Kissing Instructions

The assignment:
In just a paragraph or so, describe a memorable moment from your childhood. For example: A birthday party / An awkward moment at school / A romantic moment during puberty

Write about this moment in the voice of yourself at that time. In other words, make it sound like something you would have written then, at the time. / Next, write about the same thing, this time using your adult voice.

-------------

Last night, Louise taught me how to French kiss. We were in the Fun House at the park. Louise told me that I need to open my mouth a little more. When I saw people in the movies kissing, I could never understand what they were doing when they kissed. They kept their lips together, and I didn’t know what else.

During the FFA (Future Farmers of America) Sweetheart dance, last winter, after one song, the DJ said, “OK, you can kiss her now.” I kissed Randi Jones and her lips touched my cheek and I kissed thin air. I didn’t know what she was doing. We didn’t try again and we didn’t say anything about it. Now I realize that she was giving me a French kiss. I’d only given regular kisses before.
So that was a French kiss…cool. Now that I know how to French kiss, I will be able to move my hands around, too.

-------------------

“Open your mouth a little more,” she said.
We were in the aptly named “Fun House.” It was a wooden barrel, tall enough for a person of five feet to stand without ducking. The idea was that person would step into the barrel and start to walk. The barrel turns and the person does an impersonation of a hamster. We were doing our best to ‘hide’ in there on a Saturday night. It wasn’t hard in a town of 800 people. Louise was teaching me how to French kiss.

One great mystery of sexual interaction had been solved that night. I had heard of French kissing during which the two participants put their tongues in each other’s mouths, but I never imagined it was any more than some kind of 3rd grade gross-out rumor. When people in movies would kiss, I could never understand what they were doing. Were they simply touching their lips and moving them around?

Randi Jones was the first girl to personally experience my innocence. At the FFA (Future Farmers of America) Sweetheart dance, we had been dancing as if there were a phone book between us, with my hands on her shoulders and hers on my hips. After "Love in the First Degree" by Alabama, the DJ said, “OK, you can kiss her now.” I moved forward to give her a peck and then see what happens. Randi's lips touched my cheek and chin; I kissed thin air. She was trying to swallow my head. We left it there—unsatisfied and confused. Neither of us said anything about it.

French Kissing-- A whole new world of action had suddenly been laid out in front of me for my enjoyment.