2 comments/ 4165 views/ 0 favorites P.F.M. By: rikkitampa2014 Forbes, in a recent article, dubbed me The Panty Man. People can laugh and call me anything they want—as long as I get to keep hauling bags of money to the bank every week, and from there to my tax shelter in the Caymans. Donald Trump couldn't have said it better. As with many things in life I owe the success of my company, Panties For Men (P.F.M.), to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Which is to say I owe the success of Panties For Men to, irony of ironies, women. And in particular those women who spend their evenings, while their husbands or boyfriends, or both, lie snoring on the couch or watching an endless ballgame, compulsively shopping on the internet. God bless all of you! Come to think of it, it was a woman (though I'd never admit this to her for legal reasons) who planted the seed for P.F.M. in my head. Literally my head—by throwing one of her stretched-out and recently soiled panties in my face. "Go buy your own damn panties you faggot!" she shouted, before storming out of the room, and not long after that, out of my life. At that moment P.F.M., though far from being born, was conceived. It was a seminal moment. The concept behind P.F.M. did not come out of extensive market research; I lacked the resources for that. No, the concept behind P.F.M. came out of that age-old philosophical question: Do men dress up in women's panties because it makes them feel effeminate, i.e., puts them in touch with their "feminine" side; or do men dress up in women's panties because the damn things feel so good when you put them on? Your little (or big, I don't know) shaved genitals nestled in all that sensuous microfiber. I bet heavily on the latter. I was wrong. Oh so very wrong. My next step was to seek capital funding. I couldn't very well go to a traditional bank. Those laughing bastards would have, metaphorically speaking, thrown the idea right back in my face. And no way I was going the crowdfunding route. What, and have some loser come along and steal my idea? In return for a $10 investment? So I turned to dear old dad. Recently "retired" from Goldman Sachs with a handsome Golden Parachute. (I initially thought about calling my company Goldmen Sacs, until someone pointed out to me this made no sense because a) the panties wouldn't be gold in color, at least not all of them, and b) I'd probably get my ass sued off. Dad said, to my request for a "loan" for $100,000: "Again?" And I replied, practically dancing in place with excitement, "No, this time I'm really on to something, dad." "Which is?" "I can't tell you. You'll just have to trust me. Plus you'll get a ten percent share in the company." Dad raised craggy eyebrows. "OK, fifteen. A...a twenty percent share in the company. Plus I promise to pay the loan back within two years. Plus interest. Prime plus...five percent? Six?" Dad smiled and lifted his glass of Glenmorangie up at me. It was as good as a handshake. With my $200,000 loan now in hand (I decided to hit dad up for an extra $100K while I was at it), my next step was to find a manufacturing partner. This did not require any research. I'd already done that months ago—after Dorey left me. Having inherited a chest full of empty underwear drawers, I now had to go online and pick out my own panty brands. I tried many. Some were good, some not so good. The width of the crotch often being an issue. Then, after much first-person trial and error, I hit paydirt. Helga's. Helga's-brand women's panties come in three styles: bikini, French-cut and full. I prefer the French-cut (not too low on the waist, not too high) but they're all exquisite. And they all—all—every single blessed one of them—fit the male anatomy perfectly. The crotch is plenty wide; the panty hugs your ass and never rides up in the back (and yes, OK, I have a rather flat ass); and the microfiber material is like a layer of cream against the skin. How I love to caress myself in them! (But I digress...) If I have one complaint about Helga's panties it's that all of them come with a lace waistband. Every style. Sometimes a girl wants to dress in lace, sometimes not, you know? But this is like complaining that there's too much icing on your French bakery birthday cake... It took three tries—three Fed-Ex overnight envelopes to a Helga's Veep asking for a sit, to pitch my idea. But I finally got an email reply. After some back and forth a date was set and I flew to Newark, and on to Paramus via Hertz on dad's dime. The ball was rolling... My pitch to the Helga's execs was simple. Men have a right to feel sexy too, don't they? Underneath their clothes? (Or prancing around in the livingroom?) Why do women get to have all the fun? As for the manufacturing side of things, nothing would have to be retooled. Helga's panties already fit the male anatomy perfectly. All the sweatshop employees in China would have to do is drop the lace. And stamp them P.F.M. inside the waistband rather than Helga's. What could be simpler? I offered them the same deal I'd offered dad: 10% of the company (I was prepared to up it to 15) in return