The Kiss.

You've never had anything like it.

You've never gone home before, so tiny inside, so hurt.

You've never been dancing where someone's come up to you, started to dance with you. You've never had a guy you didn't know that close, that...close.

You've never been under the dark lights with the press of the crowd, never laughed like you were insane as some guy pulled you closer, dug his fingernails into your hips until you bruised. You've never realized something was wrong before.

You never had to. Nothing had gone wrong before.

So you didn't realize when you started your dance with a stranger how it would end. You didn't realize that when he offered to dance a strange version of the waltz, it was a precursor to other things.

You didn't realize he meant anything when he kissed your cheek.

You didn't realize until he said, "I think I missed." Then you laughed, and he silenced you with his mouth, right over yours. Over, not on.

You tried to breathe while his tongue forced itself inside your mouth, plowing up your tongue and brushing it aside. You didn't remember that kissing could be so distasteful; you hadn't kissed anyone for too long a time, and the last boy you kissed was someone you knew, someone you liked, someone you wanted.

You smiled shakily when he pulled his tongue out of your mouth like the plunger out of a toilet. You closed your mouth and tried to forget the taste of bad beer and bologna. You laughed, and you tried to pull away, and that was when you realized he wasn't letting go.

That's when you first began to think things might not work out, and when you started trying to find a way out. But his hand was on your waist, and his arm pinned your body too tightly to his for you to draw anything on him.

You felt afraid.

How long has it been since you've felt afraid like that?

Felt like you were going to stop breathing, like your heart was going to run away and hide under the chairs lining the walls. Felt like you were going to start seeing black dots dancing along the edges of your vision, like your limbs were going leaden. Dizzy and shaken, and suddenly the only thing holding you up was his arms around you.

Tell me, how did that feel?

The last time you felt it that strong, you were twelve years old and cowering in a corner in the pantry while your mother screamed at your father. You should have been asleep. You heard the crack of skin hitting skin, and a disbelieving grunt from your father. You heard your mother's triumphant shriek, and she kept screaming until you could hear your sister crying upstairs.

And your father walked out the door, took the car and drove away while your mother stood on the back deck screaming "Fuck you!" after him.

You felt like you couldn't breathe, hidden away in the pantry, and when her footsteps came closer to where you were hiding, you started to shake and go hot and cold, like being alternately doused with ice and boiling water. She didn't come into the pantry though; she wandered up the stairs, and your sister started crying louder.

Do you remember now?

And when this boy on the dance floor put his mouth over yours again and again, ramming his tongue against the back of your throat, you gagged, you teared-up, you tried to pull away. But panicking bodies don't listen to minds. And girls with bright red lipstick smeared across their faces don't get sympathy.

Do they.