9.)

The beach house was "Brixley Family" incarnate; it sat half on the sand, on top of short stubby stilted legs a few feet high, with a railed deck that looked out onto the water at the rear of the house and stairs that led down onto the beach. The outer walls had the appearance of a log cabin painted white from the outside, but it was only a facade. The interior was pretty standard. A living room, a few bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom; all very open plan and airy with pastel painted walls that evoked the sky and the sunset.

Blossom led Mia to the door, unlocked it with a code, and then turned to leave again.

"You can go inside," she said. "Check out the deck at the back too! I've gotta turn on the propane tank and power meter, so I'll be right back."

"Uh, okay..."

I had my backpack slung over my shoulders and the cake in my hands. I looked out at the beach; the sand was white and flat, leading up to gentle waves and a whole lot of water. The coastline was empty with the exception of a couple holding hands and walking along the water's edge. I wasn't that surprised; the sun was almost down and the weather app on my phone said it was 55 degrees.

I stepped into the foyer and kicked off my shoes. The kitchen was easy to find. Actually, the whole floor plan was pretty open, with a huge glass door wall facing out onto a deck, overlooking the water. But the most interesting part about the beach house wasn't outside: it was the accent wall.

It was only a few minutes before Blossom followed Mia into the beach house and she flicked a light switch on and then off to make sure it was working right, then did a discrete little fist pump that she'd gotten it right.

"There's a part of me that says 'Blossom, get your things out of the car now', but a much louder part of me says, 'you're not the boss of me Blossom's internal monologue, you don't tell me what to do'."

Although she wasn't sure exactly how much of that Mia had paid attention to, because she seemed totally enraptured by the Wave Wall. The Wave Wall was a large, tacky mural that took an entire wall of the living room from floor to ceiling, painted to look like a crashing wave. Blossom had loved it as a little girl, but the design goal hadn't really stood the test of time.

"This is... big." The whole wall was a painting, and it was also incredibly detailed. If I hadn't been able to step up close and touch it, I might have thought it was a billboard or something. I'd obviously underestimated the wealth of Blossom's family. Though this was her uncle's place or something, right?

"It sure is!" Blossom laughed. "And you can't escape it. You'll be in the bathroom trying to wash sand out from between your toes and you'll look out into the living room and wow there it is. The Wave Wall."

The way that Blossom talked about the Wave Wall did make clear that she had some degree of disdain for it.

"Well, uh... cake?" I held out the tray.

"Right!"

Blossom took it from me and set it down on the kitchen counter. I followed her, because... well, what else was I going to do? I wasn't even sure why we were here. To hang out? To be friends? Probably just to talk more about Academy Works or diapers or whatever it was two kinky college girls did. The sun was setting, but the bay faced south; it wasn't that impressive.

"I should probably cut you a slice because you're clearly too baby to be allowed to use a knife, right?"

Blossom winked with a friendly smile. But it was more than just a casual comment of teasing, or a gentle ribbing; it was a proper test of the waters. She didn't really know what Mia liked in person. Yes, Blossom's teasing had painted her as 'the big' but maybe Mia didn't want that. Maybe Blossom didn't want that. Maybe this would all be nothing in the end. Blossom made sure to keep her expectations open and tempered.

"Oh, uh..." I felt my face get a little hot. I'd written that line like a dozen times, and I'd probably read it a dozen more, but no one had ever said it in the real world. Wait, did people actually say that in the real world? Ugh, I needed to go to more of those munch things...

"I'm, um..." Not that hungry? "Sure..."

Blossom grinned happily, clearly pleased with herself, and the gentle heels on her boots clicked on the tile floor of the kitchen. She leaned over to get plates from a lower cabinet and then stood up to get cutlery from the drawer. She opened the cake carrier up and tilted her head left and right as she lined up the knife, as though getting it dead center was the most important thing in the whole world. And then with a smooth elegant motion, she sliced the cake down the middle. With two more deft cleaves, she cut and served two slices of cake, then gently sucked the frosting off her thumb with a coy smile.

This was so surreal.

She was here with Mia Moore!

I took my plate and sat down at the kitchen bar, on a little stool. It creaked a little and I suddenly felt a little self-conscious about my weight. I knew it would probably creak for Blossom too, but... well, maybe not. Blossom reached over and gave me a fork and I took a bite of the cake I'd made. A little dry; slightly overbaked. At least the frosting turned out okay.

Blossom took a bite of her slice and rolled her eyes back in delight, licking the fork as she pulled it out of her lips.

"Oh this is so good! I love cake so much! You should totes have an Academy story where they like kidnap the Candy with drugged cake. Or or! Where the cake just makes you baby? Or it's addictive? I'm just saying, even if I knew all that, I'd probably still eat it because I'm such a slut for cake. Of course if this were an Academy story, the cake would have to be pink."

"Pink cake... yeah, I haven't done that one yet." Pink food was a recurring theme in Academy Works, and it always made the eater into a dumb, giggly baby. It was inspired a little bit by milk from another diaper story I’d read. I took another bite of cake and smiled up at Blossom. This was actually kind of nice.

"I think it would probably taste like pink milk. Like that not-really-any-natural-flavor-but-we-tell-our-kids-its-strawberry kind of flavor? Like Red Velvet Cake but it's Pink Baby Cake. You can use that one, uncredited, don't worry!"

Blossom had the goofiest, happiest smile on her face while she ate. She was genuine.

"I know the whole 'drug that makes you act like a baby' thing is a trope, but what can I say? Gotta write what you love."

Blossom finished her piece before me; if she ate cake like that, how did she stay so thin? When I was done, she took the plate from me and rinsed it in the sink along with her own. I kicked my feet.

