A Kiss

A friend and I were discussing kissing. You know. Everything that ranges from that quick, dry, something-to-do-with-lips you issue when your Mom makes you greet Great Auntie Ermine and she smells all funny and you're ghastly afraid of her wrinkly, papery skin and how cold her hands are as she cups your face and tells you you're just the sweetest thing and she gives you a very stale chewy fruit candy that tastes more like her gagulous perfume than like, well, anything edible ... (pause for breath) ... to the desperate, hot-weasel passionate droolings you and your pimply-faced boyfriend in High School had.

We talked about the quality of kisses.

We talked about how when your own toddler kisses you, it doesn't matter that she has just managed to smear a jar's worth of jelly all over her face and, using that as a foundation, managed to apply several coatings of the dog's fur and crumbs from beneath the sofa -- you kiss that baby, and how. And you love that she curls her little arms around your neck and smears the entire front of your work outfit with her breakfast. That's real kissing.

We talked about this guy I dated in high school, who liked to indulge in this big hollow open mouth thingie. I didn't know what to do with it. Lips, but no teeth, no tongue, no real action. What was THAT all about? I mean, it was a gaping chasm of a kiss.

Or the fish kisses. You know, where they open and close their mouths and slobber a lot, but nothing really comes of it?

Then there're the ones who want to suck your tongue down their throats and I'm all "ow, 'op! Ih' 'ursh!" but I can't cuz my tongue is making its way down to their gastro-intestinal tract by that time.

Ah, but there are those that are delicious. The ones where there's just the right amount of exploratory tongue and teeth and firm lips. Where the kisser can read my mouth pretty well, and respond appropriately, while making it pretty clear what his own lips and tongue are expecting. Those kinds of kisses are the kinds that you marry.

Except ... well ... then they turn into those hurried little closed-mouth pecks.

What's up with that?