“Be Nice”
Eve Marx
Michelle Anderson
Just to get this part out of the way, I have big boobs. I’ve always had big boobs, ever since puberty. Sadly for me, they’ve only gotten bigger over the years. I can’t say this is something I’m happy about, but I also feel that, short of surgery or, God forbid, cancer, there’s not a lot I can do about it. I’ve wasted a lot of time wishing or pretending my boobs were smaller, foolishly cramming them into clothes that don’t fit, but that’s all water under the bridge now. I accept my cups runneth over. Maybe in my next life I’ll come back a B cup or even an A cup. A girl can dream.
At some point in my early twenties when my big tits stood up by themselves, I applied for and got a job as a brassiere model in New York with a well-known underwear wholesaler. I was just out of grad school and half-heartedly looking for real work. I had a freelance gig as an assistant to a woman in the West Village working on a book about incest, but I needed more billable hours than she could provide. I saw the job listing for underwear model in the back pages of The Village Voice. I called the number and got an interview that day with a guy named Manny who wore a nice suit and had a lot of gelled hair. He asked me a few questions about myself before asking me to stand up and take off my blouse. I stood there in my bra for what seemed ages while he ogled my breasts. Next, he asked me to take off my skirt so he could check my ass.
“Think you can trim that?” he said, referring to my abundant pubes. “Too much hair looks bunchy in the panties, if you get my drift.”
“I can do that,” I said.
I was told to show up for work the next day. The job was to walk a bullshit runway in a wholesale showroom modeling bra and panty sets for ninety minutes three times a week. The pay was good. Three other young women about my age walked our walk in a grungy loft, calling out each garment’s style numbers to our strictly male audience, out of town buyers from far-away places like Des Moines.
The end of my third shift was on a Friday. I was still in the dressing room, half dressed in my own clothes when Manny walked in. “The buyer from Oklahoma City thinks you’re pretty cute,” he said. “He wants to take you to dinner. He’s got a reservation for two at Perigord Park.”
“I don’t think I have the clothes for that place,” I said, feeling concerned. Perigord Park was one of the fanciest and most talked about restaurants in New York at the time and I was dying to go there. But not with the buyer from Oklahoma City, whose face I couldn’t even remember.
“C’mon,” he said, his Queens accent grating. “Didn’t I mention this is part of the job? You’re expected to be nice to the buyers.”
“Nice?” I said. “What do you mean by being nice?”
“C’mon, honey,” Manny said. “Kiss him a little. Let him feel ya up. Give him some head if you really liked your dinner. You don’t have to go back to his hotel room if you don’t want to, although if you do, I’m sure he’ll pay you.”
I was outraged. “I’m not a hooker,” I said.
Manny switched gears. “C’mon,” he said for the third time. “The guy’s here alone in the city. He’s got an expense account and he wants to live it up. He doesn’t want to eat at a nice restaurant alone. Just be nice and keep him company, alright?”
It was arranged that I’d meet the buyer in a few hours at Perigord Park. I took a cab I couldn’t really afford because I couldn’t figure out how else to get there. I was wearing the only nice dress I owned and the same heels I’d worn earlier on the runway. The dress was pretty low cut in front and I skipped the bra because I’d magically worked it out in my own mind that being nice meant I would give this old dude a good look, even if there was no touchee.
On my arrival, the maître d led me to Oklahoma City’s table. He was already working on a drink, something dark. He was a nice enough looking man but old enough to be my father. We were seated at a banquette. He sat very close.
Without consulting me, he ordered wine and food. Delicious looking things appeared in front of me but I couldn’t eat a bite. He asked me a few questions about myself and seemed dismayed by the answers. I wasn’t what he anticipated. He’d done this several times. The other models were usually dancers or aspiring actresses or just looking for a good time. He said he never dated girls with advanced academic degrees.
“I didn’t realize this was a date,” I said, looking pointedly at his wedding ring. “I thought we were just having dinner.”
The check came and Oklahoma City put his hand over mine. His hand was large; my hand was small. I felt like a mouse in a trap. “I’ll get us a cab,” he said.
We waited outside the restaurant while the doorman hailed a cab. Oklahoma City stood very close and touched my breast.
“Terrific tits,” he breathed.
The cab pulled up and I jumped in it. “Let’s go,” I said to the driver who hit it. I left Oklahoma City standing perplexed at the curb.
Monday at work Manny approached me while I was changing into my first bra and panty set for the runway. “What happened?” he said. “You couldn’t just be nice?”
“I’m not a hooker,” I said.
“And you’re not a model either,” he retorted. “Did you think you could keep this job just because you’ve got big tits? You’re fired.”
Obviously, he did me a favor. I never bought that bra brand again.
Eve Marx
Eve, who lives in a rural seaside community near Portland, Oregon, is the author of What’s Your Sexual IQ?, The Goddess Orgasm, 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex.
