Dear Christopher,

I love you a lot, you are a very cool and a smart little person who’s getting big and strong very quickly. So that’s cool. Sorta like I did as a kid. So let me tell you a story about when I was a kid. When I was about 5 years old I had made a cool little fort outside hidden between two rows of pine tress in the back yard. As you know up in NJ these pine trees were really thick like Christmas Trees so we were hidden in the fort and no one ever knew it was there or anyone in it.

One time I was in there with my little sister Diana and this older guy came in to visit us. He was a family friend and knew all about the fort, so it was no big deal. He was at our house more than his own. So he said he had this really fun game we could play there in the fort. Sure we thought. So he asked if we ever heard of strip porker. Of course we hadn’t, but he explained it to us and we were both excited about playing.

As it turned out I won. So this guy and Diana were both sitting in the nude there in my fort. And he said well look at my thing, it’s made to go into her thing, do you wanna see how. Wow, we knew nothing about this. So he touched her and she liked it. It feels good to be touched. And then he rubbed his thing against her thing and we all laughed about it. Course I sorta felt left out.

So he touched me too. Wow, it feels good to be touched. He was gentle and slow and touched me really nicely and carefully. Wow I never knew how nice it was to be touched before. But I knew I liked it. So when I started school I knew all about touching people and soon had a girl friend. It was a big deal and we were the hot item in 2^nd grade. We would kiss and hold each other for hours. It was really fun and we could spend hours sitting on her couch just talking while we held onto each other. Her mom didn’t mind since we were always in the front room where everyone could see us. And we were careful to kiss only when no one was around and we really liked that because it felt good too.

Nothing more happened between us. I already knew all about getting touched and feeling good. There was a man at my house that would touch me all the time and give me gifts too. So I had this secret sex relationship with him and then another real nice sweet relationship with the prettiest girl in school. Wow, I had it made.

She was really a doll too. We would write notes to each other in class. And one teacher even got mad about it because we would be so busy with our notes we wouldn’t listen to him. So one day he grabbed our notes and posted them on the bulletin board for everyone to read. It was really embarrassing. But we were dating and kissing about 2^nd grade through most of 5^th grade. It was a big deal since no one else would ever think of it. But it was really cool because I knew all about sex and getting touched.

I got touched all the time. This family friend liked to touch me and make me feel good. He would start really slow and I would just melt. He never let anyone else see us. But he always could get me alone. Like one night he told me he knew where I could get more wood for my fort. Wow that was great, but he said we could only get it at night. So we would sneak off at night while everyone was watching TV and we went to this area where they were building new houses. When we were alone in the dark he started to rub me and I would lie down again since he just liked to suck me. It felt good. He was helping me and never really asked me for anything, so it wasn’t any big deal and it felt good so why not.

Then he would give me other gifts too and do special things for me, always finding a way to get us alone somewhere. Soon I had a really big fort and all the kids on the block wanted to come into it. But it was my fort and I was in charge. I would let people in once in a while, but really liked to keep it to myself. I had a lot of secrets now. And it was fun, no one knew about my secrets, and that felt good too. I always had girl friends so everyone thought I was some really skilled Don Quan and knew all about sex. And I did. I knew exactly how to tough people to make them feel good. Everyone liked to be touched. But I really only liked to touch girls, so that’s what I would do. They were always happy with me so I never had to prove anything.

Soon I got bored in my big fort. So we stole the cigarettes of one of the kid’s parents. Wow, not even a teenager yet and we had a whole box of cigarettes to smoke in my fort. That was cool. Once again I was the big shot. Well big deal, that wasn’t such a big deal for me anymore. But my friend would always come by to make me feel good and soon he was driving me around. And buying liquor and then buying pot. He became a big drug dealer in high school. And when I got there I did the same thing with his help…

Wow I really had it all… drugs, money, sex, power and control; the American Dream. I’d made it lots of money and I could do anything.

But I really LOST a lot too… I know how important normal is to you, so guess what,

1. I never had a normal relationship with my dad. I had too many secrets to tell him anything.

2. I really had secrets from my friends so I really didn’t have normal friends either.

3. I was always in trouble so I never had a normal relationship with my family at all.

4. I couldn’t really have a normal relationship with anyone. I always had too much to hide.