It Was Just a Kiss
I was twenty years old. Rita was thirty. Jimmy was forty. Rita and Jimmy were married. Rita liked to dance. Jimmy didn’t. None of that was my fault. I wasn’t much of a dancer either, but I liked getting close to Rita. Jimmy was the loading dock day shift supervisor for Mickey’s Trucking, which mostly did short haul jobs, in state, out of Wichita. Rita worked there too, as a secretary. She used to come to work in short dresses and pantyhose. Rita had great legs. I used to watch her every chance I got through the big window off the loading dock. Jimmy took a liking to me. That wasn’t my fault either. This was just a summer job for me. I was going back to school in the fall. Jimmy and Rita liked to go for drinks after work on Fridays. They would take me along. Jimmy would buy drinks for me, even though I was underage. Jimmy would tell me to go dance with Rita. Jimmy drank. Rita and I danced. Other guys would come by and ask Rita for a dance, but Rita would only dance with me. I would dance the fast ones with her, and then the slow ones. I always figured I didn’t deserve the slow ones, unless I danced the fast ones first. It was late July, and we were in this basement bar. It had been one hundred degrees hot that afternoon, and hadn’t yet cooled down much outside. But in the Corner Cellar Bar, Jimmy, and Rita, and me, sat cool. Jimmy and I were drinking cold beers. Rita was sipping her usual glass of white wine. I could see the red lipstick she was leaving on the glass. Rita and I got up to dance a slow one. The dance floor was full. I found Rita and me a spot lost in the crowd. I guess that sounds like I planned it. But, I didn’t. The music was loud, and we were slow dancing, and I just leaned down and kissed her. Then I slid my hands into the back pockets of the jean shorts she had changed into after work, and I pulled her closer. She was warm and soft. I was warm. I wasn’t soft. When the dance was over, I touched her face. It was moist to my touch. She said, “Now you got me all excited”. We went back and sat down in the booth with Jimmy. Jimmy looked at her next to him, leaned over and kissed her, and said, “You got all sweaty.” Rita called me the next day. She wanted to get together. She wanted me to tell her it was okay. I couldn’t say anything for certain. She called me again the next week. She had decided against it. Rita, and Jimmy, and me went out on the Fridays that were left in that summer, but things were never the same. Jimmy still bought me drinks, and Rita still danced with me, but there were no more kisses. Rita even danced with some other guys. I don’t know. I got the feeling maybe she told him. I don’t know. I didn’t see Rita and Jimmy again after that summer. It was just a kiss.