Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Nabiki Tendo liked to consider herself a businesswoman, and she took her business seriously.  She wasn’t above unglamorous or at times even unscrupulous enterprises, but she was absolutely above shortsighted enterprises.  Even one that sounded as personally enjoyable as this.

Shampoo’s invitation to scheme together had surprised her.  The Chinese woman typically had her own resources and a cadre of close associates to help with them, so while she and Nabiki frequently played similar games, so far they had done so at different tables.  And Nabiki would have been happy to keep it that way, except...the scheme under discussion here was very tempting.

And Shampoo was right to point out that it was in effect just a continuation of a scheme Nabiki herself had started up some years prior.  Ever since he first arrived, she’d seen the potential in getting her sister’s fiance to open up to a more...libertine view of things like gender and embodiment and personal boundaries than he might have been otherwise inclined towards.  She knew that it had had effects on his behavior outside of their little modeling contracts, and she knew that those effects would be unwelcome to the many, many, people with personal investments in his masculinity.  She had expected that if any of his so-called fiancees connected the dots and brought the matter to her door it would have been a much more heated conversation.  She hadn’t expected encouragement.

So, when Shampoo had begun her proposal by tossing an envelope full of her and Ranma’s most recent work onto the table, the theatrically mournful look on her face had caught Nabiki off guard.

“Airen’s mother will not allow this kind of thing in her home,” Shampoo said, looking slightly to the side as though this were an offhand comment and not the heart of her argument.  Nabiki heard the heavy echo of subtext in the words though.  ‘I would like you two to continue doing this.’ And below that, hidden in the anxious tension of her lips, a plaintive cry.  ‘There is still time.’

And so Nabiki had listened to her proposal.  Wrong-footed by the unexpected attitude, hooked on the promise of keeping up such a valued and valuable business venture despite the rising threats to her model, she let Shampoo pitch a scheme.  And after Shampoo left the cafe, Nabiki found herself taking this unglamorous and unscrupulous bit of business unexpectedly seriously.

Ranma was an important figure in many of her plans for the future.  It would be unwise for her to risk alienating him.  Furthermore, both Nodoka and to a lesser extent Akane were major risk factors to Ranma’s continued wellbeing, and Shampoo’s plan would come with heavy exposure to both risks.  Nodoka was obviously the more dire of the two: she might genuinely kill the man over the gender nonconformity Nabiki was encouraging and profiting off of.

Akane probably wouldn’t ever seriously hurt him, but her low estimation of his moral character was a constant source of insult and emotional injury which could eventually drive him away from the family altogether.  The safest way to reduce exposure to both of those risks would be to discourage and prevent him from participating in the hobbies that most triggered reactions from the two of them: wearing women’s clothes and modeling for her pinup photos.

Of all the plans and contingencies she had for Ranma in her future, their relationship as model and photographer was the only one that held much promise in terms of financial stability.  As a mere brother-in-law, he might turn into a prizefighter, he might be able to turn the Tendo dojo into a profitable martial arts school, he might even make her younger sister happy.

But a fighting career was as much about showmanship and the ability to artfully avoid fights as it was about actually winning them.  Every fight carried the risk of some chance career-ending injury, or even just a sponsorship-ending loss.  He had, in his time with their family, shown absolutely no aptitude for teaching whatsoever.  It was no wonder, with the role models available to him. But pity didn’t pay the bills.

And if Akane was happy, it was only occasionally, and only bracketed by episodes of almost comical rage.

Ranma had the makings of an excellent adult entertainer, and it was the only genuinely lucrative path she had so far found for him.  Minimal risk of injury, very little collateral damage, it was a uniquely low-overhead and high-revenue career path for a man whose other talents showed no signs of paying dividends anytime soon.  And he loved doing it.  And, though she carefully attempted to suppress this from her cost-benefit analysis, she loved doing it too.

Shampoo’s proposal was straightforward: turn modeling into a day job for Ranma.  The challenges were threefold: convincing Ranma to do it, preventing Akane from stopping him, and getting Nodoka far enough out of his life that she couldn’t kill him for it.  Shampoo claimed to have a plan for convincing Ranma–which she would divulge at a later stage–but the amazon had little sway with either of the other two obstacles.  Nabiki was just glad that she had apparently decided to refrain from the obvious, violent solution to her problems.  Instead she had turned to Nabiki for a subtler approach, and if she decided to play along it would be up to Nabiki to determine what that approach would actually entail.

If they succeeded, Nabiki’s prize would be an unscrupulous, unglamorous, lucrative, and very enjoyable career as Ranma’s photographer and agent.  She supposed that Shampoo’s prize would be disrupting Ranma’s ties to his closest fiancee and reducing the influence of his mother, who besides wielding the katana of Damocles was also supportive of the Tendo-Saotome union.  The only cost to Nabiki would be the damage to her relationship with Akane, but from experience she expected that Akane would cast blame primarily towards Ranma.

If Shampoo failed her task, she would also bear the costs.  Whatever trick or magical bauble she intended to employ to convince Ranma to begin a proper career as a model, if he caught on too fast or shook it off too easily he would think of it as yet another betrayal from the Chinese suitor, further damaging whatever relationship might exist between them and driving him into the waiting arms of the Tendo family.

If Nabiki failed, the costs would be borne more broadly.  She might get out of it without any direct blame, but it could easily lead to Ranma leaving the whole circus behind.  Or being cast out.  Or dying at his mother’s hand.  Setting aside her personal feelings on the matter—with some difficulty—she saw this as not much more costly than simply allowing the status quo to progress.  It would be far more painful, and it would dramatically disrupt many of her plans for the future.  Not all of them, though.  Ranma lived a violent and unpredictable life, she had plenty of contingencies for dealing with his eventual absence and any emotional fallout it might entail.

…He really did make an excellent model.

She was in.

Dealing with Akane would be easy enough for Nabiki.  She really was a sweet girl, very trusting, and at the end of the day she did love Ranma.  Nabiki would just need to open her eyes a little to a sex-positive feminist framework through which she could interpret erotic modeling as an empowering act of personal expression, rather than an affront to Womanhood-in-general.  Her younger sister’s feminist impulses were currently primarily intuitive rather than learned, so Nabiki figured it would be easy enough to train her into a more convenient attitude.  And besides, Akane was behind the cultural times on this one.  The reserved and antagonistic sexual climate of her youth had her ill-prepared for the sexual mores of the coming decade.  It would be better for her to learn now than to find herself out of step with the sexual attitudes of her peers in university.

Nodoka was a tougher problem for her to solve.  The woman was dense and firm in her convictions—a fine match to her husband—a combination that made arguing with her on any matter of substance into a painful, unrewarding chore.  She would never be convinced to simply look the other way on this matter, and her Showa-era social attitudes had proved resilient to any external influence so far.  They could attempt to keep the matter secret from her, but it would be difficult with her living in the Tendo house with them.

