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That got her attention:
Girl
I hope you didn’t think I wasn’t answering you on purpose. I received all your messages and I appreciated them. I suppose you are right, as sad as I am to say so I love you to Angela. Don’t ever be too far away ok? I wish I could write more to you...
Love, Joanna
…She made sure she signed it: “Joanna” (rather than ‘J’) for a reason-just about as much as she meant every word in every syllable she wrote in it. She wanted to write more to explain, but absolutely positively could not. She was really and truly in the middle of something major and wanted me to give her some breathing room too-but just but leave one foot in the door for her return and at her convenience.
She made sure she made her way to I.M (while I opened and was reading it).
We talked around her situation that she was going through.
I then told her: “People kill me complicating things. The only thing that makes relationships seem so complicated is the fear of removing things that bring peace of mind.”
She came back with: “Sometimes the less complicated way isn’t always the easiest way…”
I challenged: “But I thought you had so much shit under your control?”
She responded-in all seriousness, as if she was holding her index finger up and shaking her head in a serious and slow, left to right movement:
“No…not this…This…is not under my control,” she insisted.
She quickly jumped over that with something else: “Say, why don’t you quit worrying, and think about what ahead is in store for you,” she wanted to assure me.
An unexpected jolt of tears shot to my eyes. My nose burned and began to run. I sniffed and said: “I want you…the right way…” I said to her, humming in my mind Marvin Gaye singing: “I want you. The right way. I want you, but I want you to want me too...”
She softened up for a minute as if she pulled the camouflage war helmet that she had been wearing, and for that moment; she remembered that I was the girl she claimed to be in love with-and wanted to place special emphasis on calling out my name-hoping I could feel her sincerity:
“Angela. I know...I know EXACTLY what you are saying when you say that Angela...I am feeling you right now. You hear me?” she said seriously and compassionately, finishing the song in her mind too.
I held my head down and cried then replied: “I hear you.”
I was very confused and hurt as hell, and for the first time: scared-scared that I was losing her. That was the first moment in all this time that I knew for sure that I knew I loved her for more than my fear of all that she had on me, knew about me, could control, or ruin. Because none of that was on my mind-just her leaving me was all that was on my mind and made me cry.
She “couldn’t stay on long” (again)...I wrote her:
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 04:46am PDT
From:xxxxxx@netscape.net
To:jj@fan.xxx
Subject: (?)
I am just kinda tired and really like-dying on the inside cause I’m thinking for you and am still trying to think for myself. It’s like, I have a good feel for you and me and then again, the other side of me knows that there’s so much other stuff going on and all…and that’s the part that makes me crazy. I hate it when we “sneak and talk” and then I think about the things are probably going on with you on your end…and me knowing ME like I know me, it’s like-so unnecessary, however I DO understand. All day it’s on my mind and when I talk to you, I’m forced to just put it aside, but then I think, “why should I put what’s on my mind aside when she knows everything I feel about her anyways?” That drives me crazy. I DO love u and I really miss u all day EVERYDAY. The hardest part is missing u because I don’t want to miss u, I just hate it-just like I hate having to hide the things that I really feel inside all the time... I hate doing things that only make me look back and wish I hadn’t. The craziest part is that I can’t honestly say “I wish I hadn’t” but I’m feeling that way when I lay down at night. I dunno. I have so much running through my mind...
No, I don’t want you to feel pressured to write more than u are able to…
I told you once before that I “want(ed) you the right way” and that’s what I meant. U told me u felt me and knew just what I meant when I said it and I know u did. But do something about it…
I love u…like no other…and that will never change…I hope u fully understand what I mean when I say that as well…
Love,
ANGELA
I sat back in my comfortable Futon chair and inserted my Mariah Carey CD and we listened to “Breakdown”…
She decided to give me some rhythm. We’re in I.M. She’s a little dry, actually.
I’m cooperating (as usual), hoping she would tell me what was wrong with her.
Again, she said she was: “going through some things right now.”
“What things?” I asked. “Umm… let’s just say some…“legal issues,” said-bluntly.
I didn’t respond. In my mind, from the tone of our conversation, I picked up such attitude in her energy that I really didn’t know how to respond to her, so I pretty much let her do all the talking. I only thought about her “legal issues” being the millions of dollars of debt she was to pay [her now, ex: Rene] so that he would not make good on his threats to expose her “secret bisexual lifestyle and insatiable appetite for pretty women” as well as other secrets about she and her family.
I sat there quiet-still.
She then disclosed to me that she was about “3/4th’s” the way into paying the [“legal issue”]’s debt and advised that I should “just chill out and understand.”
