Tag: John Dowling Jr.

Some people believe that our souls are transformable, or that we live many times, moving from one life to another. While Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected in the physical sense, many believe it was a spiritual awaking and resurrection. I was never a very religious person, but that would not always be the case. I stopped going to church as a young boy. I just followed the traditions of religion. When the truck left my home with my soon to be former wife and most everything we owned, I thought I would die right then and there. My mind was a blur of regrets, confusion and anguish. She didn’t leave me due to the lack of love or at least I thought so at the time. When I begged her to tell me why, she was direct. She said it was for power and money. She wanted both more than she cared about anything else. The man she left me for was very successful financially. She was lured away with power, the promise of country clubs and money.

I was enraged at first and incredibly jealous. Anyone would be. I drifted between wanting to kill him and wanting to win her back. I thought I could somehow reinvent myself and build a financial fortune, a fortune that would bring her back. Although it was almost impossible to walk, with the help of pain medication, I made the effort. I dusted off my camera. Walking and taking photographs became my way of mourning. At first, I would walk alone on the same beaches and parks I had photographed all the models. I started to pray again, mostly for her, hoping that she would find happiness with him. I forgave them both. It was the only way I could survive. I put her life and happiness above my own. I felt I never deserved her in the first place. I would live on until my heart condition took me, dedicating my life to my children. The first time she brought them back I broke down, not because I was seeing her again, but because I knew that, with or without her, I had my children.

Although I was still alive, something died inside me. I didn’t think I would ever get it back. My heart was broken. Not only was I suffering emotionally, but physically as well from the intense pain. The mega dosages of statins, experimental drugs and peripheral artery disease was ravaging my body. My liver was failing, as were my kidneys. Between the mega dosages of medications and the pain, I was all but dead anyway. There was no way that I was going to allow my four-year-old son and my newborn daughter to see me suffering. I would take large doses of pain meds each time, prior to their arrival.

I was with my father, changing my daughter’s diaper. At the time my dad was very ill, suffering from cancer. I was the only who knew. He told me something that inspired me. It was his mantra. He said, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going. You have two children to think about now, not a wife.” With that, I got out of bed and started looking for a new career so I could support myself and my children while I was resurrecting my life, body and soul. Before long a partner in my software business offered me the opportunity to come and work for his software company. Just getting out of bed and into a working environment helped. I was on so many medications. I don’t even remember what they were. I was very much an emotional zombie at first. Every time I picked up my children it was like Christmas. If it were not for them I am sure I would have died.

I could not let my children down. They needed me more than ever now, as my ex became too unstable to take care of them or herself. No one could blame her. I felt sorry for her. When I asked her where my wife was, she was only too quick to reply, “she is dead, and you will never see her again.” She was dead inside. The person standing in front of me was no longer the woman I fell in love with. I mourned her as if she had actually died and I was a widower. Her words were the saddest I have ever heard. She was angry, feeling sorry for herself and blaming me for getting sick. She was impatient and did not manage the responsibility of caring for two young children very well.

She hadn’t worked outside of the house, as she was a stay at home mom. She did help with my consulting business, but that was only because I wanted her to feel part of something. I realized that if I did not take care of our children her career would never take off. Beyond that, if I didn’t spend as much time with my children as possible, my children would forget I ever existed shortly after I died. I mustered up the will power and started to be as much of a mother to my children as I was a father. I was so medicated that I was not feeling much. But, feeling pity for her was a lot better than feeling as if I was dying from the inside out. After our divorce, she became mean and angry. Her therapist who acted briefly as our marriage counselor told me that people sometimes develop serious mental illness later in life, or after having children. She told me that there was nothing I could do to help her. Her suggestion was to be patient and never respond to her anger with anger of my own. So, I moved on as quickly as I could. My former wife, despite having significant education, went back to school for her masters and took years off from mothering as a result. It was something not many people would choose to do with two young children. I “Mr. Mommed” pretty much night and day, taking care of my children whenever she was too occupied with her new found social life and everything else that allowed her to avoid her parental responsibilities. She simply had no patience at all for my children when they were young and needy.

It was absurd. I was in so much emotional pain; despite the fact I was sedated twenty-four seven to keep from having another heart attack. When my children were with me, I would medicate myself just enough to be functional. When they were at their mom’s house, I would regress into a depressed mess and just sleep. I never slept deeply, but I did dream. As I looked back on my marriage I thought of all my previous chapters of love and realized that together we had a very long and successful chapter of love. I had my children even though I lost my wife. I went to work for my business partner. He gave me a large draw and commissions. As hard as I worked there was no talent in the software industry available during the millennium. Every possible body was already engaged in a Y2k fix. It became obvious that they could not find bodies to handle the actual work for the sales I was bringing in. I realized after a few months, that my dear friend was carrying me because of our friendship. I couldn’t ask that of him. I started looking for another way to make a living. Before I left, I met a younger woman at the office and that changed everything.

