I blinked.  Where was I?  I'd been writing a fanfic, trying to get it
just right, when suddenly I was in this square, white room.  It was bare
of furnishings, and had two doors.

"You gotta choose a door, Lawson."  I whirled, and there he was.  Ranma
Saotome himself, complete with red shirt, pig-tail, and angry
expression.

I gaped at him.  "You speak English!"

"Well, your stories are written in Enlish, aren't they?  And I speak in
them, don't I?"  His brow lowered further.

Good point.  "What's going on?"

He gave me an evil smile.  "Revenge."

My eyebrows shot up.  "Revenge?  For what?"

"For what you did to me in your story."

My jaw dropped open for a moment.  "But, Ranma, I got you married, and
gave you a couple of kids, and reconciled you with Kodachi and Shampoo
and Ryoga and...."

"No, not those stories.  We can talk about those some other time.  I'm
talking about the one you killed me in."

I shook my head.  "Storm's End?  The story wasn't about you, it was
about Akane, and in the end..."

"No!"  He opened his shirt.  He had a horrible scar on his stomach.

I blanched.  "Oh," I said in a very small voice.  "That one."

"Yeah, 'that one'."  He buttoned up his shirt and glared at me.  "You
had Kasumi kill me and just about everyone else.  I didn't even get a
chance to fight back.  And just when I had realized what Akane meant to
me, too."

Ranma grabbed my shirt and lifted me in the air.  "Well, now's payback
time."

I grabbed his arm, vainly trying to loosen his grip.  "Ranma, I'm sorry,
I was thinking of changing the ending, truly I was.  Let me go back
and..."

"Too late."  He dropped me on the ground.  "You like Kasumi, don't you?"

Sitting on the ground, I gaped at him.  This seemed completely
non-sequitir.  "Well, I like Nabiki the best."

"But you like Kasumi better than anyone else besides Nabiki, right?  At
least, the way *you* write her."  He sneered at me.  "Well, here's your
dream come true."

The doors opened simultaneously.  Behind each stood Kasumi.  I looked
back and forth between one and the other.  They seemed identical.

"Step through a door, and you'll be married to Kasumi.  Don't worry, she
and Tofu broke up, and they're still friends.  You and she will have
found a plausible way to get to know each other, and at the moment you
step through the door, you'll have been married to her for a year."

My heart started racing.  This was a fanboy's dream come true.  

Suddenly it all came crashing down.  How was this revenge?  I looked at
Ranma.  "What's the difference between the two Kasumis?"

He grinned.  "Oh, it's simple.  One's the Kasumi from 'Heart of the
Home'.  The other's from 'Appearances'."

I shuddered.  I looked once more at them.  They were each smiling at me,
and their eyes were warm and loving.  One of them was the woman of my
dreams.  The other was a psychotic killer.

I swallowed heavily.  "What if I don't want to choose?"

"Oh, that's fine, too."  Ranma began limbering up.  "You can stay with
me forever in this room.  Of course, I'll be continuing my martial arts
studies.  You make a very convenient punching bag.  You'll find that
your wounds, will becoming quite serious, will never manage to kill
you.  You'll probably learn some martial arts from me over the
centuries, but you'll never be as good as me."  He began a kata of some
sort, which took him ominously in my direction.

I panicked and looked at the Kasumis.  I had to choose.  Which one was
right?  Did it make a difference?  Even if it was the psychotic Kasumi,
as long as I didn't oppose her, she wouldn't have a reason to kill me.

Something hit my shoulder, hard.  I turned my head and managed to snap
it back as Ranma's elbow flew past it.  He smiled and continued his
kata, which somehow lead him in a tight circle back in my direction.

Drawing a breath, I made a decision.  I leapt through a door and....

"It's a fine day, is it not, Richard-chan?"  Kasumi and I were sitting
at a table looking out the open door at a lovely Japanese garden.  It
didn't look like the Tendo home, but it was still beautiful.

I looked at Kasumi.  The sight of her melted my heart.  For revenge,
this was pretty good.  "It is indeed, dear wife."

"Wife?"  Her brow wrinkled ever so slightly.  "Don't I have a name?  Am
I nothing more than an object to you?"

My heart leapt into my throat.  "No, no, please Kasumi, I'm sorry."

She smiled again.  "I forgive you."  She began to pour some tea.

I began to think quickly.  I had always written my characters to be
politically correct.  Kasumi was carrying it a bit far, but that was
still entirely within character - at least, the character I'd written. 
So was her mild rebuke; she'd quickly accepted my apology and moved on.

Or had she?  The psychotic Kasumi remembered things like this.  If you
piled up enough of them, she might decide to do something about it.  And
her reaction *was* a bit over-played for the normal Kasumi.

Kasumi gave me a cup of tea.  I looked down at it, wondering what
ingredients it contained.

She coughed slightly.  I felt the panic rising again, wondering what I'd
forgotten.  It came to me in a flash.  "Thank you."

"You're welcome."  She stood up and walked behind me.  "Your shoulder
seems a little sore.  Let me massage it for you."  Her hands began to
work my shoulder.  It should have been relaxing, but her hands would
occasionally move up to my neck.  It may have been my imagination, but
it seemed to me that she squeezed harder when they were close to my
jugular.

I trembled and looked down at my untouched tea.  The scope of Ranma's
revenge was at last becoming clear to me.

Kasumi spoke brightly.  "Have a cookie, Richard-chan."

I began to cry.