---

 "Ah! My Hentai!"
  Episode 2: Sexy Dynamite and Beach Blanket Bingo

 A lemon by Twoflower based on characters by Fujishima Kosuke
 (18 and over only, please: very absurd adult material within
  in full defiance of plausibility and common sense.)

    http://pixelscapes.com/amh

---
ObDisclaimer: The following story does not even bother to represent a 
realistic view of relationships and should be taken as 126% fantasy.  But if 
you didn't know that already, you're probably the sort who thinks there is an 
Easter Bunny, that wrestling is real and we aren't operated via cerebral 
implanted silicon remote controlled by orbital satellites owned by the 
Government of Madagascar.  All hail Madagascar, shining jewel of... (consults 
globe) (realizes he lacks globe) Somewhere.
---


     In these hallowed halls, the future generation of mankind learns the 
ways of civilized life.  The maths and sciences, the literary and visual 
arts, business and economics... this is the training hall through which 
bright young students become adjusted to real life.  Respected teachers of 
all subjects impart their wisdom onto the students (for a modest fee), and in 
turn, the students eagerly accept this knowledge and yearn to know more.

     One particularly promising young student nearly stood upright, hand held 
high, excited in the anticipation of proving her worth.

     "The clitoris?" she answered.

     "...yes, the clitoris," the teacher replied, sounding vaguely tired.  
"Thank you again, Belldandy.  Now, let's let some of the other students 
answer the questions too, mmm?  As you can see from this illustrated diagram, 
the clitoris arises from its hood during sexual excitement..."

     The students of Biology 101 weren't paying much attention to the 
lecture, despite the burgeoning sexual awakenings of youth and passion for 
such learnings.  They were busy making dreamy starry luvluv eyes at the most 
popular girl in school.  Some were busy writing 'Belldandy + (insert 
student's name here)' in little hearts over and over in their notebooks.

     She had only been in school for one week and had already won over the 
attention of the entire male population of NIT (as well as seething jealous 
hatred strong enough to puncture battleship plating from the entire female 
population).  Maybe it was the bright smile she wore to school every day.  
Maybe it was her eagerness to learn and her desire for knowledge.  Maybe it 
was the friendly way she'd talk to anybody who walked up to her.  Maybe is 
was her uniform, which was likely a size or two too small for her body.

     One male in particular had a desire so strong and so intense for her 
that it was actually a complete lack of interest.  Keiichi Morisato, who 
somehow ended up sitting next to her in every one of her classes, lazily took 
notes on the sex education material, doing his best to ignore Belldandy 
nudging him and pointing out various factoids his teacher had overlooked.

     It was like white noise in his ear by that point.  A full week of her 
cheerful encouragement and flirtation had hardened him like... no, not 
harden.  Not harden.  Had dulled him to the shock of it all, yes, dulled was 
a much better word to use.

     "...behind which is the gluteus maximus," the teacher droned on, turning 
the most interesting subject in school into a dry textbook exercise.  "You 
may know it by its more common name..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Keiichi filtered out the ass in front of his face.  It did block his 
view of the television, but he had learned not to see it.

     "Keiichi-sama(*), lift your feet please," Belldandy requested.  Keiichi 
complied, and she ran the vacuum cleaner along the carpet between the sofa 
and the coffee table a few times before letting him put his legs back down.
                                                         * honorific meaning
                                                           'damn, you fine'.
      She always did the housework completely in the nude.  When pressed as 
to why on earth she'd want to do that, her answer was 'Because I like to', 
which made no sense to Keiichi whatsoever.  Who on earth LIKES to strut 
around the house naked?  ...admittedly it could be a little silly thrill when 
nobody's looking, but Keiichi didn't think of himself as nobody.  And yet, 
any chance his new live-in goddess had to streak through the temple, she did.

     'Temple' only in the loosest sense of the word.  When Keiichi had woken 
up after the worst night of his life, he had found the temple completely 
repaired and furnished.  Part of her powers, Belldandy had explained.  
Problem was that it was decorated with her sense of aesthetics.

     The temple now could be a suitable pad for a 70's pimp.  Shag carpeting 
(with extra shagging), a neo pink flamingo bar light on the wall, lava lamps 
all over the place, a tiger skin rug in front of the fireplace, a library of 
porno movies in a fine oak cabinet which would make Larry Flint weep in 
joy... Keiichi's swinging bachelor dive was funky, fresh and fine.  Needless 
to say, he made sure to toss out the heart shaped bed and the mirror on the 
ceiling of his room and replace his bedroom furniture with more ordinary 
stuff.  And Belldandy's room... he preferred to avoid it if at all possible.  
His last visit nearly blinded him.

     Of course, his sempai loved the place.  After he called them to get his 
mail forwarded to his new address, they dropped by for an all night beer and 
porno party.  Keiichi spent as much of it as he could in hiding, but would 
get dragged into the fray every now and then...

     All thanks to Belldandy.  Belldandy, who was just now feather dusting a 
shelf of colored vibrators.  Belldandy, his accidentally contracted eternal 
love slave.  His resident tramp--

     No.  He still couldn't bring himself to think of her as that except in 
fleeting moments.  Something wasn't clicking that would have completed the 
disgusting image his imagination was spawning.  One behavior that was 
unaccounted for...

     Daring to take his eyes off Total Request Live and put them on his maid 
and chef and gardener and devoted minion, he decided to get an answer.

     "Hey, Belldandy--"

     "Yes, Keiichi-san?" she asked, moving from Cleaning to Attentive And 
Waiting At His Side in the blink of an eye.

     "Ahh... you remember the party we had here a few nights ago?" he asked.

     "Oh, yes!  Your sempai are such funny guys.  I'm so glad you have such 
nice friends in the motorcycle club."

     "Right, right, but when Tamiya-sempai pinched your butt, you knocked him 
through the wall," Keiichi reminded her, nodding towards the Tamiya-shaped 
hole in the wall that had been roughly patched by a couple wooden boards.

     "Ah... I'm sorry about the damage, Keiichi-sama," Belldandy apologized.  
"I should have fixed it myself--"

     "That's fine, that's fine," Keiichi insisted.  (Repairing the hole had 
at least made him feel vaguely useful around the temple, what with Belldandy 
feverishly maintaining the upkeep for him.  He didn't even launder his own 
underwear...)  "What I wanted to ask was... well, why did you do it?"

     "Nani(*)?"                                                  * wtf?

     "I mean, you're... you know... ummm..." Keiichi trailed off, like a 
passenger jet which was cruising at 70,000 feet and suddenly lost two 
engines.  He couldn't bring himself to say the words...

     "A tramp?" Belldandy asked.

     "N-No!" Keiichi blurted.  "I mean, no, that's not what I mean, uh--"

     The goddess laughed.  "Keiichi-sama, you're blushing!  Really, now.  
Isn't it obvious?  I only have eyes for you, not for Tamiya-san.  He's too 
big, not my kind of man at all."

     "But.. but all the guys staring at you at school and--"

     "I can't help it if I attract attention," Belldandy shrugged.  "But I'm 
YOUR eternal love slave, remember?  It's not like I'd do this for any tom, 
harry, or dick.  I'm not that sort of girl.  They can look all they want, but 
no touching without your permission."

     "Without my...?"

     The urge to take a good cold shower rose as his imagination throbbed.

     *OOOH, AHHHH!!* the doorbell moaned.

     "Oh, the mail is here!" Belldandy spoke up, bouncing off.

     ...Keiichi sagged.  He'd been playing the 'Ignore it and maybe it'll go 
away' game for awhile now, but it kept getting harder.  Like a thirteen year 
old trying to resist looking at the Playboy he snuck into the house under his 
sweater, the natural aura of fresh booty Belldandy gave off was getting hard 
to handle.  To cope with!  Not to handle.  He wouldn't be HANDLING it, not 
after the one incident when she arrived that he was totally unprepared for... 
that one night where she took him by the hand and mouth and--

     A quick self abusive slap to the cheeks shook him out of that one before 
it went from internal monologue to hardcore daydreaming.  Keiichi rose from 
the couch, and headed for the door.

     Belldandy was just coming back with an armful of letters and a brown 
paper wrapped box.  "Ano(*), Keiichi-sama?" she asked.  "Where are you 
going?"
                                                 * director of Evangelion
     "Motorcycle club meeting," Keiichi spoke.  "Be back before dinner."

     "The club is going to the beach this weekend for spring break, right?"

     (Damn.  How'd she find out?) he thought.  "Ah... well... it's not really 
an OFFICIAL sort of thing, just a few of us got some money together and, 
um..."

     "I'll make sure I have plenty of bathing suits!" Belldandy said, 
overjoyed.  "We'll have lots of fun!"

     ...it was better than her saying she wasn't going to pack any bathing 
suits, at least.  With a sigh, he smiled weakly, and headed outside.

     Whistling happily, Belldandy set down the mail on the coffee table of 
the temple living room.  Pulling the paper wrapping off the package she had 
shipped, she slid the videocasette from the box and popped it into the VCR.

     'Sexy Dynamite 2!' the announcer blared over bad saxophone.

     Two minutes later, there were two goddesses in the room.

     "Okay, sis..." Urd, Norn of the Past said with a tone of exhaustion.  
"What do you want now?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

             (Eyecatch sequence of a Chibi-Urd orgy here)

 Ah! My Hentai is brought to you by the letters P and V, and the number 13.
          Not for sale or rent. Contents may be harmful if ingested.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The family resemblance was both obvious and vague.

     The two favored very styled hair, with wavy and straight strands mixed 
and plenty of jewelry.  They both were snappy dressers, even if Belldandy 
wasn't dressed.  They both had strange markings on their faces.

     But while Belldandy was all smiles and sweetness, Urd had a look of 
despairing frustration that normally could be seen during final exam week.  
She carried a half-empty bottle of sake with her.  (Optimists say the bottle 
is half-full, pessimists say the bottle is half-empty, and realists say bring 
me another bottle because I'm gonna need it.)