She was a beautiful young lady who worked in marketing. She would come to my office at lunchtime and try to cheer me up. It was obvious to everyone I was depressed. She started to flirt with me. That gave me a much-needed ego boast. After a few months, I started easing up on the tranquilizers and went off anti-depressants. I was surviving one day at a time. I never thought I was going to be ok without my family intact. On the other hand, my now former wife must have been planning for it for a very long time, based on how quickly we were divorced and the fact that she moved directly into her, soon to be, new husband’s house the same day she left mine.

At that point sex was so dangerous for me I didn’t think that I would ever engage in it again. Nor did I care. All I cared about was my children and spending time with them. However, one day after months of that same young lady coming into my office and bringing me chocolate chip cookies, she said, “you know I can have you anytime I want.” It took me by surprise. I blew it off as if she was just teasing me, or trying to lift my spirits. But, that night, after work, she met me at the exit and followed me home. Before I knew it, we were in my former marital bed. She was on top of me, taking her shirt off. I had not even thought of being with another woman. But, if I was going to die, I figured I might as well die happy. I was doing anything I could to try and move on knowing that there was no turning back and my time was limited. We started to kiss and a spark of love hit my heart. It was at that moment I realized that I could love again. There are simply no words to describe how I felt. It was as if my soul was flowing back into my heart. She was completely naked at that point and still on top of me and we were starting to go at it.

As we became more and more physical, out of nowhere, I heard my nearly five-year-old son knocking at my bedroom door and calling me. I threw her off me, put my clothes on and went to the door. I didn’t know what he was doing there all by himself. It wasn’t my day on our schedule. Somehow his mother had seen me with that beautiful young woman and left my son at my front door. I couldn’t imagine why, but later learned it was out of jealousy. Jealousy is a much stronger emotion than love. Maybe she lost it for that one little moment. I picked my son up and went looking for my daughter who was still in the car with my ex. She said it was my turn, so I just took them. She drove off in a huff. I had never seen her that way. She said nothing about the girl, but I could tell she knew and was for that moment unstable.

I never did invite her back to my home or continue that chapter of love, as the next day somehow the entire office knew she and I were together. My boss called me into his office and shared with me that it was the security cameras outside the office that gave it away. He also told me that she was engaged to a friend of his. So, I ended it. I was not going to interfere with another man’s engagement no matter how delicious those cookies were. I was so sick I did not believe I would have much of a future anyway.

About fifteen years later, while photographing a party at the Garden City Hotel for kicks and exercise, I took a photo of a very attractive woman who started to flirt with me. We wound up having a few dirty martinis at the bar. She asked me what my name was and I told her. She was shocked, as was I, to learn we knew each other. Yes, it was her. She had just gone through her third divorce. I will never forget the girl who followed me home, brought me chocolate chip cookies and restored my faith in love. She was the chapter of love who gave me the hope that my broken heart could one day heal.

← Previous Chapter: Chapter 28 -My Bride
Chapter 30 – Rebooting: Next Chapter →

I do not know many people who have their own waterfall. For almost twenty years, I did. I didn’t own the actual deed to it, but it was “mine” all the same. I have many memories of that waterfall, but only a few photographs. My buddy called me after reading some chapters of love after I was posting them on social networks. He was a model, as was his girlfriend. The very first day I introduced them, they stole my waterbed and kept it for three weeks. When they came up for air, they got engaged and later married. They have kids now and have spent their lives together. We often laugh about the times they joined me at my waterfall. The reason we laugh is that it was on a very expensive piece of private property. I met the owner when I was lost, trespassing on his property without knowing it. We became friends. He said I could come back anytime I wanted. I went to that private waterfall for almost twenty years, until long after I found out he sold the property. That same waterfall became a robust local tourist attraction. But when it was just vacant land I would camp there, photograph models and fish where it met the Delaware River, lower down the mountainside. I even brought my children camping there when they were very young. Too young to remember it now.

Before I brought my friends and children to my waterfall, I would go there to take photographs. It was a few hour drive, north of Port Jervis, on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. I would drive along the river for about an hour and then hang a left at the railroad tracks, where they crossed the river on one of those, marginally safe-looking, bridges. I’d hang a quick right at a clearing in the trees. There was no real road, just dirt and gravel. Unless you knew it was there, you were not likely to find it.

Over the years, I probably brought a hundred different models to that waterfall. Often, I brought groups of models. One time I was there with my wife and another couple. The same couple I introduced who took my waterbed over for weeks. It rained heavily in the mountains. The roar of rushing water woke us just prior to the flash flood that wiped out our campsite. At that point I realized how dangerous camping on a waterfall could be. The flat area, where the tents could be pitched, was only ten feet from a fifty-foot drop.

I was playing guitar and singing almost every night. At the time, I enjoyed playing and singing very much. What I loved most about camping, was that my playing very often turned into sing–alongs. Everyone would join in. Herb was almost always present at these gatherings. There was something very primitive and tribal about camping on a waterfall. I would have loved to live there. Log Cabin, camera, fishing and of course a soul mate to enjoy it with. Yep, always dreamed of a simple life in the woods, until I would have to chop wood in the freezing winters!

