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 first 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 this photo of us pitching our tent? 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 (for posh kids, anyway) called the Duke of Edinburgh expedition. Kids often refer to the Duke of Edinburgh expedition as 'DoE' (pronounced Doh!), and since we were sixteen years old, we were set to participate in the Gold level DoE. Gold level means 3-4 nights hiking and camping in various locations across the United Kingdom. Our Gold level explored the Cairngorms in Scotland, and Glenmore Forest specifically. I'd done the Silver level DoE 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 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 least not until this camping trip. I'd always thought Katrina was beautiful and I loved spending time with her more than anyone else, but something about our time outdoors--perhaps being away from our stuffy school or away from 'proper society'--changed me at a level 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 classmates 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 was intoxicated by the fresh air and cool mist of the falls, but without thinking about it 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 looked at her face, which was frozen in apparent confusion. I felt anxious for perhaps the first time in my life. But just when I felt like dying--but not before profusely apologizing for my insane action--her eyes refocused, she looked at me and said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone: "Is that cinnamon chapstick you're wearing?" I gave an entirely nervous laugh, still certain I'd just screwed up six years of close 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. And then I wrinkled my nose and made a funny face at her, trying to dispel the lingering awkwardness of the moment. "Because I love cinnamon! Although I have been known to wear other flavors from time to time." 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 wet one on her lips, but as the more reserved person, 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 sometimes we would tickle each other, and that 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, and hers to me, wasn't sexual, at least not at that point in our lives. We would eventually get further around the bases, but not until university, and not without first going off and trying to date boys. 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. THE END (for now)