Yes, And

The first time we kissed, there was a single gasp before the room roared itself into applause. 

The scene had been building to said kiss all night. When someone yelled “lip gloss” as a suggestion during our March show, I had decided to make my character a teenage girl. I sat on the only chair on stage and pantomimed squeezing a tube of French vanilla lip gloss onto my mouth. Obviously, the audience didn’t know it was French vanilla, but the smell was cemented into my mind from middle school.

I fell back into being a teenager pretty easily. I curved my shoulders in; I made it obvious I didn’t know how to do simple things like sit in a chair or even walk with my newly long limbs.

Jamie had decided to be the local heartthrob. Their hair was already the swooshy, slightly wavy style that fell into their eyes just enough, something that, in fact, I had found attractive at 13. They sauntered across the stage — now we were in a classroom — stopped, jutted their hips out, and brushed the hair from their eyes. From then on, we knew we were improvising a teen rom-com. Dana and Will were our teachers, our parents. We were falling in love. 

As we were closing up on time, Jamie’s heartthrob character admitted that they, too, had never been kissed. We leaned toward each other, stilted. We pulled back three times to make jokes, to draw out the moment. Finally, we made contact. The crowd erupted. 

Admittedly, we broke character that first time. We had been making the audience laugh all night, but they seemed genuinely proud of us when we kissed, like we had just reached some pubescent milestone. The claps were accompanied by sighs and awws. We were caught off guard.

“I’m just so happy to have my very first kiss!” Jamie exclaimed, working our grinning faces into the act.

***

Jamie and I were two members of the High Fivers, an improv group that performed the first Sunday of each month. For the past decade or so, improvisers had joined and left the troupe. We were the current iteration. We had a steady stream of regulars who kept the 90-seat theater at least half full most months. 

When Jamie and I first kissed, the group consisted of four people: me, Jamie, Dana, and Will. Jamie had been there the longest and the rest of us had joined within the past two years. We all had day jobs — Jamie was an investment adviser, Dana was a stay-at-home parent, Will did something with spreadsheets, and I wrote proposals. This was our once-a-month retreat into our art. Sometimes old members came back to guest, and sometimes we were short one, but we always did the same thing, which is to say we did something completely different. We walked out, and Jamie would say, “Hey folks, we’re the High Fivers. This is a long-form improv show. So tonight, everything you’re seeing is completely made up. To start us off, can somebody tell us a word?”

***

In April, the word was “amulet.” We didn’t kiss. I ended up playing every side-quest character and shopkeeper as the others journeyed through the woods to find said amulet. Jamie was the horse. 

After the show, Jamie approached me in the green room as we gathered our bags and coats. 

“I think we should kiss more,” they said. 

“Jamie, my god, buy me a drink first,” I said, pretending to fan myself.

“On stage, you jabroni!” they shouted, before detailing their plan. 

Over the years, the High Fivers had always had a few running jokes. The jokes faded in and out as improvisers came and left but, for our regulars, they were cherished. The only one we currently had in circulation was fitting the phrase “beloved scientist and American hero, Nikola Tesla” into our conversation. We were a little lean on running jokes, Jamie explained to me, and we didn’t have any physical gags. 

Jamie had seen a single tweet that said, “Great time watching the High Fivers at the River Street Theater this weekend. Hope that Jamie and Chris kiss as much as possible going forward.” The tweet included a blurry photo of us with our faces smashed together, eyes wide open. 

“What if this became the joke?” Jamie said. “We wouldn’t even need to verbally acknowledge it. It could just be us in the background. Purely physical.”

Jamie tossed a Hot Tamale in the air and caught it in their mouth. I remembered, then, that they had tasted faintly of cinnamon when we had our “first kiss” the month before. 

“I’m in,” I told them. As the name of our group suggested, we high-fived.

***     

In May, the word was “newspaper.” I was a 1950s business man, reading the newspaper at breakfast. Jamie was my wife, and Dana and Will were our twins. We kissed whenever we thought the twins couldn’t see us.

In June, the word was “clover.” We all ended up with attempts at Irish accents. We almost didn’t make it, but Jamie did a handstand with Dana holding up their legs and declared they were the Blarney Stone. I dragged our chair over and inverted myself to kiss them for good luck.