In any case, for many years I had my very own waterfall. It was easy to fall in love there and coincidentally; it was only a short ride to where my parents went on their honeymoon and my father took me fishing as a boy. I always thought of Washington Lake and the Delaware Water Gap as my home away from home. It was where I would go for my quiet, Milky Way lit vacations, hoping each time to discover my next chapter of love.

I shared many romantic nights under the stars, by that waterfall, laying on the rocks covered with nothing but a blanket, singing in total privacy. Well not total privacy, as typically a woman was beside me. I probably played more guitars and sang more songs on that waterfall than I did anywhere else.

The mornings there almost always meant a freezing bath in the river, and later, if I was lucky, a smallmouth bass or pike on the end of my fishing pole. I loved to smoke fish and was very into the outdoors. That’s why when I had my home in Centerport I loved it so much. It was like being upstate while still living on Long Island. I just didn’t get around to building a waterfall. I did build a Koi pond and a seventy-five-foot staircase made of stone. I also built a three-hundred-foot wall made of almost a hundred thousand pounds of stone. I did that to try to build my heart muscles as well as increase the value of my property. I was always building something when I owned a house. For the most part it became necessary physical therapy.

I first met her on the streets of NYC and we shot a few times. She was the actress who introduced me to Centerport, even though I never told my wife that. I didn’t want my wife to associate Centerport with one of my former lovers. She was one of the cutest models I ever photographed. She was also one of my most memorable adventures. She went on to make many movies for Disney and modeled all over the world. Our first meeting was on Seventh Avenue. We stopped dead in our tracks and just stared into each other’s eyes, almost as if we were the leads in a romance movie. Everything seemed as if it was moving in slow motion as she walked directly towards me. We stopped, inches from each other, never once blinking or taking our eyes off one another.

The first thing I said to her was, “what agency are you with?” It wasn’t a line. I simply had to know, before I stepped to the side and let her pass. I was in a trance and didn’t know what else to say. She answered; “Pretty People.” I knew the agency, as well as the owner. It was a legit agency. She took out her portfolio right there on the street. The pics were more than sexy. She was half naked in the lingerie shots. She seemed more than a little interested, so I invited her for lunch. We had baked clams and one of my favorite cocktails, Bloody Mary’s. We then went back to my apartment on 57th street and within minutes we were making out and tearing each other’s clothing off. It was over in a flash. I was young and she was hot, so what could I do. She didn’t want to do it again, so I offered to take her home. I drove her back to Centerport. That was my introduction to the area. I fell in Love with it as much as my waterfall.

The first time I photographed her it was in Cold Spring Harbor at a park and then later at a hot tub rental place in Huntington she introduced me to. You could rent a private room with a hot tub for an hour or two. It was inexpensive and private. We took photographs in one of the suites and fooled around again. She teased me until just before our time was up. She knew how to get what she wanted; photographs, sex, pretty much anything with that beautiful body and innocent looking eyes.

When I took her to the waterfall the first time, we were alone. We made love under a full moon, all night. It was summer and the waterfall was almost dry. We made love as the water trickled by us. It was magical. We could hear the crickets and the bull-frogs. The most beautiful part of it was, I could see her and the moon reflected in the glass-like pool of water on the flat rocks of the waterfall. It was enchanting. So was she. It wasn’t soon afterwards that I became quite possessive of her, even though I was sleeping with many other models. There seemed to be an endless stream of beautiful women stalking and seducing me. I never really understood why. She had a boyfriend in Centerport. I found out later they were engaged. She never spoke about him, but it was apparent that he existed. She didn’t try to hide it and alluded to the fact she was ending it, but had to do so slowly for personal reasons. About a year later, we went back to the same waterfall, after they broke up. We brought a male and female model with us. I knew on the way there that something changed between us. She jumped the guy that night and the girl jumped me, literally right next to each other. We shared two romantic nights by the waterfall, but only one of them was together. It was strange listening to them moan while I was inside another woman, who I didn’t care too much about, but who was making a play for me for weeks prior to the shoot.

I don’t know how many people can say they had their own waterfall and were fortunate enough to make love on it. To this day I still want to go back. I hope it is still there. I’m sure there is a future chapter of love, that would like to join me. Many years later, after not seeing her for decades, I ran into her father at church. It was the one they invited me to the first time I met her family. I had been a guest of her family several times. Her father told me that my photographs helped jumpstart her career and that she enjoyed making the Disney films that followed.

I have not heard from or spoken to her since. I don’t believe she would be happy to read this chapter, as I believe later in life, she became a very religious woman and abandoned the entertainment industry. Quite possibly because she slept her way into many powerful peoples’ hearts. But, she was a very special chapter of love to me. Coincidentally, almost my entire family now lives in Centerport. As for my waterfall, it’s been about fifteen years since I’ve been back but I will one day search for it. How quickly life passes us by, it seems like only yesterday we were holding hands looking up at the beautiful Milky Way on a starry night.