     Chugging down the rest of her drink, Urd tossed the bottle aside (and it 
promptly vanished.)  "You got another bottle, Bell?  I think I'm gonna need 
one.  I'm having a hell of a time upstairs right now and really don't--"

     "Please, Urd-oneesan(*)... you're my only hope," Belldandy pleaded.  
"It's about this boy--"                         * a crippling martial arts
                                                  technique banned since 1947
     "Forget it."

     "What?"

     "Love stinks," Urd declared.  "Love sucks.  Love blows.  I'm out of the 
cupid game and you know it.  I don't do potions, I don't do matchmaking, and 
I don't do lovemaking.  I'm very happy handling my sixty five hour workweek 
sysadmin role and I'm not interested in playing the angel in white to cure a 
bad relationship again.  Why are you naked?"

     "Oh, a nice young man wished for me to be his eternal love slave after 
calling the Relief Office," Belldandy explained matteroffactly.

     "...right.  I DEFINITELY need another bottle now.  Mind explaining this 
in greater detail?  And leave in the squishy bits."

     Belldandy explained.

     "Damn," Urd said, 72% through the next bottle.

     "Only it's not working out," Belldandy said, looking downward.  "He 
doesn't seem to want me... I'm an annoyance to him.  I've tried my hardest to 
please him but what pleases him is if I'm not in his sight.  I've never 
failed on a contract before..."

     "So you want me to cancel the contract, then?  I guess a few hacks could 
take care of it, but you know that His word is bond and if He ever found out 
that-- wait, I forgot, He's omniscient.  Scratch that.  But still, I could 
probably--"

     "No no, you're misunderstanding," Belldandy said, waving her hands.  "I 
don't want to fail.  I want to SUCCEED.  I want you to help me seduce him!  
He's been able to resist me so far, but you and I together would be 
unstoppable!  Soon, he'll be begging to have me beg for him!"

     "...Bell?" Urd said, leaning back on the sofa.  "Can I be frank for a 
moment?"

     "Of course, oneesan."

     "You've really gotta get off this whole 'hentai(*)' kick you've been on 
for the last few years.  Seriously.  I know Heaven isn't exactly the best 
place to get some, but I don't think you're exploring your sexuality in a 
very healthy way here.  This Keiichi guy, I mean... you're BOUND to him by 
contract!  What if he's like... what if he's an abusive freak?"
                                                         * well adjusted and
                                                           stable person
     "Keiichi-sama is nothing like that," Belldandy said firmly.  "He's the 
nicest, sweetest boy I know.  A little shy, easily scared, and something of a 
bitter pest at times... but he had plenty of opportunities to treat me badly 
and he hasn't yet.  ...Urd, all I want to do is get closer to him.  To make 
him happy.  Is that too much to ask?  Is that wrong of me to desire?"

     The elder goddess peered at her sister's face, trying to read the 
emotions there.  Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was her mood, maybe it was 
how she felt about love, but it was too fuzzy for her to tell... and given 
that she was the sort to approve of the direct approach, she decided to ask 
outright.

     "Belldandy... is this about the contract, or this about the boy?" Urd 
asked.  "Are you just trying to keep up your spotless record or is there 
truly something more that you want?"

     There.  A blush.

     "Ah..." Belldandy started.  And stopped.

     With a heavy sigh, Urd shook her head.  "Skip it.  You don't know, do 
you?  You're still trying to figure this stuff out.  That's why I'm worried 
for you, Belldandy.  You can play the game, you're eager to learn, but you're 
still new at this.  You still need to feel your way through it to know how it 
ends.  I've been around the block five hundred and thirty seven times, I KNOW 
where you're going."

     "Where am I going, then?" Belldandy asked.

     "Heartbreak hotel," Urd warned.  "Straight to ruin, collapse and 
disaster.  That way lies madness.  Turn back now.  And all that rot.  Now if 
you don't mind, I really have to get back to work.  Yggdrasil's been bugging 
up all week, and... and what's that look for?"

     'That look' being a rare one of disappointment and upset-ness.  You 
could almost call it anger, but anger implies some kind of boiling emotion... 
Belldandy was simmering with mild anger, tempered with the seasoning of 
disappointment.  Why she felt this way was about to be made very clear.

     "Urd... just because you've had a bad relationship recently doesn't mean 
mine is doomed," Belldandy told her.  "Now, I'm going to ask you straight.  
There's a weekend beach vacation coming up for Keiichi-sama and I, it'd be 
the perfect opportunity.  Will you PLEASE help me?"

     That's wrong.  Something's wrong with the universe, Belldandy never 
really got angry, Urd thought.  Usually if something was wrong she'd be the 
first person to blame herself rather than snap at someone and call them out 
on it.  Now Belldandy was telling her own sister, her OLDER sister, to her 
face, without a shadow of a doubt, that Urd was wrong.

     A temper flared behind the mature goddess's eyes... but died off.  She 
just was too tired to get angry.

     "I'll think about it," Urd decided.

     "I need to know by tonight," Belldandy said.  "We're going to be leaving 
tomorrow.  Urd, please--"

     "I said I'd think about it," Urd repeated, getting up.  "I'll let you 
know tonight, don't worry about that.  Now I've got to go.  Excuse me."

     Touching the television screen (where a greased Swedish gentleman was 
gettin' it on with a volleyball team), 90% of Urd vanished.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     While it was true that Urd had a very demanding job, she was also a firm 
believer in the concept of multitasking.  Being a higher order immortal 
lifeform, she refused to believe that she was only capable of doing one thing 
at a time -- or being in one place at a time.  When she went back to her desk 
to hack out more code for the system, some of her split off.

     That 10% of Urd took the form of a Chibi(*)-Urd daemon process, which 
was going to settle this issue once and for all.
                                                    * small, pink, annoying
     Looking up this Keiichi guy's location in the database was easy.  
Teleporting through a nearby TV was simple.  Obfuscating the pocket-sized Urd 
from mortal sight was easy.

     Getting near Keiichi was hard.  He was in Ootaki's dorm, the official 
headquarters of the motorcycle club, and ignoring them talking about machine 
parts and torque and oil pressure and other guy-machine-motor-penis stuff.  
Instead, he was sitting on a nearby bunk bed and reading an issue of Motor 
Week.

     Chibi-Urd had a hell of a time climbing up onto the bed without alerting 
him to her presence.  It took a few hops, some mad koala skeelz, and other 
various tricks... but soon she was up there.  She climbed up onto his 
shoulder, trying not to let her miniscule weight be a hint, and got a good 
look at...

     An issue of Cosmopolitan.

     The boy had hidden an issue of COSMO inside his Motor Week so his sempai 
wouldn't see him reading it.  Now, boys often hid Playboy inside of Newsweek 
or something similar, but not the other way around...

     What's more, it was clear he was really getting off on this stuff.  
Every now and then he'd look up from his article on 105 New Ways To Rekindle 
The Romance In Your Worthless Life, sigh wistfully, and resume reading about 
candlelight and moonlight and violin music and spaghetti so on.

     It made Urd want to hurl.

     The boy was more feminine than SHE was!  Here he was daydreaming about 
soft and frilly fluffy romance when guys his age were dreaming up threesomes 
with German twins and stuff like that.  No wonder Belldandy was having no 
luck with him; they were approaching relationships from two completely 
opposite ends of the spectrum.  She was providing the Typical Testosterone 
Laced Heterosexual Male Fantasy Toy, he was looking for the Typical Estrogen 
Laced Heterosexual Female Storybook Romance.

     Just as she had predicted -- doomed from the start.  These two would 
never be able to accept each other.  She knew her sister and knew her 
peculiar kinks, and if this was any indication of the boy he'd never fit her 
like a matching Lego brick.  It'd be like comparing apples and neutrinos.  
Most definitely a waste of her time.

     Chibi-Urd was about to hop down and go back to work.  Thankfully, she 
didn't, or she wouldn't have been able to see the following:

     '105. When all else fails... lots of sex!' the article joked.

     Keiichi's eyes hit that one, and he swallowed hard.  His heart rate 
jumped slightly.  "Be..." he mumbled.  Then closed the magazine and got up.

     Chibi-Urd fell off his shoulder, and bounced lightly on the bed.  What 
was that?  Did he actually have the inkling of the beginning of a start of a 
fantasy about Belldandy that didn't involve her in an ivory tower?  She was 
usually very empathic, and there was definitely a vibe there...

     He WANTED her.  He just didn't want to want her, since she wasn't 
fitting his mold.  Of course, did he want her as in 'I'm happy to be with 
you' or did he just want her as in 'Who's your daddy' or...

     Chibi-Urd groaned.  Wasn't SHE the experienced one?  The one who always 
had the answers?  What a wreck she'd become if this one was throwing her for 
a loop.  And just think of poor Belldandy, who was an innocent little thing 
despite being a raging nymphomaniac; she had to be having an awful time 
trying to understand love...

     Which meant elder sister had to help out her beloved younger sister.

     "I swear," Chibi-Urd mumbled.  "Just when I thought I was out, they pull 
me back in..."

     She vanished into the television before the motorcycle guys could ask 
where that voice had come from and why it was quoting Al Pacino.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     In the collective consciousness of humanity (or at least humanity with 
sufficient capital living in one of the important cultures) there exists a 
paradigm known as the 'Vacation Spot'.  There are many instances of this 
class, inheriting common properties such as Fun and Relaxing and 
Impoverishing.  One specific instance is that of The Beach.

     The Beach, as it shall be called, is a long strip where the sand meets 
the water, hot babes in skimpy clothes hang out, and the surf is up.  The sun 
beats down, someone's always playing reggae music somewhere, and the 
boardwalk has many fine delights to for you to stuff your face or drain your 
pockets or both.

