Hair. Up or down? If it's up, my neck's exposed to his gaze. If it's down, it gets to swish when he turns me. If it's up, it's going to seem so arranged, so poised, so contained. If it's down, it's free to respond. So what message do I want to send here?

If it's down, I do like the way it'll feel when it glides down my back when he dips me over. If it's down, I'll get to have that exquisite moment when he forces me to stop as he's got me dipped over and he's bending over, showing me his power. In that moment, my long hair would be the only thing moving as it slowly comes to a stop and it would heighten his appreciation for the way the rest of my body is in his total control.

Okay, so... down. Definitely.

"Where did you learn to tango?"

"Ballroom dancing lessons in Oz."

"I saw that movie."

"It's not quite that bad."

Shoes. Blood red. Suede. Traditional straps. Damn. How can shoes that look this good with this high of a heel also feel so damned comfortable to dance in?

My calves look good in these. I rather think a woman invented tango just so she could wear these shoes because they just do that 'something' for a woman's legs. I know, I know. Supposedly men invented the tango to show off for women. Maybe it's because they saw a woman in these tango heels and had to do something to show how much her legs turned them on.

I love these shoes. They make me so aware of how I walk. They make me so aware of every step I take. They also feel good sliding up a man's calf when he's got you pulled right up to him and you're doing that one precise movement together where you're almost wrapping your body around him and he's looking down into your eyes and he's got your hand held high and straight above your head and he gets that certain look when you respond by slowly drawing your shoe-clad foot up the back of his calf and you can feel the way his entire body seems to become that much more masculine.

There's nothing like a great pair of tango shoes.

"Know why I learned to tango?"

"Your mother forced you to take lessons?"

"In a way. She did make me go to the basic ballroom dancing. Foxtrot. Waltz. Swing."

"Well, that takes a bit of the fun out of it if it was obligatory. You're ruining my fantasy, y'know."

"Actually, the tango was an advanced class. Had to sign up for extra lessons."

"I would have thought you'd have ditched it and gone out to cause mayhem with your buddies."

"The instructor's girlfriend told me the tango was the dance of seduction."

"Oh. I see."

"She said a man who could dance the tango, could seduce the woman of his dreams."

"Oh."

Dress. It's black. It's got a high neckline in front. In the back, it has a 'v' that plunges almost to the waist. It's designed so the man can put his hand on your bare skin as he leads you in the tango.

You know how the really good male dancers lean you into their body in the tango? How he puts his hand right there in that one spot on your back that makes you pivot your center of gravity just to that one angle that puts you at his mercy? How he makes you glad he's strong enough to make you capitulate to the move? How he brings you right up so your thigh's in between his and your groin is almost riding his thigh because he's tilting back to make you lean right into him?

That's the kind of dancer this dress is made for.

"Where'd you learn?"

"Not in a ballroom."

"Don't play with me, love."

"I would have thought you'd have liked that. Did I guess wrong?"

"Some women aren't meant to be played with."

"Well, that's an interesting answer."

"Who taught you?"

"Private lessons. I dated a guy who taught Latin dancing. He was... very passionate about the tango."

"So am I."

"I was hoping."

Hosiery. Go with the color that makes my legs look tanned or go with the smoky black color? Black. Look what that does to define the angles of my legs. Definitely black.

No, wait. It looks odd with the red shoes. Go with the tan color instead. 

And don't forget to wear panties tonight. Just in case he makes you go wild on the dance floor.

"You look so nice tonight."

"It's the shoes."

"Indeed. Any man who knows anything about the tango knows the Cuban heels are a must."

"True enough."

"But it's everything, really. The white dress shirt. The black vest. The black slacks. The hat."

"Stop. You'll make me blush."

"I'm flattered you'd take such care in dressing for this."

"It's the tango, love. I do it right."

"Oh."

"Oh? Not sure I like the way you said that. You have doubts?"

"A few."

He picked me up just precisely when he said he would. 7 p.m. sharp. He kept up the patter with me on the drive over. He knows how to be a man with a woman. It's one of the things I've always just sensed about him.

First dates and all that crap. Been a long while for me since a man's made me this nervous. I hid it beneath the patter. He made it so easy on me. That was a pleasant thing to learn about him.

I waited on him to open the car door and help me out when we got to the Pub. I put my hand in his and felt under his spell the instant his fingers closed over my knuckles. He was watching my ankles as I pivoted my body. The shoes, see? They were working their magic already. A girl does what she can. She flaunts what she has with a man like this.

