By the time I turned 16, I already had an extensive rap sheet under my belt. Possession of drugs, underage drinking, and even shoplifting. Nothing major until Daddy gave me a BMW for my sweet sixteenth birthday.
And it was sweet. Sleek, black, with an engine under the hood that could take it up to 140 km an hour in under half a minute. No, I don't know what type of engine it was, or even the model; it was pretty and I liked it. The details didn't matter to me.
I kept that car for a month, until I wrapped it around a telephone pole after a party at one of my friends' homes. The judge tried to charge me with everything he could, but it all came down to not being able to prove anything. Even the damage to the car was consistent with the road conditions, and within the confines of the speed limit. Daddy's lawyer argued that I wandered off in confusion due to a head injury (they didn't find me until the next afternoon; I had gone to sleep off the drunk under the school bleachers), and that the location they found me in was consistent with traumatic confusion and an underlying concussion.
That was when I realized that although Daddy would let me suffer the consequences of minor infractions; he, or rather his lawyer, would protect me from the major ones.

I didn’t hate my mother for abandoning me; in fact, I think I would thank her if I ever recognized her. Her “mothering” ultimately led me to live life in what seemed like that lap of luxury – big house, many presents, and a daddy who suddenly decided he had a lot to make for. Buying my affection was the easiest way for him to make amends, and I was easily bought – until the next shiny, new toy caught my attention, and suddenly I would wake up crying for the mommy who left me. Guilt isn’t just a tool for parents, kiddies.

Hello, my name is ...

My given name is Christine Stone, but I call myself Featherweight, and you will soon learn why.

I was born to an angry woman in a small town in upstate New York, in the mid-70s. My mother was a high school drop-out, and my father was one of the men she picked up in a bar. Since there were several to choose from, it took some time to track him down to squeeze child support out of him. Lucky for both of us, he was fairly well off, and paid my mother’s rent and kept me in decent clothing without argument. And when I was six years old, he refused to pay the ninth emergency room bill for a broken bone, until my mother signed a paper saying that she would never contact him (or me), again, and off I went, to live my father, in a fairy-tale manner that every little girl dreams of.

But you know there has to be more to the story, right?

There is, of course, but it comes much later.