Part 1

Prologue: When the original colony ships had arrived, the society was largely egalitarian due to the long shipboard confinement. Huge sacrifices and death rates were involved in terra-forming and settling the raw worlds they found. Sacred prostitution by both males and females was seen as a public service and was actually done on a rotating basis among the whole population on some ships and in the early colonies.

The core worlds prospered, and the Companions rose in status. When their clientele gained wealth and status, the guild chose to bar from their membership all but the most highly trained Companions. They excluded the more common prostitutes who serviced working class patrons. The Companions also incorporated elements of geisha and Greek Companion standards and practices.

Settlements on the rim worlds witnessed rising neo-Puritanism and the consequential rise in discrimination against the common prostitutes in their midst. The Companions of the core worlds continued to rise in status while they in turn relegated the cult of Isis to ritualized ceremony with few actual believers.

Rim-world colonists largely came from the poor classes of the core worlds and looked back with nostalgia on the glamorous culture of the core worlds; especially the Companions.

The Companion Guild gained power and became a significant player among the power elite. People who manipulate lust, desire and considerable funds have to operate in the real world if for no other reason than self protection.

For self-protection, the guild had always maintained an elite group of covert agents drawn from within their own ranks who discreetly provided protection to the Companions. Of course, all Companions were trained in a variety of self-defense arts including weapons. It was a point of honor that no-one ever robbed or forced a Companion against their will without suffering severe repercussions including death.

Unlike corporations, with their top-down hierarchy, the Companion Guild was always run by an association of elected officials with leadership coming from the most skilled practitioners and teachers of sexual arts: priestesses. Most Companions were female. Males tended to gravitate towards administration or enforcement as they got older.

Setting: Inara's shuttle Inara sat in the pilot's seat, going through preflight check, flames lanced past her cockpit window. Like the true professional she was, Inara was extremely thorough. She thought to herself "I see Kaylee tightened up those coupling sleeves. I don't detect even the slightest leak." Kaylee's friendship and the adoration of that young female mechanic meant that Inara's shuttle always received loving attention.

Inara looked out at the flames blasting past and admired their beauty and thought "This is what the first astronauts must have seen on reentry".

The young pilot River's voice came over the intercom. "OK, Inara our speed is dropping down to MACH two and you're good to go." (Shuttle deployment at higher than twice the speed of sound in any local atmosphere is dangerous for both vehicles.)

"Thanks Mei-mei; undocking, three-two-one: undocked." When the shuttle cleared, Inara pulled up on the yoke, kicked the rudder with a hard turn and pulled a complete Immilman turn which inverted the shuttle and turned the craft 180 degrees to Serenity's axis and path and headed towards her appointment. She then pulled a barrel roll out of sheer exuberance.

One thing that Inara had never confessed to the late beloved pilot, Walsh, Captain Malcom, or even the new pilot, River (though she was sure River knew) was that she loved to fly. Most Companions utilized shuttles as short range transport. To them it was just a way of getting from here to there; but to Inara, flight was almost as much fun as sex. Just then River's voice chirped "Yahoo, cowgirl — have fun." Obviously, the girl genus/reader had been eavesdropping on her joyful thoughts and picked up on Inara's mood

"Thanks, I'll do my best. See you at the rendezvous; out." As she hung inverted in the sky over Boros, Inara thought "Worlds like marbles in the sky and stars like dust beneath her feet" Such was the glamorous life she imaged when she set out to become a Companion.

Ever since Miranda she had become known as 'that Companion'. Of course, life these days was different. When Inara and the crew of Serenity had revealed the truth of the government's disastrous experiment in social engineering through airborne drugs, she had helped to embarrass the Alliance and the major corporations who were running the government. Since most of her wealthy clients were corporate or government connected, and the point of having a Companion was to show off their conspicuous consumption, Inara was suddenly without clients. Being publicly connected to a known 'terrorist' (who obviously hated freedom as the corporate media put it) was not something they could afford. The plebs lionized Inara. Her charms were publicly sung about and often embarrassingly exaggerated. But the poor could not pay her fees, nor could she cut her rates without violating guild law.

