“You know what I hate about kissing?” She made meaningful eye contact with me and my 16 year old self groaned internally. Fuck we’re really going to try this shit?
“Can you believe all the fucking lights you can see from up here?” I questioned lamely. When it’s after dark and you’re a teenager the options are limited. That’s how the three of us ended up parked at the look out as I’m sure will always be for teenage girls, their best friends and their boyfriends.
She went on anyway, not even a flicker of hesitation in her voice. “too much drool. All the slobbering is such a turn off.” I was trying to keep an eye on the boyfriend while she spoke to see if he could see through the half-baked ploy we had come up with to clue him in on his little problem. He didn’t appear to be any wiser but he kept most of his real shit way under the surface and walked around in a bullshit suit of armor few could (wanted to?) penetrate. She went on, “The thing is. You can’t tell if you’re a great kisser yourself. And nobody is going to tell you that’s kissing you. Not honestly.”
I wondered if the issue was solved as simple as that. If it really was just a matter of him having no idea. Wondered if it had absolutely anything to do with technique or if it was that other thing. Wondered how anyone could not realize the ocean was falling out of their mouth unless they‘re not kissing another person but just hanging their mouth open and pressing it into any available surface. I spoke up, “The REAL thing is that even if they DO tell you you’re a great kisser that just means you’re great at kissing them. That doesn’t mean everyone is going to appreciate the way you kiss. And I might like to be kissed one way by one person and another by some other person. It might not have anything to do with how someone kisses. It might just matter who is kissing you.”
“Yeah. But you never want a bucket of saliva on your face.” she accurately pointed out sending me into hysterics. “and a great kisser can kiss anyone and it may be different but it’s always great. I like that one thing with the tongue, you know what I mean?” She attempted to demonstrate solo.
The boyfriend was using one of those squeeze hand strengtheners and suddenly dropped it into the console and turned toward us. Smoke from our cigarettes hung in the air and we stared at him… waiting. “so show me.”
“Show you how? Kiss you right now?”
“Do you care?” he asked laughingly.
“No. By all means…” Do I care? I should probably care. Who am I jealous of? Is it her? Or him? Or is it that I’m not jealous of anything except their ability to do what they’re doing? They look pretty good kissing. They look like they should be kissing. It’s weird that they’re somehow mine and yet I’m the one who doesn’t belong here in this car; their apathetic connective tissue. I can’t even manage apathetic. I love them both but not enough.
“See, that was great.” she told him. “Here I’ll show you.” she said and she was kissing me. The air was charged with what might happen the way it always was when we fucked around like this and it made it easier to forget what wasn’t happening. Somehow my feeling trapped, my drowning in him had opened a window and let some air in for him. He was less mine than I was his and it was only because I didn’t know any other way to be. They tasted like samples in a petri dish. It would take a long time to get the tests back and see it was toxic.
They tasted like ‘there’s no going back now’ and ‘it's too late for what I want anyway.’
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