     The nice thing about The Beach is that no matter what specific beach you 
go to, these things are constants.  That means all beaches are one 
theoretical proto-beach, despite the law that says two things can't be in the 
same place at the same time.   Smart people can exploit this to walk into the 
surf at Coney Island and emerge in Hokkaido if they know how to work the 
system.

     When the students of the Nekomi Institute of Technology got it into 
their collective heads to go to The Beach, it didn't matter what beach they 
went to.  They all went to The Beach, and that's what counts.  The Beach 
where the boardwalk is high, the tide is low, the hot dogs are outrageously 
expensive and there's always a convenient set of large rocks for surfers to 
hang out on or college kids to nip behind for a private moment.

     On this bright Saturday morning, behind The Rocks at The Beach, Sayoko 
Mishima was getting screwed doggy style by the captain of the baseball team.

     It wasn't a particularly special moment worth note beyond that.

     She hadn't even bothered to remove her bikini top to get it done, since 
she didn't plan to be here long.  Glancing at her wristwatch, she figured he 
had maybe two more minutes left before he collapsed, given his past 
performance.  As her body rocked, grinding her knees and hands into the moist 
sands deeper and deeper (sands moist not just with salt water), she made sure 
he was getting just the right feedback to keep him happy.

     It went something like this:

     "Yeah baby, yeah, yeah, like that, oooh, harder harder, you're so 
strong, do me harder, oooooh, aah, ah, ah, oooh, harder, you're a viking sex 
god you hard rock of manhood, yes, yes, make me come, yes, you're so hot, 
come on baby, yeah."

     And in return he'd make a primitive series of grunts and yeahbabys as he 
did his business.  All that mattered to him was that doing this was that he 
was doing it with one of the most popular girls in school, and it was more 
satisfying than a Penthouse magazine.  (Although likely he could get the same 
effect by rolling the magazine up really tightly and making sweet love to 
that instead, given Sayoko's complete lack of interest.  He was, alas, too 
young and stupid to realize she wasn't totally into his awesome throbbing 
meat hammer.)

     "Oooh, yeah baby," he moaned.  "Yeah... just like that..." and so on.

     Sayoko hoped this was worth the effort.  She'd already wormed her way 
into every other sporting team on campus, but lost her chokehold on the 
baseball team when they changed captains this year.  After all she was doing 
to improve his sex life, if he didn't see things her way when the next 
student council election came up, she would be very cross.  As dozens of men 
could attest to, it was a bad idea to make the Queen of NIT cross, lest she 
crucify you.

     He was moving faster now as he bumped into her hips in a frenzy, 
definitely reaching his physical limit.  Sayoko responded in turn by starting 
to fake a nice, long orgasm; they always liked that.  She hoped the hot dog 
stand was still open, since this particular tubular meat wasn't doing 
anything for her.  (Since she was hungry, of course.  Not because she 
intended to copulate with compressed pig parts.)

     "Ooooh, ooooh, I'm gonna come," she spoke as a matter of routine.

     "Yeaaaaah!" the captain shouted, feeling like he was the #1 Stud Muffin 
of the Universe about now.  "YEAH, BABY!  Damn you're good, Belldandy!"

     The youth kept pumping his hard rod a few times before realizing he 
wasn't pumping it into anything.  Then he realized Sayoko had him by the 
balls.  Literally.

     "WHAT was that!?" Sayoko growled, squeezing.

     "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" the boy shrieked.  "Ah.. ah, I meant Sayoko-sama!"

     Just as he hadn't realized his predicament until it was too late, Sayoko 
didn't catch her temper until it was too late.  He'd definitely not be in her 
corner if turned him into a eunich.  She let go of him, and yanked her bikini 
bottoms back on.

     "I'd suggest that you get your head screwed on right, and think of a 
good way to apologize to me tonight," Sayoko suggested, to maintain her 
control.  "Otherwise, you're never getting a piece of me again.  Now scram.  
And if you tell anyone about this, I can spread rumors about your... little 
problem."

     In a frenzied panic, the guy ran off without stopping to fetch his swim 
trunks.  Sayoko regained her composure, fixing her hair and coming down not 
from the arousal (she had none) but from the temper flare.  Technically she 
didn't know whatever his little problem was, but everybody had a little 
problem and she could find it out within two days with her network if need 
be.

     Then she remembered what started this, and her temper flared anew.  
Belldandy.  Belldandy, she of the no last name.  Belldandy, the new student 
in town who had won away all Sayoko's male admirers.  The one whose name they 
whispered in small groups as being the new #1 popular girl in school...

     Sayoko took to fair competition in the open market the same way 
Microsoft did, except perhaps without as much leniency.  There was no way 
this newcomer would stay at the top of the pile of bodies she'd slept over to 
get where she was today.

     It went without saying that something would have to be done.  Belldandy 
was here along with the Motorcycle Club contingent... and Sayoko had nothing 
better to do today.  The situation could be dealt with in the span of a 
single day, with elegance, power and skill.

     "Just you wait, Belldandy," Sayoko spoke aloud because she liked the 
sound of her own voice.  "By the time the sun sets, I will have destroyed 
you!"

     A scurrying of sand distracted her.  She flicked her eyes to the narrow 
gap between The Rocks... and saw a crab scuttle by.  Nothing of importance.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Somewhere on The Beach, reggae music burbled out of a portable stereo.  
The stereo belonged to Ootaki-sempai, who was busy sunbathing in a chair with 
a piece of chromed fender he'd lifted off a Subaru and polished until it was 
superior to the mirrors on the Hubble Space Telescope.

     "I tell you, Tamiya, this is the life," Ootaki declared.  "If only it 
were possible to spend the whole of my life at the beach, I would be content 
in this chaotic universe which serves to deprive me of my fair shake of 
relaxation and chicks."

     "Well spoken!" the more emotional of the two shouted, manly tears 
streaming down his eyes.  "The sun, the surf, the women in rubber thongs -- 
this is truly the pinnacle of human civilization!  Pass the cocoa butter."

     "This is exactly what we need to unwind and prepare for the first heats 
of the new racing season, Tamiya.  Another excellent suggestion on your 
behalf!  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go cruising for some fun.  
Speaking of which, where's Belldandy-chan?"

     "I'm afraid she's stuck by Keiichi's side all morning," Tamiya replied, 
applying an excessive amount of sunblock to his bulging manly muscles.  "We 
really do have to get more hot chi-- ah, modern women in the motorcycle club, 
Ootaki.  It's a matter of diversity and equality, after all!  Who are we as 
men to judge others?  Surely the soft and supple graces of a feminine touch 
can be just as good at tightening the gaskets on a '94 Kawasaki as we are!  
It is our duty as caring human beings to embrace the fairer sex!  
Repeatedly."

     "I couldn't agree with you more, my friend," Ootaki agreed more.  "Of 
course, we do have one female in the club..."

     Both men paused a bit to try and fit the mental image of said club 
member into the rigid hourglass cutout of womanhood in their minds.  They 
failed miserably.

     "We need more chicks," Tamiya decided.

     "Um, excuse me..."

     Both Men with a capital M glanced over at the previously mentioned 
female club member.

     The reason they couldn't quite see her as filling their Hotchik Quota 
was due to her failure to be tall, buxom and easy.  She was instead a bit on 
the short side, a bit more on the flat side, and very much on the shy side.  
She wore an ordinary blue one piece like you'd take with you to gym class in 
school, a pair of glasses that kept slipping down in the sweat-soaking heat 
of The Beach, and carried a six-pack of soda.

     "Ah, Hasegawa-chan," Ootaki greeted.  "I was wondering where you ran off 
to."

     "I, ah, just went to get you some drinks, sempai," the girl said, 
holding up the six pack.  She was quite out of breath, despite the drink 
stand only being fifty feet away or so.  "Grape soda, your favorite."

     "Hasegawa-chan, you're so naive!" Tamiya laughed.  "Are we not college 
men?  The proper drink is BEER!  No other beverage can compare to the golden 
glory of the wonderfully inebriating goblet of the gods!"

     "But isn't drinking that illegal on the beach?" Hasegawa asked, 
confused.  "You'd get a fine and/or time in jail."

     "This is where our superior intellect comes into play," Ootaki 
explained, fetching a soda can from the nearby cooler.  "Submit for your 
approval: an ordinary-seeming drink... in actuality, a miniature keg!  Using 
the power of Tamiya's eight cylinder high performance engine, we pre-pumped 
these innocent looking containers with enough beer to last us all weekend.  
Just one of these cans holds as much as a six pack of six packs!!"

     "Mostly because we didn't want to go buy new soda cans and only had 
about four empties available," Tamiya explained, fetching one for himself.  
He fingered the ring tab, and applied leverage.  "Far be it for us to leave 
good drink behind, so we took the one hundred and forty four beers we had and 
compressed them."

     "...um..." Hasegawa mumbled, her brain poking through the wild logic in 
that.  "But... doesn't that mean they'll explode when you open them?"

     "Eh?" Tamiya asked, opening one.

     The shock wave buffeted Hasegawa's cheeks until they rippled.  The 
silent flash of the blast could be seen all the way in Okinawa.  Her shadow 
was permanently burned into the sand.

     "..." Tamiya spoke, his hands still in the 'I'm opening a can' position 
even if the can had blasted itself to subatomic particles.  Very, very 
slowly, he fell over.  As did Ootaki.

     Hasegawa's mind struggled to cope with this before giving up.  She 
glanced at her soda, realizing now she had nobody to offer it to.  With a 
helpless shrug, she wandered down The Beach in search of other club members.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
     
     Underneath an umbrella on The Beach stretched a beach chair.  It was one 
of those ones that folded four times to fit easily in any trunk, and unfolded 
to be big enough to support even the longest, most shapely of legs.  The 
strips were not cheap vinyl which would stick to your skin, but a special 
waterproofed form of soft velvet that was near frictionless.  It was a chair 
beyond chairs.  It was like suspension in the womb.

