first kiss

Not the first first. Not counting paternal, maternal, fraternal, or sororal kisses. (I don't have any sisters; not biologically; metaphysically, yes). And not counting that time with my cousin Paula, the one she initiated on the couch at her house on Avery Street, the same day I was wearing her jeans. Why? Did I have a pee accident in mine? The surprise and the confusion of girls' dungarees having a strangely configured button and zipper, on the side, not in the front, like mine. Her jeans fit. We all knew they would. I grew up with Mom holding up a dress, sweater, or blouse in front of me, to discern whether the purchased gift for Paula would fit, which it always did. This continued into high school. You're thinking, Here comes the transvestite confession. It didn't go that way; I suppose it's not too late if that's what my readership wants or if that's where sartorial adventure leads me. The Paula clothes trial run was awkward and frustrating but inconsequential and without shame or fear. These days? No one'd care if I tried the clothes on, for feck sake. I was, what?, twelve the most. We had all gone to the circus, down on Magee Avenue, near the dump. The smell of peanuts, shit, straw, and cotton candy in the air under the big-top tent. The kiss was quick and nothing, a joke. It was Paula's way of demonstrating how she was more worldly, more "mature," than I was, though she's only six months older than I. She had to check that box off; I'll teach Paul. It didn't teach me anything, nothing except grist for an oft-repeated, shallow family tale: "My first kiss? It was with Paula. Can you believe it?" But it was innocent, dry, fleeting. I was like, Really? That's it? But that's not the kiss we're talking about, is it? No. We're talking about a first kiss, that kind that crossed a line into another country. Sure, I had kissed my high-school girlfriend, on the huge rock, at night, by Long Island Sound. It was Paula Kiss 2.0. You're incredulous? Believe me, in this day and age, some fifty years ago, such innocence existed. Correction. More fear than anything else, more than innocence. She was the same way. Our platonic arrangement worked well enough, albeit with anxiety and frustration, speaking only for me. Fifteen-year-old boys aren't that innocent, you say? fine. Philip Roth covered all that in Portnoy's Complaint. No one can top that, least of all me. So, fast forward to college, sophomore year. College! Nineteen years old. It's a mixer. A dance with girls invited from a neighboring women's college and a nursing school. A live band doing 1968 covers. Sweaty dancing. Fast dances and slow dances. During a break, we're sitting on two folding chairs, on the sidelines, as it were. Her name was almost Sue Lamb. Leave it at that since there's an infinitesimal chance she is reading this; what's the need for anonymity? It's a salute to her, not a shaming. It was dark, most of the lights out. The band resumed playing. She kissed me. It had to be her move, had to be by the very nature of the players playing. She kissed me. I mean kissed me. the heart-stopping thrill of liquid galvanic surprise. Humans do this?! No one told me. and what could they have said? The time in the seminary when we, at a boys' prep school, were performing a play in English class and I wisecracked to the protagonist, played by Emmett, "Give him a French kiss." Everybody laughed, including me, as if I knew what I was saying. I knew it was sexual and a joke of frivolous inappropriateness. Beyond that, I knew nothing. Our kiss, Sue and I, was a mutual exploration, an anatomical festival through molten rivers and thunderous rapture. A forbidden meandering of lips, tongues, teeth, and hot breath. The band, the crowd, the lights, the night, the crickets all stopped. As did the planet. Does this ever have to stop? So many fleshly boulevards and alleys to traverse. "I love you." I couldn't help it. So what if I had just met her? So what if she recoiled? "What?"

I would have married her. I would have, on the spot.