letter to a lost boy
Posted by kabouter on Monday, October 2 2000 at 09:50:59pm|
hello Akki my dearest, Its your birthday. How old are you now? 13 years. Happy Birthday. Its been a long time since I last saw you. That was August 1996. So its been more than four years, Akki. I miss you a lot. I want to try to explain what happened then. To help you to see what I was all about. I think we hurt you Akki, a lot. I don't know what to say about that. How can I tell you how sorry I am? I'd need a page as big as the sky. I could start at the beginning. Or even before the beginning. Tell you about my part in it all. That might be good for us both. Four years before, when my friend Jan first told me he had a new girlfriend I was feeling very sad and lonely. When he told me she had two gorgeous children I was interested because as you now know I love young boys. I fixed up to visit you all with Jan. You were the one I wanted to meet. You were nearly five then and a bundle of energy and mischief. Everything about you and your family seemed right. Your mom was an activist, politically aware and smart. There was a lot of hippie in her. You were all vegans and as a vegetarian I liked that. My first picture of you was a bouncy, pink-cheeked blond little boy in blue pajamas jumping crazily on the bed. You jumped straight into my heart. In those days I guess four going on five was a little young for me but I was also sexually aware of you. Not only were you peaches-and-cream beautiful but you also had a square little body and the cutest little rounded bum. Your mum intrigued me. That first night she went to the toilet leaving the door open - in full view - so that we could talk from the living room. That was an intimate and unusual thing to do. I liked it in a funny way. Over the next few weeks I often dropped in to see you all. We became close friends and your mum began to confide in me and introduce me to her circle of friends. Then the troubles started. First of all she broke up with Jan and aborted their baby that she was carrying. Then the landlord threw you all out of the house and I helped you move to the new house using my car as a van. Your mum was a bit strange then. The stress was a bit much for her. I helped as much as I could and my reward was the hundreds of cuddles you gave me and the love I felt for you. But not just you, Akki. I also loved your sister, Callie a lot. She was a little elf of a girl, very like you in many ways. I also loved your mum. We were closer than I have been with another person for a long time. Her heavy emphasis on militant feminism was difficult for me as a man and to be honest I was often scared of her. But she didn't realise that the hold she had over me was you. Soon you were all an integral part of my life. We made plans for the future together. Your mom and I were going to set up a wholefoods organic co-op. Then I went away on holiday and didn't come back for several months. I was suffering from depression and needed the peace and freedom of the open country. I missed you and kept in touch by phone and letter, but I also realised then that I needed all of you more than you needed me. Other things in my life happened as they do and I moved away permanently. You all came to stay with me often even though it was a 500 Km drive. Once we went to the beach and after playing on the sand went round the games halls and souvenir shops. When we said good bye you kissed me on the mouth and didn't stop. I stood there in the middle of the street next to your mom while you kissed me sitting in her arms. We must have stood like that for a few minutes. Your mom told me that you loved me. I said I loved you as well but I was shaking with desire and emotion and had to go. A few weeks later I visited you in the Lowlands. We had a fun-filled day walking in the woods and playing with Danni, your dog. I remember watching your mom rod out the septic tank. She said she didn't mind poking about in the sewerage because it was all vegan (and all of yours!) That night after your bath you asked me to say goodnight. Alone in your bedroom we kissed again. Maybe it was a game to you because you wouldn't stop until I did. I didn't want to so we kissed open-mouthed on your bed for more than five minutes in total silence. I can still feel your little plump bare arms hot around my neck as you held me very tightly. I went to heaven that night. Your mom knew I was gay and she liked that. She used to tell me that she hoped you would be gay as well because that would be cool. She didn't want you to be a man somehow. The only time she really liked men was in bed I think. She never hid what she was thinking so you heard her say this a lot. I remember picking you up and carrying you around the house and how you got a boner and it stuck into my stomach as I carried you. In that last year, 1996, I became your father. Your birth dad had walked out on you when you were born. Also a hippie he was living with another woman up north and making more babies. You hardly ever saw him. We were playing on the beach making sandcastles. The tide was a long way out you could hardly see the sea. You were wearing speedos and the sand was dusted all over your buttocks and pink little legs. Can you remember how it came up? About the father thing? I can't but I do remember telling you that I wished I was your father and you said "but you are my father!". I told your mum and she said that that was how you felt about me. I didn't know what to say. I felt weird, excited but also unsettled. Over the next few weeks we spoke on the phone almost nightly when you told me over and over how much you loved me and it became a game as we each tried to outdo the other. If I loved you a trillion times you loved me a trillion, trillion. And then you sent me this beautiful home-made father's day card, "to the best dad in the world." You made it at school. Your mom said that you would be coming to live with me soon. It sounded to me as if she was very tired and feeling the burden of her single parenthood a lot. I felt that things were moving far too fast that I wasn't in charge and as if your mom was pushing things along. I wanted to have you living with me. But I had fostered three children ten years before