     Its occupant was a goddess in all senses.  She kept her naturally cocoa 
legs crossed, and her arms folded behind her head full of luxurious silver-
white hair.  Mirrored sunglasses reflected the light back into your eyes, 
obscuring her own gaze... which you could assume to carry the same air of 
relaxed sexuality the rest of her poise did.  She wore a simple white bikini, 
since with a body like this, you didn't NEED to go out of your way to enhance 
it.  Her figure persevered on its own merits alone.

     A personal MP3 player sat on the blanket beside her, headphone cord 
winding its way around the armrest of the chair, snaking between her breasts 
and disappearing into her snowy tresses.  Something with saxophones could be 
heard faintly, as she nodded her head and waved her toe to the music.

     If a man was dying of thirst in the desert and was suddenly given a 
bottle of the finest wine ever to come out of the stippled slopes of 
Chantilly, France, he would react much as Urd was to having a beach vacation 
from her intense desk job.

     It was her first time coming to earth in months since... since things 
got unpleasant.  She had assumed she'd be all wound up and unable to enjoy 
her time here, what with being on a personal assignment for her sister, but 
the feel of the sun and the sound of the waves lulled her right into Maximum 
Vacation Mode...

     Yet, there was still a job to do.  She peered over the frames of her 
mirrorshades, watching as Belldandy ran to her (in slow motion with her chest 
moving independently of her body, as such things were traditional).  Her 
sister had chosen a one-piece that barely counted as swimwear; despite not 
being a bikini, it seemed to be comprised only of thread.  Odds are it would 
have had heavy pixelation in key places under Japanese censorship laws.

     "Oneesan!" Belldandy called, waving to fetch attention.  She slowed her 
jog to a stroll as she approached, and knelt down next to the beach chair to 
bow in polite greeting.  "I'm glad you could make it.  Poor Keiichi has been 
having such a hard time having fun today--"

     "I'd suspect it's from you being around," she mumbled under her breath.

     "Ano?"

     "Nevermind.  Okay, so you want to seduce him?" Urd asked.

     "Maybe... maybe not that far just yet," Belldandy suggested.  "That 
hasn't worked well for me.  But he REALLY has to relax, or I won't get 
anywhere."

     "Best place to relax.  You've got sun, surf, music... and good things to 
eat like hot dogs, hot dogs, funnel cakes, and funnel cakes.  All the right 
elements."

     "You mentioned hot dogs and funnel cakes twice, oneesan."

     "Yes, I know," Urd said, digging into her burlap beach bag.  She fished 
out a small bottle of lotion with a screw-on cap.  "Here's your ticket.  
Mellow-Mellow Suntan Oil.  Rub a little of this on his body and he'll be 
putty in your hands.  Not literally, we don't want to deform the boy or 
anything.  Although I think you'd get better results through open 
communication and mutual understanding--"

     "Arigato(*), oneesan!" Belldandy said, snatching up the bottle with a 
delighted smile.  "This is just what I need!  I'll let you know what happens.  
Ne(*)... thanks for coming.  I know you're busy and all, but... I'm happy to 
see a friendly face."                         * twelve (or eleven on Mondays)
                                              * give me all your money, punk
     Urd grinned, nudging her shades back up.  "I'm only happy to help.  
Well, no, I wasn't real happy to help... but I'm happy now.  I SO needed this 
little sojourn, Belldandy.  And I haven't seen you in so long!  Hey, listen, 
if things don't work with Keiichi, let's hang at one of the boardwalk bars 
and drink ourselves silly!"

     "Oh, that's okay.  I don't drink very much, but I'd love to go out with 
you!  Although... hopefully, Keiichi... I mean, I don't mean I don't want to 
spend time with you, but--"

     "I know, I know," Urd said, dismissing it.  "You do what you have to do.  
We can find time anytime, I guess.  Although I'm still not sure about this 
Keiichi guy.  Take it from me, sis... romance is overrated.  Especially when 
it's doomed..."

     "We're destiny, oneesan," Belldandy promised... smiling brightly.  "I 
just know we are.  I have to hurry back now.  I'll see you soon!"

     Urd waved absently, lost in thought as her sister departed.  It was all 
going to end in tears and hurt, she just knew it.  That was the way of 
things.

     Although, inwardly, she hoped Belldandy would find that one in one 
hundred case where it worked... and that she recognized it wasn't working if 
it wasn't working.  That she got out before it was too late.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Hasegawa studied the modern sand sculpture, not quite sure what it was 
supposed to be.  She poked it a little; it was packed firm and hard with wet 
sand, unlikely to flop over despite its odd construction.  She popped her 
soda and took a sip while thinking about it.

     "When does the tide come in?" Keiichi asked, trying hard not to turn red 
from something other than sunburn, trying hard not to look at Belldandy's... 
unique 'sand tower' with the rounded top and two spheres at its base for 
support.

     "Not until tonight, I think," Hasegawa said.  "I don't get it.  Is this 
supposed to be a castle?  It's just one tower and there's no battlements or 
anything.  The engineering is really off, there's no way something like this 
would stand on its own if it was made of any normal material..."

     "It's not supposed to be a building, Hasegawa-kun(*)," Keiichi explained 
(and left it at that).  He looked around for the tenth time that morning, 
hoping nobody was staring, noticing that people WERE staring, and 
contemplating knocking it over 'by accident' for the tenth time as well.
                                   * mistaken by many fools as meaning 'boy'

     No such luck; Belldandy was already returning, and would notice 
something like that.  Keiichi sunk further into his cheap plastic beach 
chair, wincing as the red hot sticky vinyl pulled at his flesh.

     "Keiichi-sama!" Belldandy called out, waving a small bottle.  "I got 
some sun-tan lotion!  Now you won't get so red!"

     "I doubt it will help," Keiichi said, after chugging a bit more of the 
soda Hasegawa had thoughtfully provided.  "But thanks, Belldandy.  How much 
did it cost?  I'm running a little low..."

     "Oh, don't worry about that," Belldandy said, kneeling down behind 
Keiichi, and uncapping the bottle of Mellow-Mellow.  "Here, let me rub it 
into your back..."

     "That's not really--"

     Ooooh.

     Like a drop of acid on the brain, Keiichi instantly got very happy with 
his existence as he knew it the moment Belldandy started rubbing his 
shoulders.  He smiled openly at the sun while staring right into it...

     "BELLDANDY!" a shrill voice called out.

     Surprised, the goddess dropped her bottle of Mellow-Mellow.  The oil 
poured out and into the sand immediately... causing a localized patch of 
quicksand as the beach relaxed itself tremendously.

     *Schlurp*.  Keiichi was sucked under like the opposite of a cork popping 
from a bottle.

     "Sempai!" Hasegawa called out, grabbing Keiichi's arm before he was 
dragged to a sandy doom.  Keiichi shook out of his trance and quickly 
scurried to safety using instincts common in all mammals.  His beach chair 
was unfortunately gone, so he stood around in shock instead of having a nice 
sit down as he'd have preferred.

     Belldandy would have moved to save her master, but she was busy being 
pulled to her feet by the elbow.

     "S-Sayoko-san?" Hasegawa exclaimed, recognizing the popular girl 
immediately.  The girl who then completely ignored Hasegawa.

     "May I have a word with you?" Sayoko Mishima politely demanded of 
Belldandy.  "In private, please."

     "Wh-what?" Belldandy stammered.  She glanced back to make sure Keiichi 
was fine.  "Who are you?"

     "...you don't even know?" Sayoko asked, anger mounting on top of anger 
with a side of rage and a cup of bitterness to wash it down with.  "We... 
NEED... to talk.  Alone."

     "Ah... Keiichi-sama, I'll be right back," Belldandy warned, before being 
dragged off.

     "..." Keiichi said, still in shock.  Hasegawa draped a beach blanket 
around his shoulders, watching the upperclasswoman lead Belldandy away.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
   
     While there are no 'rooms' at The Beach, the rolling of the ocean and 
the blasting of various stereos can still provide a level of privacy.  For 
true privacy, there's always The Rocks or floating out in The Ocean, but 
generally standing a distance from another location is sufficient to mask 
audio.

     Once Sayoko felt she had lured Belldandy out far enough, she let go of 
the goddess's elbow.

     Studying her foe head to toe, Sayoko decided to get a better look at 
this so-called 'Belldandy'... and was not impressed.  It wasn't like the 
woman had a finer figure... likely they were more equal in that regard.  
Perhaps with a slight breast advantage on Sayoko's side, although Belldandy's 
shapely mounds were almost obscenely displayed in that 'swimsuit'.  No wonder 
the sheep went after her.

     In return, Belldandy watched the Queen of NIT with curiosity.  "Excuse 
me, but... did you need something?" she asked, still puzzled.

     "Yes, I DO need something," Sayoko said.

     "Yes?"

     "Don't fuck with me, bitch, or I'll make your every waking moment at NIT 
the most painful experience of your life," she directly said.

     "...um..." Belldandy said, not quite sure how to respond to that in a 
proper and polite way.  (Unless Sayoko was hitting on her, which Bell hadn't 
ruled out.)

     "I've seen the looks the boys give you," Sayoko warned.  "I've heard how 
they talk about you.  It's MY place at the top of the pecking order, not that 
of some... some underclassman who is unworthy to lick my toes!  You'd better 
learn your role, or it will be learned for you!"

     "Ah... my--?"

     "Oh, are you so defiant of my natural rule?" the woman demanded, 
advancing on Belldandy.  "You dare speak up to me?  That's one mistake you'll 
soon regret!"

     "But I--"

     "Don't give me any of your excuses, I know that look in your eye!  You 
want to unseat me and take over my territory, don't you?  Well, this pretty 
young flower has teeth!  If you want war, war is what you shall have!"

