Letters to Love

I love all of the letters. Really, I do! I mean, it takes all twenty-six of them to convey things through words, though to be honest, Q and Z really don't get much play. But, as a writer, I really have to have a love affair with words, and that affection by nature of our language rolls over on to letters. And that doesn't even take into account the many ways letters can be depicted; illuminated letters, fonts, calligraphy.

What? Not what you expected to find on the subject of "Love Letters" on the day before Valentine's Day?

Oh. Okay. Hold on. Let me try again.

I wish I could say I was an amazing writer of love letters. I mean, I should be, right? But to be honest, hands down, in my world my husband holds the Love Letter Trophy of Excellence. I will sit and worry and fret over every single word, he'll sit down and scratch out a page worth of sentences that leave me weak in the knees.

What do you do when your husband can write love letters like that? You squirrel every single one of the away into a special box. I have close to twelve years of love letters saved. Letters on Post-It notes, letters on the backs of envelopes. Letters composed in calligraphy on rich, creamy paper. Some are dated, some aren't, some are pages long, some are just a handful of words.

But all of them make my heart trip. And all of them could have been written ten years ago or ten hours ago. We're really well matched, my husband and I. He writes the love letters, I write the dirty ones. No surprise there, right?

The only letters I don't have are those from the beginning. We are children of the internet, Mr. Greyson and I, and we met online. There are countless emails that have long since disappeared over the years, never printed out, lost to the ether as if never written.

But those, those ones are ones etched onto my heart and soul. Because without those we never would have crossed distances great and small to meet, to fall in love, to share our lives together.

So.

To my love,

February 14^th will mark our 11^th Valentine's Day spent together, our 12^th known to one another. Over the years we've faced many a challenge together and celebrated some amazing accomplishments. Day in and day out we try to show each other how much we care, how much we love one another, but we've always taken advantage of this commercialized day.

So tomorrow morning I'll make you breakfast, one of your favorites,French toast or blueberry pancakes(your pick!) and if we follow true to form you'll treat me to chicken chaccatorie or chicken Parmesan as you have for years and years now. We'll sit and the table and enjoy our special meals. We'll light the fire and make a nest of blankets in front of it. We'll snuggle and kiss and more as we indulge in our love, in each other.

Happy Valentine's Day, baby,

yours, always,

Scarlett

*****

An excerpt from Slipping Time

You'll be here soon, dear. Don't chafe so. Then we'll have a month to laze around. Don't forget the key, it's my only spare. I'll try to be home before your flight arrives, but, just in case. Semester end and all, who knows how long I'll be meeting with students trying to excuse their incomplete work.

Advice - catch a cab and come straight to my place. You'll be too wiped to sightsee. My cottage is yours...make yourself at home, take a nap, I'll wake you. I'd love to come home and find you in my bed.

I know this is the last word you'll have from me before your flight, damn the time difference, so let me remind you.

I can't wait to see you.

I can't wait to touch you.

Yours,

Tessa

Scarlett Greyson makes her home in Western NY where she toils at her keyboard from her office. She helps her husband with their mini-farm and keeps a metal fab shop on schedule. Scarlett has been writing since she learned she could create her own stories, but only recently has let her muse take off her clothes. She keeps a blog where her readers can find her procrastinating between projects.

Scarlett blogs at http://scarlettgreyson.blogspot.com

Kills time on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ScarlettGreyson

And shares her work on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ScarlettGreyson

All You Need Is Love and a Lot of Spaghettios

Dear Hubster,

By the time you read this, I will probably be in Timonium, Maryland, if I'm lucky. If not, I'll probably be stuck in traffic jam hell, either around DC or Baltimore, or maybe both if the day has been very bad and very surreal. I expect you have already gone to pick up the kids from the bus stop and have explained to them yet again why Mommy isn't home today. No, she's not gone forever. Yes, she's coming back. No, she didn't go crazy and run away to join the circus like she threatened to the other night. Well okay, maybe just a little on that last one.

While you take the kids to swimming classes and karate classes this weekend and do homework with them and try to cajole them into cleaning up a)their bedroom, b)the pile of toys they left in the living room, or c) the unidentifiable mess they left in the bathroom that you would really prefer to not have to deal with yourself, even though you suspect it's only toothpaste mixed with Play-Do, I will be spending the weekend at the Farpoint science fiction convention, promoting my work, selling my books, and talking about speculative fiction erotica, and we both know the most speculative part of erotica in our lives these days is how long the kids will leave us alone if we put a Disney movie on for them to watch while you and I sneek upstairs for some quality Mommy/Daddy alone time. (Answer - about 5 minutes before the youngest comes knocking on the door asking for a glass of pink milk.)

