It had been arranged. His first real kiss was scheduled to take place on the second floor in the town recreation center at the appointed time. He had never been there before, which was almost as concerning as the fact that he didn’t care if he kissed her or not. She wasn’t Myrna, after all, the girl he could stare at for hours.
The rec center turned out to be awful, the kiss not so bad, not punishment anyway. The center was almost empty. The Catholic school kids got out a half hour before the public school kids, but they rarely went to the rec center.
The room was bare. He wondered about that. Why did a rec center have a room with just a couple of couches, a table and a lamp? It didn’t make sense. He didn’t think that kids standing and sitting around talking could bring the room to life. He could understand why there were no pool tables; they were risqué, associated in some tangential way with cigarettes and whiskey, but why not a ping pong table? Or at least a TV? Anything would have been better than an empty room. Although it appeared that way, it seemed absurd to think that adults might have intended that this room would be specifically reserved for making out. He wondered if she was as nervous as he was.
They wore uniforms, so the clothing might have been of no consequence, but she was one of the early developers and her breasts had begun to push against the fabric of her shirt, opening a little space between the buttons. At least her bra did. He noticed that. There was talk among the boys and, surprising to him, among the girls too, about which of them stuffed her bra. What puzzled him most was that the girls needed to discuss it. Didn’t they just know? There was no talk about Emily; hers were undoubtedly real. But still, it looked like it was the bra that pushed on the shirt, not what was in the bra. He wouldn’t try to confirm that. Kissing was almost too much to contemplate, never mind the vague rest of it, which he knew would be happening soon enough. Too soon, maybe.
For some reason it didn’t make much difference to him where Emily was concerned. He never imagined what was under her bra, at least not in the eager way he daydreamed about Sarah or Cheryl, but especially Myrna, the Puerto Rican girl who looked like more like a woman, who would not settle for him or any of the boys in the class, although she did make it seem possible; she smiled so sweetly. All the boys wanted Myrna and her smooth coffee ice cream skin. They weren’t sure what it was they wanted, but she surely had it. And she didn’t even speak English. He imagined that was an obstacle that could be overcome. He thought language wouldn’t matter where love was sincere.
When Emily got to the rec room, she was just as clueless as he was. He thought she really liked him, but in retrospect he figured that maybe she was in it for the same thing that he was--get that first kiss under the belt, over with, gone. She certainly didn’t seem to be in love with him, not the jelly way love turned him stupid about Myrna.
After their rendezvous he and Emily were briefly regarded as a couple, “going out” was the term, but it had no basis in reality. They certainly never went anywhere together and they barely even talked in class or in the halls. The awkwardness of their first kiss, planted with great concern, finally blossomed into an abundant harvest of nothing. They didn’t talk on the phone, they didn’t meet at recess, they didn’t go to dances or even sit near each other in class.
He didn’t get it at first, but eventually he understood that their relationship, such as it was, was simply a fiction manufactured by the girls in the class, something that they wanted to be true, a successful product, not of desire, but of his own lack of resistance. In that, at least, he hoped Emily was a conspirator but he realized that no matter what he thought, theirs was primarily a public event, a class drama, something that they would act out privately and then each confirm publicly. He was a badge for Emily. He didn’t mind much, but he wondered what was in it for him since Emily was not also the badge he wanted to wear. That would have been Myrna. He figured that it had to be the kiss, so he put his mind to it, if not his heart.
The trek up the stairs to the rec room was uneventful except that he felt like an intruder. He was in the territory of the public school kids. The Protestants. This was a godless place. A reason why Protestants advocated birth control and its matter of fact existence made the upcoming kiss seem even more sterile. There was no giving in or sneaking away, no delicious infraction or naughtiness. Their kiss would not be the least bit illicit. It was an appointment. It was going to be clinical, deliberate, and efficient.
The first thing they did was sit down on the cold leather couch. It crinkled and squeaked. It was bad enough that they squirmed, but this particular bit of squirming had a sound track. He remembered being happy that it wasn’t also hot.
