an isolated incident of kissing
The story rightly begins farther back than from which even I desire to return and retell. Lacking the willingness to start properly, I'll at least supply the reader with a few basic facts on background. Just to get up to speed.

Weeks ago, probably a month, Sarah (from Boston) was telling me how she never receives any postal mail. It was a bitch or complaint but not really as it came from her lips with a small laugh following. The weekend before, we'd spent an immensely enjoyable time eating Italian, hitting various bars, and listening to Ephram Owen play his jazz trumpet at the Elephant Room. Feeling nice, somewhat romantic, as usual, and loving her company, I decided to write her a letter and have it put in her campus mailbox.

I wrote in vague, cryptic terms. I can't recall everything I said. I wrote of wanting something but being afraid of actually voicing that want for fear that the dream we live in – that dream that what we want might someday be ours – would dissolve or implode directly in front of our faces as the words were spoken. I wrote of self-censorship and the need to lie not only to others but to ourselves in order that we might extend that dream's lifespan. I wrote of the need for others to read between the lines, read deeply, to find that truth battling to get out of false lines. And she did.

She wrote a short note back guessing that she understood what I was writing about but, in the event that she was misguided, feeling sort of embarrassed about it. She thought I was talking about me and her. (She was right.) She thought we should talk about it.

So we talked outside that night after I'd had a few glasses of wine. I was able to tell her that we were friends first and foremost in my mind, but the rest of the conversation was led by her. Had we been in a courtroom a lawyer would have objected to her leading the witness.

"You were only talking in general terms . . ." she said.

"Well, yes . . . I mean, no, but yeah . . . I mean . . ." I'd reply and try to tell her: Yes, general, sure, but, more importantly, you and me. You were right. You read it correctly. I'm sorry. Friends?

But it never came out. Soon the fire alarm went off in the male dorms and the parking lot filled around us with half-dressed boys and the conversation was put to rest.

We didn't see much of each other for a while. Our communication fell. I'd noticed that we never went out together unless I invited her, and I wondered if maybe she felt obligated in some way to go out with me when I invited her. She never initiated an outing. She'd invite me, but never follow-through. So, I stopped inviting her out, waiting for her to invite me out. It never came. She'd voice an idea about our going out to coffee or something sometime, but never get back to me.

Then one night last week, I realized that I should take the friendship for what it was. I enjoyed being with her. Through my constant state of sadness (for no discernable reason), I should try to focus on the good things, I decided. I should try to live in the happy times as much as possible without questioning their sincerity or depth quite so much.

I invited her out again. She accepted. It was fun, again.

We talked on the phone two nights ago. I called her up to tell her to keep an eye on Tommy as he came down off the massive amounts of Adderall he'd taken the night before to study for a test. I know what it feels like to be coming off of speed. It isn't nice. I prefer my depression organic, I don't need speed's help.

She mentioned the CD – a mix of Sodastream songs – I'd given her earlier for her birthday and the note I'd included. The cover of the album, half of a piece of letter stationary that, when I ripped it from its other half, almost perfectly fit the CD case cover said: "There isn't a particle of you that I don't know, remember, and want." In my letter to her enclosed with the CD, I disclaimed that quotation saying that I didn't want to scare her off again. "There is another who knows your particles better than I and has permission to want," I wrote.

She said that she wanted to apologize for the way she'd acted after our discussion of the letter I sent her a month ago. It was a weird week for her anyway, she said, and she felt bad that we were no longer 100% on the same page about each other as we had been for everything else, it seemed. I reiterated that we were friends above and beyond everything else. We hoped it could return to that earlier stage of easy companionship and fun.

That's it for background. Now we'll get to last night.

I wanted to get some writing done and thought a bottle of wine would help. So I stopped by the Texan Mart on the way back to campus from Halcyon and picked up a 1.5 liter bottle of merlot and three packs of cigarettes.

Back at the dorm, my roommate was rolling a blunt with a girl named Michelle in the room. I logged online to find Sarah on my buddy list and instant messaged her asking if she'd like to drink a glass of wine with me to loosen up the wordy side of her brain before she started writing her English paper. Sure, she said, if I'd let her bum a cigarette off me first. I went outside to the back fire escape a couple of minutes later to smoke and let her in.

I saw her walking from her dorm as I climbed the stairs to the third floor landing. From there, I looked out over the trees toward the Austin skyline. It was amazingly clear, but the city lights were shimmering. I mean, absolutely flashing nearly. It was a hell of a sight, and I told her as she climbed the steps to the second floor that she should check it out. Noticing that sort of thing, I think, is rather romantic in itself – with or without another person to share it with. Voicing it to another person is a, maybe (or, at least, I fear it appears to be), too blatant attempt at romanticism, but sometimes I don't care just enough to actually do it, as I did then. She was as amazed as I. We smoked and went inside.

We drank a glass each and talked to the roommate and his female visitor until they left. Then we talked about books and listened to music. We drank more and had another cigarette out back. She wanted to touch my hair after the haircut – off the collar, off the ears, out of my eyes – and severe beard trim. She ran her hand through my hair as we sat side-by-side on the fire escape steps and, taking small clumps of hair in her hand, slightly, delicately tugged at them. I loved having hands softly run through and pull my hair ever so meagerly away from my scalp, as I always have. She was very good.

