Vanessa is gone now, but I still think about her from time to time. It's been a few years since I wrote her this letter. It really hurt when we broke up. But, you know it was best for both of us.

Writing this letter was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Thought you might like to look at it.

Love you,

Mary Kay

My Darling Vanessa,

I love you so very much.

I can't imagine us ever being apart for longer than a few days. Trying to imagine a time before you is like trying to hold on to the smoke from an August prairie fire.

You always want to know every little thing about me. It makes me feel so special. So loved. I want you to know everything, too.

I want you to know every secret and share every part of my hidden life.

It's not that I ever want to hold back anything. I just need to make sure I can express my secret thoughts and images in ways you really understand.

I've tried to tell you about my first time, but I can't seem to conjure up words that express the pictures printed forever in the inner most recesses of my memories.

You're gone today and I will miss you until you get back.

While your gone, I'll try to write the words I can't say when you look at me with the most beautiful eyes that any woman ever gets to see.

If I succeed in painting my feelings on these pages, I'll give you this letter when you get home. If I don't, well, I'll try again some other day.

I was standing on the back porch of our ranch. I told you about it once. It's a large old ramblin' place near Big Spring. The place where my daddy tried to raise the Santa Gertrudes cattle. Good thing he did a better job raising oil wells. That's for sure.

A great big old place. Spent the best years of my childhood there.

On that special day, I watched a tumble weed roll slowly across the flat land behind the big house. Not much to stop it for another 10 miles or so. It didn't seem to mind much. Just kept moving along.

Ellen was there with me. You remember her. She and I were best friends since the second grade. Been through a lot together. Hating boys. Loving boys. Not really sure what to make of any of it. We both got into horses instead of worrying about things too much.

My dad was flying his plane over to Austin that evening. The folks were heading out to a party the Governor was putting on after he won reelection. Quite a time.

Mr. and Mrs. Guthrie, Ellen's folks, were flying out with them. Just us kids left here to have a good time.

Used to be a big problem staying alone with Ellen's three brothers. They are all older than us. For the longest time, they hated having girls around. Can't say that I blame 'em really. Daddy's little girl types can be a pain in the ass I'm sure.

Two things changed all that. First, we kind of figured out how to act like guys. Pretty easy really. Just had to be loud, wear cowboy boots and act stupid. Fit right in, both of us.

Another thing that kind of helped was how I was beginning to look.

Not too hard figuring what a girl looks like when she's wearing nice fitting jeans and a tailored shirt. Southern girls just automatically know how to bend over without breaking their knees. Certainly know how to point that cute little thing where it will do the most good. Boys were starting to appreciate it. Ellen just thought her brothers were so funny.

Never had a problem with a one of 'em though. They wouldn't want to have to put up with Ellen getting all pissed off at them. Ha ha.

The maid lived in a little house out back. She left that night as soon as she wshed up the dinner dishes. That's our signal to start having a good time.

The boys always seemed to have two or three brand new porno videos for when the folks were gone. Sure enough, we headed for the TV room to see the sights.

Randy, Ellen's oldest brother, had his own car by then.

He'd slipped off earlier in the day and got a case of long necks. The other boys had their own ideas about what kind of beer to get. But, since Randy was buying, we always ended up with Lone Star no matter what they said. Didn't care much myself. Neither did Ellen.

Ellen and I would have one beer each and make 'em last all night. Didn't really like drinking beer that much. Just part of the guy thing and fitting in.

There are certain rituals when you watch a porn film with the guys. First off, you got to know how to act.

Just waited for the right spot to holler out, "Whooeee! Look at the tits on that one." Yep, that was me.

Ellen would jump in and say something like, "Boys, don't you wish you were hung like that guy." Course, they'd all say they were and ask us if we wanted to see. Kind of curious, but too smart to say yes.

Anyhow, seen everyone of 'em naked when we'd go skinny dipping out at Seaford Pond. Didn't point out that they weren't even close to that guy on the screen. Not right for a girl to look you know.

