They had walked the circle for hours. The oval track of a street around the neighborhood. It was their usual thing. Walking away each summer evening. Brushing away mosquitoes. The scent of pine. A crackly voice over the ice cream shop speaker from the main road in accompaniment. The sound of their summers.
Rain had fallen in drizzly mist. Not heavy enough to keep them from their walk. Too heavy for them to stay dry.
They had paused so that she could fix herself. A full head of dark, black hair. Her Puerto Rican mother’s hair. Her father’s French heritage, creamy complexion beneath. She had brushed it; a dozen strokes. Despite the rain, somehow it held it’s full form.
“Let me fix yours,” she said. He turned slightly towards her as she drew the comb back out of her rear pocket. Denim shorts that reached to her knees. The comb curved to the form of her generous hips. Had he noticed her hips before this moment? He couldn’t remember, but he would now.
Her arms raised up over his head. Her forearm, sun seasoned, but pale in this light. She leaned closer in as the comb fought its way through his thick, damp hair.
Her eyes were fixed on her work. His eyes on her. The darkness around them broken only by the streetlight that fought bravely but in vain against the wet darkness.
Her eyes occasionally darted to his as she brushed. A slight smile on her full lips. Lips perhaps a bit too full for her diamond face. He stood still, obedient. Calmed as she worked the comb through tangles; his hair too long, too ragged.
“Hold still,” she giggled, her mouth smiling. He thought he had. She moved closer, her hand wielding the comb like a wand. Mesmerized. Her other hand darted up into his tangled mess to steady his head. Fingers running through long, brown, wavy hair.
She was leaning forward towards him. On her toes. Her face inches from his. Their bodies too far apart so he thought she might fall into him. He thought she might.
Another half step towards him so she could run the comb down the back of his head. He caught a single breath on his cheek. And then another. And then a stillness. A quiet. A pause. A long, gentle, silent stillness.
The next, their lips meeting. Somehow. The why and how lost and never found.
It was a softness he had never imagined. Her lips, moist from the drizzle. The taste of rain. It was a light pressing of closed mouths. Unmoving. Held together by gentle pressure. Both of them fixed in this simple act. A moment comprised of acting and not thinking. Of release and of taking in. A silent swirling of sensations.
The slightest pull back and then a second, longer press. His chest now pushing into hers. Their feet fumbled forward to choke away the remaining awkward distance between them.
A tender, velvety smacking was all either could hear. A sound they could only make with a first kiss. Before knowing robs them of the innocence of not knowing. Before knowing leads to other sweet things. The most gentle, tentative, delicate kiss.
Her breath caressed his face in long, even exhales. His breath, frozen. Afraid that by breathing, the moment could be extinguished like a weak flame. The rain. The darkness. The streetlight. The time. Forgotten.
Her arms were now draped over his shoulders, the comb forgotten in the palm of one hand. His right hand, leaden, moved to her cheek. Cupped the curve of her face. It was warm and blushed. His other slid to her waist. An unknown place to him before then. It was firm and suddenly intoxicating.
A lock of her black hair blew across his face; he didn’t noice. Her head tilted slightly as she attempted to shake it away and he turned to maintain the purchase on her lips. To hold her here. He felt her tremble slightly in his arms. Fragile. Vulnerable. He had never felt so strong.
She pressed harder. Their mouths gently parted. A single moment in which innocence ends. Where passion begins. A permanent imprint. The kiss upon which every future kiss will be judged. And found unworthy.
