In most of my childhood, I felt extreme loneliness, even when with those who loved me. It is possible when you are desperate to believe two opposed ideas when the outcome gives pleasure beyond all that you had ever known. Any justification makes sense if the result is pleasure.

In the body of the average twelve year old boy lays a bottomless pit of unquenched desire for pleasure denied. When my younger cousin, also twelve, came to me with the desire to service my pleasure it began a very discreet four year affair. As we lived in neighboring towns it could only be fulfilled on weekends but, as our parents were godparents to us both, we saw one another every weekend. He knows that he initiated the affair, just as he later ended it in favor of the woman who would become his first wife. Yet, as we could love, we were puppy dog in love with one another.

"Was this a phase?" I asked myself when it ended in 1969.