Still, I just: listened…
Next, she said: “Cinamon, how would you feel if I told you that I slept with someone else?” My heart dropped to the damned floor and my eyes got big. I sat up in my chair and responded: “*looking stupid.”
She then asked: “Well, how do you feel about it?”
Whatever she was going through, it made her either a different person, or the real person she was-come out. She wanted to hurt me, especially knowing (now) my truest feelings about her. In my mind, she can’t imagine the slap across the face I gave her. My hand was stinging from the thought of having done it. I could taste the anger from my tightly folded lips as I called her a whore and a bitch while I coolly responded: “Well, I can’t really say that I feel any particular way about it, just that I am looking rather stupid right now, obviously. I mean…it’s obvious that you had to have wanted to, unless you wouldn’t have done it. I can’t really say anything since you and me haven’t “CONSUMMATED” what we have,” I replied-hoping that what I said would hurt her back and make her feel like all this time (in the greater scheme of things), what we had was really nothing.
I dug deeper: “I don’t know, it’s just… “a thing” really, between you and me…if you really wanna know. It aint really nothing-a fling is all, I said, pouting and with my defenses up as usual, not wanting her to know that I was dying inside and crying over in the world from my side.
It worked, she replied: “No, it was more than that! It was more than that! It was a relationship,” she emphasized, italicized, and responded offensively.
Her use of past tense bothered me, the: “was a relationship” part-sounding as if it had already eneded and never knew it. That killed the shit out of me, so I responded: “Well if you considered it a relationship, then you wouldn’t have done it with her, obviously you wanted her.”
“Well she is attracted to me, the time was right, and she was there. I have to send her home until November until my legal issues are over and we thought we’d fuck since we would not be seeing each other for a while,” she said-simply.
She was not lying and I know she wasn’t. I knew that “her” was someone who for a few years now; had been tight and under Janet’s employ, living quarters, and wing: Shawnette...and it wouldn’t be until a short time after this that my assumption about Shawn’s role in Janet’s life was what I originally thought. I knew this divorce of hers must’ve been getting ugly if Rene was pulling out all the stops and threw Shawn in the bag, too. I knew that if her people were uprooting Shawn from the nest and being nestled under Janet, it’s going down, and it had been going down (just like I thought-a long time ago).
I’ll never forget a picture that [one of Jan’s friend’s] had floating around some time ago. It was a picture of Shawn and Janet where upon staring at it-both of their energy oozed from that picture like I certainly can explain: It spoke volumes. They weren’t dressed provocatively at all, as a matter of fact Janet merely had on a t-shirt with JJ (from “Good Times”) pictured on the front of it, and she wore a sweater over top it. Shawn had on jeans, a white t-shirt and a sweater as well.
It was the way they struck the pose for the picture that spoke volumes and I know my conclusion of what I observed did not come from my imagination running away with me, because Janet and me hadn’t even been intimate at the time I first saw the picture-so my observation was with a clear head and heart. I just know what I felt when I saw it.
Both of them were sitting in an area of Janet’s house-like, in a big deep area of space of the room by a glass-block window. Shawn had Janet cuffed and covered by her leg in such a way that it was clear and evident that Janet was the submissive and Shawn was the dominant. Shawn had her arm thrown around Janet such that it looked like Janet was her woman-her bitch-not just her friend. Shawn’s had this intense look on her face-which was turned away from the camera, but Janet (with two afro puffs in her hair) was actually looking at the camera. If you looked at the picture for even under a minute, you could tell that they fucked that day, well…you can tell that Shawn fucked Janet that day--something serious (with a thingy). It was a very intense picture that jumped right off the page…you could tell they were lovers.
I remember sitting there looking at the picture with my face turned up with the “stink-face” as I hummed out that one gossiping and signifying classic sound: “mmmmmmmmm.” It wasn’t a picture that Janet wouldn’t necessarily want out in public view. And although it wasn’t at all vulgar; it was very intense and very obvious-their relationship to one another-and who played what part (and on that very day, I might reiterate).
Even when Janet told me: “I came out to Shawn in 97” and when she told me (about me): “it was Shawn who first pointed out to me where you really did love me,” that picture, and their relationship [outside of Shawn merely being one of Janet’s dancers] crossed my mind, I just never said anything to Janet about my thoughts. I just took advantage that because of how Janet was with me (so overpowering and a bully about things); she had everything around her under her control (especially considering her money, and influence). But turns out-not so much, because this strange twist of things was telling me that it’s about to be more where [out of the blue] this came from. And as she sat here and dropped this bomb on me, it was becoming clear to me now, how-as long as Janet kept me the submissive; everything with she and Shawn was cool. It wouldn’t be until much later in this, as Janet got deeper into me than Shawn expected, that Shawn would start making her place and presence in Janet’s life known-where she wanted me out, up and away. Janet’s being so into me so, was not apart of the plan. It was supposed to have been just like one of her other “flings.”
