The alarm roused me. I was groggy.
The gift bags were mostly packed already. I had stocked them with dark and milk chocolate kisses from Hershey. THC chocolates in the shape of lips. Blindfolds, lube, condoms. But there were a few remaining items that I needed to distribute, and they required at least a little thought and coordination.
I had ordered matching panties for the ladies – lacy black boy shorts from Journelle.
And I had three sets of three panties, in each of three sizes – extra small, small, and medium. I did my best to guess who would fit into which best. I printed out a label for each lady with her name on it. I placed the labels on my floor, and I placed the bags above each label. I snapped a photo, and sent it to all….
I deposited a pair of panties in each one.
I had some lingerie in my office left over from previous dates with Polina. I picked out some for each of the women, and once I had confirmed that I had enough for all, I placed those in the bags. I had a gorgeous Agent Provocateur bra that I knew hoped would fit Cee (it was her size – 36C). I put that in her bag. [Spoiler: it’s too small – for her. But I like it on her just fine.]
I had made fun T-shirts. I put them in the bags.
I printed out the gift certificates, six each for all the women. Except for Serena, who would only get four. Two of the gift certificates, one for lingerie and one for a vibrator, came with the requirement that in exchange for my buying the object for the woman, she would then provide me with photographic or video evidence every time she used or wore it. Serena can’t do that. She can’t live up to that requirement. I know this because she has lingerie I’ve given her and a wand that I’ve given her that have never produced the promised fruits. Ditto Polina with the vibrator.
A couple of the women, I was paying. I laid out their bills, snapped pictures of them and sent them, put them in envelopes, and put those envelopes in their respective bags. And then I assembled the bags. I took pictures of them and sent them to all the ladies. And I took Serena’s leash, looped it through the handles of the bags and made a carrying strap.
I had a box for six bottles of Prosecco that had been sitting in my refrigerator. I put the Prosecco in the box. I finished all this just at about 3 p.m., the time I had allocated for meditation. Once again, I inflated my neck collar, closed my eyes, and crossed my legs. Forty-five minutes later, deeply in touch with my longing and my pleasure, my excitement and my gratification, I went to the gym.
I spent twenty minutes on an elliptical, listening to a podcast about something or other, looking at the svelte blonde on the treadmill directly in front of me, wishing there were just a little more meat on her bones. When the twenty minutes was up, I cleaned off the elliptical, headed downstairs to the locker room. I undressed, spent five or seven minutes breathing slowly and meditating once again in the sauna, and then headed to the shower.
The showers at my gym, for a couple of months now, have not featured particularly hot water. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s very frustrating. So, I had a lukewarm shower. I ran my little rotary blade head shaver over my scalp. I stretched my quads as the water ran over me, thinking about the fun that was to come. Came out, weighed myself, dressed, and went back to my office to pick up all the stuff.
I got in an Uber, texted Anastasia, my ETA, and headed to the hotel.
As my cab wended its way south through trafficky streets – streets less trafficky than they would have been absent our phenomenal new congestion pricing scheme – I texted the women. “Show me you as you dress!” I texted.
In my original, passive version of this evening, Anastasia would have managed this (and managed it better than I did, in the event). She would have elicited from each participant a sexy stream of photos, beginning with each woman in panties and ending with each fully clothed.
In the event, while some hotness ensued, from Serena, Polina, Cee, and Amira, none fed me quite what I had hoped, in the form I had hoped. Another opportunity to reconcile myself to my imperfect control of the universe, to the fact of each woman’s subjectivity, her difference from me. An opportunity for mourning on a small scale.