First Kiss

Only recently had Sonic begun to think girls might be more interesting than he had earlier supposed. A few months earlier, while playing hooky, Sonic along with his best friend Tommy had been hanging out by the creek. They kicked cans around and complained about their duties. Then, Sonic noticed the corner of a half-buried magazine sticking out from beneath a prickly bush. Even before he caught a good glimpse of the open page, he somehow sensed what it was. Tommy Turtle pulled it out, smoothed out the creased pages, admired the article and chuckled. Sonic backed away.

"What's wrong with you?" Tommy chided. "Chicken?"

"No." Sonic breathed.

Never one to resist a dare, Sonic had snatched the magazine from his reptilian friend and leafed rapidly through the contents. Most of the images depicted things beyond his regular experience. The sensations reaching him as a series of disconnected impressions. But that intrusive feeling refused to come together into a coherent whole. Upon reaching centrefold, he stopped. His throat closed up, and it felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

Tommy sniggered again. Since that day, Sonic had watched the girls warily, trying to correlate them to the pictures he'd seen. He couldn't quite do it. He couldn't truly believe that Princess Sally with her almost mannish mannerisms and Bunnie with her 'big sister' attitude was exactly the same as the voluptuous creatures he had seen in the magazine. He tried to imagine kissing them, but that couldn't quite come together in his mind, either. Nonetheless, a newfound mixture of confusion, desire, and anxiety roiled constantly and unpleasantly in his gut.

Then there was Amy. She was a girl. But she didn't make his face heat up or fill him with anxiety the way the magazine pictures had. Just the same, he enjoyed talking to her and spending time with her. He could relax with her, as she had said she could with him. Or, at least, he usually could. Now was entirely different.

Sonic was hardly an expert on the matters of the heart and decided to consult the closest thing he knew to an expert. He saw her bedroom light on and deciding now was as good a time as any he barged right on in. But as soon as Sonic sneakers prodded onto linoleum, Bunnie's ears pricked up, she gasped, shied and dropped her powder case on the countertop.

"Oh, mah stars! Don't jus barge in on a gal like that!" she protested angrily.

"Sorry Buns, but I really need your help." Sonic softly said.

"Why?"

Sonic ran a hand through his quills. "Well, it's sorta . . ."

Bunnie raised an eyebrow. "Gal trouble?"

"How'd ya know?"

She rolled her eyes. "Shucks, it ain't cuz ah'm clairvoyant. Ah can see you've got that look."

"Look, if I've caught you at a bad time—"

"Sit down, Sugah hog" She offered.

Sonic complied, quickly planting himself beside her. Staring at his hands, he twiddled his thumbs and, after an uncomfortable silence, said, "Could you, um, teach me—?" He paused when a wave of nausea flooded his stomach and a cold sweat broke along his spine. He glanced sidelong at her and saw her staring at him with a glum, impatient expression. He squeezed his eyes shut and blurted, "Could you teach me how to kiss a girl?"

Another uncomfortable silence followed. Bunnie snorted. "Are yer serious?"

"Yes," Sonic chocked out, almost instantaneously feeling the urge to bolt from the room to avoid the sure to be ensuing fit of laughter from the bionic belle.

"How old are you again?" she asked.

"Thirteen—"

"Yer don't need kissing lessons, kiddo. Wait till yer at least sixteen. That's when ah touched first base. If yer catch mah drift."

"I don't know what that means but c'mon, Buns, ya gotta help me."

Bunnie Rabbot snorted again. "Look, you caught me at an inconvenient time and-" pausing, Bunnie shuddered a little and gritted her teeth together in visible pain.

"You okay?" Sonic asked.

Bunnie kept silent, drawing several deep breaths through her nose while slamming her biological hand on the make-up counter which caused the tins and brushes upon it rattle. With a shaky hand, she reached into a snuff tin filled with dandelions which she chewed one mouthful after another.

"Ya okay?"

