Sitting at the bar of Il Fornaio waiting for a double Americano, my date suddenly leans over and kisses me softly. I whisper "I like that very much," my lips just inches from hers, "don't stop."
I have always enjoyed kissing with one exception, the Grandma kisses I got as a child. They were so wet and obligatory. In fact, if you watch the old Malraux family super 8 movies you will see these kisses and then me squeegeeing my face off after every one of them.
Not that I did not love my Grandma. I would have been crushed had she not kissed me, but geez, they were so wet and slimy.
*******
Do you remember you first romantic kiss?
Mine was, like most people I suspect, a complete disaster. I was 14, and a sweet babe named Sharon had a crush on me. We ended up in a tree fort in the semi-dark. I put my arm around her and began to shake. She asked why I was shaking, I said I was cold even though, of course, it was probably 80 degrees in that tree. I really didn't know why I was shaking, just that my body was making me look stupid.
I thought, "I had better kiss her fast before it gets worse and I have a seizure."
But I didn't know how. How do you kiss a girl?
Well I watched a lot of movies and noted that they always tilted their heads (so as to not bloody their noses I supposed) and that as they kissed their cheeks went sorta "hollow".
How do you do that? I figured you had to somehow inhale a bit while you kissed.
Well I did finally kiss her. And I sucked, literally. I sucked. I was not enjoying it as much as I thought I might and thought, "this sucks", when, in fact, It was only I who sucked.
For Sharon it must have been like putting her soft lips to the live end of a shop-vac.
********
Two years later I got to kiss another girl at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. We were running around the dunes and drinking cheap disgusting sangria and laughing when she fell into my arms laughing and we were suddenly all over each other kissing.
This was a lot more fun for a bit until the sand became invasive. The "mouthing and the tonguing" as William Everson would say, became rather raw and crunchy.
And I was still a lousy kisser. How do I know? She broke up with me the next day.
I never blamed her.
*******
Later I learned, or was "schooled" in kissing by a young beauty queen who had an amazing mouth and no inhibitions at all. Better, she understood the drama of kissing and how to tease with the tongue. How did she get so good?
I have a theory. She was some kinda "Christian" and as such was "saving herself" much to my chagrin (she placed third in the Miss California contest that year). But as a result, she had mastered almost every type of kissing and petting on the planet by the time she was 20. So where some people at that age rush right to banging away, this girl could kiss and touch for hours.
Sheer delirium. Like a three hour orgasm...really.
And ever since then I have noted that there are many women who have no idea how to kiss. They immediately jam their stiff tongues down your throat until they are massaging your adams apple from the backside.
It's not very sexy or romantic.
I think it's because that is what they got from men early on. No drama, no nuance, no teasing, no softness that grows slowly in intensity. Just the quick bang.
Of the multitudes of women I have dated I have only met maybe seven that really knew how to kiss. Okay, nine. The other 47 sucked almost as bad as I did back at Ocean Beach, only sans the sand.
*******
There are so many other kisses though that are just as significant as the passionate kiss. The light kisses to your lover's temples when they are troubled, the breathy plush kisses on her eyebrows after lovemaking, and the short kisses to the nape of her neck as she does the dishes.
I am also thinking about other types of kissing and how healing it can be.
My youngest son Ian does it just right and at the right times.
A nervous habit causes me to pick my thumbs until I hit a major vein. Then I notice. It is usually stress induced like when my editor is working me harder than a one-lipped woman in a kissing booth. Once Ian, when he was three. noticed this and asked, "You have a-a-owie?"
"Yes," I said, hoping he would not ask why I indulge in self-mutilation.
The little boy took my thumb and gently kissed it.
"Make-a-feel-beddor," he said with big kind eyes. And it's true, it did feel better to be touched by the little lips of such innocent love.
We hear musicians and read poets who tell us that love is the most powerful force on Earth, and that it will prevail over greed, politics, prestige and even marriage.
That day, for a moment, I saw what they meant. No amount of money, power or prestige can buy or obtain the grace and healing that comes from the kiss of a child who wants you to "feel beddor".
Like love, it's just a gift.
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