#213 A Study in Color

by Patricia Staino

I am the artist. I should have known better.

He was charming and didn’t take no for an answer, and even though he was an accountant, there was something about him.

Maybe it was the orange striped socks he wore with his suit.

Or that we met at a gallery (he was there with another woman, which he failed to mention at the time).

Perhaps, he seemed an artistic soul imprisoned by college loans.

Anyway, he seemed more than an accountant.

Our early days, his orange period, were wild and funny and unpredictable. He played jokes and told hilarious stories, took me on “creative” dates—like tea at the Eloise Room at the Plaza.

His sky-blue period was truly wondrous, pulling out every romantic stop. I’d never seen so many roses, so often. Cliché and overdone, but I was just vulnerable enough to fall for its headiness.

Then the white period—I’d fallen under his spell and he was almost ethereal; his words seemed prophetic, his touch uplifting, his lovemaking earth-shaking.

But then came a dark blue period—so deep it was almost purple. He wanted back from me what he said I had taken; I couldn’t give it.

I kept waiting for a red period—renewed love, passion, and blood-curdling orgasms, but we never got there.

Then I realized those weren’t the artistic periods of his soul. They were mine.

He was just an accountant who wore colorful socks. The rest was my masterpiece.