First One
“You never forget your first kiss,” as the old saying goes. I can attest to the validity of that cliché since I still vividly remember receiving my first kiss on a Friday night in mid-July, the same night as my best friend Dave’s thirteenth birthday party.
Previous birthday galas at his house usually consisted of the two of us, along with a few other friends, spending the night watching movies, playing video games, and scarfing pizza. That year, however, he desired a party in the adolescent sense of the word, which meant the addition of girls to the guest list as well as games geared toward mutual boy-girl participation.
One of the games Dave had in mind was “Spin the Bottle.”
The party started with the guests—six boys (including myself) and seven girls—congregating in the living room of Dave’s row home. Music blasted from the speakers of his parents’ stereo system. A table was laid out with chips, dip, and pizza, with two coolers off to the side bearing multiple cans of soda and bottles of Snapple. The girls milled about in the center of the living room, while the guys either hung out near the steps or lingered around the food table. Dave shuffled between all the groups, playing the part of the overzealous host.
As the time for the game drew near—Dave had planned for it to commence at just after nine—I started tensing up over the mere thought of participating in such an activity. Dave had invited the prettiest and most popular girls in our grade, a group who, in all our time in school together, had never paid me any mind save for the occasional sneer or insult. I felt like an ant in their presence, my geeky ragamuffin exterior and preteen neurotic interior not at all helping my self-esteem. I hung with the boys most of the night, in hopes of engaging them in some guy-centric conversation, but all they talked about was how hot the girls looked in their summer attire and how much they couldn’t wait for the game to start.
Despite my growing sense of unease, I secretly if sheepishly looked forward to partaking in this time-honored adolescent game. At that point in my life, I had yet to share a kiss with a girl outside of my family. A jittery sense of anticipation rocked my insides. Little earthquakes rumbled in my hands. Even though a party game with my peers was, to me, far from the ideal setting to receive my first kiss, I resigned myself to the circumstances and hoped for the best.
Finally, the magic hour arrived and Dave ushered everyone downstairs to the wood-paneled confines of his parents’ finished basement. Before joining everyone else, Dave ran into the kitchen and grabbed an empty old-style Coca-Cola bottle to serve as the titular game piece. He also fetched his older, college-bound sister Megan, who had agreed to chaperone after their parents decided to vacation down the shore that weekend. She had a messy head of black hair and always dressed like she was headed to a punk rock show. Her level of tolerance for the majority of the human race fluctuated erratically between indifference and intolerance, although relations between her and I had always been copasetic.
Megan accompanied us downstairs, since Dave had asked her to serve as scorekeeper, a position she accepted with her characteristic insouciance. She took a seat on the futon in the corner of the room next to the bar, brandishing a pad of paper and pen in her hand. The rest of us sat in an alternating boy-girl circle on the floor in the center of the room. Dave remained standing, ready to explain the rules of the game. I felt the noose slowly tightening. There was no turning back now.
“Okay, the rules are as follows,” Dave started, speaking like a game show host.. “Obviously, you spin the bottle and whoever it lands on, you kiss. The first kiss is just on the cheek. The second one is a peck on the lips. The third is a longer one on the lips. The fourth is open-mouthed. The fifth is open-mouthed with a hug. The sixth is open-mouthed while lying on the floor. The seventh and final one is on the futon and it lasts the rest of the night. In the event that, say, I spin the bottle and it lands on another guy, then the turn shifts to the lucky lady sitting directly on his left and vice versa for the girls. Megan will be keeping track of the spins for accuracy purposes. And…well, that’s all I can think of. Megan, anything to add?”
She shook her head without looking up from her pad of paper.
“Okay then. Let’s get started.”
“Wait a minute!” shouted the catty voice of Marina Coppolla, a pugnacious scowl creasing her pretty face. She brushed back her shoulder-length dirty blond hair as she stood up and vociferously pointed her finger at me. “If he plays, I’m not playing!”
“Say what?” Dave responded, taken aback.
“Do you actually expect me to kiss him if he spins the bottle and it lands on me?”
“Yes, Marina, that’s the game’s main rule.”
