Let's face it; Valentines Day is mostly for the ladies. For guys, it can sometimes seem like a mine field. If you get the chocolates, "you're trying to ruin her diet"; if you get the flowers, "you think she's too fat for candy"; if you get her a potted plant, well, of course, "you're just making more work for her." If you're lucky enough to have hooked up with a new ALT.com member for Valentine's Day, you're probably really stressed. On Valentine's Day we guys lament, "Why can't women be more like we are?" Yet, when the booty calls, we're the first to shout "vive la difference!" (For you ladies reading this, you know what I'm saying -- you may want to show this article to your man to set him straight.)

For the most part all a guy is happy on Valentines Day with great sex, a woman who fucks first and asks our name later. But only a few of us will have that dream this V-Day.

Truth is, Valentine's or no, the surest path to great sex is drawn-out foreplay. Long, teasing ball-busting foreplay that makes your dick cry enough already, and her pussy get harder, bigger, thicker, wider -- the better to enter you my dear (and fuck your brains out). Actually, BDSM play scenes that center on withholding orgasm are already in the rhythm of a romance novel.

Now that we've got rule #1 -- long foreplay -- down, what are our foreplay options in keeping with the romantic holiday?

Here are a few:

1) Hold her front-down on the bed, naked, while you draw a feather up the inside of her thighs, briefly tease her pussy, continue up the crack of her ass, over and along her sides, and tickle her sensitive arm pits. Continue progression as needed¡¦

2) Blindfold her, suck on an ice cube, and attack her with brief wet kisses. Let her guess where your shivery wet lips will kiss her next, counting several seconds for slow tease before each new kiss. Open her pussy lips, plant one tasty kiss, and then softly pat her lips closed again as though you may not go there for the rest of the evening. Men can tease, too, you know.

3) Break out the oils and start the massage.

Though each of these scenarios might sound like fun, if you look closely, you'll see that each comes out of a different D/s relationship and requires that the lady be up for different things. How do you know which approach is going to wet her whistle on this day? Perhaps some reconnaissance is in order.

According to Ian Kerner (see "Ladies Looking for Love" below), "if you want to know what makes women tick sexually you have to get inside their heads."

I propose that there's no better way to get inside her head and no better place to start your dance of slow seduction than...drum roll...the romance novel. That's right. Forget for a moment that compared to a raunchy, juice-a-flyin' porn flick or a high-energy dungeon party, romance novels are slow-paced fluff and little action, something a guy is sure he can't bear to sit through. Now, here's the good part -- he's not going to be sitting through it. He's going to be reading it.

The romance novel is your friend. It'll spill all the lurid details of what secret power games a woman craves -- and what gets her horny. It will get your lady to spill other things as well. If done right, it will help a guy
1) Figure out what his lady likes
2) Figure out what particular things she's in the mood for
3) Get her horny as hell
4) Slow him down as it's speeding her up
5) Set the mood better than a whole box of aromatic candles

Get out your chosen romance novel (lookie here, it just so happens you bought her one for Valentines Day!) -- even if you're kinky. Most romance novels make healthy use of submissive/dominance play. Go to the specially marked pages (she'll love it that you took all this time to find and mark the good parts for her). Tell her the setup briefly: "Marcus has just rescued the sexually inexperienced -- Ok she's a virgin -- Regina from the nasty advances of her cousin Henry. Now she and Marcus are together alone and he tells her about a dream he had."

Then start reading out loud with all the husky heat and vigor your voice can muster:

"'What was I doing there? [Says Regina] 'You don't want to know' [says Marcus]. The growled whisper only made her breath quicken. 'I do.' [She says] 'You were sitting with a harp cradled between your legs. And you were naked from head to toe, with only the harp to shield you.' She gasped at the shockingly provocative image that leaped into her mind. 'The second I entered, chains wrapped themselves around my wrists, jerking me back, keeping me from touching you,' he went on in a guttural voice. 'I stood there helpless, envying that damned harp for getting to lie between your thighs and brush the very places I wanted to touch¡¦like your breasts¡¦' He slid his hand inside her bodice to caress her bare flesh. 'Your silky breasts.' When he plucked at her nipple as if it were a harp string, pleasure resonated through her. He played her deftly, soothing and provoking her by turns. She groaned as his fondling grew bolder, more outrageous, but she could not bring herself to stop him. Sweet heaven, was this what it was like to have a man touch you intimately? This was what she'd be giving up if she never married? 'I wanted to stroke your belly¡¦' Slipping his free hand down, he splayed his fingers over her abdomen, then dragged them lower and lower until -- 'And this.' He cupped her between the legs, right on the spot where she felt suddenly tight and tender. 'God how I wanted to touch this.' Oh¡¦dear¡¦Lord. He rubbed her hard down there, and she nearly leaped out of her skin. His caress made her thrum with unfamiliar desires. She laid her cheek against his shoulder, not even trying to stop him from touching her. Even though it was the most scandalous thing anyone had ever done to her. And the most exquisite. When his stroking made her moan, he rasped, 'You like that, do you?' 'I¡¦I don't know¡¦' 'I can feel that you like it.'

(Cheeky bastard !) That is the beginning of a very fine scene that goes on for another page or two in a book by Sabrina Jeffries called To Pleasure a Prince. The fact that young Regina has never been "intimately touched" before makes this scene pretty hot, even if we or our jaded lovers have been there a zillion times ourselves. The way Jeffries gives us glimpses of Regina's virginal thoughts, hmmmm, very tasty. How can we miss the scent of power play -- and what about those chains?

