x
Cause: 12
Ranma on Dr. Strangelouvre ----------
Gather round, ye children, a story I will tell.
You know how it all ended, I just had to fill you in on how it started. That's really my story. You know the rest right? I get up and fight Dr. Stranglouvre for nothing. No honor in it really. I'm not fighting for Akane, not fighting for Kodachi, I could say I'm fighting for myself, but look where that got me.
Here.
Today, Sunday, Two days now and the sky is still gray. I wake up in the park, sitting among strangers. A little girl is drawing a picture of me, with a little bubble floating up out of my head. The bubble was empty.
I was dreaming about something, then I woke up.
What was I dreaming about little girl?
I remember clearly. It's a black night, and I'm in the park, near where I am now actually. Sidewalk lights and leaves on the trees are mixing lights and shadows. A big man dressed all in tattered brown rags. Big and tall and nightmarish.
Death.
No, worse.
Looked like Death's boss.
His parole officer.
He reaches out his hand and I take it. He's got though, calloused, dry leathery skin, like he cuts stone for a living. You could slice his hand with a combat knife and not draw blood. He takes my hand and tries to walk me up a set of crumbled ruined cement steps.
They don't really go anywhere, and they get worse as you go. I can see them breaking off, and twisted sideways in big chunks. Apparently I have to climb them all. He leads me up these steps, when from behind me, I hear her.
I look back and a girl who means allot to me called out my name. I go to hug her, and she's small and soft against me.
I promise I'll forget about the other one. I'll let go of regret.
Then I woke up and a little girl was drawing a picture of me.
Of course I feel that way about girls, silly kid.
She can't draw that. There's not enough room in the bubble.
I tell her to let me see what she's got so far. So, she flips the pages over, and there's me, calm and asleep, with my travel blanket, and backpack and boobs.
Oh great.
It was cold, so I was hugging them upwards for warmth. Nothing was showing, so at least the picture was decent, but there is a bigger problem here. Imagine me going to a fight in this tits and ass body of mine. I'm supposed to be in a man-to-man fight in-
Hey, what time is it? The girl turns.
Naioki-san, She says, What time is it?
A heavy-set, shirt-and-tie type guy looks at his watch. The way he looked at his watch kind of made me think that he was trying to make it look like he was't looking at me the whole time. You never can tell with people who sleep in the park, you know. He calls back at us.
Oh, drat! That's some bad luck, I must say. I guess I overslept because I have to be someplace in thirty minutes.
Her face goes eccentrically scared as only a child's can. You better Huuuuuurryyyyy.
I will, thanks.
HOT WATER, HOT WATER, and HOT WATER NOW!
The little girl screamed after me; Wait! Wait! What were you dreaming about, that I can put in this bubble?
Grabbing all my stuff, and my bread loaf, rushing away I scream back at her the first thing that came to mind.
She smiled and waved. "OK, I love tuna sushi! Byeeeeeeee!"
It's at this point when I'm running that I start to figure everything out. Cause and effect. That's it, and that's everything isn't it? Like a stack of dominos, no different than falling in love or earthquakes. These things happen. Kasumi, the bastion of all that is true said it, so who am I to deny it? Cause: I fell into the spring, effect: I'm cursed with a woman's body. Cause: The testosterone receptors in Akane did not function properly, Effect: she became a girl. Cause: I was horny, effect: Kodachi.
It all makes sense.
You can cause and effect everything, the whole universe is just another ticking clock when you think about it. Whether its ticking forward or counting down depends on you, but hey, you're just another slave to cause and effect anyway, so hell, what does that matter?
No multiple choice divine destiny-
A) I'm happy forever
B) I live in misery
C) I'll never have sex with the same woman twice.
D) Both and
Bullshit.
Cause and Effect.
They mark moving planets and eclipses like this, just put the information in a computer and it can predict any of it, just by what's causing worlds to move, and how they are affected. They map volcanoes and thunderstorms, migration. A smart enough computer could tell you how the world is going to end. Nothing really matters to me at this moment, I've really got nothing left, but I still get to have my own little life-changing revelation. That I can explain everything with just cause and effect. Don't believe me? Start at page 1, meet me back here. If you nod off, hit yourself.
I'm not even looking back as I run. The sky gets darker; it's not that it's late. The clouds are getting thicker. Just a glance at them, and you'll expect to hear a rumble.
Everything at Ukyo's smells really good right now.
I could eat a placemat.
"We're closed can't you read the sign?"
Ukyo is turned away at the sink washing her pots and pans. I smell bean sprouts, batter, cheese, shrimp and sauce. I need some hot water.
She Jerks her head up and almost turns to me, then she looks back down at her pots again slowly, like a slow-mo gun recoil.
"It's you."
Please, she's got to give me some hot water, I need to change right now.
"I can't believe you."
What?
"She had to be kidding, right? You came here to tell me she was lying, right?"
She can't mean...
"The Kuno slut."
Dammit, not now.
I don't have time for this. I've got 20 minutes to change and get back to the park, so I need some hot water.
"You want hot water? I'll get you hot water."
She fills a glass when she turns the cold-water faucet on her sink. Ukyo comes over to the bar and pours the water onto the griddle, which plumes with steam. I'm really close to it, so I'm sent reeling back, as the hot steam instantly becomes cool dew on my face and hair. The water is stuck-on with every scent in the restaurant.
"There you go, you son of a bitch, just put your face right on it, all the hot water you can handle."
She jumps over the bar, every edge of her body pulls a trail of jet-steam over the counter before she lunges at me, and takes me to the floor. She hugs her face into my breasts. Perfect, I must be going for a record on making girls cry this week.
"Why her? Ranma-honey, how could you?"
Look, I was very vulnerable at the time. She shakes my shoulders and burys her face deeper in my chest. It's here on the floor I look up and realize the door is still open. A slender woman in triangle-lens glasses, and a bound-up hairdo just peeked inside to see what the commotion is about.
"Liar! Liar! Liar! Just take a cold shower, that's all it takes for you, right? And then, the problem should be double solved! But no! You had to stay as a guy, didn't you? And then you...you...you...JACK...ASS...HOLE! You fucked her? Didn't you?"
I'm just too far to reach the door and slide it shut. The woman at the door cocks her head. Blinks.
Um, Ukyo...
"NO! Ranma, I love you! I love you so much, Ra-sniff-Ra-sniff-Ra-sniff-Ranma!"
Wave hello to the nice lady, I guess.
"Is everything alright here?"
I'm fine. How do you feel?
