The Kiss

A Story by Rueger

My first lesbian kiss

The Kiss

The Drive
We drove along in her convertible. Top down, the October wind running through my body. Skin white, nails purple, I was shaking but not from the cold. I was shaking because I knew Mark would be jealous, because I didn’t care how Mark felt at all. I was shaking because this older woman, out, butch, was driving me anywhere through the back roads of Indiana and telling me about her first time. And I felt so close to that proverbial closet door, I could smell the pine fresh oil on my skin.
I was sitting on my hands to keep them warm, to keep her from noticing. And all I could do was just smile and nod whenever she looked at me. She drove me to her apartment where she showed me her movie collection. I sat on her computer chair, and rocked back and forth. She showed me a video she made for a class, and I watched her instead. She laughed to herself, shaking her head as the video played, then looked up at me. I smiled and swiveled. She told me she needed to take me home; she had to go to work.

In The Morning
I woke up early the next morning. The sun sheeting my bed. Cija had her arm draped over my waist, hand holding my stomach. As I shifted onto my back, she shifted with me in her sleep. I studied her bleached hair, dark eye lashes, the earrings lining her right ear. I watched her hand slowly wander its way up my torso and onto my breast, her thumb resting on my n****e. It gave me a chill to feel the connection of her skin to my sensitive areola. I placed my hand on her arm, holding her there. I closed my eyes, trying to take in this day that had just begun, the night that had already happened. The wheels of life set in motion by a simple gesture, and I knew it had changed, something had changed, but the warm, blinding light kept me numb to the consequences.

The Phone Call
After Cija left that morning, I buzzed from living room to bedroom to kitchen. I poured myself a bowl of cereal. I felt weak, I felt shaky, I thought Okay, I need some food. I put down the bowl and walked back to my bedroom. I sat on the bed, it was still warm. I flopped on my back and laughed out loud. God, I’m glad my roommate isn’t here, I thought, then laughed again. I went back to the kitchen, where my cereal was on its way to mushy. I had a few bites but it tasted like wax. I got up, went into the living room and picked up the phone.

In My Driveway
She asked if I was okay, as she cut the engine of her car. The dark of night swallowed everything but her. I nodded, looking at the dirt and grass collected at my feet. I didn’t know how to ask the question that sat in front of me like a brick wall. It kept me sleepless, it kept me from Mark, it bore a hole through my love for him. So I tried to play suave, shrugging a lot,
“Hey, it’s cool.” She looked at me, harder this time, and so I sighed a dramatic sigh.
“I guess I’ll never find a woman to kiss me.”
How contrived. I winced slightly as the words took sound. I thought to myself, she’s got to see through this, there’s no way she’ll fall for…
“I’ll kiss you.”

Mark
How can I explain what it’s like to look into the eyes of my lover and know he isn’t it. What makes me stay with a man even when his touch feels like codependency and his coos an inner child. I’m not your mother. Take it up with someone else, I want to say, but I don’t because he’s really turned on. What does it mean that my longest relationship is with a man who doesn’t demand sex, but bubbles over in a babble of joy when I don’t thwart off his advances. How sickening, I think, but only right then, caught up in the moment of him snuggled up like a birthing baby between my thighs, and the only way I can get off is to think about my brother’s Playboy.
I stay with him because it’s all I know, because he can get me off eventually. I stay with him because a woman has yet to ask, because my mother loves him, because I didn’t think I could last this long. A friend from school said you learn something new every day, something interesting every week. So what do you learn after a year? I’ll learn that a woman can tell me I’m beautiful, and I’ll sleep with her even as my boyfriend is saving up for the ring.

Cija
Cija is everything my mother worried about for her daughter. Tough, her calves are as thick as my thighs. I’ve seen her out-bench men bigger than herself. Butch, she drives a convertible, wears a tie, and I want her to take me right here in the passenger seat of her car by the rows of corn and the dark, cool air. I want her to heat me up, light me bright. I want her in boxers, boots and bra. I want her to give me her hands and use them all over me. I wonder if this is what Mark feels when I let him in my pants. All I know is she can hurt me and I can’t wait.

The Kiss
I led Cija back to my bedroom, lights on, mattress on the floor, towel down as a rug, and she just walked up to me, pressed her lips to mine and I kissed my first woman. It was almost too easy. After six years of denials, questions, and self-torture, here it was before me, presented with no challenge other than the nerve to ask. And I thought to myself, how is this different from men? When is the hand of God going to strike? Why doesn’t this feel taboo, why and I not scared, worried? Why does it feel the same?

