I once heard one of the younger women, Clara, who’d just given her hand to her husband in marriage. (Such a strange expression. She still had two hands, and presumably he had his own two and didn’t need hers.) But she was telling her bosom buddies how when her new husband, Peter, kissed her, she heard music. What kind of music did she hear? I always wondered about that, but I had no time to dilly dally like those young women. I had a floor to sweep and scrub.
(But I couldn’t help thinking about Clara’s comment. Was the music of a kiss a light-hearted, frolicking skipping kind of dance, a sad violin sob story where no one could dance at all, or a marching band going root-at-toot-toot, parading down the center of the village?)
When the officer placed his lips on mine, I didn’t hear music. I heard nothing at all, unless I counted the heavy beat of my heart, thumping up a storm. I was pressed against the man’s chest so tightly that I think I heard his heart beating, too. It seemed fast. Was that the music Clara had heard? Was it the tympanic beat of a drumming heart?
I was just about to ask if he heard any music while he kissed me when he laid his lips back over mine and proceeded to deepen the interchange. His tongue actually slipped into my mouth. It was ghastly, and I was about to shove him away, when something took me over. I was a sponge soaking up soapy water. My composition completely altered. I think I even liked it. I certainly never got around to spitting his tongue out. And while I was doing all that debate about the tongue, the sponge that was me grew even more limp, and I think I actually submitted to this strange new experience.
When he withdrew his tongue, I didn’t have a single word in my mouth. I couldn’t have spoken if it had been a life-or-death matter. I was too stunned, too flabbergasted or maybe I was flummoxed. I’d never used those words, and I wasn’t sure which one was most appropriate. Not that anything would be fitting after what the officer had just done. Wasn’t this the kind of thing that only happened between a husband and wife? Was this like the proposition I’d believed the officer was offering in his office that day, when I’d thought he was a black-hearted villain?