"Make sure you go to Meiling's shop."

"Can't wait to see her new designs. You tell her I was here?"

"She knows. Since I'm such a good mother, buy me some things and I'll pay you back."

"You never pay me back."

"I'm not supposed to."

I laughed.

She laughed. "Talk to you later."

"More important call coming in?"

"This is Hollywood. There is always a more important call coming in."

"Okay."

"But none will ever be more important than yours."

"You are really trying to make me cry, aren't you?"

"Get our book ready."

"Our book?"

"I'm talking to Denzel later this week. Might happen to bring it up."

"Anything else, o ye mother pimp of mine?"

"Drive to San Fernando. Randy's Doubles. Eat two or three doubles for me."

She was talking about the most popular fast food in Trinidad and Tobago.

I told her, "You're trying to sabotage me for Carnival."

"Your ass is spreading."

"You're trying to make sure you look better than me."

"I will always look better than you."

"Time and gravity, mom. Time and gravity."

Again we laughed, hers very singsong, mine the mirror image of hers. Then we parted.

My mother wanted to own the universe.

I only wanted a couple of planets with a moon on the side.

That and a lover who could take care of my needs.

My mother's mansion, our Roots Home, was right below the sun, high enough to reach up and tickle the flames from our closest star. This home cost less but was much larger than the one in Los Angeles, gated, secure, and well-maintained. The view of the sea and the mountains spectacular.

From my large bedroom, at my small desk, I sat in front of my laptop, ceiling fan spinning over my head, my work clothes now furnished by Victoria's Secret, a few of Anais Nin's books at my side, my tattered copies, the ones I carried as if they were my Sunday morning Bible, pages dog-eared to my favorite chapters, favorite verses highlighted and underlined, powerful words underlined, and as proof of her inspiration, notes to myself scribbled in the margins. I was taking time to myself, a few days at least, writing more of my sci-fi novel as I looked at Atlanta news, news I had programmed to be recorded on my DVR. I had Slingbox installed at my home in Smyrna. Slingbox enabled me to look at my television on my laptop anywhere I had an Internet connection. In the thick of the night, Jewell Stewark was in my home, found me through my laptop, and she was once again looking prim and proper and in control, so unlike the woman who had left my home on the verge of a breakdown.

Now she was broadcasting, her wedding ring sparkling beneath her virtuous smile.

This was not the woman who had spit in my face, who had come inside my home.

This was her mask and she wore it well.

With her infectious smile, with the award-winning posture and grace that had earned her the title of The Jewell of the South, she was doing a report about the city trying to impose an ordinance to prohibit the hip-hop generation from wearing sagging pants.

I remembered Jewell Stewark, not the well-spoken one on television, but the one whose jealousy and pain caused her to invade my home, the one who was on my bed being sexually impaled by her husband's brother, the Jewell Stewark who had put a knife to my throat.

A knife had been placed at my throat.

I froze on that thought and I shuddered.

I wondered if it was bad for Anais.

I thought of Anais and one of her lovers, Henry Miller, wondered what it was like for him, the plea sure, the madness, the challenge, the ebb and flow of his spirit as he was, in his heart, loving two women at the same time. A Herculean task in any era. And I thought of Anais having affairs with men, her encounters with women, how she lived and loved in search of her own contentment. I wondered if in the end, despite what was written-because I knew what was written was not always true, maybe one person's truth, but not always the truth-I wondered if she found happiness. Or if happiness evaded her.

I wondered if she had found her plea sure.

Plea sure, like the definition of love, was subjective, different for everyone it touched.

Maybe sex was not love and maybe love was not sex. But love was connected to sex as sex was connected to love.

Sex and love were not identical twins. Not born at the same moment.

Not fraternal.

But still of the same womb.

It was inevitable, with the passing of time, feelings would get deeper and deeper. Until the sex was out of control. Until the emotions you owned ended up owning you.

I wasn't ready to be owned.

Alone I was a success. In a relationship I was a failure.

I wasn't ready.

Maybe I would be one day, but right now, with my restless spirit, I was not ownable, not enslaveable. I was an autonomous woman who owned her own libido. The free-spirited way I lived, I wouldn't live this way the rest of my life, for everything must change, evolution being part of life. This was my now, my now being only a few pages in the book of my life. Only a few pages that would remain remarkable to me, understood by me, revered by me, if no one else. Because in the end, in my final days, I wanted to hold the hand of the man I loved more than life. Or have that happen in reverse, be there for him as his spirit left his body, his energy moving through me as he took leave of this world.

I stopped writing my sci-fi book. I stopped because that was not where my heart was.

I stopped because once again I was crying.

I saved my work, then opened a new screen, transitioned from sci-fi to erotica, my mind moving from cerebral thinking to sensuality, to honesty, once again expressing my duality, my being a Gemini.

A title came to mind.

Abnormal Desires, by Anonymous.

As I began writing the unexpurgated version of my private life, refusing to let my lexis become bowdlerized by my inner editor, the thoughts remained never-ending and the words flowed.

The memories were so strong, vivid, breathing as if they had a life of their own.

My imagery was powerful, my words created heat inside me, my words created tears.

My words reminded me how wonderful it had all been.

