Kissing:

Almost a week late, but here are the kissing contest winners. Finally. Sorry it took me so long to post, but I’ve been busy doing a little kissing myself. I’m sure you understand.

I thought it was interesting that almost all of the entries could fall into five distinct categories: hot (read: lesbian), sweet, funny, childhood, or disasters. I’m not exactly sure why I received so many stories of awful terrible disastrous kisses when I asked for your best kisses, but they definitely made for some entertaining reading. Thanks to everyone who sent one in for sharing your secrets and shame and degradation and, you know, love or whatever. Also, to the girl who sent the one about making out with another girl up against a bathroom stall, I think you stole that from my diary. Call me!

THE WINNERS, in no particular order:

“Colleen Johnston: Spring of 1988

I was on a 7th grade field trip to Washington DC via train, which took a solid 20 hours. And the one thing 7th graders want more than anything is the lack of parental guidance. This gave way to spin the bottle at about 1:00am.

I wasn’t a great-looking kid by a long shot, but even awkward kids had to spin the bottle, and it was my turn. I took the Blow-Pop out of my mouth and spun the bottle. It pointed to Colleen, a red-blooded, honest-to-God, real-life cheerleader. She was hot property, and the only reason any of the guys were playing spin the bottle in the first place.

Even though she didn’t want to, Colleen leaned over to my lips, and gave me a French-kiss. I was a statue. I didn’t do a damn thing mechanically, and feared what she must think of me. Afterwards Colleen said, “Mmm… Fruity.” I was confused at first, but then I look down at my hand. I put the Blow-Pop back in my mouth, hoping she’s come back to fruit country. She didn’t.

Fifteen years later, it’s still the best kissing compliment I’ve ever received.” —Jay

“It was the summer of 1984 and I was 14 years old. My parents had dropped me off at the Santa Clara County Fair with Mark, my first real boyfriend. We had been “dating” for three weeks and hadn’t kissed yet. He was 16 and tall and tan and beautiful and quiet and already damaged by his life. I was rocking my new acid-washed denim skirt with a floral/striped pastel shirt and he looked dreamy in his white Miami Vice jacket, black t-shirt, white pants with the cuffs rolled up and Topsiders without socks.

Our usual, boring, junky fair was transformed into a slice of heaven because I was there with him. We saw the animals, wandered through the exhibitions and watched all the little kids riding the rides. The air smelled like funnel cakes, manure, corn on the cob and dirt – in the best way. I was shocked to see him blow his entire first paycheck from Taco Bell on me! He bought a blown-glass rocking horse, a stuffed unicorn, earrings and other trinkets. I felt so grown up and mature.

Part of me kept wondering if he’d kiss me, he was so beautiful – perfect lips, black hair, light blue eyes… but I wasn’t sure if he liked me that way. After a while, my feet got sore so we found a bench out of the way of the crowds. We sat there holding hands, watching the sun go down, watching tired parents round up their sticky kids, watching the old people shuffle over to the bingo hall. All the while, my mind was racing… should I make the first move? Did he just want to be friends? Did he already know that I loved him so very much?

He startled me when he asked me what I was thinking. After I recovered and found the nerve to look up at him, he was smiling at me in that amazing way that made my stomach hurt and my heart pound. I wasn’t sure what to do but in my head I was screaming “please oh please oh please oh please” … and he did.

God I loved him.” —Laura D.

“When I suggested she at least try the beef jerky before she turned up her nose at American “cuisine”, she laughed.

We stood in line at the Circle K, idly poking packages of corn nuts and pepperoni sticks.

“I can not believe you actually eat this.”

“Ok, let’s drop it.”

She raised an eyebrow and muttered something in French I couldn’t quite understand.

Later that night, we slow-danced to a fast song, and stole the cue-ball and the 8-ball from the pool table. Walking home from town to the employee living quarters took about half an hour, and we’d invented a game to pass the time.

“I’ll bet you a kiss goodnight that I can make it home in less throws than you,” I told her.

“This is the fat’s chance.”

“Ummm…it’s ‘fat chance’, not ‘the fat’s chance’.”

“Whatever. You understand me, yes?”

“I do.”

“Then shut up and throw.”

She beat me easily. Somehow I lost the cue ball in a ditch, but she always managed to find the 8-ball no matter how far it bounced into the woods.

We stood in front of her room. I had my hands in my pockets, and she had her hand on the doorknob.

“So, you’re leaving tomorrow?”

“Yes. First New York, then back to Marseille.”

“It’s too bad I didn’t win.”

“Yes.”

