I looked [in the catalog], and there it was: the Heavenly Star, created by Mouawad exclusively for VS, which appears to be a bra made up entirely of precious stones: about thirty-five hundred of them, set in platinum (of course), with an enormous emerald-cut diamond at the center clasp (does it even clasp?), priced at $12.5 million. No typo: twelve and a half million American dollars. (The matching panty is $750,000, which seems almost like an afterthought.)

Now I belong to the school of thought that says that expensive lingerie is good for show, not so good in actual use: Harvey, caught up in the sheer passion of it all, suddenly rips off Sheila's antique lace, and Sheila, instead of thinking, "Oh, yes, take me, take me now," is thinking "You miserable son of a bitch, I paid eighty-nine fifty for that." To say the least, this is not the sort of thing that strengthens a relationship. I don't even want to imagine Sheila's response to a garment that costs as much as Bill Gates' guest house.

And a few other things bothered me. I mean, surely a 100-percent-mineral panty can't be particularly hygienic. It shouldn't turn your skin green or anything, but still, there's something disconcerting about it, especially if for some reason you have to sit down. Everything you ever hated about thongs will be multiplied, oh, seven hundred fifty thousand times or so.