The Kissing Scar

I have a strange fascination with scars. Often they tell a lot about a person's life, and even when they don't, there's usually at least a good story to go with it. And I love good stories.

During my college years there was a phenomenon we called Pie Night. Rumor contends that this tradition started at BYU where a group of roommates decided to showcase/advertise their domestic prowess each week by baking pies, brownies, and similar baked goods and then inviting an apartment or two of boys over to partake of the goods (baked and otherwise). As best I remember it, a few of them happened to live together after college in my ward and decided to continue the tradition.

The kissing scar incident occured in late November of my sophomore year. Pie Night was Thursday night and, sadly, I spent most of those evenings working on physics problem sets rather than attending Pie Night. The incident occured on just such a night and while I was not eyewitness to the evening's revelry, I was regaled with the story and saw its proof that very night.

Events transpired thusly: One of my roommates was conversing with the Pie Night hostess on one side of the kitchen, noting with particular interest the mistletoe hanging throughout the house. The other was meanwhile chatting with other friends and presently excused himself to the restroom. While he was there, the first roommate had an inspiration. He turned to the Pie Night hostess and, referencing the latter roommate, offered, "I Slurpee-dare* you to kiss him under the mistletoe when he comes back to the kitchen." (*A slurpee dare consists of a darer offering to buy a large slurpee for the dare-ee in exchange for completing the dare.)

"Okay," came the quick reply.

In a minute or two the unsuspecting victim emerged from the restroom and started walking back toward the festivities in the kitchen. The hostess and her accomplice/egger-on stood innocently talking, as he made his way through the living room. Fifteen feet away, then twelve. Ten feet, now eight. When he was six feet away, she "pounced like a caged lion" (my roommate's words, not mine, and yes, they kind of assume the prey in question is inside the cage with said caged lion. Be that as it may.)

She may have been a bit overeager. I'm not sure of the degree to which my roommate's wits were about him that evening and that moment, but when the attack starts from six feet away, it's not too hard to see it coming. He parried appropriately. In a jumble of confusion and reflex he backed away, threw up an arm or two and generally tried to avoid a wholesale collision with the human-sized object that had been flung in his direction.

The object, however, was not to be dissuaded. Despite his (still confused) struggling, she reached out with both hands and determinedly pulled him in close enough to plant one on him. A kiss, I mean. She planted a kiss on him. I'm not sure if the dare stipulated the kiss land on the lips or not, so I can't tell you the exact location of impact, but she made good and sure it met the requirements. And then she let him go.

The good natured victim quickly figured out what had happened and laughed it off. As he returned to his previous conversation a few seconds later, however, someone let out a gasp. There was a smear of blood trickling down from a gash in his cheek. In the heat of the attack/kiss, it seems somehow that the "caged lion"'s fingernail had sliced the flesh deeply enough to draw a fair bit of blood. The wound wasn't terribly serious, at least not suture-worthy, so they cleaned it up and that was that. It took a while, however, for the cut to heal, and when it finally had it left a light red scar streaking across his upper cheekbone.

And to the best of my knowledge, yes, she did get her well-earned Slurpee.