The Story of Half a Kiss

What I really want to do here is tell Alexis that I have had a first kiss.

She is on my case all the time about getting a girlfriend and getting kissed for the first time. She jokes a lot, and she also just got married. Last time, I wanted to tell her. To just drop it on her plate like a piece of hot potato, that the honor would be some dude’s.

Or was.

That is if you could call what happened with Godwin a kiss. It’s been years. It’s been my only, and I think about it sometimes, a lot. He was the absolute love of my life.

He was also a tease.

I kissed him last night. On his forehead, while he slept.

He kept tossing and sighing restlessly on his bed while I tried to read at my table. He couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t focus on my texts. When I was ready to tuck myself in, I quickly checked up on him. He moved slightly at my feel but he continued to sleep.

The next morning, he met me at the door. He looked me in the eyes with a certain sly smile of his that raises only the left end of his upper lip, and grunted a hot good-morning in the sexiest baritone you ever heard. So deep, with all the breaks in a rested vocal cord. So thick with masculinity. So strong, yet smooth, like chocolate and coffee. He quickly followed up with the even dreamier how-was-your-night, and dropped me right in the middle of sweet daydream.

I half-hoped he would ask me about last night, but in the sea of one-too-many intimate moments that have passed between us, there is not much keeping this one from getting lost in the mix too. Just then, he says, “Thanks for last night.” And all that blood rushes to my head, I gasp for air while my growing smile threatens to suffocate me. We are having this conversation at last!

“Where is the broom?”

So typical! He doesn’t let the excitement build any momentum.

You would think he has no idea but one throaty scoff, and an eye-roll, and he winks. Slowly!

You see?

I was very young. I knew I needed to be safe and I thought I was careful. I knew I was in love and I knew what this kind of love was called – a taboo.

But ask Juliet of the Romeo fame. Ask her of stupid deeds done in love, and mis-actions led on by passion.

Another night, Godwin had his mildly calloused fingers on my heart, literally. It was dusk and he was studying. So was I, something about tachycardia.

I bet he knew his hands had my pulse jumping. Soon, his demonstration was over and I had to count his heart rate too.

We both knew I had to!

Everything had led to the moment. I prayed I could feel it when the time came. I sat up higher on his reading table, lifted my arm and quickly settled for the back of my left palm. Time stood looking at me. My breath held itself, as I placed my hand, lightly, very gingerly, on his chest.

Focus, try to not feel around, or graze a nipple, I told myself. Now count.

Pause. Another Pause.

He was smiling up at me. As I focused, he smiled and watched the confusion edge its way onto my face.

How can he have no heartbeat? I wondered.

I concentrated a little more. My eyes switched rapidly between the rise and fall of his chest following his breathing, and my palm resting on his chest. Surprise pooled on my countenance. My wonder rolled into a frown.

And then, he chuckled, before he took a-hold of my wrist and moved my palm a long way due east, nearer his left pec.

“There…” He smiled. “Now, count.”

I did not. I withdrew my palm and laughed. It was my second year in the medical faculty, and I was supposed to know where the human heart lay. Godwin held my hand and looked in my eyes and smiled. I left his corner, and went to my bed, with a head and a mind and a heart and a smile full of Godwin.

I fell hard for him. I remember the exact moment it happened.  He lived in the room next to mine in my first year. He was either washing his dirty dishes on the block’s porch while I was headed to my morning classes, or brushing his mouth. I did not always notice him, but sometimes when I did, I’d mutter a greeting which he would so warmly accept.

I want to tell you about it, but this story is still about my first kiss, not the first time ever I saw his face.

I woke up with a head still full of Godwin. He was at his table, reading. He was always reading, ridiculously large text volumes, human atlases so colourful and graphic they were almost horrid, notes taken down in the tiniest writing and covering every square inch of note. You would go dizzy trying to read from it. Sometimes, he would ask for music from my collection of sappy ballads that I kept updated for him. He would ask about any unfamiliar tune and I was always too willing to lead him in on the story of the song.

Then we would chat. And laugh. And I would move onto his mattress. And he would stop reading for a minute and two. And he’d join me on his mattress. For ten minutes, and some more. And my head would end up on his laps. And it would stay there while time drifted by, till there’s a knock on the door.

But this morning, I had a class to get to. I tiptoed out of the room to take a bath. When I got back, he was still busy at the desk. So I dressed quietly. I picked up my bag and on my way to the door, I made a stop at the cupboard junction to tell him I was leaving. He had his face in his palms, probably trying to digest a complicated part of the human physiology he’d just read.

In that moment, he let free a sigh and then all I wanted to do was soothe his nerves.

I started walking toward him and the open window he faced. I reached his back, silently, while he gazed out through the window at students walking to their classes.

I lifted his chin so that his head tilted backward. His gaze rested on my face. I leaned forward. My lips quietly met his and very quickly said farewell.

I took a sharp turn for the door and left for the class before he could say a word. My last view was of him smiling and shaking his head before the door shut itself behind me.

I loved him. And I don’t remember what lessons I had that day!

Written by Silly Anonymous