A Not So Model Home

by David James

  “Oh, that’s just the two of you saying that to make me feel better.”

  Just then my iPhone, which was on silent, started jumping and buzzing on the tabletop like a cicada on a hot July afternoon. And it didn’t stop. I went over, wondering which client was now having a drama-queen episode. I looked at the mass of text messages, and there was a list as long as your arm. Friends, cousins, clients, coworkers were all sending messages of congratulations. They loved me! I showed the messages to Alex and Regina, who quickly scanned them and nodded their heads in approval.

  “Amanda?” Alex sang slowly. “I think the people have spoken.”

  CHAPTER 13

  And What Are Your Plans for That Cucumber?

  The next night, I found myself driving to our local bowling alley. Monday night was the gay bowling league. I was on the only straight team. Us four girls: Jerri, Samantha, Regina Belle, and me. What brought us together is that all our husbands turned out to be gay. Well, in Regina’s case, one of several, making her batting average better than the rest of us simply because she had been married more times. So, since we loved the company of gay men, we figured it wouldn’t hurt to be surrounded by them holding sixteen-pound balls. We even had our team name embroidered on our bowling shirts: THE FAG HAGS, in very fancy script. In sequins. Strangely enough, we stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of gay men, transvestites, one transsexual, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. They rarely wore their official transvestite nun habits, owing to the fateful day when Sister Way Too Much’s habit got caught in the ball return and she was almost dragged into the bowels of the machine. From that day on, only facial makeup and short headpieces were worn by the Sisters. Very short, I might add.

  When I walked in, I kept my head low. I wanted to slip in quietly with as few people noticing me as was possible. That plan went into the shitter when several of the bowlers recognized me immediately and began a standing ovation. Those who didn’t join in craned their necks to see what all the commotion was about. You would have thought I rolled a 300 game.

  Right then, I did the most uncharacteristic thing I’d ever done in my life. I waved my hand with an Elizabeth II royal wave and followed it with a bow. This was so not me. All my life, I’d avoided being seen, being recognized, being photographed. And here I was, sweeping in the praise and adoration as the waves washed over me. So this is what it felt like to be a celebrity. I liked it.

  Several of the guys clustered around me, gushing about my performance in the premiere episode of Things Are a Bit Iffy. As I changed into my bowling shoes, fans lobbed questions at me about my first episode.

  “Was the slap real or was it staged?”

  “Did you wish you hit Gilles harder?”

  “Who are you going to punch next?”

  “Did you have a boob job?” (I didn’t take offense at this last question since it was asked by Carla de Rossi, the league’s only transsexual.) The initial adoration and congratulations eventually died down, but throughout the night, men would drift by or shout “great slap” to me while I was waiting my turn to bowl. It must have had an effect on my bowling, because I rolled a 220, 231, and 267. It would all be forgotten in the morning, I told myself.

  It wasn’t.

  I didn’t realize how much my celebrity had spread. Videos posted on YouTube containing parts of the show were nearing 1,200,000 views by the time I got up. When I walked into my local supermarket and entered the vegetable and fruit section around 10 A.M., it really hit me how my life was changing—whether I liked it or not. Granted, I was wearing mini-stilettos, skintight cigarette capri pants, and a low-cut white linen blouse—just the kind of outfit you would wear to pick over zucchinis. As I made my way around the onion and potato table, I could feel dozens of pairs of eyes boring holes in my back.

  I moved onto the lettuce and cabbage section, and I was keenly aware that not only was I being watched, but whispered about. I went about my business, thumping a cantaloupe, squeezing a vine-ripened tomato, when a man provocatively holding two casaba melons approached me slyly, puckering up enough to send off a seductive air kiss that said, “I want to get my hands on your tomatoes.” I ignored him—the price of celebrity.

  But my adoring fans weren’t done with me yet. A man standing near me, who was sneaking quick sideways glances, whispered discreetly, “Slap me.”

