Remember the Time

Chapter 25

March 28th, 1997

Michael came out of the bedroom to Mariah sitting at the dining table drinking tea. He bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek then looked in the mini refrigerator for some orange juice. He poured himself a glass and took a seat at the table across from her.

"You look like you've got a lot on your mind." He said in an observant tone.

She looked up from her mug. "I'm just thinking about how good this honeymoon was for us."

He smiled. "I'm glad you're happy."

She allowed a hint of a smile to grace her lips. "I want it to stay like this. I just don't know if it's gonna be that way once we get back into all the craziness."

He took a sip of his drink, then cleared his throat. "Well what do you think we should do?"

"I don't know, but I know we can't have another fight like we did in that car. That's not healthy." Mariah said. "I've got to control my anger better, I just..."

"And I've got to stop provoking you and tearing you down." He added. "I don't even mean it, I just say it because I know it's gonna hurt you."

The two looked at each other in silence for a moment. Mariah looked a little hurt to hear that Michael would say things just to upset her.

Michael looked concerned. "Baby I don't mean it like that. Like, in the heat of the moment, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. It's okay, I get it." Mariah wasn't convincing. "It's just- when you said I was only good for sex it really had me thinking like 'Is he for real right now? Does he only want me for my uterus?' Like it kind of makes sense why you would think that."

Michael looked down. He knew he was wrong for saying that, it was really low of him.

"So I was just thinking, about last night, I really enjoyed that. Like it was fun for me to do that in front of you. I felt powerful. And I was thinking that maybe we should do that more often. You know, instead of sex?"

Michael looked at her, perplexed. Girl, what?

"Hold on, wait a second. You want to stop having sex?" Michael asked.

"No! God no! I just want us to get to know ourselves a little better."

"With all due respect baby, I spent seven of the first nineteen years of my life 'getting to know myself'. I want you to 'get to know' myself-I mean me." Michael joked.

Mariah sighed. "Michael, I'm serious. Maybe we could limit the amount of sex we have and replace it with other types of stuff..."

"So you want to have sex once a month, with the lights off, in missionary, while you wear a white gown and a momentarily unlocked chastity belt, and then masturbate the rest of the time?" Michael asked, derisively. "Do you really think that would help?"

"Yes, I do." Mariah rolled her eyes. "I think it'll bring us closer and it'll help us find out what our triggers are."

"Triggers?"

"Yes. Like what makes us angry with each other and stuff. And then we can work out our problems more effectively." Mariah explained.

Michael sighed. "Alright. We'll try it. But if it doesn't work-"

"It will."

March 31st, 1997

It was four in the afternoon back in Los Olivos where Michael and Mariah were pulling up to the Neverland main house. Wayne let Michael and Mariah out, while Bill packed their luggage into the foyer.