The Spiral

The office lights were still buzzing, still the same fluorescent hum that had lulled him into a false sense of normalcy for years. Sam Wimple stared at his screen, the last of his meeting notes open in a dull Word doc. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, unmoving.

Men's underwear was... gone.

No, not gone. Gone would mean missing. This was different. Erased. Rewritten. As if it had never existed. The ads. The internet search. Terry Biggs' reaction to Sam's own panties. Everyone in the world seemed to agree that panties were, and always had been, the norm for men.

Except him.

Sam exhaled shakily and **** himself to focus. Compartmentalize. That was what mattered. No matter what was happening outside—or inside—his head, Terry Biggs was still his biggest client, and if he didn't act fast, she wouldn't be his client much longer.

He opened a new email.

To: Big Man Campaign Team

Subject: URGENT: Campaign Revisions Required – Immediate Action Needed

Team,

Following an in-person meeting with Ms. Biggs this morning, we are pulling ALL current Big Man ad materials from the pipeline and beginning fresh.

Key feedback:

• The tone is off. Men wearing our products should not be portrayed as submissive or infantilized. We do not market shame.
• Messaging implying male customers need female validation is unacceptable.
• The brand must speak to strength, confidence, autonomy.

From this point forward, all ad copy and video treatments go through me before approval.

We will be re-aligning with the original branding goals and establishing a revised mood board by COB today.

Get started.

–Sam

He hit send. The responsibility box was checked. For now.

Now, the spiral.

Sam stood quickly, heart thudding. He grabbed his coat and walked out of his office without looking at Susan. Still, she called after him.

"Everything okay, Mr. Wimple?"

"Fine. Need to run home. Be back in a bit."

He didn't go home.

The mall wasn't far—ten minutes if traffic behaved. Sam parked near the south entrance, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked quickly under the vaulted skylights and past the cinnamon pretzel stand.

He didn’t slow down until he reached Chesterton's Menswear, a place he'd bought socks and belts before. His stomach tightened.

The window display featured a mannequin in a silky navy camisole and matching lace panties. For men. Of course.

He went inside.

Racks of slacks. Button-down shirts. Wallets. Cologne.

And lingerie. Entire tables of lace-trimmed, floral-patterned panties marked "NEW ARRIVALS – SUMMER MASCULINE FIT."

He blinked.

"Can I help you, sir?" asked a cheerful clerk, probably college-aged. She wore a polo with the store's logo embroidered over her heart.

"I—uh—just looking," Sam muttered, already walking away.

Next stop: Baxter & Sons. Maybe Chesterton's had gone weird in recent years.

But no. Baxter & Sons had gone even farther. Their entire left wall was a display of boyshorts branded with names like "Alpha Charm" and "Executive Lace." A sign above them read:

"Power Meets Comfort—Support Where He Needs It Most."

Sam backed out like the store was on fire.

He hit three more stores in a daze. Panties. Panties. Panties. Every men's section, every label, every store. Lace, mesh, satin, cotton—but all cut for the male figure. Some low-rise, some full coverage. Some discreet, some flamboyant. All of them perfectly normal, perfectly accepted.

Except to him.

He sat down on a bench beside a fountain, his heart in his throat. The world had changed. It had rewritten itself completely. And not just the fashion, not just the ads.

The history. The culture. The language.

All his life, he'd worn boxers. Or briefs. Cotton. Plaid. Hanes multipacks. That wasn't a preference—it was a fact. A certainty. A memory he could still feel like muscle memory. And yet, here he was, sitting in the middle of a mall, baby blue satin caressing him with every move, while the rest of the world didn't remember anything different.

He stared down at his phone again, at the search history that made no sense. No mention of briefs. No mention of boxers. Only endless pages of lace and smiling, confident men who wore them.

What if I'm the one who's broken?

The thought chilled him more than he wanted to admit. Because if the whole world agreed on something, and you were the only one who remembered otherwise, did that make you wrong?

Or worse—insane?

He stood up suddenly, disoriented. He needed answers. He needed something, anything that would confirm his sanity. A forgotten ad, a museum exhibit, a vintage package from before the switch…

He needed proof.

But first, he needed to breathe.

Sam walked toward the food court in a fog, the satin between his thighs reminding him with every step that he no longer belonged in the world he remembered.