83.)

Once I got Blossom out the front door, I closed it swiftly, shutting the doorway between spheres. I let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, that was more stressful than I thought," I admitted on the way back to the car.

"I know! I told you! You can't let the spheres touch, it's like matter and antimatter." She brought her hands together and then made an explosion motion with them, overly dramatizing the whole thing.

"I have a newfound respect for your life philosophies," I laughed, climbing into the passenger seat of her car. She'd left the heat on while we were inside. I stripped off my coat in the heat. My left arm was wrapped up in a bandage, but my fingers were free of bandaids. They were still red and raw, especially around the nails, but it was an improvement from last weekend. With the stress of finals gone, I was handling things a lot better.

"I still think locking baby mittens are a viable fashion accessory for you, cupcake. But then again I guess I don't know the fantasy-to-real-life fun ratio on that one." Blossom laughed, and put her car in reverse.

"They look cute on Twitter," I shrugged. "I don't know how much they would help though. Maybe if they were locked together..." But I'd probably just feel claustrophobic. Anxiety was bad enough when I wasn't restrained.

"Maybe we should experiment! I think they'd be a cool bondage thing to own anyway, so even if you don't like them I can find a use for them." She nodded her head reassuringly, and then added: "I wonder if there's other stuff like that we should look at owning?"

"You act like we're living together," I teased. "I think all those things are kind of expensive though. Hell, I don't even have a onesie or anything."

Actually, I didn't have anything that looked nice. Blossom often wore lingerie with her diapers and gosh. If I could emote that hot face emoji without looking like a dog out of breath...

"A baby girl without her onesie is like an angel without her wings. We are absolutely going onesie shopping when we get up to the beach house, and that's final."

"If by 'going' you mean 'looking online for one' then sure. But it's probably not safe to get stuff like that shipped to the beach house." What if it was delayed? What if it didn't come until summer, and her uncle was here? Or what if they sent little diaper and baby clothes catalogs in Blossom's name? It was too risky for her spheres. For the same reason, I couldn't get anything sent to my house. The only reason I had a pacifier was because one of my online friends mailed me a little lockbox for my nightstand and hid it inside.

"So we should get a post office box by the beach house then," Blossom said, "so we can get stuff shipped and delivered there, right? Or like, with Amazon, you can get them to ship to these lockers at 7/11. These are very solvable problems, and I'm an engineer so solving problems is one of my favorite things to do."

So long as it wasn't people-problems.

"Huh... I guess I always thought PO boxes were for businesses and stuff. You can just go buy one?"

I opened my phone to Google it.

"You can; my Dad has them in the cities he usually works out of, because he'll often get stuff for rapid prototyping or personal projects and he doesn't want that delivered to any of his office locations."

"Yeah, I guess so... there's one in that town up the road. What size do we need?"

"Well, whatever doesn't fit in the box just gets held behind the counter or in a locker or something." Blossom was a wealth of knowledge.

"So a small one... is like seventy dollars for three months. Jeeze, that's expensive..."

"It's not cheap, but it also means we can buy things online which are probably cheaper than going in person, so over time it'll be a net benefit. And that's less stuff to worry about, which means more time to write Academy."

"Not wrong..." I sunk down a little in the passenger seat and bit my lip. I think our relationship was getting to the point where I had to talk about money. "I should start paying you back for some of this stuff."

"Listen, cupcake, I don't wanna make value judgments on you, or come across all like... I don't know, haughty, or whatever. But if I were to total up every dollar I've spent on us since we've met, it would be less than I paid for my last purse. Money sucks; it makes people into assholes when they have it, and nervous wrecks when they don't. So let me share some of mine with you ~ I by far get the better end of the deal anyway."

"I don't think early access to Academy Works is worth as much as you think," I laughed.

"Well it's a good thing you don't get to make the valuations on your own art then, isn't it cupcake?"

Blossom winked playfully.

I rolled my eyes, but I wasn't about to argue with her. I'd watch my spending one way or another - I didn't want to be a financial burden or anything - but having her buy my diapers, and maybe an outfit every now and again, was too good to pass up.

