"Writing Closet": Never Trust Old Lipstick

My First Kiss was onstage.

I was wearing red lipstick.

Very dark, very old, red lipstick.


I was twenty-one years old, and had never kissed anyone before in my life, so I was a bundle of nerves anyway, and being onstage in front of an audience didn't help.

The show I was in was called "The Camberly Triangle" by A.A. Milne(you know, the dude famouse for Winnie-the-Pooh); and the basis of the plot was that a war bride, Kate Camberly, had to choose between her husband, Dennis, and the guy she'd been kind sorta maybe having an affair with while Dennis was fighting in WWI. She's given five minutes with each man to make up her mind.


Cute, right?

It really was. The ending is so sweet and romantic! But then, I'm an INFP Romantic so any time I see/read anything sweet or romantic or whatever I do this:



The good news? I knew and trusted my scene partner.

We'd already played Lord and Lady Capulet the summer before, so we were pretty comfortable with each other already.

Except Lord and Lady C never kissed.

Dennis and Kate Camberly did.

It hadn't actually been originally planned like that, but during our final run-through, "Dennis" shut "Kate" up by kissing her. And the director fell in love with it, so we kept it.

Because the play is set after WWI, the director wanted us looking as authentic as possible(because that's what good director's do: strive for authenticity); and women at that time wore lipstick.

Dark red lipstick.

Which I didn't have because at that time all I bought/owned make-up wise was pink lipstick. So I had to go find red lipstick.

I don't remember how or where I managed to get hold of some, but manage I did; and I do remember it felt funny when I was applying it.

That should've clued me in.

The performance went quite swimmingly until we got to the kiss part. I looked at my scene partner, said my lines and then he leaned in and kissed me, just as we rehearsed.

And when we kissed, my mouth got stuck to his.


Yes.

Stuck.

Like attached-to-his-lips-and-wouldn't-disengage.

(and yes, it was probably only thirty seconds but still)

Lucky for me, he was 6'3 to my 5'5 so all I had to do was clunk down hard on my heels to break the kiss.

You know what the best part was?

One of my friends caught the whole thing on film.

So now I get to watch myself get stuck to some guys lips for the rest of forever.