← Previous Chapter: Chapter 32-The Kiss That Stole My Heart
Chapter 34 – Tripped Out Love: Next Chapter →

One of the oddities of the entertainment industry is that many models and performers use stage names. A stage name affords performers a certain amount of anonymity. In the 80’s, it afforded a hint of actual privacy, before everything about everyone was captured and stored on Facebook, The NSA, Chinese, Russian and countless other databases. In the eighties, you could maintain some level of anonymity simply by changing your name. Most models would have two first names, like Cindy Ann or Deborah Mary; just like strippers. I was listed as John Joseph on my modeling comp card simply because an agent told me to use my first and middle name.

That’s why so many people who leave the industry are typically almost impossible to locate. They can’t be found using their stage names. In some cases, it’s for the best. In this case, I just turned eighteen. She was sixteen. I didn’t know she was only sixteen when I met her. To compound the issue, she hadn’t actually turned sixteen yet. She was dancing like a disco queen at a club called Feathers, in Levittown. As far as I knew, they proofed everyone, so it never crossed my mind that she might be under eighteen. She was one of a few under aged girls I ever dated. I didn’t understand why they were considered too young. I was only two years older and had just turned eighteen myself. However, I never pursued relationships if I found out a girl was using fake I.D. and lying about her age.

The first time I met her she was dancing in a particularly suggestive manner at Feathers. Girls from all over Long Island would frequent that disco. The guys would dress like John Travolta. We mimicked the dance moves we saw in movies. No one had a clue as to what we were doing. But, some of the girls were hot. They seemed to instinctually know how to move their bodies and were far superior dancers. They had natural rhythm and it showed. Dancing is, and always has been, as much a sexual expression as a creative or romantic expression. When a girl who was dancing was also very beautiful, it could be quite erotic.

She was from Brookville. We danced for at least five hours, with a few alcohol and water breaks mixed in. We didn’t talk much. With every new song, we started grinding into each other, more and more. Eventually she ditched her girlfriends. We danced until we closed the place. Then, I drove her home. She lived in a mansion. It was the largest house I had ever seen, until I began photographing weddings at Oheka Castle decades later. At one point, Oheka Castle was the second largest private residence in the United States. The Brookville residence was even larger than my grandfather’s mansion on Camelback Mountain in Arizona. This house was gigantic.

As soon as we walked in, she kissed me and ran up the stairs. She was up there for a long time. Finally, I went upstairs to find her. As I called her name, looking into each room, I was worried she might have fallen asleep. I was also worried that her parents would come home and find me wandering through their mansion. But, as I turned the corner to a totally pink room, she came running out completely naked! She grabbed me, kissed me and ran away saying “you’re it.” She wanted me to chase her, so I did. I ran after her, following her down the stairs looking for her. After searching through almost every room in the house, I found her in a room with a swimming pool. It was enormous. She was swimming and waiting for me to join her.

I immediately took my clothes off and dove in. We started to kiss. It was so romantic. The lighting was dim and the pool was heated. It was perfect. We kissed for a good fifteen minutes. Then, she started to touch me more intimately, smiled and swam to the other side of the pool. I swam towards her. Every time I swam closer she would move further away. As I walked up the pool steps, she ran in the opposite direction, laughing and screaming. She wanted me run after her again. The chase was on. As she was running up the stairs, I was passing the front door. I could hear the door opening. I was like, holy shit, what do I do? I ran up the stairs so I wouldn’t get caught, but I was completely naked. My clothes were at the pool! I went upstairs to her room and we both hid under the bed. I didn’t understand her strategy. We were both soaking wet and naked.

She grabbed my hand and then hugged held me tightly when she heard her father calling her. Eventually, he said, “we are going to wait right here, until you come down.” She put some clothes on and tried to dry her hair as quickly as possible. She left me in her room wearing nothing but a towel. A few minutes later she came upstairs with my clothes and I got dressed. Once I was dressed, her father came into the room and told me she was only fifteen. I thought he was lying and then I thought he was going to kill me. I couldn’t believe that this well-developed, yet petite, girl was only fifteen. I told him I enjoyed dancing with his daughter and really liked her. His reply was kind and considerate. He said “don’t sweat it John, maybe in another life.” He knew I was from a middle-class town and wanted something more for his daughter. His primary issue wasn’t the age difference but my “middle class status”.

He walked me out and for some reason, tried to give me a few hundred dollars. I wouldn’t take it and said, “no way! Are you kidding me?” It was the first time in my life I felt different knowing that he was writing me off simply because I was not from a wealthy neighborhood. I figured I would see her the following week at Feathers, where I saw her almost every weekend prior, dancing wildly. I knew it meant he never wanted me to come back and I never did. As I got into my car, the sun was rising. I saw a light in her bedroom window. She was wearing the same pink pajamas she put on when she left to talk to her parents. It looked like she was crying. Of that, I’m not totally certain. Her father told me she brought home a different guy every weekend, but I didn’t believe him. Maybe I was a fool, but I had fallen in love with that petite dancer over the months of her flirting followed by our dance marathon at Feathers. In retrospect, she was not too young to love, but she was too young to love at the time. I never saw her again, even though I went to Feathers every weekend afterwards for months, hoping she would be there. I’ll never forget our naked race through the mansion, swimming in her indoor pool, or dancing with her.

