My Late Twenties: When Life Had Two Faces - Part 3

June 19, 2016

Hi my dear friends of the group,

I published Part 2 of this series on my blog My Intimate Diaries: Lust, Passion, and a Life Lived Fully, in post Post No. 66: My Late Twenties: When Life Had Two Faces - Part 2, instead here in the group, which you can read simply by clicking on that link.

I did that partly in the hope of attracting a few more followers to this group and making it a little more active. But for this Part 3 I am returning to our cozy little place because, as you know, this is where I particularly enjoy sharing the experiences most directly connected with the world of art and my adventures as a model, both for photography and painting, but also some of my more transgressive experiences, or, if you prefer, those that tend to be less socially accepted. Since you all know me very well by now, I am sure you know exactly what I mean.

So, without further ado, let us go straight to the heart of my Life B, which would begin daily the very moment I left my main job in the afternoon, the one belonging to my Life A.

At the age of 27 and 28, which is the period I am focusing on in this series of posts, my days followed a rather strict schedule. In the mornings, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., I worked at the headquarters of the electricity company, right in the city center. Then, from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m., I would continue working on my doctoral thesis at the university, about five kilometers away, where I would usually drive in a simple but extremely practical sky-blue Citroen Dyane 6 that my husband Dan had bought before we met (Summary 10 in Post No. 3), although in practice I was the one who used it most of the time.

This is just a small detail from my Life A, but it helps to complement what I told you in Part 2. Since the company offices were located in the very heart of the city, finding a parking space nearby was a genuine headache. The building had an underground parking level, but since there were only a limited number of spaces, these were reserved for senior executives and the occasional important visitor.

As you know, an incorrectly administered injection when I was a toddler left me with a slight limp in my right leg (I will come back to this in connection with my Life B a little later on). You also know from Part 2 and several other posts that Don Ramon was a deputy director who acted as my mentor and protector within the company. Well, he personally made sure that I was assigned a parking space in that underground garage. It was obviously not one of the best spots, but considering that my car was small, and not one of those large Mercedes, BMW or Audi executive saloons of the high company ranks, it was absolutely perfect for me.

By the way, when Don Ramon handed me the garage keys, he said: "And if any of your colleagues tells you it is unfair that you have a parking space and they do not, tell them to come and see me. I'll cut off one of their legs with a hacksaw and then I'll get them a parking space as well." LOL

Needless to say, knowing that I was under Don Ramon's protection, nobody ever dared say anything to me directly about the matter, although it obviously made quite a few people jealous.

There was another amusing consequence of this privileged arrangement. Since I daily entered the building through the garage, I would frequently share the lift with company executives, exchanging the usual elevator niceties on the way upstairs. As a result, everyone, including the CEO himself, knew me by my first name.

When I say that I owe Don Ramon a great deal, I think you are beginning to understand just how true that really is, aren't you?

Anyway, on a typical weekday, after leaving the university, I would usually head back into the city to go to Francis’s painting studio-apartment (Summary 11 in Post No. 3 and the final paragraphs of Post No. 4).

For almost three years, from the ages of 23 to 26, Francis had been using the living room of the apartment my husband and I rented in a small town on the industrial outskirts, about 12 kilometers from the city, as his painting studio. But thanks to a great deal of work, and also to my help as a model, and to a significant extent as his artistic agent if you like, Francis managed in a relatively short time to save enough money to buy the studio-apartment I am about to describe to you.

