kissing strangers

it started out with a kiss how did it end up like this etc etc

Sometimes i lie in bed and think about all of the people I’ve ever loved – from the three-month-flings to the long-term romances. And then I think about all of the relationships I will ever be in; completely casual (one-night-stands); somewhat open; queer-platonic; strictly monogamous. I think about all of the people I will love, who will love me. 

I think about all of the people I’m going to meet. Maybe I’ll love one person for a whole decade. Maybe I’ll love them for just one night. You never know. 

I think about all of the kisses I’ve planted on strangers’ lips and what those kisses have bloomed into. There are the nervy first-date pecks, three (or more) pints down after a rhythmic back-and-forth of niceties, anecdotes, and flirtatious teasing. Then there’s the brazen snogs on dance floors, wherein sustained eye contact followed by one party approaching the other, results in the clumsy exchange of saliva. Or there are the slightly clandestine kisses between acquaintances at parties, oft preceded by several moments of polite conversation in some private corner you’ve knowingly gravitated towards. 

You can glean a lot from a first kiss. Not just about the person, but about the two of you, your relationship to and with one another. 

Did they ask first? Was there a hurried “can I kiss you?” followed by a swift nod and the meeting of faces all within a few seconds? What did they taste like? Cigarettes? White wine? Aniseed? 

Did they use their tongue, or nervously withhold it, waiting for you to make the first move? Did they bite your lip so hard it bled? Did you naturally fall into a rhythm or did your teeth awkwardly clank against theirs?

Did they say anything afterward? I’ve received a “thank you”, exhaled giddily outside Peckham Rye Station. I said “you’re welcome” as though I’d just brought him a cup of tea. Matter-of-fact, comfortable, domestic as well as vaguely condescending (from me) and reverent (from him). I think I know exactly what the sex is going to be like.  

Sometimes i lie in bed and think about all of the kisses and how they’ve evolved into something so much bigger than the simple exchange of saliva. I think, in particular, about one boy, who I met on the dance floor during my debut into the London sex-party-scene. 

I’d made eyes at one stranger, who had a sturdy presence within the crowd, owing to his height and broad stature. I tentatively approached. We kissed. I hardly remember it. He leaned into my ear and half shouted something to me about finding his friend to introduce me to her before moving things forward. I nodded in agreement, letting him pass.

I found an empty space on the dancefloor and I waited, staggering slightly on my six-inch heels. I caught the eye of another stranger – a boy in black lingerie with a pink ring-gag wrapped around his neck. He tottered over (also struggling in his own heels). With still a foot between us, I hooked my finger into the ring and pulled his face into my face. 

Snogging had hardly commenced before my first stranger approached with a third stranger, a girl called Lo. “Come with us?” I offered to my ring-gagged boy

From that 10-second (maybe less, maybe more, who’s to say?) smooch on the dance floor, bloomed a foursome, followed then by a “casual” relationship that has spanned 18 months and counting. I fondly remember the awkward formality of the queue for the “playroom”. The four of us stood together, me acting as some kind of mediator between this couple who knew each other and the rest of us strangers. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Aidan – yours?” 

“Alice. Where are you from Aidan?” 

“Durham” 

“You don’t sound like you’re from Durham.”

And I hardly sound like I’m from the Peak District but I guess I was hard-pushed on what to say to this stranger I’d fished out from the crowd and was about to engage in group sex with. As the other two were a couple, I felt compelled to form an alliance with Aidan, to make him feel like less of a stranger. 

But it’s hard to make small-talk when all parties involved are leather-clad. Even harder when you are only a few moments away from becoming an active participant in the soundscape of slapping and moaning that lies ahead.

Mine and Aidan’s non-existent relationship to one another was made starkly apparent when strangers two and three (the couple) entered the playroom swiftly, whilst the two of us were pulled aside to talk preferences, boundaries and safe words. I knew his first name and regional origin and now I had 30 seconds to uncover his sexual proclivities and to divulge my own before we’d be permitted entrance.

Of course, this is a highly sensible policy, but it has become comical in retrospect. 18 months ago he was a stranger I snogged on a dancefloor, then he swiftly became someone I experienced a mind-blowing foursome with, then he became a number saved in my phone, under ‘Aidan (chastity belt)’. 

Now, we cook dinner for each other and eat ice cream in front of the TV. I often look at him, flannel-clad, and marvel at how we’ve reached a state of comfortable domesticity. 

I think about all of the strangers I’m going to kiss and how they might cast themselves in their own unique roles in the story that is my life. I obsess over the trajectory of relationships – not so much over the destination, but the origin and the evolution from that past to this present consumes much of my attention.  

It’s taken a lot of self-discipline not to quote The Killers’ 00s, over-played club-banger, but “it started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?” does reverberate through many of my existing relationships. I just think it’s so exciting how locking lips results in an entanglement that may only last as long as the kiss itself, or could span months, years. 

You just never know. Which is why I can’t stop doing it. 

***

AN ASIDE: I’ve kissed several people who taste like cucumber – inexplicably fresh and cool, considering both kisses-in-question took place in the same grotty Oxford nightclub we frequented every Thursday as students. I’m not sure what it says about someone when they taste like cucumber, but I do think it’s an interesting phenomenon (one that I’ve googled several times but to no avail).  

Have you ever kissed someone and they taste like cucumber / avocado / the colour green? It can’t just be me and it can’t just be these two boys I met and exchanged saliva very briefly with at university.