Portrait

She despised the sitter and, as much as she tried to set her antipathy to one side, this showed in the finished portrait. Looking at the painting, the subject’s moral failings - the greed, self-interest and hypocrisy - were all painfully clear to her. Reflecting that she had been paid up-front for this commission, she delivered the painting anyway.

And he loved it.

He liked the way she had captured what he thought of his charming roguishness. The amorality that she had delineated with chilling precision became, in his eyes, a buccaneering spirit of adventure. He recommended her to all his friends. She became highly fashionable within a set that she abhorred. She made a lot of money but hated herself for it.

At the height of her self-loathing and in a spirit of experiment, she began a self-portrait.