Our First Kiss, or How I Got this Scar on my Lip

Here it is, as promised and with the blessing of the other party. (His only condition was that it had better not result in a phone call from his grandma, who reads this blog. Hi, Grammy!)

So GH and I became friends when we worked together at the library in L**** in the winter of 2007. I was his boss, and after a few months we started hanging out a little bit. Then he found a different job in town and left the library. In June 2007 we started moving tentatively from hanging out to dating. A couple of of weeks into this we went out and had a really great time. We ate at the Indian Oven (Note: the "friend" in the 5th paragraph was GH. Also the restaurant has since moved to new digs on Main Street. Food's still great though.). Then he showed me around Utah State's campus and it was all happy and good and summer eveningy and romantic comedyish.

So during the evening I started thinking that even though I wanted to take things slowly, maybe it would be a nice good thing to have a good-night kiss, as long as it didn't turn into a make-out session or anything.

Since it was only 11:30pm when we got back to my place I knew I wasn't operating solely on the "it's 1:00am and so stupid things seem like good ideas" principle. My idea was that it would maybe be okay to kick things up a notch and see how they go because really he was just so cute and sweet and funny with the wicked sense of humor. Plus, hi, I just needed me some kissin'.

So I went for it.

Five minutes later I was sorry.

Not because I wasn't liking him, or because he tried to pull anything inappropriate, because he didn't. Problem was, we only kissed a few times before I had an incredibly sore lip.

I don't know if it was his teeth or what, but I was dying. So . . . yeah. No chance of that turning into a 3-hour make-out session. I couldn't get him out the door fast enough because I could feel my lower lip swelling up. And I really did not even know how to begin that conversation ("Um, did you maybe not get enough food at dinner?") without causing much ego-bursting and feelings-hurting. So I nicely said good night and sent him on his way.

The next morning, I had three little purple bite marks on my lips.

Consulted with the Circle of Truth over email at work the next day (as one does) about how to improve the situation without damaging egos or ruining new, fragile relationships. One idea I had would be to tell him he's a Big Brute who doesn't know his own strength after Helen Andelin's advice in her classic book Fascinating Womanhood (still in print, heaven save us all).

Cicada said all I should really have to do is point the marks out to him to have a very good opener for the "why we don't kiss like that" conversation. So I went to the staff bathroom mirror to see if they'd faded and almost had a heart attack when I saw my reflection.

Nearly my entire lower lip was stained a dark, bruised purple.

I wouldn't need to POINT OUT anything, since I now had people at work (like, my boss) after me to call my doctor and find out what was wrong with my mouth. I looked like this:


I had to pretend I'd been chewing on an ink pen or something. As if I would ever even do that. Daltongirl was cheered by this, though: "Excellent! So now all you have to do is make CERTAIN that he sees you today. Problem solved."

That night GH came over. I told him I needed to show him something and pointed to my purple lips. I knew how this would go. He would be so sorry and feel so bad but I would be very nice and forgiving and gracious about the whole thing and careful of his feelings so he wouldn't wallow in his guilt over damaging my perfect lips for longer than was necessary.

Except first he tried to say he couldn't see anything. Then he tried to say that he couldn't possibly have bitten me. And then he started laughing. A lot. Which was not well-received by me. But eventually he got where I was coming from, on account of I was ready to kill him for not being penitent. He eventually tried to apologize for the laughing:

GH: I'm sorry, it's not funny. Except it's SO, SO funny.

Me: No, it's NOT! I don't know what kind of Amazon women you've been dating but I bruise like a peach!

GH: Are you sure you didn't meet up with some other guy after I left and maybe HE bit you? Because I seriously don't remember doing that.

I even told him that our mutual coworkers noticed and asked me about it. THEN he started laughing so hard he nearly wrecked the car. Punk. Happily though, when we tried again it was loads, loads better. Like, curl-your-toes better.

I took this picture after I got home that night to show the Circle that I was not overreacting about the extent of the lip hickey. The bruising had actually been darker earlier in the day. (Also be sure to check out the road rash on my chin. That was from the toes-curling part. Mmmm boy.)


Thing is, even after it faded there was this one discolored spot that never changed back. I now have this faint purple bit on my lip where GH has pretty well marked me for life. (Now he says he can see it.) So it's a good thing we eventually got our acts together and got married because otherwise I would have always been reminded of this one ex-boyfriend who gave me a permanent lip hickey.