She held out her wineglass, and I filled it four-fifths of the way up with chardonnay. Her eyes widened.

“Trying to get me drunk?”

I leaned back against the kitchen counter, taking the time to survey her. I smiled what I hoped was my cockiest smile.

“Lady, I don’t even know you.”

She took a sip and cut me a look over the rim of her glass.

“But that’s one hell of a dress.”

In a ranch house party full of people in jeans and pullovers, she was wearing a black velvet halter dress and black cowboy boots.

“You think? It is New Year’s Eve, after all.”

She turned around, revealing the back, which cut low — almost to her ass — framing a long stretch of silky, white skin and a tiny tattoo of the Greek letter Pi low at the base of her spine. Her dark hair hid the nape of her neck.

I fought the urge to reach out and run my fingers across her skin and instead took a gulp of my wine.

“Hmmm,” I said, appraisingly.

“Go on.” She looked back at me over her shoulder. I saw the faint beginnings of goosebumps on her skin, rising under my gaze.

“Um. It makes me want to…” I blushed. “Never mind.”

She turned to face me.

“No, really, go on. It makes you want to what?”

I looked down at my shoes, avoiding her eyes, and said in low voice: “It makes me want to make love to the small of your back.”

She smiled at me and turned away again.

“Here?” she asked, pointing to her tiny tattoo. “On Pi? Why, that could go on infinitely.”

I laid my thumb very low on her back, at the edge of her dress. Right between the two dimples that marked the base of her spine. Right on the tattoo.

I lingered there for a moment and then pulled my hand away.

A dress like that should be illegal.

She paused for a moment and a light shiver ran up and down her back, like a horse shaking off flies. Then she turned to me.

“And how would you do that?”

I stepped aside to give someone access to the sink, and another person reached between us for a bottle of wine, mumbling “’cuse me”. Still my eyes were locked on hers.

“I guess I could show you…”

“Here?” Her eyebrows raised mockingly as she looked around the kitchen.

“How ‘bout there?” I cocked my head towards the bedroom at the foot of the stairs. “I think the door locks.”

She paused for a moment, looking at me thoughtfully.

“Well, I know a dare when I see one.” She turned and walked away from me, the full skirt of the velvet dress swirling around her legs.

I gulped down the last of my wine and followed her.

After all, a dare’s a dare.

The room was dark and I reached for the light switch, and then I heard her voice.

“No, don’t turn it on.”

So I didn’t.

“Come here,” she said. I walked across the room to where she was sitting on the edge of the bed. We didn’t touch.

“Now exactly how would you make love to the small of my back?”

“You’ll have to lay down,” I said.

She leaned back on the bed.

“No,” I said. “This is simply a demonstration. Face down, on the bed, lengthwise.”

In the darkened room, the black of her dress melted into the coverlet, but her skin glowed in the tiny amount of light that leaked through the window. I could hear the party heating up outside the door, the band beginning to play, and voices raising to be heard above the music.

She stretched out there, her forehead resting on her hands, legs spread wide, covered by the flow of velvet. I kicked off my shoes and climbed up on the bed and knelt between her legs and sat back on my heels. I could feel the heat of her thighs through my jeans. Her ass rose up in a sweet mound in front of me, and I could see her back rising and falling, gently, with her breath.

“I’d begin something like this,” I said.

I placed my hands on the bed on each side of her waist and leaned forward over her, touching just the tip of my tongue to the small of her back. Then shifting my weight forward, being careful not to lean on her, I slowly traced a small, wet line up her spine, as far as I could go. I heard the sharp intake of her breath, and before I sat back on my heels again, I realized my arms were trembling.

She turned her head so I could hear her, lifting her hair up and away from her face and neck, her cheek on the coverlet.

“Can you do that again?” she asked, voice breathy now. Her arms spread, palms pressing into the bed, as though bracing herself.

“Say please.”

Softly.

“Oh, please?”

