I started to tighten my grip and then I stopped and apologized. I wasn’t able for ingratitude after all I did for her. There was silence in the studio. I had brought a bottle of wine and I rinsed two small glasses that were slightly dirty and chipped. I poured the wine, a slight tremor in my hands, and I tried not to touch the chip on the rim of the glass with my lips while I sipped. I was prone to cold sores and I was afraid of them, of the scabs they turned into, the weeping, the stinging. The scab that appears well formed until you pull at it prematurely, and you remove some of the skin from your lip unintentionally and you wish you had the discipline not to do that but you are without it.

Hanging from the screen was Jenny’s turquoise dress which she often wore with a belt, cinching it in, accentuating her narrow waist. Her suede jacket was on a chair. She took off her jeans. There was a bit of bad feeling in the place because of the way I had grabbed her and it made me feel uncomfortable looking at her stripped down to her knickers.

She said she was sorry that she wasn’t ready.

It wasn’t about that, the not being ready, I told her it was the way it made me feel, as if I wasn’t worth getting ready for. She was becoming complacent. There was a tension between us that wasn’t there before and I felt remorse for what I had done. I put my arms around her and pulled her close to me and I could feel that her flesh was cold due to the chill of the studio. After an initial resistance I felt her relax into me and then she extricated herself from my arms and sat down on the chair and she faced me.

She asked me if I liked what I saw. I looked at her, draped on the velvet chair – its tattered tassels, the embroidered edging marking her thighs. Her vulnerability in her nakedness except for her knickers. But she wasn’t asking me about herself, she wanted to know what I thought of a painting she had been working on for most of the day. She pointed to a canvas on the floor, which showed an image of a young woman slumped on the side of the road, her arms raised above her head, a small pool of liquid beside her that was brown and looked like stale blood. Jenny said that it was heroin. I told her the painting was incredibly moving, magical. The sense of magic like you have when you are a child and you just believe things.