I'd never forget any of my lovers. A lover was physically in your life for what amounted to a moment in your life, but remained part of you until your bones turned to dust.

Feeling forlorn, feeling more human than I wanted to feel, inspired by heat and self-imposed solitude, that night I met a beautiful Indian man at Zen nightclub. He flirted for a while before I became receptive to his charms. Sending drinks and wicked glances, taking his time approaching. He was slender with golden brown skin, immaculately dressed. His name was Prada. From En gland. His British accent so smooth and dignified. He was in Trinidad to meet with diplomats, their embassies being in the area, in the ritzy and gated areas right off the Savannah. The joke was you could see all the classes in Trinidad by circling the Queen's Park Savannah, from the mansions on one side to the poverty that stood out, shantytowns carved in the hills on the other side, facing each like they were preparing for a battle at the O.K. Corral. Prada was a classy man. His vocabulary extraordinary. His conversation profound.

We ended up chatting, liming and wining, soca junkies in search of a good time, then standing out front of Zen watching another band playing steel drums in the thick of the night.

I went to dinner with him the next night. Not wanting to be alone. Not wanting to write. A woman in pain, but still a woman with needs. I was still a woman.

Prada told me that two days before he met me he'd just arrived from Kingston. Said he found Kingston unique. In Kingston he and his colleague had sat poolside at the Hilton and watched hundreds of professional Jamaicans congregated to lime at the karaoke show.

In his intellectual British accent, an accent I found to be so smart it was stimulating, he said, "You'd think the locals would sing something by Marley or Tosh, but every Jamaican was singing a country and western song, the entire audience singing along with each tune."

"People in the islands love country western music."

"I've come to find that out."

The following evening I had met the handsome man at the bar at the upside-down Hilton, had dinner at the restaurant below. When we were done eating we moved our conversation upstairs to the bar for more drinks and chatting, eventually going to his room, a suite overlooking the Savannah. On the surface he was a wonderful man, excellent presentation, professional, wealthy, and beyond handsome.

I told Prada that from his suite, in the daytime he would be able to see footballers and people jogging the two-mile loop at the Savannah toward Lady Chancellor Road, pointed out his view, showed most of Trinidad's Magnificent Seven, told him his view extended beyond the Twin Towers, and at sunrise he would witness clear blue skies and the beauty of the Gulf of Paria as far as his eyes could see.

He whispered that nothing was more beautiful than me, that maybe in the morning as we ate breakfast, as he put kisses on my neck and breasts, I could once again show him all of those things.

It was strong. My need to efface my old lovers with a new one, one who would be easily effaced.

But after a few kisses, a few touches, his hands on my breasts, my hands on his handsome face and strong chest, light touches, then, before hands had drifted to lingam or yoni, I eased away, excused myself to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet. The heat of hell was between my legs. Heat was power. Heat was energy.

Heat made it hard to breathe, and you knew that the only way to feel better was not to move away from the heat, but to move deeper into the heat, find your way out the other side. I fingered myself. I sat on the toilet and fingered my yoni. Made myself come. Made orgasm rise and then I was able to focus on what I really wanted. With orgasm there came clarity.

When I returned I thanked him for the drinks, told him I needed to leave.

I whispered, "I'm not ready."

A smile couldn't hide his disappointment.

He remained kind, walked me out to my car, handed me his card. He owned several businesses, had a chain of stores similar to Cave Shepherd, his businesses scattered from Jamaica to Trinidad.

Then I drove away. Loneliness was an incurable disease. But I wasn't feeling zipless. I wanted conversations and mental orgasms but I didn't feel like having my body penetrated.

I wanted to please but I didn't feel like being fucked.

I didn't want breakfast at sunrise in a swank hotel facing the Savannah and the sea.

I just wanted to understand the makings of me.

I wanted to understand me.

I wondered if I had walked away from Prada because I did not want a zipless night.

Or if my taste for normal pleasures no longer existed.

Back in Atlanta, beautiful flowers waited for me on my front porch.

Not from Logan. Birds of paradise from Karl. Roses from Mark. One delivery from each. Apologies from both. Requests to please call from each. There were messages from both on my cellular, only a couple, nothing out of control, just enough to make me feel special. Their words were tender and true, words that let me know more than sex had existed between us.

My heart wanted to respond more than my body. Wisdom told me to let it be. So I let it be.

Soon there would be no more notes. No more messages. No more flowers.

There were houses to build. Photos to be taken. Books to ghostwrite and edit.

Life went on. Life never stopped, not for the living. Not for the brokenhearted.

We all continued to move toward the moments when our existences were no more.

And in between the alpha and omega of our lives we looked for meaning.

Some of us.

Two weeks later I received another letter from Logan. A wedding announcement. He was getting married to a woman he was seeing before he met me, a woman I believe he kept seeing while he was seeing me.

He had slipped a handwritten note inside the invitation. Red ink on white paper. As if he was bleeding. "Your not worthy. This is not an invitation to my wedding. Only a FYI. Your not worthy."

I smiled. Then I laughed. He still hadn't worked out that your versus you're thing.

His pettiness, audacity, and ignorance amused me to no end.

But there was joy.

I took a red pen to his letter, corrected his grammar.

After I was done editing his arrogance, I ran his letters through my shredder.

My cellular chimed.