The ghosts of Valentines Past
ArtisHENDERSON sandydays@florida-weekly.com
This Valentine's Day, I'm feeling a bit like yuletide Scrooge: haunted by the ghosts of Valentines Past. They're scattered across my dresser and some are tucked coquettishly into my top drawer. They're souvenirs from past loves, ghostly reminders of now-phantom relationships.

If I had to guess, I would say I'm like most women on this front. Just because a relationship has ended, because our partners have vanished into that netherworld of lost boyfriends, does that mean we have to throw away the prized goods? Most guys - if they know what they're doing - will run the gamut on gift giving and, over the course of a relationship, a woman can rack up a sizable amount of treasures, including jewelry, perfume, and lingerie.

The problem (there's always one) comes when the guy (or girl) moves on, but the trinkets remain. Perfume can be put aside with few hard feelings (there's always a new scent coming out, anyway). Jewelry, if it's nice, can still be worn. With a high enough carat count, most women won't feel bad wearing an ex's token of affection. The sticking point is in the lingerie.

Somewhere in the unwritten rules of bedroom etiquette it says: thou shalt not wear a negligee gifted by one lover in front of another. Maybe the "thou shalt" is overkill, but I'm positive that it's in poor taste to wear the same naughty things with more than one partner. But, isn't it sacrilege to throw those lovely pieces away?

In my case, I have a whole drawer full of unwearable yet undiscarded lingerie. Easily the most beautiful, but also the most haunting, is a red and black corset set with the tags still attached. The price is in Euros, and it's exorbitant.

I first saw the exquisite lingerie in an ad in the Paris metro station. The department store spread was a story high and the barely-covered model had flowing hair and tanned skin. It read, "Ooh, là, là" and advertised special prices during the week leading up to Valentine's Day.

My French boyfriend, "François," waited for the train with me, openly ogling the six feet of cleavage on the wall. When the train arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief, glad to have the lingerie-clad French vixen out of sight. François slumped in the seat across from me, pressing the side of his face against the smudged glass of the subway window. "Je peux voir un mamelon d'ici," he said. I can see a nipple from here.

He was crass and disrespectful, unkind and obviously unconcerned about my feelings. But, he was my first love, and I pardoned him every offense. When he said, in passing, "You should buy something like that," I hastened to the mall the next day, bent on finding the red and black number that had caught his eye.

In the end, François moved on before I even had time to cut the tags off. It's one of my great romantic regrets that I never had the opportunity to wear the beautiful set. Now, every thread is etched with his memory, and I know I would never model it for anyone else. Still, I can't bring myself to throw the set away, and it continues to haunt me each Valentine's Day.

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