Tag Archives: Story

Model Fancy

She decided that she’d like to help him with his career. “That’s sweet of you,” he said. “What did you have in mind? Updating my web portfolio? Helping me set up the monolights on Tuesday? I told Anichka and Danya that I’d have sushi for them on set except the place they like doesn’t deliver…” But she was an autodidact zoologist and these services sounded beneath her.

“I’d like to art-direct your next photo shoot,” she said. He turned from the naked female image he was editing on his 27-inch computer monitor and faced his girlfriend. She sat primly on their couch wearing his boxer shorts and an XL t-shirt with an anthropomorphized cartoon of a goat on it. She’d recently dribbled Nutella down her chin.

“But you hate fashion,” he said.

“No I don’t,” she said. “Even though fashion is responsible for decimating the beavers and for yanking the hair out of millions of angora rabbits and for driving one more wedge between rich and poor, I can still respect your job.”

“You’re rich and I’m poor,” he said, smiling, “and it didn’t drive a wedge between us.”

“But I know fashion photography isn’t about that stuff for you,” she said. “It’s more about making art. Which is why I want to get involved.”

“I saw that the coffee shop across the street is hiring,” he said. “It might do you some good to get out of the house, away from your terrariums.”

“No offense, but I think all your editorials are starting to look the same.”

“That’s actually the most offensive thing you could have said to me.”

“You could use an outsider’s perspective. Like, why do all your photos have to be so gloomy, and shot in black and white?”

“Because heavy contrast is on trend right now.”

“Is it?” she said. “Or has everyone just run out of ideas? Here’s what I think. Have you ever read Cat Fancy magazine?”

“No.”

“Well the reason Cat Fancy magazine is so popular is not because the quality of its photographs is especially high. It’s because the magazine features cats.”

“Sure, that makes sense.”

“Cats are really fun to look at. They’re gentle and beguiling and often quite colorful. Plus they have such charismatic personalities that a photographer doesn’t have to do much to make an image sparkle.”

“Okay.”

“If you look at the success of Cat Fancy magazine, a few things leap out at you. Or pounce, I should say. One, the art directors aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel with their stories. They don’t feel the need to take the cats out into the desert and, like, shoot them rolling around naked in the sand in front of giant sheets of gauze like they’re Kim Kardashian. A staff photographer just puts the cat in front of a solid, neutral background in a studio, takes a snapshot, and tada, there’s your cover.”

“Right.”

“I mean you can change the background color depending on whether it’s Christmas or whatever, but for the most part it’s pretty simple. That way it’s all about the cat, you know?”

“Sure.”

“Two, no one is trying to tell the cats they need to lose weight.”

“Right. I know you hate that.”

“So with your 19-year-old anorexic Polish models on Tuesday, I think you should just, like, put them on the floor there, so they’re kind of lying in that patch of light from the window, and maybe scatter some catnip around so they’re kind of happy and docile, but not with those dead eyes you like so much, no offense, because all your models seem to be on heroin, which is another way in which your art is sort of dated.”

“Okay.”

“And then I think you should, like, optimize the image for poster or billboard size. And maybe Photoshop some words into the background that could easily be a speech bubble coming from a cat, or a motivational message that a cat could be thinking, or perhaps just existentially representing, you know?”

“I get you. You want the image to capture a feline essence. Even though it’s people.”

“Right. I don’t want to say ‘Garfield’, because that’s too obvious and plus I know you like things to be sexy, but just take a look at Cat Fancy when you’re doing your mood board for Tuesday. I have a whole bunch of back issues in the bedroom.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

“I just really want you to break out of your artistic rut, baby.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome.” She went back to reading Misty of Chincoteague.

“Hey sweetheart,” he said.

“Mm?”

“I know you promised you were going to get me that Canon 85mm fixed 1.2 lens for my birthday, but I was wondering if you could order it a little early, especially since it would really help with this upcoming photoshoot you’re art-directing. Which is going to be awesome, by the way.”

“But I thought you wanted the Canon 5D Mark III camera for your early birthday present?” she said.

