+-+-+"Bak, bak, bak, bak! Come to Sho' Nuff's Chicken n' Waffles!" Michelle called out earnestly to attract customers to the restaurant; however there was this one old guy who didn't seem to appreciate her efforts.
"Why don't you go lay an egg and shut up!" He grumbled with his elder gravely voice. However his rudeness didn't have any emotional effect on Michelle due to her carefree nature. She just shrugged her shoulders and continued on with the promotion.
It had been an hour since Michelle donned the chicken suit and acted like a chicken while trying to attract people to the restaurant. All she got for her hard effort were laughs, snickers, and a few other heckles besides the one from the cranky old man. Only one person patronized the restaurant; unfortunately, things didn't turn out quite so well for him. Leroy and Sachiko had to call an ambulance when the customer fell into a sugar coma after he had Wings n' Waffles with heavy syrup, a deep fried Twinkie with extra icing, and a 40-ounce extra sweet iced tea. They later found out that the man had Type 2 diabetes. Luckily, the man survived, due in part to former nurse Sachiko's medical training.
Even though it was cold and windy outside, Michelle was still sweating inside the suit, so when Sachiko called her in and told her to take off the suit, she was very much relieved. After taking off the suit, Michelle did a quick check and saw that her bra and panties were drenched with her own sweat. The suit made Michelle so sweaty and smelly that Sachiko was able to smell her from ten feet away. Sachiko made a suggestion to Michelle.
"Michelle-san, I think you need to take a bath."
"No kidding! I was happy to get out of that silly suit, but I don't have anything else to put on... and where can I take my bath? I don't see a bath tub or a shower around here."
"We actually live upstairs, so you can use our bath tub. While you take your bath, I'll wash your clothes. They should be ready when you're done bathing."
"Thanks a lot, Sachiko-san."
After she guided Michelle to the bathroom and put her clothes in the washer, Sachiko returned to the restaurant downstairs and sat next to her husband at the cash register.
"Looks like the chicken suit act didn't exactly worked as planned," Sachiko sighed with disappointment.
"It sure didn't, Sachiko baby. Guess we hafta think of sumthin' else," Leroy replied with the same tone of disappointment. "Is Michelle taking a shower now?"
"Yes, Leroy. Actually, she's taking a bath since I suggested that to her. Also, I just put her clothes in the washing machine."
"Takin' a bath? Why not just take a shower?"
"Well it would give me time to wash and dry her clothes, plus she needs the relaxation after walking around all that time in that ridiculous chicken suit. How are the kids doing?"
"Tyrone is cleaning the kitchen and Rei is doing her homework."
The couple had two children, Tyrone and Rei. They helped out in the business by doing things like cleaning and taking customers' orders. Leroy's mind went back to the business and addressed his concerns to Sachiko.
"It's been over a month and we haven't gotten many customers. I've already lost money for this month and I'm having a hard time making ends meet with our house upstairs. We gotta get some butts in here!"
"I know, honey. I can still pick up some part-time work in the hospital if that would help?"
"Nah baby, I don't think you need to do that yet, but keep dat thought in yo' head. I just don't wanna go back to working fo' someone else."
Sachiko didn't immediately say anything after that, but instead, she put her left arm around his waist and quietly comforted him. A few minutes later, she remembered Michelle's clothes and went upstairs to move them from the washing machine to the dryer. When the clothes were finally dry, she placed them near the bathroom door and called out to Michelle about them. She went back downstairs and sat with Leroy again.
"Anybody else came?"
"Yeah this one stupid teen came in and told me that ma' restaurant was more ridiculous than Hooters. So I went after dat brat but he was fast and I couldn't catch his stupid ass," he said angrily. "If I had ma' hand on him, I wooda' knocked his ass out!"
"Don't let that get to you, honey . . . you don't need to add any more stress to your hypertension."
"That's true Sachiko-baby, you're right about that. Shit, I gotta go to the bathroom! Be right back, baby."
