MajorKerina

This part was always a bit weird because I had a misunderstanding of the order of operations when bathing in Japan. You don't want to leave soap or stuff in the tub itself. I made a few corrections and additions to patch it up as much as possible without redoing the entire scene. I realized my mistake later and ironed it out.

Chapter 5 - Baths, Dress-ups, and Good Nights at Mecchen House (cont.)

After a moment, Jamie added, “You know, I don’t know if I had a third thing to bring up.” He flavored that with a wry smile.

I bowed my head. “It seems fairly clear that this situation and all the elements and people involved have stretched our limits. I know neither of you really want to deal with what Katsumi wants to do up there. But think of it as an experience, something to chuckle about down the road when we get back home. Tragedy plus distance, after all.”

Jamie chuckled. “Tragedy is right. I will not make a good drag. Maybe that’ll turn her off to the whole proposition.”

I stroked my chin. “Actually… you know… I can really see you making a cute-looking girl with the right attachments. Your features already appear a little bit soft. It’s really doable.”

Jamie narrowed his colorful eyes yet again. “Punk. I don’t believe it… Darn. Now I need to look in a good mirror.”

The clothes in the dryer finally finished up. I suspected we could find a good mirror in the nearby toilet room. Then, Sumi flashed by. And I do mean flashed. In her all-together. She was fast though. The bath door whipped open, and all I saw was a girlish head blowing us a kiss as the door shut.

[Calendar pin-up of Sumi, courtesy of HandofMidaz]

Jamie saw more than me. He rubbed his eyes. “Still no reaction. Truly disturbing. I dearly hope dimensional travel doesn’t make you impotent. Or worse.”

We did find a mirror near the toilet, and it was a good one across the whole wall. I looked in the mirror first. I had to admire the artistry of the image. I’d gotten some impression of my features before, but a clear look really helped. Nathan had a similar reaction about his artistic appearance, but Jamie summed up what was digging at the back of my mind as I scanned across my visage. “Geez, I look like such a girlie-boy. No wonder that strange chick is so crazed.”

It was true. Even from earlier, his features seemed softer and gentler. My features did as well. Heck, even Nathan’s cheeks looked more like a girl’s. I wasn’t imagining that, right? Katsumi had gone to town with femininity. Something like that was sure to have an effect on our heads. I rubbed my eyes as well. With Katsumi at work, we were likely to look a lot more girlish and soon.

-----

We took the warm, dried clothes upstairs with us, even the girlie ones. I held onto the hope that maybe she’d gotten tired and fallen asleep, for a few seconds, ‘till her purple door slid open. She still had all her cheeky exuberance. That was a bad sign.

Her room put mine to shame in several ways. There were more figurines than you could shake a stick at, and posters too. Some I guess were singers, some were probably actors. All were female. Anime too, but it was tough to tell if they were meant to be from anime programs or just people as anime.

Nathan’s face tightened nervously, and Jamie looked suitably uncomfortable as well. The only one who spoke up to Katsumi, though, was me.

“So, how are we going to do this, and is it going to be over soon?”

She had changed into a pair of navy shorts and a lime, collared shirt. She waved a finger. “Patience. One cannot rush an artist at her work. Alright, I see you have the clothes.”

Nathan gave them to her and she sorted through them on her bed. It was near to the sort of bed I was used to but still rather close to the ground. I noticed her bureau and dresser underneath all the figurines.

Also, it seemed the fusuma partitions I saw from the outside were merely a nice façade. An area let the meager light of the evening through and the glass appeared to be tinted. She had a set of closets, like the kind Nana was hiding in, on the left side.

She nodded over the clothes and turned back to us. “Alright, this should do fine. Hmmm… What to do first? My mind swirls and swoons with possibilities…” She staggered but quickly regained her footing. “I’ll just go with what comes to my mind first. Nana said she won’t bathe till later, so we’re quite covered there. Mami just got done a little bit ago. She bathes in the morning as well and she never latches the door. So watch out. Anyway, that means the three of you can bathe right now. I have three vials of the body wash soap I mentioned earlier.”

She handed them to each of us. I gave it a whiff. It sure smelled like girl.

“Also, I have tons of hair-killing lotion. Topical. No mess. Just rub it in, and your hair falls out as you wash. Keep in mind, it might come out in the bath. When you’re done, make sure you clean the drain. When you get out, I’ll finish the job and then, if you’re sleepy, you may sleep in the empty bedroom. In fact, I’ll even bring up the futons and tidy up the space for you.” She handed the lotion next. A whiff of that made me cough. It smelled like liquid nasty. Nathan and Jamie had a similar reaction.

Aside from changing her clothes, Katsumi had also retied her hair in such a way it took on the appearance of a reddish-lavender scorpion stinger raised in combat. As such, I had a hard time believing her offer was genuine.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself…” I said.

“What trouble? I’m getting what I want. I call it a fair trade. Granted, I’d much prefer the three of you transfigured female and I will strive for that, but I’ll take my victories however they come.”

She showed us how to put on the lotion and, begrudgingly, we all did. Nathan didn’t seem particularly bothered. He noted that he’d known a number of bodybuilders who liked to keep their forms smooth. Jamie grumbled something that only he knew.

We worked our way down to our underwear. I looked to Katsumi and, despite a touch of blush blotted on her cheeks, she firmly reiterated, “Come on. Everywhere. I have razors for your faces too, if needed. We’re gonna utterly banish manly body hair from this realm.”

She left for a minute to get the futons while we spread around the lotion a little more.

