When I first posted this recollection of a mid ’70s affair I was attacked (what else?) for having been a profligate libertine. I replied as follows: We’re living through a fairly conservative era right now. A whole lotta scolding going on. But in the mid ’70s there was a distinction between what was regarded as casual infidelity and the serious, hurtful, real-deal kind. It may sound cavalier in today’s realm, but middle-class sexual mores were different in those days. A randy current.
“My indiscretion was admitted to, duly regretted, apologized for. A subsequent casual infidelity happened on her end the following year, and I was in no position to do anything but accept and roll with it. (And it certainly doesn’t matter to me currently.) By ‘70s standards casual infidelity wasn’t necessarily a knife in the heart or a catastrophic deal-breaker. People were scampy. A different time.”
Originally posted on 7.12.19 on HE Plus: “I became an amateur stage actor between ’75 and ’76, when I was living in Westport, Connecticut. My big move to Manhattan was about a year and a half off. The usual nocturnal distractions prevailed, of course — carousing, partying, movies. But I also wrote program notes for the Westport Country Playhouse Cinema. And I acted in front of paying audiences.
“First I played the timid ‘Dr. Spivey’ in a Stamford Community Playhouse production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (which I mentioned to Ken Kesey when I interviewed him in Park City in ’98 or thereabouts), and then a macho backwoods type named ‘Marvin Hudgens’ in a Westport Playhouse production of Dark of the Moon.
“Sandra, a pretty married woman of 34, was also cast in Dark of the Moon. She and hubby Burt, a balding oil-company attorney, lived in a nice clapboard colonial not too far from the playhouse. She was one of those ‘passionate with a capital p’ types — a lover of theatre, intense eyes, great cheekbones. Plus she was a part-time dominatrix with all the necessary gear (black bustiere, fishnet stockings, a leather cat-o-nine-tails whip, tall spike-heeled boots). Every so often she would visit Manhattan and get into scenes with submissives.
“Sandra was playing a sexy witch in Dark of the Moon, and it wasn’t much of a reach. Fierce energy, quite the firecracker.
“Anyway we ‘hit it off,’ as the saying goes. I was in a fairly serious relationship at the time, but getting away with a hot side romance (i.e., not getting caught) seemed doable. Sandra was far too attractive to ignore, and the likelihood of our affair being discovered seemed low, her being married and all. She certainly didn’t want Burt to find out.
“Plus it was the mid ’70s, which was arguably the randiest, most bacchanalian era in U.S. history, certainly in the well-off Connecticut suburbs. Random couplings were fairly routine back then. I wasn’t George Roundy in Shampoo, but I was tasting that kind of activity, at least from time to time.
“The hot-and-heavy happened in Sandra’s car, in her home in the afternoons, once in my parents home in Wilton, once in the Westport woods. We never once got a motel room or spent a clandestine weekend in Manhattan. It was always along the lines of ‘let’s meet tomorrow at 4 pm near the train station.’
“The affair went on for roughly three months, maybe four. It was hottest during the run of the play, then it moved into a less intense Phase Two. After a while Sandra started to feel more and more ill-at-ease about our being seen together. She never wanted to catch any films in the Westport or Norwalk area — too easy to be spotted.
“Then came the shocker. After one of our get-togethers at her home, Sandra told me she’d been telling Burt everything about our affair. All the details, chapter and verse. Her reports were a turn-on for Burt, she said, and it put a charge into their sex life.
“On one level I was fascinated, but on another I felt…betrayed? I understood and respected the fact that her marriage was priority #1 in her life, but I thought our little affair was between us. I was partly amused, partly perplexed and a little bit thrown. My interest kind of diminished after that. The affair was running out of steam anyway.
“Sandra and Burt left Westport and moved to Dallas two or three years later. Late ’70s, early ’80s. I remember somehow finding her Dallas number in ’82 or ’83 and calling and chatting a bit. Good to hear her voice. She was moderately happy or at least content, she said.
“A couple of hours ago I did a Google search and discovered that poor Sandra passed from cancer three years ago. Shock and sadness. She was a great lady.”
