From The Low Low To The High High

As a lesbian in a long term relationship I was destroyed emotionally when my SO told me we were breaking up, over another woman. I was 25 and I earned very little being a starving artist. I flailed along from couch to couch until I returned to my mother when my father died. I got a job working as a sales clerk in a studio of a local artist who put down my work.

One day a man walked in looking for something for a wall. He walked around and nothing called out to him. He asked if I knew of any other place, he wanted something original and different. A one of a kind. I showed him some of my work on my phone, he said he had to see it himself so I told him I had the pieces at my mothers.

After seeing what I had he said he wanted something unique and that I should come to h7s house and see the space, his other pieces and he would commission me. I quit my job that day, I hated that woman. I worked on his piece he had it professionally framed, had a party to show it off and he showed me off to his friends. with his support my art took off, eventually selling in NY, SF and Paris.

All is not free, I am more than just a pretty face for him to look at, he expects me to live with him, on his arm at dinner parties, or entertaining guests in his house or on his boat, a sailing yacht. He dismisses my proclivity, as he calls it, as a wrong turn, now that he has me on the straight and narrow. He tolerates a friend, but he is impatient with me when it comes to going to bed. He wasn't satisfied just having me with him, he married me. I turn 30 this year and I'm thinking of throwing in the towel and have a kid, my mother insists.

That's my story, from the gutter to being the lady of the house, with a dedicated studio for my work. The price is high, my freedom. A gilded cage for his 'find'.