The Pleasure Boy 12

That weekend, my last before school started, was focused on grooming and dress. The other apprentices had been through this transformation months ago, from ordinary types into young persons who at least looked like geishi; but that weekend it was my turn. My first appointment, Saturday morning, was with the cosmetologist who had seen me a week ago. On that occasion, he had merely talked to me, and taken measurements and photographs from several angles - of my face (in close-up), my head and shoulders and my whole nude body. From these he had developed several alternative approaches and some recommendations. Today, he would go over these with myself and Mistress Lotte, to help us make the necessary choices and design - not a new James Woodruffe, exactly, but a new face for him to meet the faces that he'd meet. The specifications for his image would be kept on file at the Guild for use by the certified establishments where I would go for haircuts, manicures and other cosmetic treatments.

After this meeting, Mistress had me take her to lunch - as always, correcting my errors as an escort. In the afternoon we visited a Guild haberdasher to design my wardrobe, in just two versions for now: casual wear for school and every-day, street use, and a tasteful sports jacket, slacks and tie for basic escort training. Suits and tuxedos would come later.

Sunday we shopped at the Guild store for all the clothing and grooming items that I would need. For now, off-the-rack was good enough. Later, the haberdasher told me, as a working geisho I would probably want my suits made to measure. Mistress paid for all this (it came to about $4,000) from a special account she'd opened in my name. On the books, along with her training fee, it was carried as a low-interest loan from the Guild that I'd pay back when I started working.

Monday morning, I shaved and groomed even more carefully than was becoming usual for me, and went off with Gayle and Joey for my first day at school. In the Guild building, we separated - they to their 'home-room' group, and I to mine. There, I found myself in a mixed group of eight young women and three other young men (a typical sex ratio in the Guild) from different training houses with their various specialties. All we had in common was that all of us were starting our apprenticeships in the same city, at about the same time.

A Guild elder, Master Jake Stride, introduced himself. He would be the coordinating instructor for our class, and a guidance counsellor for us individually. His role was to prepare us as responsible and knowledgeable Guild members, and to assist us in career planning and professional development. Each school day morning, he would meet with us as a group to lead a discussion on various topics concerned with the philosophy and science of pleasure and with the regulations and structure of the GGPW - the Guild of Geishi and Pleasure-Workers. We were warned that there would be a lot of required reading to prepare for these discussions. Of course, we would need to know our way around the Guild's administration and facil­ities as our basic working environment; but to graduate from the program we would also be required to develop a realistic career plan for work and professional development as junior geishi. To help with this planning, Master Jake would also keep office hours, allowing us to meet with him individually by appointment.

After he introduced himself and explained his role, Master Jake reviewed the schedule that would control our time at school. We would have classes four days a week, Monday to Thursday, from 9:15 to 3:30. First thing each morning, we would meet with him to cover Guild regulations and structure, and to discuss Guild philosophy and training issues. After our apprenticeships, throughout our careers, we were to think of ourselves as a cohort, pledged to assist each other as needed.

After the early morning discussion, each school-day there would be two long classes - all given in this same room so that the instructors, not the students, would do most of the moving. In addition, there would be a break at mid-day for fitness training and lunch.

So the schedule would be as follows:

• Hedonics: Mondays and Wednesdays, from 10 AM to 11:20, on the business aspect of geisha work. Here we would receive instruction in the technology and marketing of pleasure work, in Guild governance and regulations, and in the special types of pleasure work that exist.

• Escort Service: Mondays and Wednesdays, from 1:30 to 3:30, on grooming, dress and makeup, street etiquette for various occasions, and on the art of conversation with different types of client.

• Group Facilitation: Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10 AM to 11:20, on the convening and conducting of various types of group, so as to make its experience more pleasurable and productive.

• Hedonic Sexuality: Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 1:30 to 3:30, on sexual expression and play - with sex conceived not as interper­sonal communication of love and intimacy, nor for its reproductive function, but as an art form in itself.

• Physical Training: every school day, from 11:30 to 12:30, in the gym. Extensive physical fitness work, combining body sculpting, strength and endurance training with martial arts practice (focused on correct posture and smooth economical movement as well as self-defence). The system taught would be a version of aikido focused on practical self-defence.

• Lunch: every school day, from 12:50 to 1:20, served in the Guild cafeteria on the 14

th

floor.

Thus, we would be coming to school four days a week, Monday through Thursday, and would have our early mornings free for house chores and our evenings for homework and study - and for socializing and sex. Our three-day weekends would be organized by the training house masters and mistresses, giving us one day off (as promised) and two days for instruction and practice in the specialty of the house - BDSM in my case.

Master Jake continued: The year-long apprenticeship program was divided into three segments: For the first three-months, we would be probationers worked hard to ensure that we were serious and fit. It was expected there would be drop-outs. For this time of probation and for the next seven months, as pupils in a specialized school our schedules would be as described above. For the last two months of the year-long program, we would serve as interns, possibly under our training house master (or mistress), but preferably under some different master in our respective fields.

