Tonight I'm Someone Else Page 5

  I feared her gaze—she made a person feel like the only one in the room. I wanted to feel fractional.

  This well-documented, now-famous performance was titled The Artist Is Present. Each time I paid my museum admission, I was paying to see her body.

  In June, I found a way to get paid for my body—I worked as a model for a men’s clothing ad. I was not the focus of the photo, but I sat on a lawn chair in the background, reading a paperback copy of Catcher in the Rye. That morning, a large man had teased my hair into a lion’s mane, smoothed it into a housewife bouffant, then curled the ends. As he slipped each curl out of the iron’s round barrel, he held it in his hand like a baby bird, blowing on the hair until it cooled. Doesn’t that hurt your hand? I asked. He looked at me in the mirror and said, No, baby, I’m a man.

  The stylist, a sweaty woman in red stilettos, fretted over the clothes not fitting me. I was a size two, the same size as when they hired me the week prior, but all the clothes were a sample size zero. I stood beside the rack of clothes, naked except for the flesh-toned Victoria’s Secret thong she’d given me that morning. I hadn’t taken a photo all day. The stylist found a dress that was too big for me and sewed me into the dress. Now just don’t move or go to the bathroom.

  No one ate the colorful buffet, no one let me stand next to the roof’s edge. Then, at the end of the day, the photographer told me to sit on the edge and arch my back. Two weeks later, I got a check in the mail for $800.

  I kept going back to MoMA to look at Marina Abramović. I felt closer to her, closer to sitting in front of her, though I did not wait in line. Watching her meant I didn’t have to watch myself, didn’t have to face anything besides the museum. My body was simple. I missed modeling when I didn’t get more jobs.

  My financial situation wasn’t dire—bills got paid—but I started considering the possibility of commodifying my body. People spoke of it as if it were detached from me, and perhaps that was true in a way. It trailed behind me like a valuable shadow.

  I kept hearing the phrase That’s the price you pay—for living in New York, for dressing the way you do, for focusing on art. What would happen if I stopped paying the price? What if someone assigned a price to me? What if someone else paid that price?

  Sick of balancing multiple roles, some days I wanted to be less human.

  Sylvia Plath quoting her pen pal Eddie Cohen in her journal: Fifteen thousand years … of what? We’re still nothing but animals.

  If I’m sold as an object, then I’m no longer a threat. My mind spoken for, contained, no one waiting for proof, my body no longer my own. But why would I long for something that happens so effortlessly to less fortunate girls, less middle-class girls, less white girls?

  Fear breeds fantasy, and I feared my mind would be forgotten.

  I’m responsible, says Nana the prostitute in Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre sa vie. And responsibility was the thing I wanted to be rid of—I had a desire to watch the world, admire it from a balcony that held no authority.

  From Selling Service with the Goods, a 1921 book about constructing window displays: Women, as a rule, are highly responsive to the delicate, softer tones and tints which are so necessary in portraying a domestic product in colors. The man, as a rule, prefers something more than a delicate violet background as the color base for a display advertising a shot gun. Such a display must be strong—perhaps a little rough—in treatment.

  I was the lilac mannequin, displaying myself without words. I was on the rack, waiting to be touched.

  It seemed logical to continue on the conflict-free route I’d arrived at—how lucky I was, always deciding who reached for me. But I could see my own limits, and I wanted to run toward them with a price placed upon me like a blanket.

  I didn’t need to reduce myself to an object in order to be sold. I needed only to be animal.

  From Joseph Delmont’s 1931 book, Catching Wild Beasts Alive: Out in the forest, fields, jungle, and plains: Everywhere where the animal is still at liberty and is little harassed by men, its real behavior can be observed, and then men can learn much, for there the animals are sound, their natural instincts are displayed, and they provide an example for us.

  Example:

  $8 per hour: When I worked at the copy and printing place, a man asked me to make copies of dollar bills for him. I said no, there was a rule against that. But he assured me he was kidding. He said, I just wanted to see your face, so I showed it to him.

