Disclaimer: I don’t own Dragonballz nor am I making any money off this story. I’m just having a wee bit of fun.

AFTER THE KISS
By: LisaB

Bulma woke up slowly. Somehow she’d fallen asleep in a totally unnatural position and she winced as she rearranged herself. A glance at the window told her it was going to be an ugly day. It wasn’t raining yet, but if the view from her window was any indication, it would soon.

There was an unidentifiable lump of blue on her carpet. Oh, it was her gown from the night before.

Bulma sat straight up in bed. The night before. . . .

Bulma clapped her hands across her mouth to keep from screaming. Augh! What was I thinking?!!! I KISSED Vegeta!

Bulma scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom. She grabbed her toothbrush, slathered a healthy amount of toothpaste on it and began to scrub.

Scrub away, little girl, her brain said. But no amount of scrubbing is going to wash away the fact you kissed Vegeta not once, but TWICE. And I think the appropriate adverb for the way you kissed him would be "enthusiastically."

Bulma’s toothbrush stilled. "Enthusiastic" might be too weak a word. She’d loved it. It was so. . . raw? Primitive? No, that wasn’t it. Well, it had been raw and primitive, but what was it about kissing Vegeta that had made her react the way she did? She blushed as she remembered putting her hands underneath the jacket to caress his shoulders. He’d just been so accessible. Well, he’s short! The other guys she had kissed were a lot taller than she was. Maybe it was just the way he’d responded. The incredible power she had felt knowing that he’d been not only caught off guard, but (if she knew anything about Vegeta) responding without thinking. He’d just wanted to kiss her. To touch her. Bulma shivered. There’d been touching alright!

Bulma spat out the toothpaste, rinsed off her toothbrush and went back to lie on her bed. She banged her fist against her forehead. It was so stupid of me to get suckered in like that, she thought, remembering how he’d set her up. And so typical of me to be incapable of letting him win. How am I going to face him after that display? He’ll never let it pass unnoticed. Oh no, he’ll probably either a) yell at me for daring to touch his royal person with my common human hands or b)tease me about it every chance he gets or c). . . well, I can’t think of "c" but he’s clever enough to think of one. Hmmph.. His idea of "C" is probably "incinerate offender". Bulma groaned. The truly sad thing is I think I would actually prefer "C" because it would spare me the absolute mortification of having to see him again.

Oh Kami, please let the new gravity room hold out, she prayed. Please let my mother remember to stock his refrigerator.

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While Bulma was fuming, Vegeta was similarly distracted by the previous evening’s kiss, although not for the same reason.

Vegeta was still surprised.

He was surprised not because Bulma had kissed him and not because he had kissed her back.

He was surprised because it had never occurred to him that such a thing could HAPPEN. That he could actually feel desire for her. Well, that he could actually feel desire for anyone.

In all his travels across the galaxy, he had never found anything like a being for whom he could feel sexual desire.

Technically, that was not exactly true. For all its size, the galaxy itself was populated mostly by humanoid species with similar reproductive processes. There were actually quite a few species sexually compatible with Saiyan physiology. However, they usually failed to appeal to Vegeta on two very important counts. One was cleanliness. The types of females usually available to mercenaries didn’t appeal to Vegeta’s fastidious nature, (although Radditz and Nappa didn’t have similar limitations. Vegeta had once joked Nappa would screw a hole in the ground if he was drunk enough.) The second count was simply that they didn’t look Saiyan. It took more than two arms, two legs and a tail to satisfy the second count and those that did usually failed miserably to meet the first count.

Suffice it to say that while Vegeta was not exactly a total novice sexually, he’d really been more of a recipient of sexual attentions than a participant. There hadn’t been anyone that he had wanted to participate with.

Bulma on the other hand. . . .well, humans definitely looked Saiyan for all their want of a tail and ki. Saiyans and humans were similar enough that no one on the planet even suspected that Kakarrot was an alien. Even after taking a human mate no one suspected. So humans and Saiyans must be imminently compatible sexually.

There was no doubt about cleanliness either. The Briefs compound was spotless and Bulma herself was always bathing and yelling at him that he needed to bathe. It was almost too clean. Vegeta remembered Bulma almost having a conniption when he was going to eat something he’d dropped in the dirt. She’d commanded that he turn it over immediately and deposited it into a trash receptacle, muttering something about germs.

So here he was, totally surprised to have found what he didn’t think existed and it had to be her. This was totally unacceptable. After all, he didn’t even like her.

She was loud, rude and bossy. She showed absolutely no respect for his royal lineage and no fear that he would incinerate her if she didn’t. How unbelievably stupid!

But she was beautiful, well; she was when she wasn’t shouting invectives at him. Although to be totally honest more than once he’d caught himself admiring the way looked when she was angry. She was generous. She’d offered up her home to him without a second thought that day and provided him more comforts than he’d ever had in the past. When that strange boy from the future appeared and warned Kakarrot about the androids, she’d provided ingenious training equipment to make him stronger without ever once considering that she might be sealing her own doom.

