Like the wind, she blew in and out of my life, staying just long enough to spin me around and turn my world upside down and inside out. And, just like the wind, she danced away, slipping right through my fingers. She wasn’t the kind of girl you could hold onto, the kind of girl you could keep.

It wasn’t safe to fall in love with her, but you couldn’t help but fall in love with her. She was mysterious and transparent, elusive and touchable, loving and hateful. She was full of complexities and, if you pointed that out to her, she’d laugh and tell you she was the least complex person you’d ever meet.

Men followed her everywhere she went, so that she became the Pied Piper, leading them down the path to inhibition and freedom. Except she didn’t need that stupid flute.

She wasn’t a one-man type of woman. Hell, she wasn’t even the kind to want one for more than a night. It was ridiculous to think you would be the man to change her, settle her down. Make an honest woman of her.

I learned that the hard way.

***

I met her on a clear spring night in May, back when I was a naïve twenty-two year old. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely naïve, but, compared to her, I was like the child who believed that the quarters under his pillow came from the tooth fairy and not his parents. When I met her, I was convinced she had no idea who I was, that she was interested in me because I was an all around nice guy.

We were back in Orlando for a week. One week before we had to jet back to Europe and do more shows. Then, we’d come back and make a bunch of music videos and hope that, this time, our fellow countrymen would appreciate us. At that point, we were barely a blip on the radar here, so I didn’t think she knew me.

I ran into her outside of a grocery store one night that week. Nick had had a ridiculous craving for salt and vinegar chips, of all things, and that was the one junk food that we didn’t have in the house. Kevin had refused to cave to Nick’s demands because, let’s face it, the kid always got what he wanted. Giving into Nick was, for Kevin, tantamount to giving into a small child’s temper tantrum. Not that Kev was in the wrong. Howie agreed with him, and AJ couldn’t have cared less. He was busy making time with some girl he’d met the last time we were in Florida. It was cute that he wanted to keep the relationship going, but we all wondered how long it would last. Obviously, he was out of the running of people Nick would turn to and beg to go to the store for him.

Why he couldn’t go himself, I don’t remember anymore. None of that is too clear ten years after the fact. None, except for her.

She was leaning against the lamppost next to my car, her dark hair floating around her and gleaming in the glow of the lamp. Smoking a cigarette lazily, she flashed me a slow smile as I unlocked the car. At the time, I remember thinking that she might have been one of those “women of the night”—a term I’d made up in my head to refer to prostitutes. My parents had raised me well enough that I blushed using words like “whore”.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

I can still hear those words in my head sometimes. The first words she ever said to me. In the middle of the night, even as I lay in the dark next to my wife, I can hear the echo of her words, the low, seductive quality of her voice. If I try hard enough, her scent seeps through my senses. That exotic scent that I know must be some sort of flower, but it’s one I’ve never found, though I’ve tried.

Her scent, like her, was always just out of my grasp.

To say that I was nervous when she first spoke to me would be an understatement. My palms went damp and my pulse accelerated, thinking I was about to be robbed. After all, it was close to one at night, we were in a nearly empty parking lot, and there wasn’t anyone else around. Of course, I was raised better than to ignore a lady—no matter her character.

“Actually, I’m not. Just visiting.”

My answer was the first mistake I made with her. It’s a mistake, though, that I swear I won’t regret making to my dying day because somehow, with her, I was always more alive than I’d ever been.

I saw her everyday the rest of that week before we returned to Europe. I never touched her, and she never made any advances towards me the way I’d expected her to do. I don’t know what had compelled me to show up at the address she’d given me that first night. “If you ever need anything,” she’d added as she told me.

I didn’t have a pen or paper to write it down, but I never forgot it either.

637 Cardinal Drive

So I’d shown up, and we’d talked. Just talked. It wasn’t anything amazing. Earth-shattering. Not even close. When she asked me what I was doing in Orlando, I told her I was here for business. She didn’t press for further details, and, instead, asked what a nice, decent guy like myself had been doing in a grocery store that late. I told her about Nick, calling him my business partner. I was sure that I couldn’t afford to give her more details than that. She never asked for more than I was willing to give.

