"So you ain't got to give my loving away.."
—
1988.
The Bahamas.
Near the beginning of November 1988, Prince and his fiancée were told that they were at that point where her body was beginning to actively shut down.
And instead of dealing with it, he whisked her away to an island full of sunshine, the ocean and warm weather.
Just the two of them.
Kamalame Cay, Bahamas.
Their oasis was a complete open concept with floor to ceiling windows in every room. An outdoor shower that they had used on various occasions was situated on the deck and the bedrooms were simply decorated with art on the walls, couches by the windows and bathrooms so big that their voices echoed.
A stoned pathway led down to the beach.
They had neighbors on each side but privacy fences kept them completely secluded.
He didn't wear heels nor fancy clothes. She spent her time in bathing suits and in the ocean or on the water's edge where she'd create as the palm trees behind her danced in the wind and the water hit her feet with a canvas on her knees.
Most days, Prince would also create beautiful masterpieces of his own. Music flowed out the French doors and into the open air until it reached his fiancée, who'd stop and listen with a heavy heart, eventually envisioning him and painting whatever she saw.
Her hands moved with such precision, the ability to perfect scenes and make them lifelike was a talent that held extreme rarity.
It was mid-evening into their third week. The sun was setting upon the horizon which made the crystal blue water look as if it was glistening and gave the palm trees a light yellow tint when the sun shined right.
A scene for the books.
One that would be engraved until her last breath.
Prince's fiancée had taught him to paint and he'd taught her how to play the piano. They both picked days and focused on one activity. A bonding experience that they had grown to adore as they fell deeper in love.
The legend was far more interested in her gift than the piano, but it made him so happy to see her eyes light up every time she sat on the bench and allowed his fingers on top of hers, guiding them across the keys to create a piece that would eventually become Insatiable.
Feeling lips to her cheek, she felt his presence when he sat behind her, placing his head on her shoulder and kissing between her shoulder blades.
"Hi my love," He whispered, a smile on his lips. "I've missed you,"
His fiancée smiled and held his hands that were around her waist, staring at the waves that would make their appearance every so often.
"Anche tu mi sei mancato, amante.." Her voice barely above a whisper when she turned around and kissed him quick then stood. "How's creating?"
They walked into the house and shut the doors before she sat the completed canvas on the table, sprayed it and signed the back, leaving a message under her signature that discussed their reality in simple form.
"Questa pioggia non può durare per sempre. L'amore e la fede conquistano l'oscurità."
"You wanna shower or stare at me from the bed?" Prince asked curiously once she made it into the bedroom and threw her wet clothes into the hamper.
"I think I'll skip tonight." She mumbled gently, changing into a satin nightgown that hit her thighs and with shaky hands, her hair was placed in a loose ponytail. "I can barely keep my eyes open."
The legend laughed and gestured towards a drawn up syringe of a cocktail. "You need it?"
Sighing, she took it and placed it in the side of her mouth. Squeezing her eyes shut and holding it in her mouth before she finally swallowed.
"It's so disgusting," The woman said, sticking her tongue out and twisting her face. "Do you mind if I try to go the bathroom before I lay down?"
She'd become self-conscious.
Prince glanced at her. "Of course I don't amore mio."
They both walked into the bathroom. He started the shower, dimmed the lights and stripped before stepping under the water. The opening of a medical device was heard and silence took over the space.
It was thirty minutes later when Prince made his way to the bed and found her stretched on her stomach, sound asleep with a pillow in between her legs. She was shivering when he turned the lamp off and drifted off to sleep.
Only to be woken up by the slight movement of her body as she climbed back in bed.
"Where'd you go?" Prince asked groggily.
"To jog." She whispered with a kiss, giggling when her lover pinned her down, seeing the moonlight through the windows. It was bright enough for her to see him when their lips danced again.
"At this hour? It's.." Glancing at the clock, Prince gasped in fake surprise. "One in the morning!"
"It helps my pelvis."
Her legs wrapped around his torso. Her fingers combed through his hair before she found herself allowing Prince to put his palms against her thighs to raise the piece of fabric on her body.
They kissed once more. Her bare back against pillows, smiling against his mouth and holding her breath as his lips moved down her neck.
She had began to feel very unattractive.
"It doesn't..um..freak you out?" She whispered, stopping him before he could make it to the places where her disease could be seen and felt from under her skin. "Because I'll understand."
Prince looked at her with his eyebrows knitted together. "What?"
The longer she laid there, exposed where he could see how bad she'd gotten, the more insecure she felt.
"You really think I'm not attracted to you anymore?" Putting two and two together, Prince sighed in sadness and gently held her face to kiss her again. "If anything, I'm more in love with you."
It was the honest truth.
"Mmm..yeah, because you finally got me naked under you." She said with a snicker as their noses touched. "You ain't slick."
"I'm not? Well excuse me,"
They laughed, teased and spoke above whispers, attempting to remember what it was like to have physical connections in the way they were.
Exploring each other's bodies before anything else. Never moving from under the sheets as Prince moved his lips against hers. Groans of satisfaction hit the space when her nails found his back. His lips on her neck.
Intimacy.
"You don't think you could get pregnant?" The legend whispered breathlessly when he slightly raised his hips after fumbling through the nightstand drawer.
The idea of having a family shattered his heart because it would be with someone else.
She kissed him slow to answer his question, her palm holding his cross.
