Lemme tell you a story

I have mentioned my former wife a few times here; let me tell you something about her.

She is Japanese and lives in Japan now, but we were married for almost a dozen years. She lived here and got her teaching MA at "my" school and taught in a local high school. She’s been a teacher most of her life; she taught kids in an after-school school when she was a teenager.

Twenty years ago, she moved back to Japan and has been a teacher in colleges and universities there ever since.

Many "foreigners" teach in Japan; one night K*, my former wife, and others were out on the town, drinking and dancing. K* saw a man none of them knew taking pictures of her group, and went over to him, and said "do you know anyone here? No? Then please do not take our pictures" He agreed and K* went back to her group.

A short time later, she saw the same man, hiding behind other people and things in the room, snapping pictures of the group, still.

***

K* lights up a room when she comes in. Everyone feels her "goodness" and seeks her out; she is an amazing person, and I am fortunate to know her.

Her favorite description of mine is this: K* is velvet covered spring steel. She means what she says and backs it up.

***

When she saw that guy again, taking their pictures, still, after she asked him not to, she did not complain to anyone, she did not bitch and moan about it, she did not do "nothing".

"I asked you not to take our pictures. You don’t know anyone here; no one knows you. You are skulking around, taking our pictures, and you need to stop". She grabbed his camera and said, "I asked you not to and you ignored me – leave now and you can have your camera" and she jerked it from his hands. Everyone in the club was behind her.

There are times when you really don’t want to be "the foreigner" in the room in Japan.

This was one of them.

He left.  The club cheered.

***

Don’t fuck with K*.  Velvet covered, soft it seems like, but there is that spring steel underneath.

She looks good and nice and soft, but don’t fuck with her.

*****