"Have you ever kissed a boy before?" he asked me. He was nervous.

"Yes."

"Oh. Right. Of course you have. More than one?"

"Yes. But don't worry. I don't bite," I said. "Anymore."

We were freshmen in college, sitting in the theater department's music room. We had just been cast in a comedic play as a married couple rekindling their romance. The role called for kissing onstage. No, not kissing. Making out. Heavy making out. Grinding-against-a-wall making out.

But my scene partner had never been kissed.

Relegated to the music room on the first day of play practice, we were instructed by the director not to leave until the awkwardness of kissing a complete stranger in front of an audience was conquered. Easier said than done — especially when one of us was a shy farm boy from a small Midwestern town.

"Why don't you come a little closer and give me a kiss?" I instructed.

"I'm sweating. Are you sweating? Is it hot in here? Or do you always sweat when you kiss? What happens if my upper lip gets wet? From sweat. But then you kiss it. Will the kiss taste salty? Will that be gross? I don't want to be gross. Do you have gum?"

"Joey! Breathe."

With his lips pressed tightly together, he gave me a quick kiss. He began laughing.

"I did it! Woo-hoo! That was great! Really great! Was it great for you?"

"It was a peck," I said.

"So it wasn't great for you?"

"No. It was. The best. Honestly. Best ever. But now, let's try a French kiss."

"The kind with the tongue?" he asked, looking quite disgusted.

"Yeah."

"Is it gonna feel like a slug is in my mouth?"

"I hope not!" I said.

"Good. 'Cause I really don't like slugs. More like a toad, then?"

"Joey! Just — c'mon, man. Kiss me."

"OK, OK. I'm sorry," he said. And he stuck his tongue out.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"French-kissing."

"No, you're not. You're sticking your tongue out at me. Put your tongue back in your mouth." He did. "Now, stay still. I will kiss you."

And I did. A fast, small tongue kiss.

Joey pulled away and began spitting.

"Ugh! Gross! Slug! Definitely slug!"

"Joey! Stop calling my tongue a slug."

"So much slug!"

It took a while, but we got there, Joey and I. We practiced that day. And the next. We became friends. Friends who made out in front of other people. Friends who acted like lovers for the sake of audience laughter.

Opening night of our play was Parents Weekend. We could hear our friends and family laughing in the front row as we kissed. They were laughing at the play, but Joey felt they were laughing at him. He was mortified. After the show, he locked himself in the theater bathroom.

"I'm never coming out," he said.

But he did.

A few months later, after our play had ended, Joey came out. He was happier than I had known him. He had friends. He had a boyfriend. He had an ease about him. When he would see me walking around campus, he would call out, "There is the girl that made me realize I'm gay! She kissed me and I knew!"

I thought of Joey when I read the accounts of 50 people being shot to death in an Orlando nightclub, many hiding in the bathroom. I thought of Joey and of so many others.

I wondered whether to tell this story in the shadow of what has passed. I wondered whether it would be appropriate. I believe that it wasn't gays who were murdered. It was people. People who wanted to dance and sing and be joyous. People. But it also feels wrong to ignore that a specific group was targeted. That hate and intolerance was behind the death of 49 innocent lives.

As I've said in past columns after similar tragedies, sometimes asking for humor is asking too much. Humor alone can't heal. We need more. We can start with compassion. So I leave you with this.

I knocked on the bathroom door after opening night. "Will you let me in?" I asked.

"You can't change tonight," he said as I crouched down next to him on the bathroom floor.

"No. But I can sit here with you."

Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. To find out more about Katiedid Langrock and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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