There was one other love affair with a girl who was too young to love that occurred before I was officially living in NYC. I was staying with friends in their NYC apartments quite often. I was eighteen, almost nineteen. I had just started photographing professional NYC models. An acquaintance introduced me to a young lady who was looking to create a portfolio. She was studying at a music academy, as opposed to a traditional high school. In addition to her music, one of her goals was to model. Her academy was a performing arts high school, with a very high price tag attached to it. I was invited to her family’s apartment many times by her mom. She was one of the first girls I met who did not have a father; at least he was not around or engaged in her life. She never wanted to speak about it. All I knew was that he was MIA and her mother was rather sad. She was tall for her age. She was sixteen chronologically, but was an old soul. Her mother would always make us tea and ask me when I was coming back to the city.

I wasn’t sure who liked me more, her or her mother. I only got into the city once a month, or so, back then. I was a novice, albeit talented, photographer. Her mom was trying to set us up. It was the first time I ever remember a mom setting me up with her daughter. What made it even stranger was that she was only sixteen. She was tall and mature, but still, she was just sixteen. Then again, I wasn’t yet nineteen myself. She was considerably more mature than I was. She may have been more mature then her own mother. We met for tea, at least five or six times, over a year or so. At that point she started to model more formally. She hired an agent and a manager. Her mother was seeing millions in her daughter’s future. She had that kind of grace and beauty. Once my friend started to allow me use his studio in Hell’s Kitchen, her mom would have a driver drop her off. This was long before I sublet the place from him. The sessions were more like play dates. We would shoot for a couple of hours and then go to dinner at one fancy restaurant or another.

At the end of every shoot, she would beg me to let her stay. For some reason, she was terrified of her mother.. But, I was always respectful. Her mom made it clear that there would be no sex until she was eighteen. She was very controlling. The severity of it was lost on me at the time. I thought that was how rich, cultured kids were all treated in New York City. I had no frame of reference other than the girl from Brookville and we all know how abruptly that ended. At the end of shoots, she would hug me and say, “please just one more hour of shooting…just one more hour. I can’t bear to be away from you.” She would try to kiss me, but I was trying to do the right thing. The desperation and longing in her voice was intoxicating.

The last time I saw her we were laying on the floor, taking in the sunset, after we had shot for hours. She was sad, upset that she was going to have to leave soon. I was joking around with her, as I always did, trying to keep her spirits up. I knew I would have waited years for her, if she would wait for me. I was falling in love with her. On this occasion, it was just too much for me and we started to kiss. They were soft little butterfly kisses. She giggled and looked into my eyes the entire time. After almost a year I was giving in to the passion. But, she wasn’t seventeen yet, so I stopped at kissing. I was enamored with her and wanted to marry her. I wanted to spend my life with her. I had more chemistry with her than any woman I ever knew.

I told her I couldn’t see her again until she turned seventeen. I couldn’t control my sexual desires and I wouldn’t do anything that could put me in jeopardy, no matter how much we loved each other. It escalated to beyond kissing. We started to touch each other in ways that were pushing me to break my promise. She became very sad and started to cry. As her driver came to the door, she kissed me, right in front of him. As they left, I could see the look on the driver’s face. It would be the last time I saw her. When I called, I was told not to call back. I didn’t understand why. I went to her house and learned that they had gone to Japan where she landed a huge modeling contract. Her mother went with her. Her mother never wanted us to fall in love, she just wanted me to build an amazing portfolio for her, for free.

Often, I think about those two girls who were too young to love. I wonder what would have happened if they were just a little older. I don’t think I have ever had such organic loving connections. There was a time when I also was too young to love. That never stopped older girls from hitting on me or acting on their crushes. There were however, two times in my life when I was told that I was too young to love. Once it was by a girl I used to catch grasshoppers with at Humarock Beach, on Cape Cod. For summer vacations, we used to go to my mother’s aunt’s cottage. It was on a narrow strip of land that had a river on one side and the ocean on the other. Once, I almost killed myself while surfing. Not only were there sharks in the water, but the current pulled me out to deeper waters. I was rescued by cousin Tommy, who swam out and guided me back to shore.

When my sixteen-year-old grasshopper-catching partner found out, she ran to me and hugged me passionately. She then started kissing me under a very bright full moon. As people started to come outside, she ran away. Even at that young age, I realized she had feelings for me far more intense than catching grasshoppers. I had similar feelings for her, despite the fact I just turned twelve. She told me that she loved me. Soon afterwards her family left their cottage for some reason. A day or two later they were gone for good, even though they were supposed to stay the entire summer. I often wonder how different my life would have been if any one of those three chapters of love were allowed to take their natural progression. I have unsuccessfully tried to locate all of these past chapters of love despite the fact I can’t remember their names. I often wonder if they would even remember me so many years later. Now even decades later, they are all still deeply embedded in my heart. If only society was different and we were allowed to love anyone we wanted to and not confined by so many rules.

