The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and then die in turn.
—GUY DE MAUPASSANT, “A Tress of Hair”
The kiss is also a perfect monitor of love. Either we are “into” it, or it sends out a signal of aloofness and lack of feeling. There is no way to camouflage the message present in a kiss. When we give a halfhearted kiss, we will often get the response “Kiss me as if you mean it,” from a disgruntled partner. An unshared kiss is worse than no kiss at all. Many times it signals the end of a relationship. As Betty Everett so aptly phrased it in her classic pop song, “It’s in his kiss.” It is easier to fake sexual pleasure than it is to fake the kiss. Unlike sex, there is nothing to prove in kissing.
—MARCEL DANESI, The History of the Kiss!:
The Birth of Popular Culture
When I was in high school in the early Sixties, nice girls didn’t go all the way, and most of us wouldn’t have known how to anyway. But man, could we kiss! We kissed for hours in the busted-up front seat of a borrowed Chevy which, in motion, sounded like a broken dinette-set; we kissed inventively, clutching our boyfriends from behind as we straddled motorcycles, whose vibrations turned our hips to jelly; we kissed extravagantly beside a turtlearium in the park, or at the local rose garden or zoo; we kissed delicately, in waves of sipping and puckering; we kissed torridly, with tongues like hot pokers; we kissed timelessly, because lovers throughout the ages knew our longing; we kissed wildly, almost painfully, with tough, soul-stealing rigor; we kissed elaborately, as if we were inventing kisses for the first time; we kissed furtively when we met in the hallways between classes; we kissed soulfully in the shadows at concerts, the way we thought musical knights of passion like The Righteous Brothers and their ladies did; we kissed articles of clothing or objects belonging to our boyfriends; we kissed our hands when we blew our boyfriends kisses across the street; we kissed our pillows at night pretending they were mates; we kissed shamelessly with the robust sappiness of youth; we kissed as if kissing could save us from ourselves.
At fourteen, just before I went off to summer camp, which is what girls in suburban Pennsylvania did to mark time, my boyfriend, whom my parents did not approve of (wrong religion) and had forbidden me to see, used to walk five miles across town each evening, and climb in through my bedroom window just to kiss me. These were not open-mouthed “French” kisses, which we didn’t know about, and they weren’t accompanied by groping. They were just earth-stopping, soulful, on-the-ledge-of-adolescence kissing, when you press your lips together and yearn so hard you feel faint. We wrote letters while I was away, and when school started again in the Fall the affair seemed to fade of its accord. But I remember those summer nights, how he would hide in my closet if my parents or brother chanced in, and then kiss me for an hour or so and head back home before it became dark, and I marvel at his determination and the power of a kiss.
—DIANE ACKERMAN, A Natural History of the Senses
I did not realize that kissing was a first date taboo. I’m such a sinner.
—ROXANE GAY
ALARACT 350/2011
Sept. 15, 2011
Subject: Clarification Of Army Standards Of Conduct Policies
1. Reference. Army Regulation 600-20, Army Command Policy, 30 Nov 09.
2. The purpose of this message is to clarify Army policies on Standards of Conduct.
A. Long-standing customs of the service prohibit public displays of affection by Soldiers when in uniform or while in civilian clothes on duty. Soldiers must project an image that leaves no doubt that they live by a common military standard and are responsible to military order and discipline.
B. However, long-standing customs of the service permit modest displays of affection in appropriate circumstances including, but not limited to, weddings, graduations, promotions, retirements or other ceremonies; during the casualty notification/assistance process including funerals; during deployment or welcome home ceremonies; for displays of affection or other physical contact between parents or guardians and children in their charge; or in other circumstances where modest displays of affection are commonly accepted.
—THE U.S. ARMY’S Journal for Homeland Defense,
Civil Support and Security Cooperation in
North America (p. 25, September 2011)
Steven returned from the war without lips.
This is quite a shock said his wife Mary who had spent the last six months knitting sweaters and avoiding a certain grocery store where a certain young man worked and looked at her in that certain way. I expected lips. Dead or alive, but with lips.
Steven went into the living room where his old favorite chair stood, neatly dusted and unused. I-can-eat-like-normal, he said in a strange halted clacking tone due to the plastic disc that covered and protected what was left of his mouth like the end of a pacifier. The-doctors-are-going-to-put-new-skin-on-in-a-few-weeks-anyway. Skin-from-my-palm. He lifted up his hand and looked at it. That-will-work, I-guess, he said. It-just-won’t-be-quite-the-same.