  I looked at him briefly, not sure I had heard what I heard. I went back to my Roma tomatoes.

  “Slap me, Amanda.”

  This I couldn’t let go. “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Slap me. Step on my nuts with the heel of those stilettos.”

  “Do I know you?” I asked, and turned away.

  “I want you to violate me with this yam,” he said, brandishing a rather oversized tuberous root vegetable.

  “That’s a sweet potato.”

  “Well, it’s a yam, too,” he replied defensively.

  “Yams are from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This is a sweet potato. They’re from completely different botanical families.”

  “Potato potah-to. I want you to ram it into me, Amanda. Make me your bitch.”

  At first I was put off by this man’s appalling lack of knowledge of the origins of basic foods. But my encounter with him had taken a more ominous turn. It wasn’t the sexual component that disturbed me. From the time I was old enough to know what was going on and had breasts big enough to cause male heads to turn, I knew I was being hit on by men from time to time. Creepy fact, but those were the times. There were no sexual harassment laws, no predator laws, or women to stand up for themselves when I was growing up. Of course, it was a great improvement over my grandmother’s time, when she claimed that they left the female babies to the wolves in her Lithuanian village because they weren’t worth as much as a man. So I accepted the evolution that had occurred in human thought, however small that it was.

  No, what really bothered me was the fact that from the instant this man used my name, he was acting as if he actually knew me—that he felt comfortable enough to be intimate with me. I knew a line had been crossed. It was unfortunate. I wanted adoring fans, the operative word here being adoring. Adoring meant people standing at a respectful and reverential distance, whispering how much they wanted to be like me—no, to be me—and perhaps snapping a picture to show the folks back home while throwing large bags of gold, frankincense, and myrrh in my general direction. But it concerned me that fans wouldn’t always follow the rules I had laid down in my mind. I discovered that I should be nice to all of my fans, but I shouldn’t be too nice to any of them.

  “Get down on your knees,” I said, surprising myself.

  “What?” the startled yam . . . I mean, sweet-potato–wielding man replied.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I said get down on your knees while I finish shopping,” I stated firmly, extending my index finger with the blood-red nail toward the floor, where I expected this man to grovel. “I have more shopping to do. I expect to find you here when I come back!” I said, raising my voice a bit at the end for emphasis. He never got fully down on his knees, and as soon as I was far enough away, he dropped the sweet potato and ran out of the store.

  A woman who was watching all this transpire from a distance drifted toward me. She decided to comment on what she had just seen.

  “Men!”

  “You said it, sister.”

  “I recognized you as Amanda Thorne on Things Are a Bit Iffy.”

  “That’s me,” I said, thrusting out my hand to shake. She grabbed my hand and pumped it like an enthusiastic candidate for governor.

  “So glad to meet you. When I saw you slap that little French bitch on the TV show, I felt a stab of sisterhood. We don’t need to take that from the male patriarchy.”

  “Er, yeah.”

  “I mean, men have been oppressing us since we walked out of caves and realized we could do more than breed and cook.”

  Now, I’m a feminist to a very large extent. I still have my EVE WAS FRAMED bumper stick
er on the back of my Toyota Land Cruiser. I still admire Gloria Steinem, mostly. But when I hear a woman making remarks that involve words like oppression, patriarchy, or forced castration, it’s too much for me. I mean, I like men. I like being fucked by them. I was married to one, for gosh sakes. Of course, he turned out to be gay. But he is still a man, no matter where his penis has been.

  “I’m not sure he was oppressing me per se. I think he’s just a bitchy French queen. An equal opportunity offender, if you will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a kumquat that’s calling me. A pleasure to meet you.”

  I left her standing there, unsure whether I was a bitch, really had fruit to buy, or was too much of a celebrity to bother with the unwashed masses. And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what I was just then either.

  CHAPTER 14

  What Does A Scotsman Have Hidden Under His Kilt?

