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 β which paid well; editorial β 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 β instead, there is simply "the back." Any model β 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 β 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."