Vol. 1, Post #2 Panties From Heaven

Lingerie, cheese, and one happy postmaster. Another dip into my sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to their mid-50s by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, AKA people with readers.

I was sitting on my front porch a few years back with two younger male friends, one gay, one straight, shooting the shit about, what else? Food and sex like we do (bonded for life, I am with these two), when I casually asked, “Can I bring up something super personal?”

Eye-rolling ensued.

I continued, “No, SHUT UP! This is a tiny bit more personal than usual.”

Gay Pal said “SURE!” because he’s the braver of the two.

“I think I’m going to send Mister Appenzeller a pair of my dirty panties in the mail because we don’t get to see each other all that often and he’s definitely a panty hound. I’ve never done anything like this. So…How dirty do you think ‘dirty’ should be?”

We sat around in silence for a hot minute or two. Straight Pal might have blushed. I continued.

“I mean, no one wants CLEAN PANTIES, and no one wants ‘direct from some vending machine in Japan’ completely filthy panties because C’MON, YUCK, so what’s the right mix?”

I’m not sure we even settled on “the right mix” but the conversation got me thinking about desire. Specifically, how expressing desire to someone you trust is always so hot and usually emboldens expressed desire in return. This might be the true definition of passion – experiencing each other in the purest of light when nothing is off the table.

Mister Appenzeller had been a surprise to me. (He gets his moniker from a hard cow's-milk cheese produced in the Appenzellerland region of northeast Switzerland, served either pasteurized or raw – we liked it raw. Mister A. and I often laid around in bed and noshed on charcuterie in between insane lovemaking sessions. Hence, his alias here. In my previous post, I referred to him as the man to whom I was a love slave. Utterly.) He was a friend of a friend and most of our early days’ conversations and connections were cemented in food chat (there it is again), as well as music, another powerful aphrodisiac for me, until one day, I felt the tone of our talks shift. I was single, at the tail-end of the pandemic and in fact, was bitterly complaining to Mister A. about how my Ex was acting out and how I was just fed up with having to be the “bigger person.” Mister A. was sympathetic but also something more. He told me that I deserved better, that I was so smart and sexy, that I would easily find someone else to take my mind off of this if I was open to it. I thanked him and then started to notice that the rest of our exchange that evening, both of us in our respective houses, shut in and restless, seemed…warmer than usual.

The next day, I woke up, not with thoughts of how crazy my Ex was behaving, but of Mister A. I thought, “What the fuck…” and texted him this: “You know, I was flirting with you last night. Just being honest.”

He responded: “Oh, we’re being honest? Then let me tell you that I’ve wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

And thus began what I can only describe as an epic love affair. Awesome even – and if you know me well, you know that I ABHOR the word “awesome” because you know what’s awesome? The Pyramids. The Grand Canyon. Those chicken wings you ate at the new gastropub are not awesome. Neither is that new Hulu series. Awesome is a word that, in my mind, should be employed when you are rendered almost speechless. This love affair was awesome.

It was also long distance, so the weeks in between seeing one another were full of longing. And sexting.

Sexting never turned me on. I’d get into it a little bit in advance of a date when I knew we’d end up in bed as part of the foreplay but hardcore sexting, or video sexting? The idea usual left me cold. NOT because I don’t like dick pics. I do (NOT unsolicited dick pics, so halt those brakes, Peanut Gallery), but in general, photos of engorged cocks no matter who the sender leave me thinking, okaaaaaaaaaaay. Not sure what to do with this, Guy. But with Mister A., the sexting was deep. Very, very, very deep. I loved every minute of it.

And I think that one of the reasons I loved it so much is that both of us, with our very imperfect aging bodies, were enthralled with how we were making each other feel and specifically, how we were making each other feel SEEN.

I am not shy about my naked body. I remember that when I was pregnant with my son, I would sometimes walk from the exam room at my OB/GYN’s office to the ultrasound room without a gown, not only because that small warren of rooms in his office were entirely private but also, I felt like a vessel. A beautiful, holy vessel, carrying this child who was the focal point of everything in that moment. That, combined with a not-remotely-secret love of skinny-dipping, makes Naked a fairly easy place for me to be. Luckily not one who had any teenage girl eating disorders and most definitely not a Skinny Girl once puberty hit and breasts and hips were front and center, I indeed loved my body when I was pregnant, and years later, I still love it. Things jiggle. There are parts of me that will never be toned the same way again. Veins and spots pop up here and there. I don’t care. Being naked is a joy and in Mister A., I had found someone who totally agreed, who unabashedly loved my body too, and, truth be told, was FAR more naked than I. He loved showing me his naked body, every part of it. Besotted by all of this, I showed him all of me, on command, or whenever I wanted to strip down for both of our pleasure. Happily. No filters, literally and figuratively. I loved seeing my body though his eyes. He once sent me a photo that he had taken of me while we were having sex and I realized, “Hmm, so that’s what my asshole looks like.” This was not an uncomfortable thought.

