Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Memoirs of being in the Saddle ❯ The lessons conclude... ( Chapter 23 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

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One thing I have neglected to mention in these memoirs was that every single time we finished a session, when the collar was off and Ranma was no longer Girl, I'd ask Ranma a question at the door. The same question. 

 

Have you gone far enough or do you want to go further? 

 

And thus far, Ranma's reply had always been to not quit. Sometimes quietly, sometimes shakily, but always further.

 

Until today, Saturday, right after the night I covered her from neck to toes in lingerie. 

 

It had to be sequential and still fresh in her mind. And so, Ranma actually snuck away after supper at the Tendos, a rare thing as Ranma wanted me and her peaceful oasis with me not to be discovered.  

 

But I had requested it, which was rare for me as well. Normally we agreed on a day based on shared convenience. 

 

Ranma arrived, I affixed the choker, and she went to the bathroom to change. 

 

It took the same amount of time as it did on Friday, fifteen minutes, though I know it wasn't because of the number of items this time.

 

There was only one thing, the dress.

 

Finally, she rounded the corner, cheeks already blazing red. 

 

In the dress.

And nothing but the dress. 

No underwear. 

 

-=-=-=-

 

If she walked differently when she was in a bra and panties, it was even more pronounced when she wasn't. Her footsteps were soft, and she tried to keep everything still. Impossible for a figure like hers, but she tried.

 

Interesting isn't it Ranma? I didn't say. Not yet. She had to experience it all.

 

What I did was have her go through the exact chores she did the day we started this battle, only now she was in a dress.

 

The floors didn't need cleaning, it had only been a week, but she ran back and forth, pushing the cloth anyway. 

 

She was now acutely aware of each jiggle now, and despite the chaste dress covering far more than her loose tanktop had been, her pace was far slower and more careful. 

 

The walls didn't need washing, but she scrubbed them anyways, pushing the cloth up and down. Unlike her boxers, the dress went down to the ankles, and yet she arranged herself chastely as she washed, not letting the dress rise above her shins. 

 

Her energy, her eagerness to prove how her body didn't matter to her, that had certainly been tempered. 

 

After she was done, I gestured to the kitchen chair for her to sit. Before joining her I poured us each a glass of water. 

 

The final round and we both knew it. 

She'd beaten me with a bit of skin, able to use her a body as a weapon, a tactic.

 

But this wasn't a duel, this was not a battle. Ranma Saotome was not in front of me, able to do whatever was necessary to win. There was no winning. 

 

Thus she had no defenses. She was feeling everything. She might even be missing the lingerie right now. 

 

"I think you are beginning to understand now. The pattern." I started our conversation after she retrieved her glass. "Normal on Saturday, then emphasized on Monday. Your choice was uncomfortable on Wednesday, then my choice was comfortable and fully covered on Friday."

 

She nodded silently.

 

"And now, none." 

 

Another nod, her cheeks pink.

 

"Tell me, when you compare this time with that time you beat me, how different is it?" I waved my hand and pushed on before she could respond. "Yes, I know you aren't wearing boxers, but you are in fact wearing much more than before. The dress goes from your neck to your ankles, a far cry from that loose tank top and boxers you teased me with."

 

I waited for her to gather her thoughts and her courage.

 

"It feels... different." She managed at last.

 

"You will have to give me a little more than that, Girl." I pointed out. "Is it the dress, the fact that I am looking at you, or something else?"

 

When she didn't reply, just keeping her gaze on her glass, I sighed, got up, and fetched us the bourbon and an extra glass for both of us.

In short order Ranma had two glasses in front of her, water in one, and four ounces of bourbon in the other. My own had half that, but I used the classic trick of holding my own glass while I poured, and using my hand to obstruct her vision of the booze line.

 

I waited a moment as she drank the alcohol, waited and tried to measure my next words to her. This was a delicate tipping point.

