- Sitting downstairs watching a movie, you squirm as...

Sitting downstairs watching a movie, you squirm as the actors on-screen begin to kiss. It’s awkward…what are you supposed to do with the boyfriend you’ve never kissed while watching two people make out? Especially when he is the kind of boyfriend you think you may be in love with, the kind who plays guitar and has military short hair, and makes you cool with all the kids at the local high school for simply being associated with him. As the movie wraps up, you stand to leave, trying to look as seductive as a naive 16-year-old can, and wonder if he can tell what you’re thinking. Obviously, he is thinking the same thing, because when you reach out and pull him over by his shirt (you saw this smooth move in the movies) to give him a peck, he actually kisses you back. His tongue is in your mouth and it’s blatently obvious that this is his first kiss too. You’re wavering between pulling away and deepening the kiss when his parents call to the two of you from upstairs.

*****

It is June and hot and sticky outside - but even hotter and stickier in the tiny bedroom. As three boys look on, you face Sarah, your best friend who later decided she was a boy and became Riley. She is one year younger and claims she is falling in love with you. You are in front of three of her friends, friends who do not know this is your first time kissing a girl. You begin to lean forward when she lunges at you - lips slamming, teeth crashing into yours - and two thoughts simultaneously leap to mind as you continue to kiss her…is this how every girl kisses, and good god, is she trying to eat my face? You’re actually starting to worry about the latter when you feel her pull back. She looks at you and winks, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and smiles victoriously at the boys. You just lean back against the bed, trying to seem nonchalant, and the looks on the boys’ faces secretly make her horrible kissing worth it.

*****

He is stalking you. You’re still in high school, taking college classes because your Mom says you have to, and it’s a bit of a heady rush when you realize what is happening. You’ve never had a stalker before. He turns out to be the grandson of your Algebra teacher, and you receive an A+ instead of an A- for being nice to him. He is always there waiting in the hallways when class goes on break and he plods along silently, ever the brooding artist, while the two of you walk down to the cafeteria to get your usual pretzel with cheese. He has no car, no money, and long, shaggy hair that you think would suit his face better if he trimmed it an inch or two. But you don’t say anything. You just smile and let him hold your hand, because it’s nice to have someone’s hand in yours. But then he tries to pull you into a dark, abandoned classroom, and all you can think is that there’s nothing you want less than to kiss him. So, after the grades have been posted and can’t be recanted, you drop him. His Grandma still glares at you in town years after the fact.

*****

Finally you are lying on the bed of a boy who isn’t homeschooled. There he is, sitting across from you, Xbox controller in hand. He has the deepest brown eyes you’ve ever seen and a slow, quiet way about him that mellows your ever-stressed soul. Sitting up, you undo your ponytail, sticking the elastic ring in your mouth as you try to neaten yourself up, your parents will be picking you up soon.

He leaves his video game and begins to crawl slowly toward you, teeth bared, snarling. You giggle and watch his eyes…they are focused on the hair tie. You giggle again but are too entranced to let go of your hair, so your hands huddle mid-air, mid-action. He crawls toward you and you can feel the heat of his body before it touches you. Instinct causes you to turn your head as he leans in for the hair tie and he growls his disappointment. You keep your head turned, teeth gripped vice-like on the rubber band, giggling as much as he is growling and you feel your face turning red when you realize you’re still holding on to your hair like an idiot. He sees his move and jumps, forcing you on your back, his hands pinning your wrists even though your hands are still holding your hair. He leans in and bites the rubber band and you wrestle for it…until he kisses you. His lips are soft and you love kissing him. His body is heavy above you, his breathing fast, and his lips wonderful. Time flies and before you know it, you hear your Mom talking to his downstairs and you scramble out of his reach and into the car, looking up at his window as you drive away, thinking that that was the sexiest thing to ever happen to you.

*****

You meet up with him after over a decade apart and find him even more gorgeous than the day he stood with his family to send you and yours off at the airport. You remember his hand, rough and calloused, gently cupping your cheek as a pre-teen, whispering that you were the most beautiful girl he had ever known. He has a girlfriend now, though, and you still have the moral standing to think it’s bad to seduce a boy with a girlfriend. You are sitting on a hotel room bed with him lying beside you, talking while your brother and his sister chatter in the corner. They leave to go get coffee and you coquettishly lock the door behind them. Pushing the fact that he has a girlfriend out of your guilty conscience, you somehow end up lying on his chest, staring up at him. You know you want to kiss him and think he wants to kiss you, but aren’t sure…he has to make that first move. You spend several long minutes staring into each others eyes and softly talking, but he doesn’t kiss you. Your brother and his sister are back, pounding on the locked door, and your heart jumps as you sheepishly unlock it.

Much later that night, he is rolling alongside you as you walk the short distance from his hotel room to yours. You look at him looking up at you, both of you silently pleading for the other to cave…and then…he touches your hand and you know. You lean down as he tilts his perfectly sculpted jaw up towards you and through a fog, you hear him whisper that your lips are like an angel’s. You watch as he heads back to his suite with a smile on his face and realize you had forgotten to breathe. You walk into the room you’re sharing with your Mom and his little sister and both look at you with raised brows when you quietly shut the door and head straight to the restroom. As you wash your face, you know you should feel ashamed for what you’ve done, but all you can think of are his green eyes and that incredible kiss. He breaks up with his girlfriend the following week and you begin dating immediately.

