The First Kiss

When I was a young girl (and I'm talking the teenage years) my friends and I would discuss kissing, boys, relationships... you know, the regular Saturday night sleepover gossip ritual. We imagined kissing a boy as handsome as Leonardo Dicaprio or turning up on the arm of someone as hunky as Paul Walker and we longed for the day when we would play their leading lady.

The kisses looked amazing, but watching the edited and produced smooches between two beautiful Hollywood types set us up for an unrealistic expectation of what our own experiences would be like.

I remember some of my more experienced friends recalling their lip-locking encounters describing them as too toothy, like straightening a piece of string on your tongue and one, as saliva boy.

My first kiss was so far removed from the knee-knocking, earth-shattering fiesta I was anticipating, quite frankly it turned my stomach. I was 15 and away at summer camp in Oxford. It was a disco night, which meant 50 girls clamouring for the mirrors in the campus bathroom, fizzling heat eminating from so many pairs of hair straighteners, Spectacular glitter christening the air as we hurried to apply liberal amounts to our eyelids, arms, chests (pretty much every exposed bodily area) and multi-coloured tube tops shielding an array of fledgling breasts.

It was one of those - "oooh, Mark wants to kiss you tonight!" scenarios, so I knew it was coming, but that does not mean I was prepared for what was to actually, come! He was a good three inches shorter than me (and I am not tall) and he had braces (yes the atypical teenage boy)- lucky me, certainly no Leo Dicaprio moment. He approached me on the dancefloor and after a brief attempt at slow dancing with me, suggested we exit the disco and find a quiet spot... this was round the back of the building in the shadow of the night. He then proceeded to insert his tongue into my mouth and perform some kind of washing-machine style oral exam. I made my excuses and was able to mentally block it until 8am the following morning when I awoke and ran for the bathroom in memory of my ghastly first kiss...

Of course I have had many more good, great and even excellent kisses since then, and now with my husband of course, they are fantastic!!