As was the fashion, Emily’s skirt was short. Her bare legs were whiter than he remembered. He thought her face was interesting, not beautiful by any means, but not ugly either. It was roundish, kind of heart shaped. Her lips were plump. He didn’t care for them much but he knew that the girls regarded them as something special.
He wondered just exactly how to go about kissing her. If she’d had any experience, he knew he would look stupid if he pretended that he’d also had some. He decided to throw himself on her mercy at the outset, tell her that he had never done anything like this before and see how she reacted. It was a good strategy. She looked relieved. She said that she had never kissed anyone either, at least not in the way that they were intending to kiss, which was with their tongues. He had already confirmed that, asked her if that’s what she wanted to do.
French kissing. French kiss. He liked the sound of that. It didn’t quite rise to immorality, but it was close. There was something about the French, he knew, but he didn’t know what it was. There was a girl who had stayed with his older, married sister for a while during the previous summer. She was his age, French, she couldn’t speak a word of English but that didn’t stop her from getting her message across or him from understanding it. Her voice was like a love song, but not in a way that he could articulate. She was simply not like the girls he knew. By the time he had decided that he would try to kiss her, she was waving goodbye at the airport. Yes, indeed, a French kiss sounded like just the right thing even if it was going to be with Emily.
So they sat down beside each other and traded stories of their nervousness-- even nervous about that, they abruptly stopped talking. By then he hoped that she would have aroused some feeling in him, some urge to compel him to put his arm around her, but he felt nothing. His thoughts were clear though and he knew that she would expect his arm so he draped it over her shoulder and turned her face toward his. She acquiesced easily and he said something about it feeling like the right thing to do. He thought maybe she misunderstood; he worried that she might believe he had feelings for her. Rather than clarify he decided to let it drop and inched his lips closer to hers. He could see her freckles, feel the thickness of her hair as he put his hands on her head. Everyone in his family had very soft, very thin hair. Hers was luxurious, dark and curly. He wondered if she was German or what exactly.
He and his brother, very close in age, shared a room. Once, when they laid on their backs and hung their heads over the sides each on his own bed facing the other so that his hair hung down toward the ground and his upside down face turned the other into an alien, they stuck out and touched tongues across the small divide between the beds. It was an irresistible and thoroughly repugnant moment. Occasionally after that, one would say to the other, “Let’s touch tongues.” And they would almost always do it with thrilling repulsion until they outgrew it. It was fine practice. It had inured him to the potential of Emily’s tongue.
Emily, who lived nearby, had signed up for the room in advance and when she arrived she reported that hers was the only name in the book. They would be alone. They had plenty of time. Too much, really. Only a minute or two had passed when he leaned in toward Emily’s face, found her hair with his hands, noticed the fullness of her lips, the enormous size of her brown eyes looking back at him. Only a second or two followed before he kissed her, closed mouth, on the lips and then drew back, then suggested that they try it with their tongues, which they did and then a few seconds more while they did it again. The whiteness of her legs lit the room. He knew that she was doing whatever he wanted and he felt the great enormity of the thing flattening him. He was responsible for her pleasure and since he was feeling nothing and she was reflecting that entire nothing back at him, he felt a profound sense of disappointment. He thought they were done. She agreed. Was that all there was to it? Was that what everyone got so excited about? He hoped that they had done it wrong. He hoped that she would forgive him. He thought she looked as though she felt exactly like he did. She only said “Now we are ‘going out.’ ” He nodded solemnly.
Myrna left school mid-year. There were rumors that she had a much older boyfriend. Someone found out that she was 15. She had gotten pregnant and had to leave. Though he tried, he couldn’t imagine the conversation that must have taken place between the nuns and her parents. Perhaps no one said anything because all of them must have known what was what. How does a fifteen year old get pregnant? Maybe she didn’t have parents. He was disappointed and relieved, felt as though he had escaped an awful fate. After the initial whispering, none of the girls talked about it. It was not an event.
