My First Kiss

My first Real Kiss was in 10th grade. I was the president of The Drama Club. He was attending a Virginia High School Theatre Conference, which was being held at our school.

The first time I saw him, he was outside the Special Ed classroom waiting for a workshop on God-knows-what topic. Probably stage combat. He was wearing a sage green t-shirt with a huge photo of Kermit the Frog's face on the front. I thought that was pretty cool. I loved frogs. Especially singing ones.

After a few moments of spastic conversation about the few tendrils of hair that I had dyed bright colors and clipped with many plastic baby doll clips, I learned that he was not only an actor, but also a surfer from Virginia Beach. Truthfully, I don’t know if he was really a surfer, but all I needed to hear was “beach” and I was off in a distant, sunny land of spontaneous beach bonfires with guitar playing surfers. Beach boys were the coolest—even cooler than skater kids.

He had red chin-length hair. I was saving my first kiss for a boy with long hair. For a year and a half, I was hoping it would be with that one kid at my school who looked like Kurt Cobain. I had even got his number from the school pot dealer and randomly cold called him to tell him (and I quote) “You are intriguing to me.” But we had developed nothing more than a friendship and at 15 years old, I had never kissed a boy. I mean Really Kissed a boy.

It’s funny how time goes when you’re in high school. When I think back to this conference, it feels like it was at least a week long. But in all reality, it was 2 days – Friday and Saturday. But by the 3rd day (Friday night) we were buddies. He and his friends had me laughing my teen angst away. They knew all the best Star Wars quotes! And I don’t even get me started with they’re knowledge of comic books! Of course, I didn’t know anything about Star Wars and comic books, but boys who liked these things were cool in my book.

And by the end of the week (Saturday) we were joined at the hip. I signed up for all of the workshops he was in and he saved me a seat at the special presentation of “Stage Door.” When we walked outside to watch the Hacky-Sackers in action, he put his hand on the small of my back! I had never had a boy put his hand on the small of my back! It sent shivers up my spine.

By that Saturday night—the night of the conference social dance in the school cafeteria—I was pooped and running only on adrenaline and Sam’s Choice Cola. I had spent the previous night laying in bed, awake and thinking about my new friend, gazing at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling and listening to The Sundays. But that wasn’t going to stop me from enjoying the night. I was going to stay up, have fun and have that long haired surfer boy in the novelty tees put his hand on the small of my back again! The night was coming to a close and the DJ put on a few slow songs for the various couples that had paired off during the week (two days). He asked me to dance.

We danced. And we danced and we danced. For the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to have a boy put his arms around my waist. It was so magical; in his arms I started to drift past the warm sun to a quiet place in the depths of the universe. And when I woke up, his tongue was in my mouth, which startled me and I pulled away confused.

That’s right. I had fallen asleep during my first Real Kiss. I was so tired and worn down from being a girlfriend that I had fallen asleep standing up, in his arms, kissing him. By the time I realized what had happened, the glaring fluorescent lights of the school cafeteria came on, signaling that the evening (and my relationship with my carrot topped surfer boy) was over.