His first kiss had been in the bakery. That was his home back then, the kitchen in the back, far from sight, where he would bake the cookies and decorate the cakes, sweating in the heat of the ever-burning oven and breathing in unhealthy amounts of flour. She had been his first and last girlfriend, sunny, always smiling, a perfume as sweet as that of his signature chocolate chocolate chip cookies. They were young and daring, so when his father had gone for the night, he had led her into the back, given her a fresh cookie, and... That was all, really. It wasn't much more than a peck, and an oddly unsatisfying one at that.
He had expected sparks, his very foundations to crumble, throwing the two of them into the air in a wind of four, sweet chocolate chips, and excitement. Oh, he yearned for excitement more than anything else, because that was how love worked, wasn't it? Yet all that met his waiting lips was the awkward chapped ones of the girl, and disappointment that wracked his brain, that caused his nerves to tremble, building to an awful momentum, reaching for a climax he knew would never come. He remembered groaning when they broke apart, looking around and seeing the flour lying in the neat pile he had left it, ready for a new lump of dough, yet another batch of cookies. Had he really expected anything else? That the very act of his lips meeting another's would cause an avalanche of... What exactly?
She seemed to have enjoyed it, at least. She had smiled, giggled, pushed her brown hair from her shining eyes, and there the memory ended. They had broken up a week or so later, for no reason he could remember other than simply because that was how long seventh grade relationships were meant to last. They had kissed a few more times, but he remembered none of them. There had been many more exciting kisses since, with many more exciting girls.
The years had passed, and those moved by in a sea of flour, of lust, of a whole lot more than bakery kisses. He wasn't used to disappointment, and didn't particularly enjoy it. So he refused to be disappointed, it was as simple as that. He never had another girlfriend, yet as the years passed, the disappointment remained.
The girls were beautiful, all of them. The pouty lips, belly button piercings, much too skimpy clothing perhaps even for the clubs he frequented, swam before his vision. There was the blonde with long curly hair, he had called out her name at his moment of orgasmic release for weeks afterward. The redhead whose lips were such a precise shade of blood red they instilled fear with each glance. The one with stunningly gray eyes had seduced him without saying a word; she had been the first fan he slept with, yet definitely not the last.
He knew he was dealing with all of the newfound fame and fortune entirely the wrong way, and the infinite drunken nights of drunken sex and a perpetually drunken high were there to prove it. He never felt the flour fly, his heart never raced at the thought of yet another conquest. He kisses became deeper, the sex rougher, but still he remained, until slowly, ever so slowly, he began to forget that he was looking for anything at all. He forgot, until the very second or his release when he knew, his very bones felt, that something was missing, something he would likely never obtain. Slowly, then even slower, he forgot to feel even that.
The years passed, and he plodded on. Each night there was a new girl, a new kiss. His days passed in a drunken stupor, each longer than the last, and the years passed, until he forgot about the bakery, forgot his recipe for chocolate chocolate chip cookies and the delicate way he held the tube as he blossomed flowers from pink icing, until he forgot his moment of disappointment at his first kiss, his moment of hesitation as he glanced at the all too still flour on the counter beside him. The years passed, and he forgot to search for the storm of flour, for a moment of pure unadulterated exhilaration.
Until finally, in what felt like a single instant, Harry Styles forgot to feel.