 

"Interesting isn't it?" I broke the silence at last, catching her mid sip. Our eyes met as I continued. "How much you must be feeling right now, if you can't describe it to me in words."

 

"You think this is interesting?" Her eyebrows were furrowing now, as she found either my word or my tone not to her taste. 

 

"Yes." I answered honestly. "I've never done this sort of thing with someone completely fresh. It's always been with someone who knows..."

 

"Knows what?" She asked.

 

"Knows themselves."

 

She didn't have an response to that and glanced down at her drink before sipping from it. 

Thankfully, I was prepared to do a bunch of speaking today.

 

"As far as I can tell, unlike most people, you don't have one body anymore. Thanks to a cursed spring in China, you now have a second, and you only really know the one." I mused, looking down at my own glass briefly, "I can only imagine what that is like."

 

When she still didn't speak, and still didn't look up from her now empty glass, I sighed and poured her another.

 

"Don't be afraid."

 

That certainly got her attention. 

Her eyes shot up angrily, a thousand retorts and insults on her lips and no doubt at least as many debilitating blows in her limbs.

Then she saw me, really saw me for the first time today since putting on the dress. Her gaze had been evasive this evening.

 

I've been told I have an excellent serious face, the way the scars under my skin adjust my lips or something. What she saw stopped her.

 

"I told you," I repeated my prior words solemnly, "If you have a quality, be proud of it. Let it define you, whatever it is. You don't have to trumpet it from the rooftops, but you must never be ashamed of anything about you, of anything you are."

 

"Don't flee from yourself." She said at last, quoting me. 

 

"Yes." I nodded seriously. "I don't know how much of myself came from the accident, or if it was always there, waiting. But it's what I am now."

 

"I'm still me." She murmured, looking at her hands, seeing the small fingers free of callouses, free of the thickened bones a martial artist built with years of effort. 

They clenched into small fists. "But I'm not me." 

 

"You are unique in that regard." I noted. "You literally have two bodies, two perspectives..." I waited a moment before adding. "Two preferences."

 

She looked at me, subtly clenching her body in ways no doubt to defend herself in battle. 

But there was no one to fight.

Not even herself.

 

"You like sweet snacks as a girl, and salty snacks when a guy." I said plainly, causing her to blink in surprise. "Yet, both sides of you like American action movies unless there's a lot of martial arts in it..." I smirked. "Can't imagine why."

 

She had a tiny smile, but it was there. "'Cause ninety-nine percent of it is crap."

 

"You shut your mouth!" I mock snarled, before returning my own grin. "They must have spent two whole hours practicing those punches and kicks."

 

Slowly she started to chuckle. I joined her, clinking my glass to hers. 

 

"I'm afraid." She said suddenly, emptying her glass once again. 

 

I gestured for her to go on.

 

"Whenever I'm alone, whenever look in a mirror, sometimes..."

 

"Sometimes?" I prodded.

 

"Sometimes I don't see... me."

 

It said something about her trust in me that she'd actually say it out loud. Would she ever say it to anyone else?

 

"I assume by that," I noted quietly, "You don't just mean, you as a guy. You mean Ranma Saotome."

 

"Yes." Her voice was a whisper now.

 

"Good." And I meant it, though for reasons most sinister.

 

"Good?!?" She almost shouted, almost. "How is that good?"

 

"Because," I said primly, "If you honestly didn't see any difference, if you honestly thought that all this," I gestured up and down her chest. "Didn't matter at all, then you'd be insane."

 

"It doesn't!"

 

"Oh, it does." I replied. "You have an extra rib now, did you know that?" 

She hadn't. 

"You have breasts now. Big ones." 

She flinched, hands leaving her glass to almost cover them despite the dress, though with her small hands that was a failed effort.

"You have internal reproductive organs now. Ones that occasionally bleed."

She squirmed in her seat.

"By my eye you are about thirteen inches shorter, and weigh fifty-ish pounds less."

"Twelve and a half," She corrected quietly, "And forty-eight."

