This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments.

Love It or Leave It

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Fifty-five

(Monday, October 24th)

The upstairs bell rings. I go to open it. The concierge rushes in with no greeting followed by two gentlemen in black carrying trays and buckets of wine. « Le repas de shiv’ah pour monsieur Seph est arrivé. » Before I can stop her, she hurries to the kitchen. « Quelle tragédie. Une mort à Yom Kippour. »

Fortunately, Marty actually understands what she is talking about, and blocks her entrance into the kitchen. In his shit-stomper accent, as he calls it, he explains that it is forbidden for women, who are not members of the immediate family to enter the home during the seven days of shiv’ah. And he asks her politely to leave.

She retreats to just outside the apartment's front door, and does not interfere in letting the two gentlemen set up the trays and wine in the kitchen. They all leave without a word. I close the door and hurry back to the kitchen.

My look of surprise is greeted with Marty's nervous grin. “Where's Jaén?” is my first question and “What the Fuck was she going on about the Hindu god, Shiva?” is my second.

Jaén comes out of the pantry. He looks a little angered, and his dick has shrunk to normal size. “Why didn't you tell me that monsieur Seph has passed?”

“Hold on, Jaén, please.” I give him a pleading look. “Marty, what the Fuck is le repas de Shiva?”

“It’s got nothin’ to do with Hinduism, Dan.” He laughs lightly. “Shiv’ah is what they call the seven days after a close family member dies, when Jews break off contact to the outside world, more or less.”

Memories seem to trouble him. "And in wealthy families, they let caterers sometimes bring in the food,” He sucks in air and spurts an ironic laugh. “but never on Yom Kippur, which is always a day of fasting."

I see, I think and focus on Jaén’s question. “We didn’t tell you that Seph died, because...” I let my voice trail off. “Fuck it, I can’t do this. Sit down, Jaén!”

Marty gives me a worried frown, but then, looking out into the sunlit courtyard, growls: “Do it. He’s one of us.”

I take Jaén’s hand. “You know governments can be brutal, particularly when they are protecting secrets.”

Although it’s not a question, he nods that he does. “And you know that Seph, Marty and I are British, and that the British have a record of serious brutality.”

Again he nods. Each time his expression gets darker. “So, if you ever mention what I'm about to tell you to anyone, they could possibly kill Martin and me.”

He just stares at me. This time neither blinking nor nodding. “The reason why we have to tell you is that neither Marty nor I can lie to you. You mean too much to us.” He closes his eyes; his jaw muscles churn, making the sides of his beard move.

He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. “You have found that space, I had saved for you. Both of you. You know that I’ll take whatever you have to tell me to the grave.”

His look of anger increases in miniscule increments, as I relate the whole story from start to finish, not just the parts for which my big brother and I are sworn to secrecy. While I’m talking, Marty unpacks the food and wine.

We sit and communicate verbally and non-verbally, asking most private questions and answering truthfully, even if sometimes only with a shake of the head. I look up; the sun is no longer filling the courtyard.

Jaén asks questions about Marty’s childhood, things that I didn't know. Apparently his mother had let him learn quite a lot about Judaism through her parents. And come to find out, this is why he could never quite buy into Christianity. He claims that my Santa Claus analogy gave his already weak beliefs the rest.

When Jaén asks questions about my childhood, I eventually have to tell him how and why Mildred died. Again, he closes his eyes, churns his jaw muscles without expression and inhales deeply. “You shot the woman whom you thought to be your mother to protect Yves-Raphaël and Martin and monsieur Seph?”

I place my hand covering his on the table. “And I would do it again.”

He hesitates, his golden-amber eyes searching in mine for answers to questions he does not dare articulate. I look away. Marty nudges my leg with his. I return my gaze to Jaén. “And I would do it for you.”

Marty adds softly: “So would I.”

« Jusqu’à ce que la mort nous sépare ? » Jaén wants to know if it’s final, if it’s until death.

Marty and I both repeat: « Jusqu'à ce que la mort nous sépare. »

Silence has us in its grip until the travel alarm goes off in our distant bedroom. “I have to get ready to go to work.”

I take Jaén by the hand, and we walk up the stairs to the bedroom with Marty following. Jaén turns off the alarm as I open the closet and remove Raph’s new black suit, white shirt and black tie.

