Victoria’s Secret

Billy Collins

The one in the upper-left-hand corner
is giving me a look
that says I know you are here
and I have nothing better to do
for the remainder of human time
than return your persistent but engaging stare.
She is wearing a deeply scalloped
flame-stitch halter top
with padded push-up styling
and easy side-zip tap pants.

The one on the facing page, however,
who looks at me over her bare shoulder,
cannot hide the shadow of annoyance in her brow.
You have interrupted me,
she seems to be saying,
with your coughing and your loud music.
Now please leave me alone;
let me finish whatever it was I was doing
in my organza-trimmed
whisperweight camisole with
keyhole closure and point d’esprit mesh back.

I wet my thumb and flip the page.
Here, the one who happens to be reclining
in a satin and lace merry widow
with an inset lace-up front,
decorated underwire cups and bodice
with lace ruffles along the bottom
and hook-and-eye closure in the back,
is wearing a slightly contorted expression,
her head thrust back, mouth partially open,
a confusing mixture of pain and surprise
as if she had stepped on a tack
just as I was breaking down
her bedroom door with my shoulder.

Nor does the one directly beneath her
looking particularly happy to see me.
She is arching one eyebrow slightly
as if to say, so what if I am wearing nothing
but this stretch panne velvet bodysuit
with a low sweetheart neckline
featuring molded cups and adjustable straps.
Do you have a problem with that?!

The one on the far right is easier to take,
her eyes half-closed
as if she were listening to a medley
of lullabies playing faintly on a music box.
Soon she will drop off to sleep,
her head nestled in the soft crook of her arm,
and later she will wake up in her
Spandex slip dress with the high side slit,
deep scoop neckline, elastic shirring,
and concealed back zip and vent.

But opposite her,
stretched out catlike on a couch
in the warm glow of a paneled library,
is one who wears a distinctly challenging expression,
her face tipped up, exposing
her long neck, her perfectly flared nostrils.
Go ahead, her expression tells me,
take off my satin charmeuse gown
with a sheer, jacquard bodice
decorated with a touch of shimmering Lurex.
Go ahead, fling it into the fireplace.
What do I care, her eyes say, we’re all going to hell anyway.

I have other mail to open,
but I cannot help noticing her neighbor
whose eyes are downcast,
her head ever so demurely bowed to the side
as if she were the model who sat for Coreggio
when he painted “The Madonna of St. Jerome,”
only, it became so ungodly hot in Parma
that afternoon, she had to remove
the traditional blue robe
and pose there in his studio
in a beautifully shaped satin teddy
with an embossed V-front,
princess seaming to mold the bodice,
and puckered knit detail.

And occupying the whole facing page
is one who displays that expression
we have come to associate with photographic beauty.
Yes, she is pouting about something,
all lower lip and cheekbone.
Perhaps her ice cream has tumbled
out of its cone onto the parquet floor.
Perhaps she has been waiting all day
for a new sofa to be delivered,
waiting all day in stretch lace hipster
with lattice edging, satin frog closures,
velvet scrollwork, cuffed ankles,
flare silhouette, and knotted shoulder straps
available in black, champagne, almond,
cinnabar, plum, bronze, mocha,
peach, ivory, caramel, blush, butter, rose, and periwinkle.
It is, of course, impossible to say,
impossible to know what she is thinking,
why her mouth is the shape of petulance.

But this is already too much.
Who has the time to linger on these delicate
lures, these once unmentionable things?

From Secrets in Lace, of course.

OK, first things first: I am an asshole.  I really really really apologize for sending you a bunch of crap and kind-of nagging emails. I am so very sorry.  I didn’t mean to and just kind of got caught up in the moment, so I hope you will forgive me.

Anyhow, I hope all is well, or as well as it can be. I have gone through some tough shit in the last year (Last year? How about the last decade?) so I can tell you that it is important to take care of yourself. Caring for yourself is an act of daily healing.

