Shampoo
woke up to the moans and groans. As soon as consciousness returned, she felt a
jarring headache pound heavily into her brain. She slightly opened her eyes,
letting the darkness cave into vision.
She hoped it wasn’t
what she thought she would see. But it was. On the couch across from her,
Shampoo watched a smiling Jeremy Tan, wearing only a black T-shirt from
yesterday, grunting with his muscular legs up in the air. Michael Ming’s fully
naked body hovered over Jeremy. Shampoo watched as Michael’s smooth and bare
buttocks move rhythmically as he thrust himself again and again into Jeremy.
Shampoo closed her
eyes and waited for it to end. The two men were heavily breathing. Fast.
Faster. Fastest. Quieter. Then she heard soft kissing noises and then footsteps
walking away from the room. She rolled out of the couch and got out of the
house as soon as possible.
Shampoo somehow drove herself home, still feeling a
little bit woozy. She stumbled into her room and quickly shut the door to her
room as soon as she got into it. Shampoo wanted to rub the memories of two
naked Asian men out of her head with a nice long shower. She quickly changed
out of her now-sticky and sweaty dress clothes and hopped into a bright pink
bathrobe with baby sheep on it. She checked if the hallway of the decrepit
house was empty. Then she tiptoed towards the bathroom door, which was painted
brightly pink.
She was about to reach the handle of the bathroom door
when someone’s firm hands grabbed her arm. Shampoo looked up and saw Alexandra
Kwan looking right back at her. She was looking extremely butch in her flannel
pajamas and loose black T-shirt.
“Look who got fucked up last night,” Alexandra Kwan
smirked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Shampoo said quickly.
She pushed Alexandra’s hand off of her own and was about to go into the
bathroom. Alexandra then moved quickly to the crevice between the door and the
bathroom to prevented Shampoo from walking in.
“Oh,” Alexandra Kwan said, “but I do. I saw Jane took
good care of you last night while you getting pretty shit-faced that you didn’t
look so pretty anymore.”
“I wouldn’t remember,” Shampoo replied coolly. “I was too
shit-faced.”
“Well,” Alexandra Kwan said, “here’s the deal. Jane still
has some feelings for you, even though you had that fucked up hetero
experience. And I don’t care how gay you are or bisexual or queer or whatever
categories you want to make up, but Jane is my best friend. She was there for
me when my parents disowned me and I can’t see a slut like you break her
heart.”
Shampoo remained quiet.
“Stay away from Jane,” Alexandra jeered at Shampoo. “You
stay the fuck away from Jane or I’ll cut you.” Alexandra’s angry look
turned pleasant again. “Have a nice shower.”
The
water heater broke. Shampoo definitely did not have a good shower. She closed
the door quickly. She could still feel Alex’s beer-stained breath all over her
body. The drums in her mind were beating a little bit slower but their presence
could still be felt. Alexandra probably left for another rugby practice and
Shampoo wouldn’t have to put up with Alexandra’s shit for a while. She lay back
on her semi-hard mattress and looked up at the ceiling, wondering if there was
more in life.
Shampoo
then checked the messages on her cell phone. Ben was begging for her back in
his life, please baby. She deleted that in five seconds flat. And the one
afterwards. And the one following that one. Straight men could be so childish
and desperate. Then there was the one from Mike, apologizing about the steaming
hot man-sex he had just experienced. He thought that Shampoo was too knocked
out that she wouldn’t care or hear and he couldn’t help it because Jeremy
looked so damn cute in that shirt. Then he said that he might be falling for
Jeremy and they should do lunch so he could talk to her about it.
Delete.
Then came the one that she was dreading to hear.
“I
still had your cellphone number from the last time we met,” the soothing
British accent said. “You were pretty blasted last night and I just wanted to
know how you are doing now.” A brief pause. “Call me back when you have the
time.”
Shampoo
felt her heart race a little bit faster. But she did not want to unleash the
wrath of Alexandra Kwan, ever. She was a little bit slow on the delete button
this time.
The
daunting height of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco overwhelmed Ranma. He
looked up towards the heavens at the gothic structure, buttresses, and defined
medieval architecture that made this Catholic sanctuary one of the largest
sites in San Francisco.
And
his sister Ranko was going to get married in it.
“Bret’s parents fell in love with this church on first
site,” Ranko said airily. “It’s quite big.” She wrapped her soft brown fur
jacket around her body tighter to combat the chills running up her spine.
“I don’t know,” Ranma said sheepishly. “I mean, this is
way too much razzle-dazzle even for you, Ranko. Since when did you start
doing things to make other people happy?”
Ranko
sneered at Ranma. “You’re the one to talk.” She walked far ahead of her brother
and sat at the stony steps of the cathedral. Ranma walked up to his older
sister. She looked sad. Ever since they were younger, the Saotome siblings felt
that they needed to stick together, especially because of their abusive father.
Ranma could sense that his sister was not feeling well. He looked at her with
his sensitive, calming brown eyes.
Ranko looked down on the ground. “I’ve never met Bret’s
parents yet,” she said. “They’re coming to San Francisco next week. And it’s
the first time that I meet them.” The red herring hit for Ranma. Ranko
Saotome and Bret McNamara were engaged to be married and Ranko hadn’t even met
the parents? How selfish could these Americans be!