Click to View Show Anyway

[[ Image 1. This is a Polaroid taken by Francis as a reference for the first medium-to-large format painting I posed for him when I was 23 years old. As you can see, the composition is a blend inspired by Francisco de Goya’s La Maja and Diego Velázquez’s Venus at her Mirror.
At that time, Francis did not yet have his own painting studio, so this was taken in a temporary improvised workspace he had set up in one of the rooms of the apartment my husband and I were renting. Later on, he moved his studio into the living room, which was larger and much brighter.
On one of the days while I was posing, my husband was working in his study in a nearby room. At one point, during a conversation with Francis and struck by how attractive he was, I became overwhelmed with desire and asked him to undress and make love to me right there on the floor, on top of that bedspread.
A few minutes later we had a huge simultaneous orgasm, me with my usual screams saying the name of the man who is possessing me at that moment: I can't help it and I do it even when having a quickie in nightclub toilets with hookups I've just met and I don't even know if the name they said is the real one; that's just how I am.
The thing is, naturally my husband heard the whole commotion LOL, and waited chivalrously until we were finished. Then he came in while Francis and I were still hugging and kissing, resting. He undressed without saying a word, Francis moved aside just a little, my husband lay on top of me and fucked me directly on top of Francis's semen (it was common for us to do that, by the way). I had another orgasm, possibly not as intense as the previous one but delicious, and then the three of us stayed there hugging each other, resting, me in the middle of my two men, with each of their penises in one hand as is also my custom.
I have it recorded in my intimate diaries that that night the three of us slept in our marriage bed. During the night, Francis made love to me twice more, and my husband once. And the next morning, the alarm clock rang as on any ordinary day. My husband and I got up to prepare breakfast, shower, and go to work as usual, while Francis stayed in bed.
The simple advantages of a bohemian artist’s life…
I brought Francis his breakfast in bed, naked after showering as he likes it, and since he was in his morning wood, without even asking, I gave him a quick blowjob to relax him. Laughing, I said, "You owe me an orgasm!" and went to brush my teeth so I wouldn't go to work smelling of cum. I got dressed and left the house with my husband, who was waiting for me with an impatient expression, and I said, "I had to give Francis a quick blowjob, sorry for making you wait."
We went down the stairs to the building entrance, making brief plans for the day as we walked as a couple in love. We lived on the first floor, so it was only a short descent, almost domestic in its simplicity.
At the door we said goodbye with a kiss. My husband walked briskly toward the train station, while I headed to where I had parked the car the night before.
It was a small, ordinary scene, but perhaps it gives you a clearer idea of what life in a menage a trois actually meant in practice. ]]

Francis is a remarkable artist, with an extraordinary talent for the visual and plastic arts, but in everything related to “normal life” he has always been, and still is, a complete disaster.

It was me who, right at the beginning of my time as his model, when I had just married at the age of 23, put Francis in contact with a small graphic publishing house specialized in erotic material: playing card decks, wall and pocket calendars, and bookmarks for books. I had already worked with them when I was 22 as a model for photographs taken by my good friend and business partner Chema (Summary 7 in Post No. 2), which we sold to that same publisher, the one that also produced the two porn short films in which I worked as a supporting actress.

Well, I also managed to get them to start buying Francis’s nude photographs: me being the model again, which, although he was not a professional photographer at the beginning, it was more than compensated by his artistic sensitivity, as you have probably already seen in many of the images on my blog, and also here in the group, taken by him.

While my agreement with Chema was a business partnership in which we split the profits 50/50, with Francis it was different: I gave him 100 per cent of the earnings, as I waived my share entirely. That is what friends do, and in any case, we were lovers, and he needed the money much more than I did at the time.

On another occasion, I also managed, shall we say by “getting close” to the owner, Ernesto, to convince one of the best art galleries in the city to exhibit and sell Francis’s work, all of which featured me as the model. It was through that gallery that I met Don Ramon (see Post No. 16: On How the Risks of Gossip from Being a Nude Model in My Free Time Never Stopped Me).

Furthermore, I introduced Francis to the law firm of Jose Manuel (Summary 8 in Post No. 2), so that they could take care of drafting and managing his contracts with galleries and private clients, as well as handling all his tax affairs.

Francis is a very austere person, and his only real expenses have always been books on art and photography, as well as photography magazines. His preferences are extremely simple when it comes to food, and even now he still wears some clothes he bought more than thirty years ago, especially shoes. Quite literally, the only time Francis will throw a garment away is when it is completely beyond repair.

In addition, thanks to the erotic publishing house and the art galleries, Francis began to earn a considerable amount of money. I even managed later on to get his work exhibited in another gallery as well, although on that occasion I did not sleep with the gallery owner, who was a woman… although I did with her son, whom I deflowered… but that is another story entirely.

