Appearing for One Night Only

For the last few years, I have made a good living as a male model. Not a $5000 a day supermodel kind of male model. There are just a couple dozen of those in the entire world that make that kind of money. No, I was just an average working male model. Catalogs – which paid well; editorial – which didn't, and every year, fashion shows in Milan, Paris, New York and London.

Those shows were a rush of auditions (called go-sees), fittings, make-up and then the runway itself. Though not as intense as the women's side of fashion, show season was exhilarating and lucrative. Booking shows with just a handful of designers could fund a month or more on an exotic beach; Bali, the Seychelles, Phuket.

Working a fashion show is not for the modest. There are no dressing rooms – instead, there is simply "the back." Any model – male or female with any sort of privacy hang-ups is going to have problems. You come in, take off your clothes, put on whatever it is you're supposed to wear, take that off and put on the next outfit. Backstage is a crowded, tangled mess of hysterical designers, anxious assistants, frazzled make-up artists and always, the press.

I had been in London for the week leading up to their season. The truth is, I hadn't been all that successful in booking shows. Was I getting to that age where I had to -- god forbid, think about going back to Dartmouth and finishing up my degree. And in what? I'd never exactly figured that part out. Which explains how I'd ended up in London.

I had gotten into modeling during my sophomore year at college. I wasn't setting the academic world on fire although I was a productive member of the lacrosse team. I decided to -- well, it was more of a joke than anything else -- send a few photos of myself to modeling agency in New York City. I was surprised when, just a few days later, I got a call asking if I could drop by for a look and quick Polaroid. That was a hurried late night train ride and three years ago.

The agency signed me and I booked work right away. At that point, it seemed like an easy decision to withdraw from the university. I rationalized that I could always go back and, with the money I'd managed to put away, pay for my degree and then some. At least that was the plan back then.

In reality, I hadn't been all that good about putting money away. First-class air travel was a hard habit to break. And now my London season was shaping up to be a total flop. I had managed to book just one show. It was for a designer that was showing a collection of resort and swimwear. Typically, I never even got those sorts of assignments. Not that I didn't look good in swimwear. At 6'-2", I had a lean, muscular body with a flat stomach. No, that wasn't the problem. As one casting director put it to me after I'd gone in to audition for an underwear campaign, I was perfect for them except for one thing ... and this is where he paused and became suddenly tongue-tied.

"No offense, but your... you know," looking down at my crotch and then shaking his head. "It's just too..." before trailing off, "I'm sure you understand."

We both laughed but I didn't get hired. Feeling a small flush of anger tinged with embarrassment, I knew what he was referring to. Having a big package was usually considered a good thing. And certain photographers weren't against adding a bit of strategic padding to achieve the desired look for their client. But, what many people would consider an asset had turned out to be a professional impediment for me.

As a drunk Irish girl once said to me, there are some men that are "growers." Except the way pronounced it, it came out sounding like "grewers." You really can't tell how big they are when they're flaccid. And then there are "teasers," men that look big flaccid but don't really grow all that much when they get hard. And then there are...

"Fekking yuge," she'd said with a throaty laugh before rolling out of bed to pull a measuring tape out of her sewing basket.

"Christ, what have I gotten myself into," she asked?

Nothing it turned out because, if memory serves me correctly, she passed out a few minutes later and I had to let myself out of her cramped Dublin apartment.

With that in mind, I was surprised when I booked this designer's show. During the casting, I had tried on a few of his swimsuits and done my model walk for him and his top staff. Among them was an attractive woman Asian woman in her early 30's. She seemed to be more on the business side than the creative but that was just a guess. They were all sitting at a long table at one end of his atelier; bottles of Fiji water, half-filled ashtrays and fabric swatches strewn about.

I'd grown used to the discreet glance downward that lingered just a brief moment too long, followed by, "thank you but you're not quite right for this." It had gotten to the point where my agency stopped sending me to those sorts of go-sees.

So, I was quite surprised when the designer said, "you'll be perfect, luv."