Inara had decided to utilize a little known 'pro bono' clause because it was considered temple duty and released her from guild dues and fees. Inara would use her considerable skills and talents as a subsidized, low cost relationship counselor. This was also to mollify Mal's anti- prostitution prejudices. She conveniently neglected to mention that her services would include sex therapy.

Inara had always enjoyed the relationship and couple client classes at the training house and as a Companion she was hired by celebratory couples for special occasions. She remembered with pleasure a unique night with two male dancers whose stamina was prodigious and only rivaled by their sweet nature and fashion sense. Speaking of which, she could use a relationship counselor herself for her relationship with Mal. Inara and Mal were strongly attracted to each other but they couldn't seem to get past her chosen livelihood and his self-righteous rejection of her profession. But that would have to wait; right now she had to earn a living.

Inara dropped towards the town of White Pine, Boros, and she noticed how raw the world looked. Terra-forming had stabilized Atmo and gravity and accelerated soil formation. But the soil was only inches thick and would not support real trees or crops. The local community was operating under a boom economy due to rich and rare mineral deposits. Consequently local government employees were relatively impoverished.

A couple she interviewed over the cortex both worked at the local terraforming quality control testing lab. On any settled planet they would have been comfortable middle class, but on this planet, inflation had pushed them into poverty. They qualified for community subsidized low cost services when they applied for relationship counseling.

During separate interviews Inara had established that the relationship was going on seven years with one child. They remained loving and committed to each other but somewhere the sex part went south. He complained that she was repressed and inhibited and the pressures of work left him with little time for romance. She complained that he often seemed disinterested and that when they did make love he was often finished too soon and she was left unsatisfied.

Both of them seemed intelligent and described themselves as open-minded both were also overawed that a glamorous and legendary Companion would deign to give them counseling and amazed that her fees were so reasonable.

Inara's shuttle entered the landing pattern for the white pine spaceport. She noticed the usual cluster of rough housing in cheap bars, casinos and brothels. They had grown up between the port and the workers quarters which were laid out in the typical terra-forming authority pattern. There was another cluster near the local mines and processing mills.

"Oh well, this is how Londinium and Shinon had started out centuries ago." Inara mused.

Once landed, she engaged a healthy looking, good-natured Pedi cab driver who gave her a running commentary on the meager local sites. She chose a nondescript traveling cloak with hood and a sturdy traveling kit on wheels which the late Sheppard Book had given her before he left.

Reaching their destination, Inara paid her driver and announced herself. She then greeted her clients in the traditional manner of a Companion. Their daughter was sleeping over with trusted friends.

After they welcomed her, they shared tea. Inara silently appraised them: Gabriel was a tall, muscular good looking biochemist with a good mixture of African ancestry and light-mocha skin. Harmony was a willow-thin Asian programmer of striking beauty.

Both were obviously techno-geeks who kept going on about their latest brilliant workarounds to the QC problems at work and the on-cortex interactive role-playing to which they were both addicted. Inara was embarrassed to discover that there was even a game called 'The Companion and the Space Pirates'. "I don't even want to hear about that." She interjected with a laugh.

Harmony was slightly discomforted by the glamorous Companion's presence in their humble home. Inara quieted the discomfort by praising the decorations in the house and contrasting it with the rustic simplicity of Serenity. "Honestly, if it wasn't for Kaylee, our mechanic, Serenity would be just bare metal and broken, mismatched furniture." Gabriel hid his nervousness and discomfort by being over-solicitous and was obviously relieved to be sent off on an errand.

Inara and Harmony settled into girl talk and while they chatted, Inara asked her how she felt about her sexuality. Harmony replied "I was raised in a traditional Chinese household. Sex was not spoken of and my few experiments in tech school were brief and unsatisfactory. I always felt that I was unattractive and that men felt intimidated by my intelligence."

