It was one of those internet relationships that people started having during the Late Aughts: We met online, exchanged pics, exchanged fantasies (mostly mine), exchanged racy pics (mostly hers), chatted, vidchatted. Then maybe vidchatted some more.
And we also exchanged music playlists, dozens of them. Claire was a natural-born hipster, while I was a grad-school square who nevertheless worshiped Rob Sheffield’s Love Is a Mixtape. Both of the initial playlists we made for each other — completely independently — contained the James song “Laid,” which includes the line “Dressed me up in women’s clothes.” So maybe that was where the idea originally came from.
Although I can’t remember who made the first suggestion. I might have said something about being willing to put on a pair of women’s underwear for her — you know, as a joke. But at some point she did make this request seriously. And by then I was in debt to her for dozens of pics already.
Fortunately there was an independent lingerie store in my neighborhood. I’d never previously noticed it, before I started hunting for ways to fulfill Claire’s request. But that store turned out to be crucial to this stunt — because there was no chance of me walking into a Victoria’s Secret for this purpose.
And doubly fortunately for me, the time was right after Valentine’s Day. As a result, lots of items at this store were marked down. Including many larger items, which were obviously what I needed.
But I couldn’t quite understand how these unfamiliar garments were sized. And while I was searching around the store, peering at dozens of confusing tags (and fondling some curious fabrics), a dreaded confrontation arose: I was approached by a nice middle-aged saleslady. Her name tag read “Pilar.”
“Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?” Pilar asked me.
I gave it to her straight: “My girlfriend wants me to buy something that I can wear,” I may even have exaggerated the “I” in that sentence for clarity. Although, okay, I might have been exaggerating a bit about the “girlfriend” too.
But rather than being puzzled by my request, Pilar simply decided not to hear it. Instead she pointed me toward yet another clearance rack displaying more overtly feminine designs. This turned out to be the very rack I needed: XXLs in red and pink, plenty of lace — everything. I bought three pairs, unsure which was really in my style.
I took my purchases home and immediately had a shave down there — because I’m a guy who goes the extra mile, dammit. Then I stepped into the first lacy-pink pair and noticed… ummmm, wow, the snugness. I hadn’t felt anything like this before. Not in the jockstrap I wore playing goalkeeper; not in the cup I wore playing catcher; not even in the spandex tights I wore hiking.
And this wasn’t a good feeling at all. More of an uncomfortable… cupping feeling. You might compare the sensation to having your genitals shrink-wrapped. All three pairs of underthings had this effect. So I snapped the pics, sent them off to Claire, and then freed myself of the clingy fabrics as quickly as possible: I balled them up and threw them into a corner of my closet. I knew that some guys enjoyed the sensation of wearing women’s underclothes, and yet others benefited from showing a bit of heteroflexibility — but not me, not here. Wearing women’s clothes simply wasn’t my thing. Frankly, I never wanted to think about those panties again.
When Claire received my pics, her responses were appropriately delighted and hilarious. I loved to see her playful, passionate personality illuminated in this adorable way. These had to be the most appreciated junk pics I’d ever snapped.
When an internet affair ends, the process can be startlingly quick and clean. You might not get even one chance to ask for an explanation or plead a case: Instead your inbox just stops filling up. When Claire was gone from my life — that is, when her online presence stopped engaging with mine — she simply vanished. One or two words of warning, and then poof!
(And what could the explanation have been anyway? She clearly just went on to something else. Any of a million things in real life. Or a trillion possibilities, online.)
Of course I still kept everything Claire had sent me: photos, writings, videos. I had even saved every word of our online chats. But these artifacts were all digital; they were just virtual Claire. And they reminded me of how little contact we’d actually had: I still didn’t know the smell of her hair, the touch of her skin, or the taste of her lips. And I never would.
What I did have, of course, were three balled-up pairs of panties stashed in a forgotten corner of my closet. I had only bad associations with those frilly things — uncomfortable feelings, anyway. But as time passed I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw them away. They were the only concrete, analog, non-virtual things that would ever remind me of her.
I never donned the underwear again, of course. I never even touched them; after all, she never had either. I just occasionally… looked at them, I guess. Reminded myself that they were there. As a spur to memory, this was pathetic and unsatisfactory — but it was the best I could do.
So that’s why I have three pairs of XXL-sized women’s panties in my closet. That’s the whole story, I promise. Now can we just go out to the movies like we originally planned?
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