In My Bedroom
This is what I thought about so many nights before, that I wanted to talk about, but wouldn’t let myself say, that I wrote about in poems, in the dark, in my journals that never made it to class. And here it was before me. No coming-out ball, no fireworks, just a car ride, a question, and her. And my bedroom, and her hands touching my breasts, her forehead on my shoulder, her need booming out, shouting out, obscuring even my curiosity. And so we kissed. I explored her mouth, afraid to explore her body. Her hands on my breasts, on my back, on my cheeks, her moans, her sighs. How could I refuse this? I kept my eyes closed, lifted up my hand and placed it under her shirt. She moaned and I went up higher. She pushed out her chest and I went up farther, taking her breast up in my palm. She didn't stop me, she pushed harder into my hand. I stopped kissing, taken aback by her breast, my hand, my bedroom, this day, this impossible dream that now seems so easy.

In My Head
Yes, of course, all I have to do is ask.
Yes, of course, the kiss is a kiss, not a drug.
And her breast, of course she wants me to hold her.
Of course, it feels as I feel with her hand on my body.
And so I get bold.
“Do you want a backrub?”
Yes, of course, this is easy.
Of course, it doesn't feel strange.

My Mother
Older lesbians don’t believe me when I tell them I came out this way. “A flaming blaze of glory,” that’s what somebody said. I thought it took forever. My mother answered on the fourth ring, and I was relieved because I didn’t know how to leave that kind of message on a machine. I asked her how she was doing- good. What she was doing- yard work.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Sure honey, what’s on your mind?”
“Mom, I slept with a woman last night.”
“What about Mark?”
“I haven’t told him.”
“When are you going to?”
“Later, when I see him this afternoon.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I guess. I’m just really confused. I don’t know.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you first.”
“You know you have to tell him, Honey.”
“I know, I know. It’s not that. It’s just that… it’s just…”
“Was it good?”

That Afternoon
In his dorm room, Mark sat across from me on his bed.
He pulled at the fuzzballs on his blanket, dropping them to his side.
“We need to talk.”
He picked another fuzzball.
He squinted at me as if I was too bright to look at.
“Why didn’t you call last night?”
“I was hanging out with Cija.”
He picked another fuzzball and looked down.
“Mark, I kissed her.”
He stopped.
His face went pale and he wasn’t breathing.
“I know this really hurts you, but we need to talk.”
He starred at me, his green eyes large as cue balls.
“Mark, we need to talk about this.”
“Is that all?”
I held my breath.
“Is that all! Is that all that happened?”
His face turned red and I felt my heart drop into my stomach.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I slept with her.”
He jumped back as the words slapped him. He began gasping for air, looking around like someone caught in a vacuum. He was hyperventilating, turning from red to white, to death white. I told him to relax, and he held up his hands like he was blind.
“Mark, calm down, you’re going to pass out,” I cried, and then he cried. The sobs came heavy, forced, coughed out.

What I Regret
I regret that I threw up on his floor, that he helped me clean it up. I regret that after three hours suffocating silence, we both cried in each other’s arms. I regret that he was so protective of me, despite what I had done. I regret that my body betrayed me, that I felt so safe sitting with his arms wrapped around me, that I knew this shouldn't happen. I hurt him to his core. And he didn’t deserve that.

The Truth About The Kiss
Cija leaned in, pressed her body to mine, her lips were slightly parted when they touched. I kissed her. I felt her soft cheeks press into mine. Her hands came up around my back, holding me to her. I kissed her, I can’t remember where my hands were. She held me, we kissed slowly, taking our time. She moaned and placed her head on my chest, her hands on my stomach, she looked as if she was going to cry.
“You don’t know how much I wanted this.” Her dark voice washed over me.
I placed my arms on her back timidly. I felt like soothing her, but she looked up at me with a fierce spark in her eyes, and we kissed again. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. I kept kissing, thinking she would break it off, give me a lead, something, anything.
She touched my breasts, and I thought to myself- Huh, so this is how lesbians kiss. But I didn’t know how to touch her back.
I smelled her cologne, I felt the softness of her cheeks, her hands on my body. I kissed her, and then I touched her.