First one leg on the gravel lot, then the other. Only then did he firmly draw me up from the car seat. He didn't make one tiny move to back up, to give me any space. It was only for this fraction of time, but he purposely crowded me. My eyes took a long time to travel up from his shirt front, to the 'v' of his chest visible through the open collar, to his neck, to his mouth... there I lingered and knew he'd notice I was lingering... and then to his eyes. Only after I nervously licked my lips and brushed my hair back behind my shoulder and played with my neckline did he step away. He tucked my arm under his, placed my hand on his forearm, and led me away after closing the car door behind me.

Lights were low inside the pub. Lots of candles. Lots of couples.

He walked me over to a table. We stood there watching the band. I swayed back against him. His hands on my hips got our bodies in sync. He talked directly into my ear.

"What can I get you to drink, Eris?"

"Something cold."

"Here. Have a seat. I'll be right back."

I like men who know not just that they should hold the seat for a lady, but know how to do it. He knew how. He pulled the chair from the table, that serious look on his face as I lowered myself into the seat. Then he helped me scoot it in, his hands on the back of the chair in this perfect spot where they'd brush my bare shoulder blades. He finished with that wonderful flourish of leaning in next to my face, his breath flicking across my cheek, his low voice asking, "Comfy?"

How could I be shivering in the warmth of that bar?

"The lessons were not a waste."

"No? Good to know you approve, Eris."

"Definitely. You've got... a real flair."

"You were taught by a master."

"Aw. Go on with yourself."

"I love the way you laugh."

"I love the way you tango."

"I love your smile."

"I love the way you're seducing me."

"Feeling's mutual, love."

"When you take me home, I want to show you this great CD I have of music that's ideal to tango to."

"Let's go now. We can listen to it while I show you some private moves."

Music plays soft but the beat is definitive. It is the demarcation of passion.

He moves in the tango. I move with him. I want him to seduce me. He knows this.

There could be so many ways to get to know this man. An argument could be made that I should get to know him in a more sober, intellectual manner. I could argue that I should get to know him for something other than his masculinity. And I will.

But this is about the tango.

Nothing else.

It is the dance of seduction. And we both knew that when I asked him to dance it with me. So there was a lot we already knew about each other even before this night. We have chosen this night to be the night we let passion define what else we begin learning about each other.

I've watched him in the pub. I've seen his moves. I've witnessed a few moods. I've seen him be smooth. I've seen him be cocky. I've seen his nervous side. I've seen that spark of masculine pride. I've seen him flirt. I've seen him rise to another man's challenge. I've seen him back down when a woman's feelings became the stake he wouldn't ante with. I've seen him joking. I've seen him quiet.

Tonight he's just a man who wants to be with me. I'm just a woman who wants to be with him.

This is about the tango.

He dips me. He stops. I'm caught there, totally in his control. My hair swishes and sways. I've got my arm around his neck, bracing me, keeping me against his chest. He's got a hand on the bare skin of my back just above my waist. He's got our other hands braced together, our arms straight over our heads.

I've got one thigh between his. He locks one of his legs behind mine. It's a fine balance. He's holding me in such a way that I could let go and I'd still be standing with him, arched under his body and held upright in his hold. I feel the heat of his groin. Mine is right above his knee, the slit in my dress open right there so my legs can move more unrestricted. I take my free foot, the one that's not between his legs, and I stroke up, then down, then up, then down... inching my way in increments up his calf until, with the heel of my shoe, I can caress behind his flexed knee.

He's sweating. So am I.

I move my free hand, the one he's not holding, the one that has been wrapped around his neck. I flex it out, away. And then, very deliberately, I place that hand on his tush. I squeeze, gently. Once. Twice. And then pull his groin in firmer to mine.

"Careful, love. A bloke's likely to react to an invitation that easy to read."

I close my eyes and lean further into his hold, forcing him to grip me in tighter. I keep going, arching my neck back. His breath glances across my throat. He sways me in his hold, side to side.

His lips are soft, incredibly soft, against my throat.

I move my leg between his thighs so slowly, so subtly, that I think he doesn't notice except I can feel him hardening against me.

His hand that was on my back... it moves. He grabs the thigh of the leg that's been rubbing on his calf and he pulls it higher, almost to his hip. Such aggression. It's what makes the tango a potent device in a man's arsenal should he have the courage to really use it for all its worth.

I raise my head. His lips are right where I knew they'd be.

His mouth takes mine. He wastes no time now.

We aren't really moving to the music anymore. But yet we are. Our hands, the ones on each other's flesh as opposed to the ones gripping each other's hands... they're pulsing to the beat that pulses through us from the stereo. Our kissing rises and falls in a mimic to the music's overpowering swells of rhythm.