"A little confused actually."
Talk about that.
"Talk about it?"
Why not? Just talk about that. The lady at the door, she looks like a twenty-something post-grad, adjusts herself to be a bit more in the doorway, she also takes her glasses off. She's wearing a blue knee-high miniskirt and matching vest over a white short-sleeve blouse.
"Well, I just got out of church and the first thing I see is this?"
How did that make you feel?
"Well, I don't think-"
Talk about that. Out of the blue I realize that this is what it must be like to be Dr. Noitaru. All you have to do is ask, and listen, and that's it. Once you do that, the door is open, right? Everything can just flow from there. I am woman, don't just hear me, listen to me, have I got your attention? Because I'm ready to roar. So go on, pour out your soul. Open yourself up, It'll only make you feel better right?
"Well to begin with, I always feel awkward coming out of church. It's hard being a newly converted Christian in a nation still holding to the tenants of Buddhism. I also find it find it especially...um...curious that I should well, um, well see...this."
I nod, Ukyo is attempting cleanup on the last of her waterworks. The woman looks left then right down the street, then steps inside, shutting the door behind her. She kneels down and she's got a bible cradled in her elbow.
"It's just such an odd occurrence that, you know...Maybe God's trying to tell me something."
Well, talk about that.
"Perhaps he's...she's trying to communicate that I should be comfortable with my lesbianism."
How did...
I look into her suddenly serious eyes.
...that make you...
she slides her glasses into her blue jacket pocket, and looks at me and Ukyo. Ukyo wipes her wet nose on my breasts, sniffing in deeply.
...oh, shit.
Ukyo leans up, the trails under her eyes are almost sunburn-red.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, don't mind me. Just getting advice from my girlfriend...Ranma here. Right, Ranma-chan?"
At this moment, ironically enough, after meeting this Christian girl I'm fairly sure there is no God, because he would have mercifully smote my ass by now. This is just more cause and effect. Ukyo stands up, wipes her eyes and under her nose with her open palm, shakes her hair and looks back down at her visitor.
"Well, you obviously don't know Ranma-honey very well, 'cause if you did, you know he's 100...Well at least 50 man."
Smite me. God if you exist, and it's not just an action-reaction reality, now would be a perfect time.
"Eeeew, you mean she's got both-"
"NO!" Ukyo leans down and grabs my heels,
"She's all woman, and He's all man and it would take too long for me to explain, so please just leave we're closed for the day." She starts dragging me out of the restaurant, to the stairwell. "You want Hot water, Ranma? I'll give it to you, upstairs in my shower. We are gonna have a little time together up there, and you have tons of explaining to do."
No, way! If Ukyo's not gonna give me hot water, then I need to leave, and pronto.
"What so you can go crawling back to Kodachi again? I swear! Cheating on your first, and most important fiancé! You! The Chinese girl, Kodachi, Akane, you're all in it together to torment me! So I swear, Ranma, only the fires of hell will loose these hands from you!"
Her grip tightens, and my feet point outward under the tension of my Achilles tendon. She needs to let go.
"You'll leave me Ranma, it's just like you! Forget it! I'll never let go, Ranma, never!
A creepy kind of look arises in the woman's eyes. Think Akane. Think Kodachi. Think Ukyo. Think Shampoo. Think the all-ravaging all-consuming beast that is the female lebido.
I try to dig my fingers into the wood floor as she drags me away, its hard because I'm laying on my back, but I'm not giving ground easily.
"Wait, wait, wait!" The woman says, as she stands up and lobs her bible on the counter. "Now look, we're all girls here, right? I was just trying to have a little talk with Ranma, here, so if you don't mind, I'd like to I dunno, hang around...maybe just a little girl talk?"
I roll myself over, to paw my way out of here. Ukyo torques me back, laying down. My arms go across the bare floor Jesus style. Lo, for here I am crucified, but maybe I still have 15 more minutes to get to the park.
"What? You think I didn't hear you? Pouring your life out to strangers, Get out of my cafe, you fuckin' dyke."
"Oh, that's fine talk coming from you." She steps forward, and gets right in Ukyo's face, and right over mine. Remember, Knee-high miniskirt, right? My eyes bulge, then shut, and shut tight.
"Look, dyke, my shop is closed, so you mfmmm."
Something just muffled Ukyo. Hand, cleavage, gag, it's anybody's guess from here. My ankles get pulled upward as Ukyo cringes.
"You're a self-loathing cunt, aren't you? You think you can stand there and preach to me about being a dyke, when, hell, just look at yourself, my little flower. Trying to drag Ranma-chan here upstairs all for yourself, what? Just so she can be there for you to bitch at? 'Oh, I wish I could have turned out more like daddy wanted me to. Guys aren't really all that bad, right?' You want to have a man, you wish you could love a man, but you can't."
Whoever this woman is, I hope she doesn't teach a Sunday school. That heavy-bellows sound, I assume is Ukyo getting more and more pissed off, but not doing much about it, because she's still got me by the ankles, squeezing them to the bone I might add.
"I've seen your kind before, pancake chef. Hell, I've fucked your kind before. Still think you need a man, still denying who you really are. You know what you want, but you spend your whole life trying to convince yourself you really want something else. Make momma proud, show daddy he's got the perfect little girl, right?"
Perfect little girl?
After these last weeks, I can personally testify that those three words should never be in the same sentence.
"Pancake chef, Will you take little Ranma-chan here, and try to make her your main man? Or are you gonna step up and admit to what you really want? Maybe she can thrill you like a man could, but she is what she is."
"Try to play me for a dick, pancake chef, and I'll chop your pretty hair off for a souvenir."
Dark and silence. All I know for certain is that Ukyo's hands are shaking, and this place still smells great. Ham, and milk. I can smell spices. There's cuttlefish out there, somewhere.
Oh, God, I'm hungry.
"Go on, hit me. I'll give you a free shot, just let go of Ranma-chan, and you'll have me all to yourself."
I brace myself to bolt out the door. Nothing happens.
"...No?"
The hands around my ankles tremble. "OK. Hey, Ranma-chan how's the view down there?"
I have my eyes closed, and I'd like it very much if she'd leave us in peace, there's allot more going on here than she thinks.
"Ranma-chan, I suggest you open your eyes, because you'll be looking at that for quite a while."
Out of the blue I realize that this is what it's like to be Dr. Strangelouvre. Women have needs, right? They need to feel safe, secure. It's like what Akane said, they need to know they are women or some shit like that, healthy women. So doctor, in your professional opinion, am I a model of womanhood? Peer within, and see how real I am. So go on, pour out your soul. Open yourself up, It'll only make you feel better right?
