Category: Chasing Sunrise

I worked at the Palladium during the height of its popularity. I photographed many of the bartenders in NYC and played a significant role in helping start some of their modeling and acting careers. Richard Grieco was a bartender there. I photographed him in Central Park, two weeks later Elite signed him and he got the 21 Jump Street gig. The bartenders were mostly male, as Steve Rebel, the owner was more into guys than girls. He gained a reputation for being flamboyantly gay, but more so as a, tax-evading, drug addict despite the fact he created one of the most amazing nightclubs the world had ever seen. Quite possibly it was the availability of drugs that made those clubs so popular, worldwide.

He would come to the main bar and impatiently say, “get me a glass of vodka.” It had to be Stoli or he would fire you on the spot. We were all coached that if Steve came to the bar to give him anything he wanted. And, if it was vodka he wanted, to give it to him quickly so he would calm down. It seemed he would always come to me when I was working the main bar. Typically, I worked the second level bar, for the celebrity parties in the Michael Todd Room. That was where Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Todd screened movies before the venue became a nightclub. On this night, the place was slower than I had ever seen and Steve was not in a good mood. He literally dumped what looked like an eight ball on the bar, rolled up a one-hundred-dollar bill and snorted it right there. Not that I had all that much experience, but it appeared to be several grams of blow. I don’t know how anyone could do that and survive. He also dumped a handful of pills onto the bar. As he was going through them, he shouted, “where’s my vodka,” many times, even when it was sitting right in front of him. Not that he was mean or even loud just totally drugged and typically intoxicated. Most nights you would never even know he was there as he was back stage with a celebrity or a musical performer. No matter what else he was, he was as cool is it got back then. He was the host of the most popular night club in the world twice. First with Studio 54 and then with the Palladium.

In any case, I quickly poured him another glass of Stoli. He downed the first one like it was water. I served them up and chilled the way he liked them. Shortly afterwards he downed many of the pills and then asked who the bartender was next to me. I said I had no idea. He said, “he’s fucking ugly, fire him right now.” The guy was one of the new bartenders. He was friendly and most of us thought he was a good bartender and co-worker. I did not want to see the poor guy fired. I heard that he screwed around with Steve to get the job. It was obvious what was going on. The guy was not putting-out for him any more so he was going to fire him. I told the guy to hide, but Steve called the manager who fired the guy on the spot. I was pretty shaken up, so when the manager asked us if anyone wanted to leave early, one of the female bartenders and I accepted the offer. She saw the entire incident and wanted out of there. We knew that Steve was messed up and didn’t want to take the chance that we would be the next one fired, especially me, as I ignored his demand to fire the guy. We were kind of spoiled. When you are bartending six or seven nights a week and you get the opportunity to get a Saturday night off, knowing the cash is going to be limited that night, you look for an excuse to go out yourself.

We decided to go on a date and went back to my apartment to freshen up and get ready. I just moved into a third story walk up on Thompson Street between Spring and Broom, just down the block from the Manhattan brewery. I was relatively new to New York City, so she was going to give me a tour of the underground nightclubs. Not the commercial places, the underground clubs you couldn’t get into unless you knew someone. She knew everyone, partially because she was ridiculously sexy. She had a downtown, New York City, Latino look. They also knew her because she was exceptionally talented.

Most people didn’t even know these clubs existed. We took a cab back to my place. She brought a big bag of clothes so she could change out of her work outfit. After work, I would generally go home with a random woman. She would go dancing. We never hung-out before. I didn’t think she liked me. After she saw me protect the other bartender, especially because I was straight and he was gay, she seemed to change her opinion of me. I think it moved her. She went on and on about how brave I was. Frankly, I was just very naïve as to how many bartenders lost their jobs on his impulsive drug induced mood swings. Even with my naiveté I was a cocky guy who knew I was ringing up almost twice what the other bartenders were ringing up most nights, and never thought he would lose a cash cow like me. I simply put more effort into the job than most people did.

After a few drinks at the Palladium to calm us down, we made it back to my apartment. I just finished moving in so I had a bed laying on the floor and a closet filled with clothing. Other than my photography equipment and a fireplace, there wasn’t much else. She was in the bathroom and came running out screaming, “Where did you get this?” She had two bottles of prescription drugs in her hands. She was freaking out. I said I had no idea that they were even in the apartment. I never opened the medicine cabinet. I thought it was just a mirror. She found a bottle of Quaaludes with about 200 pills in it and a bottle of Valium with just about as many pills. She was flipping out. She told me that they were worth thousands of dollars and that we should sell them and split the money. I said, “You can take them. I’m not selling drugs.” I didn’t want any part of it.

In fact, the only reason I was living in SOHO was because my uptown roommate hid over a hundred kilos of hash in his sock drawer. When I found it while I was looking to borrow a pair of socks, I flipped out, realizing that I was the fall guy if anyone discovered the hash. He was never there. I liked hash. He gave me a several thousand-dollar chunk of it when I left. As far as I knew, hash was just condensed cannabis. All the same, I wanted out of there. It was a risk I never signed up for when I sublet the place. She convinced me to take a Valium. That relaxed me. She took half a Valium and a full Quaalude before we went out. By the time we hit the street she was all over me, hanging onto me like I was her boyfriend. We kissed a few times. I wasn’t sure if it was the pills that were increasing her affection, or true admiration. Ten minutes after we left my apartment, she said she had to get something to eat. She was so fucked up and I thought that food would help.

She took me to my first health food restaurant. I remember her ordering a sprout, peanut butter and sardine sandwich, on homemade, dry multigrain bread. Even the thought of it was disgusting. As she ate, the sprouts were sticking to her tongue and lips. She was smacking her lips together because the peanut butter was like glue. It was hilarious to see such a beautiful woman smacking her lips with sprouts stuck to them. After a while her mouth was so sticky and covered with sprouts, she couldn’t even eat properly. We left to go to the White Bar which was a very exclusive underground basement club that movie stars and celebrities would go to, so they wouldn’t be hassled by paparazzi or the press. It was almost impossible to get in. When we got there, it became obvious that she knew the security team. We had to walk down a long flight of white steps. Inside, she introduced me to the owners and got the ok to bring me in. She slid down the stairs one stumble at a time in her giant high heels. She literally slid across the floor, at the base of the stairs, into a group of VIP’s. Everyone ran over to check on her. I held her tightly after that, as we went to our table.

