Yes, this is a woman who has, for over a decade, earned a living by exhibiting her body for grateful photographers and adoring fans. Yes, Chloe is among the most-photographed men's magazine models of all time. Yes, she is arguably the most desired woman on the planet. Yes, she has become a star primarily because of her big breasts, those breasts, those magnificent, unbelievably, incomprehensibly God-made breasts that make grown men weep. Chloe represents a carnal version of Mother Earth, so female, so fertile, so Earthy, so desirable. She is a modern-day classical goddess, in every legitimate sense of the word.

And yet, this is not Chloe. She is sweet and shy and polite and has never had a bad word said about her by anyone that mattered. She is the girl every boy dreams lives next door. It seems to dehumanize Chloe to speak of her in such overtly sexual terms, as an ideal of womanliness, and for this I am sorry, because it fails to recognize that she is a real person, with feelings and thoughts and ideas and fears, and pain, and bad days as well as good ones. But a sexual icon is precisely what she is. Or rather, it is what she does, or did, because she is good at it. We know of her almost Mediterranean-like classical beauty. We know of The Body. We've seen The Breasts. We know of her longtime affiliation with SCORE, the current King of breast-fetish magazines. But did you know that Chloe has studied medicine? I'm willing to bet that she's as intelligent and thoughtful as she is beautiful? Did you know that she wears glasses? Did you know that she has freckles? These things only serve to make her more real, more human. It seems disingenuous to think that Chloe can be my "dream girl", like a bad bar "come on", but it must be true. When I look at pictures of her, my mood changes. I am happier knowing that she is a living, breathing person. She takes my breath away.

I've had dreams of Chloe. I've had dreams of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, too, but that was kid's stuff. Chloe is different. I have often dreamed of meeting Chloe for an interview. The dream is always the same. I knock at her door, the door of a comfortable but modest apartment on a rustic street in a bustling suburban section of Paris, where she has been on a modeling assignment. My palms are sweating, my hands trembling, and my heartbeat racing out of control. After what seems an eternity -- an eternity of sheer, unadulterated, petrifying terror -- she answers. Peeking around the door, she smiles and apologizes for being "late" when I am in fact early to an intrusion into her sanctuary. Chloe's temporary home is a sanctuary from the outside world, a madding world so utterly infatuated with her that she is puzzled by all of the attention she gets.

Chloe smiles again and I melt. I feel like a schoolboy with a first crush. Unnerved, I drop my notes. I bend down to pick them up and feel like running -- to anywhere, anywhere but here and now. I can't live up to this -- this is Chloe. Chloe! And then I catch a glimpse of her foot. It is mounted in shiny black heels and it attaches to an ankle that melts into the long, graceful arc of her calf, muscular from the speedskating and running she did as a child. Her calves are supple and shapely and beautiful, but this is a part of Chloe which seldom gets noticed.

I am still shaking but I do not run away. I glance up and see the most wistful and wonderful smile I have ever seen, punctuated by a pair of eyes which both penetrate and radiate with brilliance all at once. Like exclamation points, her thick, arching eyebrows bring out the magnetism of those doe eyes. Her German face is framed by a tousled mop of wavy, shoulder-length, almost jet black hair that is simply, yet elegantly styled.

She giggles.

Chloe is not tall, at five foot three, but looks taller in her pictures and videos than she does here and now. Her legs are well-toned yet feminine and very sexy. Her shapely hips are obscured by the skirt of her patterned sundress. The dress is tasteful and modest, yet on Chloe it cannot help being sexy. Her ample décolletage is hard to miss, but I will not insult her by staring. I gaze into her eyes for a long time and then, as though satisfied, smile. I finish collecting my notes and stand up to my full height. I smile again and offer my hand. "Miss Vevrier, my name is -- "

"Brent. Your name is Brent and you are from America and you wish to ask me about myself. You're silly -- who else would I be expecting?" She smiles warmly as she says it. Astonished by this very honest and straightforward greeting, I step inside when invited, and Chloe leads me through a tastefully decorated, modern apartment to a sun room overlooking a swimming pool. Along the way, we chat about my plane trip. Her perfume smells wonderful. Like Chloe, it is delicate and doe-like and wonderfully feminine but sincere and straightforward at the same time.

