THE LIPSTICK ATTACK

We were madly in love and stuck together like a Velcro hinge. We were a magical couple, made for each other like Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra or Bill and Hillary, until the dreadful day of the lipstick attack.
But let’s go back to the beginning. My first girlfriend Linda lived on the other side of the block from me, a great distance for a seven year-old, so we met in the middle-the alley.
It had been love at first sight. She was a tomboy and I was a boy whose middle name was Tom. She was strong and fleet of foot. In fact, she was the fastest kid on the block. I was weak, skinny and easily picked on. Linda could protect me and run after the bullies to beat up at the same time, while I could dash home to mommy.
She was my girlfriend, so I could punch her in the arm and wrestle her to the ground in pure prepubescent acts of love, without her killing me. We rode our bikes together, drank from the same paper cup at the lemonade stand on the corner and ran together all summer long.
Then one sultry sticky afternoon it all changed in a cataclysmic earthquake of erotica. We were playing in her backyard as usual. Then Linda left to go into her house and came out with a tube of her mother’s lipstick.
I stood there stunned as she smeared the tube on her lips under the steaming summer sun. I’d always looked at Linda as just one of the boys, only better. And there she was suddenly turning into a girl before my very eyes. And I didn’t like it, not one bit.
She strode straight toward me with fiery flaming lips. I panicked and sought sanctuary in her backyard shed. I stood inside shaking, and then put all my 40 pounds against the door to keep her out. I held out valiantly for about five seconds, before she burst in.
Once inside she started chasing me for a kiss. Yuck! A kiss! From a girl! I had never kissed a girl before and never even wanted to. So, of course, I ran for my very life. The shed was small. I was slow. Linda was fast. She caught me in a blink.
She grabbed my head in her muddy hands. I twisted and resisted. She had my face in a vice and kissed me right on the lips- twice. I went into shock. The lipstick burned on my lips like they were branded.
I pushed myself free and ran out the shed door. Holding back tears, I wiped the lipstick and a layer of lip from my mouth with the back of my hand over and over again. I stumbled home to mom.
From then on, it was never the same between Linda and me. We still played together for years, but never mentioned the lipstick assault. Then one afternoon I saw Linda walking toward the woods with Mike, a boy two years older. I yelled at her to see if she wanted to play some pick-up b-ball, but this wasn’t the pick-up she was interested in. She totally ignored me as she walked hand in hand into the trees.
After that we never played together again. And to this day lipstick still scares me, especially if I see an elderly aunt headed my way all puckered up.