At the end, we would be graded by a committee of our teachers - the masters and mistresses who had contributed to our training. We'd not only pass or fail, but would be given feedback for further study in our individual areas of strength and weakness. If we passed, we would receive a license as journeypersons, eligible to work full-time or part-time and train further under a master or mistress in our chosen specialty. We could then work under qualified masters or mistresses in our chosen field - and train further with these to to qualify as masters or mistresses in our own right. Then we could practice independently with journeypersons under us, and we could teach or otherwise contribute at Guild headquarters and participate in Guild politics and management.

If we failed, we would be offered remedial training to make up our deficiencies or encouraged to try some other line of work. After that first apprenticeship, we could try for qualification two more times.

Many geishi remained journeypersons all their lives, often working at it part time while they were also doing something else (like studying, teaching and writing history as I was planning). But those who did geisha work full time usually went on to qualify as masters in their field. This was the path my mother had followed, meeting and marrying my dad along the way.

At 9:50 on that first day, Master Jake ended his opening class and left us, giving us ten minutes to get a drink, use the toilet, stretch our legs or chat before Mistress Vivian walked in to teach Hedonics, a class on the science, technology and marketing of pleasure. Mistress Viv (as we called her) used her first class to open a discussion of pleasure as an industry. The question she raised was simply this: Why do people need so many experts of various stripes to help them find pleasure, be happy and have fun? She pointed out the numerous fields - from religion and psychotherapy, to music and the arts, to flower arranging, oenology and haute cuisine, to acrobatic and kinky sex - all involved in the pursuit of pleasure and happiness by various means. She encouraged us think about the the pleasure industry as a whole: in its evolution and its present state. With all that we know now, she asked, with all that we can do, have people learned to be happy? If not, why not, and what do geishi now contribute?

At 11:20 her class ended, and we had 20 minutes to take the elevator or stairs down to the gym (in the first level basement), change into exercise clothing in the locker room, and muster at one of the four facilities:

• the tatami room - covered with Japanese mats where we would train in the sitting, standing and reclining postures of submission and service, in graceful movement, and in

ukemi

(the art of falling, or getting thrown around, without getting hurt, as a first step into our martial arts training);

• the weight room where we would train for strength and body building;

• either the running track or the swimming pool where we would train for stamina and aerobic fitness.

Rotating through these different forms of physical training, our purpose was not to break records or win competitions, but simply to develop the grace, beauty and functionality of our own bodies. It was physical

education

in the true sense, a high priority for geishi, and one we were encouraged to continue for life.

After this exercise period, we had just half an hour for lunch in the Guild cafeteria before returning to our home classroom where we paired off to practice escort skills under Master Lee.

Then we'd go back to our training houses to work under masters or mistresses in the various specialties with apprentices who shared our interest (more or less), but were at different stages of training.

That was my schedule on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the schedule was similar, except that we practised Group Facilitation in the mornings and Hedonic Sexuality in the afternoons.

Where Hedonics and Escort Work were relatively simple to practice and teach, Group Facilitation was more complicated because there are so many different kinds of groups. Fortunately, each specialty tended to work with just a few of these, making it possible to get the pupils in this class working with groups of the kind they'd typically encounter. Thus, Mistress Nicole, our instructor, had me focus on groups of two (sexual couples) and on small audiences of eight to twenty persons such as might be involved in a workshop or demonstration. By contrast, apprentices working toward careers in the business world put to work on task-oriented, committee-sized groups of about seven or eight active players, possibly swollen by assistants and interlopers. And so on. We would be assigned to audit (that is to say, eavesdrop) on a few meetings of a type that would concern us, and write reports on what worked well and not so well, with recommendations on how these sessions might have been better planned and run. We'd also form groups of different types among ourselves, and be assigned as individual outsiders to attend such groups and help them achieve their purpose. In this way, we'd be prepared for internships of the type that we'd eventually seek.

The Hedonic Sexuality class had two instructors, to present male and female perspectives. The female teacher, Mistress Jessica was almost a clone of my mother, right down to the way she dressed and did her hair. The male, Master Thomas reminded me of Mitch in his intelligence and pragmatism, but was actually a very different character. For one thing, he was flamboyantly gay. Like Mitch, he could readily switch and had plenty of experience with both sexes; but where Mitch appeared basically heterosexual in the life he'd made with Mistress Lotte, Master Thomas told us on that first day of class that his life partner was another guy. For another thing, his sexuality was much more overt and extreme than Mitch's. Apart from his life with Mistress Lotte and her group, Mitch looked entirely vanilla in his dress and self-presentation. Not so with Master Thomas, whose tattoos and studded leather outfit proclaimed his orientation loudly to the world. For all that, as an instructor he was entirely professional. I got along with him very well and learned a lot from him.

