Righteous Kiss
by Joe Aguilar
I’m standing in a musty side room beside the cafeteria at my five-year high school reunion, looking at our friend the goldfish, when I start to wonder about kissing.
When did we begin with the kissing? What a strange idea.
Who decided to go press their hot, yearning mouth to someone else’s hot, yearning mouth? To open the mouths? To get tongues going, too?
Was there pre-kiss discussion or did the kiss come ex nihilo? Was there tongue initially, or did tongue happen later? Was the first kiss a pure and self-contained act, or was it a gateway move?
How did they know what to do?
I admit I do not myself know what to do.
The goldfish is colored orange and white like a creamsicle. It’s a tremendous goldfish, almost a foot long, muscular, shining, and making great eye contact.
Its mouth pooches a perfect “O.” Its fat lower lip flexes. Like it’s ready to kiss. Like it wants to kiss me.
I remember this exact same goldfish from five years ago, although the goldfish looks haggard now, a wiser, tireder goldfish.
Didn’t there used to be two fish?
Just outside the side room, in the cafeteria proper, a dance party’s happening. The bass is booming. Strobe lights strobe. I recognize a hit song from last summer, “Pretty When You’re Crying (Oh, Kiss Me in the Rain).”
I’m half-hidden behind the doorframe. It’s prom all over again, a little embarrassing, to be honest. My classmates dance in the shadows, among the colors, through the pulse of the lights. They jump up with their hands high, they bend their knees, they throw ass.
Pedro grinds on Tan, Nicholas dances up on Divya, Zoe dry humps Chloe, and the sick familiar shame shudders through me, the feeling I’m not okay as I am, I will never know how other people are in their hearts, and it’s too late for me to learn.
I don’t see Raúl anywhere in the fray now. Where did Raúl go?
I had been getting a drink, and when I turned around, Raúl was right behind me. The rattail was gone. His skin was even paler than I remembered, and he wore luxury-frame glasses, along with a starched, dark button-up shirt, but he was still Raúl. His cologne smelled sweet and spicy like ginger. He set his eyes on mine.
I fled here.
I admired you from a distance, Raúl. I watched you from behind, sneaking looks at where you sat in front of our AP World Religions class, your red hair shining in the light. You stroked your rattail with your elegant fingers. I was jealous. I wanted to be your rattail, near to you and loved by you.
When you turned around, I turned away, hot under my shirt.
I busied myself in my notes, but my notes were all your name.
In my dreams, I am coming to you through a night of rain. My ankle is wounded, and I am limping. Limping to the throbbing of my heart.
I am coming to you, Raúl. Coming for you.
I bet the first kissers knew they were onto something right away. I bet they kept on doing the kissing until they got really good at it.
They were geniuses of kissing. They tried avant garde moves, explored each other’s teeth, uvulae, inner arches. They used every part of the mouth. They tried with their collarbones, their hips. They invented Dada kisses, they invented Arte Povera kisses.
Kissing was its own medium. Murals and symphonies, skylines of cities.
They kissed, licked, and sucked a path to a transcendent plane. Their bodies writhed in ecstasy amid the stones and the bones of their cave.
It smells like shit in the cramped, dark mascot room. We’re the Goldfish. That’s our high school mascot. I guess it’s what happens when you let the students vote.
The goldfish’s fat lower lip hangs. Microscopic bubbles stream up from its gills. It stares at me like it wants to say something.
“Where’s your friend?” I say, and I swear the goldfish narrows its eyes at me.
There’s a tiny glow-in-the-dark replica baseball stadium in the bottom of the fish tank next to what looks like a toy cactus with a sombrero and a mustache.
The goldfish swims in place. Thin, thin fins. Stares me down with its dead little unblinking goldfish eyes.
“What do you want?” I say, and it flinches. It whirls around, a single turn in the water, and resumes staring at me, swimming in place.
I wonder if it remembers me?
Bass is thudding, bodies writhe. I don’t see Raúl.
It’s too personally painful to watch them dance out there, so I turn back toward the glow of the filmy tank.
The goldfish seems to be grimacing like it sees something it doesn’t like in me, something broken or filthy.
The familiar little voice in my head says, “They don’t want you at the party, because they don’t like you, nobody actually likes you, and that’s why you’re always by yourself. Everyone’s only tolerating you, but they’re too polite to say it.”
If only someone would come into the room and ask me a question, any question would be fine: How have you been since graduation? Would you like to try the pie? Which color do you prefer, green or red? Are you lonely? Can I hug you?
The aquarium shines blue over my hands.
Now I’m searching. I’m searching on my phone about kissing.
Turns out humans and Neanderthals were kissing ~100,000 years ago, according to microbes found in their saliva.
There are so many kinds of kisses: There’s the kiss a child gives a parent; the kiss a parent gives a child.
There’s the first-date kiss; the twelfth-date kiss; the kiss between friends; the kiss between dear friends; the kiss between best friends; the kiss between enemies; the kiss between worst enemies; the kiss a servant gives the king.
