Ceiling Dreams and Bathroom Kisses

I opened my eyes this morning and stared at my ceiling.  The clean slate of the pearl white paint always gives me a feeling of clarity.  The twinkle of it’s shine as the first rays of spring’s sunlight clumsily traipse through my window makes understanding seem inevitable.  So this morning, content and warm under my one blanket and embracing my down filled comforter, I decided to slow it down.  No rushing out of bed for the morning potty run.  No quick sprints to the shower and blessed toothpaste before I could breathe my own eight-hour morning fresh scent.  Today I resolved to find peace and a mental release of some kind before I started my day.1

My mind wandered many places stopping swiftly as I remembered my first kiss.  Her name was Sherry and she was my cousin – not by blood but because that was how we were raised.  She was somewhat of a ditz and I could boss her around but she was beautiful and she had this air of innocence about her that even at nine years old I envied.   When she looked at me I felt all confident and giddy and filled with life. When she smiled at me I thought of all the wicked things I had done with some of the little boys. I thought of how I would much rather do them with her, but even then I was shy.  2

We had a mutual cousin who passed away and so, as was the family habit, we all congregated to the family house.  There were only two, the one that my grandmother raised her family in and the one her sister raised hers in.  We met in the house of my grandmother’s sister, long deceased.  The place was huge.  Three stories not including the basement.  There were six bedrooms, three bathrooms and a playroom.  All of the children were banished to level two.  You see we couldn’t be too far away but they didn’t want us on the main floor either.  The adults were loud and rowdy as the alcohol flowed and the cigarette smoke filled the house and they all tried to calm their nerves by remembering to forget.3

Upstairs in the playroom Sherry and I were the oldest and the only girls and we were stuck there with six immature boys who wanted to play cops and robbers and wrestle. We were bossy and demanding and determined to have our way and we were so loud that my mother came upstairs and pulled me aside. 4

“You are the oldest,“ she said. “You should know better.  I don’t expect much out of them and I don’t care what they do but do not make me come up these steps again.  This is not a playground, people are mourning.”5

I looked at my mother with anger in my heart because I had no control over the little ingrates in that back room.  They all stood in the door pointing at me behind my mother’s back and laughing at me.  All except Sherry who popped each one upside the head before my mother turned around.  She passed them to go downstairs and told them all that if she had to come back up she would be sure to do so with permission to whip their assess.6

They looked back and forth between one another with fear momentarily in their eyes. One thing every child in my family knew was that my mother was no joke.  Once she disappeared I shoved my oldest boy cousin into the wall and told him to watch the others then Sherry and I went into the bathroom and locked the door.7

Thinking back now that bathroom was always my favorite part of the house.  When it comes to mind it brings with it the thought of a mobile home.  Just by the way it was shaped and the way that it was attached to the house.  It was not large by any means but it was very long.  It held a nice size tub up against the back.  A double faucet sink with lit vanity and a small toilet.  On the inside of the door reflecting a perfect view of the toilet was a full sized mirror.8

Sherry stood with her back to the mirror and asked what we were going to do.  I told her I had no clue and I didn’t care as long as we were away from them.  Then out of the blue she leaned away from the mirror and kissed me.  Caught off guard and a bit dumb founded my mouth fell open and her tongue sneaked in. Instantly all my insides turned to mush.  I don’t know where the urge or knowledge came from but I began to kiss her back with this intensity beyond reason.  At twenty-four years old it's hard to imagine that at nine I could kiss anyone like that – especially for the first time.  I had done many things up to that stage in my life but I had never shared a kiss and looking back I am glad. Would I have known it’s true beauty if I had been kissing since I was seven?9

Sherry pulled away first and started to laugh.  I was confused for a second then I pushed her against the door and kissed her again.  For hours it seemed we did that. She would push me against a wall and kiss me.  Then she would pull away and I would hold her against the vanity and kiss her.  We giggled and the boys knocked because they thought we were fighting and we giggled some more.  10

