Waiting for the Ferry

Inspired by TarnishedPenny's First Kiss writing assignment. Apologies for flagrantly blowing past the 300 word target.

What follows is a true and accurate account of my very first actual, real kiss (with some accommodation made to the fragility of memory).

☾

I'd never been good around girls.

Awkward, shy, unpopular, unfashionable, poor. Did I mention awkward? By the time I was 19, I'd still never really had any experience. Not even kissing.

That changed when Cindy came into my life. She pretty clearly regarded me as a project, often saying how 'straight-laced' I was and how she was going to break me out of my shell.

She was a force of nature. 23 going on 30. A mad cackle of a laugh. Drank and swore like a sailor. Stacked and full-bodied. To this day, I still don't know why she gave me a second thought.

When we met she'd asked if I'd practiced my bedroom voice. I didn't know what a 'bedroom voice' was, or what it would have meant to have practiced it. She was obviously expecting a reply, so I guessed and said 'yes', which was, of course, the wrong answer. But it didn't seem to matter much. After I worked out what a bedroom voice was, I was thrilled she thought I had one at all, practiced or not.

She introduced me to the impossibly exotic dish of shrimp fried rice. We didn't have anything like that in the tiny town where I grew up. This town, her town, wasn't all that much bigger, but there was a college there. Not a big college. The sort of place kids go to get an affordable start on the path to a middling, safe career. And where there are college kids there are bars and dancing, and, apparently, shrimp fried rice.

She pulled me into her circle of friends, who quickly grew to mostly tolerate me. I was a kid, they weren't. I got it. Still, we went out and drank and danced and did plenty of silly, stupid shit together.

Not long after her whirlwind crashed into me, she decided that we should go skinny dipping together. At night. At her favorite spot on the river.

I'd been around her and her crew just long enough to know that 'skinny dipping' actually meant swimming in your underwear. Or at least it had to that point. Still, the thought of just the two of us swimming together made my heart jump. Besides, maybe I'd just go ahead and take mine off anyway. If I could work up the courage.

That night I drove over to her place, absolutely floating, flying over the back roads between our towns.

We hopped into her battered car and set off. I don't recall the model, but it was a stick. She loved driving and loved cars.

The trip took us up the river road, with trees and white bluffs to our right and the open river to the left. It was a beautiful summer night. We had the windows down, the radio up, and were cruising down the road. Never much of a talker, I did my best to keep some kind of conversation going. But she was easy to talk to and hardly ever stopped talking anyway, so I didn't need to work at it much. There weren't many awkward pauses to cover.

It was a bit of a drive to get out there, which I didn't mind at all. Just taking the drive with her was wonderful.

Eventually we reached the ferry. Little river ferries are dotted all around this area, shuttling cars back and forth. This one could carry maybe 20 cars and chug across in five to ten minutes or so.

Five to ten minutes once you were safely on the deck and leaving the bank, that is. If the ferry had already left, there was little choice but to sit and wait. But we were lucky, and rolled right on.

The summer night breeze on the river was warm and felt wonderful. We got out of the car to enjoy it for a few minutes, before jumping back in. You don't want to be the one holding up the line.

The ferry arrived on the opposite bank, with its familiar metallic clunk. She drove off the deck and up the steep hill to the main road.

Up to now, I was pretty familiar with the area. Our family came out this way fairly regularly when I was growing up. But Cindy turned off, down a little side road I'd never taken. Before long, it opened up to a little sandbar on the river. Or more likely, a tiny little tributary.

She found a place to park and grabbed a bag with towels and other skinny dipping necessities. There were homes nearby, so we tried to stay as quiet and unobtrusive as we could. We weren't really supposed to be here.

We walked along the rocky beach, side-by-side, toward the place she wanted to take me. I don't think my feet touched the ground.

And then the light hit us.

Some fucking Authority Figure had arrived to remind us that we weren't allowed to be there. So, glumly, we trudged back. We'd only been there a few minutes. We were maybe 20 feet from the water.

The Authority Figure was rather cross and Authoritative, but didn't seem inclined to write up anything official for our permanent record. He gave us a perfunctory talking-to, then sent us on our way.

Nineteen and composed entirely of raging hormones, I was crushed. Visions of her swimming in the moonlight, underwear or not, had filled my every thought for days.

But there was nothing to be done. We got back in and she drove off, back to the main road.

She suggested going back to her place and watching a movie, which I happily agreed to. It wasn't much of a consolation prize, but I'd take it.

We weren't as lucky catching the ferry on the way back. A line of several cars stretched in front of us, and the ferry had just left. We'd be waiting a while.

She turned the engine off, settled in, then turned to me. "You can kiss me, you know. Why haven't you tried?"

Because I had no idea how any of this worked and I didn't want to offend her, or make her mad, or for her to reject me and laugh, or...

I leaned over the awkward stick shift console and kissed her. Her mouth was so warm and soft and accepting.

She tasted like heaven and Marlboro Lights.

She smoked a pack a day. She was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted. I was absolutely, hopelessly lost. I'd read somewhere that putting your hand on the girl's neck was a good thing to do when you kiss. So I did that too. She seemed to like it.

Eventually we heard the cars around us fire their engines back up. The ferry had returned.

As we broke the kiss, she made a big show of an exaggerated shiver. "Ooo, you're good at that." And with a big smile, put the car into gear.

I have no idea what happened on the way back to her place. I must not have done or said anything terribly insulting or weird along the way. My brain definitely was not fully functioning at that point.

Back at hers, she put on a movie that we proceeded to ignore for the next couple of hours. We curled up on her couch and kissed and made out. I couldn't get enough of her wonderfully warm, wet, talented, experienced, ashtray of a mouth.

I wanted to undo that top button. That first button on her shirt. Just casually pop that open while we kissed, then softly kiss her cleavage. But I didn't. This was good enough for now. I didn't want to ruin it. But I'll always wonder what might have happened.