When you live on a ranch, you get to see fucking all the time. Animals don't give a shit who watches. Just want to get it on whenever they get the urge. Got the fundamentals down at about age five if I remember right.

Thing that made the porno films interesting was the other stuff that happened on the screen.

Never saw a bull get a blow job for instance. Don't recall seeing three horses getting it on with each other. Never noticed two cows doing each other. Lots of valuable information for our young eyes.

We'd pretend to know everything that was going on of course. Wouldn't do to let the boys think they knew more than us. Part of hanging out with the guys.

Ellen and I couldn't wait to get off by ourselves to talk about everything we saw in those films. Interesting sex education class I'd say.

Boys sure are silly. Funny to wait and see who got a boner first and how he tried to hide it. All three of 'em usually got hard at one point or another.

Ellen and I'd been staying over at each other's homes for long as I can remember. Wouldn't seem right if this didn't happen three or four times a month.

We had our own ways of doing things, too. First off, we'd hit the shower just before we got ready for bed.

Mostly we spent our time outdoors and the West Texas dust just grinds away at a person.

I'd usually be first. Didn't waste anytime and came right back to the bedroom. Her turn next. Ellen would be in and out in a flash. Both of us all shiny and new.

We'd been wearing big old tee shirts to bed since we started to get boobs. Trying to hide the changes in our bodies I guess.

After a while, looking like big girls stopped bothering us. Kept wearing them big old shirts out of habit I guess.

We really didn't look alike now that I think about it. Sure we always tried to dress the same way. But looks, no, we were quite different.

Ellen is not a blond like me. She has auburn hair with enough natural curl in it that it gets hard to manage on bad weather days.

My hair is almost straight. It's thick enough so that it will hold most anyway I fix it. Never has been much of a problem to me. Used to make Ellen so mad when she'd have to work real hard to look good and I'd just run a brush through my hair and be ready to go.

By then, I was just 5' 7" and 115 or so pounds. Ellen weighed about the same, but she was always a couple inches shorter than me.

Her extra weight seemed to go to all those just right places. Ellen's boobs were a little bigger than mine then. Her butt looked rounder than my slender cowgirl ass. Although, must say that I was getting some notice, too.

I thought she was beautiful and told her so more than once.

She said the same things to me. Just loved my best friend.

At the time, we didn't realized just how beautiful the two of us were. Somehow when you live with yourself, you get real used to how you look and how you feel. Doesn't seem that special really.

Later on you start to understand you're a little different than some other folks.

No matter how much we'd been together during the day, we still had secret things to talk about when we were alone.

That night was stuff like Randy getting a big old hard on. Laughing about me asking him a lot of questions while he tried to hide that thing. Pretending I wasn't seeing anything. Ha Ha.

One of the videos caught both our attentions.

A little bit of foreplay, kissing and hugging. Oh sure everyone ended up fucking their brains out in the end, but there was a little loving and tenderness for a few minutes at least. We both agreed it was kind of nice.

Another thing we found out. Pretty much the girls did whatever the guys wanted in those films. But, when there were two girls together (or three or four depending), they seemed a little more into each other and into sharing. Not so much pressure I guess.

By this time we were in Ellen's bed. We always slept in the same bed when we stayed over. Always had.

Just her table lamp on that night. Best way to keep her brothers from pounding on the door about another film they found or whatever. Those boys could raise hell all night. We didn't care as long as they left us alone.

Never been able to figure out how it all happened.

We somehow started looking right at each other. We looked for what seemed like a real long time. Then I just pushed my face forward and up and kissed her. A tiny little kiss, but we both knew it was real.

Now we had been kissing each other since we were little girls. Didn't mean anything, just our way.

This time, I was weak. Don't know why. Something just went all through my body and I couldn't move. I was afraid, too. What would Ellen think of that little kiss?

We looked at each other for the longest time and said nothing. She'd been my friend for so long she could tell that I was embarrassed by what I'd done.