A Kiss Is Never Just a Kiss by oshun

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Pop Science and the Annoying Neighbor

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Fingon came in and found Maedhros sitting at the table, book in hand, in front of the window looking down upon the spires and towers of Tirion. “What are you reading?” he asked.

"It is a book about kissing."

Maedhros looked up at him with a seductive lazy smile. Mornings of holiday weeks were a good time for his lover, Fingon thought. Morning sunlight glinting off Maedhros’ brilliant hair, however, was among one of the very best things in all of Valinor.

“Like you need a book about kissing? Ha! You should write the kissing book.”

Flipping the book onto its face, Maedhros held his arms up to Fingon, “Come here! I need to practice.”

“Well, you actually do not, need the practice, I mean. But there is no way I can turn down that offer.”

The kiss had everything that anyone could ever want from a kiss. It engaged the heart, inflamed the senses, brought forward all of the tenderness and warmth of a life of lasting love, of shared victories and horrors, estrangements and reconciliations, all of which had combined to enable them to come out of the other end of the tunnel and reunite in Valinor. Now they were free to kiss and kanoddle their way through public events and family gatherings, sickening all of those forced to watch them, from that moment in time all the way through the Dagor Dagorath and beyond.

One kiss led to another, led to hands inserted into loose fitting clothing, to Fingon pressed with his back against the dining room wall and his legs wrapped firmly around Maedhros’ waist, to Maedhros' mighty spear deliciously close to . . .

A loud “Harrumph!” broke into Fingon’s blissed-out semi-consciousness. The unwelcome interruption was followed by an all too familiar greeting, which could have issued from no other throat than that of Círdan. “Anyone home?”

Of all the Eldar in Valinor, or well beyond for that matter, no one would provide a more jarring intrusion upon their fond caresses than the illustrious, bearded shipwright himself.

Fingon groaned and Maedhros removed his lips from Fingon’s with a resounding pop.

Ever the diplomat, while trying to surrepticiously tug and pull his clothing into some semblance of order, Maedhros greeted him with a cheery, “Círdan! Good morning. We were just about to brew another pot of tea.”

“You could have fooled me,” the ancient grumbled. “But, please, I certainly do not want to interrupt anything.” His growly tone gave lie to that assertion.

“Please, sit down,” Maedhros insisted, unwinding Fingon’s legs and dumping him unceremoniously onto his still wobbly pins.

Pulling a chair out and settling into it, for what to Fingon sadly looked like a long visit, Círdan picked up Maedhros’ book. “What’s the book? Seriously! The Science of Kissing, written by some female scientist from among the Edain? This sounds like something my sister might be reading. Not the kind of thing I would have imagined from a Golodhrim of your intellectual capacity, Lord Maedhros.

“Listen to this.” Círdan chortled. “It says kissing ‘results in a rise in the neurotransmitter dopamine’ That’s rich. She does sound exactly like a spectacle-wearing Golodhrim scholar with too much time on his hands after all. Not a book for my sister. She likes the ones filled with girly romantic notions of gifts of flowers and declarations of everlasting love. It gets better! Listen to this one! ‘Meanwhile, serotonin spikes to stimulate obsessive thoughts about a partner.’ Ha! You must have given your frisky little cousin some very wet and sloppy kisses to have stimulated enough obsessive thoughts about you to send him trotting across the most perilous wasteland in Arda right into the very jaws of Melkor to rescue your traitorous arse from the cliffs of Thangorodrim.”

“He is the only one I have ever loved,” said Fingon, feeling defensive and remotely like he had just been insulted.

Maedhros stroked his hand in that way he had of comforting him, which felt ever so slightly patronizing.

“Lord Círdan, do you not remember your first kiss?”

“Indeed I do! It was none other than your grandfather Finwë. He was not always a shameless lady chaser. There was a time when he favored the stronger sex.”

Maedhros looked surprised, as though that was something that he had never considered.

“I remember it well,” began Círdan. Fingon suppressed a sigh. There was no one like Círdan for a rambling long-winded tale.

“I recall it like it was yesterday. One day he was a skinny kid, coltish long legs, and teeth too big for his face and then overnight he had sprouted into a strapping, handsome lad with impressive biceps. I came upon him on the edge of a mountain stream, as naked as the day he was born—your grandfather was born of woman you know, not awakened beside the inland sea. I’d lost my mate and there were no extras within that first crop. Finwë was one of the first among the newly born to reach his maturity. Well, I took one look at his perky rear and those broad shoulders and said to myself, ‘I want to get myself a taste of that ripe young thing.’ Well, in no time flat, I had my chance. I backed him up against a tree and assaulted his mouth.

“Now, that was a kiss, my lords! And it led to many more. We kissed from not far past Cuiviénen, halfway to the coast. Finally, he got older and decided he was growing wiser, fancied himself a leader, and imagined he would need a wife, but most of all he wanted to have a taste of the joys of plump breasts and softer thighs. Well, he began to work his way through the eligible maids until he found one who was able to hold out on him, long enough to temporarily stop his philandering, in any case. You know the rest of the story. I do not need to lecture either of the two of you on the joys of exploring the hard body of a fit young man.”

Throughout Círdan’s story, Fingon had noted that Maedhros had begun to look more than a little than green around the gills. Seriously, who wants to hear about the sex life of one’s grandfather? Really? Seeking desperately to change the topic to one which his mate would find more palatable, Fingon asked. “So, that was your first kiss. What would you say was your best kiss?”

“Why, none other than my own sweet bonded mate Legolas! Now there is a good story for you. Let me tell you how I get the sweetest kisses out of him. You probably have heard he likes it a little rough? It’s true. He does. He really likes for me to grab him and shackle him and drag him out to the cliff behind our house. You know the one that abuts the garden wall on the left side? Rip his clothes off and fasten his right arm above his head in an iron band. . .”

Fingon jumped to his feet.

“Sit down, sit down,” said Maedhros wearily. ”How is it that he can always manage to rile you up? You never see it coming.”

Círdan chuckled.

“It’s not funny,” snarled Fingon.

“Yes, it is,” said Círdan.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Does anyone want to hear about my first kiss?” asked Maedhros.

“NO!” Fingon shouted.

“I would guess from that reaction that it wasn’t you, Prince Valiant?”

Círdan sighed, one of those tiresome sighs of the Unbegotten when they want one to know that they think they are faced with mentally deficient younger sons of the Eldar. “Let me read some more priceless gems from the book to you. How about this one?”

Maedhros snatched the book and sent it sailing out the window, over the terrace below, and into the branches of the gnarled peach tree in the lower garden.

“I think I will take that tea, if you don’t mind,” said Círdan.

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Note: There actually is such a book. I am not sure, but I think it could be more popular science than hard science (I might be wrong, not being a scientist myself and not having read it), which considers these questions: The Science of Kissing by Sheril Kirshenbaum. The above quotations are adapted from remarks relating to that book.

ETA: Pandemonium weighed in on the scientist and her writing: "I can vouch for Ms. Kirshenbaum as a top-rate science writer, so I have no doubt her sources are sound." That makes it even more fun. Like Maedhros, I think I want to read this book.