'I had no idea I had such a strong impact on Marc until my good friend [and Bolan's record producer] Tony Visconti told me a few years back,' she says, breaking a 41-year silence. Nessim, who met Bolan in New York in April 1971 and remained in contact with him over the next two years was, says Visconti, one of only three lovers Bolan had during their six-year working relationship.
Nessim's affair, though brief, is the most intriguing. Though newly famous back home, Bolan was still a virtual nonentity in the States when he tagged along to a party at Nessim's brownstone apartment on East 15th Street in New York's Stuyvesant Park district.
'He'd come with Tony and a few friends,' says Barbara, who knew nothing of Bolan or his group T Rex. 'As people started leaving, he began asking questions about my work. After a few minutes, he said: '˜I'd love to talk more. Can I stay a while?' He felt like a kindred spirit, so I agreed.'
The artist, eight years older than 24-year-old Bolan, still remembers the moment. 'That's when I really noticed him,' she says, 'a young man, about my height, with ringlets of dark, shoulder-length hair wearing deep red, velvet trousers.'
The pair settled into a large Victorian sofa and talked deep into the night. 'I have no idea what we discussed but it was intense and full of meaning,' she insists.
'When I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, it was natural that he stay the night and continue our getting to know each other in the morning. He was very spiritual and we bonded on that level.'
DAYS LATER, on April 14 Nessim was at New York's famed Fillmore East venue watching T Rex open for US hard rock giants Mountain.
'When I finally heard his music I loved it,' she says. 'Who wouldn't? But I can't say that was what drew me to him. It was his essence, the essence that produced the music, which was so attractive.'
Bolan then invited Barbara to join him in Los Angeles where T Rex were recording for a few days but she declined. 'I was getting my career underway. I couldn't see myself travelling with a rock 'n' roll person.'
By April 24 Bolan was back in New York and the pair ventured out for the day. 'We went to 42nd Street,' she says, 'one of my favourite places because it was so unpretentious and seedy.
'We toured the amusement parlours, took photos in one of those booths, then went to see Krishnamurti speak.'
For two hours, the pair listened eagerly to the Indian spiritual master who spoke of the importance of change in transforming consciousness. 'We were both captivated,' Nessim recalls. Bolan, who'd recently jettisoned his cult underground following for a wider pop audience, would also have felt a sense of vindication.
Four days later, T Rex were in a New York studio recording Jeepster, one of four huge hit singles that year. Also there was Barbara Nessim.
'It was my first time in a recording studio,' she says. 'Marc was singing, everyone was dancing and having a great time. Then his trousers split. While I sewed them up he, without any underwear, continued with the session.'
Publicly, Bolan played the part of the Glam Rock idol to perfection. Thousands of miles away from home, where Hot Love was enjoying a six-week stay at Number 1 and where his wife June stayed to handle the business, a more gentle, hippified Bolan was enjoying a final flourish.
'Marc wasn't egoistic,' Barbara says, 'not at all. I felt he was sensitive; we both were.' Yet neither, she adds, was Bolan the effete androgyne of popular legend. 'No, I felt he was very
masculine,' she insists. 'It was really what he said that was so attractive. 'His physicalness only became more appealing to me after we started talking. We did end up connecting on a really deep level. I mean, we did sleep together but it wasn't even sexual, really. It was more spiritual.'
After Bolan returned to London at the start of May, the pair's relationship continued via numerous phone calls, letters and gifts from London including, on one occasion, a bar of Fenjal soap.
'It was his favourite!' says Barbara. After one last 'warm reunion' backstage at a New York concert in 1973, where Barbara recalls seeing the once near teetotal Bolan swigging champagne from a bottle, the friendship faded.
MARC and I accepted that it'll be what it is, it'll last as long as it lasts,' says Barbara, happily married to her 'soul mate' for the past 32 years. 'I liked him. I might even say that I loved him in a way, not in any possessive sense, more to do with his spirit.' It's a hardy spirit and one that can still reveal itself to Barbara Nessim on occasion.
'Recently I was in a showroom with my friend, the designer Zandra Rhodes,' she says, 'and Get It On started playing. I found myself walking towards the speaker and sitting on the floor to listen.
'It was strange, almost magical.'