A Not So Model Home

by David James

  The question: You’ve met the contestants. So how do you think they’re going to fare?

  Like a coward, I turned the question over to Aurora, who immediately slipped into her persona, which was a natural. She looked at, no, confronted, the camera, then gave her verdict: “I think they all have a good shot at winning Ian’s hand, seeing that we’ve just started. But I have my eyes on Gilles. He’s rude, arrogant, and self-absorbed. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

  I would have thought that these qualities would make him the perfect match for Ian. In all candor, these were the qualities that pushed Ian to the top of the international world of beauty. He was not only known for styling some of the world’s most famous women, but he gained his real fame by berating those same women for seeing shitty hair stylists. His famed disagreement with Elizabeth Taylor over a hairstyle reduced her to tears. It also made him a star. And even more famous. And infinitely desirable.

  The camera swung to me, waiting for me to add something wonderful and remarkable. I froze up. I knew I was supposed to add something to what Aurora had so adroitly thrown out there, but I was so nervous I couldn’t come up with a great, insightful sound bite. Nothing. So I merely said what popped into my head: “I don’t know what Gilles is after, but he seems like gold-digging Eurotrash.”

  After it was out of my mouth, I realized that I should have been more diplomatic, but goddammit, this show was after reality and that’s the reality that the champagne fed me. Fuck ’em.

  Aurora tried valiantly to cover up the mess I had made, then sat in.

  “I think what Amanda is trying to say is that Gilles has preconceived ideas of his worth as Ian’s possible partner and heir, and they don’t necessarily coincide with what’s good for Ian. As for the rest of the guys, what I saw on my first meeting appalled me. Most of the men were texting, playing video games, and not paying attention to information about this program,” she said, jabbing her pointy index-finger talon toward the ground for emphasis. “You’d think that they would be taking this whole situation a lot more seriously! I mean, if I were in the position to potentially inherit the kind of money that would make me secure for life and have a famous lover to boot, I would throw myself into the effort. But these guys are used to putting on some fancy clothes in Paris or New York and walking down a runway and having people fawn over them. Well, that’s not going to happen here. If these guys think they’re going to flash some white teeth, wear tight trousers, flirt with Ian, and be declared the best match for him, they better think again. We will have to see how things turn out. I don’t have any favorites yet, but today will produce some winners”—she flipped her head to camera number two for emphasis—“and some real losers.”

  Okay, so her response was a tad better than mine. My first episode and I had blown it. To top it off, I had blurted out my bombshell while I was drunk. No, make that tipsy. That was my official story and I was going to stick to it. The sad thing is that what I had said was what I felt about Gilles. My reality. He really was a piece of gold-digging Eurotrash. What Ian saw in such people mystified me, but I guess a pretty face, washboard abs, and huge uncut dick added up to qualities that an over-the-hill, overweight hair stylist nearing sixty-seven would leap for. For me, it seemed ludicrous that the majority of the human race leaped toward those who provided a great face or a hot bod. And as we got older, you would think that we would be past the shell game of good looks, but as we got older and more able to afford the young, desperate people jumped at youth. The saying that “Old age and treachery always win over youth and skill” seemed like a lie perpetrated by ugly old queens. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been dining in local restaurants or perusing the local modern furniture stores only to see a January-December romance. The young escort leading the old queen around by the ring in his nose, buying $35,000 sofas, $140,000 cars, and Viagra by the barrel. The face and body always won. But not while I was still alive. Not on my watch. Not this time.

  The cameramen moved on since it appeared that Aurora and I were done. They concentrated on Ian, who was holding court like King Louis XIV, his courtiers sitting in rapt attention to a story of how he threw Sharon Stone out of his salon one day when she requested that he weave bits of bark and leaves into her hair for an awards show. (She was trying to get in touch with nature.)

  And that was that. Until lunch, that is. We were all herded to the canteen tents, where the only food being served was devoid of carbs. Just meat and steamed vegetables. Jeremy had seen to it that no one on the show developed unsightly bulges while the season was being filmed. This was a reality show and reality was thin.

