Kissing Booth

Earlier this year I was asked to guest blog for a kissing contest. I mean... a writing contest about kissing. The Kiss vs. The Kiss off. So since we survived 12-21-12, I thought I would take today and tomorrow to post the..er, uh...posts here. (I work for the department of redundancy department.)

First up - the kiss.. the great ones and the not so great.

Kisses. What can you say? They are the ever important step toward the relationship. In books, and often TV and movieland, that first kiss is the deal sealer, the moment they know, the last thing you see before happily ever after.

I love watching a kiss on TV or film. There are so many things going on. The eyes shutter themselves to half lids. The heads tilt. The hands grip tightly on shoulders. The lighting changes. The music swells. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

 A thousand words? That is why I love writing and reading about those kisses. Every nuance is there for you. You can describe every single detail, every small movement, every near miss, every feeling they feel, all right there in your thousand (or more!) words.

I devote a lot of my books to kisses and the things that follow. Normally they are the perfect kisses followed by burning desire and only thoughts of getting right back to that perfect pair of lips. I love that.

Nothing compares to a great kissing session. Especially those first ones. You kiss for hours and after you get home and you’re in your room listening to the 100 songs that are “your songs” you run a finger over your still swollen lips. They tingle as if he is there, kissing you, only you. You fall asleep and wake up thinking of nothing but those lips and how you can’t wait to not watch TV with him again tonight.

But lately I’ve been thinking. A dangerous pastime. I know. (Yes. I just quoted Beauty and the Beast. Don’t judge me!) 

What I don’t see enough of are those bad kisses that come in real life. You know the ones I mean. No? Here’s five examples to remind you of the boys you left behind.

1. Brace Face:

To kiss with braces. Ah, junior high, maybe freshman year. The first boy I ever really kissed had braces. He pretty much tasted like a quarter. I got my braces shortly after that and was terrified by the urban legend of two kids kissing and becoming interlocked. I could not imagine being face to face with him for that long. So we broke up.

In hind’s sight, maybe he was just a bad kisser and needed to brush his teeth more. Lesson learned. 

2. The slobberer:

You know the one I mean. After you kiss you feel like you just got mauled by your English Bulldog? Yeah. And if you kiss Slobberman too much you could end of with dreaded Kool-Aid mouth because your lips, chin and part of your cheeks are chapped from his generous love. *Note – Slobbermen are usually mouthbreathers. This may account for the chapping.

I also dated this guy. Once. Once was clearly too much as I’m still scarred from it and think of him every time I see a thirsty dog on a hot summer day with his gums full of sloppy dribble. 

 

3. Tight lips vs. The Lapper:

You are on a date. The guy makes you laugh. It’s the end of the night. He takes you home. Your heads lean in together, as if magnets pulled from an unknown source. Your pulse pounds and your lips touch. You hit something hard and open your eyes to see if you veered off course somehow. His lips are drawn so tight you feel like you’re kissing plastic. He has a look of pain on his face because they are pulled into such a fine line. You try to readjust your face to this angle or that, but no luck, you’re not getting in.

As a girl, you automatically assume it’s you, not that the guy is just inexperienced or a K-hole. Is my breath bad? Does he not like me? Am I doing it wrong?

NO. You are not. It’s him, not you.

An aside on this – it’s worse if after the thin lipped smooch his tongue darts out just a bit. I won’t kiss a frog to find a prince, I’m not kissing you lizard boy!

The opposite is the guy who wants to wrap his tongue around your head when he kisses you. He likes you a lot, obviously. And he wants to prove it by roughly shoving his tongue into your mouth so hard it bruises your own. I firmly believe this guy used to be Slobberman. Some girl probably finally told him, Dude, I don’t need a spit bath, so he overcompensated by shoving his entire face in your mouth to avoid drooling on you.

4. The Pecker:

(Sorry. Wait for a minute while I giggle at the word pecker because I am 12.)

This one doesn’t drool. He isn’t rough with his tongue. No kisses that feel like they came from a Ken doll. No, this one is much worse.

Cue mood lighting and the swell of your favorite love song in your head. The stars are twinkling. He smells of caramel, which is great because that’s the exact color of his eyes. You lean close and so does he. Then peck.

He kisses your lips quickly. Huh, you think, it was only the first…

Another one. Now you’re thinking what the…

Again. Peck, peck, peck. Like fifty small kisses instead of one good smackeroo. He moves from your mouth to your jawline, your neck, and you should be enjoying it, but you can’t because he lifts his head away after each one and comes back in. He’s like a bird getting food from a feeder, except the feeder is your face! You tense, sure at any moment the beak will emerge and a cawing sound will issue from it. AhHHHH! You’re under attack!

No intimacy can be achieved by this. Who even thinks this is a good idea? No. Just no.

5. The back breaker:

This one is the trickiest of all bad kissers because this guy knows how to kiss. He is beautiful and usually taller then you. He wants you and it all seems fine.

Until…

He’s kissing you and kissing you and they get a bit more forceful. He leans into you. Over you. He holds you tight so there’s no where to go. Your back bends over his arms he has circled about your waste. You become insta-gymnast in the final pose of presenting to the judges. You bend further. And further.

Are his feet even still on the floor? Is he at a right angle yet? All he needs to do is move those glorious Ryan Lochte arms up to your hair, let you straighten for a minute, and it would be fine, but his arms have molded into some kind of reverse iron seatbelt holding you securely to his pelvis. Maybe he’s afraid you’ll get away. Maybe we should just lay down on the couch. Maybe…oh God let me up! I have a cramp!

Bonus section:

The worst kiss of all is the one you forget. You can remember the bad ones, dream about the good ones and write about the perfect moments, but the ones you can’t remember? That’s its own special tragedy.

The moral of the story is this:

 “A have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.” That may be the princess motto, but it holds true. If his kiss doesn’t buckle your knees and make your head spin (Even if he does look like Ian Somerhalder) keep kissing.  *Note – If he looks like Ian Somerhalder, you should probably kiss him a few times, just to see if you can work out the kinks.

Bottom line - You’ll know a good kiss when it’s worth writing home about. 

Tomorrow: The Greatest Kiss offs!