September 25th, 2015: Sophie
PLACE: Davidson, North Carolina
TIME: Friday, 09/25/2015, 10:58 PM
KISSER: Sophie, aged 19
RECIPIENT: Matthew, aged 20
My fourth kiss happened with the exact opposite of whom I had expected, and in the strangest of circumstances.
That night had been the Theatre Semi-Formal. I had gone with a date, Kessler (who, in a strange twist of fate, was the same girl that I had danced with at Warner Hall just before kissing Josephine).
Almost a year to the day had passed since I shared a drunken kiss with Josephine.
Following pictures at the Cunnignham Theatre building and then dinner at Sabi's in downtown Davidson, the Theatre folk went back to the campus apartment of two senior girls. Most everyone started drinking. I abstained, though I did get to pour mixtures of apple juice, vodka, whipped cream and cinnamon into other people's mouths. I even witnessed girls sucking shots of vodka off of one guy's, Jacob's, bellybutton.
We then moved on to Spin the Bottle, which I knew to be a iconic kissing game but had never played before. Instead of staying strictly to the classic rulebook, however, people had to create a new rule if the bottle fell on them. Some did involve kissing – and in two cases, full-blown make-out sessions (one boy-girl and another girl on girl). At one point, the bottle fell on a guy named Sam, who was standing next to me in the circle. At a loss for a rule, he simply ordered everyone to find someone in the room to kiss. We entered the circle and began searching for partners.
I did not have much luck. I saw girls kissing each other just to avoid having to do it with a guy, but no guys on guys. When people began to dissipate back to the perimeter, I still had not found a partner. "What about me?" I asked the room at large. "I haven't found anyone yet!"
As I turned around to give up, Sophie strode over to me, took my face in her hands, and kissed me on the mouth. It was very brief, and probably my clumsiest kiss to date – our lips just touched. "There," she said simply when we broke the kiss only a second later. The game resumed, but not before I subtly noted the time. I would have to do everything from wearing my boxers over my slacks to switching these undergarments with other people to wearing girls' bras – one of those bras being that of my date's!
Interestingly, I barely knew Sophie. We had only met literally a week earlier when we were assigned to the same group for the Theatre Department's Five Hour Play Festival.
But the night didn't end there. It got even stranger. No, not in a dangerous kind of way. And, no, I didn't kiss anyone else. But, we played more games that put ourselves out there. Nobody else seemed to mind – save for me, they were all drunk to various degrees. We sat in a circle and played games like Never Have I Ever and Fuck Yeah I Have. Almost all of the admissions people gave were sexual in nature. People talked about having sex/hooking up in a car, on a bus, in a library, on an airplane, in an empty theatre, in a room with other people present…Because I was a virgin, I had to say things like "Fuck yeah I have never had sex with anyone" and "Fuck yeah, I have never made out without anyone ever." I even admitted that I had wanted my first time to be with someone present in the room. The only person who seemed to support me was one of the party's hosts, Brooke. She was a sweet girl who I secretly had a crush on, but I couldn't do anything about it because she had a steady boyfriend. It made me feel kind of embarrassed to see that, except for Brooke (and, likely, by extension, her boyfriend Cy), I had no sexual experiences to my name.
Finally, when most people were starting to leave, I did too. No point for me to stay. I thanked my date, Kessler, for the evening, but did not make any moves. We had gone as friends anyway.
Comparing this kiss to the other three I had experienced, it was certainly the most lackluster. And, since Sophie was probably at least tipsy when she had kissed me, I resolved that it was the least exciting of the two "drunken" kisses I had now had.
