I had two first kisses--one was the kind you experience in early childhood-experimentative and
friendly, and the other was
romantic and more interesting.
Both have unique stories.
When I was seven, I had all the boyfriends in the world. I was the tomboy. We ran around barefoot in the summer, eating sticky popsicles, and riding our bikes everywhere. We were kids. My latest friend Leslie, an oriental boy.. either Vietnamese or Korean, had just turned four. He was as smart as a six or seven year old though, but age didn't matter so much back then as did who had the coolest toys.
One day, Leslie and I were in his bedroom with another friend of ours. I don't really remember how it started, but we decided that Leslie and I were going to kiss. So we closed the door and we all sat down on Leslie's bed. He had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sheets or some sort of cartoon that little boys watch. We were nervous. I started to giggle. The doorknob had a lock on it that was a small piece of metal that protruded from the center of the doorknob. When it wasn't locked, the piece of metal was horizontal. To me, it looked like the doorknob was smiling at us. I told Leslie and he started to giggle as well. But then we kissed. It was very quick. Two sets of lips briefly touched each other and pulled back almost immediately.
Our friend told Leslie's father. He was this macho marine kind of guy with tattoos all over his body. He was sitting shirtless on the couch. I don't remember his reaction. I am wanting to say it was indifferent.
We were quite the topic of the playground for days.
I didn't have a crush on Leslie. In fact, I don't think we ever spoke of the kiss again. He changed a lot in the following months and he went through a stage where he hated girls.. right before he moved back to Asia. I was very sad.
My first romantic kiss was with my old best friend of about six years.
It was sort of odd.
I had told him two weeks prior to the event that I liked him, but I think we knew we liked each other because he had the gall to kiss me on the neck one night before that.
I don't know why I liked him. It was so not physical at all. He was 300 pounds, pimply, kind of grotesque in a way. But he was my best friend and he was all I had. My other best friend had moved away earlier that month.
We were at his house in the kitchen. No one was home. He had swirled my body around and then we kissed. It was a very long kiss. He wasn't a very great kisser, but seeing as that was my first french kiss, I didn't know any better. I twirled my tongue around in his mouth. I was such a bad kisser.
That was about a year and a half ago. After he moved away, I got a boyfriend and a few months into that, we started kissing. Unlike Adam, the best friend, this boy liked kissing as much as I did. Adam often avoided french kissing me. Ben was much different. I learned from him. I am a better kisser now.
When I think back on it, I kind of wish that the first kiss with Ben had been my first romantic kiss. When I think about each kiss, only the last one gives me shivers. The first one makes me think of trailer trash.