This time I pressed the entire wide flat of my tongue to her spine, right on the letter Pi, and began stroking it up her back. I could hear her begin to breathe through her mouth, so I went to work in earnest, licking my way up her spine with feather strokes and alternating with wide strokes. When her hips began to move, I pressed the heel of my hand into the small of her back.

“Shhh. Lay still.”

“Sweet Jesus,” she mumbled.

I leaned a little farther forward, turning my head, and pressed my open mouth into the small of her back. I paused there, swirling the tip of my tongue on her skin, inside the ring of my lips, and then began to suck gently at the deepest part of the curve of her back. Her ass lifted slightly in response.

“Am I doing okay?”

Her ragged breath was my only response.

“Good, then I’ll go on.”

She moaned softly.

Again I sat back on my heels. She waited, not moving, but I could feel the tension in her thighs.

Taking my time and moving quietly, I unbuttoned my starched shirt and untucked it, sliding it off my shoulders.

“This is the massage portion of your demonstration…”

I placed my hands on her low back and began to massage in sweeping strokes, from the edge of her dress to the base of her shoulderblades. My thumbs worked their way up her spine.

“God, that feels good.”

As I continued to work her muscles, I could feel her melting under my hands. I wanted her relaxed, but not too relaxed.

Time to move on.

I stopped and stretched out my body, bringing the peaks of my nipples to the naked skin of her back. Supporting myself on my hands, I began to lightly brush my tits back and forth across the tender skin there.

Suddenly her breathing faded beneath the drumming in my own ears. The sounds of the party faded away. It seemed my entire world had condensed down into this warm patch of skin on her back and the electric connection with my nipples. It was my breath that was ragged now. I was losing control.

“Wait.”

Her first request didn’t even pierce my consciousness. She had to say it again:“Wait.”

I sat back, panting a little.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That was one outrageous demonstration.”

“I could go on.” I know I sounded pathetically hopeful.

I felt her hands at her hips, gathering the velvet dress and creeping it up her thighs.

“I was hoping you would.”

###

When the crew and family readiness group of the dock landing ship Oak Hill sold raffle tickets for the first kiss at homecoming, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50. Since that is fewer than many people buy, Gaeta never guessed she win the kiss. But she did, and when the Oak Hill docked in Virginia Beach after nearly three months training with military allies in Central America, Gaeta’s girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the bow.

This is the first time the happily reunited couple has been gay. The women kissed and the crowd cheered.

Don’t ask. Just tell them we’re home.

Today, I introduced him to the charms of Hannah Hart’s “My Drunk Kitchen”. Sure, it’s probably inappropriate viewing for a kid, but he says it beats the crap out of anything he’s seen on The Food Network. Hannah is funny, gay, and a little nuts. We’re both in love with Hannah.

This is a re-post of a holiday story from 2007…

It was one of those holiday-gathering-slash-game-night things.

We were drinking sweet beverages ladled out of a big bowl, and took turns calling out the answers to Trivial Pursuit questions until we all got restless, and wandered off to the kitchen for another round of snacks.

“No. Really,” Cara was saying. “If I was on ‘Jeopardy’ and the topics were food, shoes, human genetics, and bad date stories, I’d have it in the bag.”

“Right,” said Perry, “you do know a lot about shoes.”

Cara rolled her eyes at me, and slapped Perry’s arm.

“All I’m saying, is outside of work, there’s not much going on these days.”

I looked at the black and white zebra-striped pumps she was wearing. I had noticed earlier that they had a red sole.

“Judging by the vintage Louboutins, I’d say there’s at least one area of your life that’s rockin’ besides work.”

“Thanks for noticing,” she said. “But… hey… how did you know these are Christian Louboutin?”

“By the flash of red – I keep up.”

“You never fail to amaze me,” she said.

“Or me,” Perry said, looking up and down my lanky frame, covered in faded jeans, a starched white shirt, and a grey cashmere vest, and coming to rest on my well-worn Tony Lama boots. “Who would have guessed you were a closet fashion queen?”

