No modeling agency praised my biceps enough, so my father bought me an oasis. It became my personal modeling venue.
Travelers often discovered it. Their passion for deserts was as fiery as the temperature. For many, the rush of exploring desolation was like overcoming the emptiness of life.
“Water!” the latest group of travelers said in parched tones.
With their silly hats and empty water bottles, they waddled my way.
“Not so fast!” I shouted, shirtless and flexing my bulging muscles. I angled myself so my pecs appeared prominently. “To enter the oasis, you must watch my modeling show. Or my friends will escort you out.” I motioned to my two bodyguards bearing sunglasses and receding hairlines.
“Y-y-yeah. Okay.”
I strutted. My plump buttocks in denim shorts no doubt caught their attention.
I once overheard my bodyguards whispering about how the prospect of water can make a dehydrated person agree to almost anything. Those bodyguards had to know they were wrong. Even before I lived in the oasis, everyone would’ve watched my modeling shows. I just never got proper opportunities. Agencies told me You don’t quite have the look we’re seeking, when I’m sure they were just fearful I’d take the spotlight from their model friends who sucked them off or whatever to get ahead. Maybe if I used my father’s billionaire status to my advantage, agencies would’ve changed their tune to exploit me. But I wasn’t one for taking shortcuts.
My father’s financial standing was basically irrelevant to my oasis. I thought up the idea of modeling there myself, and asked him for money, which expedited the process. I could’ve gotten my way alone with my wiles, but I valued my time.
Hundreds of people came to my oasis every month, but the group that just arrived was even more enraptured than the others. Their jaws dropped, and I’m sure they’d be drooling if they had any moisture left in their mouths. I followed their eyeline and saw they were actually looking at the water behind me.
“Eyes up here, please,” I said. They shut their mouths and abided.
Behind them, I saw another group approaching. What a treat! Two groups had never come this close together. I stopped rubbing droplets of sweat on my tanned abs (a trick that made them glisten like a golden statue). I waited for this new group to arrive. They’d be confused if they came in halfway through my show without context.
A person in the first group looked behind them and shouted, “Shit! It’s the Wolfish Tag Team.”
Those words meant nothing to me, but the entire group met each other’s gaze with bulging eyes and veiny brows. They grabbed their backpacks and ran off.
“We got this,” said one of my bodyguards. He and the other one approached the Wolfish Tag Team. They conversed. I couldn’t parse what they said, but their tone was calm until it suddenly rose. My bodyguards went for their firearms, but one was shot in the head, and the other had his throat sliced before they could do anything.
I froze. The Wolfish Tag Team approached me. They were muscular, but not in a way that suggested they worked for it or prized it. That natural ruggedness complemented their thick beards. If they’d worn flannel, I’d have mistaken them for lumberjacks.
“You know who we are?” the tallest one asked.
I shook my head.
“We’re bandits, and we’re taking this oasis.”
I shouldn’t have been shaking and silent. I reminded myself of who I was. “This place is Chance’s Modeling Venue. I’m Chance. But you can decompress here on your travels. Drink some water, maybe enjoy my modeling show. For you, I’ll pull out all the stops. You’ve never seen such a display.”
“Who the fuck wants that?”
“Everyone who’s visited thus far has agreed to watch–”
“You’re not even that hot.”
Those words needled my skin. Before I could respond, the bandits opened fire. They shot me a dozen times. I fell to the ground, dead.
Instead of darkness or a light at the end of a tunnel, text emerged in front of me. It said, You have died. Would you like to go to the afterlife or remain on this earth? 1) Afterlife 2) Earth.
Before I chose, I heard faint words from the bandits. “How about we hang these bodies on the trees? Let the folks who come here piss their pants at the sight of the corpses. If they don’t pay up, well…they’ll know what they’ll become.”
These bandits wanted to exhibit me. And I wouldn’t have to put in effort. I chose 2) Earth. My disembodied consciousness didn’t have the fingers to touch the option, so I impressed upon it with importance until the forces at work recognized it as my choice.
For months, my body hung on a tree. Thirsty explorers would go to my oasis and get ambushed by the bandits.
“Pay up or die,” they said. “See that skeleton over there? Want to join him?”
The explorers would look at me with much more interest and attention than others had given at my modeling shows. I hoped my father wouldn’t find out about the hijacked oasis and rid it of bandits. I finally felt seen.
Working to achieve the ultimate figure was an empty exercise in vanity. The muscles and perfect skin I once had were nothing compared to my skeleton with bug-laden eye sockets.
If only I’d realized that just being natural, existing without pageantry, was enough before I’d died. Death had become better than life. I tried to move my skeleton into a smile, but I couldn’t.
_________
Sean Dowie is a Queer, slightly eccentric writer from Toronto, Canada. His fiction has recently appeared in HAD, Maudlin House, and hex. He’s a 2024 Tin House Winter Workshop Participant and a 2022 Lambda Literary Fellow. Find him on Instagram at @eccentric_brat and Bluesky @seandowie.bsky.social