Jameson, in 2022, is going by the name of Rafael Mellifera. He may still identify as male. He also wears dresses. Espe appears to be Phoenix Mellifera, and may identify as a young male child. They may live with a 42 year old trans woman named Nica Mellifera. She was known as Toby Fee. I'm going to refer to Jameson and Espe and Rafael and Phoenix in this post.
When I told my mom that Rafael had called the police, she called Phoenix and left a message, furious that I had been treated that way. A few days before I visited the town of Shirley on Long Island, Scott and I received a phone call and an email from someone named Reggie, who said that the apartment leased by Phoenix and Rafael was abandoned and that rent had not been paid since May. She said that furniture was left there and that the apartment was filthy. She said they had not received any communication from Phoenix or Rafael, that the last time she had heard from Phoenix was last year when Phoenix had written to ask if they could have a bulldog. Reggie said she wrote back that bulldogs were not allowed. Phoenix's request for a bulldog was sent in October 2017 several months after she married Rafael, and just after she returned from England where she had attended a training session for her new job with a British owned camera company, and just before I sent the money to purchase plane tickets for Christmas.
Since there’s so much reality “bending”, sometimes I wonder if this too was a scam as Phoenix told the police. Maybe it was simply another way to acquire some illicit income.
So Scott phones and emails Rafael's father, Sam Ortiz, and mother Denise Ortiz. He receives no answer. He tries to reach Phoenix, and Rafael. I did not call because I had no hope of reaching anyone. I had sent an email to Rafael's parents earlier in the year expressing my confusion with Rafael’s angry letters and Phoenix's lack of contact with us and I had not received a reply from either. I was blocked from Phoenix's phone (on Rafael's account), although Phoenix could call me on Scott's phone, and I did not want to receive any more malicious texts from Rafael, so I did not try to reach anyone. Instead I bought a plane ticket.
I wanted to see the apartment and the furniture that had been left behind— a red sofa that was big enough to be a twin bed, and soft, that had been in our bedroom for our children whenever they needed to be near us because we lived in a sprawling suburban home, and the master was “on main” which meant that they slept upstairs with a baby monitor. We had a large king “family bed” and a crib for our youngest in our bedroom too. In the photos Reggie sent to us, there also was the blue chair Scott and I had bought with gift money from my grandmother. And the small “whatnot” shelf my brother made for me when he was in boy scouts and I wanted a shelf like the one in “Little House on the Prairie”. This shelf had been in Phoenix's room during the 10 years we lived at our second sprawling suburban home near Atlanta. It was 4 ft high polished yellow pine. It held tea cups and a faded green plastic frog.
When we moved to a smaller house, our third suburban home and 4th house, after Phoenix and Mica had left for college during Walt’s last year of high school, we did not have room for all the furniture so we put it in storage to share with the children as they moved into apartments. Espe wanted these things, so we loaded a small truck and I sent Mica with Phoenix to NYC, to move into the apartment she would share with Alisa (aka Jameson, aka Rafael) her last year at Sarah Lawrence College. She also had a dresser that had belonged to her Grandpa Mike, as well as the sturdy wooden kitchen table we had in very small our first home, lovingly carved with the initials M.S. among other permanent marks. She took the flowered hook rug from her room, another traditional carpet from our office and some shelves, and books. Mica complained that I was giving Phoenix all the best furniture. Also in the photos that Reggie sent was the head and one eye of what appeared to be Phoenix's silky blue bear, the college tag along stuffed pet sometimes dressed in pajamas from Build a Bear, and sometimes in a Sarah Lawrence t-shirt. He was a gift from her best friend in kindergarten.
Phoenix moved into a smaller apartment in the Bronx after she graduated in June 2016. She texted that Rafael's mom and sisters had taken her table and rugs because they helped them move. She said that Rafael was taking care of all the finances and decorating so that she could focus on writing, and when Rafael started selling origami jewelry on Etsy, so that she could focus on finding a job that paid enough for rent. She also rented out the red sofa to guests, and complained about the endless cleaning necessary, and having to share a bathroom with strangers. We were coRantinuing to pay her medical bills, and sometimes her rent when she did not have it. She worked as a admin at a design studio for a while before quitting, marrying Jameson, and several months later finding a job at an online camera store.
Rafael took the money I sent for Phoenix. He did not purchase plane tickets with the money I sent to Phoenix so that they could visit us at Christmas in 2017. He bought Harvey, their boxer. Then he wrote an email, pretending it was from Phoenix to us telling us that Phoenix would not be visiting us at Christmas because of "family history". I've yet to find out what this means.
The events in the following story about the abandoned apartment took place in October 2018, a month after Rafael "convinced" Phoenix to begin making pornography to pay his bills. His only "job" after this was marketing Phoenix. Currently Phoenix lives with Nica Mellifera, who continues to use them to produce porn, and who continues to have ties with Rafael, who claims to have "divorced" Phoenix.
In 2018, Rafael also managed to involve Mica and Mica's girlfriend at the time, Michelle MacCalman in his "money making" schemes. He probably used threats with them, like he did with us, to keep us away from Phoenix.
I’ve written this story before, because it all seems like a story, and it was critiqued as a story although very real, at least from what I know about our reality.
