I’m taking a walk down memory lane today. Someone I love dearly had a heart attack cutting the grass and never regained consciousness. I met him in 2007 via a girdle yahoo group that did an interview with me. He wrote and wanted to meet at a local vintage shop that I had never visited, VMale vintage. He wanted to buy me a white llpg, his favorite. He told me to bring a friend. I brought two friends, Eric Cain and Pale Goth Goddess. I met and befriended the store manager Kim that day. Kim later came to work for me when I had justfigures. She was young and lovely and not a drug user and she dropped dead 2 years ago this time of year while she was still working for me. After my physical health issues, husbands trespasses and her untimely death, I was utterly broken and threw in the towel on justfigures.  Anyway that night we also went to Mexican food. Fred quickly became like family and Pale Goth Goddess, Serene, Dixie, Crystal, Cherry Buson/ Lushes LaMoan to name a few all went to his home for girdle parties. He showered us with his girdle collection from thrift stores. In the beginning I still had my respectable career and did girdle photos and some bondage clips on the side. He was chivalrous and drove me to fetish events and burlesque shows and picked me up from my job for lunch because he worked nearby. We hit up all of the salvation army’s diving for treasures. I felt like I’d known him for lifetimes. His wife had urged him to reach out to me. He thought that she was open minded but he did not know she was a lesbian and in love with someone from work and about to leave him freeing up a good portion of his time. Much later we had that in common, both having unknowingly married charlatans that were more attracted to the same sex that had always planned on leaving. He was so thoughtful and wildly disciplined when it came to saving money and being organized. He expertly prepared for old age which he never reached but also did not want to reach because he did not want to be cared for. He wanted to do the caring.  Everyone called him frugal Fred. He wore that nickname like a badge of honor. He had a budget and planned things down to the second. I loved to get his wheels spinning and to take him away from his engineer man schedule. I would change things up on him last minute to stir the pot. He loved me for it. I met Tony /gotcuffs and he met his woman Cheryl. Girdle parties stopped happening and nights out came to a halt as life changed and we aged. Cheryl was far more accepting of me than most women in her position would be and I was happy that he had found a life partner. They seemed very well matched. Fred was there for me when I left my vanilla life and my friends and family abandoned me for it, he did not. He urged me to pursue bondage although his love was of vintage lingerie and not bondage. He always reassured me when I thought I had made a grave mistake. As far as I know he was even the first one to introduce the DID industry to electricians bundling tape. He bought a ton of it at a flea market and said this won’t ruin clothes or hurt the skin like duct tape but it has a similar look. I got countless emails asking about this tape. It was quickly used to wrap the heads of hundreds of damsels. He was always looking out for others. He was skilled at making booze which he created in a beautiful lab he made in his basement out of vintage glassware. He loved to share his creations. He was also talented at making fireworks and so good to his grown kids. He was handy, resourceful and reliable though his driving scared me and he could not figure out the door at my bank building ever in all of his years of visiting which always made me giggle. He had exquisite taste in antiques and artwork. He was a real renaissance man. He added so much to my life and taught me so much. We had countless deep and open conversations while sharing a joint in my old kitchen. He helped me move and he would have helped me move bodies. He gave me two of the most discussed things in my current home, the over the top statue in my little foyer and a carved wooden sculpture that is basically the centerpiece of my living room. A few years back I went to his 60th birthday party. I was expecting a small shin dig but his home and yard were overflowing with people from all walks of his life, the brewers club, the ski club, the club that did fireworks, his engineer friends, his family, flea market vendors. People gloated about him the way I am right now. He always said that he was so lucky to know me but I made sure to tell him that it was truly the other way around… That brilliant eccentric little man was loved by everyone that got a chance to know him. I’m a better person because he was such a good person. I’ll take all the bad Ive lived through for glimpses at genuine souls like his. We had a unique connection. I love unique connections. I’ll miss him until the day I die. RIP Fred ♥️

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