Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn (3 page)

Dad was small and thin, around five-six or five-seven and one hundred forty pounds soaking wet. He had bright red hair and big doe-like brown eyes with very pale skin. He couldn’t be out in the sun at all. I remember one time we went to the beach and within about ten minutes he became one big blister.

My mother reminded me of Jane Russell — a va-va-va-voom body and the most beautiful wavy dark black hair, olive complexion, dark brown eyes, and the straightest, whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. She was gorgeous with naturally arched eyebrows and long fingernails. And the woman knew how to walk in a pair of pumps.

My parents just couldn’t get along and decided to split up. Mom married a guy named Terry who seemed okay, but what did I know? I was a kid and I was supposed to trust my parents. He was very tall and skinny, with dark curly hair and dark eyes. He laughed a lot and was nice to us. Terry liked country music and would take my mom out dancing. Everything seemed good between them as far as I knew. He never scolded me and was never off-color, nor did he curse. He liked his cigarettes, cocktails, and cabareting, but he was a good man. He didn’t seem to hold a job very long though, as we were always moving.

My name was Dorothiea but everyone called me Dot. I was named after an old girlfriend of my father’s, some girl he dallied around with when he was in Germany in the service. Mom had no say in it and once she found out where he came up with it she was none too happy. Back then, women were knocked out during childbirth and the father came in and signed the birth certificate and settled up the bill. I wondered for years if that damn name wasn’t the cause of a lot of misery my mother sent my way.

I was a tomboy. I never, ever wore a shirt until the age of six. We’d go fishing, throw tomatoes, and play hide-and-seek and kick-the-can at night. We lived on the “other side of the tracks” because that’s where my grandfather’s job was. The railroad ran just in front of their house. I loved my grandparents dearly. My grandfather was secretary of the Norfolk and Western Railroad and my grandmother was a housewife. They were very kind people. My grandfather was of Viking descent. He was very short and bald, which probably doesn’t sound very Viking at all, but he had big blue eyes like robin’s eggs. He was round, very round, but didn’t seem heavy to me at the time because it was just so comfortable to sit on his lap. And he always wore a suit. I don’t think I ever saw him without a suit and hat. He was constantly smoking either a pipe with cherry tobacco or a cigar. I loved the smell of his pipe. Grandpa used a straight razor and kept a strap in the bathroom. It hung by the sink and us kids were deathly afraid of it because we knew he meant business if he ever pulled it out in anger. But he never, ever used it on us.

My grandmother was part Cherokee. She had soft brown eyes like clouds. She was very heavy and always smiling. Grandma had the biggest boobs of anyone I have ever known. As a little girl there was nothing more comforting than to put your head between her boobs and sleep. She was a great cook, which is how I learned how to cook. I was always sitting on the kitchen counter watching her at work. She made fresh biscuits at least twice a day. She’d have a cigarette in her mouth and the ash would be almost as long as the cigarette itself, but I never saw her drop the ash in the biscuit ever. Hell, maybe she did and that’s what gave it the taste.

I’d go down to my grandma and grandpa’s house on weekends because my mother was no cook. There were two bedrooms upstairs. My grandfather would put a piece of tin on the windowsill so the sound of the rain would be amplified. On clear nights we could hear the train in the distance. To this day, I can sleep so well when I hear rain or a train coming down the tracks, because it reminds me of my childhood.

My father’s side of the family was Irish and lived in a little place called Poplar Camp, way up in the Appalachians. I never knew my father’s father as he had passed away before I was born, but his mother was a very tall, thin, willowy woman. She had a very stern demeanor but she wasn’t really stern at all. She never cut her hair in her life. It hung all the way down to her knees and was snow white. From the time I was a little kid her hair was very white. She was blind and dipped snuff and was always laughing. They had only three rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom and the living room. She had a wood burning stove and no inside bathroom, just an outhouse. She’d be sitting in her chair across from the stove and there were four eyes where you put the wood in to heat it. She’d leave the lid off one eye so she wouldn’t have to get up to spit and would hit it from across the room.

My mother would do weird things to get attention. She would pretend she had taken all these sleeping pills and lay down on the floor and make believe she was about to die. She’d be groaning and you’d try to wake her up. Later we’d find out she flushed the pills down the toilet. I have no idea why the woman did the things she did but it was very scary. It wasn’t like she didn’t get attention, because when she walked in the room every head snapped around because she was so stunning. The woman could talk to a post and make it drool. In general, though, she was pretty even-tempered. Didn’t yell, didn’t get mad, didn’t scream. But every so often she’d just go off into another land — The Twilight Zone.

