About 23 years ago, all my waking hours were spent on two kinds of contradictory thoughts—sex, kisses and all the mysteries surrounding the physical self—and then the existential mysteries that were part of the spiritual learning classes I used to attend.
My first guy got his taste of me very early in life since my need to do something about my welling curiosity got the better of my common sense. He was a classmate, an avid reader of spiritual guru Osho and someone who loudly proclaimed ideas on sexual liberty. He appealed to me in a big way with his convincing rhetoric on how I will not get pregnant by riding pillion on his bike. My mother gave me enough liberty, and I exploited it to the maximum, misusing all the trust that she graciously gifted me with.
Off I went changing two buses to his house with full-on anticipation.
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So one day at college, he said that the following day—a holiday—his parents would be out on some engagement and I was welcome to his house for “combined study”, a euphemism used in the student community for any activity that involves anything but studying. Off I went changing two buses to his house with full-on anticipation, to experience what the million Mills and Boon and dozens of Jackie Collins novels told me as the “melting of tongues” and “a developing heat in the lower body”.
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When I reached his house, his helper looked at me suspiciously. At this juncture, it is important to tell my readers something about me as well as my would-be first lover. I was a fair, angular ,traditional looking girl from Kerala and he was a Brahmin boy who was round, tall ,hairless and huge in an ungainly kind of way. That day, I wore a salwar kameez in golden color with black bamboo print, and of course, a matching shawl . I was irrepressibly sexual only in the realm of my thoughts; outside, I was very prim. So there was always a shawl covering my meagre bosom, as that’s what Indian tradition encourages—to cover yourself. The Osho fan wore something I don’t remember.
As his helper finished sweeping the room , he closed the door and our two heads—which were pretending to pour over some book—suddenly came together. Before I realized what was happening, there was a pressing feeling on my mouth followed by utter discomfort and breathlessness. His tongue went inside my mouth and was all over the place like the hands of an untrained maid roughly kneading dough for bread…only more watery and squiggly. Before I could register the gravity of the fact that it would go down in history as my first kiss, it was over . I do not know what brought me greater relief—that it was over or that I could tick the box in my head that said, “been there done that.”
It took me less than a minute to decide that he was the man to live with for the rest of my life and grow old with.
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Well, it did not stop there. Somehow, I don’t seem to have clear memories of the sequence of events that followed but I choose to believe that like a participant in X-factor, I wanted to move to the next task. I have a vague memory of wanting to be or giving in to being naked in the tiled bathroom of his. The back of my body and head was cold against the six by six pastel-shaded tiles of his bathroom. He groped me all over during the short kiss and then again later when I was lying on the floor totally cold and uncomfortable.
I did not feel angry or victimized because I stood by my choice to do what I did and he did nothing against my wish. I am surprised at how I can forget such a significant fact but I am not sure if he was clothed, semi-clothed or naked. It is all a blur and I think he just pressed his body against me and I felt some strange pressure against me. I hurriedly dressed later and left his home . I was distraught, anxious, relieved and unbelievably tense for the rest of the day.
To make matters worse, my monthly periods got delayed unnaturally and I was convinced that I was pregnant and had thought of a million means of sorting the issue out (if it was actually a pregnancy then it would have been a diabolic pun.) Finally, when my periods came, I felt that the two weeks of stress was divine retribution for the breach of my mother’s trust on me.
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This experience did not deter the ever adventurous me from sexual experiments later, but the two things that I gathered that day as I lay supine on the cold tile of his bathroom was—one, this was not how a good kiss should be and two, a warrior should not stop her attempts at finding what she wants until she gets it.
It took many years and many more squeamish experiences to finally get the right kiss. I still enjoy my husband’s kisses—long, soulful, tender, melting—and the little bites and tugs on the lips that do bring a certain Mills and Boon kind of heat between the legs. Almost two decades have passed since he first kissed me one twilight on a crowded public beach. It took me less than a minute to decide that he was the man to live with for the rest of my life and grow old with. Take it from me—keep trying, keep waiting and never settle for a bad kisser.
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Photo Credit: Author