Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Memoirs of being in the Saddle ❯ Pool Duel: Opening moves. ( Chapter 25 )

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It wasn't much of a pool. 

It was, in fact, my bathroom with a few accoutrements. But it was private, it was peaceful, and it met all the technical requirements.

I had chairs, I had towels, an umbrella stand, two tables, a tape player, and the harsh halogen light was softened into a warm yellow glow thanks to the filter. I had left the bathroom window open all the way to let the room warm up, as we would be closing it shortly. 

No chance for someone to hear a voice they shouldn't. Plus trapping the warm sticky air inside made the water all that much more appealing.

Speaking of which, while the "Pool" was pleasantly cool to the touch, we didn't go in just yet. Food first, no sense getting crumbs in there. Not that I'd be the one doing the cleaning if that happened, Ranma was still in a severe shortage of work and would take care of it, but who wanted crumbs in their pool?

We sat in our chairs and ate, sounds of the ocean playing behind us. It initially was to be Hawaiian music, but I had underestimated just how much that reminded her of Principal Kuno. But ocean sounds were safe, and I had a few cassette tapes handy.

Then came the lotion.

"I don't get it," She asked watching me put the lotion on my full leg. "We aren't in the sun. What's the point of you putting that on?"

I stopped and looked at my hands for a moment. "Do you know why we're doing this here?"

Her response was a shrug which I enjoyed, and a flippant. "'Cause it's hot as heck."

I nodded. "And?"

Her lips quirked into a slight smirk. "And ya wanted ta see me in a bathing suit."

I rolled my eyes while nodding my head. "And?"

She blinked and flushed slightly at the fact I didn't outright deny it. "Um... I dunno."

So I told her.

-=-=-=-

Finally, I shall answer.

If you think you know how a beach or pool trip goes, clearly you've never been a cripple.

A normal trip to the beach means packing, typically driving, arriving, parking, unloading and then setting up on the beach proper.

I could do all those things, even the driving, though it had been a while. Hard to beat Japanese trains though, especially how close work is to one.

I could do all those things, if only they'd let me. 

You see, I am actually not allowed on many beaches. If I go, like I did a few times I tried in my college days, I get politely but firmly asked to leave.

Just like people with tattoos not being able to use most bath houses, or coincidentally enough, beaches and indoor pools with their skin exposed, someone whose appearance might 'upset' people finds that few want them around.

It's the stump you see, that and under my shirt the scars are pretty ragged, and Japan is a culture of keeping things smooth.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, but the nail that's bent and battered is simply not allowed to be there at all.

I had gone just once, in loose jogging pants, socks and a full sleeved shirt, but it wasn't the same. Even then I was the outlier, the oddity, the one people glanced at from the corner of their eye. The one they whispered about over the waves.

I never bothered again after that, and work quietly let me have the Beach days off.

Less trouble that way.

-=-=-=-

Ranma looked downcast and I hastened to cheer her up. 

“Don't worry about it, this is pretty much the same as an indoor pool only without the screaming kids.” I put lotion on my other leg, the stump, and rubbed it in vigorously. "And I like doing all the little things, it helps turn this from a bathroom into a small private pool, y'know?"

She nodded, expression mollified, but feeling still a bit guilty. "Yeah. Yer right. Pass that when you're done with it."

I got the sun lotion on and handed the tube over to her. 

Predictably, it ran out before she got her arms done.

“We out?” I asked. At her nod I feigned a sigh and got up. “One sec, let me see if I have anything else.”

"What's this? Did you actually not not have a backup ready?" She teased with a smile. "For shame Stumps, for shame."

In an effort to cheer the mood up Ranma had fallen back on what usually riled people up, but was usually not intended as such; Teasing.

"Hardy-har-har there, Tits." Was my response as I put my metal leg back on. "I got more, just a moment."

She didn't ask to get it for me, I hadn't asked her to and she knew I hated pity at least as much as she did.

