The summer when I first moved to the city to study art Fine Art was a heatwave - make of that what you will. To escape the heat, I’d often find myself seeking sanctuary from the sun-drenched clamour of Trafalgar Square into the cool, hushed rooms of the National Gallery. If we’d passed (and who knows, maybe we did), perhaps your gaze would have been drawn to the cascade of auburn curls falling over my pale, inked shoulders, or the sundress skimming my curves as I stood basking in front of Artemisia Gentileschi, Titian or Rubens.
There, half-drunk on those masterful brush strokes I first began to imagine a life for myself where beauty and creativity could be the rule rather than the exception: A life that suited someone with a temperament as exuberant as that first glimpse of red hair suggests. Happily, for me (and possibly for you) it transpired I had quite a talent for living decadently.
I began adorning myself with the sort of art I had only previously admired behind glass; I pursued a design career that challenged and inspired me in equal measure; and I embraced the sides of my desire that had always felt deliciously clandestine – the desire to be wanted, with the deep, illicit hunger reserved for those few women that are truly shameless about their pleasure.
And I loved it.
So, with the straight and narrow path quickly becoming a distant speck on the horizon, I started seeking out companions to come along for the ride. I have a preference for those that can lose themselves to life's pleasures and people that know the only thing worth taking seriously in life is a good glass of red wine.
And last but not least, those that know a contemporary femme fatale with a pre-Raphaelite spirit is a rare thing – even rarer when she comes with a smile known to make grown men blush.