I give them to Jaén. “Put these on. They should be an exact fit. And go down and tell your aunt that Martin and I need you up here. That our emotions have overcome us. That we’ve gone insane. Tell her anything, but do not lie. None of us shall ever lie again.” I laugh dryly. “Or may the god that does not exist strike us dead.”

“Well said, Li’l Brother.” Marty laughs sullenly and holds up his wine glass.

“Should I tell her that I have to keep your hearts from breaking?” Jaén asks with a crooked smile.

“Yeah,” Marty sighs deeply. “we just ain’t complete with one a us missin'.”

“That,” I kneel and kiss the unclothed small of Jaén's back, licking down and lightly biting the top of his crack. "and we have to seal our oath.”

While Jaén is starting to dress by putting on a pair of my new boxers from Galeries Lafayette, Marty rushes upstairs to get Seph’s polish and brush to give Jaén’s black shoes a touch up. Jaén’s high cheekbones colour with worry, holding on to Marty’s shoulder. “You told her that women who are not members of your immediate family are not allowed into your home while you're observing shiv’ah. Is that the rule amongst the Ashkenazim of Estonia?”

“Oh, Fuck, no, Jaén.” Marty laughs loudly. “It’s a rule I made up on the spot to keep her out of the kitchen, so you could get your naked ass into the pantry.” He laughs again. “But even if it is a rule that I made up, it applies here for us. This is our home, so it’s valid. And I dare any fuckin’ Rabbi to contradict it.

“Anyway,” Marty continues with a sneer. “she was so busy with directin’ the whole show that she didn't even see the fundamental problem.”

When I give him a quizzical look, he explains. “Look it, we were having loads of food and wine delivered on Yom Kippur, the only mandatory day of fasting in all of Judaism.” Marty giggles cynically.

Jaén lets me tie his tie. “So you make up your own religious rules?” He snickers.

“Aw, shit, Li’l Bear.” Marty stands up to inspect our man in his new suit and grins with approval, brushing imaginary lint off the jacket. “All that crap’s made up anyway, so what’s a little creativity gonna hurt?”

Marty kisses Jaén on the tip of his nose. “Have Dan tell ya about Santa Claus, sometime.”

He looks at me. “Santa Claus?”

« Père Noël de Coca Cola. » I laugh.

“He’s not just from Coca Cola.” Marty objects, as we escort Jaén toward the stairs.

“Do you know what the Brits used to say about the Yanks during the war?” Marty shakes his head with a slightly self-conscious grin. “There are three things wrong with Americans: they’re overfed, oversexed and over here.”

Jaén bursts out laughing. Marty chuckles tentatively.

“And along those lines of thinking, from all the Fathers Christmas around the world, he's the fat guy. Everywhere else, they’re skinny as a rail.” Marty looks at Jaén, who nods.

“But the image of Santa Claus, which most Americans have, was created during the Great Depression, at a time when the masses were starving, by a company that sells arguably the most fattening and addictive drink in the world. And the message they’re still relaying with their jolly, obese Santa is that it’s okay to become hugely overweight, America, so, drink our product."

“Addictive?” Marty argues. “T’ain’t ever been proven that it contains cocaine."

“Yeah, right.” I laugh just this side of vulgar. “It'd be like marketing Cannabis Cola and claiming that there’s no pot in it.” I pause for a second, becoming less aggressive when I take a deep breath. “Besides, Big Brother, cocaine isn't addictive; sugar is."

Jaén kisses each of us and strokes Marty's scar gently. "Imperialism isn’t worth defending." He closes the door quietly.

We’re sitting in the kitchen smoking a joint and expressing our views on how the demise of capitalism is overdue, when Jaén returns. He looks troubled. “The poor woman is so distressed that she has closed the loge and has put up a hand-printed sign: ‘en deuil’." Jaén notices Marty’s questioning look and adds: “In morning.”

“That’s what deception and lying cause.” I take a toke and pass the J to Jaén. “Innocent people suffer.”

He takes a long one and is unable to speak for a while. By the time he can talk, Marty has already passed it back to me.

"My experiences with governments and religions" Jaén coughs. "have always been the same. They all lie."

Marty and I agree almost in unison. “Yeah.” And I add: “They do.” I spit on the last millimetres of the joint and pass the roach to Jaén. He swallows it.

