Cecil and Arisa went to her house after the party and he gave her a massage. "Thank you Master. Your cocktart really needed this." "Just maintaining my property love," he chuckled. He worked on her for an hour, manipulating her muscles at a leisurely pace. Once he was done, she took a shower and then they climbed into bed together, Cecil holding his 14 year old slave close to him. "Please relax and if you want to go to sleep darling you may do so." "Thank you Master." She eventually nodded off and, after holding her a while longer, he slowly got out of bed and went home.

Sunday, as Haruko said, she and Steven went to Ms. McMullen's beauty shop. Steven waited quietly on his knees in front of Haruko as she sat in a chair reading the L.A. Times. She let Steven have the entertainment section as he waited for the Mistress of the house to attend to him. "Mistress Haruko, please have your property report to the platform." "Thank you Mistress," she said, as he scurried on to the platform after removing his shoes and socks so that she could inspect his toenails." "Mistress Haruko, I think he's ready to have his hair done today. I'll take him out into the front of the  shop and have Alicia wash his hair first and then I'll style it when it's ready." "Thank you Mistress. Sorry to be so much trouble." No problem Mistress Haruko. It's great seeing you again." "Master Ethan, please have your property report to the platform." "Thank you Mistress," he said, as Aya skipped over to have her nails examined. "Master Ethan, your property only requires just a little bit of a trim and then we'll send her over to Thuy.": "Thank you Mistress. Sorry to harry you when you're so busy." "It comes with being in business Master Ethan and I hope you will harry me more in the future." 'Thank you for your generosity Mistress."

Ms. McMullen cleaned up some small unevenness in Aya's hair and then had her romp over to her nail specialist Thuy. Steven was now ready to have his hair done and Ms. McMullen took her time with it, parting it dead center and then evening it out, trying to have it frame his face in an androgynous way. She called it "a modified Roger Daltrey. or butched up Farrah Fawcett." Steven was pleased with it and Haruko thought it made him look a lot hotter.

Monday morning as she sat in class, Haruko kept gazing at her engagement ring like she couldn't believe it was hers. She felt so lucky and grateful as she looked at her fellow students, who wouldn't know who they were going to spend the rest of their lives with for a decade or more, maybe never. She also had her betrothed fully under her control and he was already established economically. She  wondered just how much loot they would realize when those new generation navigation systems Steven and his father created began to go into airliners and fighter jets in a year or two. It seemed surreal. "Haruko! Haruko!" "Huh, oh sorry Mr. Williams, I didn't hear the question." "Maybe you need to stop looking at your ring so much and paying more attention." "Sorry. I just got engaged yesterday and I'm still kinda in shock about it." "Uh, well, congratulations." "Thanks," she smiled. "So who are you going to marry Haruko," one of the other girls asked. "Steven Morris." "Steven Morris? Really? Ooookay," she echoed dubiously.

In her second period class, one of the girls asked why she was wearing such an expensive looking ring to school. "Because I got engaged yesterday," Haruko sang.  "Why? Are you pregnant?" "No." "You're not still going out with that faggot Steven Morris, are you?" one of the boys blurted. "Yes I am and I am totally happy about it." "What, does he have a ten inch dick or something?" "No. His is eight, sweety." "Steven Morris has an eight inch cock? You wouldn't know it looking at him. The guy is a total loser." This caused Haruko to cackle. "I'll remember you said that, Jason, when I see you working the cash register at the car wash when you're 35." Then she laughed again.