"And finally, I don't mean to alarm you but..." I leaned forward conspiratorially, and she did the same. "You have red hair." I mock whispered.

 

That last one earned me a dry look.

 

"Anything else?" Her voice had sarcasm, but her eyes questions.

 

"Yeah." I refilled both our glasses. The bourbon was almost gone. "That thing you see instead of Ranma, it's got a name."

 

"Oh?" Her hand reached for her drink.

 

"I call it Girl."

 

Her hand froze, fingertips not quite touching her glass.

 

"You see, Girl," I emphasized the name, leaning forward once again and trapping her gaze with my own. "When Ranma walked by me that day, when he shied away from me, he was hurt. In a way he didn't know he could be hurt. By you."

 

Ranma was enthralled now, numbly grabbing her glass with shaky fingers. She finished it in a single pull. I don't think she tasted it.

 

"As soon as I saw that my friend was hurt, I looked for a way to help." I paused to take a breath. "I found out what happened, I found out whose was responsible, and, I looked for a solution."

 

"All this, was for me?" She whispered.

 

Oh no, for me as well. Always me first. But I nodded anyway.

 

"Remember when you told me about your first fight with Mousse? How you used tricks and gimmicks, but in the end he was winning because you didn't understand that your reach was different, that he had the longer arms and legs. You needed learn that about your body, and you did." I paused for effect. "And then you stopped learning. That is what left you vulnerable in the shower."

 

Ah, the shower, memories of it even now made her shiver. So useful now.

 

"Tell me," I asked quietly. "If the shower water was hot instead of cold, and it was two girls there instead of two boys, and they grabbed your balls instead of your tits, would it be more worse or less worse?"

 

Question posed, I sipped at my bourbon, enjoying the sweet burn. Waiting for an answer.

 

She thought about it, really thought about it for a moment there. A guy, getting handed money from two girls whom he thought of as friends, then stepping into the shower and turning the water warm...

 

"Less, I think." She admitted at last.

 

I expected that answer. In all honesty, with the number of examples of suffering I've filmed, I find it's about the same. Man, woman, violation is violation.

Men always lowballed their pain.

Not that I'd contradict her answer though, I needed her to think this way.

 

"You know that now. And knowing is half the battle." 

Ah, GI Joe. American cartoon. Look it up.

 

She had to buy this, or it was all for naught. I began my offer, though she didn't know it was an offer.

 

"You are afraid of what you see in the mirror because you don't know it, that's all." I lied as I poured the last of the bourbon in Ranma's glass. "But you can't tell what's Ranma and what's Girl without a separation." 

 

My glass was empty, and so I dipped my fingertip into my glass of now lukewarm water.

 

I drew a watery line on the table between Ranma and I.

 

"A line in the sand."

 

And I waited. She had to come to the answer, accept my offer, cross that line. 

Without it there would only be hesitation and the risk would spiral out of control. 

She needed to want the excuse.

 

After a moment, her hand slowly went up and touched the red velvet choker around her neck.

 

I nodded slightly but said nothing.

 

She finished the last of the bourbon. Her cheeks were flushed now, mostly from the alcohol yes, but not only the alcohol. 

 

In those blue eyes, something flickered.

 

"I'm still me." She said at last.

 

"And who is that?" It wasn't a question I was really asking, she could hear the expectation in my voice.

 

"Girl." There was only a quiet tremor in her voice when she said it.

 

"Pleased to meet you, Girl." I offered my hand to shake, and she did, albeit with a bone crushing grip that I had to hide a wince from.

 

Fuck, this was dangerous. 

But what journey it would be. 

What a ride.

 

Introductions done, there was only one thing left to do. I gestured at our water glasses.

 

She was only confused for a moment, then she remembered. Remembered what she used to beat me.

 

I reached for my glass of water, slowly she reached for hers.

 

We clinked glasses, though I think at this point it was her with the dry throat this time, not me.

 

I drank mine.

 

She drank... most of hers.