  As I sat across from Aurora, who went on and on about her impressions about the contestants and how she saw their chances (after basically one meeting), I noticed some of the weirdest eating habits I had ever laid eyes on. Aleksei was drinking his Diet Coke through a straw. That might not sound weird, but he stuck the straw a good six inches down his throat, then like a snake, sucked up the caramel-colored liquid and swallowed it in waves, like a snake trying to ingest a raccoon. I pointed out this strange phenomenon to Aurora, who dismissed it with an I’ve-seen-it-all wave of her black-fingernail–tipped hand.

  “Eating disorder?” I offered.

  “Teeth bleaching. He doesn’t want to get them stained.”

  “But why would that matter? Apparently they aren’t ever supposed to smile, have a thought, or eat as part of their job.”

  “Oh, there’s nothing these guys won’t do to remain perfect. Most of them suffer from body dysmorphia.”

  “And that’s a mortal fear of getting your teeth stained?”

  “It’s an obsession with perceived defects in a person’s body.”

  “In whose body?”

  “The body of the sufferer.”

  “Oh, I thought it might involve finding defects in another person’s body.”

  “That’s another disorder, Amanda.”

  “And that is called . . . ?”

  “Bitchiness. No, these guys can’t stop obsessing with the idea that specific parts of their bodies are imperfect. They keep me and a lot of plastic surgeons in business.”

  “Well, Aurora, I guess that accounts for all the plastic surgeons we have in southern California.”

  “Amanda, it’s not just the surgeons. There are hoards of people willing to do anything to indulge the crazy ideas these guys have. There’s someone to pluck your eyebrows, suck the fat out of your abdomen, put weights on your balls to make them hang lower, and even people who will bleach your asshole. One to two percent of the world suffers from it,” Aurora reported, a pride emanating from her grasp of the facts.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “No, it’s true. About two in every hundred.”

  “No, not the dysmorphia statistics, Aurora. The . . . the . . . er . . . anal bleaching.”

  “Getting rid of the chocolate starfish?” she replied naughtily.

  “So they get their . . . this area dyed because . . . ?”

  “Two reasons. One, aesthetics. Two, it makes them look younger. The way they see it, a whiter asshole says it hasn’t been—how do I say this—tinted with time. White teeth, white asshole.”

  “Two phrases I never want to hear again in the same sentence. But what does this have to do with modeling? With the possible exception of Thierry Mugler, I don’t think any designer would ask these guys to expose their assholes on the catwalk.”

  “You don’t understand body dysmorphia, Amanda. Like most dysfunctions, they’re perceived. Their existence is in the eye of the beholder. These guys spend hours poring over their bodies, waxing, tweezing, and trimming. They examine every part of their bodies . . . even the parts most of us don’t see. But they see them—the flaws. And they strive for a perfection they can’t ever reach, because time is either keeping one step ahead of them, or their perceptions change, so what was considered perfect last week needs changing, plucking this week. It never ends.”

  “And
all this attention to appearance is why these guys look so good?”

  “That, and good genes,” Aurora replied, scanning the guys around the pool.

  “I know, you can spout all the bullshit you want about societal values, aesthetics, blah blah blah, but there is something about these guys that makes you look at them. Even when they’re not made up, they stand out.”

  “Scientists think it has to do with pleasing proportions and exceptional symmetry. I don’t know what it is either, Amanda. They do look abnormally handsome, don’t they?”

  I sighed. “They have such a leg up in life with their looks. I must have spent seven thousand dollars in my lifetime on rejuvenation creams and all I’m doing is reanimating the dead.”

  “Don’t get all depressed now, Amanda. But there’s a lot underneath the beauty that isn’t pretty. These guys also suffer because of their looks: visual perfectionism. They won’t even go out and get the mail without looking perfect. Look at David Laurant. He has a different, expensive look every single day. One day the hair is white and flipped up, the next it’s pasted down and lying flat. Three days from now it will be dyed black. Obsession with image.”

