The whole world was collectively touch starved and longed to see their partners. Amidst this, my ex and I had been planning to meet for almost a month. But I was far from the city and it was the era of the scariest pandemic my generation had seen. I was living and reporting from one of the rural corners of India, so, convincing my parents to leave home during a lockdown and heavy rains wasn’t a task. They understood it was a job for me. Except that morning, I stepped out of my house to see him while he had woken up at 3am and driven almost 4 hours to come see me.
In no time we were in his car, parked at a secluded area behind the big trees. It was pouring outside but our gazes were fixated on each other's lips. After a while, he turned towards me and took my face in his cold hands. We started to kiss as if we had been starved for days. It was a kiss that ran a chill through my entire body. A kiss that took a language of its own. When we finally stopped kissing, I let out a sigh that was held in my body for weeks. At that moment, the world was perfect. There was no COVID, no deaths, no lockdown, only his lips and mine.
Soon after that morning, we broke up. And I was left with that one perfect kiss in the middle of a pandemic ridden village while it poured cats and dogs outside. I had kissed other boys after him and had kissed some before him. But no moment in my life ever came close to that kiss. It was not just a kiss, it was a story that demanded to be told at drunken parties to strangers and dates when they asked you about the best kiss. It was a kiss that was to be felt on your lips under your blanket on lonely nights.
I often wonder, what’s in a kiss? What makes them so special? Is it that your worries are forgotten during moments when two lips look for each other hurriedly at the start of a night? Or is it that good-byes become easier with a kiss at the end of the night? For me, the goodbye kisses have always been special. As a ritual, my ex-partner would kiss me before he left for work early mornings. As much as I'd miss him, the kiss also meant, hey, I’ll think of you until the time we see each other next. And that always made the goodbyes a little less painful.
Then there are other kinds of romantic kisses, the ones you plant cheekily on your partner’s body when you are trying to seduce and with enthusiastic approval, his body becomes a blank canvas waiting to be painted with lips. Or kisses that help you assess men’s courting skills. I have found it charming when at the end of a really good date, the man would lean in for a kiss and then turn his face upwards to plant a kiss on the forehead instead. This small act of forehead kissing has always felt so affectionate and sincere.
While there are many kinds of best kisses in romantic settings that can seemingly make living in this world worthwhile, only a handful of instances, where an ordinary kiss turns into an overwhelmingly passionate experience. To listen to more such stories, I spoke to a few women about memories of that one best kiss that still makes their toes curl and what were the factors leading up to those kisses.
When an airport became my personal kissing heaven!
We had met online and had been talking for months. Unfortunately, when we had started talking he had to move to Egypt on a work project. So when he was finally coming down to India, I had decided to go pick him at the airport. As I saw him at the gate, I got goosebumps. He looked so good. I could feel he was equally excited to see me and he gave me the warmest hug. I thought the hug was it but then he said thank you for the flowers that I had got him and then leaned in to kiss me. It was soft and swift at first but then it got so intense. We both just forgot that we were at a public space and kept kissing each other profusely. To this day it was one of the most intense kisses I have had in my life.
Oh when they start with the neck!
I remember the absolute first meeting with my ex-boyfriend. We were at a mutual friend’s party and many of us were drunk out of our minds. But he was still only tipsy and was generously taking care of others, especially me, offering water and just being really nice. Even before getting drunk he and I had some really good conversations and I was totally into him. He was honestly the eye-candy of the party. Later, I went into the balcony to get some fresh air, by then most of my friends had either passed out or had left but the music was still on. After a while, he came onto the balcony and asked if I was okay. I said I am not drunk anymore and totally feel fine. He laughed a bit and just tapped on my shoulder. At that moment I don’t know what got over me but I said, “I wish that shoulder tap was a kiss instead.” He was taken aback for a second and then his face got soft and he came closer to me. I thought we would kiss now but he started to move my hair from my neck and planted a cheeky kiss there. I was surprised but suddenly felt so horny. I got closer signaling him to continue kissing. And my god he kept kissing my neck and then finally my lips. I swear that moment just felt like magic. And to be honest, all best kisses start on the neck.
What’s a marriage without a little infidelity!
It was the new year’s eve and my husband and I had a huge fight. For months into marriage all I have been doing was begging him for his time but he seemed to be busy all the time. That night we had to go to a house party but he refused after the fight and I decided to go without him. To my surprise my ex was there too. Him and I had been on cordial terms but never met each other since our break up. We both had gone our separate ways and had gotten married to our new partners. But seeing him after so long strangely felt comforting. The familiarity of being with him for years took over and we just kept talking for hours. His wife was out of town for work so even he had come alone at the party. I told him about the fights with my husband and he heard them so sincerely. He said he completely understood because he too felt that his wife doesn’t make enough time for them. At midnight as the clock hit 12, something took over and we just started to kiss. Maybe, it came from the place of grief of our past relationship or the sadness of our current ones but the kiss just made everything better. We never saw each other again after that night but it still remains to be my most memorable kiss.
The ‘we almost kissed!’
My date and I were cuddling in bed. We had decided not to go further because we both knew getting physical meant getting attached too quickly. So to protect our hearts, we decided to just cuddle. But we both felt so horny. I could feel his bulge on my ass and I knew if I turned my face towards him we would end up kissing. But being with him felt so good and the way he kept tightly holding him, I had to kiss him. I turned my face towards his and our lips just slightly brushed past each other. I wanted more and so did he but instead he kissed my forehead and went back to cuddling. His control made it even more romantic and that whole night is still so special to me.
Similarly, dancing with someone can weave a similar spell of intimacy and attraction. The rhythm of bodies moving in sync, the closeness of the dance, can unexpectedly lead to a kiss. Such a kiss, emerging from the flow of the dance, can stir a whirlwind of desire, reminding us of the thin line between passion and the profound connection we share in these moments. Check out our blog on sensual link between dance & desire to learn more about it.
The sneaky kisses are the best ones!
Against all rationality and reason, I ended up hooking up with my colleague. After that night we had regularly hooked up but obviously didn’t want anyone else in the office to know about it. One day as we were all out on an office trip, he pulled me aside from our other colleagues and out of nowhere kissed me so passionately. It felt as if he wanted to do this forever and even though we had kissed before nothing came close to that one. My body shivered and going back to other colleagues and pretending like that kiss just didn’t happen was the hardest. Now years later he is my husband and we still reminisce about that kiss from time to time.
When I asked women for their best kiss stories, none of them mentioned the best kissing style or how well the tongue was leveraged during kissing. They didn’t speak of ways in which that kiss could have been better if they had just grabbed their hair or bitten their lips. But what made their stories special was the tenderness of the moment leading before the kiss. So when it comes to a great kiss, I learned that the best ways to kiss is not so much about the act of kissing but the emotional investment, mutual respect and shared chemistry between love interests that makes the kiss a great kiss.
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About the Author
Questions and concerns about sex have been brewing in Moh Maya’s (she/her) head since she was 10. So she finds it fitting to document the intricacies of sexuality here and in her half-written chapters of a book on love lives of young women from India’s urban and rural spaces. She can be found observing and photographing every day lives in the neighbourhoods of Mumbai.