Most of the money Francis earned, however, he saved and invested with care and good judgement, following the advice of my husband and of Jose Manuel. As a result, he was able to purchase, outright and in cash, the studio apartment I am about to describe to you.

I do not usually like to include information that is not strictly necessary in my posts, mainly in order to preserve the anonymity of the people who appear in them, more than my own. But since this is a more private corner, within our group, I will tell you that the city I am referring to is Bilbao (I have already mentioned it in passing in a couple of previous posts), an industrial city in the north of Spain.

In the 1980s, it would have had around 300,000 inhabitants, perhaps even fewer, but it was surrounded by a large industrial and residential belt that would have added a similar number again. Still, the city itself was quite compact in size for what is usually the European standard for cities of that population.

In Spain, the general tendency has always been for people to want to live as close as possible to the city center, often in large apartment blocks and high-rise buildings. I do not share that view, nor my husband, but then again, as you all know, we are a rather unusual pair. In another post I will explain a little more about this preference for living densely packed together, rather than in individual houses, as is more common in much of the Western world.

In that city there was (and I use the past tense deliberately) what could undoubtedly be described as a red-light district, small in size considering the scale of the city, organized around a street called “San Francisco”. The area was colloquially known as “La Palanca”, although I have never known the origin of the name, which in English might perhaps be translated as “The Lever”.

Despite the socially disapproved nature of the activities that took place there, it was not a dangerous area at all, not even for well-brought-up young women who might wander through it alone at any hour of the day or night: me for instance. That said, the neighborhood consists of narrow streets and tight alleyways, with old houses that were quite worn down but not actually derelict, and in general it was somewhat dirty and run-down compared to the city center, even though it lay less than ten minutes’ walk from that more elegant area.

Today, that neighborhood has undergone a transformation in terms of its inhabitants, who are now almost entirely "nonlocals," having come from other parts of the Earth. And while it's no longer the red-light district, it's now dangerous, and even the police don't want to enter (literally). You can imagine the kind of "citizens" who live in that area now: not all of them are bad! Obviously, most are good people, but a significant proportion are not. You all know about what I'm talking about; I'll leave that controversial topic here, but I wanted to tell it like it was and like it is now.

Anyway…, returning to La Palanca thirty-five years ago: Most of the buildings in that neighborhood were constructed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were typically four or five storeys high, and of course, in most cases, without a lift, elevator. They had narrow, creaking wooden staircases leading up to each floor, where there were usually two flats per level: one on the right and one on the left: “mano derecha” and “mano izquierda” in Spanish.

The top floor was often different. It was quite common for it to be a single apartment, an attic-style space with a veranda area and large glass windows, making it much brighter than the lower floors.

By contrast, the lower apartments had small windows, and because the streets themselves were narrow, they tended to be dark, almost dungeon-like. Incidentally, most of these buildings also contained some kind of boarding house or small hostel, often renting rooms by the hour, which was nothing unusual in a district of that nature, and in fact quite practical.

These attic flats were highly sought after by people from the artistic world, particularly those involved in the visual arts: painters, illustrators, photographers, and to a lesser extent sculptors, who would have struggled with access and transport issues for their work LOL. Ceramic artists and similar profiles were also common. It is not as if there were hundreds of them in a medium-sized industrial city like this one, which was never particularly known for its artistic scene, but there were enough to form a small, recognizable community alongside its heavy industry.

It was in one of these attic apartments that Francis organized his studio-home, where he has lived and worked ever since, even as the character of the neighborhood has changed significantly over time. He still lives very happy there.

I knew that neighborhood very well myself, as from my university years onwards I would occasionally visit it, dressed in a rather provocative way when I was low on funds, although I must confess with very limited success. I was probably too young and still had too much of the appearance of a well-off girl from a posh neighborhood. Eventually, however, I reached an arrangement with the owner of a photography shop there, for whom I would pose nude from time to time in exchange for small amounts, with the photographs later displayed in his shop window and sold quite successfully, as it turned out.