     "If--"

     "And I know JUST how to destroy you, Belldandy," Sayoko seethed.  
"Everybody knows you and Keiichi are attached at the hip.  I'll steal him 
away from you!  This is your final warning.  Will you stop luring my fans 
away from me, or do I have to lure Keiichi from you?"

     "--"

     "You leave me no choice, then!" Sayoko declared, turning sharply on one 
finely toned leg.  "You had your chance.  Sayonara(*), Belldandy."
                                                                * ohohohoho.
     Before Belldandy could get some punctuation in edgewise, Sayoko was 
strolling down the beach as fast as her swaying hips would allow.

     "What a strange person," Belldandy said to herself.  Thinking nothing of 
it, she returned to Keiichi's side.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     As the sun hung overheard, approaching afternoon, time lapse photography 
would have shown Urd not moving an inch.  There's a kind of warm and fuzzy 
contentment that causes you to want to stay put; when you're at ease with the 
world and nothing can shake you loose from your happy place.

     Then she thought of returning to work on Monday and flinched.  There was 
always that, wasn't there?  Normally she would have loved to get back to her 
job... the soul-crushing job that sucked away the hours so she wouldn't have 
to sit around apathetic.  But there was a whole side to apathy she had been 
neglecting lately, the 'slacker' side that she was indulging in today.  It 
had been a wonderful experience, akin to finding Jesus.  (Not that Urd didn't 
know where the man was.  She was a goddess, after all.)

     Briefly, she pondered calling in sick to work.  It was irresponsible, 
but so was she... that is, was in earlier times.  Nowadays responsibility 
helped cut through the tedium of life, helped occupy her...

     She SO missed being bored.  Being bored in this way.  Why did she ever 
leave it behind...?

     "Hey, baby!"

     Oh.

     A musclebound dude with tall blonde hair and sunglasses jogged on up 
like David Hasslehoff.  He flexed momentarily for Urd's benefit.  She didn't 
even glance at him.

     "I saw you sitting here all by your lonesome, and decided to make myself 
known," he spoke.  "My name is Ootaki.  You can call me the answer to your 
dreams.  What's your name?"

     "Unavailable," Urd replied.

     "What a beautiful name!  Mind if I sit next to you?" he asked after 
sitting next to her.  "So, enjoying your vacation?"

     She had no particular reason to give this guy time of day, even if he 
was oiled like a baby's bottom and ripped like a cheap newspaper... Urd 
flinched.  Not the way she should think about this, not anymore.

     "Look, I hate to burst your ego," Urd said, "But I have to be honest.  
I'm not in the meat market game currently."

     "Oh, neither am I," Ootaki said.  "I'm looking for the one true love I 
can settle down with in an eternity of loving bliss."

     "I'm even less in THAT game," Urd scowled.

     "That's great, because I'm lying," Ootaki corrected.  "Truthfully, I 
just want someone to spend some time with this weekend other than my boys.  
No big deal, you know?  Some drinks, some laughs, some good times..."

     "Cheap sex?"

     "Only if you want it, baby, only if you want it!" Ootaki defended.

     Urd heard a laugh before realizing she was laughing.  It WAS amusing, 
the way this mortal was doing his damnedest to be charming in his own warped 
little way... she rolled slightly, to prop up on one elbow and look at the 
boy over her shades.

     "You know, used to be I'd go for that sort of thing," she explained.  
"Especially with someone at the peak of his physical condition as you.  
Especially someone as absurdly shallow as you.  Don't worry, I like shallow 
guys, they're simple to read and easy to please and don't mind me leaving cab 
money on the nightstand for them."

     "I'm down with anything you like in a guy," Ootaki reinforced.  "Plus 
I'm in the motel on the boardwalk, so no cab fare needed!  How can you resist 
a package deal like that, baby?"

     Urd sighed.  "Kid, I'm coming off a REAL bad relationship right now.  
I'm damaged goods, 'baby'.  Very high maintenance.  I don't think that's your 
thing."  She broke through that mournful look, to give the desperate guy a 
smile.  "But... I'll give you an A for effort.  You have cheered me up in 
some small way."

     "Hey, someone messed with you?" Ootaki asked.  "Where's the sleazebag?  
I'll hit him so hard his ancestors die!  Again!"

     "I appreciate the knight in shining armor routine, but I think he's a 
little out of your league... don't stress it, kid, you're too young for
wrinkles.  I'm just not looking for manfolk  right now.  You're all too
risky."

     "I swear I'd never hurt you, baby," Ootaki pledged, taking Urd's hand 
into his own and posing on one knee.  "You've got my word."

          "You've got my word," he promised.  With a smile and a laugh...

     Urd wasn't the sort to politely slap a guy.  She slugged Ootaki across 
the jaw, knocking him back several feet.

     "I SAID I'm not interested!!" she shouted at him, sitting bolt upright, 
trembling with anger... "Now LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!"

     The man was gone before the final word oozed from her shaking lips.

     Urd forced herself back into the comfort of her chair.  She squeezed her 
eyes shut, mumbled to herself, tried to drive that feeling back down.  Put it 
away.  It's over now, and... and he was only trying to be nice.  He was 
trying to be nice and she bit his head off for it.

     The whole vacation thing felt soured now, as if she was unfit to sit 
here and relax in a social atmosphere.  She hoped Belldandy was almost done 
with getting this guy in line... right now, very much, Urd wanted to go back 
to her apartment in Heaven and have a nice stiff drink.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     It's not like it took two hours to formulate the plan.  No, she already 
knew the plan; it was a simple one and she'd executed it many times in the 
past.  The two hours were spent seeking out a better bikini.

     If Sayoko was truly to pull Keiichi and Belldandy apart, she had to be 
even more appealing than Belldandy.  Given that they were nearly equal in all 
categories other than swimwear, that meant an upgrade.  About an hour to pick 
out JUST the right string bikini, one that had to be lightly glued to prevent 
a public indecency legal infraction, and another half hour to have a light 
lunch (and observe the bikini's effects on any males around her).  A hot dog 
later and many visible hot dogs below the waist of the other guys at the fast 
food stand and she knew she had a winner.

     Step two was to set up the girl for her downfall... another twenty 
minutes to scout out the boardwalk and find just the right scenario.  Lastly, 
ten minutes to track down a sufficient middleman for her trigger.

     As the afternoon sun started to sink, Sayoko was stalking her prey 
across the blazing hot sands.  She strutted, she strolled, she turned heads 
as she went... but was only interested in one head.

     "Hasegawa?" Sayoko addressed.

     Oddly, the young girl lopped a handlebar off the sand motorcycle she was 
making in surprise.  She dropped the plastic shovel and looked up at her 
upperclasswoman.

     "S-Sayoko-san!" she exclaimed.  "Ah... how are you?"

     "I have a note I need you to deliver to Belldandy," Sayoko explained, 
passing the folded paper to the smaller girl.  "Please see to it that she 
gets it immediately, will you?  Don't tell her who sent it."

     The paper was snatched away fast enough to give her delicate skin a 
paper cut.

     "Yes, immediately!" Hasegawa repeated.  "I won't let you down!"

     Before Sayoko could thank her, the girl was off and running, kicking up 
a light cloud of sand behind her.  Not that Sayoko had plans to thank her, of 
course.

     The bait was set.  Now, to wait, and stalk her true prey.

     It takes a certain kind of psyche to constantly think in terms of 
predatory metaphors, and Sayoko had a mind like a steel trap.  So to speak.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Normally, being a seductress implied being a predator.  There are 
special exceptions to that, such as Belldandy, who didn't see her efforts to 
win over Keiichi's lust as being very 'hunting' oriented at all.  She saw it 
more like helping enlighten the boy about his true feelings.

     And yet, Urd's words did echo in her mind, as she mixed up the 'special' 
lemonade.

     'You know, this isn't really going to help you,' Urd had warned.  
'Drugging him to raise his confidence levels and bring out his true desires 
is still drugging him.  He's not going to be happy about this.'

     'It's just an icebreaker, oneesan.  I know his heart, and he'll 
understand once he accepts what he believes in!'

     'I hope for your sake you're right about him.  I don't have enough money 
to buy you enough beer to cry into if you lose him.'

     It was enough to make her pause, the stirring spoon like a rock in the 
swirling yellow drink.

     What if she was wrong?  She had been putting her full faith this whole 
week in Keiichi's repressed desire for her.  He wouldn't have wished for her 
services and been granted them if there wasn't a desire inside him.  He just 
was too... too nice to admit it to her.

     But what if she was wrong?  Shinigami said the system had been having 
problems lately.  Urd said the office had been a madhouse this week.  What if 
it was wrong?  What if Keiichi... he had wanted to call her a tramp earlier 
today but couldn't bring himself to.  What if he thought...

     No.  She resumed stirring, with some force.  She had faith in his 
feelings, and her own.  Her sister might have lost all faith in love when she 
broke up, but Belldandy refused to think that someone as kind-hearted as 
Keiichi could be such a liar.  There HAD to be something between them... 
there had to be.

     She withdrew the spoon, put on her best smiling game face, and turned to 
present the drugged lemonade pitcher to Keiichi.

     "Keiichi, I made lemonade for you!" she chimed.

     Keiichi looked up from his task of polishing a flat, oblong chunk of 
fiberglass.  "Lemonade?  Actually... yeah, I could use some.  Thanks, 
Belldandy."

     Smiling brightly, Belldandy began to pour a glass.  "Is that a 
surfboard, Keiichi?  I thought you couldn't swim.  And it looks a little 
small, too..."

     "It's sort of a skimmer," Keiichi explained, as he took the drink from 
her.  "You run through the water where it's only a few inches deep, then hop 
on and coast for awhile.  I figured it'd be a good exercise in fluid dynamics 
to make one, and maybe I could use it to streamline our new racer--"

     "BELLDANDY-SAAAAN!"