Jaén then rises and neatly folds our suit jackets over his left arm, taking my hand, as he pulls Marty up with his right. I switch off the lights before he leads us out of the kitchen toward our modernist staircase to the right of the door, and which dominates the end of the corridor. We climb the low-rising steps in no particular hurry. We know that we have the rest of our lives.

Upstairs, we quietly walk the length of the corridor to the guest bath, where Jaén collects his towel and toothbrush. Once in our rooms, he hangs up our suit jackets and proceeds to remove his black suit to replace it in the closet next to ours. It’s ceremonious. His movements are fluent, lacking the slightest urgency.

His toothbrush and towel take their places amongst ours, without marking which belongs to whom. He draws water in the bath, not quite filling the tub.

First, he washes Marty with a flannel cloth, not missing an inch; then it’s my turn. It’s been years since anyone has washed me this thoroughly, in and around my ears, in and around my nose, in and around my bottom.

Finally, he gets in between us and hands me the cloth and soap, Marty the shampoo. We reciprocate.

Closing the glass doors on the three of us to rinse with the hand shower, would normally have made the space claustrophobic for me. To my surprise, I enjoy the closeness.

Jaén is the first to climb out. Retrieving our towels one at a time from the rail above the cast-iron radiator, he first dries me, then Marty. Since he is leaving himself as last, I take the third towel and dry him, while he is still rubbing Marty.

Without even asking what it is, he removes the enema bottle from the hook behind the door and bends over. I fill the rubber bottle with warm water and glycerine, apply the hand cream to his entrance and gently insert the nozzle.

With the hose clip disengaged and the bottle above our heads, the warm water flows into Jaén, letting him smile with pleasure. Marty and I follow suit, to cover all eventualities.

Jaén places his arms around Marty's and my necks, kissing us alternately. I pet his furry butt and play with his balls. And I assume that Martin's hands are not idle. The sensuousness of his still damp beard brushing my lips and nose when he's kissing Marty is novel and heightens the pitch of my excitement.

I now know that at some point in the future, I’ll grow a beard. I may still have to wait several years, but I want to repay Jaén this pleasure.

Marty takes the initiative and pulls us onto the bed. I touch his erection; it’s radiating heat as it throbs. Jaén's battle club is starting to ooze. The hand cream is well within my reach, so I get a blob on my right middle finger, as I part Jaén’s cheeks with my left hand. He raises his buttocks to receive my finger, looking back at me as if wanting to say something, but he lets his forehead fall back onto his left arm, looking away, purring.

Not knowing Jaén’s sexual background, other than I was the first he'd ever fucked, I start by straddling his back and diving down to loosen his fur-lined ring with my tongue and fingers, massaging my own raging prick up and down his smoothly muscled, velvety spine.

Tonguing his centre is like slurping on a large prune that then relaxes its wrinkles to become a juicy plum. He strains somewhat, and I taste sweet glycerine and residual coal-tar soap.

Marty joins me in coating the portal of Jaén’s anal sanctuary with saliva. We exchange juices while forcing them with our tongues through the slowly loosening ring.

My senses take up the vague scents of the wine, Marty drank, of the food I ate, mingling with the sebaceous aroma of wet fur. We exchange flavours in preparing this centre of sensuousness to be breached, to be made ours.

I leave the hole and take Marty’s copious foreskin, still covering his bulbous tip, between my lips. I play with the skin, as I insert my tongue under the fold. Relishing the slightly salty, alkaline flavour, as I retract the foreskin, letting the truncheon try to impale my tonsils. The vibrations of my gurgling force low-pitched growls of appreciation from Martin.

I crawl over, under and amongst limbs to deliver other sensual stimulus to Jaén. My line of near focus passes from Marty, while he works on Jaén’s elevated arse, down to Jaén’s motionless head lying on his arm.

The drool, which carnal delight is letting dribble from the corner of Jaén’s mouth, needs to be wiped. My tongue reaches out and slurps at the edges of his damp moustache.

His thick lips lethargically suck at my tongue and my lower lip. Endorphins, released by the sexual pleasure of being rimmed, have rendered him virtually catatonic. I move to the exposed ear.

