Almost 5'4"

I needed practice on how to be natural, to give a real smile, and to show myself off in different ways. At these shoots I got to be an actress, to show emotion and to maybe even get one or two good shots out of the deal. I was like a porn star without the sex.

Later, I changed into a black thong and a denim zippered top. Next, I jumped and teased in a pink dress, posing with the city as my backdrop. I felt so proud, so admired at that moment. He was on the other side of the roof, pointing. Then suddenly he said something and flapped his arms around like a bird. I couldn’t hear him because the wind was whipping round my head, but I started twirling and let my dress spin in case that’s what he meant. He snapped away.

At that moment nothing mattered but the camera and me. I was no longer just a girl from upstate New York. I was the model I had always wanted to be.

He followed me around the apartment. Being nude wasn’t a striptease. It was just what I wanted to do, and the camera followed. The third time we worked together, I sat on the stained, wooden kitchen table. Although it was cold, the sunset’s golden rays were hitting my face, tinting my hair red. Sitting there nude felt right. He hadn’t pressured me to do it. I had done it before. Once I was nude it was as if my body exhaled.

This time, I went to the bathroom and greased myself up with baby oil. It chilled my stomach and glistened as I walked to the kitchen, tiptoeing and petting his cat along the way. I opened the fridge to pull out some condiments and leftovers. Then I emptied the foam icebox. I placed myself in it, sitting there with food all around me. I started speaking like I was in a cooking show.

‘Then you add some mustard,’ I said, struggling to open a few cans and bottles. It made for a sexy shot of me struggling with the caps. I was on a cooking high, pouring sauces on myself and laughing out loud. During the two-hour shoot, I was sitting, smiling and licking my lips, my breasts looking freshly blossomed and petite, and my stomach tight, with mustard, salsa, hot sauce, and butter smeared all over it.

Afterwards, we viewed the photos on his computer, then ate some chips and drank some wine. Yet I always made an excuse to leave early. I hated being at a photographer’s apartment late at night. Going to the apartment alone in the first place was ballsy enough; I didn’t want to hang around.

It was experimental to shoot with him. Only two or three shots would come out that were worth anything. But still I went. Maybe he felt just as powerful taking pictures as I did being nude. In the meantime, I was learning more about my look. I knew what type of photos I was suited to, and didn’t just want to shoot for the hell of it anymore. The rush wasn’t enough. I needed a purpose to shoot.

That was the last time we shot together. He got me for free but I was getting wiser. Things were about to change.

I would soon have a rate. At the time, the thought of being a model was a bigger deal than the money. With hindsight I should have started shooting nude for the cash and used the money for quality photos by a professional. Then I could take those photos to an agency. But at the time, that wasn’t on my mind.

One day, on the way back to Brooklyn Heights on the 2 train, a group of tourists asked me, ‘Do you know how to get to the Empire State Building?’

I must have looked like a true New Yorker. ‘Yeah, just take this train to 34th Street. It’s only three stops away, then walk east three avenues.’ I felt like a champion, and forwardly asked a group of teenage boys who were looking dumbfounded at the subway map, ‘Do you need help?’

They said no.

If only they knew – they were talking to a model.

$$$ (#ulink_5dee48ef-598b-5a95-b478-2e63ba9593f6)

It took a couple weeks to set up my next shoot because the photographer said he was so busy. He also said in an email, ‘I’ll pay three hundred dollars for three hours of nude modeling work, plus a CD of the images.’

For a beginner, it was decent money. The thought of being paid was a compliment, like I was worth paying for. Suddenly, I was my own business and I eagerly said yes.

Three hundred dollars for three hours sounded right, I figured. For one, I didn’t have any credits that would put me in the ‘experienced’ category. Besides that I had shot with a bunch of amateur photographers who could hardly hold the camera properly, and who gave me items out of their fridge to model. I packed a few cute panties and tops. I was going to be nude most of the time anyway, so the outfits didn’t really matter. I was just thinking about the money.

I heard a knock at my door and Maryam entered. ‘I’m going to get some ice cream by the promenade. You want to come?’

‘I have a shoot.’

She wanted to know the details. For some reason I felt slutty admitting that a photographer was paying to shoot me nude so I just told her I had a job for a new lingerie company. I left quickly to cover my embarrassment.

The photographer was in Queens. I had only been there once before, an ex-boyfriend of mine lived there. We hadn’t talked in months, but it crossed my mind that at least he was someone who could help me if anything went wrong.

