The Kiss

I have kissed my beloved Maggie just about everywhere … except in one special place.

Talking locations here, not parts of the anatomy.

There has never been a day since we first became “serious” daters and then married, that I have never kissed Mags. It may be a quick kiss on the lips for a hello or good-bye, a peck on the cheek or a long, tongue-swirling, eyes closed, lost-in-each-other kiss that leads to something else (or maybe not). Doesn’t matter. As long as I get to kiss my Maggie, the world is good. The sex is great; but the kisses are even better.

We kiss before and after each time we make love — seals our covenant to each other. We have kissed in churches, bedrooms, kitchens, cabins, hotels, hospitals,  restaurants, stadiums, in vehicles, planes and trains, on mountaintops, on the sea and underneath the sea. In the snow, in the rain, in the bright sunshine and every weather in between.

I have kissed Maggie every place that is important to me and us. Except one.

I met Mags after I graduated from college. I love my college and the experiences I had there. The setting at that university has always appealed to me and one place in particular. It is a triangle of large trees, grass, benches and walkways in the middle of campus. It is your typical campus green.

The sidewalks from all four directions meet at the center and the area is bracketed at the ends by stone arches and campus buildings on both sides.  There is an outdoor auditorium in one corner and a large stone bell tower in the other. Each day it is full of students, especially on the warm days.  It is the center of the university life and especially in the fall, when the leaves turn color, there is no better place to walk, sit, read or just be.

To me, it is also the most romantic place on campus. It is a place that I have always wanted to kiss the woman of my dreams. While I dated several wonderful women in college (some who are still friends to this day), I never felt like sharing that moment with them. To be fair, they probably didn’t want to share it with me either.

For years, that is where I wanted to kiss Maggie. But schedules, life, jobs, family, and all of the above interfered. We could never get away at the one time in the fall where it would be the most beautiful. Until this year. Mags and I decided we would attend homecoming at my university this year — go Friday and watch the parade and football game on Saturday. Mags was a good sport about all of this, but she refused to wear the school colors (she attended the rival university).

Planning romantic interludes is one of my favorite things — and I love to surprise Maggje with them. This was going to be one of those times.

We arrived at the university Friday afternoon, checked into the hotel and then went to dinner at a restaurant nearby campus. With it being homecoming week, the community was in a celebratory mood. The campus sat only a few blocks between the restaurant and hotel. It gave us a chance to walk, hand in hand, to the restaurant.

It was a beautiful October night, the smell of autumn was in the air and the moon and stars in the clear dark sky. As we headed out of the restaurant, we walked on the outside border of the campus, which led directly to the hotel. As we moved closer to the stone arch that led to the center of the campus, I said to Mags, “Let’s take a walk through the campus, we’ve never done that before.” Maggie shrugged her agreement and said, “If you want to, even though it is dark.”

We turned left, entered through the stone arch entryway and started walking towards the campus center, hand in hand.  As we walked, the memories of that special place in the fall came flooding back to me. I could see the campus buildings, the lights along the walkways shining onto the trees, hear the quiet of the campus. It was perfect.

As we walked, I told Maggie about the importance of the campus center and what it meant to me. I told her that I had walked this way through the campus on the way to class through rain, snow, and bitter January winds. I told how the students gathered here for pep rallies, study halls and hangout time.

Maggie looked at me with a quizzical, almost bored, look on her face and said, “You are telling me this why?”

We had reached the point where the sidewalks joined, we were at the center of the campus green. This was the place. We stopped and I put my arms around her.

“I am telling you this,” I said looking into her eyes, “because this is an important place to me. My entire time on campus and afterwards, I wanted to do one thing at the spot with the most important person in the world. And that is you.”

I brought Maggie close and kissed her deeply. Taken back at first, she return the heartfelt kiss. We wrapped our arms around each other and kissed for what seemed to be an eternity.

Finally, Mags pulled back and looked at me with a smile.

“So you are telling me that there was not one girl in college you ever tried to kiss at this spot?”

“Nope,” I said kissing her on the nose.

“Why not?” she persisted.

I pulled Maggie close and whispered, “Because none of them ever measured up.”

Maggie let out a gasp, grabbed me around the neck and squeezed. “Whoa….you truly are my man of mystery,” she whispered.

I kissed my wife once again, long, deeply and with great passion.

We went back to the hotel then. We didn’t make it to the parade or the game the next day. You could say we were “preoccupied.”

And while all of those moments were beautiful; they couldn’t top the night I kissed my beloved in that special place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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