Leroy got up abruptly and left. Sachiko tried to tell him that Michelle was still in the bathroom, but he was already out of earshot. When he got to the upstairs hallway, he saw Michelle changing into her clothes. Apparently it didn't occur to ditzy woman that she should be changing her clothes in the bathroom instead. Luckily for Michelle, she already had on her bra and panties and was just about to put on her pants when Leroy saw her. When he did see her he was a bit shocked at first but then he began to seriously blush. His dark brown face was beginning to show some red and there was a trickle of blood oozing from his nose. Michelle saw Leroy but wasn't disturbed at all by his presence; she was not very shy about her body. After a few seconds of that awkward situation, Leroy finally spoke up.
"E-excuse me, b-but I needa' go to ta' bathroom."
Unfazed by the situation, Michelle calmly told him, "Oh sure, go right ahead. Sorry if I'm in your way."
Leroy quickly went into the bathroom and hastily cleaned off the blood from his nose. While he was looking in the mirror, he was replaying the image of Michelle's barely-clothed body while his conscience was screaming at him.
‘OK Leroy, stop thinking of Michelle like that! You're a married man with children! If Sachiko found out that you got a nosebleed from it, she would kill you, just like when she found your hentai videos and eroge game collection!'
At the same time, his mind was also replaying the incident he had with the boy who compared his restaurant to Hooters. Somehow while all that chaos was going on in his mind, an idea came to Leroy, leaving a big grin on his face...
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"Ohayo and welcome to Majide! I'm your host Matsumoto Hamada! And we have four contestants here today battling each other for the grand prize of one million yen!"
The crowd applauded after his statement and continued to do so as the red APPLAUSE sign at the top of the stage kept flashing. Hamada continued on, shifting his focus to the contestants.
"Are you guys ready for the first game?"
All but Anita shouted their agreement joyfully while Anita weakly said ‘yeah.' Hamada did noticed but decided not to bring it to attention.
"Cool, so let's get ready!"
As with 98% of Japanese game shows, the first game in Majide was a bizarre one. It was called the Atomic Wedgie and the goal of the game was for the contestants to reach a buzzer three feet away while having a wedgie applied to them. Each near-naked contestant wore super-elastic underwear with a hoist attached to the back of the waistband, which can stretch it as long as five feet. In a token nod to modesty, Anita and another female contestant were both wearing bras. In addition to the rigged underwear, the contestants also had to wear boots that contained 20 pounds of lead, making it more difficult to reach the buzzer.
Hamada went over the rules with the contestants and all it did was make Anita wearier about the game. She tried to pep talk herself, trying to not to think about the dreariness of it.
‘OK Anita, you're not a chicken, it won't be as bad as it look. You can do this. If you can take on the British Library then you can take on this. Anita, you're a...'
"On your mark, get set, go!"
Anita never finished her train of thought because Hamada had just given them the green light. A machine began to stretch the contestants' underwear. They struggled against the impending wedgies, hampered additionally by their weighted boots. However, it seemed that Anita struggled the least of all since she was already halfway to the buzzer while the other contestants haven't even advanced a foot. She would have moved faster had they would have tightened her bootlaces correctly. Her feet nearly came out of the boots a few times during the game, so she had to tread carefully. Hamada and everyone else were amazed that this little girl was clearly beating the other contestants in a game that relied on pain tolerance, endurance, and strength. They had no idea that they weren't dealing with an ordinary little girl.
While Anita was reaching for the buzzer, the underwear started to tighten around her skin, causing a lot of pain around her groin. Anita had a pretty high pain threshold but this was starting to hurt her. She was using every muscle available just to reach the buzzer. About thirty seconds later her right hand was finally able to reach the buzzer. She was the winner by a distant foot. Anita was excited and gave the victory sign to but she forgot that her bootlaces were loose and ten seconds after she reached the buzzer, the highly tensioned underwear pulled her out of her boots and slingshot her halfway across the stage. Fortunately, Anita landed on her back in a pool from another game. The audience was laughing hysterically at the spectacle. Anita crawled out of the pool and when she stood up, the audience had an interesting reaction. Some of them were literally in convulsion, while others had nosebleeds. Anita was dumbfounded at what was going on.
"What's wrong with you people? Why are you laughing so hard? And what's with the nosebleeds and covering up your faces?"
Hamada was surprised that Anita wasn't aware of her situation so he pointed it out to her.