I slid my subway card through the gate and sat for almost an hour on the F train. The weekend trains were always packed. When I got off, a blue 1989 Volkswagen was waiting for me. The photographer was older than I expected, and no way would I have ever talked to this man if it weren’t for modeling. He had gray hair, light fair skin and a beard. He looked only a little older than my father. I laughed to myself and almost felt bad for the guy. He was married with kids and shooting women half naked in his freezing basement. From the look of his clothes, he didn’t make a good living and I wasn’t sure if I would get lunch, the photos, or if I’d even get paid. The fact he had white stains all over his black shirt freaked me out.

His basement was his studio. It took him about fifteen minutes to set up, which allowed me a little time to think of an escape plan or some way to make this shoot comfortable. I wore a new white lace and satin lingerie baby doll from Victoria’s Secret that I hadn’t even worn for Danny yet. I also had black boy shorts, which itched a little but looked really sexy. As I organized my make-up and clothing, I looked in the mirror and rolled my eyes at myself. I had way too much blush on and I grabbed some toilet paper to rub some off. It scratched my cheek a little and made it redder. You don’t even know this guy! He can’t really help you; is the money even worth it?

I mumbled to myself, ‘You’re crazy, crazy, so fucking crazy,’ as I applied some eyeliner. I could hear music: ‘…Gimme the beat boys and free my soul.’ I didn’t know who sang it, ‘…and rock and roll and drift away.’ It was some oldie. It reminded me of my father singing along to Willie Nelson. I made a mental note to call him later. For now, I needed to hurry up and get my eyeliner on. I applied it gingerly across my lower lid and hummed to the oldie, like I knew it by heart.

I looked at myself all red – painted like some freak show, like a hooker. I thought about leaving the dirty bathroom and going home, but it was too late now. I could already hear him rattling the lights and tearing open the film. Adding a little more lipstick and mascara, flipping my hair, I whispered to myself, ‘You look like a twelve-year-old.’ I turned my phone off, took a deep breath and walked down the basement stairs.

On set, I took off the lingerie slowly as the photographer suggested. He kept saying, ‘Okay…okay, yeah, that’s pretty, that’s pretty.’ I felt awkward as I stood with my breasts hanging out and some thin fabric across my legs so my vagina wouldn’t show. Maybe it was the photographer’s age, the smell of the basement, or the lack of confidence I felt in this man that made me so nervous. It was like posing for your senior portrait nude. The lighting was the same, but this wasn’t a picture I wanted my classmates or family to see.

There wasn’t much space to work. It was just me, the pull-down white canvas background, some machinery and car tools, and the camera. Shooting nude during my past photo shoots felt more natural because I was in control. I picked the pose, I had the ideas, and I was free to run, jump, yell, or laugh. It was ecstasy. This was different. I had to do what the photographer wanted. He was a paying customer; I was the muse trying to inspire the perfect image. For three hundred bucks.

After the basement we packed up the Volkswagen and went to the park. Quiet and secluded, it looked like a place where a girl could be found dead. The day felt like it would never end. Before we got out of the car, he handed me three one-hundred bills and said, ‘So, you don’t have to worry that I won’t pay you.’ I smiled lightly, barely curling my lips. I was confused whether his statement was meant to make me feel guilty that he had to pay me, or just his odd sense of humor.

I stashed the cash in my purse and started to change my clothing. I had brought along a suit jacket and some dress pants in the hope for some classy shots but the photographer wasn’t paying me to be classy. After just a couple of poses with clothes on I was naked again, this time straddling a tree trunk which had fallen across a stream. The air was cold and crisp, the tree rough and scraping my legs, my insides.

Once it was all over, I jumped on the F train and headed back to the dorms. I was now a paid model, not just another girl with her photo on a website. And although I wasn’t working with an agency yet, I was gaining confidence in front of the camera and what better way than butt naked and making some money?

I called Maryam and asked her to meet me for some shopping. She said she didn’t have a ton of cash to spend.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll buy you something.’

Portfolio (#ulink_61e5c15e-233b-5547-8ef9-ecbaf980b3a1)

Over the next few months I got more involved with my shoots, my ‘little productions.’ I got to be an art director. Maybe I could put that on my advertising résumé. I laughed to myself, especially now that I was being paid by the hour. I liked to help pick out the locations, styling all my clothing and doing my own make-up. I felt secure at last. After all, exchanging emails with photographers couldn’t be more harmful than Internet dating and people did that all the time.

