How to Kiss a Girl with a Lip Ring

Fiction Story for CRW 207 at UNCW

Written in March 2014

How to Kiss a Girl with a Lip Ring

It was the summer after sophomore year and Miranda Lockhart let you touch her breasts. It was also the first time you got high. You were lectured about drugs and the downward spiral following the first hit, but she made it look so cool.

Miranda was eighteen and the only girl in your small town with her lip pierced. She wore jeans with holes in the knees, black high-top converse, and a concert tee for My Favorite Illness, some local punk band you’d never heard of. She picks you up in her wood-panel mini-van. The last row of seats is missing and replaced with pillows and two bean bag chairs. She drives to the movie theatre and parks. You both sit in the very back of the van waiting for the seven o’clock feature.

“Wanna get baked?” she asks, pulling out what looks like a hand-rolled cigarette.

“I don’t know,” you say, as if the idea bores you.

“It’ll make the movie better,” Miranda smiles, placing the joint between her glossy lips, and you wonder what it would be like to kiss a girl with a lip ring. You take the doobie from her when she passes it to you. Mimicking her, you inhale deeply. You try to hold your breath, but your lungs feel like they’re on fire. You choke and each cough relieves the searing sensation in your chest little by little. You notice the taste. It’s pungent, but fresh, like a Christmas tree.

Your head spins when you get out of the van and you seem to be watching yourself from another perspective, like in a dream. When you are aware of your body again, it tingles in odd places, feeling hot and cold and wet. You suddenly worry that you’ve pissed yourself. You touch your crotch, as if you’re rearranging things, but you’re really just making sure everything is still dry down there. It is, so you remind yourself to breathe.

Miranda was right, and the movie is better. The opening commercials with CGI popcorn and advertisement reminders to drink Coke become creative works of art.

“Do you think that ad is someone’s masterpiece?” you whisper.

“I hope not,” Miranda says. “It would be sad if someone put their whole soul into that, only to have it constantly overshadowed by hundreds of feature films every day.”

“We’re probably the only people in the world who took the time to appreciate their artwork,” you say, hoping it sounds profound.

You spend the first twenty minutes of the movie sneaking glances at Miranda. Half an hour in, you wipe your sweaty palm on the theatre seat before gently placing it on Miranda’s exposed knee. She leans into you and rests her head on your shoulder. She turns and begins kissing your neck. She puts her hand on top of yours and guides you up to her chest.

You close your right hand on her right breast and it feels like a water balloon filled with pudding. She looks up at you, and somehow you know that you should kiss her. You lean in and place your lips on hers. She tastes like cotton candy and you don’t even notice her lip ring. You move your hand to her left breast to see if it’s the same as the other, and it is.

You stop to look at her again. The images on the film screen are flickering strangely. The movie world begins to boil and melt away. People in the back row start to scream as flames erupt from the projection booth behind them. The alarms sound and the emergency sprinkler system goes off. Miranda hunches up her shoulders and squeals as cold water drenches both of you. Together you follow the dripping audience out the exit doors you were instructed to use in the opening previews.

The water in your shoes makes squishing sounds with every step back to the van. You feel like a cat that’s been squirted with a spray bottle for jumping up on the furniture. You sit with Miranda in the back of the van with the door open and watch the fire trucks arrive. Their lights flash like Morse code, telling red and white stories to the night.