We hugged each other good night, and told each other we’d write. I retreated to my room.

It was her breathing that woke me up. I opened my eyes, and saw her standing in my doorway with the light from the hallway behind her. She shut the door. Slowly, she leaned over my bed.

“Hello,” I said.

“No, not hello. I came to say goodbye.”

She kissed me briefly, then again forever. She stretched out next to me, and put her head on my chest.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I told her.

“I know.”

She got up quietly, and left without saying anything else. I wiped her tears
off of my face.” —AMA

“I was 15 and so was she. We sat next to eachother in choir and sang in madrigals together, two little alto girlgeeks; when we sang together, no one could tell our voices apart. She had curly strawcolored hair and a hint of her mother’s incomprehensible Scottish brogue. I was in love. I had a boyfriend. So did she.

I slept over her house three, four, five nights a week in the summer. Her mother had 9 kids (nine! kids!), and she was one of the last four remaining in the house; no one really watched what was going on, and I don’t think they even noticed I wasn’t one of their own. On the fourth of July we stole a bottle of her mother’s merlot and watched the fireworks on a playground behind our old elementary school. I broke the cork on the bottle, so we pushed it in, instead of pulling it out. She kissed me between chewing on cork bits, and promised to never speak to me again if I ever told anyone.” —bellis

“The Best Kiss I Ever Received*
a true story
by Joshua Norton II, Emperor or the United States
& Protector of Mexico

The best kiss I ever received was from a stripper named Jane Doe. And by that I don’t actually mean to say the BEST kiss, because really the best kisses most of us receive are from the people we really love—and those are the good “coming home” type kisses that make all the “that time I had hot sex in the ladies’ room at Gethsemane Lutheran Church” kisses in the world seem like sitting home alone playing Nintendo on a Saturday night—comparatively speaking. So what I’m really talking about here is the most interesting kiss I ever received. And that’s Jane Doe all the way.

Jane Doe was this girl who had a major crush on a good friend of mine, John Galt. And John was kind of a Jane Doe fan in his way, but John had a girlfriend whom he had no intention of cheating on. So one day John and I were sitting around talking at a party and Jane walked up and, out of the blue, sat down in my lap. Which was strange, since she’d never said two words to me before. But she sat down in my lap and asked did I want to go to Vancouver with her that weekend because she was headed up there to watch her friends do their sketch comedy mojo in the Vancouver Comedy Festival. But since I’m not a complete idiot it was pretty obvious that she was just trying to make John jealous so he’d do something rash, and this was the part where John and I had a telepathic conversation:

Josh: Hey, she’s obviously just trying to make you jealous.
John: Obviously.
Josh: Yeah. But, so, listen. I’m coming up on a year with no nookie here. Would it bother you if I—
John: Not at all.
Josh: Cool.
John: Won’t it bother you? I mean, that she’s just trying to make me jealous?
Josh: It would if she were fooling anyone.
John: Oh. Good point.

So that was when I looked at Jane and said, “Sure, I’d love to go to Vancouver with you this weekend.”

So the trip to Vancouver was a little strange because Jane clearly had an agenda, and clearly couldn’t work up the nerve to follow though on it. Which, I mean, whatever. I was getting a free trip to Vancouver out of this so I was pretty careful not to crash her buzz with a lot of expectations about what was or wasn’t going to happen.

But we get up there, watch the shows, go back to a hotel where we’re supposed to sleep on the floor with a bunch of other people from Seattle, and suddenly out of the blue Jane decides she wants to go back home.

“All the way back to Seattle?” says I?
“Yeah,” she says.
“Okay,” I says.

And then we drove all the way back to Seattle, arriving back at her place at, like, four in the morning. And, in the spirit of not having a lot of expectation, I offered to catch a bus home.

“No,” she says. “I’d like you to stay.”
“Okay,” I said.

Then she looked around the apartment and asked if I wanted to take a bath with her.

“Okay,” I said.

And then we took a bath.

But now it was a challenge. So all the way through the bath in her big old clawfoot tub, I kept my hands to myself. I didn’t respond to the nudity or the closeness. Just sat down in the hot soapy water and talked about the show in Vancouver like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. We washed off, sat around and talked about this and that, and shared a glass of apple juice. Then we dried off and climbed into her bed and went to sleep.

The next morning she let me use her toothbrush and said she was going to be out of town next week, and would I mind house-sitting her apartment and feeding her cat.

“Okay,” I said.

And she made us breakfast.

And then, finally, after a bath, two days together, and a night in bed—right before breakfast—she kissed me.

It was a pretty good kiss.”

* more or less