My First Kiss: He Vomited in My Mouth and I Returned the Favor

It’s never like you think it’s going to be

I was twelve. Cool twelve.

I’d been following this kid, James Flaherty, since the sixth grade. We sat across from each other and straddled “I hate your guts,” and “I have some unfamiliar feelings about you.”

We expressed our growing attraction by making duck faces at each other and passing negative notes down the long row of desks.

I caught myself scanning where ever I was for his presence. Once I spotted him, I immediately ignored him. Little did I know that ignoring someone at my age was a form of foreplay.

Sister Annunciata was an expert at sniffing out and stomping on new love. She called a conference with my mother about the “problem” with James and me.

My mother liked James, and as long as our little flirtation didn’t bring down my grades, she wasn’t concerned.

What Sr. Annunciata didn’t grasp was that forced separation was an adolescent aphrodisiac.

With the start of eighth grade, boys and girls had radically changed in appearance. They were also topped off in the hormone tank.

With the girls’ periods, came a menstrual burden, but also a streak of “I’m a badass woman and I’m going to call more of the shots in my life.”

One thing that hadn’t changed was James. All the better, because he didn’t know how cool he was. James was better than self-serve ice cream. He was better than watching the Beatles. He was better than all my girls.

He was the only person who held the thread between my eyes and my genitals.

He was the sweetest package of maleness I’d ever seen. He combed his hair like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. He wore these devastating collarless madras shirts and long surfer shorts. He didn't wear socks-a big turn on. One look at him and I knew he would be my boyfriend, someway, somehow.

We courted each other silently, while my friends and I were beginning to experiment with“being bad.”

Smoking had little to do with nicotine and more with doing sexy, sophisticated things with your hands and mouth.

The next step was alcohol. We stole some from each household and then shook it together in a mayonnaise jar. It was beyond disgusting.

One sunny Saturday, still warm for the beach, we brought our cigarettes, our booze, our ripening bodies in two piece bathing suits — and masking tape.

Someone had the idea of using masking tape to spell out the initials of boys we liked. Then we’d get sunburned, and leave a brand on our flat stomachs. It would make our affections clear.

We smoked, we drank, we cooked in the sun with the tape crinkling in the heat. I got wicked drunk. The boys got wasted.

When James saw his brand on my stomach, he got drunker, with another gulp.

Oh No, the cigarettes, the mixed booze, the punishing sun. And the growing pressure that we “make out” with our chosen ones. God, I was in some vortex that was swallowing me up.

James and I struggled in the hot sand to get to a more private place. We didn’t exactly stand face to face because 1, I was having trouble standing up, and 2, his face was very blurry.

I hoped he would make the first move. Because there was no way I was coming in for a landing on his lips.

He came towards me.

The closer he got, the worse he looked.

He planted his lovely tan legs right in front of me.

He leaned in. I followed. I tried to focus on his mouth.

On TV they always closed their eyes.

I opened my mouth.

He said something unintelligible.

And then — he vomited in my mouth!

It was so awful, that I reflexively vomited on him. We then vomited together on the ground. I ran to the ladies room to clean up and to get the stupid tape off my stomach.

It hurt like Hell. There was the sunburn. There were his damn initials.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way that I would never see him again.

I had sun poisoning, booze, a hangover, and the horrifying memory of my first romantic encounter. It was just too much.

The next day was school. Oh God, there he was. Could I evaporate? Could he?

He walked towards me. My friends scattered like twittering birds.

“Can I talk to you?”

I knew he was going to” break up” with me.

We stopped and stood.

We were uncertain but, electric. The kind where the hairs on your arms stand up and your heart abdicates its cardiac responsibilities so that it can embrace your desire.

He came closer, “I wanted to say…(silence)…I wanted….

“Oh, go ahead, just break up with me,” I barked.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Me too,” I confessed.

He leaned in. I wasn’t sure I was ready for another attempt.

But he reached for my hand and he wove his fingers through me until I couldn’t pick out his from mine.

We stood entwined. It was the beginning of sex in my life. Sex that took me places I didn’t know existed, couldn’t name, and never wanted to leave.

I count it as my first kiss because it meant something, because I wondered if that much pleasure was so good it could kill us. (Catholic guilt)

There were many more kisses. And they were so, so good.

But there was nothing as enthralling as the warmth of our fingers as we touched each other and stood silent as the heat spread up our arms and chests and faces. And we knew the silent promise that someday, together, we would learn about those other parts.

Far beyond the playground.