  “Well, Toviah broke the code of ethics for models—he smiled on the runway. Everyone knows you’re supposed to be devoid of emotion, thought, and feeling during a show. I mean, no wonder he can’t find work. He did it to himself,” David warned.

  We were all seated around Ian’s cavernous living room, cameras rolling while we waited for Aleksei to arrive. In the beginning, Jeremy insisted that everyone be present when we began shooting, but two things changed his mind. Having people show up naturally was, well, more real. Plus, these were gay men. Correction, these were gay men who were models—they rarely showed up on time. When Aleksei finally did enter the room, something was out of place about him: He was wearing a hat instead of sporting a new hair color or style.

  “What’s with the hat?” Ian asked.

  Without saying a word, Aleksei removed his cap to reveal a bald scalp that looked like it had been scrubbed with a steel wool pad. His scalp was an angry red.

  “Someone put depilatory in my shampoo. I felt it when I was shampooing—the burning—but by the time I figured out what was happening, it was too late.”

  “That’s too bad, Aleksei. Maybe it was just cheap shampoo,” David replied with just a hint of a smile on his face.

  “And maybe it was just someone cheap who put that hair remover into my shampoo?” Aleksei fired back.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Aleksei. I have no reason to sabotage you or anyone on this show. I will win this thing fair and square. I don’t need to resort to childish tricks. Why don’t you wear your wigs, then?”

  “Someone cut those up as well.”

  Just then, Gilles joined us in the living room. Naked. Yes, he was huge. I mean, huge. And second, he was definitely European. Now I understood Ian’s attraction to Gilles.

  “Well, someone act like a child,” Gilles joined in. He held up a pair of pants to reveal a large, ragged hole in the seat area. All my pants, ze swim suits, zhorts . . . all zeese holes!” He sat down dejectedly on a white cotton duck sofa. “I need to look good for the camera.”

  I made a mental note not to sit on that sofa again.

  “Gilles,” I started, “in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re filming here. I know you might live in the Marais in Paris, but here in Palm Springs, we wear clothes . . . sometimes. Or at least underwear. Some of us . . . especially when we’re in front of cameras.”

  I knew perfectly clear why Gilles had come into the filming naked. Partly, he was French. But mainly, he was showing off his assets—something that Ian didn’t fail to notice. Nor I. I had to hand it to him, he had a huge cock. Low-hanging balls. Pubic hair that needed a trim, but other than that . . . I understood that women weren’t supposed to think about such things, let alone talk about them, but there was something about dicks being so primal. The undeniable masculinity of a man. And yes, I was horny. Ken was still caring for his mother and I hadn’t gotten laid in weeks. Believe me, nothing else about Gilles turned me on, but his dick was reminding me that I needed to get laid. And soon.

  “I think someone is trying to send a message,” I added.

  “I agree,” David chipped in. “You could drive a Cadillac Escalade through that hole.”

  Gilles agreed. “Zhoost look at zeese hole,” he said, holding up the violated pair of pants again.

  “I wasn’t talking about that hole, Gilles.”

  Gilles threw the pair of pants on the floor in disgust. “I don’t know why you must attack Gilles so much.”

  “Because you throw the blood in the water yourself. A shark can’t say no.”

  “I just don’t know why they don’t finish this contest seeze day and declare me zee winner. If I don’t win soon, I will have to zell my body on the street.”

  “Gilles, you can’t sell from an empty pushcart,” I said, lobbing in a zinger that was thankfully caught on film. I don’t know why I said that. It was like some comic persona inside of me had taken control of my tongue and made me say it. Normally, I would just stay out of conflicts of any sort. An argument between a store manger and a customer: I’d leave the store. Between two drivers over a parking space? I’d hit the gas and peel out of there. I guess my growing fame was making me fearless. Or, it was making me crave attention. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. Maybe I was just getting in touch with my inner asshole.

  No matter how you looked at it, the gloves were off early today.

  “I have something to say,” Keith announced with great importance, like he was going to drop a bomb, but considering all the manufactured drama on this show, I was skeptical. “I am Ian’s son.”