Eventually we stopped kissing and sat on the edge of the tub sliding back so that our butts were in the tub but our legs dangled over.  She looked at me and smiled and I looked at her and sighed.  I knew we could never tell.  I knew if my mother found out she would kill me.  I didn’t, even then, know why people would say it was wrong.  I really had no clue about gay and straight and why children shouldn't have sex.  For all my intelligence at such a young age I simply acted on what made me feel good.  Kissing Sherry made the lights in the bathroom so much brighter but thinking of my mother made it all go dim again.11

She stuck a finger in my mouth and kept it there.  Then she started to talk about our children and what would happen when we were grown up and so on and so forth.  We talked of dreams I have long ago forgotten and fell asleep with our fingers in each other’s mouths.  We were awakened by the sound of my mother banging on the door. Needless to say that when we opened it she was more than a little perturbed.  Sherry and I took it in stride and just smiled at each other.12

After that day there were many sleepovers at my house.  Many nights exploring and learning things I had no clue could be considered wrong.  Many dreams whispered and tears shed and fantasies had.  Every day, every month every year she grew more beautiful.  I became more introverted.  Her mother and my father lived the same lifestyle but we were affected by it in different ways.  She went wild and because my mother would never allow that of me I shut down.  But when I was with her I smiled.  13

Her mother got Aids when I was 11.  She had it before then and everyone knew but no one really said the words until then.  A few months before she died I was at their house and by accident I was walking pass as Sherry’s grandmother came out.  Her mother lay there, a shell of her old beautiful self.  Her once enchanting gray eyes now dark and full of this sadness.  I have always been an empath.  I have always been able to feel others pain.  Tears ran from my eyes and I fell to my knees and Sherry’s grandmother took me downstairs.  No one ever mentioned it or said a word.14

Months later, lying on my bed we held each other and talked.  I asked her if she ever went in to see her mother and she told me that she didn’t.  She said everyone always told her that she looked like her mother and had her mother’s eyes and she wanted to always be her mother’s reflection.  I told her that was selfish.  And she told me it wasn’t selfish because her mother wouldn’t know she was there anyway.  Then she cried and we kissed and did things I refuse to ever consider wrong.  She slept and I stared at the ceiling much as I did this morning and swore that we would be together forever.  No matter whom we married or how many children we had or what happened in our families.  We would be friends forever.15

At four-thirty in the morning as I was falling asleep the phone rang.  I heard my mother stir and then answer the phone.  I heard her ask when and then there was silence.  A few minutes later she hung up the phone.  I knew then.  I pulled Sherry to me because I knew it would all change.16

There were no more sleepovers.  No more kisses.  There were times when we floated in and out of one another's lives depending on the mood of her aunt and grandmother and my mother.  She grew more beautiful by the day in a time when guys our age were just discovering how to be “dawgs.” I grew more introverted and walked a different path though we made some of the same mistakes.  17

The last time I saw her was 4 years ago and she has since moved in to her own place and has 2 kids.  I don’t talk to her, having long since forgotten what to say.  But every story that my mother tells that has her name in it I greedily devour and hide in my soul with those memories of those long ago kisses.  Often times I wonder if she remembers those days as I do.  Often times I wonder if she hates me because she was with me when her mother died. I wonder if she knows my father had the same disease though that was not what killed him. I wonder if she knows I am gay.  I wonder if she would kiss me now if I were to lock us in a bathroom shaped like a mobile home with a light up vanity.  18

I wonder if any of her dreams or fantasies ever came true because mine have not yet made an appearance and I seem to have forgotten the most important ones.19

Staring at my ceiling I was reminded of that bathroom and those kisses and falling asleep with her finger in my mouth after detailing plans for our future. And amazingly enough as I threw back my one blanket and down filled comforter and placed my feet on my hard wood floor I found peace with some demons.  Every one has a season and a reason.  So it seems that if none of the dreams shared in that bathroom between a nine and eight-year-old have come true in thirteen years then our seasons and reasons have yet to be fulfilled.  20

Will we kiss again knowing now what we didn’t then? I don’t know. But as I stood at my sink brushing my teeth I had to smile at myself in the lit vanity mirror.  21

JayLynn22

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