He knew from my Guild registration that I was Mistress Lotte's apprentice, and therefore oriented toward sexuality and BDSM as a specialty. This came out in class on the first day when he asked his pupils to talk about their interests and career plans. When I described my interest in kinky sex, I became a minor celebrity because I was already far ahead of my classmates in that field. For most of the others, the curriculum of this class came as a shock of promiscuity and perversion - as it had been for Kendra. They were not prudes, aspiring geishi couldn't be, but their worldview and ambitions were basically straight, as mine had been. before my mother had made me watch those porn clips, noted my spontaneous reactions, and then discussed them with me. A few weeks at Mistress Lotte's had done the rest. I was no longer a normal 18-year-old in my sexual interests and experience. In this area, I already had more in common with Master Thomas than with my classmates; and everyone could hear this when I opened my mouth to speak.

All our instructors were called Master or Mistress as an honorific, even if they were still journeymen and women. They were also qualified Masters in the Guild sense of that term. But Thomas was also a Master in the BDSM sense that subbies like me could feel and respond to: He ran a gay dungeon that I later visited. He had the personal charisma and authority that subs respond to and obey. He knew this and I knew it; and he was teaching a class that I was in. It's to his credit that he never abused the authority that his age, experience and role as my instructor gave him. He could have had my ass at any time, but never took it.

There were seven key lessons that this class set out to teach. Some of us came to them readily; others learned them only with difficulty or (in one case) not at all. This man failed the class and dropped out of the program.

1) Its key point was that nude human bodies old and young, beautiful and less so, are sexual and sexy. Thus, sex can be enjoyed by anyone at any age, with or without a partner.

2) A corollary was that any two human being can (and usually do) relate to each other partly on a sexual level which itself is partly learned. Even if your personal orientation is straight, you can learn to enjoy gay sex. Conversely, if your orientation is gay, you can learn to enjoy it straight.

3) Sexual expression and release need not depend on having a partner. Masturbation (better thought of as auto-sexuality or self-stimulation) is an art that anyone can practice at any time. Self-stimulation need not be sexual, and is basically and a life skill that all children practice and refine. Sexual self-stimulation is really no different.

4) Human sexuality is partly about identity formation, expression and maintenance. Association and imagination are what make things sexy. The most important human sex organ is the brain. Basically, sexuality (

eros

) is what we love and are connected to - including our own bodies and other things in the world. In the formation of identities, it's sexuality that specifies our attachments.

5) As sexuality pulls out of ourselves into close involvement with someone (or something) else, it inevitably alters the identity that we express and maintain when we are not sexually aroused.

6) The key point about sexual identity and pleasure is whether you like or dislike your own identity in this aroused state. This change is often experienced as a degradation or distortion, but may also be experienced as an inspiration, illumination or enlightenment. Sexual arousal is open to interpretation just like everything else.

7) As a matter of pure biology, men and women are not well suited to each other's psychosexual needs. The reproductive system evolved to produce more offspring, not to give its participants more pleasure. But reproduction is only one reason to have sex - important just a few times in a lifetime, if that. Sexual pleasure is possible at any age and, with training and practice, people can learn to pleasure each other better. In particular, heterosexual men need training and self-control if they wish to satisfy their women.

After this first day of Guild School, my next year became a lot clearer. I'd met my classmates, and a few more of my instructors. I'd seen the Guild's physical establishment, and made the commute to get there. I'd done a first phys ed workout and gotten some idea of what I'd be doing in the gym - a very important part of our program. And I'd had a taste of the layout, social life and food in the Guild cafeteria.

When I got home that evening - 'home' for me now meant Mistress Lotte's menage - I was struck at once by the contrast and complementarity between the Guild school and the training house as teaching institutions. At school, I found myself lumped in with a great variety of classmates, all beginners, with very different interests and ambitions. At the house, all six of us - at different levels of experience and development - shared a common interest in just one sector of the pleasure industry: hedonic sex, to be specific. At school I'd get a great deal of information about the geisha world and the pleasure industry; but it was at home that I'd learn my trade. Both places had their offerings and challenges; both were crucial for my future, but there was no doubt which I really cared about.

Over dinner, Mitch and Lotte tried to draw me out on how I felt about my first day at Guild school. I could only say how impressed I was with the planning and organization that had gone into it - into Guild training as a whole. "The take-away point of that place," I said, "seems to be that pleasure is a serious business. "Better believe it!" Mitch remarked.

Later, Lisa took me to her room, getting me to wash and massage her feet which ached from striding around all day in her new dominatrix boots. As I did so, I told her that my mother now knew of my submission to her, and would be glad to meet her any time. "She suggested that I bring you for dinner one evening," I told her. "She just wanted some notice that you'd be coming."

"The sooner, the better," Lisa said. "I'm interning with Mistress Lotte now, because I wanted to stay in Montreal. "But Lotte said it would be better if I did my internship with someone else, and she suggested your mother. I'm hoping that your Mom could use me in some way that would help me complete the apprentice program."

"I don't know if that will be possible," I told her. "Mom does admin work for the Guild, and she still does some teaching; but she hasn't worked as a dominatrix or run a dungeon for years. She's a wonderful person. She'll be pleased to aid you and counsel you any way she can; and she's well worth knowing for the pleasure of knowing her. But, as things stand now, I doubt she'll be able to take you on as an intern."

"It's true she announced to my father and me that she's planning to start seeing clients again. But that could be months away; and you need a posting right now.