The Saotomes’ status as permanent guests was a settled matter at this point.  Kasumi enjoyed the company and appreciated the motherly presence in the house, and Soun was simply delighted that he could continue his extended sleepover with his childhood friend.  She wouldn’t find many allies in an effort to evict the parents while keeping Ranma around.

The seed of a plan began to germinate in her mind.  Permanently evicting the Saotome parents would be impossible for her, but the two were much like each other and much like their adventurous son.  If some kind of wild goose chase were to get them out of town for a month or two, Shampoo would have plenty of time to enact her side of the plan.  Once they had Ranma committed to the venture and a few weeks to inculcate their friends and family into the new normal, by the time the Saotome parents returned they would be the odd ones out.  In the ensuing tensions, it would be easier to subtly push them out of the house, cementing a safe distance from which she could further her photography career without their malign influence on her model.  It was chancy, but she didn’t think there was much risk of serious fallout.  If Ranma went along with the scheme while Nodoka was watching, she might be able to convince him that he had flagrantly abandoned his manliness and was honor-bound to die by her hand.  But if she simply barged in weeks after this had all been normalized to everyone else and demanded he kill himself, Nabiki was certain that Soun and Kasumi’s status quo bias combined with Akane’s protective support and Genma’s general cowardice would be enough to protect Ranma’s neck from the family sword.  And maybe even to permanently alienate Nodoka from both families, securing her investment into the future.

The Saotome family sword would be an excellent macguffin to send Genma and Nodoka chasing after to get them out of the way.  Being a careful observer of her situation, Nabiki understood what kinds of wild goose chases might get the correct actors involved in a pointless quest halfway around the world chasing after a rumor.  She would need to tie the sword (Nodoka) to a baldness cure (Genma) somewhere in Europe or Africa (two weeks’ travel by boat and train, tickets for which could be easily bartered to avoid a tens-of-thousands yen plane fare.) She would want to make the rumor seem ancient in order to prove its authenticity, and it would be best if they didn’t hear about it from her so she could deny involvement later.

She sneaked into Happosai’s currently-vacant attic room, and sorted through his pile of junk til she found some old calligraphy ink and a suitably weathered scroll for her palimpsest.  She settled herself at the desk in her room with a history book to draw relevant details from, and drafted a couple versions of the story on the backs of some junk mailers before committing to her forgery.  And so she crafted a story about the African samurai Yasuke, and the treasures kept in a Jesuit monastery in his homeland of Mozambique; a miraculous oil which could restore even the most dormant follicles, hidden in the monastery, the key hidden in the tang of a Japanese sword.  Before his death, he entrusted the blade to a semi-noble family of his acquaintance, who had passed it down through the generations.  In another hand, she added a diagram showing a line of descent as though it had been appended as postscript sometime later, “tracing” the ownership of the sword from family to family before the final entry, circled for emphasis: “Saotome”.

Her bait prepared, she returned to Happosai’s trash heap and artfully encased it near the top.  To sweeten the pot, she laid it immediately below a pair of panties from her clean laundry.  Happosai could be clever, but he was a dedicated hedonist, and beyond that a petty, vain, bald man.  He would sniff out the panties like a truffle hog, and he would leap at the opportunity for a baldness cure.  He wouldn’t question whether Nodoka’s katana had actually been in the Saotome family for generations, and most importantly, he would never in a thousand years pass up the opportunity to boast to Genma about this miraculous discovery.

Now it was only a matter of waiting.  Happosai hadn’t appeared for some time, but he was never too far away.  He’d be back to darken their doorstep soon enough.  In the meantime, she would let Shampoo know to be on standby, and she could begin reforming Akane’s attitudes towards sex work.

Ranma was having a good day.  He didn’t expect it to last, but even so he was  feeling cautiously optimistic—that’s just how good of a day it was.  Happosai had shown up at the house earlier in the week and he’d spent three days molesting, annoying, harassing, and generally bothering Ranma in particular.  The withered old pervert seemed to especially enjoy the rise he got out of his so-called student over and above whatever joy he derived from bothering random women in the neighborhood.  Ranma had feared he might have been made to suffer more than a week of having to deal with the lech, but on the evening of his third day back he suddenly disappeared.  The next morning, Ranma awoke to the sounds of a scuffle in the room he now shared with both his parents, and as he leapt from his bed to intervene all he saw of it was Happosai leaping out into the moonlit night, with Genma carrying Nodoka in hot pursuit.  He’d sat in the room, stunned, and considered whether he ought to follow them...but eventually decided that whatever was going on if they hadn’t decided to wake him on purpose then it probably wasn’t any of his business.  With his father gone he’d been able to sleep in late that morning, and since it wasn’t a school day he’d found himself delightfully free from any obligations and from all of his usual pests.

Shampoo had called the house in the afternoon and asked if he would be able to come to the restaurant and help out with dinner that evening, as they were apparently short-staffed.  A year ago he would’ve suspected foul play, but since the chestnut fist training he’d worked at the restaurant a few times and escaped almost entirely without incident.  They paid him handsomely and in cash, so all in all it was a great gig to pick up every now and then, allowing him a little money to buy snacks and occasionally clothes.  He assumed he would have to reject some kind of amorous advance from Shampoo before the end of the shift, which was a little annoying.  It was such a well-tread interaction for the two of them at this point though that it didn’t feel awkward or socially risky anymore.  She would ask him on a date, he would tell her no, she would pout and then bounce back in time to wave him goodbye.  It was rote.

So he was making his way over, wearing the short qipao he normally wore as a server there.  It was one of his favorite dresses; the close fit and short hemline weren’t things he would’ve chosen for himself but it had really grown on him.  And the high neckline and strong fabric really helped support his chest, making it easy to move around in.  He wouldn’t say that the dress was the main reason he liked occasionally taking work at the Cat Cafe, but it definitely made it easier to say yes when Shampoo called.

Since he was already dressed, once he arrived at the restaurant it was easy to wash his hands and jump immediately into waiting tables.  Shampoo thanked him briefly, but otherwise they didn’t have much time to talk; Cologne and Mousse were out tonight, so it was just Shampoo and her soft-spoken father left behind to prep, clean, cook, and wait tables.  It was perfectly understandable that she’d called for help, now that he saw the situation.  The evening crowd wasn’t anything unusual but it was enough to keep the three of them completely busy until the restaurant closed.

He was exhausted by the time the last customer walked out.  He cleared the table sluggishly, suddenly desperate for an opportunity to just sit down for a while.  When Shampoo brought out bowls of ramen and a pot of tea for the two of them he briefly considered refusing, but from the look on her face he could tell he didn’t need to.  She was just as tired as him, and there was nothing flirtatious about the gratitude in her eyes.  Tonight they were just tired coworkers sharing a post-shift meal.

