DOES NOT WORK, HIRE A HOOKER
Elena was not going to be satisfied with giving up psychoanalysis and accepting that she had a homosexual son. She was a fighter. It didn’t matter that my experience with hormones had been brutal. There was always an alternative, and this time it would be to turn to a cardiologist, who happened to be her cousin. She didn’t turn to him to fix my heart, but for something more practical and less expensive. She wanted a Final Solution to the Queer Question.
The doctor who would later become an advisor to none other than the president of the country advised her that sleeping with a woman would be the solution.
He would hire a prostitute, bring her to his office, and send us to one of those motels that began to populate the suburbs of San José.
I knew what I was going for the day they summo-ned me to the office. I had suffered for days with the idea. Deep down, I had faith in modern medicine.
Who the hell wanted to have homosexual desires in Costa Rica in the 1950s? Any of us would have prayed for someone to take this burden away from us.
I decided to go to the appointment.
Shivering, I arrived and when I rang the doorbell, Luis, my doctor, took me to his office. There was my guide: the woman had an acceptable body, but an ugly 66
face. She had a small cyst on her nose and was missing a tooth. I wondered how it was possible that Luis, so attractive, would recommend such an unpleasant lady.
They introduced us and the woman smiled kindly at me. Seeing my shyness, Luis asked me to leave them alone. I don’t know what he must have told her, but I imagined he must have paid her. When they came out, my relative informed me that we were going to a motel. I thought the plural verb meant the three of us and that the time was another day, which made the prospect more bearable. I realized that only two of us would get in the taxi and that the time was now, in this moment. Horror of horrors!
The bedrooms were pleasant and had romantic music playing. There was a light sheet on the bed so that, after a while, the cold would drive away the lovers. Once in this niche of love, the woman ordered two whiskeys and immediately took me to bed. When I kissed her, I had to close my eyes and think first of Luis and then of the taxi driver; I felt no attraction at all.
I thought it was the man who should open his legs, but she told me it was the other way around. Despite my partner’s great patience, there was no way. The woman, after hours of failed attempts, told me she would do something reserved only for high-ranking officials: she lowered her head and gave me oral sex. I felt nothing and the truth is that the instructor used her teeth. After several hours, we gave up and I felt like Napoleon after Waterloo; when I left her at her 67
house, the prostitute told me that we would try again next Saturday. In other words, the torture would continue for another week.
The disappointment was enormous. If I couldn’t have sex, what was the point of life? I told myself that if I failed the following week, I would shoot myself.
When I entered my home, my mother, who had planned it, asked me how it went. I couldn’t do anything but cry.