Ranma - The Wild Stallion.  Teaser.
A Ranma 1/2 fusion/multi-crossover
by Shampoo

Disclaimer:
Ranma 1/2 Belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, Viz Communications, and Kitty 
Films.  And other characters and/or ideas belong to their corresponding 
creators.  And are not mine.

.....There was a long silence, which Ranma broke by asking, "And what is 
the greatest of all pleasures?"
"The giving of pleasure, of course," Shampoo said.  She looked at Ranma, 
then at Mousse.  "Though some men have always found their greatest 
pleasure in the giving of pain."

These words obviously caught Mousse unprepared. His face fell crimson, 
for a moment, and he seemed outraged, hurt, shamed.  It was a rare thing 
for him to betray such emotion.  "You should know, Ranma, that Amazons 
are very skilled with their tongues.  They've much to teach-even a cetic 
could learn from them."

"You're very gracious," Shampoo said.  "Thank you."

"However there's so much to learn, and so few nights in which to learn 
it," Mousse said.  He bowed to Shampoo and smiled his frozen cetic's 
smile. "And on this night we've come to learn remembrancing, Ranma and 
I.  We should excuse ourselves and pay our respects to Bardo."

Again, he bowed, deeply, shade too deeply for the occasion. He turned to 
Ranma and said, "I wonder if he's grown fatter these last five years?"

Ranma knew he should make his good-byes and find Bardo, but something in 
Shampoo's dark, lustrous eyes seized his muscles and held him 
motionless.

"Ranma?"

Mousse's soft, too-restrained voice fell among the hundred other voices 
in the room, and Ranma scarcely noticed that he had spoken.

"Are you coming?"

"Not yet," Ranma finally said.  "Why don't you tell Bardo I am waiting 
to wish him well.  I shall faind you...later."

His eyes were still fixed on Shampoo's, so he did not see the look of 
fury that burned across Mousse's face.  It never occurred to him, then, 
that Mousse might instantly have loved Shampoo, even as he loved her.  
In truth, he never suspected that Mousse was capable of such a purely 
self-consuming emotion.

After Mousse had sulked out of the room, Ranma shook his head, and to 
Shampoo he admitted, "Sometimes he likes to hurt people, truly.  But I 
cannot see why he would want to hurt you."

Someone nudged Ranma from behind, causing him to step closer to Shampoo.  
The long room was now quite full of people.  The air was hot and steamy 
from the heat of a hundred bodies.  Many were smoking triya seeds in 
little wooden pipes.  The pop-pip-pop of the tiny seeds was everywhere, 
and plumes of purplish smoke unfolded like satin gauze and veiled over 
the room's three chandeliers.  This smoke stung Ranma's eyes, and 
breathing it exhilarated him.  He looked at Shampoo, standing beneath 
Bardo's glass chandelier.  The thousands of glass pendatns were 
incandescent with electricity, of all things.  Electric light spilled 
down over Shampoo's head and covered her in soft violet tones.  Ranma 
thought sh looked like a statue of the goddesses they sculpt on Gemina.  
Then she moved closer to him, and her dancer's muscles played beneath 
her violet-blue pajamas, and Ranma was very aware that she was a living 
creature of flesh and blood and sweet, hot breath.

"Sometimes I think the Amazons and cetics are too much alike," Shampoo 
said.  "We're both too aware of the power of words."

Ranma was now so close to her that he could feel the moisture in her 
breath; he could talk without raising his voice. "I have heard that 
Amazons are accomplished in the art of conversation."

"Conversation is the third greatest pleasure," Shampoo said.

"I have...never spoken with an Amazon before."

Shampoo smiled at him and said, "And I've never known anyone like you 
before."

"But you know...about me, yes?"

"Mousse told me how you came to Nerima.  That you had to eat dogs to 
stay alive.  I think he's a little in awe of you."

"Did he tell you I was born? Where I was born?"

"I've heard the stories," Shampoo said.  "It can't be easy being the son 
of Mallory Ringess."

"Oh, that is not so hard," Ranma said.  "This is what is hard: living in 
a city where people can worship a man who has become a god."

