“I’m not saying you should do anything, Ranma; I just think that you should keep an open mind. You know what they say, ‘don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.’”
“Uh… well… I—Setsuna!” Ranma was overjoyed to see his wife standing in the doorway with Michiru—it gave him the perfect chance to change the subject. “Where have ya been?”
“Oh, I was just discussing our sleeping arrangements with Michiru. How have you and Haruka been getting along?”
“Oh, uh, fine. Though I was kinda wonderin’ about somethin’…” He motioned Michiru closer to him and whispered in the violinists ear: “I ain’t exactly sure, but I think yer boyfriend was comin’ on ta me—was he serious, or is that just somethin’ he does?”
Boyfriend? Haruka didn’t even bother telling Ranma what her real gender was? Ooh, is she going to get it… When Michiru responded, she raised her voice so her lover could hear her clearly: “Don’t worry about it, Ranma. My boyfriend has a very odd sense of humor. If it makes you feel uncomfortable I’ll just ask my boyfriend to stop. Trust me, somewhere underneath the jerk is a really nice guy.” By the end of her statement, the violinist’s glare at her significant other had reached the peak of its hostility. “Come on, Haruka. We have things to discuss.”
The blonde teenager didn’t quite know what was going on, but as she followed Michiru, she knew one thing for certain: she was in trouble.
The Meiohs just watched the pair go off to their room. “Uh, will they be alright?” asked Ranma, concerned that he might have accidentally hurt their relationship.
“They’ll be fine. From what I understand, they’ve been building up to this argument all night. Don’t worry, all couples have fights from time to time—they’re too much in love with each other to let tonight permanently affect them.”
Ranma sighed in relief. “That’s good ta know. Haruka may be a little weird, but he seems like a pretty decent guy.”
“Ranma, about that…”
“What is it, Setsuna?”
“Haruka’s not a ‘guy.’”
Ranma abruptly froze up at this. Slowly, he turned to his wife. “Well, if he ain’t a ‘guy,’ then what is he?”
“She is a woman.”
Ranma had difficulty formulating a reply. “But—and Michiru…”
“They’re lesbians.”
“So all that talking about bedroom ‘advice’ for us… she meant…” Ranma’s already brain had reached its limit for the night, as he collapsed face first onto the floor.
Setsuna sighed. She didn’t know if the actual faint came from the news that Haruka was female, or from the suggestion that she and her husband might be intimate when he was a woman. She hoped it was the former—if it was the latter, then the possibility of ever bedding Ranma’s redheaded female form had just become much more distant. She’d have splashed husband with water to wake him up, but that probably wasn’t a good idea, considering his curse—and since there weren’t any smelling salts in the house, she’d just have to wait for him to regain consciousness.
Michiru closed the door to the room she shared with Haruka after her lover walked in. “Why do you have to do this, Haruka?”
“What? You mean with Ranma? Come on, it’s just a little fun—no one’s hurt by it.”
“Did you realize that he thinks you’re male?”
“After a while, but it’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? Don’t you care about how other people feel?”
“Of course I care. I just like joking around—straight people are so entertaining when they’re uncomfortable.” Haruka was generalizing a bit, but for the most part it was true. “When I realized why he wasn’t reacting to ‘Haruka the lesbian’ I just switched gears a bit.”
“And pretended to be a gay man?”
“No, I pretended to be a bisexual man. There’s a difference.”
Michiru was getting more frustrated by the second. “How can you be so callous? Don’t you realize that your actions might have consequences?”
“What consequences? Like I said, I’m not hurting anyone.”
That was it. Michiru couldn’t let Haruka remain ignorant. She took a deep breath and dropped her bomb: “You hurt Setsuna.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“She’s bisexual.” And I hope she forgives me for telling you.
“What?! Since when?”
“By her estimate, since before recorded history.”
“Well, when did you find out?”
“When she told me fifteen minutes ago.”
“She said that was about where everyone was sleeping!”
“It was. But most of it was Setsuna coming out to me.”
“Well, why didn’t she say anything earlier?”
“Because of you.”
“What?”
“She didn’t want to tell you, because she thought you would be disrespectful and just use her sexuality to make the others uncomfortable the same way you use ours.”
