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Kisses

A while ago my dog sidled up to my big easy chair and licked my elbow. I knew exactly what that meant. She had been seated before me for some minutes, staring at me unblinkingly and hypnotically with her deep brown eyes. I had ignored her and continued to read my paperback thriller of the moment.

The little tongue lap on the elbow meant "Dad, I really want you to get your butt out of that chair and let me out to the back yard." It was a subtle and endearing bit of dog language-a request commingled with an expression of affection. It started me thinking about kisses-their wide-ranging variety and their description in literature ranging from the modern to the earliest known. Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac called a kiss "a rosy dot over the 'i' in loving." How much knowledge could a Cyrano have on the subject? That huge beezer must have been an obstacle.

Dogs and cats use their tongues to groom and caress their young. I think I have seen the same behavior in primates, though I don't know of kissing being a prelude to further intimacy the way it is with humans. I have trouble picturing what we humans consider foreplay when the participants are, for instance, elephants.

As a child, long before the onset of libido, I remember the kisses of my mother as comforts and reassurances of my value and importance. I also remember the negatives. "Give your great aunt Alice a kiss" meant having to enter the embrace of a woman who smelled like-well, an old woman, and seeing that wrinkled, badly lipsticked orifice descend on some part of my face. And so it was until the onset of puberty and sexual awakening.

I think every male can remember his first real kiss. In my case, it had been long fantasized. How often had I seen the gesture performed on the movie screen, either as a simple demonstration of affection or a passionate preliminary to more intimate sexuality. Fear of non-reciprocal acceptance of the gesture restricted my overtures for what seems a long time. Then there was that first risky self-assertion that seemed to be welcomed by the recipient, and a new stage of life commenced. That first mutual kiss in the back seat of someone's car was sensually pleasurable but more importantly a triumph over shyness and a sense of arrival and accomplishment.

Some, it seems, are more skilled and adept at this activity than others. I remember being at a New Years Eve party. When the clock struck midnight, there was the usual exchange of kisses. I was embraced by Cherie, one of

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