“You’re breathing in fumes/I taste when we kiss” ~ Depeche Mode

I’ve kissed. I have an earlier post, The Kissing Booth, where I refer to an actual kissing booth experience of mine. This post is about kissing, but not necessarily in a booth.  So grab a pint and wet your lips and deal with this.

Maybe it sounds like a cliché, but my first French kiss was forced upon me by my older sister’s friend. She was in upper high school. I was in 7th grade. Prior to that, when I was about a year or two younger, I was kissed on the lips by my friend’s babysitter. I don’t remember all the details. Just her lips on mine on the side of his house.

A forced kiss happened again at a work party. A lesbian co-worker planted a violent one on me as I was leaving. I think it was to piss off  her girlfriend/roommate, who was flirting with me earlier. Either that or…well it was a goodbye party after all. The place where we worked closed down. Maybe she had these pent-up feelings. Maybe not.

I briefly dated and kissed rather well a girl named Effy. She once slid down my stairs in her high heels and nearly broke her ass. One memorable kiss around that time was from a lass named Tracey. She was a south side girl from Mother McAuley High School. Then there was Lisa, a friend who asked me to accompany her to a high school dance – as friends. Somehow we ended up kissing on her porch at night’s end. We remained friends and never talked about that kiss again.

I’ve kissed cheerleaders, foreign girls, smart girls, goth girls, and punk girls. I’ve kissed two girls two weeks apart who shared the same first and last names. I’ve had several sloppy kisses with the ex-girlfriend of a close friend. I’ve kissed Abby, a fiddle player, at a Chicago bar in what was a group kissing section among all my friends. Guys with girls, girls with guys, girls with girls, guys with guys. It was an orgy of kissing. The waitress came over with a pitcher of beer and asked “what all the kissing was about?” The pitcher was on the house.

One ex-girlfriend…at first I couldn’t stand her kisses. Then I couldn’t get enough of them. I kissed a girl in a confessional at church. And in the safe in what they called the sacristy, where they kept chalices and unconsecrated hosts.

I kissed an Irish girl I just met down the street from my Bucktown apartment. Afterwards I invited her back to my place. She declined and said to “just go home and masturbate.”

I’ve kissed.