Haruka didn’t know how to reply to that—but from the stare she was getting, it was obvious that Michiru expected her to. “Uh, well, I—”
Thankfully (or perhaps not), her girlfriend interrupted the verbal stumbling. “Whatever excuse you were going to come up with wouldn’t have cut it, Haruka. I don’t know why you act the way you do, but I do know this: when a bisexual person doesn’t feel she can trust someone who’s openly homosexual to understand her problems, then something is definitely wrong.”
“I… I’m sorry…”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to!”
“Well, I’ll just do it now—”
“And interrupt Setsuna and Ranma? I don’t think so. Besides, she’ll just think you’re doing it to make me happy, and what she needs from you is an honest apology.”
Haruka sighed—probably not the best response she could give. “Is that it?” And that was definitely not the best response.
“No. You should probably apologize to all of the other Senshi as well. What if one of them is in the closet? If you made it difficult for Setsuna, imagine how they must feel.” Comprehension finally began to dawn on Haruka’s face, but Michiru didn’t wait to see it. “Now, I’m going to get ready for bed. I suggest you do the same—we’ve got to start moving furniture around tomorrow.”
After a few minutes, Ranma finally came to. “Ugh… what happened?” he groggily asked to no one in particular.
“I think that when I told you about Haruka, your brain decided that it had had enough stress.”
The martial artist craned his neck until he was looking at his wife. “So Haruka is, what, a cross-dressing lesbian?”
“Something like that.”
“Whoa. Is there anything else weird about yer friends I oughta know about?”
Yes there is, but you are definitely not ready to hear about the Senshi yet. “There may be a few things, but they can wait—we’ve got… other things to worry about.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I believe that we had planned on screwing our brains out before that got interrupted by the surprise party.”
Not surprisingly, Ranma blushed in response. “Oh, uh, yeah. Well, uh, I’m still up for it if you are.”
Setsuna briefly wondered if his pun was intentional. Probably not. He gets so flustered and embarrassed when sex is brought up that there’s no way he could make suggestive jokes with a straight face. Not for the first time, it occurred to the twenty-thousand-year-old Time Guardian that Ranma was almost certainly a virgin—he’d been too busy with his training to develop a relationship with a member of the opposite gender before he’d met her.
This, of course, had its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages were obvious, and most of them were related to his complete lack of experience—but that was temporary, and with a few centuries of instruction, she was sure he’d be one of the best lovers in history (namely since he’d have the most experienced lover as his tutor). It would take a lot of patience, but then, when one has a lifespan as long as Setsuna’s, patience tends to be a bit easier to cultivate.
Besides, there were some advantages to having a relatively inexperienced lover. In addition to being able to teach him or her to get things right from the beginning, they tended to be very eager, and extremely easy to please, especially if you knew what you were doing. This definitely described Ranma, as Setsuna noticed the crotch area of his drawstring pants beginning to bulge slightly. Better get the boring stuff out of the way now. Wordlessly, she guided Ranma upstairs to her bedroom.
“Okay, about our sleeping arrangements. This is my room. Naturally, you’ll be sleeping here tonight. This is just temporary, however, since my bed’s only a double, which doesn’t give us a lot of room to move around when we’re actually asleep, so I’ve ordered a queen size bed which should be delivered some time this week. When that arrives, we’ll move into one of the larger rooms on the main level, and my current bedroom will become a guestroom. Are you following me so far?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Now as to tonight’s ‘activities’… You’ve no doubt heard from Haruka that I can be a bit noisy.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, I’m going to try and keep things down tonight, simply because Hotaru’s room is right next door, and she’s a light sleeper. It shouldn’t be a problem after tonight, because we’ll be leaving on our honeymoon tomorrow, and the new bed should be delivered and in our new room when we return.”
“H-Honeymoon?!”
“Well, yes. Granted, I haven’t quite figured out where we’re going yet, but we are definitely going.”
“Uh, okay.”
“But I can see that you’re not interested in that right now—and to be honest, neither am I.” Before her husband could answer, Setsuna embraced Ranma, bringing her lips to his in a passionate kiss. As they fell onto the bed, one of them (it didn’t really matter who) managed to reach up and turn off the light.
“Michiru?”
The violinist briefly raised her head from her pillow to look at her lover, and then wordlessly rolled over away from her.
The next morning…
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(Posted Mon, 16 Jan 2006 19:12)
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