I want to grow up

While everyone was in a better mood, the group still wasn’t sure what they wanted to do.

“I do need to work out later,” Kim mentioned. “Dani said she’d be ready at about two. So that gives us, what, about four hours or so?”

“That should be fine,” Dawn agreed. “Also, we should probably make sure that we aren’t doing anything that would overlap with Nick’s date plans. The last thing we want is to inadvertently run into the two of them on a date together.”

Morgana couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, that would be really awkward,” she sighed, playing with her bangs. She still wasn’t sure if she should have gone back to her old hairstyle or not. It wasn’t like she particularly liked it or anything, she was just a little wary of making a permanent bold choice with the twintails.

The other girls were supportive of the decision. And everyone was in agreement that they should avoid interrupting Nick and Ella on their date, if at all possible. Even if it was only to avoid triggering her and bringing Cinder out.

“There is one issue with that decision,” Amelia pointed out, frowning. “Do any of you know where Nicholas intends to take Ella on their date together? Because I have not had the opportunity to speak with him this morning.”

That was the issue, wasn’t it?

Nobody actually knew what Nick and Ella’s plans for their date were. The only person she might have confided in was her roommate, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin.

And if she knew anything, she certainly wasn’t talking.

Feeling all eyes on her, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin just shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea either.

“This morning, Ella did speak with Carrington for an extended period of time,” Amelia mentioned, barely managing to hide her disdain. “So it’s possible that she might be aware of their date plans.”

There was no joy in her voice as she presented that possibility. It was clear just what she thought about going to Vivian hat in hand and asking her where they should avoid going.

And Kim wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea either.

“Ugh, let’s just move past that already! Come on!” Gina groaned loudly, scratching her hair in frustration. “Look, we’re never going to get anywhere if we sit around worrying about where we can’t go or shouldn’t go! Let’s just go where we want to go, and if Nick and Ella happen to be there, well… shit happens, right?”

“…Succinctly put,” Dawn said dryly.

Mary just sighed.

“That proposal does have a certain logic to it,” Amelia agreed with a slight nod. “It could be bothersome to run into Nicholas and Ella on their date, but you are correct, if we spend too much time worrying about it, we will waste this morning together.”

Of course, since clothes shopping also wasn’t on the table, they were quickly running out of things to do together.

For Gina, the answer tended to be “find a bar” but she couldn’t do that this time. That would just look tacky! And she was trying to cut back on drinking anyway.

No, they needed to come up with something more mature than that, something that the girls could enjoy together that wouldn’t involve causing all sorts of problems.

Something mature!

“What’s something mature we can do, Amelia?” Gina asked, turning to the teacher with expectant eyes. “What would you normally do on your day off?”

“Good idea,” Mary nodded.

“Yeah, do you have any thoughts?” Morgana asked.

Amelia considered what the girls were asking for a moment. “Well… when I have time to myself, I tend to spend it reading a good book,” she answered.

“Yeah! Good idea, same,” Mary agreed.

“Yes! Reading it is!” Morgana clapped her hands together cheerfully.

Dawn could certainly get behind that idea, but she didn’t say as much. Because she knew Gina well enough to know-

“Ugh, reading? Boring!” Gina groaned.

…That she probably wouldn’t go for it.

“Isn’t there anything mature we can do that isn’t going to put me to sleep?” She grumbled, placing her hands on her hips.

“And don’t forget, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin can’t read in the first place,” Kim pointed out, gesturing to the assassin who was nodding vigorously in agreement.

“Ah, that is a good point,” Amelia admitted. She’d basically just proposed reading because it was the only thing that had come to her mind, she hadn’t seriously considered that they should actually just go read together.

But there was definitely an issue at hand.

“Well, Kim, it’s your day off,” Dawn pointed out. “What would you want to do?”

Kim paused. “On my day off? Well… I tend to go for walks in the garden on my free time,” she said. “Or we could go on a nature hike?”

A few winces rose up from the girls, notably from Gina and Morgana. Neither of them were all that enthusiastic about the idea of a nature walk. Exercise? No thanks.