I clench my eyes tighter. I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, so if she'll just-
"I was in a bit of a hurry myself, Ranma-chan, and my legs are rather tired. If neither of you mind I think I'm going to have a seat, right where I am."
"ffffmmmfmfmmfmmf-Don't you fucking dare!"
Suddenly out between the smell of the beans, and the chives and the scalops, over the smell of the onions, and the soy I get a powerful whiff of a brand new scent.
It's either Genesis or Revelations.
That's depending on which side she set the bible on the hot skillet.
The magic of the moment is disrupted by the yelping of the fire alarm, and as Ukyo runs for the extinguisher, the woman flies back away, trying to fan out the flames, I grab my pack and my bread. I bolt out the door.
As I'm running I pass by a clock.
11:47
I'm thirteen minutes from a dramatic, cause and effect non-destiny, and I'm still a woman. I still have one trick up my sleeve though. One fiancé left to play for one cup of hot water. Thirteen minutes. Is somebody timing this?
I get to Shampoo's restaurant and just like at Ukyo's there's a closed sign up on a Sunday morning.
In military terms, this is known as re-grouping. If you pull back for a second, you can think of an new strategy.
How do we get Ranma now?
A peek inside the door, and there's only tables and chairs, no threat. What I hear in the kitchen are Chinese ranting between Shampoo, Cologne and Mouse. Their words pop up and down in tonality so much, you'd think they'd modeled the language after a pinball machine.
Before me, like a holy grail is an ignored kettle of hot water, and some ceramic cups for tea.
I set my bread down, so I don't risk splashing it at all, and I make my lunge for the hot water, but before I could get my mits on it, I see a foot coming though the doorway, and into the diner. I duck below a table.
"Something-Something-Something-RANMA!" Says Shampoo.
"Bla-bla-Shampoo, Bla-Ranma, something-something." says Mouse.
Cologne comes in, she adds whatever the hell she's saying to the mix, and I reach up from under the table to get the hot water kettle. Just as I'm about to, I see Shampoo's feet come around the bar, and turn towards my table. I jink my hand back.
At that moment, I found it strange that I'm hiding from Shampoo, to get the hot water so I can hide the fact that I change from Strangelouvre.
It works better if I think of it as 'regrouping.'
Shampoo takes the kettle, and the cups and walks behind the counter. I check both ways to make sure it's clear, then I zip over to the counter, and press myself as flat as I can against it, like an Egyptian hieroglyph. Behind me I hear my precious hot water being poured into tea-cups. Then they rub it in by drinking it.
I scooch over to one side of the counter, where I hide behind a corner. Suddenly, Shampoo pushes mouse, and he bumps his cup or something, and the hot tea spills over, and pours right where I was hiding before.
That's really rubbing it in.
I guess they start arguing about who has to clean it up, when Cologne sends them both into the kitchen, and she pogo-sticks herself out to a chair in the diner and takes a seat. I'm in the clear.
I hide behind the counter, and assemble a quick plan, I grab the kettle, douse myself, bail out the window, beat Strangelouvre, and then...I have no idea. I haven't got a place to go home to, I haven't got any reason to keep staying in town. All I have is one fight to call my future. It'll all be done in 20 minutes.
After that, I don't know what to do. So, quick as a flash I decide I'll deal with the next 20 minutes, then the next 20 and so on.
This life is too damn big, it's too long, and I don't get to start over, so I'll live the whole thing 20 minutes at a time.
With that out of my head, I start my plan and lunge, silently, for the kettle.
Fuck! That's COLD!
What I had grabbed and used without thinking about it was an ice-water pitcher.
"Looking for this, son-in-law?"
I stand up and look over at the table, where the hag is taunting me with the hot water kettle.
"You'll have to try harder than that to best me, son-in-law."
Gimme the kettle!
She hops, spring loaded, over to the table nearest to me, and points her staff in my face.
"You must renounce Kodachi Kuno."
With plea-
"...AND you must vow to become Shampoo's Groom, for serious, and be her husband for life."
Now hold on a-She presses her staff point into my forehead a bit.
"I don't know why you're in a hurry, my dear boy, but there's no denying it. So, I'll leave it up to your choice. Say yes, and you get the hot water and Shampoo."
I think I've been through this before. Lather, rinse and repeat.
"What will it be my boy?"
Just as I'm about to answer I feel something warm embrace me from behind.
She covers me.
She embraces me.
She makes me the man I was meant to be.
I really could write poems about hot water. I love her that much.
"We now got him, Grandmother! Now Ranma is groom of Shampoo!"
I turn and with my big manly arms, I take her up, sweep her off her feet so fast she drops the empty bucket and her scrub brush. I place her on the counter, and look into her eyes. The weakness and shock in her stare, you'd think she was hypnotized.
Thank you, Shampoo.
Her face lights up, and she leans forward, eyes now closed for a tender kiss. I use the magic of this moment to propel myself over her shoulders. I'm out the door. I bend over, and pick up my bread. looking back in, Mousse is looking the wrong way, Shampoo looks only at me from backside-down on the counter, and I look right back at Cologne and tell her no deal. I have an appointment to keep. As I speed away from the cafe I hear my record for making girls cry go up one more notch.
I needed hot water because I was a girl at the time, I was a girl at the time, for one reason and one reason only.
It was last night. It was late. Late enough to be called early. Too late for anything, and I knocked on Kodachi's window. She was laying so peacefully there, where just the night before she was writhing and sweating and orgasming the night away.
As soon as she looked over at me she jumped out of bed, with intent and malice, and opened the window.
"Of all the people I wanted to say it to, you were at the top of the list, but I get to tell you last."
There's nothing she could have told me that I didn't already know.
"Well did you know about-"
You were doing it in the bath, then the both of you came in here, and did it some more. I know every last detail down to the type of boxers he was wearing, and the music you played.
She started to heave heavily.
There is nothing that he does that I don't know about. He also told you he didn't love you.
She tried to shut the window, but I stopped her.
What he didn't tell you is that he doesn't hate you either.
She stopped trying to shut the window.
He is alone, now. I can't help him, you see. He needs to find someplace and someone, and to be honest it seems that anyplace and anyone would be better than nowhere and no one and nothing.
"What's your point?"
He sent me here, because he is willing to be with you on one condition and one condition only.
"Which is?"