The tip of my tongue leaves a track of glistening spittle from his right earlobe to the helix, surrounded by curly black locks, which Martin shampooed, towel dried, carefully brushed and left slightly damp. Jaén moans.

Be it from my tickling his ear or Marty’s tonguing his anus, it is an understood expression of brotherly lust. My face delights in the touch of soft beard, as I inhale whiffs of lemon shampoo.

I extend my tongue further to let it slither behind his pinna, covered by soft curls, and around to the triangular fossa and ending in his gristly concha. « Je t’aime, tu sais ? » floats softly on warm, moist breath into his inner ear. He gurgles gently that he knows.

The pheromones, drifting from his right armpit, beg me to come visit. The moist curly locks, not much different from the hair on his head, but totally dissimilar in length and texture to the fur of his torso, smell of man. They smell of sexual excitement. They smell of things to come.

I feel compelled to lick, to ingest Jaén's sexual essence. My senses go wild. My own groin is begging for attention. I soak my left middle finger in frothy slobber and insert it into my ass while still licking Jaén’s hormonal fragrance from the curly pit.

When Marty notices my anal masturbation, he rounds the side of the bed and sinks his tongue into me. Getting me wet enough and applying a dab of hand cream to his todger, Marty fucks me from the side as he stands next to the bed. It’s just preliminary penetration. I straddle Jaén’s back again and return to eating him out.

Marty, standing at the foot of the bed, swabs his knob across the fur on the exterior of the burgundy-coloured hole, so I give it a swipe with my tongue and apply suction on both and force Marty to enter Jaén a little along with my tongue. They moan unambiguously.

An intact foreskin is always easier to take initially, simply because it causes less friction. So, I spit on his exposed glans and pull the skin back over the top.

I dip into the hand cream for another blob and insert my two middle and index fingers, prising Jaén’s cavity open enough for Marty to insert his truncheon between them.

Jaén’s anorectal muscles spasm, lubricating the coupling more with juices from inside. He purrs and Martin growls, which intensifies when I remove my fingers, massaging the fur surrounding the hole surrounding Marty’s cock. Jaén quivers with delight, and cock-hardening scents rise to entice my inner animal.

I get off Jaén’s back and move in behind Marty and place his right foot onto the mattress, while he’s slowly pumping Jaén's plum. On my back, I slide between Marty’s legs to tongue their balls and jack off Jaén.

The close confines of their groins make me feel safe and wanted. Their hormonal smells invite me never to leave. Their tastes are primal. The contrast in texture between the tightly wrinkled skin of Marty's scrotum and Jaén's fur tickles my tongue. And that they are different, each one as he is, is exactly how it should be.

I slide between Jaén’s widely spread legs and, along the length of his dick, up under his torso to search for his tits under the fur. I feel Marty seizing my pecker and pushing it into our bear’s bottom.

When Jaén grunts, whimpers, gurgles bucks, it surprises me since my dick isn’t that big and generally wouldn’t warrant such a reaction. But now I feel Marty’s cock pumping, rubbing on top of mine. Jaén has both of us inside him.

Marty’s hammer is pushing mine down against the bear's prostate. Jaén groans with every stroke, obviously feeling intense pressure. Marty is picking up speed. Only seconds later, I feel him throb, spasm, gasp and, groan with hot cum erupting into the mink-covered hole.

When Marty slips out and stands, bending over, bracing himself on his knees to catch his breath, Jaén yells « Non, n’arrêtes pas! Encule-moi plus fort que je jouisse ! » ordering me to fuck his ass harder to make him come.

I roll him onto his back and before I dip my digits into the pot for more cream, a lot more cream that I’ll smear over his hole and my whole hand, I snuggle close to his gasping hole, first enjoying the smell then the taste of Martin’s cum. Coming up for a breath, my left hand grabs his furry ankle to open his bottom to me and I start by inserting three fingers, curling them up against his prostate and jiggling them, as he did for me yesterday.

« Oui, oui, et maintenant quatre. » he begs, wanting four. He gets four. I turn my wrist so that my thumb and the palm of my hand are rubbing the large bulge under his perineum that his cock creates, increasing the pressure on the root of his cock, virtually jacking him off from inside.

Cum-saturated fumes escape. He thrashes his head from side to side in intense pleasure. His breathy grunt, « Oui, Danny, fais-moi jouir ! » demands that I make him cum.

