Especially thankful kisses to my mind-blowingly incredible agent Lizzy Kremer and my amazing editor Maxine Hitchcock for believing I could write such a big story and then encouraging me to go even bigger. Oh, and then for extending my deadline when I realised, actually, I couldn’t write it in that particular timeframe (babies, moving house and writing books really don’t mix, do they?!) Your creative contributions were invaluable and I feel so blessed to work with you both, not to mention your wonderful teams at David Higham and Simon & Schuster.
And finally; endless kisses to my husband Ben and my beautiful children, Barnaby and Cecily, for never ceasing to inspire and encourage me and for making me laugh more and love more than I ever thought possible. You are my world.
Kiss Stories written by you
The Goodbye Kiss
We had shared many kisses.
The pecks on the cheek at the end of every walk home from school.
The raucously giggly drunken ones in the twilight of another girls’ night out.
The supportive kisses of condolence at the news of a break up.
The congratulatory kisses at the news of new jobs, babies, engagement and a wedding.
The untold thank-you kisses for birthday, Christmas and ‘no specific reason other than loving your best mate’ presents.
So many kisses over such a long period of time, you take them all for granted.
But then there was the goodbye kiss. At the hospital. The one and only kiss she couldn’t return.
It’s that kiss that I shall never forget.
– Dawn Burnett
December 18th 1999. I was sitting at a bar in Soho. It was our work Christmas do and a large, obnoxious media mogul was boring me senseless with talk of himself and his enormous wealth. My apathy was apparent so he said something hurtful. I picked up my bag and ran out of the bar. Halfway down the street I heard someone call my name. It was Toby. The new guy at work. He grabbed my shoulder, turned me around and, to my horror, saw me in floods of tears. I can’t remember what either of us said. Only the kiss. We were on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Greek Street and I swear everything stopped. That kiss was amazing. That kiss changed my life.
– Emily Hynd
He was my best friend. We were accustomed to lazing about, listening to music in one of our bedrooms, but we’d found ourselves in a student club – and we didn’t like it. We pushed our way through the crowd until we were free, ran a few paces further, and flopped down on the nearest seat, laughing. Without realising it, we had clasped hands in the foray. When we noticed, we looked at each other but we didn’t let go and I let the words I’d silently practised spill out.
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
“Would you like to find out?”
“Yes.”
We kissed. And it was wonderful.
– Lorna Murphy
Back in 1997, on an afternoon following a trip to Paris where my wife accepted my marriage proposal (second time lucky, don’t think she believed I was serious the first time I popped the question), we went to the cinema in Oxford to see Jerry Maguire. There’s a scene about halfway through when Tom Cruise plants a touching kiss on the top of Renee Zellweger’s head at the breakfast table the morning after they’ve spent their first night together. Immediately before that scene happened I did the very same thing to my wife in the cinema (ie. planted a kiss on the top of her head – we didn’t bring a breakfast table or any cereal into the cinema with us.) so you can imagine my surprise when the same thing happened on screen. Not quite sure what the word for it is (serendipity, perhaps?) but it certainly felt like fate was smiling down on us that day.
Anyway, we’ve recently celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary and I always reflect on that moment each time I see the film and smile fondly to myself.
– Andrew White
In February 2011 I attended a festival outside of London, it’s a niche music event with a capacity of about 5,000. The event is held at Butlins in Minehead and attendees stay in the adjoining chalets. I was sharing a chalet with my best gal pal. Her boyfriend was arriving on the Saturday and was sharing a chalet with a stranger. That stranger turned out to be an incredible boy from Brooklyn and he and I hit it off immediately. We spent the entire weekend together and could barely stop kissing. Unfortunately Tuesday came around too soon and he had to fly back to New York. We stayed in contact via email until I met someone else in London and the contact fizzled out. In his last email he told me that the stars would realign someday and we would meet again.
Recently, I broke up with that person I had met in London. My friends persuaded me to book last minute tickets to a festival in Croatia. Against my better judgment I booked the trip. It was the first year of the festival, a 5000-capacity event set in Pula. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. On the first night the venue, an abandoned fort, was crowded with beautiful revellers. There were about 5 stages and people running everywhere. Early on the first night my friends and I began exploring the fort, and climbed down into the moat. As I stood there, looking around and taking everything in I turned back to find my friends and was face to face with my Brooklyn boy. Stunned, we embraced tightly, not wanting to let go. Pulling back to look at each other’s faces, neither of us speaking, we leaned in and kissed each other repeatedly, only stopping to laugh and gaze at each other in amazement.
We spent the entire weekend together and now I’m planning my next trip to NY. I won’t let him slip away again!! Under the stars in Croatia, it’s certainly a kiss I’ll never forget.
– Laura Hally
It’s a beautiful sunny April afternoon in St. Mark’s Square, Venice and I’m with Chris. He suggests we have our photo taken together and gives our camera to a passing tourist to take it. As she takes the picture he kisses me and asks me to marry him! Of course I said yes! We used the photo for our wedding invitation stamps and celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary this December.