for them fronting the manufacturing and related costs for the first year. If I reimbursed them within 12 months I'd be eligible to buy my shares back. The marketing and distributing costs would come out of my pocket (dad's actually). Then came the coup-de-grace. I'd intentionally underdressed for our meeting. The Mark Zuckerberg look. Now, with the verbal portion of my presentation complete, I stepped over into a clear area of the spacious conference room, into the sunlight, in full view of all in attendance, pulled off my top, stepped out of my sockless loafers and dropped my jeans. A couple of weeks before I'd purchased a few pair of white Helga's French-cuts online. Then I'd soaked them in red dye #5. The really heavy-duty toxic stuff. It was these I now "presented" in situ to the room's collective group of astonished—gasping even—execs. Not to brag but I've always considered myself to have a nice, slender, well-proportioned body. And from the waist down, a somewhat feminine one. Dorey used to say that with my legs I should've been a girl model. And now I finally got the chance to realize the career path that I was perhaps destined for. Elbow on hip, I smiled and turned and turned again. I came closer. In fact I sashayed around the end of the table where all the execs—all of them middle-aged women—sat. "Wow," one of them said. "Double wow," another. It was probably one of these two who pulled me aside after the pitch, into her office, locked the door and said, fanning her hot-flashed face with her free hand, "I've been in the underwear biz for going on 20 years, and I've always wanted to feel a man's balls in a pair of our panties. Can I...?" "Sure!" I grinned, glad to oblige. "Do we have a deal?" "We'll see." "Can you make it happen?" "It's not my decision." "Can you try?" "I'll...try. Oh my. Oh!" I should've warned her I hadn't masturbated in a few days. Quite a few. Too uptight about the upcoming meeting. Don't ask me why but my eyes had landed on the array of framed photos lining the sill behind the exec's desk. It appeared she had a 50-something husband, a college-age daughter and son, and a younger daughter still in highschool. At least those were my somewhat blurry deductions as I stood there creaming my panties and the fondling woman's hand. Fortunately she had a private bathroom. My only regret was that I hadn't brought along a tube of crimson lipstick to complement my dyed panties. I think it would have enhanced the presentation, don't you? On the other hand, this being the Zuckerberg look, I hadn't bothered to shave that morning... Helga's took the bait and agreed to my terms. Or rather, their terms. They wanted 25% of my company in return for fronting the manufacturing costs for a year. They were worse than dad! They promised ready-to-distribute inventory within six weeks. I had to get busy. First step, hire a marketing rep. Though a sharp dresser and good-looking and great in bed, she didn't work out. So I hired another. Ditto. 95% of our sales were going to come through the internet anyway. Fuck the human touch. Next step, hire a "brand identity" company to create a logo, build and launch a retail website and optimize my company's search engine presence, whatever that means. Their fee? $36,500. Plus a separate two-year contract to manage the site. I paid it. The now-famous logo they came back with was rather...minimal. The letters P.F.M. in Copperplate Gothic semi-bold 27. The kinda cute and earnest Asian graphic designer who kept tucking a lock of dark hair behind an ear pointed out that the periods after the letters weren't periods but in fact tiny little diamonds. Cool! Eight months to the day after I inked the contract with Helga's we were ready to launch. And yes, there were a few technical glitches out of the box such as the silhouetted video of me modeling one of my wares freezing and stuttering but...Shit happens. The Panties For Men open sign was out! We were ready for business! There was no business. Virtually none. An order here and there, most of them mine (it's vital to keep company moral up at times like this). I'd spent $50,000 on ads—little ads—in men's mags like GQ and Maxim. But...nothing. Zero. Days went by, weeks. I was beyond despair. My hair started falling out. My balls starting shrinking (though that could have been the steroids). I contemplated suicide... Not suicide per se but one of those scenarios where you substitute someone else's body for your own, push your behind-in-payment lease Mercedes into a ditch, ignite it with some kind of extremely volatile liquid and hope the M.E., whom you've bribed, gets away with skipping certain procedures such as DNA analysis and dental records. Meanwhile you're lying on a beach in Mexico (or living in a mountain hut in northern Ontario) living off the last of dad's cash. But where to find a substitute body? You'd have to bribe the M.E. again! It was hopeless! Two months in, and after only $7,900 in revenue, hardly enough to pay my UPS bill, Helga's commissioned their own latent market analysis. What they found was that P.F.M.'s non-customers fell into two primary categories: Pantywaists who argued that, hey, why should I shell out $12.50 plus shipping for a pair of men's panties when I can simply raid my wife's panty drawer (I could somewhat relate to this); and pantywaists who argued, why should I buy men's panties when I can just keep on buying women's panties? This second point takes us back to the philosophical argument I mentioned in the beginning. The, for lack of a better term, "effeminacy cache" attached to dressing up in women's underwear. Men wanting to feel like women; or at least wanting to explore that feeling. I'd misjudged a major portion of our potential customer base by 180 degrees. A third commonly related reason popped up as to why men weren't buying my panties: Where's the lace? Could I have been more off-base in my set of assumptions? Would someone please shoot me? Just when the long night seemed darkest, a glimmer of dawn appeared. I was sitting at my computer one evening doing Patron shots and surfing the usual gay porn sites in an attempt to escape my looming fate, not to mention present, when an email popped through. An email from the P.F.M. website. It was from (I will call her) Bette in Abilene. It said, and I quote with only minor redactions and lots of spelling corrections: Dear Mr. Bottom [my P.F.M. pseudonym—though I've since had my name legally changed], I want to sincerely thank you for the wonderful line of products you've created. They've saved my marriage. For years I've lived with the fact that my husband of 15 years, Russ, is a panty wearer. At first it broke my heart. Then I decided to live it [the] best I could. But this meant living with him "borrowing" my panties, often ruining them in the process [I could relate to this] or even worse, sneaking around online and buying his own panties and having them shipped to a secret P.O. box. Did Russ really think I'd never bother to look inside that size 13 shoebox on the top shelf of our closet, next to part of his gun collection? A man who dresses in women's panties is humiliating to a wife, Mr. Bottom, as I'm sure you know. Then I discovered your wonderful website. Panties for men! Suddenly I could buy underwear for my hubby without the stigma that they were meant for women. Russ is excited too! He sits with me at the computer and we pick out panties that he likes and I order them for him. He kisses me after I click Buy. We're a couple again! One question, Mr. Bottoms [sic]: do you think you'll adding any lace panties to your men's line anytime soon? Russ wants to know. Thank you once again for saving my marriage, Bette Tears—tears of joy—were rolling down my cheeks as I read, or attempted to read, Bette's letter for what must've been the tenth time. The secret had just been unlocked. The secret to P.F.M.'s future success! I immediately emailed Bette my eternal gratitude: Gald [sic] you lick [sic] 'em. TY – R.B. I contacted Helga's early the next morning. Well, after my hangover lifted. We needed to retool. We needed a relaunch! And quick! We shifted our advertising focus from men's mags to women's. We kept the pastels but weighted the panty options to darker primary colors—on what proved to be the correct assumption that red or navy would be more palatable to wives for their husbands than pink and baby-blue. We added a line with subtle lace highlights including a thin scalloped waistband. We call it...Secret Sensations. The lace line has been flying off the shelves. We can't keep them in stock (fucking Chinese). Within a month of the relaunch we'd shipped 100,000 units (average retail $12.50 per, $35.00 for an assorted three-pack). After another two months that number had doubled. In month seven we topped a million units. I was—suddenly—rich. Who knew there were so many wives with sissy-ass husbands? By the 12-month date I'd paid Helga's back their up-front manufacturing costs and bought back five percent of their shares. Now they are pretty much nothing more than a P.F.M. vendor. They work for me. I paid dad back, plus interest, while "gifting" him five percent of the shares (which is to say I took back 15 percent). I now control 75 percent of the shares. So kiss my ass. We're already in the preliminary stages of talking about taking P.F.M. public, pending SEC approval (the Securities and Exchange Commission not the football conference). Which could mean an IPO launch as early as next fall. Can you say...Billionaire? Meanwhile I've been working diligently to expand the line of men's effeminate accessories. I've talked to the No Sense people about manufacturing a line of pantyhose for men ("Ladies—Why should you be the only one with warm legs this winter?"); as well as Getreal & Co. about introducing a line of men's cosmetics ("Ladies—Why should you be the only one who looks ten years younger tonight? What about Hubby?"). We're even thinking about a Junior line for early-starters ("Moms..."). All of these changes will probably necessitate a name-change. A new acronym. New stationery. I've been playing around with ideas. Lingerie And More for Men and Boys? L.A.M.M.B.? Panties And More for Men and Youths? P.A.M.M.Y.? What do you think?