The First Kiss

Age 13: My first time at a night club.

Club K. My mom called it Club Cu. Translation: Club Asshole.

I had fought with her for about six months until she let me go. Her argument was that Sao Paulo was too dangerous and I was too young to go clubbing- (I totally agree with her NOW, by the way. But back then, I thought she was being way over-protective and paranoid). She finally let me go, because all my friends had gone a bunch of times, and every time they went, I locked myself in my room and blasted Sheryl Crow songs. I think she was afraid I was going to start doing drugs or cutting myself or something, so she let me go.

My curfew was 1:00am.

At 9:00pm I met up with my friends. We all wore some variation of the same outfit: tight black pants, heeled boots, and a sparkly or see-through-ish shirt. We met up at someone's house. They told me how it would all go down. The hardest part was getting in. The club was for 16-year-olds, and we were 13. So they taught me how to "look 16". Darker lipstick. Don't smile (I wore braces). Talk about our boyfriends while standing in line (we didn't have boyfriends). It was starting to sound nerve-racking and I expressed my concern. They assured me I'd be okay because I was tall and had big boobs. The next most important thing (the whole reason we were going to the club) was getting boys to kiss us. Well. I had never been kissed. I asked them what I'd have to do. "Basically," one of them said, "A guy will grab your hand if he wants to kiss you. Or he might try to grab you by the waist from behind on the dance floor. Take a look at him, and if you're not interested look at one of us and we'll save you. If you're interested, smile at him but pull away. He has to try at least three times before you let him." I took in what she said. But I didn't think she had understood my question. What do I do once I "let him"??? I had no idea how to kiss someone. I was dying to do it, I couldn't have been more ready, but I didn't know much about technique. Seeing my puzzled face, another friend said, "Listen, your first kiss might feel a little gross. You might not like it. Just let him do it. You'll learn instinctively. Let it be short and sweet and then move on. It'll take a few kisses to get the hang of it." Okay.... I was not at all clear on the subject, but I was too anxious to keep talking about it. We had to go.

At 10:00pm we arrived at the club. It was packed. We stood in line for what felt like an hour, but was probably just fifteen minutes, before we got to the bouncer. This was the moment. I tried to look "16". I tried to look like I didn't care. Meanwhile my stomach was fighting to keep itself from falling out of my ass. He didn't card us. We got in. Victory.

We walked in to the huge club with its green and red lights, and the rush was immediate. The rush of freedom, of rebellion, of being somewhere dark and forbidden. For these couple of hours, we were independent and free. We had to do two things: go to the bathroom, and then go to the bar and drink "FlashPower" (the drink before Red Bull). We went to the bathroom, checked ourselves out. We ran into some of the cool girls from school in there, and they totally talked to us like we were cool too. I felt so cool.

On our way to the bar, a guy already grabbed my hand. I looked at him, as instructed, and checked him out, could this be the guy to give me my first kiss? His nose was huge. No. I looked at my friends, they intercepted, pulled me away, he let me go, and we proceeded. I loved it. I felt so wanted. It was going to be a special night. We made it to the bar, got our energy drinks and hit the dance floor.

Uh-oh. They definitely failed to tell me that this club only played techno. And I had absolutely no idea how to dance to this kind of music. I had hippie parents who had raised me on folk music. At the very least, I thought a song had to have someone playing the guitar in order for it to be called a song. This techno stuff felt like someone was beating the club up with a hammer the size of China. I looked at my friends. They were basically pulsing their torsos. I tried to follow suit. And just as I thought I was getting the hang of it, a guy cut into our circle and stood in front of me. Uh... they had not told me about this approach. He took both my hands. He was taller than me and he had green eyes. That's about as specific an image as I have for him. He asked me my name. I told him. He said I had a beautiful name. I smiled. He told me his. And then he asked if he could kiss me. At this point, I'd forgotten all the rules. I just looked him in the eyes and my face must have said, yes, you're the one, kiss me, because then he kissed me. And it didn't feel gross or weird at all. I liked it right away. I wanted to kiss him forever. I put my arms around his neck and he pulled me really close to him. Everything in my body was responding in a new way to this experience, telling me I was no longer a child, I was now an almost-adult. I couldn't tell you what song was playing, I don't know how long it lasted (my friends said it went on for a really long time- they were shocked), and I don't remember what thoughts went through my head. At some point, the kiss ended. We danced around each other a little bit. And then my friends and I decided to go to the bathroom again. I looked at him, said good-bye, and went off with my friends, never to see the boy who gave me my first kiss again.

When we got to the bathroom, they wanted to know everything. I wanted to look at myself in the mirror. I wanted to see if I had changed. Something had to have changed- I just felt so different. I finally knew what it was like. I had finally been kissed. But I looked the same, and my friends wanted to talk more than they wanted to hear what I had to say. They told me what it looked like to them, "You totally knew what to do with your head, it was impressive, " and "His hands were pretty low on your back, I thought he was gonna try to feel your butt." We analyzed it for a while, and then went back out to the dance floor so the other girls could find boys to kiss too.

When I got home, I could barely sleep. I replayed the night over and over in my head. I smiled for about a month after that.

For a while, I thought my first kiss had happened all wrong. It was just too unromantic. I had been kissed in a nightclub? By a complete stranger who I never saw again? Why didn't it happen under a starry night, with a boy who'd courted me for years? Had I fucked up something I could only do once?

Eventually, though, "first kisses" got upstaged by other "firsts", and I stopped thinking about it too much. The memory faded over the years, until all I could remember of his face were his eyes.

I look back on it all now, and it makes me smile. The sweetness of those 13-year-old girls with raging hormones, feeling so incredibly powerful and free for a few hours at a nightclub. The outline of the boy's face and how he looked at me and let me know with his eyes that I had been chosen.

It wasn't a perfect first kiss. It didn't set the bar too high for romanticism. It wasn't like the movies. It was very "real life-y". And that's okay.

It remains as a sweet imperfect memory of a time that was as torturous as it was precious.

Oh, adolescence.

image from here.