If you want to accept him, you have to accept me. There is no way around it. Were bound to each other in a way I don't think I could ever explain to you. All you need to understand is that if you love him you'll love me too. Hating me is the same as hating him. So I assure you, take me into this house, and you'll have him by your side. Reject me, and I assure you he will not be able to love you.
Please Kodachi.
Know me, and know that you know me.
Someone.
Her hands reached from the window-panes to my shoulders. I looked up, and she went for my throat.
"You come here, for what? Did you come here to humiliate me? To torment me? You think you can just expect me to believe you and Ranma will never be parted? I don't believe it, and I won't believe it! Not now, not ever!"
She leaned out the window, and pushed me back. I peered upward, and there was Kodachi, and high above her looming tempests of clouds stir over the light of the city. She let me go and I slid down the tiles of the roof, only to catch myself at the ledge.
"Mark my words, as far as I'm concerned you are not welcome here, look at this home and see the perfect home I live in, and know you can never stay. I will admit one and one only to be with me."
Kodachi, I am-
"Because you came to tell me he does not hate me I'll forgive you enough to say that I don't hate you either, I just will not be able to tolerate you, even for his sake. So, in closing I'll say this. Send me Ranma and then be gone for good. There's no place for you in my life."
She shut her window, and closed the drapes. I got off the roof, and went to the only place I knew I had to be, in the park.
Akane, Ukyo, Kodachi, Shampoo it's sad but there are so many girls who have cried on my account. Sadder still, as of last night, I'm one of them.
I'm back. I'm a guy. I'm not crying. I'm standing in an open patch of grass, near where I'd fought him the first time. The sky looms so dark; it feels like the whole town is just a part of its shadow. The pond next to me is the same empty color as the sky, and the leaves and grass are sunken from usual bright green to army-grade olive. It's 11:59 and the clock ticks over.
High noon, and Dr. Strangelouvre walks out on a trail from behind a set of tall hedges near the pond. He has a long baguette in one hand, and a long black bag shoulder-strapped across his back. He faces me from the other side of the knoll, and his hair is sunken brown under the cloud.
"I zee you heve zee foarsyte to breeng yourselfs' owen bread. Haw veree inconviniance et ees for moi."
And why's that?
"I am such zee nica-guy, yeau zee, I breeng you yoaur won loaf of bread."
He points to the black back he has strapped on.
"Now zat yeau weel naught be needing eet, I weel heve to hoald eet to my self. No good, oui?"
Whatever. Let's get this over with.
"Ranma!"
Shit. That's Ryoga. I forgot the rite of passage murder thing he was going to inflict.
"Oooo, quait zee popular fealow, non?"
Forget about him. We came here to fight, and that's what I intend to do. Make your move.
"Befoar we do, I heve a condition ovar zee wagear of ziz duel."
"Ranma-darling."
Oh, fuck. Now Kodachi is on her way. Wager? Over what? Her?
"Non-non-non. Thesis about Akane Tendo."
Akane? What about her?
His tone goes low, and he focuses on saying every word, to get them right.
"You, and - her are - Never to be. Under stand?"
What does he mean?
"Akane is my masterpiece."
His what?
"Akane is perfect, she is flawless. I performed a McIndoe operation using a fresh placenta, the first time I had ever used placenta. I applied the membrane inside her better than I had ever thought possible. I trimmed and applied the amnion seamlessly, and it fit like paint on a canvas. I seamed the entire vagina with perfection. Even weeks after, there was no rejection, there was no involution. There was no splitting or tearing, or re-sealing throughout the entire passage. After two months, a new purely vaginal epithelium was growing within her, which was textbook perfect, with ideal normal flora, and no infection of any kind. Do you see now?"
My eyes widened.
What...the fuck...are you on about?
He stomps his foot.
"Zis is whay I cannot tallerete you any longar! I weel tell you plain-lee. I made zat vagaina of hears, and I made zee baist zee world hez EVAR known!"
Every eye in the park just darted in our direction.
"Ze veary thought of you tainteeng eet wiz yoar foal seed breengs moi to Nausia! Shee iz PAIRFEECT and it is I who am teu zank foar eet. Yeau knau nozing of it, yeau zink she is joust anozer girel, now zat I heve change-ed her. Non, mon amis, she ees my Mona-Lisa, my Eiffel Tower, my walkeng parfection! She and otherz like haer is my reason for beeing. How culd you undarstand zis? Non! Thous: foar her, foar my art and foar what yeau have done to ze Maddame Kodachi, You weel naut be forgiveen!"
He knows about Kodachi and me? He smiles.
"I know zat her eyes ware meaninglessly cast in yoar direction. I know zat after zis day, she weel become myne, and yeau weel be gone from haer."
But what else does he know?
"Zere is nozing else to know, zat would concearn me."
Is that a fact?
"Zat she's fact."
Fine then, Strangelouvre. I say. I say I'll accept these terms, I say I won't accept them for him, or for Kodachi, or even for myself. I'll accept that if I lose I'll never see Kodachi, or Akane ever agian. I owe Akane that, and even though I can't ever say much good about her I'll say that she is worth fighting for.
"Zen let us begeen."
With Kodachi and Ryoga somewhere scanning the park, we square off and I look at Dr. Strangelouvre right in the eye. It's at this moment I think I understand him. He's the world's most powerful kind of doctor, and at the same time, he's the best there is. What he did for Akane no one else in the world could have done. He made her into what she wanted to be. He made her into a woman. Having touched the material in question, I assure you, he nailed it.
Even though she was born with testis, Strangelouvre stepped up and in his eyes, he worked a miracle.
In his mind it's like he turned water to wine.
Dr. Stranglouvre is powerful; he does what he pleases with women because he is the foremost expert on them. Any man who thinks they know more about women than he does is a threat to him, and that's where I fit. He never learned about my female half, but just that I had one made me a threat, that I think he could perceive. There was something I knew about women that makes me an expert on the subject. I'm sure he couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there.
Cause and effect, muscle in on a guy's turf, and he'll muscle you out, best he can.
When it comes to women, in his mind, I want who he's made, and he wants who I have.
Cause and effect, one way or another, love hurts.
This is Dr. Stranglouvre, who in less than a month toppled everything in my life, and left me with a battle where I don't even have anything left to fight for.
But I do have the fight. That will have to be enough.
For a brief moment, faster than an electrical spark, with me surrounded on three sides by people hunting for me, I just happened to think it.
I miss Akane. I really do.
I felt the first drop of rain hit my shirt.
