Alright kids, it’s that time of year again. You guessed it, Christmas is back, and y’all know what that means. Snow is already starting to dust the ground and the faint tinkle of caroling voices can almost be heard in the distance. Last year, during the holidays, I was feeling the heat something fierce. Having quit my job a few months previous, I was dead broke and feeling completely disconnected from all the holiday cheer. After the yule-tide rush had passed me by, I made a firm decision to never be caught in the same situation again. Miserly or not, I’ve no intention of forming myself into some kind of modern day scrooge, humbugging his way through December and bringing down the spirits of all those in his orbit. So this year, I hatched a salacious scheme to ensure a certain level of cash-flow for the holiday season. Little did I know, how important, or lucrative this scheme would turn out to be.
Allow me to begin with a small amount of back-story. For the first time in my life I have been working steadily and without too much griping. I get up each morning, make my commute, put in my hours, and every second Friday I receive a fair sum for my toils. This stability of employment alone should have assured me a sizable nest egg for Christmas, and I’m almost sure it would have, if not for one horrible misstep on my part.
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You see.. those close to me know that in addition to writing for thefuturists.ca and working full-time as a chemistry technician, I have also been training with the Canadian Bobsled Association to qualify for the one-man-luge (otherwise known as “skeleton”). It’s long been a dream of mine to represent my adopted country in the winter Olympics, and when it was announced that Vancouver would be hosting the games in 2010, I saw an opportunity to realize that dream. I began my training under the tutelage of Hanz Fueller (an Austrian ex-pat) in 2006, knowing full well that I had a long road to walk before I would even be considered as one of the 5 Canadians to represent their country in this thrilling discipline. And over the last four years, I’ve worked harder to lock down one of those coveted spots than I’ve ever worked at anything else in my entire life.
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Picture this. A blustery mid-October afternoon high in the hills above Whistler Village. The air is bitingly cold despite the proximity of summer. Ten young men stand at the top of a meandering half-pipe of ice. And hear me now oh faithful readers, your very own Gunslingrrr, your trusted narrator… he stands among them, wringing his hands through stiff ice-frozen gloves, staring down the track as if it were destiny embodied in breakneck form. His eyes are sharp yes, like the runners under his sled, they glide over the ice, marking the difficult turns and mapping an ambitious line through the course. Of these ten men, only the three with the best cumulative times on this day will earn a spot on the Olympic roster and subsequently a chance at Olympic infamy. Two spots have been taken already by wily veterans of the team. They too stand at the top of the course, but they don’t look down the track, rather, they stride calmly from one young hopeful to another, advising quietly, and doling out pocket-sized tips on which turns to watch out for, when to brake, and when to let the demon outta the bottle.
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Soon it’s time to begin. The men glance around, eyeing each other but not speaking a lick. Most have become fast-friends simply due to the trials and companionship afforded through this type of intense training. Also, there is a certain brotherhood among “skeleton riders” as they call themselves. The danger of it, the speed, the constant threat of severe injury or even death, these things have sown seed in the back of their minds and drawn them together as nothing else could. All that is gone now; having trained together, shared insights and fears, all at once these men are enemies. Each of them competing against the rest to earn a spot on the national team.
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Back to first person. We draw lots to determine who shall slide first. Ten men making three slides each, that makes thirty total, each one lasting just under 2 mins.. this will be over soon, in a little over an hour.. god I hope I make it. Somehow I manage to draw last slide, meaning that all nine hopefuls will make their first slide before I make mine. The position holds both advantages and disadvantages. Sliding last allows you to survey the course and adjust to mistakes you may see other “riders” making out there. It also gives you a goal, a set time you know you have to beat in order to make the top three. On the other hand, the more “riders” down, the slower the course gets. The blades on the sled are sharp as knives and they wreak havoc on the ice, cutting rivets and runnels into an otherwise smooth surface. Catching an edge on an imperfection like that could have disastrous results.
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Flash Forward. Your man, your intrepid reporter, that unreliable narrator, Mr. Gun S. Lingrrr sits at the top of the course, all alone now. The rest of the riders have completed their three slides, posting gaudy times. The competition is stiff today. To have any chance at all he’ll have to beat his personal best by a full 3/4ths of a second. It may not sounds like much, but in the world of bobsled, 3/4ths of a second is a fucking eternity.