We ordered champagne, as that was the cool thing to do back then. Jack Nicholson sat down at the table in front of us, in the middle of the room. He was with two incredibly beautiful models. I could swear the models were doing lines. I kept seeing the girls put their head down and then come up sniffing. I was so drunk, or possibly it was the Valium, that I pulled my chair over to his table and told him that I loved One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I also told him that my schizophrenic, uncle spent time in Creedmoor undergoing electric shock therapy, just like his character had in the movie and that his performance moved me because of it. He thanked me for sharing my experience and we had a drink before he left with the models. I remember he was so much shorter than he looked in his movies. He was also much more handsome.

My date thought that I was going to be thrown out of the place. It had the opposite effect. We instantly became the coolest people there. I really only sat down to him to thank him for making people aware of what was really going on in mental hospitals. They were mistreating our family members and experimenting on them with unproven very radicle procedures at that time. They were treated more like inmates then they were sick people in need of help to manage their lives. In any case it was a great honor to meet him and for him to invite me to sit with him after I shared my gratitude. My friend was speechless. Shortly afterwards, she was slobbering on the table and spilling drinks, so we decided to go back to my apartment. She wanted me to take a Quaalude. She promised me that we would have great sex if I did. When we got back to my apartment she took off all her clothing and got into my bed. She made me take one of the pills and then off came my clothes.

We woke up the next morning in each other’s arms, naked. I remember her looking into my eyes and asking me if anything happened the night before. She didn’t let go of me until I told her the entire story. She remembered nothing. After I took the Quaalude, things got fuzzy for me so I couldn’t remember anything after we took our clothes off. When she asked me if we had sex, I said no. She was not the type to sleep around and the thought that she had, troubled her. She was, as far as I knew, quite conservative in that area. My package was sore so we must have done more than simply hug.

I gave her both bottles of the pills. She gave many of them to the other bartenders and to many of the actors and famous models that were regulars at the Palladium. She told everyone that they were a gift from me, so I became even cooler. It was not long after that the FBI raided the club and focused on the bartender’s cash registers and tip buckets. Steve Rebel was known for having gone to prison for tax evasion and the FBI thought he was cheating again. As it turned out, most of the bartenders were stealing from the club by not ringing up expensive drink orders and taking huge tips from the patrons. As we didn’t always pool our tips, they could get away with it. I think she along with almost every other bartender failed the lie detector test the FBI gave us. I don’t remember if she lost her job along with so many others. They asked us about drugs and what we knew about stealing by the other bartenders.

I lied about using drugs. For some reason the polygraph didn’t pick it. I thought I was going to be fired. I was actually promoted. I was not only getting the best shifts and more celebrity parties but also working the VIP list at some of the more prestigious celebrity events. I don’t believe she made the cut. I never saw her again until she got her big break as a video jock. Rumor is she gave the casting directors some of the Quaaludes. She was a short but memorable chapter of love and the evening was one of the funniest of my entire life. She is still incredibly beautiful. We bumped into each other on the street in New York City, when she was on a date. It was rather awkward. We never spoke of that night again. It was several days before my package felt right again. Whatever we did, it must have been intense.

I stayed at the Palladium for months. I left after I became involved in a fistfight with one of the other bartenders. The guy dripped acid on chewing gum and gave many of us pieces without telling us. But, that is another chapter. As for this chapter of love, the strangest thing about it is that I can’t remember anything about the evening, from the time we got back to my apartment and our clothes came off.

 

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Chapter 23 – The Sub & The Dom: Next Chapter →

When I first started modeling I did not talk about it much because I didn’t think I was going to get a lot of work. Not when I saw the competition, guys who looked like chiseled statues. I always loved photography, so I moved to the opposite side of the camera. Not only because I loved photography, but also because of my passion for the female figure. As fate would have it for a brief period in my life, I was modeling and going to interviews and casting calls. Often I would meet incredible models who looked like goddesses. They had to have super hero DNA, or the blood of actual goddesses running through their veins. They were not mere mortals.

She was one of those models. When she walked down the street, everyone, stopped in their tracks and stared. People thought she was a movie star. She looked very much like a European Barbie doll. Perhaps I put her on a pedestal, but she was undeniably gorgeous. She had golden blonde hair and blue eyes, a combination I found particularly alluring. Add perfectly cut cheekbones, full lips, almond eyes and perfect curves and you have a true goddess. Every man, especially if he is a male photographer, wants his mate to be his muse, no matter what else she does.

I don’t remember what the casting call was for, but only the top male and female models in the city were invited. An agent tipped me off to it. I wasn’t with an agency at the time. When I arrived at the casting call there were many female models, but only a few men. They wanted a very specific look for the male model, so the invitations were limited. As I waited my turn to see the casting team I met my goddess. She was shy. She shared a few stories of her modeling experiences. She modeled all over the world. She was staying at John Lennon’s apartment, near Strawberry Fields at the Dakota. We laughed and flirted. She was very calm and tranquil, as if she had everything anyone wanted and not a care in the world. Girls, well goddesses like her have so many opportunities it creates a certain inner confidence. In her case, it was accompanied by inner beauty.

That evening, I picked her up in my parents second car. I didn’t have one at the time. I took her to Hammerheads in Levittown. It was the only place open that had a dance night. This was the Saturday Night Fever days. Disco was huge, as was dancing to the songs of the Bee Gees. We danced all night. All eyes were on us. People started to dance next to us and interact with us. We managed to have fun anyway. Eventually, she started to grind against me and shortly afterwards we were kissing on the dance floor. The crowd was getting into it as much as we were. They were considerably older.

We went to the car, but it was so cold I invited her to my apartment. I was nervous. It was hardly the mansion I picked her up at. When I did, I distinctly remember her saying, “don’t you know who that is?” She mentioned a name I didn’t recognize and I said, “yes, of course.” I just wanted to appear cool. It very well may have been John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono, but I’m not sure.

