First kiss

The start of the warm months always meant a building excitement. Like a flock of birds gearing up for a long flight, taking practice runs, shifting and changing formations and finally....in a rush of gilded wings...taking to the skies... the seasons geared up and burst into life. Both friends and family made a practice of coming to visit, staying awhile to catch up and remember, lending helping hands to the vast amount of work that a ranch produces when the weather permits.

Sometimes, the cousins stayed on, learning the ways of existing on the plains, and offering an alternative to their futures in the cities. Two of the youngest cousins, Toad and Edda, came every year that I can remember, and started staying the whole warm season when Edda and I were about eleven. There is nothing like running the fields, catching fish in the gurgling creek, and laying beneath a skillet hot sun with someone who sees the world through your own young eyes. Edda and I became the best of friends, and eventually had the love of sisters, crying in each other's arms when the inevitable time would come to say "see you next season."

The second year, Toad brought his friend Griff, saying he wasn't about to spend months playing with little girls, even though he was only about a year or two older than us. Edda and I didn't care, running off to do the things we had been saving up all the cold time to do with each other, but by the time the three of them were leaving all four of us had spent countless ahns fighting imaginary battles, besting each other in races, and teaching Griff how to milk a bosk cow. Griff came every year after that, even the year that Edda and I were around 14 or 15 and Toad brought another friend - Devlon.

By then our games had become more sophisticated - taking long rides over the golden green plains, fishing in the early dusky ahns of the morning, and sitting around suppers that Edda and I had helped make while the boys learned roping, or herding, tracking and more savage methods of protecting the land than us girls wanted to know.

Devlon was different from Toad or Griff. I caught him watching me from the corner of his eye now and again and it made me feel thick and hot inside, like I swallowed a hot pepper. I even had to take a breath now and again to let the burning churning sensation subside, if it would. It felt almost as bad when Griff or Toad caught me looking like that, and I seemed to spend that whole season either trying to get closer to the heat, or trying to hide it.

My guard was down that morning down by the stream bed, where I was trying to find the perfect reeds for a gift for Edda. Devlon seemed to melt out of the shadows of scrub brush and gnarled ancient trees by the bank where I was crouching. I tried to pass off my stumbling reaction as the shock and surprise that he gave me, which was partially truth and partially the best cover I could come up with. But when his fingers touched against my hand and he stepped close I just stopped talking. I kept waiting for his lips to meet mine, growing more and more anxious to know what they would feel like. I had never kissed a boy before, and the slight pucker of my lips seemed ...wrong...so I simply held stone still and waited. I figured he must have kissed a gazillion girls, and he would know what to do, and then I felt all worried. What if I kissed him back wrong? Flesh met flesh and the feeling was cool and slick, like putting some of Yama's ointment on our mouths. Still, I figured there had to be something special about it, so I waited, trying to work closer to get past the feeling of nervousness. Then Devlon laughed. It wasn't all full of humor, but a laugh of his own uncertainty and ...and...chiding. I was mortified, and turned to run back to the ranch as fast as I could.

I crouched down near Edda searching out a few scattered vulo eggs in the grasses, feeling even my eyelids flushed hot, but tried to ignore Devlon as he joined up with Toad and Griff. My humiliation was growing by the ihn, and broke open and spilled into the air when the three of them began hearty laughter. Edda took one look at them, and then my face and I saw the look she shot Toad over my shoulder. Her pity almost broke my heart, but then she took my hand in hers and tugged me away saying "boys are stupid". And I loved her a hundred times over.

When Edda and Toad, Griff and Devlon prepared to leave that year, I held to my sister with my usual ache of longing. I gave Devlon a cool goodbye, complete with a feminine sniff, but I could still barely look Toad and Griff in the eye. I had forgotten the special basket I made Edda, wrought from those twisted reeds from the edge of the creek, and I ran back into the house to find it in the special hiding place under my bed. That was where Griff found me. That was where a warm palm met my cheek and fingers slid around the back of my neck in blessed want. That is where my heart broke free to beat a song between us and that is where his mouth met mine and the heat was unbearable. That is where I learned that knowledge had nothing over the heart.