Array Seka - Inside Seka

When we went out that evening he gave me a beautiful pair of gold and diamond earrings. We had a really nice time, came back to my place, had sex, laid around, talked for a while, and he left. Everything seemed right in the world. I should have known better.

We continued to see each other and all of a sudden I didn’t hear from him. He just dropped off the face of the earth. I had no clue what was going on. None of his friends would tell me where he was, so I figured he didn’t want to see me anymore and didn’t know how to say it. I liked him a whole lot, but it wasn’t like I was madly in love. It didn’t crush me, but I was hurt by the way the whole thing had been handled.

I decided I needed to go about my business and my life. Since we didn’t hang out in the same circles and I wasn’t close with any of his friends, it became almost out of sight, out of mind.

Two years passed and while bartending at The Crazy Horse, out of nowhere he walked into the club. He didn’t make the least bit of effort to explain his disappearing act.

“What the hell happened to you?” I demanded.

“I had a lot on my mind and couldn’t be distracted.” End of story.

He handed me an envelope saying, “This is for you,” and walked out just like that. I was stunned from the whole scenario. Later that evening when I was home alone, I opened the envelope and found a shitload of cash. I thought, holy crap, what’s this for? Guilt money? Being naïve once again, I didn’t question anything and even let him back into my life.

Things got a lot more heated up in the romance department and he decided he didn’t want me working as a bartender. “No girl of mine should have to work,” he told me. He announced he would “take care of everything” if I quit. Hey, sounded good to me. I figured if I could lie by the pool and go shopping, that was a lifestyle I could grow accustomed to. I was tired of schlepping drinks and busting my ass to make a living. I left my job and he did exactly what he said.

At the start, it was wonderful. I was always dressed sharp, and shopping became my new job. But it was hard reaching the man. Also, if I went out of the house and did something with my friends, he would act crazy. “Where have you been? Who have you been with?” I didn’t go out with any other guys, but he never believed me.

Generally after a date, we’d end up at my place. After all the festivities were done, he’d inevitably say, “I have to go.”

Finally, I questioned him. “Why do you always have to leave?”

He confessed he had to check in at a halfway house every night. He said he had been to jail — for what I didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. This was one of the reasons he had been AWOL from our relationship all that time.

I accepted that. But then we’d take trips to places like Vegas and Florida. If he was on parole, how did he pull that off? I never stopped to consider that, nor did I feel he was lying to me… until that same girl called one night and asked, “Is my husband there?”

I handed him the phone and said, “It’s your wife.”

He turned ten shades of white.

He walked into the other room and I could hear the heated conversation. When he came back out I said, “Maybe you should go.”

I was more disgusted with myself than my lying lover. From that night on I didn’t see him for several months. When I did finally hear from him, he said it really wasn’t his wife; that it was some girl who had wanted to marry him but he refused. Stupid me believed him, or at least wanted to believe him. I honestly think part of the reason was I liked the lifestyle he provided me.

We started going out again, which proves you don’t always get wiser as you get older.

A disco we liked was always jam-packed so we had the same table reserved every night. But one evening he was acting very strange. Suddenly he spilled his guts that he was, in fact, married, and the divorce was coming and she was collecting evidence for the case. “Don’t be surprised if pictures of us turn up,” he said. He glanced at some shadowy figures across the room as if they were spying on us. Just great. It all started to feel very cloak and dagger.

When it was good it was good, and when it was bad, it was really bad. I realized I wasn’t dating the most reliable guy in the world and even though he didn’t like me to work, I started to look for another job. Although I had become an experienced bartender, I was coming up empty as far as job offers. I truly believe he put the word out that I was his girl and he didn’t want anyone hiring me.

His wife ultimately did leave him during one of our vacations and cleaned out his bank accounts. But all I thought was, “Yay, he’s not married anymore!”

In addition to not wanting me to work, period, he didn’t want me to have anything to do with the XXX business, even though he made a living off people like me with his own bookstores. With me not working and him being in a fight to the death with his ex-wife, money started to get tight. Our lifestyle started to get cheaper and cheaper. Checks were bouncing. I continued putting on weight since all I could do was wait around the house for him to show up.

Things started to disintegrate. Our sex life was dying because I had gotten disgusted with everything that had gone down — the lies, being made to feel like a caged bird, my own feelings about my weight and my looks.

I went to his home one day and we got in an argument over the bills. He snarled at me, “Why don’t you get out of my house, you fat-ass cunt?”

Very nice. I said “Fine, that’s the way it’ll be.”

And just like that, I ripped his key off of my ring, flung it into the middle of his yard, got in my car, and drove off. From dancing to bartending to hot dog vending to radio — nearly fourteen years of my life — all wasted on one lousy man who wasn’t even available most of the time.

I haven’t seen him since.

My dad was still living in Virginia. With a frugal lifestyle, a pension from the Army, and Social Security, Dad was pretty set financially. But he was still a heavy drinker and smoker. When I would visit him, he’d walk out, buy a bottle, sit in the park, and come back drunk.

He had a one-bedroom apartment on the ground level. Some of the kids in the complex would take advantage of him when he was sauced. They’d steal from him and even beat him up and knock him out. So he decided to live with his friends, a lovely couple named, believe it or not, Bud and Lou. The lady, Lou, was tall, thin, and striking with a chiseled jaw line and face. She had the most pleasant disposition. Bud, her husband, was this short, round, good ol’ country boy who didn’t have a whole lot to say.

At Bud and Lou’s house, my father’s mini-strokes started. He no longer had the use of his left arm or left leg. Falling out of bed, he’d often hurt himself, but I knew his friends loved him and for the most part he was being very well taken care of. If Dad needed something, Bud would literally carry him. But when he kept having these strokes one after another, they just couldn’t keep taking care of him because they were old and also not in the best of health.

Dad asked me to put him in assisted care living. He actually liked the place we found for him. At least he wouldn’t be hurt, beaten, or have his things stolen. He was a resident for a couple of years. He stopped his smoking and drinking there, and I pushed him around in his wheelchair, enjoying our time together. But gangrene set in on his foot, and I knew he didn’t have long. He was also riddled with cancer — lung cancer and bone cancer. I wanted to stay to help more, but I had to go back to Chicago. I remember the last thing he said to me. “Whatever happens, do not let them amputate.”