Yes, while you wash the laundry and feed the kids and read "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!" for the umpteenth time, I'll be sitting in the hotel bar sipping soda and hobnobbing with my fellow writers and podcasters, psyching myself up for my big reading. And while I'm cooing naughty stories to an audience of devoted listeners and curious insomniacs at midnight on Saturday, you'll be crawling into bed, trying to get some rest before you have to get up and go through another full day with the kids by yourself.

It's tough, ain't it? Usually it's you that packs up and leaves for several days while I keep the fires burning at home. Usually it's you headed off to Atlanta or Houston or Orlando while I struggle to get our oldest to finish her homework and do my damnedest to keep the youngest from eating bits of food off the floor (what is with that kid anyway?! Yesterday when she came in from playing, I caught her picking dirty ice out of the soles of her boots and then stuffing it in her mouth! EEEEWWW!!!). Yes, usually it's you doing the jet setting and networking while I scrub peanut butter and jelly out of my hair and promise myself that once the kids go to bed, THEN I can have a drink and collapse on the couch.

But not this weekend. This weekend, you're Mr. Mom and I'm Helen E. H. Madden, speculative fiction erotica writer and podcaster extraordinaire, and a guest at the Farpoint science fiction convention. This weekend, I'll have my three days of glory and self-pimpage and I'll stay up waaaaaaaaaaaaaay past my bedtime and pay for all my meals and my hotel room on your credit card because god knows, no matter how good a writer I am, I still can't pay all my own bills yet.

But you love me anyway, and that's why you agreed to this weekend's lunacy. And I love you right back for it, because weekends like these are what keep me mostly sane. I'll be home Sunday night, I promise.

Love,

Helen

PS - there are left-over Disney Princess Spaghettios in the fridge. If you threaten to throw them out, the girls will beg you not to and then swear they will eat them. But if you reheat them and serve them, the girls will snub them as usual. Again, I ask "What the heck is with these kids?!"

An Open Love Letter

Dear Writers,

I love you.

Yours sincerely,

Ash

PS. I really mean it.

PPS. If you’re reading this and confused, there could be several reasons.

First of all, you could be perpetually in a state of confusion, trying to eat your keyboard, and licking plug sockets. If that is the case you have my sympathies. But the love letter wasn’t intended for you.

Or it could be that you’re not a writer and wondering to whom I’m sending a love letter. If that’s the case, then this love letter wasn’t meant for you. I mean, I like you as a reader: but I don’t love you as a writer. Let’s just be friends.

If you’re a writer and you’re reading this: I love you.

I simply love writers. I love people who put words down on paper and make other people (readers, they’re sometimes called) marvel at the words, images and ideas they have created. I love the imagination that goes into your literary creativity. I love your linguistic skills.

And my love extends to all writers. Good. Bad. Dead. Successful. Fiction writers. Non-fiction writers. All writers.

Good writers are easy to love. And they’re easy to find too. Seven days a week you’ll find one writing here at the Grip. Maybe more than one if you check out the comments boxes below.

Dead writers are also easy to appreciate. Shakespeare is dead and almost everyone raves about him and his writing. Wordsworth, Chaucer and Coleridge: Dead and Good. Dead Good.

Successful writers can tickle my jealous bone. (That’s not meant to be a crude dismissal of them. I’m not saying, ‘all you successful writers can tickle my jealous bone’ as though it’s some sort of euphemism for ‘kiss my arse’ or ‘suck my pencil.’ I genuinely mean that they inspire jealousy). But you have to admire the fact that successful writers are getting writing to a wider community.

Admittedly, it’s kind of hard to love the bad ones. I’ve written a handful of book reviews recently where I’ve trashed poorly written titles. With the last few titles I’ve been asked to review I’ve been sorely tempted to include phrases like the beautiful put-down, ‘I have read this book and much like it’ or, even more pithy, ‘I have received your book and shall waste no time reading it.’

