It’s my belief that the folks who discover their God-given purpose will be happy, and the ones who don’t will lead lives of quiet desperation. It’s like that Greek fella said, “You gotta know yourself.” All the same, I didn’t have the slightest idea of who I was or what I was supposed to be when I started on my journey. But that’s the normal state of affairs for a kid born and raised in Howell, Michigan.

I mean, seriously ... the place wasn’t a total hick town. The Grand River trail ran through the center of it. So, there was enough coach traffic to justify a couple of hotels. But we residents steered clear of those places. Because nobody in our city of 1,200 souls trusted strangers.

We just went about their daily business like they’d done since Flavius Crane set up a post office in the Eagle Tavern. That was in 1836, and it marked the town’s founding. It was also the year they built the sawmill. Moses Thompson dammed a stream north of the village to power a saw, which created Thompson Lake.

Michigan was once covered in trees, and lumber was a big business back then ... especially with the plank road that the government was laying out from Detroit to the new State Capitol in Lansing. The demand for boards was so great that entire swaths of forest were turned into farmland, and the sawmill had to switch to steam power to keep up with the demand.

Steam had been around for a hundred years. But the advent of commercial steam engines didn’t really begin until the 1850s. That was around the time my Pop bought a traction engine for our farm. It was an economical replacement for the horses that powered our harvesting gear. The problem with horses was that they had to be fed, which reduced the grain yield.

So, my Dad invested in a steam-driven engine to power our harvesting implements. My job was to oversee the care and feeding of that iron beast. So, I took it apart and put it back together that first winter, just to see how it worked. I was a curious little bugger back then and talented with machinery. The entire exercise took a week, and I learned a great deal.

My Pop nearly had a heart attack when he found his expensive new toy lying in parts on the barn floor. But I put it all back together, good as new. That was in the Winter of 1864. I was eighteen then. I had done the teacher-training course at the Normal School in Ypsilanti the year before, and the village had hired me to work at its new school. I could teach and farm because the academic year aligned with the planting season. So, school wasn’t in session when I was on the farm, and vice versa.

Our farm was a few miles south of town, off the Pinkney road. Every morning, I would rise before dawn and do my chores, including oiling, polishing, and maintaining the engine. Then I would ride our mule, Zachariah, down to the school for a day of teaching.

I was nineteen back then, big, strong, and farm-raised. So, the long days were no hardship, and I was saving my money to buy Becky and me our own place. I got a decent stipend from the town during the school year, and free room and board from my parents year-round. So, I was nearing our goal.

Becky was my girl. Her parents owned the adjoining farm, and we had grown up together. We were “different” from the other kids. In that, we didn’t run around like wild Indians, the way our peers did. We spent our time quietly sitting under the shade of a tree or up in the hayloft if the weather was bad, reading and talking.

We were the same age. So, we sat together in the same classes in our little country school. You would think that the constant togetherness would wear thin as we got older, but the opposite happened. We were only happy with each other. We never questioned that feeling. It would be creepy to use the word “attraction.” More accurately, we just preferred being alone together.

Then puberty hit. I went from tall and scrawny to the biggest kid in our class. Becky went from being a pigtailed little poppet to a tasty morsel with huge, perfect tits. Meanwhile, her hips and butt rounded into womanly curves. The changes mortified her.

That was about the time they started holding dances at the downtown central school. Our parents forced us to “socialize” at those events because neither family was a regular churchgoer. The Calvinists and the Catholics had the only actual buildings in town, and all that stuff about predestination and Saints was just too confusing for most of us.

Even so, Becky and I would only dance with each other, which made us both painfully aware that things were different, now. I could feel Beckey’s hard, little body and big, soft boobs moving on my chest, and she must have felt my giant boner poking her leg. It was agonizing.

We began to explore those differences in innocent ways. One Saturday afternoon, we were in our normal spot in the hayloft, trading favorite lines from Artemis Ward. Becky loved to laugh, and she would often throw her arms around my neck to hug me when I read her a particularly funny quote.

