The rest of the band members came back to the U.S. the first week of September. We rehearsed for a few days and then went into the studio to demo our newer songs as well as other tracks that got left off of the earlier demo. Then we did four different photo shoots so we could get what I felt was an ample enough supply of good publicity pictures. I was impressed enough with one of those photographers that I hired him to shoot stills of our upcoming college and high school shows. Of course, I had the video crew tagging along, too.

Our first foray since the return of the other band members was back at my alma mater, where we went down a bomb. Then it was over to a local junior college, where we played at noon for an hour. Quite a few high school kids ditched class to come see us, which was naughty but gratifying. The little outdoor amphitheater we played at there was filled up not just by the teenagers, but by the regular student body who saw us setting up and stopped by just out of curiosity. We knocked 'em dead and sold another 40 or so CD-ROMs.

After that show, we went to an editing studio and created a highlight reel of our best moments from previous gigs over the last year and, along with photos and demo tracks, put it on our new CD-ROM. It's always good to have new product to sell.

We played at three Cal State campuses over the ensuing week beginning the day after our new CD-ROM was printed and packaged and taken home for us to shamelessly flog. We created a separate CD-ROM of the Legion Hall gig to convince club owners they needed to let us play at their properties. Not long after, we got a call from the Whisky on the strip to do a Tuesday night in mid-October they didn't have anything booked on. We said we would play but only if we could pick the bands that opened for us. They relented on that and so we had two really good local metal bands I knew about added to the bill so that they didn't have to be victimized by that club's usual pay to play nonsense. We also demanded a $1000 guarantee if it sold out. We did fill it at $10 a pop and it was one of the best nights for new metal bands in quite a few years on what had been a moribund Sunset Strip scene.

But before that, the last week of September, we went back to Japan and fulfilled our obligation to the college there. We sold over a hundred copies of our new CD-ROM and a dozen or so of our old one, too. Then we hopped back on the plane to the U.S. and did a couple more high school appearances before we performed the Whisky show and then flew back to Japan.

We were now going to headline a well known club in Shibuya, Tokyo on a Saturday night. It would have been embarrassing if nobody or very few people turned out, but it was already sold out before the day of the show. Writers from all the major Japanese rock magazines were there as was a guy from the Japan Times, which is aimed at the expat community. The management allowed us to do our whole two hour show and we tore it up to the tune of four encores and more than 150 CD-ROM sales. We came away with about $2500 with our guarantee and the software sales.

That started a big buzz about us and the week after that was occupied with interviews and photo shoots.

But you know what was even more satisfying? Tsutomu asked me to marry him the day after that concert. Once we got the media stuff out of the way, he took me to meet his parents, who are wonderful people. His brothers are really nice, too, though possessing more rambunctious personalities than Tsutomu does. I was pretty tense while we were at his folks place. I can play before hundreds of people on stage and not worry about it, but sitting there with my boyfriend's parents and I'm all kinds of nervous.

His parents approved of us getting hitched and New Year's Day we filed the necessary papers that formally made us a couple in the eyes of the government. I applied for my spouse visa and I had Tsutomu do the same for the U.S. We had the actual ceremony and reception on Valentine's Day 1997 because he thought I would like that, but it didn't matter to me what date it was or if we had any ceremony at all.

He was now living in company housing in a "danchi," which is one of the high rise apartment buildings you see dotting the landscape there. I could now actually cook for him and he was exceedingly pleased with what I was putting on the table. It also meant that I could be with him every day now rather than being apart for long stretches. I didn't like doing housework (who does?), but I was used to doing it at my home in the states and doing it for an apartment wasn't that much of an imposition, especially since he had to be at work so many hours a day, averaging more than 60 hours a week.

After the New Years' holiday was over, Mai began booking us into any gig we could get and we now had the standing to be able to do it. We began our tour in March and it went on for 45 days. We filled almost every place we played.

We subsequently booked our first U.S. nationwide club tour, which we began that August. I didn't care how small or big the club was or if we saw 10 people come out or 1000. It was a hell of an accomplishment for a Japanese band to be able to do that in America. We sold out five nights, two shows a night, at the Roxy in L.A., a total of 6,000 people. We also packed clubs in Seattle, Chicago, NYC and Austin while the results were more patchy elsewhere. Nevertheless, it got our name out there as a band to be reckoned with and we concluded a three album deal (we refused a longer term contract) with Atlantic Records and signed to Q-Prime Management, which also handles Metallica, among others.

We subsequently got booked on to the Wacken and Castle Donington festivals in Europe as one of the opening acts and went down a treat. It pretty much snowballed from there. Our first album came out just before Wacken  and went platinum within two months, ultimately selling ten million units worldwide, easily the most of any Japanese act ever. And we did it with almost no radio airplay because we were just too heavy and complex for them to handle. I was glad not to be associated with those asswads anyway.

A year to the day of our first album going on the market, we released our second and that did even better. This time, we headlined sports arenas in the U.S. and also at the European rock festivals and in South America, too. We networked like mad trying to help other bands, putting groups few had ever heard of on our bills to get them the widest possible exposure.

Our third album, "Escape into Infinity," topped the previous two COMBINED, making us a stadium act. We sold out seven nights at Long Beach Arena, a similar number at Budokan and Madison Square Garden and five nights at Wembley Arena in London.

After being on the road for two years in support of that album and all of us just bozo wealthy, we went on hiatus to kind of slow our lives down. When I came off the road, I also went off the pill at age 27. The first night when I hadn't taken my birth control pill was so hot. I couldn't wait for him to put his cock inside me. I came as hard as I ever had when he began to shoot his sperm into me. The ensuing two months were full of really hot sex because I didn't know which one would be the time when one of Tsutomu's sperm finally united with one of my eggs. I felt nauseous a couple mornings in a row and went to the doctor, who told me I was five weeks pregnant. That only made me want Tsutomu more and we fucked like bunnies until I was at about seven months and it was too uncomfortable with a baby inside me. So he had to settle for blowjobs from there on in. Two months after that, I gave birth to my first child, our son Tomotaka. Tsutomu was so proud he was beaming for a week. He had carried out one of his obligations to his parents by producing a son to carry on the family line.

Six months later, I was able to have sex again without pain and he impregnated me with our eldest daughter Emi. Two years after that, I had my third child, another girl, Arisa. By the time Emi was born, Tsutomu had agreed to quit his job and be a dad fulltime since we didn't need his money to survive as a family and it would be better for his general health. That year, the band resumed its activities and the album and arena tour we did padded our bank accounts quite nicely. We waited another two years before releasing another record and touring again. The album barely went platinum, though the tour did very well indeed. When we began writing material for our follow up to that effort, it was evident that we were creatively spent. We announced a farewell tour and, two years later at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, we did the last song we would ever perform on stage.

Miki went back to school and completed both her masters and Phd and became a college professor until she passed away at age 83. Seri was able to get permanent residency in the U.S. and lived with Cindy until she died at age 66. Cindy soon followed her to the grave, probably of heartbreak, after losing her soul mate. None of the other band members cared that Seri was gay when she finally came out of the closet. Mai married and had two children, both boys, and expired at age 77. Satomi formed two other bands, but neither did anything and ultimately retired from music to become a wife and mother to her daughter. She is also no longer with us, having left this world at age 71.

Tsutomu died shortly after his 84th birthday. He was an outstanding husband and father who I will always miss. Thank you Vishnu for so many happy years with him, my kids and grandchildren. All were truly gifts to be treasured.