As I have mentioned in several previous posts, I also posed at the age of 22 for a series of nude paintings for a well-known painter whom I call Luis (see summary 8 in Post No. 2), who also had his studio in that same neighborhood, not far from Francis’s building. Incidentally, they met a few years later and did not get along at all.

At the age of 35, I posed briefly again for Luis for another small series of nude paintings, something that displeased Francis greatly at the time. When I first posed for Luis at the age of 22, I had not yet met Francis, but he later came to consider me his exclusive model, despite the fact that he never paid me a single cent, nor did I ever ask him to. Naturally, I did not pose for other painters for free.

Interestingly, I also posed sporadically between the ages of 26 to 34 for another painter from Madrid, whom I call Ignacio (see Summary 14 in Post No. 3). He, in turn, did not get along with either Luis or Francis. I sometimes wonder whether I was the reason behind this lack of harmony between them, or whether it was a matter of professional jealousy, or perhaps a mixture of both.

So, returning to those afternoons after leaving the university, going to Francis’s studio, finding a parking space in that area of narrow streets and alleyways on a weekday afternoon was almost impossible. The neighborhood was always busy, full of bars, pubs and nightclubs, all of them rather run-down, but serving their main purpose, which was to bring together rather uninhibited women and generous gentlemen, if you know what I mean.

So I would usually park in a slightly more industrial area a little further away, although still only about a five-minute walk from Francis’s studio. I would of course be wearing my work clothes and no makeup, although I would have already loosened the hair tie from my ponytail, letting my rather striking dark chestnut hair with reddish highlights fall freely in the wind… well, on the days when it was not raining, which in the north of Spain is by far the most common situation.

And yes, I used to enjoy walking through those streets, noticing the attention of some men and occasionally receiving compliments –“piropos” in Spanish-, many of them rather risqué but not vulgar, even though the men who usually lingered around that area in search of female company were not exactly the crème de la crème of high culture.

There is another area in the city where gentlemen of higher social level look for female companionship, but that is not directly related to what I am describing here.

I would usually arrive at Francis’s apartment around six and a half in the evening, and of course I had a key, so I would simply let myself in. As soon as Francis heard the lock in the door, he would come to greet me with the most radiant smile you can imagine. He would hug me, and we would kiss passionately, and if either of us, or both, happened to be in the mood, we would go straight to bed, without any further preliminaries or much foreplay, and make love.

Although most of the time that was not the case, and instead we would simply talk a little about how each of our days had gone, while I undressed and got myself ready to start posing, or not, since I was usually completely naked in Francis’s home.

And you may wonder: with those large veranda-style windows, could anyone from nearby buildings see me naked? And the answer is yes, if someone made a real effort to look. But in a red-light district like that, the sight of a naked woman inside a flat was hardly anything remarkable. Moreover, the long-established local residents were mostly older people who had long since learned to mind their own business and not concern themselves with how their neighbors chose to dress inside their homes.

The building, being constructed at the beginning of the century, still had old coal-burning kitchens, with thick steel plates where the cooking was done. Francis had kept his, although he used it more for heating than for cooking, and he would light it a few hours before I arrived so that the flat would be warm, because he knew I am very sensitive to the cold, a legacy of having been raised in the tropics, which has left more than a few traces in me.

As the flat was quite open-plan, with very few internal walls, only the bathroom was a fully enclosed space, while the rest was divided by movable partitions to separate areas such as the bed. That kitchen stove (which he would later remove, replacing it for a wood-burning fireplace) was more than enough to heat the entire apartment, which is not very large, although it had large double-glazed windows for better thermal isolation.

At the time I am talking about, when I was 27 and 28 years old, Francis had taken off as a painter and draughtsman at a regional level. He was in high demand, and his fees had risen rapidly. He had many commissions, both from the two art galleries mentioned earlier, especially Ernesto’s gallery… with whom I also continued to have “intimate” encounters two or three times a year in order to keep him pleased, and because he had become a good friend of mine; with the tacit approval of Francis, as it was very convenient for him to keep Ernesto’s gallery loyal.