But that absence of talent doesn’t stop me from loving the writer who created those titles. The effort of industry and imagination is worthy of love. It’s just a shame that the execution of the effort became somewhat mangled.

I love fiction writers for creating fantasy worlds that allow my imagination to follow a pre-planned journey into the unknown. And I love non-fiction writers, such as the brilliant Strunk & White who famously advised ‘omit needless words.’

And, it’s because of that final piece of advice that I’ve kept my love letter deliberately short this week. But, just to make sure you didn’t miss the message, I’ll say it again:

Dear Writers,

I love you.

And I really mean it.

Ash.

The Fool

Beloved Phaedrus;

You have been dreaming about me these nights in your crummy little walkup apartment on Portland Ave. Dreaming of college. Dreaming of your future. Wondering how it will all turn out and who you will become. You read nights, walk the streets, and try to feel the future like radio waves. With the old Royal portable typewriter you keep next to your record turntable, you keep a self absorbed diary and attempt to write your ridiculous little stories while dabbling with exotic religious systems. You try to sleep but are tortured by physical and emotional urges you cannot master. You fear the dark and fear the furtive movements of the shadows when you are alone in your fold up bed at night because you believe in spirits and you have never been alone before. You are right to fear them. There are nights I lie awake too, when, if I could stretch my hands beyond the wells of time and space I would reach out from the dark just as you fear and strangle you for what you about to do to us.

You are my hero Phaedrus. I love you as I love myself, because that is who you will become. You are a nobler and kinder and more innocent and idealistic person than I will ever be again. For all of those excellent qualities you will doom us to a small passionless life for which I will not forgive you and for which we were not born. I am the bearer and debtor of the karma you are brewing even now.

Know you this – you are a Fool. Not any fool, but The Fool. The zero card in that Rider Waite Tarot you keep next to your tea pot on the scavenged board and brick bookcase where you store your books and phonograph records. I know every thing in your apartment. I have gone over every inch, year after year, in the still dark of night in my wistful and longing memory. That is the last place where you will ever be perfectly free before others cage you forever. I have come to warn you. You are that Fool, the young man full of dreams looking up towards Heaven as he is about to step blindly over a precipice. I am that honest little dog next to you, biting at your ankles, barking, trying to get you to look down to earth before you doom us both. Fool.

In the next day or two a young woman named Susan will call you late at night on the phone. She will have filched your name from the dust while she is cleaning. A piece of paper with your name and phone number you gave to someone will snag in that elderly vacuum cleaner, and because she’s a beautiful young woman, and because you are shy and desperate to love and be loved, you will be doomed like a hungry fish. When she calls, do not answer. If you answer - avoid the hook, I beg you from across the years - hang up and go your way.

God does not love you Phaedrus. Have mercy on me and do not search for God. You will never find God. You do not even begin to have the mental or spiritual tools to find God, and God does not want to be found by the sorry likes of you. That girl Susan will not tell you, but her God will devour you alive. It is better to be a cowardly agnostic full of doubts and free of religion’s chains than to bravely scale the great mountain and fall. The fall from that height, young man, is far, far down, and it will break you beyond all healing. If fall you must, build new wings on the way down.

Falling, fly.

The devil in your life is not me, no, it is your own self doubt and impatience. Listen to me your honest little Tarot dog. After all, the demons within you are your best teachers. That is your other problem. You lack good teachers. Your mother is insane. Your father has left you all, and he was right to leave you and save himself while he is yet young. You have no teachers now and in your terror of freedom and spiritual loneliness, you will grab at the first who flatters you. DeEtta was a good teacher full of affection for you, but now she is far away and if you go where she cannot follow, she will never forgive you.

Study yoga and meditation if you think you have to, but learn them at the YMCA, from ordinary and unassuming men and not from gurus or messiahs. Keep your spiritual ambitions small, fly low to the earth because people are coming soon who will try to clip your wings forever. If any man has a great purpose for your life or speaks of a Holy Land anywhere but within you, run from that man, run for your mortal life. To follow an incompetent spiritual master is like letting a madman sit on your chest with a razor.

