Spring, 1991 to December, 1991
We had already moved into the two-bedroom bungalow, I was working at a Convalescent Hospital (very carefully because of my back condition).... and we had changed to Lake Hodges Congregation, a very nice congregation overall.
In March, I re-injured my back on the job by helping another nurse aide to transfer a very heavy male patient to his wheelchair. Then began a steady round of doctor?s office visits to both an orthopedic doc and a neurosurgeon.....and I was sent to physical therapy. Right away when I got to physical therapy, I noticed that there were a LOT of hard bodies in really good physical shape working there. Crikey! What was a witness woman to do?!! I didn?t wanna be there because of that....so I decided to just go with the "program" and get out of there asap....and not to "scope out" the hard-bodies there as much as humanly possible. (Lawdhammercy, I hate what hormones do to yer brain!) The first round of physical therapy didn?t work, so the docs sent me on a second round (6 weeks each time)....then a third round.
The physical therapist that I got the third time (in May) was absolutely gorgeous, but not in an overt way. He was tall, extremely well built, with the most shapely tush I?ve ever seen and had slightly curly soft black hair, huge amber-brown eyes, a complexion that didn?t see the sun much and lips that were absolutely luscious.....just the type of guy I steer clear of anyway, so that didn?t bother me.....and he had a beautifully resonant tenor voice...he?d nearly sing my name when he?d call me from the waiting room at the beginning of each session....to me now, it sounded almost like a trumpet signal.....The first appointment I was scheduled for, the physical therapist cancelled and rescheduled, from Wednesday to Friday.....and my first therapy with him relieved a LOT of the problematic symptoms I was having in my....never mind.....anyway, the therapy didn?t have those results again....and as my therapy with Mr. Good-Lookin? progressed, he began to chitchat each time, telling me about his 3 yr old daughter for whom he couldn?t find words to express his love, that he had a baby (son) due in January and just a lot of conversations about everyday things.
I also began keeping a daily diary of my activities and how they affected my back and gave them to him to read each time, along with an occasional letter I would write pertaining to my medical treatment.....so at one point, after I?d shown him a letter I?d written to one of the docs, reading the doc the riot act over his asinine treatment of me in his office, my therapist commented first that I should write children?s books....then he amended his statement to say that I should write letters for people.....and he said kindly that I had missed my "calling" but it was understandable since I was busy raising a family.....and since I was beginning to feel like I was a semi-permanent fixture there, I shared some of my recipes for that Wild Sicilian All-Purpose Spaghetti Sauce and Cajun Gumbo with the physical therapy crew. And I wound up having two rounds of therapy with him. (12 weeks total)
And about that beautiful head of hair he had? One day he was teasing me about something I?d done or said and told me that he had a little bald spot starting at the crown of his head, but that I was going to make him go completely bald
As for his "tushie"....it must really have been magic....because one day during therapy while he was reading my diary of activities with his back toward me, I was looking over his shoulder, but I moved back because it was entirely too close for comfort, yanno? And when my eyes drifted down to his tush, it seemed to have "tractor beams" implanted in it, because it was almost more than I could handle to keep from reaching out and touching it. I can?t describe just how badly I wanted to touch him. Thank goodness he turned then and broke the "spell".
At one of our therapy sessions, he became incensed with me. We?d been discussing the therapy sessions...and something was mentioned about our first appointment.....which I had forgotten had been cancelled and rescheduled......we disagreed on the date of the first appointment because of this and I told him that ?someone? hadn?t been keeping their written records straight. He said, "How DARE you attack my dignity (yadda-yadda-yadda)!" I don?t remember anything else he said, but I told him in essence that I had simply forgotten about him cancelling that first appointment and that he should ?get over it.? I think I said as a parting shot, "You should just drop it." One thing I noticed about him that was kinda peculiar while he was ranting was that on his forehead, his skin turned red in one place, forming a red shape like the rising sun and positioned from midpoint on one eyebrow, arcing over to midpoint on the other eyebrow....and when we went on to the massage room, he sat down in there and had this "cat that ate the canary" grin on his face (I could almost visualize the feathers) and said, "Well now....I think we?ve cleared the air."
One time he was outside looking under the hood of someone's truck when I arrived on my big pink beach cruiser and later he told me that he called it my "pink cadillac".....
Another time, I noticed as I was looking down at him as he was reading my file that there was some sort of small flesh-colored growth near the end of his nose. Funny thing was, it was shaped like a tiny open hand held up with the palm facing toward me, so that it appeared to be ?waving?, "Hi!" And I never noticed it there again.
He also told me that when he and his wife fixed spaghetti, using my sauce recipe, that his daughter had pointed to a mushroom on her plate and said, "I don?t like that!"....so he told her, "Well, we can just throw that away." He said she took it and threw it across the room onto the floor.
