Model Release

Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Aug 30, 2005

Getting a woman to pose nude for you is a lot like getting a woman to tumble under the sheets with you. The same rules of attraction apply. To succeed you must seduce.

And cash payments help.

You’d think that with money on the line and the rent coming due women would be eager to seal the deal in as professional a manner as possible. You would, of course, be wrong. As in the dating world, women flake at the most inopportune moments, and for the most mysterious of reasons.

Natalie was the first woman to contact me and the only one I would meet. The rest appeared eager enough at first but ultimately failed to grasp the nuances of the dance. They would send face shots, or body shots, but not both. They would let days lapse between emails. Ah, but Natalie was the one. Inexperienced at nude modeling yet experienced at modeling in general, eager yet sensibly cautious, sufficiently motivated by money yet not desperate, she would make the ideal partner. And so I seduced her:

I want to take pictures that expose you, and the person you are, rather than just your body parts. I won’t shy away from any part of your body but I have no interest in the typical pornographic spread-legged closeup. I want you to feel comfortable and strike whatever poses come naturally.

The night before I was scheduled to meet Natalie over coffee, Les and I attended Cassius’ art opening. The gallery showcased his clever Trompe L’Oeil canvasses, a mixture of genuine and simulated photographs set against colorful and meticulously detailed backgrounds. Looking over his masterworks, I suffered a momentary crisis of conscience. “I was hoping to shoot someone older, and thicker, and, well, less white,” I was telling Les.

My girlfriend sipped at her rosé and rolled her eyes. “So don’t do it then.”

“It’s just that the idea of shooting her is anathema to my sexual politics—we’re already constantly reminded that being truly beautiful in this fucking stupid country means being young and skinny and fair-skinned.” The wine was already giving me a head of steam. “But then again she really is the best subject.”

“What? Are you in love with her now or something?”

I sighed. It was seduction after all—to do this right I’d need to peer at my young subject through bedroom eyes. Still, Les put me on the defensive. “Bitch, please! I’m not going to fuck her; I need this to be professional.” I paused, examining my own motives. “In a way, that’s the kink of it.”

Touring the city’s nightspots that evening, I looked at women differently, wondering how my photographic lens might transform them. Les and I went to dinner with a large group and argued over the bill with a few Frenchies who had, of course, ordered 5,000 bottles of wine. At Lotus I watched Simone as she stood next to an acquaintance of hers—Simone blonde, curvaceous and robust, the other girl dark-haired and lithe and impossibly long-legged. I don’t have a “type.” I never have, really. There are so many beautiful women in the world. When the tall girl sat next to me she leaned into me, her ass rising from the seat cushions, and slurred unintelligible nonsense into my ear. Her elbow missed my junk by a few centimeters. Drunkenness is not terribly attractive.

The next day I began my walk to Evilbucks in the oppressive heat, checking out the neighborhood talent along my route. I looked at my watch and decided I’d be late if I kept walking, so I hopped the train and emerged minutes later, still sweating. Bought a soda and took a seat upstairs in the Evilbucks lounge. Pulled out a novel and half-heartedly scanned the pages, wondering whether I’d be stood up. Sometimes my life is too strange for words.

My phone rang, breaking the library-like silence of the lounge. “Hullo?”

A pleasant female voice greeted me on the other end. “Hullo? Lex?” The voice echoed. I looked to my left. There she was, sitting with a harmless-looking male friend. The friend left, evidently satisfied that I didn’t appear to be a Patrick Bateman in training. I shook Natalie’s hand and joined her at a table against the wall. She was at once more beautiful and more ordinary than her pictures had led me to believe. Her dark, piercing eyes seemed to expose me as the dilettante that I am. Her face bore a slight but nonetheless unsettling resemblance to my cousin’s. The cheap, rigid Evilbucks chair exacerbated my discomfort.

Now what, Lex? I have a game-plan for dates and boardroom meetings, but not for this. My mind wandered. An ordinary man spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.

Snapping out of my reverie with a shudder, I called the meeting to order. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“No, not at all.” Somehow I’d gotten the impression that Natalie’s English would be accented. It was not. She sounded like any other precocious New York college girl. She asked about my project. I talked about Naked Loft Party, supplied the url, and reiterated what I’d mentioned in my email, carefully dropping in the word “pussy” to see if it would provoke a negative reaction. It did not. “I’ve never done this before,” she interjected, matter-of-factly.

I knew this already, but upon hearing it reaffirmed I visibly relaxed. “Well neither have I, so we’ll have to figure it out together. The real question I have for you is why, exactly, do you want to do this?”

“I’m not a prude or anything,” she said. “I’m comfortable with my body.” She held her gaze. I believed her. “And getting paid for it is nice,” she added with a wry smile.

We discussed regulation 2257 and the logistics of the shoot and our meeting drew to a close. It had only been about fifteen minutes. As Natalie rose from her seat I briefly inspected her slender frame and it finally sank in that she’s eighteen and gorgeous. And yet she still carried herself with a certain innocence, unaware, I imagined, that her beauty has a devastating effect upon dirty old men like me; unaware of the multitudinous assholes who would gladly use and abuse her; unaware of the imminent heartbreak of her twenties and—if she’s truly unlucky—of her thirties and beyond. In this moment I felt the awesome weight of being the pimp who offers her naked young flesh to the world. I almost felt guilty.

“I have to ask you before you go—where are you from, y’know, originally?”

“The Ukraine,” she answered. The only other Ukrainian woman I’ve ever met was a nun.

This concluded our meeting. My misgivings from the previous evening had evaporated in the summer heat. Natalie was exotic enough, I reasoned, and so naturally beautiful that I would surely regret taking a pass. I told her I’d reflect on our conversation and give her an answer over the weekend.

Later on I’d find it almost comically strange that such a brief encounter would lead to her being naked in my bed, and to my owning her image in perpetuity.

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