I woke up somewhere in Hollywood around 4:00 or 5:00am to the sound of a loud catfight. It was a cool blond versus a hot-blooded Latina. Both were young models – the taller blond just scored a big New York agency, while the shorter Latina was stuck doing headshots for Vidal Sassoon. “Too short for the big time!” joked her flaxen friend. That’s when all hell broke loose.

I’m one of those who doesn’t lose coordination with drink – just judgment, which makes a bad combination, as it leaves me the mobility to get into even greater trouble. So instead of going home when the bars closed at 2:00 am, I followed a group of musicians and models off to a party, where I eventually dozed off on a couch. The guys were in a band that looked kind of edgy-tough, but underneath the bravado were basically a bunch of skinny wimps, none of whom had the balls to physically intervene as two young women yelled and screamed and tore each other’s hair out. The smaller Latina seemed the fiercer of the two, but the lanky blond held her own, as they stumbled back and forth with talons dug in the other’s neck. Despite the great, sexually noir visual of two drop-dead gorgeous models fighting in high heels and mini skirts, the persistent gentleman within me stepped to the plate and I insinuated my body between the combatants, gently forcing them apart until their nails finally relaxed. The Latina collapsed in my arms, crying. And thus began the summer after my recent divorce.

Raquel poured her heart out as I drove her home in my rumbling 350cc, black ‘68 Camaro–a souvenir from a vampire film I had directed – the vampire’s car, actually, although I did not see myself in that light. At least once my mind had become sober.

She had grown up in East L.A. and fell in with the wrong crowd at 13. Back then, before fights with other cholas (Latina gang girls), they would smear Vaseline on their faces to avoid scratches. Raquel had hated that life and worked her way from barrio to Beverly Hills doing small modeling gigs. “Small!” she laughed ruefully. At 5′4″, her dream of New York was apparently out of the picture. Maybe she would enroll in beauty school next year, or fashion design.

With full, sensuous lips and heart-melting eyes, the dawn’s light gave her tawny skin an added radiance. I was quite stricken by the beauty of her features. As she rested her hand on mine, I thought a direct hit by lightening might have the lesser effect.

We cuddled in bed and slept until noon, which was soon to become my new schedule.

A relationship immediately developed, despite the fact that we didn’t seem to click during the daylight hours. You might say our love was nocturnal. I would show up at her classic Park La Brea apartment after dusk, usually with Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rosé (a superb wine made exclusively from the Pinot Noir grape, which I highly recommend). We’d finish the bottle, snuggling to music and candlelight on the living room sofa which opened to a bed, where we would proceed to make love. Her saucy young roommate, Janice, had the only bedroom. Janice would often spy on us. I was boxing at the time, feeling pretty cut, and (always the ham) would put on a little extra show for Janice. Raquel knew what I was doing and stifled her giggles. “Giggles” was her barrio gang moniker, way back when. My champagne-infused mind fantasized Janice joining us – hell, I knew she was aching to. Raquel knew it too. But “Giggles” could be insanely jealous and was content with just a little titillating exhibitionism – plus, she liked showing me off to her girlfriends – just as I liked showing her off to my guy friends. A young, exotic, red-hot Latina beauty with a gangster past was almost too intimidating for some of my envious, middle-class gringo friends. But it was just the right cocktail for this red-headed, recently-divorced hipster – feeling cocky with his knockout left hook and ‘68 Vampire Camaro. YEEEHAAW!!!

Sexual appetite sated for the moment, our normal appetite returned with a vengeance and we’d spruce up a bit, and, exuding our pheromones loudly, go out for a late dinner. I feel both crude and shy to say so, but the subtle/subliminal after-scent of the female orgasm is the single most potent powerful aphrodisiac on the planet – not only returning the lady who originated it to a state of re-arousal, but having an effect on any other woman one might encounter during the evening.

And Raquel liked me turning on other women, as she held my arm with a cat-satisfied grin. She just didn’t like me being attracted to the other women.

I was writing food and wine columns then, and remember how we turned heads as restaurants escorted Raquel and I to the best tables. Raquel dressed really sexy on summer nights, perhaps pushing the envelope in that regard, but she had impeccable fashion taste and carried herself with grace and poise. I’m not sure what we talked about during dinners, but I know we had a good time, and certainly ate and drank well. Afterwards, maybe 10:30 or 11:00pm, our spirits and blood/alcohol levels quite high, it was time to start our evening.

