My First Kiss

I thought that tonight, I would tell you a story.

Let me take you back to 2007.

I'm geeky, skinny, and I've got a perm because I don't know how to do my hair and took some exceptionally bad advice from my hairdresser. Because I'm an ugly duckling, I've never kissed a boy. I was an awful teenager, I didn't grow up well at all. I was stuck in that awkward 'still a child phase' until I was about seventeen.

In this story I'm fifteen years old, but it's the night before my sixteenth birthday and it's also Valentine's Day. Got it? Good.

I'm visiting my family who live in Biddulph, and my cousin Jade (who is nine months younger than me, but already by this point has bigger boobs than I will ever have in my adult life) wants us to go to Liquid, the under-eighteens 'club' in Hanley. A Coca-Cola fueled Valentine's special. I'm wearing my favourite party outfit cream shorts, cream heels (which are still knocking about somewhere!) and a cream and gold strapless and backless top from Jane Norman. Perhaps tonight will be the night when I kiss someone! I think, and I imagine meeting a fit boy who will fall in love with me. (As well as being a bit of a minger, I was also a bit of a moron.)

At some point I meet one of Jade's friends, 'Jonesy', although I think he spelled it with a Z. He was really tall and from what I remember, actually quite fit in that 'fifteen year old, bleached hair spiked up with too much gel' kinda way. You know the type. There's some teenage flirting (including him demonstrating his youthful strength by picking me up. When he put me back down, I stood on his toes in my heels), and we discover his birthday is also the next day. It's meant to be, surely! Without warning, he looms in for a snog. Here it is!

He thrusts his tongue in and out of my mouth rapidly, completely taking over my oral space. I can't move. It's pretty much like he's simulating sex with my mouth with his tongue, creating this nausea inducing 'in and out' motion. I didn't know tongues were that big or could move that quickly. At the first opportunity I break away and make for the loos, where I'm a little bit shaky at my first kiss feeling like such a violation of my human rights. A girl says 'you're the one getting off with Jonesy, aren't you?' and I'm amazed that she actually sounds a bit jealous. I nod, trying not to throw up.

When I leave the loos I try and sneak out as inconspicuously as possible, and thank god, Jonesy (I'm sorry, I can't use the Z) is distracted by a friend. They're in deep conversation and I thank my lucky stars he hasn't noticed me - until I see his mate pass him some chewing gum, and Jonesy nudges him and points straight at me grinning. His mate nudges him back approvingly as my heart sinks and Jonesy makes his way back over to me. The tongue thrusting continues.

At the end of the evening I escape once again, ten minutes before everybody is kicked out. There's a nice doorway outside that's preferable to Jonesy's ape-like clutches, so I wait there for Jade to come out. When she and her friends do leave, Jonesy's with her, telling her enthusiastically 'your cousin's WELL FIT!' just as they pass the doorway I'm lurking in. Everyone laughs and I grimace.

The girls and I pile into my uncle's car, who makes jokes about us finding romance on the dancefloor, while I hang my head out the car window on the way home like a dog as the thought of Jonesy's tongue in my mouth is still making my stomach churn. When we finally get home, it's twenty past midnight. My sixteenth birthday. I run straight upstairs and vomit like I'm eighteen and it's A-level results night.

Happy Birthday Emma!

(A side note: I once demonstrated just how bad this snogging was on an ex. He physically pushed me off him. Can't blame him really. Ben: I'm sorry.)