Breakdown of a Goddess

Do you ever look at people and wonder how they got to be so beautiful? Like, it couldn’t be humanly natural to be that gorgeous?

When I was in secondary school, I got my first taste of beauty, or at least of what I thought was beauty. Enter Valeria C. She was a pretty and petite Filipino who looked a little more Spanish than Asian. She had lush, black hair and tight, tan skin. When she looked at you with her sweet eyes you were the only one that existed in the world. Her full lips were those you’d dream of kissing. She quickly learned she attracted the attentions of many boys and often played with their raging adolescent hormones to her advantage.

I was eleven and in First Form when I met Valeria. Unlike all the other boys that tried hard to woo her, I had a trump: I belonged in her inner circle. I was one of her best friends, along with Gerry D., a hardcore Cockney chick, and Ramona C., the sensible Aussie Eurasian. The four of us were our own Motley crew. We weaved in and out of every circle: the dorks, the Indians, the cool kids, the Jocks, the Goths. I’m sure many wanted to be in our circle but the four of us seemed to manage to smile off the requests and offers without offending any individual.

For the first three years of our friendship I was there for every guy crush she had, and also every guy’s heart she crushed. Including mine. She was a maneater in training.

One party night at Gerry’s, Valeria and I ended up in the same bed. We were getting off with each other and I could not believe the day had come. I was getting off with one of the hottest girls at Island School! I remember trembling when I undressed her; when I made her quiver when my tongue found her dark nipples and eventually found itself between her legs (all right faggots, stop gagging…). I remember thinking I wouldn’t stop until she came. That night I knew I became a man.

The next day we went out to join the others in Gerry’s living room.

“Did we have a good night, Valeria?” Ramona said in a way a bitch would mock her prey.
“Hey, leave my girl friend alone,” I defended. Valeria looked away.
“Valeria, did you just hear what Cheng called you?” Ramona hissed.

I knew I was done when Valeria grabbed Ramona’s hand instead of mine. I just became one of Valeria’s other boys. I had been in love with what I knew to be the most beautiful girl in the world for three years and in one night I became a lovesick mess. Literally: Oh em gee. I died. I cried over her for days. It’s pathetic when I look back at it now but I remember that my life was over at the time. Back then, in my mind, I forgave her every time she hooked up with numerous other guys in the weeks and months that came.

One Friday night at a school dance I couldn’t keep my eyes off Valeria. She loved music and loved dancing. Gerry and Ramona urged me to move on. How could I? She was my first love! Then all of a sudden, Valeria’s favourite song came on, George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.” I wasn’t really that familiar with him at the time. I just knew he was one of the two queer guys from that 80’s group, Wham. And he was the one with that popular butt-waggling track, “Faith.”

Freedom was a hot fucking record. And the video! It was an orgy of the hottest Supermodels at the time. Talk about “beauty!” Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cyndi Crawford, Christy Turlington. I became obsessed with the video and soon realised Valeria looked nothing like these beauties (but in her defense, not many people ever do!). Valeria was short and no where as graceful as these models. She also didn’t have much of a bust. Linda had such perfect and stunning features. Christy looked like a Greek Goddess wrapped in that huge sheet as she sauntered through that grand room. What an entrance! Divine. Christy also had incredible cheek bones and those eyes… And then the hottest scene ever when the two of them prick their fingers by the fire place. Hot! I wonder how many times I jerked off with that image in my head wondering when I would ever have the opportunity to meet a girl that looked as hot as Linda or Christy.

The day came 16 years later in the summer of 2005 when I was in Florence, Italy for a fashion show and I actually met the Ms. Christy Turlington. I was the Art Director for PUMA’s Black Station luxury line of footwear and apparel at the time. Christy had a partnering collaboration with PUMA of yoga inspired fashion called “nuala” (an acronym for Natural, Universal, Altruistic, Limitless, and Authentic; look, she’s a gorgeous model so let her name her line anything she wants!). You may have seen the nuala line at high end retail outlets like Bloomingdales. Other Black Station collaborators I got the privilege to work with included the teams of Neil Barrett, Alexander McQueen, Yasuhiro Mihara, Phillippe Starck, and Rudolph Dassler. This particular fashion show was a preview of the fall/winter collections of all these collaborations. But back to Christy!

She had not aged one bit! She was still stunning (even today she still is stunning!). Everyone in attendance of the Black Station fashion show eyed Ms. Christy. I’m not normally star struck but I was with her. I mean, she probably knew Madonna (my ultimate idol whom I love to hate)! I found out Christy’s agent is the same as Gwyneth Paltrow’s and Gwyneth and Madonna were besties once! Maybe all of us could go to a Coldplay concert? And swoon over Chris Martin?

Anyway, after the show, my PR girl buddies, Danielle and Lisa, quickly casually introduced Christy to me.

“Ch’ien, I look forward to working with you. I have a lot of ideas for this coming campaign,” she said. Did the Goddess just talk to me? My heart was thumping. I was screaming like a tween school girl on the inside! In my role as Art Director, I would work with the collaborators for their marketing and advertising campaigns. I looked around and noticed dozens of pairs of eyes spitting at me with jealousy at the fact that Christy spoke to me. Fuck team Edward and Team Jacob! I’m with Team Christy!