     Both looked over at the new arrival, who could have been clocked at 
twenty miles an hour on a radar gun.  Hasegawa slapped on the brakes and 
skidded to a halt... kicking up enough sand to turn Keiichi's glass of 
lemonade into mud.  Belldandy pouted in disappointment, and quickly fetched 
another empty to fill for him -- before Hasegawa stopped her.

     "Umm... someone wanted me to give you this note," Hasegawa explained, 
pressing the paper into her hand.

     A warning from Urd? Belldandy thought.  She put the lemonade on hold, 
and unfolded it to read...

            'Please meet me in the alley next to the arcade.
             I have important news.
             Signed, an old friend.'

     Quickly, she crumpled the note.  Urd wouldn't sign it that way... but 
Shinigami might.  He tended to be discrete around the mortals, and if he had 
news about the system errors, he wouldn't want to attract a lot of 
attention... Keiichi would have to wait.

     "Gomen ne(*), Keiichi, I have to go for a bit," Belldandy apologized, as 
she got to her feet.  "I'll be back soon to watch you with your... ah... 
skimmer thing, I promise!"                       * the 23rd shogun of Japan,
                                                   known for legalizing Pocky
     "Oh... okay," Keiichi said, tucking the finished board under an arm.  
"I'll be down the beach a bit near the rocks if you need me."

     As the goddess ran off in slow motion because these things are 
traditional, Hasegawa tried to catch her breath.  "I... ran really fast to 
make sure she got it," she explained.  "I'm totally spent!  I really have to 
get into better shape if I'm going to be racing for the club..."

     "Maybe you should have some lemonade and sit down for awhile," Keiichi 
suggested.  "Take a load off, Hasegawa-kun.  I won't need the beach chair for 
awhile; I've got ten to hang!  I think."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Smoke curled in the air between the two buildings, the thick kind of 
smoke you'd get from lighting controlled substances rolled into a little 
stick.  It was being passed around among the six surf punks, as they laughed 
at an extraordinarily lame joke.

     Another important aspect of The Beach is differentiating between the 
tourist-friendly zones, and the seedier underbelly of The Beach.  In its back 
alleys, less reputable arcades and cheaper parking lots you'll find 
degenerate teens who come here to cause problems, get rowdy and have fun at 
someone else's expense.  The tourists tend to shy away from these sorts, 
rather than seek them out.

     "So I says to the bitch, 'Hey... that's my ARM!'" the lead degenerate 
punk punchlined, as the others howled in laughter.  "Get it?  'That's my 
ARM!'  AHAHAHAHAAA!  God, I swear, she gives me a hell of a time.  I really 
oughtta trade up, y'know?  I--"

     "Erm, excuse me..."

     All eyes, even the dilated ones, swiveled to look at the goddess in the 
mildly illegal swimsuit.

     "Ah..." Belldandy said, unsure of herself now.  "Have... any of you seen 
a tall man in black around here?"

     "You're looking for a man?" the leader asked.

     "Yes, I am."

     "Came to the right place, then..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     It's hard to see anything when you're buried up to your ribcage in wet 
sand.  That's why Keiichi wasn't sure where he was; after stepping on the 
skimmer, everything sort of became a blur until be became one with the earth.  
Maybe he'd added a little bit too much of Ootaki's special machinery 
lubricant to the board...

     With no small amount of effort, he pried himself loose from the surf.  
He shook mud out if his hair, and looked around for the board... which was 
embedded six inches into the solid stone of The Rocks.  Wild!  If only he 
could achieve that kind of performance on the track...

     "Keiiiiichi-san?"

     Keiichi glanced over his shoulder to see who was addressing him, and 
nearly suffered a spontaneous nosebleed.

     He knew what Sayoko looked like, even if he hadn't spoken to her very 
much.  But unlike the Sayoko that grumpily marched up to Belldandy this 
morning, this was... a statuesque picture of feminine charms.  Dripping with 
beads of ocean water, wearing what looked like a few brushstrokes of body 
paint, striking a distinctively alluring pose, and smiling at him with ruby 
red lips...

     The skimmer embedded in a jaunty upward angle in The Rocks was an 
accurate metaphor for Keiichi's reaction.

     "I'm surprised to see you out here," Sayoko breathed, no so much 
speaking as she was expressing in full body language.  She slinked on over to 
his side, a strange sort of stroll that involved lots of leg but very little 
actual movement and yet covered ground faster than his skimmer had.  "Do you 
like my new swimsuit?  I just bought it today."

     "Gah gah um um er gee um," Keiichi critiqued.

     "But it chafes me SO much," Sayoko complained, pouting better than 
Jennifer Lopez.  "Maybe I should return it to the store... every step I take 
is so uncomfortable.  Actually..."

     It must not have been body art, because Sayoko didn't apply any alcohol 
based paint thinners to get out of the thing.  She tossed her wet hair back, 
pressing her chest forward towards him for a little added emphasis.  It was 
also obvious that the water was cold today.

     "...that's much better," she spoke, letting it fall into the surf.  "You 
don't mind, do you Keiichi?"

     Panic.  Panic like a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory, panic 
like a stock broker on the day of a crash... but not panic out the other side 
yet.  Just enough panic to stun Keiichi for 1d6 rounds of play... as Sayoko 
pressed her tight-and-welcoming little co-ed body against his rigid-with-fear 
little co-ed body.  She mmmmmm'd just so, stroking a hand along his back.

     "I'm so glad you came out here, Keiichi," Sayoko said without explaining 
how she tracked him here and had to run at full speed to catch up with him 
which annoyed her greatly.  "Here, we can be alone... I can finally tell you 
how much I want you.  I've wanted you ever since....... when did you get to 
school, exactly?"

     "L-L-L-L-Last year," Keiichi answered.

     "Since last year.  I've wanted you since last year.  And now, all this 
can be yours," Sayoko giggled.  "Isn't that nice?  Belldandy doesn't have to 
know..."

     There was no line drawn in the sand, but Keiichi just crossed one 
anyway.  It was the line between 'ohmygodohmygodohmygod' panic and into fully 
sober emergency self-preservation panic.

     "B-Belldandy?" he stammered.  "What about her?"

     "Oh, everybody at school talks about you two," Sayoko purred, tickling 
his chin.  "But I bet I'd be a MUCH better lover than she is..."

     "Hey hey... don't get the wrong idea!" Keiichi pleaded... while trying 
to nudge Sayoko away.  "We aren't like that!  Really!  She just... lives at 
my house and does anything I want her to do.  But we're not lovers!"

     "Ooooh!" Sayoko squealed.  "All the better!  Now I'm here to satisfy you 
as a lover, Keiichi.  Wouldn't you like that?  Men always do."

     Frantic, Keiichi looked around for any interruptions that could give him 
a stay of execution.  Much to his non-delight, it looked like nobody was 
around.

     "Looking for Belldandy?" Sayoko asked.  She pulled away just enough to 
laugh into the back of her hand.  "Ohohoho!  She's probably busy with those 
street thugs."

     "No, I was-- what?"

     "I sent her off to talk to a few of the locals so we could be alone," 
Sayoko explained.  "She doesn't matter, ne?  All that matters is you, me, and 
the many things I can do with my--"

     Using catlike reflexes he didn't know he had, Keiichi wiggled free of 
the jaws of life.  "WHAT street thugs?!"

     "Just some locals who hang out around the arcade," Sayoko dismissed.  "I 
saw her go off to meet them.  Probably some men she wanted to play with since 
she's not your girl... odds are she's their doorknob right now, and loving 
every minute of it, the little slut.  Really, Keiichi, Belldandy is SUCH a 
tramp, you can do much better than her..."

     The temperature lowered by six degrees Celsius.

     "You sent that note," Keiichi spoke, glaring at Sayoko.  "You're lying.  
Belldandy is not that sort of girl.  She wouldn't run off and do that sort of 
thing... maybe she's not my lover, but I KNOW Belldandy, and that is not 
Belldandy.  You sent that note to get her away from me so you could... so you 
could try to seduce me!"

     "Oh, come on, would I do a thing like that?"

     "Yes, actually, you would!" Keiichi shouted.  "I know who you are, 
Sayoko.  EVERYBODY knows what you are.  ...I don't know why you'd target me 
rather than someone important, and, um... maybe I should be a little 
flattered, but... but that's irrelevant!  I'm not interested in that kind of 
thing!  I'mmmaaiieieeEEE--"

     "I think your little friend says you are," Sayoko said, cupping the Rock 
of Gibraltar through Keiichi's shorts.  "You can't deny that, Keiichi.  You 
DO have a libido somewhere in there whether you like to admit it or not!  
Whine all you want, you know it to be true.  Since Belldandy's busy, why not 
enjoy some time with--"

     "I've... I've got to go!" Keiichi blurted, yanking away and pulling his 
skimmer free from The Rocks with a pump of pure adrenaline.  "Don't you get 
it?  Belldandy may be able to whack Tamiya around, but she's not going to be 
able to fend off a whole gang of punks!  I've got to go help her!"

     Sayoko frowned.  "But KEIICHI--"

     "Leave me alone!" Keiichi yelled back, jogging out of sight.  "I'm not 
your plaything!  And don't mess with Belldandy again, or... or... or you'll 
wish you hadn't I think!"  Then, because he was a polite young man, he added, 
"Gomen ne!" before dropping the skimmer, hopping on and rocketing out of 
sight along The Surf.

     Sayoko stood in the wet sand, the waves lapping at her ankles.  No 
longer a figure of beauty and grace, she was fully annoyed -- crossing her 
arms under her breasts and staring at Keiichi as he shot out of sight, arms 
waving as he tried to keep his balance.

     He had resisted her charms.  NOBODY resisted her charms.  She could tell 
his body was ready and willing to go, but something had obviously been strong 
enough to hold him back... and it couldn't have just been Sayoko not being 
his 'type'.