The night before the Boys were to leave for Germany, I insisted on taking her out. Even if it was just to a diner. After all, she’d just let me into her home several times without asking for anything in return. So we went to a tiny diner, and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a short stack as much as I did that night, with her. I loved just talking to her. She made me see things about life in a new light and made the big things seem pretty insignificant. She didn’t believe in God, but she thought it was impressive that, in a world like ours, I still did.

That night was the first time I kissed her. As she turned to get out of the car, I leaned over and tugged her back. I swear, there were dazzling lights beneath my eyelids when our lips met. It lasted less than a minute, but it’s been imprinted on my brain. I can still recall the taste of her, even though it’s been some time since I’ve seen her.

In June, when the Boys returned to the States, I looked for her. She was nowhere to be found, though. Her apartment had been rented out to someone else, and her landlord couldn’t tell me where she’d gone. I nearly went crazy. I’d waited a month to see her, hold her, just be near her. And she was gone.

The guys thought I was nuts to get like this over a woman. You didn’t even really know her, they pointed out. She obviously didn’t care about you enough to let you know she was leaving. No matter what they said, though, I was convinced they were wrong. They didn’t know her like I did. They didn’t understand our relationship.

Finally, Kevin pulled me aside and told me to snap out of it. If it were meant, I’d see her again. For now, though, he told me that everyone needed me to focus on the work at hand. We were at a crucial stage in our career, one that could make or break us. I needed to be with them one hundred percent.

He was right, and so I banished all thoughts of her and tried to focus. On the ride to one of our video shoots, I flipped through the portraits of all the actors and actresses we’d be working with. When I stopped at Leighanne Wallace’s headshot, Kevin nudged my shoulder.

“She’s pretty.”

She was. Leigh was even better in person and, over the following months, as we worked on our relationship, I knew I couldn’t have asked for a better woman.

And yet, I kept dreaming of her. She haunted my thoughts and dreams like a hungry specter, and I couldn’t rid myself of her.

I think I knew, even then, that I never wanted to be rid of her.

***

Nearly six months went by before I saw her again. Our success in the States had catapulted us to great heights and was beginning to make it impossible for us to step outside without being recognized. At the time, we lapped up the attention and craved more. It was something we’d thought we’d never have. It was the long sought dream that we’d all possessed, and it was finally within our grasp.

Leighanne and I had been together for a few months at that point, and, when I ended up having to stay in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving because scheduling made it hard for us to go home and come back, she flew out to spend it with me. The day after Thanksgiving, the guys decided to hit up a club, and they convinced Leigh and me to go with them. We were usually homebodies, but they persuaded us to come have fun. So we did.

I love dancing—onstage. I’m not much of a dancer otherwise, and, though Leighanne tried to get me out on the dance floor, I just wasn’t feeling up to it. I was tired and just not in the mood. I knew I shouldn’t have come, and I tried to tell Leighanne that. She let me off the hook and, after barely any persuasion from me, went off to the dance floor when Howie offered to take her out.

It was sometime in the fifteen minutes that followed their departure that I leaned over the balcony of the VIP section to look down at the moving bodies on the floor below me. I spotted AJ immediately as women always flocked to him and created a huge crowd. Nearby, Kevin danced with his longtime girlfriend, Kristin. I could see Howie and Leighanne next to them. I let my eyes rove over the rest of the floor idly, not really paying attention.

Then, I saw her, and it was as though no one else existed.

Three thousand miles and six and a half months from the last time I’d seen her, there she was. But she wasn’t alone. There were at least half a dozen men surrounding her, touching her, and she seemed not to care at all. Seeing her that way made the bile rise in my throat, and I felt betrayed. I had no right to feel betrayed as we’d never made promises and, obviously, I was with Leighanne, but I felt it nevertheless.

Somehow, whether by design or intent, she looked up. Across several yards and, despite me being a floor up from where she was, our eyes met. Locked. As I watched, helpless, that same slow smile spread across her lips. It was then that I knew she was trouble. She was trouble in a way that I’d never expected, and she was the kind of trouble that I’d always want, no matter when or where.

