My Body(25)

While changing inside the trailer, I reached for my coffee, now cold. Goosebumps covered my skin as I stood there naked. I glanced down at my hips and legs and handed my clothes to the stylist. She looked my body up and down. I sucked in my stomach.

“I get it now,” she said. “You’re so tiny. Like Kate Moss but with boobs.” I smiled. The tool I’d brought with me was the right one.



* * *



I went to the spas in K-Town at the recommendation of my then agent, Natalie, the same year as that shoot. Natalie was blond, with short hair and smooth, nearly reflective porcelain skin. Her expression was always blank. Her no-nonsense approach to work made her a powerful agent, even militant at times. She was an authoritative figure to the “girls” she represented.

Natalie’s philosophy around talking to the girls about their bodies was that it was best to be direct. She believed that a model’s body is a crucial part of the job, and there was no use in being overly sensitive around the reality of the work.

When I started to make serious money as a model, the agency and Natalie paid me more attention. The first time she invited me out for dinner, I was convinced that I was in trouble. Why else would my agent take me out to dinner? I thought she wanted to discuss my weight or some other unforeseen issue with my body.

I wore a long sheer light-brown dress to meet Natalie and one of the other agents from Ford Models. I fastened a thin belt as tightly as I could around my midsection—punching new holes in the belt’s fake leather with a pen and cinching it so that it dug into my flesh when I exhaled. I wanted Natalie to be able to see, right away, how small my waist was.

I pulled up to the restaurant in West Hollywood in my dirt-covered Nissan, complete with a missing hubcap and piles of clothes in the backseat from changing into appropriate outfits for castings, and tried to look adult and graceful. Natalie and her colleague were seated outside, both on the same side of a table covered in a pristine white tablecloth. They waved as I steadied myself on my heels and approached them. Everything at the restaurant felt lovely—in the way I imagined a fancy older woman might use the word—and expensive. I thought about my messy car filled with dirty coffee cups and wondered if I looked put together. As I greeted them, Natalie brought the corners of her mouth up into a smile, something I’d never seen her do before. I was surprised by how welcoming her face could be. I felt myself relax.

Over the course of our dinner, Natalie didn’t bring up anything about my body and I, despite being underage and driving, drank three glasses of the driest, most delicious white wine I’d ever tasted. We talked about Los Angeles and the clients we didn’t like and the clients we loved. I’d never experienced a “getting to know you” dinner with people I worked with. It was that night Natalie mentioned the Korean spa.

“You should go!” she told me, her blue eyes sparkling beneath the fringe of her blond hair. “You’ll love it. It’s heaven. And not at all expensive,” she added, as if we were girlfriends swapping beauty tips. I smiled and nodded. Later, when I got home and undressed, I noticed red welts decorating my waist from where the belt had cut into my flesh.



* * *



I open my eyes in the Jacuzzi and step out, feeling the wrinkled soles of my wet feet against the concrete floor. My skin is moist and steaming. I’m wearing nothing but a stretchy plastic band on my wrist with a plastic tag attached to it, “23,” typed in block text. This is the key to my locker and also the number the women call when they’re ready for me. Then, after they’re done with the scrub and massage, they’ll use the stretchy band to hold my freshly washed hair away from my face.

“Twenty-three,” a petite, middle-aged Korean woman calls out. Her eyes hover over the various pools until she spots me. I obediently stand up and wrap a damp towel around my body. She waits for me to come to her side and nods without really looking at me. “Hello,” she says, then turns to walk through a steamy glass door. I follow behind her.

The body-scrub and massage area is lined with rows of rectangular metal platforms. They are as high as my hips and about six feet in length. Two Black women lie on adjacent platforms, washcloths placed over their eyes. The women scrubbing them move around their bodies busily, extending their arms, rubbing their thighs and glutes as they chat in Korean. The clients are silent and unmoving; their bodies jiggle passively against the silver platforms.

“Lie down,” the attendant tells me, tapping a finger on the metal surface and holding out a hand to take my towel. I pass it to her, my skin slick from the steam rooms, and climb onto the platform.

The last time I’d lain on a that kind of surface was during my most recent visit to the gynecologist. I had been bleeding during sex, only after orgasm, always a week before my period. The last time it happened, I jumped off my husband and ran to the bathroom, panicked. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked, tears streaming down my face as I inspected my blood on a piece of toilet paper.

In the gynecologist’s office, I sat up as she asked me questions about my body. I answered straightforwardly, noticing a single bead of sweat sliding down my ribs under the paper gown I had tied under my neck. “How often has this happened? Have you had more than one partner in the last few months? Do you use protection?” She fired off question after question without looking up from her tablet.

“Is this, um, normal? Like, do you see it with a lot of people?” I said, trying to get her to meet my eyes.