It may be of interest that my first kiss was not sweet and innocent by any definition. It was hands at my side and tongues in each other’s mouths. It was the first taste of waxy lipstick. We scammed in front of a crowd who received some cheap adolescent thrill from watching others. I did not approve of it and so we kept to ourselves from then on. Her in my lap. A back corner of the school. Her mother’s back porch. Every moment was exhilirating, both for its taboo nature (“no babies!”) and because of the feeling of physical closeness. Having come from a reserved and repressed people, it was all fresh learning.

I never kissed that girl in an affectionate way. It was all aggression and expectation of what was to be done. We had several outings (we didn’t “date” where I come from) and my first time coming inside a girl’s mouth. It felt explosive. It was a mild feeling of nausea inside me. She held the semen and ran away. I heard the toilet whoosh inside the house. When she returned, I’d pulled my pants up and lied back on the lawn chair. She lied with me. I asked if she was alright. She looked alright. She wore striped thigh highs that’ve been etched into my psyche for eternity. They were black and white, came up a few inches short of her crotch. I became intensely focused on sex with her after that, but it never came to be. I didn’t talk much. She took it as a sign that she’d been used. It’s possible she was.

I never forget the first of anything. Who does?

Several weeks of this is all we had. It’s interesting that it seemed like months. When she broke it off, I felt nothing and moved on. This means I felt something and forced it somewhere hidden in my mind. I made out with a few other girls that summer until I got chided and slapped, after which I couldn’t be bothered with girls for a long while. It was the beginning of a repeating pattern. They wanted something more than I had. Effort, probably. They wanted to know there was caring, especially these girls raised by powerless men who found control in their mistreatment of their wives and daughters. When they even had a father to mistreat them

I hated those men. I blamed them for problems inside me.

I think about that when I go back to the turn between child and adult. I was decent enough, but sometimes circumstances just don’t lead a person to do decent things. Sometimes there’s just a beautiful girl and expectation. There’s no choice but to say the right thing and kiss her.