Free Love You Always by Terra Lorin, P. S. Love

perv.”
    “Hey, I’m just curious, and wondering if any munchkins were involved.”
    She laughs.
    “Well, don’t sweat it, because it wasn’t anything that would’ve gotten him arrested.”
    “Go on,” I say, intrigued to hear how a thirteen-year-old girl got a nineteen-year-old guy to kiss her.
    “I sort of tricked him into it actually.” She looks embarrassed to have disclosed her little crime.
    “I told him that I liked a boy at school and he wanted to kiss me, but I didn’t know how, and felt awkward. I said I wanted to impress the boy, so if he could show me what to do, so that the boy wouldn’t laugh at me.
    “At first, he felt uncomfortable about it and covered himself by saying that any boy who would laugh at me, wasn’t worth being with.”
    “Good advice,” I throw in.
    “Yeah, well, good advice wasn’t the prize I wanted, so I came up with other reasons why I needed hands-on experience.”
    “You were quite the mischievous little girl.” I am so enjoying this.
    “He was my first crush, what can I say?”
    I love how she squirms at recalling this awkward moment in her life. It’s cute as hell.
    “So, how did you finally get him to do it?” Yeah, I’m mischievous too, I’m gonna keep her squirming.
    “Well, at first he tried to show me how to kiss using the back of my hand. He’d kiss his hand and tell me to copy what he was doing.”
    “Ah, that old trick. Unfortunately, that never works because the hand can’t kiss back.”
    “Exactly!” She laughs.
    At this point, I’m smiling from ear to ear, thoroughly amused by her story. This is sure better than any fairytale—no snoozin’ here. All I need now is popcorn.
    “I assume you finally got him to kiss you?”
    “Patience,” she reprimands. “Who’s telling this story?”
    “Whooooaa. Sorry. Didn’t mean to jump the gun and ruin the suspense.”
    Her eyes show amusement in them as much as mine probably do.
    “There’s hardly any suspense. I didn’t hold him hostage, or torture him or anything. I basically made it clear that the only way I wasn’t going to feel like a loser, is to experience what a real kiss was like.”
    “Oh, good one. Make him feel like he’d be the scum of the earth to be responsible for your being a loser. Now, how could he refuse that? I feel a Marlon Brando quote coming on.”
    She looks at me and shakes her head, but her lips rebel and they smile at me.
    “Yeah, he couldn’t.”
    She pauses as if she’s not going to go further with the story.
    “So what happened next?” I ask, urging her on.
    “He took my hand and pulled me into the shadows of the garage where nobody could see us. Since I was a shorty, he lifted me up and set me atop a footstool. I was nervous as hell, but so anxious for him to kiss me. As he looked into my eyes, he put his hands to my cheeks, drew me to him, and planted his kiss.
    “I just about melted. When he pulled away, his face was red, and I could tell he felt uncomfortable about it. He said, ‘There, now you have experience. Go show that boy what you’ve got. But don’t let him do anything else to you.’ Then he smiled at me, touched his finger to the tip of my nose, and went back out to tinker on his car. And that was the end of it.”
    “Only one kiss?”
    “Yup, but it’s a kiss I’ll never forget. It was my first kiss.”
    “Wow, I might just have a tear in the corner of my eye. Definitely better than any fairytale, but I have to tell ya . . . you were one scary little girl. You hit on a nineteen-year-old guy with come-on lines that beat out any other I’ve heard. You should package this stuff and sell them to teenage girls.”
    “Oh, shut up!” she chides me, but with a laugh.
    “Whatever happened to your first crush?”
    “The following year, he moved out to live with his girlfriend. I’d see him now and then when he’d visit his family. He’d always wink at me, and I’d take it as his way of letting me know he’d always remember that day