Marty is now massaging lidocaine in and around his own hole, sticking his own fingers in as far as the angle will allow, with a look of sheer determination making his jaw seem more angular than it normally is. I take my hand out of Jaén for a split second to give Marty Jaén's natural ass juices mixed with hand cream.

I reinsert my massaging four fingers back inside Jaén. He growls with pleasure.

Of a sudden, Marty is astride Jaén, and I watch in amazement as one massive cock disappears up Marty. So, I reach around and fondle Marty’s spent cock back to life.

Heavy breathing, climaxing in growling grunts, Jaén’s body bucks as his hands clamp Marty’s ass down onto his uncontrollable mallet as he shoots. And watching Marty pull off, I fall into a trance at being able to see the inside of his dusky-pink anus while cum oozes out.

I withdraw my fingers from inside Jaén. When I notice that my buddy’s hole doesn’t immediately close either, I move over to top him, inserting my dick into the dark space, and he clamps it shut.

« Je t’en pris. Fais-le-moi, Danny ! » He’s begging and, at the same time, ordering me to use him.

I remember what Raph did to me. The emotional pain almost brings me to the point of losing my erection, when Marty runs his dick up me in one stroke, sucking my right ear and the side of my neck.

My stone rod is back and I pump into Jaén’s silky ass while skewering myself on Marty’s rod. They both hold still and let me fuck myself on Marty’s bludgeon, simply by pulling out of Jaén.

Back and forth, back and forth, the only repetitiveness of which I’ll never tire. My midsection gyrates, making my head spin with pleasure, working myself into the frenzy that I need for emotional gratification.

When I shriek, Martin holds me close, tweaking my nipples and allowing me to spurt ropes of ivory-coloured spunk over the sheets and pillows before Jaén can get his mouth around my spigot and suck it dry.

Marty lets Jaén pull us onto the bed to embrace, letting our limbs intertwine, without worrying about what belongs to whom. I drift, not into unconsciousness, but into unencumberedness until I remember the slip tacked to the inside of the closet door.

“Somebody, please do me a favour and remind me to go pick up the laundry tomorrow. I’m stuck to the feckin’ sheet.”

Epilogue

Everyone, who took part in the adventure of October 1966, carried on with their respective lives. Even though paths parted, many connections remain to this day, and others do not. As a matter of course, things developed as they do for anyone, reflecting the amount of responsibility individuals have accepted for themselves.

However, as not to let you, the reader, wonder whatever happened to them, I've decided to include this update as an appendage to the original account.

Ashton, Richard, KBE, retired from public service in 1975 and lived, as far as we know, alone with an older friend and very secluded in Spain

Bourke, Busby died of vascular problems related to obesity in 1979.

Bourke, Françoise sued for part ownership of this building and lost her case. According to rumours we’ve heard over the years, her backers and friends helped her open another private club in Marseille. If she hasn’t died, she’ll turn one-hundred-five in early 2012.

Brown, Wanda and Bob White still live in their carriage house on Warwick Blvd. in Kansas City, Missouri. We have remained in contact since that hectic day in October 1966, when we left. Bob came to Paris a month before Marty died and helped brighten his last weeks. Wanda then flew over for the funeral.

Wanda and Bob both graduated from the University of Missouri at Kansas City in Business Administration. They own and operate a security company.

McAnally, Liam, Colour Sergeant retired from the military in 1968 and lived with his niece and her husband in Liverpool until his death in 2002.

Matthews, Vince and Keith MacDonald According to the very believable account of Raph, it took about twenty seconds for Keith to latch onto Vince, when Ron left. Supposedly since Keith had had brushes with suicidal thoughts of his own, he demanded to watch out for Vince, who apparently did go into mild depression at Ron’s departure. Of course, they both deny any of it.

Ron and Vince had not had any falling out, so their separation was quite friendly.

Keith and Vince will celebrate their forty-fifth in March of 2012. They own a “family hotel” in Brighton and still live in the house on Sussex Square.

Maatouk, Jaén-Masmuda finished his PhD in 1967 at the then Université de Paris. He and I celebrated our forty-fifth anniversary last October.