Her eyes closed and with one mumble of his name, the rest of their early morning was spent in each other's embrace as they drifted from a bubble of intimacy and lust to creating and eventually, falling asleep as the sun rose.
—
False hope was all around a week before Thanksgiving.
She was able to function without pain medication. She was regaining some of her lost independence. She was walking without a limp. She wasn't in agony, not struggling to breathe.
They prayed for a miracle every night.
"What do you think about me putting my ring back in?" Prince's fiancée asked, glancing beside her to see him eating fruit and humming to himself.
"What ring?" He asked.
Water glistened off her skin, enhancing the yellow bikini she had settled on wearing that day. It was modest, yet fit her perfectly. Prince's cross was around her neck while a large, straw beach hat kept her face from burning.
"You've never seen it?" She asked with a gasp as a smirk curved her lips. "It's a sin to lie lover,"
The legend stared at the one he loved with curiosity when she sat up and kissed him, running like an excited teenager up the beach and into the house, where she stayed long enough to make him get up.
The woman had a figure that made every man drool over her and when she returned, Prince didn't notice a difference at first. Even when she drug him into the ocean beyond the shallows.
"What are you? Two?" He asked bluntly, hiding his smile when she splashed him with a child-like look in her eye. "That's how this is?"
With a nod, her engagement ring sparkled in the light and she disappeared under the water before he caught her, coming back just in time to see a wave completely knock Mr. Uptight off his feet.
"Damn it!"
"Struggling there P?" His fiancée asked with humor, getting on her knees to help him up. Smoothing his hair into a slicked back style. "There,"
How sun-kissed her skin was made her have a glow that she'd never possessed before and as Prince pulled her body towards him, a loud laugh was heard.
"Excuse me.." He mumbled when his eyes trailed her body and stopped when a piece of jewelry caught his attention. "What is that?"
The one Prince loved smirked and stood fully, taking him with her. "What?"
She backed up and tripped, accidentally taking him down under the water and holding her breath until the waves hit the shore. It was when they both came up for air that her lover grabbed her waist.
"Since when do you have your belly button pierced?" Prince exclaimed, narrowing his eyes at the way she giggled.
"Since forever. I just don't have it in when we're together. I'm surprised it didn't close since I haven't worn it in awhile." She replied, licking her lips and hovering them over his. "Why? Does Mr. Pop Star not approve?"
Prince threw her over his shoulder without a reply and smirked, considering she couldn't see him.
It suited her and despite the fact that he didn't approve in that moment, he wasn't going to win.
"Let me see it again," Prince sat his fiancée on the kitchen island and gripped her thighs. "Please?"
The please made the woman sigh and get butterflies.
"It's just a seashell, you know..to match the tropics.."
Prince snickered at the tease in her voice.
"Is that so?"
Humming, the woman's eyes changed.
"Get the look off your face P."
Prince knitted his eyebrows. "What look?"
Grabbing his face, she connected their lips sloppily, the trace of alcohol made him groan and trail her waistband.
"The sex look.."
They'd both been drinking. Without the need for pain management, the alcoholic beverages that were delivered came in multiples.
And they laughed loud. Loved hard and danced in their living room with the windows open and the warm Caribbean air blowing throughout their home.
They were higher than ever on life and the serious, uptight version of the legend was gone.
"I don't know what you're talking about ma'am." The slur was barely there as the young couple sipped on a Banana drink that'd been sitting for who knows how long.
"I think you do." She said, downing the rest of her cup and feeling her head spin. "Can we stay forever you think?"
The alcohol was frozen and flowing through both of them when the reply was spoken. "Maybe a little longer than intended."
Attempting to stand, Prince's fiancée bit his lip and let him untie her swimsuit top. "That's my cue to leave you frustrated."
"Wait a minute..come back. What about your top?"
An excuse.
"Throw it somewhere and come get in the shower. No funny business though. Alcohol doesn't agree with my failing kidneys and I gotta.."
Her head was hazy when Prince joined her. "I gotta dilate."
Pinning her against the wall, he groaned when she spun out of his grasp and started the shower for real and stepped under the water, peeking over her shoulder to see Prince staring. "You coming?"
Prince's eyes narrowed then rolled before their bodies molded together in one of their infamous "shower sessions" that were much more intimate than intercourse.
—
Their last few days in paradise were filled with thoughts that she'd make it to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Her tumors had shrunk. The burns and bruises were nowhere to be found and her inability to urinate was fixed overnight.
"I..I'm sorry, repeat that please?" Prince said with wide eyes as he sat at the dining room table in the middle of the afternoon, glancing at his fiancée who was drinking a fruit smoothie and doodling on a piece of a paper.
"Based on the tests we received, she seems to be in remission at this time." The doctor on the other end of the phone said slowly. "These results will be sent to her Oncology team in Minneapolis and when you get home, make an appointment with them to discuss."
Prince stared at his fiancée once the phone was hung up. Adrenaline coursed through his veins and he wiped his face before answering her question.
"You're in remission." He said slowly as the one he loved tilted her head. "You're in remission baby,"
The air seemed to become lighter as those four words were drifted into the air. Four words that seemed to change everything.
Those words gave them the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel after a months of heartbreak and trauma.
Four words that gave them hope for the future.
Four words that gifted them a bubble of bliss and happiness.
Four words that made them thank the one above for answering their prayers.
Positivity that would not follow them back to the United States as the holiday season approached faster than anticipated.
Giving them no time to take in the reality that would led to the downward spiral of America's it couple.
—
💜