So here he was, unable to train because all of the sudden there was this idea thrown into his head (and something else making an appearance in his pants the longer he thought about the idea in his head.) It was a futile waste of valuable training time, because he knew she didn’t like him any more than he liked her.

The more he thought about the kiss, however, the more he pondered on this idea. He’d watched enough of the television broadcasts to know that there were definitely different types of this "kiss" and the two they’d shared last night weren’t of the chaste variety. It was the type of kiss that usually preceded sexual activity, and although he could only speak for himself with any certainty, he felt fairly sure her behavior indicated a certain amount of sexual arousal.

So perhaps, despite everything, she might desire him too. . . ? Vegeta shook his head. He would see himself back in HFIL before he admitting

anything as weak as desire to her, so there was no point to this mental discussion. A couple of days of good hard training would push the event out of his mind. He’d just avoid the main house and seeing her and before long, he’d probably forget the entire incident.

In the meantime, however, perhaps a cold shower was in order.

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The next week was passed exactly as the two planned it. They avoided each other. The gravity room and Bulma’s mother unknowingly cooperated in this plan, sparing Bulma from having to take charge of either situation and thus see Vegeta; and Vegeta was allowed to train continuously without pesky gravity room down-time or forays to the main house to forage for food.

Fat lot of good it did them.

Imagination is a very powerful thing, and with a brain like Bulma’s, it is very powerful indeed. She couldn’t get the thought of having Vegeta out of her mind, which pissed her off to no end. Honestly, get a hold of yourself! He’s an asshole, she thought. He doesn’t like you and he doesn’t want you. And even if he did, you’re just setting yourself up to get hurt. You think there’s some "great guy" button you’re going to find and flip to the "on" position when his clothes are off? No, he’ll still be asshole—he’ll just be an asshole you were stupid enough to sleep with. You think living down kissing him is hard? Spread your legs and you’ll find out what "hard" really is!

Unfortunately, this was the way these mental discussions usually ended for Bulma. Somehow all her common sense would dry up and she wind up thinking things like "a guy who does push-ups in sets of a thousand probably has incredible stamina." When she wasn’t thinking coherent thoughts, the vision of his shoulders and arms just permeated her brain. They were so. . .perfect. Not huge, bulging masses but sleek and smooth and just the thought of running her hands along them. . . then her tongue. During the day there was usually someone to shake her out of her reverie, but at night Bulma was alone with her thoughts, which wasn’t good at all.

Vegeta spent the next week training in a state of semi-arousal, which pissed him off to no end. No amount of push-ups, sit-ups or katas could quite wipe the idea from his mind. The idea that, were he to approach her, she might just turn around and wrap those slim arms around him and press her lips –and everything else—to his body. He wondered how her breasts would feel in his hands (he’d been about to find out when she’d pushed him away.) While he might not have participated in much sexual activity, he’d certainly witnessed enough throughout his travels to dredge up one or two (or twenty) things he’d like Bulma to participate in.

He now knew why he’d disapproved of Radditz’s and Nappa’s debauchery: this feeling was extremely distracting. Nappa and Radditz both rarely trained during their leaves, preferring to search out whatever manner of dissipated distractions the current planet had to offer. Both stayed alive by relying on their naturally high fighting powers, but if they’d come across any enemy where technique mattered, they’d be space dust. Now, his own training was suffering because of this . . . weakness he was feeling. Vegeta was at a loss on how to rid his mind of these tantalizing visions that continued to creep inside regardless of how hard he tried to clear his mind of them.

What he feared was that this. . .hunger would not be sated until he fed. This meant he would have to face up to a couple of facts. One, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t train his way out of this feeling and two; he was going to have to somehow approach Bulma.

The first was definitely easier to understand. Hunger for food easily distracted any Saiyan from virtually all other activities; their bodies’ high metabolism rates would have it no other way. This other hunger was probably similar in nature and no doubt exacerbated by the fact that he’d never experienced it before. Once he had satisfied himself—both his body and his curiosity (yes, he’d admit that) he would be able to resume his training without distraction.

The second part of the problem—approaching Bulma—was distinctly distasteful. He was no sentimental human male to come courting Bulma Briefs with plants and confections in hand (or whatever other bizarre offerings this planet’s females deemed worthy.) He didn’t want her "love"; he just wanted to rip off her clothes and get rid of this annoying, distracting LUST that had permeated his life the last week.

And so, exactly one week after their fated first "date", Vegeta had run out of patience and any other ideas save one. If this didn’t work, well, he could just kill her, take the capsule and head for space. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was making no progress under the present circumstances and (as he was constantly reminding himself this week) PROGRESS was the entire point of his stay on this pathetic little planet. If he wasn’t making progress, then Bulma, the Earth and everything else on it, had outlived their usefulness.

At precisely four o’clock that day, Vegeta turned off the gravity room, walked over to the communication console and hit the button.

"Woman, the gravity machine in not working," he said, then he returned to the main chamber, ascended to the ceiling and waited.

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