39.)

Blossom got out of the car and smoothed out her black and white dress.

"We should get you in a diaper before we hang out, because you could fall asleep at any time. I saw you trying to stay awake the last length of the drive."

I knew she was teasing, but it still felt surreal. Blossom Brixley suggested I needed a diaper before bed. Maybe I had fallen asleep on the drive - or the train home weeks ago - and I was still dreaming.

I got out of Blossom's car, grabbed my bag and the plate of donuts, and followed Blossom inside. The lights in the open living room shone off the wave on the far wall. I had to shield my eyes until they adjusted.

"I'll put my stuff upstairs," I told her. I was too tired to write tonight, but I could get started early tomorrow.

"Do you need help with your diaper, or are you good?"

After the big production that had been last weekend's shopping trip, Blossom had decided to try and handle things as simply as possible. Amy would be in diapers. Blossom would too, but only if Amy asked her to be. And with that as the baseline, everything else would be easier.

"I... uh..." I was only one step up the flight of stairs when Blossom said that, and I was well and truly frozen in place. I had been waiting an entire week to put that diaper on, but now that I was here, now that I was with her... I felt my face get hot.

"You know I'd love to help if you'd like~"

Blossom made those few words sound melodic. Not teasing, not being mean. Like a gentle acknowledgement that she knew this could be embarrassing.

"You don't know how to diaper yourself, let alone someone else," I shot back, mostly to diffuse my embarrassment. The idea of Blossom seeing me naked was... yeah, I couldn't handle that. But she pushed the envelope so far that conceding to wearing a diaper almost felt like a victory. A middle ground between not wearing one at all and letting her put one on me. It was a good out. "I guess I'll change then?"

"I guess you will! You're going to look incredible!"

That was a genuine compliment. Blossom didn't fuck around with platitudes.

Maybe my expectations were a little too high. The thickness of the pink diaper between my thighs was unparalleled; the best analogue I had was cuddling up at night with a pillow between my legs. The wings pulled over my admittedly-large stomach with ease and the tapes fastened neatly, like I was a model on the internet. The problem was, the waistband was so high up that it went well past my belly button. Even with my pajama pants, the plastic stuck out the top. It looked a little cartoonish, like I was a teddy bear in a Pampers size 6. But at least it felt nice?

Once I had my shirt on, I could barely tell. I turned around in front of the mirror. The shape of my butt - where it met the backs of my thighs - puffed out a little too much, but someone would have to really be eyeing my ass to notice. However, the inconspicuousness was lost the moment I took a step. It crinkled with every movement, and the padding made walking just a little less natural.

I paced around the spare bedroom for a bit, trying to get used to it. I couldn't. The ever-present thickness was overwhelming, and I saw in the mirror how flushed my cheeks were. I didn't know I blushed like that. Eventually, when I couldn't rationalize waiting any longer, I made my way back downstairs, followed by the light rustling of my diaper.

"I can hear you coming from your crinkling. That is like, absolutely totally the hottest thing."

Blossom's flirting was both subtle and direct at the same time; subtle in that she made it conversational and direct in that she wasn't shy about what she was into at all.

"How does it feel?"

"Thick..." I managed, finally getting to the bottom of the stairs. It was quiet at the beach house, with nothing but the low rumbling of the heater somewhere in the walls. I shuffled side to side, making the diaper crinkle even more.

"I think maybe they are too big? They fit nice, but they go up to like..." I put a hand up against my stomach, an inch or two higher than my belly button. "Here."

"Show me?"

Blossom hurried up excitedly and bounced from foot to foot. Helping dress up her friends was something of a treat for the tall ex-cheerleader.

"Uhh..." What harm was there in lifting my top a little? She had seen me in a swimsuit. And anyway, my pajama pants were pulled up over my stomach. So I lifted the hem of my shirt and flashed the pink plastic, which went up quite a bit. It definitely didn't look like those girls online, or at least not the ones whose diapers were sized properly.

"So sexy," Blossom whispered both to herself and to Amanda, biting her lip with a mischievous smile. She dared to put her hands on her idol's hips.

"Uh huh, sure..." When her hands touched my hips, the plastic crinkled again. She turned me one way and then the other, each movement causing another chorus of rustling. My face felt hot. Eventually, I took a step back and pulled my shirt down.

"I don't like the way they look," I admitted, "but they feel nice."

"Well I like the way they look on you. Can I touch your butt?"

There was a question that many people would have asked Blossom, not the other way around.

"Uhhhh..." I knew it was innocent; she was just curious. And sports players do it all the time, right? Or is that just a meme?

At the same time, I'd read enough ABDL stories to know that diaper pats were kind of intimate. I had written them before - it was something Nana would do to Ai to remind her what she was wearing, especially after messing herself - but no one had ever done it to me. Not outside my fantasies, anyway.

"Maybe later," I deflected. This was all a little overwhelming.

"Maybe later is a way more positive answer than I was expecting, cupcake. I'll take it." Blossom turned on heel and back over to the sofa and the large wave wall.

I let out a sigh and followed behind her. I sat down next to her on the sofa and shuffled in place, pressing my thighs together. I couldn't touch my knees. Granted, I could barely touch them without a diaper, but that technicality didn't seem important right now.

"So... whatcha wanna do now...?" I felt more nervous than usual, like the stakes were higher. Greater risk, greater reward. It felt dangerous.

"Do you wanna watch something?" Blossom asked. "Or look at some stuff on the internet together?" Normalization was something that could ruin the taboo appeal, but Blossom knew that some degree of it would help her new friend.

"Sure..." I wanted to write, actually. I wanted to go back to every instance of a diaper in all the Academy Works stories and make sure I described them properly. Most of what I wrote was tropes: descriptions I saw in other stories or extrapolations from pictures on Twitter. But if I knew what they were supposed to feel like, why was it so surprising to actually be wearing one? Some author I was...