Click to View Show Anyway

[[ Image 2. In the photograph on the left, you can see me posing in Francis’s studio during the period in which this narrative is set. On the right, there is one of the many sketches he made for a painting commissioned by a client.
Yes, this was one of those clients who happened to visit the studio while I was posing, to check the progress of his commission, and with whom I had a brief flirtation when Francis was out of the room. In fact, he was one of the three who, in addition to being Francis’s clients, also became my clients for a period of time -wink. ]]

In other words, Francis could be jealous of me, but under certain circumstances, when it suited his interests, that jealousy would fade. Besides the two galleries, Francis also had a solid base of private, regular clients.

Ernesto was not the only one with whom I had sex to help Francis. He sent me also to pay private visits to a few VIP clients on his behalf, though being fair was me who suggested to him that way of keeping some very important clients loyal and happy. This is something I learned to do when I was Jose Manuel's kept mistress, and it was also my idea then, and it worked very well.

Of course, both Ernesto and most of Francis’s private clients would occasionally come to his studio to see me posing and to follow the progress of their commissions. Francis would allow them to flirt with me; I was, of course, always naked, I did not even have a robe there to cover myself. And why would I? That kind of flirtation was inevitable and even desirable, a useful part of keeping clients satisfied, encouraging further commissions, and allowing them to see the work in progress.

However, Francis did not tolerate opinions or suggestions for changes once a commission had been agreed, and everyone knew that very well.

Sometimes Francis would step away for a few minutes, for example, under the pretext of buying a bottle of good wine and some tapas to properly treat the client. But it was just an innocent trick agreed upon by both of us so the client could enjoy a few very erotic minutes flirting alone with the naked model.

I also taught Diego, the photographer from Pamplona for whom I started working as a model at age 26 (summary 15 in Post No. 3), that innocent trick, technique, and he did it more often than Francis, who was driven by jealousy and almost always returned to the studio too soon, not giving me enough time to properly intimate with the client.

When I was alone with the clients, sometimes I would playfully invite them to run their hand over my skin, just so they could feel how silky it was. Curiously, most were surprised “the first time” and only dared to touch my arms and stomach, but if I liked the guy, I would turn around with a mischievous smile and offer him my buttocks, a gesture they immediately understood and fondled a bit my ass. Then, when I turned around… Well: Yes, that’s me.

Indeed, a couple of them… maybe three, got incredibly horny and suggested I visit them privately at their place (is what I wanted); with a mischievous smile I played hard to get but didn’t' say no but that I needed to be persuaded: They got the message and made me an offer, I haggled a bit and finally accepted… I've never denied that I'm a slut, have I? Well, there you have it. Francis knew that I invited them to fondle me a bit, at the end it was the idea when he let me alone with them, but he never knew that a couple of his clients also became my clients… I don't know if I'm explaining myself well.

My dear friends, I will make a brief pause in the thread of this story to tell you something very important that will help you understand everything I am describing here: between the ages of 23 and 43, my life was that of a woman shared between two workaholics, my husband and Francis.

For my husband, working around seventy hours a week was perfectly normal. Of course, most of that work took place at the university: leading his research group, serving on committees and governmental agencies, teaching his classes, travelling to conferences and scientific meetings, and so on. But it also continued when he came home, writing academic books in the evenings and often spending a good part of his weekends working as well.

By the way, whenever my husband was away on business trips, I would usually go and spend those days with Francis, or sometimes Francis would come and stay at my place. During those periods we lived as a couple, and frankly, I could not have cared less about what the neighbors might think when they saw that I was alone at home with Francis. Of course, all of this happened with my husband's full blessing.

In fact, he greatly preferred that I spent those days with Francis rather than staying by myself, because that allowed him to concentrate on his work without worrying about me being alone at home.

Those are some of the advantages of living in a menage a trois, which is what my husband, Francis and I actually had, although I will devote some specific posts to explaining exactly what that type of relationship was and how it worked, at least as I experienced it over the course of twenty years.