  $10 per hour: At American Apparel, they gave everyone a free swimsuit in exchange for wearing it to work. They didn’t force anyone to take the swimsuits, but everyone took them. At first I felt embarrassed of the black bikini, but after an hour, I worked alongside capitalism’s heartbeat; I could sense a faceless man benefiting from my shape. And in fact, he wasn’t faceless at all—I knew who I sold myself for. I signed up for that.

  $120 for six hours: I served drinks at a cocktail party selling expensive carafes. After I served merlot to the same man seven times, he cornered me near the coats, told me he was vice president of an airline, told me about the weather in Houston, because he was too afraid to ask what he wanted to ask. I held the carafe between us like collateral, said, I better get back to work. He said, What a dutiful little thing.

  $8 per hour: The Russian man asked me to come into his office, his heavy accent listing his own accomplishments instead of interviewing me about the filing job. He said a man was outside right now, painting his Corvette. What color? I asked. No, he is making painting on canvas of my Corvette. It was difficult to smile. You don’t mind if I make massage? At first I thought he was asking to touch me, but he picked up the phone and began making an appointment. He put the phone on speaker and looked into my eyes as he asked the receptionist for the youngest masseuse they had. My gaze was quiet but direct, my limbs motionless. I realized I wanted to pass his test just because I could.

  In Selling Service with the Goods, businessmen claim genius is nothing more than the ability to “take pains” with the job in hand.

  In Marina Abramović’s 1974 performance Rhythm 0, she put seventy-two objects on a table and allowed the gallery audience to use the objects on her for six hours. Someone cut her shirt off. Someone put rose petals on her nipples. A man loaded the single bullet into the pistol and pressed it against her neck. In her performance proposal, she wrote, I am the object. During this period I take full responsibility.

  In her Role Exchange performance the following year, a prostitute in Amsterdam replaced Marina at her gallery opening, and Marina replaced the prostitute in her red-light district window. The performance proposal stated: We both take total responsibility for our roles.

  Taking responsibility is another way of forgiving someone else for their possible actions. Marina doesn’t have responsibility, she takes it before reducing herself to a body.

  More advice from Selling Service: The trick is to attract attention and to hold by force or interest until the decision to buy has been created.

  The closest I came to selling myself as an object was displaying myself on a website called Seeking Arrangement. The website advertises itself as the elite sugar daddy dating site for those seeking mutually beneficial arrangements. It is, quite clearly, a loophole for prostitution.

  When I made my profile, I chose the Negotiable price category. After a week on the website, I got so many responses that I changed my price to $5,000 to $10,000 monthly. Credible responses were rare, but I still received a thrill with every new message. I watched a Dr. Phil episode on YouTube about women who paid for entire homes with money they’d made on Seeking Arrangement.

  I tried to join WhatsYourPrice.com, a site where men make specific monetary offers to take women out on dates, but my profile kept getting rejected. The website e-mailed me with one request: Be less obvious. Seeking Arrangement approved my profile, which said, I deserve to get paid.

  An e-mail from my friend in Oregon: Did you cry in front of the artist yet?

  A man sent me a photo
of himself next to a Lamborghini and offered me a thousand dollars “per meet.” I sent him a photo of myself wearing lingerie. What’s your name? he wanted to know.

  What I know: my middle name is Rose; I once trespassed through a rose garden because it was the fastest route home; my mother named me after her best friend. What I don’t know: what it’s like to fuck a stranger; why I once told a man my first name was Rose; why, when he called me that name, it felt like trespassing.

  E-mail correspondence with a Los Angeles “business executive” who called himself Storm on Seeking Arrangement:

  Storm: Wow, okay. You are already a dangerous temptation. How in the course of one e-mail have you already made my cock rock hard? Here I am, trying to concentrate on these contracts, and now I’m so distracted. I’ll show you. Can I ask: would you be, well, open-minded if we meet?

  Rose: Sure, what do you have in mind? We also haven’t discussed how much you’re going to pay me.

  Storm: Well, I have some pretty naughty fantasies. I was thinking $800.

  Rose: What would you do to me? My price is $1,000.

  Storm: You want all the gory details, or just in general? Ha.

  Rose: Tell me what you want.