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This is where it all went wrong for me. Sitting up there, at the very tippy-top of the course, a part of me knew the dream was over, I was sitting pretty in fifth place overall, and with a decent final run would probably jump one spot to fourth. But it wasn’t good enough. Only the top three times would qualify for the Canadian Olympic team. In fourth, the best I could hope for was to be an alternate, a sort of glorified cheerleader. Fuck that. The wind blew through my hair, stirring it across my forehead. I reached between my knees to grab my helmet and fastened it snug under my chin, turning the heavy duty visor down to shield my eyes from the reflective surface of the ice. In my head I ran over what one of the vets had told me before heading down to the bottom of the course. He’d said, “If you desperately need to make up time, try riding high on turn 5.. at it’s peak, that bastard will send you almost 90 degrees, if you come at it high and sling out low… well there’s almost a full second to be gained there. Just don’t mention it to coach, that’s a dangerous maneuver for a rookie.” With that he gave me an almost imperceptible nod and walked off.
In the weeks since that fateful day, I wished fervently that I’d have just let it go. I could’ve put in a solid run, and gone home disappointed, but otherwise alright. But rational thinking has never been my strong suit and the competitor inside took over. I set my teeth on edge and gave my tiny sled a helluva push, scrambling on with practiced ease and settling into the prostrate, laying down position that optimizes speed and maneuverability while minimizing wind resistance. The last thing I remember about that slide is heading into turn 5 with a great bit of momentum. I know I came in high. Probably too high. Later the coaches and my team-mates would tell me that they’d never seen a crash so spectacular. Apparently as I entered turn 5, one of the skates on my sled lodged itself in an ice-chip and was torn off the bottom of the sled. Within milliseconds the sled was overturned and I was flying through the air. They told me I struck the top barrier of the course with the small of my back and tumbled out view into the snow-covered underbrush surrounding the track. They came up alongside of the track on snowmobiles hollering my name to high heaven. I didn’t answer. I was unconscious. They thought I was dead.
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So what does all this have to do with Christmas, and furthermore with the salacious money making scheme I mentioned earlier? Well consider this. Coaches, team-mates and medical staff had dragged me off the mountain, a limp, raggedy-andy doll with his head lolling every which way on his shoulders. From the bottom of the mountain I was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital by helicopter (still my one and only heli-ride and I can’t believe I was playing possum for the whole of it). When I finally came to at the hospital a few hours after being admitted, I opened my eyes and saw a grave looking face staring back into mine. Feeling disoriented, the first words from my mouth were something inexorably dull like, “Where am I?” or “Who are you?”. In due time, as my faculties returned, I was told by the grave face (my doctor) that I was ridiculously lucky to have survived my crash without any major spinal damage, considering that I had rammed into a barrier ass first. Still shaky from the pain killers they had given me when I was out cold, I found it in me to ask him if I’d be alright. The grave face simply grinned and said, “Yea you’ll be fine.. though you have some soft tissue damage in your lower back that will take a good bit of time to heal.” He went on to say that it would be necessary for me to avoid any kind of physical exertion or heavy lifting at least until the new year.
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All I could think was… Oh shit. It’s happening again.. two months without a pay-cheque? With Christmas right around the corner.. I’m doomed.. Or I’m fucking cursed or something. Then, I got mamma bear to drive me back to futurists HQ and I slept for 24hrs.
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My dreams were feverish, and though I slept long, I doubt I slept soundly. I remember seeing crude colors all around me, like in a space-walk from a B-roll sci-fi movie, and I remember being chased by the imposing figures of all those who I had not bought Christmas presents for last year. There were a lot of these shadowy figures and they closed in on me sure-footedly, as I scrambled and ran in place, the way you do in dreams, moving quickly but never quite getting anywhere. Just when they were about to close in and suffocate me with their wanting, outstretched hands I looked up at my dream sky and saw the largest, frilliest pair of panties descending to me from the heavens. It was the hand of god, or the sous-vetements of god reaching out to save me from my accusers. I extended my hand towards the sky and caught hold of a particularly frilly portion of these giant under-garments, allowing the fortuitous appearance of the sexy underwear to carry me to safety.
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Upon waking I knew exactly what I had to do. The dream hadn’t been a dream at all, but a vision. A sign from god or aliens or whoever. A sign pointing me towards holiday wealth. I had a little over two months to execute my plan, and what a plan it was. I was floored by the implications. The idea had been fully formed in my mind when I stormed from bed, and it required little tweaking. Here-after you will find the plan I hatched that morning, outlined step by magnificent step.
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Step 1 — Head to the nearest department store and buy as many pairs of ladies underwear as I can possibly afford. Remember, to make money you gotta spend money.
Step 2 — Join a multitude of online communities, forums that cater to a certain type of individual who has a sexual affinity for woman’s lingerie. Craigslist works too.