“But we’re so in love,” Ranko insisted, “and Bret told me
that they will love me too for who I am. Because I make him happy.” Ranma
wished that what Ranko said was true but something in him knew that it wasn’t
true.
Ranko tried to distract herself from her personal
problems by transferring the situation to Ranma. “Are you happy with Akane?” she asked.
Ranma
lied. “Yes,” he said almost too quickly.
“Then what is it with you and Ryoga?” Ranko looked back
at her brother. “I thought you dealt with that. Why this sudden obsession over
him?”
Ranma sighed. “The truth is,” he started, “I’ve been
quite happy with the way my life turned out.” He faced Ranko. “I’ve never been
happier than when I am with Akane.” Too bad it wasn’t vice-versa. “But Ryoga
has been on the back of my mind because we have unfinished business.”
“Killing each other?” Ranko smirked “for Akane’s love?”
Poor sweet and innocent Ranko. “You can put it that way,”
he smiled. “Ryoga left Japan way too abruptly and I just wanted to let him know
that whatever has happened between us should and must remain in the past.”
Ranma smiled. “You sent me that e-mail and now I’m here in America to follow-up
on it.”
Ranko
sighed. If it distracted him from her own problems. She opened her black Louis
Vutton purse and fumbled her fingers through a bunch of make-up accessories,
two condoms and some tampon wrappers. She pulled out a crumpled menu. From Squat
and Gobble in Castro.
“This is where I ran into him,” she handed the menu to
her brother.
“It’s a crepe restaurant,” Ranma smiled. He remembered
how Ryoga used to work at Ukyou’s okonomiyaki restaurant. It was his one
sanctuary from the chaotic world of Ranma ½, the story of Ranma and his
many fiancés. A world that revolved around Ranma.
Ranko
sat back down. “But what if he doesn’t want to be found?” Ranko asked her
brother. “What if, for some cosmic reason, this was meant to be? Clearly,
fleeing across an ocean seems like a very obvious sign.”
Ranma sat down with his sister.
“I…I…just need to know, okay?” He acted warily.
“Know what?” Ranko replied angrily. “If he still has
feelings for you? It’s been one year, Ranma!”
Ranma shook his head. “I need to settle something with
him,” he stayed persistent to his intentions. “I need to find a way to let him
go. So I can go on with my life. And he can go on with his, whatever it is
now.” He personally could not believe what he was just saying.
“You’re finally starting to act grow up, little brother”
Ranko said. “It scares me a little.”
Ranma was in a MUNI subway train heading to “Castro
Street Station.” He watched the brightly flickering lights of an endless tunnel
from inside the glass window. He could see his reflection within the darkness.
He exchanged his long pigtail for soft black bangs that crawled to the sides of
his hair and lightly covered his large black eyes. Ranma felt that he was
gazing into the eyes of a criminal and quickly turned away from the window.
He
wondered what Ryoga Hibiki would look like. Did he still have that charming
fanged smile? Did he still wear the tiger bandanas that delicately covered a
tuff of his soft black hair? Would he still have the warm smell of Tokyo dirt
and mud mixed with the warm rain? Or did he change too? Would he even still
remember Ranma?
Ranma stepped out of the train at Castro Street Station.
He noticed that half the passengers got off at this specific station. Almost
ashamed, Ranma ducked behind a tall Caucasian guy wearing leather chaps and
tight blue jeans. The sunlight beamed onto Ranma’s serious face as he
re-surfaced to Market Street. The man with the leather chaps got off the
escalator. He turned around and winked at Ranma before walking away. Ranma felt
sick to his stomach and started to quickly walk the opposite direction until a
near-collision with a speeding car on Market Street stopped Ranma in his
tracks.
Castro was not the
paradise that Nakata told him it was. Ranma found the residents of Castro quite
rude. People were rushing hither and thither in a flood of chaotic rainbow
colors. Several people shoved Ranma aside as they marched towards their
destinations. Ranma tried to stammer the words “Squat and Gobble” to any person
that he could. After getting slapped by several offended tough-looking women, a
cute blonde guy leaving the Diesel retail store pointed Ranma down the right
direction.
After walking a few blocks past the morning rush of
people, Ranma arrived at the entrance to Squat and Gobble Café and Creperie.
The brightly yellow painted walls almost sickened Ranma. But the warm familiar
smells of frying batter took Ranma back to Uuchan’s for a second. Ranma
found a shiny oak table at the corner of the restaurant and slouched into a
polished seat. He yanked one of the menus and noticed that the waiter who was
walking towards him looked eerily familiar.
Ranma
peered into his menu with his head as low as possible so that he could see the
waiter quietly approaching Ranma with a glass of water. The young man’s black
hair and slanted eyes gave away his Japanese identity. He wore a black shirt
that revealed every single part of his muscular body, from his protruding
pectorals to his sleek and angled back. The shirt also faintly revealed small
bulges of abdominals waiting to rip off. He wasn’t the young boy that Ranma was
looking for. He was a man.
But
the man also had a yellow bandana with tiger imprints still delicately covering
the tuff of soft black hair.