So as I sat there, I could tell that Janet wasn’t talking to me sitting there alone-I could tell that Shawn was definitely around. She had a way about her whenever Shawn was around-a way like she would work hard to talk to me like she was uncaring and somebody just out to hit it. It would be totally fake, a complete about-face from the gentle, loving, and even possessive, jealous and crazy ways she would be all over me. When Shawn was near (or reading on) I could tell how she would purposely try to seem aloof and uncaring.
Considering how in control I thought she had over everything, I never would have thought I was being brought into no bigger a mess than her plugging into my life, my time, my heart, my phones and my computers-that now; a man is threatening to pull if she doesn’t pay up. And on the other side of the wall-a girl who probably thought I was going to be nothing more than Janet’s hit and quit (her usual). Shawn did not expect [for what I did not allow to happen in 3 hours] to turn into 3 days, into 3 weeks, into 3 months, and 3 more months past that and into years and tears. And as far as she was concerned; I was in the way-it’s been too long, and it’s 3 of us now. To add injury to incident, the man and the girl have more access to Janet and both know things about her; so they can control her. She just needed to control and watch over me-but tuck me away from Shawn (and him).
Obviously, if Janet was sending Shawn gone until November, then it’s something about Shawn and this “lifestyle” of Janet’s that too, is apart of this man’s claims. Me? I was already “away,” but if Shawn was apart of this scorned man’s claim, to further build it, I’m sure [early into this while “lurking],” he’s seen Janet and me carrying on in that room. But I’m nobody that he could further prove his claims because again-I’m already “away.” In hindsight and with clear sight, I now know that Janet didn’t only do the things she did to me simply because she liked me; she had a reason, a vested interest, and a need to: To make sure I really was away—in any way that could cost her but assist him, and she did not want to take any chances on not knowing everything-all the way around and in every way that her money could afford to oversee...
Back to the matter of this little heart-rate o’ mine.
I sat in my comfortable black Futon chair thinking about this “goodbye fuck,” wondering if there were tears and passion, because female relationships are so much more intense than with men-especially with Janet. Everything with, of, and around her is intense-it just is—she is. I can’t explain it. I was hurt as hell deep down inside, but I never ever wanted her to know exactly how hurt and upset she would make me at times like this. I just wanted to smack her face so hard-I could taste doing it. There were no words that I could post on the screen to describe how I would have screamed in her ear over the phone-no words whatsoever that if we were face to face, could describe how bad we damned sure would have been tussling. Kind of like how my thoughts were tussling at that moment. I was so hurt because not only was any of this none of my business, she should have been able to protect me from this part of her serious mess. Or maybe my feeling sad and pushed away forced her to bring out the truth.
Regardless, it was all coming together now. I thought about the smut mag that mentioned how Janet was sleeping with some friend of hers at the end of her tour and Janet and this “alleged” lover were virtually “inseparable.” Coming from a smut mag, I thought nothing much of it-and this was early and way before she and I started doing our thing.
I thought about a time just a couple weeks prior to this very conversation of ours, she and Shawn were sitting next to each other-how distant and different our conversation was; then Janet felt the need to announce that Shawn around (I guess to let me know that was why she was acting funny). I never questioned her, asked her, or said a thing about Shawn but out of the nowhere I remember she said to me: “You can’t be jealous of Shawn.”
Until I got hooked up with her, and involved with her and this world of hers; I really thought Shawn was just another employee of hers. But through talking to her everyday, I learned more and more about Shawn: that if she wasn’t her lover, she was an extremely close friend who really was attracted to her-and that picture stained in my brain began to tell the tale.
So while I sat here in my comfortable black Futon chair listening to her tell me that she was sending Shawn home, and asking me if I would be mad to know that she slept with someone else, I had to ask questions and now, had the right to ask, so I asked: “So are the two of you in love, or do you love her-this…”person” that you slept with?”
She responded: “LoL, she and I are not like me and you. She and I are like high-school girls, like…that kind of friendship. It’s just that the time was right so…we took advantage of it.”