A few days later, the show went off about the way they usually do – chaos, a few missed lighting cues, throbbing techno music and lots of hugs and kisses backstage afterwards. At one point during the show, I'd noticed the Asian woman who had been at the casting. She was dressed much that same as she had been the day of the audition. If I knew more about fashion perhaps I would have recognized her outfit as something from the designer's women's collection. She'd spent most of the show doing nothing but seeming to keep an eye on everything. From time to time, she'd talk to someone in the press but mostly she just watched.

At one point during the show I was between outfits. What I mean by that is that I was standing there stark naked as my dresser pulled the next look off the rack. As I said earlier, fashion shows aren't for the modest.

The Asian woman's glance was nothing unprofessional but I clearly felt her linger for just a fraction of moment too long on what hung between my legs. And then there was, perhaps, just a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth but maybe I had imagined that. I think she saw me looking back at her and she quickly turned to speak to a reporter from the Herald Tribune.

After the show, I'd slipped into my own clothes, said my good-byes and was out the door in just a few minutes. I was on the damp sidewalk and wondering how I was going to get back to my hotel -- cab, tube or just walk through the chilly London night, when I heard someone behind me.

"Excuse me."

Which is a long way of explaining how I ended up where I am tonight -- sitting alone in a small dressing room. Naked. Other than the fact that I'm in London, I have no idea where I am and only a vague idea of what is going to happen later this evening.

"Call me Amelia," she said offering her hand.

Two nights later the hired car picked me up in front of my hotel at 10pm sharp, just as she'd promised. After a 20 minute ride, the car dropped me off at the back door of what seemed to be a club, maybe a restaurant. A small woman with a clipboard opened the door before I'd even had a chance ask the driver what do next. The woman didn't offer her name or even a hello, just a crisp, "follow me, please," and led me down a narrow hallway to this small dressing room. A table, a chair, a few hooks.

She pointed at the chair, told me to sit and put my head back.

"This will sting a bit."

The drops she put into my eyes really did sting. "Just like at the eye doctors, you know."

That was over an hour ago. At least I think it was an hour ago. As instructed, I had come without a watch or a cellphone. I'd done as she'd directed and took off all my clothes "and I mean everything," she'd emphasized. "Someone will come for you," before closing the door behind herself.

A moment later, she popped her head through door and added, "everything will go back to normal in a few hours." I hope she'd meant my eyesight.

I waited patiently but with a frisson of excitement knowing what was going to happen this evening. Beyond the walls of my little room I could hear women's voices. Many of them.

"Can I talk to you about something," call-me-Amelia had asked with a directness that seemed totally in keeping with her professional air and appearance. Although her crisp British accent didn't exactly jibe with her sleek Asian looks.

There was a hotel just a block away. They had a small bar off the lobby where we could talk. We found a quiet spot on a curved banquette. Actually, the bar was nearly deserted so any place was going to be quiet. As she slid in, her skirt made a pleasing swish sound, not unlike a zipper being unzipped.

"I'll have a Laphroig – the 15 year old," she said to the young waitress. No girly drink for Amelia, she was all business. "And my guest will have?" leaving no doubt about who was in charge of our tête-à-tête.

There was a small group of women with a very particular set of interests. "I suppose you could call it a club," she said with more of a smile than I'd seen from her all evening. They met just a few times a year and sometimes the gatherings were held on short notice. Membership was strictly by invitation only. All of the women were successful and accomplished in their fields. Some were in business, others professionals, a few academics. There were even a few creative types; an art director at a large ad agency and a couple of well-known writers.

"What is paramount to our group is privacy and absolute discretion."

There was one rule - strictly enforced: no cell phones, cameras or any other device that could be used to record the evening's events. And no dropping into the loo to make a quick call to the sitter to check on the kids.

"Yes, we even have a few mothers," she said in response to my raised eyebrows, adding, "more than a few, actually."

Members in this group ranged from their late twenties to early fifties though most were in their thirties and forties. "And they're quite a stylish bunch, if I do say so," she said as a way of re-assuring me that what she was proposing was, what? Safe? Legitimate? Did it even matter?