– Cristina Bergman-Dye
A kiss I will never forget was with my first love. We had met at college, and gone to universities close to each other so we could still see each other at weekends. He was my world. My first week at uni was so hard, I had never missed anyone so much in my life. However, as with many first loves, we were young, we met new people and had experiences with them. Well, you know woman’s intuition where you bascially know things won’t work out . . . I had that towards the end of our first year.
I knew he had fallen out of love with me. And when he said he was driving mid week up to see me, I knew what was coming. He arrived and he said I could choose between having a break and splitting up. I chose split up – why drag out the pain longer, only to have him tell me later what I already knew was coming?
He wouldn’t stay the night when I asked him to. I was distraught. And with my tear-stained face and big puffy eyes, he told me for the first time I was beautiful. I had to ask him for that one last kiss, I was still so in love with him and I needed to savour it just that one last time. We kissed and I just never wanted it to end. There was no overwhelming passion to it, just a sad acceptance that we knew we were going to part ways. But it was that moment I just wanted him to say, hang on, I still love you so much and I’ve made a terrible mistake. I thought, please, just take me back into your arms and let’s be the way we were . . .
But he didn’t, and my heart ached for months after.
– Vanessa Lee
Table of Contents
About the Author and Also by Ali Harris
Copyright page
Title page
Contents
6.11 a.m. 5 January 2012
The Kiss To End All Kisses
<<REW 19/11/05>
7.47 a.m.
The Kiss And Tell
FF>> 29/05/07>
8.30 a.m.
The Remorseful Kiss
<<REW 12/12/04>
The Hollow Kiss
PLAY> 12/12/04 5.54 a.m.
Can’t Kiss It Better
FF>> 12/12/04>
The Squandered Kiss
FF>> 31/12/04>
9.11 a.m.
The Worst First Kiss
<<REW 10/12/94>
9.45 a.m.
The Never Let Me Go Kiss
FF>> 14/05/05>
Sealed With A Kiss
FF>> 10/09/2005>
10.01 a.m.
The Welcome Kiss
FF>> 26/09/01>
Just Can’t Be Away From You Kiss
FF>> 29/09/01>
The Kiss Over The Threshold
FF>> 19/01/02>
10.05 a.m.
The Domestic Bliss Kiss
FF>> 22/02/02>
The Bittersweet Kiss
<<REW 10/ll/98>
The Lost Kiss
FF>> 05/04/03>
The Let’s Compromise Kiss
FF>> 15/09/03>
The Grown-Up Kiss
FF>> 11/11/03>
11.18 a.m.
The Never Ever Kiss
<<REW 10/06/00>
11.55 a.m.
The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Kiss
FF>> 30/10/04>
The Kiss My Dignity Goodbye Kiss
<<REW 19/07/01>
The Judas Kiss
FF>> 11/12/2004 19.07 p.m.>
FF>> 12/12/2004 3.12 a.m.>
12.10 p.m.
The Single Kiss
FF>> 24/04/05>
12.51 p.m.
The ’Til Death Do Us Part Kiss
FF>> 22/04/06>
1.10 p.m.
The Snatched Kiss
<<REW 28/02/06 7.42 a.m.>
The Missed You Kiss
FF>> 08/03/06 18.25 p.m.>
The Wish You Were Here Kiss
FF>> 15/04/06>
2.07 p.m.
The Celebratory Kiss
<<REW 14/07/02>
The Future’s Bright Kiss
FF>> 31/12/02 9.10 p.m.>
2.50 p.m.
The Real First Kiss …
<<REW 19/07/2001>
3.09 p.m.
The After The Honeymoon Kiss
FF>> 11/10/06>
The Kiss And Run
FF>> 21/01/07 9.25 a.m.>
The What-If Kiss
FF>> 17/02/07>
3.17 p.m.
The Tell Me It’s Not True Kiss
FF>> 26/02/07>
The First Last Kiss
PLAY> 26/02/07
3.27 p.m.
The Constable Kiss
<<REW 06/08/01>
You Can Kiss This Goodbye Kiss
FF>> 27/02/07>
The PDA Kiss
FF>> 19/04/07>
The Uncontrollable Kiss
<<REW 30/07/01 18.00 p.m.>
The Long Distance Kiss
FF>> 05/05/2007>
The Can’t Complain, Won’t Complain Kiss
FF>> 26/05/07>
The Ghost Of Kisses Past Kiss
FF>> 19/05/07>
The Surrendered Kiss
The I Think I Love You Kiss
<<REW 11/10/01>
The SOS Kiss
FF>> 20/06/07 11.48 a.m.>
The Real First Kiss … and The Last
The Keep On Moving Kiss
FF>> 27/06/07>
3.48 p.m.
The Take That Kiss
<<REW ll/10/94>
The Eternal Kiss
FF>> 14/07/07>
4.35 p.m.
Acknowledgements
Kiss Stories written by you