[Kisses Sweeter Than Wine]

My name's Alexander Nwabudikae Morgan Sexton and way too many of my male friends think I'm a damn lucky son of a gun. When I turned 21 I was struck by the Sexton Family Curse: my lips and tongue taste like the best red wine in history to any woman whom I willingly kiss that has ever tasted a red wine before: and will get them drunk like it too. You'd have thought that would be a blessing, but it's not, oh boy, it's not!

Just for starters, sure, girls throw themselves at me looking for a free high, yeah, fun times, but I discovered damned quick that if I tried to take any 'advantage' of that, I paid for it before it could get anywhere! Blinding headache, nausea, fever, and chills for at least a week that no medicine would treat and no doctor could identify the source, I could kiss the girls till they passed out, but step one toe or finger over that line sexually and it's a ticket to a week of bedrest.

It got worse though, the girls who had tried red wine and liked it could smell me for quite a ways off it seemed, and would 'follow their nose' looking for that primo sauce that only I had: with all the attendant problems with jealous boyfriends, fiancees, husbands, angry fathers, and priests/preachers that thought I was "in league with Satan!": not to mention all the FEMALE lushes that got pissed at me because my magic mouth only works if I'm willing to kiss them.

I've had about 60% of the bones in my body broken at one point or another and spent far too much of my time in hospitals recuperating from assorted beatings I didn't deserve: and on top of all that I've never been able to keep a stable relationship because of all the women that just randomly throw themselves at me. I developed the curse when I was 21, that was 12 years ago now. 33 years old, living with this wine breath from Hell, and assaulted on a daily basis by what amounts to alcoholic freebasing stalker chicks, my life is a nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone.

The only people that seem to be immune are the rest of my family. Anyone who's a closer blood relative than a fourth cousin can't smell the magic mouth and doesn't taste the wine, though that MIGHT have something to do with the fact that its a family tradition that's more iron clad than federal law that we only drink grain or mead (brewed honey) if we're going to drink at all...

Now, you might be wondering what I do for a living with a curse like this? Nope, not a sommelier, I'd be fired in under an hour: no, not a cop or P.I., no way you keep a low profile with this curse: no not a politician, I'm basically a walking scandal, but you're getting closer with those last two.

Bingo: tabloid reporter! Aren't too many of those rags that have actual reporters on staff, but there's a few, but that's not me. I'm not on anyone's payroll, I'm too notorious, I'm a freelancer that works with more credible writers and photogs feeding them times, dates, places and so forth and they just see what happens when I'm there, if some big name losses their shit and winds up all over me, great! If her bruiser boyfriend beats me up over it: even better! It's not a great line of work but it pays the bills and I get to hang out at all the hot clubs and ripe tourist destinations on someone else's dime, I really can't complain too much, but of course, I do anyway.

The one thing that does bug me more than anything is that I don't have a steady girl of my own. Oh sure, there's Brandy, Claret, and Portia, but they don't count. I've kissed all three into unconsciousness a dozen times but that's all I am to them, an open bar with no tab, and to me, they're just three of the most enthusiastic, creative, passionate, and beautiful kissers I've ever met, and that's all they can ever be. We have an arrangement, the four of us, I kiss them till they're hammered, and they make sure I enjoy the process. That's it, that's our deal, kisses-for-wine basically. That's no kind of romantic relationship.

What do I want in a girl? Do you want the short answer or the long one? Long huh, okay...

I want a girl that's funny, has a bit of sass to her, gets my jokes too: trusts me to willingly kiss other women, and have it not mean a damn thing to me emotionally: NEVER wants to kiss me on the lips, like EVER, for our entire relationship: doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't chew: I don't care if it's her nails, bubble-gum, or tobacco, I can't stand a chewer: likes classical music, especially anything with a good rhythm for dancing: she's GOTTA love to dance, and be at least decent at learning new dance styles, I'm always picking up new dance moves. Hair, skin, and eyes don't matter so much to me, I mean I'd prefer she has smooth skin and shiny hair and eyes that sparkle, but all that's just superficial. You hang around at these high-end clubs you learn that personality is what counts. Appearance can be really kinda "what does he/she see in her/him?" but if the personalities click just SO, that's going to be a match for life. I don't care if she's short or tall, fat or skinny, okay, I like my girls with a little meat on their bones, but not so fat they waddle, a happy medium if you get my drift, though I will say the pregnant ones are HOT, I always kinda like to imagine what it's like to be the lucky bastard who got-'em that way, ya know? Anyway, those are all the critical things, though if I were going to "shoot the moon" I'd want her to speak at least three languages and be willing to gently and patiently help me learn them.

What was the short answer?

"Me."

Yeah, I guess that's kinda crude, but dammit all if I don't have one of the worst cases of blue balls ever seen outside a dude who died of exposure! In our culture kissing is expected in romantic relationships, and for ME, if a woman has ever so much as tasted a red wine, kissing leads to drunkenness, which leads to any attempt at sex on my part causing a cosmic Anti- whami of epic proportions, so basically, I've been unable to get laid except maybe once in a blue moon since I turned 21.

Hire a hooker? Yeah, bout that, seems PAYING for sex, counts as under the Curse's terms and conditions, so, yeah, that path's right out too... Besides, don't you think I would have thought of the 'Hey, I'll get you drunk as a skunk on the best wine ever, won't take any kind of advantage tonight while you sleep it off, BUT, after I make you breakfast in the morning and you're sober again; you've got to blow me as payment...' gambit? Nope, it's a Curse, not a superpower, you can't make it useful that easily.

So yeah, I've very rarely been able to get laid in the past 12 years, and each one was basically a one-time-deal, except Candy, and Candy was: well...

Let's not talk about Candy, to quote 'Hotel California' "Some Dance To Remember, Some Dance To Forget."

Look, I DON'T want to talk about Candy! There are some things that are better left forgotten, dark chapters of my history I would rather be left on the cutting room floor of memory instead of endlessly dredged up and played back like some kind of corpse trial of my mistakes and failures of judgment! Can we please just move on? Okay, Thank you.

As I was saying, I've been without anyone to have sex with for months. Everyone I know are either drunks, former drunks, in a relationship already, professional associates, or some combination of the above, and NO ONE wants to date a guy that both A: gets them plastered when they kiss, and B: then can't fuck them without instantly getting a seven day migraine/flu-from-Hell, and C: then does want to fuck me sans kissing of any kind when they are sober without it being some kind of semi-contractual 'drunk-for-pussy' arrangement, that, as we've established, wouldn't work anyway...

Like I said right at the start, way too many of my male so-called "friends" think I'm a lucky son-of-a-bitch: they couldn't be more wrong...

But that's not why you're here to talk to me, five thousand miles from home in some tropical hotspot with way too many babes in bikinis that are going to try to 'drink me dry' any minute, is it? You've got the air of a reporter, not the tabloid sort, the serious kind...

A P.I. huh? Makes sense, so, how come you knew so little about me?

Yeah, I've kept a surprisingly low profile for what I do for a living. Maybe the curse tries to hide itself from public scrutiny? I don't know, but, now; you've tracked me down, so...