You could no more take photography out of my life with Eric Kroll than you could change the fact that he's male and I’m not. It exists. Like bedrock. Like flouridated water. I’ve been a model since I was a teenager and he's been taking pictures nearly that long. We have in our possession 35mm frames of the exact moment of our meeting. No fooling. It was near the end of a modeling session with an old friend of Eric's in Manhattan, just David and I, when the still click-click of the room was rent by the clatter of Eric stumbling through his door and calling out "I'm here! Let’s go eat!" The tendons in my long neck jumped out cruelly. You can see this in the photos. That was 17 years ago, 15 of them married, 11 of them being parents together. If I think about it good and long, I can't say that this really surprises me, for I've always seen Eric as my once and future mate even when we're in fighting mode. Ours has consistently been a tempestuous union—think Dick and Liz, without the booze, or Zelda and Scott on solid ground. When Eric told our first marriage counselor "I don't think she loves me anymore," he was advised "Oh, I'm sure she does, only it’s buried under anger." And I was angry, over a lot of issues, not the least of which was his work. It had changed greatly since our first days together and the images and encroaching lifestyle had begun to frighten me. I was jealous that he was choosing to shoot much younger women and that they viewed him as some kind of fatherly Sex Priest to whom they confessed such tender intimacies as what sort of intercourse they liked, when they were due to menstruate, or whether or not they should get their genitals pierced. The last straw, and what sent me crawling to the therapist, was one particular photograph he had selected for a gallery show. It was a 16x20 of his favorite model ("Which I used to be," I groaned to the therapist) sitting with her legs spread wider than the Hudson and her boyfriend's cock plugging her from his prone position on the studio floor. "This is not Art," I shrieked. "This is pornography. He's turning into a goddamned, bouncing trench coat, pornographer!" Dr. ______ was a silver-haired Jewish grandma dressed in little blue suits with rhinestone brooches, but nothing we could say or do fazed her. She took an immediate, solid stance that I could never restrict Eric in his work. "You can give your opinion when asked, support him when required, but you can not exercise control over his work." This was a bitter idea to swallow (especially since it allowed Eric to feel vindicated and triumphant and those of us who know him well, know his ego doesn't need much more of that) though in retrospect it has been a healthy axiom to live by. "How can you stand it?" girlfriends and some family members ask. "Aren’t you worried? Isn't he sleeping with all of them?" They echo the fan letters E receives from people out there certain of the fact that there must be 14 women camped under his bed at night. He frequently does have three women in bed at once, though daughters can hardly count. I don't know what I'd do if I ever found out he messed around with his subjects. It's just rather unthinkable, or unthinkable that he would hide it from me if in fact something was going on. Trust is our holy covenant and we have willingly given ourselves over to its preservation. Besides, Eric rivals Howard Hughes when it comes to fear of disease. I'll start worrying when the full body condom finally hits the market. Sure there are pictures of Eric's that I would burn if I could (probably why his will puts a close friend in charge of his canon) and there are places and people he frequents that I have only the lowliest regard for—but it's his work. It's his obsession, his treasure, what makes him tick and gurgle and spout great steaming blasphemies against God and all of mankind, what prods him out of bed before dawn to capture naked breasts and satiny corsets against a glowing sunrise. "Eric has a really crazy energy," says his assistant Anna Noelle. I don’t even reply.