and knew all the problems and I was still suffering from depression. In summer 1996 you all came to stay again camping near to my place by the sea. I was away visiting my sister and my 9 yr old nephew, came back with me to stay at my house for a few weeks. The day we arrived home I had been driving all night. I was hopelessly tired and annoyed to find a message on the ansaphone from your mum saying that you would all be calling in a few hours. I grabbed a short sleep. I was still cross with your mum when you all arrived. She always arranged things to suit herself never anyone else. So I gave all my attention to you that afternoon and because I was tired didn't notice the strange looks we were getting from your social worker auntie. After a good sleep I was supposed to meet with you all at a park but your mom rang and told me not to come over. She sounded strange and a bit hysterical and rang off before I could ask what the problem was. We had made a new date for Thursday. Thursday was an awful day pouring with torrential rain. When my nephew and I got to the campsite there was no-one there. We spent the afternoon looking for you and the car kept stalling on the flooded roads. We went back to the campsite and I saw you standing in the rain near the gate. You looked at me as if I was a stranger. Your mom and aunt were taking the tents down, she said you were all gojng back home early because of the weather. She was supposed to take my nephew back home, 500 KM, as well. He lived close to you. Everyone was ignoring me. It was weird. No-one was speaking just taking down and folding tents. I went to talk to you even though there was a wall between us that had never been there before. I started taking photographs with my new digicam. Everyone came to look at the snaps and then I felt as if I was a family friend again. You went behind a ditch to take a pee and I followed you and even though you turned away I took a picture of you peeing. I so desperately wanted a picture of your little peepee to treasure - wanted it more than I wanted your permission for me to have it. Then it was time to go. You all went down to the toilet huts and when you came back it was in a tight group. Your mum said goodbye. You were already in the car, no-one was speaking to me and no-one else said goodbye. I asked about my nephew and she said that she didn't have room and then you drove away. It was awful. I felt like the world had come to an end. I didn't even see my nephew far less interact with him as we drove home. I remember the rain eased off and revealed a brilliant silver and gold sunset. I stopped the car to photograph it even though I felt dead inside. I didn't hear anything for you all for weeks. I was angry and hurting and I didn't call you either. Five weeks and it was your birthday and I sent you a long, loving letter and a new Gameboy. Then your mum rang me one night. She had realised I was a paedophile and both sexually and emotionally in love with you. She told me "things were never going to be the same again". I ddn't know how to handle the situation so I admitted nothing and stayed detached and cool. I didn't tell her that I love you and wasn't seeking sexual activity with you. If you had asked for it I couldn't have refused however so that might have been dishonest of me. But we never had had any sexual experiences other than those long kisses and she knew all about those because we did them in public. I said I would send some cards and gifts at Xmas and rang off. I felt numb. I posted a message to an Internet chatboard called BoyChat. Some people replied almost straight away even though I posted anonymously. Their warmth reached me and I broke down into hopeless desperate crying reading those replies and cried all night. A few weeks later I went to see my psychiatrist in a really bad state. By now I wasn't sleeping, was lying on the couch day and night and at times the mental agony was so great all I could do was chew a cloth. I am telling you this because I want you to know why I didn't call or write to you or your mom then. She put me on medication. I didn't send those Xmas cards or presents. In December I left that place forever and moved far away. Somehow I felt safer doing this as if hurt couldn't reach me now. I also knew I was running away and that I owed you more than this. I was very angry with your mom. It was June 1999 before I called her. Three years had passed. I asked my friends on BoyChat what I should do and they said "call or write". So after a few days I did, on the spur of the moment. Your mom was amazing. She reacted with shock but we talked as if nothing much had happened and the conversation stayed on news and updates. She told me that you were withdrawn and unhappy and my heart broke a little. After an hour we rang off. She said she had to go into shock. I rang her again last year on your birthday after you would have gone to bed. I didn't want to intrude any more so I just gave her my phone number and email address. She said that she didn't tell you I had called a few weeks earlier. She was much more guarded this time. I haven't heard anything since. I think about you a lot. You are important to me. I also worry about you. I can't write because I don't know where you live now and a netsearch didn't reveal your address. I think it would be wrong for me to keep ringing your mom as this may be annoying or distressing for her and anyway it feels very stressful to me. I think she is trying to protect both you and me from any more hurt by remaining aloof. I understand this and think there is some validity in it. But I also want to reach out to you with all the love I still feel for you. Hence this letter. It really only skims the surface Akki so I hope that it makes a little sense to you. I abandoned you in the same way that your dad did but I went because I loved you too much whereas he went because he loved you too little. I still love you. You will probably never read this letter. I have no way of sending it to you but today is your 13th birthday and so I am posting it to BoyChat. It better than doing nothing at all and I suppose there is a trillion to one chance you might read it. love Originally posted to BoyChat - reposted to BW on 3.10.200 |