Array Seka - Inside Seka

He told me which way to move; which way to look. Bend over and touch my ankles. Nothing distasteful. No inserting fingers into orifices or anything like that. It was like what would be in Playboy around that same era. It took about four hours.

All in all it was a good experience. With the 300 bucks, I’d eat another week. He handed me the cash and told me I did a really nice job and looked really good. But he told me he didn’t usually use models more than once a month. Overexposure.

I thought it was a one-shot deal. I needed fast dough, the car needed gas, I needed food, and it was so easy I would hardly even call it work. I doubted I’d ever be naked in front of a camera again.

My relationship with Frank wasn’t going well. Again.

He didn’t seem very interested in trying to find a job. I had no idea why. It was always hard to read that man. He told me he was looking, but I didn’t see any evidence of it. There was rent to be paid, food to be bought, everyday cost of living expenses to be met. And nobody was working.

My thought was to go back to Virginia because nothing was happening here. There wasn’t a lot of fighting or anything. I was just disgusted. I told him he could probably find a job there and I had my family. In my mind, it was a safe place for both of us.

We drove back and it felt depressing, defeated. Inside, I felt nothing for him. I’m not even sure why I hooked up with him again in the first place. Maybe it was just convenient comfort combined with loneliness and horniness — the devil you knew was better than the devil you didn’t. I dropped him off at his mother’s house and went and got a hotel room. I was tired and wanted to be by myself. I didn’t have a place to live and had very little money — basically nothing but the clothes on my back and a suitcase. But I was sure I was done with Frank for good this time. (The next time I saw him, years and years later, he was a Born Again Christian. After pushing me to give handjobs, and sponging off me in Vegas while he gambled, he finally turned to the Lord. Oh well, if it weren’t for sinners, the church would be out of business.)

I had no clue as to what I was going to do and figured I’d stroll on back to Ken, if only to scratch that off my list of options. So much for swearing off second chances.

He was over at one of the stores and nothing was really discussed except he hired me back on the spot. Outside of all else, I was a damn good employee and he knew it. We just picked up where we left off, no questions asked. Although I did have feelings for him, it wasn’t love — even more so now. Yet next thing I knew, we were back living together in the same place we had. Again, I was opting for familiarity. Some new guy would have been like diving into a whole new thing, with all the good discoveries and bad, and all the butterfly feelings you get in your stomach. I guess that didn’t set right with me at that point. I needed relationship comfort food.

There was a new guy working at the store. I would say he was fiftyish. His name was Woody — the second Woody in my life.

Woody was gay and had a little dog, a sheltie, a wonderful miniature collie that was always with him. Woody was kind of short with brownish grey hair that wasn’t always combed. He had a pockmarked complexion with oily skin and usually wore jeans with a plaid shirt or polo. He had a little bit of a tummy and black horn rimmed glasses that were always sliding down his nose, so he had to keep pushing them up all the time. There was always the scent of cheap drug store cologne on him, but somehow he was able to carry it off. He always had a smile and something pleasant to say to everyone. He was a very loving man, a sweet soul. I always enjoyed having him in the store to keep me company. He just loved all the Navy guys who came in. Cruising a lot, old Woody scored a lot of dates out of there.

Around this time, the cops started coming down on all the bookstores in the area. They’d make us take certain things off the shelves. It was starting to be a hassle and drove business away. It was the politics of the day. Community standards and all that. They decided that instead of a blanket law that you couldn’t have an adult bookstore, they’d instead leave it up to each community to set its own standards. We’d be forced to take down the bondage films and equipment. They really could have told us to remove everything, but they only objected to the most bizarre. It was the seventies and for as much freedom as women were getting, some of our feminist leaders like Gloria Steinem were raising a lot of ruckus against pornography.

I felt it was all very hypocritical. There were men’s magazines on the newsstand like Playboy and Penthouse that they weren’t bothering with. And they didn’t do anything to the strip clubs in our area, what few were around. They were just targeting bookstores. As far as I was concerned, it gave the guys a place to go. Even if they were jacking off in the back, it was a release for them. And if two consenting adults are doing what they want to do, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business.

We’d take stuff down and the next day they’d pick on some other item. It became a hassle getting staff to work the store and I had to work a lot of hours because of it. We hired a black gentleman and immediately noticed the sales were going down and merchandise disappearing. Despite the coincidence, I just didn’t feel he was the kind of person to steal.

One night on the way home, I was in the car behind him at a red light. The light changed and he wasn’t moving. I sat there trying to figure out what was going on and finally got out and knocked on his window.

He was dead asleep.

Turned out the guy had narcolepsy. He would fall asleep all the time in the store. The customers were taking stuff right off the shelves while he was snoozing. One day, I actually saw him asleep while standing. Yes, standing. I took a newspaper and winged it at his head. It scared the crap out of him. I told him, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work. You need to go home.”

I felt bad, but it wasn’t good for business. And it wasn’t safe for him. They could have knocked him over the head and did whatever they wanted because he was falling asleep pretty regularly. But as soon as we got rid of him, sales went right back up.

So we had to give Woody more hours. I walked into the store one evening and there were two other guys there with Woody, who was behind the counter. I could feel a bad vibe in the air. Woody looked really nervous when I arrived.

I asked, “What’s going on?’ Nobody said anything. I announced, “If nobody’s going to tell me anything, you two have to leave.”

Later, Woody admitted it was a fight, a love triangle. One of the guys didn’t know Woody was seeing the other. I said, “I don’t know what to tell you, but if you’re going to do this, you have to keep it away from the store. I don’t want your boyfriends bringing drama in here. It’s not good for business.” I didn’t see any of his boyfriends or tricks after that.

Ken and I were home one night and got a call from the police that we needed to come down to the store. Something had happened. I thought maybe Woody had another spat with a boyfriend, or the morality police threw a brick through our window or something. I didn’t know what to expect and was nervous the entire ride down.

When we arrived there was a detective standing outside. He said, “You may not want to go in right now.”

I said, “I do. What’s going on?”

Someone had murdered Woody.

I changed my mind; I didn’t want to go in.

It was a gunshot to the head at close range. The police said whoever it was just walked in, walked right up to him, and fired, execution-style.