Boy, you belong to me, I got the recipe

“So that’s it? We’re just going to drink coffee?”

Gina had to admit- she was a little disappointed by Amelia’s suggestion.

The older woman sat back on a chair in the lounge with a mug of coffee in her hand, and took a sip before setting it down on the aptly-named coffee table. Gina hesitantly did the same, not liking the taste of coffee very much.

Of course, her own tastes couldn’t compare to that of Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, who had obnoxiously stacked dozens of sugar cubes in the cup, and gleefully watched them dissolve.

Neither girl really understood what this had to do with getting more mature.

“What do you want from me?” Amelia asked sharply.

Gina flinched, and shifted in her seat a bit. “Well… I mean, I want to become more mature,” she pointed out. “You helped me before, right? With the laundry and stuff.”

Amelia raised her eyebrow. “And you’ve been doing your own laundry since then?”

“…Weeeell…”

“So, you have not.”

“I-! That’s for the faeries to do-!” Gina’s cheeks flushed. “I have other stuff on my mind, so I forget sometimes, that’s all!”

Amelia was nonplussed. “Gina, you will not be able to rely on the faeries for the rest of your life. You must learn how to do something as simple as your own laundry.”

“Hey! At-at least I know how to cook!” Gina protested, looking down. “I can do that much on my own, right?!”

“That is admirable,” Amelia agreed with a nod. “But it is not enough.”

Gina knew that the other woman was right. Was it really her fault that she didn’t want to do her laundry, though? When she had a bunch of little pixies who were more than happy to do it for her?

“What about the others?” Gina protested like a petulant child. “I don’t see you making Carly or Kim or whoever do their own laundry!”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin perked up when she heard Kim’s name.

“Miss Granger’s outfits replenish themselves each day,” Amelia pointed out. “And Miss Lewis no doubt has plenty of experience doing her own laundry, given her upbringing. The fact that they are not doing so presently does not mean they are incapable of doing so on their own.”

“Well… but you saw, I can, too!” Gina pointed out. “So isn’t that enough then?”

Amelia took a long sip from her coffee mug, draining it dry as gently as she could so as not to make any noise. Then she set the empty cup down on her coaster.

“Gina, if I were to enter your room right now, would there be clothes all over the floor?” She asked simply.

The fact that Gina couldn’t meet her eyes was answer enough.

“M-maybe…”

“And do you think that is the proper way to take care of your environment?”

“I-!” Gina had no excuses to give. Her cheeks flushed and she bit her lip. “…Look, I’m trying, okay? But after a long day, I just want to get out of my clothes and flop down into bed! And then they’re already on the floor, so…”

She knew she had to pick up after herself, she wasn’t an idiot. But it was so overwhelming sometimes. How could she admit something like that, to someone she respected? “I couldn’t pick a shirt up off the floor because I just didn’t have the energy to do it today. Oh, but I did get out of bed and walk to breakfast!”

It didn’t even sound like laziness.

And yet, to Gina’s surprise, she didn’t see the cold, harsh judgment she expected to in Amelia’s eyes. The brief flash of emotion in her gaze looked almost… understanding.

“I do not comment lightly,” Amelia said, her voice unusually gentle. She chose her words carefully, trying not to come across as harsh or judgmental. “I understand that you have gone through a difficult time. And that you may be overwhelmed on occasion, which keeps you from doing the upkeep you should be doing.”

She remembered how her stepson had fallen apart back when Dakota died. How Nick had been nearly incapable of taking care of himself, forcing her to go that much further in maintaining order and cleanliness around the house. Amelia had never been harsh or overbearing back then, and tried to be as accommodating as possible given what he had gone through.

Seeing Gina in front of her, looking uncomfortable like this, it reminded her of those times. Nick could pick up after himself now, but Gina…

Gina was still that little girl in a lot of ways.

“I…” Gina looked down, unsure what to say. What even was there to say, in a situation like this? Any excuse she could think of for why she wasn’t picking up after herself sounded just like that- an excuse.