"I think the people in all cities are very much the same."

"All civilized people, yes. But other peoples have...other ways."

She looked at him in instant understanding and asked, "Are you speaking 
of the Alaloi people?"

"Yes."

"But could you ever return to the Alaloi tribes?  To their way of life?"

Ranma rubbed his forehead and touched the feather in his hair.  "I have 
never told anyone, but I have often dreamed of going back."

"Because the Alaloi live more simply than we do?"

"No, it is not that.  At least, it is not just the smiplicity.  All my 
life, it seems, I have been looking for a kind of beauty that I call 
halla.  Halla, it is... the harmony of all life. They all things are 
connected, the web, the way each thing becomes purely itself only in 
relation to all other things.  Once or twice when I was a child, on 
quiet nights when the stars came out...I have a memory of this kind of 
beauty."

Shampoo touched his hand then; she reached down between them where her 
pajamas nearly touched the kamelaika covering his thigh, and she wrapped 
her long fingers around his.  "I listened to a a recording of one of the 
Alaloi dialects a few eyars ago," she said.  "I thought it was a 
beautiful langauge."

"Are you a student of languages?"

"I think I've imprinted fourteen languages and learned three others the 
long way."

Shampoo, like many Amazons, preferred to converse with her clients in 
their milk tongues, and she did so whenever she could.  Those familiar 
with their talents sometimes refer to Amazons-usually with snide double 
meaning-as linguists.

"Do you remember much of...the Alaloi language?" Ranma asked.

"No, but I love to hear it spoken."

Ranma squeezed Shampoo's fingers.  She was standing quite close to him, 
almost eye to eye.  He drank in the clean smell of her hair, and he 
looked at her and said, "Halla los li devani kicharara li pelafi nis ni 
manse."

"But what does that mean?"

"It means 'Halla is the woman who lights the blessed fire inside the 
man."

Shampoo laughed in open delight and beamed a smile at him.  "You're a 
beautiful man, and I like talking with you.  But it's well that you 
didn't say that when your friend was here.  He's very jealous of you, I 
think."

"Mousse..jealous?"

Shampoo nodded her head and sighed.  "I think he was about to propose a 
contract when you interrupted us."

"But he is a journeyman-does your society make contracts with 
journeymen?"

"No, my society doesn't.  But some journeymen-I hope I'm not insulting 
anyone-despite their vows, some young men keep money.  some Amazons make 
secret contracts with them."

"They do this to enrich themselves, yes?"

"To enrich themselves at our society's expense.  Of course, these 
Amazons are punished when they're found out, but it still happens."

"I do not know how Mousse could have gotten money," Ranma said.

"It doesn't really matter," Shampoo said.  "I'm afraid I would have had 
to disappoint himm, money or not."

"A woman as beautiful as you...must make many contracts."

"My society has appointed me contracts the next fifteen nights."

Ranma pulled his hands away from hers and carelessly ungloved himself.  
He stuck his glvoes in his pants pocket.  Then he reached out and gently 
grasped her hands, and he stripped off her tight silk glvoes.  Around 
the middle finger of her left hand, she wore a gold ring cast in the 
form of a snake biting its tail, but he scarecly noticed this.  He 
touched her long naked fingers, and the sudden shock of skin pressing 
hot skin delighted him.  He looked at her, and he said, quite boldly, 
"But you have made no contracts for tonight?"

"No," she said, "not for tonight." She wove her fingers between his and 
smiled.

"I have never had...any money," Ranma said.

"Is that whaat you've thought to give me?"

"Money is just a symbol, yes?"  Ranma said.  "It is meaningless as a 
gift.  If I could give you anything...it would be a pearl, to wear 
around your neck.  Have you ever seen a pearl of the palpulve oysters?  
they are splendid and rare."

"Oh, Ranma, you shouldn't promise what's impossible."

"But what can I give you?"

In answer Shampoo pulled his hands close to her body so that they 
brushed the lower part of her belly.  "You're so beautiful,"  she said.  
"I've never made a contract with a man just for the sake of beauty."