  Storm: Well, I was having this dirty fantasy about you on your knees, in pretty white panties, my fingers twisted into your hair, pulling your head back hard, kissing and biting your neck, spanking and grabbing your ass, rubbing your pussy through your panties and feeling you get soaking wet through the fabric; then tearing two holes in your panties so I can lick and suck and finger your ass and pussy; and then, well, fuck you in your ass and pussy with my thick hard cock through the holes in your panties … That’s the fantasy. Damn, I’m so turned on again. And I have to leave soon to go to this banquet.

  From Selling Service with the Goods: What the consumer sees, open before him or in operation, he is apt to desire to examine more closely—to test its uses.

  In Los Angeles, my friends spotted a hole near the bottom of the wall along Exposition Boulevard. It was the Fourth of July when we crawled through the broken bricks and turned the rose garden into a shortcut. We touched the petals, but all we could smell were the fireworks reaching their dark ends above us. No one guarded the roses. We kept walking.

  What if I walked into a hotel room? The gray-haired man has done this before. He tells me to undress, get on my knees, look into his eyes. A gold condom wrapper falls to the carpet like a ticket stub. He holds me by my limbs, as if that’s where my responsibility grows. What if he enters my ass? What if I agree to do anything for that dull green stack on the nightstand? What if the choice is no longer mine?

  Marina Abramović: It’s because I want to be a whore. My mother was calling me so many times a whore.

  I’m presented to the world, watched, and participation is the key to a room I think I could enter. I could be led there.

  It must feel good to have that much money. It must feel patriotic to hold it. I must be crazy to let a man do that. He must hold me down and make me take it. The hotel must be an island where no one can hear me. I must get lost in that place.

  If my job is to display myself in a window, then I will lure men inside. They will ask questions about my use. I’ll get off on my functions.

  Joseph Delmont, hunter: As a rule, an adventurer is considered equivalent to a criminal. This is an utterly false idea.

  I never went through with it. There were so many details to work out; the negotiation became a dominance I despised. Take me to a room, take advantage of me—simple—but it didn’t take long to realize my mind was the only place I could be wholly submissive. I wanted to receive money for my body the same way young girls pack up their belongings but never run away. The difference was men were telling me where to run, where they’d take me. I could choose any place in the world, any hotel in New York.

  When I heard Marina Abramović had stopped sitting at MoMA, I felt relieved. I would no longer have to pretend I was planning to sit with her.

  Nana in Vivre sa vie: I shut my eyes—I’m responsible. I forget that I’m responsible but I am. I told you there’s no escape.

  From a YouTube video called “GTA [Grand Theft Auto] 5 Take a Stripper Home, Have Sex with a Stripper (BOOBS) GTA V”:

  (Road map appears on screen.)

  Hello everyone, this is your boy Joseph, and I hope you’re having a fantastic day. And as you can see, we’re playing GTA 5, and the goal of this video is to see how far can I go with the stripper. So as you can see, I have $231 and I’m Franklin … according to the game it’s a Wednesday, so okay, let’s do this.

  (Map zooms in to lower right, where a high-heel icon appears.)

  So, the strip club, if you go to the map, it’s this little high-heel thing …

  (Old Corvette speeds down city streets.)

  Oh, yeah, by the way, (inaudible) have a nice car just for fun, but I picked up this one. Last time I found the Lamborghini, but I crashed and died.

  (Car arrives at strip club. Franklin walks inside.)

  Here’s the strip club. “Vanilla Unicorn,” aw, yeah. So we walk in, there’s the ATMs, shows you your money, you can walk in here, get drinks if you want, get a little bit faded before you get a lap dance or something, so you just walk down here, there’s this girl dancing.

  (Franklin is standing in front of the stage as a stripper dances on a pole. He fails to turn before he walks and walks in place, facing the stage, then turns to the left.)

  So just click there, and I mean, she’s dancing, you can toss a dollar … one dollar, or make it rain.

  (Franklin tosses four one-dollar bills.)

  Sweet. Just look around, look up. Oh, yeah, you work that pole, girl. (Laughs.) And now we’re gonna go to, uh …

  (Stripper walks toward Franklin and starts dancing in front of him.)

