He liked what I did with “Amsterdam” and was very into the ballet videos I was sending.
We flirted, we giggled, but in the beginning, I didn’t feel that I was being courted. Later on, when I was being courted, believe me, I knew it. This was not that. There was an immediate mutual affection between us, but we did not have a sexual relationship. I know this is difficult for some people to wrap their heads around. I’m not na?ve about his famous appetite for sex or the fact that I was rockin’ the mature body of a professional belly dancer. He never denied that the occasional impure thought crossed his mind, but the truth is, he was too wise and decent to take advantage of a sixteen-year-old, and I was a self-determined girl who intended to remain a virgin until I felt ready to be something else. There’s nothing like dance to give a girl a sense of owning her own body. Because I always worked on the weekends, I had very little dating experience, and that was fine with me. Boys my age didn’t understand or interest me at all. They never said ridiculously cool things like, “Charts, awards, and grades at school are a sociopsychotic illusion.”
At that time, I knew about the various women in his life. I don’t know what they knew about me, but it didn’t matter; I couldn’t see myself ever being part of that mix. I was thrilled to be Prince’s friend and honored that he considered me a fellow artist. The oddly magical summer of 1990 ended. Jan went off to college in Maryland, and within days, I missed her horribly. School started in the fall, my third and final year at General H. H. Arnold High School. I hurried to class with a wink at Priscilla Presley but told very few people about the unusual relationship that had developed between my American friend and me. Only my family and my two best friends knew that this dialogue had become a huge part of my life.
After our meet-up in Switzerland, Prince and the Nude Tour had moved on to France, England, and Japan—eleven performances in twenty days—before he went home to Minnesota. As autumn went by, he continued to call me several times a week. We rarely spent less than two or three hours on the phone. Being a sixteen-year-old on the phone with a rock star, I logged each call in my diary. He called again! We had a looooooong talk. He is so funny. I laughed my head off. Now I eavesdrop on those conversations in my memory, thinking, What I wouldn’t give for just one of those hours back…
“Do you sing?” he asked me one evening.
“No,” I answered automatically.
“Yes, you do.”
“Well, just—I take chorus class. I always wanted to be a triple threat like Rita Moreno.”
It briefly crossed my mind to mention the demo, but the fact that they’d decided not to release it didn’t exactly boost my confidence, and I wasn’t sure I could easily lay my hands on a copy of it anyway.
“I have this song I want you to sing on,” he said, “but I need to hear you sing.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t sing for you on the phone.”
“No, I really need you to sing. Like this…” And then he started singing it.
“Oh. Yeah. No. Don’t do that.” I was afraid if he kept singing, I would remember who he really was, and I was happy thinking of him as my friend. But he kept singing, and I kept refusing to sing. After an hour or so, per his request, I put the phone on the floor and stood way across the room and sang.
“Why were you so scared?” he asked when I picked up the phone again. “That was really good.”
“Thanks. Can it be over now?”
“I need you to come to Minneapolis and record this song. I’ll let you know when it’s happening. I want you to be on it.”
“What?”
“It has an Arabic vibe. There’s some Arabic notes in it.”
“So you want me to sing.”
“Yes.”