Daily Healing List:

– Eat well. Veggies, fruits, no meat in the evening, olive oil, long grain rice, whole grain breads, etc.
– Don’t smoke. (ABSOLUTELY NO DRUGS!!!)
– Drink wine with food. A bottle a week.
– Have a daily non-exhausting workout regimen. Swim if you can, ride a bicycle if you enjoy it.
– Read good books.
– Drink 2 liters of good liquids a day. That’s 8 cups. "Good" means no Cola, Pepsi, etc. Yes, you will pee a lot, but so what?
– Don’t eat trashy junk food. (Tostitos, Oreos, Doritos, potato chips, etc)
– Sleep well.
– Air out your house every day.
– Make sure your bedroom is clean and organized.
– Floss every day. (The more you floss the less it will hurt.)
– Pamper yourself. Buy an electric toothbrush, drink flavored teas, own a soft bathrobe, eat spinach salad even if it’s more expensive than lettuce, buy a small wooden stool for when you stretch your feet, own a piece of satin lingerie, experiment with different fun lipsticks, read Marcel Proust in bed in satin lingerie, get a professional manicure once a month.
– Have a plant, even if it’s a cactus.
– Read about religion. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, whatever. Exclude Islam which is a gang, Mormonism which is a corporation and AlGoreanism which is a scam. Read about history – the French Revolution, the Ming Dynasty, the Greeks, the Persians, etc etc. Both provide calm and perspective.
– Hang paintings and pictures on the walls.
– If you have the space, have a nicely upholstered old-school comfortable couch in your bedroom.
 
So this is my gift to you. The trick to spoiling yourself with small simple things, on a daily basis, and most are inexpensive. I hope that I’m not going too Deepak Chopra on you. (I think he is a douche. But I’m saying that with love.) (Or as Triumph the insult comic dog would say, "He is a nice guy,… for me to poop on!")

Thank you for taking the time to read my emails.

Humbly and adoringly, Mr. B

PS.  The amazing site you introduced me to, Secrets in Lace, has a new item and a new model — both of which are driving me to distraction.  Normally, I’m not very big on blondes, but this woman is in a class of her own.  The picture of the blonde and the brunette (here) is just heaven. I won’t indulge in details, but when I landed on this page half my day was shot, and I literally had to take two rests in between. That site is heaven. It’s art and desire and fantasy fulfillment and style and time and and and. They deserve a Nobel prize.)

____________________________________________________

Dear Mr. B.:

While you didn’t "indulge in details," I know exactly what you did while you were there.  And you did it more than once, didn’t you?  You know I know, don’t you?

And I have to admit, there really is something quite charming, even disarming, about a man who detours the hard stuff for Secrets and Lace … and shoots half a day.  Or maybe more?

If you get my drift.  Because I certainly get yours.  *wink*

xo, Angela

Feminine Side

by Shane Allison

I need a dress.
Something silky & soft
against my hairy legs.

I want to raid my mama’s
closet of Gucci purses
while she’s away in the mall

browsing through Sunday dresses,
sifting through skirts & sweaters,
eating egg rolls & Styrofoam plates

of fried rice. I want shoes that strap over
the ankle, lipstick to shade the mouth
that blow-dries manicured nails.

I want something sequined
& over the shoulder,
Something with the color blue in it.

I need perfume tonight.
Colors & dyes at the nape of my neck
to make the men go wild.

No kissing you’ll smear my lipstick,
make my mascara run.
I’ve got black beneath this dress.

A dick easy enough to tuck between my thighs,
There’s 4 hundred years of oppression under here.
Stereotypes in wispy eyelashes.

Sticks & stones in the hymn
Of mama’s pretty red dress.
Men want to know my beauty queen secrets

As they clinch a bitch in their fist in claustrophobic
alleyways. They long for breasts, tissues to stuff
in borrowed beige bras from wives

& girlfriends who work late at the office
in the only shoes that will go
with that mini-skirt.

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