It was the tongue from hell.

And it belonged to a ‘friend’.

To put it shortly, I had a guy friend I hadn’t seen for a long time, a couple of years. He lived out on the East Coast being cynical and snarky (as East Coasters are the driest-witted people next to Londoners) and I lived out on the West Coast wearing flowers in my hair, playing the harp through the redwood forests, and eating bean sprouts and avocados in all my sandwiches.

He had surprised me with a trip out to San Francisco and said, “Hey, let’s pull an all nighter until my plane takes off in the morning!” Sure! I agreed. Why not live a little, I had thought.

We started off with catching a live indie band (as opposed to a dead indie band) and then tromped through the Mission eating ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery and marveling that we were now aging hipsters, stuck between the 20-somethings who willingly shopped at Crossroads and the 40-somethings who unwillingly shopped at Goodwill. We bounced our way to the Castro district to marvel at all the sexual toys and fantastic leather goods that only gay men with a great income could afford. (Pleather for the rest of us plebeians.) We were at the venerable Sparky’s 24 hour Diner (known for their delicious $6.00 milkshakes), chatting over the merits of Angry Birds Rio and whether it was worth the $.99 to add it to the iphone, when he inexplicably leaned over and grabbed the back of my head and laid a big kiss on my mouth.

Or should I say, IN my mouth? I had barely finished swallowing the hash browns and still had a couple of potato strings in the back molars. His tongue was a juicer. I don’t know what it was in my face, but somehow he believed that I must like it Saint Bernard sloppy. It was like his entire tongue entered my mouth, salivated for what seemed like eternity, and exited, leaving at least 3 tablespoons worth of spit in the cup space behind my bottom front teeth. If there was ever a conflicted moment of whether to ‘spit or swallow’, it was right then.

He looked at me expectantly across the table, one eyebrow cocked in that “You liked that,” self-congratulatory raise to glory. Then slowly, his face turned to concern as he could tell I was going to vomit.