“Then forget it!” she exclaimed with unmistakable disgust.
“I’m with her!” said Colleen Duffner, a card-carrying member of Marina’s Beautiful Girls clique. She stood next to Marina, as did Leah Garzone, another member of that group.
I sat in silent disbelief. I knew I wasn’t the most well regarded member in our grade but this hit me unexpectedly hard. My ousting from a social gathering had never been so overt and vitriolic. Usually, I was either ignored or not even invited.
“No, Marina, that’s not happening,” Dave said, speaking in my defense. “We have seven boys and seven girls. If he can’t play, that throws the game off-balance. Besides, he’s my friend. I’m not just gonna ditch him like that!”
“Then, you’ll have to think of something else to do because we’re not playing.”
Marina stood firm, clad in a white designer T-shirt, dark tan capris, and bright white sneakers. Colleen and Leah dressed in a similar fashion, though with less style.
“Well, you know what, Marina?” Dave angrily fired back. “If the three of you are going to be like that, fine. I have Maureen Palermo’s number and I can get her and two of her friends over here in a second to replace the three of you.”
“No, Dave, I don’t think you heard me.” She punctuated the accents in her furious litany by condescendingly cocking her head and animatedly waving around her right hand. “When I said ‘we’re not playing,’ I didn’t just mean the three of us. I meant all of us. Every girl at this party.”
Doubtfully, Dave answered, “Come on, now, you can’t be serious”
“Girls?” Marina called.
Almost immediately, every other girl present stood up and got Marina’s back.
I watched this frozen like a deer in headlights.
The other guys at the party said and did nothing. They knew better than to oppose a band of angry girls.
“I can’t believe this!” Dave exclaimed. “What’ve you got against him?”
“Have we got all night?” Marina viciously chirped.
And so arrived the first of many breaking points that I would reach that night. After Marina’s comment, I stood up and looked at Dave.
“Forget it, dude,” I said. “It’s no use. I’ll just make them happy and leave.”
I shot a scornful look toward the clan before starting for the steps.
Dave grabbed my shoulder. “No, man, wait,” he pleaded. “There’s gotta be a way for us all to reach a compromise on this.”
“No compromise,” Marina decreed.
“See, no compromise,” I said. “I’m outta here.”
“Wait!” Dave shouted, an idea suddenly occurring to him. “How about, instead of kissing, what if when one of you—” He spoke directly toward the girls “—spins the bottle and it lands on him, you shake hands instead of kissing? And instead of him taking a turn after that, it goes to someone else?”
I absolutely hated this idea and expected the girls to instantly reject it, reiterating that they would accept nothing less than my expulsion from the scene, a request that, given this sudden turn of events, I had no problem in fulfilling.
However, Marina actually appeared to be seriously contemplating the idea. She turned to the other girls. Unintelligible murmurs came from the collective. I had a bad feeling about the outcome.
“Okay,” Marina said. “That’ll do.”
Dave breathed a sigh of relief.
I seethed in disgust. “You know what? Screw this. I’m goin’ home!”
I turned to walk up the steps but Dave grabbed my arm again.
“No, dude, don’t go yet,” he said in a whisper. “Just stay for one round, then go.”
“Are you kidding me?” I replied, also in a whisper. “This is embarrassing. I’m not sticking around and having this heaping dose of humiliation dumped onto me.”
“Don’t pay any attention to her. If you let her under your skin, then she wins. Do you really want that?”
“She has won. There’s nothing I can do about it except leave.”
“But if you stay and show that you won’t let her bully you into leaving, then you win. Besides, in five years, who’s gonna care about tonight? Who’s gonna remember this? Stay on for one round, please. I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”
I considered what he said for a few moments, definitely not wanting to stay and breathe the same air as Marina and her pack of demons but also not wanting to acquiesce to such blatant derision, especially if it put a damper on my best friend’s birthday.
“Consider this your birthday present,” I groaned in concession.
As I sat back down, I caught a glimpse of Megan as she watched the drama play out while maintaining her trademark look of rebellious apathy.
“Well, I guess, since I’m the birthday boy,” Dave said as he took his seat, “I should spin first. So, here goes.”
