“I Should Have Known From the Smell of Turpentine”

I’ve seen a lot of strange apartments in this line of work, but none like this one.

My name is Erin Blake, and this is the story of a night that started with a glass of wine and ended with a locked door, a missing painting, and a question I still can’t answer.

It was a Tuesday in midtown Toronto. The client went by “Mr. Landon,” said he was an art collector who didn’t like restaurants. His apartment smelled like turpentine, linseed oil, and something else I couldn’t place.

Something old.

“Don’t Touch the Canvas”

He was tall, well-spoken, and visibly nervous—not in the usual “first-time client” way. More like someone watching a time bomb in his pocket.

After a brief conversation, he led me to a side room. The walls were covered in unframed paintings. Abstract, grotesque, beautiful.

One in particular stood out. A portrait of a woman with green eyes and a scar under her right eyebrow.

She looked like me.

“Don’t touch that one,” he said, too quickly.

I didn’t.

But I asked who she was.

“She’s No One. She’s Everyone.”

Mr. Landon said she was a muse. A memory. “A recurring dream,” he said, eyes not quite meeting mine.

We had tea instead of champagne. Listened to Miles Davis instead of The Weeknd. I should’ve found it charming.

But I felt watched—not by him, but by the painting.

He didn’t ask for anything intimate. Instead, he asked me to sit in the chair beside it. To “just be.”

It was the most money I’d ever made for doing absolutely nothing… except trying not to stare back at the version of me on the canvas.

The Twist in the Frame

When I went to the washroom, I found a second painting, half-covered by a towel.

Same woman. Same scar. But this time, she was screaming.

I didn’t say anything when I came out. I just took my coat and said, “Time’s up.”

He walked me to the door, handed me a thick envelope, and said:

“Thank you, Erin. You’ve helped me more than you know.”

Final Reflection

Some escort bookings are about pleasure. Some are about pain.

That night with Mr. Landon was about memory—his, mine, or someone else’s.

To this day, I don’t know if he painted those images before or after meeting me.
And honestly? I don’t think I want to know.