"Look below, little girl, you'll see your answer," he said with a huge grin while covering up his nose with his other hand.
Anita looked and saw that she was naked below the waist! She became extremely embarrassed and immediately blushed a deep crimson red. Embarrassed and now infuriated, she covered her private areas with her hands and angrily lashed out at the crowd, "Hentai!"
And that was just the first game of the show...
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Leroy knew he had something that would bring customers in to the restaurant so when he got out of the bathroom, he immediately went downstairs and saw Michelle sitting next to Sachiko at the counter. Michelle was wearing a regular pair of jeans and also wearing a tight t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Now Leroy was sure his idea was going to work, so he came up to Michelle and Sachiko and told them about it.
"Hey ladies, I think I got an idea that will finally bring customers here, and it won't require any chicken suits!"
Sachiko and Michelle raised their eyebrows and asked him to elaborate on his idea.
"Another one of your genius marketing ploys, Leroy? I'm still mad at you for dressing Tyrone up as a gangsta rapper. The Tokyo Police Department arrested him and nearly pressed charges!"
That was an incident that would never leave Sachiko's mind. The previous week, Leroy understood the rap craze going on in Japan and since his son was into it, he had him dress up as a gangsta rapper and had him rap about Sho' Nuff's Chicken outside the restaurant. It actually worked and quite a few customers came into the restaurant, among them Officers Suzushiro and Kikuwara. They mistook the BB gun in his pocket as a real weapon so they had him arrested. Officer Suzushiro was also trying to arrest him for butchering the Japanese language with his rapping, which was ironic because it came from Suzushiro, the Queen of Malapropisms. Eventually all charges were dropped but it took a lot of pleading from Sachiko and Leroy, and Tyrone had to sit in juvenile jail in the meantime.
"Nah baby, it has nothin' to do wit' tha' kids, but it has sumthin' ta' do wit' Michelle," he replied with a sly grin on his face, "and all she needs is to put on a pair of shorts."
"A pair of shorts, what for? It's cold out there!" Sachiko exclaimed in surprise.
"No honey, she won't go outside but she'll be standing in front of the window at tha' front o' teh restaurant."
Sachiko knew where this was going and she didn't like it one bit. "You want to exploit Michelle's figure and make her a sex object so you can sell some chicken? This ain't Hooters!"
"Yeah, but you don't see Hooters in tha' red do ya?" Leroy shouted back at her. "We tried yo' chicken suit idea but it ain't workin', so now we are trying something that will work!"
"How do you know it's going to work? Not everybody in Japan is a hentai fanboy!"
"Yeah, well it worked for Hooters, so I'm sure it's gonna work fo' us! And from all them doujins and eroges I've seen from this country, I think 90% of this country is made up of hentai fanboys!"
While Leroy and Sachiko were continuing their bickering, Michelle was trying to say her piece in the argument but was virtually ignored until she screamed to get their attention.
"EXCUSE ME!" Now she finally got their attention. "I just want to say I have no problem wearing a t-shirt and shorts in order to promote the restaurant, as long as it's not too vulgar," she said with a smile on her face.
"Are you sure you want to do this? Please think about it very carefully." Sachiko cautioned.
"You heard what tha' girl said, so just give her your pair of shorts since you both basically have the same size."
As much of a tsundere Sachiko was she was still a Japanese woman and was taught to be obedient to her husband, so she reluctantly agreed to get Michelle a pair of shorts.
As Sachiko went upstairs, Michelle said, "Well, I know that I have a nice figure and that I get a lot of looks from both men and women, so my philosophy is 'If you have it then use it!'" As Michelle spoke, she ditzily showed off her figure.
"Now that's the spirit! Tyrone, bring me yo' cardboard! I needa use it fo' display."
"But papa, I was going to use it for my science project!" Tyrone complained.
"Boy, did you hear what I said? I said bring me tha' cardboard fo' I smack ya upside tha' head! I'll buy ya another one."
"Okay . . . jerk," Tyrone answered, mumbling the word ‘jerk' under his breath so that Leroy couldn't hear it.