I broke eye contact first and leapt away from the railing as though I’d been burned, which I had, in a way. Suddenly, the music seemed too loud, the noise, the people, everything seemed too much for me to handle. Clapping a hand over my mouth, I rushed out of the club.

I got rid of my recent dinner in the alley behind the club and, after, simply leaned against the brick wall of the building, breathing heavily. I felt as though I’d run a marathon, and I felt sick in a way that watered my eyes. That’s how she found me. I was disheveled, sick to my stomach, and bone-tired. She looked incredible from her long, flowing hair to her high-heeled toes. The gray of her eyes sparkled in amusement at my current state.

“You’re a long way from Orlando, Brian.”

I don’t remember what my reply was, but I know that night was the first I spent with her. Despite my, let’s say, limited experience in intimacy, I still knew that she was more incredible than most women. With her, my heart beat in a way it never beat before, and she dazzled me. I had stars in my eyes, and, I think, probably little red hearts the way cartoon characters do when they’re in love.

When I showed up in my hotel room the next day, when Leighanne, with hurt in her eyes, asked me where I’d gone, when Kevin yelled at me for being careless, when Johnny berated me for nearly causing unneeded hysteria for the group, when they all looked at me with disappointment in their eyes, I didn’t feel guilty. I lied to Leighanne, to Kevin, Johnny, everyone. I didn’t care. I’d spent the night with an unbelievably incredible woman, and nothing they said would bring me off that high.

I think Leighanne knew, even then, that there was someone else. She never accused me, though, never said a single word to indicate that she was suspicious. But I knew she knew. Every time I came home after disappearing for a day or a night, she’d look at me with those beautiful blue eyes that begged me to tell the truth. She never uttered a single one of those questions, though.

I never knew where to find her, but, somehow, she’d always show up when I needed her. Sometimes, even when I didn’t know I needed her, she’d appear, and I’d realize that I’d been subconsciously waiting for her.

There were times when I’d pick up the phone in my hotel room in yet another city and hear her voice on the other end. I’d find ways to be with her that I never would’ve expected of myself. Sneaking past the guys, management, security, even the crazy fans was worth the reward when I’d find her. When I was with her, all of my inhibitions, my misgivings, and hesitations would fly out the window. We made love on the back of a bus full of people in the middle of Chicago, and the memory is forever imprinted in my mind.

I started to believe that she was the one for me and that we were in love. The way I felt around her, there was no other explanation. Or so I thought.

She knew when I started to have those thoughts, and, to dispel them, she’d twist my emotions cruelly. I’d arrive at whatever address she’d told me to meet her at, and she’d be with another man. Another man that she’d obviously just had sex with. After he’d leave, I would scream and shout accusations at her. I threw things and broke objects. Through it all, she’d simply lay in her bed, still warm from her previous lover, and smile, amused, as though I were a toy that had run amok. When my tirade ended, she’d just crook a finger, and I was hers. I’d forget it all and just be with her.

When I look back on my actions with her, I still cannot believe the way I was. It was so unlike me, and, yet, it was as though she’d tapped into the desperate, senseless part of me that even I hadn’t known existed. She knew me better than I knew myself.

And, yet, I didn’t know her at all.

***

When I had to have surgery, I stayed at a hotel near the Mayo clinic with Leighanne and my family. The day before I was to be admitted for surgery, my mother and Leighanne fussed around me, wanting to make sure I was comfortable, that I was resting. If I so much as sneezed, the two of them panicked. By that night, I was frustrated by the whole situation, and my dad and brother weren’t so helpful. So I walked out. I told them I needed air, and, when Leighanne tried to come with me, I shut her down. I’m sorry I did it, but I just needed to be away. To breathe.

I walked out of the hotel, and there she was. She must have seen the tabloids that were reporting the story of my surgery, but she never offered explanations. She just leaned against a car and grinned when she saw me.

Cocking her thumb in the direction of the car, she asked if I wanted to take a ride. I was by her side instantly, and we left the hotel behind.

She asked if I was afraid of my surgery, if I was afraid that I would die. When I told her I was, she just shook her head and laughed that low, throaty laugh of hers that made desire invade every last one of my senses.

“Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for anybody. You could die in surgery tomorrow, or, next year, a bus could hit you. Tomorrow is never a sure thing. There’s no point in being afraid.”

I was too weak to stay with her that night or I would have. Her attitude about life, so different from my own, was intoxicating, freeing. She was like a drug I needed to have, and I was always in a state of withdrawal when she wasn’t around.

***

She disappeared after my surgery. I kept waiting for her to call and ignored Leighanne in the process. I sensed Leigh’s hurt and often wondered why she was still with me. She would tell me she loved me, and I knew she did. When I repeated the words to her, it was because I felt obligated to. I never wanted to hurt her, but every time I ran off, I did.

As the months passed and there was no word from my illicit beauty, I became more and more cranky with everyone. I snapped more often, I avoided social gatherings, and I hated spending time with any of my friends. Nick was hurt often during those months because he was the closest at hand and most likely to incur my wrath. I have to admit that, during that time in my life, the only thing I regretted is the way I hurt those who loved me and had the best intentions for me.

Nearly a year passed before I started to crawl out of the funk I was in. It was almost two months after my twenty fourth birthday that I woke up and realized that I had been such a moron. I had everything that I could possibly want out of life, and I was letting one woman mess it all up? It wasn’t gonna happen, I decided.

Millenium was a rip-roaring success and touring for it was more of the incredible. I loved every minute of everything we did, and I was the Brian that everyone had missed for so long. Leighanne and I rediscovered our relationship and became nearly inseparable. She really was everything that I’d dreamt of when I was a child. I had my fabulous career, great friends, wonderful family supporting me, and a beautiful woman by my side.

Gradually, thoughts of her quit haunting my dreams and all my free moments. I felt liberated.

***

She appeared the day before my wedding. I had stopped by the church Leigh and I were to be married in, and I saw her when I stepped back into the parking lot. She looked the same, smelled the same, and, as I quickly discovered, tasted the same.

I was to spend the night before the wedding in a hotel while Leigh stayed in our home. What I hadn’t planned on was spending that night with a companion.

We lay in bed that night, her head resting comfortably on my shoulder. I knew it was wrong, knew it from the minute I had kissed her in the parking lot. And I knew that it still felt too good to be completely wrong. Or maybe I had hoped to use that as an excuse for my conscience and God.

“So you’re getting married.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact, and I secretly hoped that she was jealous. I should’ve known better than to think she was jealous. She was never jealous. Never thought to be because she never felt anything for any of the men she wrapped around her finger. Including me. The night before my wedding, I fell asleep, my body tangled up with hers.

The next morning, she was gone, and I married Leighanne. Not a single guilty thought penetrated my mind as I vowed myself to love, honor, and cherish Leigh.

***

There wasn’t a month that passed during the first two years of my marriage that I didn’t see her. Leighanne knew every time, too. Like I said, she never uttered a single accusation, but I saw her face every time I came home and fed her bullshit excuses. For whatever reason, though, I couldn’t stop myself from feeding my addiction, and I continued to cause Leigh pain.

When Leighanne and I found out that Baylee was on the way, we couldn’t have been more thrilled. Our little boy would complete our picture-perfect family, and I think Leighanne hoped that, with our son’s arrival, I would quit seeking out my temptress.

She was wrong.

The night of Baylee’s birth, after Leighanne had fallen asleep and Baylee had been taken back to the nursery, I dried my joyous tears and called her. I poured all my happiness into our intimate celebration that night before I went back to the hospital in the morning. Being with her was another sort of joy for me.

But it wasn’t long before it all turned dark and black.

When you’re so close to a person, you can’t see their dark spots, their weaknesses, the things about them that aren’t as okay as you thought they were. I don’t know when I started to see that she wasn’t all that I imagined, that my mind made her out to be better, more brilliant than she really was.

She would shoplift often and shot heroin into her veins. She smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and nearly always had alcohol at hand. She loved to boost cars from the rich and famous and go for joyrides. There were times, I am ashamed to admit, that I went with her. She nearly stole Nick’s car once before I realized whose home we were outside of, and I stopped her. I think she was amused by my loyalty to those I loved.

