In Heat

Ranma frowned when she totaled up how much she spent on rent, bills, what she needed for Midori and on food for the month. This was the third time she checked the tallies with the same results, she was making just enough to get by without saving a penny. She had heard that everything in Japan was expensive, but she hadn’t realized how much so until she’d gone out on her own. She now had an even healthier respect how Kasumi managed to take care of a household of seven based on a single salary. She wondered how she could cut costs, but had whittled her budget to the bone as it was. She thought about taking a second job, but she was already working a twelve hours shift, six days a week at the hotel. That would mean even less time spent with her daughter and the need to pay for a babysitter.

Ranma has been saddened by her experience in leaving Nerima. Where people, who she’d thought cared about her, had turned against her or tried to force her into a position she didn’t wish to be in and the ones she thought hated her, had proved to be her greatest allies. She had had no choice in the matter but to flee. The only place she could have gone to after she couldn’t handle Akane’s rejection anymore was to the delusional Kunos’ mansion. She had seriously worried about Midori’s safety at the suggestion. No she’d done the right thing and would suffer the consequences.

Ranma sighed when she thought of all she would need to provide when Midori got older: clothing for her changing body that she would constantly outgrown, not to mention school uniforms, cost of additional food when she stopped breast feeding and the most important one; tuition fees for college. Ranma had resolved that her daughter was going to grow up in a stable house without a single training trip and get a proper education. But how? To Ranma a stable home involved two parents who lived together, well not her own of course, she was hoping to avoid Midori having weirdness in her household. Who would accept Ranma with her curse and wished to be father to Midori? Her eyes fell on the letter that she’d written to Mousse via Shampoo. She looked at Midori asleep in her cradle, looking like a vision of innocent loveliness. “I have no choice, a co-parent who can hopefully at least tolerate me is better then you having no father at all” she whispered to her, having no clue that the subject of her letter was on his way to find them.

As Mousse dozed on the train that took him to Shinjuku, he had the same dream that he’d been having for a while now. Shampoo stood in front of him wearing only a frilly pink apron.....that was completely transparent. “Airen eat delicious Ramen?” she asked as she glomped onto him.

“Of course my love” he said, his cheeks were glowing red at her suggestive attire.

“No Mu-chan’s eating my delicious okonomiyaki” Ukyou protested, she also wore a sheer, frilly apron and had her spatula strapped to her back. “After all, I’m his cute fiancée” she said with a toss of her hair that caused her lush breasts to bounce enticingly.

“Ukyou what are you doing?” Mousse asked not understanding.

“Vile harlots, mon cher Mousse won’t eat any of that vile slop. Come my love, you want some of my delicious French cooking n’est pas?” Kodachi said stepping out of the shadows...wearing a matching apron.

“Mousse what the hell are you doing? I spent all morning making this for you, have a taste at least” Akane said, she wore another apron.........and a gas mask. “Have some” she insisted holding out a plate containing a gelatinous green mass that seemed to be moving on its own. Mousse felt ill as it squirmed towards him.

“Ladies, I’m not really hungry right now” he said backing away hastily, getting a nosebleed at the abundance of female flesh of display. He backed against a brick wall and looked vainly around for an exit as the girls started walking towards him zombie-like and chanting.

“You’re my fiancé, you must eat my food”

Mousse awoke with a start...........and a hardon. The elderly lady next to him gave the bulge in his pants an appraising look and smiled knowingly. Mousse blushed and hastily slapped a magazine over his lap, then blushed again because it was opened to an article entitled ‘Do You Know You Rapist?’

“I’m studying to be a rape counselor” Mousse explained. The lady gave him a dubious expression before returning to her romance novel.

Mousse lay back and thought about what his dreams meant. ‘Had Ranma felt hunted like that?’ he wondered. He wondered also if this was his conscious’s way of showing him a side Ranma’s life that he’d never considered. The women in her life wanted to marry her to the point that her own feelings were never taken into account and the men kill her. Mousse realized that he’d played a vital role in making Ranma feel as unwelcomed in Nerima as possible. Ranma had never even wanted Shampoo or any of them. This made Mousse feel kind of guilty of his treatment of Ranma, not that this excused what Ranma had done......but still.

Mousse had to admit that he’d been more then just a little jealous of the other martial artist’s popularity with women. It wasn’t like there had been a single girl interested in Mousse, let alone simple a friend that he could talk to when feeling down. He realized that after hearing every day that he was worthless trash by the woman he loved and her great-grandmother, that he’d come to believe it. He actually had thought that having an unpaid job where he was beaten and belittled on a regular basis was a good thing. So he’d swallowed his pride and became the toady she’d wanted him to be. He’d once been a proud warrior with a caring, compassionate nature; he’d distanced himself from this completely. He had had obsessive-compulsive issues that he got help with; this had allowed him to grow as a person.