Bunnie wiped the sinus from her nose. "Never mind" she gasped. "It ... it passes. Sometimes, ah forget that ah'm just half metal and ah overstretch the part of mahself that's still flesh and blood." Bunnie shook her head. Bracing herself against her vanity mirror she uttered "Look, I'll teach you. But ah gotta be more than just hands on. So, yer gonna let me teach about first base?"

"Is that related to baseball?"

"Ugh, you really should come back when you're older. First, yer close your eyes. If yer don't close yer eyes, you're a punk. Got that?"

"I guess."

"Then you tilt your head."

"Why?"

Bunnie paused. "Ah don't know, really. It's traditional. Tilt. Or you're a punk. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Then you lean."

"Lean?"

"Yes, lean. Of course, you lean. Do ya expect yer special someone to come to you? If you do—"

"I'm a punk?"

"Yes, you're a punk all right. Close, tilt, lean: remember that. Then you kiss. And that's it."

"But, wait a minute, that's the important part, isn't it? I want to know how to do the kissing thing. What's the trick?"

Bunnie groaned and faceplanted. "Honestly, Sugah—"

"Please, Bunnie! Help me out!" Sonic pleaded.

"There are many kinds of kisses, and each one carries a special meaning," she said dreamily. With a harrumph, she pushed herself off the chaise, spun around, and stood before him. "What sort of kiss are we discussing? There's the Eskimo Nose Kiss, the Butterfly Kiss, the Light Peck on the Cheek, the Gentle Kiss on the Forehead, the French Goodbye Kiss—"

"French kiss—?" Sonic shrank back.

"Not that kind of French kiss, you idiot! You kiss the air beside her cheeks! The air!"

"I'm just looking for a regular boy-girl kiss. I guess." Sonic confessed

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Hmm. Mm hm, mm hm. A First Kiss, yes. It must be just so or else it's ruined. Of course, as a first, it will be remembered forever—"

Sonic swallowed. "This will be your First Kiss, ah presume—"

"Well, yeah, that's why I'm—"

"And what about fer her?"

Sonic blinked. "I . . . I dunno. I think so."

"Then assume so. Don't ask her, please. That would make you—"

"A punk."

"Exactly. The First Kiss must be slow, tender, gentle, and, above all, brief."

"How can it be slow and brief?"

" Must ah explain everything to you?" She placed her hands on her hips and stared hard for almost a minute before saying, "I suppose there's no help for it. Yer simply need ta practice."

"Wait, what?"

"Kiss me, idiot."

With his mouth hanging open, Sonic stared down at Bunnie Rabbot's muzzle.

"What are yer waiting for?" she demanded. "You wanted lessons, didn't you? Well, what are lessons without practice? You don't learn to play an instrument merely by lookin at sheets, yer must play. Kiss me badly, yer silly hog."

Sonic closed his mouth, swallowed again, and found his voice. "But then it wouldn't be my first kiss."

A sly grin spread slowly across the southern belle's face. "Very good. Lesson's over. You passed. Now get out of here." She shoved him off the chaise and onto the floor. Then she returned to her vanity mirror and continued applying her makeup.

Sonic brushed off imaginary dust from his calf. "I don't get it."

She sighed and stared at him from her mirror. "Sugah Hog, there's no 'trick' to kissing. It isn't quite like jammin on yer guitar; yer don't approach luv with a bunch of skills and techniques. It's more like an exploration: learn new things about each other and cherish the disappointments and mistakes because you love each other. Got it?"

"I—"

"Also, don't walk in on a lady while she's applying her makeup. I trust yer can find the door."

He turned his head and smiled at her. "I guess I can do that…"

Giggling, Amy Rose started rolling back and forth in the grass. "Ah, that feels so good to get off my chest! Come roll with me, Sonic."

"What? I don't wanna—"

Amy almost rolled on top of him. He yelled in alarm, but she reached one hand past his shoulder and stopped herself before she crushed him. After swiftly nuzzling his cheek, she rolled back the other way and, laughing all the while, rolled right down the hill, stopping at last in a bed of tall sunflowers, their golden faces facing skywards.