A kiss can be a greeting; a kiss can be a betrayal; a kiss can be a way for harmful pathogens to spread themselves; a kiss can be a way to raise one’s immunity against harmful pathogens; a kiss can be a means to test biological compatibility.
A kiss can be a sign of supplication; a kiss can wrestle an equal into a lesser; a kiss can ask a question; a kiss can answer a question; a kiss can be a way to simply pass the time because you’re bored.
I find a quotation I like: “A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” Kissing pushes the conversation beyond language.
So now I’m thinking, Which kiss is the best kiss? If I had to choose one sort of kiss right now, which would I go with? A kiss with Raúl, for example, our first kiss?
“Romantic kiss,” I say out loud, just to hear my own voice in the pulse of music through the walls, the rattling of light fixtures, to make sure I’m still actually here and alive, not buried in a grave of noise.
“Righteous kiss,” says the goldfish, the voice sharp as the wind. It stares at me, swirling its little fins.
Obviously I’m questioning what I just heard, because the bass is loud and people are screaming and goldfish don’t talk.
“Righteous kiss,” the goldfish says again, and I see it say the words this time, gushes of bubbles.
“Did I hear you right? Righteous kiss?”
“Yes,” the goldfish says. “Didn’t you go to school here?”
“You’re the same fish as before.”
“I was a child,” the goldfish says.
“Me too.”
“You’re the lonely girl.”
“Lonely girl?”
“We called you that back then, the lonely girl.”
“Oh.”
“What have you been doing since you left?” the goldfish says.
“I cashier at a bookstore.”
“Sounds okay.”
“Would you believe I’ve never even kissed anybody?” I blurt out, because I need to unburden myself, and the goldfish is only a goldfish. “Romantic kiss, I mean. It’s not that I haven’t had a chance, but I get in a kiss-adjacent situation, and I start to have a panic attack. That’s why I’m hiding.”
“I believe it,” says the goldfish. “In fact, me and the other fish were always wondering exactly that about you.”
Now I’m remembering the other fish from before. It was a different kind of fish, a dark feathery fish, beautiful like a bird, lively. Its gossamer fins fluttered the water. It cavorted around for its fish flakes.
“What happened to the other fish?” I say.
“They died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” the goldfish said, “It’s not your fault they died. We had good times before they passed on. We invented the righteous kiss, and we were able to enjoy many righteous kisses between us, until we transcended our need. Their death itself is not what bothered me.”
“What is a righteous kiss?”
“It’s the only kiss worth your time.”
“How do you do it?”
“I can teach you everything you’d like to know about the righteous kiss,” the goldfish says, “but you’ll have to release me into the river first.”
“The river behind the tennis courts?”
“Yes.
“But you’re the mascot…”
“I’m miserable. The pH is too low. I like high pH, for meditating.”
“Wouldn’t the river make you sick?”
“It will be okay,” the goldfish says. “That river is slow-running, and slow-running rivers are the goldfish’s natural habitat.”
I’m jogging through the July night cradling the fish in a ten-gallon cafeteria Ziploc like a baby. My forearms are wet. The fish is incredibly heavy.
We’re going to make a trade: freedom for knowledge.
Mist is in the air, and the grass is slippery. I hit a downslope, and my ankle buckles underneath me, pain shoots up my leg, and I’m sliding, I’m tumbling, my jaw smacks against the hard wet ground, and the bag with the goldfish is gone.
No. Oh, no, no.
Did I murder the brilliant, beautiful talking fish?
I see the kiss-less years rise ahead of me in a bright staircase of pain.
I wash my single dish. I pour coffee into my single mug. I sit alone in traffic. I listen to a self-help podcast called “Right Your Ship,” tossing in bed.
Everyone from high school gets married. They post pictures of their grub-like naked babies smiling.
Now I’m rocking on a porch. I’m rocking and rocking, crying and rocking.
I’m on my deathbed, lips shriveled up from disuse, a puckered void of need.
With my last breath, I hiss out: “Raúl.”
I’m scrambling through the wetness of the dark. My ankle throbbing. Down the grass and over bushes—I fall into a tree and scrape my arm.
Then I see it glistening near the river, the Ziploc against a boulder. The fish seems fine.
I’m so relieved I start to cry. The fish regards me with solemn eyes as I help it into the water.
It’s swimming in place, with its face held into the air, looking at me. The moon shines down.
“I will keep my promise to explain the righteous kiss,” it says. “Let me preface: Before love has a name, before the bridge is crossed over the dark water of loneliness, you wait in suffering silence for an answer. You’re reading signs in the shapes of the clouds. You test the wind with your moistened forefinger. When the answer arrives, whatever the answer may be, affirmative or negative, I love you or I don’t, there can at least be relief of the terrible pressure of waiting, which is its own kind of suffering. But love, too, is a wound, and once the wound opens in your heart, it cannot be healed, and it will ache inside of you as long as the heart is alive. Now a romantic relationship, what you call a romantic relationship, is nothing more than a mutual tending to the original wounds you made together, a wound in mirror image, the double wound. This is your art. You’ve formed it in a particular slant of light. Suffering is love’s shadow, and the sun is God. Do you follow me?”