They ate in silence for several minutes, each too tired to even think.  Eventually though, Shampoo was restored enough by the companionable silence to strike up a conversation.

“Airen makes a good waitress.  Customers love you.  You do a good job keeping the mood up.”

Ranma blushed a little at the compliment.  “Thanks, I think you’re better at it though, right? Nothing ever seems to keep ya down.” He mumbled the last part down towards his bowl, feeling shy at the unusually earnest tone of the conversation.

Shampoo didn’t seem to notice or mind his embarrassment.  She had her eyes closed, and was sliding down into her chair, boneless after a day in the kitchen.  She mumbled an affirmative noise, but didn’t respond for a while.

Ranma sipped his tea and closed his eyes, following her lead.  He mentally worked his way through all of his muscles, tensing and then relaxing each group in turn from his toes up to his jaw.  When he finished and opened his eyes, he found Shampoo was staring at him lazily from her slumped position on the other side of the table.

“Your makeup is different from normal,” she pointed out, “different from the way it is whenever you first transform, I mean.” She looked away lazily.  “It looks nice.  I like the lipstick.”

The scrutiny was starting to make Ranma uncomfortable.  He had seen a waitress on TV wearing her makeup like this and it had struck him as a very pretty but professional looking style on her.  Without anyone antagonizing him in the Tendo home he’d found himself with some free time before he needed to get to the restaurant and so he’d put some extra time into doing his face.  Having someone point it out like this was making him start to regret it.  And another feeling too, beyond being merely self-conscious.  An edge of panic beginning to build somewhere in him.  He swallowed it down, trying hard not to let it show on his face.

“I’m sure it’s smeared by now, especially eating ramen.” He wiped gently at his lips with a napkin, and inspected his spoon to see how much lipstick had been wiped away already by the oily broth.  “In fact, I should clean my face and get some hot water before I head home.”

Shampoo sighed.  “I’m sorry.  I was just saying it was nice, I didn’t mean to make anything out of it.” She played with the soup at the bottom of her bowl, lifting a spoonful of it and letting it drip back down.  She looked tired.  And sad.  Ranma softened a bit as he looked at her.  When she wasn’t trying to trick him or rope him into some kind of annoying scheme, she really was cute.

He stayed put.  The ramen was good, and he supposed it was nice to get validation for his makeup skills from a real woman.  It was the first time he’d done it since he finally revealed the truth to his mom and they had moved in together.  It would be a shame to wash it off so quickly.  They returned to their companionable silence and worked at finishing the pot of tea.

Just as Ranma was mentally preparing to make his excuses and leave, Shampoo shifted in her chair.  He tensed, anticipating trouble.  She hadn’t yet tried to rope him into a date or anything today.  It made sense that she would try now.

“Would you do my makeup for me? Like the same way yours is, I mean, before you go?” She made brief eye contact, then looked over his shoulder as she asked.

Ranma was stuck.  He couldn’t say no to such a small request from the girl.  It wasn’t a date, so their usual script wouldn’t work here.  And it wasn’t a huge or arduous task, so it wasn’t like it was rude of her to ask.  It was just a simple favor for a cute girl.  His biggest weakness.  He resigned himself, but at least he would need to make sure there was no funny business.

He caught her gaze and held it to convey his seriousness.  “No drugs, no tricks, no nudity.  This isn’t a date, I’m just doing your makeup.  And I’ll be a girl for it.”

She had the gall to chuckle at him.  “Sounds good, we’ll both be girls and I promise not to drug you or anything.” She slurped down the dregs of her broth and swallowed her cooling tea, then gathered their dishes to take to the kitchen.  He followed her through the kitchen, waved hello to her father, and trailed behind her as she headed up the stairs to the apartment where the amazons lived together.

Shampoo’s room was cuter than he’d imagined.  He hadn’t been certain what to expect, but his thoughts wavered between ‘spartan’ and ‘sexy’.  It wasn’t either of those things.  The walls were mostly adorned with weapons, but all the weapons were intentionally decorative.  There was a floral motif in the decorations, a mixture of lotus flowers, lilies, and trailing vines.  She had a large wardrobe and a modest vanity set against one wall, her familiar spherical maces hanging on shoulder-height hooks beside them.  It was practical, as he expected from an amazon.  But it was ornate, and had a touch of romantic aestheticism that caught him off guard.

She waved him over to a chair by the window to wait while she cleaned her face.  He took the time while she was in the bathroom to ferret out his touch-up kit from where he’d hidden it in the fabric under his breasts.

When she returned, he realized suddenly that he wasn’t sure he’d ever looked properly at her face without makeup on.  They’d had enough water-based misadventures that he was sure he must have seen it, but he hadn’t ever really looked .  She looked young.  Her cheeks were slightly red with small blemishes, and she had light freckles around her eyes.  And her eyes looked so much smaller, giving her face overall a more bottom-heavy look.

He considered her features thoughtfully as they relocated, setting the chair within arm’s reach of the vanity.  He looked through her small but respectable makeup selection, and slowly settled on a look to go for.  She normally wore a thick, lightening concealer, which disguised the color her skin had earned from long hours training outdoors.  And while her freckles would have been described by a fashion magazine as plain-looking, they gave her face a distinctive appearance.  It felt like a shame to cover them up just when he’d first seen them.

If the close attention bothered her, she didn’t show it on her face.  Her eyes occasionally lingered on his, but in a relaxed way.  There was no intensity there, no sign of undeclared emotional stakes.  She seemed comfortable, happy to be sitting, pleased with his close company.  Not demanding.  Ranma imagined this must be what friendship felt like between girls.  It was a pleasant surprise to find this kind of low-stakes companionship with someone who ordinarily only pulled him into high stakes situations.  Even Shampoo could just be nice for a bit.

His lipstick, the one Shampoo had complimented earlier, was a deep wine red.  He’d chosen it to subtly contrast with his red hair and the faint dusting of iridescent emerald powder on his eyelids.  On him it looked mature in a slightly flirtatious way.  On Shampoo, face framed with her lavender hair, it would add a splash of red to an otherwise cool-toned look.  He would lean into that.

First, foundation.  Shampoo ordinarily used a mixture of a pale liquid concealer with a slightly warmer powder foundation, but he would be skipping the foundation today.  He applied the concealer lightly, focusing on her blemished cheeks and blending out around her eyes and lips.  The freckles on her temples and forehead were still faintly visible, and he used his own eyebrow pencil to make them a little clearer.  Shampoo’s eyebrows were the same pale purple as her hair, but thankfully they were naturally quite thick so there was no need to improvise an eyebrow pencil that would match her unusual pigmentation.