He laughed then, easily and gladly, as he sometimes did when he was 
overwhelmed with pure delight.  His laughter, falling out in the middle 
of a room where tens of people were smoking psychedelic trya seeds and 
also laughing, might have gone unnoticed, but then Shampoo was laughing, 
too, and their obvious passion for each other attracted many stares.  At 
that moment however, Ranma had no care for anyone other than Shampoo.  
They locked eyes together, and it was as if they were the only truly 
alive people in the room, possibly in the universe.  there came a sudden 
knowing of each other's minds and hearts: they both thought it was 
intensely funny that they could stand there in open sight of many 
others, touching hands and falling into love.  This knowingness was 
intensely real, more real even than the musky smell of Shampoo's perfume 
or his own acrid sweat.  It drew him into a brilliant and wild future 
that he could see forming even as he looked into her lovely eyes.

"We should be alone together," he said.

"I think that would be best," she said.  She stroked the palms of his 
hands and pulled at his fingers. "I keep a house up near North Beach-we 
could go there."

"That is too far.  It would take too long to get there."

She laughed and then said, "But where else could we go?"

"I have heard that there are thirty sleeping chambers in this house."  
He wept his arms out and smiled.  "This time of night, they cannot all 
be taken."

"You propose we begin our contract, *here*? Now?"

"Yes, why not?"

"That would be rash," she said.  "There's no way to make preparations."

Ranma winced, inwardly, at the word "preparations." Many times since 
entering Borja, he had seduced the order's young women; many times, the 
more adventurous akashics or holists or scryers or even other Martial 
Artists had seduced him.  And each time, before their love play, these 
lovely women had diligently made their preparations.  Each of them had 
worn a pessary, artificial tissues that lined the vagina and protected 
against pregnancy and desease.  How he loathed the gelid, alienating 
feel of these tissues!  But civilized women feared contagion almost as 
much as death, and so they did what they could to quarantine their 
bodies and safegaurd themselves.  Indeed, many women and men renouched 
swiving altogether in favor of other forms of sex.  Journeymen of all 
professions were supposed to satisfy themselves with masturbation or 
simulation.  Although Ranma was quite aware of civilized customs, he 
disdained both these alternatives as shaida acts that could only lead 
him to false ecstasy.  Both acts required the infusion of the brain with 
images-whether the false images of pure fantasy or the totally compeling 
images and sensa of a computer-generated surreality, it did not matter.  
Ranma craved real copulations as much as he craved life, and he sought 
such love play whenever he could.

"Let's be rash, then," he said to Shampoo.

"Are you so eager to be the father of a child?"

"Is that to be the result of our contract?"

"Do you want it to be?" she asked.

Ranma touched her long hair, then said, "I had heard that Amazons have 
an awareness of their fertility.  that ehy can control their own 
fertility, yes?"

"Some of us master these skills, that's true."

"Then you must know if tonight...is a dangerous time for you."

"Oh, it's dangerous," she said. "It's always dangerous, isn't it?"

"But *how* dangerous?"

"Shall I caculate the probabilities for you?" she asked.  She smiled, 
and it was obvious this whole conversation amused her. "There's only a 
very slight chance we'd conceive a child together tonight."

"If we did," he said, "I could quit the Order and we could make a 
marriage contract together."

At this, she laughed for a long time before saying, "You shouldn't 
promise what you're not ready to do."

"But I might want to marry you anyway-I promised myself this the instant 
I saw you."

"You have a sweet tongue," se said, "but let's not speak of marriage 
right now."

"Should we speak of love?"

"No, that would be even worse."

"then let's not speak at all, " he said. "Let's be rash...together."

He touched her forehead, and his fingers knew an instant and intense 
thrill.  He touched her eyes, ehr cheek, her long neck, and then th 
eprimal urge of life toward more life caught them oth, as in a firestrom 
and she said, "All right."