In third period, one of the girls asked if that was an engagement ring. "Yes it is." "So who's the lucky guy Haruko?" "Steven Morris" "Haruko, girl, come on. A beautiful women like you can do better than that. I mean, really. Like yuck." "Isn't your family already rich Haruko? Why do you need him?" "He gives me everything I need. He's so great." "I know for sure he ain't rich, so what's the appeal?" "He's such a sweety. and he's so smart." "Yeah, he's smart, but God, ewwww! I wouldn't want that on top of me at night," another girl interjected "Said the girl with the boyfriend of the month club," Haruko riposted. "Are you calling me a slut, Haruko?" "Did you hear me use that word Carolyn? However, at your current pace, you'll go through every guy in North America by 2015 and have to start hitting singles bars in China." That last line had everybody guffawing. This angered Carolyn, who went up to where Haruko was sitting and tried to slap her. Haruko, though, blocked it and then pinched the same pressure point in Carolyn's wrist as she had the boy in the science lab and forced her to the ground. "That's it Carolyn, kneel for me. That's a good girl. Now I'm going to give you a choice: I can either kick you in the head, knee you in the head, stomp your head or make you give me head. You choose," she said, with a sadistic smile on her face. Carolyn started to cry. "Sorry sweety, crying isn't on the list of options. Choose again or you'll never be able to use this arm again." From where she was seated, she could see her teacher, Miss Roberson, coming down the hall. "Okay bitch, you got lucky. Next time, be more respectful because you never know who you're dealing with."

Unfortunately for Carolyn, she decided to revisit the question in the gym class she had with Haruko and to have three of her friends help her. Her and her companions surrounded Haruko. "I'm going to kick your ass bitch," Carolyn threatened. "Sweety, I have two new choices for you: one, you can walk away or you get to lose use of your legs for the next six months and so won't be kicking much of anything. Choose carefully. There's only one right answer." Carolyn nevertheless tried to punch Haruko, who ducked it, delivered four hard punches to her opponents mid-section. and then kicked her under her knee, breaking it, and putting her on the ground. Another one of the girls tried to grab her, but Haruko, as she came up, elbowed the girl in the face and then a roundhouse kick in the face put the third girl in the hospital, almost killing her. The fourth girl slinked away. Haruko stood over Carolyn and kicked her tibia, fracturing it. "That was for making me sweat, bitch. Now I feel really gross because of you." She then kicked Carolyn in the ribcage, breaking three of her ribs. "And fighting is so unladylike," she added, before stomping on Carolyn's ankle, causing a hairline fracture. "Okay Haruko, I think you got your point across. The ambulance is already coming," another girl said. "Okay Donna. Sorry about the unpleasantness," Haruko apologized. Donna laughed. "That's the understatement of the year." The ambulance rolled up and picked the three victims up, one of them unconscious. When the coaches tried to find out what happened the girls clammed up, saying they didn't see anything. If they told on Haruko they were perhaps afraid that Rie, who was already referred to as "Kung Fu Blondie" by many students, or Shiho might come looking for them. In the locker room after that, some of the girls expressed astonishment. "God Haruko, you're usually so nice. I would have expected that kind of sadistic attack from your sister." Haruko laughed. "Actually, Rie is quite passive compared to me." "That's scary.." "Please keep in mind that I didn't want that." "I know sweety. I saw what happened."

Haruko recounted what happened at lunch. "God Haruko, that's a great line. I'm going to have to steal it," Eddie said about Haruko's "boyfriend of the month club" zinger.

"By the way, Steven, what's for dinner tonight?" Haruko pondered. "What, is Steven making dinner for you tonight?" Brandon asked. "Yeah, Then he's going to make dinner for his family tomorrow." He told them and Haruko wondered if he was biting off more than he could chew. "You know what cooking is? It's a chemistry experiment you can eat," he propounded. The only thing I'm worried about is some of the mechanical stuff, but the seasoning and the cooking isn't that complicated as long as I'm paying attention." "That doesn't sound very romantic, Steven," Arlene Stevenson insisted. "He's making it for my family, not just me Arlene. So it's okay, but if you really think about it,  he's right."

After the lunch bell rang and everyone began heading to class, Arlene buttonholed Haruko and Steven and whispered, "hey you guys, my dad's company's marketing analyst just released the numbers attached to that little improvement you made in one of our products. I'm not going to quote specific numbers, but if it pans out, you guys pretty much hit the lottery. By the way Haruko, because this has to do with national security, this is top secret, do you understand?" Wow, really? How fun!" "Anyway, thanks Steven. And you can tell your dad. I'm sure he'll be pleased." "Sweet!" Steven exalted. "My boyfriend, the high school millionaire," Haruko joked. "Comin' at ya live, babe!" he smiled.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully and after he walked back to Haruko's place from Mrs. Westfield's, he borrowed Maki's car and went to the supermarket with Haruko. He already had a chocolate layered cheesecake in the fridge that he made from scratch the night before, but he wanted to buy ingredients that were definitely fresh that day. for the main meal  What he ended up making wasn't that complicated per se. It was tempura vegetables, grilled chicken breast on a bed of steamed rice and the cheesecake for dessert. For refreshments he just made some oolong tea.