He gave the Coke bottle a good clockwise spin. It slowed down and its neck pointed toward Colleen. Some “oohs” and “aahs” came from the group as the two of them shared a quick kiss on the cheek.
Then Colleen took hold of the bottle and twirled it in its place. When it stopped, its neck pointed at me. I smiled half-heartedly while she scowled. Dead silence accompanied our handshake.
My turn deferred to Jeff Eisenhart. His spin landed on Marina and they shared the requisite kiss on the cheek.
Then, of all things to happen, Marina’s spin landed on me. I didn’t bother giving her a smile. I didn’t even want to shake her hand. When she put her hand out, I briefly considered leaving her hanging but ultimately figured that I might as well go through with it. Just as I was about to clasp her hand, she pulled it away and ran it through her hair. I glowered at her but she never noticed.
The whole miserable experience lasted just under a half hour, with the bottle landing on me more times than I care to recount. The game finally ended when the bottle paired Patrick Burkhardt and Kathy Gallen up for the seventh time. Good-natured heckling came from the crowd in the basement. Megan got up and quickly made her way back upstairs. Patrick and Kathy took a seat on the futon and proceeded with their make-out session while everyone else ascended once again to the living room.
I burrowed myself into a comfortable corner for the next hour, hoping that everyone would forget about me. I made an attempt to drown my sorrows in junk food, overloading on the remaining slices of pizza and cans of soda. Marina and her murder of cronies sat within cackling distance of me. I tried to ignore them but they never let up. I looked around for Dave but couldn’t find him. I reassured myself that the night was almost over and couldn’t get any worse.
Then, after another staring and giggling fit, Marina stood up and walked over to me. She looked directly into my eyes and said, “I just want you to know that I overheard what Dave said to you about no one caring about tonight in five years. That is so not true. You will never live this night down. Believe me. Stories of this night will float around for years and your name will be dragged through the mud. Give it another year, and you won’t even be able to step out of your house without people laughing at you.” She smiled sarcastically and then went back to her friends, giving one of them a high five as she sat down.
My final straw of patience broke. I’d officially had enough. I determinedly stalked to the front door, passing by Marina, who mockingly waved goodbye at me.
Out of nowhere, Dave ran up to me to halt my exit. “Hey, what’s up? Why are you leaving?”
“I can’t take this anymore, man,” I said. “I’ve put up with this crap for long enough and now, I have had enough. I gotta leave.”
“Come on, man, the party’s almost over. Stick around till the end.”
“This is the end. It’s not going to get any better. This has been the worst night of my life. All I wanna do right now is go home, go to sleep, and pray that I’ll wake up tomorrow in a different city.”
Dave sighed. “Okay, man, it’s cool, I understand. You still wanna hang out with me tomorrow, shoot some hoops?”
“Are you willing to still be seen with me in daylight?”
“Of course I am.”
I paused before answering sullenly, “Yeah, sure, I guess. Call me tomorrow.”
“Alright, man. Later.”
I stepped outside. The cool night air greeted me as I walked down the steps. I’d almost reached the sidewalk before I heard: “Hey, are you leaving?”
I turned around and saw Megan sitting on the porch, wearing a T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. She was leaning back on a plastic patio chair and drinking a bottle of water. She had her legs propped up on the railing that enclosed the porch, with white sandals dangling from her feet and her black hair wet and brushed back.
“Uh, yeah, I’m leaving,” I answered lightly.
“Are your parents picking you up?”
“No.”
“I’ll walk you home then.”
“No, Megan,” I groaned, “I live a few houses up. You know that.”
She squinted at me. Then, she reached onto the picnic table and grabbed a small oblong case. She opened it, removed a pair of thin, wire-rimmed glasses, and put them on. When she saw me in focus, she said, “Oh, sorry about that. I took my contacts out. Can’t see a thing without them or my glasses.”
“It’s okay.”
We remained silent for a few moments, Megan examining me with a rarely exhibited softness on her face. She stood up. “I’ll walk you home anyway. I could go for getting away from this place for a bit. Do you mind?”
