Happy New Year, X! I kiss you and wish you all the best. There. Am I done? Have I fulfilled your dare with that chaste little smooch? I didn’t think so.

All right, then. Maybe I kissed someone else at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And of course, as always, obedient me, here’s the scoop. I spend way too much time on these e-mails, X, but I don’t guess I’d ever want them to stop. I’ll be eighty and flashing waiters, and you’ll be God knows how old.

So as you know we were with my hubby’s family over Christmas, but over New Year’s we were actually in New York City with friends, and they had a party to go to, and we went along. It was in Soho in a sumptuous loft (bankers), and there were about fifty people there. Everybody was saying how warm it had been, but it felt pretty cold to me, so along with my heels I was wearing thick black tights, a wool dress that fit close to my body (low-cut at the neck to reveal a bit of skin), and a silk scarf I’d gotten for Christmas tied around my neck.

My husband and I didn’t know anyone at the party except our friends (a couple), and although music was playing and the mood was friendly, we were still stuck to each other’s sides and drinking more than we were talking. Having a good time but having a good time with just the two of us.

The crowd was youngish and good-looking, or at least successful and confident, which can make ordinary people look a lot more interesting. Most everybody there was in couples, but they were all friends, so it was tough to tell who went with whom.

So we’re standing there, and it’s past eleven o’clock, and I’ve got your dare on my mind. Would I willingly play your kissing game with some of the men in the room? Absolutely, but we’re out of the mix and I have no idea how I’m going to pull it off like this. I sense my husband getting a bit bored, and I realize that if we’re still next to each other in forty-five minutes, it’s going to be extremely difficult to just take off into the middle of the room and smack someone on the lips. So then I have a brilliant idea. You ready for this? I pull a Mr. X on my husband and dare him to kiss another woman at midnight. You wanted a kissing game? Well I’ll give you a kissing game.

Clever girl, huh? So clever that I get my ass fondled a bit by my husband, who has suddenly come awake. His eyes are roving the room, and I sense he’s liking some of what he sees. I make a couple of suggestions myself. We discuss one woman with huge breasts in a tight T-shirt (she must be freezing!), and decide we’d rather kiss her breasts than her skinny lips. Also she doesn’t look too happy with herself, and you want to kiss a happy person. Then with another little fondle he wants to know what I’m going to be doing while he sticks his tongue between a stranger’s lips, and I tell him I’m going to be doing exactly the same thing. See how I did that?!

So all of a sudden the party’s a lot more interesting. For one, we split up and start talking with other people, friends of our friends and then just random people we meet. I talk to one guy who’s built a portable submarine that he’s marketing to fishermen – super interesting. Not at all my type, but I’m fascinated and would definitely kiss him. My husband? Well I’ve more or less lost track of him at this point.

Then time just flies, and before I know it, it’s about five minutes till midnight, and I start to get all panicky because I haven’t found my Prince Charming yet. I’m in the kitchen now talking to a group of guys who are getting drunk, and I’m sort of rolling my eyes and telling them they’re all going to pass out before midnight. They’re trying to get me to drink, and I’m laughing, and we’re having fun. Then I check my watch, and as I said, it’s five till midnight, and I figure I might as well give up on the kitchen, because there’s no way I’m going to win the kissing game with one of these guys while the others cheer. NOT exactly my style, Mr. X.

But then two of the guys who are still more or less coordinated move towards the refrigerator and start pulling out bottles of champagne. There are at least a dozen bottles, and they’re moving out into the room handing them out to people. I decide to help, and that’s exactly what I’m doing when the crowd starts getting rowdy and calling out for midnight. Soon enough it’s 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1!!!

I’ve got a bottle in my hand as everybody cheers. I’m heading out from the kitchen again as one of the two guys who’s also been handing out bottles is headed back in. He’s a bit of the distracted professor type, but at the same time he’s seemed to be the one making everybody laugh, and he’s got a naughty boyish smile that I like. “You do the honors!” I cry over the noise, stopping him in his path. This seems to take him by surprise, and he takes the bottle clumsily. Then he looks up at me as if he’s just realizing that midnight has struck, and he cries, “Happy New Year!”

He’s taken the bottle, but I haven’t taken my hands off it yet either, so we’re drawn closer together, and it’s just the most natural thing in the world when I move a little further forward, and with a big grin, I kiss him hard on the mouth. He doesn’t seem surprised in the slightest. “That deserves a toast,” he says after I’ve pulled back, and he starts fumbling with the cork. “I’ll say,” I say, and we both laugh and move all the way back into the kitchen. We both watch as he edges the cork up, and with a pop, champagne flows out and runs down over his hands. We’re both thinking of only one thing, and we know it. The image is more than a little sexual.

“Aren’t you naughty!” I say.

“If only you knew,” he mumbles, looking around for two glasses. Before he can find them, though, I put my hand on his shoulder and pull him close again. This time I kiss him harder, and our lips part, and I taste the alcohol on his tongue. Maybe a couple of his friends notice us, but everybody’s so caught up in the moment that nobody seems to think much of it. I mean most of them don’t even know who I am, and the guy doesn’t seem attached. So I kiss him for maybe five or ten seconds, and his hip starts to move into mine. In other circumstances I might have let him just keep moving, but I push him away and give him one last smile.

“Happy New Year!” I say, and slip off into the crowd before he can pour me a drink and discuss what just happened. I go off to kiss my husband, and when I finally find him, he’s grinning too.

So Happy New Year, X! I’m smooching for you, set’s make 2012 the year of kisses!

Need to catch up? Read the Sex Experiment from the beginning: Table of Contents

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