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As far as he was concerned, he’d stumbled across an ideal situation, one in which he could relive some of his most deviant desires. He was writing the script, and Jarrod and I were supposedly playing the parts.

The one fly in the ointment was that his two leads were proving a bit difficult to direct. My character, in particular, kept balking at the idea of providing him with sufficient details of what we’d been up to. I realized that I’d made a mistake by giving him too much information too soon; now he was expecting kinky stories in every letter.

Since I was supposedly the inhibited one, Jarrod’s letters—or more precisely, the letters I’d concocted on his behalf—tended to be more vivid, and hence, exciting to Gacy. But inevitably I hit a wall of self-disgust as I offered up yet another dollop of titillation for Gacy’s benefit, and at that point I realized I had to change the focus of our correspondence.

From that point forward, the tone of Jarrod’s letters became dry and tedious, mostly consisting of tales in which he described encounters with his girlfriend rather than with me. I didn’t anticipate how frustrated and angry Gacy would become. In his next letter, he railed at Jarrod for regressing to heterosexual activity and pleaded with me to bring my brother back into line:

Regarding J, I see his last letter was nothing again. Hey, if he is serious, then tell him to describe what he has been into or let me know when the best time to call where I can talk to him. But hey, he has to come out of his shell and tell me his thoughts, and what he likes. But this B.S. about sex with his girlfriend. Fuck that B.S. Thats for people who don’t know better. He has got to know that I know all of his private instructions and I agree. But because you are not doing [it all] as often as you should, this is going to be a slow learning project.

After this initial scolding, Gacy sent along a typically graphic and detailed sexual fantasy that he wanted us to act out. The letter went on for pages, laying down a scenario that resembled some of his classic killings. He wanted Jarrod to sit on my chest. He described exact positions he wanted us to try. It was Gacy the porno writer at his most creative.

I could only shake my head in wonderment. From my research, I knew that he enjoyed sitting on the chest of his victims, forcing them to perform oral sex from that position, often while he had a rope around their necks, tightening it according to his whims. Although he was a sadist, with young children he preferred to ruin their innocence first. Then, after they were “dirty hustlers,” he’d begin inflicting the pain they deserved.

By late February and early March, Gacy had been denied access to Jarrod and his letters for several weeks. Finally, I sent another Jarrod letter just to calm him down. He responded immediately with this:

Hi Ho Bro,

Or should that be Lil’ bro? Ha ha. Yes I know about your baseball as its your first love next to SEX. Please don’t assume that I get mad at you as thats silly. Maybe Buddy says things too strong. And yes I would appreciate it if when you read my letters that you get back to me in a reasonable amount of time. Of course we could get over a lot of the letters by talking on the phone but you denied me that twice. What you have to understand in talking to me is its like talking to buddy. We three share a common bond and just like I have become Jason’s big brother, he knows he can count on me not to laugh or make fun of what he tells me nor am I ever judgmental of what he says. And thats the way you should feel as well since I know just as much about you. . . .

There were a couple of things that struck me immediately about this letter. First, it seemed clear he was trying to join my family, to become the older brother who’d guide and mentor us. Although in this particular letter he posed as an equal to my brother and me, later he tried to exclude me from the “bond” we all shared. To him this was necessary because Jarrod required more specialized tutoring in the