172.)

Blossom's car was a thousand degrees. I unzipped my coat even before I put on my seatbelt.

"How was therapy?" she asked.

"Good, I think. We talked about baking stuff."

"Baking stuff? Like how good your cupcakes are, cupcake?"

Blossom grinned, bright and cheeky, because she knew therapy could be hard sometimes. That was why she always tried to be lighthearted when Amy came out of her sessions.

"Yep, we talked about how my baking is great and never a problem in my life," I said sardonically. "But she had some suggestions anyway, so I'm gonna try them out."

"Oh, like what?" Blossom asked.

"Uhh... I dunno. Just stuff." The truth was, I didn't want to tell Blossom. It felt like picking up one of those score cards at the start of a mini golf course. If nobody knew who was winning, you wouldn't be afraid of losing. And I was really afraid of messing this up.

"Oh, okay." Despite Blossom's smile, she wasn't at all convinced that it was "just stuff", but she didn't want to push Amy. "Well if I can help with any of your new life pro tips, you'll let me know. Do you wanna eat?"

"I'd love to."

Food was such a universal bonding experience. We had been to the beach house so many times that we knew exactly what diners or fast-food places to stop at. It helped that there weren't many options, because we were driving through the less-touristy parts of the east coast. This time, we got bagels and hit a grocery store for weekend staples.

By the time we got to the beach house, it was predictably late and predictably freezing. We followed the routine of pulling the blanket off Blossom's rarely-used bed and cuddling on the couch. This time, there was almost no hesitation to lean into her arms.

"I gotta write this weekend," I said. It had been two weeks, and I had a thousand and one ideas. I worried that I wouldn't be able to fit all of my wants into this one story, with just how many ideas were rattling around in my brain.

"You sound excited." Blossom was no stranger to having one's wants feel like obligations; some of her sorority activities were the same for her. Reconciling obligation with enjoyment wasn't always easy.

"Do you know where you're going from here?" Blossom asked.

"Yeah, so. We left off with that fake note from Maria to Judith, so that's going to cause some problems. I think I figured out how to explain why Judith can't read Maria's writing without having to like... recreate entire product packages and stuff. Originally I was going to have all the bags of chips be unreadable, but that's probably too much work, even for Maria."

"I wondered about that too," Blossom said. "Like, can't she just mind-wipe language out of Judith's brain instead of going through all this trouble?"

"Um... probably." It didn't exactly work like that, but I hadn't explained the markers yet. Maybe I should do that soon. "Maria kind of sees this like a challenge, like a game. It's her first real project, and she doesn't want to cheat, so to speak."

"Wow, very different from other Academy stories."

"Very different," I agreed. But it wouldn't hurt to make that more clear: Maria taking this project more seriously, and wanting to rise to the challenge. Maria seemed like the kind of woman to want to win more than anything. I could make that part of her personality.

"This is so interesting, because so far we've learned so little about what the Academy wants. Getting this whole story from a staff member's perspective is…I don't know, kind of enamoring? I think that's probably the best word. It reminds me of my middle school days, when I'd theorycraft online. Then the creator of the show would release something firm, and that would reignite all the theories all over again."

"I'm glad," I said with a sigh of relief. "Academy M is going to be very different than the others, and I try to make that clear with the whole perspective shift and chapter title thing. But I don't want it to be like… the black sheep of the series."

Honestly, Academy M was going to have a ton of exposition. It would explain a lot of stuff everyone wanted answers for, if everything went the way I wanted it to. And I didn't want it to feel like lazy writing, that I'd been holding off on the "answers" for so long.

"I'm going to be hanging onto every word," Blossom encouraged. "I'll gush about all my theories, and I'm going to be gigglesqueeing when I'm right, and giving math-lady-vibes when I'm wrong. I'm like a one person focus group. A focus girl. I think I once read a smutty story called Focus Girl, come to think of it."

