The Fort, the Fire and the First Kiss

After Bruce left and the tent was dismantled, the pine forest behind Campo de Rosas became my personal kingdom once again.

It was around this time I started building a new fort with Samantha Andrews. She was the dark-haired, blue-eyed daughter of David Andrew—an expat from Bermuda who lived with his wife (her name escapes me) a few fairways across from us in Son Vida. Samantha was very pretty. The seasons were shifting toward winter, and I’d begun experimenting with campfires—primitive little creations that felt deeply satisfying, though health and safety protocols were notably absent.

The fort itself was simple but perfect—a natural shelter reinforced with leftover plywood from the house construction, nestled between rocky outcrops and the roots of old pine trees. It became our private world. Far enough from adult supervision to feel wild, yet conveniently located just 100 meters from my parents’ larder—a detail not lost on my younger self.

It was there, surrounded by the scent of smoke and sap, that Samantha and I kissed for the first time.

Now, dear reader, you must understand—we weren’t completely in the dark. We’d seen kisses on TV and during the weekly screenings at the British cinema, but that didn’t mean we had the faintest clue what we were doing. Most of what we’d seen involved stiff actors in awkward embraces, or middle-aged couples in sitcoms who didn’t exactly radiate passion. None of it had prepared us for the weird, electric clumsiness of trying it ourselves, somewhere in a pine-scented clearing with dirt under our nails and no script to follow.

So our first kiss was… let’s call it tender but utterly unerotic. It was clumsy and rushed, but it was just… charged. With something warm and ancient and wordless. A feeling of safety. Of connection. Of being exactly where we were supposed to be.

For that brief moment, the fort felt like the centre of the universe—a primordial paradise of crackling fires, stolen snacks, and something neither of us could name, but both of us recognised.