← Previous Chapter: Chapter 34 – Tripped Out Love
Chapter 36 – Sex 101: Next Chapter →

I had not seen her, or even spoken to her, in over thirty years. As soon as I heard her voice again, the rush of adrenaline and love overwhelmed me. It was as if an arrow from Cupid’s bow pierced my heart. I have felt this before, with my rock star, so I knew the feeling was real. It was unbelievable that love could last that long. She felt the same way and wouldn’t meet, for fear of losing control of herself. I met her at a disco bar called 1776 when I was seventeen. It wasn’t legal for me to be drinking. A rather legendary bartender who lived down the block from me owned an interest in the place. When I arrived, he let me in, along with some of my other under aged friends. He was friends with my father and knew I would never say anything. Almost everyone there was older. There were a lot of local college girls there as well.

I had never dated a college girl. I was bouncing between different girls from my high school. At the time, I was throwing keg or victory parties for my classmates at other people’s homes. At almost every one of them, I hooked-up with someone. My father knew we were drinking, but if it wasn’t excessive, he seemed OK with it. Dad drank a lot himself at times and wanted me to be careful, but have fun. Dad was my pseudo wingman that night, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Dad was always my wingman. I try to be that for my own son to this day.

I was almost six-feet tall, one hundred-forty-five-pounds. I was an athlete with very little body fat. I was as obsessed with sports as I was with sex. I ran marathons and earned four varsity letters in high school. My favorite sport was wrestling, but I wasn’t a great wrestler. I was just good enough to give the talented wrestlers a run for their money. On occasions, I could outperform them on sheer heart and conditioning, but I was no match for true grapplers. All the same I was in Olympic condition when I met her. She was dancing with some girls on a mostly empty dance floor. The disco lights were flashing and the DJ was playing the Bee Gees. She was beautiful and sexy in a wholesome way. I don’t remember how, or why, we started dancing. I do remember that we weren’t dancing for long before she started kissing me.

She was several years older than I was and going to college. It was obvious she was extremely popular. In fact, she could easily have been the star of one of those campy college girl-centric movies. She was voted best looking in her high school. If the Brady Bunch had another sister, she would have been it, just a hotter Jewish one. When I met her, I probably was wearing white bell-bottom jeans and a shiny shirt. It was the era of Members Only jackets and crazy styling. We were all following the music and fashion trends. I loved rock and roll. As a young boy, I started listening to fifties music on eight track tapes in my father’s car. I knew my rock and roll. But once disco became the rage and John Travolta was dancing his way into girls’ pants, every guy wanted to be him. And, every girl, wanted to be a disco queen.

But, she was no disco queen while she was going down on me, that very night, at her parents’ house. She had “A Man Needs A Maid” by Neil Young, playing on her stereo. It was a song I never heard before. It was beyond erotic to get head while it was playing. She knew what she was doing, I didn’t. Despite the fact I started young, most of my chapters of love came long after high school. I had girlfriends in high school and loved them all. She was the one who gave me an education. She was as much my sex education college tutor, as she was my girlfriend. For some reason, she was happier when she had my penis in her hand or mouth. As any high school, teenage boy will tell you, finding that in a girl does not come easy. We would hang out at schoolyards, make out and fool around for hours. I always considered her a hippie of sorts, because she was.

We didn’t go out very much, as most of our time was spent in her bedroom listening to music and engaging in hours and hours of sex. She did teach me how to play guitar and she was the first girlfriend I ever photographed. I always loved photography but I never shot any of my girlfriends. It never occurred to me. My parents took the family album shots, so other than people taking photographs of me for the yearbook, I never got into it. Taking photographs of her, with her little instamatic camera, was a turn on. I loved it. She loved it as well, as she was already into photography. She was the impetus for my love of photography as well for the guitar. The incredible sex was more than a bonus.

Thirty years later, she sent me the photos we took of each other in her bedroom, which at the time, became my home away from home. I would run three miles each way to see her. She would teach me how to play guitar, as well as her favorite sex moves. She was the first girl who knew more about sex than I did. At that age, almost every girl I dated was a virgin, until I met her. The closest most would come to sex was playing Spin The Bottle or Truth Or Dare, at parties.

She even looked like a hot schoolteacher. When she came to my high school to pick me up after sports, I felt like a rock star. It was great for my ego. I was very shy. I put on that tough guy, jock attitude to compensate. Most of the guys I knew did. She would drive me everywhere. I didn’t have a car yet. I don’t think I had even gone for my road test at the time. I was so used to running everywhere that I didn’t feel I had a need to. I ran everywhere, even before Forest Gump made it popular. My father had gone from a chain smoker to the founding partner and president of the Long Island Road Runners Club. I was running thousands of miles a year between the off-road races and sports at school. I was a rock. That obsession with sports helped me control my sexual obsession and kept my hormones in check. With her, I didn’t have to. It was a short but extremely happy time in my life. We didn’t date long. I found out thirty years later, she had as many complications in her personal life as I did. College girl or not, she had a lot of growing up to do.

