The Taste of My Chapstick on Her Lips

The Taste of My Chapstick on Her Lips A No-Nudity WLW Coming-of-Age Story by Faerie Realm . . . Hiya! My name is Allison, and in Year 6 at Godstowe Prep just outside London, I met my true love: Katrina, a quiet girl from a posh family that made no secret they expected her to grow up and marry an MP (member of parliament), just as her mother had. Our classmates said we looked like sisters, but I think that's just because we spent so much time together. After all, we were inseparable back then, with my mischievous and wholly non-serious personality a natural complement to Katrina's more reserved demeanor. Can you tell who's who in these camping photos? As the non-serious one, I felt it my responsibility to put a smile on Katrina's face, and she welcomed my attempts. I was far more touchy-feely than her, but I didn't actually kiss her until Sixth Form when we had moved on to Wycombe Abbey. And that fateful moment transpired not at school but during the great British rite of passage formally known as the Duke of Edinburgh Award Expedition. Often abbreviated to 'DofE', the Duke of Edinburgh Award Expedition has several levels. Since we were sixteen years old, we could participate in the Gold level DofE. Gold involves 3-4 nights hiking and camping in a choice of locations around the United Kingdom. Our Gold level explored the Cairngorms in Scotland, and Glenmore Forest specifically. I'd done the Silver DofE the previous year but Katrina had missed it due to illness. As a result, she felt a bit apprehensive, and I did my best to cheer her up with my silly faces and playful antics. In British schoolkid vernacular, Allison shortens to Allie and Katrina to Kat, and our classmates had already started referring to us as AlleyKat that year, as if we were a single unit. In hindsight, they clearly saw something that even I didn't at the time, at least not until this camping trip. To be sure, I'd always thought Katrina was beautiful and I loved spending time with her, but something about this outdoor expedition—perhaps being away from our stuffy school, away from 'proper society' and from adults in general—changed my feelings for her in a way I didn't fully grasp at the time. The irony of being a girl is that it's perfectly acceptable to hold hands even as teenagers, and that's exactly what we did as we set off on our 'solo pair' hike after our friernds made fun of us for dressing alike. We hiked until we reached the Druim an Aird waterfall, where we took a break to eat our packed lunches. And that's when it happened. Perhaps I became intoxicated by the fresh air or cool mist of the falls, but without thinking at all, I suddenly reached out and kissed her. She didn't push me away, but she also didn't really respond, and since I'd never kissed anyone before (let alone a girl), I started to wonder if I'd made a huge mistake. Suddenly self-conscious, I pulled back and scrutinized her face, which was frozen in apparent confusion; and I felt anxious for perhaps the first time in my life. Just when I felt like dying—and apologizing profusely for my insane action—her eyes refocused and she said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone: "Is that cinnamon chapstick you're wearing?" I gave an entirely nervous laugh, still afraid I'd just screwed up six years of friendship. "Yeah, it is." She licked her lips quietly, as if trying to decide if she cared for the taste. "Sorry if you don't like cinnamon," I added, my stomach churning as it appeared she didn't. But then she finally looked directly at me, and some of the confusion left her face. "It's different," she murmured. "Like Christmas in April. Can I... try again?" My heart jumped as she leaned towards me. This time she was the one to bring a hand up to my face, and relief washed over me as we kissed again, slower now. No longer a passive participant, she pressed her lips against mine for what seemed like a glorious epoch of time, although in reality it was probably just a few seconds. She drew back finally and looked at me again, this time with a shy smile. "Okay... I like it," she said with a nervous laugh. "Well good!" I shouted in relief. "Because I love cinnamon! Although I have been known to wear other flavors from time to time." And then I wrinkled my nose and made a funny face at her, trying to dispel the remaining awkwardness of the moment. And that became a running joke of ours during our remaining time in secondary school: Thanks to my carefree personality, I had no problem walking right up to her and planting a kiss on her lips, but as the more reserved one, she would often ask (when she wanted a kiss), "What flavor chapstick are you wearing?" And I would always answer, with a mischievous smile, something like, "I forgot. Can you help me figure it out?" And then we would kiss. And so we settled into a new and closer type of friendship: Holding hands, hugging, kissing, and sometimes, when I was feeling particularly mischievous, enticing her into a tickle session. But tickling was as close as we ever got to second base (as the American exchange students would say) during our pre-university years. Because here's the thing: My attraction to Katrina wasn't sexual, or at least that's what I told myself at the time. Our kisses were lip kisses, not French kisses, and even if some part of me wanted more, another part of me told me this was far enough, and I suspect Katrina felt the same way. We would eventually tongue kiss, and also get further 'round the bases, but not until much later in university, and not without both of us first going off and trying to date boys in the interim. But that's a story for another day. At Wycombe Abbey, we were just two teenage girls and special BFFs enjoying a particular closeness that can really only exist at that time in a girl's life when she is coming of age: no longer a child, but not yet a woman. And honestly, those were some of the happiest days of my life. To be clear, there's nothing wrong with adult activities, and we certainly came to enjoy those later. But there's a certain innocence in the mutual affection of those caught in the transition between child and adult, and I'll always treasure that time in our lives. This story continues at the following link: https://budgetpixel.com/blog/the-taste-of-my-chapstick-on-her-lips-part-2 Originally published: April 12, 2026 Updated: April 18, 2026 (added another image)