Chapter Nine

The Awakening, Part One — Serpent Tongue

Do you remember your first kiss? Were you twelve, fourteen? Younger? Older? The age doesn’t matter, but the anticipation in tingling lip sensation does. I was in ninth grade, and I don’t even remember her name. I was shy and totally out of my element. Having just graduated from neighborhood youth games to a first date was monumental for a street hound of the 1960s. At my current age, all I remember of that first kiss is that it was in a movie theater and was luscious. She had on teenage cherry lip-gloss that made the taste hang on my lips. It was like slowly licking a cherry lollipop. We never went on the second date, I don’t remember why, but to this day I remember that delicious cherry taste.

In thirty-two years I kissed only one woman, other than Hope, on the lips. It was a short goodbye kiss with no pretense of romance. It was a temptation of another life maybe, knowing that the time in this life wasn’t right. It was about twelve years before Hope passed, when our marriage was faltering, but somehow I knew we would make it right, so the kiss was more a goodbye than an opening. For thirty-two years my mouth knew only one pair of lips, Hope’s, sometimes with just a peck and sometimes a long, lovemaking kiss. Either way, every single morning and evening for thirty-two years, on awakening, coming home from work, and going to bed at night, I was either greeted or put to sleep with the same tried-and-true lips. Oh, boy, they were so comforting and familiar. I took the simple acts of daily pleasure for granted. The universe says they’re gone forever.

Was it the familiarity or just knowing they were always there and mine alone that made me think those lips would remain mine forever? I don’t think Hope ever kissed anyone else either, and that she was true to me. During our turbulent years, I always thought she might have had a fling, but all the housecleaning of history after her death never revealed any indication of any unfaithfulness. I think, like me, Hope had visions and fantasies, but was too afraid to risk losing our family and the hard work of cooperation we’d built over decades. As I write this, I feel comfortable that had I died first, her first new kiss in thirty-two years would have been just like mine—a romantic comedy.

I didn’t practice my kissing for the first new lips to touch. Who would have thought to practice? After all, doesn’t thirty-two years make you an expert? Doesn’t experience count? Wow, what an innocent fool!

Fortyish and attractive, she had medium-length, straight blond hair and was just a tad overweight, as are most of us who try hard to look good but still love to eat. I would say she was soft like a teddy bear. I don’t remember the peripherals, but the kiss itself is a highlight of memory, as is my first kiss in ninth grade. I’ll spare you the details of the prelude to embrace. It was actually quite boring, but I’ll jolly you with the actual kiss. I had no preparation for the coming mind-flummox.

My companion was a divorcee of many years and a knowledgeable kisser, or so I thought. We started to kiss normally and passionately, and then she suddenly rammed her tongue into my mouth. It wasn’t French-kissing tenderness, but more like a serpent on the hunt, its spear-like tongue searching for its prey and, having found it, going in for the kill. My mind went awash, frantically trying to figure out what the heck was going on as I struggled at a supposedly enjoyable activity I had performed with no problems for thirty-two years. Her tongue was searching deep in my mouth for a response, I mean full-tongue deep! I pulled away and like an embarrassed novice asked, “Sorry, what are you doing?”

Now I’ve learned some lessons from dating a plethora of women: Some are sensitive and some insensitive. They don’t necessarily mean their quick answers; it’s just them. Her answer, actually how she shared it, made me feel like an incompetent bonehead. It was similar to the first time in class you eagerly, with impatience, raise your hand to answer a teacher’s question and the insensitive, hard-ass teacher dismisses the answer with condescending indifference, demonstrating to the class what a fool you are. You learn quickly never to volunteer unless chosen. It is the same with dating and the mistakes of dating.

Back to the kiss: my date’s response was not reassuring.

“What, you never kissed like this? This is how it is done where I grew up.” She repeated it again to inflict her point. “You never kissed like this? I have done this always.”

Well, maybe I was oversensitive and took her response as a jab at my manly prowess. Or maybe she was just condescending. It really didn’t matter. What mattered was I just realized I wasn’t prepared for this new single dating life. I was a novice, a fourteen-year-old at fifty-four stumbling at the dating scene all over again. It wasn’t pretty the first time, and now, with remembered battle scars still secreted in the folds of my brain, it wasn’t pretty again.

After the few seconds of realization, I became the student for whom many women love to take the position of teacher. My date explained to me that one person sticks a tongue deep in the other’s mouth while the receiving person sucks on the tongue as it is slowly pulled out. Then the process is repeated and shared. The routine, or should I say kissing fun, goes from normal kissing to serpent-devil tongue kissing by both partners, and back to normal kissing. This process is repeated until boredom sets in or you jump into the sack for more mistakes—for this wasn’t my only mistake that evening, but the only one I dare share if I’m to salvage any self-respect.

You see, the mistakes for a widower don’t begin or end with the kiss. A man must perform. I’ll save those tears of laughter and self-deprecation for another chapter. Back again to the kiss: I’m an engineer, and my nature is to execute all tasks and responsibilities correctly. I remembered reading Men’s Health magazine in a doctor’s office. (If you don’t know, it’s the Cosmo for men.) After that first kiss, I decided I was going to learn to become the Don Juan of kissing. I wanted to be a man who knew how to kiss passionately and make love with sensuous caring while savoring each new romantic interlude as I explored a new heavenly body. For thirty-two years, complacency had made me comfortable, but I discovered each woman had a different notion of kissing and intimacy. Each one was a whole new learning experience. I learned, as a man who wanted to bring pleasure, that the woman was always right, and I, the man, was always wrong. It didn’t matter if they had a serpent for a tongue or no tongue at all. I wanted to please them, and it was up to me to find their reality. In fact, I kissed a plethora of women, and no other woman knew of serpent tongue, as I called it. I tried the serpent-tongue technique on a few other women, and each withdrew in bewildered disgust.

I had learned the lesson: Each woman is unique. I wanted to be prepared for every experience and therefore studied Men’s Health and other publications to please the women who welcomed and trusted me. Occasionally, I made really stupid and inconsiderate mistakes, for which I sincerely apologize to every one of those women I fumbled on. I was a good man and husband for thirty-one years, but I was making hurtful intimacy mistakes like a teenager. I was and am truly sorry for the feelings I hurt, but with each failure there were also successes that made the whole experience well worth it. With each success I felt closer to what was intended for my next journey.

There is a happy ending to this chapter. One woman didn’t really appreciate me much on our first date, but when I kissed her goodbye as she waited to go into the taxi, some spark flew in her brain and she needed to know more. She tells me that my kiss was why she came back for a second date. I had practiced and learned through trial and error for the time it counted the most.