My Charlie Drake

As the train pulled up at Newton Abbott station I knew that by the end of the week my life would be in some way different, and that no matter what happened, something inside of me would never be the same again.

I searched the platform for the two people I was meeting and saw with great delight Louis and Maddie bouncing and waving like two young puppies having a bone dangled in front of their noses. The three of us rushed towards each other as though we’d been separated at birth and reunited years later.

We’d worked together at the Edinburgh Fringe festival for about a month, Maddie and Louis had been my managers and the bonds we’d made were stronger than any bonds I’d created with friends I’d known for years. Louis was twenty three and from Australia and his sultry accent warmed my bones to the very core. He was the spitting image of Charlie Drake but I admired everything about him. Maddie was a scot living in Devon and I was on holiday for a week on the glorious Devonshire coast accompanying Louis so he wouldn’t get lonely while Maddie was at work.

I was twenty, in my third year at university, it was reading week and instead of plotting the structure of my dissertation I had packed a bag and left York to rekindle some enjoyment that had long left my feelings towards university.

I had spent twenty years hiding from what other girls thrived on. Attention from men. I had never been looked at twice and when I had I ran like the wind in fear of it. I was a kissing virgin and everyone knew it. But this week in Devon would change all that and I would never feel the same again.

My week in Devon consisted of long talks into the night with Louis. We talked of love, life and losses, I confessed my virginal kissing secret and compared myself to Drew Barrymore in the film “Never Been Kissed.” Louis said I was sweet and that it wouldn’t last long.

We walked the beach of Torquay, he taught me how to skim stones in the sea and we shared ice cream and cream teas. On Friday night after a trip to the cinema to see Lord of the Rings – Two Towers we returned to Maddie’s place where we drank wine and Grappa, the three of us sat up until the small hours of the morning and when Maddie retired to her bed I will never forget what happened next.

Louis seemed to look at me with this strange look of admiration I had never seen in anyone’s eyes before. He took my glass of Grappa from my hand and placed it on the coffee table, then, he turned to me and said.

“How would you feel if I was your first kiss?” I thought for a minute and then smiled.
“I’d like that.” Our lips touched, hands and legs entwined, I had my first kiss.

To this day it remains a memory so precious, my heart can never compare.