In the final foster home in L.A., my foster mother took pity on me, or maybe she was exasperated with me for my continual surprise when boys and men “interfered” with me. She’d had enough of my crying and didn’t like the way my foster dad was eyeing me, so she introduced me to a neighborhood boy a few years older than me, who proposed to me right away—and we were married right away—except—(I never understood why, I don’t understand even now)—my young husband, Jim, abandoned me after just a few months to join the Merchant Marines and get as far away from Los Angeles as he could.

Why was the question I asked Jim, begged him, he’d said he loved me, so why then did he leave me? Why do you say you love me but then leave me, do I need more love than you can give? More love than you are capable of? Continuous love, like a radio that is never turned off? Unflagging love, relentless love, ravenous love? All I wanted was to prepare Jim’s meals and cuddle with him, make love with him, bury my face in his neck and hide in his arms and—I guess—he became frightened of me—I started calling him Daddy when he was just twenty years old …

Thrilling to you, Daddy, I guess—to know that I was “suicidal.” Just in my teens I’d threatened to slash my wrists when my husband shipped out (by his request) to Australia, begged him to make me pregnant before he left, but he refused—abandoned me and left me and broke my heart.

You wouldn’t break my heart, would you? Promise?

It’s a sign of how naïve I am, and how innocent I am, that men have broken my heart—you have broken my heart—so many times.

Yes, I am shy. Everyone said so, how shy I was. (And am.) Except when my clothes were removed, my shyness seemed to melt away, too.

Why is this?—I do not know.

In this, I am unlike you. For you would be mortified to appear naked in the eyes of strangers. You could not bear to be stared at, assessed and judged.

I’ve never been ashamed of my body. I did not actually think of it as “my” body—I called it my “Magic Friend”—where I got this from, I do not know.

Of course, robo-technology has replicated Norma Jeane’s skin of 1946—(perhaps it is even more dazzling-smooth than the original!—that’s an extra bonus for you). Creamy-white Plastaepidermis covering PlastiPlutoniumLuxe Miss Golden Dreams, as snug as a glove.

My Magic Friend never let me down. She had the power to make strangers love me. I always knew—I still believe this—that if my father had seen my Magic Friend, he’d have loved her, too. I mean—me.