The Billboard

The billboard

“Reality is very disappointing.” –Jonathan Switcher

I think I'm in love. With a billboard. Seriously.

It started a few months ago. I was trying to think of ways I could make better use of my time and realized I was completely wasting 40 minutes of every day walking from the Port Authority to my office and back.

For years, I've just plugged in my headphones, tuned out the world, and taken the same route to and from work, only changing it if I miss the lights. I'm in arguably the greatest city in the world—New York—and I'm just walking the same streets over and over again, barely noticing my surroundings unless I have to avoid a pile of horse plop or I get hit with a blast of warm, fetid air, like the city just farted on me.

So I unplugged and started trying to vary my route every day. Sure it's only a square mile, but I'm getting to see and experience more every day. When you walk the same path every day, just looking straight ahead, it's like you're walking through tunnels of grey buildings, chain restaurants, stores, and gaudy signs. But if you look around, and more importantly up, you discover the beauty all around you: Great architecture, beautiful fountains and sculptures, all kinds of hidden gems. I even found an MMA studio.

And then one day, I found her. The new love of my life. The Aeries girl. Oh my god.

I was walking through Times Square when I saw her in all her 2-story glory. It was just like all the cliches. I stopped in my tracks. My jaw dropped. For a few minutes, I was just another slackjawed tourist blocking the sidewalk like an idiot and staring up at something no one else seemed to notice. Her breasts, supported and plumped so nicely by a sparkly black bra, were amazing but it was really her face and personality that got me. There she was in nothing but a bra, smiling and staring you right in the eye, as if she was just the girl next door and there was nobody but you and her, and you'd known each other for years and what's the big deal if she's not wearing any clothes, I mean, you've seen all of her before, hundreds of times, because you're high school sweethearts, and you've never had eyes for anyone else and why would you when you're coming home to this every night?

There was another billboard above her, broken into 8 smaller frames, showing her in the same bra but making all kinds of goofy faces, to show she was a quirky fun gal—like Zoe Deschanel but actually sexy—but it was that first image that held me, lost in what could have been. Then the board changed to an American Eagle ad and I staggered away in a daze. I didn't get much work done that day.

That might have been the end of it if I hadn't walked by again a few days later and realized that there was more, oh so much more. This wasn't just 2 stacked billboards. They went to the corner of the building and connected to 2 more giant billboards, plus a long skinny one on top. And after randomly cycling through some other fashion ads, they all came back to the Aeries Dreamgirl. And not just still images, but glorious video.

Sometimes the screens combine into one huge shot. Sometimes they each have her from a different angle, in different clothes. In one screen, she's just wearing a men's shirt. In another she's lying down in a red bra and panties. In another she's jumping. Then she's taking off the shirt, rolling around in just her grey underwear. Some shots are focused on her breasts, or her flat stomach as she laughs, or her golden hair. But in all of them, she's in bed. And smiling. And looking at you.

And it's not even a “come hither, let's get it on” look. It's a “good morning on another great day together” look. An “it's great to be alive, what are we going to do today” kind of look. A “sure we could have sex right now, but maybe we'll have breakfast first, maybe we'll go walk the dogs—two labradors—around the lake and up the hills before we come back and have sex” look. Or a “should we just stay in bed all day, reading books or watching TV” kind of look.

And I love her. Or maybe, it's more the idea of her, of the life I imagine with her, the life I hope she actually has and the life I wish I had.

Now it's bittersweet when I see her. I still feel the love, the warmth, the joy of her beauty. But then there's the disappointment, the longing. That's not my wife. That's not my life.

My wife is fat and dull. Like my life. Two hours on a bus every day with a bunch of strangers silently dreading the day ahead. An hour every day walking across the city with millions of faceless worker ants. At least 8 hours in a little grey box that's just one of many little grey boxes inside one bigger box surrounded by other boxes, pushing papers, trying to be “creative.” Maybe an hour at the gym, lifting things for no reason or running in place. By the time I get home, it's usually dark and I've got maybe 3 hours before I need to go to sleep so I can wake up bright and early and do it again. And what have I got to do in those 3 hours? Eat dinner which probably isn't ready even though my wife got home before me, so I have to spend time cooking, do the dishes if I'm ambitious, put together our lunches, that takes an hour or more.

Two hours left, but for what? Not sex with my wife, of course. She's gone through a similar day (except she didn't cook or do the dishes) and maybe still has more work to do. And by now she probably has a headache. Or she's stressed out from yelling at her mom. Or she's just too exhausted. Or can't stop thinking about work. Or it's too cold. Or she doesn't feel sexy because she's "so fat and disgusting," even though I still think she's beautiful and I still want her. Want her so bad it hurts. But asking her is just asking for rejection since it's not the weekend (which is still no sure thing).

