I can’t explain it, but we changed during that shoot. There was a moment when I looked at him with tears in my eyes. All I could say was, “This is everything I love.” He hugged me close, and then we went on with the job at hand, but something was different.
One of the last shots we did was a close-up of his face close to my stomach as I did hip-work and abdominal undulations. The director called it, and we were getting ready to go home. Prince leaned in to my ear and said, “I think it’s time.”
“What do you mean?” I said, like an idiot.
“It’s. Time.”
“For…”
“For you to get on birth control.”
People, here again, my face. I can’t even guess what that looked like.
“Oh.” A nervous giggle bubbled out of my mouth. “How… how do I do that?”
“You go to the doctor.”
“Right. Right, of course,” I said, not wanting to tell him that I’d never been to the gynecologist and was terrified at the very idea. I won’t go into the thousand deaths I died making the appointment, enduring my first Pap smear, and forcing myself to present the prescription at the drugstore, because I was almost twenty years old at that point, and I’m sure the twenty-year-olds reading this are doing some hard eye-rolling right now. You have to understand, I wasn’t ignorant, but I’d had a traumatic childhood experience that made me extremely protective about that part of myself. I was grateful—then and now—that God sent me someone who was sensitive enough to be cool about it, even though he didn’t fully understand exactly why I needed so much extra time and patience.
A week or so later, I wrote in bold letters in my journal: February 9, 1993—not a virgin. And I drew a winking smiley face in the margin. It was a big deal to me. So that’s all I’m going to say about it, other than this word of advice to twentysomethings: Patience pays off.
One day not long after that, I saw a precious little black Yorkie pup in a pet store at the mall, and I was powerless to resist. She was the size of a hamster, and the shop owner said she’d grow to about twelve pounds. She was skating around on the slippery linoleum floor, not able to get any traction with her soft little paws. Her eyes were bright and full of friendly mischief. I took her home and named her Hena, because I’d seen an Arabic movie and loved the way the women did the henna on their hands while they were hanging around the harem—a scene that almost hit a bit too close to home.
When I called home and told Mama all about Hena, Mama said, “Mayte, take her back. Take her back first thing in the morning. Don’t get attached.”
I gave the classic answer any almost-twenty-something would give: “I’m an adult, Mama! I can do whatever I want.”
But right after we hung up the phone, I thought, Crap. I’d better take her back. Prince was a bit of a clean freak and probably wouldn’t want a dog around. He had Paisley the cat but never wanted the responsibility of a dog. I would be going on tour again soon. I hadn’t even thought that far in advance. But when I looked into her little face, I just couldn’t part with her. Not yet. I decided I’d keep her until it was time to go on tour and then send her to stay with Mama, who was living in Puerto Rico at the time. After the tour I could go to Puerto Rico and fetch her, and wherever fate was planning to take me next, Hena could go with me.
The Act I Tour started in Florida in March 1993: twenty-five shows in five weeks across the continental United States, plus a couple of nights in Canada and who knows how many of those after-concert jam fests. When Morris Hayes came in to replace Rosie Gaines on keyboard, I missed her ballsy vocals, but I loved Morris and the direction in which NPG was evolving, including more of the rhythms and vibes that brought out the belly dance/flamenco-fusion style that was second nature to me. Prince encouraged me to explore and take chances—as he did with everyone—so my role in the Act I Tour expanded. More stage time, being involved in almost every number, meant I was working harder and learning more, and I loved that.
It was up to me to bring the female energy. We opened with “My Name Is Prince” and “Sexy M.F.”—like kicking down a door—and then we kept that insane pace going for over two hours. Through most of the show, I was The Girl, dancing hard and loving it, kneeling to kiss his guitar, feeling wild and sexy and free. Some of the choreography was the same as it was when Lori and Robia did it, but I brought my own style to it, and it worked. The staging of “7” was created around me, beginning with a long Arabic solo and ending with Prince’s cryptic declaration: “To whom it may concern: You must come to your senses. There are no kings in this world, only princes.”