When we spoke thirty plus years later, she literally rubbed one out while catching up with me on the phone. It became apparent as to what she was up to when she started to breathe heavily and climax quite loudly. It was obvious that I had just as strong an effect on her heart as she had on mine. We never dared see each other, as we are both terrified that we wouldn’t be able to control ourselves. She was married and didn’t want to violate her marriage vows. I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part to it either, but then again, I never could control myself when we were together. She was my sexual tutor of sorts in my first college class, Sex 101.

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I was promoting college night parties with Keith Hart from Uncle Sam’s. It was a natural extension of my high school days promoting and hosting keg and victory parties for the entire school. I brought in a ton of people from various local colleges for a Halloween Party. Subsequently, I promoted many other parties with Keith But, I was never really interested in promoting night clubs. I just wanted to meet a lot of women. At the time, the most beautiful women were always at Uncle Sam’s. It was like the Studio 54 of Long Island. Keith was the kind of guy who would hook you up if you hooked him up. He followed a similar philosophy of paying it forward, in millions of dollars of funds raised for cancer research later in life. When I met him, he was one of the Long Island elite promoters who held the keys to getting into Uncle Sam’s, which of course then afforded the opportunity to meet the girls at the club. When I was modeling, he even put me on a Dating Game style show at Uncle Sam’s and I was chosen by the bachelorette. She dressed as a cheerleader for the occasion. Shortly afterwards, she took me upstairs and convinced me to take a few bumps. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing. She told me to snort white powder off her fingernail. She said it would make the sex better. Until that point, I had no idea we were going to have sex or what cocaine was. We did it on the stairs about thirty seconds later.

I drove her home and spent the night in the screened-in porch of her cottage in Sea Cliff. I never saw her afterwards, but I did see Keith and thanked him for putting me in the event. I told him that I was more into photography than modeling or acting. I showed him my portfolio. He suggested I call a friend of his, Michael Cutino. Michael was the publisher of Nightlife Magazine. It was the hottest magazine on Long Island for many years, so it was a great introduction. I started shooting covers for Mike, that were helping him sell more magazines. Eventually, I suggested a swimsuit issue, because I was taking body shots of models regularly. He loved the idea. Catalina, Gottex, and ten other major brands of swimsuits gave us thousands of dollars’ worth of suits to be included in the story. I was becoming popular. Keith helped jumpstart my career, as did Michael.

I was scheduled to shoot in Arizona and wanted to visit my aunts and cousins at the same time. I booked a flight and took the bathing suits and my cameras with me. There were about two dozen models who wanted to participate. I went to the agency to meet them. The next morning, I drove four of them to Oak Creek Canyon. We shot all day, with the beautiful red rocks and riverbed as a backdrop. One of those models was about six feet tall. She was a Native American and quite stunning. I had never met a Native American before. The agency sent many beautiful women, but she was the most exotic and by far, the most beautiful. After the Oak Creek Canyon shoot, we decided to drive to the California border the next day. The plan was to shoot against the three-hundred-foot sand dunes, reminiscent of the Sahara Desert.

At the crack of dawn, she picked me up, along with a few of the other models and drove us there. It was her idea. The reservation her family lived on was not far away. It took a few hours to get there, but it was worth it. The sand dunes were amazing. I felt as if I was on another planet. We had to climb up the hills and find clean sand undisturbed by dune buggies. Every time the girls were changing, I would hike up and over the sand dunes to find virgin sand.

I was in great shape back then. I hiked up dozens of dunes, carrying fifty pounds of equipment in my backpack. I was flirting with every one of the models. For the most part, they were flirting right back. Well, two of them were. I didn’t know if any of them were thinking what I was thinking. I wanted to have sex with someone in that Sahara sunset. It was nothing like I had ever seen before. It was surreal.

The Native American model showed me how to slide down a sand dune, almost as if one was sledding down a snow-covered mountain. Once she showed me how, I would leave my backpack with the girls and slide down every dune, so we could shoot faster. Every time we walked on the sand, we destroyed the pristine look, so we had to continually go further. I brought water, but not enough. At times, we were running on fumes. I underestimated our water needs, despite the warnings of my Native American model friend. We really did become friendly. Initially, she would ask me to turn around, but eventually she changed right in front of me.

By the end of the day, I was nearly out of film and had a very bad sunburn. I was beat red and probably dehydrated as well. I was giving the girls water while taking very little for myself. She told me that it would get extremely cold as soon as the sun went down. I’m a New Yorker and was like, she has got to be kidding me. Doesn’t she know we have winters in New York? We were probably miles from the car. All we had with us was her bikini, my camera, my shorts and the bandana I was wearing over my eyes to protect them from the sun. Other than that, I just had my forty-eight-inch gold and silver reflector.

