Seeking

“And everywhere along that hideous track

I saw horned demons with enormous lashes

Move through those souls, scouring them on the back.”

Dante, Inferno, Canto XVIII – by way of John Ciardi

Odds are, this chapter wasn’t designed specifically for you. “Seeking” is aimed directly at some folks who have been “surreptitiously” reading the online serialization of Bronx Nights.

They don’t realize it, but I can see them as clearly as the can of half-drained Fresca next to my keyboard.

I’ve been stone sober since September—apart from Christmas. That little Polar Express is in Chapter 19. I wouldn’t touch alcohol now if the Queen Bee herself showed up with all the honey in the world.

You (them) thought I was keen before? Hell, I practically am Rain Man these days. Plus, I have G.A.L. She and I have been up to quite a bit. For one, we built a Tree Fort! Wonder Twin Powers, activate!

Seriously. Please don’t be afraid. Also, don’t go hiding now—honestly, slipperiness and shadow accounts don’t work.

I already know you’re there, and I’ll spot you just as easily again.

Go ahead: Leap. Message me. Call. Or just show up and knock.

The Door is open. The Chain removed. (I even put it there for you to see.)

But there’s a “No Horseshit” rule around here now—it runs firm in both directions. (See, I learned Alex’s lesson from Chapter 5. And a whole bunch of other lessons. Thank you, 111, and others.)

Yes, even if there’s a protective order or two in place.

I could still file charges against quite a few of you. If I were going to do so, I would have done it already. This is my release—well, technically, that was in Chapter 4.

I have meant every word in this book so far, especially the forgiveness, grace and the I love you bits.

Walk in forgiveness. Walk out of the darkness. I am now.

As to the rest of you, I have a feeling there will be a lot of bottlenecking. Just don’t plug up the lanes for everyone else.

And, honestly, this chapter applies to everything with a penis, pussy and everything in-between—sometimes known as the taint.

Here, hop in Hank again. Buckle up! I’ll pop on the AC.

It’s getting hot in here

so take off all your clothes!

I am your Virgil. Your Dante. Your Upside Down Saturday Night Sugar Daddy.

Hell, if you need a Seminal Vesicle, I’m your man—well, I used to be, before the vasectomy.

At any rate, there’s a lot of gratuitous sex in this chapter, including words like:

Bukkake, Cumshot, Blowjob, Anal Play & Tasting, Choke, Wedge-Lick, Titty Fuck, Fisting (both cunt and ass—got to admit, I’ve never heard one shoved up a cock-hole, but you never know), Boner, Jizz, Facial, Tea Bag, Pussy, Rimjob, Facefuck—to name but a few.

See, they’re all here. Pretty much everything nearly every single one of us has either typed or read on Pornhub.

There. Did you get your giggles out?

Good. Let’s get down to serious business.

But first a word of Achtung!, baby:

TO MOCK IS TO MOCK THE WOUND.

I meant that. If you make fun of this shit, it’s against your own karma.

For example, we are about to talk about things like relationships with significant age gaps, including what is traditionally called the Daddy-Daughter complex. Also, what used to be called miscegenation, but now is just called HUMANS LOVING HUMANS—thanks, to of all lexical ironies, Loving v. Virigina, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

If I catch any of you snorting—or especially rubbing one out—over any of this, I’m going to send you straight back to Chapter 4.

I see you nodding there. You’re a Club Member, aren’t you?

Good. You get it. Stuff hits home, doesn’t it? Here’s a Kleenex.

But you over there—you with your religious or political granny panties all in a wad—for once in your life, why don’t you consider the words of Aristotle:

“It is the mark of an educated person to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Well, at least I’m pretty sure it was Aristotle. It could have been Mr. Blomberg, my high school social studies teacher.

Pretty sage advice, either way.

Okay, I like black younger women than I am. It’s my “thing.” My current orientation.

I woke up to that in the middle of all this Long COVID anathema. Some of you will call it a kink. You’ll just sit back and gawk.

But to me, my Neuro Autistic Self, it’s a compass.

And before any of you judge, I’m just going to give you a few names: Harrison Ford, Celine Dion, Alfe Woodard. They’re your—our—heroes, right?

Every single one of them has done something very akin to me. I’ll let you figure it out.

Back to my childhood.

First, I was anally raped at the age of five. Don’t worry: my ass no longer hurts, but it still remembers. Ow.

Also, we had two black foster sisters in my home when I was very young. God knows why any societal structure would let my parents take any kids into our home. I could have warned them. But they did.

And we did the whole “play doctor” thing together.

And of course there was Haiti. Funny, I never had sex with any of them. Just an orientation to the black Mythos—which is real, and beautiful. And PAINFUL. As painful as my life has been. And everything I identify with, if you’ve even read one word of this book.

Yeah, and I also identify with white privilege. I have a ton of it. Big, bearded white dude in his 50s. Attractive too. Trust me, it’s bailed me out of a lot of trash compactors. But fuck it.

