I am 84 years old and lead an orderly life.  But it wasn’t always that way.

Lately, my peace was disturbed by having a knee replaced. Nasty. To add to the unpleasantness, I have to stretch the new knee hard, all the time, to make it work. There are many ways to do this, all hateful. Lately I was urged to take a rubber band or something, loop it over my foot and pull on it until it hurts. Quite a bit.  I do not have a rubber band so I go to my closet to see if there isn’t an old tie that will do.

But, as I look through my ties, I am suddenly and magically whooshed back in time, to a very different night almost fifty years ago, in my almost dark apartment in Tribeca. Where I am desperately looking for ties in a different context.

A wonderful girl is lying naked in the bed behind me, waiting impatiently for my return. And I am riffling through my tie rack, trying to find some ties. To tie her up.

I do not want to tie her up. I don’t want to tie anyone up. Ever. But she is really into it. And she is wonderful company, brilliant and a ton of fun. So, what the hell.

But we’ve done this before, and what I know is that tying your ties around the iron legs of my bed (and then the girl, of course) is hell on your ties; you can’t ever use ‘em again. So, on the one hand I am hurrying hard because I am supposed to be in the throes of passion. But I am also taking time to avoid the really good ones. It was hard.

This is easier. I find one, loop it around my foot and pull until it hurts like crazy. Keep at it for fifteen minutes, so my new leg won’t curl up like a strip of bacon. I’ll do what I must to make this knee work.

But you know what? I’d rather tie up girls.