Step 3 — Create a pay-pal account with my room-mate’s credit card, promise him a small (tiny) portion of the profits.
Step 4 — Create a different pseudonym on each of these websites and begin advertising “Used panties — worn by a tight little schoolgirl from Vancouver — 15 dollars each” accompanied by a photo (either fake or real) of one of the girls I know or possibly of myself. Maybe both. We’ll see which sells better.
Step 5 — Bide your time, be patient, and wait for the money to come flooding in.
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That’s it. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Well it was. This gig is like a license to print money. Within a few days of setting up the pay-pal account and putting up my various advertisements in the internet’s seedier neighborhoods, I was flooded with requests. What I hadn’t expected was men from Asia, Europe, and Africa trying to get their hands on my dirty panties. I’d been thinking small, assuming that the whole operation would happen on a local level rather than global. But apparently guys on the other side of the world were absolutely batty to order a pair of genuine Vancouver schoolgirl underwear.
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At first, I’d thought to ask a few of my girl-friends to wear the panties around for me, you know, to give them that lived in … texture, taste, smell, whatever. But I soon hubcapped this idea in favor of keeping the labor in-house. Why not just wear the panties myself, instead of outsourcing? I could throw them on under a pair of skinny jeans and no-one would know the difference. Little did I know that this was the first slippery step down the road to a delightful little addiction.
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I’ve always appreciated woman’s lingerie, in the way that most guys do. It’s nice, it’s soft, it’s pretty, sure, but most of my energy is focused on what I might find underneath. Because of this general inattention or maybe in spite of it, I was wholly unprepared for how completely fantastic a pair of woman’s panties feel around your junk. The sensation is wonderful, like having your boy-parts hanging in a silk hammock lined with fluffy clouds. Of course there is the problem of space, but it’s easily solved with a simple system of rotation. It’s like your momma told you, sharing is caring, and if everything doesn’t fit into that blissful frilly wonder-bed all at once, well the boys just have to take turns.
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The requests were becoming more and more extravagant. I could barely keep up, yet my burgeoning bank account egged me on. The money was getting too big and too real to quit. My original supply of tiny lady-pants had run out and I had orders and emails out the ying-yang. It was time to take this thing to the next step. This time I made a patronage to the nearest LaSenza, taking it on faith that this was the place to go to get some real foxy pieces. Any entrepreneur worth his weight in.. well, whatever he’s hawking, will tell you that in order to run a successful business you have to RE-INVEST your profits. And re-invest I did. This time instead of picking the pedestrian, almost modest pieces I’d purchased before, I put up for the laciest, sexiest, most provocative panties I could lay my eyes and hands on. The ladies at LaSenza must have thought I was crazier than a bedbug, walking outta there with 600 dollars worth of coquettish under-garments in a couple bags under my arms.
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Another rule of business is this, when your costs rise, you pass those costs on to the customer, at pain of taking the hit for them yourself. I must admit, I was a little nervous when I got home with my lascivious plunder. Scratching my head, I could barely believe that I had spent what amounted to nearly my entire profit on more underwear. After a brief moment where I quietly questioned my own sanity on this issue, I collected myself and moved forward with the next level of this money-making venture. But not before slipping on a red-hot, orgiastic little number that I’d marked in the store and set aside for myself. Rawr.
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This new wave of slightly-worn merchandise I sold at a considerable mark-up, thinking at first that nobody would be willing to pay 50 bucks for a pair of used panties, no matter how lacy or musky smelling. Boy was I wrong. The second batch sold like bottled water in hell. I barely had enough time to wear each pair before shipping them, and I’d begun to wear two at time in the name of efficiency. What a trip that was. Like having my reed and stones caressed by angels.
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So that’s where you find me now, a couple of weeks outside of Christmas and rolling in the green like never before. I think I may buy my little brother a mini-bike with my ill-gotten gains, I always wanted one of those when I was a kid. And my mom definitely needs some more bling around her neck.. pappa bear has been slacking. As for the great patriarch himself, I think he’ll find a great big box of Cuban cigars under the Christmas tree this year. Yea, that should do it. How’s that for Christmas cheer.
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As for myself. I’m gonna take whats left of the money and buy the silkiest, raciest, most intimate pair of panties I can find. Except these ones won’t be for sale. Personal use only baby. And as for the Olympic Bobsled team. There is always next time around. I hear sexy underwear can shave 3/4ths off your course time.
Fotos by Swashbuckle
Words by Gunslingrrr
Is this fiction?? Whatever it is, it’s amazing.
LOL…
where do i buy them