Inara laughed and stated "Based on your looks, brains and grace, you would have been an obvious candidate for Companion school."

Harmony blushed and Inara took her hand in hers and said "Let's make you beautiful for Gabriel." While Inara supervised her toilette, she selected several items of jewelry for Harmony including toe rings and a belly necklace that would compliment her delicate toes and tiny waist. Inara also selected perfume, aphrodisiacs and sex crèmes.

While Harmony dressed, and Inara washed herself, they talked about the life of a Companion. It was clear that Harmony was starting to display a schoolgirl crush on Inara. She also confessed "I was secretly disappointed in our first sex to find out that Gabriel was a virgin with even less experience than I; however, he is good looking and he does have a sweet nature and that boy is very well endowed. I had to fall in love with him."

Inara laughed and clapped her hands "Excellent, it looks like we have our work cut out for us, don't we?" Harmony charmingly blushed and smiled at the floor. When Gabriel arrived, Inara sent him into the shower with a simple garment and instructions to shave and put on a very small amount of his best cologne. When he emerged, they were all dressed in a simple white, toga-like, silk garment that was clasped at the shoulder, the standard Companion training outfit for the sex practical labs.

Candles had been lit, and Gabriel stood there in awe of the two beautiful women who stood in front of him, the glamorous Companion and his suddenly gorgeous wife. He thought "I can't believe that we're really going to do this. Is Harmony ok with this? This is like a dream. I can definitely smell the aromatic hydrocarbons in the pheromones Perhaps it's the aphrodisiac scented incense that Inara lit or the seductive perfume that Harmony is wearing. Cao, I hope I can perform ok, I'm already turned on but can I last?"

Inara then had Gabriel light a recently purchased pipe full of mildly hallucinogenic spice-weed. After sharing the pipe, Inara began "Do you have any fantasies? Do you ever act them out?"

Harmony replied "Well, once we tried to role-play each others favorite sex fantasy but Robo-girl's brass bra didn't fit."

Gabe chimed in "And Wo-nan's fake-fur codpiece gave me a rash."

Inara suppressed her amusement. "At least these costumes fit, because tonight we are going to be doing some more role-playing. You are going to be Companions in training and I will be your instructor."

"First the lecture: Good sex is not about a man doing pushups on top of a woman and calling it intimacy. It's also not big hairy hunks who gaze soulfully and spout poetry while ripping bodices of sultry heroines with heaving bosoms."

"Making love is about Romance and it does involve the body but it's mostly about your most important sexual organ: the one between your ears. That and your largest organ: the skin. You have to engage these and all of your senses; sight, smell, hearing, touch, taste and most importantly, your imagination and that of your partner."

"As a Companion, you must be sensitive to your client; their wishes, desires, fantasies, and most importantly, their needs. You can do this by making them feel like the most important person in the 'verse' so that they open up and manifest what they really want and need."

"Step one: clear your mind, forget about everything outside this room. You are dressed in white which is the color of death. This is to remind you that for now the outside world is dead and all you are is lovers. Remember the main pleasure in adultery is the escape from the responsibilities and baggage of being a wife or husband. Forget about the past and all the times you have argued, fought or loved before and approach this as if it were the very first time."

"You must also enjoy the act because you can't give good sex without getting it yourself. It's a bit like role playing, you have to immerse yourself into your role but respond appropriately to whatever presents itself to your character."

"I realize that we are all clean and relaxed, but I want to teach you how to wash and massage each other's feet." Inara then taught them her specialty by example and had Gabriel and Harmony repeat on each other and then on her own beautiful feet and graceful long toes. "By this act, we are all equals now."

When they were pleasantly relaxed, Inara began to describe how beautiful she thought Harmony looked that night. "She has such beautiful lustrous black hair, so black that it looks like you could fall in and never come out. The smooth texture of her ivory skin actually makes me jealous." Turning to Gabriel, "I want you to forget everything you know about Harmony and approach her as if pleasing her was the most important task of your life."