She was demure, until we hit the bedroom. She was a screamer and was particularly loud when I went down on her. I had to put my hand over her mouth to keep the decibels down. When she was orgasming I had to keep both hands over her mouth. I learned later, the reason she had such intense orgasms was putting my hands over her mouth was a huge turn-on for her. In fact, she was screaming so loud to get me to do so. The fact that my father was sleeping upstairs and the door was open, was a non-issue for her. In fact, it was a turn on. I started to think she wanted him to catch us. My apartment at the time was my parent’s empty apartment. We were going at it for hours. Every round was accompanied by more screaming. I was amazed that this “Wonder Woman” was making love to me.

She told me she never went anywhere until she was 19. She lived a very sheltered life. I was surprised her legal guardians allowed her to go out with me. She was going to do so no matter what they said. It was more than a year since she turned 18 and could legally do whatever she wanted. It was obvious her parents had died and various legal guardians ruled her life. So, I was her rebellious interlude. I took her home that night and walked her to the Dakota.

That was to be the last time I would ever see her. Her guardians wouldn’t allow it. They still had a lot of pull over her. I brought her home hours after curfew and we were both an absolute, sweaty, wrinkled mess. It was a sight they could not miss, as they were waiting for us by the front door.

I have loved women that many people would consider average looking… tom boy types, as well as some of the most beautiful women on this earth. I can tell you that love has little to do with physical beauty, even if that is the initial attraction. It always comes down to chemistry and chemistry we had. All the same, for a Long Island boy who was modeling for about five minutes, sleeping with such a beautiful woman was quite an experience.

Within a few years, I would see her in hundreds of magazine editorials and knew her career had taken off. I always wanted to contact her agent but never had the courage to deal with her guardians again. They were pretty threatening when I dropped her off, so I just let it be. I am sure if she could have, she would have gotten in touch with me. Her eyes told me she was falling in love with me. Throughout my career I learned just how devious and underhanded people can be to control others. The extent of control some utilized to manipulate people’s lives was unreal. Often, I dreamed about her. Eventually I forget her name. What I will never forget is that of all the people she could have disobeyed her guardians for, she chose me. It was the first time she rebelled. Despite the short duration of our chapter of love, I was honored that she chose me and I keep a special place in my heart for her.

 

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Chapter 25 – My First Modeling Shoot: Next Chapter →

We met in the airport. I was so hung-over it was almost impossible to stand and talk without getting queasy. Her plane was cancelled. So was mine. It was going to be a several hour delay, a reroute via Puerto Rico and then our flights home. She was chain-smoking and walking back and forth to the airport bar. It was obvious she wasn’t happy with the delays. Personally, I didn’t care if my flight was cancelled. For me it was just a short trip back to the casinos and the girls. She had me enamored the first time I saw her. She was intelligent, laughed at every one of my jokes, had a beautiful accent, and most of all, seemed to have be sculptured by some great Nordic artist. She was perfect.

Eventually, she got her flight to Connecticut, where she was living and I flew to Long Island. We immediately were on the phone and talked for hours. The Saturday after we returned, she took the train from Boston to New York. It was not much longer than two weeks and we were engaged. We eloped a few months later.

I barely had time to check with the women from Saint Maarten to make sure none were pregnant. Prior to all of this, upon my return from Saint Maarten, my former fiancé came to see me. She had lost a lot of weight and was looking incredible. We had sex a few times, but I couldn’t see her again. I didn’t want to go back to a woman I knew was not ready for marriage and a family. I was also falling hard for the girl from the airport. I had already been diagnosed with the terminal disease. The doctors at the hospital didn’t know which variety of the disease I had, only that it would kill me. I never told my now unofficial fiancé about my diagnosis because I thought I could exercise my way through it and beat it. More likely I was still traumatized by my diagnosis and obsessed with having a child.

We decided to elope. Immigration wouldn’t let her out of the country to actually get married without waiting six months to come back in minimum. She was not a citizen and her student visa had elapsed. We planned a traditional Swedish wedding in her hometown. Eventually she received her permanent Visa. We bought a house together, before we were even married. I had managed to save a great deal of money while working at AT&T as well as by providing private consulting and telecom analysis to my clients. She sold her condo in France. It had been a gift from her father. During the mortgage process, they would not consider her credit, but I was approved. She chipped-in, and upheld her part of the bargain for closing. I signed half of the house over to her, without even adding her name to the mortgage. It was a strategic move. If I was as sick as the doctors thought and something happened to me, I thought she would get the house free and clear because of that and the mortgage insurance I purchased privately.

She wanted to have a child as much as I did and we never did anything to prevent it. After I asked her to marry me, I learned that she came from one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. I was trying hard not to worry, even though I was terrified I would leave her a widow before my child was born. But at least I knew she would be ok financially. When you are young and get diagnosed with a disease that no one could pronounce never mind even heard of, you simply are traumatized, at least I was.

When she was six months pregnant I was rushed to the emergency room. Despite my complete denial of my condition, the doctor’s predictions of “do not make any long-term plans,” started to seem more and more accurate. I was in denial the entire time we courted and was obsessed with giving my parents a grandchild. Now, my wife was pregnant. I was crazy worried she would lose our child when she developed diabetes early on. Now, my health was deteriorating rapidly.

I told her I was having problems breathing. We went to so many doctors. All they ever did was give me nitro pills and say there was nothing they could do. Neither I, nor the doctors, told her how serious it really was. They could see she was pregnant and knew it would be dangerous to tell her. At one point, I was having heart pain every day, almost hourly. We went to Syosset Community Hospital when it was so bad I could not take the pain in my chest. I truly believed I would die that day never getting to see my unborn son. The emergency room cardiologist could not find anything and he asked me when I felt the worst. I told him after I eat anything. So he had me eat a bologna and cheese sandwich. Within minutes I was starting to have an actual heart attack. I was not even thirty years old and my life was going to end.

