28.)

"You know, I thought they'd be thicker?" Blossom mused.

We were in the living room and Blossom was pacing, testing out the way it felt to be wearing a diaper. I drew the curtains and sat down on the couch. The novelty took a while to wear off. Sometimes, if I hadn't worn one in a few weeks, I'd just lay on the couch and squeeze my legs together over and over.

"Yeah, sometimes I forget I'm wearing them." I had to either be moving around or actively reminding myself. Though I admit, after lying in bed writing for a few hours and getting up, the unexpected sound of crinkling always made me blush. "These are just from the store. The ones online look a lot thicker. There's a place in the city that has Megamaxes and Abena and stuff, but they aren't open 24/7."

"Sounds like we have some shopping to do tomorrow then, right babes?"

Although, Blossom did note to herself that any thicker and these definitely wouldn't have fit under her current tight pair of jeans. But that didn't mean she couldn't buy different jeans.

"God, hearing them crinkle is pretty sexy though, isn't it?"

She wasn't wrong. I'd never seen someone in real life wearing a diaper before. I mean, some people probably were at that munch. But this felt so much more personal.

"I doubt they'll have a medical supply store or whatever way out here," I said. "And I'm not going anywhere that doesn't have a self-checkout."

"Just say they're for me. Bougie girls like me are into everything and nobody ever asks questions because they don't wanna come across like they don't know what's in and what's not. So I'll be your self-checkout, Mia Moore. And given I like to check you out, that's apt, isn't it?"

"You're an idiot," I said without thinking. I worried for a moment that maybe she thought I was being mean, but when I looked up she still had that wry smile on her face. I let out a sigh of relief.

"If you're so unashamed, just go do it yourself. You don't need me to pick out your diapers."

Or did she? Maybe my idiot thing wasn't a joke. Maybe she was a dumb bimbo, and she needed a grown-up's help to pick out her underwear. And when I chose diapers, she might think it's unusual. But she'd be too much of a bimbaby to question it. She'd wear her diapers in total obliviousness, wetting and messing herself because that's what I told her was the right thing to do.

But that was just more of my fantasizing. Truth be told, Blossom was unexpectedly smart. She was on the Dean's List at our college and she was an Engineering major. My major was English, and that was just because I thought it was fun. What was I supposed to do with that degree?

"You have far too much faith in me in this field, because if you send me in there on my own I'm likely to come out with sixteen packs of Depends and be like 'oh look babes, I got you covered for a whole year!' And you're too polite and too socially uncertain to tell me no, so you'll probably wear them and you won't tell me they're awful in an objective way. And how are you gonna base a story character off me if I'm not even wearing the good stuff."

She had her hands on her hips for this, and with her diaper visible it was a whole display. Certainly cute.

"So we will look it up online first," I answered. "It's not like I know a lot about this stuff either, just stuff I hear from friends."

She still wasn't sitting down. Maybe she liked to pace and listen to the crinkling. Maybe she just liked being in the spotlight. It kind of felt like she was doing a really lackadaisical runway show.

"You have a tall leggy blonde girl in a diaper in front of you - her first diaper, mind you - and you don't wanna go shopping with her tomorrow?"

There were a few expressions that Blossom was really good at, and her pouty puppy dog eyes definitely qualified as one of them. If she were studying theater, she'd have won awards for that pout.

"You're generalizing," I said. "If you wanna go shopping we can. But you aren't gonna find somewhere out here that has anything better than Attends, and I'm sure not buying them."

Actually, Blossom and I usually weren't in public together. We went to dinner once, and grocery shopping. But both of those were pretty late. I guess this place was far enough away from home that we were allowed to hang out.

"Is there a place we can drive to that will have more options? We could make a day of it, go on a little road trip, be like Thelma and Louise with less suicide and more diapers."

But Blossom did know, inherently, that she was being pushy. She flopped down on the sofa next to Amanda with a crescendo of crinkling.

"I dunno... I wouldn't want to go in..." I played with my fingers in my lap, trying to keep my hands busy. No one out here would even know me! But just the thought...

"Okay, how about this: we look for places online, we pick stuff out together, and then we drive wherever it is and I'll go in and pick it up."

That was a solution that solved both of the girls' requirements. Blossom was actually rather proud of herself, because ordinarily she'd be more inclined to steamroll and get her own way.

"I really don't have the money to go hog wild," I sighed, sulking into the sofa. "And I can't really bring anything home. I don't have anywhere to hide it. Stashing one pack of diapers is already a problem." And Blossom lived at her sorority house; that was probably even less safe than my place!

"So we can leave them here? It's the end of the season, nobody else is going to use the place for months and months. And this one can be on me - call it reparations if it makes you feel better, babes."

The issue of money for Blossom was an interesting one. Her Dad made a lot of money, and she never wanted for anything, especially in her later school years, but he also taught her to be fiscally responsible.

Which was why she had three different people who sugared her - two of which were professors - and gave her a pretty happy little slush fund for stuff like this.

She made some good points. And I really wanted to try a boutique diaper. Especially those new ABU ones. It wasn't impossible...

"What if someone shows up?" I asked. "If we can do it, why can't other people?"

"Like, shows up here? Then I'll answer the door and tell them I'm here with a cute girl and they need to go away, obviously."

The same as Blossom would handle the situation with any venue, honestly!

"I mean, if we aren't here." Maybe she wasn't thinking this through. "If your uncle or whoever owns this place comes up without telling you and finds a closet of adult diapers, don't you think that'll be a problem? That's a breach of your... sphere thing."

"Well, I've left sex toys up here before and it's never happened, so why worry about something that's never gonna happen?"

"Boutique diapers and sex toys are not the same thing," I sighed. "If your family found out about sex toys, it would just be a little awkward. But this?"

Blossom knew I had a point. She was trying to find a way around it, because she wanted the same things I did. She wanted a safe space, where both of us could dress up and be cute and have fun and not worry. But we were twenty years old. In this economy? It wasn't likely.

"...okay, I'll buy a trunk. With a lock." It had taken Blossom more time than she was proud of, coming up with that solution. But it was a simple solution, an elegant solution. "We'll go to like, Pottery Barn or some other bougie place. They love those steamer trunks and shit."

"...your cousins won't break it open or something?" My mom would never break into something that belonged to me, which was how I got away with stuffing ten diapers into the locking drawer of my night stand. But I didn't know Blossom's family that well.

"My family would all assume it belonged to somebody else, that that somebody else isn't them, and they'd leave it alone, or at worst move it to another room. We're not snoopy people, babes; and anybody up here after the season ends is just here to have sex on the beach or flirt with some girl they like."

Which was, admittedly, not that different to Blossom's motivations.

"Okay, I just..." I hesitated and looked down at my hands. "I just don't want you to do anything you'll regret. I don't want you to get in trouble because of... this. Because of me."

Blossom was quiet for a moment, and then she took Amanda's hand in hers and squeezed it reassuringly.

"Amanda. Mia. Babes. I'm a big girl, and I've done a lot of dumb stuff in my life. And it taught me that the best stuff in life has some degree of risk. If this ever came up, if somehow someone found out? The drama would be because of me, not you."

I was quiet for a moment before I nodded. She was right...

"Well, for the record, I think it's a dumb idea... but if you're sure."

If this were a diaper story, someone would find it right away. For the first time in a long time, I really hoped this wasn't going to be like a diaper story.