It’s now been over a year since I’ve kissed anyone. The last time was in front of the Union Square subway station where I made my tongue let it be known that I wanted to go.
The hint wasn’t taken, and was thought to be a form of encouragement.
So said Michael.
I made a point to never speak with him again.
I wonder how kisses are learned things, how my first was a faulty quake in the deep woods behind the high school. The future notions of kissing, in parks, in parking lots, in anyplace that was a place. How I’ve been told, “you’re a good kisser” and wondered what fool they’ve been kissing before.
And I’ve kissed my share of fools, thinking they were just frogs.
For instance: I remember being picked up by a guy in Chicago, after a night full of half-assed dancing and full-assed drinking like I was constipated. We went back to his place, right around the corner from the bar, which made me realize he was there every night, and every night was the same only different.
He played me vinyl version of The Sea and Cake and I thought that was cool. I was only 20 at the time, and thought that anybody who had good taste in music tasted good.
He did a sort-of dance along with what was playing, and I laughed. He jumped on me and stuck his tongue down my throat, and it tickled and I gagged.
He drug me down his hall to his bedroom where I proceeded to kiss him while he took off his pants. The kiss was the kind that was meant to be a placeholder, something to do while he did something else, and it ended up being the main event.
I kept kissing him as he came in his own hands, apologizing, before he passed out and I snuck out and went home to jerk off and go to sleep myself.
“Where’d you learn to kiss that way?” was the last thing he said to me.
And I still don’t know what that means.