Friends with Blossom Brixley. I sure didn't see this coming.

"I always love when the pink stuff comes out," Blossom said. "I totes didn't see the berries coming in K; those were awesome. Kione would have just been so much happier if she stayed blissed out on baby berries, I'm jus' sayin'."

Blossom was a tall girl; it wasn't so obvious on the train or in the car, but at the college among others it was pretty clear. Here, in the beach house, it was also pretty clear. But the fact she wore boots with a small heel today - and actually really liked heels in general - was her way of owning what a lot of girls would see as a negative characteristic. She leaned over the counter and put her weight on her elbows, smiling at Mia.

"So tell me what else you love about writing, Mia Moore~"

"Uh..." I looked up at her and then down at the countertop. I didn't know why, but it was hard to meet her gaze when I was talking. When she talked, I could look at her just fine. "I dunno... I like the psychology of it, I guess? How do you make an adult do what you want? Obviously treat them like a baby..." That was sarcasm, but my tone didn't land that well.

"So if I wanted you to tell me more about what you like, I'd have to treat you like a baby then?" Blossom put her finger and thumb on her chin like the thinking emoji and paused for dramatic effect in that pose.

I blinked. Was that a joke? Obviously it didn't land either... maybe we were both off our game.

"Anyway..." I brushed my hair away from my cheeks, still avoiding eye contact with Blossom. "What about you? Didn't you say you... like... haven't done the whole... baby thing before?"

It wasn't common for Blossom to cause an awkward social situation, so maybe that hit her a little harder than it would most people. She pouted about it too, pursing her lips and standing back up. Maybe she was just trying too hard here. What was she expecting of all this, anyway? This was her literary idol; she had to do better if she wanted to make a good impression.

What was the question?

Oh.

"Oh! Yeah. I've only read the stories online and gone to a few munches. It does make me feel like I'm not like a true fan sometimes."

"When did you... know?"

I didn't know what kind of answer I was expecting. Something recent? Maybe then I could chalk all this up to a stupid fad. Maybe some dude called her princess one too many times in the bedroom and she wound up on DailyDiapers after a night of boring internet searches and a half-bottle of wine. Or maybe she would say forever. Maybe she snuck into her little sister's crib when she was five years old, or she would steal pullups when babysitting her neighbor. The truth was, I still couldn't put Blossom Brixley in the same camp as me. We weren't anything alike; why would we share this?

"That's a big question!" Blossom said.

There was a lot of vulnerability tied up in that question too. Blossom knew full well that she had to be willing to give some of that up if she was going to earn the trust of her new friend.

"I was in middle school, and I didn't have any friends, so I spent a lot of time online. I was always too shy to enter chat rooms or whatever because what if people asked how old I was? Or what I looked like? Or wanted me to call them, or tried to trace my computer or something; my Dad would have kicked my butt!"

Blossom laughed, but it was clear that this was some pretty deep stuff for her; that this was personal.

"I read a lot of forums and stuff, and sites with stories. It was usually romance stories, not even kink stuff, but I never really liked the ones where there was this traditionally pretty girl or whatever because that so wasn't me. And one day I saw this story about a girl who just never grew up. Like, she got older, but she didn't grow up, and people loved her for it. She had binkies, and wore and used diapers, and she had a biiiig crib and a Nanny and it was just... I wanted that! And the girl in the story wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, and I thought hey Blossom maybe that could be you. Maybe you're more of a Bubbles, did you think of that? Then it kind of spiraled from there."

The Powerpuff Girls reference wasn't lost on me, and... weirdly enough, it was kind of poignant. Blossom was the leader, the one who always had to keep cool and make everything okay. Literally, since she got ice powers or something. Bubbles was the baby of the group. Everyone always treated her like a kid, and... well, she kind of acted like one too. I mean, there was that one episode where she threw a tantrum about being too cute, but even that was kind of cute.

"You didn't have a lot of friends in middle school?" I asked. She sure had a lot of friends in high school, but I didn't know Blossom before then. We went to different middle schools.

"Not at all! I was a kind of shy, awkward, tall girl that nobody really wanted to be friends with. Everyone else got hit with the puberty stick and I was just this flat chested muppet with braces whose Dad would plait her hair every morning, because bless his soul he sure did his best. I had these glasses too, and I really liked them because they were pink but they did not look good. Back then I didn't really care though."

Oddly enough, Blossom seemed more comfortable talking about that part of her life than the fact that she had looked up pervy stories at the same time.

"Ah, so I'm basically middle school you, minus the dad." I mean, I didn't have braces and my glasses weren't pink, but enough of the parallel lined up. I laughed at my own joke, but Blossom didn't.

"Middle School Blossom would have given anything to be you, Mia. You're curvy, you're talented, you have people who want to see your creations, and you're so much prettier than I think you think."

A girl like Blossom, tempered in the fires of high school drama and shallow expectations of image-is-everything, didn't need to lie about that. Heck, she probably didn't even know how to lie about that. And in high school, she'd been the kind of girl who'd been a bitch to people who were less pretty than she was. She wasn't proud of it, but it had been known to happen.

"Uh... thanks..." Blossom's earnest tone was really not what I expected. I looked down at my lap and played with my fingers. My face felt hot. I didn't understand how someone like her could find someone like me pretty...

Blossom smiled and bit the corner of her lip as she winked - Blossom was a winker - and then got back on track with the important stuff.

"So, Mia Moore, I've told you my Baby Girl Origin Story, so now it's your turn to spill! Do you wanna go sit on the deck with me? Watch the water while we talk?"

"Uh... alright."