I turned 17 on February 4, 1993. It was my Junior year and I was bored. Bored with school, bored with my friends, bored with everything but my life at home.

Some nights I stayed up way into the early morning watching movies after everyone had went to bed. I studied them and enjoyed them and tried to break through their mystery, trying to understand people. I watched Jeeves and Wooster, the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I read Steinbeck and Hemingway, Lovecraft and Bradbury, Kerouac, Omni and National Geographic. (And Sherlock Holmes stories -- both Doyle's, of course, but I also ventured into the novels and short stories written by other authors. Some of them were horrible while others were quite excellent.) I spent hours looking at Impressionist paintings. I spent hours playing my guitar. I studied world religions and archaeology. I studied movies. I dreamed of writing comics. And I wrote on an old manual mini typewriter that came in it's own little case. It was my mother's, really, but she lent it to me so I could write on it. I had access to a Mac, and IBM compatible computer and an electric typewriter, but I preferred the decades old typewriter, with its uneven 12 point Courier font and mottled grey case. (I may be sentimental.) Summary: I did things that didn't tend to fly at my local rural American high school.

I think my father knew I was bored. He must have noticed I'd rather stay at home in my room and do my own thing rather than accept the invitations to go to movies and dances and out for sodas. It was his suggestion that I drop out of high school, take the last four necessary credits through independent study over the summer and then take college classes in the fall and spring before heading off to college proper. (High school students could take college courses via a local outreach center for $25.00 a credit. Score!)

May of 1993 was the last month I took classes from the local high school. May was after April, when I had started to meet a few interesting people I wished I'd known earlier and when my friend (whom I'll call Lisa because she has more anonymity this way) met Mike (who needs no pseudonym, though I won't use his last name because some people who read this know his father) during the French Club's day trip to an amusement park and French restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Lisa was incredibly brilliant, bouncy, bubbly, blonde and big breasted. (No, I didn't realize until I wrote it that alliteration would be involved.) She had similar tastes in music and men and our fathers spent a good deal of time together, so we hung out.

Now, when I say Lisa was brilliant I mean she was good at math and the hard sciences and mechanical things. She did pretty well in English, too, actually (she took the honor classes), but she felt she couldn't write much of a love letter. And for some reason she thought I could.

It wasn't unusual for people to ask me to write things for them or ask me to analyze and dissect some piece of literature. ("When Mr. Hyde bit Mary Reilly, well, what did that mean, Maggie?") It was especially common for people to ask me to write things for them after I took the IWBAT(a state writing test) in which I blew the rest of the high school out of the water because, well, it was Rupert, Idaho and I knew how to use a hyphen, alliteration and how to spell "pencil".

So in the middle of May, Lisa came to me and asked me to write a couple anonymous love letters to her dearest Mike. (Which, in her mind, was somewhat scandalous since she was off to college in the fall and he was currently a sophomore. *Gasp*.) First of all, I thought her request was ridiculous. I turned her down, but she wouldn't leave me alone. (Can we say Kinder anyone? Well, without the "pick pocketing".) Finally, I agreed. Besides, this was also during the period where I thought it would be a kick in the pants to write Harlequin Romance novels because they made me laugh.

Let's bounce forward to the current day.

Rice and I have been cleaning out the old stuff in the house. I was sorting through folders and found my notes for one of my first college courses -- Introduction to Western Civilization that I took the fall of 1993. Amongst the notes was also the November 2, 1993 edition of The South Idaho Press (for the River Phoenix article -- I was also into River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke) and copies of the love notes I wrote to Mike. I think I said something about being sentimental. Actually, I think this has something more to do with being a pack rat who once assumed most documents were important historical artifacts which should be kept. Or maybe I just thought I'd need a good laugh someday. (Actually, my guess is that this is the correct answer.) Once of the notes was typed on the old mini portable typewriter I was so fond of.

I remember writing the letters with my tongue place completely into my cheek to the point that it came out the other side. I remember trying to make them somewhat idiotic to try to prove a point (thus the included top 40 boy band song lyrics). I have spent a lot of time in my life trying to make points, but usually they're so subtle and "out there" that no one but me catches them. This is not terribly effective. I may have to work on that. Also, I was 17. That alone should be justification enough.

