I don’t know if it was the second martini that made me crawl into his lap or his openness about dating an ex-porn star, but either way, I grew just a bit more smitten as the night continued. We have been flirting pretty heavily for the last three weeks, and we morphed into kissing friends the night we dressed up and he took me to pizza. Now that I’ve kissed him, I can’t stop myself from transforming into a seductress. I take a bath, eat lunch, and masturbate all the while thinking about my kissing date with my sexy neighbor in the building next door, PJ.

Our relationship started innocently enough. I met him at a local pub where I had ducked in to get out of the rain on my way home. I got to talking to most of the men at the bar and felt pretty much like a modern day Scarlett O’Hara. When PJ—a well-built Latino guy who appeared to be about ten years my junior—asked me for my phone number, it was the second time I had given it out that evening.

He texted me about an hour after we met: “I think u should really come back out. We need at least 1 hottie out.” The next morning I receive his explanation for his forwardness: “I was just trying to find a way I could hold your hand back in the rain. Thought it might be a little romantic .” Cheesemeister.

The night leading up to my seduction of PJ, he and I watch a TV program where a married woman hires the main character to have sex with her on her birthday. As they go at it on the floor right up against the window, the lady on the TV show keeps demanding that the main character sing “Happy Birthday” to her. The scene is graphic enough to where you just know you are watching cable. The next day I send a text: “I don’t know, PJ. Something about last night . . . is making me wanna celebrate birthdays.” He strategically waits a minute or two while I agonize about whether or not I should have hit him over the head like that and sends a message in return: “Miss Julie, I must say that I agree with you 110%.” The smiley face at the end of his message winks at me. Emboldened, I cross the line and there’s no turning back—

ME: Odd, isn’t it? I’ll let you get back to work now, but I may b calling on u to help me blow out some candles later.

PJ: Yeah, that is odd. Well, I’ll be home this evening. I would hate those candles to burn all the way down.

There’s nothing quite like an extended metaphor to lure in a man.

In this role of seductress, I feel completely comfortable and in control. I know I’m coming on really strong, but I think I have just enough fun with it to make it appealing to a man even if he knows he’s the one being pursued. In no way whatsoever am I following The Rules with PJ, and he doesn’t seem to mind the role reversal at this stage in the relationship. In fact, he seems a little giddy. The other men who are sniffing around get manipulated into spending money on me while PJ gets grandfathered into my bed. That’s what we’re calling it—grandfathered in—seeing that PJ knows all about the fact that I’m seeing other men and behaving according to a set of rules I read in a book somewhere.

Unfortunately, I’ve seduced PJs of the world before, and clearly these men are no longer with me today. It becomes a fun, whirlwind affair but it doesn’t amount to the kind of relationship I’m looking for now. In the old days I’d enjoy having sex with PJ for a few weeks and then it fizzles out or explodes in my face. You see, I’ve been here many times before. There’s a clear pattern I’m looking to break.

The good news is that he’s not going anywhere—at least not for now. This man is so averse to marriage that when I asked him if he’d been married before he nearly choked while squeaking out a very high pitched, “No!” We laugh about those crazy people out there who are stuck raising kids. He’s basically as good at being single as I am: A true bachelor.

And this bachelor has met his match. (At least that’s what I keep telling myself.)