Shampoo rested with her eyes closed while he worked.  Her face was so relaxed that he worried she might’ve fallen asleep, but standing this close to her he could feel the tension in her body holding her upright in the chair.  He wondered what she would think of the look he had settled on.  It was very different from her normal style, and he’d never worn it on himself so he was worried it wouldn’t come out right.  But it was late in the evening, and he didn’t think she would be going anywhere after this.  This was just playing dress-up, an excuse to spend some time together.  As long as he tried his best he didn’t think she would care how it looked.

The eyes were easy.  The lipstick was going to cast anything he did here in a goth light, so the eyeliner would be a goth style.  Thick black eyeliner on the top lid, light mascara on both the top and bottom eyelashes, an angular cat’s eye and a sharp hook down the nose from the inner corners.  Shampoo winced slightly as he pulled her eyelids to get a straight line on them, but didn’t complain.  No eye shadow; the ruddy brown of her irises would look striking with just the black outline, and would stand out as the only other warm feature aside from the lipstick.

Once the lipstick was on, in the same well-practiced shape he used on his own lips, he took a step back to consider his work.  She looked like a rock musician in his opinion, but not a poorly-made-up one.  It had come out exactly as he imagined it.  He stepped aside and gently shook her to signal he was done.  “Take a look, what do you think?”

Shampoo blinked and rose in the chair, turning to get a good look in the vanity mirror.  She giggled.  “It doesn’t look like me at all! I look like a vampire.  But with freckles.” The smile on her face reassured Ranma that this wasn’t a bad thing.  She made some faces in the mirror before turning around to him and giving a wink.  “It’s cute though.  Maybe I’ll wear my makeup like this sometimes, I think it has a certain intimidation factor to it.” She gave him a stern look as though to demonstrate, but couldn’t suppress a grin for long.

Ranma agreed that it was cute.  It would’ve looked a little odd on his girl form, although if her hair had been black—he let himself linger on that thought for a moment before shaking his head.  He had never worn makeup in his taller, black-haired form.  Not on purpose, at least.  It was important to him to keep this hobby something separate, tied to his smaller body.  It was just a hobby, like dressing up a doll.

He shook himself out of his reverie, only to realize he’d been staring directly at Shampoo’s face the whole time.  She was holding eye contact with him, and seemed to be studying his expression.

“Would you like me to do yours?” She asked him.  Her voice was steady and calm, a low sotto-voce purr that might’ve triggered him if he weren’t so lulled by the dim lighting and quiet intimacy of the room.

“It wouldn’t look right on me, with this hair.  My features are too warm colored, the effect would be totally different,” Ranma listed the excuses he’d made to himself just moments ago, then paused and looked at her with suspicion.  “Why do you ask?”

“Your face is very easy to read,” Shampoo explained, grinning, “and you mutter when you’re thinking too hard.  If you’re concerned about the color, I think it would look great on your black haired body.” She looked down at her nails, feigning disinterest, “You can still think of it as playing with dolls if you like, it’ll just be that I’m the one playing and you’re the doll.  Nothing to get worked up about.”

Suddenly embarrassed, Ranma struggled to respond for a moment.  He was glad that she wasn’t poking fun at him for admitting to playing dress up for a hobby (or was this her making fun of him? Her face looked a little amused, but her eyes were clear and focused, radiating sincerity).  The thought of letting someone else do his makeup—letting Shampoo of all people do his makeup—in his birth form made him feel almost dizzy.  Before he really knew what he was doing, he was nodding and Shampoo was leading him to the bathroom.  She turned on the hot water and grabbed a towel, splashing him in the face and catching the drops before they could wet his dress.

His dress.  That he was wearing.  Over his panties.  It was too short for boxers in his other form, and it was very nearly too short to call a dress at all in this one.  And the waist had very little give—he hurriedly undid the zipper in the back to give himself room to breathe.  The silk thankfully held firm around his sudden expansion, but it was unwearably short and tight for his altered stature.

He was just opening his mouth to tell Shampoo that actually he couldn’t do this when she came back into the room with a hanger and a different dress.  “Here, this should fit you.” He hadn’t noticed her leaving in his moment of panic.  She pulled his dress up over his head efficiently, leaving no time for him to argue.  While his arms were still up and he was still in a daze, she slipped the new dress onto him.  It fit perfectly.  It was a more western-influenced version of the same qipao she’d taken off him, with a slightly longer skirt that was gently flared and pleated instead of the close-fitting slit pencil silhouette of the original, in black silk with gold embroidery.

He looked in the mirror and was startled by how pretty it was on him.

Remembering the reason he’d come into the bathroom, he started reaching for a washcloth.  Shampoo grabbed his hand gently and pulled him out the door.  “I already washed your face, didn’t you notice? While I was putting on the dress.”

He giggled a bit, remembering that he was with a master of martial arts cosmetology.  He’d never experienced first hand what the Xi Fa Xiang Gao was like from the receiving end, and now that he had he didn’t even notice.  “I hope you didn’t mess anything up in there while you were at it,” he joked.  Shampoo gave him an odd look over her shoulder as they returned to the chair, and it was an awkward moment as he settled into the chair before she finally replied.

“No, that would go against the point I’m trying to make.”

He’d expected another joke, or perhaps a guilty admission, but this response was much more puzzling.  He felt like he should try to read into it, but his head was still buzzing with anxiety and excitement at the oddness of the whole evening and the chance to try something he’d forbidden himself from exploring.  He felt like he would have a lot to dissect about this evening when he got a chance to think clearly, but he didn’t want to break whatever spell had fallen over the two of them right this second.  So he let the odd statement slide, and relaxed into the chair as Shampoo grabbed up the lipstick, concealer, and eyeliner he’d left on the table.  She also picked up a hand mirror to inspect his work on her own face for reference.  After considering her reflection for a moment, she turned to look at him.

The touch of the brush on his face as she began applying concealer was shockingly gentle.  It didn’t feel this delicate when he did it himself.  The soft bristles brushing over his skin were almost ticklish, and the way he couldn’t quite tell where they were going next held his attention and made the sensation even more delicious.

Sooner than he expected, the large brush was set aside and Shampoo began painting his eyelids with a finer, cooler feeling one.  He emptied his mind and let his eyes rest half-lidded as she worked, relaxing as much as he could to prevent any twitches or blinks that might mess up her work.  He was briefly roused from his meditation as Shampoo swore quietly and dabbed at some misplaced pigment with a cotton pad, and realized that his line of sight was currently directly down the neck of her dress.  His mind whirled to life as he fought to suppress any reaction that might further mess up her work or alert her to the untoward situation, calming himself as forcefully as he could.