Oh, my
Ranma on Dr. Strangelouvre ----------
Gather round, ye children, a story I will tell.
You know how it all ended, I just had to fill you in on how it started. That's really my story. You know the rest right? I get up and fight Dr. Stranglouvre for nothing. No honor in it really. I'm not fighting for Akane, not fighting for Kodachi, I could say I'm fighting for myself, but look where that got me.
Here.
Today, Sunday, Two days now and the sky is still gray. I wake up in the park, sitting among strangers. A little girl is drawing a picture of me, with a little bubble floating up out of my head. The bubble was empty.
I was dreaming about something, then I woke up.
What was I dreaming about little girl?
I remember clearly. It's a black night, and I'm in the park, near where I am now actually. Sidewalk lights and leaves on the trees are mixing lights and shadows. A big man dressed all in tattered brown rags. Big and tall and nightmarish.
Death.
No, worse.
Looked like Death's boss.
His parole officer.
He reaches out his hand and I take it. He's got though, calloused, dry leathery skin, like he cuts stone for a living. You could slice his hand with a combat knife and not draw blood. He takes my hand and tries to walk me up a set of crumbled ruined cement steps.
They don't really go anywhere, and they get worse as you go. I can see them breaking off, and twisted sideways in big chunks. Apparently I have to climb them all. He leads me up these steps, when from behind me, I hear her.
I look back and a girl who means allot to me called out my name. I go to hug her, and she's small and soft against me.
I promise I'll forget about the other one. I'll let go of regret.
Then I woke up and a little girl was drawing a picture of me.
Of course I feel that way about girls, silly kid.
She can't draw that. There's not enough room in the bubble.
I tell her to let me see what she's got so far. So, she flips the pages over, and there's me, calm and asleep, with my travel blanket, and backpack and boobs.
Oh great.
It was cold, so I was hugging them upwards for warmth. Nothing was showing, so at least the picture was decent, but there is a bigger problem here. Imagine me going to a fight in this tits and ass body of mine. I'm supposed to be in a man-to-man fight in-
Hey, what time is it? The girl turns.
Naioki-san, She says, What time is it?
A heavy-set, shirt-and-tie type guy looks at his watch. The way he looked at his watch kind of made me think that he was trying to make it look like he was't looking at me the whole time. You never can tell with people who sleep in the park, you know. He calls back at us.
Oh, drat! That's some bad luck, I must say. I guess I overslept because I have to be someplace in thirty minutes.
Her face goes eccentrically scared as only a child's can. You better Huuuuuurryyyyy.
I will, thanks.
HOT WATER, HOT WATER, and HOT WATER NOW!
The little girl screamed after me; Wait! Wait! What were you dreaming about, that I can put in this bubble?
Grabbing all my stuff, and my bread loaf, rushing away I scream back at her the first thing that came to mind.
She smiled and waved. "OK, I love tuna sushi! Byeeeeeeee!"
It's at this point when I'm running that I start to figure everything out. Cause and effect. That's it, and that's everything isn't it? Like a stack of dominos, no different than falling in love or earthquakes. These things happen. Kasumi, the bastion of all that is true said it, so who am I to deny it? Cause: I fell into the spring, effect: I'm cursed with a woman's body. Cause: The testosterone receptors in Akane did not function properly, Effect: she became a girl. Cause: I was horny, effect: Kodachi.
It all makes sense.
You can cause and effect everything, the whole universe is just another ticking clock when you think about it. Whether its ticking forward or counting down depends on you, but hey, you're just another slave to cause and effect anyway, so hell, what does that matter?
No multiple choice divine destiny-
A) I'm happy forever
B) I live in misery
C) I'll never have sex with the same woman twice.
D) Both and
Bullshit.
Cause and Effect.
They mark moving planets and eclipses like this, just put the information in a computer and it can predict any of it, just by what's causing worlds to move, and how they are affected. They map volcanoes and thunderstorms, migration. A smart enough computer could tell you how the world is going to end. Nothing really matters to me at this moment, I've really got nothing left, but I still get to have my own little life-changing revelation. That I can explain everything with just cause and effect. Don't believe me? Start at page 1, meet me back here. If you nod off, hit yourself.
I'm not even looking back as I run. The sky gets darker; it's not that it's late. The clouds are getting thicker. Just a glance at them, and you'll expect to hear a rumble.
Everything at Ukyo's smells really good right now.
I could eat a placemat.
"We're closed can't you read the sign?"
Ukyo is turned away at the sink washing her pots and pans. I smell bean sprouts, batter, cheese, shrimp and sauce. I need some hot water.
She Jerks her head up and almost turns to me, then she looks back down at her pots again slowly, like a slow-mo gun recoil.
"It's you."
Please, she's got to give me some hot water, I need to change right now.
"I can't believe you."
What?
"She had to be kidding, right? You came here to tell me she was lying, right?"
She can't mean...
"The Kuno slut."
Dammit, not now.
I don't have time for this. I've got 20 minutes to change and get back to the park, so I need some hot water.
"You want hot water? I'll get you hot water."
She fills a glass when she turns the cold-water faucet on her sink. Ukyo comes over to the bar and pours the water onto the griddle, which plumes with steam. I'm really close to it, so I'm sent reeling back, as the hot steam instantly becomes cool dew on my face and hair. The water is stuck-on with every scent in the restaurant.
"There you go, you son of a bitch, just put your face right on it, all the hot water you can handle."
She jumps over the bar, every edge of her body pulls a trail of jet-steam over the counter before she lunges at me, and takes me to the floor. She hugs her face into my breasts. Perfect, I must be going for a record on making girls cry this week.
"Why her? Ranma-honey, how could you?"
Look, I was very vulnerable at the time. She shakes my shoulders and burys her face deeper in my chest. It's here on the floor I look up and realize the door is still open. A slender woman in triangle-lens glasses, and a bound-up hairdo just peeked inside to see what the commotion is about.
"Liar! Liar! Liar! Just take a cold shower, that's all it takes for you, right? And then, the problem should be double solved! But no! You had to stay as a guy, didn't you? And then you...you...you...JACK...ASS...HOLE! You fucked her? Didn't you?"
I'm just too far to reach the door and slide it shut. The woman at the door cocks her head. Blinks.
Um, Ukyo...
"NO! Ranma, I love you! I love you so much, Ra-sniff-Ra-sniff-Ra-sniff-Ranma!"
Wave hello to the nice lady, I guess.
"Is everything alright here?"
I'm fine. How do you feel?
"A little confused actually."
