It’s Friday, I’m in love ... not

“I’ll make a different guy fall for me every day this week.”

A challenge, I decided, was the only way to get out of the funk I had been in surrounding my 35th birthday.

Monday, on the red-eye to Paris, I caught Zach—the first class attendant’s eye and asked if he had a bottle of Veuve to wash down my Ambien. Within two hours of landing he was in my hotel bed screaming as if it were the second coming and not his first. But before he could hit the bidet, I had him dressed and out the door without as much as a croissant.

Tuesday, Michel stopped and asked for a match while I was having coffee on the Champs d’Lyse. He sat and smoked while I sipped, his thin lips puckering around the tip of his Gauloise. “My flight is in three hours,” I said. That was plenty of time for what he had in mind.

Wednesday, back in L.A., I made an appearance at a client’s cocktail party in the hills. Peter, an obvious actor—there to be seen—held court on the balcony. I ignored him, which made me irresistible. I locked us in the coatroom and gave him a performance on a throne of starlets’ wraps. After his applause had died away, I told him he couldn’t fuck his way to the top, especially since he was such a bottom.

Thursday, the barista at the gay Starbucks, Todd or something, I slipped him my number with a $10 tip, told him I lived up the block. Our milk was frothed by day’s end. But when he asked if we could “go on a date sometime,” I laughed in his barely 20 face and told him I didn’t “date” service industry types, but if he wouldn’t mind making me a cappuccino before he left, that would be great.

Friday, the lanky basketball player at the gym, who’s always in the sauna.

Saturday, drinking Sky on the rocks—alone at The Abbey—two cute guys approach and sit on either side. “We want you to be our third,” says the buff one. “No strings attached,” says the tan one. Sometimes when you’re hot, you are just on fire.

Sunday, my day of rest, lying by the pool, I hear a knock and see the top of Z’s head bobbing over the gate. “I know you’re in there Sam,” Z says. I open the gate and he’s holding a small box of my stuff. “Here,” he says and shoves it into my arms. I look at the contents: a razor, a book, a picture. “Whether you know it or not ... you deserve love Sam. I just wish you’d let someone in,” he says, looking like he might cry.

“Do you want to come in?” I ask, making room and holding the gate. He looks me in the eye, thinks about it, then shakes his head no.

“I’m more than a Sunday afternoon fuck and when you figure that out ... you give me a call.”

Before his car is at the end of the street, I’ve dialed his number.

E-mail me your sex questions/conundrums/comments at: sextalksam@gmail.com.