* * * * * * * *
It's been a while since I wrote in this. I didn't date the last entry, so I'm not sure. Could be a couple of years. Well, the last thing I'd done was to destroy the black tights. I was really good about keeping tights out of my mind. I still haven't had a steady girl friend. I've dated a little, but no sparks. One girl was into me, but she wasn't as pretty as I wanted. I'm in love with Farrah Fawcett. Lee Majors is so damned lucky! I have several posters of Farrah in my room. Anyway, it kind of makes it difficult finding lesser girls attractive. I should probably take down the posters.
Anyway, I don't know how it happened, but I got weak about tights. I saw this girl wearing a nice dark red pair of tights and they looked so terrific. And then she took one of her shoes off and started rubbing her foot. It wasn't like her foot was in pain; it was more like she just liked caressing her tights clad foot. She rolled her foot around in a circle, over and over... it was kind of hypnotic. I stared. And then I sensed something, raising my head up to look, and she caught me starting at her foot. She kind of gave me a half-smile. I quickly looked away in embarrassment. When I looked back she wasn't looking my way any longer and put her shoe back on. She was standing in a check-out line just one over from where I was. Her line sped up while mine slowed down. She checked out and started heading towards the exit. And then she looked my way for a moment, with no smile. I looked at her, then she looked away and left. Wow did she look good in those red tights. If I'd been brave enough, I'd have left the line and ran to catch up with her. But what would I say? "Hey, nice red tights you're wearing!" Right.
 |
| Girl in bright red tights |
The moment was gone and that was it. I'd also forgotten that I was standing in line behind my mother. She was grocery shopping and I'd come along.
After we packed up everything, we hit the road and started heading home. While driving through the town that neighbors ours, I noticed this little store that I hadn't paid attention to before. What caught my eye was the fact that some tights and leotards were hanging in the window. "The Village Dance Shoppe" was displayed on a rather small sign. No wonder why I'd missed it up until now.
So... a dancewear store not that far from my home. A place I could easily reach by bicycle.
It was a few weeks later when I finally decided to do it. On a Saturday afternoon, I got on my bike and pedaled my way to the store. It was about 20 minutes and I was in the small parking lot off to the side. There was one car in the lot, near the door, so that meant there would be a customer. It would mean I could go inside, browse around, and not be bothered while the sales staff attended to someone else. Walking in, a bell giggled atop the door, and everyone I could see straight off turned to look at me. It was a middle aged woman helping another slightly younger woman with a little girl in tow. They were in the process of checking out some items. "I'll be right with you," the older woman said to me. The little girl just stood and stared at me. I started wandering down one of the isles. There were rows and rows of leotards, tutus, and other girly looking things. At first glance, it looked like there was nothing for boys. Well, this is sure looking to be one big embarrassment. As I rounded the end of the aisle and started heading back up the other side, the woman and her daughter headed out the door. The little girl kept an eagle eye on me the whole time, as if I was some kind of crazy freak. Maybe she was sensing my anxiety and couldn't help herself. Supposedly kids have an extraordinary sense of people, until they get polluted by adolescence.
"So, what can I help you with, young man?" The older woman was standing directly in front of me, kind of sizing me up as her eyes surveyed my stature. "Are you a dancer?" "Uh, no. I'm here to pick up a pair of tights for my sister. Do you have any red tights?" "Red tights? That's a peculiar color for dance. Are you sure?" "All I know is that they're supposed to be red." [I was probably turning beet red by this point.] "Perhaps we should call your home, just to be sure." "Nobody is home right now. I'm sure they're supposed to be red." "Very well then. What size is she?" "Uh, she's about my height." The lady looked at me for a moment, then went behind the counter and rummaged through a few shelves underneath. In a moment, pulled up a pair and rested them on the counter. They weren't DANSKIN, but instead a brand I'd never heard before. GYM-KIN. There was a drawing of a girl en pointe, outlined in color on a black background.
"Here, I think these should fit you. That will be $8.99." I quickly gave her a $10 bill, trying to ignore the fact that she just said the tights should fit me. She gave me my change, put the tights and receipt in the bag, then grinned at me. "Thank you, ma'am." "You're welcome. Enjoy the tights!" I hurried out of the store, got on my bicycle, and started to pull out. I was so jittery that I'd forgotten to unlock my bicycle from the pole, which I quickly took care of, and got on my way..
The bag that the lady put the tights in was plain and solid, which was great so that I didn't have to worry about some dance wear store name on the outside. I tied it off to the handlebar and rode home. When I got there, mom was already home. I brought my bicycle in to the basement. I then took the tights out and wrapped them around my waist underneath my shirt, and stashed the bag away.
Upstairs in the privacy of my room, I stripped nude below my waist, got out the tights, and began to put them on. "These should fit you." Yeah, right. In some respects, I think the woman purposefully gave me tights that would be too small. I could get them on, but they were very tight and didn't stay opaque. They didn't fit as well as the black tights I had destroyed. So, I was duped and out $10. Well, at least I'd crossed the threshold of having bought my first pair of tights and endured the embarrassment. In some respects, it was sort of an "I told you so"... see? The fetish was supposed to be forgotten. My attempt to rekindle it was a failure.
[And so that was it. For the rest of my teenage years, I wouldn't indulge in tights at all. In college, there were "active wear" stores in town, some that sent out heavy tights marketing on Halloween to get sales going and I could have bought from them, but I didn't. I'd thought about it, but tried to keep my promise of not wearing tights anymore.]
I don't think my periods of abstainance were ever more than a couple of years. It seemed like there was always some binge period when I would locate another pair of tights/pantyhose to wear. And then the cycle would repeat itself.
ReplyDeleteI do have to give you so much credit to buy tights at such a young age. Though it sounds like your environment and the dance community enabled you to at least have access to dance shops and men's dance tights. Of course you also had access to family members drawers. Which is where most of us found our first pair of seductive tights anyway ;-)
Growing up in a farm community there were no ballet classes or dance shops nearby. So the only way to get tights was to buy women's at a store. I had to wait till young adulthood to finally purchase my very own pair instead of purloining the odd pair here and there from family and friends hoping they wouldn't nice the missing tights.
It's interesting isn't it, how we could go for a couple of years without it, but then there would be a trigger that beckons the revival?
DeleteThanks for the affirmation. I was really nervous and felt so terribly anxious doing it the first time, but then afterward it was like OK, that wasn't so bad. The real fear would be the horrible coincidence of chaos, like, a person I know appearing on the scene while I'm buying tights. Or, that someone there would be a person I'd meet later on and they'd recognize me, because I was the peculiar boy who bought tights. Thankfully that never happened!
Yeah, I almost took Mrs. Blausen's tights that one time back in my childhood. But I thought it through quite a bit and made the realization that the trail might come back to me. It probably wouldn't have, but I was so paranoid that I expected things were against me and would seek out to do me wrong at any turn. Funny enough, I learned later on that I'd set myself up for encouragement of things going wrong, outside the fetish in my normal life. We can be our own worst enemy, if we're not careful. ;-)