The danger of a good kiss

I used to be famous for my crushes. They were not notable for who I had the crush on, but the gusto with which I pursued them. And they came out of nowhere, like a supernova. Sometimes, all it could take was a look, a clever joke, a small act of kindness and my entire focus became all about making this person mine. With the passion and tenacity of a marathon runner, I charged toward the, sometimes unknowing, victim. I bored friends and family with long conversations about them, pouring over every detail, no matter how insignificant. Combing through every piece of evidence, parsing for subtext, as to whether they may or may not, possibly have the same feelings for me.

Nine times out of ten, they didn't. And most stopped short of getting a restraining order against me. I truly feel sorry for anyone who ever had the misfortune of being the object of my desire. But, what can I say, I was boy crazy. And John Hughes made being young and in love seem so appealing, and I just wanted to know that feeling. The closeness of another human being. Someone you could share your mundane life with. I put everything into finding that feeling. And when I did find it, oh, it was glorious.

You always remember your first kiss. Mine was a boy called Shawn when I was 14. He was my best friend at the time, and one of the few boys for which my feelings remained pretty much neutral. Not that he wasn't cute, just didn't as my grandmother would say, ''didn't trip my trigger''. And that was fine, and for the best seeing as how we worked very well just being pals.

It was during the summer, and we'd been hanging out by my pool, when he suddenly leaned over and started to kiss me. After my immediate, startled reaction, I decided to just go with it. I remember feeling the water from our wet hair sliding down our faces as our lips and tongues clumsily tried to find a place that didn't feel awkward. We pulled away, both quickly looking away from each other and into the water where our legs looked like they were dancing with the waves. This caused me to giggle and just as I was about to share this with Shawn, he rapidly removed himself from the water mutter, ''Uh, I've gotta get home.'' I got up to follow and hand him a towel, but he beat me to it. I stopped and watched him leave the gated pool area and head toward the house. He turned to wave before he entered the sliding glass door. My heart felt as if it had enlarged four times it's size. All of the sudden this boy I had next to no romantic feelings for, became my first crush victim. I had had crushes before, but those were mostly unattainable like celebrities, but this was real. And he had kissed ME! He must have loved me too. I became wrapped in this bubble of bliss like I had never known. I was smiling brighter, it was like when Dorothy came to Oz and everything was in Technicolor. I thought of nothing but Shawn and that kiss. I wondered when it would happen again, and did this mean we were officially a couple? I tried to call him later that night to ask him those very questions. But, I got his machine. He was one of those lucky kids who got their own phone line, so I could only trust his machine had recorded all the messages I left. I wouldn't know, he never called back. When I saw him a couple of weeks later at a friend's birthday party, he made no mention of it, and to my surprise, now had a girlfriend. He was holding hands with this girl named Robin, who had big crimped hair pulled back into a banana clip and a dark blue suede fringe jacket and her Converse weren't fake. Mine were. And my hair was a mess of frizz no hair product could tame. And she was thin. Her stretch pants actually had some give, where as the seams of mine were hanging on for dear life. I was the underdog, but this time, I wasn't going to win.

I never did find out why Shawn kissed me that late summer day. He and I did finally start hanging out again, but it was never quite the same. I still had lingering feelings which caused things to be strained and I was 14 and had no idea how to process all that. And that was my first kiss, but it's obviously not the best kiss. That would go to a guy called Chris.

Many years and crushes later, I became fixated on a guy called Chris. And boy did he put up a fight. He did not want to be in a relationship with me, but being 19 and completely irrational, I had no intention of taking no for an answer. He'd made it very clear that he only wanted to be friends, and I acknowledged his request without having any intention of honoring it. I figured I would just bide my time, and he would come around. This was not based on past experience. I was usually on the sad end of unrequited crushes. My past is lousy boys and men I have pursued. But, something about Chris made me think there might be something there. This time, I was right.

We had been out on what he'd repeatedly stressed was, ''not a date'', to see a friend's band play. I obliged, even not flipping out when I saw him so obviously flirting with another girl. I just had a silent come apart on the inside. He was having a hell of a time. Dancing and singing and chatting with damn near everyone at the bar. This was unusual, as Chris was normally a very reserved person, but after several shots and about five beers, he was the life of the party. He'd made me promise to make him leave at a decent time, as he had to get up early, so about ten I tried to pull him away from the best night of his life. He begged like a stubborn child which I found amusing, endearing, and completely annoying all at the same time. ''Just one more song.'' he pleaded, hands together as if he were praying I would relent. It took me pulling the whole, ''Fine, I'll leave you hear.'' threat, three times, before he finally agreed to follow me out the door.

Once we made it into brisk, winter, night air he was talking loudly, partly from temporary loss of hearing due to the very loud music and also because very drunk and unaware of volume controls. I kept trying to ''Shush'' him, which for some reason he took as a front and got defensive like he had a right to say whatever the hell he wanted and the world was just gonna have to listen, thank you very much. He was becoming less attractive as I had to lift his legs into the car and buckle him in. The ride to his place was thankfully short as he'd begun running his hands through my hair and twirling the curls. This was very distracting as my body was responding favorably and making it very hard to fight the urge to pull the car over and have my way with him. We made it to his place, and I pulled the car into place, leaned over to unbuckle him when he grabbed my face with both hands and started kissing me. And this wasn't just a ''Hey, let's try it out and see what happens.'' this was a full on, entire body is in on it, kiss. I felt my entire body ignite. Everything in me was screaming, ''YES!! Finally!! I knew it would happen!!'' His hands were running through my hair, to my shoulders to my breast, to my stomach, to my thighs. My hands were also doing their part to explore his body as well. It felt like the Earth was actually moving. Wait...

Now, let me explain, the parking lot for Chris's apartments, were on a very large hill, behind the apartment building. Now this parking lot had a ledge that went down to the ground floor apartments. Which, luckily for them, was right before I'd realized the car had in fact, been moving. No our love was not strong enough to move mountains. I slammed on the breaks and threw the car in park. What I should have done in the first place. I remember parking, and my foot was still on the break, but when he kissed me, all reason went out the window. I didn't want to put the car in park, because that would have taken my hands off his chest, and taken us out of the moment, and I did not want to risk him stopping. Then, I got way too into it, and forgot to keep my foot on the break. Our little brush with maybe death, but if not then definitely severe property damage, kind of killed the moment. And that was that. He got out of the car, came over to my side to say goodnight, and threw up all over the drivers side door.

I wanna say I didn't date that guy for over a year, but I did. It wasn't so bad. He wasn't a bad guy. We just weren't for each other. I should have listened to him in the first place. But, it started out with a great kiss.