They caught it just as it started. It turned out that it was a good thing that they had me eat. As we later learned, every time I ate anything with salt or fat, my clogged arteries and newly formed capillaries were put to a test. Often the collateral circulation as they called it would fail when I as eating from the fat that would clog the network of capillaries that were enough to barely keep me alive, but not nearly developed enough even to eat or walk up a small flight of stairs. Eating a fatty sandwich was putting me in the ideal condition for a life ending first heart attack. Just after I had the sandwich, I felt my chest tighten and it became hard to breathe. The bells and monitors all started to flash with a CODE SOMETHING coming out of the loud speakers. It all happened so fast. It was a blur. The nurses came running and hooked me up to an intravenous system. By radio, a doctor instructed them to give me nitro and God knows what else. Out of desperation, one of the nurses slapped a nitro patch right onto my chest. They had the paddles at the ready, to jump start my heart, just in case. It happened so fast, yet, it seemed to take forever. The EKG machine was ringing and all kinds of alarms were going off. I saw my wife the entire time. She was looking on from a distance, in shock. Despite the fact I was having a heart attack, all I could think about was her and my unborn son.

My heart did not stop. But, as the we later found out during surgery I did have a mild heart attack. The nurses saved my life. I guess it was not my time to die, but I believed that these were to be my last few minutes on earth. The nurses and the doctors were in shock that a guy in my condition, at my age, was having a heart attack. Prior to this, my BP and EKG were taken, time and time again, at the HIP Centers. The HIP Centers were a new concept of managed care. In reality, it was inferior rationed health care. Clearly, HMO’s were not working, at least not for me. The insurance companies forced the doctors to quota out procedures and base decisions more on profitability than what the patients needed.

No one knew about capillary circulation back then and how limited it was. It was terrifying. My poor wife sat there by herself, six months pregnant and watched the entire episode. I could have died right in front of her, never to see my unborn son or her again. My entire life flashed before my eyes. The guilt of marrying a woman in my condition started to haunt me. It later became my personal emotional plague.

She was tough, a true Viking. But, this was more than she was prepared for. I knew at that moment, that no matter what I did, she would never look at me the same way again. It would be replaced with fear and sorrow and coldness. The doctors sent me, by ambulance, to North Shore Hospital for a catheterization. I purposely distanced myself from the rest of my family. I knew my parents would be a mess and I didn’t need any extra stress. Frankly, I didn’t think that my heart could withstand the pressure of seeing them from a surgical room; I simply loved them too much to tell them. I went through the heart surgery with only my wife at the hospital. She was so alone and I was sad for her. I wasn’t thinking about my life or death, just my wife and unborn son. Going into that surgery, I had no idea if I would ever see her again. They opened all the arteries in my heart. They learned that every major artery in my heart was blocked, either completely, or over 95%.

We left the hospital and I tried very hard to minimize the event. She was never the same. Neither was I. I was more worried about her and my son than I was about myself. It was only a few months afterwards, at that same hospital, that my son was born. It was the most incredible moment of my life. I had a son and I was alive. Life was going to work itself out. But, even while she was in labor, my heart was missing beats. I was chewing on nitro pills to prevent another heart attack. I knew the surgery had was not going to be a permanent solution.

I had my second failed heart surgery not long after my son was born. They put stents into my collapsed arteries. This was at Saint Francis Hospital. The hospital was known for pioneering this procedure and was supposed to be among the best in the world. Dr. Shlofmitz was kind as well as being incredibly talented. Dr. Shlofmitz made the surgery (then a completely new procedure) seem routine. They put me in a stainless steel, mission control style, surgical room. I had to stay awake for the procedure. It was terrifying but Dr. Shlofmitz was amazing choosing to listen to loud rock and roll during the surgery did give me some relief from my fear as did the tranquilizers.

It was not long after the second surgery that the stents failed. I had to go back for drug eluding stents that eventually were recalled. They failed almost as fast. On the bright side, I was a father. I had an amazing wife and my bloodline was intact. For a few years, I thought I might be ok, but as time went on, all the symptoms came back. I was even worse as the blood thinners caused me to bleed extensively and the statins were raging havoc on my system. The pain was unbearable. Even though they fixed my heart the “cure” was not a cure. All it did was buy me time. I knew it was just a matter of time before I died, or she left me. I wasn’t sure who was in worse shape, my newlywed wife, or me. I couldn’t believe she stayed with me. After all, I never told her about my condition, or at least the extent of it. She found out after we were married for a few years and my health deteriorated exponentially.

I loved her more than anyone or anything in my life. We had a magical relationship. We traveled to France, Italy, Switzerland, and Sweden. We spent months at a time in Europe. I was smoking a lot of weed. For some reason, it not only helped control the pain, but also the growth of the xanthomas, the cholesterol bumps, that were growing all over my joints as well as throughout my arteries and organs. I was extremely handicapped, but always tried to hide it from her. I was buying nitros on the black market from pharmaceutical salespeople. Often, I was chomping on them right in front of her to avoid another heart attack. She never knew what I was doing to survive. I certainly did not tell her. She encouraged me to walk but just did not realize that walking was like being under water for way too long and not being able to get to the surface. I tried but I just could not keep up.

Eventually the pain of claudication in my legs and the side effects from the medications were too much for me. I could barely walk. I knew she thought it was all in my head, or at least that was her way of coping. She was a terrific mother and an incredible wife. She was everything I ever dreamed of in a soul mate and more. But she was extremely depressed. Eventually I couldn’t go on walks with her or do much more than take photographs. We were together for several years at that point and I had lived with her longer than anyone but my parents. She was everything to me, as was my son. We spent many years together trying to recover from all we had been through. Despite the fact my condition was getting worse, my bloodline was intact.

At this point I was earning a living through telecom analysis. I put the camera aside, other than to photograph my family. I was a wreck. Shortly after we met I had a water skiing accident and fractured some vertebra. Then, when for the first time, I went snow skiing with her; I almost had a heart attack on the slopes and crashed into dozens of skiers. The adrenaline from any event like that was simply too much for my now fragile heart and I lost control when I nearly fainted. I wanted to be the athlete I was most of my life, but I couldn’t even walk to the ski lift without fear. I was making very good money as an analyst, but I never knew if I would wake up the next day and it got to both of us.