Even his hand, as it moves from my thigh, even then it seems to do it to the beat. It inches up. Pause. Up. Up. Pause. A gentle tickle of my flesh as the rhythm dictates. Under the hem of the slit. Pause. Up. Up. A tender caress of that fleshy spot where thigh meets...

My hand covers his to stop him. He kisses me harder. He's almost grinding into my mouth. My lips hurt. It feels perfect. His hand tries to flick mine away. I try to shove his away. He won't budge. In fact, he very deliberately rubs his thumb hard over the very spot from which moisture is seeping into my panty hose's crotch. In that one deliberate moment, he renders me as he wishes me. Helpless in the face of the seduction of my lust for knowing him.

All I really want is to be in his power. All I really needed was to know he'd felt my power.

Only then does he respond to my hand on his. He lets me move his hand away from where it was. I place it back down my thigh. Near my knee. I wrap my arm back around his neck because just then, I think he's going to dance with me again. But he doesn't. Instead, he moves that hand around to where it's back under my dress, cupping my derriere, moving me, involuntarily, in time to the music... my groin against his.

Only now does he release me from the kiss that's grown into a searching caress. He puts his lips against my temple.

"That's how the tango should always end," he says to me. His lips move as he talks. I wonder if he can taste my sweat. He's so strong. God. His hand is moving me slower but harder into him.

"I don't think anyone's ever done this to me before," I tell him.

"Not even the boyfriend?"

"Not even him."

"I don't think I can stop."

"I don't think I want you to."

"I may not be gentle."

"I may not want you to be."

"How do you want me then, Eris?"

"However you want to be with me."

He straightens up. He's got such fluid grace. He puts both hands under my arms and simply lifts me up his body. I wrap my legs around his waist. My ankles lock back there. He's got one big hand under my derriere, helping me stay in place. The other hand's on the back of my head, forcing me into a kiss. At first, he's kissing with the rhythm of a new song rumbling out of the speakers. At first, he's even walking toward my bedroom in that same rhythm. But I'm hanging on tight, arms around his neck, legs around his waist, and even still, I sink down just a little when his arms both wrap around my back. And when I do sink down, I can feel the hard, confined ridges of his cock's outline rubbing against the damp crotch of my panty hose and panties. I cannot help myself. I move. Up. Down. In time to the rhythm. Pausing in a swell of music to simply press in hard against his penis, my legs gripping him in so tight against me. It makes him lose the beat of the music. He adopts a different beat.

He drops to his knees. Like he just cannot take it any longer. Like he just has to ... just has got to be the one doing the pressing in of his body over mine. It's something primal, utterly unbidden, uncontrollable in a controlled sort of way. He could stop if he really wanted. If I really wanted him to. But he knows we both want this to be in a way where we just do what we want to show the other person how they have seduced us in that dance.

I'm on my back. Hardwood floor feeling warm, slick beneath the skin. Before he even got me on my back, he'd lowered the top of my dress down past my elbows. I wiggled my arms out of the sleeves so I could move. He was too caught up in my breasts to help me. I helped myself.

Just the feel of his mouth on my breasts. It's just so... so... God. Are there words? Where did mine go?

We work on his pants together. I start. He helps me finish. I'm watching us work. So is he. He gets this almost goofy look on his face when I gather his hard cock within my hands and coo at it. It's pretty. What a gut reaction that is from me. I can't help it. It's pretty. He'd hate that this is my first thought. Wouldn't he?

I'm groaning. Why? Why am I feeling like this? It's him. His hands. They are on my waist. His lips. They are sucking the underside of my breasts. One. At. A. Time. His head. Moving relentlessly as his neck flexes to the way he's enjoying discovering my breasts. And. All. I. Want. Is. Him. Inside. Me.

My panty hose and panties must come off. Must. Come. Off. I struggle with them. Who's coordinated at a time like this? Eventually, I shove up on his chest, roll away, yank my shoes off, pull the damned hose off, toss them away, am about to do the same with the panties, only he pulls me right back to where I was on my back and he's the one to take the panties off.

We should not be doing this on the floor. We're adults. Not horny teenagers. I've got a perfectly good bed.

We're going to do it right there on the floor.

It's the tango.

That's what it's about.

I know it. He knows it.

It's the tango.

It's seduced us both.

There's only one way this can really go. I slide my thigh up high along his hip. He grabs it. He sinks between my thighs. He whispers to me. He wants in. I've got my hands on his backside and I pull him tighter to me. He rubs his cock against my clit. I move a hand between us, caress him, hold him, put him inside me.

God.

It's the tango.

I cannot stop.

I may not be gentle.