It Started With A Kiss

It started with a kiss, which was when the reality of it “kicked in” as they say. She bent her head, her hair all sweaty and tangled from what had gone before. Her neck and shoulders were bare, gleaming with moisture in the harsh light. Her hands were infinitely gentle so fine and womanly.

The tiny flowers on the nightgown were rather unlike her. I saw her more as a wearer of silk and lace, or at the other end of the spectrum, daft T’s or even my own shirts which would make her look unbelievably vulnerable and sexy - but just at this moment that would have felt wrong.

I don’t remember any noise, not after the hullaballoo that had gone before. It was calm and quiet and exquisitely holy. For those few moments there was nobody else in the world - just a tiny micro-universe closeted and private and ours alone.

After that first kiss, hers, it was my turn. I was worried about getting it right. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, how to handle it. In the end it just happened as natural as breathing. I will never forget the perfume of that kiss, if I close my eyes I can conjure it up still. The softness of skin on skin, the glimpse of feathery eyelashes laying against the swell of a cheek as I bent forward, it’s all so very vivid still, more a recurrent happening than a memory.

The world was stilled, the only reality was us there together, a unit, complete and perfect. After the kiss I lifted my head and her face glowed, with pride and wonder and something else deep and almost otherworldly.

Sometimes in the night we are both so tired that we can barely speak. We are at our wits end; frightened, ignorant, scared and we don’t know whether we’re getting it right. Sometimes in the mornings we stand outside his door listening for the sound of him breathing or shifting in the cot. We listen and wait scared to go in because he has slept longer than usual, and we think the unthinkable. Sometimes we wonder why. Why did we forfeit our ease and independence for this red faced howling tyrant? At times like that when it all seems too hard I look deep inside and I remember that quiet holy moment when it all started, with a kiss.

- THE END -