I really didn’t have much to say after that. I was looking so fucking stupid. I was really hurt and felt stupid for any emotion that I was feeling. All I knew was that I couldn’t do a damned thing about it-Jack-so getting upset was futile. I had thought back to our conversation when we first started to get to know one another and she told me about her one-night-stands with women. I’ve never even had a one-night stand with a man, so, curious-I asked her to tell me how does a woman have a one-night-stand with another woman. She told me that she wouldn’t reveal the details but whomever the other person involved was; they would know that it was just a one-night-stand basically, nothing more or nothing less. With that in mind, and this major bomb she just dropped on me; I had to stop and remind myself once again who she was to the world, and on the other side of the world of me: she was pretty much out of my league, despite the fact that she liked to escape and run away with me from within some other secret side of herself. My plus was that I wasn’t one of those same girls. I didn’t allow myself to let her get at me in 3 hours, and didn’t get excitedly overwhelmed with her simply because of who she was. She just happened to have chosen me: who just happened to force her to slow her “role” this time. But still with all that in mind, I’m just “AN-GEL-A”: another one of the many that had been called and chosen few.
I can’t lie. I was an emotional basket case that day. I sat back in my comfortable black Futon chair and put my “Jade” CD on, removed all track listings except for: “Don’t Walk Away,” and “5-4-3-2 Yo’ Time Is Up” and just listened to it.
Like I promised myself, I would be minding my business and tending to my goal of working on my books from June 3-June 21 while I was off from work and school, until summer classes started back up again. I was prepared to leave her alone and let her go on about her way-doing whatever it is she felt she had to do. Considering how she put the brakes on this thing of ours and put it in reverse, I at least thought she would give me that same peace and respect.
June 7 back in my own little world, and what once upon a time was my own little computer; Janet started her shit up again: fucking with my shit, keeping my shit, rearranging my shit and sending Normal.dot and W97M.Ethan.A viruses to it and such. I thought I was about to go crazy. It had been so long since she did anything like this and the flashbacks drove me up a wall. My “love” was officially back to being a love bizarre. I was livid, so I emailed her:
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 17:58pm PDT
From:xxxxxx@netscape.net
To:jj@fan.xxx
Subject: Now u done pissed me the fuck off
I was trying to be mindful by leaving you to you, and I at least thought you would leave me to me! I’m trying to do MY fucking work on MY OWN FUCKING computer, now this shit again! I REALLY do not feel like going through this same stuff from like months ago. I’ve been laying low and minding my own fucking business. Let me! I get time on my FUCKING hands to do some shit I NEED TO DO AND THIS SHIT STARTS BACK UP AGAIN!!!!!!!!!Whatever the problem is certainly can’t get anything resolved like this!!!!
She knew that she wasn’t going to be reaching out to me in I.M or email, and she also knew that I was not going to come over to her room. That June 2nd day that she pressed pause and put this thing in reverse was the last time I planned on dealing with her ever again. I was clear and piecing together everything I needed to know (and did not want to know).
I guess after five days, she knew that I meant business about going on with mine-but knew that I was in the middle of working on what she knew was very important to me. And she knew that would summon me to her room but I refused to go there. She didn’t reply back to my email but decided to go the old fashioned route to say something that she knew would catch my attention because she knew she lost that luxury with me.
Through that same Netscape Composer program from way back in the beginning of this before we had gotten close (where you could go behind the page in HTML and change any part of the front page script that you wished too); in that same area from way back in the beginning of this where she changed the paragraph to “”You’re witty, so is she. Let the quips fly,” this time, she changed it to: “Your Netscape email loves you unconditionally…”
For a minute I laughed. Because as senseless as the line sounds, she and I knew what it meant. And if we were having a less serious fight about our regular trivial things that we would normally fight about; that to me, would have been cute because she was clever in calling out to my attention: one of our deepest conversations about unconditional love. And she knew that I knew that my Netscape email account that we were using was set up by her people. So, that cryptic line was cute (and witty)…but just not this time. I just wanted her to go away.
I was done playing Blues Clues with her and insisted on not getting caught up into her web of secrecy, fuckery, and manipulation anymore. Although I knew that she did what she did to me for reasons that she couldn’t explain to me, I didn’t care anymore-I just wanted her to go away! It was way too much red tape with her and every step of the way, I stayed sticky with my yellow (caution) tape, because of.
She wanted me back in that damned room of hers, but I refused to go. So she turned up a notch-her being able to remotely manipulate my computer. And I wrote her-same day, different time:
18:11pm PDT
Subject: Now you’re getting ruthless
Look, now I’ve had two of my fucking files deleted. Now, this is really getting out of hand and I am about to start feeling really disrespected. You need to be ashamed of yourself. How would you like it if somebody came into YOUR shit and deleted your MUTHAFUCKIN LYRICS?! Don’t piss me off any further please. P.S-Somebody needs to be getting my shit back over to me ASAP…
She still never responded, so I sent another that same day, different time. I was for sure this one would get her attention:
18:25pm PDT
Subject: ?????????????????????????????
