PLAYING AROUND

(Gee, how can I write this post today, without mentioning people with names who'd absolutely hate being mentioned at this point in their lives?)

It's true, in our younger days, we were a very pretty, good-looking, lovey-dovey couple and ... well ...

Playing around as you probably know, became a pre-Jet-Set, post Jet-Set fad of sorts. It's current now, if you're into what's current NOW.

We kept getting offers for foursomes, threesomes, change-your-partner "fun and games." But we were sort of naive, and didn't get it (or behaved as if we didn't get it) when the offers were made, from agents, producers, other name actors, male and female.

In our younger days, there were whispers, rumors, details about various friends, various producer pals playing around, experimenting. Some on drugs? Others into AC DC sex, (that was the term for bi-sexuality). And other weird-sounding things.

There were new drugs, potions, usually clear, sweetened, alcohol-containing liquids with flavoring, and sometimes active medicinal ingredients. HGH, human growth hormone was "IN." With one American turning 50 every 7.6 seconds, HRT, hormone replacement therapy, was a booming business, along with plastic surgery. And yams -- it was the favorite fad food -- everyone gobbled yams.

And it wasn't just producers and directors. I remember our visiting a very major name agent and her very major name "friend" -- being offered drinks, and odd conversation about ...

I'm not sure what it was about. While chatting about marvelous starring roles in some shows that were being created but didn't yet exist, and name-dropping BIG names of performers we knew who'd spent the weekend in the Hamptons with them ... well, maybe it was the martinis, but I had a feeling we, not just JC, both of us were being offered something, but as I said, neither of us were sure what.

Promising to call, we bumped our way out.

We didn't call, but a very dear actor-actress couple called, and after a fancy dinner at Elaine's, when we told them about the name agent and her name friend, they came home with us to see my renovations which had been written up in a magazine.

I'd bought a pool table with a red felt top. Playing pool in our red pool room, sipping cognac, there was interesting conversation ... more than interesting. It was a fascinating exchange of dangling sentences, metaphors, about games, her favorite, his favorite -- no specifics, but private parts, were alluded to ... I think.

While the four of us were exchanging the pool sticks, cues, taking turns shooting the cue ball, the black ball, quoting Shakespeare and Henry Miller, our friends were lyrically, poetically taking us around the world, Without referring to the Kama Sutra, we learned what they loved to do, and how they DID IT.

With a lot of body English, aiming, bangering the balls (the guys said, "don't banger the balls" when if we hit them too hard), and sipping cognac, playing the game ... well, there was a definite but smoky vague suggestion that changing partners was the game to be played.

How did the evening end?

(I couldn't imagine playing any games with him, and while she was definitely imagining the game with JC, he wasn't shocked, or responsive -- JC was tipsy, on the verge of being seriously bombed.)

It was very late. After another round of drinks, and our dog Teechi using his papers in the pantry, they remembered that their two terriers needed a walk. So it wasn't hard to ease into good nights and show biz loving hugs, and they left with our instructions about which corner of our street was best for flagging down a taxi.

Sometime later, we had a dinner with him after his divorce, and met his new wife. (His ex-wife got a role in a television show and faded away when the show faded away.) His new wife doesn't like me. I'm not sure why, but we don't see them very often, so it doesn't really matter.

Older and wiser from our two experiences, though we love the gossip and rumors about some of our current famous friends, we definitely don't get into situations were playing around is an option.

And that's that -- we don't play around.