The Lady in My Life : MJ imagines

Like A Virgin

1984.

Before a few weeks ago, you didn't think church would be the place you would meet this charming and loving man. Like every Sunday, you and your parents used to go to the church of Pastor Joseph Jackson who was also a good friend of theirs. Although you had already heard about one of his sons who had gone to Los Angeles to study music, you hadn't seen him in about five years, and God he was even more handsome than before. During his father's sermon—despite the many glares from your mother—you couldn't help but often glance at Michael sitting in the front row next to his sisters, incredulous at your gaze on him.

While you thought that talking to him would only remain a fantasy, one day he came to you and you were just a stuttering mess as usual.

Right now, you were sitting uncomfortably on the sofa in their family home since Michael had invited you to spend the afternoon at their place. You were all alone and your parents were obviously not aware that you were not going to the library, but to their friend's son, six years your senior. You fiddled with the sides of your long skirt while you waited for your host to come back as he joined the other room to answer a phone call.

The silence increased the questions you asked yourself about Michael's intentions in inviting you here. Aside from thinking that he only wanted you to be friends, it was unimaginable that he could think of you as a girl he liked because unlike the women he had to date in California, you were a young girl not self-confident enough to have any type of interactions with the opposite gender.

You got up and walked around the living room, unable to sit still as your eyes roamed the rustic decor of the room. Then, as you reached the hallway, you heard whispers coming from Michael, and although he was trying to be as quiet as possible, you could distinguish the annoyance in his tone. Even if you didn't mean to snoop, your curiosity won out so, you tiptoed to the cracked open door and stuck your ear to the wood, trying to decipher what could upset him.

"I already told you that I'll be at my parents' house for a few days, so I don't see why you don't wait until I'm back to tell me about it," he paused, his interlocutor must be talking. "What else do I have to do? Oh maybe I've got some time to spend with my family that I haven't seen in years, oh and maybe I have a few friends in town I've lost touch with. Otherwise for sure, I have nothing else to do."

You had never heard him talk like that before. You had always seen him as someone incapable of being insolent and derogatory towards anyone, and you wondered what this mysterious person could have done.

"Oh girl... this is exactly why I don't call you like I used to, you keep thinking I'm fooling around with another girl which I'm not. And even if I was, it's none of your business because we're not a couple, Brooke.

So he was chatting with a woman, and in view of what he was saying, their relationship might be ambiguous enough for her to consider that he owed her an explanation his whereabouts. Even if you didn't expect anything else from him, hearing it was something else entirely. He wasn't interested in anyone and wouldn't consider it, so any hope you might have had of him seeing you romantically was dashed. After all, how could such a beautiful man be interested in you? you thought.

"You heard me loud and clear, what I do here in Indiana or in South Africa is none of your concern. I don't understand what's so hard to comprehend about me telling you that you and I are over. I don't want you anymore."

Michael was no longer whispering, his tone harsher and his frustration harder to conceal, and it made his wisp of a voice surprisingly deeper. Of all the men in their twenties that you could hear talking around you, he had the most honeyed and relaxing voice you ever heard on a man. So hearing that he actually had a lower speaking voice made you feel a bubbly sensation in the pit of your stomach.