Thankfully, she finished with his eyes quickly and without further incident.  When she pressed the lipstick to his lips he was briefly aware that they were sharing an indirect kiss, but decided not to dwell on it.  That wasn’t what this evening was about.  This was just the two of them being friends for once, a glimpse of what might have been if they’d somehow met under other circumstances.  It was a rare and precious moment of peace, and he wasn’t going to be the one to mess it up with romantic thoughts.  Besides, he didn’t even feel that way about her.

“Good girl,” Shampoo purred gently as she stood back to appreciate her handiwork.  Ranma felt like time was slowing down.  She turned away to pick up the hand mirror and show her work to him, but his eyes couldn’t focus.  His face was suddenly burning.  He felt like a bolt of warm lightning had struck his spine, setting his whole body a-tingle before coming to rest in his pelvis as a warm, gooey pressure.  He was certain without looking that he was rock hard.

Shampoo held up the mirror and looked at him to see his reaction.  Noticing his intense blush, she stepped back slightly and paused.  “I’m sorry, that just slipped out, I didn’t mean to-” her gaze landed on the tent in his skirt, and he felt like he might die of embarrassment.  Her face lit up bright red in turn, and now there was a growing tent in her dress as well.

Ranma was startled out of his paralysis by that detail.  “I’m so sorr—huh? Wait.  What?” He began to stutter.  “But wh—I’ve seen you—what is that? No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked, I don’t know what came over me, my body is just freaking out for some reason, I really don’t mean to offend you” He started babbling.  His mouth was running on autopilot as his mind cast around for what would be an appropriate thing to do in this situation.  He realized that what he needed to do was get some cold water and get rid of the main problem, and then make an extremely hasty retreat.  He started to stand up, but was stopped by a glance at Shampoo’s face.

She looked so vulnerable.  She was clearly embarrassed too, but she was just standing there looking at him.  It seemed like she might cry.  “Airen, please don’t run away,” she said quietly, “I need to tell you something, and I don’t think I will be able to if you leave right now.”

The strength drained out of Ranma’s body, and he sank back into the chair where she’d been doing his makeup.

Shampoo chewed her lip for a moment as they sat facing each other, the silence ringing loudly in Ranma’s ears.

“I have a penis,” she began, straightforwardly.  Ranma hadn’t been willing to make that assumption about what he’d seen move under her dress but the thought had crossed his mind.

Ranma hoped that remaining logical would get him through this increasingly bizarre situation.  He launched his first defense: “Shampoo I’ve seen you naked before.  Loads of times, in fact.  Is it...new, somehow?”

Shampoo gave a tired smile.  “No, it’s as old as I am.  I use one of our village’s iron-flesh techniques to keep my penis and testicles tucked away most of the time, in a fashion that superficially resembles a vulva from a casual glance.” She smiled fondly before adding, “you never were one to stare at a naked girl.”

This was good, this was something Ranma could absorb.  This iron-flesh technique sounded very useful, he would have to ask more about it later.  He got the sense that attempting to digress into martial arts would not be the correct conversational approach here.

He wasn’t sure how to politely broach his next line of inquiry, so he decided to take up the same direct approach Shampoo had opened with.  “So, are you secretly a man then?”

Whatever reaction he’d expected from her, it wasn’t a giggle.  “Do you think I’m a man, Ranma? That’s a funny question coming from you, considering how much I’ve seen of your vulva.  Are you a woman?”

That last question reminded Ranma of something else he needed to think about, but it wasn’t quite coming to him.  Instead, he mulled over her answer for a moment.  “So if you were born with a penis, why are you so pretty? Did you find some way to mix the nannichuan and nyannichuan waters or...what?”

Instead of answering, she turned to her dresser and rummaged in one of the drawers, before withdrawing several bags of different colored powders.  “I take medicine that makes my body and face develop properly.  It’s an ancient tradition among our people that anyone who wants to become a warrior can be one, but in general it is preferable that they be a woman.  Not all amazons are willing to take men as apprentices.”

She set the powders aside and poured a glass of water, before carefully measuring out small spoonfuls of each into the glass.  “So our people have developed many techniques over our history for one who would not by birth become a woman naturally to become a self-made woman.”

At the end the liquid in the glass was a milky yellow color, with a medicinal minty smell that reached Ranma from several feet away.  Shampoo downed it in a single long gulp, grimacing slightly.

“Jusenkyo is both a sacred and a dangerous place,” she continued, “Some self-made women use techniques that involve the springs, but for those that begin making themselves at a young enough age, medicinal approaches are generally preferable.”

Ranma imagined it.  A young boy looking up at the powerful amazon women around him and thinking that he wanted to grow up to be just like them.  What it would feel like to learn that in order to become like them he would need to give up his manhood completely.

The emotion it brought up in him was ambiguous.  After all, he had accidentally done much the same thing.  If he could go back and change it, avoid the curse and in turn give up everything he’d learned from the amazons, would he do it?

“It sounds like a pretty good deal, why don’t all the men in your village do that then?” Ranma asked.

It had felt like a very natural question, so the condescending grin he got in response made his hackles rise.  Shampoo quickly replaced it with a softer and more conciliatory smile and responded properly.

“Men don’t become self-made women, Ranma.  They don’t do it because it doesn’t seem like a good deal to them.  Anyone who thinks it’s a good deal is considered to have already been a woman to begin with.”

Ranma huffed.  “Well by that logic, I would be a woman then!”

Shampoo stepped closer to him, sitting on the arm of the chair.  “You understand exactly then.  Good girl.”

The room had felt much cooler for the past few minutes.  After being initially flustered, Ranma had felt like she had a good grasp on this conversation.  She maybe didn’t understand exactly what Shampoo was talking about, but whatever it was it was much better than talking about how she’d gotten an enormous and extremely visible erection in the middle of what was otherwise a very relaxing and platonic evening between the two of them.  She was even glad she hadn’t made her escape when she originally panicked.  This was clearly an important conversation that Shampoo wanted to have with her, and it was interesting for her to learn more about the small Chinese village she had found herself so closely associated with over the past few years.

Unfortunately, the room was getting hot again, and judging by the sensation in her groin her erection had slipped out from her panties and was wetting the silk of her dress.  She carefully didn’t look downwards, didn’t move to adjust herself, and she tried desperately to come up with something to say to keep the conversation moving.  Shampoo hadn’t moved and from where she was sitting on the arm of the chair she couldn’t see whatever mess was developing in Ranma’s crotch, so if Ranma could just—

Shampoo slid down off the armrest and kicked a leg up over Ranma’s head, so that she could sit in her lap, straddling her.  The movement naturally hiked her dress up, so Ranma could see Shampoo’s dick now, poking free from its own silk confines.  Their erections were now lying against each other, separated by a single layer of increasingly-slimy pleated silk.  Ranma wasn’t sure she was still breathing, and couldn’t think how to check.  Shampoo’s soft thighs were warm against her legs.  She was looking down at Ranma through heavily lidded eyes, a confident grin on her face like she’d won a fight.  Ranma hadn’t noticed that they were fighting.  Had they been fighting?