But I try anyway. Because I want her. So bad. But no, rejected again. Soundly. Usually yelled at for having the temerity to try to make love to my wife, to give her another thing to worry about. Don't I know she's too busy/tired/cold/stressed for this? I think that's why she spends so many nights going "oh, I've got such a headache" or "I'm so tired." Preemptive rejection. Hoping I’ll just take the hint and not bother asking. Nights like that I just head to the upstairs bathroom with my phone for an "epic dump" and wonder if she knows what I’m really doing. Sometimes I get lucky and she gives in, but only after sighing "fiiiiine," as if it's just another chore she has to do, as if she wants to make sure I know she’s only doing this for me and couldn’t be less interested. But I ignore that and we actually enjoy ourselves.

So another 15-45 minutes gone, maybe an hour and a half left. Should do something productive, maybe write something, but I've spent all day doing that. And I've spent all day talking too, so I don't want to do that, not that I'm a sparkling conversationlist anyway. And what would we have to talk about anyway? Work? What exciting things could have happened in the 10 hours since we saw each other last? Not much. That’s why married men can’t keep their friends’ secrets from our wives, because we’re so desperate for something to talk about.

So it's TV. Another night on the couch, sometimes on opposite sides, sometimes with her resting on my shoulder or on my lap, watching something brainless, bored but content.

But there's still the weekend. Two full days of freedom and excitement right? Nope, two more days of sexual frustration. Because now it's the weekend when we should finally be able to have sex. Plenty of time, nothing else to worry about, no responsibilities. Should be a slam dunk, right? But she's so exhausted from the whole week. Friday night, she passes out after dinner. I'd pass out too but I've got to stay up in case she wakes up and we can have sex. Sometimes I get lucky, but usually I realize she's done for the night—even though she said she'd wake up—and I go to bed.

Now Saturday, the Sabbath. She either wakes up before me, eats breakfast and goes back to sleep, or she just sleeps straight through until noon or later. Then, instead of finally having sex, she has lunch and goes back to sleep. For hours. And again, I'm trapped in the house, waiting for sex. Somehow, she manages to sleep the whole day. Or she wakes up hungry, with bad breath, and then just wants to read a book or take nap #3 if there's time. Then once the Sabbath is over, we—I—have to do the grocery shopping and make dinner. And then I have a choice, stay home and do nothing hoping to get laid before bed, or go do something which—with or without her—means getting home late enough that it's time for bed again. And then I start getting pissed. We had a whole fucking day of doing nothing when it should have been a whole day of fucking, why the fuck didn't we fuck? Then either she's pissed or I get "Fine," clearly the sexiest word in the English language. Let's get this over with, even though she's cold and somehow still tired. So even crossing the finish line carries emotional baggage.

Same thing Sunday. Sometimes she has to work all day, sometimes she manages to sleep even more, sometimes we go do something together. But still, getting her to pull it out is like pulling teeth.

What's wrong with her? What's wrong with me? She seems to enjoy it, I don't think she'd bother faking it. She says it's not me, usually. Sometimes it is “my fault” because I said something stupid a few days ago that she's still thinking about even though she doesn't really remember it. But otherwise, it’s not about me. She says she's enjoying herself during sex, that I'm attractive, that she likes it. It's not me, it's her. But what does that even mean? And why won't she tell me what to do to fix it? Instead, I have to spend almost every day feeling frustrated, pent-up, rejected, depressed. It's easier to just take my phone and go upstairs.

This wouldn't happen with the Aries girl. Clearly the cold doesn’t bother her, she spends all her time in her underpants. She's in a bed but having fun, not sleeping. Not stressed, not mad at her mother. She looks ready for anything, sex or otherwise. She looks perfect.

I'm sure she's not, and life with her would have some bumps, but it's got to be better than this.

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Imagine my surprise and glee when I received the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and saw my dreamgirl in a body-paint leopard print bikini. Turns out the girl is Nina Agdal, and I love her even more now that I’ve almost seen her nipples through an inner tube and a few wet gauzy t-shirts. Finally, the Swimsuit Edition had something worth masturbating to.

Also, turns out there’s a new video for every season so now I’ve seen her dancing around the house in her underwear, wearing workout clothes that may as well be underwear, frolicking on the beach, and swimming in the ocean. She really gives new meaning to the term “breast stroke.”

I’ve got to say this is horribly irresponsible. How can they put Nina Agdal on two-story video billboards in the middle of Times Square? Who can drive with her dancing around up there? They’re lucky she isn’t causing 10 accidents a day. I just hope word never gets out about the billboards because men will probably start flocking to Times Square, like people making the pilgrimage to the see the Virgin Mary in a slice of French toast. And if they ever stopped rotating in those other boring ads, men would just stand there staring upwards with their mouths open and drown in the rain like turkeys. If that board was just Nina Agdal 24/7, I’m pretty sure the streets would run white with jizz.