“Utterly ridiculous… This better not be permanent,” Jamie hissed to himself.

Nathan reassured him, “Depilatories make you hairless for a short time. Your hair will be back. Only something like a laser will stop a hair from growing.”

“Thanks for the lesson…” Jamie grumbled. “I don’t really want to know where you learned all that. Ugh, this stuff is utterly repulsive. We should toss it at her head and make her a baldie.”

We entertained the notion before a stern look from Nathan killed that possibility. The lotion had vanished away into our skin, but it was still tingling.

Jamie cracked his knuckles. “So, we bathe now or what? In turns?”

Katsumi called from the steps with the futons just behind her. “All together. It’s what we do. We don’t have near enough baths, and the water costs are too high for Ms. Ishida to waste money on nine separate baths or more. She charges a flat rate for services and I intend to keep it that way. RINSE FIRST! Clean the drain of any hair. Afterwards, you can soak and chill. Then get out, put the soap on, and rinse. Outside the bath. The rest of the hair will come out in the rinsing area but clean up anything you leave behind. When you’ve rinsed, soak once more, and leave the water. I’ll be using it as well. Follow all that to the letter. I don’t know how you bathe where you come from, but this is how we do things in this maiden sanctuary.” After her explanation, she handed a towel to each of us.

Simple...

“Have a lovely bath, ladies.” She winked and lugged the futons into the spare room. I took a deep breath. We all walked into the bath. There was a nice little area before the tub with a tiny combo washer and dryer, enough for one load. There were pails for water on the side and an area for rinsing. It was a pleasant, off-white color. Any architectural artist would be proud.

We each rinsed and cleaned first, like Katsumi told us. 

The tub was nice and would comfortably fit all of us. It was filled with warm water. The water had pure, white eddies drawn in it, with a strange, yet familiar tint to it. It was vaguely-golden and shaded like a dark version of the bath around it. The eddies danced slowly from one end to the other. They caught the light and shimmered.

I didn’t realize I’d been staring ‘till Jamie snapped his fingers in front of me, “Hey! It’s just a bath, even though it looks like pee-water.” He slid his underwear off and wrapped the towel around himself. Nathan did the same. I was last.

I looked at the bath, then back at my roommates. Suddenly, something struck me. In some anime shows, characters were seen wearing a towel around them to hide the risqué parts (usually a towel around the chest for girls). And they went into the water wearing them. If that was their only towel, how would they ever get dry? The towel was sure to be soaked.

I looked at both of my roommates again. No one made a move. My skin was still crawling due to the lotion. I let out a deep breath, let the towel slip, and sat down in the bath. My roommates were both still standing. Nathan joined me after a moment, dropping his towel too. Jamie looked away quickly.

Nathan took a spot near the middle of the bath and stretched his feet out with a content “Ahhhh!”

He smiled at me and I traded a look at Jamie, who seemed cold, soaked, and irritated. He slunk over to the bath, whipped out of his towel, and slipped under the water with a small splash. The white eddies curled around us.

“See? Wasn’t so hard.”

Jamie sunk his head into the water. “Not a word. Especially the word ‘hard’ in this situation.”

I rolled my eyes for Nathan, who chuckled. He was enjoying this thoroughly. Jamie looked like a cat dunked in water. I felt like I was on the same wavelength as Nathan. The water was a marvel and reminded me just how special and strange this world could be. Incredible artistic beauty was contained in even the most common items. But it made me a little wistful for how home looked.

Eventually, my eyes drifted down. I looked at my body. It was a wavy drawing, curling, and changing like smoke. In a valley of two legs, I noticed nothing poking out but a small hill. My heart hastened its rhythm.

I squirmed a bit and a strange, pink, squat mushroom shape floated out. I took a slow breath. I figured Katsumi was just getting to me and the water had caused some shrinkage. It didn’t take much to quickly put it out of mind, especially with the calming influence of the water.

Jamie stepped out first, his back turned to us, and grabbed the towel. He shielded himself with one hand as he took the shower rinser and the girlie soap that Katsumi had given. I floated to the drain and checked for hair. Sure enough, I came up with enough for a blond toupee. I could see even more hair falling off Jamie as he scrubbed and rinsed. The towel dropped out of his hands. He swiveled around, glared at it once, and set both hands on the rinser.

From the back, Jamie looked surprisingly attractive. His form, now soft and slick, didn’t seem all that far removed from the yaoi pinups that Carolyn had on her walls. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d be challenged to tell Jamie’s gender from behind. When he turned around quickly to wash his back, the illusion was broken. But it was an interesting illusion to consider.

I made Jamie clean out the hair he’d left by the rinsing area and take the bit I’d cleaned as well. Nathan cleaned out a bit of his hair which was near him. He rinsed next. A lot of hair fell from him.

He truly looked like the hairless bodybuilders he described. He was sleek and sculpted. His muscles were stylized and firm. I did wonder if they looked a little less “bulgy,” but with Jamie lurking in the water, I figured it was a bad time to bring it up. I thought he looked good though.

I took care of the last of the hairs and emerged from the bath myself to scrub with Katsumi’s special soap. I used it cautiously at first. It didn’t seem to bother me. I’d always had a problem with perfume-heavy things, but this one seemed naturally-fragrant. If not for the situation and the overtly-feminine odor, I would’ve been tempted to grab a few for myself.

I scrubbed down and gave myself one more rinse. I glanced in the fog-fringed mirror in front of me. For a moment, I swore there was a girl looking back at me.