     But it was of no importance.  One plan to shatter Belldandy's pride had 
failed, but there would always be another plan.  She had all day to work on 
one, after all.  If only she could find her swimsuit, since the water had 
washed it out to sea...

     She was busy scanning the surf to look for the thing when she was 
attacked.

     Executing a flawless judo throw, Sayoko tossed her would-be assailant to 
the sand... and then stood in shock.

     "You?" she asked, incredilous.

     "Sayoko-sama!" Hasegawa spoke up, getting to her feet quickly... and 
glomping onto Sayoko's glisteningly wet bod.  "I LOVE you, Sayoko-sama!"

     "...........excuse me, what was that again?"

     "It's so strange, I've never felt this confident before!" Hasegawa spoke 
quickly, as if on a sugar high.  "But for the first time I'm able to say how 
I truly feel without mumbling...  that I have been in love with you since the 
first time I saw you!  You're so graceful, so beautiful, so powerful, so 
commanding..."

     (Sayoko opened her mouth to object, but she actually agreed on all those 
points.)

     "I saw you earlier this morning with the captain of the baseball team," 
Hasegawa admitted.  "I was hiding and watching.  But you weren't enjoying it 
at all!  That was so sad.  I can make you much happier!  Here, let me show 
you..."

     "I don't think that's truly nessmmfmfffff."

     Even people who haven't actually seen Gone With the Wind agree it has 
one of the most memorable kisses in all of recorded history.  The kind of 
kiss that becomes a prototype for all kisses to come thereafter, a sort of 
perfect mold that all other kisses are cheap derivatives thereof.  It's a 
shame that this is so, since copies just don't match up to the real thing... 
which Sayoko could attest to, since she just received the real thing from the 
least likely source imaginable.

     No guy kissed that good.  Guys were sloppy, clumsy, and out for 
themselves.  (Sayoko was out for herself too, but that was only fitting in 
the natural order of things.)  This was a kiss that ranked above all others 
she'd had to an order of magnitude.

     She wondered why she was carrying a heavy load before realizing she'd 
actually put her arms around Hasegawa and lifted her up to her toes.  The 
body felt... different.  Unique.  Much softer and nicer than the usual bodies 
she was squished up against.

     No wonder she thought guys were boring, skillless and pathetic.  She'd 
never really enjoyed sex since it was always a tool used with people she had 
no actual attraction to whatsoever.  This was different.  This was something 
she was actually enjoying.

     This was making her think that her swimsuit flushing out to the greater 
Pacific circle wasn't such a bad thing right now.  She also thought that The 
Rocks did an excellent job at earning her a little privacy, and she felt 
quite happy to take immediate advantage of it.

     Ruining Belldandy's life could wait another few minutes.

     Maybe an hour.

     Three hours, tops.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Keiichi's bare feet pounded against the boardwalk as he sprinted.  The 
skimmer had actually whisked across three dunes before planting him headfirst 
in the sand again, but he was back to his feet and running in moments.  His 
back would punish him later for it once the adrenaline wore off, but that 
didn't matter.

     The arcade was at the opposite end of the boardwalk... the 'wrong side 
of the sands', so to speak.  Keiichi rounded the corner, and saw a likely 
alley...

     And in the alley, Belldandy surrounded by a half a dozen men.

     Roaring into the alley like a crouching tiger sprung from a cannon ready 
to strike down great with vengeance and furious mixed metaphors, Keiichi 
hurled himself towards the first punk he saw.  "Get your hands off her, you 
BASTARD!" he shouted since it felt like the right thing to say at the time, 
as his fist pulled back and snapped forward to--

     To 'whumph' harmlessly against the punk's chest.

     An awkward silence ensued.

     "...um," Keiichi managed before eating a haymaker across his chin.  He 
flopped flat on his back and started to see little tweeting birds circling 
his head... and a vision of a goddess.

     "Keiichi-sama?" Belldandy asked, confused.  She waved a hand in front of 
his eyes, snapped her fingers.  "Are you okay?"

     "...brain rebooting..." Keiichi mumbled.

     "Oi, Bell, this guy a friend of yours?" The punk asked, shaking his hand 
free.  "What's his problem, anyway?"

     Keiichi sat up, wiping away some blood from his swelling lip.  "...I was 
saving her from you weirdos!" Keiichi declared.  "You'll regret laying a hand 
on her once I'm able to stand on my own and maybe get a weapon of some kind, 
pal!"

     "Um... Keiichi-sama, they haven't laid a hand on me," Belldandy said.  
"I was looking for an old friend of mine, but these nice men were helpful 
enough to tell me they haven't seen him.  Then we got to swapping naughty 
jokes a bit... I'm sorry, I guess I should have come right back.  This is my 
fault..."

     "Jeez, Bell, don't be so whipped," the punk mocked.  "Guys, c'mon.  We 
gotta get some chow and then get to the strip.  Later, Bell."

     "Word up, man!" Bell cheerfully spoke, knocking her fist against his 
once in salutations.

     Keiichi's mind struggled to keep up, as his headache set in.  "Uh... 
so... you weren't actually in any danger?  ...ow.  Ow.  Head.  Ow..."

     "Let's get you some ice, Keiichi-sama," Belldandy said, helping him to 
his feet.  "Um... you were really worried about me enough to fight for me?"

     "Well, yeah.  I mean, girls can't defend thems... err.  I mean... not 
that I'm saying you're helpless, I mean, I don't want to offend women in 
general or something, or say I have to be a knight in shining armor, I mean, 
but, uh... uh... why are you laughing?"

     Belldandy stopped her light giggling, and tried to swallow it down.  
"Nothing, nothing... you're just so cute when you're babbling, Keiichi-sama. 
Don't worry about offending me, okay?  I'm happy with you the way you are.  
Now, I know of a terrific snow cone stand where we can get you some ice."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Dessert heals all wounds.  The United Nations could get a lot more work 
done if ice cream sundaes were distributed before all trade talks and peace 
negotiations.  Unless you eat them too fast, which Keiichi unfortunately did, 
making his headache worse...

     But despite that, he felt content.  Happy, almost.

     He sat on the railing at the edge of the boardwalk, watching as the sun 
set across the waves.  Belldandy sat next to him, taking polite little 
spoonfuls from her sundae, sharing this quiet moment.

     Quiet was good; quiet promoted thought.  He had a LOT to think about.

     He really had rushed to save Belldandy... not just to save a girl in 
peril as any gentleman would do, but specifically to save Belldandy.  The 
sharp pang he felt when he thought of her in danger, the driving urge to save 
her... it made no sense if he truly wished she'd stop complicating his life 
by getting out of it.

     Of course, he hadn't exactly kicked her out of the house, had he?  He 
could have been a bastard and given her the boot, rejected the contract, done 
any number of things to simplify his existence and get her demanding presence 
away from him... and he hadn't.  And now he'd just rushed to preserve that 
relationship.  Which meant... there was a relationship.

     Sitting here, watching the setting sun, he could feel something between 
them.  He had no clue what to make of it, but it wasn't the cold indifference 
he had been trying to maintain for so long.  The chilled dessert wasn't 
cutting that warmth, either.

     Something was going on inside him.  Sayoko said it directly; he couldn't 
deny he DID have a libido, and Belldandy... well, there was more to it than 
just some primitive lust, which he felt he was 'above'.  What was it?  What 
did it mean?  He wanted a perfect girl, the perfect love, walking under the 
umbrella, walking along the beach at sunset--

     "Keiichi-sama?"

     He kept his balance, despite the broken silence surprising him.  "Ah... 
hai, Belldandy?"

     "Do you want to take a walk on the beach?"

     "..........." Keiichi agreed.

     The goddess peered at him curiously.  "What's wrong?"

     "...I just never thought you'd say that," Keiichi spoke.  "I always 
figured that you'd--"

     "There's a perfectly good set of rocks over there we could have sex 
behind!" she continued, pointing to The Rocks in the distance.  "Nobody would 
see us.  Rolling around in the sand sounds fun, doesn't it?"

     ".......I don't think I'm up for that so soon after getting mauled," 
Keiichi decided, the tension cracking.  "But... how about just the walk?"

     Belldandy thought it over.  "Well... okay."  She gave him a smile.  "If 
you'd like."

     And so, the young couple had a walk along the beach in the light of a 
setting sun, and all was well.

     The obfuscated goddess sat at her table in an outdoor cafe, swirling a 
pina colada in one hand as she watched them leave.

     Urd wasn't sure HOW it worked, given every plan she launched had 
flopped, but it had somehow worked out.  You can't argue with success.  The 
two still weren't on solid ground, but the groundings for a relationship had 
been made...

     Not that Urd felt this would end up in anything but disaster.  Still, it 
was nice to see her beloved sister smile, and that was worth any trouble.  
She drained the glass and un-obfuscated to tap her table and summon a waiter.

     "Make it a double this time, and quit watering it down," Urd requested, 
passing the glass over to...

     "Ah... what is it you wanted me to do with this?" the God of Death 
asked, studying the empty glass in greater detail.

     "Shinigami?" Urd asked.  "What're you doing here?"

     "Following up on a request of Belldandy's," the god spoke, sitting down 
at Urd's table.  "I don't see her around, but if you're here, perhaps you can 
pass it along..."

     "I'm not staying long," Urd warned.  "Looks like Bell's got her dance 
card full, so I was gonna leave 'em alone and head back upstairs.  Odds are 
the work is piling up while I'm wasting valuable time--"

     "It might be best if you stay here a moment, Norn of the Past."

     "Eh?"

     "You know the unusual outbreak of system errors we've been having in 
Yggdrasil this week?" Shinigami spoke.  "I did some checking... the very 
first one on file concerns Belldandy's contract."

     "Damn it all," Urd cursed.  "I TOLD her it was doomed!"