The photographs I took after sunset were some of my best. The light was hidden behind the dunes and the sky acted like a giant light box. She looked amazing. I shot every roll of film I had. As soon as we finished, she grabbed me and forced me to sit on the sand. She then tied my bandana around my camera and lens. Then she pushed me onto the sand and started to go down on me. It was unsolicited. I couldn’t believe it, but she wanted me. I was rock hard. She laid back in the sand, with her knees up, and untied both sides of her bikini. She left it on like a tiny sand guard.

She pulled me on top of her and inserted my penis inside her. She was already dripping wet. We didn’t even kiss. I looked into her eyes and flexed my arms to keep us balancing on top of the sand dune. We were positioned so that our feet were pointed down the hill to such a degree it was almost like standing up. It was hard not to slide down the dune, but it was more private, as a dune buggy could show up at any time. We didn’t even have a towel to cover up with, so anyone who even came close would see my shiny white ass and beet red body, pumping a completely tanned, olive skinned, model. Not something either one of us wanted. As sexually active as I was, I was quite shy when I did not have my security blanket/camera in my hand.

As I was thrusting, she was sliding down into me. Gravity was making it difficult to pump and the sand seemed to fall from beneath us. As we started to climax together, we lost our balance. She took her feet out of the sand and wrapped her legs around my back. That’s when everything started to spin. We were rolling down a mountain of sand faster than I could pull out of her. Cum was shooting in all directions. We didn’t get hurt, in fact, we both started laughing uncontrollably when we landed. We couldn’t find her bathing suit. All we had was my shorts and a bandanna. She was completely naked in the middle of the desert and the sun had set.

When we got to the top of the dune, the wind started to blow hard. Grains of sand were pelting our skin. They felt like tiny pins. I gave her my shorts. I wasn’t wearing underwear so I quickly became the naked one. She covered her mouth to keep the sand out. We went from ecstasy, to freezing and afraid in less than ten minutes. To make it worse, we were so lost in each other, we hadn’t realized how long we had been away from the other models. It took us at least forty-five minutes to make our way back. Like Hansel and Gretel, we were following our footsteps back to find the car in previous treks out. Now with the wind blowing we had no idea what direction to go. We tried to use the sun to figure out our location. By that time we made it back we were freezing and shivering. It was pitch black. She was concerned about wolves, scorpions, mountain lions and rattlesnakes. I held her close and kept walking, looking for the first dune that would expose a road.

Before long, we started to see the lights of cars. The other models started the engine to stay warm and were smart enough to honk the horn every once in a while. Maybe it was because they were feeling a bit ignored. Whatever the reason, it helped. It was very scary. We finally made it back to the car. She gave me some pajamas she had in the car. She was so tall and I was so skinny, they fit. That night we drove all the way back to Arizona and dropped the models off. We had not kissed a single time all day. I couldn’t figure out why, as we did just about everything else. When we finally were alone, we looked at each other and laughed. We started to go at it again and then she kissed me for the first time. It felt different than any kiss I ever had. Then she told me she had bitten off part of her tongue when she was a child. I hadn’t noticed anything unusual about her before. That’s why she didn’t kiss me until the end of the night. I didn’t react well. As cool as I tried to be about it, I pulled away a few times. She finally got upset and dropped me off. I felt terrible, as she was very nice. But I couldn’t control my knee jerk reaction.

She didn’t come to see the photographs with the other models, but I did get to see her the day I was leaving. I told her how sorry I was and how much the time with her meant to me. She didn’t say anything much and kept her mouth as closed as possible. All she was willing to say was thank you and goodbye. The very next day I caught a flight to California to shoot at the famous Santa Monica Pier and stay with my cousin. I was completing the assignment utilizing major models from a LA agency. I didn’t fool around with any of them, despite many opportunities to do so. I couldn’t help but think about that American Indian girl I fell for.

The cover shot was amazing and the swimsuit issue had at least twenty pages of editorial. The swimwear manufacturers were thrilled and Mike Cutino used my photographs for his company’s press kits and at least a half dozen additional covers. Keith’s introduction helped me so much that I credit it as being the catalyst for moving to New York City and the start of my photography career. I would shoot with Keith on and off for thirty years. We are friends to this day. I’ve probably done more shoots with him than with anyone other than my children. We continue to shoot on special occasions, such as the Hospitality Ball, which he founded. Only now, his guests are people like Alec Baldwin. As for Michael Cutino, he and I had a small reunion recently. It was great to see him and again, thanked him for the break he gave me.

For years, I thought about that Native American model I fell in love with, on the top of that sand dune. I still do. One of my iconic photographs was of her on that dune, shortly before we made love. While I never saw her again, I stopped at that same sand dune and shot a documentary about the dune buggy enthusiasts who races there. I was given a ride in one. It topped out at one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. It was one of the most exciting things I have ever done. But, the entire time I was there, all I could think about was her. Every time I see that photograph, it brings back the memories of making love together. I hope she is living an extraordinary life.

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