Talk about that.
"Talk about it?"
Why not? Just talk about that. The lady at the door, she looks like a twenty-something post-grad, adjusts herself to be a bit more in the doorway, she also takes her glasses off. She's wearing a blue knee-high miniskirt and matching vest over a white short-sleeve blouse.
"Well, I just got out of church and the first thing I see is this?"
How did that make you feel?
"Well, I don't think-"
Talk about that. Out of the blue I realize that this is what it must be like to be Dr. Noitaru. All you have to do is ask, and listen, and that's it. Once you do that, the door is open, right? Everything can just flow from there. I am woman, don't just hear me, listen to me, have I got your attention? Because I'm ready to roar. So go on, pour out your soul. Open yourself up, It'll only make you feel better right?
"Well to begin with, I always feel awkward coming out of church. It's hard being a newly converted Christian in a nation still holding to the tenants of Buddhism. I also find it find it especially...um...curious that I should well, um, well see...this."
I nod, Ukyo is attempting cleanup on the last of her waterworks. The woman looks left then right down the street, then steps inside, shutting the door behind her. She kneels down and she's got a bible cradled in her elbow.
"It's just such an odd occurrence that, you know...Maybe God's trying to tell me something."
Well, talk about that.
"Perhaps he's...she's trying to communicate that I should be comfortable with my lesbianism."
How did...
I look into her suddenly serious eyes.
...that make you...
she slides her glasses into her blue jacket pocket, and looks at me and Ukyo. Ukyo wipes her wet nose on my breasts, sniffing in deeply.
...oh, shit.
Ukyo leans up, the trails under her eyes are almost sunburn-red.
"Who are you?"
"Oh, don't mind me. Just getting advice from my girlfriend...Ranma here. Right, Ranma-chan?"
At this moment, ironically enough, after meeting this Christian girl I'm fairly sure there is no God, because he would have mercifully smote my ass by now. This is just more cause and effect. Ukyo stands up, wipes her eyes and under her nose with her open palm, shakes her hair and looks back down at her visitor.
"Well, you obviously don't know Ranma-honey very well, 'cause if you did, you know he's 100...Well at least 50 man."
Smite me. God if you exist, and it's not just an action-reaction reality, now would be a perfect time.
"Eeeew, you mean she's got both-"
"NO!" Ukyo leans down and grabs my heels,
"She's all woman, and He's all man and it would take too long for me to explain, so please just leave we're closed for the day." She starts dragging me out of the restaurant, to the stairwell. "You want Hot water, Ranma? I'll give it to you, upstairs in my shower. We are gonna have a little time together up there, and you have tons of explaining to do."
No, way! If Ukyo's not gonna give me hot water, then I need to leave, and pronto.
"What so you can go crawling back to Kodachi again? I swear! Cheating on your first, and most important fiancé! You! The Chinese girl, Kodachi, Akane, you're all in it together to torment me! So I swear, Ranma, only the fires of hell will loose these hands from you!"
Her grip tightens, and my feet point outward under the tension of my Achilles tendon. She needs to let go.
"You'll leave me Ranma, it's just like you! Forget it! I'll never let go, Ranma, never!
A creepy kind of look arises in the woman's eyes. Think Akane. Think Kodachi. Think Ukyo. Think Shampoo. Think the all-ravaging all-consuming beast that is the female lebido.
I try to dig my fingers into the wood floor as she drags me away, its hard because I'm laying on my back, but I'm not giving ground easily.
"Wait, wait, wait!" The woman says, as she stands up and lobs her bible on the counter. "Now look, we're all girls here, right? I was just trying to have a little talk with Ranma, here, so if you don't mind, I'd like to I dunno, hang around...maybe just a little girl talk?"
I roll myself over, to paw my way out of here. Ukyo torques me back, laying down. My arms go across the bare floor Jesus style. Lo, for here I am crucified, but maybe I still have 15 more minutes to get to the park.
"What? You think I didn't hear you? Pouring your life out to strangers, Get out of my cafe, you fuckin' dyke."
"Oh, that's fine talk coming from you." She steps forward, and gets right in Ukyo's face, and right over mine. Remember, Knee-high miniskirt, right? My eyes bulge, then shut, and shut tight.
"Look, dyke, my shop is closed, so you mfmmm."
Something just muffled Ukyo. Hand, cleavage, gag, it's anybody's guess from here. My ankles get pulled upward as Ukyo cringes.
"You're a self-loathing cunt, aren't you? You think you can stand there and preach to me about being a dyke, when, hell, just look at yourself, my little flower. Trying to drag Ranma-chan here upstairs all for yourself, what? Just so she can be there for you to bitch at? 'Oh, I wish I could have turned out more like daddy wanted me to. Guys aren't really all that bad, right?' You want to have a man, you wish you could love a man, but you can't."
Whoever this woman is, I hope she doesn't teach a Sunday school. That heavy-bellows sound, I assume is Ukyo getting more and more pissed off, but not doing much about it, because she's still got me by the ankles, squeezing them to the bone I might add.
"I've seen your kind before, pancake chef. Hell, I've fucked your kind before. Still think you need a man, still denying who you really are. You know what you want, but you spend your whole life trying to convince yourself you really want something else. Make momma proud, show daddy he's got the perfect little girl, right?"
Perfect little girl?
After these last weeks, I can personally testify that those three words should never be in the same sentence.
"Pancake chef, Will you take little Ranma-chan here, and try to make her your main man? Or are you gonna step up and admit to what you really want? Maybe she can thrill you like a man could, but she is what she is."
"Try to play me for a dick, pancake chef, and I'll chop your pretty hair off for a souvenir."
Dark and silence. All I know for certain is that Ukyo's hands are shaking, and this place still smells great. Ham, and milk. I can smell spices. There's cuttlefish out there, somewhere.
Oh, God, I'm hungry.
"Go on, hit me. I'll give you a free shot, just let go of Ranma-chan, and you'll have me all to yourself."
I brace myself to bolt out the door. Nothing happens.
"...No?"
The hands around my ankles tremble. "OK. Hey, Ranma-chan how's the view down there?"
I have my eyes closed, and I'd like it very much if she'd leave us in peace, there's allot more going on here than she thinks.
"Ranma-chan, I suggest you open your eyes, because you'll be looking at that for quite a while."
Out of the blue I realize that this is what it's like to be Dr. Strangelouvre. Women have needs, right? They need to feel safe, secure. It's like what Akane said, they need to know they are women or some shit like that, healthy women. So doctor, in your professional opinion, am I a model of womanhood? Peer within, and see how real I am. So go on, pour out your soul. Open yourself up, It'll only make you feel better right?