We read today about Paris Hilton wasting her brilliant life in nightclubs. Well, she wasn’t the first and won’t be the last. But o’ what fun. Raquel and I would first make the usual Hollywood rounds, then maybe hit some artier hipster joints, and finally end up at a private after-hours club for late drinks. Nick and Fred Meschin (current owners of the tres cool Little Door Restaurant) used to run my favorite private clubs. And then there was F&B Construction. This was a classic speak-easy in a non-descript, south-of-the-tracks industrial building. Mammoth black guards would let you in through a thick steel door, only to find another thick steel door, where suspicious eyes checked through a peephole before you gained final admittance. The interior was plush and comfortable, filled with major models and rock stars. Besides liquor after 2:00am, sultry waitresses would bring you anything else you wanted – maybe even themselves. Raquel loved a little tweak of coke, but she knew I had this thing against drugs (except booze, of course) so she didn’t press me to go to F&B too often.

After the clubs, we’d go to my beach house in Venice and make love until sunrise. Our favorite music during these interludes was Linda Rondstadt’s “Canciones de mi Padre,” a wonderful collection of Mexican folk classics. Raquel’s family came from Mexico and she said her grandmother was pure Apache. Maybe that’s where she got her violent temper, she wondered – and fiery passion.

Hers was an intense, absolute, nothing-held-back level of passion. During intimacy, she’d gaze in my eyes with such burning love that the image left an indelible impression upon my mind. Raquel said she’d pull me from a flaming building or dive in a shark tank to save me. I truly believe she would, although the other side of that coin was that she also had the requisite passion and temper to kill me if I ever so much as cheated on her. But as long as I didn’t do anything to cause her to put a knife in it, I knew that this was one woman who really had my back.

It’s a sad fact of life that all of one’s “friends” don’t necessarily have your back. I have a story about this little shit of a writer I’ve worked with (now a big shit of a writer, and I won’t mention names because we’re still friends). Anyway, the guy has a big mouth and fell in to an angry exchange with a much bigger skin-head type. The littler guy goes to grab something with which to hit the bigger guy, the bigger guy grabs a .45 automatic from his car trunk, pops in the clip, and charges towards my friend. Without thinking (maybe I should have), I stepped in front of the goon and talked him out of it, as several of our fair-skinned, fair-weather “friends” ran for their fucking lives. They were four or five blocks away before I could blink.

But I digress – except to say that my writer and his trashy little slut of a girlfriend, Ashley, would sometimes double date with Raquel and I. The writer and Raquel actually found much to talk about, and ultimately formed a deep and lasting friendship (which we will touch upon later).

Raquel and I, on the other hand, found little to talk about, at least during the day – when we were sober. I liked to look at fashion, I just didn’t want to talk about it for an hour – or celebrity gossip, for that matter. I liked to talk art film – and books! I don’t think Raquel had ever read one. But let the sun go down and a champagne cork POP, and things would perk up. Something happened with our drinking and partying, some sort of bonding – a “not afraid of death or arrest”-type of craziness we shared. Three o’clock am, careening on two wheels with drunken stuntman friends; a few near-fights outside of bars when I would take offense if some guy showed her (us) any disrespect. She would hold me back with all her strength and plead with me not to hit him. (And please note that prior to Raquel, not since age 15, was I at all prone to street fights.) I guess a level of wildness was part of the equation between us – and part of the fun. We did have fun.

And so it went, dusk ’til dawn – three, four nights a week. Raquel could go do a fashion shoot with two hours of sleep. I couldn’t function like that, and the lifestyle took its toll.

There was one daytime thing we shared periodically, which, in our own way, made us feel quite cool. Although a “successful” underground movie director, “underground” means you get no respect in Hollywood because your films don’t make money. So with the backing of investors too smart to put their bucks in anything as risky as a motion picture, I’d buy apartment buildings on the side. My specialty was renovating rundown places – actually improving neighborhoods and the lives of the tenants as well. It was a good business both spiritually and financially. However, I had recently acquired my toughest building yet – an “apartment/hotel” at 6th and Alameda, downtown – a few blocks from skid row. A three-story brick walk-up, two bathrooms per floor, the place was a semi-slum, overcrowded with illegals. The resident manager, who came with the building, was a guy named Manuel. Manuel’s former job was as chief pistolero for the late dictator, Anastosio Samoza, who had been earlier overthrown and killed by the Sandanistas in Nicaragua. Manuel ran a tight ship, packed a .44 magnum openly in his belt, and was now calling me patron instead of Samoza, (patron is a Spanish term of extreme respect, meaning something similar to “Godfather”).