She would call my affections for my friends and loved ones silly and childish. Pointing out to me all the ways that having a wife and child were holding me back from what I could be or do, she convinced me that I was better off without them. I believed her.

Where once I had taken joy in all the little things that Baylee did as he grew, I quickly stopped caring. When he took his first steps, I shrugged at Leighanne’s joy and walked away. I would snap at both of them, even my beautiful baby boy, when they did anything that bothered me. At that time in my life, everything they did bothered me.

Baylee stopped wanting to go near me and screamed whenever I held him, which became increasingly less often. Because he became so upset, I stopped wanting to even be near him. Leighanne moved out of our bedroom and began to sleep in Baylee’s nursery with him. One night, I heard her weeping and begging God to bring the Brian she loved back to her. I just shook my head at her idiocy and went out to find the woman I needed. The woman whose very presence had become the sole object of worth in my world.

***

As the months passed and the other guys began talking about recording again, I didn’t want to participate in the talks. What did I care for that useless occupation? I’d already made all the money I needed to keep me well-fed and provided for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to go out on the road again and be away from the woman I’d become addicted to. The guys noticed my reluctance and quit calling.

It seemed that everyone in my life distanced themselves from me then. Except her. And, right then, I didn’t care who I was left with as long as she was beside me.

It wasn’t long before Leighanne decided to take matters into her own hands. She is far more intelligent than anyone gives her credit for, and she put those brains to use. She would give me forms to sign and say that they were just bills, and the companies needed the original signer’s signature for something or other. So caught up in my addiction, I didn’t notice nor did I care what I signed.

All of my mistakes quickly began to catch up to me.

The first time I watched the object of my addiction take another life, I was dumbfounded. Horrified. How could such a beautiful woman do something like that to another person? The poor teenager had only asked for an extension on his back payments, and she’d slit his throat. When she noticed my jaw hit the floor, she smiled and kicked the lifeless body aside.

“Don’t worry, babe. He’s in a better place now where he won’t need the drugs anymore. He’s better off now.”

Though I brushed it off at the time, my mind would often wander back to what I’d witnessed, and a part of me refused to let it go. I heard her kill three others after that incident, and, by that time, the seeds of doubt had planted themselves in my mind. Who was this woman that I’d been dallying with for the last several years?

When I realized I couldn’t come up with any information about her, except what I saw on the surface, I panicked. She sensed it and, with those seductively calming words, she soothed my fears. My misgivings were quickly forgotten.

The first time she threatened me with a giant butcher knife was when she needed money, and I had none to give her. Usually, I didn’t care how much I was handing over to her because I had more than enough to spread around. We stood next to the ATM machine and, when the machine told me I had nothing, she went wild. Her eyes were full of unspeakable furor, and the knife nicked my throat. Though I eventually managed to calm her down, it was the first time that I honest-to-God feared for my life.

I never put two and two together to realize that Leighanne had effectively transferred our funds into another account where they would be safe from my free hands. I don’t think I would ever forgive myself if I had squandered away my family’s future on dangerous games.

***

I knew things had to end the day she threatened Baylee. Leighanne had enough trust left in me to take care of our son while she ran errands, but she hadn’t realized that I would open our home up for a woman more lethal than the deadliest of poisons.

I had left Baylee playing in his playpen in order to get her something to drink. When I came back, she held my son in her arms, one hand clamped over his mouth. Her other hand held an army knife up to his innocent throat. She wanted the money that I could get for her, and she wanted it now, she screamed at me. Even as I pleaded with her to let Baylee go, every feeling that I’d ever had for her withered up and died inside me.

Leighanne came home in the midst of the incident, and she nearly had a heart attack. Instead of joining me in begging for our son’s safety, she slid a .45 out of her purse. The oddity of the fact that Leigh had a weapon at all never occurred to me at the time. I watched, my mouth moving in silent prayer, as Leighanne calmly demanded that Baylee be let go. Leigh was incredible and had the other woman scared down to her toes. Even as she let Bay go safely and walked out of the house, followed closely by my wife, who still had the gun trained on her, she shouted at us.