Leroy shifted his focus to Michelle. "Why don't you go upstairs so that Sachiko won't have to bring it down here?"
"Okay." Michelle replied and headed upstairs.
About five minutes later, Michelle came down wearing a pair of blue shorts skimpy enough to reveal most of her beautiful legs, along with her tight white t-shirt detailing her busty chest. When Leroy saw her, he started to get a nosebleed, which Sachiko noticed. Tyrone was no better. He didn't get a nosebleed but he was grinning from ear to ear, enjoying the display that Michelle was inadvertently giving him. He was smacked back into reality by his father, who slapped the back of his head.
"Boy, stop thinkin' those dirty thoughts," he reprimanded Tyrone hypocritically.
"But papa, your nose is bleeding!"
"Hush up! Go and make some more chicken, we're gonna have a busy day," he replied with a smile on his face. Tyrone knew how to work the fryer even though he was not of legal age to do so, but Leroy was not new to skirting child labor laws.
Sachiko, was by then full of anger, whispered to Leroy, "Don't bother coming to bed tonight, you're gonna sleep on the couch." Leroy was speechless - a rare event.
At the front of the restaurant and behind the window stood Michelle in a flirty pose, holding a plate of chicken breasts underneath her ample chest, as specified by Leroy. A cardboard sign displayed above her stated, ‘IF THESE BREASTS MAKE YOUR MOUTH WATER THEN COME INSIDE AND SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THEM!' In less than 20 minutes later, the restaurant was packed, with Leroy and Sachiko working non-stop at the cash register while Tyrone cooked in the kitchen and Rei was busy waitressing, once again skirting child labor laws. All of the tables in the restaurant were full.
Knowing that they didn't need to do any more promotion for the restaurant and needing more hands for waitressing, Leroy shouted to Michelle, "Michelle-san, you can stop holding the plate and give Rei a hand. She's quite busy taking orders and delivering food to the customers."
"O-Kay. No problem."
Just like that, she quickly went from being the store display to being a waitress. Michelle found herself busy taking orders and delivering the food to customers. Nothing uneventful happened until an hour and a half later when Michelle took orders from three guys sitting at one of the tables.
"Welcome to Sho' Nuff's Chicken and Waffles, what would you like to order?"
"We would like to have that juicy pair of breasts and those honeybun biscuits of yours."
"No problem, two chicken breasts and two honey . . . AAAHHH!" She screamed out loud in shock as one guy put his hands on her breasts and started to grope them while another guy started to squeeze her butt.
"I'm more interested in sinking my teeth in that soft and juicy breast you're carrying," said the first creep.
"And I'm more interested in sinking my teeth into your firm and delicious honey buns," leered the other pervert.
The third guy wasn't directly involved but instead took pictures from his cell phone of his friends molesting Michelle. As soon as Leroy saw this incident, he quickly left the counter and went straight to the men, grabbing the first two creeps by their necks with his big hands, holding them about half a foot from the ground. He didn't hide his anger from his usually jolly face as he furiously looked at the man who had groped Michelle's breasts.
"What tha' fuck y'all doing ta' my waitress?"
"W-w-we were just playing with her, r-right boys?" the guy stuttered to the other two fearfully. Had they not used the bathroom before they sat down to order, they would have peed in their pants, so terrified they were. The three knew they wouldn't have a chance against a 270 pound, 6'5'' man who was also unknown to them an ex-Marine. The third guy's face paled when Leroy shifted his focus to him. Leroy gave them a stern warning.
"If I eva' see any of you mutha' fuckas' in here again I'm gonna put ma' foot up all y'all asses, you understand?!" As he yelled at the three, they started shaking and sweating nervously. All three of them responded by fearfully nodding in agreement.
"Now get tha' fuck outta here!"
The creeps quickly ran out of the restaurant. After that, Leroy checked up on Michelle. The patrons in the restaurant were stunned at what they saw.
"Are you all right, Michelle-san?"
"Yes," she said in a barely audible tone. It was quite evident that she was very disturbed from the incident since she couldn't look at Leroy when she answered and was trembling a bit.
"You look like you're shaken up. Sachiko, take her to Rei's room upstairs and let her relax a bit."
