Diary of a Middle School Slut

I had my first kiss the summer between seventh and eighth grade, in an open corner at summer camp during Havdalah, on the Fourth Of July. 

It was dusk, shades of pink and blue painted across the vast sky, mirroring the lake water beneath us. Leaves danced parallel to where we stood, their shadows swinging in eternal tango on the tan posts of the pier. Slow-blowing air gave my shoulder freckles kisses as it blew past, pecking each one with a refined gentleness. The wind washed across my skin straight to my bun, blowing my loose curls off their spot on my head. 

My camp boyfriend that summer, Owen, a boy with crooked teeth and a million freckles, slipped his hand around my waist, and I leaned in. His sunburned hand moved my hair behind my ear, and I closed my eyes. The world went quiet. It was perfect. 

At least, that’s what I told people. 

My second first kiss – this one was real – was the summer before tenth grade, sitting in my sister’s bed, criss-cross applesauce, parallel to a girl a year older than me. We talked for two weeks beforehand, but this was our first – and last – time hanging out.

I had convinced her multiple times that it was not my first kiss, which, technically, was true if you count B’nai Mitzvah spin the bottle or a “dare to peck my friends,” ending with disgusted spits and giggles. But aside from that, I had absolutely zero experience. 

The moments before she arrived were a blur: I brushed my teeth until my gums bled, chewed a wad of Icebreaker mint gum, and kissed chapsticks off my wrist until I found the right one. I waited in my room, noisily pacing across the creaking wood floors, compulsively cleaning every surface before me. I spent what felt like months brushing invisible dirt off my pillow and opening my window shades so the right amount of sunlight peeked through the curtains. 

I scraped my picked-apart nails across my desk, hurling myself over my feet towards screw-on top candles, figuring out which one smelled least like, “This Is My First Kiss.” 

It was the perfect summer afternoon, and the sun shone through the now half-covered windows. The air was clean and dry, too dry; I licked my lips. The birds sang outside. I suddenly realized I was sweating and put on another layer of deodorant. I combed through my perfumes, eventually picking Victoria’s Secret ‘Pure Seduction.’

My phone rang, and I lunged to pick it up. I saw her name light up on my phone, staring at it, letting it ring a few times before finally picking up.

“Hello?” 

“Hey, I think I’m here. Which house is it?” I suddenly became aware that my mouth is drier than usual, and I cough.

“I’ll come out to get you,” I managed to stutter. God, I’m stupid. 

“Word,” she replied, monotone.

As I hung up, I moved my door to the side, looking into the mirror behind it. I looked good. I looked okay. I looked terrible. My phone lit up, and I read, “Should I ring the doorbell?” before looking up to see her looking at me through the ribbed screen door, my heart dropping in my chest. 

The door squeaked as I grabbed the handle and opened it. She stepped forward, and our faces were inches apart. I turned around quickly, avoiding the inevitable, and we walked upstairs; she went into my sister’s room, and I followed her, not wanting to correct her mistake. 

We sat on the bed; she sat beside me and looked my way; I did not look at her. Her mouth opened, and hot breath touched my nose; her mouth touched my mouth, and I quickly closed my eyes. 

Looking back, I was a horrible kisser. I didn’t know how to use my tongue or move my lips. I was so bad that later, I heard she’d told people that.

Thank God, it was right before the summer.

***

The first time I got slut-shamed was in seventh grade; I was too young to be a slut and too old not to know what one was. It was a boy, who, at the time, was my friend. It was winter. I silently walked to lunch beside him; without our mutual friends surrounding us, we had nothing to talk about.

“You know, you’re kind of a slut,” he said, breaking the silence with his high-pitched, cracking voice. 

My frozen breath bounced off the air in front of me. I crossed my arms, gripping them with my blue sweatshirt sleeves; I did not wear a coat. I stared at my feet and sucked my teeth; my dirt-covered sneakers had left brown-halved crescents in the yellow snow. I kept walking, my steps heavier than the moment before. I put my ring finger into my mouth, chewing on the edge of it. 

He cracked his knuckles, and the sound hopped around my thoughtless mind. My gaze dropped from his hands to my shaking ones. The skin was peeling off the sides of my fingers, and my nails were bitten down to jagged, short circles.

“I haven’t even had my first kiss,” I finally said. He looked at me, his nose crinkled with the beginning of laughter. Seeing his friends in the distance, he walked away.

***

When I was a kid, I used to make my Barbie dolls kiss. 

I’d put them in pink crop tops and skimpy skirts that would’ve made their mommy Barbie look away in shame. Then I’d lay them down in their dreamhouse bed, and use my tiny fingers to press their faces together. I’d leave them there for hours, so I could let them have their private moment of plastic sexuality. 

My first taste of my sexual identity was in eighth grade, when I bought, with quarters, my first thong. It was magenta, sprinkled with gingerbread men, three black straps protruding from the slender sides. Before then, I’d been shopping in Pink, a cesspool of tween girls, scouring in sale bins for neon pink lingerie. I’d been placing my double-A unbudded breasts into 32D sparkling push-up bras, scooping them up into feigned cleavage. When I got home from the store, I threw them in a childhood dresser’s underwear drawer, crumpled next to my discarded days of the week underwear. 

I didn’t need those anymore. Now, I was a woman, and God, how I yearned to be one.

I’ve always wanted to be older than I am. I’ve always wanted to be a teenage girl that boys wanted. I’ve always wanted to go to parties and dress up in clothes that made me feel bad and my parents feel worse. 

When I became a teenager, I jumped to what I thought that meant: womanhood.

I was a woman when I spent hours staring at my chubby body in the mirror, learning to pose like the pretty girls on my for you page, puckering my glossed lips in the “hottest” way a thirteen-year-old could muster. I was a woman when I learned to suck in my stomach. I was a woman in the winter of junior year, when I wore a push-up bra to sleep every night, praying for a tinier waist and bigger boobs. I was a woman when I celebrated “finally” getting my period. I was a woman when, in ninth grade, a boy asked to see my naked body for the first time. I stayed a woman when he kept asking. 

Now, I am a girl again, or at least I’m trying my best to be one. I’ve stopped praying to the divine feminine every night and started spending more time with my mother. I beg to have back the time I lost aiming to be a sexual object for the people I never even had an interest in. 

 I scour for my fleeting youth in my childhood bedroom. I search for it in the attic with my mildew-dampened American Girl Dolls, and I paint my pathetic attempt of preadolescence on my face every morning with the rosy cheeks I used to have year-round. 

***

I have kissed a lot of people; I acknowledge that.

I have kissed at parties and on dates with people I’d never met; I’ve kissed in the back of Teslas, Priuses, and Porsches, under sparkling disco balls, sat between porcelain aquarium sharks, and rained on dirty streetlights. I have kissed girls and boys and everything in between. 

I have gotten slut shamed many more times than that time in seventh grade; you can debate whether or not I deserved it: though I’ve never supposed I did. I have gotten so many, “Look at what she’s wearing,” “Did you hear what she did?” and “Wow, she really gets around,” that I have forgotten what it feels like not to have my reputation tainted by the shallow minds of other people.

But I also kissed Grandma’s hand the last time I saw her. I kiss my mom’s cheek when she cries and I kissed my best friend's head when she found out her mother had cancer. I have kissed sad, angry, and scared. 

I realize now, as I write this, that I kiss for control. I kiss for certainty in uncertainty, because when all else is spinning, at least my lips can be still.