We sit on an overstuffed couch in a room full of curious knick knacks -- a room that somehow surprises me, though I am not quite sure how. Chloe's black cat appears and perches upon on her lap, eyeing me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, protecting its Mother. Chloe is very beautiful. Not glamorous, not today. Today she does not wear makeup and is simply wholesome and innocent and very, very beautiful.

She does not know me from Adam but still she sits close. She is flattered that I have come so far in a quest to meet her. She tells me that she has shown the picture I sent her to her sisters and her girlfriends, who said "Way cute!" In Chloe's accent, this is beyond charming and that makes me blush, and she giggles. She says that my essay about her made her feel very happy, very loved. She can really flirt -- when I ask her whether she is happy with her body she touches my hand and smiles slyly when she speaks of her "boobs". She knows ahead of time that I am enchanted by her figure, her *type* of figure. I feel badly about this but Chloe won't hear of it -- she finds it charming that there are men who find such women as she alluring.

Chloe likes her hourglass of a body. She does not enjoy diets or workouts but loves walking and swimming and dancing. She is a woman through and through. Chloe loves to dance. She makes me promise that after we talk we will go to a club and dance. My "trick knee" seems to fade from memory -- it will be a dream come true to dance with Chloe.

Chloe tells me that growing up with such large breasts -- "boobs", she calls them, and from Chloe that word is sexy, much too sexy -- was difficult but that despite the teasing and jealousy from classmates, she has no regrets about it -- she likes "being a curvy woman." I ask if she is a good kisser and she responds by asking whether I am a good kisser. That makes me blush, again, and she adds, quickly, and with a straight face, "Am I a good kisser? Maybe you should find out for yourself." Chloe, you see, grew up in a very restrictive East Germany, and learned how to kiss by practicing with her girlfriends. Somehow, I do not think that she lacks kissing talent. Chloe's eyes light up and she giggles again, like a schoolgirl, smiling sheepishly. She really knows how to flirt.

I fumble through my bag for the sketch of her I had drawn. My perception is that I am being teased by a girl obviously enjoying this kind of attention. Yet when she sees the sketch, her eyes dance brightly and in the next breath she tells me I am "sweet AND talented". Her eyes tell me that she likes the sketch, and I am relieved. We decide to go for a walk in the nearby park.

It is a beautiful park, with stately shade trees and brick paths and a neatly manicured lawn dotted with the first-fallen leaves of the Autumn season. We sit under a giant elm and talk for three and a half hours, about philosophy, and science, and religion, and music and dreams. The time passes much too quickly. Ever considerate, she asks me what my dreams are, and, without warning, I say, "to meet someone like you." She does not flinch at all at this, and replies, "Well, haven't you?" Our eyes meet and for one brief, fantastic instant, all of my anxieties, all of my worries and fears are gone, and I am happier than I have ever been. I feel as though I have touched the sun and found my soul mate.

The feeling passes when I look away, self-consciously, pleadingly, at a snail crawling on the elm. Its shell is medium brown and streaked with lighter brown and has dark spots. I am embarrassed at having said this to her. Sometimes, like now, I wish I could be a snail, to be able to withdraw into a shell and feel protected. I have no right to fawn over Chloe in such a childish manner. As much as I want to know her, I do not know her. As much as I want to hold her, that is my dream, not hers. I should not be feeling this way about Chloe. It will only lead to a broken heart, one of the many she has unintentionally and unwittingly broken. I will cry myself to sleep tonight -- of this I am sure.