Back in the WC I made a beeline to the cabinet under the sink. As I was kneeling down I caught a whiff of the trash can. It smelled a bit too much like the lotion I'd squeezed out of the then brand new lotion tube. While retrieving the "spare" I grabbed the toilet cleaning spray and squirted a couple shots into can. Nice and bleachy.

Back into the fray.

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"Here, it's the only other stuff I got left." I tossed the bottle at her.

"Quite a bit of this stuff." She remarked shaking the nearly full container. "Why didn't ya start with this?"

"I bought it in bulk before I realized it made my skin too sensitive around the stump." I grimaced, and she pointedly didn't look at my leg, "And unlike the lotion, this stuff is water soluble, which means you'll have to reapply it after a dip in the pool." 

"Aw man..." She didn't even question why I'd have her redo it, interesting that. 

"It wasn't made for pool use, its more for action." Action, right. "Still, it has some benefits, since it washes off, it won't leave a ring in the bath unlike the stuff I'm wearing."

"Right." And then she started lubing herself up.

-=-=-=-

Yeah, it was lube.

Lightly-scented water-based edible sex-lubricant if you must be exact. We have plenty of it at the studio, bought it in large drums, and this stuff was what made Yuri Kumoken into a star and why he got to make pretty much anything he wanted in his spare time. Though he didn't know it, he'd demand more money if he knew. 

Kumo, still a fresh costume designer, barely a month in, had accidentally stumbled onto the holy grail for swimsuit sex shoots. At least I thought so, having shot many before and after his discovery, and appreciated the time saved because of it.

Look, every smutshop has swimsuits that go see-through when wet, it's part of the stock and trade. But if you were cutting a pool film, you either had to have a very experienced film crew, or a very patient lady.

You see, people notice continuity, a girl going from dry to wet to dry and wet again disrupts the flow, and the smooth flow is what separates poolsex from regular dry land varieties with all their fancy cuts and editing. 

To tie scenes together, since it usually went see-through, plus hair, makeup, and the like, you either had to make no mistakes in one long sequential take, or wait for her to dry off and restart where the problem happened. 

And to do that quickly meant the lady standing in front of a heavy fan freezing her nipples off, and for the stud, it wasn't much easier. Hard to keep an erection going when your dick shrivels up like a stack of dimes. 

They charged extra for pool vids accordingly, and, it was harder to coax a girl into a second one if they did them on anything but a scorching hot day or on a private beach.

But then came Kumo and his weird fabrics and Byzantine stitchwork. The fabrics he used for swimsuits didn't go see through in water, but it did with certain lubes. The fact that we had a monopoly of him and no one knew except him the exact bolt stock meant that we were quickly producing three times the pool vids than anyone else in our size.

His ability to mimic damn near anything from a catalog also made him a hit.

And the ladies, warm the lube, lube them up, enjoy the show, dunk her in the pool or a warm bath or shower, and wash it off. Suit goes back to opaque. Towel her off, blow-dry the hair, fix up makeup. Done.

Check the film, find the problem point, reapply warm lube, get the hair as damp as needed, and get back to shooting. 

End result, videos take half as long to shoot, there's no one catching a cold, and it looks nearly the same as a real smutsuit and didn't look drab like a real one. And a big plus was that a lady might do it again as it wasn't nearly as bad as they heard or experienced. And if they suffered elsewhere, they came back to us if they weren't under contract, especially if they got to keep the swimsuit. 

And with private pools, there was no one to tell me to leave.

-=-=-=-

"This stuff is kinda runny." she noted, coating her legs. "And shiny."

"Probably because it isn't a lotion." I answered, watching her work. And she noticed.

It was both fun and enjoyable to be watching her watch me watching her. 

As she finished her legs and started on her arms, I noticed how she turned more to face me, letting me see the action better. Unlike a pro, she was telegraphing it pretty broadly, watching where my eyes lingered. 

She was watching me so much that she didn't notice that her swipes up her shoulders had gone over the straps, or that the white straps were now slightly translucent. 

I didn't want her catching on too quickly, so I sprung what she thought was my 'trap'.