No, said Mary, it won’t. That bomb, she said, standing on the other side of the chair, you know it took the last real kiss from you forever, and as far as I can remember, that kiss was supposed to be mine.
—AIMEE BENDER, “What You Left in the Ditch”
from The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories
I want, she said, moving into position, un beso.
And before he could say anything she was on him.
The first feel of woman’s body pressing against yours—who among us can ever forget that? And that first real kiss—well, to be honest, I’ve forgotten both of these firsts, but Oscar never would.
For a second he was in disbelief. This is it, this is really it! Her lips plush and pliant, and her tongue pushing into his mouth. And then there were lights all around them and he thought I’m going to transcend! Transcendence is miiine! But then he realized that the two plainclothes who had pulled them over—who both looked like they’d been raised on high-G planets, and whom we’ll call Solomon Grundy and Gorilla Grod for simplicity’s sake—were beaming their flashlights into the car. And who was standing behind them, looking in on the scene inside the car with an expression of sheer murder? Why, the capitán of course. Ybón’s boyfriend!
—JUNOT DÍAZ, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, The Great Gatsby
“I think it’s perfectly sweet of you,” she declared, “and I’ll get up again,” and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.
“Surely you know what a kiss is?” she asked, aghast.
“I shall know when you give it to me,” he replied stiffly, and not to hurt his feelings she gave him a thimble.
“Now,” said he, “shall I give you a kiss?” and she replied with a slight primness, “If you please.” She made herself rather cheap by inclining her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain around her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to save her life.
—J. M. BARRIE, Peter Pan
NO KISS FORGOTTEN; it resides in the memory as in the flesh, and so Katya many times felt the press of Marcus Kidder’s warm mouth on hers in the days and especially in the nights following. And her heartbeat quickened in protest: How could you! Kiss him! That old man! Kiss him! Let him put his arms around you and kiss you and kiss him back! The old man’s mouth and Katya Spivak’s mouth! How could you.
—JOYCE CAROL OATES, A Fair Maiden
The kiss of shame was more than just a parody of the kiss of peace and a symbol of the heretics’ solidarity. The physical act of putting one’s lips to the anus, buttocks or genitalia revealed other attributes of the witch sect and the character of the witch. It is interesting that descriptions of the osculum infame give an alternative site of kissing: the feet. This detail has its origins in the Gospel episode in which a sinner, usually identified as Mary Magdalene, washed Christ’s feet with her tears. After she had dried them with her hair and anointed them with perfume, she kissed them. The whole ritual was one of adoration and reverence, and the kiss element of it became incorporated into the rituals of greeting the Pope. The kiss offered by Mary Magdalene to Jesus, king of the Jews, also reflected the kiss given by Samuel to Saul after he had anointed him king of Israel, a kiss which found its way into European coronation ceremonies. In this sense the kiss could be interpreted as an act of fealty and honour. Alternatively, the kissing of feet could be used as a sign of humility not to sovereigns, but to God.
—JONATHAN DURRANT, “The Osculum Infame:
Heresy, Secular Culture and the Image of the Witches’ Sabbath”
from The Kiss in History (Karen Harvey, ed., p. 43)
They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesnt fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn’t fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.
—CORMAC MCCARTHY, The Road
He back in my mouth before I can say bad man don’t kiss. Sucking my tongue, moving his lips over my lips, tongue on tongue, dancing it and making me do it back. He is making me think like a faggot.
—Aw, look at you. You just giggled like a school girl. There may be hope for you yet.
Lip on top of lip, lip turned on the side licking me in the mouth, tongue on top of tongue, underneath tongue, lips sucking my tongue, and I open my eye and see him two eye close tight. That moan come from him not me. I reach up and squeeze him nipples but not hard, I still don’t know hot from hurt. But he moan and now he taking him tongue down my chest to my nipples and my navel leaving a wet trail that feel cold even though him tongue warm. New York spying me do this? I spy what do you spy? B A T T Y with a tight needle-eye. Outside the window is five floor up but I don’t know. Too high for the window washer or pigeon or whoever climbing the wall although nobody would be climbing no wall. Nobody can see but the sky. But Air Jamaica going fly right by and Josey going see me. The man tickle my navel with him tongue and I grab him head. He look up for second and smile and the hair pass through my fingers so thin, so soft, so brown. Hair that make you sound white when you describe it.
