I’d only recently decided to be cool and detached. I was experimenting with being aloof and uncaring. This new act didn’t fit very well with my most vivid memory of the snowshoer kiss my mom gave me, which I did my best to demonstrate on Em. Em was a pretty but meek-looking mouse to behold, even with her eyes closed and her lips open. I could not dispel a conflicting image I had of the compliant and nonspeaking Em—specifically, the roaring lioness I knew was alive inside her. Of course I was attracted to her.

When it came to the meeting of mouths for a kiss, I was a novice. When I made contact with Em’s expectant mouth, I didn’t know where our noses should go. Even with her eyes closed, Em managed to show me. Since Em had shut her eyes, it seemed disrespectful to keep mine open. Furthermore, I wasn’t used to looking at anyone this closely. However, when we started kissing and I closed my eyes, I was upset by a sudden and unwelcome flashback—my mother athletically straddling me, pinning me to my bed in the attic. Here was another conflicting image to brush aside, in order to concentrate on the kissing.

Em didn’t respond to my kiss, not even a little. I touched her tongue with my tongue, but her tongue never moved on its own—only because I was pushing it around. If Em leaned into me, just a little, that was because I pressed myself against her—as my mom had pressed herself against me. Em was merely pushing back.

It would be wishful thinking on my part to say that Em’s breathing quickened, or became irregular in any way. It didn’t. There was an ever-steady flow of air from Em’s nostrils, soft and warm against my cheek, while I went on kissing her. I believe I was being faithful to the way my mother had kissed me, but I didn’t remember (or I’d lost track of) how she’d stopped. As for my remaining cool and detached, I didn’t. Once I started kissing Em, I couldn’t stop.

“For Christ’s sake, kiddo, that’s enough—you’re going to hurt yourself,” Nora said. Em was nodding her head in that irritating way she had. I was not aware I’d been straining, though as soon as Nora spoke and I stopped kissing Em, I suddenly felt I had pulled a muscle in my neck.