The Kissing Chronicles, Part One

I am very fond of kissing, and have had some rather funny experiences in this regard in the past couple of months (okay, forever, but the most recent ones are, obviously, freshest in my mind). I do fear sometimes that I exist purely to provide amusing stories to my friends but, really, I think that I'm just getting through the frogs, waiting for my prince. And I'm sticking to that story. The fact that my frog pile would keep a good, very busy, French restaurant going for, well, a year at least, is beside the point.

But let me attempt to begin right at the beginning. I'm not very good at keeping timelines going and stuff in my writing, but I'm practicing. So, let's throw ourselves back some years. To a lanky, unsure, teenage Shiny. Let's just say I was not an early-starter when it came to boys and all the bits involved with them. I came from an all-girl household (except for my poor hen-pecked father, even our dog, cat, mice and the chicken who I reared when I was 11 and loved were girls. Okay, I lie, the chicken turned out to be a boy and was sent off to live with my aunt on her farm when he started waking up in my room (we were very close) to herald in the morning. Loudly. In fact, the poor guy landed up on the Sunday lunch table after he developed a rather nasty habit of trying to peck my 2-year-old-at-the-time cousin. I was devastated. And it couldn't have had anything to do with his coddled upbringing... (Chicken, not cousin).)

I digress. Back to the summer of my 16th year. I went to an All Girls Boarding School too, so my only intertwinings with boys really consisted of intermittent run-ins with boy cousins or friends of my parent's sons or summer holiday friendships that faded as we drove out of the summer holiday village (ok, there's more to that story too... but it must wait). So, yes, 16, never-been-kissed, beginning to think that maybe I was destined to a life in an abbey. Luckily, I wasn't, because, although I can sing a song, I don't think I'd be good at belting out "The Hills are Alive" on a mountain top. Oh, wait, she turned out not to be abbey-destined either, didn't she?

Thank god for theme-parkey Irish pubs serving green beer on St Patrick's Day in The Big Smoke. Only when you're 16 though. The All Girls Boarding School was in a small, conservative university town an hour or two away from The Big Smoke (I came from a small, conservative mining town between the two). Lots of the Girls came from The Big Smoke so, every now and again, we would pursuade our parents that it was a good idea to spend a weekend there. This one, however, we pursuaded a friends' parents to take us to said bar. She had a Brother at the All Boys Boarding School down the road. And her Brother had Friends. Although, there's a story with her Brother too. Later though.

And so, I found myself, sat on a bar counter, green beer beside me (apt due to my extreme fondness of Cream Soda, to lose one's first little bit of innocence supping on the slightly-more-adult version of it), in a crammed bar in front of, oh, approximately 200 people, receiving my very first 'real' kiss from a boy who had the dubious nickname of Fungus (thankfully, I never did find out why). He was about half a foot shorter than me (not hard, I'm a tall girl), and a year younger. While I didn't realise it at the time, all these things were signs of things to come - the crowd of people, his height, his age... I loved the kiss though and decided then and there that this was a habit I would like to pursue. So I did.

He was sweet, he wrote me a couple of letters via our very Victorian Inter-All Girls Boarding School/All Boys Boarding School postal system. But, I fear, it was not meant to be. My 16-year-old heart was ecstatic just to get that hurdle out of the way. I was glad he wrote though. It was important at that stage. I think I'd have been devastated had he not. I hope I was nice back, I can't actally recall.

I have to admit though, that possibly that first kiss doesn't stand out in the way that various others have. I suppose it doesn't for most people really. It's a fumbley, vaguely uncomfortable I-hope-I'm-doing-this-right thing. Then you kiss the person that makes you realise it's not like that. A kiss is just the most natural thing in the world and requires no thought whatsoever. It just flows like mercury... beautiful, silvery and unfettered by anything.

And that's Part One. I'm quite impressed with myself for (mostly) keeping to a topic.

I still wonder though, when I'll reach the end of my frog list?