Nothing is said for a moment, a long uneasy moment that makes me want to get up and run again. The coolness of the air makes me shiver a bit now, or maybe it is simply the despair of knowing that tomorrow I will be back in the States, trying to recall every detail about her, the way she smiles, the way she moves, the scent of her perfume.

A breath of wind carries a solitary golden leaf past us then, lazily flicking it about, up and down, to and fro, as though it were alive. After a moment, it soars upward for an instant, before another gust of wind shoves it abruptly to the ground.

Chloe touches my hand, as if to say, "it's okay. It's really okay." She gently nuzzles her cheek against my own. She knows. Somehow, she knows what I am feeling, what I wish to tell her. Chloe confides in me that she feels so alone, here and now in her life, without someone to talk to, without someone to be romantic with. My heart aches for her, and I tell her how wonderful I think she is, and that any man would be honored to be with her. It is not meant as a "come on" yet it is an unnecessary, schoolboyish thing to say. I feel silly saying it, but it is honest and heartfelt and it touches her. She grins and gently kisses my cheek, whispering "thank you" in my ear, and then, like a little girl, Chloe falls asleep as we gaze up at the passing clouds, her head resting peacefully on my shoulder. I settle down to watch some children flying a kite. They are happy and laughing and free and do not worry about such things, and for the moment I feel as though I were one of them.

I would sit there forever for her.

•   •   •

always wake up about then. I don't think it's really possible for my brain to conceive of anything more.

I'll never get to meet Chloe Vevrier. I'll never ever know "what if..." I'll never get to experience the sweet, sincere, intelligent, thoughtful Chloe that is often well-hidden by her sexy exterior, and her public image. For this I am sad. But I'll always have Paris. And I will always be able to say that in my lifetime I was able to see Chloe in photos, to see her move and hear her voice, and to find a little bit of Heaven on Earth.

-- Brent Blackburn aka "Nik" 1/20/2000

Epilogue

t isn't easy to release an intensely personal piece like this without feeling dirty about it-even ashamed. It's tougher still when you send such an anthem to the object of your affections. Which I did. Which I regret. Why? I can't answer that, exactly. It has something to do with the fact that I thought I was tougher than that. Call my Chloe crush a bad case of puppy love. Maybe temporary insanity. Maybe stupidity.

After all, she's just a girl.

Maybe.

I think, in the end, tragically, we project very unreal images onto the icons we admire from afar. Unfair? Yep. Maybe that's just the by-product of the form of the media in which we see these women -- impersonal, on purpose. It is a business, after all. It's our fantasy, but it's their job.

Do I really regret "singing a hymn" -- albeit a bit worshipful -- to Chloe? No. Because at the very least, I told her how much she means to me, how much she affected this Ordinary Joe in Small Town, USA. Nothing wrong in that. Maybe -- maybe -- it will even bring a wry smile to her face. But I digress.

I will tell you that I am saner and wiser about one thing -- in this day and age of political correctness, I am sure that I don't want my tombstone to read "He liked big tits." I think that, by and large, though we may not consciously realize it, or want to realize, but deep down, maybe dormant, is this notion that women's breasts, so far as men are concerned, are simply symbols of abundant femininity, a commodity in rabid demand today by the male population. I think that inwardly maybe we are rebelling against political correctness by celebrating women's figures.

I guess, brethren, what I am saying is that I am more than a little ashamed of that. I never meant for this to be a swan song, so to speak, but recently I made the decision to scrap Pinups!, my online opus to the "tit culture", and condemn it to the nearest receptacle. Call it a hunch, based on some enlightened thinking. I re-read it top to bottom and was dismayed at how I could have written something so insipid. I won't deny that seeing a startlingly-contoured female doesn't "move me" sometimes beyond rational thought, but damn it, I am trying to change.

Is it religion? No, I don't think so -- never felt any divine intervention.

Is it a tip of the cap to political correctness? Not really -- that stuff just suppresses society's resentments until they fester and boil over.

Is it a change in philosophy? Perhaps.

And perhaps it is just a part of growing up.

Fine