Friends would introduce me as: ‘My friend the model!’ I loved their enthusiasm. I really loved it. Suddenly I had friends and a fan club. People I didn’t even know would knock on my dorm door, asking to see my web link and modeling photos. I didn’t need a magazine tear sheet or an interview with Conan O’Brien to be considered a model. They believed it. I believed it.

I was a model.

Really what I had become was a freelance model. It was a title I called myself more often now. As a freelance model, there wasn’t much planned besides the date and time to show up. Once at the shoot, the setup was simple: a chair, a couch, a roof, a bedroom, or a bathtub. So what if the small but obvious details that made a shoot professional were absent, such as a photo assistant who adjusted and set up the lights or checked the light meter, a make-up artist with her Mac make-up kit, and another assistant holding the reflector. Nor was there a stylist there to give the shoot a more defined purpose, while wrapping the body in fabric and ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ about the how great the colors looked. There was no one there to keep everyone focused and make sure that everything was perfect. None of those roles existed.

It was just the sound of breathing between model and photographer. The changing area was usually a bathroom or a bedroom where you would fight for space amongst the items scattered on countertops and floors – items owned by a sister or roommate, maybe a wife who wasn’t home. Often, I glanced over at the hairspray or at an expensive perfume I’d always wanted and could steal, but I held back, fearing I might be caught and blamed. Sometimes I was tempted to borrow shoes the same size as the ones I wore, but I worried I would get bitched out for slipping my dirty wannabe-model foot into someone else’s polished shoe.

Instead, I’d carefully, quietly pull out my costume of pink thongs, glitter cream, thigh highs, and a mini-skirt, and get dressed. Items I owned or had worn during a drunken night out with my girlfriends. Anything without an alcohol spill or puke on it was fair game. These items I carried to the shoot were the difference between amateur and professional. These items made me a freelance model.

Week after week, the sound of the camera lens zoomed and clicked, snapping and capturing the tease, the squinted eyes, the lip-gloss smacked lips. Wearing yesterday’s underwear wasn’t an issue and the twenty-dollar shoes looked just as sexy as the six-hundred-dollar ones. The scent of sweat under my arms and the slight moistness from being turned on lingered long after the actual shoot. I wondered if the photographer could smell it, too.

It was our own little production. Bootleg sometimes, the lighting too dim, and the shutter speed and aperture all wrong. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about making the perfect shot. Besides, Photoshop could fix anything. It was a photographer and model wanting their fix and fantasy for a few hours. Unlike before, now I got paid for my time.

After each shoot I was careful to pack up everything I brought, because running back for a forgotten ring, panties, or hairbrush only meant the possibility of being asked to shoot another time or to go for a drink and being tempted to. It was best to keep track of my shit, especially since many of these amateurs weren’t friendship material.

I would look at myself from another perspective and feel trashy, slutty, and like I had an addiction problem. I would think to myself that maybe I could use the money from my nude shoots to get some quality pictures from a professional who had real ambition. The thought was always there in the back of my mind, hiding, peeking out now and then. But it was always quickly dissolved by the thought of my being dissed because of my height, being told no by agents and bookers. At the open calls, I showed them all my half naked photos, but getting in the door was one thing, staying inside was a different challenge. I felt accepted everywhere except when in front of an agent.

No, for now I just wanted my photo taken. I was content and proud seeing my photo on the Internet, on a photographer’s website, or maybe once in a while making a few prints for my cheap bendable plastic portfolio from Pearl Paint. Although just having a portfolio meant nothing. I knew that much. Anyone could buy a fucking portfolio and put photos in it. But having one would impress those who knew nothing of modeling, like my friends or sorority sisters who introduced me as ‘the model.’

After all, how many people have piles of CDs scattered around their dorm room, and their photos all over the Internet and on their boyfriend’s bedroom walls? Still, I needed something that at least ‘looked’ professional. A black book with sexy photos inside must mean something, right?

Just take my picture, and make me feel beautiful.

Miami (#ulink_95d77b13-7b5d-5eda-891f-962beaaffe78)

Once, after I worked with another photographer in New Jersey, for a shoot that involved a red leathery dress and heels, he referred me to a photographer in Miami. I emailed the Florida photographer my photos and we set up a shoot. I was to be flown to Miami from NYC and stay for the whole weekend. It was perfect and I wouldn’t even miss any school. Danny would just have to see me another time.

The job turned out to be with two photographers who would pay me $350 each plus food and accommodation. I didn’t tell anyone; after all, how would I explain this trip without being questioned? Besides, I felt powerful and professional. I was being flown across the country, all expenses paid, to the warmth of Florida when New York was about to be blown away by a winter storm.