The training had been hard, three years of demanding school, no quarter given. In truth, we both took to it like fish to water. I had never realized how much my love simply loved learning for its own sake until I saw how she threw herself into learning the new skills she had to pick up just to get her new professional certifications. We both grew mentally as well as physically during our time in training.
 

The training had been hard, three years of demanding school, no quarter given. In truth, we both took to it like fish to water. I had never realized how much my love simply loved learning for its own sake until I saw how she threw herself into learning the new skills she had to pick up just to get her new professional certifications. We both grew mentally as well as physically during our time in training.

Really, I never would have guessed that the man I had loved for so many years would become a hardware geek. He had been a counselor, a shrink as some would say, and really hated reading. All of that changed. She became a competent pilot, a more than competent power systems technician, and a true genius at pretty much anything medical.

That, and our sparring sessions got rather interesting, to say the least. To say that she was fast was like saying the sun was hot. I’ll say it like it is and was, she put me to shame. Yes, I am larger, by a good margin, and yes, I had more training, but 4 out of 5 times she put me on the mat and rubbed my face in it, without even breaking a sweat. I think the most embarrassing thing was that she could outshoot me. I’m talking fast draw artist here. She could draw and fire a full magazine before I even cleared leather, and with accuracy that was not to be believed.

That truly shocked me because I had not even been able to teach Charlie to chamber a round properly in an automatic before. I had tried, but after 3 weeks, I had simply given up and bought him a .38 revolver.

The hardest thing for both of us was the whole Japanese etiquette thing. We both tried really hard to nail it down, but I will be the first to admit that our Tea ceremonies were sadly lacking. It wasn’t that we didn’t get the Zen of the thing, the beauty of simplicity, but to translate that understanding into reality was something else entirely. I felt like an elephant among gazelles when it came time to present the full ceremony for our instructors. The folds of my kimono were wrong, I presented the tea improperly, I almost stumbled and fell, and perhaps worst of all, I thumped heavily onto the mat with my knees rather than gracefully folding into position.

Oh, did I mention my Japanese sucked? I swear I never thought I had that heavy of an accent, but it seemed like everything came out with a drawl. Just envision Japanese with a heavy southern drawl and bad grammar and you’ve got it.

My instructors told me to just relax and go with the flow, but I knew full well that the face I was to present for the company was that of a Geisha, and I tried my best to put that forward. When it came time to present that face for the founder of the company, Mary Yotori, I was almost shaking I was so scared. I damn near dropped the cup handing it to her. I was truthfully so mortified I was holding back tears by the time she took her first sip.

Then she spoke to me, quietly. “Daughter, do not be ashamed. You have honored me with this presentation. It may not be a perfect traditional ceremony, but it was the best you could do, and that is the most this one could ask of you.” She reached out and cupped my chin in her palm, forcing me to raise my face and meet her eyes. “Child, the meaning of the ceremony is more important than the ritual. The ritual is important, true, but you will get better with that given time. You have proven that you have everything required to be a true Care Giver, and that is what matters most, you have love in your heart, and love to give, and that is what we are truly about, beneath the corporate face. I know all (and at that point my heart raced) and I do mean all of what you have been through and done, and it just makes you more special to me. You are not just Geisha, you are Samurai, and that is the true meaning of Geisha.”

“Child, do you not yet understand that to be Geisha is more than just the ceremonies, more than just the fucking, you are a warrior of the spirit, and when you need to be, a warrior of the body.” At this point, my eyes were so filled with tears of shame that I could only dimly perceive her through a veil of shimmer. I was more than astonished to find her arms folding around me, drawing me into an embrace, the sort of embrace a mother would give a child who was distraught over a bad grade, but more tender.

I collapsed into her arms, sobbing. She held me, rocked me until my tears subsided and my sobs turned into hiccups. I had simply thought I was mortified before, but now, as I came to an awareness of more than just my crying fit, I was absolutely horrified to be sitting face to face with this woman, this powerful woman, sobbing into her kimono like some lost child, but as I came further into possession of my senses, I began to realize just what she was teaching me, in the midst of what I had thought was a sort of final exam.

It came clear to me, right at that moment, a sort of epiphany, that my true purpose was to coach others through their horrors, the same as she was helping me right at that that moment. I mean I had known that I was to be a Care Giver, but I had never truly realized that I was to actually love those whom I was assigned to, to nurture them, to help them through their own version of the terrors I had suffered through myself, not so very long ago. It struck me with a sort of hammer blow, and from that moment on, I never saw myself or the world the same way again.

Charlie

My world had changed forever. That was the only thing I could think as we entered training. Nothing was the same as it had been, nothing was ever going to be the same, or even remotely similar. Here I was, a tiny 5,2” blonde, when I had been for all of my adult life a 5,10” butch male! I mean yeah, I was gay, and I even liked men who were a bit bigger than me, but I was always on top. Not only that, I was training to be a kind of space Geisha! I think the true saving grace for me was that Sean was just as submissive a lover as she had ever been when she was a he, and it allowed me to retain some sense of my former self. I was the dominant lover, the one who took the initiative, the one who first fingered and stroked my lover’s newfound sex into orgasm after so long without, and that was the role I maintained for a very long time after that. I so ached to penetrate her, to fuck her silly, and it hurt me that I no longer had the equipment to do that.