  “Aurora, you know all this from just observation?”

  “Oh, I know David is obsessed with his image. Gilles is so narcissistic that his therapy should consist of nothing more than staring into a small hand mirror with the words ‘You Are Beautiful and Perfect’ printed on the surface. Gilles is also incapable of feeling empathy toward any human being. Keith has fears of abandonment and sexual dysfunction that sometimes cripple him. Marcus Blade is another body dysmorphic, taking so many steroids that he almost blew out several arteries a year ago. Drake has a deep-seated need to exert power over men sexually. And Ian . . . Ian. Don’t get me started. He’s self-obsessed, narcissistic, vain, and uses his money and power to control everyone around him, both through sexual and financial means.”

  “Aurora, I’m not sure you should be telling me all this. What happened to doctor–patient confidentiality?”

  Aurora gave a quick laugh. “Amanda, the patients I usually work with are important, successful people. You’re unlikely to associate with them.”

  “Not them, Aurora,” I replied, knocking her off the pedestal I had previously placed her on. “I mean the guys here on the show. What you’re telling me is highly confidential.”

  “Oh, I don’t treat these guys here. Just Ian. The psychiatrists who work with all the other guys told me all this.”

  Just then, the three large-screen televisions scattered around the lunch area sprung to life with footage of Keith MacGregor talking to Aleksei while they casually stood around in bathing suits that covered about as much as a playing card. We were then treated to various scenes of the individual contestants capturing their trepidations about being able to win the contest and why they were going to be declared Ian’s heir—in equal portions. The editors threw in footage of Aurora, the consummate actor, delivering lines to the cameras like she had grown up cutting her baby teeth on a telephoto lens.

  What struck me about what had been captured already on film was how the cameramen seemed to call all the shots for the show and managed to create a show just from their roving cameras. With just a little push, the show seemed to roll along on its own.

  Then, up came the part where I called Gilles gold-digging Eurotrash. I heard gasps from a few of the guys, but when I shot a glance over toward Jeremy, he was smiling from ear to ear, Medea smiling over the deaths of her children.

  Gilles, who was sitting out in front of me, didn’t turn around. But I could see him slowly, almost imperceptibly shake his head from side to side as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. And to tell the truth, neither could I. It was like another person had said what I had just blurted out. While the rest of the footage flashed by, no one seemed to care from that point on. After all, the fart had been let into the room and it wasn’t clearing anytime soon.

  After probably looking up the words gold digging on Wikipedia, Gilles was out for blood on the afternoon shoots. Aurora and the cameramen, sensing that this was going to be an explosive issue, followed me like a cat on the trail of an overturned fish truck.

  As usual, I clung to Aurora for sustenance. We sat on the expensive chaise lounges around the pool, nibbling on outrageously expensive Japanese sushi finger foods, waiting for the cameramen to arrive, presumably to capture Gilles plunging an escargot fork into my heart. It was weird not knowing what was occurring elsewhere in the show. Occasionally, we overlapped and saw what was happening in other parts of the filming, but it never added up to a whole. It was like a magic show, where you were shown the ace of spades and expected to construct the rest of the magic trick, backward. At any one time, you had only part of the equation. The editors, bless their union-bound hearts, would take the twos, fives, and queens and kings and make it into a straight flush, a coherent program.

  So, as I felt safe and secure with Aurora, my protectorate, Gilles stormed up to me and confronted me like an ancestral harpy. I stood up to meet him.

  “Zo, you zink I ham a gold-digging U-O-trash? Let us zee how much of you izz real,” he said, pulling my swimsuit top down in front of the rolling cameras.

  What I did next was true reality. No scripting. I slapped him so hard across the face, his diamond stud earring flew off and into the pool, a good fifteen feet away. I’m not kidding. I actually watched it fly through the air in a perfect arc and land in the pool with a tiny plink. Even better, as I looked back at Gilles, I could still see my handprint clearly on his face, the fingers clearly and painfully outlined across his perfect skin.