Anyway, returning to the work addiction of "my two men", my husband Dan allowed himself only one sacred holiday every year: a full month in the summer, usually July, which we spent together on the Costa Blanca, in southeastern Spain.

And I have to admit that during that month he did nothing except enjoy his holidays with me... well, with me and his bicycle, because quite often, usually in the mornings, he would go on long cycling rides while I headed to the beach.

Did I occasionally flirt with other men at the beach?... Oh, come on! At this point, do you really have any doubts? I have already written several posts about that subject, for example the series of four posts titled "Sun, Sand, and Secrets: My Summer Beach Deal with a Charming English Gentleman", both here in this group and also on my blog, My Intimate Diaries: Lust, Passion, and a Life Lived Fully, and in the groups Nipples and Boobs and Babes on the Beach.

In addition, two to four times during that holiday month, I had my intimate appointments with Paco (summary 12 in Post No. 3), which could last anywhere from a few hours to an entire day, including the night.

At that time, since mobile phones did not exist, every day during my holidays I would punctually call Paco at 10 a.m. from a public telephone booth, either at his office in the real estate agency or, if he was not there, at his department store. He would then tell me whether he wanted to see me that day and, if so, where, at what time, and how long he expected the encounter to last. In a way, I was his call-girl in reverse, because I was the one who called him. My husband and I used to stay in rented beach apartments that had no telephone, so he could not call me himself.

Sometimes, when I called him in the morning, he would not arrange a meeting because of work commitments, but if he felt like spending some time with me that day, he would tell me to call him again at exactly 5 p.m.

The mutual benefit agreement that we had "signed" when I was 23 stipulated that during my holiday month, I had to be available to him at all times and show up whenever he ordered me to do so, and yes, "ordered" is the correct verb, without any excuse to cancel or postpone the appointment. Believe me, Paco was very serious and strict about that, but so was I: a deal is a deal.

And yes, my friends, more than once, indeed many times, I had to cancel plans that I had already made with my husband for that day, but, as you know, business is business. My husband understood it perfectly and never complained, because it was my affair.

That arrangement with Paco, even if it had only involved two encounters, was more than enough to comfortably cover my entire holiday expenses. However, my husband never allowed me to rely on that income in any practical sense. Everything I earned through my agreement with Paco, as well as through my occasional work as a model and other similar activities within my Life B, was carefully saved in a separate bank account in my own name.

My husband has never touched any of that money, nor has he ever wished to do so. It has always remained entirely mine, outside our shared finances, as part of that parallel side of my life.

Returning to Paco, the only valid excuse for not meeting him was when I was on my period, during which days I was exempt from having to call him. At that time, Paco was interested in me only for sex. He had absolutely no interest in being my friend or anything of the sort; he was simply interested in having access to my body whenever he wished. That is why, if I was on my period, I had no utility for him, and yes, "utility" is exactly the right word here.

His interest in me beyond sex came many years later, after he became a widower, but that is another story that I have already mentioned and will talk about again in other posts.

Well, everything I am telling you here is pure, unfiltered Life B, don't you think?

As for Francis workaholism, he painted and drew obsessively, all day long. Since he did not have to commute for work, because his home was also his studio, he had considerably more time available than my husband, who spent around two hours a day travelling back and forth on a commuter train. I used his car, which made my own movements easier and more flexible.

Francis often spent days without leaving his house-studio at all. He ate very frugally and wasted no time on cooking or anything that interrupted his work. His only real moments of release were our intimate encounters when I visited him.

When I was not posing, Francis still had plenty of work to do. A model is not required to be present continuously while a painting is being created; much of the process takes place in solitude, construction and reconstruction of form, memory and structure. He also relied on the photographs he had taken of me while I was posing, which allowed him to continue working in my absence. Some of those photographs were later used for the “Living Art” dossier that he delivered to clients together with the finished painting, but I have already spoken about that in other posts.

