I live in a cramped New York apartment. It's so cramped that whenever I buy anything I have to toss something out, because I just can't cram in one more thing. Last month I bought a new lamp, so after careful consideration I decided a pair of pants would have to go.

I decided to sell those pants on eBay.

Now, the pants weren't in very good shape. The knees were baggy, the hems were frayed, and there was a quarter-sized hole in the seat. There was no way I'd wear them again, but with all the talk about reusing and recycling I just couldn't toss them out. I listed them with a starting bid of $1 and hoped somebody less fortunate would find them.

When somebody bid a dollar, it made my day. I'd done my part for the environment, and helped some poor person on a budget. When the bidding went to $10, my heart was full. It meant somebody truly appreciated these pants, and they'd take good care of them. Plus, it paid me back a bit for the time I spent photographing them and writing up the description.

Then one morning I turned on the computer and discovered the pants were going for thirty-five dollars. This knocked me for a loop. I mean, the pants didn't cost that new, so there was no reason they should command that kind of cash after I'd worn them a few years. There were four bidders involved, so I thought maybe they got carried away by the excitement. I thought about cancelling the auction, since a mistake had obviously been made, but figured it'd be a good lesson for all concerned.

The next day, when the bidding got up to sixty dollars, I got angry. Clearly there was more to this than just a simple pair of pants. Now there were nine bidders duking it out, and twelve people added the sale to their "Watch" list. This proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that something unseemly was going on.

And then it hit me like a bolt of lightning that almost made my breakfast come back up. I'd heard about vending machines in Japan where they sold the panties of schoolgirls, and realized the same sort of feckless perverts were fighting over my pants as well. My stomach churned as I imagined what the winning bidder would do to them: would his tongue explore the crotch like Lawrence explored Arabia? Would he suck every ounce of my sweat from the faded fabric? Would he pore over every nook and cranny searching for wayward, discolored spots of my bodily fluids? If his magnifying glass chanced upon a a hair from the nether regions of my body, would he press it to his face in ecstacy as he performed some vile onanistic deed?

Over the next few days, though, my anger ebbed, and when the pants hit $110 I turned flattered. I mean, indigent perverts are tawdry and disgusting, but now there were clearly businesspeople involved. I pictured these men -- accountants, lawyers, stock brokers -- sitting at their computers after a long day at work, ties loosened and Brooks Brothers boxers tenting at the thought of winning my tight, tight jeans and caressing them in their manicured hands. They'd press their faces up against their computer monitors and run their eyes across the outline of my muscular legs in the fabric, faded like the shroud of Turin. Then one lucky man would win them, and get to feel the warm cotton himself, left alone to his own perverted ends. It was sick and it was depraved and, by God, I couldn't get the thought out of my head.

I was haunted. Possessed. Which inextricably leads me to an open letter I'd like to share with the buyer.

When you typed in that $140 offer, I became a walking pool of turgid testosterone, ready to pounce on anything that moved. I couldn't rest until you had my pants in your determined hands. Were you hunky and continental, like Antonio Banderas? Were you a stylish, manly gay with a dark streak, like Tom Ford? Or were you a billionaire daddy entrepreneur like Ted Turner whose wealth gave him the opportunity to play out his every demented desire? As I packed the pants into the box to ship, I pleasured myself as I pictured you.

Given the circumstances, then, I think you can see why I threw in the underwear. After I wiped myself clean with them, it occurred to me that you might appreciate something I'd worn even closer to my skin. I pictured you with my grubby shorts plastered across your face, wearing a look of pure erotic bliss, and I felt a bond of kinship between us, separated by space but joined together by kink and a tiny pair of striped bikini briefs polka-dotted with pee. And that's when I wrote that little note.

So, I'd like to offer you a profound, heartfelt apology. I had absolutely no idea they were vintage Levis worth twice what you paid for them, and that nobody but me had anything untoward in mind. Please, burn the note, and toss the underwear straight into the trash. How horrified you must have been to pull them out of the ziploc bag and hear them crackle in your hands. I didn't realize some of the bidders were women, let alone religious ones in Utah.

In closing, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that you are certainly not a disgusting little pig who should be bent over my knee and paddled until your buttcheeks are red and burning with a heady mix of pain and pleasure, and, had I known you were a pillar of the Salt Lake City community, I would never have ordered you to suck the man-juice out of my filthy ball-rag.

Please, tell the police this was all a horrible mistake and I promise I'll never eBay again.

Your Loyal ex-eBay Seller,
RomanHans