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“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G.
Chapter 26 – “A First Kiss”
So there I was, out on a date with a girl who was the personification of beauty. The splendor of her presence was so powerful that later in life I would keep her in mind when writing certain song lyrics, such as:
In the dark, when I’m alone
There’s a wicked flame
When I’m at the crossroads,
I just call your name.
I’m amazed by the light that is you.
Fulfilled that you make loving true
You’re joy that is constantly new
Amazed by the light that is you.
Or maybe that song was written about god. I’m not really sure.
Anyway, we had gone out to dinner, which was not your typical first date for kids in high school at that time. The more normal plan was to ask a girl to a movie or a dance or a party. But I figured that a gal’s gotta eat, right? Plus, it seemed like a more grown-up thing to do. I came up with that idea all by myself. Right after this happened:
“Ask her out to dinner,” my Uncle told me. “A gal’s gotta eat. And besides, it’s a more grown-up thing to do.”
We went to a nice middle-class steak house. The kind of place where everything is a la carte. That’s French for “go ahead and order your entree but if you want a vegetable or a potato or a salad to go with it, you damn well better order that, too, and we’ll gladly add it to the facture salée.” That’s French for “whoo-hoo are we gonna charge ya for that!”
“Fancy-schmancy,” she called the place, but at least she was smiling.
“We can go to Taco Tio next time, if you prefer,” I told her, naming the joint near the railroad tracks that kept getting closed down because of drug busts in their parking lot.
“That’s okay,” she said with a laugh, “this is fine.”
Dinner was pleasant. She was easy to talk to. We discussed school, teachers, the upcoming student body elections, clothing styles, choices of colleges, music. Lots of talk about music. Turned out that we both enjoyed jazz. That was one of those Aha! moments because there were not that many high school kids who cared about Miles Davis or John Coltrane. She even knew who Benny Goodman was. For that matter, she even knew that Bernard Herrmann did the music for Psycho, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Vertigo. I was impressed.
Every once in a while during the meal, I discovered that I wasn’t entirely following the main points she was making because I was getting lost in her eyes, her smile, her aura. (See song lyrics above.)
It took a self-imposed mental jolt to get me back on track. She would say something like “I really enjoy ‘Trane’s ‘My Favorite Things’ album because of his modal approach.” But her words were not what was going through my head; my noggin was processing something closer to this:
Ummm her eyes are so bright look at those lips she has such a beautiful smile she is My Favorite Thing how can she have perfect hair like that Wait she stopped speaking so what was it she said about Coltrane ohmygodohmygod what was it oh yeah something about his modal playing I’d better say something right away.
“Modal, yes,” I said, “from ‘Kind of Blue’ to ‘My Favorite Things’ and beyond.” And then, if I was lucky, she would say “I know! You’re easy to talk with.”
After dinner, it was still fairly early so we drove around a while. I don’t know how I was able to steer the car, listen to the music we were playing, and converse with her, all at the same time. The scent of her perfume reminded me that sooner or later, it would be time to take her home and I would be standing close to her, my head swirling inside the wisps of that glorious scent. And that meant it would be time for what Uncle Man said was so important: “The kiss, the kiss.” The idea of kissing her had insinuated its way into my head and I couldn’t get away from it.
We drove past a billboard with a woman’s picture on it and all that registered to me was: lips. We passed a store where the neon lights seemed to be forming themselves into incandescent lips. Just the act of driving made me think of lips (“driving” made me think about “hitting the road” which made me think of “road trips” and part of that phrase rhymes with lips). Uncle Man was right when he said “Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”
We went by a bowling alley and my mind itemized it this way: “There’s the bowling alley and they have some billiard tables and in billiards sometimes you have get one ball to just lightly kiss another, and. . . Kiss!”
Suddenly, we were pulling up to the curb in front of her parents’ house. How did we get here so fast? I turned off the engine and was going to get out to walk her to the door. She put her hand on my wrist before I could even move. Good thing, too, because my head was spinning and I didn’t think I’d be able to stand up straight much less walk. Or much less kiss her, for that matter. Too dizzy. I needed a moment to calm down. Of course, having her hand on me wasn’t making me any calmer.
“I had a really nice time,” she said.
“I did, too,” I told her.
“Would you like to come in for a minute?”
I knew that I needed to have a snappy reply. Something that communicated volumes of hidden depth and passion and commitment. So I said:
“Yes.”
Yup, I was a platinum-tongued devil, all right.
We got out of the car and I took her hand as we walked slowly toward the house. There was an electrical charge that was emanating from her hand to mine, and it pulsated within me, radiating from hand to wrist to arm to shoulder to neck to chest and head and heart.
A comet flared its way across the sky. We stopped and marveled at the universe. Maybe there was no comet. But we were astonished by the cosmos anyway. With a mixture of awe and anticipation, we just stood there listening to the all-encompassing whirling and twirling of the stars and planets.
One way you know when you truly like being with someone, especially on a first date, is if you are not uncomfortable with the silences. We were comfortable with the silences. We were stone solid fine with them. We were not compelled to keep talking but could just exult in the mere fact of physical proximity. Remarkable.
