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FRESH YARN PRESENTS:

My Lesbian Love Letter from Prison (Or So I Thought)
By Jill Morley

PAGE TWO:
Awww. My first lesbian love letter from an inmate. I was honored. And excited. Having never been to prison before, I find it intriguing and kind of sexy. This was untapped danger territory for me. Criminals who were actually imprisoned have been tough for me to get to before this.

Yes, I have been working on getting myself back "into the light" as far as my interests go. Having lost two friends to their over-explorations into dark territories, I have been looking to find the joy in life above ground.

But ever since seeing Chicago, I find the idea of women in prison glamorous. I picture Catalin in a glimmery beaded costume and a short dark bob. All of the other prisoners are gorgeous trained dancers who sing about how they committed murders, counterfeited money, robbed banks and exacted revenge. They dance together in the jail yard, leaping over picnic tables during their recreation period, and possibly dance on cars. I know I am mixing the film Fame with Chicago but it's my fantasy, dammit.

I bragged about this letter to all of my friends. I carried it in my purse with me wherever I went for the next two days in a manila folder as proof of my newly found street cred. I was so tempted to write back, establish a correspondence with Catalin, bring her brownies, nail files baked in cakes, and fine lingerie sewn into stuffed animal heads. I wanted to know more...

My friend, Lucy, a dominatrix and professional Bettie Page impersonator, decided to do an Internet search on my version of Catherine Zeta Jones. Lit cigarette dangling out of her mouth, Lucy, typed Catalin's name into the Google box and hit "enter."

Several articles came up with Catalin's name in it. I get even more excited. Roxie Hart, here I come!

"Looks like you hit the jackpot here. This is one famous bitch," Lucy exclaimed, her ashes dropping onto the keyboard as we read the articles.

But things turned ugly. To my horror, we find out Catalin, who was involved in an infamous case in the early '90s, is, in fact, a man. A 40-year-old day trader who lived with his mother in New York City. Apparently he lured a 14-year-old judge's daughter to a motel, gave her alcohol, had sex with her and taped the encounter. He is the first prisoner serving a life sentence for child pornography charges. That's what happens when you target the judge's daughter (Frown Face).

But he never even got the sex act on tape. He only filmed for 11 minutes. The tape stopped because he forgot to rewind. This is who is sending me fan letters. An incompetent child pornographer -- getting life for a sex act he didn't even get on tape. Pathetic. No wonder there were all the Smiley and Frown faces in the letter. He had met her on the Internet in a chat room. I wanted to throw up.

The letter took on a whole new meaning. I read it again, but instead of seeing a heavily made up moll with a dark bob and beaded dress with a pout, I envisioned a sleazy, straight, middle-aged white man.

Please write back, Clarise. Eek!

Lucy thought Catalin was getting a really bad deal. She told me that 14 is just like 16 and that 16 might as well be 18. "If you are old enough to get pregnant," she says, "you are old enough to decide who you want to sleep with."

I reminded her that this man lured the girl to a motel room and gave her alcohol.

Lucy actually told me that he is probably good looking if he got a 14-year-old to come see him. He probably sent her a picture of himself. I wanted to smack Lucy. She then encouraged me to answer his letter to see "if there is anything there."

But then I remembered that Lucy has a high tolerance for the eccentric and insane. As a professional dom, she's had clients who were kinky businessmen asking her to do things to them that most of us couldn't imagine, let alone pay for. Her primary slave at her dungeon is a Japanese businessman who brings four boiled eggs, for each session. After giving him an enema, she tells him to strip naked and shove the four eggs up his ass. Then, she calls the other mistresses in and yells that he had better "lay those eggs like a good chicken!" With a very serious expression on his face, he squawks like a chicken and lays those eggs. At the end of the hour, she's $300 richer, he's properly humiliated, and Lucy is just a little more twisted.

As the years have passed, I have been working diligently on untwisting. I notice that life is becoming less dramatic, but more livable. I am married to a wonderful man who is stable, has a job, was never incarcerated and is still interesting. I don't know as many people who are in life-or-death situations, and don't worry so much about myself going down the rabbit hole to uncertain depths. I don't even associate with Lucy anymore, let alone incarcerated people who I don't know.

In the end, my lesbian love letter from prison was stripped of glamour, infused with reality and now sits in an old filing cabinet somewhere, reminding me of where I don't want to go anymore.




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