My First Kiss
I don’t know if it was the worst kiss so much as my expectations had been raised to dizzying heights by Sunday soap operas. Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest. Go on; say you didn’t watch . . . we all know that there was nothing else to watch at the time!
Having powered through “The Nation”, after an afternoon of football and the “Baker Show” (religious fraudsters), we deserved a treat. I have an excuse though, for watching so much Sunday TV. We lived in Kamativi (Matabeleland North) and while it was a bustling metropolis of sporting and drinking activity for much of the week, on Sundays everyone collapsed on their own sofas to snore and fart and hopefully wake refreshed on Monday for the next round of work and play.
Anyway I digress, back to kissing.
The first kiss was the worst for a few reasons. The hard chin thrust into my tender, spotty cheek. The grinding motion, like a pressed-on, Stevie Wonder mime, which was actually quite a good impression of Dynasty’s steamier moments. The sodden sucking mess he left as he pulled away to grab some air. The smell – his mouth closed not only over mine, but also over my nose!
At school the following Monday, long socks slipping and mascara tracks under my eyes, having brushed all memories of the weekend out of my life (and mouth with “Close-up” toothpaste), I was left with the ravaged landscape of my lower face. A severe ac-attack, redness, puffiness, prickle spots of deeper red – he had the beginnings of a beard, bless his socks. All the exciting details hashed and re-hashed for friends as I joined the queue at the school call box, twenty cent coins clutched in my sweaty palms, to put a call through to Plumtree …
THE worst kiss ever, maybe, but still the first kiss, and I can remember his name even now.