Carol’s Column

A kiss is just a kiss

KISSING is so nice. When we were small children, my bellydancing grandmother from Stellenbosch always warned us to travel with toothbrush and toothpaste in order to have clean, sparkling, anticipatory teeth.

“You never know who you may get the chance to kiss,” she said. So for the past 40 or so years, I have wandered hopefully, white-toothed and fragrant breathed, through life looking yearningly for someone to kiss.

But only last weekend I learnt that kissing is not what it used to be.

An erudite article in your favourite Sunday newspaper stated that the single lip-smacking kiss of the intense, deep penetrating kind, had given way to the cheek-pecking double butterfly buss.

It seems that throughout the world, mouth to mouth contact has been overtaken by cheekbone to cheekbone exchanges that chill the soul and bruise the maxilla.

Kissing, always pleasurable, has given rise to rumours by the mouthful.

Aids, herpes, infectious mononucleosis — they are all blamed on kissing.

I remember, as a small buck-toothed, pigtailed girl, kissing my flat-footed, knock-kneed sausage dog dead centre on his snout, then waiting expectantly for him to give birth to a litter of puppies.

Of course, I was wrong on two counts. Kissing doesn’t make you pregnant and boy dogs don’t have puppies. But to an impressionable seven year old, fact wasn’t important.

Two knowledgeable French writers, Christiane Noetzlin and Xavier Fauche, have recently written a serious tome devoted entirely to the kiss. Called “Le Baiser”, the French for “kiss”, by all accounts, the book takes a long, serious look at kissing.

First kisses, stolen kisses, naughty kisses — it examines them all in depth.

Talking of first kisses, I remember my first real kiss well.

The pigtails had made way for a pony tail. Long and curling, I shook it invitingly at every nubile male. The buck teeth were contained in a formidable set of braces, as buck teeth often are.

Thirteen and keen, I fell in and out of love weekly.

And then, the object of my love, one Marvin Alkin, a handsome, gangling 15-year-old, returned my smouldering glances.

He was wonderful. On him, even his pimples looked good.

During a school dance, while rocking and rolling, he suggested hotly we go out for some fresh air. My heart trembled and my strapless bra almost slipped to my knees. Among the bushes, Marvin gripped me passionately in a clinch. He pulled me towards him, fighting his way through my stiff petticoats.

And then he kissed me. On the mouth. I shut my eyes, and my knees trembled. I opened an eye and saw Marvin, his nose distorted, peering back through one open eye. We both shut our eyes. The kiss went on and on. It wasn’t easy to breathe because my nose was firmly squashed against Marvin’s cheek.

And still the kiss went on.

I opened my eyes. Marvin’s eyes were open too. He looked not a little distressed. I tried to break away. Good heavens, we were stuck.

In the course of the kiss, our braces had met and intertwined. The wires had meshed, and we were joined forever.

Brace to brace, tooth to tooth, lip to lip, we staggered to the hall for help.

Oh the mortification, the embarrassment.

It was two hours before we separated and our relationship was never quite the same again.

Meanwhile, at home, I worked out that on a good day, when the house is fully stocked with Lazars, we average 180 kisses a day. We are definitely a kiss conscious family.

And only yesterday, my youngest unmarried daughter of the bright eyes and rosy cheeks, said to me: “Ma, did you hear the rumour that kissing makes you pregnant?”

What could I say?

“Nicky, it’s not true, but always keep a toothbrush on you. You never know,” I muttered.

One always lives in hope.

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