When she sat straight up, a bright green butterfly landed on her nose. Rolling up his imaginary sleeves, Sonic walked down the hill to rejoin her, starting the butterfly which flew away. He sat down, cross-legged, across from her while she threw herself back down into the grass like an over-eager dog.

"Have you ever wondered about what life is like over on the other side, in Moebius?" she asked.

"It's weird, but I didn't think about our evil counterparts much," Sonic said, upon recalling the entire venture. " When we left their turf, the Suppression Squad had their hands full fighting the good Doctor Kintobar."

Amy turned over onto her stomach and took a handful of flowers. "While you were there, I wondered." She mused, tossing a handful of flowers over her own head. "If things were the same on both sides. Once, I was playing a record on a phonograph, and I realized I could make it go really, really fast so the voices would get all squeaky like they were on helium, or I could make it play really deep and slow like static. I wondered if Moebius and home were like two different records, and I wondered if they played at the same speed."

Sonic plucked a stem of grass, stuck it in his lips, and laid down. "I dunno."

"I wondered, if you went there and didn't come back until I was all grown up, maybe I'd still be here, and it would be like only a couple of days had gone by, and I'd say, 'Oh, Sonic! You're all grown up!' But if it went the other hand, then—"

Sonic chewed the grass stem and stared up at the slowly drifting clouds overhead. "Ya know Ames, that never occurred to me. When Sally said we had ta take the fight to them I did it because it was the right thing to do. Besides, why are you thinkin' 'bout this stuff?"

She turned her face toward his. "Because I want to hurry an' grow up."

A lump formed in his throat and Sonic stomach clenched again. He turned and looked into her emerald eyes. A faint breeze tousled her luscious fur and made the grass wave in front of her face. They gazed at each other in silence for a few minutes before Amy closed her eyes and feigned sleep.

With the sun slowly dipping over the horizon, the pair came to a stop by a dirt path some distance from Knothole when Hershey Cat appeared riding on a motorcycle. She came to a stop abruptly, spraying rock and gravel.

Like most of the remnants of the Acorn army, her look was sombre and grim. Sonic had always felt sorry for them, but, though he had never admitted it aloud, they made his flesh crawl.

"The Princess wants to see you two," Hershey said, her voice as flat as her expression. She blinked a few times, and the sight of her eyelids fluttering over those stone-cold pupils made Sonic think he might lose the picnic lunch he'd just had.

When they reached home, they found Sally and Geoffrey St. John standing in the enclosed courtyard. Sonic crossed his arms, leaned against a wall, and prepared himself for the inevitable berating session. Amy sat down next to him.

Several minutes passed before Geoffrey St John spoke. "No trainee is allowed to vacate the premises without express permission from the commander," he said, "and none is allowed absence from combat training without grave reason."

All was silent for a moment until Amy shrieked "I don't wanna be your puppet!"

"You are hereby confined to your quarters until further notice," Geoffrey snapped.

Amy snapped back. "It's my room, and I go there when I want."

Geoffrey stepped forward. His usually calm voice took on a dangerous edge. "We have tolerated your childish antics for far too long, but things are going to be different now in Knothole. For too long, we have been teetering on the percipience of oblivion. No more. No more childish antics and no more games."

Amy stuck out her tongue.

Sally shifted, looking uneasy said in a soft but firm tone. "That's quite enough Mr St. John. Amy go to your room, now."

Amy stared at Sally and the seething Geoffrey before her head drooped and she complied. Sulkily, with many angry glances over her shoulder, Amy returned to her home, Princess Sally standing by her side. Sonic stood straight and, clenching his teeth, raised his fists. But he made no further move.

Slowly, the Freedom Fighters dispersed from search duties to their various tasks, leaving Sally standing beside Amy, who now sat on the ground with her head hanging low. Sonic saw her shoulders heave once, suggesting she had been silently crying all the while and was just now struck with a violent sob. Frustration coursed through Sonic's veins. He had wanted to defend her, but after his initial outburst, no words had come to him. He had stood by silently and let others stand up for her.

