The fire-exit crash bar was cold through my coat, a straight line of metal across my back while the club kept going on the other side of the door. He kissed me there with our coats still zipped, one hand in my hair, and I stopped thinking about the cloakroom queue. If you want to know how to kiss better, that is the job: make someone forget the room they are standing in.

Start closed. Open later. Treat a peck as hello and a longer kiss as a promise you should mean. We had been drinking. I still had a full sentence left. A quieter me after two drinks is not an invitation.

How to kiss better: start closed, then open

Most people go in already open, as if passion were a width setting. I did, for years. I thought a closed mouth looked shy. It is not shy. It is how you find out what their mouth is doing before you invent a second one.

Closed first means lips, then a pause, then a little more. You learn the height, whether they lead with the lower lip, whether they want to be kissed at all. You cannot get that if you have already arrived mid-sentence.

I like a first kiss that could still be laughed off. Not because I am timid. Because a kiss I can stop is how I relax enough to want the next one.

Then you open. Not all the way, not as a policy. Enough that there is heat. If they meet you, you have it. If they stay smaller, you stay smaller. Matching is the skill people skip because they are busy performing hunger.

A peck is a greeting. It can be lovely before someone leaves for work. It is not a trailer for sex unless you both treat it as one. I have had pecks that were really a check, and pecks that stayed pecks, which was the honest version of the evening.

If you want to kiss passionately, slow down before you add anything. Passion, for me, is pressure and time, not an open mouth as the opening move.

Tongue is a seasoning

You need less tongue than you think, and later than films suggest. A taste, not the whole recipe.

A little, once the kiss already has a pulse. The tip. In and out, not a search. Then back to lips so it can be a surprise again. If you leave it in there as a resident, I start thinking about my jaw, and that is the end of the mood.

I used to do the opposite. Early twenties, a sofa in a house share, I went in wet and open because I had decided that was what wanting looked like. He went still. I thought he was not keen. He was trying to find a corner of his own mouth. I apologised later, as if I had been too much of a person. I had only been too much of a technique.

How to be a better kisser, on this point, is mostly subtraction. If you are unsure, use none, then a little, then watch. A closer lean is a yes. A polite stillness is not a compliment.

Dry lips happen. Say so, or drink some water. Teeth are optional and rare. A graze of a lip can be good. Biting as a personality is how you get a wince you then have to talk about.

Hands on the face, waist, hair

A kiss with no hands is a mouth hanging in space. I can enjoy it for a second. Then I want to know where the rest of you is.

Face: a palm at a jaw, a thumb near an ear, not a clamp. I like being able to turn my head. If you hold my face as if I might escape, I start planning the escape.

Waist: this is how a kiss becomes a body. A hand at the side, or the small of the back, pulling in rather than steering. Clothes can stay on. A hand over a coat has done more for me than a lot of later undressing. A hand left there has turned a dutiful kiss into one I was in. If you want the longer tour of how to touch a woman, start here: the hand that stays while the mouth is already busy.

Hair: one hand, not a fist unless we have already agreed on fists. Fingers at the nape. A slow pull if I have leaned into it.

A hand on a breast in the first minute, as if the kiss were a password, loses me. A squeeze of arse as punctuation. A jaw held so I cannot answer. If the hands are ahead of the mouth, I feel processed.

You can kiss with your hands still. A forehead against a forehead, mouths almost, no grab. I have wanted that more than a dramatic dip. If you are shorter or taller, sit down or use a wall. I have stood on the inside of someone's shoes. It looked stupid. It worked.

When kissing is already sex

Some kisses are a preface. Some are the event. I did not understand the second kind until my mid-twenties, in a kitchen, hip against the nick in the laminate where the worktop had always been slightly wrong. He had a tea towel still in one hand from drying a pan. He kissed me like that, and we did not move rooms for a long time. I still think about the tea towel more than I think about plenty of nights that had a bed and a plan.

Kissing that is already sex is close, and it stays. The mouth is not the bit you get through so the night can start. Some nights the mouth is the night. Hands stay. Clothes can stay. You can come from this, or nearly, and then you have a decision about whether anyone needs to go further.

I like it against a worktop, or sitting. A lap is useful because you can kiss without climbing. Faces near, a rock, a mouth that stays once someone is inside. I have liked the close, grinding nights more than the ones that treated travel as the point.

Should you kiss during sex? If you both want to. I do, a lot. It keeps me in the room. A slower kiss is a way of saying stay, without a speech. Some people go quiet and look away when they are close. Ask once. Believe the answer.

Morning kissing is less theatre. I like it before anyone has put a sentence together.

If a pavement can see you, keep it a kiss. I am not suggesting you give them a show.

How to redirect a bad kiss without being cruel

I have been the bad kiss. I have received one. Both are ordinary. The unkind versions are what linger.

The worst thing I did was wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. We were standing in a hallway after a second date. He had been keen and a bit lost, and I made it look like I was removing something. I still flinch at that. I could have taken his lower lip, slowed him, said I like it smaller. I performed disgust instead, and then I was very English about the rest of the night, which helped nobody.

Redirect with the kiss itself first. Close your mouth. Take their lip. Put a hand on a jaw and make the whole thing smaller. Smile into it if you can do that without it looking like a review. Most people will follow a change they can feel.

If the kiss does not follow, use a sentence you would say to a person you like. "Slower." "I like it like this." "Less tongue, more of that." Then show them. Do not announce a verdict on their skill. I have heard "you're a bad kisser" said as a joke. It is not a joke. It is a door closing.

Different kissing styles are common. One of you is all heat. One of you is quieter. You can trade. You can also decide you are better at other things together. I have had good sex with someone whose mouth never quite fitted mine. We got in the mood with necks and hands and stopped forcing the opening act to be a mouth. That is allowed. It is not a failure of romance.

If they go still, do not add tongue to rescue it. Ask whether they want another go. A still mouth, for me, is often a person who has already stepped out.

If you need breath, take it on a jaw or a neck. Do not pant into their face and call it passion. Mint is optional. Kindness about last night's garlic is not.

FAQ

How can I be a better kisser?

Start closed, match their pace, and keep a hand on a jaw or a waist, not already travelling south. Use less tongue than your first idea. Watch whether they lean in or go polite. If you want a rule you can try tonight, make the second kiss smaller than the first and see what they do with the space.

How much tongue should I use?

A little, later, and not as a constant. Think seasoning. If you are guessing, use none until the kiss already has a pulse, then the tip, then back to lips. Stillness or a small retreat means you have used enough.

Should I kiss during sex?

If it is wanted, yes. It keeps me present, and it is a decent way to slow a night that is getting ahead of itself. If they turn their head, they are not rejecting you as a person. They may be close, or they may want breath. Ask. Do not glue your mouth to theirs as proof you are still involved.

What if we have different kissing styles?

Show the version you like, in the kiss, then name it if the kiss does not teach them. You can meet in the middle. You can also retire kissing as the main event and keep the rest. Compatibility is not a single mouth. I would rather a good fit elsewhere than a forced snog we both endure out of pride.

A good kiss is allowed to be the whole evening. I do not need it to become a better story.