Last First Kiss

There is nothing like your first kiss. I can easily remember mine. I can close my eyes and remember it like it was yesterday.

I was all of thirteen years old. Maybe that’s young for a first kiss, maybe that’s old, I’m not sure. The boy I liked, Clay, was fifteen. The crush I had on him was immediate the moment I laid eyes on him the summer he moved into the neighborhood. He had sandy brown hair that had just enough blond in it to catch sunlight and brown eyes so deep they were almost black. He seemed so much older than fifteen because of the bit of stubble he had on his chin and upper lip. I have no idea if he was able to shave it so he always had that shadow, or if his facial hair just grew that slowly. What I did know is that I wanted to touch that hair on his face to see if it felt soft or stubbly. Clay fell into our neighborhood friends group pretty easily, and I was lucky enough to be the only girl in the crowd who was smitten with him. Those girls were so foolish to not see how good looking he was. The whole group of us spent that summer riding our bikes everywhere – to the park, to the baseball fields, to the ice cream shop, to fast food restaurants. I made sure I was always near Clay. It was one way I flirted with him. He was the first boy I ever had these kinds of feelings for, so I wasn’t sure how to flirt, but I assumed being near him was the first step. I would smile a lot, laugh at his jokes, dip my chin so I could look up at him through my bangs. It seemed to work because I sensed Clay was flirting with me, too. He would smile at me a lot, too, and he would always sit by me when we went somewhere. Sometimes he would even touch me, like tap me on the shoulder to get my attention or put his hand on my back when we would walk into a building. And he seemed to say my name a lot, and something about the way it sounded coming out of his mouth made me melt. Serena, do you want chocolate or vanilla ice cream? What time is your curfew, Serena? Do you want to ride with me to the ball park, Serena? We even talked on the phone when we weren’t hanging out with all our friends. Most nights, after we all got home not long after dark, Clay and I would end up on the phone until late. It was exhilarating for me to be with him all day and night, whether in person or on the phone. Sometimes just thinking of him made me ache.

On one of those warm summer evenings in August about two weeks before school was going to start, Clay and I were riding our bikes back from getting ice cream with the group. Everyone else decided to go hang out at the park, but I needed to go home so Clay said he would ride with me. This was the first time it had ever been just the two of us all alone. My stomach was doing flip flops the whole time. I don’t know why I was so nervous all of the sudden, just because we were alone. I chattered nervously as we rode our bikes leisurely toward home. We had to stop at a corner for a couple of cars to go through the intersection, and that’s when it happened.

Clay and I were next to each other, both of us standing over our bikes while waiting for the traffic to pass. Clay had said something that made me laugh, I can’t recall what it was, and I looked over at him while I was laughing and that’s when he leaned over and kissed me. I instinctively closed my eyes just a moment before his lips touched mine. And oh, they were so soft! Like velvet. And I just kissed him back. I can remember always being so nervous about the first time I would be kissed that I wouldn’t know how to do it. What if I was slobbery, or the boy was slobbery? What if I had bad breath or he had bad breath? Should I open my mouth or keep it closed? What about breathing? How do I breathe? Would we bump noses, or should I turn my head, and which way should I turn it? I worried about all the logistics of a first kiss, never the feelings. Funny thing is, when Clay leaned in for that kiss, I didn’t have to think about any of the mechanics. I didn’t think about what to do with my mouth – it just naturally met his. I didn’t care about slobber or breath. I didn’t worry about which way to tilt my head. I didn’t even think about if I needed to open my mouth or take a breath. It’s like my lips just followed his as if it was the most natural thing ever. And yes, all the cliches were there. It felt like time stood still during that kiss. It felt like the rest of the world went away, like there weren’t cars driving on the street or dogs barking in backyards or locusts chirping. It was just Clay and me, standing over our bikes, with our hands on the handlebars, our lips connected in a kiss that couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds but felt like an eternity. And in those five seconds, I swear, there was a charge of electricity that ran straight from my lips down into my stomach and through the rest of my body. I felt like one huge ball of raw energy. It was the most thrilling thing I had ever felt in my life. If I had not felt alive before that moment, I did for sure after that kiss. Now I understood why fairy tales always had a sleeping princess awakened by a kiss from a handsome prince. 

But then a funny thing happened. Clay stopped kissing me and drew his face back to look at me. I looked at him and there was this awkwardness all of a sudden. I didn’t know what to say. Should I thank him? Was I supposed to compliment him? Should I just start talking about something else, pretend like my knees weren’t absolute jelly and I was melting into a puddle? Clay looked like he didn’t know what to do or say, either. We just kind of stood there, his face close to mine, looking at each other maybe with wonder or curiosity or anticipation, I’m not sure what the look was. Finally, I said, “We can cross now,” and we proceeded to hop up on our bikes and pedal home. We didn’t say a word for the rest of the ride. I worried that maybe he didn’t like kissing me. Maybe I was bad at it. I started to worry about slobber and bad breath again. I tried to tell myself that it was okay if Clay never kissed me again, that I would treasure this one kiss forever, but I knew that was a lie. I wanted him to kiss me again. And again. And again. Which brought up another worry for me as we approached my house – what should I say or do when we got to my driveway? Should I just say bye like normal? Would he want to kiss me again? Or should it be my turn to kiss him? My head was swimming at how exciting and confusing one short kiss could be! 

If Clay had any of the same worries, it didn’t show on his face, and he didn’t act like he was nervous, either. And when we stopped at the end of my driveway and hopped off our bikes, Clay stepped over to me and bent to kiss me again, and this one was even more electric because we didn’t have our bikes in the way. This time he put his arms around me and pulled me tight against him and his lips pressed even harder on mine. I reached my arms around him, too, partially because it felt weird to just have my arms at my side, partially because I wanted to feel him in my arms, and partially because I was feeling so lightheaded I thought I might float away in the darkness and I didn’t want that to happen! This kiss lasted a little longer, maybe more like 15 or 20 seconds, and when Clay stopped, he grinned down at me and said, “I think I kinda like kissing you.” I swear, I was struck by lightning in that moment, and I smiled and said, “I like it, too.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The memory of that first kiss floods my heart and my mind as I sit next to Clay, holding his hand in mine, looking at his lined face, listening for a hint of his shallow breath as I know he is drawing his last. It’s going to be any time now. I’ve spent 74 years with this man, 64 of them as his wife. And I still remember that first kiss – I remember it in my mind and my body. Not letting go of Clay’s hand, I stand up, using the hospital bed rail to pull myself up with my other hand, so I can look fully at my dear husband. With the feelings from the memory of our first kiss flooding me, I bend down and kiss his soft lips one last time. I let my own lips linger on his, hoping maybe he can feel them and take the sweetness of our last kiss with him to his next destination until we meet again.