"When I was young I had girlfriends, they seemed sweet, but I was always attracted to men. I was trying hard to get this phantom away from me. At the same time I felt the pressure of the environment to get married. At that time if you were late with marriage everyone looked at you in a weird way, asking you questions: Why you don’t have a girlfriend? I'm sure you're going out with some girl! I went out with a boy and I thought that the best way to cut the gossip was to get married.
When I was 23 years old, I was working as a publicist in a laboratory. I had access to a testicular extract and I started to inject it to myself. I thought I would be more masculine this way. I never considered myself sick, but I was afraid to be discovered. At home, my father repressed any behavior of mine that in his opinion was too feminine. Once, in the middle of the street, he shouted: "Walk well, like a man!" He came to denounce me for being a fag and I had to go to declare to the police.
One day, during the Franco regime, the police caught me with a boy in the street. They arrested us and asked us for money. They said that if we paid, nothing would happen to us. I was already married and the idea of my wife finding out was terrifying me. So, I took money from the bank and I paid.
I got married in 1960 and at first the thing was not bad. But the little macho man, head of a family, that was in me was quickly over. It was my mistake, and I paid for it. I could not hide or change my true nature. I talked in my dreams and my wife realized what was happening. She said she did not understand but that she would make an effort to tolerate it. I finally got divorced and since then I live alone. I was a bad husband.
I do not have help and I do everything alone: shopping, cleaning, cooking. Every once in a while someone from the Red Cross brings me food. They are also the ones who accompanied me to the hospital, when I had to have an operation. I could find a caregiver, but with what money? I also fear that someone will come and I do not feel comfortable. How will he react when he sees my apartment, my books, my paintings, and intuit that I am homosexual? Many people still think that being gay is an ugly thing. I could not live with that in my own house.”