BECAUSE…

I’m Autistic.

I don’t perceive—see—the world as you do, unless you’re a fellow Neuro.

I see reality in very coded, almost computer-like terms. Yeah, an insight for the careful reader, finally revealed in Chapter 17.

Do you get it now?

I can’t get on a subway by myself. I can’t download an app and interact with it without knowing it in a very social kind of way. I can’t even explain to you the way I know things that surprise the hell out of you. I’m a “high functioning,” deeply emotional Autistic human being who most intelligent people eventually label as Narcissist.

Because they don’t know what else to call me.

In short, I refuse to hide. It’s coded in my bones.

And it’s going to be through sex that you actually finally see me. Because that’s a vulnerable language we all speak and see, whether it’s between the bedsheets or wandering privately on the web.

First, you need to know this. There have been several periods of my life—long ones, lasting many years—where I chose abstinence and celibacy. They weren’t fun, trust me. But I went without, by choice.

I have also been married twice. And I have never committed an act of unfaith. I am loyal by code. And, yes, I’ve had open relationships too. Faith is commitment. Covenant.

God knows, when I ran for Congress, I needed to get laid. But I didn’t want to put anyone in that fire with me, either. It wouldn’t have been fair to them. Those were tough times.

Why am I sharing this—any of this— with you? Why am I going there?

Because someone needed to, finally. Somebody needed to drip life onto the page. Onto a complex canvas.

Now, let’s talk about Doris.

You (them) were wondering if I would name you in this chapter. Hers is the first real name, other than mind, in this book.

When I first met Doris, she was in her 90s. We instantly knew we were supposed to be together. But a four-decade age gap! What does one do with that? Talk about ships passing in the night.

Obviously, sex could never happen. But what happened was the most beautiful of love stories.

Watching shows together on the couch. Me, perusing her library—all of the same books that I had in my home. Jokes. Sips of vodka together. And that pure, crystalline lemonade of love.

She had an actual Rembrandt sketch on her wall. It called to us through time. It spoke words we could never articulate. It was a Testimony to what we were. What we still are, I suppose.

And when Doris’ body failed her, she fled from me. She couldn’t bear me losing her—from a relationship that never was supposed to be, but was. She refused to have a funeral, but the world gave me an opportunity to memorialize her anyway. I read aloud a poem in the presence of those who loved her most—and it carried through time.

So as we dive deeply now into my sex life—into all the predators who have ripped me, eviscerated me, these past few years—just know that there once was a woman named Doris, 40-some years my senior, who holds my heart. Even as I hold hers.

As you’re tempted to laugh at Daddy-Daughters, at a thing that seems tainted, seems like a “kink,” just know that I once loved a woman as purely as a man can love. And I honor her memory here, too. She wasn’t a predator. We held each other’s hands, and simply knew Time itself wasn’t kind to us. It teased us.

But we loved each other anyway.

DORIS

HOW I FOUND SEEKING:

MATCH.COM first date

SCROLLING THROUGH PHONE, SO MANY CONFUSING IMAGES UNTIL MEETING MOJI

Meeting JoJo, the end of a long line of Seeking relationships

y change in sexual attraction from white women / my history in Haiti / 2 black foster sisters

My Autism

All of this happened within the context of my life completely unraveling while trying to find a cure for Long COVID—and something that is very sensitive to me: SLEEPING ALONE. And being alone, in general.

How hard it was to kick JoJo out of the apartment.

My Illness

My Insomnia

My Brain Fog

My Money

Also, my own sexual abuse and complex psychological past: “Maybe my ass doesn’t hurt anymore, but it remembers.”

What do I get out of this Daddy-Daughter relationships the most? Mentoring. And the wisdom that a mentor gains from being with a generationally-fresher point of view.

Bolgia—one for each Predator:

Moni (Imoni Dunner), Moji (Oluwafunso Olateju, Ashley McKenzie (Jones), Camarah Alisha Brown, Nevaeh (Neveah Ervin), Kanga Jamba (Lewa Lewa / Jalewaaa / Lilith SA on phone 929.741.7377 ), Olivia (Danielle Harris), Elysia (Jana Starghill) Whitney Houston), LeAndra (Gabbard), Eva SA

In Dante Alighieri‘s Inferno, part of the Divine Comedy, Malebolge (English: /ˌmælɪˈbɒldʒ/ MAL-ib-OLJ; Italian: [ˌmaleˈbɔldʒe]; lit. ’evil ditches’) or Fraud is the eighth circle of Hell.^[1] It is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches, each called a bolgia (Italian for ‘pouch’ or ‘ditch’). Long causeway bridges run from the outer circumference of Malebolge to its center, pictured as spokes on a wheel. At the center of Malebolge is the ninth and final circle of hell, known as Cocytus.

X Bolgia—one for each Predator:

Write a small personal letter to each of the 10 going forward. And then release them at the end.

Begin with where they were when I found each of them.