At another session, I?m ashamed to say that I was wearing a pair of cotton pants (outerwear, thank you) that were multi-colored....I had "acquired" these pants at the Swap Meet for 2 bucks for Lupe, Jr. and was supposed to patch them for him....but they up and moved to Oregon before I got them mended and since I didn?t know how to get in touch with them by that time, I just began wearing the pants myself.....Mr. Gorgeous looked sideways at the pants and asked me where I got them. I just skirted the "issue" and said, "at the Swap Meet." He said, You di-iiid." It was said in a tone of voice that triggered faint memories, but I couldn?t put my finger on what his tone reminded me of, so I just forgot about it at the time.
And one day I was at home alone baking some brownies, when my thoughts drifted to him......and I felt something "breaking loose" inside me.....it was my ability to feel love and know it.....and suddenly such a warm, fuzzy feeling came over me as I thought of him....in no way romantic, mind you.....just very loving. He was so kind and patient with me. I had been guarding my heart and my feelings so closely...shutting them off and refusing to budge.......But yall know how hormones can affect our thinkability when the opposite sex is involved.....so I got on a sewing binge, making myself some new colorful and cute clothes, even a pink gauzy peasant blouse and a pink satin camisole with lace, rosettes and ribbons on it.(chagrin) You see, with the job injury, I now not only had AFDC, but also had State Disability and Worker?s Comp coming in and could afford to throw away my ragged underwear and buy new, among other things.
So now I went to physical therapy all "dolled up", with earrings on to match my outfit and everything. One day, another therapist passed me in the hallway at physical therapy. When he spotted me all dressed up, he got this huge teasing and knowing smile on his face. I glowered back at him, as if to say, "What the hell are YOU looking at?!!" He wiped the smile off his face.
One session, when I was dressed in that pink stuff, as I was doing a range of motion movement for him by bending over and reaching towards my toes, Mr. Good-Lookin? was standing behind me and suddenly exclaimed, "You?re all in PINK!" It was embarrassing because I had on white slacks and pink panties, too. Oh...and after my massage (done by a female therapist there), as I was dressing, came a knock on the door and it began to open. I grabbed my blouse and covered my front because I was sitting there on the table in my camisole and slacks. The female therapist grabbed the door trying to prevent him from entering, but he got his leg and one shoulder through the door as she was pressing against it and she murmured something to him, but he was staring at me and his eye-color had changed to black as he stared. I stared back....but with a straight face. Finally he got the message and left until I was dressed.
And there came the day, when I finally smiled at him.....I hadn?t up till then, you know.....I wasn?t trying to encourage or to make anyone think I was "stalking" ?em, so I kept a sober, disinterested look on my face most of the time. But this day, I was sitting on the massage table alone in the room after getting dressed.....waiting for him to come back in.....and I started thinking about him and smiling to myself....then I thought, "this is silly....why shouldn?t I smile...there?s nothing wrong with smiling at someone...." And when the door opened, I couldn?t help myself....I felt so much pleasure that he?d returned to the room, that I blasted him with a 500 watt smile....he was saying something as he entered the room, but when he saw me smiling, he stopped with one leg cocked in midair....then he just stood there not looking at me anymore....and began stammering and stuttering.....still avoiding me with his eyes.
Another time, I was lying on a therapy table and he had me pulling down on some bars behind my head....somehow it measured a person?s strength, maybe by how far down they could pull them. Anyway, he told me that he?d never seen anyone so strong before.
Another day, he actually did my massage therapy and what a "thrill" that turned out to be.....literally.....I was bra-less in my slacks and one of those gowns that?s open in the back....lying on the massage table....and he seemed to be having trouble placing some pads under my back and shoulders (I don?t remember what they were for now)....and he kept adjusting them....and adjusting them.....and as he did, his palms grazed the sides of my breasts several times.....just what I needed while I was trying SO hard to avoid having feelings for him or anyone else for that matter.
At our next to last session in September, 1991, we were in the work-out room and he was having me do some exercises. There was also another male therapist riding one of those stationary bicycles in there with us. My therapist had a look of troubled sadness on his face. I think I was angry that the physical therapy hadn?t really worked as I?d hoped, but I was angry because it was almost over and I was avoiding the feelings of grief that were to come. The other therapist said something about everyone coming to the end of their therapy getting angry with them when it was over and my therapist gave him a dirty look. I didn?t really think there should be a reason for anger against them when the therapy was over, but my thoughts were centered elsewhere, so I didn?t pursue it. And the other therapist also asked him if he wanted to go and "knock around a bucket of balls." I assumed he was speaking
I cancelled our last therapy session....and when the receptionist asked me why, I told her it was for personal reasons. I was totally grieving by that time and couldn?t face seeing him again, knowing that it would be the last time. Oh, don?t get me wrong.....I wasn?t "in love" with him....nor did I have a crush on him....I don?t know if yall?ll understand this, but I simply loved him and wanted to continue being around him as much as possible. His presence was like a drug....and I was the addict.
