A Kiss
By
Tim Stillman
Jimmy came over to me, quietly. The night was early Spring and we were young. He held his hand to my chin and gently turned my face to him. I was ashamed of my black eye and tried to turn away, but Jimmy stopped me. "The price of admission to boyhood," he said and smiled. It was at that exact moment I fell in love with him, I think.
I was so skinny and so shy and so me and I knew he would not have noticed me on the playground at all had the three boys not ganged up on me. Three. It would have taken one to half-kill me. I had always been an over jealous boy and it had caused me trouble, for it seemed I was jealous of the whole world and had every right to be.
We were in my woods. Not that the woods were mine, but this was where I hid when things got wrong and things always got wrong. I found love in anger because I knew Jimmy had followed me here after school. He was not one for hiding. He was strong and brave and captain of the football team.
The hot sun was golden diamonds through the tree leaves and branches of which there were many. I was wearing a red short-sleeved shirt and jeans and Keds. My school clothes. My book bag was by my side. I had sat against a tree, with my knees up and I had been of course weeping.
He smiled at me again. I don't know if you remember the first time someone smiled at you. Or if you remember the first time someone was kind at you or noticed your presence in any particular way. This was my first time. He had such fine features. Hair of gold. Dimples. Grey eyes. An athletic body but not going overboard with it.
Then I did something I never would do, never thought about doing, I hugged him and he felt steady and warm and he held me in return and if you think that wrong, chances are the reason I was sporting a black eye was a reason you would have agreed with, and if so, to hell with you; go away; you've no right here.
Jimmy patted me on the back, awkwardly, and I realized at that moment, it was his first time too. Not just because he was boy strong or boy handsome or boy likeable, but because he was himself, like a gift I had somehow unawares given him. I held him more tightly and felt his heart beat and I believe he felt mine.
I had been to be a boy, a man, alone. Had this not happened. Jimmy was to be a shell of himself, had this never happened. I don't believe either of us thought in terms of gay or straight; it was just he drew back his head an inch or two and asked if he might kiss me.
I nodded silently and minutely, for I was a silent and minute boy, and his lips touched mine, just a trace of a kiss. He brushed my long black hair out of my eyes and I smiled at him and was pretty happy I had gotten that black eye, so if that may be the reason you agree with concerning my getting it, come back, please; all is forgiven.
He was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt and dark gray jeans to my blue and Keds too. White to my green. He put an arm round my shoulder and his cheek next to mine. I closed my eyes and considered the prospect of happiness and whether or not I should risk it.
He smelled of English Leather cologne, all the rage back then. He smelled so happy and felt so unencumbered with cares, though I was later to find out he had his own particular kinds of pain. He touched the collar of my shirt. My mom always starched and iron pressed all my clothes till they looked like clothes on the Ken doll.
I don't know why I didn't rabbit. I knew we were going to make love. I wasn't frightened, for I looked in his eyes and met his own fear for this also was his first time. Invariably, in stories, as opposed to real life, it's the weaker of the two who turns out to be the strongest. I wish I could say differently here. I can't.
Make it story. Make it reality. It's only in your head anyways. Read and forgotten and on to the next. But for us, Jimmy and I (me? Always trouble with that), this stood for eternity and a place and time we would never leave. And our hands were on each other and we were slowly naked. The late afternoon sun was dusking now and shading our bodies.
He closed his eyes, as if that would find him clothed again for me, as I bent down as we knelt side by side and I so tenderly sucked one nipple, then the other, tickled one nipple, then the other. And he sighed and he gave in and he held my small, of course, penis and I held his large, of course, penis and we rubbed each other as he opened his eyes and kissed each other. And we were so happy. Sometimes, you can't help it.
Then we looked down at ourselves and we came and I licked his Jimmy cum off his left leg and he touched my come off his right hand and gingerly tasted it. And our bodies were sexual at that moment. We were to never be the same. I like to think this story could have been in a textbook for a grade school class on a shiny warm day with the sun friendly in the windows. And the children in a room the smell of chalk and pencil shavings and kindly clothes and just beginning to be alive. In a place where they listened to me reading this exact story.
And I could close the yellow sunny covered book and look at them. I would smile and tell them it was true, it was not true, it is life though, and the urgent human condition of not being alone. I would tell them some day someone will open your heart and want to love you. Like Jimmy and I may have done for each other. Or maybe it was just a myth to make the moon less bothersome.
I would kneel down and look in their so incredibly young and gentle faces. I would say, don't pass up the opportunity because someone said you weren't---because all of you are and never let anybody make an invisible of you. For you will have your Jim. And you will make love to him or to her. And it is the primary reason you are here.
A hand might be raised toward the back of the room. I might nod at the child. He or she might say, wasn't it rather gross? And they would laugh. And I would too. I would remember Jimmy, real or not, or real and mythologized, and I would consider a Spring night where two boys got so slowly dressed and went each to his home. And I would see him again at school. We might eat together at lunch. Or stop a moment at our lockers side by side. We might even visit. And I might see his cares and wish to help. But couldn't.
And we would never touch or smile dreamily at each other ever again, because we unlocked love in each of us, and that love sent us in different directions, for, as I would tell the children on a golden Spring warm classroom day, love has its own way and sometimes the greatest thing in the world....And the bell rang and the children stayed in their desk chairs, hypnotized, waiting....so I would say to them, before telling them school is over for today...love is beautiful when it comes your way. And I smiled at them.
When the class was empty, save for me, I would sit at my desk and I would wait to go home. Alone. With Jimmy. With someone else. Was I ever a teacher? Did I ever have a black eye? Was there really a woods? I leave it to you to decide. It's the great thing about stories. You read them in your own totally individual way. Reality is just so---there. Stories are where you wish them. So, if anyone reading this has had a black eye lately or is so alone, consider this my way of putting a friendly arm around you, turning your shy face to mine and saying hello and oh yes, you are loved.
You are not a nothing, as I may be. Would I have spent all this time and thought otherwise writing this?