1. An Artist from the Past


    Date: 12/11/2023, Categories: Gay Male, Author: byBrunosden

    Auction result revives memories of my favorite artist
    
    This is a "politician's autobiography." You all know what that means. Fact has been blended with fiction and dreamed aspiration. I have exaggerated some, but not much. Mostly I have changed names and places to protect the innocent. All portrayals of sexual activity involve people over 18. ©2024, Brunosden. All rights reserved.
    
    I read yesterday that a few weeks ago, a painting by an American artist, Jerry Roper, was sold at auction in Berlin for just over $300,000 plus the buyer's commission. This was a new high for works by the artist, now living back in the US. The article triggered fond memories from just over 20 years ago.
    
    I'm no longer in the art business, but I still own several of Jerry's earliest paintings from a time when I knew him well, and so I've followed his career.
    
    I had graduated and gotten an MBA from an Ivy university. There was no active US war and the draft had long ago been abolished. So I was free to do as I pleased. I, like most of my class, accepted a job on Wall Street where business was booming; salaries were high; and, bonuses were even larger. We were, within a few months of reporting for work, part of the generation that considered itself kings (and there were a few queens—the female kind) of the universe. Through acquisitions and IPOs, we were changing the world, and making enormous profits for our firms and huge bonuses for ourselves.
    
    I was technically bi, having experimented ...
    ... casually in college, and newly married—in what I later learned was an open marriage. But, frankly, I was working so hard, I was just about celibate. We lived in the same apartment and pursued our separate demanding careers. Marriage just seemed to be what everyone was doing, and I had known Marie for years. So we took the leap.
    
    I worked incredible hours—this was the end of the heady time (for Wall Street) when foreign companies were bargain shopping in industrial America, and we on Wall Street were helping them to find treasures. Every deal meant another notch up in our bonuses. My average day started at 9 or earlier, after a long commute in from Jersey, and ended at 10 on a good day, after midnight when I was near a closing. And it was six or seven days a week.
    
    Needless to say, my marriage suffered. I later learned that Marie (a dark-haired, Mediterranean beauty) had several guys on the side, serially not together! Quite simply, I was never home; we never vacationed; and, she was an attractive woman, often alone in hotels away from home. And given the adrenalin that my job produced, I was always horny, occasionally "handling" matters solo in a john stall midday so I could concentrate on work. I didn't dare try to hook at the office, nor did I have the time to cruise.
    
    In order to induce us to keep the late hours, in addition to end-of-year promised bonuses, the firm provided cars to take us home if we worked after 9. The office provided a buffet of sandwiches (to keep ...
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