The First and Last Kiss of a First Love

The one that set my heart aflame for the first time

What does one really count as a first kiss?

Is it the awkward kiss that doesn’t quite happen because neither of you knows what you are doing, and you are only experimenting for the hell of it?

Or is it the one that really makes you feel mushy inside while your head is floating high above the clouds?

For me, a kiss isn’t a kiss without that hunger that causes you to draw your kissing partner in towards you, as close as you can get them. It is the one that makes you say “Yes! This is what I have been waiting for all these adolescent years!”

The story of which, you are about to be treated to.

The awkward ones

I had my fair share of kisses that don’t count.

First, there was baby-faced Ash, my first “boyfriend” in my first year of secondary school.

I sound condescending but I will be the first to throw my hands up and say that I was, in fact, officially the “baby” in that first year. Not only did my birthday fall in the summertime, at the end of the academic year, but I had moved up to the school a year early. And so, while all of my classmates were eleven, even going on twelve in some cases, I was just ten, tiny, and baby-faced.

Therefore, Ash was the best I could score.

We went back to Ash’s house one lunchtime and then attempted kissing. It was really awkward and a total failure, and I realised that I didn’t really want to kiss this boy.

Next, there was Dan. He was marginally better and more of a good laugh, but had the worst case of adolescent greasy hair and pimples and, superficial as it may be — which I totally was at age eleven—that was too off-putting to go in for the kiss.

I decided to give up on the idea of boyfriends for the time being. Until I was in my third and then fourth year at the school.

The youth club discos

The highlights of our social lives, at that time, were the Youth Club discos that took place fortnightly. This was the late 1980s and discos were where life was at!

Songs such as I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany and The Only Way is Up by Yazz and The Plastic Population had us down on the dancefloor and moving like the overenthusiastic tweenagers we were. But, when the slow dances happened, it would be the moment of truth — would a boy ask us to dance? Or would we ask a boy and be accepted?

There was one boy who had caught my attention — Paul. I don’t remember when or how it happened, but at some point, we started talking and, in a very awkward way, flirting.

The thing was, he was in with the “popular boys” and, while I was friends with the group of girls that always drew their attention, I wasn’t quite part of the group. Therefore, I wasn’t fully qualified to be approved of by the kids that counted.

So, when he started giving me some attention, I was surprised.

It all seemed very natural and I soon hit it lucky on the slow-dancefloor at the Youth Club disco. Once, twice, and then, a third time.

A succession of three discos’ worth of slow-dancing was getting serious.

And then…finally, as we slow-danced to Eternal Flame by The Bangles, we kissed.

The fact that it took weeks of moving our bodies closer to one another, then our cheeks, and finally, our lips, made that kiss the most memorable kiss in the world. And he made me feel like the most special girl in the world in that moment.

Sadly, it didn’t last. Well, not in a conventional way, anyway.

He made a million excuses for us not to actually become girlfriend and boyfriend and stopped asking me to dance the slow-dances with him. I wasn’t sure, but I knew it could all be because I wasn’t cool enough for the cool kids to approve of.

Then, our school ski trip happened and suddenly he was flirting with me and kissing me secretly outside my hotel room. Was this going somewhere again?

I was besotted with him but he kept me at arm’s length. Nevertheless, at the occasional disco, we would find ourselves in each other’s arms again, and, on the following year’s ski trip, he was shouting flirtations at me from the ski lifts. We partnered up to share a toboggan on a night-time toboggan run. It was truly intimate as he guided the toboggan at a terrifying speed and I, screaming with fright, held tightly onto him for dear life!

But, I was still not allowed close enough to be his girlfriend.

One day, he started going out with another girl — even younger, smaller, and more baby-faced than me. It seemed like that was it, except he even kissed me one time while they were an item.

Then he felt really guilty and tried to pretend it didn’t happen. And that, for me, was the final straw.

From that moment, I moved on and let him go. We were growing up; Youth Club discos were well and truly behind us and we were both moving into and through the sixth form; finally, age sixteen, I started my ‘A’ Levels with my own age group and he left school to start working in an office job.

He was now in my past. My musical tastes and my social group had changed; I became fully immersed in the alternative arts scene and had a couple of fun flings with cute boys, that didn’t last.

I forgot all about Paul.

In my final year of school, I moved into my Dad’s house on a permanent basis, despite him not being in the country half the time, due to work. That meant that I had the house to myself on occasions, including over New Year.

What does a party-loving seventeen-year-old do with a house to herself over New Year? Have a party, that’s what!

I invited most of my year group from school. Fortunately, we all had our heads screwed on pretty well and so there was nothing too wild, but wild enough to have a good time.

And then, one of the boys in my year showed up with someone else in tow. It was Paul.

I was a bit surprised but, of course, welcomed him in. He seemed a little bit awkward and even apologised for arriving uninvited, but explained that, on hearing that I was having a party, he couldn’t not come.

At this point, we hadn’t spoken in around two-and-a-half years and found ourselves in the corner, catching up on one another’s news. Easy conversation flowed, like simply catching up with an old friend. Nothing more.

And then, before I knew what was happening, he was kissing me. It felt good. Really good. I leaned in.

Time stood still and everything else ceased to exist for that moment. Then, he put his mouth close to my ear.

“I always loved you, you know,” he said.

And that was all I needed to hear.

That sealed the kiss that had begun years before on the dancefloor. Paul was my first love and that kiss was my first real kiss.

By the time he finally professed his love to me — when he was eighteen and I was seventeen — we had outgrown one another. But it was there all along.

*Some names may have been changed to protect the innocent.