She got out her key, opened the door, grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. She used her knee to give the door a shove and it closed with a muffled whump. We stood there for several eternities.
“So?” she said.
“So,” I said and took her in my arms. For some reason, I did not immediately kiss her lips. I oh-so-lightly brushed my lips across her neck. Then her shoulder. Then up to her face. But still no real kiss. As delicately as possible, I ran my tongue across her lips, tasting the intriguing flavor of her lip gloss. Strawberry? No matter, it was intoxicating. I slightly kissed her neck and shoulder on the other side. Her whole body shuddered in my arms.
A voice within me began shouting “now now now now” and I obeyed the voice and kissed her full on those inviting luscious amazing lips.
There are moments in history that are so cataclysmic that the world is forever changed. The discovery of fire. The understanding of the forces of gravity. The first telescopic view of Saturn’s rings. And that first kiss.
It lasted a few precious seconds or several years of my life, I’m not sure which or perhaps it was both. The kiss was everything in the world to me. It was slow, it was fast, it was gentle, it was firm. It started and stopped and started again.
We paused, breathing heavily. We stared at each other, saying nothing. Suddenly, my mind intruded and made me wonder where her parents were. And her brother. Or brothers? I remember she mentioned something about at least one sibling.
As if reading my mind, she told me that her brothers were in a music recital and the maternal components were in attendance at the event. So we kissed again.
I held her body close. Closer. Closest. The physicality of the kiss merged with the spirituality of the kiss. With each new kiss, we experienced a feeling of being “As One.” We enjoyed a touching of souls beyond anything that had ever been experienced before in the entire story of life. In other words, she was a good kisser.
We came to the trembling conclusion of yet another kiss. “Ahhhh,” she said. It was no louder than a whisper. “Maybe we should slow down?”
“Well,” I whispered back, “I don’t know how to go any slower than this.” I kissed her cheek, then her forehead, then her shoulder. She ahhhh’d again. “After all,” I said, “we’re just kissing.”
“Hmmm,” she said. Smiling, she glanced down, then back up to my eyes. She made no move to step away from me. “Well,” she said with a very cute little smile, “you’re doing more than just kissing.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Oh, you mean . . . that?” I asked.
“Yes, that.”
I put my mouth close to her ear. “That,” I whispered to her, “is simply a reaction to kissing you.” I looked at her a moment. “You know, if I could control it, I’d be in a different line of work.”
She laughed in delight. There was still no move to step apart so I kissed her again. And she kissed back.
When we stopped after another couple of eons, she looked a bit more serious. “I don’t know if we should keep doing this.”
“Ummm,” I said, lightly kissing her cheek. “I am very interested in your views,” I whispered, “and I think we need to discuss them.” I continued lightly kissing her face and her neck.
“Unnnmmmm,” she said. “I don’t know, I don’t know . . . .” But she was kissing back.
“Ummmmm, tell me more,” I whispered. I tried gently nibbling on her ears before returning to the light kisses.
“This is so unfair,” she said, almost moaning.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “What, exactly, is unfair about it?” I asked, still kissing. “You can take all the time you want.”
“Well,” she said, and then we kissed. “The thing is,” she said, and then we kissed. “I can’t help,” she said, and then we kissed. “Responding to you,” she said, and then we kissed.
“That’s good,” I whispered. I ran my hands from her shoulders to her neck, then slid them down to her hips, then around her again. She inhaled and exhaled with a most delightful sound.
“You’re doing so much more than just kissing,” she said.
“Should I stop caressing you?”
“No! I mean, yes. I don’t know. But I don’t mean your hands.” She looked at me again. We stared at each other. Again, the physicality of the moment became overwhelmingly apparent. “Yes. I mean, I mean. . . you know.”
“I told you, it’s just a reaction. You don’t need to pay any attention to that.”
“Well, it’s hard to ignore.”
“Thank you.”
We both cracked up. The laughter was an incredible release. We took a few steps down the hall toward the living room, almost gasping for breath. I held her hand. She stopped by a table and switched on a lamp. Then she switched it off again. On. Off. On. Off. I stepped closer to her. “Do I get the pointing tour?” I asked.
“The pointing tour?”
“Sure. That’s where you say ‘Here’s the living room, over there is the kitchen, that’s the hall, this is a lamp.’ You know, because we’re not ready for the walk-through tour. Just the — ”
“The pointing tour,” she said along with me. We both laughed. Then we both smiled. Then we both looked serious. She moved against me. I held her and we kissed once again. And it was still magical.
We paused a moment. She looked at me, then at her watch, then back at me. Very quietly, she said, “I have an idea.”
And indeed she did.
Our relationship was stellar, stunning, stupendous. And it ended even as high school ended. In thought and deed, she has continually returned to my thoughts. I hope her life is half as spectacular as our first kiss.
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“Secret Sex, A Book Alive Online,” written and lived by John Scott G, is Copr. © 2011-2012 by JSG, all rights reserved under U.S. and international copyright conventions. Commercial use in any form is forbidden without express written permission of the author. Originally published on eNewsChannels.com with permission. Credits: Book cover design: Phil Hatten.
“Amazed by the Light That Is You,” copyright 2000 and 2009 by John Scott G, Golosio Publishing (BMI).
