Quicklinks:
Short S. | Poetry | Not News | Scripts | Comedy | Non-Fiction | SF | Crime | For Kids | Extended | Village
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > Kissing Katherine
READING ROOM
Great Writing - Home
Read and review others' work
Articles on writing
Advice from the community
COMMUNITY
Talk to others in the forums
Events and Competitions
GW News
ABOUT GREAT WRITING
All About Us
Contact Us
WORK AWAITING REVIEW
GW IS...
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you can make new friends and improve your creative writing.
WHO'S ONLINE
We have 1807 guests online and 1 member online
Shorts
print friendly version     
Kissing Katherine
By Thatllbemethen
31 January 2007
Some old memories visited me late last night. Don't tell the wife!

Kissing Katherine
 

She just came over and kissed me. I never imagined love would be like this, or that I would be marrying Sue. What would I tell my mum. As it happens, it wasn’t love at all. I decided not to marry Sue; mainly because the next day she went straight up to Richard and kissed him. Also, we were both five at the time, far too young to settle down.

 

When Katherine kissed me that was different. Different because it didn’t happen. I really wanted it to happen though. Clair did kiss me. I think Katherine noticed, but she never mentioned it. At the age of six I didn’t understand the concept of playing hard to get. To me Katherine was plain hard to get. She was more attractive for being so. She was attractive full stop.

 

I sat next to Katherine. I held hands with Katherine. I country danced with Katherine. Then I kissed Katherine. I kissed Katherine and she laughed. Then she laughed again, and for some reason I felt sad. After a while Simon kissed Katherine and she didn’t laugh.

 

By the age of seven I was kissing Ruth on a regular basis. As regular as Ruth decided. Then Ruth decided to kiss Richard. Every girl I ever liked kissed Richard. And I liked practically every girl, eventually.

 

I had a birthday party when I was eight. I didn’t invite Richard. I invited Katherine, but she couldn’t come. Sue had left the school. Ruth had left the country! Luckily, Samantha was coming and I was going to kiss her. Except that I ended up in a fight with Ryan and everyone went home. Unkissed.

 

I might have been nine, I might have been ten. I found another Sue and kissed her quite a lot. I didn’t even care that quite a lot of people kissed her quite a lot. I kissed Lisa as well. And Denise.

 

Then one night, when I was definitely eleven, I went to a school disco. Not just any old school disco either. This was the Majorettes school disco. Guess who was a Majorette? Guess who was there? Katherine and friend. I kissed her friend. If Katherine’s mum had been there, I probably would have kissed her too.

 

I realised that night, as the tune ‘Re-united’ spun on the turntable, that kissing Katherine was never meant to be. It had taken six young years to realize that life was a bitch and destiny was a liar. At least it freed me up to kiss Sandra and Tracy and Maggie and…….

 

It’s said you never forget your first kiss. I’ll certainly never forget the kiss I never had to remember.

 

                                                          X X X

Reviews
The kissing game
Written by Marybarry (237 comments posted) 31st January 2007
I loved it. Very amusing. Easy to read. 
well done. 
Marybarry

Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 31st January 2007
You were certainly precocious. I've got to ask: did you by any chance ever get glandular fever as a pre-teen? If you missed this, count it as a miracle.  
 
This amused me no end. I particularly liked your first paragraph -- the innocent notion that kissing someone presumes marriage will follow.
Beautiful
Written by NeilTollfree (51 comments posted) 31st January 2007
A very charming story indeed. Very much enjoyed it. 
 
'Plain hard to get ' cracked me up, I've never heard that. 
 
I liked the whole style of the piece. Almost set up like verse, and obviously the kisses at the end were a great touch. 
Nice one.

Written by Clifftown (642 comments posted) 31st January 2007
As soon as I read the opening paragraph I knew this was going to be good. Very cleverly done...and very funny. Have you ever intoduced the wife to Richard? :)

Written by Snodlander (507 comments posted) 31st January 2007
I was going to quote a line that made me laugh, but there were too many great lines here. I very rarely literally laugh out loud at stories, but this one raised more than one vocal titter. 
 
Don't you hate the Richards of this world? Bastards! Only mine was called Steve, and Katherine was called... never mind. 
 
Oh, and country dancing... Have we ever used it since? 
 
Greatly amused at this. 
 
If I have one criticism, it's that last line. I'm not sure why. It's clever. Maybe a tad too clever. I'd have gone for 'I’ll certainly never forget the first kiss I never had', or something. But then, I didn't write this in the first place.
you
Written by fellpony (1717 comments posted) 1st February 2007
... frightened the life out of me because i (one o' them Sues in ordinary life) had a similar experience to that you describe in the first paragraph, at much the same age. Had to think about Richard, before I was sure you weren't someone I kshould know. 
 
A sweet, delicate piece, very nicely written. 
 

Written by Phil (6963 comments posted) 3rd February 2007
Really enjoyed this. Funny and immediate. While certainly not in your league, I did see a few Katherines slip through my fingers - but I was older. 
 
Thanks for the read. 
 
Phil.
Thought this was great
Written by Leigh (254 comments posted) 15th February 2007
I do like a bit of nostalgia and I loved this - just the thing to brighten up my lunch hour. The reference to 'country dancing' took me straight back! 
 
I love your deceptively simple, 'Janet & John' style narration - it works so well telling a story like this.
Fantastic reasoning
Written by bwoz (125 comments posted) 18th February 2007
A very nicely twisted tale, not twisted in a bad way, I mean woven through the wonder years we all remember. I think those years are the most imaginative for most of us, and the title is spot on. Even though there are many characters, and plenty of places where confusion could set in you've managed to keep it light enough to follow easily, and there is probably more substance to it. but it is a quick, easy dash that is humorous, thoughtful, and a lot of innocent imagery to linger over.  
 
If only one small suggestion, the last part about learning that "life was a bitch and destiny was a liar", I would change "was" to "is" in both spots, make it present tense and bring all of that youthful exchange into the current age. 
 
Great piece. 
 
BW

   Only registered users can rate and write comments.
   Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!
 Previous item   Next item
This site is copyright 2005 - 2007 Great Writing. Work submitted by members remains the copyright of the respective authors.
See our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.