Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction (36 page)

 

The mouth is where the body and language meet. The mouth is also the site of
proper
language and
improper
body. The proper body is regulated through language. Our mouths caution us to keep civilized, despite our bodies.

Where does the body begin and end? Kissing is a type of penetration of the body. Kissing is being penetrated. What divides my body from your body? Bodies penetrate; bodies can be penetrated. Bodies can penetrate themselves: tongue in cheek, lick your wounds, practice onanism religiously. But bodies can come inside other bodies in only a few ways. Kissing is one of them.

My mother used to say that the devil could enter any one of our holes: 7 for girls, 6 for boys. The mouth is just one of the gateways. We paint our lips, we decorate our language, we monitor what we say.
Rules of life:
Keep a civil tongue. Chew with your mouth closed. Never kiss on the first date. Speak only when spoken to. Shut up, shut up.

Despite what the Victorians might have supposed, the opposite of the mouth is not the asshole. These are both wet places, warm. These are places of fever. To enter the gateway of either is to be consumed. These are matters of the tongue; these are matters of taste.

I am not using my mouth when I write this. I am using my hands. Like kissing, writing is a form of body-language. Later, I’ll type this (I’m doing it now). Later, I’ll listen to the sentences over and over in my head. I might delete this section. Later, I might read this out loud — to hear how it sounds on my tongue. Later, I will use my mouth. But right now, I am using my hands. Writing and kissing have this — at least — in common. They are both languages of the body.

 

Here’s a grocery list from Carolyn. The list was folded and placed on the kitchen table for me to find. There were caricature lips straddling the tri-fold. “Envelopes. Stamps. Maraschino cherries. Kiwi fruit. Condoms?” We hadn’t slept together yet, so she sput a question mark there. After the question mark she wrote, “It’s up to you.” Then she wrote, “Jumbo pack.”

My father kissed my mother three times a day, whether he wanted to or not — once when he left for work, once when he got home from work, and once before he went to bed. My mother (who has been dead for countless years) used to think it was cute when I turned away from couples kissing on the television. “Don’t look, Tony,” she would yell. “Kissing. Ssik!” ( — with an emphasis on snake. My mother was a devout Christian.) And she would laugh her own particular laugh. I adored her. I thought kissing was gross just to please her. Later, when I got much older, she apparently worried about me (I was a sensitive child and maybe that translated into homophobic hysteria). Mother would tell me how nice kissing was. She would egg me on. “Look at her,” my mother would say, pointing to some girl all alone on the football bleachers. “Wouldn’t you like to kiss her?”

Lulu was technically the first. She was a twin. Both Lulu and Sue wore bell-bottoms. Both had deep auburn hair. Both had freckles like my mother; both were gorgeous. Lulu had apparently convinced her twin sister and Jo Jo Leichty to help chase me. Jo Jo Leichty had translucent skin; you could see bluish blood veins on the undersides of her arms and along her neck and jaw line. There was something always very delicate about her. I never kissed Jo Jo, but I thought about it once or twice — many years later.

Each noon, at my elementary school, I ran for my life. It was early May and it was breezy. I was young, and I could find joy in just running, until the day I was trapped behind the merry-go-round. Sue came from one side. Jo Jo came from the other. And they crucified me in the corner. Lulu stepped up and walked over the merry-go-round. She wasn’t messing around. Her lips were puckered (dramatically so) and she wasn’t aiming for my forehead. She wasn’t going for my cheek. She was zeroing in right for the money. Right for the kisser. And this was more than I bargained for.

 

The opposite of a lover is a dentist. The opposite of kissing is the objectification of the mouth — a focus on bone, enamel, and metal. We want our lovers in our mouths; we want to be swallowed whole.

 

For a moment I thought yes, no, yes, no; but I didn’t have all the time I needed to think this through. So I decided no. And I turned my face.

But Lulu was fast. She lunged forward.

She didn’t get me on the cheek as
I
had planned. She didn’t get me on the lips as she had planned. Instead, we compromised. She kissed me at the corner of my mouth.