JANET………………………………give me my shit man you are being so fucking disrespectful. I can’t believe u are doing this to me all over again!. I WOULDN’T HAVE EVER done anything to hurt or disrespect u in this way. Why are u doing this to me?
She didn’t respond or release the files. I sent another one-same day, different time:
18:32pm PDT
Subject: ???
Why are u testing my patience? What did I do to u? What did I EVER do to YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why are being so disrespectful? U want me to talk to u? I will! I’m in…
“In” meant I.M, not her room (where she wanted me to show up). She did not, and could not get on I.M. but figured she’d keep fucking with my files until I broke and showed up on her turf-I refused. I wanted her gone and didn’t care to hear no more of her bullshit, lies and fuckery. I sent email:
18:46pm PDT
Subject: .
I wish u would tell me why u are mad at me NOW. I didn’t do anything to u. Can we talk? I really DON’T feel like going through this same shit from earlier this year. I can’t take that again. What’s the matter?
She still didn’t respond. I sent another one, same day, different time:
19:02pm PDT
Subject: ok
After all this shit I’ve been through with you, I can’t believe u would fuck with my shit. What did I do to you? I told you I will talk to u –I came to I.M and you didn’t show. U are being sooooo fuckin unfair. PLEASE I’m really trying keep my cool and be patient with you. I can’t do it no more.
She still did not respond. I sent this one, same day, different time:
19:19pm PDT
Subject: you are terrible
It’s terrible that u would take advantage of the fact that I wouldn’t do anything to retaliate against you and shit. It’s terrible that u would behave like this and take advantage of that. WHAT THE FUCK DID I EVER DO TO YOU? WHAT? I’ve been patient with all this shit I took from you for MANY months and Sundays and u start back in while I’m minding my OWN FUCKIN BUSINESS, trying to get MY shit done and u snatch it!!!!!!!!!! WHY??? PLEASE send it back. I don’t have time to be here like this all night. Girl u are really hurting me. My chest is so fucking busted up.
That got her attention. I think she took that as a threat or warning of a threat (although it wasn’t).
She showed her ass up in I.M then.
She spoke ominously:
“So Cinamon...tell me something…What…made you call me Janet?” she asserted.
I can’t lie-I sat there with my heart pounding a mile a minute because I could tell that it pissed her off and most probably made her paranoid-thinking that I was doing what she and her digerati were working overtime trying to spearhead and avoid: Me setting her up.
In the greater scheme of things, I knew my place was no match for her and the things she could do to make shit hard for me. So I humbled myself and played along:
“I was about to come to the room and was probably thinking about Janet and got it mixed up with your name: Joanna, that’s all.”
“Oh? Oh really? Okay…mmkay…” was all she said-but most probably meant those words as my warning-wondering why and how I grew the balls to mention her real name. And although it was probably against the advice of her buddies, she thought she would just pay me a quick visit to sit on those balls I had grown. She had no concern about what I was feeling, or how I was feeling-at all.
She was just pissed and concerned about her “big” self.
I was so hurt.
I really wanted to tell her how hurt I was.
I was so tired of how everything went her way-everything.
I made good on what I lied about. I showed up in the room and in addition, logged onto I.M. She came into I.M.
She wasn’t mean nor was she nice. We talked about a bunch of nothing while she told me she was listening to some music.
“What are you listening to?” I asked. She threw this response out there to try and soften and soothe me (and because she knew that I knew that she knew as well, “Jade’s” CD was the last CD I played in my CD Rom).
She replied: “I’m listening to: ‘Don’t Walk Away’ by Jade,” she said (really meaning those words, and knowing I would catch what she meant). I rejected the gesture and replied:
“Yeah, I like that song and ‘5432 Yo Time is Up...’”
She didn’t say anything; it just got quiet.
She struck back-picking up where she last left off (about that damned Shawn):
“So yeah, Cinamon, we have a relationship…but it’s kind of an open relationship, so, she’s not going to mind if I see you. I see you in a different way…”
I already knew what she meant by: “in a different way:” Shawn’s request that she kept me the submissive and that I not touch Janet the way she was doing.
She continued to explain: ...“And although I’ll be committed to her, I can still fool around with you since you and I cannot have a relationship. I still want to know if we can get together and fuck. I know you’re not going to agree with that, but I thought I’d ask,” said this wild ass woman.
Of course I didn’t reply.
We both sat there for a long time, saying nothing to one another. I don’t even remember who logged out first-probably me, because that girl knew how to outwait you and out-persist you no matter what. And she would show me better than she could tell me-in due time…
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