  Okay, it was a bomb. A big one.

  No one knew what to say for the longest time, but I could guess the two main thoughts that were going through everyone’s head: I just lost out on $350 million, and Ian screwed his own son. Ewwwww!

  Ian sat silently, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a Winnebago. No one immediately challenged Keith as to the truth to his story, so he launched an explanation of his own. Me, I was just interested. The guys, however, wanted to know if it was true. After all, it might give Keith a claim to Ian’s fortune in some twisted way or, even worse, Ian might get all touchy-feely over the prospect of a son and give him a big piece of the action out of deference to a bloodline.

  Keith took a big breath, then commenced with his story. “My mother, Ena, was married to Ian a long time ago in Scotland. They both started a small hair salon in Glasgow that became somewhat successful. Ena and Ian had no children for a long time. As time went on, my mother was unable to control her drinking, and Ian eventually forced her out of the business, which Ian eventually sold before he divorced Ena and moved to America. What my father”—he pointed to Ian as if it was an accepted fact—“didn’t know was that my mother was pregnant with me at about the time Ian left her. Ena, fearing the stigma of being a single mother, kept the truth about me quiet as long as she could. By the time I was born, Ian had left the country for Los Angeles. For years, my mother struggled with her addiction and tried to earn a living in a hair salon, but eventually she succumbed to liver cancer and died when I was eight years old. I then went to live with relatives of my mother until I was eighteen. All the time, my mother had drilled into my head her various plans for revenge on my father for abandoning the two of us. I grew up being taught how to use people, manipulate them, and how to find Ian and get close to him. Well, I made my way to the U.S. and wormed my way into Ian’s life by working on my body and buffing up, showing up at clubs Ian was likely to visit, and the plan worked. But there, I changed direction from the plans that my mother laid. Instead of killing him or trying to ruin him, I fell in love with him. So here I am. I confess.”

  “I must disagree wiss that story,” Gilles chimed in.

  “How so?” Keith countered.

  “You said you work on the body. Buffing up. That is where I disagree. To me, you are a sack of rocks.”

  “Salope.”

  I was impressed. Keith knew French.

  Aurora, feeling the need to referee a bit, stepped in.

  “Ian, is Keith telling the truth?”

>   “It could be. Oh, what’s the big deal? I barely touched him.”

  Aurora again, “You were married?”

  “Yes, to Ena. What Keith is saying is true. That was a long time ago.”

  “About how long ago?”

  “Twenty . . . um,” Ian said, stopping himself once the numbers added up. Yes, Keith is probably my son.”

  “But wait a minute,” I said, jumping in, not wanting to be out of the limelight too much. After all, I wanted to stay on the show . . . I had bills to pay. “You don’t have the same surnames.”

  “My last name was Forbes. I had it changed before I left for America so that Ian wouldn’t suspect anything as I courted him. And I have the paperwork to prove it.”

  “Well, that blows a hole in my objection,” I conceded.

  I recapped what happened on the show that day to Alex over dinner at my house.

  “So Ian doesn’t really care that he slept with his son?”

  “Not really. He said he’s done worse.”

  “How can you do worse than that?”

  “Ian had twins as lovers once.”

  “Ugh!”

  “Fraternal. That’s why Ian said it didn’t bother him.”

  “That was his answer?” Alex answered, flabbergasted.

  “Well, he also pointed out that he’s dying. He doesn’t really care.”

  “Amanda, this development is really going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole works. This might make the show unnecessary. Ian might have his heartstrings pulled by Keith because of the family connection and leave everything to him. What is Jeremy thinking about all of this?”

  “Jeremy? He’s loving it. Now, in addition to bitching, treachery, greed, and hatred, he has incest and a huge target for the rest of the guys to aim at. Keith might as well just wear a T-shirt with a huge bull’s-eye on it.”

  “From what you’ve told me, Amanda, when it comes to snide comments, their aim is pretty good.”