2.1

Your question seems designed to remind people of a more innocent time. Of course, the fact that I think so might be far more telling of my history, than of your intentions.

Sexually experienced adults meet, and if the attraction is mutual, they have sex. The kiss is just something that happens along the way.

But to think of a kiss as something that can stand on its own... It seems like anticipation has to be a major element of it. And anticipation requires waiting, which speaks of relative innocence to me.

And for that, I'd have to reach into the distant past. I was in my mid 30s, newly divorced from my first husband. I had just received the official paperwork that morning and I was celebrating with champagne - it is the appropriate beverage with which to both start and end marriages.

I was with a few friends at my club when this child approached us. I found out later that he was 22. Beautiful, cocky, sweet. You know the type - lost his virginity to his babysitter before he was 13, screwed his way through college, ready at the drop of a hat to fall in love.

I wasn't entirely cavalier about my divorce then - that would come with subsequent ex-husbands. So I let the child buy me drinks and then I left, alone.

A week later, I went back and there he was. Apparently he'd shown up every night hoping to see me again. Absurd. Sweet. But the fact that he was closer in age to my son than to me made it impossible to take him seriously.

But the impossible has a way of happening all the time, doesn't it.

After enough of these "accidental" encounters, I started expecting to see him. And one evening, I let him walk me home. I said good night to him outside my door and let him kiss me. He wasn't as clumsy as I thought he'd be. Quite the contrary actually. But that wasn't what made an impression. I had forgotten how sweet youthful flesh could be. Eager, firm, tender.

I felt like quite the carnivore. I felt like a man.