It’s all because I’m rooming with stupid, responsible Kim! She thought. Kim’s side of the room was never messy or disorderly. Well, except for the candy. But that wasn’t her fault! She didn’t leave her underwear lying around, or empty bottles, or half-eaten food by the bed! Again, except for all the candy.

Kim was so much younger than her, and yet cleaned up after herself like she was paid to do it. After only a couple nights with the responsible young woman, Gina felt like a complete failure. Heck, yesterday she basically just tooled around in her room because of her feelings of inadequacy in comparison, while the other girls had gone off to have a good time!

Hence why she’d **** herself to go to see Amelia today; she wanted to stop feeling sorry for herself, and try to be more mature, like Kim.

Getting outshone by a woman who dressed like a schoolgirl was a particularly low point for Gina, and her life had a lot of low points.

“I’m going to take a look at your room.” Amelia winced. She’d meant for that to sound like a request, instead of like a harsh mother judging her daughter and doing an inspection. “My apologies. I just meant… …Perhaps I could help you.”

Gina looked at the other woman, her eyes wide with amazement. “Help?”

That was something she hadn’t expected from Amelia.

The blonde nodded. “If left to fester, the mess in your room will only increase in size,” she pointed out. She could sense Gina’s apprehension when it came to cleaning. “With you, a proactive approach is the most sensible.”

“Proactive? Wuzzat mean?” Gina didn’t have the biggest vocabulary in the world. She vaguely understood what the word meant, but wasn’t sure how it applied to her present situation.

Amelia was happy to enlighten her newest student. “If you allow your clothes and mess to pile up on the floor, then it will become that much more work to clean with each passing day,” she explained. “And the more work it takes to clean the room, the more resistant you are to doing so, is that correct?”

Gina’s cheeks reddened with shame and she looked down.

“W-well…”

“Gina.”

“Okay, yes, you’re right!” The punk girl groaned, taking a swig from her cup and nearly gagging. “It’s too much, so I don’t want to do it! I’m sorry, but I’m not cut out for this!”

“It is not about being ‘cut out’ for anything,” Amelia said, shaking her head sharply. “It is simply a matter of endurance. At the moment, you have a low tolerance for enduring the necessary hard work of cleaning up after yourself. Therefore, if you do not wish to live in the stench of refuse, you must be proactive. Clean up your mess as you make it. Throw away your garbage when you are done, pick up your clothes when you take them off. If you can maintain that, you will find yourself overwhelmed with far less frequency. Does that make sense?”

Gina nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess that’s right,” she agreed. “And if I do that, then I can be mature and cool, like you?”

Amelia sighed. “Gina… emulating me should not be your goal.”

“But-!” Gina groaned. Amelia was like, the most mature and grown-up person she knew. If Gina wanted to be a mature grown-up herself, then shouldn’t she copy from the best?

“Maturity is not about mimicking good behavior,” Amelia stated, looking down at the squirming girl in front of her. “If you want to be more mature, then you cannot remain a child who copies adults. You must grow up yourself.”

Gina scowled. That didn’t sound like it made any sense at all.

Amelia sighed again and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Gina, maturity is not about the actions you take. It is about how you carry yourself. Going through the motions will not get you any closer to obtaining what you desire.”

If Gina wanted to actually grow up and be an adult, she had to put in the work. Not just copy what Amelia did, but actually internalize it for herself and behave like an adult.

It was going to be tough work. But Amelia would help her as best she could.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin rolled her eyes. She took a sip of her coffee (which was more sugar than coffee, at this point) and silently gagged.

How boring. When were they going to get to the exciting conversations about Nick?

Gina, feeling the pressure of Amelia’s gaze and momentarily forgetting about the trained assassin, slowly stood up to lead the other woman back to her room, so Amelia could see what a mess she had made of things in just a couple of days.

“SMACK!”

Gina jumped and let out a gasp of surprise as she felt a hand swiftly strike her in the ass, sending a ripple of pleasure through her bottom. She turned around, eyes wide, and looked to see a scandalized Amelia standing behind her with her hand extended.