"That was the best cheesecake I've ever eaten," Erik evaluated. "The chicken was grilled perfectly, but I would personally have preferred just steamed vegetables over the tempura. You have that breading along with the rice and cheesecake the meal gets a little heavy. But otherwise, this was kick ass!"

"For me as a girl, the portion was a bit big," Rie critiqued.. "As much as I love rice, a little less of it and, as daddy said, just steaming the vegetables and slicing the cheesecake a little thinner would have been best, I think. But as far as the taste went, it was really good." "Yeah, I have to agree with Rie," Haruko stated. "Me too," Shiho chimed in. "I don't know you guys. I thought it rocked!" Robbie bubbled. "Yeah, you Americans really need to think about smaller, lighter portions, Maki concluded." "Thanks, everyone. I'll definitely remember that," Steven said.

After he did the dishes, Steven asked Haruko if, aside from needing to roll back the portion sizes a bit, if she was happy with his effort. "I'm totally happy with it, Stephanie. The cheesecake was amazing and the rest of it was more than passable. Not pricey restaurant quality, but I would still be happy eating it again sometime." "I'm glad to hear that." "So what are you going to make for your parents?" "My dad is more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy. He's not exactly an adventurous eater. So I was thinking roasted chicken, potatoes and asparagus. I'm also going to make another cheesecake tonight, but more plain because that's the way my dad likes it." "Well, at least your mom will get a break." "Yeah, she's pretty stoked she won't have to do it. It will be interesting to see what they think of my hair, too." "Well, I really like it. Ms. McMullen has major skills." "For sure."

"So what do you think Arlene meant by "hit the lottery" Mistress?" "I have no idea, Stephanie." "Doing the math in my head, if they wholesale $100 million worth of that device then that will mean $5 million for us," Steven calculated. "I don't really think of that as a lottery level number. It's hard for me to project it out to $1 billion sales and us receiving $50 million from it.. So It's somewhere in between those two figures, I think. Then you have a 40% tax hit on top of that. It could be that they may be able to use it for applications I might not be aware of, like for shipping or something. I was thinking solely in terms of aircraft. If they found a way to get it into cars or military vehicles then the sky is the limit." "Do you think they could get it into cars?" "They definitely could, but you would have to engineer an entire new generation of automobiles, which is a super expensive proposition. Also, could you produce it in a way that it could be put in a car regular people could afford? Second, potentially, it would reduce accidents to such an extent Detroit and Tokyo would hate it. They actually profit off collisions because people are more likely to need, or feel the need, to replace their cars, which means bigger sales. The insurance industry would worship it, though. So if it does go in any vehicles, it will probably be in a defense related capacity, where the budget is, for all intents and purposes, unlimited. We'll  just have to sit back and wait for it all to shake out."

"To switch the conversation to a totally different subject," Haruko began, giggling, "if I asked you to suck a guy's cock would you do it?" "If I thought he was a good looking guy and he was uncircumcised, I would probably do it. But it would have to be a guy who I know wouldn't give me a disease." "So are you bisexual, Stephanie?" "No. I think I have internalized being a girl to some degree and that has kinda tilted me toward wondering what it would be like to suck another guy's dick, but it would largely be to please you, Mistress. I'm totally not interested in relationships with men." "How about if I asked you to let a man fuck you?" "As long as he used a condom and wasn't uber huge and he wasn't gross. But again, it would be mainly to please you Mistress."  "How about cuckolding?" "That is a hard limit, Mistress. If that is something you just gotta have, I can start moving back into my parents' place right now. I'm actually really disturbed you asked me that."