“That too,” he said. “You’ve inspired me.”

“Thought so,” she said with satisfaction, and went to get her credit card.

137tn

Beach Justice

All the other beach authorities have a vessel or a crib that distinguishes them from the spring-breakers. You’ve got the guys in helicopters, searching the high seas for man-eating sharks or whatever. You’ve got the guys on ATVs, patrolling the dunes for illicit picnic activity. You’ve got the lifeguards in their stands, keeping an eye out for pretty people who might need resuscitating. But I, Ben Cube, originally from the land of New Jersey, do my law enforcement on foot. When someone is in danger, I don’t need to arrive on a glimmering white jet ski or leap out of a pastel cabana on stilts. I don’t even need the sanction of the South Florida government. I just need my swimming trunks and my impeccable sense of right and wrong. Yes, you’re correct. Mine is the face of vigilante beach justice.

On a typical day I wake up before dawn so I can reach the pier while the local rednecks still think they can fish with impunity. Many of these fishermen know me, having been on the receiving end of my justice in the past, and they pack up their gear and their coolers as soon as they see me coming. It takes all my self-restraint not to frogmarch them back down the boardwalk. But there’s always at least one oblivious tourist, or some doofus kid partaking in his first fishing lesson with Daddy, who needs to be taught the rules. “It’s right there on the sign,” I say as I approach these latter miscreants at the end of the pier. “No fishing. Read it and weep.”

The father stops reeling in whatever endangered sea creature he was reeling in. “Are you a game warden?” he says.

“If you don’t throw those squid back into the ocean by the count of five,” I respond, “I’ll be forced to make a citizen’s arrest. Do you really want your son to see that?” Nine times out of ten, they don’t.

Once the pier is purged of its lawbreakers, I extract my Sharper Image binoculars from their all-weather case and train them on the horizon. If I see too many people in a catamaran, or not enough lifeboats on a cruise ship, I don’t hesitate to call in reinforcements. Though as far as I can tell, the Coast Guard just sits on its collective ass 24 hours a day.

Next order of business is the nude beach. The nude beach attracts your standard law-abiding soul who just wants to sun his or her privates, but unfortunately it also attracts the scum of the earth. If you wonder where all of Florida’s creeps and perverts congregate during daylight hours, it’s here, where boobs and wangs can be tossed about freely in open air. If I see a young female spring-breaker, lounging on a towel, shyly baring her breasts to the sky, you can bet that right behind her will be sitting a fully-clothed troll filming her incognito with a camera hidden in his duffle bag, as if he’s a degenerate James Bond or some shit. This does not fly with me. Babe or no babe, this young woman does not deserve to have her boobs live-streamed to the internet.

So what do I do? I plop myself between woman and pervert, effectively obstructing the camera’s view. Sometimes I leisurely remove my swim trunks in the duffle bag’s line of sight so the pervert will be treated to artsy footage of my jiggling testicles. The pervert usually leaves quickly with his contraband, and after that my only duty is to inform the young woman of the valorous steps I’ve just taken to thwart her career in amateur porn. When I reach for a business card in my pocket so she knows that she can call me anytime if she ever sees anything suspicious, even if it’s in the middle of the night, I often forget that I’m still naked, and my hand skips comically over my thigh and collides with my sweatiest area. But such is life on the nude beach!

Next I break for lunch in the shade beneath the lifeguard stand.

In the afternoon most outlaws tend to be sun-stricken and lethargic, so I try to round up some beach cats for Animal Control. While securing one of these stray varmints in a sand dune last weekend, my hand got scratched up pretty bad, but I’m watching the wound closely. Plus I have faith in the ocean to sterilize 99 percent of infections, even rabies.