I was just a simple boy who grew up in Hong Kong. I must have gloated to my best friends as soon as I returned to my hotel room. I could never have imagined I’d meet and work with a Supermodel! It was a gay man’s dream come true (aside from being in the 14th row of a Madonna concert and almost touching her when she danced down the catwalk singing “Give It To Me!”)! Later that night when I was heading out in search of a gay bar in Florence I happened to pass by Christy and her posse off to some dinner. It looked like a photoshoot. Gorgeous people running down the cobble stone streets of Florence. Oh the glamour! I was too shy to call her name and just admired them in the shadows.

I’m not sure if I really heard anything during my first meeting with Christy at her office in the Meat Packing District in NYC. I was still in awe. She is gorgeous. And she’s still a Supermodel. Her assistant, Sascha D, and I hit it off immediately. Sascha also has a sick sense of humour and I was thrilled to know this would be a great working relationship in the year I would work with Christy and Sascha.

I watched Christy Turlington Burns grow during the following months as she was pregnant with her second child. She still worked hard during her pregnancy and boy did she glow. She was everything: wife, mother, entrepreneur. And she still looked amazing.

During one meeting, Christy, Sascha and I were huddled in Christy’s office. We were reviewing Christy’s upcoming campaign and apparel line for nuala. Sascha got up to use the ladies and dropped something. Without thinking I just reached down to help retrieve whatever she had dropped and found a tampon in my hand.

“Great! Now the gay guy knows I have my period,” Sabrina said.
We all laughed.
“Well I guess it means Ch’ien’s family now,” Christy replied, “So Sascha, you won’t mind sharing if it’s a heavy day?”
She was sharp and had a sense of humour, too! And I was now part of the “family.” When do I get to meet her sexy hubby-actor-director Ed Burns?

Months passed and I was always thrilled to take the Boston shuttle to New York every week to meet with the nuala team. We worked a lot and both Christy and Sascha introduced me to many of their favourite lunch and dinner spots. Thanks to PUMA’s expense account no expense was ever wasted!

After Christy gave birth to her boy, Finn, she still called in to our meetings while she stayed home with Finn and her girl, Grace. When the photoshoot finally arrived, Christy was determined to be there as she loved to be hands on with all her projects. When she arrived, my internal jaw dropped. She was still glowing and had already lost all the weight she gained during her pregnancy. I looked down at my own gut and noticed my booze belly was probably bigger than Christy’s and she had just given birth not too long ago!

The shoot went well. The apparel fit the ballet dancer like a dream. She slipped in and out of each look seamlessly. Her naked breasts were freely cupped by the stylist as she changed into another dress. Female nudity is very common during photoshoots and always wasted on gay men. Just my luck it wasn’t a shoot with hot male models today…

During a break, Christy’s nanny came to the set with Finn. Everyone oohed and ahhed at what a handsome baby he was. Christy, Sabrina and I moved into a private room to discuss the progress of the shoot. As suddenly as Finn had arrived, Christy’s tit was suddenly out of her dress for Finn’s baby lips to find Christy’s supermodel nipple. I felt my face turn hot. I’ve seen my fair share of breasts, but I had never seen supermodel titty! I started to fumble on my powerbook to pull up some of the digital shots we had so far.

“Ch’ien, the shoot is going great so far, isn’t it?” Christy said.
“Um, yeah. Great!” I kept my eyes on my powerbook.

We continued to chat from across the sofa until Finn was done with his feeding. I looked away so Christy could readjust herself and turned my way to Sascha.

“Christy, you have to check out some of these images!” Sascha said excitedly.
The nanny took Finn away and Christy was back to work mode and standing over my shoulder.

“So let’s see what you’ve got, Ch’ien,” Christy asked.
“Well take a look at these –” I was suddenly interrupted by something falling before I could finish.

I reached down to the floor to retrieve what Christy had dropped. I just handed a round piece of fabric back to Christy before really computing what I had in my hand.

“Oh my god,” Christy chirped, “I can’t believe you just handed me breast pad; how embarrassing!”

“It’s fine, Christy,” I said on some kind of reactive autopilot.

But was it really fine? I mean I just touched a supermodel’s breast milk drenched breast pad! As a gay man, I didn’t even know breast pads existed. I thought I was handing over some kind of damned drink coaster to Christy (goes to show all I ever think about are drinks...)!

When I told my straight buddies what had happened, the breast pad incident didn’t phase them at all. They were more concerned by the fact I didn’t photograph Christy’s bare breasts! I suppose I had Goddess Christy on such a high pedestal I never imagined humanly fluids to be secreted from any part of her body… She was afterall, Goddess Christy, Supermodel, Entrepreneur, Mother, Friend, and Human. Christy is vulnerably human, just like Valeria, and every other person I have found to be unhumanly stunning.

In August 2008, I happened to come across a shoot in W Magazine with Christy entitled Champion. It was photographed by Michael Thompson and she really "worked the warrior-goddess side of Greco-Roman influence" in this shoot. Hot! But even after viewing these beautiful images of Christy, I couldn't help but think she was a down to earth mother.
I’ve never really ever put anyone male nor female back on such a high pedestal since. I did, however, find myself to have some very special and hidden talents to add on my resume: will eat out and excellent female hygiene product retriever.