“H-hey, what’s going on? I thought we were just hanging out, no funny business, r-right?” Ranma managed to get out while trying desperately not to squirm, not to rub against Shampoo, not to give in to the warmth roiling in her belly and in her groin.

Shampoo was thankfully refraining from doing any rubbing of her own.  She was still, and her face was serious and gentle when she responded, “I’m sorry, you were being such a good girl for me and I got carried away.  Do you want me to stop?” She looked Ranma directly in the eye, studying her face as she responded.

Ranma felt like her brain was melting and flowing directly down to inflate her dick.  She held Shampoo’s gaze and found that the “Stop” she had planned on saying died on her lips.  “I...it’s okay” she found herself mumbling instead.  Was she drooling?

“It’s okay?” Shampoo asked, still looking her directly in the eyes.  “Is it okay if I press my cock against yours and start rubbing them together?”

The directness of the question made Ranma’s heart skip a beat.  She realized that they were fighting after all, and Shampoo had complete control of the tempo.  But Ranma wasn’t certain what the rules were for this fight, and for once in her life she wasn’t certain that she wanted to win.  “It’s okay” she managed to whimper.  Shampoo maintained eye contact as she shifted and leaned forward, putting more pressure onto Ranma’s pelvis and pressing their dicks in between their bellies.  Ranma could feel Shampoo’s erection, as hard and as hot as her own felt, pressing down on her.

When Shampoo began rolling her hips back and forth, rubbing her cock inch by inch back and forth against Ranma’s, the sudden addition of friction made the situation in her dress unbearable.  “Wait, please, I need to” Shampoo stopped immediately and started inspecting her face.

“Is it still okay?” She asked.

“Yes,” Ranma moaned out, “I just need to pull my skirt up, but then please continue.”

Shampoo nodded and lifted her hips, leaving a thin trail of clear fluid connecting the tip of her penis down to a shiny puddle on Ranma’s dress.  A twin to the one that had been building around the tip of Ranma’s penis from the other side of the fabric.  As Ranma pulled the dress up and her panties down, freeing her dick and balls completely from the fabric prison, she looked back up at Shampoo’s face.  She’d finally broken eye contact and was watching Ranma work with rapt attention.  Ranma could’ve sworn she saw her pupils double in size as she watched Ranma’s dick fall gently out from her skirt, before in a sudden burst of movement she pulled her own dress up over her head and tossed it across the room, before tearing the fabric of her panties and tossing them over her shoulder towards a trash can in the corning of the room.

She looked back into Ranma’s eyes as the black-haired girl lifted her hands from her skirt and brought them tentatively to rest on Shampoo’s hips.  The amazon lowered herself solidly back down, pressing their newly freed dicks together and her breasts down to rest on the taller girl’s muscular chest.  With one hand slipped into the space between them to ensure their dicks stayed in contact with each other, she started rolling her hips again.  Within two or three strokes, their dicks, her hand, and the skin of their stomachs were all getting slick with the fluid that dribbled out of them.  The insistent, repetitive friction was stoking the warmth inside Ranma into a giddy, roaring flame.  She kept her eyes locked on Shampoo’s even as she felt her mouth opening not-totally-voluntarily and her face screwing up into some kind of exerted grimace.  The rapturous look on Shampoo’s face, the feeling of being prey in the hands of an eager predator, were making Ranma’s mind whirl.  She couldn’t think.  She was completely swept up in sensation.

“You’re making such good noises for me,” Shampoo murmured.  Was she? Was that what that noise was? She supposed it must have been coming from her open mouth, but it sounded strange, somehow.  More feminine than she had expected.  Now that she was aware of it, she didn’t see any reason to stop it.  Shampoo thought they were good after all, maybe if she let them out a little louder…

“Good girl, don’t hold back.  Do you feel good?” Shampoo said exactly what she’d wanted to hear.  That beautiful little phrase.  Ranma couldn’t figure out quite how to talk right this second, but she made a squealing noise that could’ve passed for a “yeah” in response.  She was dimly aware that something was building inside her, and although it felt different from anything she’d experienced before and was coming a bit earlier than she would have expected, she knew it could only mean one thing.

Something must have changed in her expression, because Shampoo knew it too.  Maybe it was because her eyes kept wanting to close and roll back in her head, or maybe it was the tenor and volume of the moans coming out of her lips.  Somehow, Shampoo knew just when to ask, “Are you going to be a good girl and come for me?”

The question sent Ranma immediately over the edge.  Muscles throughout her abdomen and pelvis clenched, as the roiling fire in her belly drained in wet spurts out through her dick.  The sound coming out of her throat was no longer a moan, more like a shriek.  Her legs pulled up, feet arching and flexing as the rest of her body curled in on itself and came with an intensity she had never experienced.

Shampoo grabbed her gently but firmly by the jaw and held her head still, maintaining eye contact the entire time as Ranma shouted and convulsed.  She pressed their bodies together, letting Ranma’s ejaculation thoroughly wet both their stomachs before dripping onto the floor.  As Ranma relaxed, she let herself relax as well, laying her head down on the seated girl’s shoulder, finally breaking eye contact.

“Good girl”, she murmured, directly into Ranma’s ear.  A small sound, more hum than moan, escaped Ranma’s wrung-out body as a final spurt of cum squeezed its way out of her.

As the afterglow settled over them and Ranma began taking an inventory of her senses, she noticed that actually a lot of her senses were complaining about their current position.  She’d slouched down in the chair, and her weight was balanced between her neck pressing into the top of the chair and her tailbone wedged into the very edge of the seat.  She started to wiggle her way up, and noticed that the sticky mess smearing between her and Shampoo’s stomachs was beginning to cool and dry up, turning into a clammy gel wherever it reached the open air.  She needed to stretch, and she desperately needed to clean herself off.

“Shampoo, that was…” she trailed off.  She wasn’t sure how to describe what had just happened between them.  Did that count as having sex?  Did she need to tell anyone about it?  What did this make her and Shampoo?

“That was great,” Shampoo murmured into the crook of her neck.  The amazon woman didn’t seem like she was bothered by their current position, the mess they had made, or any complicated implications thereof at all.

The cramped position and anxiety were amplifying each other, and Ranma felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack.  She attempted to apologize while gently pushing Shampoo away, but ended up just kind of grunting and shoving her to the floor.  That wasn’t what she’d meant at all, but she couldn’t think of how to explain to Shampoo what she meant instead.  She froze, looking down at Shampoo gathering herself on the ground.

Shampoo looked up from where she’d landed on the floor of her room.  She had known this would be a difficult moment, but she’d been hoping that if she just acted like everything was normal and they could simply be comfortable with each other that they could skip over the worst of it.  From the look on Ranma’s face, that wouldn’t be an option.  She sighed and stood, keeping a respectful distance from her panicking wife.

