ESSAYS
Lusty Little SlugsIOWA CITY, IOWA 04 February 2009 |
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I was still in elementary school the first time I felt another person’s tongue in my mouth. The owner of that tongue is now a successful actress but back then she was just another kid playing foursquare and trading her Cup O’Noodles for a Cran-Apple juice box.
We moved fast in those days. I was in fifth grade when I kissed her. We’ll call her Gloria. She invited me over after school. We had cookies and milk in the kitchen.
And then she took me to the pool house.
It was cool and damp. It smelled of chlorine and wet towels. We sat on the floor. Her brother was there in the shadows holding a digital watch.
Gloria told me that a few days before, she and Michael Wood had French kissed for thirteen seconds. She asked me if I wanted to try to do better. Her brother held his thumb on the start button like it was a detonator.
Sure, I said. If Michael Wood can go thirteen seconds, I can go longer. I can take him.
A few months before all of this my mom had come to tuck me in and say goodnight. When she leaned in to kiss me I surprised her by opening my mouth and closing my eyes. I was probably mimicking someone I’d seen on TV, Eric Estrada in Chips maybe, or Remington Steele. She gave me a curious look and began to speak. Then she stopped herself.
The look was enough: I still love you honey, but that’s not the way we’ll be playing it around here. It was a masterstroke of parenting. Only now can I imagine the damage she might have done.
Ready? Gloria’s brother asked.
We nodded. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, we faced each other. She leaned in. Our lips touched. I opened my mouth. She opened hers. I heard the Casio beep. And then I felt her soft, moist, slithery, tongue slide into my virgin mouth.
My first reaction was to retreat. But hers was a determined tongue and we were being timed. Besides, Michael Wood was going down. So I hung in there, our tongues twirling together like lusty little slugs.
Thirty seconds, her brother announced. And that was good enough for me. I backed away and looked at Gloria. I could taste her tongue-slime. She seemed happy. She seemed proud of herself. Of us. We looked at one another and smiled. My heart swelled. I thought I might vomit.
Then, out by the pool, I heard my father calling for me. He’d come to pick me up. My heart dropped. I was terrified. A feeling of shame overwhelmed me. What had I done?
So I ran for it. I burst out into the blinding daylight and intercepted him before he got any closer to lusty Gloria and her debauched brother.
Don’t you want to say good-bye?
I already did, come on let’s go.
In the car I was very quiet.
Did you have fun?
It was ok, I said.
The next day at school Gloria told all her friends.
Thirty seconds! We kissed for thirty seconds!
She was so happy to see me. She smiled so sweetly.
Are you my boyfriend? Are we going together?
Everyone was there. She wanted to know. Everyone wanted to know.
I told them she was lying. She made it all up. I don’t know what she’s talking about. She tried to kiss me but I wouldn’t let her.
And then Michael Wood nodded solemnly and said she’d tried the same thing with him.
Everyone thought she was a liar. Poor Gloria.
We didn’t have much to do with one another after that.
Eventually she moved away.
Many years later, after she became a star, I saw her at a party. At the time she was at the height of her career and engaged to People magazine’s sexiest man alive.
A mutual friend brought me over to say hello. Gloria was wearing a long black dress. She was very tall in very high heels. I was wearing a bad suit. She leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
That was so long ago, she said over my head, looking for somewhere else to go, looking across the room as if she were trying to find someone interesting to talk to, someone who wouldn’t betray her.
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