Hand in hand, htey made their way from the room.  They squeezed past 
many women: a harijan poet whose old gnarly face he vaguely recognized; 
the fat wife of a merhcant-prince; a thin toalache addict with her 
burned-out but intelligent eyes. Ranma was so enraptured, he found 
something to lvoe in each of them.  All women were beautiful, he 
thought, and he told himself that he could make a marriage with almost 
anyone, if he were ever free to marry.  He told himself this even as he 
walked throught brilliant rooms full of brillaint people, deeper into 
Bardo's house.  They passed into a great hall of high arches and long 
windows, and then up a flight of stairs into the north wing. Here the 
skylights were clear diamond panes and the walls glittering sweeps of 
organic stone.  Guest rooms line both sides of the corridor; the doors 
of each room-slabs of plain jewood polished with lemon wax-were closed.  
Ranma chose a door at random, glanced at Shampoo, and then wrapped his 
knuckles across the gleaming, resonant wood.  The sound of his knocking 
seemed very loud and cracked out laong the corridor.  When there was no 
answer, he opened the door.  he saw immediately that someone has used 
the room that night:  the windows were open, and in the fireplac,e the 
embers of a dying fire glowed and hissed.  The room smelled of lemons 
and triya seeds and the essence of snow dahlia blowing in from Bardo's 
lawn, good smells that drew him quickly inside.  he was smiling and 
laughing and pulling at Shampoo's arm, and then he kicked the door 
closed, and there were other wonderful smells: that of wood-smoke and 
fresh new furs and the thickness of Shampoo's hair.  He liked everything 
about the room, althought it was so dark at first that he could see 
little of it.  There were the lovely diamond windows, of course, and 
clothes chests inlaid with rare woods.  Low, lacqueared tables were set 
out with pipes and little bowls of triya seeds, and with decanters of 
wine, and boxes of black toalache, and with half a dozen other drugs 
that might be snuffed or smoke or drunk.  Near the fireplace was a huge 
futon covered with sagshay furs.  He stood over this futon, looking for 
Shampoo's eyes in the darkness.  He was still holding her hand, and he 
pulled her closer so that he could see her face.

"Let's breath together," she said.

She kissed him them, touched his lips with hers.  He had never kissed a 
woman before; the Alaloi do not practice this art, nor do most of the 
civilized peoples.  He found the play of mouth against mouth and quick 
slipping tongues to be strange but very exciting.  In truth, the 
unexpected pleasure of it shocked him and left him breathless.  She 
pressed up close to him, and their bodies molded together.  Her silk 
pajamas rubbed against his kamelaika.  The friction of silk against wool 
rubbed off surface electrons from the molecules of either fabric and 
electrified their garments.  When he unzipped her pajamas and pulled 
them off her, faint crackles of blue and green electricity ran along the 
silken folds, then died into the room's darkness.  There was some silken 
folds, then died into the room's darkness.  There was some difficulty 
getting his kamelaika off, not because of the little shocks of static 
electricity that tickled his hands, but because it was very tight and 
his muscles were wollen with blood.  At last, however, they were naked 
together, kissing and clutching each other with abandon.  She ran her 
fingers along his membrum, and gasped in surprise as she touched the 
hard little scars that had been cut there during his passage into 
manhood.  They stood there for a long time as they stroked and rubbed 
against each other.  then she pulled him down atop her, and they sank 
into the furst covering the futon.  They wived eacch other furiously, 
pushing and  panting and swearting and moaning in delight.  She was in 
her first yourth, only a couple of years younger than he, and she was as 
strong and wild as any animal.  His hands were beneath her, and he felt 
the muscles bunching along her back and buttocks, her anus as hard ring 
of muscle coiled like a snake.  Because she wore no pessary, the deep 
clutching of her vulva around him was direct and intense, a silky, 
heavenly slickness that drew him on and on.  They moved together, in a 
rhythm and rapture, and he couldn't tell where his body ended and hers 
began.  It was as if the cells of his body loved the cells of hers, or 
rather, remembered them from some ecstatic union long ago and were at 
last returning home.  She gasped and wrapped her hands around his back 
and pulled him deep into an exploding joy, deeper into the supreme risk 
oflife.  There was a moment of total surrender and dying to himself as 
her were only an atom of consciousness and completing some universal 
plan.  And then he suddenly cried out and shuddered, and ther was true 
union, a true returning.  the cried out together in their ecstasy, and 
he wanted to go on and on forever, but the pleasure of passion had grown 
into agony and he had to stop.

