There was a small canvas on the wall, an unimposing size, maybe a square foot. I was the subject matter. He had rendered me naked, in profile, sitting on the edge of our bed, looking over my shoulder at the observer. I had never before seen myself from his point of view.

The girl in the painting wasn’t a nymph or a victim or a survivor or a sugar baby or a gold digger or a bimbo or a fatherless girl desperately in need of an older man’s affection. The girl in the painting had a steely confidence in the knowledge that she was loved.

I had never seen that girl before.

I had seen someone who looked like her in the mirror, but whenever I caught my reflection, I became stiff and my expression turned artificial.

There was nothing artificial about this girl. This girl was loved, and she knew it. But her radiance came from another light source: This girl knew how to love back.

He showed me who I might become.