Girls will not look at you, Phaedrus. Not yet. You’re too complicated and you’re living too far inside your head with your romantic illusions. Young girls full of choices, reeking of sex, do not need to make the effort it takes to draw you out when there are so many other young men who are easier to understand. Your time has not come. Your heart is too green and full of yourself. Suffering will open it and give it depth. Don’t look for love; look for suffering. Intimacy is created by honesty. Speak honestly but don’t use honesty as an excuse for cruelty. Avoid the white lie because once you begin down that road you will never find your way back and you will find yourself alone someday. Change your destiny. Find intimate friends you can speak your honest mind to. You will know them by listening to them, the way DeEtta listened to you. She taught you how to listen well. Listen! When someone speaks their honest mind to you, listen and never punish them even if they wound you. You don’t have to fix anything, but you must listen the way DeEtta listened. The root of intimacy is honesty, and way to honesty is humility.

Humility is to see yourself as you really are, no better and no worse. That is the beginning of true spirituality and the only defense your soul has against the flowering of evil. You will learn humility from your many failures yet to come, because failure shows you only in your nakedness and does not falsely flatter the way success does.

Learn to embrace solitude and not to be afraid of being alone, because the most important people in your life you haven’t met yet. Look for the woman who is different from you, who is bold and outgoing and can lead you out of your head and into the wide, wide world of other people. Look for the woman who wants to teach you how to dance. When your father chooses a woman for himself next time, study the woman he chooses. You are so much alike. Get to know the woman your father chooses, because she will help you know what kind of woman you will need. If you can, find an older, mature woman who will take you into her bed and teach you about pleasure and the mysteries of giving and receiving pleasure with a woman so that when your time comes you can be good to your companion. Don’t hate pleasure. Love your body, make love to yourself freely as often as you feel desire. It will console your loneliness, and also because your body is your first and true wife. Love your body as you love yourself, and stay away from any spiritual master who tells you to hate the flesh.

Fight the future. Rebel against your insane destiny for my sake and yours.

Be patient with yourself, for God’s sake, for our sake have faith in your own decisions, don’t be ashamed of them. Never believe anyone can manage your life better than you. Own your mistakes, lie down and bravely bleed when you fail and then begin again. From that scared blood and no other comes your art and your soul’s redemption. When you have failed badly enough and learned to experience humiliation without bitterness, you may begin to discover the beauty of other people because every person, great and small, you meet is fighting a hard fight inside. There - there lies the key to the stories you should be learning how to tell someday.

You have good stories inside, but they are buried under all your stupid illusions and ignorance about life. You don't know shit about anything. What makes you think you can find God, young man, when you don't even know yourself? Fool! You are that Fool. It will be years before you know enough to have anything to really write about. Learn language and beauty. Find writers who are better than yourself and read them and listen to them. Be intimate with them. Your time will come. If you think you must have faith in something, have faith in that.

Please Phaedrus. Child of the past – have faith. I will have to live out your life someday.

Make me a good man.

Dear lover ...

Whew what a day. Betcha thought I would never get around to posting. With classes and then work, this is the first free moment I have had.

I've debated and toyed with the idea of exactly what I wanted to do for my post. There are so many different ways I could go with it.

I decided that I am going to share a short vignette that I wrote years ago. It's still a rough draft, in so many ways, so please overlook the errors.

* * *

Evolution Of A Thought
© Michelle Houston

With rain-dampened grass sticking to her jeans-clad ass, Brenda savored the brief glimpses of flashing light the falling stars offered. She tried to make a wish on each, but with thousands burning out with every second, she couldn't keep up. Not that it mattered.

She only had one wish to make. And as her eyes followed the path of fiery trail of meteor and gases as it plummeted to earth, she made the same wish over and over. "Please let Aaron return home safe and sound. Let this damn war be over soon, and our men come home safe."
With a soft sigh of appreciation at the beauty of the night, Brenda's green eyes caught another falling star in her gaze, and followed it, until she was no longer able to focus on it for the sheen of tears in her eyes.

Ever since the foggy morning almost a year earlier, when she had left Aaron at the gate of the air force base, she had hoped each night for his safe return. Each day, she worked to put the dangers he faced out of her mind and tried to focus on her work. But lying alone in bed at night, composing her daily letter to her lover, she couldn't help but worry.

She struggled to keep the tone of her letters light, focusing on how long she was going to keep him in bed when he finally came home. Teasing him with descriptions of the lingerie and the sexy clothes she had bought.

She wrote about her day, how much she loved him, and missed him. But never asked if he was scared. Never mentioned the war. Not a hint of worry entered her letters, even as they flooded her mind.

