When he became a father Wig New Deep turned a responsible citizen who cared for his son and ran the household, while in the odd hours exercising a small consultancy on demographic issues. Gone were the wild days when he sometimes drank too much, he took good care of his health and he was true to his wife Nadien. Without realising it, the blood of life was seeping out of Wig. He was actually quite satisfied with living quietly because he thought it might help reach old age.
Then out of the blue he receives an invitation to come to Barcelona to speak at a conference on immigration. By this time, Wigs son Woud is twelve years old and close to entering puberty - if without his parents noticing he hadn’t done so already - and Nadien is on a low after the consecutive deaths of her father and mother. A little trip might do him good, Wig reasons; he could do with some sunshine away from his troubled family. He is also curious to see what has come of the city where as a young man he spent a wonderful four week holiday. Wig was in his early twenties when on arriving in Barcelona for a tour through Spain he met Laia, a young anthropology student who had stayed behind in the city while her parents were on holiday. They had a steaming hot love affair while it lasted and when the time had come for Wig to go back to Amsterdam they broke up with the promise not to bother each other again.
After the details had slipped from his mind he hadn’t thought much of Laia any more, but when they run into each other at the conference - Wig not realising she had set up their meeting all along - it is love at first sight all over again. This time their affair lasts two days, long enough for Wig to want to return as soon as possible. Why be unhappy in cold and rainy Amsterdam when he can have a wild adventure with his flame of old and feel the blood of life pumping through his veins as if he were a young man again? What’s the point of getting old when you don’t feel young? Within a week Wig is back. He makes camp in a hostal in the centre of town and when he calls Laia she immediately agrees to a twice a week love affair at lunch hours.
Free of cares and utterly happy Wig undertakes long walks off the tourist trail to get to know the city, he reads about Spanish history on the beach and he has sex with Laia in his hostal room. To master some local tongue he applies for a summer course at a nearby inner city language school. His problems back home are long forgotten.
New ones are looming near enough. Though they won’t admit to it, both Wig and Laia realise their fling must end one day. Laia can’t leave her family like Wig has done, so what will happen when the novelty wears off and there is no prospect of change? Meanwhile, in class a young Swedish woman with spectacular long legs has taken an interest in him. She shows as much of herself as she possibly can and when Wig agrees to go swimming with her one hot and windy afternoon, she manages to get hold of his dick for a few seconds. Unable to forget her touch, Wigs world starts falling apart soon after that.
It begins with Laia going on holiday with her husband and children, leaving him behind for the whole month of August. Ylonde, the young Swede, immediately seizes her chance. They go swimming again and this time she has hard sex with him, much too hard for Wig who isn‘t as young as he would like to believe. He feels guilty for betraying Laia and he wants to escape Ylonde, but at the same time he dreads being alone and her invitation to stay in her flat means he can save a lot of money on hostal expenses.
Not sure how to find a way out of his situation, Wig takes an unexpected step which he himself hardly notices at the time because it happened straight in his face: he invents himself another girlfriend, very young and mindless and terribly beautiful, to keep him company and help decline Ylonde’s invitations. He calls her Kristna and she is from Sweden as well, so they can speak English, and she quickly becomes very real to Wig. He spends all his time with her, going to the beach together and do hash, and believing he has sex with her while Ylonde is off dating other men. He is living on the beach like a lonesome geezer and it can’t bother him too much, it’s hot and he is high and he feels okay.
Then Laia calls. She has organised herself a day off from the coast and she is desperate to meet Wig. Unable to hide his feelings he admits to having an affair and Laia, after having taken what she came for, ends their engagement. Wig soon understands the scope of the damage he has inflicted on himself, but that it’s all in vain still eludes him. All he has left is Kristna, he believes, but he is aware she is much too young for him and that he can’t last much longer. They visit a museum with Ylonde and when they are running past the art he doesn’t quite make the turn and he twists his knee, suddenly old and broken and of no interest any longer to a lively twenty year old with many admirers. So he ends up on the sofa in Ylonde’s flat, mending his knee and preparing himself for solitary life as a middle-aged man with nothing but a little money and the vague prospect of a part-time job as a teacher; Ylonde would soon return to Sweden.
In the meantime Laia has contacted Nadien to ask her to take back her husband, and Nadien for reasons of her own agrees to this. She needs a man around the house to continue her career in publishing and she misses her good-hearted fool. On a Friday evening Nadien and Woud arrive in town. Nadien gets to meet Ylonde and when she mentions Kristna and Ylonde doesn’t know her both women understand what might have been going on. The next day Nadien confronts Wig who, after having swallowed the initial shock of discovery, quickly admits to his madness. I never needed to know she was made up, so I forgot, he says. About time you came home, Nadien offers and Wig must agree. At least his wife still wants him and his son more or less, he’s messed up enough for one summer one city. When he gets to see Laia a final time he confesses to her also and she takes it surprisingly well. Do they all know how crazy I am, Wig wonders when they kiss goodbye, and it‘s a thought that‘s not always unpleasant.
Walking back from bringing Woud and Nadien to the airport Wig New Deep takes a detour past the beach where he and Kristna presumably spent three marvellous weeks. Though it has been nothing but sound and vision, it is with dearness that he remembers their story. And while by living a dream he has hurt real women who really loved him, Wig can’t feel sorry for what he has done. They were the circumstances that forced him to prolong his summer craze in fictitious style. He has always believed in his own thoughts, nothing new there; perhaps this time it hit him a little harder. And hey, he has given it his best, the blood of life racing through his veins must have cost him many years, and now that he is old and done for he nicely runs home. Might Amsterdam become unbearable, he knows the power of his imagination will guide him through.
Back in the flat Ylonde has candles and cava. She takes him hard and he proudly responds and when he apologizes for his behaviour she says sweetheart I think we are actually doing pretty fine and why don’t we both stay a little longer? Wig knows he should resist, but resisting has never been his strong point.
Such was the story of Wig New Deep who couldn’t control his emotions. If you are interested in the full length version, react to mail@janhamminga.es