When my son was about three years old, I found out I was going to be a father again. This time we were going to have a daughter. I was amazed and happy. We both went through major depressions due to my surgeries and inability to live a non-handicapped life, even though I did my best to hide my pain from her. As soon as she told me, I knew I had to get my heart checked again. Shortly afterwards I had many more stents put in by Doctor Shlofmitz. He couldn’t believe the rate the xanthomas were growing all over my body and how fast the stents were failing.

About the time my wife was pregnant with my daughter, my analysis and software company was also failing. I couldn’t tell her. I changed my career from photography to technology and became an expert at analyzing data and generating designs for voice and data networks. But, I was having severe memory issues, from either the medications or the incredible pain the xanthomas were causing throughout my body. They were not only growing in my heart, but in every artery of my body as well as in many joints in my legs, elbows, and in my abdomen. Later as they found out even some the size of golf balls.

Although I had been earning significant dollars, we were spending money faster than I could make it. Our family income was supplemented by advances from her inheritance. For several years, I found new clients, just when it looked like we would run out of money. We were living well, but the house we bought in Centerport was starting to fall apart and my health was getting much worse. She was only too willing to contribute, by becoming the data entry administrator at my software company. I started that software project so she would be able to do the analysis without me. I even recruited her genius brother to architect the software. As we later found out, software development was an extremely risky and expensive undertaking. Eventually, we ran out of money. Sprint killed my business when they introduced a flat rate program. That program allowed callers to call anywhere, anytime, for a dime a minute, so no one needed an analysis anymore. Every telecom manager and consultant I knew was out of business within six month.

How could I tell my wife that I was about to die and my plan of leaving her my consulting and software company was failing? I attempted to start a business building e-commerce sites for electronic shopping malls, but someone and something was working against me. Everything got to her. I was sure that if she didn’t have a nervous breakdown, I was going to have one. Although I didn’t truly know her when we got engaged and eventually married, I grew to love her more deeply than anyone I ever loved.

As the truck pulled up to our home, to move her out, my heart started to miss beats so frequently I didn’t think I would live long enough to try to convince her to stay, nor did I think it was fair of me to ask. I cried a lot over my lost rock star. It paled in comparison to the utter anguish and feeling of loss I experienced when my wife left. I was on the Grim Reaper’s short list and almost didn’t care. Without her, I thought I deserved to die. I hit rock bottom.

When she left, she told me I didn’t matter anymore. She said she had to do what was best for her and our children and that it didn’t matter, as I was dying anyway. She said that I simply did not make enough money any longer and she had other choices that were promising her country clubs and life of luxury. Those were the last words she said to me as she left with all our furniture. I was alone in an empty house with just a bed, my computers and my old cameras. I hated life at that point and wanted to punish myself for marrying her in the first place. If I did not die from a heart attack, I was going to die from pure misery and depression. I pulled as much cash out of the house as the mortgage banks would allow, gave it to her, paid off the company debts we accumulated after Sprint’s program put us out of business, and signed a divorce agreement without even reading it. What did it matter anyway? I was in no position to support her and she didn’t want to draw on her inheritance to support us both. I was screwed financially and had gambled every relationship and every dollar I ever earned on our consulting business. She was no longer the free spirited, beautiful, European princess I fell in love with. She had toughened herself and made logical decisions, closing her heart to everything but herself.

I would be a single father from that point on. Our marriage counselor told me she was so far gone that there was no way to fix the relationship and that she was in a worse mental condition than I was physically, despite the fact I was suffering and about to die. Watching that moving truck pull away was one of the worst moments of my life. I didn’t leave my bed for several weeks. The following day I went on antidepressants, tranquilizers and sleeping pills, on top of all the heart medications. The stress nearly killed me right there. For weeks all I did was sleep, barely eating a thing. At times, I thought I would be better off taking all the pills at once. The pain in my chest and arms was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. No longer was life about my obsession with sex or having children. It was about survival for my children. I had to carry on, despite how deeply sad I was, filled with gut-wrenching guilt for bringing children into a world where they would soon have no father with a mother so distraught over my health she could barely function herself.

 

← Previous Chapter: Chapter 27 – Love Conspiracy
Chapter 29 – My Resurrection: Next Chapter →

After the first few short chapters of love after my divorce, I realized that I could possibly find love again. If I met someone I thought might be my true soul mate and we spent years together, I would consider living with her. I thought if by some miracle they came up with a cure, I might even get married again. I was flip-flopping on the commitment and love thing. I had hope, but then again, I never thought I would survive, or have a life partner again. But, with each new chapter of love, and time, the crack in my heart was healing. I didn’t know it, at the time, but it was.

I started to believe even more, as I picked up my camera again. I was shooting like I did when I was a younger man. All the interaction with women gave me even more confidence. Then it started. Everyone I knew was trying to set me up with someone. It was obvious to them that I was heartbroken. They wanted to help me through these rough times. I was shocked when some of my friend’s wives’ and my children’s friend’s mothers, were throwing themselves at me. I couldn’t understand their thinking. I would never fool around with a married woman, period.

Then a family member set me up with her best friend’s sister, not realizing that I had been in a serious chapter of love with her best friend, decades earlier. She never told my family that we were involved. She wanted to keep it that way for some reason. I had not spoken to her in years, although I saw her occasionally. I knew she had gotten married and had children. Clearly, there was no future for us. But maybe there could be with her sister. At that point, the more absurd the possibility, the less fear I had of the opportunity. As I thought more about it, the full ramifications set in. I was being set-up with a woman who was the sister of my former lover, a woman I would have married in a heartbeat, if she had wanted me and I was not in such a wild stage of my life at the time. I was confused. This was a bit of a moral dilemma.

When I was with the older sister, I was a teenager dabbling in photography. I never forgot our affair. Nor did I forget just how much I loved her. When we were kids, she and her family were close to my family.. I never spoke to her much. So, when she called and asked me to photograph her, I was surprised. I had known her most of her life, but had no idea she blossomed into such a beautiful young lady. But, she was not only calling about a photo-shoot, she was flirting and giggling. It didn’t take long for me to agree to help her with her portfolio. I was living in New York City and had not yet started the relationship with my neighbor, so I was still looking for love. I just moved from Thompson Street to the Upper East Side by Central Park. I was making great money and having the time of my life.