"Peculiar Changeling wrote a story about a product tester for diapers," I shrugged. "That one was pretty good."

"No, this one was about forced gender stuff," Blossom said. "I'm into other things than just diapers, you know."

"Oh, right." I mean, of course I knew that. Blossom was into a lot of things. But it made me wonder...

"I'm your girlfriend," I said, and then correceted myself. "Partner, I mean."

"I've been informed they aren't that different," Blossom pouted.

"I think 'partner' is a little more responsibility," I said. It was a different kind of responsibility, the kind that I could handle a little better. The kind where we looked out for each other, and not the kind where I had to put out.

"Anyway, I'm your partner," I repeated. "So, should I try to play into your other kinks more? Like, should I pretend I'm a boy?"

"Haha, no," Blossom laughed. "I was more into the brainwashing stuff in that story."

"So, should I be brainwashed? Or brainwash you? I could probably brainwash you..." I had no idea how to actually brainwash anyone without magic markers or freezing cold conditioning rooms. But I could fake it, probably. And Blossom Brixley playing the bimbo cheerleader type? It wasn't that crazy a thought.

"Well, I won't lie. That's definitely something I'm interested in." Blossom was actually a little more reserved - maybe even shy - talking to Amy about this kind of thing. Maybe it was because she was divulging something new, or maybe because she knew it wasn't automatically a fetish they both shared and that made it more vulnerable.

"You'd have to pretend to be brainwashed," I said, as if that wasn't clear already. My lack of skill was eclipsed by the moral imperative not to destroy Blossom's autonomy. Brainwashing seemed like a pretty direct consent violation.

"Well obviously! Yeah, like, of course." More slight awkwardness from Miss Brixley, but it was kind of cute that she was blushing for a change.

"Okay, well... do you have a particular fantasy or whatever? Like, what's the story here?"

It was a strange role reversal, where I was mostly comfortable and Blossom seemed to be the one getting anxious. We had been roleplaying together for a while, and I was starting to get used to it. And since our roleplays almost never involved any kind of sex thing, I wasn't correlating the two. Maybe I should have been.

"Like in the story I mentioned?" Blossom asked. "It's about this guy who goes to buy a birthday gift for his little sister at Claire's and they think he's just there for things for him, so they brainwash him and make him think he's like a fourteen year old girl. They place him with a family and stuff and use him to test products and get reactions and results and stuff. It's silly, I know, and maybe I'm misremembering it but… yeeeaaaah."

Blossom was definitely red and fidgety now; it was definitely Opposite Day!

"Okay..." My mind raced to a thousand different ageplay ideas, and how I could use her to test baby products. But wasn't I trying to explore her kinks in a different way? My thoughtfulness must have unnerved Blossom, because she quickly said:

"It's okay if you don't want to."

"No, I'm just trying to think how I can adapt that to like..." I motioned around to the beach house, which was beginning to warm up.

It took a moment for Blossom to infer that Amy probably meant 'the real world' when she gestured to the space around them, and the taller girl nodded her head.

"Well there's lots of potential ideas; mental manipulation, brainwashing, that kinda stuff. It can crossover with just about any kink or scenario. So there's no wrong answers here, and if you don't want to, that's fine too, I pinky promise."

Blossom and I were both doing a great job at being bottoms. Not making decisions. Perhaps that was the big drawback of two subs dating. Though Blossom was a switch. Was I a switch? Oh jeeze. I didn't have time for an identity crisis.

"Let's work backwards, alright?" I suggested. "What do you want to see happen? And I can try to make a story out of that." Working with my strengths!

"Well, stuff I tend to like is like… behavior that's counter to the values of the person. Like.. taking a rebel bad boy or girl and making them into a good little catholic schoolgirl, or like, vice-versa. When I was a kid I used to love when shows would have like the hero or someone on the good guys team be brainwashed into the baddies. There's a whole lot of smut on the topic; entire websites of stories and stuff."

