am... um..." It wasn't an act; my resolve was faltering. My cheeks were hot and Blossom was so close to me. I took another step backwards, but she followed with a bright, condescending smile. Gosh, she could play a Matron in a movie adaptation or something; she had just the right sort of presence.

"You're not an adult, and you're not a big kid, and you don't want to be. You're afraid and your fear is telling you to tell Matron fibs, and good girls don't tell fibs," Blossom advanced on Mia, and she reached her hand out, she put it on her cheek, and she did something she didn't expect to do - she pressed her thumb between the girls lips. Maybe just to see if she'd yield. Maybe to see what would happen. Mostly because she wanted Mia to suck her thumb.

Awkward. So awkward! But Blossom's thumb slipped between my lips like butter across a hot pan. It pushed down on my tongue just like the pacifier I had hidden in my bedside table. I felt my back hit the wall - the one with the big wave - and I felt like I was tumbling and crashing along with it. With her thumb in my mouth, she tilted my head up so I was forced to look her in the eye.

"You're a Candy. You're not a person. You're a baby. You're not an adult. You belong here, in the Kindergarten. You were never meant to be anywhere else. And if you're good, if you obey, if you do everything right for your Blueberry friends...you'll finally be happy."

Blossom wanted to say "Mia" at the end there, she wanted to be talking to Mia, she wanted that so very much, but it would break the scene, wouldn't it? And this was about teaching Mia how to roleplay, how to roll with it, how to let her imagination go. Her thumb was still between Mia's lips, and she spoke very clearly.

"Are you ready to be good? And to go play? To be a little diaper wearing, helplessly wet, binkie-in-lips, smallest-of-the-small, perfect little Candy role model? Nod your head."

This was perhaps a little more Nana Porter than Matron, maybe. Blossom would analyze her performance later.

I nodded my head. I could have argued that she made me, with her thumb between my lips. She lifted her hand, she lowered her hand. She made me nod. But she didn't. I nodded, because I was ready to be good. I wanted to go play.

I felt Blossom's lips on my forehead. Warm, like the October sun on the beach when we were tanning. Warm like cinnamon scones fresh out of the oven. Warm like her hand in mine as she led me through the living room with purpose and precision. Then, when she was done, her thumb came out of my mouth. I looked up at her with glossy eyes, a little out of breath, like I'd just climbed a few dozen stairs.

Wow…