204.)

I finished my food before Blossom, in part because I wasn't that hungry. My stomach was still in knots, and I could only eat five or six of those boneless wings. Instead of moving back to coloring, I sipped my sippy cup and watched TV until Blossom was done.

"You finish up your episode, sweetheart; I'm going to go get your bath running. Do you want bubbles today?" She phrased it like that - like it was a regular thing, like it happened all the time.

"A bath...?" Blossom had never given me a bath before. She had barely even seen me naked. I'd written bath scenes in Academy Works, and they were always very intimate. Maybe not in a grown-up way, but intimate nonetheless.

"I know you're a bit shy about your body, so I'll add bubbles." Blossom ruffled Amy's hair and went into the master bedroom to start the tub.

"Blossom..." I called after her, but she was gone. I looked down at my coloring page with a bit of anxiety. I wasn't sure this was such a good idea.

Blossom Brixley was a known planner. Or, orchestrator might have been a more accurate term. And she was also a girl who'd had horrible body image issues for the first stretch of her life. That meant that she understood the apprehension in Amy's tone when she heard it. She'd already made accommodations.

When Blossom came back out of the bedroom, I still wasn't done with my coloring. I was too distracted by what she had planned. I knew she was my girlfriend, and I knew she had seen me naked before, but I was still scared.

"Let's get you undressed," Blossom said.

Before taking me by the hand and urging me to stand up, she untied the bib from around my neck. I had forgotten it was there, to be honest. She led the way to the master bath, which was a pretty big tub. It was the kind of tub you usually found in an upper-middle class master bathroom. But there was also a pink two-piece swimsuit hanging on the towel rod. I didn't notice it before, because I used the other bathroom. Actually, I very rarely came into Blossom's room at all.

"Let's get you into your bathing suit," Blossom said. "I know you're super excited for the bubble bath - like, look how many bubbles there are! - so you can hop right on in once you're changed. Do you need my help getting changed?"

Notably, and perhaps tellingly, Blossom had covered up the medicine cabinet with a towel so that Amy couldn't see her own reflection.

"Uh... no, I can do it..." I didn't understand how Blossom got my size for a swimsuit. I wasn't even sure I owned a swimsuit that still fit me. The last time I'd worn one was in middle school. Or was it early high school? I had a swim class, and I hated it. Since then, whenever I went swimming, I had two general principles to follow:

1.) Don't.

2.) If 1. is not possible, wear swimsuit bottoms and a t-shirt.

"I'll stand right here in the doorway and look away while you get changed," Blossom said. It was a gamble, but so far the whole day had been a gamble. Blossom was never very good at gambling, but she was on a hot streak today.

Blossom turned around and I looked at the swimsuit. It was cute, I guess. Pink wasn't really my color, but it wasn't flashy or over-the-top baby. It was just a really casual swimsuit, probably something she picked up on Amazon for ten dollars or something.

I stripped out of my clothes - and my training pants - and pulled on the swim bottoms. Then I put on the top, which was kind of like a sports bra. It didn't do much to cover my stomach, but the bubbles in the tub would do a good job of that. All in all, I wasn't half as uncomfortable as I thought I'd be.

"Okay, done."

"There we go, and you did it all by yourself too! I'm so stinkin' proud of you, cupcake." Blossom gushed while she approached the tub. She held out her hand for Amy to give her a sense of balance when she followed Blossom's next directive:

"In you get."

I decided not to argue. In the battleground of my expectations versus reality, reality was doing a pretty great job of keeping me afloat. Clinging to the sinking wreckage of my expectations wouldn't do Blossom - or me - any good. So I got into the water and sank into the bubbles. It was kind of hot at first, but my body was getting used to it.

"There we go! How's that feel? Warm, but not too hot, right? The soap should be good for your skin. When you're a grown up like me, you have to worry about all that kind of stuff, but you're way too little for those types of worries. I'm going to put some music on in the other room and I'll be right back, okay?"

Blossom Brixley, as it turned out, had pretty damned good maternal instincts.

I played with the bubbles in front of me. I wrote more about bubble baths than actually experienced them. They were calmer than I remembered. But there was a nagging annoyance too. Like this was a waste of time. And Blossom babying me was a waste of time. Because I wasn't a baby: I was twenty-one.

I sunk a little further into the water, until my whole body was gone.