  You could have heard an ant sneeze.

  I have never been a violent person, but it was so weird. It was like I had no other choice than to do what welled up in me like a volcanic explosion. And it felt good. Someone had done me wrong. No, violated me. And I struck back with total justification. Okay, I only did what everyone who probably ever came in contact with Gilles wanted to do within seconds of meeting him, but the point was, I did it. And it made me feel powerful. Really powerful.

  As I stood there pulsing with adrenaline, Gilles seemed to freeze. I do believe it was the first time anyone had ever stood up to him, especially a woman. He held his Gallic nose high in the air in defiance, both of us unwilling to back down. While there was still noise from all the other groups at the pool party, everyone in our little circle stood motionless, breathless. Then, Gilles blinked and turned haughtily away, dismissing me with a downward wave of his hand, the cameras trailing him like a pack of hyenas following a lion with fresh kill still in his mouth. I had won.

  Aurora, waiting for the drama to pass—and to let the cameras get a reaction shot of her—raised her wineglass silently in a toast to me with a silent nod of acceptance. No, admiration. One tough bitch to another . . . in a gay man’s world. When word spread throughout the pool party that I had “bitch-slapped the bitch,” other members of the cast came to either shake my hand or just stare at me.

  It was the start of my short, meteoric climb in notoriety. One that I barely began to perceive. But one that was going to produce changes in my life that I could not see at the moment. Yet, I did feel at one with myself for the time being. It was refreshing.

  Of course, The Slap, as it came to be known, was just what Jeremy and his cameramen were looking for. I think it was at this point that I realized what a pivotal role the cameramen played. Despite my reservations that any portion of this show was going to have a plethora of reality, it was the cameramen who knew what would look good on TV, and they knew how to get it. Since the segment television producer wasn’t always around to narrate off camera, the cameramen often prompted the contestants to make a statement or offer an opinion on what just happened. And since I had effectively stolen the first show single-handedly with my slap, the cameramen were corralling the men into making response segments to sprinkle in after the actual event had occurred. I overheard the responses for the most part,
since the guys weren’t sitting that far away. Strangely, the men were all pretty much supportive, but their dramatic reactions consisting of popped eyes and a few whistles intended to upstage me failed miserably. Aleksei commented that seeing a woman’s naked body—or any part of it—made him want to puke. The first show belonged to me, hands down. But the genie was out of the bottle. In one single day, the men went from consummate models to being consummate actors.

  And that was pretty much all for the taping of the first show of Things Are a Bit Iffy. The cast was jazzed up, Gilles was pissed off, Jeremy was beside himself—everyone was happy. Except me.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Slap Heard ’Round the World

  That night, I went over to Alex’s place. As he was pouring a cucumber martini for the both of us, Alex asked me how the filming went. I told him that there had been a kerfuffle.

  “A kerfuffle? Did you just become a Tudor?”

  “Well, I kinda slapped Gilles.”

  “Kinda slapped?”

  “Okay, I bitch-slapped him.”

  “Whyyyyy?”

  “Because he pulled down the top of my swimsuit and exposed my breasts.”

  “I thought this was a gay show, not an episode of Girls Gone Wild.”

  “It is a gay show. I’m the token fag hag.”

  Alex was trying to figure out things. “So why would an obnoxious, gay French male model pull down the top of your swimsuit?”

  “Ah, well, that’s just the way he is,” I said, lying through my newly whitened teeth. (So what if I wanted my teeth to look good for TV. I recently had them bleached . . . so sue me.)

  “Amanda . . .” Alex started. “I can tell when you’re lying.”

  “How so?”

  “You don’t look me in the eye and you start fiddling with something with your hands . . . like you’re fiddling with my salt shaker. So spill it.”

  “I called him money-grubbing Eurotrash or something like that.”

  “No argument there from what you’ve told me about him, but I suppose you did this in front of a camera?”