—Come back, fucker.
—MARLON JAMES, A Brief History of Seven Killings
“Let’s not go on with the medical lesson,” she said.
“No,” he said. “This is going to be a lesson in love.”
Then he pulled down the sheet and she not only did not object but kicked it away from the bunk with a rapid movement of her feet because she could no longer bear the heat. Her body was undulant and elastic, much more serious than it appeared when dressed, with its own scent of a forest animal, which distinguished her from all the other women in the world. Defenseless in the light, she felt a rush of blood surge up to her face, and the only way she could think of to hide it was to throw her arms around her husband’s neck and give him a hard, thorough kiss that lasted until they were both gasping for breath.
He was aware that he did not love her. He had married her because he liked her haughtiness, her seriousness, her strength, and also because of some vanity on his part, but as she kissed him for the first time he was sure there would be no obstacle to their inventing true love. They did not speak of it that first night, when they spoke of everything until dawn, nor would they ever speak of it. But in the long run, neither of them had made a mistake.
—GABRIEL GARCíA MÁRQUEZ,
Love in the Time of Cholera
“You, Al,” said Phil. “I really value your input.”
“Well, sir,” said Al, the mirror-faced Advisor, flattered to have been asked. “In my view? Love is one of the most outstanding experiences a human being can undergo. When we love someone, wow, we just feel so super about being with them and sharing such experiences as our feelings and emotions, not to mention hopes and dreams we might possess. The feeling we get from that interaction is for the most part the most pleasant one we can ever do. And commitment, that commitment we feel, is the strongest bond we can subject ourselves to.”
“I so much agree!” said Phil. “I love love. All Outer Hornerites love love, but the sort of love we love to love is of the gentle connubial sort between man and wife, not this sleazy proposed love between unwed sweaty lusters! But clearly, there can be no marriage between Inner and Outer Hornerite! That would be like a swan marrying a worm! And why would a swan do that? They could not even kiss, what with a worm having no lips and a swan merely a beak! Therefore this propositioning letter does not reek of love, but of lust, not of marriage, but of unseemly sweaty trysts between disparate types. Trysts of sly barter! Like a transaction! She gives me what I want and I give her what she wants, and it is all grunts grunts grunts and no gentle smiles between grunts at all! It is all business! She is willing to sell herself, this harlot. Willing to sell herself to the leader of the enemy of her people! Please step forward! Step forward whichever harlot wrote this!”
—GEORGE SAUNDERS,
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver—love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
—TONI MORRISON, Beloved
She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers . . . She did not say goodbye.
—MARKUS ZUSAK, The Book Thief
. . . She was a little dark, and her dark eyebrows were narrow but thick and defined, with a little arch like a V pointing upward in the middle of each one. And her eyes, closed, were wide-set. But it was her mouth that transfixed Parnell. It was broad and full, her lips a little dry and cracked, and now parted in death he could only imagine how expressive it must have been when she was at home, with family, and uninhibited by her shyness, how much joy she must have given to her mother and father, how much they must have hoped for her.
It was the hint of exotic in her features that began to sink into him now. What exotic locale they suggested he could not imagine, but someplace different. It was not the look of a gypsy. Until the woman with parrot fever, which ended it all, his father had often embalmed and buried gypsies; he had a friendship with the old gypsy queen’s son. He’d buried the queen, in that grand ceremony they’d conducted down 8th Street to the old cemetery west of town, Rose Hill. But she was not a tipsy. Her name, now he remembered, was Littleton, that was fitting. Constance Littleton, they called her Connie. Little Connie Littleton, here alone with Parnell. He leaned down and kissed her lips. Dry as desiccated clay. No give there. No, there was the faintest. She was not entirely cold. Still fresh in death, still sweet in passing. Still between the living and the dead, her spirit not entirely removed.
—BRAD WATSON, The Heaven of Mercury
“It is through closure that openness is divided into things. Without closure we would be lost in a sea of openness: a sea without character and without form.” Closure is about defining limits, and while some of those limits are negative and constricting, they are also the basis for our reality: “Closure is responsible . . . for our being able to experience a sunrise over a field of corn; or hear the sound of a log fire and the warmth that it brings; it is closure that makes possible the kiss of a lover or the pain of injury.”
—HILARY LAWSON, Closure: A Story of Everything
“A kiss may not be the truth but it is what we wish were true.”
—STEVE MARTIN
(as Harris Telemacher in L.A. Story)