=== This is part three of this long-ass entry... if you haven't read parts One and Two then please do so now... Thanks for putting up with this...

So, in February of 93 I was at one of my regular Karaoke places. I had just stepped into the door. I was dressed in as slutty a manner as I ever did dress. Jeans, baggy off-the-shoulder black sweater and three inch, spike heeled black pattent shoes. Hair up slightly, up on top, long in the back... just enough make-up to highlight my eyes and lips. As soon as I walked in, Bill (one of the hosts) spoke up above the crowd... "Red's here, We can start now." I was "on" that day.

I grabbed my usual table in the "pit" and leaned back. I took out my notebook, ordered my pepsi with Grenadine and waited for me to be called up to sing. Bill started the evening. Then it was my turn. There was a group of Squids (Navy-grunts) sitting in the Pit. They were rather loud... but as I went up to sing... I was about six feet from one of the Squids. He was looking at me... I started singing Blue Bayou.

After the first three words... this particular Squid said, "Oh... my... God..." which, of course, drew my attention... so I looked at him and sang the rest of the song to him. As I was singing, I could hear him talkin to his buddies...

So, of course, I played it up... And I sang to him a little more... getting the eyes into the act and the whole schmere. He was hooked. And, when I finished my song, he, true to his word, stood up and applauded me. AS did the other five Squids. I did my typical "Thank you" and sat down, without another glance at the table.

It wasn't more than ten minutes later when one of the Squids ordered up a round of drinks, and told the waitress to give me one too... So, I ordered an MGD, bottle. *chuckles quietly* That's what they were drinking. I didn't know that... but it didn't matter to me. So, the waitress comes back to me with a few cans of MGD and a single bottle... Actually, she stopped at their table first and Dennis the SIQ (Squid In Question) told the waitress to give me first pick. Seems that bottle was the last one in the entire bar. All the rest were cans. *chuckles softly*

And what did little-ol-Jen do? Hmmm? She took the bottle. Ain't no way I'm drinkin beer out of a can.

Dennis was ticked that I"d taken the last bottle... but I looked up, looked at him, raised the bottle in a toast-like gesture, then took a pull, closing my eyes slightly... opening them again and flicking the tip of my tongue against the rim of the bottle. *chuckles* All you guys out there who go to bars, or have ever been to one and seen that gesture... you know how it affects most males... Well, Dennis was completely wasted.... and completely horny. *chuckles*

I set the bottle back down, then went back to my writing. As if they'd never existed. *shakes her head* I was in a different persona that night. Hell... I was Tiger that night. Completely ignoring the person who wants me most, just to prove that I don't need him. *shakes her head*

Then, Dennis came over to my table, introduced himself and his friend... the one who'd said "Oh... my... God" and had given me the standing ovation.... Duncan. They wanted to know if they could sit at my table with me. I shrugged. They sat. Duncan beside me, Dennis across from me. I"d been sitting with my leg out on the bench seat, so instead of altering my position, I just lifted my leg a little and set it upon Duncan's lap as he sat down.

He was very quiet.

He was good looking and had incredible blue eyes. He was thicker of chest and broader of shoulders than was Dennis. Dennis was extremely skinny. That's never been my interest. Obviously...

Anyway... so Duncan set his right hand upon my leg, just at the middle of my calf. He didn't move his fingers. No caressing. Just as if he were resting it on his own knee. That spoke to me. His left hand was on the table, around his fuzzy navel. *smiles softly*

Dennis was hunkered over in his chair a bit... his hands were under the table. I was smiling every once in a while, but fairly indifferent. Far more interested in the quiet guy who wasn't so damned foreward. Dennis leaned over a little more. I shifted slightly, bringing my other leg up to lay it across Duncan's lap as well. He moved his hand so that his fingers were resting just below my left knee, his wrist against my right knee... no caress, no "touching" just resting there.

And Dennis kept smiling and waggling his brows at me. I chuckled faintly at all his attempts to get me interested in him. But... I just didn't like his style.

Then Duncan got up to sing a song... to sing a song for me... *laughs, shaking her head* The song he chose? Drum roll please.....

All My Exes Live In Texas

*shakes her head* I should have known then.

I was still "on". I was just..... *shrugs* "on". So, Dennis gets up a while later to go to the bathroom... Duncan leans over to me and says.... "Don't say anything to him... but he's playin with my leg under the table, thinking it's yours."

*shakes her head, laughing* I looked at Duncan in disbelief. He nodded. I laughed. When Dennis came back, he was a little irritated and he told Duncan that it was time to go back to the ship... I'd asked Duncan if he wanted to join me... I was gonna go to another Karaoke place... stop in and sing a few, that I'd take him to the ship. He'd agreed. He told this to Dennis and Dennis was pissed as hell.

And I understood why, after the fact. Cause, Dennis thought he was gettin somewhere. I hadn't stopped him from playing with "my" leg under the table. *laughs hard, grinning at the memory*

Duncan and I never did go to that Karaoke place. We went out to the waterfront and sat in the pick up, talking. We talked for damn an hour and a half. Then he asked me, almost shyly.... "Would it be okay if I put my hand on your shoulder?"

*smiles tenderly* I allowed as how that was okay and he did. We talked a little longer... another 45 minutes or so and then he asked me if he could kiss me. That floored me. That's what really hooked me. That was the point I'd decided he was the right man for me.

*smiles softly* In retrospect, I understand that I"d told myself, when I was about 18, after Jonny, that the man I wanted to spend my life with would ask me for a kiss. *smiles softly*

So... *sighs quietly* I said yes. He kissed me. Tenderly. He was gentle. He smelled of peach Schnapps (from the Fuzzy Navel) and smoke and Eternity. *smiles softly* We kissed for about two minutes. If that. Then he pulled back and talked some more. During the nearly six hours that we were together... I think we kissed for a total of 30 minutes.

He had to ship out the next morning and he'd be gone for a week... but he gave me his number. I gave him mine. We both believed that we'd never see each other again. I figured he was like every other man I'd ever met up with... eventually, he'd jet out. He'd realize who and what I was... and he'd leave. I figured I was just a one-night-stand to him. Even tho it was just a little bit of kissing. No feeling... no petting or anything like that. Not even necking... just a few deep kisses.

"My eyes seek reality
my fingers seek my veins
There's a dog at your back step
he must come in from the rain
I fall cause I let go
the net below
has rot away
so my eyes seek reality
and my fingers seek my veins"

=== Part Four to be posted when I can continue... I can't write this anymore tonight.===