And he responded in kind, talking about the bad food, the guys in his unit, reminding her of the coming meteor showers, and not saying a word about the dehumanizing conditions they faced each day.

With a soft sign, she wiped her eyes, denying her fears the power to control her. She knew Aaron's unit had stopped a man from stoning his wife in the streets the day before, but as she picked up her pen to write about her day, she made no mention of the news broadcast. She rolled on her stomach and started her letter.



Dear Aaron,

The stars look so beautiful tonight. As I write this, I'm wishing that you're under them as well, gazing up at them, even as I know you're not. And we are together in that moment, despite the miles of land and ocean that separate us.

We both look at the stars, together. And when I head inside, and strip my damp clothes from my body, we will be together again. Your hands running over my flesh, while I cup your cock in my hands, caressing the velvety length.

It will be like no time has passed, as our bodies knowingly melt together, each touch instinctively pleasing. I still remember how you like me to lick your nipples, tugging them gently between my teeth, then swirling my tongue over the stinging bud.

I would do that to you tonight, and every night hereafter.

Just as your fingers would slowly tease their way down my body, delving into all of my secret places, as I do the same to you. And our bodies would know each other, despite having been apart.

Tonight, you'd move over me, your lean form covering my lush one. And I'll be hot for you, as always, my body wet and welcoming your firm one.

God Aaron, the way you make me feel. I tremble just thinking about your lips kissing slowly down my stomach and as you move to do just that, I can feel my inner-thighs growing slick.
And as you reach your destination, zeroing in on the target of my heated core, I can't help the heated moans that escape my lips. The sheets are so cool beneath my heated flesh I almost can't stand it. And as you move back up over me, your cock trailing along my thigh, your heat only adds to the inferno, trapping me within the maelstrom of your passion.

And I love it. I love you.

I love the way you gently slid into me, your lips pressed against mine, tongues dueling. After your tender exploration, you grow more demanding, claiming me in the ways of a warrior: hard, firm, demanding and all I have to give to you. And I love it.

I whisper your name softly as my nerves burst into flames, my core a burning inferno of need. I scream your name as I come, clenching you tight within me, holding you close, trying to pull you forever into my soul.

As you come, I can feel the warmth spreading within me. Soothing the raging fire of my need, and I am at peace in your arms.

I am loved.

And our souls are joined.

Baby, I love you. Come home safe Aaron.
Brenda



Brenda wiped at the tears that again pooled in her eyes, and rolled onto her back. Unzipping her jeans, she slid a hand past the waistband of her panties, nudging her pussy lips apart. Slipping two cool fingers into her pussy, she thrust them deep.

Her pussy clenched at the invasion. Brenda slipped them free and thrust again, wringing a moan past her lips. Even as her body ached for her lover, it demanded instant satisfaction. Her other hand unbuttoned her damp shirt and caressed her bare breasts.

Her thoughts filled with Aaron, his touch, the feel of his body over hers, she worked a sensual spell over her flesh, teasing her breasts and pussy until with a soft gasp, she came.

Her body sated even as the worry returned to her mind. She lay there in the grass, tears flowing from her eyes she looked up, and caught a glimpse of the last shooting star streaking across the sky.

"Aaron, come home safe," she whispered.

The Sullivan Ballou Letter

I love words and I love history. And when I think of love letters, what immediately springs to mind is this lovely missive. This well-known letter was written by Sullivan Ballou, a Union Major, to his wife, Sarah, a week before being mortally wounded in the (1st) Battle of Bull Run.

There are some fascinating insights into what was happening in the day to day life of a solidier waiting between battles, as well as a thoughful look at where his sense of duty springs from, and how he justifies his eerily precscient knowledge of his permanent separation from his family.

His words of love come through so strongly, they just leap off the page and have lost nothing in the passage of time. What is particularly poignant to me is his absolute faith that he will see her following death and will eventually be reunited with Sarah and his boys. Gets me every time.

(On a personal note, a distant cousin of mine, Elisha Hunt Rhodes, who is also well known for his wartime writings, fought with Sullivan Ballou in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers.)

*******

July the 14th, 1861

Washington DC




My very dear Sarah:


The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.


Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure - and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.


But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows - when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children - is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?


I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.


I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.


Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.


The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me - perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.


Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.


But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours - always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.


Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.


As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.



