Though your guess is probably as good as mine, the core truth is that I'm a romantic. I'm not always a really successful one in my day-to-day world. My romantic attentions tend toward the practical ("Honey, can I fix your foot bath?" or "Let me know if those ropes are too tight.")

But give me a novel with an innocent yet sassy spirited woman and an arrogant rake who just hasn't met the right girl yet, and I'm hooked. And I identify with the attractions of either character.

Reading romance novels is the girliest thing I do besides peeing sitting down.

And I catch shit for it, too. Stella (You remember Stella? The neighbor who works in the same building complex as me? The one I took an unintentionally unflattering photo of and posted it here but then removed it later because Sara said Stella would absolutely kill my ass if she ever saw it? That Stella.) ... where was I? ... Oh, yeah. Stella gives me shit about reading romance novels every time she sees me reading one, which is about twice a day. I'm thinking Miss Thing is going to get the bad photo posted back up here if she doesn't cut it out.

And these Christina Dodd governess books! I really like them! Ahhh! I should hang my head in shame.

Actually I'm reading the third of a series, "Rules of Attraction," and I'm not buying into it as well as I did the previous two. I loved those. This one is going to require some major turnaround on the hero's part before he's redeemed in my eyes.

So far he's just been a petty, vengeful, self-absorbed oinker. The heroine is his estranged wife, who ran away from him nine years ago after he renegged on all of his promises to let her serve some purpose and to pay attention to her outside of the bedroom. He found her, tricked her out of hiding, is holding information about her real family (who she's always wanted to know about) hostage, and has taken all of her money (a goodly sum) that she earned while she was away from him by closing her accounts because, as her husband, all of her money is his. What a dick cheese.

By the way, did you know there's such a thing as clit cheese? You have to have a fairly large hood to get it, but ... um. Nevermind.

Anyway, as I was saying, I love a good romantic plot. It's easier to go along with it if the hero and heroine are fighting some outside force together rather than fighting each other so much. Though it is fun to see the pompous hero taken down a notch or fourteen.

If the heroine, however, spends more than 3 percent of her inner dialogue being wishy washy about what her next step will be, I'll put the fucker down in a heartbeat. Can't stand those.

And my addiction is all Sara's fault. I didn't even know I liked these things until she started loaning them to me. She lured me in with the promise of good sex scenes, and then I was hooked. Yeah. The first one is free. Yesterday I dropped 14 bucks on two paperbacks.

P.S. I am the number 11 search result if you hunt for "my first vibrator" on Google.