It hadn't taken long for the drops to turn the dressing room into a smudged blur. The only interruption had been a brief appearance by the woman who had met me at the door. I recognized her voice as she slipped in.

"They're running behind and asked me to bring you something."

From a tray she placed what looked like a champagne flute and a small plate on the table in front of me.

"It's a Pehu-Simonet Brut," as if that meant anything to me, "quite lovely."

Maybe the champagne was lovely but in my state of slowly mounting anxiety I barely tasted it. I finished the contents of the flute in three big gulps. It could have been a glass of sparkling cider for all I knew.

It wasn't long afterwards that the door opened again. This time, two women slipped inside my room. Even with my blurred eyesight, I could make out shapes and colors -- just no details.

From what I could see, I had been joined by two identically dressed women. They were clad entirely in shiny black latex: high-heeled boots that came up above their knees, tight bustiers that cinched their waists and supported bare breasts, a leather collar and masks that covered their eyes.

Beyond that, I could see that one of them had full breasts that rested heavily on her bustier while the other had more of an athletic build. I tried squinting as a way of seeing more detail but it was pointless. It's was all a mélange of blurs and vague shapes but the details were missing.

As one of the girls moved I saw a sharp flash of light glint from a place between her legs. I wondered if her clit was pierced. Other than that, they were both naked from the waist down.

"Stand up, darling," said the one with the larger breasts. I detected an accent. Not British -- maybe South African or Australian. I couldn't tell the difference.

She fastened a collar similar to the ones that they were both wearing around my neck. "Not too tight is it," she asked.

What shall I call my two loving attendants? Jane and Jane, perhaps. The more slender of the two clipped a chain to the collar. As she pressed herself against me her soft skin was punctuated by a tiny hot dot where her nipple pressed against my biceps.

"Don't worry, they're going to love you," she said. My cock, mostly flaccid but ever the independent thinker, stirred against my thigh in response to her kind reassurance.

I was lead out the door and into the dark, narrow hallway. The muffled sounds that I had been hearing through the dressing room's wall became louder and more distinct; women talking, laughter and an occasional clink of crystal against china.

I felt woozy as I followed my leash leader. I doubted if it was the single glass of champagne. Instead, I suspected it was due to my blurred eyesight, the dim lighting in the passage and not being able to see the floor beneath my feet. Luckily, the other Jane was behind me and placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. We made a quick right turn and then stopped behind a heavy velvet curtain. It was ringed by a bright corona of light. And beyond, I wondered what awaited me?

"The gathering's vary in size -- I should think 15 to 20 ladies on average," By then, call me Amelia was well through her second Scotch and I was weighing her offer.

Doing what I did for a living, I'd never had any hang-ups about being looked at or photographed. But was I an exhibitionist? That was the question Amelia asked me to consider.

"Of course I was drawn to your size," she stated with matter of fact directness. But she added that I seemed ever so slightly aroused when she saw me backstage at the show.

"Frankly, most of the boys back there are a bit shriveled."

And who wouldn't be, she asked rhetorically. With the pressure and everything else that goes on. "Bloody chaos is what it is. But you on the other hand," letting her voice trail off.

Was I an exhibitionist? I had never considered the question.

After an early morning shoot that took place on a large sailboat in San Diego harbor, one of the girls suggested we all go to a place called Black's Beach. On the drive up I learned it was the largest nude beach in the US. Think of it as "going skinny dipping with 100,000 of your nearest and dearest friends," she'd explained.

It was a sunny, mid-summer day and her description of the beach wasn't far off. Seen from the cliff above, the beach was a near-endless sea of flesh. Apparently there was a gay section and a straight section. Though we were in the latter, the boundaries weren't well defined. Not surprisingly, I received my fair share of looks – some veiled, some obvious. And while it was nice to swim naked in the ocean was I turned on by being nude in front of so many people? I didn't think so. Not at the time, anyway.

But later the same night our group had gone out to a dance club in Solana Beach called Belly Up. For some reason, I was feeling extra horny. Was it the residual effect of having shown my body off in front of thousands of people earlier that day?

