Almost 5'4"

When the shoot ended, Danny seemed to relax for a while. Weeks later, when I got the photos back, I saw a huge zit on my ass. Needless to say, I didn’t get picked.

Maryam (#ulink_d84c95b3-375c-5dc9-b43b-c56c9ca66a81)

Danny hardly ever came to see me in the city. Almost every time he did he informed me proudly that he hated New York.

In Brooklyn Heights I lived in the St George Hotel. I had a roommate and very little privacy, but I had stability, something at the time I took for granted. And although it should have been comforting, it never crossed my mind it could be otherwise. I had no rent to worry about, no bills to pay. The St George was built in the early 1900s and had been converted into a student dorm. The rooms were small and the bathtub made peculiar noises that made me nervous but it was a pretty cool place to live. I had a doorman, and the floor meetings with the residential student adviser weren’t mandatory. In short, I was free to do what I liked, with only classes to disrupt my shoots. I was winging it. No one really knew about these meetings with photographers. I didn’t tell my roommate even though she made every effort to be friendly. She left notes on the bathroom mirror or the door saying things like, ‘You’re the best roommate ever!’ and ‘I hope you have a great day today!’ She was pretty, Dominican, and had a boyfriend down the hall who was over constantly.

They were both studying architecture, and groups of other students would pile into our tiny room, sit for hours smoking pot and laughing too loud, playing ass-shaking Latin reggatone. I didn’t say hello or join in. I thought they were annoying freshmen.

I had only one real friend in New York City, and I could hardly pronounce her name. She was in my advertising class and lived down the hall in the dorms. She was tiny, slender, a little underweight, and had tan skin. We looked almost like sisters.

When she said, ‘My name is Maryam,’ I thought she said, ‘Mary,’ but then she corrected me. ‘No, it’s Maryam.’ I had never heard of that name before. I thought it was weird, but we would meet up at Wendy’s in between classes. Maryam seemed cool enough to tell about my modeling. She approved and admired me. She wouldn’t judge me like others had. I told her she was pretty enough to model too but she never tried it. Unlike me, she was shy about her body.

Just like in Syracuse, I spent my free time stuck to the Internet, working on my mini-site and adding photos every week. I wanted my ass to be voted as the number one pick by the photographers I worked with on Onemodelplace.com. I wanted to be one of their favorites.

In the meantime, my classes were at Columbus Circle, so dorming in Brooklyn meant a good twenty-minute commute. Because of the 9/11 attacks, the trains were all fucked up and usually I was late for every class, but mostly it was because I was planning, preparing, or returning from a shoot and I didn’t care about being on time.

That subway ride was where I really saw New York. Mistakenly, I thought New York would show me the classiest, most dignified and well-dressed people. Yet I never saw a Chanel or Gucci outfit on the subway. Those were names I was just beginning to learn about. In Syracuse I shopped at Deb and JCPenney. I didn’t know about Louis Vuitton until I picked up a Vogue for the first time to get some fashion tips. I also picked up a Stuff magazine and a Playboy for sexier modeling ideas and to compare myself to the models.

School was a drag and a distraction from my newfound sense of purpose. I couldn’t get excited about listening to some professor tell me about math, marketing, or English without thinking, they’re full of shit. With the city buzzing four flights below me, I always tried to sit by the window for inspiration. It was hard to stay still when so much was going on around me. Most of my classes were in the afternoon so it should have been an easy schedule but it was getting more difficult as time went on.

Lord of the Flies (#ulink_c247e5a3-ad4b-529c-afde-e9f8c74ef832)

I was no longer running track on a scholarship but I was still fast on my feet when I was racing from classes to photo shoots. On one particular day I ended a photo session completely naked with only twenty minutes to get to my next class five blocks away.

(I was often naked at the end of a shoot, but never at the beginning. This bugged me. Usually the photographer took some shots of me in jeans or a skirt, then I would strip down to bra and panties, gradually building up to the nude poses. Maybe the photographer felt better about himself, knowing we didn’t only shoot nude. But it would have gone a lot faster if I just started butt-ass naked from the first shot.)

I threw on my clothes and sprinted for the closest uptown train. Twenty minutes later I was rushing down the slippery hallway towards my class with my high heels clicking and my panties flying out of my bag. I grabbed the pink pair that had slipped out and shoved them back in with all my school stuff. It was then that I realized I’d forgotten my English book.

