My (Queer) First Kiss

I was twelve years old when I had my first kiss.

I used the word pansexual, and sometimes lesbian to identify myself. I bounced back and forth about it because truthfully an attraction to women felt more exciting than real. Though I didn't find girls all that special, it was worth a shot, and I didn't want to be a boy's girlfriend. I mean, I had before, except I told him not to call me that and that I felt somewhere in between.

He didn’t get it. We were 11.

I had met this new girl though; she was at my good friend Destiny’s birthday party– where I called myself “Ben” for a couple of hours and then left early to change into a dress for a wedding I was invited to.

At the time I was just so excited – the way I was Ben in the afternoon and Bella in the evening.

I knew which felt better, but to switch made me feel like I beat the system. I was Bella at this new girl’s party though – Destiny being a guest now.

I really didn’t know this girl, but we hated the same boys, and she called herself gay, and she had the same hair I had before my parents made me grow it out again. The invitation felt haphazard, but I really had no friends. I bought her a shirt from Hot Topic that I really just wanted for myself, and she smiled when she held it up in front of everyone. I didn’t know her friends, save for Destiny, and I had just found out on the day of my invitation that her name was spelled Maggi and not Maggie. I thought that was so exciting too. She was much smaller than me, extraordinarily small for her age, especially considering I had not yet hit five feet.

She changed in front of all of her friends because it was hot in her room, and I saw that her chest was completely flat. I think I envied her more than anything else for not yet succumbing to the fattening grips of puberty. I was a victim to my own wide hips that made relatives say I was growing to look like my mother, and I definitely couldn’t have worn a tank top how she did without the tacky visage of bra straps peeking out underneath.

I was invited to the sleepover after the boys left, which I considered a perk of my newfound explorations with constant unwavering femininity. I had even worn eyeliner to this party- with a wing, not just along the bottom. But when Maggi’s friend Rayne called himself the only boy at the party, I immediately snapped back with “I’m not a girl” like I always did - not quite a correction but more of a “Gotcha!” moment when avoiding the topic of gender differences.

“Why are you staying for the sleepover then?” he said, snidely. I don’t remember what I said back.

I think I stood in silence against Maggi’s mirror.

When Rayne went home, we all sat in the basement together around Destiny’s laptop taking turns picking songs. The mix was eclectic, half trying to convince each other to listen to our music and half trying to impress one another. It was bearable, though, and Maggi picked a song I had shown her.

This part of the party was nice, despite the fact I was completely unacquainted with many of the girls there. Haven seemed to be friends with Destiny, and there were two other girls who went to another school. Maggi was pretty socially timid, everyone else making conversation for her.

Haven suggested a game of “truth or dare” and I quickly obliged, being a sucker for what I considered as an adolescent to be dirty. We asked around the circle about everyone’s crushes, which was my absolute favorite part of every game. Destiny had a crush on Rayne, Haven had a crush on a boy who I didn’t know, and it never really came back around to me. Maggi had us guess hers, telling us that it was someone from the party. Destiny panicked and asked if it was Rayne, and it wasn’t. There was a gaggle of “Is it me?” until finally, I asked the same.

Everything was so fast paced after this: her answer, my response, and Haven’s following dare.

I held Maggi’s face when I kissed her because I didn’t really know how to kiss. I had a few almost-kisses, but I was never really intimately drawn to do it. Maggi kissed dryly, but I probably did too. I leaned in for a second kiss when I realized what was really happening. Haven called that one “tongue-rape”.

I thought it was a tasteful amount, but even today I’m not exactly fond of French kisses.

The rest of the game was a blur. I can’t remember if we made it awkward or not, though now I’m sure we did. I do remember Maggi running upstairs to tell her mom we had kissed. She thought we couldn’t hear her from downstairs. While she was preoccupied, I penned some wholly stupid note on a discarded bit of dot matrix paper, ignoring the way that the green bars interrupted my words. She ran up to tell her mom about that too.

We cuddled on the floor for the night when we all finally decided to sleep. I pronounced myself the big spoon but changed my mind by the end of the night– at Maggi’s behest. I was mostly apathetic about Maggi, though, if I was being honest. I mean, who really cares truthfully about their first girlfriends or boyfriends? To me, though, a boyfriend was a chore. A girlfriend was a validation, a symbol of my own dedication to queer identity. I was too young to know there were no rules on what makes someone “really queer”, but a girlfriend made me feel that I was.