Yvonne Jud Miles: Fashion Model/TruckDriver

The hail smacked against the windshield. It surely would be marked by the storm's last whimper. Dead bugs, pelted by rain, lay strewn across Y-J's field of vision. The drenched and verdant blotches reminded her of Allied soldiers bogged down on the clumpy Normandy sand. It wouldn't be much longer till Texarcana, but she'd hafta stop and fill 'er up in Memphis. hoisting her respendent frame down form the shiney black cab, she stolled gracefully over to the deisel pump. A man emerged from the station's convenience store. He held a Clark bar, half melted from the sweltering dripping heat. He shouted, "You ever done a real man, honey?" The remark didn't come as any suprise; in fact Y-J was used to it by now -- she exploded any reasonable definition of attractive. 5'8", 100 lbs. 36-24-34. And numbers never lie.

Soon she was on the road again. There were no more weigh stations left; the remnant of the excursion should be tawdry. Y-J arrived in Taexarcana Friday afternon with her load of Mary Kay violet mascara. Just in time: Y-J had overheard, in a diner, about the upcoming beauty contest, to be held at the mall. And everybody, participant and voyeur, Texarcan and foriegner, would want to look her best.

Y-J felt gratified in knowing that she was providing this uncommon service and at the same time was expanding the economy, for the benefit of all. It was time to move on. She was ready to reverse out of the warehouse yard. She knew it would be challenging, in her stilletoes. A sudden burst of adrenline would propel her vehicle into the onrushing traffic. One slip would mean a broken heel and relegation into fashion illiteracy. The tension made her bustier feel suddenly apparent. Her body was now sheathed in a sticky film of perspiration. The warehouse men watched in cynical anticipation as Y-J placed her expertly manicured hand over the receptive gear shift head. Mission completed. It was now vacation time and her urgent destination was the big D- Dallas that is. Y-J reeled towards the metropolis with pubescent abandon. The accelorator was floored, levelling out the veficle at a good stick double donut. If traffic stayed light, she'd be there in no time.

Y-J always felt lost in the huge expase of flat landscape. She felt like blood trickling through the incision of road in the prarie. Approaching the city, the road widened, inflating the wound into something hideously prostrate, apain that could not be bourne by an unwilling soul. Only a wound to be suffered by a masochist; a self abnegation so intense the only possible response is delight. And the cars and trucks and motorcycles were drops of crimson viscous stuff. The city demanded the blood. The skyscrapers, jutting phalluses, demanded the discharge. All one could witness was the pouring in, never a savior, never a clot. The buildings were eternal, forever demanding homage, the Platonic shrine of the phallus, disembodied from the pleasure and the slave to capital.

Ring! Y-J was wrested out of her daydream by her cellulatr phone - it was Paris. She picked up the phone. "Allo. Oui. Oui. Oui. (pause) Oui. J'irai å Paris tout de suite. She pulled her cab int o the long term parking lot at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport and lept out hurriedly. Arriving at he ticket counter panting, she uttered her requests between gasps, "Return^ticket^to^Paris^^please."

The burley balding agent smiled and quired, "Will that be smoking or Non?", Y-J, "Non." Y-J was lucky to get her usual window seat. Lacking her gold trim travel mirror, the window would furnish her an ample opportunity to make herself up on the flight. She always abstained from patronizing those cramped, smelly on board cubicles called "lavatories," they were so vulgar. Y-J jogged down the terminal, ignoring the redundant bedroom-eye glances of the bloated oil spoiled bussinessmen, itching for an illicit extramonogamous liason. After an uneventful flight, Y-J looked beyond her perfect form- as if that were possible. The hired limo was waiting.

Glibly negotiating its way through the maniacal Parisian traffic down the Champs-Elysees, the car depsoited Y-J on the just off Rue de Rivoli. She was there to see the enfant terrible of the fashion world, Christian Bourgeois.