“Uh, no, I don’t mind.”
She stood up and walked to me. As we slowly made our way up the street, she said, “Sucks how those girls treated you during the game.”
“Yeah, well…” I put my hands up, giving the universal “What can you do?” gesture.
“Have they always been like that?”
“Stuck up and superior? I think they were born that way.”
“Unfortunately, I hate to tell you this, but things won’t get any better. Those girls will only worsen with age.”
“Great,” I said with tired sarcasm.
“Your only saving grace is that you’re going to De Sales in the fall and it’s an all-boys school and no one there is gonna care about tonight,” she consoled.
“Thank God. I just want tonight to fade away from everyone’s memory, even if it doesn’t fade from mine.”
“Nowhere near what you expected, I bet?” I stared at the ground sheepishly with my hands stuffed in my pockets. “You expected to get your first kiss tonight, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know, maybe I did.”
“Well, yes or no? Did you or didn’t you?”
“Okay, yes, I did,” I admitted, looking at her. “Tonight, had the bottle landed correctly and had I not been subject to the handshake stipulation, I would’ve had my first kiss on the lips with a girl. And that would’ve been cool and all, but it’s not how I ever expected my first kiss to come.”
“How did you expect it to come?”
We stopped in front of my house. “This’ll sound stupid,” I explained, “but I always thought about it being after a first date, in private, and with a little more passion than what you’d get in your average game of Spin the Bottle. I’ve always heard that first kisses are supposed to be special and I’d always hoped that mine would be that way too.”
“Fancy yourself a romantic, huh?” she said.
“Kinda. It’s stupid, I know. If I’m lucky, I’ll have dozens of kisses to share with girls in my future, so why waste brain cells remembering one in particular, right?”
“I guess…”
Then a moment of silence intruded. “Well, I better get inside,” I said as I motioned toward my house. “Thanks for walking me home.”
“No problem.” As I started walking up the front steps, Megan blurted out: “Hey, wait a minute!” I turned around and looked at her. “Come here,” she beckoned.
I stepped down and stood with her on the sidewalk again.
“What is it?” I asked.
She stared at me for a few seconds and then quickly took hold of me. She pulled my head toward hers. Her eyes closed, as did mine. I felt her lips press against my lips, at first softly but then with unexpected intensity. Gently, I put my arms around her. She placed one hand on the side of my face and another around the small of my back. I inhaled and exhaled through my nose as best I could. She shifted a few steps closer to me. My left hand slowly crept up her back and into her damp hair. The passion of our lock forced time to slow down to a crawl.
Then, inevitably, we parted. My eyes opened, now looking at the world through a dazed and confused glaze of wonderment. I focused on her smiling visage as she wiped at her bottom lip with the index finger on her left hand, an image that still ranks as one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
“Was that close to what you had imagined?” she whispered.
My lips went numb, my body paralyzed. I had no means with which to answer.
“I’ll take that as a ‘Yes,’” she told me as she leaned in and kissed my cheek. “The first one completely blows your mind. That’s why you always remember it.”
Then, she turned around and sauntered back home.
An image of me running up to her and planting another kiss on her lips played out in my mind as a possible course of action and I desperately attempted to force my body into some type of motion. However, I remained like a statue as I watched her return to her house without looking back at me.
After another minute, I finally gathered myself and entered my house. I felt energized and ecstatic from the kiss, the phantom sensation of her lips on mine still sending shivers up and down my spine. Even though I knew there could be no feasible romantic future between us—a realization that left me slightly crestfallen after such a spiritually charging event (although that didn’t stop me from daydreaming about it)—her impromptu act of amorous good will lit a long-lasting beacon of hope in my ego. Maybe it wasn’t such a far-fetched notion for someone like me to have a love life.
I never told Dave about the kiss and I’m guessing Megan didn’t either because he’s never said anything about it to me. That kiss has remained a secret between her and I, and whenever we see each other, we exchange knowing smiles.
Since that night, I’ve shared first kisses with a few other female acquaintances, but I still reserve a special place in my history for Megan because, after all, you never forget your first one.
(c)2009, Christopher Tait
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