The Kiss

The Kiss

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These are the rules for the “Best Kiss I have ever witnessed” contest; for which this piece was written.

Sunday, January 28, 1996, ‘Super Bowl XXX, was the reason for our gathering. We called it our ‘lots party’; there was always lots of booze, food, dirty jokes, and cheering. Not so much for the teams, but for the scores, there was always a hefty payoff in the football pool.

It did not matter that it was the Cowboys and Steelers. Neither team had any sizable following here. In fact, the commercials got more of our attention than the game, except for the end of the scoring drives.

No, the genuine excitement of this party was the camaraderie of close friends of many years. This was our seventh Superbowl together. We took turns hosting.

This year we were at Rusty and Lynn’s house. Ibbey and I had just finished helping Rusty add on a massive new redwood deck, and this was its christening. The evening was chilly but not cold; the end of January in Florida is typically in the low sixties. Rusty’s cast iron fire pot glowed warmly in the center of the deck.

The party started with us men near the grill and the beer chest as the women brought out the other foods and snacks from the kitchen. We wrestled out the Sony; it took three of us to get the bulky box through the glass doors. Remember, this was 1996, and televisions were not thin or lightweight as they are today.

The pre-game warm-ups consisted of the guys pretending to talk football and show off our meager memories of the past season and a few of our best new jokes. Once the ribs and sausages were done, the girls had the other foods out. We settled in our selected seats in a semi-circle facing the TV.

My wife Sherry and I sat near the center on the padded wicker settee. Sherry, the mother to our four terrific children, had just turned thirty-four and still looked good at five-six and a hundred forty pounds. (I know, sharing these stats, is today, considered misogynistic, but then I am a Boomer, so kiss….Sorry, I digress.)

Ronda sat on the other end of the eight-foot settee. A tall, nearly forty gal with short dark hair. She still worked hard at her looks. And why not? Ronda was a regional VP and director of marketing for Citicorp. She could afford to spend as much as she pleased. She was also the group cut up and could find something funny in everything, often telling jokes dirty enough to make us guys blush. At her feet sat Jimmy, Ronda’s boyfriend. Ten years her junior but highly attentive to her every request... until he fell into the shadows of us, the old married guys.

In reclining deck chairs to the right of the settee were Ibrahim, who we called Ibbey, and Cindy, his wife. Ibbey was the restaurant manager at our local top eatery. He was originally from Iran, immigrating to the US when he was a child; his father was an assistant to the former Shaw. Cindy was a real estate salesperson who had just gotten her license.

A hotel general manager. Rusty was six-foot-two-inches tall, with bright red hair and a typical ginger complexion. He sat on a chair to the other side of Ibbey and Cindy, making it easier for him to put another log in the firepot and tend the grill. His wife Lynn, a petite woman of twenty-nine, Who the rest of the girls sometimes kidded about being too skinny, though they wished they had her malady. She was sitting on the opposite side of the deck, closest to the door to the house. An eager hostess, she took considerable pride in her home and showed her hospitality well.

Left of us sat Sherry’s best friend, Lori, and her beau John. Who, like Jimmy, was sitting on the deck, his arms draped over Lori’s knees. He was working on his seventh or eighth beer but doing okay. Perhaps holding one’s liquor was something they taught in the police academy, or maybe his strapping physique metabolized the alcohol so efficiently. He was Lori’s current significant other. She tended to go through them with notorious regularity.

Sherry and Lori met in junior high school and were best friends. Their friendship continued through college and into their adult lives. Over the years, whenever Sherry found herself in hot water, one could bet a hundred dollars to a doughnut that Lori was steaming in the same pot with her. More often than not, Lori was the instigator of whatever adventure they found themselves in.

Lori, also five-foot-six, weighed maybe a hundred nineteen pounds with shoulder-length brunette hair and a perfect body. She had dreams of being a model at one time and probably could have been when she wore heels while in one of her Little Black Dresses... no human male, between puberty and senility, could let her pass without review. She presented a perfect set of 34Cs, a 27-inch waist, atop 35-inch hips supported by 31.5-inch long, supple legs. Lori had been with Sherry through thick and thin. She was our maid of honor and was with us in the hospital when our children were born. She took turns with me in the labor room. She was (at Sherry’s insistence) in the delivery room, both of us, one on each side of Sherry’s bed.

So there’s the setting on that Superbowl Sunday way back when. We joked and laughed at the silly commercials. We lamented having missed the quarter’s pot pay-outs in the football pool and talked about work and the kids. As it was nearing half-time, we guys started talking about going down to Ronda’s house to look at Jimmy’s hot rod. He almost had it finished. We grunted and acted like fools, inspired by Tim Allen’s Home Improvement, which was on the TV just before the game. On hearing our plans, to leave the girls alone with Diana Ross and the half-time nonsense.