“Ranma, it’s okay.  I’m okay.  You’re okay.  I know it feels overwhelming, but what we did tonight doesn’t need to be any bigger than we want it to be,” She glanced at Ranma’s eyes to make sure she wasn’t completely gone, then looked slightly aside to lower the intensity of the conversation.  “It doesn’t have to mean anything if we don’t want it to.”

Her reassurances seemed to be having the desired effect.  Ranma’s breathing was getting deeper and slower, and the startled tension in her frame was giving way to an exhausted slouch.

“We both need a shower, but I won’t make you take one with me.  Do you want to go first?” Shampoo offered.

Ranma heard the question’s unasked partner: “Do you want to go alone?”

She didn’t.  She was feeling cold, and a little disgusted with herself, and she was desperately missing the easy closeness they had been luxuriating in just a few minutes earlier.

“Um.  Can I shower first and then, would you take a bath with me?” She asked quietly, looking down at the floor.  “I really don’t want to do anything.  Um.  Sexual.  In the bath.  But I don’t want to be alone right now and…” She trailed off.  ‘And I feel safe with you’, she thought.  But she didn’t want to say that out loud, and she wasn’t even sure it was true.

She was still looking at the floor when Shampoo answered, but she could hear the smile in her gentle voice.  “Of course, let me know when you’re done showering and I’ll come wash up and then join you in the bath.”

Ranma nodded, and gingerly walked into the bathroom while trying not to drip too much onto the floor.  Once she was on the tile she could relax a little, and once the warm water started running over her she was finally able to let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.  She quickly scrubbed herself off, the mess of seminal fluids coming off in the water an embarrassing reminder of the recent activities.  But the simple practicality of washing it off of her torso helped keep her mind from lingering on the symbolic weight.  Hers and Shampoo’s cum, mixed together and smeared across her body.

Her body.  Her body.  Since when was she thinking of herself as a her ? In all the heady excitement of the evening, something had shifted.  Or maybe something that had been shifting for a long time finally heaved into place.  Either way she couldn’t shake it.

She looked down at her flat chest, her long arms, her softening penis, and felt a sense of vertigo.  This was her body.  A woman’s body.  And it felt like it now, for the first time she could ever remember.  She’d occasionally imagined, looking at her smaller and bustier form in the mirror, that she was looking at a woman’s body then.  But this was the first time she’d seen her original body through those eyes.  She couldn’t un-see it, and she couldn’t bring herself to want to.

Shaking her head and returning to the practical matter at hand, she turned and started the hot water to fill up the tub.  Once she got the temperature right, she returned to the shower stool and started thoroughly cleaning the rest of body.  She’d needed a shower from working all day even before had coaxed what appeared to be a few dozen milliliters of semen out onto her stomach.  And she needed to wash the makeup from her face.

When she ran out of parts of her body to soap up and then rinse off, she sat on the shower stool in a daze for a few more minutes.  Gently at first, she began to cry.  And then all at once she was sobbing, unable to control the emotions running through her.  In a single moment she’d been completely transformed.  No longer a virgin, no longer a man.  She felt like she was supposed to feel like she’d been dirtied or tricked somehow, like her identity had been stolen out from under her, but she didn’t.  She felt so incredibly, unbelievably happy.  The thought of that sent her into a renewed fit of sobbing.  She knew that there was no turning back from this.  How could she? She felt more fully herself in this moment, crying on the stool in Shampoo’s shower, than she had ever felt in her life.

She ran cool water over her face to help prevent it from looking puffy from crying, which suddenly reduced her stature.  Looking down at the body she’d arrived here in, all those hours ago, she realized that she didn’t feel any different now than she had looking down at her other form.  Thinking of the way her and Shampoo’s bodies had pressed together earlier, how at home Shampoo had made her feel in her other body, she even had a little trouble at first thinking of this form as her body—as a woman’s body.  Blushing and feeling a little guilty, she allowed herself the hope that Shampoo would put as much effort into making her feel like a woman in this body too.

All clean, and emotions mostly back under control, she turned to check the level of the hot water in the tub.  It was just about full, and only a little too hot for her to step into right away.  She turned the tap to run cold water for a bit, and went to call Shampoo into the room.  Then she quickly retreated into the now-perfectly-filled tub and sank into the protective embrace of the water.  She wanted Shampoo to be here with her, but being together outside the tub felt too naked.  Too close.  She wasn’t ready.

When Shampoo came in, she spent a few seconds carefully inspecting Ranma’s expression.  She’d obviously heard her crying, and Ranma appreciated her discretion in not coming in earlier or asking about it.  She caught Ranma’s eye and made an inquisitive expression, but when Ranma shook her head she let it drop.

Ranma sank into the water until it came up nearly to her nose, curling up on herself defensively.  The sound of the shower running, and of Shampoo humming a little song as she washed, helped relax her.  After a few minutes it felt like the quiet company they had been sharing earlier in the evening had settled back over them.  It was comfortable and uncomplicated again, just two girls taking a bath together.

Soon she felt comfortable and confident enough to start talking again.  “Hey, Shampoo,” she began, her voice creaking a bit from the strain of her sobbing earlier, “I uh.  I think I want to—um,” She coughed a little, trying to clear her throat.  “I want to be a woman.  Like you are.  I think.”

Shampoo kept humming her little song, and Ranma was afraid she was going to have to repeat herself.  But then Shampoo spoke, without looking up from washing herself, “Airen, you already are a woman.  If you want, I can teach you the techniques we use to shape our bodies—” she paused as she ran water over her face, “but you don’t need those techniques to make yourself.  Like I said before, the fact that you want to do it means that it is already done.  From my perspective as an amazon, you already were always a woman.”

Ranma wasn’t sure what to say to that.  She hummed noncommittally and sat lower in the water again.  She set the question aside of whether she was satisfied with that answer, since Shampoo seemed quite matter of fact about it.  She would need to spend some time deciding what she thought about it for herself, but that could come later.  She had other things she needed to clear up with Shampoo before she went home tonight.  She wasn’t ready at all to think about what would come after she left for the Tendo dojo.

First, she needed to know where she stood with Shampoo.  “I don’t know if I want to be girlfriends with you…” She’d said that it didn’t need to mean anything, but Ranma needed something more concrete than that.

“Oh, you don’t know? That sounds like a step up from where we were yesterday,” Shampoo teased.  “It’s okay airen, nothing needs to change because of this.”

“Then why did you...I thought you were planning this,” Ranma hesitated to accuse her directly, but it had all seemed suspiciously smooth from Shampoo’s end.  She was sure the amazon had planned out at least some of this evening in advance.  If the goal hadn’t been to rope her into some kind of commitment, she couldn’t see what the goal could’ve been.

