First Kiss

As they walked through the department store, the mother prompted her sassy daughter into action with a blanket permission slip.

The mother invited, “Go ahead, do your thing, honey.”

“Do I need more lipstick, mommy?” the daughter asked.

“Nah, you look all dolled up for the camera.”

The ten-year-old girl led the younger boy by the hand into the department store photo booth. The mother removed coins from a pocketbook that had seen better days. She dropped ever-ready quarters into the corresponding metal slot in the booth. She shuttled the children inside then closed the black velvety curtain where she stood magnificent guard. The boy did not know it yet but he would soon be paying the price for admission.

Not to mention the mother’s role as an accomplice, the daughter was three years older, bigger, and stronger than his lanky frame. The girl held his peanut arms down to the side for reasons he could not understand until she pressed her lipstick lips against his. There was nothing tender in her territorial advance. He fleetingly wondered if her roughness were by design or inexperience. As he tried to resist, she absolutely smothered him with tangled limbs and eager lips.

When the arms of the mother appeared through the jostling curtain, the boy thought he would be saved from the photo booth horror. In a flash, the mother smirked at his compromising position then issued a congratulatory nod to her daughter. The only adult in sight repositioned the curtain then returned to guard duty at the lone entrance. Her daughter followed suit by aggressively pushing him back down on the bench. His back slapped against the bench seat. She menacingly towered over him and pointed a single digit finger. He could not figure out how he could be left in the company of this evil woman and her maniacal child. Oh, how he wanted his mommy.

“Don’t move!” barked the bad seed of a girl as she threw back her shoulder length hair with actress quality.

The girl did not need to threaten him anymore for he knew there was no way out. Her firm lips spread wet slobber across his nose-scrunched face. The camera flashed. The frightened boy wanted to scream but inexplicably did not. She lunged her body forward to kiss him again. He heard more money drop into the machine. She positioned her body to show for the camera that she had her sadistic way with him. Other pictures snapped. She continued degrading him until the photo shoot was over. He watched the mother snatch the developed pictures from the carousel then place them into her pocketbook. Like a contrast in the maternal instinct, the mother handed him a tissue to clean himself up.

I would like to forget the mother daughter team who gave love a bad name but that boy grew up to be me. My only souvenir, I still have saved a mental picture of the stolen moment. I just cannot seem to spit it out because my first kiss turned out to be my first taste of women.

-Joe Tornatore as a child no more