“I’m not sure if I do,” I say, though I am sure: I don’t.
“It’s okay if you don’t understand, but you should have that framework before I go on.”
“Okay.”
“Now the righteous kiss. It goes like this—two open mouths, lips nearly touching, so you can feel the heat of lips, but skin should not touch skin. This is very important. Are you following me here?”
“Yes!” I say, feeling relieved I can picture it.
“Now you extend your tongue into the mouth of your partner. It’s crucial your tongues do not touch. Hold the point of your tongue near the point of their tongue. It will be a challenge to maintain the position, but it’s necessary. You should feel the heat of their lips, and the heat of the point of their tongue, but your flesh must not touch their flesh. Hold to the count of sixty. And you’re done. The righteous kiss.”
“Very interesting!”
“Yes. If you practice the righteous kiss enough with the same person, the right person, you will transcend your desire. You will overcome the need to possess the body of the other. You will learn to love them purely, without asking of their flesh, their flesh being a temporary state, which you should not cling to. Do you follow?”
“Mhmm.” Now I’m full of questions. Can this kiss even be called a kiss? And why shouldn’t flesh long for flesh? Isn’t desire a question your body needs answered?
The fish continues, “It happened with me and my friend. I loved them romantically first, but we went beyond. We practiced the righteous kiss until we broke through our barrier of need. We healed our wounds. And this is why I can mourn the loss of their presence in my life without feeling any sorrow for their change in state. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. They’re still out there somewhere. I’m happy for their rebirth, though sorry for myself. The memory of the healing of wounds of love together is its own kind of pain, a sweeter pain.”
“Why would you want this?”
“It’s yoga,” the fish says. “Mouth yoga. Something you grasp more with your body than your mind. Would you like to try a righteous kiss before I swim away?”
“Okay.” Might as well.
“Make a circle with your mouth and bring it near to mine. Do not touch my lips with your lips.”
The goldfish opens its mouth wide, and it shocks me to see a human set of teeth inside the goldfish’s mouth, with a fat, red human tongue nestled in there, too.
My heart is beating hard as I bend down and bring my face near the fish’s face. I open my mouth. I breathe with my tongue pointed near the fish’s tongue point. It breathes out a briny rush of warm air from its gills.
“Ready?” the goldfish says.
It’s raining. Warm water streams down my shoulders.
My ankle hurts so badly I can feel it in my teeth.
Focus.
“Count to sixty,” the goldfish says.
I close my eyes.
I’m breathing in the warmth of the river, the warmth of the rain, the breath of the fish.
It’s like a prayer. 8, 9. I’m beginning to tingle. 14, 15. I’m thinking and counting at the same time. 19, 20. I’m thinking about Raúl, remembering the back of Raúl’s head in our AP World Religions classroom. His fingers on his rattail. Stroking.
25, 26, 27. Now I’m thinking about the Garden of Eden, where humans were closer to the animals, and nearer to each other. 31, 32.
The Garden of Eden is almost a beautiful story. Two lovers are enjoying paradise, but the gods keep on bothering them, a good god and a bad god. Then the gods start to make demands: Meet me here, love me back, oh, won’t you please love me back? Don’t go here. Don’t taste that. Eat this. Why can’t the gods mind their own fucking business?
35. Gods are aloof.
Fish, too.
Fish spray their eggs and sperm into the water without even touching each other. What would a fish know about kissing?
45, 46.
There’s not much time left. 50, 51.
I imagine the first fish to drag itself onto the land, long ago. It isn’t happy with water because it is much too cold. It wants to be warm. This is a special fish, a fish of ambition.
It sprouts limbs, it does a little dance to celebrate.
The fish grows harder scales, and the harder scales turn to fur. Soon the furry little creature has a friend. Two furry brown mammals, waddling along the shore together, watching the sun set over the ocean together. The mammals turn toward each other at the same time, and their mouths accidentally meet. The first kiss. They keep going. They practice in secret. It’s electrifying, their connection, and they’re mad with desire, they can’t ignore their need anymore, and soon they know. They know.
59, 60.
The fish and I both lurch in the same direction, and my lips graze its lips. The texture of the fish’s lips shocks me: It’s bristly like Velcro, cold as death. With a little cry, the fish leaps away and I hear it splash.
It gives me a sick pleasure, to have ruined the righteous kiss.
My first righteous kiss and my first kiss, in the same night.
Now I know what I want to do. I will walk across this field to find Raúl.
The kiss will be wet, and the kiss will be long. I will feel my mouth on his mouth, and I will wrap my tongue around his tongue. I want it to be hard. I want it to hurt. To last.
Let the gods be lonely. Us, we have blood, and we should keep each other warm.
Joe Aguilar is a co-editor at hex. He lives in Worcester, MA.