Even Dawn seemed reticent.

“My constitution is not well-suited for physical exercise,” Amelia admitted. Her slender figure was alluring, but it certainly didn’t suggest she had any inherent strength. “Perhaps there is something we could do that we would all enjoy?”

“Well, I do have one idea that I was saving,” Dawn said, stroking her chin. “There’s a cat café we could go to.”

Amelia blinked. “Cat… café?” She asked.

“Uh-huh, Dawn just loves it!” Morgana nodded. “It’s really a lot of fun! You get to drink coffee and feel all sophisticated and stuff, while petting adorable little kittens!” Her eyes were shining with excitement. As the youngest girl in the group, Morgana had a lot of fond thoughts about doing stuff like that.

“…I could get behind that,” Kim agreed. “Gina?”

“Eh… it wouldn’t be my pick,” the punk girl admitted with a shrug. “But drinking coffee in a café does sound like something a mature person would do.”

“One problem with that idea, though,” Dawn said, nipping the proposal in the bud before anybody gave it any serious thought.

“Oh?” Mary turned to look at her.

“What is it?” Kim asked warily. The frown on Dawn’s lips spoke volumes.

Dawn sighed and her ears drooped down. “…The reason I didn’t bring it up before now is because there’s a very good chance that Nick and Ella might go to that café on their date together,” she admitted.

“Oh? Is Nicholas a fan of such things?” Amelia asked.

Dawn shook her head. “He likes it just fine, but the issue I think is that last time we were there, we brought Cinder. Back when she was under the influence of that mirror.”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded swiftly, remembering that well. She had never been to a cat café before that, after all!

“…Cinder didn’t seem to have the best time,” Dawn concluded. “So basically, what I’m saying is that knowing Nick, and how much he likes making up for his prior mistakes, real or imagined, and drastically overcorrecting, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that he proposed taking Ella to the cat café this time so they could have a better experience together.”

Nobody could really argue with her conclusion. Everybody knew that sounded exactly like the kind of thing Nick would do if he was feeling really thoughtful.

“Indeed, Nicholas is that sort of man,” Amelia agreed, and the matter was settled.

As much fun as a cat café sounded, it wasn’t exactly the best decision if they might run into Nick and Ella there.

Then Kim had a thought. “Well, if it’s about relaxing, I actually think I have a good idea!” She said cheerfully. “…It’s something we’ll have to be careful about, though. Or at least, I will.”

Everybody looked at her curiously, wondering what she meant.

“The spa?” Dawn asked, her ears perking up. It had been a while since she last came here. She looked up at the pleasant building and nodded in approval.

“Yup,” Kim nodded. “We still get a free bath every day, right? And there’s no way Nick and Ella would ever come here. Not after last time.”

Mary and Dawn both nodded, while the other girls just looked confused. Even Morgana wasn’t around back when Nick had come here on his date with Dani, and realized just how problematic the place was with their massages.

The baths were nice, but the other services… those were somewhat questionable, to say the least.

“It would definitely be relaxing,” Morgana agreed.

“Yeah, I can get behind hanging out in a hot spring together and shooting the shit!” Gina nodded excitedly. She caught Amelia’s eye and quickly cleared her throat. “…Ahem! I mean, ‘discuss matters of importance both great and small with esteemed acquaintances’,” she corrected herself in an exaggeratedly stuffy voice.

Amelia was not amused.

“But what about you?” Mary asked, looking over at Kim with concern. “Getting into a hot spring… that’s really going to be a risk with your new punishment transformation, isn’t it?”

She knew all about how certain things happened to get bumped and touched in hot springs. And she wanted none of that! And certainly not for Kim, given what the other girl would have to go through if something like that happened.

Kim scoffed and shook her head. “Look dude, it’s fine,” she assured her friend. “I’ll just keep my distance! Besides, I’ve got Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin who’s got my back!”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin nodded cheerfully and flashed a smile in agreement.

“Just gotta make sure I don’t get a massage,” Kim added.