However, Fridays were always a very special day for my husband, Francis, and me. On those days, my husband and I would finish work earlier in the afternoon, and the three of us would meet either in our apartment or sometimes in Francis’s studio. Those meetings were intense sexual encounters as a trio, which frequently lasted until Saturday afternoon, and occasionally even stretched into Sunday.

Even in those cases, my husband would sometimes take advantage of part of Saturday to work in his home office, while Francis and I continued on our own. I have already mentioned that both Francis’s libido, and especially mine, were considerably higher than my husband’s.

Typically, on a day of those threesome meetings, my husband could have two or three orgasms, maximum, while Francis could easily have five, and in my case six or seven, my record on those occasions being eight strong orgasms in 24 hours... six with Francis and two with my husband... yes, yes, I know... But please try to understand me: Francis was a great lover with an incredible body and stamina and a cock that turned me crazy by my three main holes, while my husband was... well: my husband. And, besides he couldn’t sodomize me, so he only had two of my holes available; let's say that I was in love with my husband's soul but with Francis' body, and that is why our menage a trois worked so well for twenty years.

By the way, Francis only took holidays a couple of times, as far as I remember, and only for about two weeks in summer. On the first occasion, he came with my husband and me to the Costa Blanca and stayed with us. The second time, years later, he rented a small villa about five kilometers from where we were staying.

Apart from those rare exceptions, he never really took proper holidays, not even now in his mid-sixties, something that has always been characteristic of his almost monastic dedication to work.

Returning to the subject of visitors to Francis’s studio while I was posing, I have already mentioned that my husband and Francis had been friends since childhood. They belonged to a close circle of six other friends, four men and two women, all of whom remained very tightly connected.

They were, without exception, highly educated and intellectually very sharp people. All of them, except Francis, had completed higher university studies at MSc level: there were doctors, economists, and lawyers among them, and the two women had studied mathematics.

They were also remarkably open-minded. Although they were too young to have fully lived through the hippie era, its cultural echoes were still present in our generation, and none of them reacted with shock or surprise when, shortly after my marriage, my husband told them that Francis and I had become lovers, and that I was also his model, all of this with my husband’s full support.

On the contrary, the reaction was one of applause and enthusiasm. For them, it seemed almost natural that Francis, who they all knew well and understood as someone incapable of sustaining a conventional long-term relationship on his own, would nonetheless be able to share a full emotional and sexual life with the wife of his best friend.

In that context, my nude presence in the studio during work sessions was not seen as something disruptive, but rather as part of a shared world that they all accepted without moral drama or unnecessary judgement.

Very often, one or more of those friends would drop by Francis’s studio, either to talk with him or simply to spend some time with us. If they arrived while I was posing nude, I would simply continue as I was, as if nothing unusual were happening, until Francis finished his work. Only then would I get dressed. At times, also my husband came to visit us when I was posing, him alone or at times with some of our friends.

This was different from situations in which the visitor was one of Francis’s clients, in which case I would remain nude all the time during the visit, as I have already described before. My (unpaid) job as Francis's model consisted not only of posing, but also of attracting clients and trying to get them to come back and commission more work... by any means at my disposal.

Francis also had a couple of artist friends who lived nearby in the “La Palanca” neighborhood. One of them was an excellent graphic illustrator who worked for publishing houses, and the other was a ceramic artist specializing in handmade work. When they came to visit and I was posing, I would of course continue naked without interruption.

I do not know how other uninhibited women have lived their lives, nor how younger generations live today, but this was my reality. In that artistic environment, my behavior was seen as entirely natural, almost self-evident, without any sense of transgression or drama attached to it.

On the other hand, both gallery clients and private collectors of Francis were aware that I was not only his model, but also his lover, and, at the same time, the wife of his best friend. This gave Francis’s life and our working relationship a certain bohemian and transgressive aura, which contributed quite significantly to his success.

An artist does not succeed solely on the quality of his work, but also, to a considerable extent, on the mythology that surrounds him.

And here I end this Part 3 in which I have only talked about a small part of my Life B at 27 and 28 years old, and I hope to publish the next chapter in a couple of days.

Sweet kisses and I wish you a great weekend!
Aura