In any event, for your enjoyment. Love notes written by request by my friend "Lisa" (who is currently in military intelligence, btw -- our government finds her bubble headedness and breasts perfect for asking questions about other country's technology -- e.g. "Wow -- that's a big plane! What kind is it? Wow! You fly that?" *bat eyelashes* *jiggle breasts* "What kind of engine does it have?", etc.) for Mike by a 17 year old me.


My sweetest hunk of love,

Mike, sweetheart, babe. Let's get right to it -- I love you with a love so mad, so passionate, so pure it's primitive. I burn with an unquenchable desire for you. I feel like my loins are on fire. I love you even more than (insert someone I really disliked here). My lust juices for you grow with every vision, thought and image of you. I have my own porno picture show and its title is Mike __________! I am so hot for you. I want to make you writhe with yearning for me. I want to run my tongue along the curve of your neck, to taste the sweetness of your manly flesh. I want to feel your hands on me, fell your arms around me. A tender kiss from you could bring more love from me than a passionate kiss from Richard Gere. (Lisa had a thing for Richard Gere.) How do you feel? I know you don't know who I am, but maybe time will reveal me to you and you can love me the way I love you, with a love as tender as an orchid, as passionate as a two French lovers in the late night hours, as pure as a newly born babe's soul, as sweet as cherries jubilee (which he'd eaten on the French club trip), and as hot and flaming as a Hawaiian volcano (I may have been stoned on my inhaler medication at this point).

Love and other indoor sports, (Not original, I know)

Your secret admirer

***


Laughing yet anyone? I am.

***

Dearest Mike,

I have been dreaming of you every night in my bedroom. The moon glows and all I can dream of are your sexy nose and jaw. The sun shines and all I can think of is your ebony hair that curls ever-so-slightly as it grows down the nape of your neck. Oh, that summer would move into fall and I could sit with you in class and gaze at you with my yearning eyes. Mike, Mike, oh, my darling, sweet Mike. A week has gone by since school ended. Mike, you are simply dreadful -- haunting my mind constantly this way. (I was getting fed up with Lisa bugging me about writing another letter to Mike.)

I keep your phone number close to my hot beating heart. I would, if I could, call you. But I can't, my darling. You see, my sweet love, I am too afraid of rejection. You are so masterful and large -- you reduce me to a quivering mass of woman. Only if I could force my trembling fingers to call (insert telephone number here) and stay on the line long enough to hear your Nutra Sweet voice ... only then would my hunger be satisfied. I pray constantly that your life force will give me the strength to continue in my desire for you. Please Mike, give my thirsting soul the strength!

I see your body crawling all over me -- searching to find my desires and womanly core. Then, slowly and sensually, you fill me with your sweet rose' wine and quench my raw, ravenous cravings. Fill me, Mike. Fill me and pour your sweet rose' into my hungry soul! Mike, only you can do this.

I heard you went to Sommersby with a girl named Jennifer. (I was trying to suggest STALKER! here.) I, your thirst quencher, saw Sommersby myself and, oh, urger of sacrifices, it was quite stimulating.

I heard this song on the radio the other day. It made me think of you. (Insert lyrics to lame boy band song here.)

My sweetness of life, I must end this letter now. Think fondly of me, Mike.

Lovingly and Longingly,

Your secret admirer

***


I hoped that Lisa wouldn't give Mike the first letter. She did. I assumed she definitely wouldn't send the second and would leave me alone, but she sent it, too. Thankfully, there didn't need to be a third. They hooked up at a mutual friend's birthday party (which I also attended), Lisa came clean about "writing" the letters, and Mike had a hot bunch of love (mostly making out on Mike's front porch in the swing) before Lisa went to college.(Must to Mike's parents' relief, btw. Mike is LDS and his father is an active member of the John Birch Society and Lisa was a lapsed Catholic with Communism written all over her.)

And there you have it. As far as I recall, the only real two hot love letters I've ever written. Now I can toss them out and make room for more paper.