Amelia looked frozen in shock, her mouth twisted in surprise as her eyes stared vacantly ahead. She looked like a computer going through a screen saver, or perhaps suffering from a system crash.

Neither of them knew quite how to respond to the sudden action in the moment. What do you say when you get smacked on the bottom like that?!

“SMACK!”

“Yow! Hey, Morgana! Fuck off!” Rose exclaimed, glaring at the goth girl, who was looking at Rose’s expanded backside in amazement. Her hand had just kind of moved on its own.

“Wow… is it real?” Morgana wondered, not even realizing what she’d done at first.

“Of course it’s real!” Rose grumbled, rubbing her butt. The slight ache was already starting to feel better, but that was bad in its own way. “I can’t believe this… your spell gave me a bigger butt! I feel so… so bottom-heavy!”

Ella gulped, looking at Rose with a wary expression. She could still smell the sweet aroma of peaches wafting through the air, and she knew that what had happened to Rose had to be an effect of Morgana’s latest spell. But what did it mean? How should she interpret a spell that… that made someone’s ass get bigger?

“Sorry, Rose,” Morgana mumbled, her cheeks reddening. “I didn’t mean to… well… do that, it’s just… I was so curious!”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Gina, you can’t just touch me like that,” Rose grumbled. But soon enough she stopped caring. “Anyway, Morgana, what exactly happened? Your spell makes people’s butts grow, then?”

Morgana nodded. “I think so… you said you smelled the scent of peaches, right?” She looked down at her spellbook, and the page she’d just touched, the one with the peach trees.

Rose nodded. “Yep. I smelled peaches, and then my clothes started getting all uncomfortable to wear, and before I knew it, well…”

She gestured down at herself, particularly her round butt that had grown so much bigger than she was used to. It had been nice and dainty and peach-shaped in the past, but now it looked like one of those fruits at the supermarket that had been injected with growth hormones or something. It felt so weird, having that much weight on her backside.

“But you don’t smell anything?” Rose questioned, looking suspiciously at Morgana. “No peaches or anything like that?”

Morgana’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she admitted sheepishly. “I-I’m sorry?”

Rose didn’t think it was anything worth apologizing over. But it was definitely something curious. The more information they got on Morgana’s spells, the more they would be able to figure out what to do about them.

“I-I can smell peaches, too,” Ella offered. “At least, I think I can. I smell something very sweet…” She took a deep breath, and exhaled. She didn’t actually know what a peach was supposed to smell like, so…

Then she felt something weird happening on her butt. Her skirt seemed like it was shifting up, slightly, almost as if…

Ella blanched. She let out a tiny little yip as tiny spurts of pleasure shot through her body, concentrated on her booty.

“My-!” She nearly bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. Her hands shot behind her back to cover her ass, and her face turned red. She could feel it, pressing up against her fingers.

Her own ass was growing, too!

In spite of Ella’s efforts to hide it, Rose and Morgana immediately picked up on what was happening. They both reacted with a strange combination of surprise and alarm- and in Rose’s case, excitement.

“Your butt is getting bigger as well, eh?” Rose flashed a crooked smile. She walked around Ella, trying to get a better look, but that just made the latina more determined to keep it covered. She bit her lip and shook her head, not wanting to reveal herself.

Rose remained undeterred. “Don’t cover up!” She said sharply, shaking her head. “This is all about research, you know! You need to show us!”

“Rose!” Morgana winced, not liking this one bit. This was all her fault, she’d made their butts grow larger, and now Rose was being all forceful about it… Morgana’s stress levels were skyrocketing, she’d already messed with Ella once already today, how much would be too much!?

Ella sighed and slumped over, removing her hands from her rear end. It felt incredibly uncomfortable to have Rose ogling her like this, but if it would help…

She crossed her arms over her chest and bit her lip, uncertain of what to do.

“Thwap!” A snap of her rubber-band helped clear her mind a little, at least.