Sherry said aloud to me! “What, you find, an old car more exciting than a deck full of sexy women?”

Being a bit of a smart-ass, I said, “You know where we can find some.” She shot me a look that could steam clams. I instantly knew that I had made an error and softened my banter. “We will not be long. We just want to see the new paint job; we will be back before the game restarts.”

Ronda piped in as she noticed the TV cameraman had focused on the Cowboy Cheerleaders jumping up and down. She exclaimed, “Will you look at the ‘Ta-ta’s on that girl? I am going to buy me some of those.”

We guys were on our feet, waiting for the finish of the half, still intent on going to look at the car. Jimmy started to lead the procession toward the patio sliding doors.

Ronda said, “What? You are still going. What are we supposed to do while you’re gone?”

We stopped, all of us turning back to view the girls. Ibbey said, “You could just do your usual and complain about how we don’t understand or pick up anything.”

Ronda continued adding her taunts, “Okay, girls, I say we play ‘Spin the Bottle." she set her empty beer on its side and gave it a quick twist. The bottle spun until it pointed to Sherry. A broad smile covered Ronda's face as she said, "I can’t wait to watch Sherry making out with Lori.”

I couldn’t help myself and chimed in, “Now that ... We would stay to watch. Hell, you could sell tickets. But I know it’s just a tease, so we’ll get out of your hair for a few minutes.”

Sherry looked at Lori; her eyes held that twinkle, that devilment, which had gotten them in trouble so many times back in school. Sherry said, “Assholes, for God’s sake, it’s just a car while we have borne your children.”

I shrugged for a better retort. While the other guys stood smiling as they knowingly watched me stepping off into that deep dark abyss married men seemed helpless to avoid. For two, maybe three whole seconds, my eyes locked on my wife’s, her lips curled, her nose scrunched, and I realized we were all about to enter the Twilight Zone.

Sherry walked over to Lori, still sitting in her straight-backed patio chair. Sherry straddled Lori’s legs and leaned in on Lori, the top of Sherry’s loose sweater hung down, giving Jimmy, Rusty, and Ibbey a perfect view of her breasts. She was wearing a cowboy bra. You girls know the kind I am talking about, the bra you all have that "Heads ’em up and moves them out." Lori, without prompting, easied upward, her lips meeting Sherry’s, and they exchanged a solid two-second kiss.

Being married, at that time, for twelve years should have taught me better. But the boys were watching, and well… like I said, they were there, and while we all know alcohol and testosterone make men stupid, The words fell past my lips before I could stop myself. “Hah! Come on, boys. Rusty’s kissed his sister with more oomph than that.”

Lori said, “Oh, Really!” She reached up, putting her arms around Sherry’s neck; Sherry placed hers under Lori’s armpits and around Lori’s back to ease her up from the chair. Lori slipped her tongue into Sherry’s mouth, and my wife offered zero resistance.

Sherry returned Lori’s tongue-lashing and pushed her right leg to the inside of Lori’s, who twisted, pressing her left thigh hard against Sherry, and the pair began to grind at her pelvis. They stood kissing, caressing, and chewing on each other for six long minutes. Sherry later admitted that Lori’s passion had warmed her to her toes and, for a second, was afraid to break their embrace because she knew the crotch of her jeans might be wet.

They finally released their embrace. Lori reached out slowly to Sherry’s lips, gently wiped away the glistening dampness, and touched her fingers back to her own lips. The pair smiled at each other without saying a word and returned to their seats.

Ronda began waving her hands in front of her face in a wild fanning motion and said, “Okay, boys, you go play with your toy cars. We’ll be just fine. I am spinning next.”

Lynn punched Rusty on his arm as she looked down, observing his firm erection.

Ronda laughed and said, “He’s not the only one,” a quick visual survey revealed that all of us guys suffered a similar affliction as Rusty.

We decided we could check out Jimmy’s car another time and stayed to watch Diana Ross and the jumping high school kids do their half-time show. I guess it could be said that we were exceptionally attentive, and though we made many attempts to encourage an encore, Sherry said, “No, it wouldn’t be as fun with you all drooling like a pack of slobbering bulldog puppies.”

We finished the evening with a hundred puns and teases, but The Kiss remained the evening’s only test of excitement. That is until Sherry got me home. That night… well, let’s say it was a passionate evening, and I found it highly intuitive that my wife had sent the children to their grandparents.

Why this kiss remained so vivid after so many years may not seem like “All that and a piece of cake” these days. Still, a soft whisper from Sherry, with a threat to call Lori, gets my full attention. I still don’t know precisely how or why things happened, but the truth is, I don’t care why, only that the memory of that kiss works better than Viagra. Please excuse me; I need to see where my wife is and what she is up to.


Picture Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring in Mulholland Drive Starworld.exteen.com