  Ooh, yeah, get close, girl. She’s all right from the face. Let’s make it rain again on her.

  (Man offscreen says, I’ll lick your asshole ’til it shines! Stripper walks up, says, I missed you, Franklin! Franklin walks away. Another stripper comes up, says, Follow Infernus, I’ll take care of you.)

  All right, I like that ass, girl …

  (Infernus appears topless in a private room, motions for Franklin to sit in the chair. She’s wearing a silver choker necklace, a black thong, and knee-high red boots.)

  Oh! Tit … uh … wow … boobs! Boobs!

  (Infernus shows her ass, and she has a huge purple bruise on her right side. She turns to show her bare breasts.)

  Oh my god, I didn’t know this happened. (Reading from instructions onscreen.) “Touch and flirt with the dancer to increase her ‘Like’ meter. Make sure the bouncer doesn’t see you touch her or you’ll get thrown out.”

  (Bouncer appears in the hallway, monitoring the private room.)

  “Press X to flirt…”

  (Franklin says, Keep telling me how great I am.)

  “Press (inaudible) to end dance” … No, I don’t want to end dance. I guess I have to just keep telling her she’s cute …

  (Franklin says, Keep doin’ what you doin’ … I love your tattoos, baby, really cool.)

  Wait, is the bouncer coming back? I can’t tell.

  (Infernus says, These tits are the best you’ll ever see.)

  I … I don’t even know what to respond to that … Oh, is he gone? He’s gone; touch her! Touch her! Oh, he’s back.

  (Bouncer reappears. Franklin says, Keep telling me how great I am.)

  So when he goes away, we’re gonna touch her … Let’s make sure he doesn’t watch us touch her … Oh my god … I think he left … Let’s touch her!

  (Franklin reaches his right arm out, touches her hip, says, Keep telling me how great I am.)

  Those nipples are not even … that graphic.

  (Franklin says, Okay, that’s enough, bae.)

  No! No! That’s not enough! I want more!

  (Infernus gets off the chair and stands up.)

  Aww, is it over?
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br />   As a twelve-year-old, I played a computer game called Purple Moon in which a wholesome red-haired avatar navigates middle school, making friends and getting good grades. The game had an accompanying website with a way to message other users. The site attracted young girls who played the game, so men also joined the site with girly usernames and talked to me about sex. I was not repelled by the messages; in fact, I loved them. I played along until their accounts got deleted by some larger censoring entity that I seemed exempt from. I remember being as explicit as the men were being. I was good at mirroring their voices back to them, so good that they often suspected I was a man as well. God, you’re dirty.

  That was the first time I expressed what I wanted, or what I imagined myself wanting.

  I couldn’t imagine holding a cock, but I suspected its ability to take me. Sex as kidnapping—the pleasure of being gone. I typed, We’re in a field. We’re having sex in a field.

  Regarding window displays of household objects: Women, in particular, like to see things as they look in use … A desire for merchandise is created by seeing it as it looks to others, in its natural surroundings, and as it will serve in actual use.

  The news reported proof of crows dropping nuts in the street so cars would do the cracking for them. I read ravens could look in a mirror and recognize a self. The birds evolved; I recognized myself in a new reflection.

  A message from another man on Seeking Arrangement: I know what you are. I know you keep it secret. I know you love being talked down to, called a whore, called a worthless piece of shit right before being slapped across the face. I know you dream about being raped, used like a whore should be, and I know you’re scared to tell anyone.

  My money whispers small denominations in my ear. My money runs marathons.

  Inside an old library book I requested from offsite storage, I found a scrap of paper with typewriter text that said, Pity the animal that has no animal in it.

  Written inside another library book: Mutilation noted.

  How much can a body endure? Almost everything.

  When I still lived in Arizona, I sat down on a tattered futon at a house party, and my blond friend handed me a bottle of blue Gatorade. There’s vodka in it, she said. She was the kind of woman who served drinks at other people’s parties. The vodka gave strength to my desires, so all night we swam upstream in the blue water. Everyone watched.