I had to share with the professor, and he didn’t look too happy about it. The discussion that day was about Lord of the Flies, which I could swear I read in high school. I wondered why the hell I was reading it again in college. I couldn’t concentrate because I didn’t have a bra on and I was afraid the professor would notice. There hadn’t been enough time to clasp it shut and make the subway, so I sat there feeling exposed. My nipples shrunk with the air conditioning pounding over them. I felt naked sitting at the cold desk and looking out the window onto traffic going around Columbus Circle and the Trump Tower. I felt sure everyone was staring. I hoped they wouldn’t know the truth – that a few minutes earlier I had posed nude for a stranger.

As I sat there, I grew sick of talking about Ralph and Jack and Piggy, and my thong was starting to itch from sitting so long. My eyesight was going blurry from reading and I was fed up with discussing the problems they were having on the island. They were on a fucking island, for God’s sake. They should have been tanning and enjoying the damn coconuts, but they kept killing animals and each other. All that talk about the island made me long to be wearing a bikini. I was always thinking about what would make a good shot for my portfolio.

Challah Bread (#ulink_7c6b8779-35c4-5a5c-994d-ecd785ed4d24)

The photographers I had worked with so far all told me that nude modeling was my future, the only way for me to go. I was too short for catwalk. Too short for fashion. All the supermodels were 5′ 10″ or over and here I was barely 5′ 2″ (almost 5′ 4″ in heels!). To me, modeling was either fashion or Playboy, and I knew I wasn’t a fashion model.

I found myself checking out the competition. I needed to feed my jealousy to motivate myself. I Googled ‘modeling,’ then the word ‘model,’ and finally ‘New York City + models.’ Then the reverse – ‘models + New York City,’ – just in case the results were different. The girls I was looking at were all statuesque, tall, and beautiful. They were Giraffes compared to me. I had to face the fact that I didn’t have a chance in hell at an agency in New York City. I was dizzy with frustration.

As for Danny, I cared for him deeply, wanted his approval, and he did hang a few lingerie photos on the door of his dorm room. But he didn’t think I was doing the right thing by modeling. He said it made me crazy and always in a rush, talking fast and about something he knew nothing about. I would bitch about the perverts who downloaded my photos one minute and then run off to another shoot the next.

He didn’t budge on his feelings about modeling, and couldn’t understand why I wanted to do something that drove me so nuts. I wasn’t complaining, because I wanted to do it, but I was lonely. Still, I was sure I was doing the right thing, even though I kept lots of the shoots secret from him.

A circus was taking place in my head. When I was modeling it was as loud as cannons. When I was with Danny, it was soft, delicate streamers. My emotions were mixed. I was doing something that felt dangerous and wrong when I was in front of the lens, but I thrived on that danger and loved that it might be wrong.

I had two lives and no one in my other life was interested in modeling. Most people I knew wanted to hide in their rooms partying and smoking pot whereas I only felt good when I was in front of the computer scoping out my mini-site or at a shoot. Weekend trips to southern New Jersey with Danny to visit his family, who had just moved there from Syracuse, were painful. I would feel lazy, bored, and pissed knowing girls would have brand new photos up by next week from the shoots they were on right then.

His parents’ house was freezing. So there I sat, freezing my tits off, eating Jewish food, and parking my ass on the sofa. I had eaten so much challah bread I felt like I was Jewish. I tried to be friendly to his mother, who didn’t approve of me sleeping with her baby. On Saturdays, I went with the family to temple pretending to be pure and interested. Danny felt the same way, which was comforting.

After his mother caught us having sex, I tried to win her over by joining her on weekend shopping trips. At the store, she bought so much jewelry it was as if she owned QVC. I froze in New Jersey because I had no fat. She seemed to disapprove of my skinniness and the way I picked at the meals she cooked. As a result, dinners were quiet.

I wanted to scream from having to behave.

The entire time I was there, I wanted to be back in New York, in front of the bright lights, in front of the camera and naked. I would try my hardest not to mention modeling while we visited them. The coldness of their beautiful home reminded me of the chill of a photographer’s basement or apartment, the windows open to make my nipples hard and pointy.

To escape the pressure, Danny and I relaxed by the neighborhood pond and woods. We biked or stayed in and watched HBO, something I didn’t have in the dorms. Sometimes we would eat out on his father’s credit card. With the family though, Danny kept bringing up school and my classes. Between bites of cold steak I said, ‘Fuck talking about my classes and school projects, fuck my advertising portfolio!’

‘What do you mean, fuck your advertising portfolio?’ Danny demanded, slamming down his water. ‘You’re not thinking about going into modeling full-time?’

‘Why not?’ I said, tapping my fingernails nervously on the table, anxious to get this whole parent meeting over with. I thought about the degree and smirked when I saw his mother’s look of shock, but she merely continued to chew fast. I knew she hated me and my swearing. I didn’t care. I hated her too.