She did that one day and, as usual, our faces ended up inches apart. She looked at me. I looked at her, and we kissed. We’d kissed all the time growing up, but it was innocent stuff. This time, there was no mistaking the passion. It was an adult kiss. We mashed our lips together and held them for a count of ten. Then we broke apart, shocked.

I said, “What was that?” Becky looked as confused as I was.

She said, “Did you mean it?”

I nodded, “Did you?”

She said, “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.” And that was when we graduated from childhood pals to something more.

Everybody in the area knew about Becky, and all of the boys wanted her. Becky wasn’t a big woman, at five-foot-three. But her sheer perfection was breathtaking. Still, Becky was a shy, sweet, gentle soul without any social pretensions, and all that male attention was excruciating for her. I was bigger than most, and none of the other boys wanted to get on my bad side. So, I became Becky’s guardian.

It never crossed our minds that we WOULDN’T be together forever. We both held humble, unassuming values. All we wanted was to live our lives together ... raising corn and babies. We had no concept of how improbable that proposition was. Nobody meets their soul-mate at age six, and beautiful girls who are totally devoted to you only exist in fairy tales.

Nevertheless, that didn’t prevent us from consummating our love. We had both turned nineteen, and we were barely in the foothills of exploring our sexuality. You would think that a girl with a body like Becky’s would want to have it touched, but we were both so caught up in the moral teachings of that time that we never came close to crossing the line.

Then ... one beautiful July day, Becky and I were sitting on a blanket on the banks of the Huron River, enjoying the summer sun. I was trying to fish, and Becky was happily rummaging through the picnic basket she’d packed for us.

I studied her while she was organizing things. It was hot, and she was wearing a cotton gingham dress. The material was so lightweight that it outlined her shapely, muscular legs and her two huge, eighteen-year-old tits.

The effect was so stimulating that I blurted out, “Wow, Becky, you are just SO beautiful!” I mean, honestly ... she was stunning. My little friend dimpled demurely. Becky might look like a goddess, but she was also very self-conscious.

The blanket was spread out on a thick patch of prairie grass within a grove of trees. The day was hot, but not oppressive. The cicadas were making their odd noise, and the breeze provided cooling relief. The sky was painted with the kind of big, puffy cumulus clouds that marked a lazy summer day. The clicking, whirring, and buzzing of nature enfolded us.

I put my cane pole down and lay on my back next to Becky. She stopped fooling with the picnic basket and lay back next to me. We held hands, our legs touching. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we just sat in a little cocoon of togetherness. This was one of those times. The sense of her proximity filled my heart with peace and happiness.

However, something had been bugging me since my time in Ypsilanti, and I had to get it off my chest. I leaned up on one arm and said, “Becky, I have loved you for my whole life. I want to die in your arms. We are beginning the next stage of our journey into adulthood, and I hope you will be with me forever.”

Becky looked at me warily, like I was talking nonsense. She KNEW we would be together forever. I could see her trying to decipher what I was REALLY trying to say. I asked, “Do you feel the same way about me?”

She said with measured seriousness, “I love you, Erik. I will always love you. I can’t imagine being with anybody BUT you. Why are you asking me this?”

I laughed and said, “Maybe, I’m feeling a little insecure. But we’re entering the next phase of our lives. I have to make something of myself, and there are so many challenges to face. I don’t want to be a farm hand for the rest of my life. But I don’t know how to take the next step, and there are a lot of older and more established guys out there.”

Then I blurted my real fear, “AND I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOU!”

Becky seemed to melt in front of my eyes. It was the oddest look. Maybe she was as uncertain about the future as I was? I had always thought of Becky as shy and inhibited. But the look she gave me was pure animal hunger. It was as if my admission of insecurity had made her decide something, too, and the inner fire poured out of her eyes.

Wordlessly, Becky sat up, turned, grabbed the back of my head, and dragged me into the same kind of open-mouthed kiss that we had been indulging in lately. While at the same time, she was frantically undoing the buttons that held her dress together. She shrugged her shoulders, and the dress fell straight to her waist.

We parted, and I gazed at her, mesmerized. I knew that Becky had big tits, but I had NO idea that they were so utterly faultless. They bobbled there, taut, and proud, with jutting nipples. The aureoles were wrinkled with arousal.