The first time we shot she was more than willing to take her clothes off. That was not unusual, as she was also an artist and most artists are also very carefree. Perhaps, she was trying to seduce me. I was never quite sure. I was on my best behavior since she was a family friend. At first I was just interested in creating abstract nudes and experimenting. She was affectionate, intelligent and well spoken. She also had a great sense of humor. She followed my directions incredibly well, even though I was a fledgling photographer. We shot everywhere. We shot in bathtubs and at the beach. We shot on sand dunes even though it was freezing! In addition to the nude shots she posed in various outfits. She looked incredibly exotic and mysterious in traditional kimonos.

Her creative instincts were spot on. I loved working with her. I spent hundreds of dollars on film and hundreds more on processing, without even giving it a thought. When the slides came back from the lab, we met a local place called The Wine Gallery. At one point, I was a waiter and bartender there, so I knew the staff. They were cool and gave us our space. The setting was unique. The booths were antiques taken from old church confessionals. They offered a great deal of privacy. It was a naughty place to look at nude photographs, especially given the origins of the seating.

Back then there was no instant gratification as with today’s digital photography. You had to wait days or even a week to have your film processed. A lot depended on the film choice and how much you were willing to pay to get the film developed quickly. I paid a premium to get them processed and messengered back the next day.

As it turned out, the confessional was the perfect spot. We drank wine and looked at the art we created in pretty much total privacy. After we went through quite a few of the photographs, I went to my car to get fresh batteries for the slide viewer. When I came back, something had changed. She was no longer looking at me as an artist. She wanted me. It was very clear. She kept touching my hands while laughing and giggling. It was both erotic and adorable. She invited me to her car to see some additional photographs she had in a makeshift portfolio. Within minutes we climbed into the back seat. It was a, freezing cold, winter night, so the heat was blasting. It was so hot in the car that the leather seats were sweating and the foggy windows had streaks of water running down them. We spent hours in that back seat and obviously, we were doing a lot more then reviewing her portfolio. I never understood how the car didn’t run out of gas. From that night on, we went out quite frequently. For some reason, she did not want anyone in my family to know.

I honored her request for privacy even though I was falling in love with her. Eventually, we started meeting at hotels in Cold Spring Harbor, her house and in my new penthouse in New York City. She was so much more comfortable with her body and sex than I was. She was one of the most erotic women I had ever known, even to this day. She was a different kind of lover. She wanted it in ways I had never considered previously. Frankly, in a place most women do not want to go. She said she preferred it there. Since I played guitar, my fingers were quite strong so I could fully satisfy her demands. For me, it was a completely different experience. Beyond that, there was nothing she did not want to do, or try, or experiment with. Despite the incredible chapter of love, we were engaged in, when my family started to get suspicious, she wanted to end it. It made no sense to me. Apparently, she had become one of my sisters’ best friends; only I thought they had lost contact years earlier.

For her, they were experimental hook-ups. For me, it was love. My idea of love has nothing to do with getting along with a person, as I got along with just about everyone. It’s a karma thing. I also believe that you cannot love anyone, unless you love yourself first and everyone else. It’s a spiritual thing. Even when I was very young I knew I could not be with someone sexually unless I gave my heart to her. But giving one’s heart is both a curse and a blessing. The more one loves, the more pain one feels at the end of each chapter. Even functional MRI’s have proven that now.

Eventually, we stopped seeing each other and our relationship faded, despite the fact I was in love with her. She was one of the women I would have married if we kept seeing each other. I was so naïve back then. I had no idea that women were using me for sex. I had no confidence. I always thought women would only have sex with men they loved. I was young and fell in love with just about every girl I was with, no matter how long or short the relationship. I was as naïve as a puppy.

That is why it was such a mystery, years later, to be set-up with her younger sister. I learned that she was also coming off a ten plus year relationship. Rumor had it that she was even more heartbroken than I was. At the very least, her wounds were fresher, but the betrayal was just as deep. Both of our families were worried, knowing we were depressed and heartbroken. Eventually I was introduced to her. I asked if she would like to join me to see Billy Joel on New Year’s Eve. She loved Billy Joel and was excited about the evening. It perked her up. She seemed to be very flattered and happy. I thought she knew that I was in love with her sister decades earlier, but didn’t think it mattered. It was an old chapter of love that didn’t seem to mean much to her older sister. In fact, she acted as if it never happened. All I ever got from her was a polite hello and some routine chitchat. So, I simply thought it had to be trivial to her. Why would she take part in setting me up with her younger sister otherwise?

We spoke on the telephone quite a bit before the concert. We had floor level seats, on top of it being New Year’s Eve! She was charming and charismatic, just like her older sister. She had the same exotic look and calming sound to her voice; it was a bit of déjà vu. She worked for the executives of one of the largest software companies on Long Island. She was very smart. After a few calls, during which we bared our hearts, we started to become friends and both found sanctuary in our conversations. On New Year’s Eve, she got the flu. She was vomiting all day long. Clearly, she would not be able to make the concert. I was devastated. I had started to enjoy her giggly and witty ways. She was evoking many memories from my chapter of love with her sister. I was probably confusing some of my feelings for her, with the love I had shared with her older sister. I didn’t realize it at the time.

I went to the concert without her. I held my cell phone up for most of the concert so she could hear it live. She thought that was a very kind thing to do. She said she couldn’t wait to see me. She didn’t know how sick I was and since she was trying to escape her own depression, I never told her. Ten years was a long time for her to invest in her recently ended relationship. She shared with me how dangerously depressed she became when another year went by without an engagement. So as much as she had loved him, she was leaving him and it was killing her inside. When we eventually did go out, we shared our stories and wound up crying on each other’s shoulders. The tears turned into hugs, which turned into kisses, which turned into much more. What started out as an introduction to attend a single concert together was turning into a new chapter of love. Both of our broken hearts were healing with love from each other. She was so much like her older sister. It was a bit surreal. We started to get together regularly. Easing her heartache was helping me overcome my own. We were both escaping the misery of our mutual realities. We were doing so in each other’s arms and much more.