Sachiko nodded in agreement and escorted Michelle upstairs. At Rei's room, she immediately sat down on the bed and said nothing, keeping her head down.
Sachiko saw that Michelle was still traumatized, so she tried to talk to her.
"Michelle-san, I know that you're not okay. Please talk to me."
Michelle didn't reply, still keeping her head down, so Sachiko pressed on.
"Look, you can't keep this to yourself. It won't do you any good."
Michelle finally spoke to Sachiko and told her, "Thanks Sachiko-san, but please let me be by myself right now. I'm not ready to talk."
Sachiko didn't want to leave her in her current state but she also knew it wouldn't be wise to push her further. She figured it would be best if Michelle talked to her when she was ready.
"I'm going back downstairs but come and get me if you need anything."
With that, Sachiko closed the door and head back to the restaurant. As soon as she was sure that Sachiko left, Michelle put her hands on her face and cried her heart out.
When Sachiko returned to the restaurant, she saw her husband busy at the cash register. Sachiko would have been thankful for what Leroy did had he done one other important thing.
"You should have called the cops on them. I'm sure this is not the first time they probably did something like this since they seemed so calm until you got there."
"Shit, I fo'got about that. I got so upset that it slipped ma' mind."
Another customer overheard their conversation and told them, "I took pictures of all three of them assaulting Michelle. I can give it to you guys and you can show it to the police."
"Really? Thanks! We got a computer and a USB cable so you can plug in and we can get it that way." Leroy said excitedly.
When they got a copy of the pictures, they called the police and told them about the incident and emailed them the photos. The police examined them and recognized the two men who sexually assaulted Michelle. It turned out that Sachiko was right, they had been indicted in the past for sexually harassing another woman, but although they went to trial, they won the case. It was rumored that the father of the guy who squeezed Michelle's butt was very rich and was influential in the justice system, suspected of paying off the judge and a few of the jury members in the trial.
When Sachiko heard all of that information from the phone, it made her even more upset about the incident. She was already upset with her husband, knowing that something like this would happen. When the flow of customers finally slowed down, Sachiko ordered Leroy into the kitchen so that they could have a talk. She also told Tyrone to watch the restaurant while they were away.
"You don't know how much I want to kill you right now, Leroy!"
"Look, I didn't think such a thing would happen to Michelle-san."
"I knew it would happen but you insisted on carrying on with your idea."
"But Michelle-san agreed to it as well, so don't be blamin' all of this on me."
"That's true, but whose idea was it? Something worse could have happened to Michelle."
"You actin' like she's Rei's age. She's a grown-ass girl. She can make her own decisions."
They kept on arguing until Tyrone told them that another customer just came in. For the rest of the time they worked at the restaurant, they didn't say anything to each other.
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"Now wasn't that an interesting first game?" Hamada announced to the audience while giving a devilish smirk to Anita. Anita gave him a cold stare in return. Hamada continued, "The next game is the Treadmill from Hell. The contestant has to run on a huge treadmill going at the speed of 10 miles per hour, raised at a 40 degree angle, while jumping over barb-wired hurdles and at the same time dodging various objects thrown at them. The contestant must reach the pad at the top of the treadmill. Now if the contestant trips or falls, he or she will fall into a pool of scorching hot water at the bottom of the treadmill. Don't worry King-san, you won't lose your bottom on this one!" Everybody was laughing after he said that, but Anita's face was furiously red and if she had the opportunity, she would have beaten the living hell out of Hamada.
Anita was third in line for the treadmill, which she thought was a good thing since she could learn from the first two. The first contestant was able to jump over the first hurdle without trouble and was able to deal with the thrown objects even though one of them, a watermelon, hit her in the chest. She ran into a problem when she got near the second hurdle, tripping on her own shoelace and tumbling down to the pool of hot water. As soon as she landed in the pool, she frantically jumped of it and headed straight to a huge bucket of ice to cool herself down.
The next contestant was a man in his 40s who didn't appear to be in the best shape to deal with such a game. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't even clear the first hurdle and ended up in the pool. He too immediately climbed out and headed straight to the bucket of ice. After seeing what happened to the first two contestants, Anita started praying to God, hoping she survives the game show.
