The Kiss

She kissed her. Hard. On the mouth. She kissed her. Without hesitating. Well… that’s not exactly true. She had being trying all night not to kiss her.

She hadn’t kissed her when she’d met her at the train station. She’d been overcome with the urge to kiss her, a new feeling in this old friendship, but she hadn’t. She’d hugged her. She’d been hugged back. The hug had lingered, perhaps a little longer than is usual for a friendly hug, but there hadn’t been a kiss. Not even on the cheek. Or on two cheeks like the French, which would have been perfectly acceptable. They were both stage folk and had a flair for the dramatic. But she hadn’t dared. Instead, she’d chivalrously taken the suitcase from her and led her out of the train station and into the city, trying to convince herself that the plans she’d settled on for the evening weren’t meant to woo her. No. They were conventional, benign plans.

She had managed not to kiss her in the used bookstore, on the second floor, bathed in the sweet, dry smell of old, warm paper and dust. (What was it that made it smell sweet?) She’d come close, she thought, to kissing her, but there had been other people around. Strangers. But she’d looked at her, intensely, longingly, with an ache that grew from her stomach or solar plexus, wherever that place is that hurts in such an intoxicating way. They’d pointed out books to each...