Top that with the confusion I felt actually wanting to fuck a female, and I was one very mixed up person. Training was just so odd to me, I felt the need to assert my dominance over her, to just be better, and I wound up excelling in just about everything I put my mind to. I got better than her in martial arts, hell, I could even beat her in a quick draw contest. I even overcame my initial objections and got better at the whole Tea ceremony and Japanese etiquette thing. The thing I could not get past was my essential need to dominate, to control, to be the center of it all. I just could not be the shrinking violet, the submissive Geisha.

I did discover an unknown (to me) talent for things mechanical, and I somehow found a sort of peace in piloting a spacecraft, in working out just the perfect course from one point to another. It was as though I were a piece of dandelion fluff, dancing on the wind, subject to it’s whim yet inexorably going where I wanted to with no real effort at all, and that feeling filled me with joy. I think the thing I most enjoyed was relearning the medical profession and knowing that I had the knowledge and the power to heal people from grievous and horrible injuries and sickness.

This thing was what gave me pleasure and a sense of accomplishment beyond what I had felt in my previous professional life. I will admit I gloated a little when I was able to be graceful and perfectly composed in my kimono while Sean was floundering about in hers like an elephant in a silk shop. Truthfully, she was composed and beautiful, but neither of us were anything like the picture of grace and beauty a perfect Geisha should be. It’s not that we didn’t try, but I guess too many years of training to be butch males had infected us, and neither one of us was truly able to get it right.

I know for myself that when it finally came time to present a proper tea ceremony for Mama Yotori, I felt about as clumsy as it was possible to feel, and it showed. I fumbled the mixing of the tea, I sat just wrong, and I almost spilled the cup onto her when I handed it to her. To tell the truth I hadn’t ever been so mortified, not even when I had gotten hired in a five star restaurant and had no idea what I was doing. That feeling astonished me, for I hadn’t realized until that moment how important it was to me that I succeeded in this, because there was no other way I would be able to accompany my love into what was supposed to be the rest of our lives.

I mean, I knew I loved her, had for many years, and always would, but the idea that screwing up something as simple as a tea ceremony would take her from me, would keep us apart, that just made me feel like someone was ripping my heart out, and I spun and ran from the compartment, mopping the tears from my eyes, not truly caring if I ran into a bulkhead or not, bouncing from wall to wall, my vision obscured by the rippling film my own eyes subjected me to.

I came to my senses a while later, and wonder of wonders, it was my love holding me tight. Rocking me back and forth and crooning to me in her fantastic contralto as she wiped the tears from my face.

“Baby, you gotta tell me what’s wrong if I’m gonna help! Please tell me what’s wrong. Please?.” I gulped back another sob and managed to say it.

“I don’t wanna lose you, and I fucked up on the ceremony so bad, and its Mama Yotori, and if I lose you just because I can’t manage a stupid tea ceremony I just wanna die! I know this is all you ever wanted, and I won’t hold you back from it, I just don’t wanna lose you! I don’t wanna live if it’s gonna be without you!”

She folded me into her wonderful long, strong arms and just held me and crooned wordlessly into my ears until I stopped sobbing enough to hear her. “Baby, you’re never gonna lose me, no matter what! When I said till death do us part, I meant it! Nothing short of one of us dying will tear us apart, and that includes the Company. Now just calm down for a few minutes and go back to see Mama Yotori. If she says you don’t pass inspection, then neither do I, and we will make our way somehow else. I don’t care if we have to work the rest of our long lives in slavery, nothing will ever make me leave you!”

By this time, she was sobbing too. The truth is, both of us were a mess, tear streaked makeup, the whole bit, and we looked a fright. She steered me into the head and we both made ourselves up to be at least somewhat presentable. Then it was the long march down the corridors to face destiny, to go back to see Mama Yotori.

I could not keep my hands from shaking as I pushed the button which would sound the bell for admittance. I truly dreaded seeing the woman’s face, for I expected to see her disapproval written all over, some sort of mask of fury. You can imagine how dumfounded I was when I was greeted with welcoming arms and a woman stroking my back while I poured out my heart to her. I truthfully don’t have any idea what she said to me, but I do know that I left feeling better, and knowing that Mama Yotori cared less about the ceremony than about the meaning I put into it, however graceless it might be.

The next night, when we made our musical presentation, I put everything I had into it and I know my love did too. I felt inadequate, but the crowd seemed to think differently, and we left the hall floating on clouds.

I guess at that point the remaining thing was that I was not just afraid of spaceflight, I was afraid of just plain old air flight. I kept my terror down to a bare simmer because I knew my love had been lusting for the moment when the boosters lit for all of her life, and I was determined not to ruin it for her with my own fear. Still, as I felt her squeeze my hand in anticipation, I had to apply every fiber of will in my being not to clutch her hand in terror and hope she didn’t notice how tightly I was gripping the armrest on the other side.