In lingerie like tonight. Black stockings, seamed. Strappy sandal heels. Fresh red predicure. Pushup bra.

But unlike tonight: hair tight up off your neck. A clip would be good, chopsticks would be better. A wrap-around dress with no buttons, only ties.

Greet me at your door like this. Have my drink ready – you know what it is. Be ready to bend over for me. Be ready to get on your knees. Be ready to say please in that lovely aching way you do – with desperation, longing.

I posted a sexmix last year, in August, but I’m constantly revising my playlists. This is the current sexmix tracklist.

This is not, however, the music I put on for a day of sex - I’d rather have a few albums on shuffle. The current favorites are Me’Shell N’degeOcello’s Bitter, as much Morphine as I have on my hard drive (especially the albums Like Swimming, Yes, and Good), and Chris Isaak’s album Heart Shaped World.

Here’s the sexmix:

1. Come - Kinnie Starr
2. All Your Way - Morphine
3. Sexual Animals - Sarah Fimm
4. Right Now & Right Here - Keren Ann
5. Sweet The Sting - Tori Amos
6. Wrong To Love You - Chris Isaak
7. Slow Like Honey - Fiona Apple
8. Beautiful - Meshell Ndegeocello
9. Volcano - Damien Rice
10. You Look Like Rain - Morphine
11. Alright - Kinnie Starr
12. Grace - Jeff Buckley
13. Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
14. Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums - A Perfect Circle
15. Forty Six & 2 - Tool
16. Sexyback - JT
17. In Tha Mood - Esthero
18. Satisfy - Meshell Ndegeocello
19. Swing It Low - Morphine

 So, lay it on me: what would you add? What’s your favorite music to fuck to? What’s the best seduction music? What tracks just need to be on this list?

The music thumped, colors from the lights fluttered. I’d been watching her for half an hour, since I got here, and had danced next to her for the last two songs. I couldn’t hear my own words but trusted she could.

She could. She flushed, bowing her head a little, looking up at me through her lashes. Tossed her thin, long blonde hair.

“Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.

She nodded, still shy, eyes flashing. Interested. “Vodka cranberry?”

I smiled - that half-smile-smirk with the soft eyes, perhaps my most handsome look - and returned to her with her drink, red, in one hand, my drink, Jameson on the rocks, in the other.

She sipped hers slow through a straw. Lips carefully placed. We drank. We danced more. Hands on her hips, watching the way her body spun and quaked. Such elegance in the slow curves. I spun her around the dancefloor and she followed. Brilliantly. Blue eyes on my face all night.

Wrists in my hands and her back up against the wall, mouth open. Open. Anything could happen here. The wall is sticky, the floor acts like it hasn’t been swept in years. Crushed under the bottoms of too many feet. Push her legs apart before she realizes I’ve cornered her. Take her by the hand and lead her outside the bar.

She follows, wordless. I light a cigarette.

“So,” I say.

“So,” she says, kicking at the brick building with the toe of her flat silver ballet shoe. Dark capri jeans folded nearly to her knee. A loose blouse, soft yellow, thin, revealing everything.

I smoke. Breathe. I’m not particularly interested in the cigarette. It’s just something to do with my mouth, instead of …

She leans against the brick wall and shifts her hips. Shifts her weight from one leg to the other. She doesn’t look at me. She waits.

Oh, god, I’m terrible at this part. Just stay calm. No expectations. Just me, and the prettiest girl here.

I say something (anything) witty. She laughs, a delightful sound. A reward for my efforts and I try again, which becomes again, which becomes dominoes and her eyes shine as she gazes smiling at me. She bites her lip, parts her mouth. Breaths in.

I flick my cigarette with my thumb and forefinger, sparks against the sidewalk. I take a step closer to her and gently let my hand touch her hip. She breathes into the touch, deep and sharp, breathes into the place where my fingers are touching skin. I circle her waist with one arm, she’s tiny, shorter than me, delicate. Her arms fall back from her shoulders like her hair, gravity pulling them down and against me who is pulling her another way, against me, to me, and her back arcs and I lean over her as she tilts her head.

I hesitate. Feel the space between us electric and alive. Then kiss her, light, a whisper of a kiss, air and spun sugar and she tastes like gardenia.

The thick blossoms of summer.

And it hits me: I’m single. One. Only me. There is only my own desire, my own life path, my own choices. There is only my needs, my intentions.

This is not to say I do not want someone, I do. But I am picky now. I know what I don’t want.

This girl, this lovely girl, the most beautiful girl in the whole bar, looks back at me and says, “Ready to dance?”

Oh, am I ever.