SATURDAYS WITH BO DEREK

Though we didn't officially meet until one day later, I first saw JM on April 1, the night I returned from my tour of England, Istanbul and the U.S. East Coast, and from the moment I saw him, there was something about him that I wanted. We eventually were introduced through a mutual friend, and we slowly embarked on a tentative friendship that consisted of occasional Facebook chats, birthday greetings (mine was May 7, his June 24), six photos that I insisted we take together at my birthday party (I wonder if anyone who looked at my birthday photo album on Facebook figured out what had been going on in my head), one phone call, and three text messages.

It took exactly three months from the night we officially met for us to end up in bed together. The particulars are unclear. It was a wild wild night, and lots of white wine and whiscolas (Coke and cheap Argentine whiskey) had been consumed (by me, of course). I have no idea how his damage was done. The action started last Friday night at the birthday party of a mutual friend and ended up at Sitges. Neither of us is quite sure how we ended up body to body. The only clues I had were one missed phone call from him, and two text messages, about 30 minutes apart, in which he was trying to find me.

I'm glad he did eventually. I had no idea how we'd gotten to the point where it was just him and me. We'd gone out with a huge group of people, and I barely remember talking to him at Sitges. But somehow it had come down to just us two, and there we were, our bodies intertwined, looking into each other's eyes.

I looked away to postpone the awkward moment. It was only the second time I had been in this position with a friend, and the first time that he'd actually spent the night. I looked at the poster at the foot of my bed, leaning against a glass partition. It was a Spanish-language poster for the 1981 Bo Derek movie, Tarzan, the Ape Man. I'd found it a few months after moving to Buenos Aires, and I knew it would be perfect as the one wall decoration I was going to allow myself to have in my apartment. I got a nice but simple black frame for it, but I never did get around to hanging it up. I sort of liked the way it looked on the floor leaning against the glass. Thankfully, in the home invasion of February 2007, the robbers left it behind.

"When are you going to hang up that poster?" JM asked.

"Why? Don't you like it where it is now?" I asked, in turn.

He nodded yes, and asked what it was.

WTF?! He's never heard of Bo Derek or 10?!

I explained to him the legend of Bo Derek and her short-lived stint on Hollywood's A-list. Interestingly, he knew all about the cornrow craze -- which I had no idea had ever made it to Bolivia, where he's from -- but the name Bo Derek rang no bells. Of course, JM, being 23 years old, was born about five years after Bo Derek was over.

"Is she still alive?" he asked.

For the second time that morning I felt old. I couldn't believe my ears. I told him that she was only in her early 50s, and that she is engaged to the guy who plays Aidan on Sex and the City. Finally, a look of recognition. I'm not sure he knew who the guy who played Aidan was, but he'd heard of Sex and the City. "I was thinking that maybe she was like the other one, and she died young."

"You mean Farrah Fawcett?"

"Uh huh." He'd covered his tracks. And he knew who Farrah Fawcett was. Instant bonus points!

To avoid having any more years added to my life, and because I really wanted to, I moved in for a kiss. From that moment until JM left at 5 in the afternoon, Bo Derek was never mentioned again.