But that didn't answer the precise question that Amy was asking either. What did Blossom want?

"I'm not sure what I want. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's more extreme. Mostly I just read stories because I don't really know how to structure these fantasies myself. It's easier to read what someone else has come up with."

"Gotcha."

So I was supposed to make Blossom into someone other than herself? That bad girl to good girl thing seemed simple enough; she was a rather explicit woman. But what would that roleplay look like? The downsides of roleplays when it came to stories was the lack of down time, the lack of introversion. Everything has to be turned into actions, like a screenplay. I'd never written a screenplay...

What did good girls do? Their homework? Blossom already did her homework. What did Blossom not do?

"What about baking?" I asked, thinking about my conversation with my therapist. If Blossom was in the kitchen and I was giving her instructions, I'd have to watch her. I'd have to be present. It wasn't exactly what Stephanie was talking about, but it would be good practice. Stephanie did tell me to practice.

"I don't think I've ever read a story about baking-based-brainwashing…"

"Like, a maid thing or something?" I asked. It sounded like an ageplay story in my head, but I was trying to remove the diapers and see if it still worked. Turns out, if you take out the diapers, pretty much every ageplay fantasy still works in one way or another.

"….I don't think I've ever been a maid before. Like. A non-sexy-fantasy type of maid anyway. That's kind of… I'm into that concept, I think."

"I don't suppose you have a maid outfit lying around?" I asked.

Blossom shook her head. It wasn't the craziest thing for Blossom to have lying around - probably about as crazy as packs of adult diapers - but this wasn't a roleplay she had anticipated.

"I can just wear something slutty," Blossom suggested. "Doing chores in my underwear is a vibe."

Even the idea of Blossom walking around the kitchen in nothing but a bra and panties made my face hot. Sure, it wasn't a diaper, but...

"Uh, there might be a safety concern with that," I countered, unable to make eye contact with her. "But I'm sure we'll figure something out."

"I'm sure we can! And you can mix things up too, if you want. Bimbo maid in lingerie and a diaper? That's completely valid, and a good bridging point too." This was Blossom Brixley, after all; she had plenty of experience bridging one fetish or kink to another. It was bridging stuff in her own life that she struggled with.

"No, no," I said confidently. "I want to make this about your thing!"

"Diapers are also my thing," Blossom said flatly, narrowing her eyes.

"Yeah, but..."

"You want to play into other interests I have," Blossom said simply, because she'd seen this kind of thing before. Because she'd done this kind of thing before. "But keeping ageplay out of it - which is something we both enjoy a lot - is just going to make it a less enjoyable experience. You don't have anything to prove."

I pouted. Blossom was making a whole lot of sense, and my good gesture was beginning to feel stupid. I wanted to sacrifice myself for her, so she knew how much I cared. I wanted to take out the stuff I liked about roleplaying with Blossom so she could have more of what she wanted. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately in every other circumstance? - we wanted the same thing.

Ugh.

"I see your point..." I mumbled.

"You never have to be anything except for who you are, Amy. I promise. And if any part of your brain ever tells you otherwise, you just tell me and I'll set the record straight. I'm so fluid in my kink stuff; I can go from submissive to dominant to pet girl to baby slut to diapered caregiver to bimbo baby brat; I don't have firmly defined lines, so anything goes."

And Blossom knew that this was not the experience of the majority, she knew a lot of people got caught up in "well my headspace only wants X" or "no Y when I feel this way". That was good for those people, but for Blossom sex and kink made up what was just a plate of delicious foods and she was always looking for the perfect bite.

I faked a smile and played with my fingers under the covers. The truth was, Blossom's sexual flexibility was one of the reasons I hated her when we were in high school. She was too open. Too easy. And now, I was finding that those traits of hers were some of my favorite ones. I felt a little guilty.

But guilt wouldn't do either of us any good. To make it up to her, I was going to make this the roleplay of her dreams.