“Yes, Cassie,” she says, still leaning into the palm of my hand.
“Can I kiss you?”
She blinks at me, and when her lids lift, her eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.
“You want to kiss me?”
“Yes,” I say, although it’s more of a gasp for air. “I really do.”
“Well, come here then,” she says with a sly smile as she reaches for me.
Even before her mouth touches mine, even before her breath ghosts over my lips, I feel a sense of peace I haven’t experienced inyears, if ever. Just by closing my eyes and leaning closer to her, I feel like I’m moving in the right direction for the first time in my life. Like I’ve pulled off an endless dull highway and now I’m on the most scenic road in the world.
At the same time, I feel like I’m being grounded in place but not weighed down. Not at all. I am light, I am unburdened, I am free. I wonder if it’s because I’m about to kiss a woman for the first time, or if it’s because I’m finally,finallydoing something for myself. Something that I’ve been told is wrong and unseemly and a sin. Something that speaks to the darkness inside me when the whole world wants me to be a ray of sunshine. But as my world goes dark behind my closed lids, and Pia’s lips press gently against mine, so gingerly the touch is barely there, it’s deeply ironic that my vision fills with brightness, with clarity, with endless light.
I expect Pia’s tender touch to develop quickly into a push, a force, a taking, but it doesn’t, and that seems so unlike her. It also seems unlike me when I take it upon myself to deepen the kiss, bringing my other hand to her face so I can I hold her in place. I shift to the edge of my chair and put all that I am behind my kiss as I try to nudge her mouth open — because I want more. Her lips are too soft. Her touch is too delicate. Her hesitancy is too torturous. What I want ismore. A little hardness, a desperate touch, a kiss with no hesitation at all.
It takes a second or two, but finally, with a perfect little moan, Pia opens her lips, and her hands find my waist, and her tongue touches mine, andoh sweet Jesus, yes…
This is what I want. I think this is what I’ve always wanted.
And then I can feel everything. Her teeth. Her tongue. Her lips. Her nails digging into my hips. Her hair brushing against my forehead. Her exhales and her inhales.
In no time at all, Pia isn’t the only one moaning. It’s me. I’m making all the noise as I sigh and pant and hum my way through the most exciting kiss of my life. With each sound I make and with eachclash of our teeth, a tiny voice in my head warns me that Pia will pull away any second, that she will laugh at my clumsiness and my desperation, she will berate me for making so much noise from just a simple kiss.
But she doesn’t. She matches me stroke for stroke, nibble for nibble, moan for moan, until I have to pull away because I’m suddenly aware of how wet my underwear is, how hard my nipples are, and I know I’m standing on the cliff of wanting even more. Of wanting Pia’s hands inside my clothes, of wanting her naked skin on mine.
And that’s a step too far.
Isn’t it?
Keeping my hands on her face, I press my forehead against hers, our famous fringes blending. If only those blood-sucking journalists could see our bangs right now. They’d have to come up with something better than “Battle of the Bangs.”
“Pia, I…” But I don’t finish. I can’t finish. I’m out of breath and out of words.
“It’s okay,” she says, far too casually, like her body hasn’t been turned inside out by the kiss we just shared. And yet, there is comfort in what she says, so much so that I don’t hold back what I want to do, which is laugh. Giggles bubble up my throat and out of my mouth, and they have me leaning back in my chair, a hand at my lips as if that will stop them. But it won’t. No way.
Pia frowns at me. And then she smiles and laughs too.
“What’s so funny?”
“This…” I try, but my chuckles slow me down. “Us. It’s…”
“Unexpected?” Pia offers, her own laughter a diluted version of my own.
“Yes, but…” I clear my throat and try to compose myself. “Imagine if they knew. Imagine if they knew we’d just kissed.”
Some unreadable expression flits over Pia’s face. It’s something I’ve never seen there before, but just as quickly as it lands, it’s gone, and she’s all hard edges and cunning smirk again.
“Do you want them to know?”
That question promptly stops my laughter. “No, of course not, that would be…”
I don’t have the words for what that would be. No good ones, anyway.
That blank look returns to Pia’s features, and then she promptly stands up, reaches over the table, grabs her lighter and Marlboros and heads to the window. When she pulls back the yellowed polyester drapes, bright California sunshine floods in, blinding me immediately. But Pia stands facing it, barely squinting. She purses her lips around the lit cigarette in her mouth and pulls in a drag so deeply it expands her chest.
“Did I…” I stop talking and get up. I don’t get close to her, not really, but I take a tentative step in her direction. “Did I say something wrong?”
