Half a cigarette, and half a kiss.

Lui and I are in Providence, fine-tuning the wedding planning, but have just spent a whirlwind three days in New York, mostly on my friend Emi's couch playing travel Yahtzee and Scrabble with her and her boyfriend.

We did, however, go out Thursday night, with my token lesbian friend, her girlfriend, and W, who picked the setting: a dive bar in Hell's Kitchen (I think) where they serve cheap beer and free hotdogs. We got there around 9:30, and the bar was crowded, but fortunately a totally support-worthy organization was having a tent party in the back patio, and welcomed us, and gave us free buttons.

W and I went inside to buy the first two pitchers, and he started telling me about his new girlfriend (I myspace-stalked her, and am decidedly cuter), who he'd already been sort of dating before he came out to CA, and the job interview - for a second assistant's position, but in the exact field he wants to work in - he had the next day. I, on the other hand, had no news, which I feel is only good news if you're not trying to prove to an ex that your life is every bit as awesome as his is...

The five of us had fun - or should I say the four of us had fun, as Lui accidentally got into a conversation about equal rights and freedom with some big black guy at the bar, and somehow thus got suckered into taking six shots of Jack Daniels in a row - and before I knew it the beer had been drunk, the hotdogs had been eaten, and the liberals were asking everyone to move inside so they could take down the tent.

I came back from the bathroom to find W with an unlit cigarette behind his ear, and promptly stole it and hid it behind my back. Lui gave me a disapproving glance - he abhors smoking - but was too drunk to keep it up, or maybe too drunk to remember, and so when W stole my phone from my pocket and asked me to walk him out so we could trade cigarette for phone before he left, I was able to go without any commotion or awkwardness at all.

We stepped outside and W asked the bouncer for a light "for the lady," as by this point I already had the cigarette in my mouth. Mind you, with the exception of the Tom Petty concert I went to with Pigeon (the one where I made the mistake of calling Piano Man on the way to the arena, and thus reminding myself of how much I loved/hate/miss him), I haven't smoked since Lui and I have been together. So this seemingly minor infraction was kind of a big deal. I felt racy, free, exhilerated as W and I shared the cigarette on the steps of the bar, me wearing far too little clothing for the climate, having left my layers in the tent with the rest of our party, but thanks to alcohol, not really noticing the cold. And then, to add to all those wonderful, illegitimate feelings, W gave me a hug.

And a kiss.

On the lips.

It was only a peck - a half-kiss to go with my half-cigarette - and it's not like I don't have other friends who do this, and with whom it would be totally normal, but in the haziness of my altered state, and the circumstances which need not be mentioned, it was, well, abnormal: racy, liberating, exhilerating.

In the VF (here version fantasie) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I call after him. "Just one more," I say, gingerly taking the shrunken cigarette from his mouth with my first two fingers. I then somehow gracefully and simultaneously bring the cigarette to my mouth and my mouth to his, eventually discarding the cigarette and kissing him gently, still a closed-mouth kiss but slightly longer and more deliberate than the one he's just given me, before turning on my heels and going back into the bar; I don't look back, but can feel his eyes on me from where I've left him, stunned and hungry on the sidewalk.

In the VO (here version ordinaire) of this story, W turns and walks toward the subway, and I go back inside, surreptitiously pressing my lips together for the remainder of the night because I am so fucking aware of them now.