“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Cairo.”
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
When I was in this altered state, as we went there more and more often, I could answer his questions without weighing whether I should tell the truth. I could spin long Scheherazade-style stories that seemed to come from a part of my brain I’d never accessed before. In those clear, quiet hours just before dawn, I’d lay beside him, completely relaxed, no ballerina mask hiding my emotion, no showgirl costume telling me who I was supposed to be. I’d let myself go and freely speak to him. It was weirdly therapeutic for both of us. This was the only time he’d let me talk without interrupting me. He listened, 100 percent attentive, and I felt safe. There was an absence of the whipped-cream-paycheck power imbalance. Whatever came to light, there was no blame or shame or lack of faith. Sometimes it felt like a child’s game. Sometimes it was a connection even deeper than sex.
“Have we known each other before?”
“Many times.”
“Where?”
“Many places.”
“How did we find each other?”
“Before your soul set off to live its first lifetime on earth, my soul said to your soul, ‘We need a plan so that you’ll recognize me when you see me. Everywhere you look, you’ll see reminders. At first you’ll think it’s coincidence. Then you’ll know it’s fate.’”
Together we explored universes and lifetimes and emotional truth. Under his hypnosis, I could finally speak about the family I wanted to create—forgiving and trusting, not like my family—and that’s something I couldn’t say to him in real time. When he was ready to bring me back, he’d snap his fingers next to my ear and say, “When you wake up, you’ll know that you are loved and safe and warm.”
Afterward, he’d tell me what I’d said, and he never tried to alter my words or use them against me. This gave him a way to tell me everything he couldn’t say in real time. It gave him a way to be honest with me about the family he wanted to create, about his fears and struggles. He could speak about other women in his life and what they meant to him, knowing that I wasn’t going to pop off or judge.
We still loved the simple act of hanging out together, watching old black-and-white movies and talking about the mysteries of the universe and the unexplainable power of love. These long conversations had deepened to a more spiritual level as we became closer. He asked me about the angels in the room, and I described them in detail. We talked about the possibility of our two souls having met before and where that might have happened. He was fixated on the idea of Egypt then, maybe because of the music taking shape in his head—and sometimes the music took shape because of the conversations.
He once wrote to me:
Whenever imagine what my work would look like had not met u, must admit—it’s quite a different picture. It’s not better or worse. It’s just different. regret nothing except whenever ’ve made a compromise because felt u wouldn’t understand. know that u don’t mean 2 make me feel that way but there again—it’s a fact of life. accept it as the very reason must love u because care about your feelings. In the past could do a movie and kiss the leading lady and not care what another woman would think. That’s what time it was. But these are the people ’m not with 2day! What words do use 2 make u realize what u mean 2 me? If imagine holding another it would only reinforce the fact that no one fits my arms the way u do.
During those years, our chemistry onstage combined with our chemistry in private, and the result was something neither of us anticipated. We incorporated props and set pieces and costumes as if we were performing an opera. We didn’t know where any given idea would take us; we just kept going with it, working the choreography that gave the music a story we could communicate to an audience, and people loved it.
In 1994, there was no official tour, and in 1995, there was only the Ultimate Live Experience Tour in Europe, but we were always working. During those two years, in addition to recording three albums—Come, The Black Album, and The Gold Experience—New Power Generation did hundreds of one-off concerts, dance parties, aftershows, and television appearances.