Peter Cox
Greasy fingers mark the bottle. Nervous giggles fill the room.
Belle sits cross-legged in her cousin’s basement, silently begging and begging the bottle to land on Matty.
Matty, with the bruised knees, bitten fingernails, and messy, scruffy brown hair that is swept half over his eyes.
The plaster cast is gone from his arm – skateboarding accident, two months ago – and somehow the fact he broke a bone is sexy to fourteen-year-old Belle, whose eyes linger slightly longer than necessary on the faint white scar.
She first met Matty at her cousin Harry’s birthday party last year and has been dreaming of her first kiss with him ever since.
Now is her chance. She just needs fate to be on her side.
In her dreams it was to be perfect – stars exploding, time slowing, body melting.
She didn’t picture it happening in a room full of her cousin’s mates.
She notices she’s shivering, not with cold but with nerves, adrenaline, and apprehension.
She scolds herself, tells herself to pull it together, act cool, and prays once again that it’s Matty.
The bottle comes to a stop, still rattling, pointing at … Peter? Suddenly, the smell of sour cream and onion Pringles, salsa, and oven pizza becomes nauseating to Belle, but everyone is staring at her now, whooping and hollering.
She looks at Peter. His mousy hair is parted in the middle, his brownish eyes sit slightly far apart, and his skin is dusted with pimples.
Unremarkable, but fine. She studies the mouth of her soon-to-be first kiss – thin but a nice blushing pink and Belle silently thanks God that the spots don’t verge anywhere near it.
Right on cue, Peter pulls out a tub of lip balm, dips his stubby finger into the pot and smears it over his lips.
Is it safe to kiss someone who’s just applied a thick layer of Carmex? Belle wonders and then panics that maybe she should have done the same. Her arms are crossed, hands pinching the skin of her inner elbows, as she begins panicking that her breath smells.
The jeering is getting louder and everyone watching starts counting down.
‘Ten … nine … eight …’
Peter crawls past the bottle and over to Belle.
‘Seven … six … five …’
Belle fumbles forward, closing her eyes, half-grimace and half-cringe.
‘Four … three …’
She opens one eye slightly and spots Matty behind Peter. He doesn’t look at all disappointed that he’s not the one getting this chance with her and she wonders what that twinge of pain in her chest is.
‘Two … one …’
And in that second the NOW Hits CD skips to the next track.
It’s Black Eyed Peas’ ‘My Humps’. It’s too late for Belle to pull out now – everyone would think she’s frigid.
She pouts and feels Peter’s warmth as their faces collide.
Their lips touch just as will.i.am asks Fergie what she’s gonna do with all that junk.
Belle is mortified. She keeps her lips shut, but feels resistance as a wet, sloppy tongue tries to enter her mouth, like a slug squeezing its way between a door and its frame.
She opens her mouth a little, hands still at her sides, fingers digging into the carpet.
It’s over in a second, although it feels like an eternity.
Kissing has got to be better than that, Belle thinks as she nervously laughs, scanning the room, and folds in on herself just as the person to her left reaches for the bottle.