I was sparring regularly in a professional boxing stable – something I don’t recommend after age 40, and particularly not after a long night of drinking. Anyway, the guys would sometimes go downtown to the L.A. Boxing Club, a converted jail with no dressing rooms or showers. And I would go afterwards to my 6th & Alameda building nearby to shower and change. Raquel loved to come along and root and scream for me–me, the whitest guy in the place – maybe not the most experienced boxer, but a hard enough puncher to hold my own in the ring. Other boxing dames would sometimes tag along with their fellas, but none of them raised the heat anything close to Raquel. Fortunately, the worst out-classed, embarrassing ass-kickings I ever suffered were not on days when Raquel was in my corner. Regardless, even on a good day, it was not unusual to have a little blood in the mouth afterwards, which turned her on all the more. Then we’d rumble in the Camaro over to Alameda where Manuel insisted on taking us on an inspection. My Spanish being so-so, Raquel would help translate his rapid-fire lingo. As we strode down the newly painted halls of my (now slightly less-crowded) dominion, Raquel would clutch my arm admiringly, like a sexy little Eva Peron. If ever there was a time I felt fucking cool, it was on those days. “Si Patron“, “No Patron,” “Que usted dice siempre, Patron!” (Whatever you say, my Godfather!)

Of course, I don’t always come off so cool. Being born a red-headed male is equivalent to being born in a clown suit. So we need all the cool-looking moments we can muster. We may strive in life, take our voice lessons, do sit-ups and be Clark Gable for a moment, but drop our guard for an instant and HONK! HONK! We’re Bozo the Clown again. Raquel was a key part of my cool equation, and I knew she felt cooler as well before the eyes of the world, hanging close to me.

THE PAIN OF LOVE

A gentleman doesn’t see what he can take from a woman – he sees what he can give her. Whereas there is little basic sexual difference between 95% of hetero men (and/or dogs, for that matter), every woman is completely, totally, absolutely different from every other woman. HELL! She’ll even change within herself, week-to-week, month-to-month. So, my friends, there are no “one-size-fits-all” techniques to master – only: Exploration and Discovery. And thus, with Raquel, our romantic adventure took me into her deepest secrets.

Raquel would give her body to me – any time, any place (and, yes, we’re talking the hood of the Camaro, in a parking structure, late at night, drunk out of our minds, some yuppies walked by and I waived my knife in the air – to insure a little privacy). Her body was mine. Her body was perfect. Golden-tawny brown, smooth as silk, satin skin. Slender, but just enough curves, in the right places. Provocative provacative ass and full yet supple young bosoms with dark protruding nipples–which she liked pinched–harder and harder…and harder – during sex.

Raquel needed pain to climax. More than I felt comfortable with. Along with lots of her kisses and affection, and lots and lots of liquor, I did what I had to do to finish things off. But it simply was not my thing.

And the lifestyle was killing my productivity. When the summer ended, I broke things off and broke her heart. She chose not to kill me, and a few months later we became platonic friends. It was then Raquel confessed to the cocaine problem she had earlier hid from me.

The following year, complications from cocaine and alcohol developed into a major kidney disorder, requiring hospitalization. I still regret being somehow too “busy” and not finding the time to visit her then. My writer friend did – I guess he wasn’t such a little shit after all (if only he wasn’t so damned volatile whenever I re-wrote his screenplays… but that’s another story.)

But reminiscing about that summer with Raquel, I recall one afternoon at the gym, she was not with me that day – I was scheduled to spar with a fellow amateur, but the guy did not show up. Another guy didn’t show as well – the guy supposed to spar with Bobby Lopez (21-0), an up-and-coming middle-weight contender. My hard-as-nails old fart of a coach, Kenny Lasalle (94-37), generously offered me up to go a few “easy” rounds with Lopez. I was scared shitless and (my body) decided the best defense was a berserk level of offense. My punches were strong enough to cause potential damage, and I managed to keep Lopez at bay – actually rocking him a few times and drawing a crowd – (big mistake). Utterly spent and exhausted, and finally breaking a thumb with a wild punch at the end of round two, I tried to leave, explaining to Kenny what happened. He started to twist my broken thumb and yelled in his distinctively slurred and punch-drunk manner: “Ged back in da’ ring, pussy!!” Instead of saying “fuck you, asshole” and walking away, clown suit or no clown suit, I went back into the ring and left two rounds later with my eyes swollen half shut, the world’s biggest lips, and what remained of my former nose now about four inches wide. And I think I heard someone comment: “Who was that Bozo?”

Raquel cancelled all her modeling jobs the next week, was at my bedside before and after the nose job – then nursed, cooked and cleaned for me with total generosity and kindness. She said she would love me no matter what happened to my face – she didn’t care about my looks… or my money… or my position. “It’s what’s inside that matters.”

[Raquel has long since gone sober and is presently a successful New York clothing designer - and the author, happily re-married in the Hollywood hills, has traded his boxing gloves for barbecue mitts to better channel his inner wildness into outrageously theatrical dinner parties.]

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