Now...during the time period my physical therapy sessions were occurring, one day I got a phone call from another anointed sister in La Jolla. I don?t remember what reasons she stated for calling me, but she said that she?d heard of me through a mutual acquaintance and that she?d like to meet me and there were 3 other anointed sisters from Los Angeles and Anaheim that would like to meet me to. (I had thought before that there were 5 of them in all, but when I pictured them in my living room, there were only 4 other than myself) I had no idea what they?d heard about me...it couldn?t be anything good, because I?d had nothing but grief from the BOE?s in Escondido, excluding my present congregation, so I was probably labeled a trouble-maker. However, I agreed....I was curious about their reasons for wanting to meet me, but more than that, I wanted a chance to compare "notes" with them on their spiritual experiences, since they were anointed, too. I?d never had that chance before, because we?re kept isolated from one another by pressures from the Gov. Body. As it turned out, they all got together one day and came to my house.....and as we chatted, it came out that one of the sisters, who seemed to be spokesperson for the group, was distraught over what she?d been seeing in the scriptures....it was bad....and it was about the WTS not living up to their claims, of course. We seemed to all be in agreement about that. :)
Then the conversation took a turn towards a discussion of dreams and visions and I gave them a brief synopsis of my own experiences, letting them know that at the end of those two dream/visions which had involved the transformations, he made it known to me that he wished to meet me "face to face." At this phrase, Sister Spokesperson gasped. She then told everyone that that was the exact phrase she had asked for as a sign from Jehovah that it would be safe to talk openly with me. They wanted to see my letter detailing the experiences since I still had the copy but time was running short, so we planned for them to come again soon and spend the night. They did and I read to them from the copy. Afterward, we were talking about some scriptures in Revelation and one of the sisters was wondering why his appearance was mentioned in Revelation as being in the "clouds".....I told her that I knew the answer to that question and was just fixing to tell her, when the sun outside my living room windows where we were all seated, suddenly brightened.....it became so suddenly bright that we ALL noticed it because it wasn?t your everyday sun coming out from behind the clouds brightness......I knew by this that I wasn?t to tell why he?s hidden from view in the clouds and I then said, "never mind." One of the sister?s spoke up to the others and said, "We ALL saw that!" Sister Spokesperson then invited me to her house in Anaheim over the Christmas Holidays, since her hubby would be in Mexico visiting his family....she said there was something very interesting that she wanted to show me there.
While my visits and phone calls with the other anointed sisters were going on, I was working VERY hard to forget about my feelings for my therapist.....and it was working....until....one evening, I had gone with my son to "Pic ?n Save" to shop....as we were walking through the parking lot toward the driveway exit, I noticed a white Toyota Camry drive into the lot.....it was HIM.....there was a small dark headed woman in the passenger?s seat beside him. They got out and went into the store we?d just left. I noticed as they were walking from their car to the store, that though he wore a different style of shirt than he wore at work, it was tucked into his pants and bloused out over that gorgeous tushie, accentuating it as usual.....and a puff of wind stirred his hair so that I could see the little bald spot at his crown. I told my son to wait for me and rushed into the store to see if it was really him. As I walked along the front of the store, passing along the end of each aisle and looking down each one to see if I could spot him, I looked up and saw him coming toward me and doing the same thing....I guess he was looking for his wife, which I assumed was who was with him. As he drew nearer, I panicked....What was I going to do if he saw me? I ran out of the store.....but the reopening of the wound I?d felt so deeply and the grieving I had experienced were just as fresh again.
And after this, I would occasionally phone the physical therapy place and request copies of my records there just for certain time periods so I could go up there and pick them up, on the off chance that I might see him again. The first time I called about those copies, the receptionist told me how glad she was that I?d called and that my therapist had wondered why I?d missed our last appointment and wanted to speak to me....I very reluctantly agreed to wait for her to put him on the phone. When he came on the line, his voice was so very sweet....all puzzled, a little heartbroken sounding, imploring....as he asked me "where did you go? I?ve wondered what happened to you? When you missed your last appointment, they said you?d cancelled. Why did you do that?" I choked up while telling him that it was for personal reasons that I didn?t want to explain. I was amazed that my voice was so husky and strangled sounding. I used to read romance novels wherein one or the other of the two in love start speaking in a like manner because they?re sexually aroused. I got off the phone with him asap.
Since I?m running out of space here, I?ll close for now and take up the story in the Fifth Installment tomorrow....and while this running on about the physical therapist and how he looked, what he did and said may seem to be irrelevant, just remember...it?s VERY relevant.
Frannie B