Hungry Like a Wolf

Believe it or not, yesterday’s spa day was the first time I’ve had a massage. I have had a spa facial before, but never a massage, so I don’t have a frame of reference as to whether or not it’s a common occurrence to be ravenous afterwards.

Returning home yesterday, I couldn’t eat enough.

Fortunately, I didn’t do myself any damage, because I overate on healthy stuff — like kale salad and organic corn chips.

The ravenous feeling was still with me when I awoke up this morning. I couldn’t cook breakfast fast enough and had two slices of uncured bacon rather than the usual one, with eggs and hash brown potatoes.

As I’m nearing lunchtime today, that ravenous feeling does seem to be subsiding but I’m wondering … is this a normal reaction? Is it something those of you who regularly have massages experience?

The steam room was also a new experience. Finding myself alone in the room, with just my two girls, I took advantage of the secluded spot to practice the latest TikTok Craze — the Cuff to Beyonce dance, during a time when the steam wasn’t on too high.

Speaking of challenges, Mildred’s Day 4 song is a good one — "A Song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget". Unfortunately, I did not have to think long or hard to come up with the song or the person. That person being a guy named Walter who pursued me unrelentlessly, even though I was not interested in him.

We worked in the same organization — him in the Mail Room, I as a secretary in the Administration Office.

It wasn’t that I was being a snob — not wanting to date a guy who worked in the Mail Room, my disinterest was based on my being still someone green at the time and him appearing too strong and too worldly for my sensitive nature.

Over the course of a year, he tried every trick in his bag of tricks to get me interested. Even got my boss and coworkers involved with everyone saying "Walter’s a nice guy. Why won’t you date him?".

He even tried psychological games — being overly nice when he made deliveries, with no response from me. Then just dropping off the mail, not speaking to me — still no response from me because I’d put a wall around myself since divorcing my ex, and wasn’t paying him or any man no mind at all.

Then one day, my two best friends in the company — Jesse and Saundra lured me down to one of the offices where I found they, along with Walter, had cake to celebrate my birthday.

Surprised and touched, and even more touched when they said Walter had arranged the little get together, had even ordered and bought the cake himself, I let my wall down, went to give Walter a kiss on the cheek. He took advantage and moved my face in a way where the cheek turned into his lips and a real kiss.

Jesse and Saundra were jumping up and down in their chairs, whooping and hollering and Walter and I were ON after that.

It took him a year to get me and, after a year of dating — both of us so in love that I was expecting a proposal at any time and not getting that proposal, something inside told me something was wrong.

Meditating one afternoon on what possibly could be wrong, I heard like a chorus of voices in my head say, plain as day, "Walter is married".

It was like mental telepathy coming at me from multiple voices in the universe, and I heard myself reply, "No, he’s not". Whereupon the voices repeated and punctuated every word that "WALTER … IS … MARRIED!" and then I knew.

When he came over later that evening I told him, "There's this thing I know and please don’t lie to me …... You’re married".

He didn’t lie.

I was calm, rational, nodded and asked "Why?"

"Because I wanted you", said he.

I was hurt and I was out.

Everyone at the job was shocked. No one knew he was married, living in a house with his wife, though he kept a separate apartment for his dalliances of which I turned out to be one.

Walking away wasn’t easy and didn’t happen all at once. He kept trying to hold onto me and I kept asking him to let me go.

Through the ensuing drama (his family got involved — wife, his mother, his father) because he tried to leave his wife, he grew weaker as I grew stronger until one day, instead of asking him to let me go, I declared "I’m gone" and that was that.

At least he had the good grace to quit the job, go elsewhere, so I didn’t have to see him every day and odd as it may seem I had and have no hard feelings about Walter.

He played me. It was an experience I'd rather not have had because it fostered the belief  I now hold that men can't be trusted, they lie, but these many years later I still feel connected to Walter, smile and think back every time I hear Chaka Khan’s "Through the Fire".