*****

He actually drives. For the first time in your life, you are more experienced than your friends because you are dating a boy who has his own car. You are sitting at the lake with chairs extended back so you can point out constellations through the sunroof, frozen to the core because he’s shut off the ignition, and you smile as he moves closer after seeing you shiver.

You think about all of the romance novels you snuck in younger years, the ones with men named “Dain” and “Tristan” who pressed against women, carressed them, and brought them to the height of ecstasy. This seems like those stories, with his hand against your cheek, the moon reflecting off the water, and you no longer care about the cold, only the kiss that was coming - and you know this would be the one. Past kisses never made you feel like the women in those novels, with their weak knees and moist clefts, but this guy - this guy who actually drives must know how to actually kiss. He leans in and you aren’t disappointed. Soft, smooth lips. Perfect pressure. Everything is right for once and you allow yourself to relax and lean into him just a bit. Only it turns out that, like the shiver, you just unintentionally invited him to paw at you, and unlike Tristan and Dain, this guy does not gently carress - he grabs on so fiercely you know you’ll be bruised the next day, so you make your excuses and ask to be driven home.

He smokes a joint in front of you and you pray the smell doesn’t linger on your clothes for your Mom to notice. She does not like this boy – and for good reason, though you are unable to admit it until many years later. When you get home, you find a well-thumbed through novel and skip to the dog-eared pages, reading until you fall asleep.

*****

You’ve graduated highschool and the world is your oyster. You’ve kissed boys. It was never like the books. You are smarter than that now, older, you know what is what and who is who and what goes where. You’re spending the night at a friend’s house and have been invited to a party. You’re not comfortable with so many people around that you don’t know, but have learned that an aloof look washes away any show of nerves in your eyes. You are cool. You are, in fact, so cool you are with the cutest guy in the room. He is blonde and blue-eyed and seems to know everyone there. You like guys with dark hair and eyes better, but don’t say anything because that doesn’t really matter. Other girls tried for his attention that night, but you, you with your innocently smooth moves, landed him. You are in his room and there are guns and bows and confederate flags are on the wall and you inwardly cringe because it is so not you, but having things in common doesn’t really matter either. The only thing you are looking for is the kiss. He comes in, bringing you a beer, and the two of you drink while you try to find an interest in whatever it is he’s talking about. He moves like a professional and pulls you to him as he talks. He guides you to the bed and drapes over you before leaning in for the kiss. Lightest of light touches over and over again, a brush of the lips while his fingertips trace circles on your belly…but he won’t take it further. After a while you’re crazed for his touch, so you take the risk and up the ante…or, really, you break the dam, because the onslaught begins - the hard kisses, the tongue, and you realize this supposed professional has a pattern. A damned kissing equation. He opens his mouth on yours. He closes. He opens. He closes. Open. Close. Open. And then, THRUST - his tongue is in your mouth. One, two, three, spear. One, two, three, oh god, he reaches your gag reflex. You feel your stomach revolt, the beers catching up to you, but he doesn’t notice.

One, two, three…oh good god.

*****

You are in college and have a steady boyfriend. He is older - you gave up on younger men a long time ago. He is charming, can hold an intellectual conversation, kisses just like the books described, and says he loves you…but he is not a good man. He hurts and soothes, hurts and soothes, until he comes out the hero and you the antaganizor, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to leave him. He’s convinced you that he needs you and it’s good to be needed.

His kisses lose their charm as the years pass, though, because you finally understand the harm that lies behind each one. You learn the names of the other women he loves and don’t think you could feel a deeper pain. You realize you’re lying more and more, telling everyone who cares for your wellbeing how good he is to you and how you’ve never been happier, when the truth is - you’d never felt more vulnerable or lonely. You find yourself flinching when people move around you too quickly and realize it can’t go any further when he mentions having children together. You don’t want your child growing up and becoming his father’s son.

*****
After two long years spent alone discovering yourself, you leave your small town for the big city…and his kiss. It was the silliest thing that brought you together - a chat online you didn’t want to have in the first place. But when you looked into his eyes for the first time and felt his hand slip into yours, you understood with a rush what the poets were feeling while penning every word to do with love. Unlike those other men, the hopeful Tristan’s, you had to wait for this one…and he was worth it. He didn’t just hold your heart - somehow, he was your heart.

The safety you felt with him didn’t come from height or weight, but sheer presense and sincerity. You found yourself laughing more honestly than you ever had and the ever-present stress that had permeated your very being for years somehow dissipated around him. His smile brightened the darkest of days and his arms around you truly did make everything better. His love became your rock and you knew you could depend on him because more than anything else, he was your best friend. Every kiss from him reminded you that all those romance novels were wrong - that they always had been. Because in addition to the wobbly knees, moist cleft, and tides of pleasure, there was another feeling that those books had never, in all the kissing and groping and sex, mentioned.

In his arms, in his kiss, you were safe. You were home.