The faeries supposedly gave very good massages (minus the aphrodisiac massage oil) but Kim had no idea if they were capable of triggering her transformation or not.

She really didn’t want to have the chance to find out, either.

So with nothing better to do, and everyone apparently in agreement, the girls headed into the spa in order to take a bath.

Gina in particular was very interested in catching Amelia naked. She wanted to check if the older woman really did have any tattoos or not.

Unfortunately, on the topic of tattoos, as the girls started getting undressed, they ran into a problem that they maybe should have seen coming earlier.

Namely the sleeve of tattoos on Gina’s arm, which would reveal her deepest fantasies to anybody who looked at them.

It wasn’t exactly something she was enthusiastic about sharing with the people around her, for obvious reasons, and nobody wanted to see that shit.

“Do you think we could bring a towel in, maybe?” Morgana suggested.

“That could work,” Mary agreed. Right now, Gina was naked save for her leather jacket, for the sake of the other girls.

Amelia cleared her throat. “I do not believe that would be permitted,” she replied, and gestured to a sign posted on the wall of the changing room.

PLEASE REFRAIN FROM BRINGING ANY FOREIGN MATERIALS INTO THE WATER. THIS INLCUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO: JEWELRY, FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS, PROPHILACTICS AND OTHER BIRTH CONTROL, CLOTHING, SWIMSUITS, TOWELS, AND ANY OTHER FORM OF COVERING THAT MAY BE USED TO COVER ARMS OR TATTOO SLEEVES.

Kim twisted her face into a scowl. “I don’t know, that last one seems pretty specific,” she said, knowing full well what might have motivated Dakota to have that particular sign posted.

“Hey, I mean… look, just don’t look at my arm, right?” Gina said. “It’s the best we can do, right? We just have to be smart about this.”

Her voice strained with slight desperation.

Mary nodded in agreement. It was obvious that Gina really, really wanted an opportunity to hang out with the other girls, and it wouldn’t be fair to deprive her of that. While she wasn’t exactly thrilled about potentially seeing the girl’s sexual desires (which would all probably revolve around her husband) she was happy to be the bigger person.

“I think that’s a good decision!” She agreed. “Let’s not let this get in the way! It’s fine if you want to go in with your tattoos out, Gina!”

She turned to Gina, looking at the other girl for approval.

“Well, alright then,” Gina said with a nod, and shrugged off her leather jacket.

The punk girl did have a decent number of tattoos. But as much as Mary should probably be staring at the mundane ones, she couldn’t help but feel her eyes drawn to the long sleeve on her arm, detailing just what she wanted Nick to do to her.

FLASH!

In an instant, Mary saw Nick pinning Gina to the bed, his hands wrapped around her throat as she squirmed, struggling for air as she-

FLASH!

Next was Gina chained up to the bed with a massive vibrator shoved inside of her, giving her just enough pleasure to keep her on the edge of an orgasm but not enough to push her over.

FLASH!

FLASH!

FLASH!

Mary couldn’t pull her eyes away, and part of her didn’t want to. She drank in all of Gina’s fantasies until she-

“Okay, uh, it’s getting kinda weird now,” Gina said, a little embarrassed. She actually hid her arm behind her back just to keep Mary from leering at her.

The redhead was starting to drool.

Like a princess waking up from an eternal rest, Mary was slowly roused from her fog, and blinked momentarily as her thoughts cleared.

All the other women were staring at her.

“…L-let’s go to the bath!” She said loudly, quickly stripping off the rest of her own clothes and rushing over to the shower area to clean off.

Soon enough, all the girls were washed down and ready to get into the baths. They all agreed Gina should be the first to go, just so she could hide her tattoos in the water. Gina had no objections for obvious reasons.

Dawn was apprehensive at first as she stepped in, since she still didn’t like getting her fur wet. But she didn’t have a problem with it. She slid into the hot spring and relaxed, letting out a long sigh as her tail floated alongside her in the water.

Everyone was enjoying themselves as they entered the hot spring, and even Amelia had a pleasant smile on her face.

There was only one person there who had some problems, and that was Kim.