They lay there awhile, panting and joined to each other in exhaustion.  
Then the air streaming in the window chilled the sweat on their bodies 
and drove them beneath the furs.  He asked her if she would like a fire, 
and she said "yes," and so he got up and threw some logs on the glowing 
embers and poked about until the fireplace was full of crackling orange 
flames.  Soon it was too hot for the furs, and they kicked them off.  
They held each other and lay naked before the fire.  They talked about 
little things, such as the fine weather the City was enjoying and the 
excellence of the foods that Bardo served.  And then their coversatioin 
grew more serious.  Ranma told her of his reasons for coming to Nerima; 
he tried to explain why he had become friends with Mousse li Tosh.  But 
he was really better at listening then talking, and most of the time he 
gazed at Shampoo and nodded his head attentively while she spoke of her 
stultified childhood as an astrier and her later initiation into the 
Amazon arts.  As he discovered, she had a brilliant mind.  In fact, she 
might have entered the Order and become a cetic or a remembrancer, but 
her parents, as good astriers and Architects, had denied her a formal 
education.  And so, while still quite young, she had left her home and 
applied to the Society of Amazons.  She had become an accomplished 
voluptuary; indeed, many said she was destined to become an elder. She 
had applied her mind and the intelligence of all her senses toward one 
end: the awakening of herslef and others to a greater intensity of life.  
it soon became clear, from her manner and the way she looked at Ranma, 
that what she loved most about him was his wildness(or rashness) and his 
own burning love of life.

"You're still hot," she said as she touched his face.  she rubbed his 
chest, and then ran her fingers through the black hair of his belly and 
pubes until she touched the little whitepearl of liquid beading up on 
the tip of his membrum.  She touched the naked bulb, softly, and the 
many scars running along the shaft.  She rested her head on his chest, 
staring down at him as she fingered the round, shiny, blue and red 
scars.  "It must have hurt to have had these affixed," she said.

Ranma thought of the night he had lain on his back beneath the stars 
while Three-Fingered Happoosia cut cut him, and he said, "Yes...it 
hurt."

"Do all the Alaloi decorate themselves this way?"

"Only the men."

"How strange," she said. "Do they think it will stimulate the women and 
give the more pleasure?"

"No, that is not the reason."

"Then why do they do it?"

Ranma stroked her hair and said, "I do not mean to be secretive, but 
I...cannot tell you.  That is, I *may* not."  In truth, the twenty-ninth 
verse of the Song of Life told of cutting of a man's membrum, and he was 
forbidden to reveal this knowledge to anyone.  Although a part of him 
had long since cast off his childhood beliefs, a deeper part whispered 
for him to keep his silence.

"Do they think to desensitize themselves?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I've known a few men, mostly wormrunners-they have themselves 
circumcied.  The skin of the bulb then dries out, which lessens the 
intensity of sensation.  Or so they think."

Ranma clenched his jaw, then said, "But why would anyone want to be 
cut...for that reason?"

"Because they hope to prolong love play.  To give the woman time to 
reach her ecstasy, too."

"But such cutting does not prolong anything," Ranma said.  "I have been 
cut, as you can see-all Alaloi men have.   Everyone knows that men most 
often reach their ecstasy before women."

"And leave us unsatisfied?"

Ranma watched firelight dance over her naked limbs, and he traced his 
fingers over her hip.  "When we are still boys, we are taught how to 
touch women to their ecstasy.  If I had reached my moment before you...I 
would not have left you unsatisfied."

She smiled and kisssed his navel, and she said.  "There are different 
intensitiies of satisfaction."

"That may be true," he said, "but the universe ismade the way it is, 
yes? Men are made the way they are.  All male animals.  Have you ever 
seen a shagshay bull mount an ewe?"

"No, I really haven't."

"The entire copulation lasts less than ten sconds," he said.  
"Ten...thrusts, a little bellowing, and the bull is done.  Would you 
change all that is natural?"



______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com