Sullivan

To My Long-Suffering Husband

By Lisabet Sarai

My love,

I know that you won't read this, because you think that blogs are inventions of the devil (or at least Microsoft!), intended to suck up people's time and clutter search engine results. Given how many hours I spend writing, reading and commenting on these orgies of self-disclosure, you may be correct.

In any case, despite the fact that you'll never see these words, they come from my heart. Our relationship is pushing three decades, but I still love you dearly.

I'm intensely grateful that you were stubborn enough to resist when I tried to brush you off, back at that professional conference where we met so long ago. I figured that the last thing I needed was another lover, especially a long distance one. I'm thankful that you had other ideas. You're still stubborn (you say you learned that from your wife) but I'll admit, sometimes you're right. Certainly you were right about holding on to me. How did you know, after our brief acquaintance, that we'd fit together so well? I can't believe it was just blind luck. Maybe it was fate, that somehow we were “meant to be together”—but I'm not sure I believe in that concept, despite all the romances I've concocted.

I remember the night you proposed to me, in that nearly deserted inn in Taos. Remember all the beds in that family-sized room? We figured we should try them all! The evening you popped the question, we'd been living together no more than a week, most of which had been spent driving across the country. I couldn't believe how easy that trip had been, and how much fun. It felt like we'd known each other forever.

Still, I told you to wait a year and then ask me again. I didn't want to make a snap decision, given all the divorce in my family. I don't think you minded. Maybe you knew that I'd accept eventually, just the way you knew you shouldn't let go of me.

Our first Valentine's Day together, I bought you a world atlas, to chart our journeys together. Much as I loved the idea of traveling, I would never have dared dream how far our mutual passion for new places and cultures would take us. It never occurred to me that we'd eventually take up residence in an exotic realm halfway around the world from familiar America,or that in twenty-odd years we'd visit every continent except Australia. Thank you for being my guide and my companion on all those odysseys. Who would have guessed, too, that our preferences in travel would be so compatible? History, nature, people, food...strolling through ancient cities and bustling markets...trundling around on local buses...figuring out timetables in foreign tongues. I love your sense of adventure, which you haven't lost, even as we've aged together.

Speaking of adventures—we've definitely had some in the realms of the flesh, haven't we? I love your openness and sexual enthusiasm. I still like to hear the tales about your old seductions and your many lovers before we met. I've never met a man who loved and respected women so much—all parts of them, including their minds (although I still like to tease you about the way you stared at my tits when you first introduced yourself!) It's too bad that you find BDSM or M/M interactions uninteresting, but nevertheless that leaves a lot of territory for exploration. You've never tried to pretend that you owned me or my body. (You'd never put up with anyone pulling that on you, after all.)

In our wedding ceremony, we promised to be companions and co-conspirators. I love remembering some of the mischief we've hatched together!

I don't think I've ever written you a love letter before. During the six months we were separated, after our first connection, I think we corresponded, but I wasn't really ready to say “I love you”. I do remember your sharing a fantasy about making love in free fall (one thing we still haven't been able to try) and pointing out that we were born one day and one sunspot cycle apart. I probably sent you some titillating sexual fantasies of my own (perhaps a harbinger of my career as an erotic author). But love letters...not really.

Well, better late than never. I love you, my dear, more than I ever dreamed possible. I never believed in long-term relationships. My high school yearbook quote was from Simon and Garfunkle: “Hello, hello, hello, hello...goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye... that's all there is.” Yet our love is pushing thirty and stronger than ever, I think, even though our bodies have deteriorated a bit.

I love you, I need you and I enjoy your company: your creativity, your off-beat perspectives and your grimace-inducing puns. I love to cuddle up with you, head on your shoulder, and listen to your heart beat. I love your kisses. (You've always been a full-body kisser, from that first time on the sidewalk outside the Burmese restaurant.) Your intelligence awes me sometimes. Your practical capabilities—fixing plumbing, troubleshooting computers, making world-class granola—are an added bonus. Sometimes I think about what my life would be like without you. I force myself to think about something else, to appreciate today, this moment, our being together.

Probably we take each other for granted at times. After all the years, it's only natural. I hope that, even without reading this letter, you somehow know how much I love you. I'm remarkably certain that your feelings for me are similar—even when we disagree or annoy each other.

We're incredibly fortunate, my love. I'm incredibly fortunate. Thank you.

With love and gratitude,

Lisabet