Oddly enough, he kind of had the same effect on women now that Ranma himself used to. When he walked in the village, women threw him admiring glances and girls giggled and whispered to their friends. The mother’s of eligible young bachelorettes would bring him invitations to challenge their daughters for marriage. Then there were the presents. Yes Mousse couldn’t see without corrective lenses but everyone knew that his eye problems weren’t genetic, so as long as he was gorgeous and could help make beautiful daughters, girls wanted him as husband. He was extremely flattered, but declined the invitations as he didn’t want someone who wanted him only as a studhorse, but someone who truly loved him and treated him as an equal. Which was kind of ironic considering the only date-like thing he’d ever experienced was to hold a highly pregnant fourteen-year-old while they watched a movie together. She’d been a rape victim like himself and had wanted to experience what a date felt like before her baby was adopted by a wealthy American family.

He wondered what he was going to say to Ranma when he saw her; he’d been to interactive victims-rapists counseling when they’d told their attacker their feelings about what was done to them. Somehow it lost effect when the male was about six feet tall and the girl little over five feet. He settled back and waited to arrive, not have a clue where to start looking.

It was three days before Mousse found Ranma, taking into account her previous experience as a waitress and her age, he’d stopped by all the local diners and restaurants close to the bus station. He would show the employees and owners her and Midori’s pictures and say he was her husband. Some people recognized “Kitten” from when she’d inquired about working at their establishment but didn’t have any information for Mousse. It was strictly by accident that he’d discovered her whereabouts. Mousse had wandered into a diner close to the hostel that he was staying at because he was hungry. He blushed at the uniforms that the girls were wearing and meekly had started to walk out the door.

“Can I help you?” A girl about his age had asked him with a friendly smile. Mousse could only stare at her as she was quite exotic for Japan, considering that Mousse came from a place where exotic was normal, she was really exotic to him. He could tell that she was at least part Japanese because of her eyes, but her complexion was really quite dark. Something about her petite, curvy body, full lips and long dark curly hair bespoke of Africa. Mousse could easily see her dancing in the jungle where her feet barely seemed to touch the ground, the daughter of the king and the most sought after girl in the village. Her name tag read “Laetitia” and she seemed to be amused by his surprise. “My father was Japanese and my mother was African-America” she explained as if she got it all the time. “Would you care to have a seat?” she suggested.

“Sure” Mousse said feeling less intimidated by her friendliness at being in what could be considered a taboo place for a male to be in at home. The so-called peepshow places only permitted gay women warriors. He allowed her to seat him and ordered something he knew he could eat fast. He opened the folder to study the picture of Ranma again. He tried to imagine what sort of disguise she might be using. Had she got her hair cut short? Dyed it maybe? Glasses, he knew from experience that they tended to alter a person’s appearance pretty well. He was still studying the picture when Laetitia came back with his tea.

He was surprised when she knocked him out of his seat with a round house kick and then pinned him to the ground with her knee. “Who sent you? Was it that crazy Kuno girl or guy that Ranma told me about? The spatula bitch? The one that can’t cook for shit? I want answers boy and I want them now!” she snarled into his face.

“I’m Mousse” Mousse sputtered out, more surprised then hurt. He was shocked when she immediately she got to her feet and held out a hand to help him up. “Midori’s father” she concluded. “Sit down, I suspect you have some questions” she said pouring him some miraculously unspilled tea. “I’m Ranma’s friend, perhaps the only one she’s made since she came to Shinjuku. Our backgrounds are similar and both involve rejection. When the wealthy Honda family sent their little boy travelling, I doubt that they expected him to come home with a souvenir in the form of my mother. She was born in Brooklyn; my great-grandma worked three jobs in order to pay for my mother’s voice training lessons. She had the voice of an angel, that voice launched her career as an opera singer and she toured the world until she met Kenji Honda in Paris. I don’t know what a Brooklyn girl saw in a Japanese man who could barely speaking English, but somehow it led to their marriage and my conception. Well, let’s just say that his uppity Japanese family wasn’t too happy that their son brought home someone that was way too many shades of tawny to be considered to be a Japanese doll. Well my parents died young in a plane crash, leaving little old me with my grandparents. I was an embarrassment to them, so they kept shipping me off to boarding schools where those little Japanese dolls would ridicule me and the males wouldn’t date me. So I found myself a blackman who would. However he headed out of town as soon as he learned I was pregnant and my grandparents cut me off without a nickel. So believe me, I identify with Ranma’s situation” she explained.