Seduttori

First Bolgia (Panderers and Seducers “lashed by demons eternally”)

Eva SA (S&M)

Eva (partner Khendra): 100 Riverbend Dr, West Columbia, SC 29169-7449

Adulatori

Second Bolgia (Flatterers)

LeAndra (Gabbard) – a wonderful woman, but very much a self-flatterer

Simoniaci

Third Bolgia (Simoniacs)

Elysia (Jana Starghill) Whitney Houston),

She was lured by the selling of my rare books.

Indovini

Fourth Bolgia (Sorcerers)

Moni (Imoni Dunner),

Obsessed with astrology

Barattieri

Fifth Bolgia (Barrators)

Kanga Jamba (Lewa Lewa / Jalewaaa / Lilith SA on phone 929.741.7377 ),

Tried to blackmail me and accused me of rape

Ipocritic

Sixth Bolgia (Hypocrites)

Nevaeh (Neveah Ervin),

The First to return—will it be sincere?

Ladri

Seventh Bolgia (Thieves)

Ashley McKenzie (Jones),

Stole my possessions and medication, and my trust and so many other things

Things Ashley and I have in common:

Nia Nacci

287 Days Later

Consiglieri

Eighth Bolgia (Counselors of Fraud)

Camarah Alisha Brown,

Camarah lied about everything in her life

Seminatori

Ninth Bolgia (Sowers of Discord)

Olivia (Danielle Olivia Harris),

The only one that doesn’t seem to fit perfectly. I’ll have to examine it. She definitely belongs, but how? Or I trade this one with Eva in Panderers and Seducers

Danielle Olivia on Facebook

Those who divide! How she split me from my time with Sasha, my daughter, in Puerto Rico!!!

Falsari

Tenth Bolgia (Falsifiers)

Moji (Oluwafunso Olateju,

Among them is Myrrha, who suffers from insanity after she seduced her father. The queen of Daddy Issues.

Alchemists! Those who corrupt reality – but more in the area of minor witchcraft

Runners up!

SERENITY ADDISON (storyteller) (Addison1245 on IG)

She’s following BRONX NIGHTS on TikTok!. Where she’s Big Ole Bobcat / the only arrangement I almost had!

Tikay Holder???

Non-Seeking: Monette Priester / Ariel Flowers / Jordyn Fox

NOTE: THE CHAPTER ENDS WITH A REMEMBRANCE OF PLAYING MACDUFF for SOUTH CAROLINA SHAKESPEARE COMPANY:

They ran from the father figure they clamored for.

They cried out for daddy during sex.

All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

Honestly, I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about Daddy-Daughter intimate relationships. Or romances with large age gaps. Or sexual attraction directed toward one ethnic group and culture.

The twin towers of academic and clinical psychology don’t even get it right on the surface level—let alone in the trenches.

Because the only way to really know is to be in one.

Again, take it up with Celine Dion and Harrison Ford and Alfre Woodard and George Lucas. They’re our heroes, right?

Don’t forget Doris. (That’s her real name, by the way. I’m pretty sure she won’t sue me from the afterlife she doesn’t believe in.) God, we would have been perfect together. Maybe in some other incarnation.

Fuck that. We were perfect as we were, as it was, as it lasted.

Now, Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies? That’s a different story.

I hate them.

Men and women who trade blowjobs for Gucci bags and trips to Miami—they disgust me.

Sex for sex on any level disgusts me. I need emotional connection. Meaning. Mythos. Even for a one-night stand.

If you and I (and several others) are going to connect, it needs to be for a damn good reason. And when we depart, we gained something spiritual and emotionally validating from it.

But I never had a sugar relationship—an Arrangement. That’s why the beginning of this book had a full-stop early on.

This book was originally going to be a novel called Sugar. And this was going to be the first sentence:

“How often do you masturbate?”

Kind of hooks you, huh?

The story was going to be a man on a shrink’s couch, processing all of his relationships gone to hell with younger black women.

It was also going to be a revenge book. I was rightfully pissed off at the time. I was suffering and ill—just about more than anyone I’ve ever met. And I had been uniformly burned and scarred like Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient.

“I’ll get them back—all of them!”

Then I started talking to the City. To 111 and her skyscraper crew. Also, to some really good human and humane psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers.

And I realized I had an entire lifetime of Survival Skills worth processing and sharing with the entire world.

In every single one of my “Seeking” relationships, me and my other were just trying to Survive—whether from one moment to the next, or maybe, just maybe, something that lasts.

There’s just one problem: We’re all Club Members.

Like a twist on that old Groucho Marx line, we’re members of a Club that won’t let us bring a plus-one for very long.

That’s why I told the gods to fuck off way back in Chapter 4.

“What do you mean I don’t get to be miserable with someone else the rest of my life?!”

That’s when I knew this book wasn’t fiction.

It was a Survival Memoir in the making. Including my own.

The World According to Arik

Or Gospel, if you lean in that direction. Trust me, we all lean.

#SKELETON