What is a Kiss?

What is a kiss? Why this, as some approve: The sure, sweet cement, glue and lime of love.

~ Robert Herrick ~

I've been having a lot of dreams about it. Kissing, that is. For some reason it's been on my mind and I take that as a sign that it's good timing for a blog about it.

There's a lot that goes into it when writing romance. From the moment the hero and heroine meet there's all those questions hanging uncertainly in the air. Whether they like each other or loathe each other, there's that anticipation of-

WHEN are they going to kiss for the first time?
HOW will they feel about it?
WHAT happens next?

For all truly inspiring romantic relationships, it starts with a kiss~ whether they're real or fantasy.

Unfortunately in real life, first kisses aren't always what they're cracked up to be and some can be downright disgusting—gotta kiss a lot of frogs and all that jazz.

Unlike those icky first kisses in reality, the FIRST KISS of a novel BETTER be good. If it isn't, you can bet your bottom dollar that relationship is heading out on a one-way trip to Not-Happening-Ville and you're not going to keep the reader interested long enough to finish the story.

Now, I've kissed a few frogs in my time who were awful, but then there were some who were very good kissers, while a few "princely" men couldn't kiss well if their lives depended on it. It's a crap shoot cause everyone has a different take on what makes a good kiss and not everyone is good at it or they are only good at it with certain partners. Like locks and keys, only so many will fit together and work right.

Take for example this dream I had the other night. A famous musician was flirting with me, reciting dark poetry and trying to woo me with words and that was great, but when I finally kissed him, his lips and tongue were paper-thin and it was like trying to kiss a ribbon blowing and flapping around in the breeze. That is so totally NOT the way I would write a first kiss in a novel. Just the imagery alone makes me think "Ewww..."

Kisses are so individual and unique to each person. Some are sweet and almost innocent- leaving you giggling and breathless like a silly school girl afterward. Some are like being jack-hammered to death. Some are dry, some are so wet it leaves you wondering if it was a real kiss or if you were just mistaken for a kitten and being bathed by a momma cat.

Some are 'meh"- hardly worth remembering or being reminded of. But then there are those that you could never forget-the ones that make your feet tingle or your heart quiver or set the butterflies in your stomach into a tizzy- even years later when thought of. Those are remembered for a lifetime and TIME doesn't forget kisses like that. Those are the ones that steal your heart, wrapping it up and making everything pale in comparison. A kiss like that is like the mingling of souls.

So, as a writer—and/or a reader— How do you like the hero and heroine's first kiss to be? Does it need to be sweet? Earth-shattering? Sexy?

Or does the personalities and the situations set the tone for what kind of kiss it should be?

One of my favorite "kissing" poems-

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LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY
Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?
See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained it's brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
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(excerpt from a poem by my soul♥mate)
"Twenty-seven years spent in blissful sadness
Never being me
You made me see myself
For this I will damn you
With kisses and my embrace." ~K