This scene in Jeffries' book occurs on page 124, about 123 pages farther than the average horny guy is willing to go when he's looking for arousal. But women read this stuff. They love the build-up. They LIKE that the book makes them wait for this nifty little scene. This tells us something about a woman's love curve -- lots of endurance, but sometimes infuriatingly long.

OK so we already knew this. And we've already agreed to offer lo-o-o-o-ng V-Day foreplay in homage to the fact. So how do we get to the sections of the romance novel that will get both partners off? Here's a little secret about romance novels: a romance novel of about 350 pages tends to have a sexual tension release right about there -- somewhere between pages 120 and 130. I call it the Golden 125 Rule. If sexual contact happens somewhere in there, you'll probably find at least two more juicy scenes in the book down the line, and that's about the average to good range of the romance novels in terms of foreplay fodder, so that's what you want to look for. (In my next article, "Foreplay by Number," I'll go into more detail about this).

But already we have one good candidate. To Pleasure a Prince plays nicely and rewardingly by the rules. It goes on to have several more very sexy scenes in the course of its 364 pages, and the scenes get progressively steamier -- the couple marries about three quarters of the way through the book, which allows the sex to go "all the way." Not only that, but the final sex scene between the married couple gets downright kinky. (Remember those chains in Prince Marcus' dream? Let's just say they end up getting put to good use by the end of the book.)

And guys, there's a lot of wisdom to be taken from this little scene. Note the strong man engulfing the little woman in his firm grasp. Note how distracted he was when he couldn't have her. Many women find these romance themes a turn-on. To be engulfed, taken, teased, mentored, but at the same time, to tease, to be desired, obsessed over, dreamed about, to torment the guy with her attractiveness. There's a nice balance of desires and power positions in this book to meet most tastes.

In fact, as you read this out loud, you can ask your partner to be vocal about the parts she likes. Does she react when Marcus plucks the girl's nipple and "plays her deftly" or when he says, 'I can feel that you like it'? (Perhaps your woman is in a mood for a Svengali someone who'll know her dark secrets or sweep her off her feet). Does she react to, "She laid her cheek against his shoulder." (Here's something more like intimacy, trust, nurturing. Perhaps your lady's in the mood to be held close.) Does she react to Marcus saying, "I stood there helpless"? (Perhaps she's feeling a little dominant) or "envying that damned harp for getting to lie between your thighs" (wanting to feel like a siren).

With a little help from your partner, a little cheering on and letting go, reading a romance novel can draw a mood map for the evening. Great data for giving a lady some foreplay she'll remember you by.

Does she want rough play? (A bad boy? Someone who's misunderstood?) Does she want to tease a man, control him? (A man who asks permission?) Would she rather be "swept up" by him, taken over by him? (A man in control?) Design your foreplay accordingly.

It's amazing how aware these books are of power play. What the romance novel knows and plays on (that vanilla guys and even some experienced players sometimes don't have a clue about) is that women are creatures of nuance and mood more often than not. All too often, when you say "romance" to a guy, his eyes glaze over. And yet "creating the right mood" can arouse a woman as quickly as a wet cunt shot in Hustler can have a guy standing for action. Most players knows this; fewer know exactly how to work it well. In that case -- the romance novel is your friend. If you find a good book like To Pleasure A Prince that offers a buffet, with dozens of little mood flavors to choose from, you're lucky. The book will do your work for you.

ACT THE PART

So Valentine's Day Exercise #1, get the book, mark the hot spots, read it aloud. As you read, get dramatic, play with voices. Voice can be an aphrodisiac in itself. Do all this in good humor. Let her cheer you on. Nothing says people have to be serious to get aroused. Enact the scenes you read: strip her as the heroine is getting stripped -- in the next few paragraphs of To Pleasure a Prince, Marcus "was drawing down the bodice of her gown to bare one breast to his intent gaze... his mouth seized her breast as boldly as it had seized her lips earlier" (125).

There's so much room for fun, for anticipation, for tease, here, if you are pausing to follow the actions of the hero, then pausing to read again. Mount her as the heroine is mounted -- only to back off as you read the inevitable "oh, we mustn't." Yes, they all do this, these romance novels. Especially the first sexual scene: builds you up then rips you away. It's torment. Delicious torment for getting partners aroused. Without any effort, you're a romantic hero -- a dark prince, a brute with a soft heart, a wild horse that needs breaking. She'll find it incredibly suspenseful because she won't know how far you'll be going before you're pulled away -- by the words you're reading. It's kind of fun and crazy, no-pressure, and yet you'll be amazed how it can tease to arousal. Especially if you find ones with the BDSM flavor of your choice. Reading and blindfolds go nicely together.

FOREPLAY BY NUMBER

If you're game to give your lover this Valentine's Day surprise, off you go to the book store. Your V-Day Foreplay takes only a little preparation and a bit of insight as to how the romance novel is put together. Plus, you score two points for awesome V-Day gift giving: One for buying the book. And two for reading it (the good bits, that is -- she can read the rest when you're not around).

GOLDEN 125 RULE

There are some tricks, like the Golden 125 Rule, to finding your way around the romance novel. That will all come out in the next article, "Foreplay by Number." In it are some title suggestions, some juicy book bits, where to find them, how to find more hot book bits on your own -- in short, a few simple tricks to help cut right to the chase: the best foreplay fiction for your bang.