“Ugh, how am I already sweating again?” She groused, rubbing her forehead.

Morgana knew the answer to that one, obviously. “It’s because of your-”

“Yes, Morgana, I know it’s because of my transformation,” Kim cut her off. She rolled her eyes and sighed. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat like the rest of the girls, but while they were only sweating a little, it felt like her head had just been dunked in the spring.

It didn’t help that everyone was somewhat keeping their distance, not exactly enthusiastic about the prospect of bathing in Kim’s sweat.

“I think you’ll just have to get used to it,” Mary said. “I’m just glad I’m not producing right now,” she said, lifting her breasts out of the water slightly and letting them splash back down. “We probably should have milked me before we came in, just in case.”

“Eh, last time that got a little steamy and sweaty, not sure if I’d be up for it,” Gina admitted. And that wasn’t even touching on what had happened the last time she’d had a sip of Mary’s milk.

With how twisted her self-image was right now and how hard she was trying to find herself, she didn’t want to see what the milk would do to her.

“Breast milk production can fluctuate depending on your hormone levels,” Amelia said, squinting at Mary. Like Dawn, her vision wasn’t the best without her glasses. “However, your breast milk is not of the ordinary kind, is it?”

Mary blushed and shook her head. No, it certainly was not! It was the product of a transformation, after all.

“You’re very knowledgeable about that,” Dawn pointed out, looking curiously at the older woman. “Was that something you studied when becoming a teacher?”

Amelia sharply shook her head. “No, it was something I learned when I was thinking about becoming a mother myself,” she replied.

Then her eyes widened slightly and her flushed cheeks paled, as if she was suddenly realizing that she’d said something untoward.

But it was too late to take it back. She’d gotten everybody’s attention and now all the girls in the hot spring were looking at her, even Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin.

“Wait, um… you… you wanted to be a mom?” Morgana asked, her cheeks turning even redder with embarrassed confusion. “With, with Nick’s dad, or…”

“That is a private matter,” Amelia said sharply, startling the young goth. Then she sighed. “However… there is no harm in asking. To answer your question, the topic is… complicated. But it does not matter.”

“Because you have Nick, right?” Mary murmured.

Amelia nodded a silent ascent.

“That is also part of maturity,” she informed the others. “In fact, if I am being honest… I did not truly mature into the woman I am today, until I became Nicholas’s stepmother.”

“There, you see?” Mary proclaimed proudly, standing up in the hot spring and putting her hands on her hips triumphantly. “I was right! The best way to help you mature, Gina, is if you become a mother!”

Gina’s face turned crimson. Dawn sighed and rubbed her forehead. She slowly shook her head as Morgan and Kim stared at Mary in shock.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin silently giggled.

“…That is not what I said,” Amelia stated, her eye twitching. “I would not recommend such a foolhardy endeavor.”

“Yeah, and besides, can you imagine me? Being a mom?” Gina shook her head and laughed it off, but like before, Dawn could hear the remorse in her voice.

Mary ignored her attempts to obfuscate the situation. “Yes,” she bluntly replied, and Gina nearly fell over in the water.

“Look, Mary, I get what you’re into, I really do, but motherhood isn’t for everyone,” Kim pointed out. “And it definitely isn’t the fix for every problem.”

She was thinking of her own mother, and the horrible situation her sperm donor had placed the poor woman in.

Grimacing, Kim shook her head.

Mary looked weakly at her and frowned. “I-I guess… but I just wish there was something we could do, you know? Some way that Gina could be helped…”

“Hey, come on,” Gina said, placing her hand on Mary’s arm. “You’ve helped me a lot already, you know? And you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

She sighed and sank back into the water, staring up at the sky. “I get it. This isn’t a problem I’m going to be able to solve in one day. It’s going to be a lot of hard work. But having you guys here, cheering me up… it means a lot. Really, it does. So thanks. Thanks for your support, guys.”

Everyone smiled. Even Amelia did, a little. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had a big wide grin on her face, and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah,” Dawn murmured. “This is really nice…”

She sank into the water and started blowing bubbles as she lazily lounged about in relaxation.