Mongrain, Geneviève retired from teaching in 1981 and returned to her singing career as a jazz soloist. She passed away in 1999 at the age of 80 at her home in Overland Park, Kansas.

Mongrain, Jordan graduated from the University of Kansas on a basketball scholarship, majoring in Mathematics, and works for an organisation that dare not speak its name. He has never married.

Mongrain-Bourke, Joseph Alexandre never contacted us again. We did, however, receive an anonymous postcard from Spain in 1975 written in copybook penmanship, saying that Richard had arrived.

Mongrain-Bourke, Martin George Mortimer Maurice continued to live with both of his life-long partners, Jaén and me, at our home on avenue du Président Wilson until his death on March 23rd, 1994.

He graduated with a PhD in Translation Studies from Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III in 1974. Needless to say, he no longer had a ‘shit-stomper' accent in English and French nor in Russian and German, which he added to his repertoire during his university studies. He worked as a freelance translator/interpreter for UNESCO.

Marty is absolute proof that anybody can overcome disabilities and prejudices. It’s only a matter of wanting to.

Despite the excellent healthcare provided him both in England and France, he eventually succumbed to complications, resulting from exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Jaén and I cared for him at our home until the end.

He is interred at the Cimetière de Passy, close to our home. Marty, Jaén, and I shared our love for twenty-seven years, and we miss him very much.

Mongrain-Bourke, Yves-Raphaël married our cousin Doris MacDonald in late 1968, when she got pregnant with their first son, Etienne. Their second son, Jacques, was born a little over a year later.

They divorced in 1984 due to an issue surrounding the abuse of their two boys by several paedophile priests. Raph sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster for damages on behalf of his sons, and Doris divorced him for it. Odd, that a Roman Catholic would rather commit the grave sin of divorce than confess the fallibility of the church.

Raph graduated from King’s College London in Education, Theatre and French and teaches school.

He lives in Richmond, a Borough of London. He has remained single following his divorce and has three grandchildren. He is and has always been a valued friend and frequently visits us in Paris, as we visit him and his kids and grandkids in London.

If you’re wondering: yes, I still love him. Whether he still loves me is an unanswerable question. I never asked him again.

And, oddly enough, we never got around to burning the blanket. Apparently it’s still in the attic on Sussex Square. Maybe, we can do it next summer on Mack’s 65th birthday.

Volker, Jennette still practises law in the Kansas City area and is still a fierce advocate of LGBT rights.

She divorced Sam Fairchild in 2010, so that he could marry his long-time partner, with whom he lives in Washington, DC.

She visits us for the month of October every year here in Paris. In the meantime, she’s managed to learn French and loves helping out at the social centre, which Jaén and I run.

Wilcox, Vicky and Ron Sinclair (Upton) Ron determined that he’s not queer but has no problems about having tried it. He returned to Canada, when he was called up for reserve training. He and I have been in contact since Brighton, and particularly after ‘Comrade Joe' died.

During his reserve training, he wrote that he was interested in studying law. I gave him Jennette Volker’s address and phone number to have him get in touch with her brother Jerome Marx, who practiced in Vancouver. At first, there was a bit of a problem since Ron used to be engaged to Jennette's and Jerome’s cousin, Cherie Wilcox, Vicky’s older sister.

Apparently, when Vicky got wind that Ron was back, she was on the first flight to Vancouver. She’d always liked Ron, and he is the ex-fiancé of her older and much rivalled sister, so she decided to stay in Vancouver and study law, as well. To make a long and involved story short, Jerome, his partner Lorraine, Vicky and Ron practiced law together in Vancouver until 2001. Now it’s just Vicky and Ron, and they’ve been together for some forty-three years and still going strong.

And then there’s me. I didn’t go to university, but found that I have a passion for social work. I discovered it through a training course.

As Marty once said: ‘Why do it the easy way, when there’s a hard one?’ The road has been hard, but very gratifying. I can’t get enough of watching kids, whom society has discarded as hopeless, prove everyone wrong.

As I mentioned above, Jaén and I operate a community centre for disadvantaged immigrant children in the 18th arrondissement. We offer a programme of help with school work, computer literacy, French as a foreign language, theatre, etc., basically keeping them off the streets and away from hard drugs, while trying to provide them an understanding that they are the only ones responsible for giving their lives a purpose.

And that is, as it should be.

Fin