I was visiting Winter Park, Colorado, on a ski trip. It was late December, right after Christmas, and very cold, with lots of snow in the forecast. I was traveling alone and had a room at the Alpenglo Lodge on US 40, which doesn't have a swimming pool but does boast a hot tub.
After my first day of skiing, I decided to visit the hot tub, which was in a separate building only a few yards away from the hotel. Accordingly, I put on my baggy swim trunks, an Oxford shirt, and my sneakers, grabbed a couple towels from my bathroom, walked out of my room, and headed down the long second-floor corridor and then down the flight of stairs to the first floor and the back exit.
The sun sets early in December, so it was already dark as I stepped out the back door and walked the thirty or so steps over the snowy sidewalk to the spa building.
Like most buildings in ski towns, it was intended to look like a rustic cabin, with lots of knotty pine, and inside was nothing more than a long bench for laying out towels and clothes, and the jacuzzi itself, which was large and could accommodate about twelve people. Tonight it was pretty full, with lots of middle-aged skiers sipping drinks and soaking their sore muscles. I stepped down into the hot water and sat quietly listening to several different conversations in English, Japanese, and something that may or may not have been Russian. There were mostly men, and the few women seemed to be with their spouses or boyfriends, and, not feeling particularly sociable, I laid my head back and closed my eyes. A drop of cold water splashed onto my forehead and, looking up, I saw that the high wood ceiling was covered with condensation, which fell in continual drips onto the hot tub users. It was a shock at first, but it felt good once you knew to expect it.
At one point a man who sounded to be Australian stood up and got out of the tub, revealing his very tiny Speedo-type bikini swimsuit. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by this, and I wondered about the fact that the United States is one of the few nations where the men are more or less condemned to wear modest swimwear.
It was not always thus. If you look at beach and swimming pool photos from the 1950s, for example, you'll see a lot of men wearing skintight briefs. Yet despite the subsequent sexual revolution and a brief period in the 1970s, somehow American men are once again expected to wear frumpy board shorts to be considered normal. The one exception to this is if you are a competitive or recreational lap swimmer, or maybe on a water polo team. Strange.
This set me to thinking. I've learned in recent years that I'm a bit of an exhibitionist - not a nudist, necessarily, but I've always had a fantasy about being seen in public in my underwear. I'm not even sure there's a name for this. It was a prominent fetish in my youth, and later it was superceded by others, but in recent years, this odd peccadillo of mine has resurfaced.
As a typical middle-aged American, I don't own a Speedo, but I do have several pairs of bikini underpants, and I had brought along at least one pair in my suitcase. I wear boxers normally because they're more comfortable, but when I'm feeling a bit daring or expecting some action, I will occasionally don briefs or boxer briefs, and if I'm really up to no good, I'll put on bikini briefs.
If I were to go back to my room and change into my bikini briefs, I could just possibly fulfill my fantasy of being seen in public in my underwear in a socially acceptable way. If I had the nerve.
I pondered this and the more I thought about it, the more the idea consumed me. I've heard enough American women complain about Speedos to know that most of them regard seeing a man in a skimpy swimsuit as borderline indecent and something to be avoided. But I live in southern California and will modestly profess to having a slim, tan body and a hairless chest. I've done some modeling and been told that I could do more if I wanted to. I figured I might be one of the few men in Winter Park, Colorado who could reasonably get away with wearing a Speedo-esque garment. And somehow the idea of being seen in a 'swimsuit' that women might disapprove of only made the idea hotter to me. The allure of the forbidden, I suppose.
With that, I got up out of the whirlpool bath, dried myself off, put my shirt and shoes on, and went outside.
The walk to the hotel was brief, and I had heated up enough that the frigid weather didn't bother me at all. I decided I probably didn't need to wear as much the next time I visited the hot tub. I went up the stairs, walked back down the corridor, went into my room, stepped out of my swim trunks, hung them up in the bathroom, and showered. Then I dried myself off, went to my suitcase, found my tiniest pair of bikini underpants, and slipped them on. They were light blue with white piping, very brief, a single unlined layer of 80% nylon and 20% Spandex, and very revealing. But they could conceivably be argued to resemble a very skimpy European swimsuit.
A bit cold now, I laid down on the bed. Within seconds I was asleep.
When I awoke I looked at the bedside clock. It was 11:17 PM. I was dry, well-rested, and warm now, though my calves and lower back were sore from skiing. I got out of bed and walked stiffly over to the bathroom mirror. Looking back at me was a pretty good-looking fellow in a very brief pair of underpants, or a slightly obscene Speedo, if one were to push things a bit. I liked what I saw, but the idea of going out in public like this, while stimulating, was also still a bit intimidating. I was going to need a bracer of some sort.
I went to the little fridge and looked inside. There were a couple of beers I had bought at the market up the road, so I opened one now and drank it down in five or six long draughts. Cold beer may not be what one usually craves on a cold winter night in Colorado, but the alcohol, combined with the altitude, was doing its job (or perhaps it was a placebo effect?), and I was feeling less self-conscious. That Australian guy had seemed to have no problem nonchalantly swaggering into the hot tub, so why shouldn't I be able to do the same? I was certainly in better shape than he was. I was going to do it, by God.
But I wasn't going to allow myself to chicken out at the last minute. No, I would bring no clothes, I decided, and I wouldn't even bring a towel with which to cover up. I would go out wearing only my underpants.
Fueled by liquid courage and feeling my very own Rocky Mountain high that was a combination of sexual arousal and inebriation (I'm a lightweight), I walked over to my room door, opened it, looked both ways down the hall and, seeing no one, stepped out.
The heavy door closed behind me with the finality of a jail cell door slamming shut. I was committed now. There was no going back. I turned to my left and marched determinedly down the carpeted corridor toward the stairs. I had nothing in my hands and no pockets to hold anything.
Not even a room key, I realized suddenly.