On our way back in, we ran into Tommy, her old friend and ex-boyfriend from Boston, and went back outside for more cigarettes with him and a group of friends. We talked and she was made fun of for drinking on a Tuesday night by Tommy, of all people, who, as I type this, is drinking Vanilla Coke mixed with rum in his dorm room. We split up and went back to my room for more drinks. It was now becoming obvious that her paper would not be written tonight.

We listened to more music, drank more wine and talked about random things – slam poetry, Tim O'Brien, the Texas Book Festival, the election, et cetera. Conversation slowly moved to our talk on the phone the night before. We discussed it and she apologized again. I explained to her why I'd stopped inviting her out. It was a good talk, and, at the end, we both agreed that we felt as if we were back to where we were before the letter.

The letter is strange as it seems to mark some benchmark in our relationship. It is referred to simply as "the letter". The letter is spoken of easily now. Much easier than immediately after it was sent and read and replied to and discussed. It's behind us but not forgotten. Its contents continue to play a role, I think.

She said she'd have to give me a backrub sometime, and I wondered aloud what was wrong with right then. She concurred that it was as good a time as any, so I laid down on my bed and she, warning me first, lifted my shirt and gave me a wonderful massage. I think I may have drooled.

As I lay there, I thought about how nice it would be to have her laying next to me. In my growing inebriation, it didn't seem out of reach. Her with me, my arm around her. Nothing more, nothing less. It could be done, I knew (it was less knowledge than just sudden understanding), easily. I did.

When she finished, I pulled her down next to me.

"Awww," she said. That was all. I just hugged her against me.

We sat up and I pulled her to me again. We hugged. My newly-trimmed beard touched her cheek. She liked that. We rubbed cheeks for a bit while she relished the feeling of it. A fleeting thought that our lips might touch passed . . . and then they did.

Then, for an hour or maybe two (I certainly didn't notice the clock during this time), we kissed. Sitting up, lying down, different positions of vulnerability and power. In between kisses and lip chewing, we talked about how this would probably screw up our entire friendship, and we both insisted it wouldn't.

A couple of times, I pulled back from her.

"What?" she'd ask.

"I just want to look at you," I'd say. "I know the chances of this ever happening again are close to nil. I want to take you in and remember this, when you were this close to me," and I'd run my fingers along her soft cheeks, through her loose hair.

Then we'd resume kissing. Her neck, her ears, her cheeks, her lips. All so soft. How else to describe it? Velvet, satin, a million clichés.

She complimented my kissing and said she'd begun to wonder if I thought she was any good. [She'd complained to me before about the only other guy she's kissed at St. Ed's – drunk, during the first couple of weeks of school – and I wondered if I were in the same category as him. Maybe I'll never know, but it's nice to think that I can take her commendations at face value.] You're great, wonderful, I told her.

Near three in the morning, the wine finished, we went outside and kissed between drags on our cigarettes. We talked. I told her that this satisfied me. Kissing her satisfied me. Nothing less, nothing more.

"It was inevitable," she said.

"Was it? I didn't think so," I said. "I never expected it."

"I expected it. This can't happen again, but I know it will," she went on, emphasizing her words with her hands and the cherry of her cigarette tracing lines in the chilly night air.

She probably said that for my benefit, even if it wasn't true and she never expects it to happen again. It's a nice thought, though.

In reply, I probably said something like, "You mean, like this?" and leaned over and kissed her again. She stopped at the top of the stairs on her way back to her dorm room, leaned back and kissed me once more.

The next morning at nine thirty, I woke up in the cloudy fog of a night spent with wine. I briefly wondered whether or not I'd been asleep ten hours and it was all just a dream. It was too good to be a dream, I decided. Too clear, if somewhat faded. Too linear, if spontaneous and missing pieces.

I went to philosophy and ached to get out and meet her for lunch. We regularly meet outside Moody Hall on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between philosophy classes – she has the same philosophy class I have at eleven at one. I noticed her across the way. Instead of coming from her psychology class inside Moody, she came from the direction of the Main Building and the dorms. She smiled.

"How are ya?" she asked.

"I feel the wine," I answered.

"Oh, I know. I skipped my first two classes and did laundry. I was afraid I'd be late and not get to see you."

"It was hard to sit in philosophy today," let her think it was the wine that made it hard. She was the other half.

And then today (Thursday), two nights after all this happened, we stood outside on the third level landing of her dorms and looked out over the sparkling lights of Austin. We could actually see the Capitol from her dorms. We smoked and chatted.

"I haven't felt any awkwardness, have you?" she asked.

"No. I think we talked about it a lot in the midst, though."

"In the midst," she said, laughing. "Yeah, you're right."

The end?

William O. Pate II


Submitted by [Mia Moore] who says "A friend wrote this and asked what I thought. I think it's wonderful.A beautifully erotic slice of life: mentally, picturesquely, and emotionally." A great read, makes me nostalgic for college life. — Kirk

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November 8 2002
I absolutely ADORED an isolated incident of kissing.... the tone, the mood, the feeling.....the playfullness of his words...they just drew me in and I couldn't stop reading! I would love to read more of your friend's work!

December 9 2001
I particularly liked your friend's writing.