Welcome to Ted’s world of financial domination where cash & cards were his kink and control was his fetish… only without the actual ropes and chains!
We shopped a lot with Ted. That’s what we did, because that’s what Ted had always done. That’s where he was most comfortable.
Ted’s family had owned THE big « department » store in his home town, so it could safely be said that commerce and shopping ran through his blood.
He was good at it too. He was fun and crazy and generous, at first.
Shopping with him was like shopping with your favorite girl friend who had fabulous taste, and bought you everything she wanted.
I remember thinking how cute it was that he’d buy me pretty cotton basics along side expensive designer pieces… but that was only in the beginning. (Ça… c’était avant!)
The first time we shopped together was at a Spanish ski resort on one of our first dates. I hadn’t skied in years and had borrowed a mish-mosh of clothing from all of my friends to make up an outfit. Ted showed no particular disdain for my gear, but promptly whisked me off to a chic boutique at the base of the slopes where he enlisted the help of one of the sales girls in finding something more suitable.
I tried on dozens of pants and jackets, and turtle necks and sweaters, down to long underwear, socks, hats, gloves and goggles… while Theodore sat in a chair outside of the dressing room. As I would try each piece, shanty before him and pose… he would nod his approval or lack there of. He was clearly just as excited as I was. And it felt like owning my own ski ensemble surely meant something about our new relationship. Ted, I imagined, was investing in us.
The second time, was on a trip to Paris. Ted had located 10,000€ cash and wanted to spend it shopping for me all that Saturday. We went from cute local shops to famous Italian designer boutiques to Le BonMarché for lingerie and jewelry and finally to the Grand Epicerie for take-out-dinner, because we’d just shopped so much that day, we were too exhausted to dine out!!
What a whirlwind. I can still picture Ted, either sitting in his man-chair to see me tiptoe out of the fitting rooms, searching the racks for a little something special the clerk might have missed, giving his approval with a nod of satisfaction or laughing with the cashier as he paid. He controlled this whole ballet. It was his element.
Ted was really never much on country walks or just relaxing at home side by side, reading books and sharing our dreams.
Come to think of it, I never even knew Ted’s favorite film or author. He never had time for things like that. We did go to museums and movies in the beginning, but stores or galleries quickly became our principal focus.
Ted preferred being places where we could actually purchase things. Purchasing, being able to purchase, looking like we were thinking about purchasing, chatting with the sales people and asking their opinion about what was good to purchase… became the highlight of all our outings.
Ted liked walking around in neighborhoods with well known store fronts and other prosperous people who could buy there too.
Then going into the stores, brushing through the doors and penetrating into the isles of products, patrons and shop keepers was like an added stimulant.
Choosing items from the racks, making contact with someone on the sales staff, entering into relationship with that person and requesting the proper size and color, got things steamier.
Having me try on a piece, loving it and nodding a yes, were close to ecstasy.
But what really got Ted off was pulling the cash out of his pants’ pocket and paying. He loved being able to pay and being seen doing it!! That was pure rapture for him!
Then, as we’d be coming out, pulling out, of the famous store, with bags in tow, the whole world would know what he’d done.
As we left each boutique, Theodore would almost light himself a cigarette of after-sex satisfaction, a slight smile parting his lips.
I remember starting to see a pattern one day, and noticing that Ted gravitated toward price points. He would enter a store or a gallery with a round number in mind and become intent on purchasing that thing which was within his means. Not the thing he liked most, not the thing he had been saving up for, not the thing he wanted to see me wearing, nor even the thing he wanted his friends to recognize. He bought something he could afford so that he could be seen paying for it and leaving the store with the shopping-bag-proof of his coition.
Shopping bags, of course, became an issue for us. I tended to refuse them, so as to consolidate into only one bag. Ted always wanted more.
I tended to repack my luggage while on vacation to fit our purchases inside my cases. Ted wanted to fly with the shopping bags in evidence as carry-ons.
I tended to sort them out and throw the extra bags away. Ted wanted them nicely folded and available for use in the instance someone leaving our house needed an extra famous shopping bag to carry things home.
Shopping, it turned out, was Theodore’s only way of getting into contact with others. Spontaneous intellectual conversations at neighborhood bistros or corner cafés were not his forté. He literally possessed no social tools, other than his money clip and his bills, for communicating with others.
Wielding his cash and credit cards it eventually became clear, procured him as much pleasure as a sexual experience. What and for whom he was buying were accessory to the activity. What turned him on was being seen doing it. He was an exhibitionist.
Big name stores, famous designer shops, intimate boutiques, vintage and antique fairs… anywhere there was an opportunity to flip out his cash was good to go. He did have a preference for buying in shops where the staff knew him though. He felt flattered. He liked to be recognized.
He bought on-line too, however. He liked having an account, suggested items, logging into his space… He liked receiving the boxes, especially those with the special smell and decorative tape. He liked that the postmen knew he’d ordered something new again.
He didn’t like me to shop alone though, unless he had requested I buy another new dress for an occasion… which I’d wear only once. And if I were forced to shop without him, he asked that I call to get his approval for my purchases on our joint credit card in front of the cashier, which somehow made it a little like phone-sex, I guess.
My purchasing on line however was a no-brainer. It was not considered acceptable and was simply contrary to his good sense. Our money would be spent in public on his agenda. Period.
At some point it became clear that Ted only wanted to buy me slut dresses, high heals and racy lingerie, because my closet no longer contained any bulky sweaters or flats, nor any of those cute cotton basics. Sex and shopping had melded firmly, in Ted’s head, into one.
I hadn’t felt it at the Spanish ski shop or noticed it at Miu Miu in Paris those first couple times and now I can’t seem to recall when had we had actually stopped doing anything cultural at all? At what point had our weekends become only about shopping in daylight and sexual excursions at night fall? Had the shift been that slow or was it me who’d become that unconscious?
Ted had begun getting angry if I didn’t want to go out at night and angrier still if I declined buying another racy ensemble during opening hours. Why wouldn’t I do this for him? Why was I refusing him this pleasure?
After all his hard work, he needed to let go of his tension by purchasing more and more and more.
On one of our last trips to Paris together, Ted stayed at the hotel while I went to my hairdresser at the Palais Royal. While there, at an upscale boutique, I bought a black silk crepe jacket and a clutch purse I’d been eying for the last year, but wouldn’t allow myself to purchase at full price. They were both on sale, half off.
When I returned to our hotel and happily exhibited the purchases to my husband, I saw a veil of black lower over his lids. He was livid.
I’d not called him at the check out. I had not asked for his approval. He hadn’t been there to see me tiptoe out of the fitting room. He hadn’t nodded or been the one to pull out his cash.
I was just his whore, I finally realized. Shopping and purchasing were his own solo turn-on… and they had nothing to do with generosity. At all.
