This, That, and the Other

My cousin Shelly and I were very close back in the day. And by back in the day, I mean the late 1950s. She was 15 going on 16 and I had just turned 14. Her father was my mother’s brother and our families lived within about ten miles of one another.

My father and mother would often “double date” on Saturday nights with Shelly’s father and mother. And I’d typically spend those Saturday evenings at Shelly’s place. As my older cousin by almost two years, she served as my babysitter and companion on those nights.

One fateful Saturday night, she asked me if I’d ever heard of something called French kissing. Now bear in mind that this was the late 1950s. There was no internet full of porn sites and most kids our age were pretty naive when it came to anything having to do with love and sex. Well, I was, anyway.

When I told her I hadn’t heard of French kissing, Shelly proceeded to explain to me what it was. Frankly, the notion of sticking one’s tongue into someone else’s mouth sounded kind of disgusting to me. And then Shelly shocked me by asking me if I wanted to try French kissing with her.

Until that moment I had never regarded my cousin as a sexual being. She was just my cousin, who just happened to be a girl. But when she asked me to practice French kissing with her, I saw her for the first time as a female rather than merely as my cousin. And I liked what I saw.

She was about an inch taller than me, quite pretty, with large, blue-green eyes and sandy blonde hair. I also noticed that she had fairly well-developed boobs, something I had somehow failed to take notice of previously. So, with a mix of reluctance and excitement, I agreed to the French kiss.

“Keep your mouth a little bit open when we kiss,” she told me. I did as I was told. To be honest, when she first stuck her tongue inside my mouth, I had to suppress a strong gag reflex. But her lips were soft and she smelled really nice. And once I got used to her tongue tarting around the inside of my mouth, it was actually quite pleasant.

After about 45 seconds she removed her tongue and lips from mine. “Now you put your tongue in my mouth,” she said. Once again, I followed her instructions.

Long story short, cousin Shelly and I grew very close over the next year until her father took a job in another city and they moved away.

We are both married now, have our own kids, and even a few grandkids. And while we don’t cross paths that often these days, we never talk about what happened back in the late 1950s when we discovered French kissing.

Written for this week’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Tale Weaver prompt. We’re supposed to reflect on the time we received our first kiss.

For the record, this is a work of fiction. I never actually had a cousin Shelly with whom I had an incestuous relationship when I was 14 years old.