When Sally finally stepped outside of Amy's home, the Milky Way shone bright and clear overhead. Orion's belt, faintly twinkling with its own embedded stars, cut a clear defining line across the sky. Sonic glanced at Sally, who watched him with her arms crossed.

"You're in trouble," she mentioned.

"You can't tell me what to do!" he shouted. "You're not my Mom, Sal! And you're definitely not my 'commander!'" At his protests, sharp pangs of annoyance spiked through Sally's insides. She wanted to grab Sonic by the ear, tell him it was past his bedtime, and drag him back to his house.

At the age of twelve, Sally had shepherded the children. Directionless and confused, her friends had spent their lives playing and dancing in the sun, even as danger threatened to engulf them. They were like children who laughed and returned to their toys immediately after learning that their parents were dead: they lived as they had when King Acorn led with unquestioned authority from the Source of All, for that was all they knew how to do

So, Sally had to be their caretaker. She had become for them the same thing Aunt Rosie had before her—a second mother. She instructed her friends in friendship, kindness, and love, but she had also taught them sorrow and grief. She had taught them to confront death and pain in the hopes that, with her guidance, they might finally grow up. But she knew she couldn't mother them all the time. Sonic wasn't a little kid anymore. He was an adolescent, too old for her to mother and watch over. She knew that.

She knew that she had failed at the job of mothering him anyway.

Her hands trembled. She stood there for a minute, clenching and unclenching her chilled fists, watching her misty breath glisten with faint light reflected from starlight, feeling the cold air around her jaw like a clamp. In her chest, the spike of anger and irritation gradually dissolved into melancholy. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, tried to push back the pain of the knots in it, and wondered at her own rage.

"We expended who knows how many man hours and how much precious gasoline over a silly childhood crush" she choked out at last.

"It wasn't silly, Sal, and do you really think it's that easy? After what you did to her?"

Silence. Sal rose slowly to her feet. "After what I—?"

"Yeah, you."

"I tried to protect her."

"Protect?" Sonic's voice rose. "You call that protecting? You think you can just screw up everybody's life as long as you tell yourself you're protecting—?"

She shook her head. "Don't. Don't even. I swear, Sonic—"

"Shut up, Sal. I'm sick of it."

"Oh, what are you sick of, Sonic? Did I interrupt your playtime?"

"Grow up!"

"You are saying that to me?" Sally growled.

"Yeah! I am! You're always whining like you got it so hard. You have been whining for years. Oh wah, my brother ain't coming to save the day, oh wah, my daddy left me here in this—"

She hauled back and tried to punch him, but the agile speedster deflected the blow with a forearm, grabbed Sally by her vest, and slammed her against the wall. Her teeth clenched, she whispered, "You're just as bad as him."

"You don't understand me, Sal. Don't pretend you do."

"I understand you just fine. You're the punk who chases skirt, and that's why I always find you feeling up every naïve little girl who doesn't know any better—"

He gave her another shove and stepped away.

"Somebody has to watch out for you!" she shouted back. "You're always running around, getting hurt, making trouble, and screwing off! Who will look out for you? Your parents or your uncle, indentured to Robotnik —"

"Shut up!"

"You shut up!"

"Don't talk about him like that!"

Sally marched to Sonic, grabbed his collar, and slapped him hard.

Sonic raised a fist but just as quickly dropped it again when he saw anger, doubt, and agony pass across Sally's face like clouds rolling over the sky in a high wind. With a chocked gasp she grabbed him roughly around the shoulders and hugged him tight and he felt her cheek turn wet. "I want you safe, Sonic. And I want Tails safe, all of us. Do you understand that? Don't go running off again without telling anyone. Just don't."

He waited several seconds but finally hugged her back. After he thought he was calm enough to speak without his voice cracking, he whispered, "I just want things to go back to how they were."

"They can't, Sonic. You know that as well as I do."