I was in second grade and went to school one morning like it was any other day. My brother, sister, and I went to the same school because my sister was only a year and a half older than I, and my brother was only a year and a half older than she. Everything was fine when we left. But lunchtime came and I didn’t see my brother or sister anywhere. I wasn’t concerned because we were all in different grades. When 3 p.m. came around I still didn’t see them, but we didn’t always walk home together since they might be doing something with their friends. We all had keys anyway. The school was only about three blocks away and in those days parents didn’t worry about kids walking to school. I got home and there was nobody there. I still had no sense anything was wrong because sometimes neither parent was home at that time.

The living room was messy and average-sized, with old, plain furniture. I sat down to do my homework. It started to get dark and I finally began to feel concerned. But I was fine; I was home. I made a sandwich because I was hungry. I watched TV and even though I was getting more anxious, I was also feeling sleepy and knew there was school the next day. I fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up quite early the next morning. Still nobody there. I took a bath, got dressed, and went to school. I don’t know why, but I didn’t call anybody. I just went to school every day, came home, did my homework, and went to sleep. This went on for almost two weeks. I never went to sleep in my bed because I was scared. I felt safer in the living room because there was noise from the TV. There was enough food in the house and I didn’t need money for lunch since I packed it every day. The dishes started to pile up, though, and the water started to overflow when I ran it. At that age, I didn’t do dishes. That was when I finally realized something had to be done. I called a cab and had them take me to my grandparents’ house.

When I got there I told the driver to wait, that I’d be right back, and I went in and told my grandfather he needed to pay the man. It was like $54, which was exorbitant back then. Knowing my grandfather, he probably gave him a dime for a tip. It wasn’t because he was cheap; it was just his way.

He said, “Why do I need to pay a cabby?”

“Because I don’t have any money, Grandpa.”

I proceeded to tell him I’d been home alone and he said, “What are you talking about?” He turned every shade of purple, blue, and red a man could turn. You didn’t want to make my grandfather angry.

Evidently I hadn’t bathed myself well because they threw me in the tub and scrubbed me. I loved that bathtub because it was one of those big old ones with the claw feet and was scooped down in the back. My grandmother would fill it up with warm water and I’d feel very safe with all the wonderful smells wafting in from the kitchen. At that point, I felt everything was going to be okay because I was in a safe, loving place. There was good hot food on the stove after more than a week of cold cereal and sandwiches.

I stayed with my grandparents, but they also had no idea where my family was. We were all confused and concerned. For all I knew, they were dead. My grandparents went back to the house and it was a lot more disgusting than I’d remembered. My mother wasn’t a very neat person so I was used to it. They went to my school and discovered that my mother and stepfather had picked up my brother and sister there — but not me — and said, “We’re going on a little vacation. We’ll have them back in a week or two.” My grandparents asked if they mentioned where they were going and they said Florida. I was so pissed off they went to Florida and I didn’t get to go. I wasn’t pissed off that they had left me and put me in harm’s way. My brother wasn’t much of a water person, and my sister had carrot orange hair, alabaster skin, and really pale brown eyes, almost gold. She looked like a little porcelain doll. Why the hell did she get to go to Florida and I didn’t? I was the tomboy. I was tan and loved the water.

Eventually my parents returned. My grandfather was standing beside the car while I remained inside. My grandfather wouldn’t let me out of the car or inside the house even though I said I needed to get some clothes. “Don’t worry about clothes,” he said. “We’ll buy you some new clothes.” Meanwhile, Mom looked at me, but it was pretty much like I wasn’t there. She didn’t seem to have the least bit of concern for me. I don’t remember her asking if I was okay, or if my grandfather just didn’t give her the opportunity. My grandfather wasn’t a mean guy or a rough guy, but he was old school. He treated everyone the way he wanted to be treated: fairly and honestly. You always knew what was on his mind.

They began yelling at one another. I don’t remember what they were saying, although my grandfather was really pissed off. He said something along the lines of, “You won’t have those two other babies, either, in a few days.”

And they didn’t.

Hello, world!

My dad in the army. My mother in high school — quite a looker.

The original Dorothiea, my daddy’s German girlfriend after whom I am named.