After the cat round-up comes my least favorite part of the day, but every hour can’t be a heroic hour when it comes to justice. You would not believe the amount of garbage these Spring Break hooligans generate during their week-long revels on the beach. I’m talking Silo cups, plastic bottles, water-logged underthings, cans of Bud Light, broken sunglasses, abandoned kiddie pools, candy wrappers, and once even a papasan chair. It takes an entire industrial trash bag to clean it up every afternoon, and that’s only for a two-mile stretch of beach. You’d think these kids were raised by animals. Still, I appreciate their youthful spunk. I was also a boy once. Though I don’t recall ever disposing of used condoms in the sand. Speaking of which, what kind of woman gives it up on a family beach? If I ever catch any of these litterbug hedonists in the act, trying to hide their hanky-panky under sun umbrellas or thinking that I can’t see them blatantly humping each other in the surf, I won’t stop until they’re registered as sex offenders. The occasional glass bottle? Fine. A loud radio every now and then? Fine. Sex on the beach? Not on my watch.

At the end of the day there’s always some human flotsam who thinks it’s a good idea to empty her bag of Cheetos into a quiet arrangement of seagulls and warmly invite hell to rain down upon us. This is intolerable beach etiquette. In what world is it okay to feed human snacks to nuisance birds so that everyone within a five-umbrella radius must flee like extras in a horror movie to avoid being pooped on? Or worse? No no no. This old woman has earned herself the full heat of my errant frisbee.

Finally, as night descends, I remain seated on my towel until I’m sure everyone has vacated the beach in a timely manner, before they start thinking about singing songs around an illegal bonfire or drunkenly setting off fireworks as if they’re somewhere in Mexico. When the last of the nudists put on their cover-ups and the final spring-breakers hurl their Silo cups into the ocean, I can finally return to my bungalow knowing that I’ve preserved the sanctity of the beach for another day. If I could afford a white jet ski, this would be my moment to ride it into the sunset.

Because I love Kelli and Daniel from Fitness Blender

“Please get off me,” says the husband. “Your body reminds me of work.” The wife clenches her toned abs for the 61st rep that day. They’d shot two grueling workout videos in the studio that morning. Now that they were back home in their bedroom, she just wanted her man to peel off her sports bra and spank her with it.

“That’s like turning down sex from a nurse because she reminds you of disease,” says the wife.

“I would never turn down sex from a nurse,” says the husband, massaging his left tricep.

The wife unglues the sweaty leggings from her preternaturally toned thighs, then pulls two 10-pound barbells from the nightstand.

“You’re just lifting those out of spite,” says the husband. “And your breathing is all wrong.”

“Fuck you.”

“Sweetheart, you know our bodies aren’t for pleasure anymore. They’re a business. People stream our exercise videos because we’re ripped and we look good in Spandex. It’s hard for me to sexualize our bodies now that they’re our only source of income.”

“I thought people watched our videos because we’re in love, which gives us positive on-screen rapport, which inspires people to feel the burn, which makes them think that by doing the fitness, they can find love too.”

“No. You think we’d have all these downloads if we were as fat as we were on our wedding day?”

“We weighed a combined 12 pounds more than we do now.”

“Exactly.” The husband adjusts himself on the mattress so he can stretch his hamstrings. He’s never been as flexible as his wife. “Most of those were yours, by the way.”

“If I gain it all back,” says the wife, unable to take her eyes off her husband’s gym shorts, “will you have sex with me again?”

“Gaining it back is not an option. We have bills to pay. More importantly, we have fans who count on us to stay in peak physical condition.”

“What if you wear a blindfold?”

“As if I wouldn’t be able to feel those rock-hard glutes.”

“Then what?” says the wife, starting a set of lateral raises. “I can’t go on like this.”

The husband flips over onto his bare stomach so he can perform a cobra stretch.

“I wonder if porn stars have this problem,” he says.

“I’ll be able to answer that in about two months after I leave you and move to the Valley.”

“Don’t be like that, baby.” He moves into a child’s pose. “Maybe if we could just, like, repurpose our bodies somehow, after work, so when we get home, they’re no longer elite athletic machines.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” says the wife, dropping to the rug for overheard bridges.

“I don’t know,” says the husband. “But I’m feeling like we didn’t get enough cardio today. You wanna do a round of burpees?”

The wife drops her barbells. “Can we do them naked?”

“Good idea,” says the husband. “That way I can review your form.”