“This isn’t over! You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. I know you, Brian. You’ll come back to me, crawling this time. Then we’ll see who the winner is.”

After she’d left, Leighanne walked back into the house, ignoring me, and took care of Baylee. As she put away the groceries, she explained to me how things were going to be. I had two options, Leigh explained. One, I could file for divorce and let Leighanne have custody of Baylee as she was obviously a more fit parent than I was. Or, two, I had to rid myself of my addiction and the woman who was at the center of it. Obviously, Leigh continued, she wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of, but she was sure I’d think of something.

Faced with the idea of losing my family, I was suddenly struck by how stupid I’d been. For the first time, I realized that I really didn’t want to lose Leighanne and Baylee. I loved them, had always loved them, even when I’d been fooled into thinking I loved another. Standing there, in my kitchen, I knew what I had to do.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the only way I could protect the ones I loved.

***

I did go back to her, but I refused to crawl.

When I walked through her door, I saw the knowing smirk light her face. Looking at her sitting in her beloved armchair, I finally saw what I’d been blinded to all those years.

“I’m not here for what you think. I’m here because I finally see you for what you are. You’re a dangerous, attention-seeking, psychopathic, thieving whore with delusions of grandeur and far too many addictions to count. It makes me sick to think that I betrayed God and my family to follow you around like a love-starved animal, but I’m done with that. I’m done with you.”

She just smiled, and then she laughed. She laughed and laughed. She laughed the laughter that I’d once thought so seductive but now thought of as maniacal.

“You’ll never be rid of me, Brian. You can think all you want of me, but you’ll never be rid of me.”

“She’s right.”

I spun around to see Leighanne standing in the doorway. In her hand, she held that Colt that she’d brandished just days before. What was she doing here? Why had she come?

“Because I knew you wouldn’t do what was necessary to make sure that we’d never have to deal with her again. Brian,” she continued, her eyes and gun aimed at our archnemesis. “You know what you have to do.”

I did, but I didn’t think I could do it. How could I? I became queasy at the sight of blood, was terrified of heights, and hated needles despite having been poked by them too many times to count.

It was when I looked away from my wife and over at her, that I saw her expression. She knew I wouldn’t have the guts to do anything. She knew, and it galled me that this parasitic creature could understand me so well.

“Brian,” Leighanne called me again. “You know you have to do this. You have to end all of this. You brought her into our lives, and we’ll never be free of her if you don’t end this right now.”

Leigh was right. I did know.

Though my hands were shaking and my palms sweaty, I took my wife’s gun and turned it on the woman I’d followed everywhere. The woman who I’d believed was the only one for me. The woman I now knew was a danger to my life and the lives of those I loved.

Even as she smirked at me, thinking me too weak, I pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.

***

Jodi Rose Blackwood.
October 1978-February 2004

I brushed my fingers lightly over the engravings in the slab of marble that adorned the grave. I’d given the woman who lay beneath far too much power in my life, and she’d nearly destroyed me.

Once upon a time, I thought I wanted freedom, passion, and the ability to do as I pleased. Jodi fulfilled all of my desires and left me wanting more. She preyed on my thoughts, beliefs, and loves. She came to know more of me than I realized, while I knew nothing of her.

I stand before her grave, now, and thank God that I’d had the strength to do what was right. While taking another’s life had seemed an abomination to me before, I realized that Jodi must have influenced me somehow. Ironically, it had caused her demise.

Leighanne, my beautiful, strong, smart wife, had never registered the gun I’d used to kill Jodi. She’d paid for it in cash and had done everything possible to protect her family—what I should’ve been doing.

No one will ever know of our crime nor do we ever speak of it with each other. Baylee is nearly five now, and I thank God everyday for the fact that he will grow up not wondering if his father loves him. That he will never have to wonder and worry where Daddy disappeared to this time and if he’s with that woman again.

Jodi once told me that tomorrow was never a guarantee. At the time, I’d been afraid of dying in surgery. Funny how, seven years later, her words came true. Only this time, she was the one six feet under.