While everyone talked about how non-sexual the beach was, I was well aware of the stares I'd been getting all day - from men and women both. And at the club that night, I found myself drawn to a model that I'd worked with in the past but never much liked. No, drawn isn't the right work. I just wanted to fuck her. Needed to fuck her. She followed me somewhat willingly into a men's room stall and didn't seem to mind when I pushed her forward and lifted up the back of her pretty polka dot skirt.

"We'll be going out in just a minute," said the Jane with the accent. Maybe it was New Zealand.

But this... this was altogether different. I'd been with lots of girls but it had always been sequential. Never more than one at a time – not that I hadn't hoped to get lucky with a threesome. I even contemplated whether or not I'd had an erection in front of more than one woman at once?

Oh yes, one time. There was a girl – a smart waitress at a bar I used to go to on the Lower East Side. Babette. She claimed that she was related to a family of famous French perfume makers. We'd been together a few times but always at my SoHo apartment. This one Sunday night, however, we went back to her place with a warning that we needed to be quiet because her roommate was a light sleeper. She had a way of grinding her hips when I was on top of her that I really liked. We were hard at it when she asked softly, "Is it okay if Jonelle watches?"

I hadn't even noticed that the bedroom door was ajar. Nor had I noticed the pajama-clad woman leaning against the wall.

"She just wants to watch, okay."

Which she did except for the one hand that disappeared inside the waistband of her bottoms. I asked Babette if she wanted to join us.

"Trust me, she more into watching me than you," Babette responded before adding more loudly, "right, Jonee?" and they both shared a girlish giggle.

Knowing that I... that we... had an audience changed the dynamic. I was aware of sight lines; moving a leg, re-positioning us on the bed, pulling myself almost all the way out and lingering for a moment longer than I normally would. It added to the excitement. I became more vocal, dominating, and aggressive. Thrusting harder than I had been, turning her over on to her stomach and asking as I pressed against her, "do you want it there?" And when Jonelle's knees stiffened and she pressed up onto the balls of her feet, I, too, felt myself holding my breath.

Was I reacting to watching or being watched?

Based on that very limited experience of performing in front of an audience, I assured Amelia that I was quite confident I wouldn't disappointment her or her friends.

"Oh darling, you've misunderstood," she said with a light laugh. As much as the idea sounded intriguing, it really wasn't her thing. No, she was much too reserved. She was more of, well, "think of me as a talent spotter for the group." We both laughed and I told her that, yes, I had misunderstood. And that I'd actually thought at first she was interested in me.

"Not that you aren't a gorgeous boy," she responded but, "if I was going to go home with anyone tonight it would be her," tilting her head slightly to the waitress behind the bar before adding dryly, "hough she's not really my type, either."

As I stood waiting behind the curtain with my two Janes, the music level dropped and soon after, the voices in club softened, too. Then, a new music track started -- this one more rhythmic, the bass line stronger. The light that I saw around the edges of the curtain had changed, too. What had been a cool blue became a warm red. The Janes seemed to react, as well. They both moved in front of me and took hold of the leash together. The intensity of the music built and the volume of the voices beyond the curtain grew with it. I briefly wondered if there would be some sort of an introduction.

"Here we go!"

They push through the slit in the curtain with me following close behind. We stop near the front of what I can now tell is a small stage. After a moment, they move to either side of me and I am immediately struck by how bright it is. It must be because my pupils are so dilated.

I can sense more than see the women beyond the lights. As I stand there flanked by my two companions I hear muted comments, a few giggles and other approving sounds. Naked, I am feeling vulnerable and exposed. For the first time, I really do wonder if I am going to be able to perform.

What have I gotten myself in to?

The five thousand pounds that sounded so enticing two nights ago now seems like maybe not the best idea. How embarrassing would it be to not be able to get it up in front of a room full of women who have come to see just that?

My Janes start to caress me softly; running their hands all over my body, planting kisses on my neck, teasing me with their fingernails, lightly pinching my nipples and dancing close to my cock but never quite touching it.