Sidebar about being older and being naked with a lover – one of my closest Gal Pals cackles non-stop at the following story: I was dating a man who was a young widower. We were ultimately not a match but as many of you already know, men just want to see naked women. They don’t care if your belly is flat. Case in point: mine is not and this guy referred to me as “a young Raquel Welch.” Gal Pal and I still can’t stop laughing over that line. Oh, sure.

Also, in case this part of the story isn’t crystal clear, it was me, not Mister A. who thought up the panties by mail. Mister A. loved to undress me, and I loved to wear lingerie for him, which is funny because I don’t like or even wear underwear IRL. I joke that the one Hanky Panky bright blue thong I own is for 1) when I wear leather or pleather pants, or 2) for superstition – I bought the thong on the morning of the first Obama election as an extra effort to “go blue” and now, if I remember, I wear it every Election Day. Note to self: get the thong ready.

This is where I tell you that lingerie on an imperfect aging body is one of the greatest things ever. And there are PLENTY of places to shop for lingerie that are size inclusive if that’s a concern of yours, including the made-to-measure UK-based Buttress & Snatch, or The Red Foxxx in my sweet little town of Woodstock, NY, as well as a jillion other locales. Don’t own any lingerie and need some help? Online retailers Understatement and Thistle & Spire both have based a major component of their marketing campaigns around the idea that everybody deserves to feel sexy, so if you like, order up a ton of options and try on at home, but, even better, GO TO A STORE AND TELL A SALESPERSON TO HOLD YOUR HAND. They’ve seen it all and a good salesperson is the best lingerie fairy godmother you can have. Hell, do you want me to meet you to do some shopping? If in you’re in the NYC metro area, ring me up!

So…back to Mister A. and my decision to surprise him with a Special Delivery. I went shopping for panties. That was fun, because I thought about what he’d like, and (just as important), what I’d like to wear for him, in advance of taking them off and putting them in the mail.

I’ll spare you the details about “marinating” the panties and just tell you that when they were ready to mail off, I sprayed the sides of them with my perfume (a baller move, suggested to me by the saleswoman at Journelle off Union Square in New York. I told her why I was shopping, and she was TOADULLY into it), sealed them up in a Ziploc, and went to the post office.

I have to admit, while I was waiting for this package to arrive at its destination, I was slightly on edge. Would Mister A. appreciate this, or would it seem, I dunno, weird? Also, what kind of maniac sends panties in the mail, much less what kind of Young Old (YO) maniac? Do you remember that scene in the film “Little Children” with Kate Winslet when she catches her scuzzy husband jerking off with panties strapped to his head, panties purchased from an online porn pro? That on-screen moment was meant to give you all the Icks, from Kate catching Husband in the act, to the fact that he had purchased Said Panties from a pro, so in theory, there was no love baked into that tiny piece of fabric. But this little secret of mine (the wearing of them AND the mailing of them) really turned me on and made me feel exceptionally slinky.

A few days later, I got this text:

“I am devouring you.  I can’t think or do much else right now.”

Going forward, sending Mister A. a special package became part of our routine. He never knew when he was going to receive a surprise via the mail and it was a component in our sex life that kept things roaring along when we couldn’t be together. He joked that he could make a quilt. He also told me that he could recall with perfect detail when he received every pair, and particularly tantalizing were the times when he got a text from the mailroom in his building, telling him that he had a package waiting, knowing he had not ordered anything at Amazon or similar, so, perhaps…maybe…the package was from me. Or, since he worked crazy hours, there were times when he had an assistant grab his mail and bring it to his office and there, amid bills and junk, was a small package from me, which sat on his desk, a siren’s call. I loved hearing these stories.

I’ll leave you to ponder this, Dear Readers. Desire, to me, isn’t necessarily a broadcast feeling. I mean, I’m sure you, like me, have a penchant for certain specific elements in sex over other elements, and I hope you express these wishes to your partners. The panties-by-mail thing remains firmly something that I only enjoy with Mister A.; a few years back, I had another lover who made his love of lingerie well known, so I wincingly bit the bullet and accommodated him (I wore crotchless panties on one of our sleepover dates and then left them on his bedside table). He loved it. He sent me a photo of himself loving it. I broke up with him about two weeks later, utterly skeeved out (the panty-love was just a final straw).

Final thought – think my postmaster is on to me? I bought stamps last week and he gave me what I can only describe as an ENORMOUSLY big greeting. Like, not the kind of greeting you get for stamps.