Like most people who had access to MTV in 1994, Zoe was subjected to seeing the Aerosmith video many times. The video, in truth, was more enjoyable than the song—called “Crazy.” Sometimes, Zoe felt that way herself as a result of how heavily the network was obliged to rotate the video. For fuck’s sake, she got the point already: men were pervs who wanted to see that Lolita shit on repeat. And yeah, Steven Tyler casting his own daughter as a “naughty schoolgirl” alongside Alicia Silverstone only added to the “erotic” nature of the narrative. Every time Zoe saw the credits listed on the bottom left corner at the beginning and end of the video, she would take especial note of the line that read, “Directed by Marty Callner.” He must have really gotten his rocks off directing this content. Probably as much as he did directing the Britney Spears concert seven years later. It was for the Dream Within A Dream Tour, but the special would be called Britney Spears Live from Las Vegas. And yeah, she certainly wore some “numbers” during that show that made what Liv and Alicia were wearing look positively tame.

But that was, in the end, what made the “Crazy” video so “hot” for most guys. Zoe knew that the power of suggestion was just as effective as letting it all hang out. And she couldn’t deny that’s what influenced much of her own fashion decisions as 1994 wore on, and she found herself taking “unwitting” cues from the “Crazy” girls. From plaid skirts and button-front white blouses to saddle shoes paired with frilly ankle socks (clearly, Britney had seen the video, too). She supposed her aim in dressing like them was, ultimately, to attract the same kind of hot farmer that shows up—like a sexy agricultural angel—in the video. Of course, back then, Dean Kelly, the model who played the farmer, hadn’t been accused of rape/“carnal knowledge” of a minor, so it wasn’t as icky to watch him get such a fantasy fulfilled during an era when he was still more age-appropriate to have “carnal knowledge” of girls that were in Liv and Alicia’s demographic (Liv was seventeen, while Alicia was eighteen the year the video came out).

Kelly would have been about twenty-two at the time. Perfectly “respectable” for trolling the Liv/Alicia set. Especially in that epoch. And yeah, Zoe had managed to tape MTV long enough to record the video so that she could rewind and pause on Dean’s muscular, bare chest the moment he materialized on his tractor. In fact, so riveted by his “sowing” skills are Liv and Alicia that they back up the convertible and invite him to ride—in their backseat, that is. Zoe would have done the same.

In truth, she was ashamed to admit that she waited for years to invoke such an experience by the sheer force of her desire. And she thought that it was true what they said: if you manifest it, it will come. Zoe wasn’t really sure who, exactly, said that, but it was a sentiment that was “trending” now more than ever. What’s more, there was no denying she hadn’t done her best to manifest it—after all, she had become a romance novelist. The only thing she did all day was come up with erotically-charged stories like the one about the farmer “boy” in the “Crazy” video. To add to that fetishism of the pastoral, Zoe had also moved to Vernon, the famed French town along the Seine where many Impressionists had gleaned their inspiration.

Although she thought it would be conducive, somehow, to summoning erotic experiences (therefore inspiration) of her own, Zoe was quickly disappointed to find that the town was a wasteland when it came to offering up attractive, fit, tan, delightfully sweaty men (in short, men that glistened like gods). Instead, all she saw were elderly, flat cap-wearing men with protruding bellies practically bursting through the buttons of their atrociously-patterned shirts. But oh, how she tried to find otherwise at first. Scouring the lands on her daily constitutionals in search of someone—man or woman—who might make her as excited as Liv and Alicia were to see pre-rapist Dean Kelly on that tractor.

She yearned to find someone who would strip down and go swimming in the river with her so that she, too, might be able to snatch his clothes and drive away with them so that he would have to chase after her in the buff, his “oversized member” bouncing up and down as he pursued her. Maybe she had been writing romance novels for too long. Maybe Aerosmith was directly responsible for spurring her toward this career path.

Whatever the case, she realized she was starting to become absolutely batty in her fiendishness for this impossible scenario to occur. And just when she had made the decision to leave for good one day while waiting for “the muse” to speak to her on her walk, she saw him. The man who would be the closest she might ever get to something akin to Dean Kelly (again, pre-rapist Dean Kelly). His hickish redness in lieu of an olive tan, his pronounced love handles spilling over his jeans, the foul way he spit into the river as he pumped water out of it into some strange vehicle Zoe had never seen before. It all amounted to this being the one she had waited for. She wasn’t going to blow her chance. She scurried back up the bridge (the vantage point from which she could espy him like the voyeur she had become) to go get into her car and drive past him. Or rather, park on the side of the bridge and “yoo-hoo” for him to come up.

As she did this, it never occurred to her that he might be averse to the notion of getting in the car with a “strange” woman—even if she was objectively a million times more attractive than he could ever hope to be. It never so much as crossed her mind that the true hiccup in this long-held fantasy was the fact that he actually did think she was, well, crazy (how ironically cruel, considering that said song incited this entire lifelong search for Hot Farm Boy). Maybe, after she ran down the stairs and hit him over the head with a watering can she had brought just in case such a “reinforcement” was needed, she couldn’t blame him for thinking that. Especially not after he came to in the back of her parked car, disrobed and totally unsure of why he was in the middle of a field. Slowly rising up to peer outside the window, he could see Zoe in the distance, wearing nothing more than her white bra and underwear.

Looking down at his own state of complete undress, he had to wonder what she might have done to him. A telltale splooge resin on the mat next to his feet seemed to indicate that perhaps she did fulfill her fantasy…as best as she could. Considering what she had to work with. And that, as Steven Tyler (of all people), had said, “Girl, you got to change your crazy ways, you hear me?” But no, she could hear nothing except the rush of blood surging through her body over the arousal she felt. Was still recovering from. And just when she was ready to turn around and have another go, she realized that the low-budget Dean Kelly had disappeared from the car.