     "It's possible the contract was a random flub... but I believe someone 
else changed the system to accept a potentially flawed contract," Shinigami 
explained.  "Someone hacked Yggdrasil."

     "That's impossible.  We have firewalls.  Safeties tested a thousand 
times over against outside attacks.  No demon from downstairs could possibly 
get into--"

     "I don't think it was a demon, Urd.  This is being covered up," 
Shinigami warned.  "Inside job changes being masked as simple system errors.  
There could be a rouge inside Heaven doing this.  Belldandy was just the tip 
of the iceberg... I think.  I'm projecting here, and I know I tend to deal in 
'closure' rather than 'development', but it seems clear cut..."

     Urd rubbed her forehead.  "In other words, major bad news.  You really 
think a God or Goddess would mess up the system?  Why do it?  These were 
ordinary bugs, Shin, no rhyme or reason to them.  Trust me, I was the one 
doing most of the patching... well, me and Skuld.  But she's in a different 
department..."

     "You should let Belldandy know as soon as possible," Shingami suggested.  
"Stay and tell her about this.  She may want to break the contract and return 
upstairs so she can... what?"

     Urd was shaking her head, doom settling around her.  "She's not gonna 
want to leave, Shin.  You know anything about the boy she's hanging with 
lately?"

     "...actually, yes," Shinigami said.  "She has... a strong attachment."

     "Contractual error or not, she's determined to be at his side.  You 
can't stop Belldandy when she's determined... I know first-hand.  I'll stay 
put, but I'm staying to watch over her and make sure she has a happy life."

     "A 'happy life?'"

     "This is the happiest I've seen Belldandy in years," Urd explained.  
"Maybe it's all an error, maybe I should be steering her away from it before 
it explodes... but she deserves a little happiness after her tireless 
dedication to the job, doesn't she?  SOMEONE deserves a little happiness.  
You go back upstairs, scout for more info... I'll stay down here and try to 
keep the fallout from messing with her life.  Hopefully you're reading into 
this and it's just simple errors, and Belldandy's involvement is a simple 
coincidence..."

     "I'm the embodiment of finality, Urd.  I believe my conclusions have 
weight.  I will do as you say... but what about your job?"

     "I believe in multitasking," Urd spoke with a wry grin.  She closed her 
eyes, snapped her fingers...

     A Chibi-Urd popped into existence.  It landed on its tush against the 
hard table, 'oof'ing as bounced once.

     "Get upstairs and get to work," Urd ordered.  "You get to handle the 
debugging assignments.  I've got things to do on Earth."

     "Waah, I don't wanna do hard work!" the Chibi-Urd whined.

     Urd started to coil a whip she summoned from nowhere.

     "Eee!  I'll be good, mistress!" the Chibi-Urd pleaded.  "Yosh!  I'm 
off!"  In a puff of adorable cuteness, it vanished.

     "...that is a trick I may wish to learn some day," Shinigami said.  "It 
is a marvelous way to get many things done at once."

     "Shin, the idea of a kawaii(*) Mini-Death scares me."
                                                            * cavity inducing
     "Hmm.  Me as well, actually.  And I'm the final fear of all life, which 
goes to say something."

     "I think I need a stiffer drink," Urd decided.  "You wanna join me, 
Shin?  Death takes a holiday?  It'll be fun, an all night sake-chugging 
karoke funfest."

     Shinigami slid his chair back a bit.  "I believe that wouldn't be... 
fitting, for me.  No offense, of course."

     "It's startling, the way you can shrug off your admirers," Urd teased.  
"You're hot stuff to the office girls upstairs, you know.  There's just 
something about a bishounen Angel of Death that makes a girl hot."

     "Err..." Death stammered.  "Right.  I'll just be off now.  Excuse me."

     Urd laughed herself silly, as he faded into shadow.  He was so stiff and 
formal... so much so that social relations tended to throw him for a loop.  
Thrown in a very cute way.

     Kind of like Keiichi.

     Urd could sort of see how Belldandy might like the boy.  After all, Urd 
herself had a crush on Shinigami once...

     ...and she really did need that drink.  Wandering into the cafe, she 
ordered up most of their stock and forgot the rest of the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     The next morning in the Seaside Motel, Sayoko took a shower.

     Of course, saying "Sayoko took a shower" is reducing the act to its most 
basic and informative details.  It's bad style to directly state that sort of 
thing.  'More detail is required to allow a vision in the mind of the 
specifics of the act,' pundits might say.  'The progression of narrative is 
enhanced by the sections of prose devoted to the five senses, which allow for 
a stronger sense of understanding adjacent to the linear state of time.'

     'I just wanna see more tits,' would be the answer for other people.

     So:

     Sayoko squirted more of the creamy white liquid soap onto her sponge.  
She squeezed the sponge tightly in one hand, the suds oozing from its every 
pore, creating a foamy surface... a surface which was rubbed across her 
breasts, lathering them oh so nicely.  The sponge dragged across her nipples, 
those sensitive nubs which reacted favorably to being cleansed by the rushing 
warm water from the showerhead, and Sayoko's own hands as she squeezed and 
fondled them, making sure to get every square inch soaped and rinsed, heaving 
with every moaning breath she took

     Much better.

     It had been an... eventful night.  A pleasurable night.  Of course, she 
had completely forgotten to resume her 'Destroy Belldandy' plans, but could 
she be blamed?  Such a distraction merited putting her affairs on hold until 
her other affairs could be dealt with.  Besides, she needed to put more 
thought to the next step before proceeding.

     She wasn't interested in stealing Keiichi away anymore.  She wasn't 
interested in Keiichi in the first place, and much to her surprise, wasn't 
interested in ANY boy.  Surely there were other ways... more cunning ways... 
to achieve her goal than to have to deal with Keiichi's likely clumsy 
ministrations.  She had no need of such things, not anymore...

     Another pair of hands joined the pair of hands scrubbing her chest.

     "Mmmmmm," Hasegawa moaned, pressing up against her back.

     "Gooood morning," Sayoko greeted, smiling.  "And how are we today, 
little Hasegawa-chan?"

     "Very good, Sayoko-sama!" she replied.

     "Excellent.  I'm afraid we must pack and depart for home now... but 
soon, I may need your help in a plan to destroy Belldandy."

     "Okay!  When do we start?"

     "...isn't she your friend?" Sayoko asked, turning a bit to face 
Hasegawa.

     "Oh, she's nice, but you're my Sayoko-sama," Hasegawa clarified.  "I'll 
do anything you want, mistress!"

     It had a fitting ring, Sayoko had to admit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     That morning in the Seaside Motel, Keiichi took a shower.

     Of course, saying "Keiichi took a shower" is reducing the act to its 
most basic and informative details.  It's bad style to directly state that 
sort of thing.  'More detail is required to allow a vision in the mind of the 
specifics of the act,' pundits might say.  'The progression of narrative is 
enhanced by the sections of prose devoted to the five senses, which allow for 
a stronger sense of understanding adjacent to the linear state of time.'

     'I just wanna see more penises,' would be the answer for other people.

     So:

     Keiichi soaped down his limp member, making sure to work the lather into 
every crevasse and wrinkle, tugging on the skin and working his fingers along 
the length, and...

     Eh, that'll do.

     It had been an uneventful night, and Keiichi was quite thankful for 
that.  They had a nice stroll along the beach, and despite Bell insisting on 
holding his hand... his OTHER hand, which meant she was glued to his side... 
there was nothing ecchi(*) about it.  It was a nice, romantic stroll by 
sunset...                                              * socially acceptable

     Then she'd wanted to sleep in his bed, which he vetoed, but he'd vetoed 
it in a very polite way and she seemed to accept that.  She strolled around 
naked while Keiichi was getting ready for bed, but somehow, that was 
acceptable too, without him pretending she wasn't there.

     Something was happening.  It wasn't something Keiichi could identify, 
but whatever it was meant that he wasn't so tense around her anymore.  He 
wasn't Mr. Suave and Relaxed by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn't 
wound like a Swiss watch, either... he was calm.  In control.

     Another hands joined the hand washing his cock.

     "Mmmmmm," Belldandy moaned, pressing up against her back.

     "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" Keiichi screamed, his arms waving 
madly -- and whacking the temperature knob, spinning it all the way to 
'COLD'.

     "AAAAHH!" Belldandy screamed, as the two of them were hit by water 
imported directly from Nome, Alaska.  She tried to escape the shower stall, 
but had closed the door on the way in, as the two frantically scrabbled for 
the handle...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Sayoko's happy warm melting thoughts as she sat in her shower were 
interrupted by the sounds of heavy physical thumping and screams from the 
other side of the wall.  Very passionate thumping and yelling...
 
     Her partner looked up for a moment from what she was doing between 
Sayoko's thighs, looking a little shocked.  "Isn't that... Belldandy and 
Keiichi?  It sounds like... like they're *reinventing* sex in there!"

     "Bah.  'Not lovers' my ass," Sayoko grumbled.  "Keiichi just wasn't man 
enough to admit it..."

     "You wanted your ass done now, mistress?"

     "No no, you're doing fine.  Continue," Sayoko suggested.  Her mind 
drifted a bit... if those two WERE close, perhaps this could be used as 
leverage.  Perhaps...

     Bah.  Plan later.  Enjoy life for now.  As good a policy as any.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     That afternoon, Keiichi and Belldandy returned to the temple.  Before 
they could even store their luggage, their lives changed.

     Urd glanced over from her position ensconched on the sofa, where she was 
lounging around in an open bathrobe and watching gay porno with a bottle of 
sake at her side.  "Hey, sis.  I'm gonna be staying with you guys for 
awhile."

     "Really?  That's great!" Belldandy exclaimed.  "Keiichi-sama, this is my 
big sister, Urd.  She taught me everything I know!  Um, you can afford to 
feed three people, right?"

     I hate my life, Keiichi thought to himself.(*)


                                                           * TO BE CONTINUED