True Confessions

When I was about 7, I found some pulp magazines in my parents' room. One of them was True Confessions. (I found out years later, the reason my parents had them was because one of their friends had had several stories published in them so, they were not true, nor were they actual confessions.)  Two things stand out to me about those magazines: One, I thought the word "body" meant torso. So when these bodies were dumped in a ditch or found in the woods, I thought the head, legs and arms had been chopped off. I wondered why murderers always took the time to do all that horrid work.
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Two, I learned the word "lesbian." The first line of one story was, "There is a sign above my jail cell with the word Lesbian spelled out in large letters." Then the woman making this "confession" went on to say that her only crime was that she loved women. So I read that and I'm thinking, Well I love my mother and my granny. Am I a lesbian? Will I go to jail? As I read on, I realized it was not that simple. She explained that she loved women in the place of men, and it was probably a little bit graphic.
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I remember thinking that was the craziest thing I had ever heard, so of course the next time I played with my barbies, I had two of the girl barbies be lesbians. Maybe I was quietly observed by Mom, because I finally got that Ken doll I had been asking for.