Julie's Vacation Game

Julie, my wife, is one kinky woman.

We're at the tail end of our first trip to Italy, and the last two weeks have been amazing. We started down in Rome, and spent a few days there doing the tourist thing. The Colosseum was unbelievable, to stand in the same spot Caesar stood two thousand years ago was awe-inspiring. I kept envisioning the fall of Rome, and what that must have been like for the people of the city. The raiders stole all of the valuable metal out of the city, including the rods in the Colosseum itself. If you look closely at photos taken of the Colossem's exterior, there are hundreds of large holes where metal rods were taken. I'm not exactly sure what type of metal, but I think I overheard someone say bronze or copper.

We hit Assisi, Ravenna, Florence, Milan, and now we are on our second of three days in Venice before we fly home to the States. Every big trip we take, Julie likes to play a little game. We make one day our "Game Day," and today is that day.

She wakes up early, while I am still in bed. She makes herself up, and leaves before I wake up. Then the hunt begins. We pretend not know each other the entire day, and I never know where she is until we run into each other. Invariably, we end up in bed together shortly after we meet, and sometimes we can't restrain ourselves in time to find a bed.

Some of our more memorable trips include a trip to Whistler, where we found each other in line for the gondola. We managed to get a gondola all to ourselves...

There was also the time I couldn't find her in New York until she sent my cell phone a picture of the Statue of Liberty. I grabbed the last ferry out to the island, and the custodian of the Statue found us on the torch stairs during his closing sweep. The fine was worth it.

I'm surprised how much I've enjoyed the game over the years. At first, I just did it for her, but as anniversaries passed, "Game Day" started becoming a good incentive to take trips. It also reminded me of the trips I took in high school with my parents. They would go see the sights, while I would try my best to get tail in a city or town completely foreign to me. I felt a bit like a panther, scoping out my prey, back in those days.

I wasn't the most successful hunter, but I wouldn't have starved in the wild. These days, when I'm playing the game, I get that old animal instinct back. I'm not specifically looking for my wife in the crowds, but she is usually the only one that catches my eye. She's got the eyes of a siren and a body to match. As soon as we lock eyes on "Game Day," my heart starts beating faster, and blood rushes South.

Five years ago, I was following her in London, when she led me to the Tate Museum. She disappeared into a crowd of people, and I wasn't quite ready. I wasn't a husband looking for his wife to museum-fuck, I was a casual observer of art.

I walked around the various rooms, taking my time while I studied each piece of art in the room. The creativity of those artists was out of this world, and eventually a photographer named Tom Wood caught my eye. His mission was to capture the life on Liverpool buses, and the night photos caught my eye.

I spent a good five minutes in front of a picture Wood took of a group of ladies putting on their make up in the bus, trying to look pretty for the guys. While contemplating all of the different thoughts going on in the photo, Julie, out of nowhere said, "Amazing." We talked about the photo for 30 minutes before I suggested we go get some coffee. She suggested beer, and after two pints at the bar, we paid the bartender and barely made it back to the hotel room. I still remember the trail of clothes leading from the door to the bed.

Venice has been a big dream of hers for a while now. Both to visit the city, and to play the game. The city is large enough that there are plenty of places to hide, yet small enough that there is an air of romance surrounding the island. Having no vehicles on an island can do that to a place. The gondolas (completely unlike their counterparts in Whistler) have made their way into my dreams since we initially started planning our trip here. There are plenty of narrow alleyways and red rooftops that could be end-of-the-night possibilities as well.

I'm getting restless, this is worse than staying up for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. She's been in the bathroom for an hour now, and I've been pretending to sleep for the last two. Wait, I think I just heard the bathroom door open...

...and the entry door open and close.

Let the hunt begin.