“I was planning on having a pleasant evening with my wife.  It was a pleasant surprise that it ended in sex,” She turned off the shower and stood, turning to face Ranma in the tub.  “I can’t say I’ve never thought about how I would like to fuck you before, but I promise that this wasn’t all an elaborate seduction.  I meant it when I told you at the start that there wouldn’t be any funny business.  It just seemed like we both changed our minds about that.” She gave Ranma a searching look.  “Right?”

“Yeah,” Ranma sighed.  She thought back over the minutes where their evening had taken an erotic turn.  She shifted in the bathtub to make space for Shampoo to join her, lowering her defenses.  Shampoo hadn’t done anything she hadn’t enthusiastically agreed to.  Even if it felt like somehow a trick had been played on her, she had been completely willing at every step along the way.

“Did you know that calling me...that...would get me going so much?” she asked.

“Calling you a good girl?” Shampoo giggled beside her as she settled into the tub, “I thought it might make you happy, but I admit I was pleasantly surprised at how happy it made you.”

“Why did you...I didn’t think I was a girl.  Before just now.  Why did you call me that?”

Shampoo sighed with pleasure at the warm water, relaxing for a moment before answering.  She turned to the other girl and spoke gently, “Ranma, I have known that you were a woman for years.  There are many self-made women among the amazons, and we understand ourselves and each other well.” She closed her eyes and leaned back.  “It is considered rude and to an extent unethical to push another to make themselves as a woman, if they haven’t already made the choice themselves.  I wasn’t planning on ever bringing it up…” She trailed off.

Ranma wasn’t sure how to take that.  She supposed that her attitude towards her jusenkyo curse was a little unusual, and could have been telling for someone who knew what to look for.  Certainly in comparison to someone like Prince Herb, she made her comfort and enjoyment in her cursed form quite public.  As the silence grew and she sensed that Shampoo wasn’t going to finish her thought, she considered the unspoken ‘But’ hanging in the air.

“...but you were worried I was never going to figure it out on my own?” She ventured.

Shampoo looked tremendously sad as she opened her eyes and responded.  “No, I knew that you would figure it out eventually.  I think you already had, in some ways.” She caught Ranma’s gaze and held it.  “I was worried that you would never have the chance to express it.  I was worried that my mother-in-law would smother you in your shell.”

The mention of Ranma’s mom made her heart start to race again. She hadn’t thought yet about how other people would react to her personal transformation.  “Oh my god.” Tears began to well up in her eyes again.  “I can’t do this Shampoo.  I just have to forget about all of this.  She’ll—”

“Kill you, yes.  I know.” Shampoo’s expression darkened.  “She has put you in an impossible bind.  You cannot be a woman or she will kill you,” She rested a hand gently on Ranma’s bent knee, “but in order to live up to her standards you would need to kill the woman inside you.  You will die either way.”

The thought of trying to go back, trying to stuff all the things she’d felt tonight into a box somewhere inside her and never think of them again, hurt too much to dwell on.  She knew it would be impossible.  It would be easier to just perform hara-kiri and be done with it.

But then the memory of how she’d felt earlier—what ecstasy it was to feel Shampoo’s body against hers, how incredible it was to be a good girl for her—rose up against those dark thoughts.  She didn’t want to die.  She’d never felt so alive in her life.  She’d do anything to protect that feeling.

Shampoo continued, “To know that you are a woman and to be forced to deny it is like being buried alive.  You can withstand it for a time; if you know that you will eventually be able to escape, that hope can sustain you for months, maybe years.  But if you don’t escape, or if you don’t believe there will be an escape, it will drive you mad.  You’ll suffocate in your own grave.” She curled in on herself and looked quietly down at the bathwater.  “I couldn’t—can’t let that happen to you.  As your wife, as your friend, and as an amazon.  I had to save you from her.”

“How is this saving me?!” Ranma retorted, barely restraining herself from screaming.  “She’s my mom, Shampoo! I’ve only just barely found her again.  I can’t go back to running around, trying to avoid her.” The words were starting to run together.  “She lives with us now for fucks sake.  Did you have a follow up plan or were you hoping to just tear me open and leave me to put my life back together again?” She was fuming, working herself into an angry and defensive lather. How dare Shampoo do this to her? How could she just meddle in her life like this?

Shampoo remained infuriatingly calm at the outburst.  “You are the strongest warrior of our generation, my love.  She is only dangerous to you as long as you choose not to defend yourself from her.”

Confusion cooled Ranma’s head.  “Huh?” She couldn’t understand what Shampoo was saying. “I’m not going to fight my mom, she isn’t strong like the rest of us. She could get hurt.”

“You don’t have to fight her, just recognize her as a danger to you.”  Shampoo sighed.  “Nabiki has arranged for her and your father to be out of town for some time.  The only plot I had for this evening was to ensure that when she did return, you would have the will to survive.”

“Nabiki is in on this too?” The tears that had been threatening for the past few minutes began spilling from Ranma’s eyes. Her world had already started falling apart before she’d even had a chance to enjoy her new sense of herself.  “Why is this all happening to me? Why now?”

Shampoo slowly, gently, wrapped her arms around the black haired girl.  “I’m sorry for going behind your back.” Ranma tensed up at the contact. She was still mad at Shampoo and didn’t want to forgive her for manipulating her into this situation without any choice in the matter. But she was beginning to feel completely wrung out emotionally, and the gentle skinship was soothing. Soon she found she didn’t have the energy to resist anymore, and she leaned into Shampoo’s shoulder, allowing herself to be held.

They sat like that, saying nothing in particular, until the bathwater grew tepid—Shampoo jerked up and leapt out onto the tile moments before Ranma suddenly shrank in the cooling water. Shampoo breathed a sigh of relief before holding out a hand to pull Ranma from the tub. They walked together back to the bedroom, grabbing towels and drying off, and Ranma collected her waitressing dress from the floor where it’d been tossed earlier.

Shampoo bundled up the black dress she’d had fitted to Ranma’s taller frame, and handed it to her.  “I bought this as a gift for you. You should take it…or, I could wash it and give it to you later?” She ended with a hopeful question.

Ranma considered her cautiously, unsure how she felt about the amazon girl after tonight.  The glimpse she’d seen of what it might be like to just be friends with Shampoo had been really nice.  She still felt betrayed, but the earnestness and support that Shampoo had shown her tonight hadn’t felt fake or manipulative.

She sighed, exhausted, and bowed curtly.  “I’ll come by to pick it up in a couple days, then. Thanks.”  It was an offer and a warning: ‘We can be friends, but I’m still mad at you.’

“Okay,” Shampoo smiled and waved goodbye as Ranma turned and headed back down into the restaurant and out the back door, into the night.