With a worried tone, she said, ‘You should really think about your future.’ She had just retired from being a teacher and sounded like one. Then, after a huge gulp of milk, she added, ‘Isn’t your mom a teacher? Wouldn’t she want you to get your degree?’

Big deal! In two years I would claim a printed piece of paper. It could hardly define me. In front of the camera I was more myself, more real.

Would this weekend ever end?

To make up for lost time, after dinner I snuck on the computer and typed a few emails, then checked up on my Onemodelplace.com account. Nothing new. I hardly had any hits that day and I blamed it on Danny, and his mother’s challah bread. I felt the pressure. How could I call myself a model if I couldn’t even compete with the other wannabes who were no doubt shooting at that very second?

Hobby (#ulink_8f41c927-7db4-5477-9584-78d69be96cec)

It never occurred to me that the girls in Seventeen and Cosmo Girl or YM magazine made more money and got more exposure, which of course led to bigger things. Or that keeping your clothes on is even sexier and pays a lot more money because of the ad campaign. I should have known this. I was an advertising major in college after all, but I didn’t put two and two together.

I began to enjoy shooting nude more and more. It wasn’t just for practice though. It was for a feeling of empowerment – sexuality and fantasy all at once. I only felt good and confident about myself when I was modeling naked.

Yet inside my life felt like a roller coaster as I went from my boyfriend’s bedroom to my college classroom to the photographer’s bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. They had me taking off my clothing, running around, dancing and playing musical chairs, sitting, standing, sticking my tongue out, lounging in chairs, curling up with a pillow on a sofa, lying on dining room tables, or in bathtubs and on balconies. Then I’d run back to class. I would sometimes do my homework on the train in between. I was stressed all the time. In the back of my mind I heard voices saying, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ And then, ‘You can do it little girl!’

All these bipolar-like emotions made me very aggressive, impatient, and anxious. My heart rate would fly as I spoke to the clerk at the lobby desk and then pushed the elevator button. Then, once I arrived at the correct floor, I wondered which way I should walk. Right? Or left? The pauses before I knocked or rang the doorbell were filled with thoughts of tiptoeing back to the elevator, out the door and back to my dorm room. I knew I wasn’t really a model because I saw magazines and billboards every day, and I wasn’t on them. I felt more like an escort, like a tease, like a present for the afternoon.

My ‘hobby,’ for want of a better word, haunted me daily so I decided to get serious and look up some modeling agencies. I found a list of agencies in NYC that accepted photos by mail. Besides the weekly stipend my mother gave me for food, which didn’t go far, I didn’t have much money, so I couldn’t get quality prints of my shots to send out. Instead, I used the printer in my dorm room. I spent a few hours adjusting the pictures in Photoshop and cropping them, then printing out a collage-like presentation of my photos. To my surprise, they looked pretty good and were sure to impress an agent or booker. Or so I thought.

I never heard back from anyone.

But I wasn’t looking to get famous or to become a supermodel; I didn’t care about those things. I was intense, fast-talking and excited to tiptoe around the apartments of anonymous photographers. It was just wonderful to feel the attention of the lens, from the photographer, and I got it so easily. I didn’t need an agency to give me what I needed.

Penthouse (#ulink_c9ea2790-eff3-5193-a00f-780b5932ed94)

The penthouse had to be over twenty stories high, but it was a beautiful view. I’d never seen a view like it before that day. The city was such a paradise from that angle, and I felt like a princess peering over my kingdom as the photographer snapped away. I willingly leaned forward to show some of my cleavage to him through my very low tank top.

I was trying to stay as still as possible, like a tightrope walker. If I tipped a little to the left I would be a goner.

He said, ‘You’re the only model who hasn’t been afraid of sitting on such a narrow ledge in such a short skirt. Or looking down.’ Taking it as a challenge, I decided I wanted to be the first and did just that. I felt proud that I might be remembered for this risky pose.

His apartment was big and bright, with loads of sunlight. He wasn’t talented, but with the right lighting and angle, he could get a good enough shot. He was in his thirties and had a full-time career in real estate. I wondered if he was looking for a girlfriend or a playmate because most of what he shot was sexy. Naturally, he had contacted me through Onemodelplace.com.

I immediately wanted to shoot with him. The girls shown on his mini-site were beautiful: flawless skin, no scars, perfect hair and teeth, big supple breasts. All were ahead of me in that sense.

Later, I learned that he wasn’t skilled enough to shoot me. Nor was he capable of really capturing a person’s essence. He just wanted me in a sexy garment, which was fine by me. He knew nothing about lighting. He didn’t even own any lighting equipment. And he only knew a small amount about cameras. Although he owned a digital and called himself an artist, really he just pressed a button as I ran around and twirled.