My Body(48)

I was already an expert in assessing myself through men’s eyes. I had recently started smoking cigarettes and skipping meals to maintain a tiny waist, so I felt confident that you would be impressed. I was right. When you saw my body, your eyes went wide. “Jesus fucking Christ,” you said. “Where were you hiding all of that?”

You took my hand and walked me through the studio, past the other models, to the photographer as I stumbled, giggling, behind you in nothing but my underwear and a pair of heels. It felt so incredibly validating to be recognized by you as special.

I was nineteen. I loved driving down the coastline with the windows down, playing music. I loved the way my skin smelled after rolling in the sand when I drank too much sangria on the beach with my friends. I was eager to meet the kinds of smart, cool people I thought I’d find in LA if I was able to make enough money to move there; excited about the adult world and where I’d fit into it and what I might do. Do you remember what it was like to be nineteen?



* * *



Once, while leaving a nightclub, a famous musician plucked twenty young girls off the dance floor and had them sit in a room next to his recording studio until five in the morning. He took their phones, made them sign NDAs, and put them all together, out of the way, to wait till he was done playing his new album for some friends. Then they would all party, he said. A guy I know was there, and as he was leaving, he saw the girls crowded together. He said the room looked like the DMV.

I pictured the girls exhausted, with no internet or cameras or texts to distract themselves. A little drunk. I saw their push-up bras, their curls falling flat under the fluorescent lights.

Why do you think they waited in that room, Steve?

Maybe many years from now, maybe next week, those girls will suddenly feel upset at something and not know why. Where is this reaction coming from? They really won’t know, they won’t be able to place it, but it will be because of the way they let themselves sit in that room. The way they put on their makeup and dressed themselves up. They’ll feel small and blame no one but themselves.

I so desperately craved men’s validation that I accepted it even when it came wrapped in disrespect. I was those girls in that room, waiting, trading my body and measuring my self-worth in a value system that revolves around men and their desire.



* * *



Was I unknown when we worked together? you were asked. “Not for long,” you responded. “I got all these emails from people like Kanye West and Adam Levine, who wanted to use her in campaigns. Then Robin Thicke called me.”

You’re right, I did get a lot of attention from well-known, powerful men. That was how I got opportunities to work, to make money and also build a career. Robin Thicke and Adam Levine hired me to be in their music videos. In the video for Maroon 5, I straddled Adam Levine in underwear as he rubbed blue paint all over my body.

The year I met you, a famous man flew me from Los Angeles to London on the promise of a job opportunity. I landed in the morning, jetlagged and sore from my narrow seat on a crowded flight. My agent had said I’d have an hour to freshen up before being taken to the man’s studio, but the hotel phone rang immediately as I walked in the room to notify me that there was a car waiting. At the studio, a team of people changed my clothes and pushed me out onto a platform a few feet above where the man was sitting. His expression was unreadable as he kept his eyes on my body before I was whisked away again. I was relieved, thinking that the casting was over. I wanted to go to my hotel room and sleep, but someone came to say that the famous man wanted me to have a drink with him.

“Okay,” I said, catching my reflection in the mirror. I looked exhausted. What time was it in Los Angeles? I wondered, afraid of the answer. “Sure.”

The conversation was awkward in the backseat of his car while his friend or his assistant (in my experience, all the friends of famous men seem to be on their payroll) sat in the passenger seat. The driver stared straight ahead robotically. The man opened his laptop and lazily pressed on the keyboard as we spoke. I watched the slow-moving traffic out the window. When I glanced back, I saw that he had turned the laptop to face me. On the screen, two men and two women were having sex. The man pointed to one of the bodies.

“That one’s me.” He grinned, his eyes on the screen.

When I’d agreed to fly to London, my agent told me to rely on him if I needed anything. “I’m happy to be the bad guy,” he’d said. As the car stopped at an upscale hotel, I shot off a quick email, without specific details, asking him to nudge his contact to release me.

We sat and ordered drinks, and just as I had with you, Steve, I did my best to present myself as more than just a body. I talked about art and music and even politics. In a way that reminded me of my meeting with you, we genuinely connected on some things.

The three of us took an elevator up to his suite. We sat in the living space for an hour or so before the assistant began to fall asleep on the couch, his eyes rolling back in his head. The famous man opened his laptop again and started to play a video I’d done for Treats!

“I mean, damn.” he said, indicating my naked body in motion. “I can’t stop watching you.” How odd, I thought. I’m right here in front of you.

I checked my email for a response from my agent. “You’re a big girl, Emily. Figure it out.”

I mustered some courage and stood up, announcing loudly enough to wake the assistant that it was time for me to leave. As we began to walk out, the famous man stood to hug me. He pressed his body against mine and then slowly kissed my neck. We were suddenly alone; the assistant had disappeared behind the shut front door. I giggled nervously, trying to bring some levity to the vibe. “I have a boyfriend,” I said, knowing that invoking another man’s ownership might deter him. He breathed in my scent.