Writing Prompt #2

I'm having a nice bout of writer's block again, so here's another entry based on a writing prompt.

My first kiss is one that I actually remember quite well. It was in 1989, the summer between eighth grade and high school. The girl's name was Mandy, a classmate who I dated for about a month. She was a redhead, a little on the chubby side, and had a billion or so freckles.

We lived out in the country, so even though she lived about seven miles away, she was closer in proximity than the vast majority of my friends - which, admittedly, I didn't have many of at this particular point in time. While we had lived in the general area for a little over two years, we had only lived in our house for about six months at that time, and even then my friend-making skills were less than stellar.

Around mid-June, Mandy invited me to a party at her house to celebrate finishing middle school. It was the first time I'd been invited to any sort of social gathering since moving from Cleveland so naturally I jumped at the opportunity. The party was decent, but most of the time I spent alone sitting on a tree stump watching everyone swimming and having fun. Toward the end of the party Mandy and I sat at the picnic table and decided we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Ahh, young love.

The next time I saw her was the Fourth of July, when she invited me over for a picnic. When my mom dropped me off, I realized I was the only person there. It turned out just being Mandy her parents and I - my first "real" girlfriend, and I already had to go through the parent test!

We walked to a park down the road that her dad took care of, as part of the township's tiny parks and rec department. He was dragging the baseball field, which for those not into baseball is when you drag a rake, chain link fence, or other such device around the infield to smooth the dirt.

Anyway.

When he finished we rode back to their house with him to eat. After dinner her parents left, so it was just the two of us at the house. We sat at the picnic table, and she told me I needed to kiss her.

The thing that has stuck with me the most over the years was the taste. I don't remember how soft her lips may or may not have been, or how exactly the tongue play went, or any of the other million tiny details that come with kissing. But I clearly remember that her mouth tasted like mustard from the burgers we had eaten.

We made out for close to half an hour before my mom pulled in to pick me up. I gave her my Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat (horrible move!!) we parted ways, and that was the end of our relationship. We didn't talk the rest of the summer, and when we started school in the fall she was dating someone else.

So, there's my first kiss.