I knelt in the darkness hoping she would find me. We were playing tag but I really wasn’t into the game. The smell of oil and ancient dust reminded me of my grandfather’s barn. Dirt floor, old orange rusted tractor, dry straw, the feeling was the same but this was my uncle’s garage. Dirt floor, but in the city. I pictured pigeon nests in the rafters giving that straw feel, spider webs, thick with dust and old dry fly corpses. I moved my hand, picturing spider legs feeling for my fingers. My elbow bumped something. It was soft and moved closer, warm against my side.
She said my name and her breath tickled my ear, she was so close her whisper tickled my stomach and I felt a sensation in my balls that was entirely pleasant. Coolness climbed my spine as a rush stole up my neck and charged my brain.
“Yes,” I whispered. I didn’t want any of the others to come and spoil this. A flutter scurried in my chest.
“Who’s It?” The soft puff of air on my ear almost made me cry out. A stir in my pants and a burn in my cheeks, I was glad it was dark. What would she think if she knew I had a stiffy. But it felt so good. Why was she asking me this? We all knew who was It. She stirred a bit. I liked the touch. Right then I could have cared less who was hunting to tag someone else, make them It. I could have cared less if the sky suddenly burst into flames or if the sun swelled in a sudden super nova and engulfed us all. That would leave me taking these wonderful feelings into eternity.
“Dean,” I managed to say and hoped I didn’t gasp.
“Where is he?” She was driving me crazy. How could I walk out into the yard? Everyone would see the tent in my pants, and laugh.
“Not here.” I turned my face toward her so I wouldn’t have to speak too loud and that’s when she kissed me.
It was gentle and warm and soft and totally unexpected. Her lips pressed to mine. I almost pulled back as my face exploded with sensations. She had surprised me at first but it didn’t take me long to realize she was kissing me and that it was a very nice thing for her to be doing. If I had known that kissing girls would send such feelings through me, I would have done this a long time ago. I had to grip the fin of Uncle’s car to keep from collapsing to the floor. My legs seemed to have lost all ability to hold me up. Rockets of pleasure tore through me, igniting tingles in my chest, stomach, balls, an eruption of pleasure.
And then her hand found mine. Electricity shot up my arm and joined the lava in my lips. I wanted to stay in this wonderful place forever.
I turned more toward her and reached my free hand around her, pulling her closer. The movement was awkward, crowded as we were and scared as I was, but she turned too and that helped me steady myself. I felt her small breasts press into my rib cage. Her tongue touched my teeth. It felt a bit strange but nice too. I opened my mouth a bit more and she darted her tongue between my incisors.
Now, I had touched tongues with people before, did it on dares from my brothers, with them, and that had been pretty gross. Their tongues had felt slimy, like licking a garden slug. THIS was not like THAT. At first I tried to tuck my tongue into the back of my mouth and pulled away a bit but she moved her hand up my back and held my head. At the same time she pushed herself a little closer and before I could do anything else, our tongues were touching. This wasn’t any brother’s tongue or garden slug, this was marvelous. A bubble of intense pressure grew in my belly and rushed up my throat and down my legs at the same time. It blasted down my arms and into my head. I felt myself trembling. A stitch of pain grew under my ribs from the twist of my body but I didn’t want to move and maybe spoil the moment.
Then she pulled back and I was free to breathe. Air rushed out of my mouth then I drew it back in in quick gasps. I struggled to understand and sort out all the feelings that were ricocheting inside me.
“How was that?” she asked.
I wanted to tell it was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me, because it was. I wanted to say that my life had forever been changed now that I knew what it was like to kiss a girl. I wanted to smile and laugh and tell her how incredibly excited she had made me feel but I didn’t want her to know it was my first kiss, that no one had ever done that to me before so I simply said, “It was nice.”
“Would you like to do it again?” How could she ask that question? Of course I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do only that and do it forever. In that brief moment between her question and my response I wondered why people did anything else when they could be doing this. Why would people do things that make it difficult to do that? Why do they start wars that might kill them when they could be somewhere else, like a nice dark garage, kissing a girl. Nothing in the world made sense for me right then except that I wanted to have her lips pressed to mine.
“Yes, I guess so.” I tried to put the right amount of casualness into my response so she wouldn’t think the things going on inside me were happening. I wanted her to think this was every day for me, that I was so cool that I did this sort of thing all the time. And so she pressed her lips to mine again.
It was wonderful that second time too, but not quite as intense. I still had so much to learn about girls and sex and love that would bring me similar sensations of pleasure as I explored these topics but I never again experienced the intensity of that very first kiss. As I reflect back now I can understand the undeniable desire of an addict to recapture the thrill of the first high and the perpetual disappointment, when, no matter how much or what type of chemical they put into their body after that, they are unable to recapture the same feeling.
I have kissed a lot of girls, a lot of times since then but the memory of my first kiss remains unmatched.