I make the bed carefully, with new sheets that I purchased today. They're black satin, and so smooth that your hands don't rub along them, they glide. The bed feels like water. I strew rose petals around the bedroom and line the dressers with a hundred tea light candles. And I undress to ready myself.

Joe's coming home tonight, so everything must be perfect. I slip out of the day's clothes and kick them into the hamper, then walk naked to the shower.

I open the door and step in. The tile is cold, and I feel my skin goose bump with it. I turn on the hot water, then just stand there as the spray pounds me. At first it's frigid, then it slowly, slowly warms. By the time it heats, my skin is dimpled all over with the goose bumps, my nipples tight and crinkled, and everything on me feels tight. I enjoy it when the water goes warm, then hot, then steaming, pouring searingly over my body. I have pins and needles everywhere, and the hot water makes my dark skin flush redder.

I switch the water back to a more manageable temperature and run my hands through my hair, wetting it, then shampooing it and working it into a lather. I've let it grow long and wavy, the way he likes, while he's been away. He's been gone a year, fighting in Iraq. It's been hard without him, but I'm just glad it's only been a year. Some of his friends have been there much longer.

I use the lather from my hair to wash my face, then get fresh soap and wash my breasts. I wash them slowly, feeling their heft, scrubbing them gently, piling white froth over the dark nipples. When we were first married, we showered together all the time, and Joe used to volunteer to wash me. He played with my breasts like this and washed me between the legs, claiming to be extra thorough while he slid his fingers up and down along me. I was ticklish and I laughed and pushed him away, but when he left for his first tour, I found that I missed it. When he got back and started playing with me in the shower, I just started playing back, soaping up his tan arms and his lighter chest, then moving downward to cover his cock and balls, where his skin was nearly as white as the bubbles. As I massaged and squeezed and stroked him, he looked at me with desire in his eyes and then pushed me up against the wall of the shower and held me and took me right there.

I scrub my stomach, my hips, my legs, between my legs. Then, I get my razor and begin to shave: my armpits, my legs, my pussy. I never used to shave my pussy before, but Joe has hinted before that he wishes I would, and I figure I'll surprise him. I've been practicing the last month or two so that tonight I'll know how to have a smooth, even shave. Being smooth down there makes me feel young, girlish. Joe and I met young, and we were high school sweethearts, but I'd grown my hair there before I met him. Shaving for him feels somehow intimate, like I've found a new way to be naked with him.

I run my fingers over myself, feeling everywhere for stray hairs. There are none. I'm smooth everywhere. I think he'll like that. I don't imagine there's much smoothness out where he's been, just hard men and hard sand and grit that carries on the wind to choke you.

Whenever Joe comes home to me, he wears his camos. He used to change. He'd stop in the airport bathroom and change into civilian attire before coming to me. He knew that the thought of him being out there fighting terrified me, and I think he also wanted to make sure that he wasn't bringing the war home with him. He's a warrior and a good soldier, but he didn't want to be a soldier when he came home. He wanted to be a father and a good husband. I was embarrassed when I finally admitted to him that I didn't want him to change. It still scares me to think of him away fighting, but when he walks in those doors wearing his fatigues, it's one of the most erotic things I've ever seen.

It confused me at first. I didn't think that it was just a uniform fetish. I like a man in uniform as much as the next woman, but this was something different, something special. He seemed extra strong dressed in his fatigues, his heavy combat boots on his feet. And I realized that what I saw in him was a protector. Fighting out there, he was protecting us, and I saw no shame in him continuing to look like our protector when he came home. And I especially enjoyed taking off each piece of his uniform. It became my special way of welcoming him home.

I've shaved and rinsed off all the soap and hair, but still I linger in the shower, enjoying the hot water on me. I run my hands over myself: my hips, my breasts, my stomach. These are the places he will touch me tonight, as I welcome him back to his home. I run my fingers between my legs and stroke gently. Thinking of him has gotten me wet, and I can tell that the liquid between my fingers isn't just from my shower. I'm slippery and swollen and pink from arousal and the hot water. I let myself linger there a moment. When he comes in the door, I want to be ready and raring to go. I want him to feel how much I've missed him and how happy I am to have him home.

I tease myself, stroking myself softly while I draw the other hand over my breasts, pinching the tip of my nipple gently between my fingers. Joe always goes crazy when I do that, and this man who has spent years seeing things that I can't imagine, don't want to imagine, in places halfway across the world, widens his eyes so that I can see the whites all around them, as if me touching my nipple is the most amazing thing he has ever seen.

I get myself close to release, but don't let myself come. Even if I let myself come now, I know I could climax with him again, but that's not enough for me. I want to be ravenous for him.