“Do you know where they are? I’m not working for anyone, I just have to know that they’re okay” Mousse said.

Laetitia studied him and seemed satisfied. “She feels bad about what happened. She told me about it”

“She did?” Mousse said surprised.

“She told me everything, I think she’s lonely. She used to work here for a while and then got a job at a hotel because they offer benefits there. I was tempted to go there too, but need the extra money I make on tips here for my own little girl, she’s three” she explained.

“If you don’t want to tell me her address, could just take a message to her, asking her to meet me? I’ve never met Midori” Mousse implored her.

“You seem like an honest guy and I can see the resemblance between you and Midori. I’ll call her and see if she’s willing to meet you, she’s looking after my little Etta as well as Midori right now” Laetitia explained with a smile.

“Etta?” Mousse said.

“Short for Henrietta, that was her grandmother’s name” she said and borrowed Mousse’s cell. He watched with bated breath as she had a muffled conversation with “Kitten.” Laetitia returned “she wanted to know how you got her letter so fast, but then asked me to give you her address” she explained.

“What letter?” Mousse asked.

“Don’t know, but good luck to you. Just so you know, you hurt her and I’ll kick your ass” Laetitia threatened.

“Thank you, where did you learn martial arts?” Mousse asked her.

She smirked “Don’t you recognize the Ito Martial Arts School of Anything Goes? You should, sounds like she kicked your can lots of times. She been teaching it to me at the baseball diamond of the high school close to my place” she said.

“I think you’re a dangerous woman Laetitia” Mousse said.

“You don’t know the half of it” she said and cocked her hip at him and rested her fist on it. “But sorry, I don’t like pale boys and I’m not Ranma’s type either”

“I wasn’t flirting” Mousse protested.

“Don’t worry, men can never resist goin’ for a sista” she declared and shoved him out of the diner while he wondered what she meant by ‘not Ranma’s type.’

Ranma felt as jumpy as virgin at a prison rodeo ‘Mousse was in Shinjuku? How she’d just sent her letter yesterday? Had Shampoo guessed and told him about Midori. Had Cologne? But how would he have found her, she thought she’d covered her tracks pretty well?’ she was pacing around the tiny bachelor apartment while Etta paced with her asking what was wrong.

“Sorry, an old friend of Aunt Kitty’s coming for a visit. He’s a guy I once knew” she explained as she picked the toddler up. Etta was darker then her mother with curly hair and large solemn dark eyes.

“Can you read to me until he gets here?” she asked.

“Okay” Ranma agreed and they were through the closet to Narnia when Mousse knocked at the door.

His eyes widened in surprise when a respectable young matron answered the door, totally gone were the baggy Chinese clothes that the female Ranma used to wear as well as the male. This girl wore a black knee length skirt and a blue cotton cardigan twin set. Her wavy red hair was loose and she wore a black hair band. Clearly she was living as a woman and learned to dress like one. “Ranma?” Mousse asked just for confirmation.

Ranma herself could only stare at the handsome stranger before her; this wasn’t the geeky Mousse who dressed in baggy clothes that she’d known. This person was gorgeous and seemed to be able to see properly. He wore black jeans that fit just right and red top that showed off his impressive physic. She could only marvel at his flawless ivory complexion and long silky black hair, she found herself wondering wildly if he’d ever had a zit in his life or bad hair day. Even in Nerima he’d always been immaculately groomed. “Mousse” she breathed and with strength she hadn’t known existed in her female form, slammed him against the wall next to her apartment and held him in place with her own body weight.

Mousse was rather shocked; this was the second time that night that a small female had pinned him just because he’d been too surprised to move. “It that really you? What happened to you?” she demanded.

“My mother gave me a makeover” he explained, feeling a little overwhelmed at the intensity of her gaze. It reminded him too much of his Ranma’s fiancées dream.

“You look good” she said, still giving him that strange look as if trying to hypnotism him.

“Thanks” he said wondering if motherhood had unbalanced her.

Ranma was just about to ask him what he put in his hair to make it so shiny, when she realized that he looked a little uncomfortable at the oddness of her questions. So she stood back, “Please come inside, there’s someone that you came a long way to meet and I’m sure you have plenty of questions” she said stepping back and beckoned him into her new home. She took a deep breath and prepared to face the consequences of her actions of what occurred in Nerima a year before.