“There’s nothing in my closet but clothes. You know that better than anyone, Perry.”

We exchanged the sort of smile that passes between old friends and and even older lovers.

“Well,” Cara said. “It’s that time. I’ve got to get myself home. Alone.”

“I’m glad you were here,” I said. “You brought beauty to an otherwise dull night.”

She flipped her hair back off her shoulder and gave me a coy look and a little drawl, “I’m betting you talk to all the girls that way.”

“Nope. She never talked to me that way,” Perry said. “Not once.”

Cara started for the front door.

I grabbed Perry by the arm. “Come on. I helped you hang the mistletoe in the hallway. Let’s go kiss her goodnight.”

“Together?” Perry said. “Both of us?”

“Hell, yeah,” I said. “She’s hot and it’s the holidays. Let’s have a little fun.”

We followed her to the front hall.

“Can I help you with your coat, Ma’am?” I said in my deepest voice, trying to add a touch of Rhett Butler to my inflection.

“Well, you sure can, you sweet thing,” she said, playing along.

“Can I find your purse for you?” Perry asked.

Cara looked from one of us to the other. “What are you two up to?”

“Nothing really,” I said. “It’s just that I came over early, before the party started, to help Perry hang the mistletoe. She said it was good luck to help put it up, and maybe I’d get lucky and kiss a pretty girl.”

I tried to smile a winning smile.

Cara looked at Perry. “Did you tell her that?”

“You know, standing under the mistletoe almost guarantees you’ll get kissed,” said Perry looking up. “See, there’s a big ball of it above my head right now.”

She reached out and took Cara by the hand, pulling her in closer. “And now it’s right over your head, too.”

Perry kissed Cara gently on the lips.

“Oh, my,” Cara said, feigning surprise.

I tapped Perry on the shoulder. “Excuse me. May I cut in?”

Before she could protest, I wrapped my arms around Cara and began to kiss her lingeringly, showing off a little for Perry.

I stopped when I heard Perry clear her throat. She turned Cara around kissed her again.

Cara came up for air. “Girls, girls. My heck. This is some holiday tradition you’ve got going here.”

She stepped back and smiled a little wickedly.

“Well look at that, now it’s just the two of you under the mistletoe.”

Perry and I looked at each other.

“We couldn’t,” I said.

“We never do,” said Perry.

“But you did,” said Cara.

“It’s been years,” I said. “That was college.”

“We’re buddies,” Perry said.

Cara crossed her arms as though she meant to wait us out. “All in good fun.”

She tapped her zebra-striped toe.

I shrugged and stepped a little closer to Perry and kissed her lightly on the lips and started to turn away.

But Perry surprised me by grabbing my belt and and pulling me back to her. Then, digging her fingers into the back of my cropped hair, she began kissing me for real. As startled as I was, I felt my lips soften and open, as if of their own volition, responding to her still-familiar touch and scent. From somewhere far away, I heard a soft, deep moan. Honestly, I’m not sure if it came from Perry or me. The tip of her tongue began to trace a smooth oval just inside the rim of my lips, and I felt one of her hands slide down to the small of my back, pressing me even closer to her. I let my tongue find hers, and they danced there for a minute.

Then – as suddenly as it started – we broke away, each of us gasping a little.

“Whew. Just like riding a bicycle,” Perry said.

“Yep,” I said, trying to hold on to what was left of my cool.

There was an awkward silence.

“Damn,” said Cara. “Two butch girls like you. Now that was a holiday treat. Thank you. A lady knows when to make an exit, so I’ll leave the two of you alone.” She opened the door and shut it behind her.

Perry and I stood in the hallway, looking at the closed door.

“That was hot,” I said.

“Sure was,” Perry agreed.

“Had a real effect on Cara, didn’t it?”

“Seemed to,” Perry said.

“S0… when do you think she’ll come out of the coat closet?”

###