"Want me to do your back?" I asked as she finished her neck below the choker and lightly brushed the tops of her heavy chest.

She froze.

I've learned that martial artists don't often freeze. 

They just get still, ready. 

They only freeze when they are frightened. 

And Ranma froze, froze for almost ten seconds, before her eyes darted to mine. 

"My... back?" she said, voice sounding dry.

"Yeah, you can't reach it, unless you dislocate your arm or something." I took the bottle from her numb hand and poured a little on my palm. "Turn over."

She looked at me, and I think was actually contemplating dislocating her arm. 

Then she sighed, slouching slightly. "Sure." 

She wiped her hands on a nearby towel and turned over. 

She didn't lay on on the chair, it was like a push-up held perfectly still mid-way. No muscles quivered under the strain of the odd angle, but as my hands reached for her bare back, I heard the metal frame of the chair squeak slightly in her grip. 

I'd see the dents after.

Aside of touching her hand a few times, and that one occasion where she briefly hugged me and I had my arm around her clothed shoulders, we hadn't touched much. 

Ranma's issues with physical contact were quite prickly. 

Kuno was the start locally, followed by Kodachi in a twisted reversal of her brother. 

Then Happosai, who was old, lecherous, and dangerously able to not only defeat Ranma, but deploy bizarre magics or techniques. He could inflict as he wished.

Then came Hiroshi and Daisuke, those two quite literally, and finally the suitors, some male, some not. 

All of this, plus Akane's constant chastisement of 'hentai', meant that this was going to be hard to adjust.

But it had to start somewhere.

I pressed my slick hand against the middle of her back, watched her flinch and suck in a breath, and waited. After a few seconds, I moved up and rubbed the back of her neck until just below the choker.

She was amazing to feel, like silk covered iron. Soft skin, soft fat under the skin, and muscle that had absolutely no give whatsoever. How I imagined sculptors dreamed their marble could feel like this under the grace of the Gods.

I moved to the back of her left shoulder and proceeded to go counter clockwise. Down the left shoulder blade, then to the small of the back, then up and to the right shoulder blade, ending at the back of the right shoulder.

And then I was finished. Fifteen seconds at best.

"All done." 

I could practically hear her blink in surprise. No doubt going through her head was me copping a feel, or climbing on top of her, or something else from the many things that terrified her so. 

"That's it?" She said as she glanced at me from the corner of her eye.

I nodded. "You got the back of your legs already, so I don't need to do those." I sat back and handed her the bottle. "Do you want to do mine?"

I turned quickly so I didn't see the look on her face. I'd have to say something if I did. I also didn't want her to see mine.

First I touched her, and nothing happened. 

Now would she touch me and realize that Akane wasn't going to burst through the wall shrieking about perversion, and Nabiki wouldn't slither out of the vents with her camera. 

Another critical step, and this was just a distraction. Such was our battle. Our duel.

And the counterblow was coming.

Hesitantly, she inched closer, and then she said the words I was both expecting and dreading.

"Aren't you going to take yer shirt off?"

I knew it was coming, and I tried not to let it show, I really did, but she was a martial artist and I knew she caught my flinch.

"I'd rather not if I could." I looked carefully over my shoulder at her from the corner of my eye. "Think you can do it anyway?"

That meant she had to come even closer, sit on the same chair as I was. 

Closer she came, and I head the chair creak behind me as she sat awkwardly, almost side-saddle, hands coming within inches of me.

I felt my shirt lift slightly, her hands touched my lower back, one on each side. 

She took a breath, her hands became a blur. 

"Done."

I turned to her and now it was my turn to blink almost audibly. "Really?" 

She nodded. 

I let out a low whistle. "Wow, that was fast." A quarter second tops.

We shared an awkward stare, us on each side of my chair, and then I thought of a line from work that made me chuckle slightly.

"What?" She asked.

My chuckles got worse. They started turning into actual laughs.

"What? Tell me Stumps!" 

I couldn't resist. "Was it good for you too, Tits?" I got out between gasps.

We stared at each other for a second and then burst out laughing.