The soft sounds of chill atmospheric vibes began to play from the other room, and Blossom came back to the bathroom with one of Amy's kitchen aprons fastened around her. It was a spontaneous but inspired choice to keep her clothes dry. She also had a large Pyrex measuring cup she figured would be useful for washing Amy's hair.

"Oooh, are we hiding today? Wheeeeere's my cupcake?"

"You're really going over the top with this," I sighed and lifted myself a little out of the water. But the music was soft and the bath was warm. And I had a swimsuit on, and I had bubbles over that. There wasn't a lot I could complain about, even with Blossom's diminutive tones.

"Well, I'm much taller than you are, so I guess everything I do is 'over the top' of you, right?"

Clever comment aside, when Blossom sat down on the floor next to the tub with the Pyrex in her hand, she dropped her volume to a hush.

"Are we green?"

"Yeah, I guess. I'm not feeling particularly Little." Or anything at all. "But you're having fun, I guess." That was my justification; if Blossom was having a good time, then it was worth putting up with.

"I am definitely having fun," Blossom confirmed, reassuringly. "Now I'm gonna do my bestie best to not get any water or soap in your eyes, okay?"

I was going to argue that I could do it myself, but I didn't have the energy. And Blossom said she was having fun, so... I turned around in the tub and leaned my head back like I did when I was a really young kid and my mom would wash my hair for me. I listened to splashing as Blossom filled the cup, and then I felt the heat of the bathwater on my scalp in a way that is very unique to someone pouring a cup of water over your head. Blossom hummed a song I didn't know, in contrast with the background music. The nostalgia was dizzying.

Blossom had very nice hair that she spent a lot of money on keeping beautifully blonde, and she therefore had a very fastidious haircare routine. Which meant that when it came to her doing Amy's hair, she was meticulous. Water. Massage. Water. And then a precise and gentle lather with shampoo, followed by circular patterns with her fingertips that ensured she got it all the way through every strand of hair.

If she didn't want to be an engineer, Blossom Brixley probably would've made an excellent hairdresser.

I had been to a real salon maybe two or three times in my entire life, and I never really liked when someone else washed my hair. It was awkward. But Blossom had played with my hair dozens of times - when it was dry, of course - so it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Blossom rinsed my hair with another cup of water, this time from the bath tap. It was a little colder, and a shiver ran down my spine. Then she did the whole thing again, but with conditioner.

"You are being such a good girl for me," Blossom said warmly, like the bathwater itself. "You know, I've read a few ageplay stories where they dye someone's hair pink or blonde or something. But it's never as easy as it is in the story, I promise you that!"

Blossom laughed - a kind of laugh that parents used when they said something that they were sure was funny, but that went over the head of their little one.

Blossom finished washing my hair, and that seemed to be enough for her. I guess there wasn't much purpose in washing my body if half of it was covered up. She left for a few minutes and I slipped deeper into the tub, so that my whole body was under the bubbles. My glasses were speckled with water drops, so I closed my eyes.

It was warm. Relaxing. If it was any other day, maybe I would've even called it pleasant.

When Blossom came back, she was carrying a big pink towel. I looked up at her and sighed. If Blossom was hoping the bath would quiet my mind, she was wrong. But my body liked it. Maybe that was enough of a win.

Blossom held out of the towel as a prompt for Amy to get out of the tub so she could wrap her up. Honestly, if she'd wanted to, the taller girl could probably have lifted Amy out of the water all on her own; but if she tried and she couldn't, she knew it would be a source of self-loathing for Amy.

And today, Amy had enough reasons to feel that way.

Blossom literally towel-dried me. I thought I'd hate it, but I didn't. Maybe because of the swimsuit. Maybe I just was too tired to hate something. Whether it was - depression or the heat from the bath - all I wanted to do was take a nap.

Blossom asked me to change out of my swimsuit and finish drying myself off, which I did. When I was alone in the bathroom, I squeezed the water out of my hair with the towel. Then I wrapped it around my chest, under my arms. It was big enough to go all the way around me, and went almost down to my knees.

While Amy got herself dried off, Blossom set about the next part of her plan. She had tried to source some good quality adult pullups, but there wasn't anything cute like that on the market. Instead, she had two options: diaper and a set of adult pajamas, or trainers and onesie. Either one was another milestone toward littleness.