And I know she was only eight, but it was soft. And it was warm. And little cartoon bluebirds were circling my head, twittering drunkenly. This was my first kiss.

 

When Jill complains to Jack for want of meat, Jack kisses Jill, and bids her freely eat. Jill says, Of what? Says Jack, On that sweet kiss, Which full of nectar and ambrosia is, The food of poets.
¹⁶

 

Rule of life #1 (revised):
After your mother dies in a traffic accident, on August 4th, 1990, one day before your father’s birthday, always kiss those who love you. Remember — upon kissing you, five hours before her death — your mother was weeping because she already missed you.

Rule of life #(n-1):
Revise.
Mathematically, this is the only equation that has a chance. Also, occasionally let the dishes pile up.

Deanne used to surprise me with secrets in her mouth. Usually it was just a piece of ice tucked under her tongue or a piece of candy. But once, with her tongue, she pushed an unwrapped condom into my mouth with her tongue. It tasted horrible, and she looked at me strangely. I looked back trying to save the moment. But it was all shot to hell. She started laughing, and we couldn’t speak to each other for nearly a week without hysterics. We never used that condom, or any other. We were always too scared and never grew out of it.

 

Regarding Social Graces:

Q:
What’s are the rules about public displays of affection?

A:
Don’t.

Q:
Could you be more specific?

A:
Kissing is a privilege.

Q:
Why do social rules about kissing apply primarily to girls? What about boys?

Q:
Why don’t you answer? When is kissing with abandon okay?

Q:
When you look at your current partner, with what great sadness do you remember a particular kiss?

 

What was your longest kiss?

I don’t remember.

What was your sexiest kiss
?

Like I could tell that one. I hate talking about this, if you want the truth. I’m very pri vate.

Most memorable kiss?

The girl I most wanted to kiss when I was fourteen was a girl who worked with me in the bean fields. She was seventeen and deaf and drop-dead gorgeous. I carried a whistle around my neck which I would blow if I needed to get her attention. She could feel the vibrations. When I spoke to her, she watched my lips move. While
listening
to me, she always smiled. When she spoke to the hearing, she used her hands to sign. I watched her mouth. She had crazy, curly hair that blew across her face; and she would sweep the hair from her eyes, glance back at me, and smile radiant. I thought I was in love with her. And I think she knew that. We never kissed.

No. This is an essay about kissing. What was your most intimate kiss?

Didn’t I answer that? Maybe when my little girl hung on to me one day after our first Halloween apart (it was Jenny’s year for tricking and treating) saying that she missed —

No. Tell me. What was your most embarrassing most life-changing most wet kiss?

Listen. This is a story. One time, when I was eighteen —

No. Who have you kissed since this was written?

Not long after Jenny moved away, I started to get sick. We had been together for twelve years. But I finally got up out of our bed, walked by my son’s room, and I saw him surprised — ghost-like in his white T-shirt — running to his bed. He was five years old. And it was two in the morning. He was running to his bed — so quiet, so much like an apparition — that I wasn’t even sure I had seen him. I had been preoccupied.

 

Step one:
Touch her face.

Step two:
Part your lips.

Step three:
Kiss her.

Step four:
Let go.

 

My son was awake, pretending to be asleep. I wondered, for a brief drop of a second, how many nights he had been doing this. I wondered how many nights he was pretending when Jenny and I talked about her leaving.

He was nearly crying because he thought he was in trouble. I don’t know why. I thought maybe — like me — he couldn’t sleep; I wasn’t mad. But he didn’t know that. He said his sister had made a noise that scared him. He had a bad dream.

He wanted to know why
I
couldn’t sleep. I knew of course, but I told him I didn’t know — which, of course, was also true. He had scared me. Anything strange with the kids and I’m frightened.

Before I could shut his door, though, and latch it completely — with sudden passion — he yelled into the darkness, completely terrified. “Wait Daddy wait!” he said. His voice was so sudden and large. “Kiss me,” he said. “You forgot to kiss me.”

^1.
“J.”
The Sensuous Woman
. New York: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1969. pp. 111–2.