Meanwhile, Hisami just finished up an interview about her latest book. The interview was boring, as the interviewer asked her the same sort of questions she had answered numerous times previously. She felt like her Saturday afternoon was being wasted, but being the young professional that she was, she remained respectful to the interviewer.
On her way out of the studio, Hisami saw a game show playing on of the TVs hanging from the ceiling in the hallway. It was Majide and when she saw a vague glimpse of a young pink-haired girl on TV she immediately stopped dead in her tracks. When she got a close-up look of the girl, she was surprised to see Anita.
"Oh my, it's Anita-chan!"
She quickly found one of the studio personnel and asked him, "Excuse me, sir, but can you show me where the Majide show is taped?"
"I don't know if they would allow you inside," he replied.
Hisami wasn't going to let that stop her so she begged the man to tell her where it was. "Please mister, I really, really need to be there."
The man gave in and told her, "OK, it's two studios down on the left. I'll come with you so that you can get in."
Hisami got excited and said "Oh, thank you!"
Meanwhile at Majide, it was Anita's turn to try to reach the top. The treadmill started running and she was able to jump over the first barb wire without any difficulty. Then as she was halfway to the top, show staffers started to throw objects at Anita. Anita dodged a baseball glove and jumped over a football that was aimed at her legs.
Hamada was amazed at how Anita was able to overcome the obstacles without much trouble, so he told one of the staff members to double the treadmill's speed and to throw everything they got at her. Anita noticed the speed increase and started to run faster. She was getting tired but she didn't want to show it. While she was running towards the third and final hurdle, the staffers threw everything they had at her, which literally included the kitchen sink, which Anita was able to jump over. During that time, Hisami was seated near the front row and she watched her lover running on the treadmill. Along with the rest of the audience, she was amazed at how Anita was able to dodge the objects and keep up with the speedy treadmill, but at the same time she was scared that Anita might get seriously hurt.
Anita jumped over the last hurdle and had two more feet to go before reaching the top. The staffers increased the treadmill's speed to 25 miles per hour, but Anita wasn't going to let that deter her from finishing the game. She was getting tired and started to breathe heavily, with her lungs burning. When she came within an inch from the top it looked like she was finish, but one of the staffers threw a fastball directly at her left cheekbone.
"Ani-chan!" Hisami inadvertently screamed when she saw the fastball's impact.
The fastball caught Anita off-guard and it was too quick for her to block it. The hit made her fall and she tumbled all the way to the hot pool, scrambling out of it as soon as she could and ran to the bucket of ice. Her face was bruised from the fastball's impact and the tumble down the treadmill, and her right calf had a cut from the barbed wire. She was dead tired and mad as hell, and didn't try to cover it up when Hamada came to interview her.
"Close but not enough. How does it feel to have victory within your grasp, only to have it snatched away from you?" Hamada tried to not sound arrogant, but his smirk betrayed the true intention of his message and Anita saw it.
"I'll tell you what would make me feel better. Me kicking yours and your staff's asses, you sadistic son-of-a..."
Hamada immediately pulled the microphone away from Anita and said, "Well this would be a good time take our commercial break. Don't go away, we have more games in store for you as our contestants try to win one million yen!"
Hisami saw Anita in pain and started to cry while thinking to herself ‘I hope she is all right!'
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Nenene couldn't wait to get her book signing over and done with. She was already tired from the radio interview even though the talkshow host asked nothing but softball questions. Aside from the book signing, she had already done a discussion about her latest book, which would be televised, albeit on a cable channel that nobody watched. Her latest book was called ‘Without Her' and it had already become her best selling novel of all time in Japan, the rest of East Asia, Europe, and the United States. It had also become her most controversial novel, due to the fact that there were no males in the story and all the couples in the novel were lesbians. When asked why she had chosen to write such a book, she simply said she wanted to do something different. Needless to say, the novel did not help quash rumors about her sexuality.