I clench my eyes tighter. I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, so if she'll just-
"I was in a bit of a hurry myself, Ranma-chan, and my legs are rather tired. If neither of you mind I think I'm going to have a seat, right where I am."
"ffffmmmfmfmmfmmf-Don't you fucking dare!"
Suddenly out between the smell of the beans, and the chives and the scalops, over the smell of the onions, and the soy I get a powerful whiff of a brand new scent.
It's either Genesis or Revelations.
That's depending on which side she set the bible on the hot skillet.
The magic of the moment is disrupted by the yelping of the fire alarm, and as Ukyo runs for the extinguisher, the woman flies back away, trying to fan out the flames, I grab my pack and my bread. I bolt out the door.
As I'm running I pass by a clock.
11:47
I'm thirteen minutes from a dramatic, cause and effect non-destiny, and I'm still a woman. I still have one trick up my sleeve though. One fiancé left to play for one cup of hot water. Thirteen minutes. Is somebody timing this?
I get to Shampoo's restaurant and just like at Ukyo's there's a closed sign up on a Sunday morning.
In military terms, this is known as re-grouping. If you pull back for a second, you can think of an new strategy.
How do we get Ranma now?
A peek inside the door, and there's only tables and chairs, no threat. What I hear in the kitchen are Chinese ranting between Shampoo, Cologne and Mouse. Their words pop up and down in tonality so much, you'd think they'd modeled the language after a pinball machine.
Before me, like a holy grail is an ignored kettle of hot water, and some ceramic cups for tea.
I set my bread down, so I don't risk splashing it at all, and I make my lunge for the hot water, but before I could get my mits on it, I see a foot coming though the doorway, and into the diner. I duck below a table.
"Something-Something-Something-RANMA!" Says Shampoo.
"Bla-bla-Shampoo, Bla-Ranma, something-something." says Mouse.
Cologne comes in, she adds whatever the hell she's saying to the mix, and I reach up from under the table to get the hot water kettle. Just as I'm about to, I see Shampoo's feet come around the bar, and turn towards my table. I jink my hand back.
At that moment, I found it strange that I'm hiding from Shampoo, to get the hot water so I can hide the fact that I change from Strangelouvre.
It works better if I think of it as 'regrouping.'
Shampoo takes the kettle, and the cups and walks behind the counter. I check both ways to make sure it's clear, then I zip over to the counter, and press myself as flat as I can against it, like an Egyptian hieroglyph. Behind me I hear my precious hot water being poured into tea-cups. Then they rub it in by drinking it.
I scooch over to one side of the counter, where I hide behind a corner. Suddenly, Shampoo pushes mouse, and he bumps his cup or something, and the hot tea spills over, and pours right where I was hiding before.
That's really rubbing it in.
I guess they start arguing about who has to clean it up, when Cologne sends them both into the kitchen, and she pogo-sticks herself out to a chair in the diner and takes a seat. I'm in the clear.
I hide behind the counter, and assemble a quick plan, I grab the kettle, douse myself, bail out the window, beat Strangelouvre, and then...I have no idea. I haven't got a place to go home to, I haven't got any reason to keep staying in town. All I have is one fight to call my future. It'll all be done in 20 minutes.
After that, I don't know what to do. So, quick as a flash I decide I'll deal with the next 20 minutes, then the next 20 and so on.
This life is too damn big, it's too long, and I don't get to start over, so I'll live the whole thing 20 minutes at a time.
With that out of my head, I start my plan and lunge, silently, for the kettle.
Fuck! That's COLD!
What I had grabbed and used without thinking about it was an ice-water pitcher.
"Looking for this, son-in-law?"
I stand up and look over at the table, where the hag is taunting me with the hot water kettle.
"You'll have to try harder than that to best me, son-in-law."
Gimme the kettle!
She hops, spring loaded, over to the table nearest to me, and points her staff in my face.
"You must renounce Kodachi Kuno."
With plea-
"...AND you must vow to become Shampoo's Groom, for serious, and be her husband for life."
Now hold on a-She presses her staff point into my forehead a bit.
"I don't know why you're in a hurry, my dear boy, but there's no denying it. So, I'll leave it up to your choice. Say yes, and you get the hot water and Shampoo."
I think I've been through this before. Lather, rinse and repeat.
"What will it be my boy?"
Just as I'm about to answer I feel something warm embrace me from behind.
She covers me.
She embraces me.
She makes me the man I was meant to be.
I really could write poems about hot water. I love her that much.
"We now got him, Grandmother! Now Ranma is groom of Shampoo!"
I turn and with my big manly arms, I take her up, sweep her off her feet so fast she drops the empty bucket and her scrub brush. I place her on the counter, and look into her eyes. The weakness and shock in her stare, you'd think she was hypnotized.
Thank you, Shampoo.
Her face lights up, and she leans forward, eyes now closed for a tender kiss. I use the magic of this moment to propel myself over her shoulders. I'm out the door. I bend over, and pick up my bread. looking back in, Mousse is looking the wrong way, Shampoo looks only at me from backside-down on the counter, and I look right back at Cologne and tell her no deal. I have an appointment to keep. As I speed away from the cafe I hear my record for making girls cry go up one more notch.
I needed hot water because I was a girl at the time, I was a girl at the time, for one reason and one reason only.
It was last night. It was late. Late enough to be called early. Too late for anything, and I knocked on Kodachi's window. She was laying so peacefully there, where just the night before she was writhing and sweating and orgasming the night away.
As soon as she looked over at me she jumped out of bed, with intent and malice, and opened the window.
"Of all the people I wanted to say it to, you were at the top of the list, but I get to tell you last."
There's nothing she could have told me that I didn't already know.
"Well did you know about-"
You were doing it in the bath, then the both of you came in here, and did it some more. I know every last detail down to the type of boxers he was wearing, and the music you played.
She started to heave heavily.
There is nothing that he does that I don't know about. He also told you he didn't love you.
She tried to shut the window, but I stopped her.
What he didn't tell you is that he doesn't hate you either.
She stopped trying to shut the window.
He is alone, now. I can't help him, you see. He needs to find someplace and someone, and to be honest it seems that anyplace and anyone would be better than nowhere and no one and nothing.
"What's your point?"
He sent me here, because he is willing to be with you on one condition and one condition only.
"Which is?"
