The Mermaid Sex Offender

At the Sexual Psychopath Treatment Program at Western State Hospital, we were occasionally permitted the rare treat of utilizing the Hospital's recreation center. The center was complete with bowling lanes, game rooms, fitness equipment, full-size gym and even a swimming pool. And I love to swim. But, in the 22 months I was in the program, I only got to jump in the pool once, and thanks to Rick Johnson, that swim was short-lived.

Rick was a classic homosexual “pedophile”, who was forbidden to ever be alone with me because of his desires for young boys. There were actually several members in my group (and even more throughout the program) who were not allowed to be alone with me, because for the entire first year or so, I was a “minor”. So anyone with a sex crime against minors could not be around me without a chaperone. So, the fact that Rick was under this same restriction, did not make him special to me. But, apparently, I was special to him.

At the time I had no way of understanding the excruciating desires that Rick would have had to be struggling with to see me with my shirt off and in swim-shorts at the pool. At that point in my life, I had honestly never had what I later learned to be “strong sexual desires”.

Yes, I raped a 14 year old boy, and yes, I desired sex, but nothing like what I learned later that Rick must have been feeling. I had, at that time, yet to experience anything close to an “uncontrollable sexual urge”. Apparently, Rick Johnson was not so innocent.

As a kid, my mother used to take us swimming a lot. It was also one of her favorite activities, and being in the military made it extremely affordable. So, getting to go swimming for the first time since my arrest, when I was still living at home with my mother, brought out all the kid in me. I was as excited as a 10-year-old and acting just as silly, doing flips off the diving board, cannon-balling anyone who dared to dare me, and demonstrating my prowess in the water by swimming the length and breadth of the pool underwater.

It was during a demonstration of this later that I decided to surprise Rick, who I chose as my “victim” by his mere proximity at the time. I swam underwater, as close to the bottom as I could get, over to where Rick was standing in the pool, and then grabbed his hand, and imagined myself to be a “mermaid”, gave the back of his hand a big wet underwater kiss, and then popped up out of the water to enjoy his surprise and announce my game.

“I'm a mermaid!”, I said excitedly.

Rick didn't get it. In fact, it seems the only thing Rick got, was extremely aroused. So, as I swam off to hunt for my next “victim”, Rick got out of the pool and called a “special meeting”.

I moaned my disappointment when the meeting was called, because even though I had no idea what the meeting was for, I fully realized it meant no more swimming, perhaps for weeks, perhaps longer - much longer.

When we got back to the ward, and in group, Rick very haughtily announced (he was always so haughty) that he had a “line of concern on Ed” (“Ed” was what they called me in the program). A “line of concern” usually means someone is in big trouble, but not always, so I waited with trepidation to hear what this was all about.

Rick explained what happened in the pool, but, from his perspective, I had deliberately and deviously “sexually molested him”. I actually relaxed when I heard this, because, I thought, "Oh, this is just a mistake. I'll be able to clear it all up as soon as I explain that it was just a silly game I was playing, trying to have fun!" Well, did I have a thing or two to learn at the time!

The group (lead by Rick, who was much senior to me in the program at the time, though he was later kicked out for having sex in the shower with another much younger member – but, that's a different story) accused me of “being in outlet”, which is the worst accusation in the program. It meant that I was completely out of control of my sexual impulses and acting on them inappropriately. Wow! All I did was kiss his hand, and maybe he got some kind of sexual charge out of that, but I sure didn't.

The group didn't believe me. I was grounded to the ward, and my “treat-ability” was reviewed. Very serious trouble indeed, that meant they would consider voting me out of the program (and sending me to prison) if I did not confess to my “attack” on Rick and show to the group that I am “dealing with” the “issues” that caused it to happen.

Well, I managed to survive the ordeal, but only by convincing myself that on some unconscious level I really did want to have sex with Rick, even though, consciously, the very idea repulsed me (it would have been like having sex with my dad, something I couldn't even imagine), and so my “treatment” continued...