I threw myself into the relationship, not even thinking that it would turn into anything. It was however, turning into something significant. At the time, we were going at it quite a bit, but she could never orgasm. I thought it was because of my heart condition and how difficult it was for me to go at it fast and hard. I had become a much gentler lover. I don’t know if she was just trying to make me feel ok about her not cuming, or if her claim of never having had an orgasm was true. Not having an orgasm by age thirty was sad in and of itself. It was that sadness, that broken wing, that was making me fall in love with her. I recognized the feeling. She was not the first I had fallen into “rescue love” with. I had mistaken that sorrow and sadness for love so many times in my life.

We tried and tried! I went down on her for so long my jawbone hurt and my tongue cramped up. But, I just kept going and taking verbal cues from her. I tried everything in my repertoire. No matter how hard I tried, or how long I lasted, it was impossible. She could not cum and I was close to having a heart attack trying.

Eventually her older sister told her about us. She sabotaged our relationship. I think she was jealous, even though she was married. Our private chapter of love, decades earlier, became the reason she told everyone why she didn’t want us to see each other. Her actions made me think she was secretly in love with me. I had no idea. If I did, I never would have started to date her younger sister. Although we were falling in love, we knew we had to stop seeing each other. She was upset with me because I hadn’t told her about my experience with her sister. I thought she had to have known. We had to think of her sister’s feelings above our own. Before long and after many heartfelt goodbyes, she asked for and got a job transfer to Europe. I never saw her again. I have seen her older sister quite frequently since, but never discussed either of the relationships. It was strange to have loved two sisters, two decades apart.

Some chapters you remember by the love, others you remember by the loss of love. This would be one of those chapters. It was a short but steamy chapter and it helped me through one of the worst times of my life. Eventually, she did tell me that she loved me. She left me the cd we listened to every time we made love, “You’re My Home,” by Billy Joel. It was one of her favorites. She told me it expressed the way she felt when she was with me. I don’t know if I would have survived without the love she gave me at one of the most critical times of my life. In return, I gave her love at a pivotal point of her life. For that I am grateful.

From Facebook, I learned that she married and settled in Europe. I was happy she found love. I don’t know how it was possible, but I fell in love with both exotic sisters, twenty years apart. I will always have a place in my heart for them both. I certainly hope they have a place in their heart for me. I truly loved them both.

 

← Previous Chapter: Chapter 30 – Rebooting
Chapter 32-The Kiss That Stole My Heart: Next Chapter →

The memories of my chapters of love are quite vivid and clear in my mind. Not just the visual or auditory memories, but the actual kinesthetic feelings associated with those chapters. Recently, I watched a video that explained love at a biochemical level. They use a functional MRI to look at the brain chemistry of people who are in love, who are mourning a chapter of love and those who claim to feel love at first sight. What they found is that the same area of the brain that releases endorphins when you are in love, becomes more active when you lose love. So, at the end of every chapter of love, biochemically, you feel that you love that person more and yearn painfully for them, despite how you may think you feel. We feel more when we are longing for love than we do when we are in love. Love becomes stronger with desire, especially unrequited love, even painfully so. With respect to love, the way our brain works is the greatest mind fuck in nature. Other mammals react to losing love this way as well. Scientists have even tested people who experience love at first sight and proved the biochemical reaction is not based on lust and is identical reaction to those who have been in love long term. That is why love at first sight is more than simple infatuation.

In my case, I carry the deep memories of love with me from everyone I have loved. My reflections of love, as I call them, are so clear that at times my heart races. I see and feel the love I have shared so vividly that I am often moved beyond my current state of being. The sparks of feelings that have stayed with me, my entire life, spur these vivid memories. Writing about them helps me channel that energy and is an emotional outlet for any lingering emotions that are still very much entangled deep within my heart.

Many people have near photographic memories. Some for history, some for math equations, or science. For me it is feelings. Scientific research suggests that we remember through our visual memories, auditory memories and kinesthetic memories. I am extremely kinesthetic. That’s why it is such an emotional process to share these chapters of love. I am very often moved beyond words. I share them as vividly as possible to share the passion that was shared between my lovers and myself. Every one of my lovers are extremely significant to my heart no matter how long we have been apart or how long we were together. Sometimes it was the act of creating together that built so much sexual tension. With one woman, who came to live with me, that tension became unbearable. In many cases, it was unfulfilled passion that drove me to extraordinary levels of originality and creativity.

Her constant flirting, the intentional brush of her breasts against my shoulders, the placing of her hand on my upper thigh, crawling into my bed while I was sleeping all led to heightened creativity and a desire for more. Most anything you could think of, she would do. Most of the time it was after she downed a bottle of wine or two, so I never acted upon any of her actions. I ignored them, which frustrated her. I did not invite her to live with me and create so I could destroy it all because of her flirtatiousness, or the sexual opportunities she offered.

As I finished shooting her music video, featuring her actual lover, it became clear she was willing to do almost anything to tease me or to get the money shot. They were both barely wearing any clothing and passionately locked in each other’s embrace. Although she was performing with a man I could only describe as “Tarzan-eske,” she looked at me with a certain longing. She was classically beautiful, but for some reason her career was going nowhere. I intended on changing that. She had the look of a classic Greek goddess. Her voice was soft and sincere. After the shoot they went upstairs to her pseudo apartment in my house. Before long she came back down and while I was editing sat on my lap in her wet black bikini. Before I knew what she was up to, she kissed me. The ringing in my ears was so loud; I could hardly hear what she was saying. She said it twice, so I am sure I didn’t misunderstand her. With a very disappointed tone she said, “I haven’t had sex in months while I was waiting for him to get here. If I go back upstairs and he can’t get it up, I’m coming back down here and you better be ready!”