Rose stroked her chin contemplatively and studied the nervous girl in front of her. “Hmm… it’s probably as big as mine, now…”

She didn’t touch Ella’s butt, at least. The flustered girl was grateful for that much.

“What about you, Morgana?” Rose snapped her head up and squinted at the goth, who stiffened like a pole.

Morgana blanched.

“M-me?”

“Your butt, has it grown any- Well, I mean…”

Rose glanced at Morgana’s own generous “ass”ets, and realized maybe that was a stupid question. Morgana already dwarfed most women in that department thanks to her Gothicc transformation.

Morgana’s pale cheeks turned ruby red under Rose’s scrutinizing gaze.

“…Yeah, stupid question,” Rose said, shaking her head. “If that thing got any bigger, you’d probably have some trouble standing, I’d wager!”

Morgana’s blush intensified even more. “Rose-!”

“So what’s the deal, then?” Rose was no Dawn or Mary, but she could use her brain at least a little unlike the two flustered emotional time bombs in front of her. “You couldn’t smell the peaches, and your butt wasn’t growing, either…”

“Maybe… Morgana isn’t affected?” Ella guessed, busy fumbling with her skirt. She sure hoped it covered everything. Sure, skirt came down to her knees normally, so maybe she was being a little silly, but when it came to keeping herself covered up, she wasn’t going to take any chances here!

“Could be, she is the spellcaster, after all,” Rose agreed. “But I think it might be something else entirely, actually.”

Morgana’s eyes widened. “Something… else?”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Rose nodded. “I mean, Ella and I both smelled peaches, and our butts started growing. Plus, you know, peach tree? So it’s obvious that’s all connected. Maybe it’s like… Oh! I know! A pheromone, or something like that!”

Morgana considered what Rose was saying. “A pheromone? You mean like… I’m an animal in heat, now?!” She screeched.

Rose rolled her eyes. “No, I mean… Okay, maybe perfume, or something. The point is, I think the spell did affect you, just… not in the way you were expecting it to.”

Morgana stared blankly at her. “But… you guys… you’re the ones whose butts-”

“Don’t say it!” Ella groaned, snapping her rubber-band. She tugged down on her skirt again, just to be sure. She may not have felt a breeze, but she wasn’t going to take any chances with her modesty right now! She was worked-up enough as it was, thanks to the stupid fireball making her feel all moist and tingly down there!

As for Rose, modesty was so far at the bottom of her list of priorities she didn’t even care. She was more focused on the magic of the spell- and how she could benefit from it.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m getting at, Morgana,” Rose said. “I think that spell of yours, it made you emit that strange peach smell. And anyone who smells it, well, their butt gets bigger in response.”

“But why don’t I smell anything?!” Morgana whined.

Rose blinked. “Because it is your own scent,” she replied. “Humans naturally get used to their own aroma, did you not know that? It could be that the spell twisted you up in some way, so your natural aroma smells like peaches now, and affects those who smell it. But it altered you, so that you would be unaffected just as if it were your natural scent.”

Morgana went pale.

“Wait… I… I smelled? B-before?”

“Everyone smells,” Rose bluntly replied. “Why do you think I wear perfume all the time?”

This was blowing Morgana’s mind. All thoughts of spells and magic were completely tossed aside as she started to panic.

“Wh-what did I smell like!? It wasn’t bad, was it!? Did Nick smell me, too?!”

“Uh…” Rose’s mouth fell open as she tried to explain to Morgana how a sedentary lifestyle of being cooped up in your room masturbating for years and taking very few showers and seldom washing your clothes would tend to lead one to have a smell that was less than appealing. But she wasn’t sure how she could bring that up without sending the poor girl into a fit of panic.

“…When we’re done here, perhaps we should go purchase some perfume,” she said diplomatically. “It might negate the spell.”

And frankly, Ella could use some, too. In spite of the latina’s many showers, she had a bit of an odor to her as well, honestly.

Again, best not to mention that. For everyone’s sake.