"Stephanie, don't worry about it. I'm just wondering how far I can push you. I'm not going to bring home another guy to fuck me." "I want you to be honest, Mistress. Is that something you, deep down, want to do?" "Listen Stephanie, I know for a fact that if you had the ability, you would fuck anything that was half decent looking and had a vagina. I can pretty much get fucked anytime I want right now and yet I'm not doing it. I've turned down literally dozens of guys. So don't be so threatened." "What's really funny about that response, Mistress, and with all due respect, is that women usually get angry if a guy merely remarks that a certain actress is hot. 'Oh, so that's what you like,' they whine and then go off in a huff. But here, you're talking about screwing another guy in front of me as if it's among the realm of acceptable possibilities and yet you're asking me to not feel threatened? Isn't that hypocritical?" "Okay, Stephanie, you have a point. I'm sorry I brought it up. And no, I'm not already getting bored with you." "Listen Mistress, I really, really love you. You are so precious to me. But I also don't want to be patronized and I certainly don't want to guilt trip you into staying with me. I know you're feelings are still evolving. Be honest with me and with yourself Mistress. If you think you're beginning to check out of the relationship then boot me out the door now while I still have somewhere to go back to. You won't be the first person who has given me the shaft."

Haruko began to cry and shake. "Steven, I'm sorry. God, I don't want to lose you. I went too far and for that I'm sorry." Rie suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Is there something wrong, Haruko?" "Rie, I fucked up bad. Steven thinks I want to cheat on him and use it to humiliate him. Steven, please believe me. I need you in my life." Rie comforted her. "Sorry you had to see your sister cry, Rie. I think it's best if I go to my parents place." "Steven, don't. Haruko does love you. She collared you and accepted your proposal for a reason. Believe me, I know my sister. She doesn't like hurting others."

"Okay, I'm sorry I played the victim card like I did. That wasn't very manly of me. Mistress, what I just felt is what most women do to the men they are with at some point in their relationships. I hope you will learn from that. Your feelings have gone through a lot of changes over the last six months and I was afraid that they were coming to a point where you felt you needed more than what I was willing to give you. Even with this argument, I don't want you to edit yourself or tip toe around me. I want you to be honest so that I know exactly where I stand. I know you can't read my mind because I can't read yours. But I need to know that I am essential to your life. You're essential to mine, Mistress. That's why I want to marry you." "Steven, sweety, you're the best thing to ever happen to me. You've been so sweet and understanding. I kinda stepped on the landmine of your trust issues and I didn't mean to. I will always be honest with you and I have been since we met. Come here baby and hug me." Steven took her lefthand, kissed it and held it. He then backed away and scooted down the bed and sat against the headboard. "Come here and lay in my lap, Haruko," he said, putting a pillow on his stomach for her. She laid down on it. "That's better." "Steven, Haruko thinks your being a part of her life is a blessing. Always remember that, okay?" "Thanks Rie. You're the best." "You're the best thing for my oneechan, Steven. Please stay a part of our family." "Thanks Rie. I will." "I'm glad," Rie said, giving Steven a hug.

He looked down on Haruko and lightly ran his fingers over her face. He leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips. "So are you going to stay?" "Yeah. Sorry I freaked out like that. It just pushed one of my buttons. Listen Haruko, I know people have a need for variety. So I can't really blame you, in the cosmic sense, if you wanted to experiment. In my mind, though, I just try to live day by day and be grateful for everything I have because so many people don't have jack. It's that kind of elemental simplicity that I think helps to make life enjoyable. It tortures me when I think I might have even accidentally hurt you. I know you've defended me in public and declared your love for me to the naysayers even though I'm one of the black sheep of the school. I'm really grateful for that and it makes me feel so close to you. I hope that the two of us can just relax, enjoy what we have and take joy in the happiness of the other. When I make you happy I get a little buzz from it. It's my heroin. So let's try to keep things simple and be good to each other." "Okay baby," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "Why are you crying again?" "I'm so relieved that I didn't cost us our relationship and how sincere and deeply felt your love for me is. I guess it was inevitable that we would have an argument at some point. I think I learned to not be so cavalier when discussing touchy matters." "And I learned that I need to step back and ask for clarification first so that one stupid turn of phrase or bit of overenthusiasm doesn't cost us what we have together."

"It's beginning to get late Mistress. I need to start that cheesecake. Would you like to supervise?" "Yes I would Stephanie." "Thank you Mistress."