Almost everyone has had a first kiss, and almost everyone remembers it. Your youth, your innocence, both are wrapped up in the moment when your lips first touch the lips of a fancied candidate. Always exhilarating, always nauseating, your first kiss is one that you will take with you as a fond, if not gross, memory in your life, to your dying day. Thank god most of us don't base the rest of our kissing lives on that first one, or we would all be horrible kissers. Am I right people?
This is the story of my first kiss. It's umm....interesting.
The year was 1991. It was summer. I was 11-years-old with a mushroom cut and buck teeth. This was also the summer that I carried around a dog-eared copy of Terminator 2 Magazine, because I am amazing like that. I had just met my best friend Ciara, and we were already inseparable. So it only made sense that when my parents told us we would be spending a couple of weeks at a cottage in Muskoka, naturally I begged for her to be able to come along.
My parents agreed and the next day we were off. Our cottage was beautiful. Nestled in the trees, and only a short walk to the dock where we had our boat tied up. This boat plays a very important role in my story, because it is where everything went down. It was a bigger boat, and it housed a tiny 'bedroom' of sorts, which was really just a very cramped spot where a few people could sleep. It was kind of like being in a coffin when I think about it now, but it was the number one choice for my sister, myself and Ciara to sleep instead of in the cottage with my parents and little brother.
The first few days were spent swimming, fishing, enjoying camp fires, all the fun stuff you do when you are enjoying nature. Also, not a re-run episode of Golden Girls was missed that two weeks, as every evening after dinner we sat in front of the tiny television and indulged in one of our favorites. This is how Ciara and I knew we were best friends. Who else at 11-years-old can relate to a bunch of old women living together and going through the trials and tribulations of old lady life? We could, that's who.
Later on in the week, we started noticing the locals. Boys our age who were cute. And who kept coming around. Sniffing the area like dogs who have caught the scent of new territory. They wanted to know us, and we wanted to know them. So my sister, being older at 15, and wiser, and bikini clad, knew just what to do to get to know these boys. She called them over and that was it. They were like a pack of wolves honed in on their prey. And from that day on, not a day was spent without them, always trying to one each other up, to show us who was the coolest.
The boy in question was named Jeff. I was meanly tricked into admitting that I thought he was cute by my sister, while he hid in the bedroom of the boat and listened. So my secret was out. He was older, 13 going on 20 it seemed, with his white turtlenecks and tapered jeans. What a dreamboat. He told us tales of he and his buddies rowing out into the middle of the lake in the middle of the night to get hammered. I thought he was a rebel. My dream guy.
So when my sister nonchalantly asked me one day if I wanted to kiss him, I answered that sure, I would do it. Not really meaning that I would. I really meant, IN MY MIND ONLY. Little did I know that she went and told him what I had said. Oh lord. My life was now over. I was so embarrassed that I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole. I didn't care that I would die a kissing virgin. Maybe they would have Golden Girls re-runs wherever I ended up. Oh god.
It was so hard to face him that day, knowing that he knew. And he began to tease me constantly about it, trying in his boy way to wear me down. Maybe if he joked around about it enough he could break me into actually doing it. I became a conquest to him and he became someone to avoid, as the whole situation was so intensely A BIG DEAL to me that it blew me away that he didn't feel the same. I mean, I couldn't just kiss him! I wasn't in love with him! We had only known each other for a week remember? Wouldn't that make me a....S-L-U-T?
Flash forward to the fateful night. It was one of those gorgeous, balmy summer nights that you don't seem to mind as a kid. Now as a jaded adult, you toss and turn under the sheet and curse the weather gods for forsaking you. But that night was perfect. I was in a very melancholy mood I remember, because his constant asking me and teasing me about 'THE KISS' (it became that big in my mind) was starting to weigh heavy on my soul. I wanted to, but I didn't. One minute I was afraid, and the next minute I had talked myself into just going for it. At this point his friends were even rooting for him.
"It's not a big deal man, just a kiss".
Right. Maybe to you, heathen. The night was spent hanging out at the boat. It was relaxed and it wasn't. There was an energy in the air that was thick. Almost like a storm was coming. Jeff asked me if I wanted to walk with him back to his house to get something to eat, I said sure. While he ate, I watched Ghost on his television, and at one point I just wanted to bawl my head off. For no particular reason. Oh the hormones of a young girl! We walked back to the boat and he held my hand the whole way. When we got there, he asked me if I wanted to go lie down in the 'bedroom'. Of course I was very wary, but he promised me we would just lie there and talk, and hold hands. I figured it would be okay, as my sister and Ciara and a bunch of other people were all in the boat as well. So we stole into the bedroom and he locked the door behind us.
Is this starting to gross you out as much as it is me? Well, just wait. It get's worse.
He was true to his word for a little while. And then he pulled me closer to him. He seemed to time it perfectly with the moonlight that just began to stream through the window. Lying half on top of me he whispered in my ear.
"So you really don't want to kiss me?"
"Well, sure, I guess. I don't know"
"C'mon. You don't want to be the only girl going into the seventh grade who hasn't been kissed"
"Ummmm...."
"Can I show you something?"
"Uh...sure"
And he kissed me. Just a nice non-invasive peck on the lips. It was alright. Really though? Who did this guy think he was? Don Juan?
He asked me if that was so bad. I said no. He then proceeded to ask: "Can I show you what else I have up my sleeve?", and then he dove right in there. Like he was desperately trying to get that hockey puck into the net. Honestly. Did he spend his daytime hours watching Days of Our Lives? Easy there Bo Brady! I ain't no Fancy Face!
Once it was over, I felt nothing. I didn't feel like I had changed, or joined an exclusive club. He left the bedroom five minutes later, and left me brokenhearted. The next day he started on another conquest: my best friend. Of course, nothing happened, except that he proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the time we were there. Sigh.
And that is the story of my first kiss. It could not have been more like a soap opera than I made it out to be, because that all ACTUALLY happened. The lameness? I couldn't have made that shit up if I tried.
So now it's your turn. I want to know how awesome/ horrendous/ nerve-racking/ utterly gross your first kiss was.
Make it graphic!