With that, she looked into my eyes and then slowly turned and went upstairs. My heart was racing. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever known, both spiritually and physically. I tried to focus and continued editing her music video, which was turning me on even more. I could hear them upstairs. He was drunk in the bathroom, laying on the floor moaning. She was pissed. She came back down with an empty bottle of scotch. I am not sure who drank more. Earlier, oddly, he wanted to massage my shoulders, not hers, after the music video shoot. It made me believe he was just using her to advance his career and that he preferred men, but I wasn’t positive. He tried to keep up with her, but he was no match for a girl that could drink more than anyone I ever knew, even as a bartender for many years. He may have looked like Tarzan, but he was a lightweight when it came to Scotch. She literally drank him under the table. Now, she was coming for me. I didn’t know what I should do. The months of her living with me, teasing me and flirting with my friends, while looking over their shoulders into my eyes told me a lot about her. She helped make me feel very good about myself during this period. Not only would she look at me as if I was a Rembrandt, but she was a lot of fun and enjoyed being submissive when we created, intentionally teasing me. We shared many private stories about our lives, hopes and dreams. But that was the extent of it until she kissed me that afternoon.

I first met her after I received a phone call from a mutual acquaintance. He told me she was stranded, without a phone or cash. He was out of town, so he couldn’t help her. She was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model at one point of her career. As I found out later, the drinking and drama that followed her made it impossible for her career to reach the levels her beauty and charisma would have dictated otherwise. I didn’t know that when I took it upon myself, to go find her when I was told she was absolutely desperate. I drove three hours, picked her up, lent her a phone and paid for her plane ticket home. I had no expectations of receiving anything in return. I truly practice what I preach, when I say I continually pay it forward as often as possible.

I didn’t know what she looked like in her post Sports Illustrated modeling days, or if she was even ever going to repay me, but when I picked her up I could see in a second she was stunning. I never thought it would go any further than a goodbye at the airport, but it did. She told me she was robbed and her landlord was hitting on her. She packed a bag and waited for someone to help her. She knew someone would. Women with that level of insane beauty are used to things coming to them easily. Regardless, her gratitude and sincerity seemed quite genuine. It was hard to believe that a woman of her beauty would be broke, helpless and all alone in a small town in New Jersey. But, all the same, she was. It would take me months to understand the reality of her circumstances.

A few months later, she moved in with me. We worked on a pilot for her reality series focusing on modeling in New York City. It was surreal. A Sports Illustrated swimwear model was going to live with me for months. We became very close. Being no different than most of the male population, her beauty blinded me. Often, it is easy to create expectations and make presumptions about the character of one so beautiful. After a while, her true self started to emerge. She was miserable working as a model. Her sports injuries made it worse. She began to open-up to me. From that point, I knew our relationship would help change her destiny. Years later she confided to me that it did.

While we were living together we both partied quite liberally. As she said in her parting interview, we became family. I gave her the movie star treatment. I even got her an on-stage gig with Martin Short. When she was partying, she totally opened-up and told me everything. She treated me as a boyfriend in every way but one. But at the same time, she knew how to work every man she came in contact with. Few could resister her. She worked every guy I introduced her to like a pro. it was obvious that this was how she was able to advance her career, but I refused to be seduced by her.

All the same, she was now walking directly towards me. Her black bikini barely concealing her stunning figure. She was carrying the empty bottle of Glenlivet, which pretty much told me the story. The two of them were drunk. She waited months to see him. He couldn’t get it up, so she was coming for me. Again, as I turned to her from editing, she sat on my lap. I wanted her, but not in that condition. She kissed me and started taking her bikini off. I was in shorts. I was getting harder and harder but doing everything I could to restrain myself. I don’t know too many men who could have resisted a horny, Sports Illustrated, swimsuit model. As she was taking her bathing suit off she was trying to take my shorts off as well. But I was resisting the best that I could. I doubt I would have been able to if not for her next few words.

She told me that she had been waiting for him ever since I picked her up in the park that day in New Jersey. That made absolutely no sense, as she was supposed to be stranded and alone. It was at that moment I realized that they made up the entire story. It was a cover-up. They were together. Both her mom and her manager were trying to find her. She would have gotten in serious trouble if they did. In her drunken stupor, she told me all of it. She lied to me. No matter what she was offering, as well as how beautiful she was, I was so disappointed she lied to obtain my help, I was turned off completely. Part of me wanted to fuck her because she used me, but part of me pitied her for having to lie in the first place.

She also told me that she didn’t want to model anymore. She wanted to be a nurse or a hairdresser. I asked her why she continuing to model. She said she was supporting her entire family and they wouldn’t let her stop. They forced her to leave high school many years earlier. She felt like a slave. When she tried to stop, they threatened to throw her out on the street. She had never obtained any education and her parents were controlling all her finances. It was the most incredible case of “stage mom control” and exploitation I ever heard.

After thinking long and hard about all the sexual opportunities I could have had with her, and what was best for her, I decided to do the honorable thing. The very next day I cancelled her co-production agreement and insisting that she get enroll in a twelve-step program before we ever shot again. I cared for her enough to try to save her despite the great economic loss abandoning the project cost me and the plethora of threats from both her mother and the original photographer who introduced us. It turns out he was a genius sociopath.

Fast-forward many years. She went through a twelve-step program and is sober. She no longer models. Instead, she completed her courses in cosmetology and is currently cutting hair. Unfortunately, she had a car accident that almost killed her. She was literally scalped, but they were able to restore her hairline and she is as beautiful today as she was back then. Today, she derives pleasure from making others look beautiful. When we spoke and texted last she sent me a photo of a tattoo she put across her wrist, the same wrist she considered severing many times before she met me. It contained one simple word “BELIEVE.”

Not every chapter of love requires a sexual experience for it to be genuine. She expressed gratitude that I stood up to her mother and told her to stop enslaving her. She told me it was the impetus for her to get a proper education and to get into a twelve-step program. She also told me that she wished we were together, creating again and that she would no longer tolerate the slavery imposed by her family most of her childhood and into her twenties. I told her we would always have that kiss. That was one loving kiss. I will never forget it, or my Sports Illustrated swimsuit model roommate. I knew then that I had control over my sexual obsession and that my spiritual awakening had changed me forever. I no longer needed a woman’s love to feel whole or wanted. In her final interview, she said, “John is family now” and she meant it. That was worth more than anything she could ever have given me physically. But that one kiss truly stole my heart.

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Chapter 33 – My Waterfall: Next Chapter →