Everybody in the writing circle knew that Nenene had never dated a man although most of her novels were heterosexually romantic, and most of the people knew that she and Yomiko Readman were very close, so the rumors of her sexuality began. First the rumors had linked Nenene to her buddy Yomiko. Then when the Paper Sisters moved in, she was linked to Michelle Cheung, which was a delight to many males who fantasized about ‘hawt lesbian sex' between the two. When she helped Nancy Makuhari write her autobiography, people thought that Nancy was her secret lover. However, when the book came out, almost everybody in the writing circle agreed that it had to be Maggie Mui since the lead character in the story, Naomi, was tall, strong, quiet, and butch. Naomi's lover was Ruka, a feminine yet assertive, confident and strong-willed woman, just like Nenene.
While she was signing books, she ran into a few well-known people. One of them was Miyuki Kurugi, the leading otokoyaku star of the Tsuki troupe in the Takarazuka Revue, who was a huge fan of Nenene's works and really liked her latest book.
"Kurugi Miyuki! It's nice to see you again!"
"Same here, sensei. You know how much of a big fan I am of your writings, so I had to come and get my book autographed."
"No problem, one signature for you wouldn't hurt Kurugi-san."
"Well not just my book, all the others as well for all the actresses in the other troupes as well," Miyuki replied as she brought out a flatbed truck loaded with around sixty books. Nenene's eyes nearly popped out of her glasses when she saw this.
"You want me to sign all those books?" Nenene questioned as irritation was starting to appear on her face.
"For all the actresses in our company, if you could. We'll pay you double for each book!" Miyuki explained a bit nervously, knowing full well the explosiveness of Nenene's anger.
Nenene needed the money after Michelle had wrecked her car while driving to a Harry Potter convention, and since Miyuki was a good friend of hers, she reluctantly agreed to it.
After signing her autograph in all the books, she took a short break to rest her hand a bit. When she returned, she noticed that the line had gotten longer. The first person in the line she met was a tall woman. She handed over a book and before Nenene was about to sign, she asked the woman a question.
"Who do you want me to make this out to?" Nenene inquired politely.
"This is for my sister. She into this type of stuff. I would never read such a thing."
"What's wrong with my book?" Nenene asked as her anger was starting to boil up.
"There's nothing but gay stuff in it."
The bodyguards sensed a confrontation was about to develop and one of them asked Nenene, "Do you want us to move her out of here?"
Nenene, who never ran away from a confrontation and in fact secretly enjoyed it, told them not to do anything. "No there's no need, for I'm going put her in her place."
"And what place is that? San Francisco? Sorry, unlike you or my sister, I don't care to taste the rainbow."
Nenene was beginning to get furious with the woman and she told her, "Look, you homophobic bitch, the only thing you will taste is my fist! You may or may not like my work and that's fine, but you have no right to insult me like that. You don't know anything about me, so how could you make such a statement? What really bothers me is that you insult your own sister the same way. I feel sorry for your sister."
The woman didn't like that comment one bit and retorted, "I feel sorry that you can't get yourself a man, I mean a REAL man, not some fake imitation like Mui Maggie, who doesn't know how to be a woman." Apparently, the woman knew a few people in the writing circle.
By then Nenene's face turned a fiery red and her eyes gave the other woman a death stare lividly. She left her seat and inched closer to the woman's face looking up at her with the same glare.
"You listen to me, bitch! My Maggie is more of a woman than you'll ever be and more of a man than you'll ever get!" Nenene growled, not noticing the Freudian slip she just made. Unfortunately the other woman, the journalists, reporters and most everyone else in the room did.
"YOUR Maggie? Heh, I knew it all along," the woman said with a distasteful smirk on her face.
Nenene finally realized that she had inadvertently come out. Her face stayed red for a different reason now. She sat back down on her chair and her face started to turn pale, shocked at what she had unintentionally done. It didn't help that all of this was being televised. By then, the reporters and journalists were blasting her with questions about her relationship but it all went in one ear and out the other. To her, they sounded like the adults in the Peanuts cartoon. She was in her own world realizing and dreading the ramifications of her actions, most importantly thinking how Maggie would react to this, fearing that she might lose her from all of this. That part, she dreaded more than anything else.
While all this was going on, Nenene was saying to herself, ‘I'm so sorry Mags, I've very sorry, sweetie,' as warm tears began to roll down her face.
***