If you want to accept him, you have to accept me. There is no way around it. Were bound to each other in a way I don't think I could ever explain to you. All you need to understand is that if you love him you'll love me too. Hating me is the same as hating him. So I assure you, take me into this house, and you'll have him by your side. Reject me, and I assure you he will not be able to love you.
Please Kodachi.
Know me, and know that you know me.
Someone.
Her hands reached from the window-panes to my shoulders. I looked up, and she went for my throat.
"You come here, for what? Did you come here to humiliate me? To torment me? You think you can just expect me to believe you and Ranma will never be parted? I don't believe it, and I won't believe it! Not now, not ever!"
She leaned out the window, and pushed me back. I peered upward, and there was Kodachi, and high above her looming tempests of clouds stir over the light of the city. She let me go and I slid down the tiles of the roof, only to catch myself at the ledge.
"Mark my words, as far as I'm concerned you are not welcome here, look at this home and see the perfect home I live in, and know you can never stay. I will admit one and one only to be with me."
Kodachi, I am-
"Because you came to tell me he does not hate me I'll forgive you enough to say that I don't hate you either, I just will not be able to tolerate you, even for his sake. So, in closing I'll say this. Send me Ranma and then be gone for good. There's no place for you in my life."
She shut her window, and closed the drapes. I got off the roof, and went to the only place I knew I had to be, in the park.
Akane, Ukyo, Kodachi, Shampoo it's sad but there are so many girls who have cried on my account. Sadder still, as of last night, I'm one of them.
I'm back. I'm a guy. I'm not crying. I'm standing in an open patch of grass, near where I'd fought him the first time. The sky looms so dark; it feels like the whole town is just a part of its shadow. The pond next to me is the same empty color as the sky, and the leaves and grass are sunken from usual bright green to army-grade olive. It's 11:59 and the clock ticks over.
High noon, and Dr. Strangelouvre walks out on a trail from behind a set of tall hedges near the pond. He has a long baguette in one hand, and a long black bag shoulder-strapped across his back. He faces me from the other side of the knoll, and his hair is sunken brown under the cloud.
"I zee you heve zee foarsyte to breeng yourselfs' owen bread. Haw veree inconviniance et ees for moi."
And why's that?
"I am such zee nica-guy, yeau zee, I breeng you yoaur won loaf of bread."
He points to the black back he has strapped on.
"Now zat yeau weel naught be needing eet, I weel heve to hoald eet to my self. No good, oui?"
Whatever. Let's get this over with.
"Ranma!"
Shit. That's Ryoga. I forgot the rite of passage murder thing he was going to inflict.
"Oooo, quait zee popular fealow, non?"
Forget about him. We came here to fight, and that's what I intend to do. Make your move.
"Befoar we do, I heve a condition ovar zee wagear of ziz duel."
"Ranma-darling."
Oh, fuck. Now Kodachi is on her way. Wager? Over what? Her?
"Non-non-non. Thesis about Akane Tendo."
Akane? What about her?
His tone goes low, and he focuses on saying every word, to get them right.
"You, and - her are - Never to be. Under stand?"
What does he mean?
"Akane is my masterpiece."
His what?
"Akane is perfect, she is flawless. I performed a McIndoe operation using a fresh placenta, the first time I had ever used placenta. I applied the membrane inside her better than I had ever thought possible. I trimmed and applied the amnion seamlessly, and it fit like paint on a canvas. I seamed the entire vagina with perfection. Even weeks after, there was no rejection, there was no involution. There was no splitting or tearing, or re-sealing throughout the entire passage. After two months, a new purely vaginal epithelium was growing within her, which was textbook perfect, with ideal normal flora, and no infection of any kind. Do you see now?"
My eyes widened.
What...the fuck...are you on about?
He stomps his foot.
"Zis is whay I cannot tallerete you any longar! I weel tell you plain-lee. I made zat vagaina of hears, and I made zee baist zee world hez EVAR known!"
Every eye in the park just darted in our direction.
"Ze veary thought of you tainteeng eet wiz yoar foal seed breengs moi to Nausia! Shee iz PAIRFEECT and it is I who am teu zank foar eet. Yeau knau nozing of it, yeau zink she is joust anozer girel, now zat I heve change-ed her. Non, mon amis, she ees my Mona-Lisa, my Eiffel Tower, my walkeng parfection! She and otherz like haer is my reason for beeing. How culd you undarstand zis? Non! Thous: foar her, foar my art and foar what yeau have done to ze Maddame Kodachi, You weel naut be forgiveen!"
He knows about Kodachi and me? He smiles.
"I know zat her eyes ware meaninglessly cast in yoar direction. I know zat after zis day, she weel become myne, and yeau weel be gone from haer."
But what else does he know?
"Zere is nozing else to know, zat would concearn me."
Is that a fact?
"Zat she's fact."
Fine then, Strangelouvre. I say. I say I'll accept these terms, I say I won't accept them for him, or for Kodachi, or even for myself. I'll accept that if I lose I'll never see Kodachi, or Akane ever agian. I owe Akane that, and even though I can't ever say much good about her I'll say that she is worth fighting for.
"Zen let us begeen."
With Kodachi and Ryoga somewhere scanning the park, we square off and I look at Dr. Strangelouvre right in the eye. It's at this moment I think I understand him. He's the world's most powerful kind of doctor, and at the same time, he's the best there is. What he did for Akane no one else in the world could have done. He made her into what she wanted to be. He made her into a woman. Having touched the material in question, I assure you, he nailed it.
Even though she was born with testis, Strangelouvre stepped up and in his eyes, he worked a miracle.
In his mind it's like he turned water to wine.
Dr. Stranglouvre is powerful; he does what he pleases with women because he is the foremost expert on them. Any man who thinks they know more about women than he does is a threat to him, and that's where I fit. He never learned about my female half, but just that I had one made me a threat, that I think he could perceive. There was something I knew about women that makes me an expert on the subject. I'm sure he couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there.
Cause and effect, muscle in on a guy's turf, and he'll muscle you out, best he can.
When it comes to women, in his mind, I want who he's made, and he wants who I have.
Cause and effect, one way or another, love hurts.
This is Dr. Stranglouvre, who in less than a month toppled everything in my life, and left me with a battle where I don't even have anything left to fight for.
But I do have the fight. That will have to be enough.
For a brief moment, faster than an electrical spark, with me surrounded on three sides by people hunting for me, I just happened to think it.
I miss Akane. I really do.
I felt the first drop of rain hit my shirt.
Oh, my