"Let me explain to you, Y-J," said Christian, fluted glass of Chivas in his hand, medicinal vapours grasping the room. "We believe we can pry open a new market. I just got off the phone with Doria Ferlini, you know the exquisite leather designer? Together we have drawn up a new line to corner the S&M market, you know sadists, masochists, people into pain? But of course, who am I talking to? Doria's introductory leather line of the last year was recieved with rave reviews in Milan. But Americans, you know, are largely unread in Sade and Masoch; it is a pity really. Notwithstanding, we feel this line is so special that even without the theoretical yearning to put one or the other partial instincts into pracitice, we will sell like nobody could ever believe. This will be so because we will hit he heart of law and order- Texas. You don't ahve to be literate you see, just law firm handed to enjoy leather and whips. We will manipulate their love of the profane names of the law and funnel it into a produced need for scathing and subversive fashion. It is not another "Dupe them into buying a piece of the European genius," because they will think they are invesiting in themselves. We fabricate their image of their own self, appropriate it if you will, and show it to them, sell it back to them, under the guise of necessity."

Y-J: "I'm sceptical, what about the animal rights groups and cultural feminists?

C.B.: "Our publicity department's counter-negative- publicty division has already taken care of that."

Y-J: "OK, let's do it!"

After spending a week in solitude at the spas of the Royal Club Evian, Y-J flew the Concord to the U.S.. The Bourgeios conglomerate had chose it's beach head from which to assault the Trans-Atlantic expanse: Texarcana. Y-J woke after a superflous beauty sleep (after all she is Y-J) but nonetheless a psychological tonic for what would come. She limo'd her way down to the mall. The other contestants were already turninhg up. There was some scattered talk among the on-lookers, who were suprised to heat that Judy Meads, former Miss Texas, and Betty Daimler, of the aristocratic Wisconsin clan, had arrived to kick some butt. "The stakes are higher than I thought," Y-J Mused. Then again she should have known, since the event was being sponsored by AT&T, with an excess of $100,000 in cash and prizes.

Out on the runway came droves of participants. The women onlookers admired the contestants' poise and smile; the males wanted to fuck them. Some people got bored and left toting some "AT&T: We'll switch you back for free" tote bags. Some women had chosen to compete for a joke; they were no threat. Some were veterans but just didn't have it. Some were bright newcomers; they would not relish theri glory 'til they paid their dues.

Y-J strode down the runway. She turned round, held it, shot the arrow. It had to be hers.

The T.I. Computer tallied the judges' scores. Second runner up: Betty Daimler. First runner up:Yvonne-Jud Miles. Winner: Judy Meads. It was a home crowd, but Y-J never felt more robbed, losing this stupid suburban Polyesterfest when she was the premier avant-garde supermodel in the world. Disenchantment loomed. Why couldn't her cosmopolitan splendor overcome the curvy buxomness of this Huston medical student? Shortly after Y-J discerned the real reason: Judy had performed fellatio on the male judges. Y-J's refusal to do the same was probably her downfall.

So the woman that had smoked the press in Paris, Milan and Rome had lost out in a beauty contest at a mall in Texarcana. Was her career over at 25? She didn't cry like all those other wimps that lost, but it was a sullen moment. Walking out of the edifice, disconsolate, a female, executive-looking woman approached her: "Hello, Y-J?"

"Yes."

"Hi, I'm Belinda Schenker, regional sales manager for the Gap. I'm aware of the kind of stuff you're capable of doing. My sister still lives in Germany and she told me of the stir you made in Cologne."

Y-J: "Well, yes. Thank you"

"I'm sure you should have won her today but these judges, they don't know what to look for. The point is, that get- up you have on is really something. Half a dozen weirdo kind of people have already been in the store here, requesting replicas of your mean leather mini, not to mention your stainless steel boustier with latex shoulder cuffs. We want to hammer out a contract with your fashion designer and we want you to be our spokesperson in the venture."

"What would I do?"

"Commercials, display stands. In the Dallas area first, then maybe Huston, San Antonio. Your first American exposure."

"It's going to cost you. I'll get my people right on it. Here's our number, phone and fax." It ewas Y-J's way of not acting too eagerly, the sign of betrayal in any occupation where truely proficient aloofness is rarer than sincerity. A new market. Expanding personal fame. A lucrative contract. And yet... restratint was called for.

"Okay, I hope we can come to an agreement soon,"

"I have a feeling we will," responed Y-J, spike heeling her way across the parking lot, "but first I've got a delivery to make."