A PASSIONATE INTERLUDE

In December 1956 I went to Majorca to paint with my friend Ole S. We worked every day for a month and lived a frugal life in a small rented room about 15 minutes on the bus out of Palma De Majorca.

When New Years came I was ready for an adventure and I went alone to town in the afternoon. In the street I met a gay boy, who did not really interest me, but he invited me to a party in the evening and that sounded good to me. So I accepted and he took me along to show me the house where the party was going to happen. I was introduced to Mimi, a Swiss lady past her best years, and her chubby younger lover who went under the name of El Gordo. Two young men were helping with the preparations for the party: Carlos and Lili. Carlos was a nice homely Spanish boy but Lili was striking. He was blond, a golden honey color streaked with sun bleached strands, and his eyes were a deeper golden brown. He was unmistakably male but his youth and his androgynous beauty softened his masculinity; he still had some puppy fat and was smooth as a seal.
They all welcomed me and I helped out a bit, but I had to tear myself away to go home and change.

At the party Lili took charge of me and I completely neglected the boy who had brought me and had only eyes for Lili. We danced and we made out, and we ended up in bed together.
Next day everything was out in the open: El Gordo and Lili lived in the house and Mimi paid the bills. They wanted me to move in and be part of the “family”, but when I told Lili that I was not rich he cried. It really touched me that this little hustler would cry because I was not rich enough to be his sugar daddy. Yet Ole S. was about to leave shortly and I was ready to follow up on my adventure, so we agreed on the arrangement and the day after I moved in.
I found out that Lily already had a sugar daddy when I met him, an English tourist, and I came to suspect that after moving in with me he still kept up with the Englishman. His disappearances were cause of bitter recriminations followed by sweet reconciliations. Carlos was a daily visitor in the house and he became my confident when Lili’s absences drove me crazy. Mimi said I should take him as my boyfriend, he was a sincere boy, he was in love with me and would make me happy, but I was in the throes of my passion and could not give up because there was some drama.

One time Lili had been gone for two days and when I came home and opened the door to our room, there was a single candle burning and Lili was lying naked on the bed with a pair of scissors fallen from his hand and a wound by his heart from which a trickle of blood had run down his flank. The tableau was so convincing that for a moment I was taken in. When I touched him he shivered and my shock turned into rage, but after having cussed him out it ended up as usual: in the bed. Even though the suicide was fake, his going to the extreme of drawing blood touched my heart.

We were asked to leave the house; I don’t remember why, but I think it had to do with our disreputable lifestyle. We found a big gloomy house in the countryside whose only redeeming trait was a big lemon tree. The house was cold too and we sometimes “found” some firewood on the path. This decided our fate: the firewood belonged to somebody else and we were again asked to leave.
I had been on Majorca for three months now and my money was running out. I decided that it was time to go home and when I told Lili he cried again, but what could I do? I had embraced this experience and followed the path of passion but after all it was not the only thing in my life. My feelings of responsibility had taken over, but the tender memory of a hustler’s tears stayed with me.

The house with the lemon tree