Becky sat there, as still as a statue, utterly unashamed. She said quietly and with simple sincerity, “I want you.” Then she lay back on the blanket, eyes boring into mine.

We were both virgins. Nonetheless, we both knew the principle of the thing. I mean, we were both raised on a farm. I leaned down and kissed her heated mouth. She moaned loudly with sensation. It was the first time I had heard Becky utter a sexual sound. Its primal unfamiliarity was incredibly stimulating.

When she’d lain back, her boobs had puddled out slightly on her chest. So instead of mountains, they were two big, distinctive plateaus, with stiff nipples at the center. I put a hand on one tit, and she moaned louder.

I began to squeeze and manipulate her right breast. The nipple was red hot and distended to a point where I took it between thumb and forefinger to feel its rubbery length. Becky cried out and then groaned loudly. Her breathing accelerated, and her legs began to thrash. She said through gritted teeth, “Touch me there.”

I knew what she wanted. So, I ran my hand down across her dress, which was now bunched at her waist, and over her flat lower belly. I moved my hand under the waistband of her underpants and dipped into the space between her widely spread thighs. I crested the slight rise where her legs met and fell into the gap between them.

The reality of female genitalia was intimidating to a dedicated virgin like me. I must admit that I only knew what it was because I had seen the drawings in Gray’s Anatomy, which I had sneaked out of the public library. But the space between Becky’s legs was boiling and slippery. That wasn’t covered in the book. There was a pheromone scent, so totally distracting that I almost got lost.

I persevered along the path between her nether lips, across a little bump that made Becky grunt with sensation and entered her with my finger. She moaned, cried out again, and began to thrash. The feelings of intimacy that came from touching my childhood friend’s most secret place were overwhelming.

In retrospect, my telling sounds rational. But we were both so caught up in the event’s furor that most of the memories were either not recorded or blown out of our heads by the sheer raw emotion. In concept, I knew what to do. I was eighteen years old, for God’s sake. I had seen the act over and over on the farm. Plus, guys talk. But the two of us were both so inexperienced that it took a lot of flailing around before I could get my pants down and properly positioned.

When I was finally situated. I looked down at the person I had loved for so long. Becky’s face was wild with emotion. She had always been shy and reserved. This Becky was an alien being. She was desperately whispering, “Put it in me!! You have to put it in me!!”

At that point, I had my Johnson in my hand, and I knew where it was supposed to go. I placed it at her opening and began to push. Becky was so well lubricated that the head slid right in, even though she was incredibly tight. I moved up her channel to the expected obstruction. I pushed, there was resistance, Becky gave a shrill little shriek, and then I glided rapidly to the top.

Becky let out an unearthly groan of pure sensation. I waited for a second while she gathered herself. Her beautiful hazel eyes were round with fear. Then they clouded over with lust and slowly rolled up in her head.

My love engulfed me everywhere. Her arms were clasped tightly around my neck. Her legs were gripping me like she was riding a horse, and of course, her secret place was clasping and churning around me. The heat and silky wetness were incredibly stimulating, too stimulating!!!

It felt like a bombshell exploded in my loins. That happened embarrassingly soon after I entered her. I gave an unearthly grunt and groan and emptied myself. That set Becky off on a sequence of bucking and gyrating maneuvers, accompanied by frantic shrieks.

I knew what I had done, and I expected the thing to shrivel out of her. But Becky’s continued gymnastics kept me more rigid than an iron bar. I was moving with her. That was just instinctive. Then, suddenly, she stiffened, and it felt as if the cargo shifted down there.

Her passage gripped me, and then she began to yell, “Nyaaaahhhhh!!! Nyaaaahhhhh!!! Nyaaaahhhhh!!! OH, MY GOD!!! AHHHHHH,” and it sounded like she was choking to death as her legs thrashed. To say the least, our first orgasms were memorable.

Becky finally went utterly still. I remained buried deep inside her, hard as iron. I knew I might have knocked her up. I didn’t care. That was the instant our adult love was consummated. Becky was well and truly mine!!! If we started a family earlier than planned, then the more the better. We were in this together.