We were halfway to the beach house when I brought up a topic I had been avoiding. I didn't have any good answers even after two weeks to think about it. But I did figure something out.

"I still want to do a scene," I said nervously, breaking the silence that had been building for the past few minutes. "I think I need to get in trouble for something..."

"That sounds like fun! Do you have any idea what kind of things you'd like me to do to you? We can figure out the crime easier if we know the punishment we're looking for."

Blossom pivoted to this topic with ease, like there wasn't a shred of hesitation in her entire body.

"No, uh... the content doesn't really matter. I think I just need the right mood." I knew what Chapter Twelve was going to be about. I knew exactly what I wanted to write. But if I could get in the right headspace, I could just write and write until it was done. I just had to find that headspace first.

"Alright! I think I have a pretty good idea, then."

"What idea?" She sure came up with that quickly. I'd been thinking about it for two weeks and I didn't have anything to show for it!

"Well, I was thinking we could be cuddling in bed, and I could..."

Blossom thought about it for a moment, thought about her own limits and boundaries, and reminded herself that Amy might not be quite so open.

"I could frame you for wetting the bed. Maybe with water, on the sheets? And we can pretend it's pee?"

"Uh..." Well, the idea made me blush. That must mean it was a good one, right? Jeeze, I didn't think...

"Do you know the traffic light system?" Blossom asked.

"Yeah..." Not that I'd ever used it. It was a really conventional safeword system and it was all over the internet.

"Alright, so if we do this, we need to make sure we're both consenting to it ~ I am ~ and we also need to make sure that we both know how to use the traffic lights. Some people when they're new to playing with kink are afraid that if they Yellow or Red it will 'spoil the moment' and we're gonna quash that thought right now."

"Uh... alright..." I could definitely see myself being the kind of person that wouldn't want to spoil the moment. Why did I have to have boundaries anyway?

"If you don't Yellow or Red," Blossom said seriously, "then you might have a panic attack. And that will spoil the moment a lot more than just using your safe words properly."

Oh, that's why.

"You understand, right babes? This is important. We can do any kind of play you want; I can punish you, or dress you up, or you can make me use my diapers or humiliate me or whatever else. I'll try anything, just as long as we're both comfortable enough to use safe words."

I nodded. It was a little daunting having everything laid in front of me like that, but... well, I wanted to try this, didn't I? And if it was anything like last time, I could really get some good writing done.

"Okay..." I agreed. And then I thought about something else. "Um, actually. How do I know when something is a safe-word moment if it's new to me? I mean, I want to try new things... I think..."

Blossom thought about that question, because she knew the answer, she just had to put into words the way to express it.

"Yellows can be good for that. A Yellow can be a 'I'm not sure how I feel about this, give me a sec to talk about or think about it,' or it can be a 'let's pump the brakes and go in a different direction' or whatever else."

"Oh..." I hadn't heard of Yellows being used that way; I thought it was exclusively the latter. Then again, there was no reason why we couldn't adapt. I tried to remind myself that we had basically done this once before. Actually, the first time we ever really hung out! This wasn't so weird. Right? But I was pulling at my fingers in my lap all the same.

"Do you have questions? It's alright to have questions, and to be curious, and to be nervous. This is some new stuff for you, right?"

For someone who appeared so shallow, Blossom was a very emotionally intelligent woman.

"I'm okay..." I wasn't exactly okay, but I knew my anxiety was not rooted in logic. I would be safe with Blossom. I could use a safeword if I needed to. My anxiety was just anticipation. I just needed a distraction until we got to the beach house. And there was only one thing that could pull me away from such a big stressor.

"So... how are you liking Academy A so far?"

That question turned into a 45 minute discussion about Wendy and her search for a ghost. Blossom still didn't understand why I changed protagonists, but I promised her it would make sense in the end. Or, I hoped it did. Ever since I fell into my writers' slump around Chapter Six, I was always questioning myself. Maybe I should have stuck with Aya after all... but it was too late now.