In July, the word was “space.” I kissed everyone that night, Jamie included, because I made myself a sentient black hole.

In August, I had a wedding to go to. Jamie didn’t kiss anyone. I did kiss someone at the wedding, but no one applauded, which, I realized as we kissed more and more, I sort of missed.

In September, two people showed up in matching, hand-drawn shirts that said, “High Fiver Kiss Cam Fans.” They had drawn two people smooching with exaggerated hands high-fiving in the foreground. Jamie gave me a look that said, “It’s working!” when we walked out and I thought to myself, working how? Kissing Jamie felt good, of course. Kissing was fun! Jamie was soft and smelled like pine and tasted like the Hot Tamales they still snacked on before shows. I guess, besides the improv itself, we did all of this because it was our own little community. Regulars wearing these shirts was their way of participating in that community. Us kissing was a joke but, with each performance, the intimacy was bleeding from the joke facade. Jamie and I weren’t falling in love, but the audience was starting to fall in love with us. And Jamie and I? We got to kiss and have a crowd reflect those good feelings back to us through cheers and applause. A double thrill. 

The word that month was “lightning,” as it was real raining outside. When the “lights went out” in the scene, I did a twist on our other bit. “Knock knock knock!” I said as I crossed the threshold into the imaginary house, “It’s me, beloved scientist and American hero, Nikola Tesla. Do you think I could be of service?” After I used alternating current to get the lights back on, Jamie’s character said, “Beloved scientist and American hero, Nikola Tesla, I could just kiss you!” The “Kiss Cam Fans” fully screamed. 

In October, Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More” was playing as we walked out on stage, not from our sound and light guy, but from someone’s phone and bluetooth speaker. We looked at each other, sensitive to both shutting down this overstep of audience interaction while not hurting anyone’s feelings but, by the time the initial applause died down, the speaker was off and tucked away. We decided to ignore it. The word that day was “zoo.” I was the zookeeper, guiding Dana and Will through our exhibits. Jamie was every animal, and every animal licked my face, my neck, my ears, and my arms like I was a salt lick.

In November, the word was “submarine.” We spent the entire show crammed in the submarine, touching each other. No one else could see it, but Jamie put their hand on my back. Sometimes, they’d run it up and down my spine. I leaned into them, when they did that. I couldn’t look at them directly, but I swore I saw their lips edge toward smiling. We didn’t kiss. The submarine did get eaten by a kraken, though. 

In December, Will and Dana couldn’t make it. Dana had a late-Thanksgiving-early-Christmas family get-together we knew about ahead of time. We had done the show with three before, so it didn’t seem like an issue. But then, 30 minutes before we were supposed to go on, Will called us from urgent care with a twisted ankle. If she had twisted it in the morning — and felt up to it — we’d have sat her in our one chair and worked around her. Now, the timing wasn’t right. It would just be Jamie and me.

We walked on the stage. Jamie gave the opening spiel. We asked the audience for a word.

“Kiss!” someone yelled. We giggled and waved our hands as if to say, “Yes, and that’s the joke, but what word do you really want to give us?”

“No, really, kiss!” a different person yelled out. 

Jamie and I looked at each other. The audience looked at us. Someone in a “High Fiver Kiss Cam Fan” shirt clapped once and said, “Kiss.” The audience knew what this meant before we did. 

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” they chanted, clapping on the beat. 

Jamie and I stepped backward, as if that would soften the noise. I looked down, and they had grabbed my hand. I squeezed it. I nodded.

Jamie took their other hand and drew it down over the crowd. The audience quieted. Then, they looked at our sound and light guy and did the same. He cut all of the lights except one small spotlight pointed at us. Jamie put their hand on my back again. I stepped close. I put my hands into the waves of their hair, pressed my fingers into their scalp. I closed my eyes; I had never closed my eyes kissing Jamie before. We kissed. It was so quiet, I wasn’t even sure if anyone was still there. Had anyone ever been there, beside Jamie and me? We kissed and we kissed and we kissed. The warmth from the spotlight encircled us but, when I opened my eyes, even that light was gone.