Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

Still, he didn’t give up. He promised himself he would work on repairing himself, for Willem’s sake if not his own. He bought — surreptitiously, his face prickling as he placed the order — three self-help books on sex and read them while Willem was on one of his publicity tours, and when Willem returned, he tried to use what he had learned, but the results had been the same. He bought magazines meant for women with articles about being better in bed, and studied them carefully. He even ordered a book about how victims of sexual abuse — a term he hated and didn’t apply to himself — dealt with sex, which he read furtively one night, locking his study door so Willem wouldn’t discover him. But after about a year, he decided to alter his ambitions: he might not ever be able to enjoy sex, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make it more enjoyable for Willem, both as an expression of gratitude and, more selfishly, a way to keep him close. So he fought past his feelings of shame; he concentrated on Willem.

Now that he was having sex again, he realized how much he had been surrounded by it all these years, and how completely he had managed to banish thoughts of it from his waking life. For decades, he had shied from discussions of sex, but now he listened to them wherever he encountered them: he eavesdropped on his colleagues, on women in restaurants, on men walking past him on the street, all talking about sex, about when they were having it, about how they wanted it more (no one wanted it less, it seemed). It was as if he was back in college, his peers once again his unwitting teachers: always, he was alert for information, for lessons on how to be. He watched talk shows on television, many of which seemed to be about how couples eventually stop having sex; the guests were married people who hadn’t had sex in months, occasionally in years. He would study these shows, but none of them ever gave him the information he wanted: How long into the relationship did the sex last? How much longer would he have to wait until this happened to him and Willem, too? He looked at the couples: Were they happy? (Obviously not; they were on talk shows telling strangers about their sex lives and asking for help.) But they seemed happy, didn’t they, or a version of happy at least, that man and woman who hadn’t had sex in three years and yet, through the touch of the man’s hand on the woman’s arm, obviously still had affection for each other, obviously stayed together for reasons more important than sex. On planes, he watched romantic comedies, farces about married people not having sex. All the movies with young people were about wanting sex; all the movies with old people were about wanting sex. He would watch these films and feel defeated. When did you get to stop wanting to have sex? At times he would appreciate the irony of this: Willem, the ideal partner in every way, who still wanted to have sex, and he, the unideal partner in every way, who didn’t. He, the cripple, who didn’t, and Willem, who somehow wanted him anyway. And still, Willem was his own version of happiness; he was a version of happiness he never thought he’d have.

He assured Willem that if he missed having sex with women, he should, and that he wouldn’t mind. But “I don’t,” Willem said. “I want to have sex with you.” Another person would have been moved by this, and he was too, but he also despaired: When would this end? And then, inevitably: What if it never did? What if he was never allowed to stop? He was reminded of the years in the motel rooms, although even then he’d had a date to anticipate, however false: sixteen. When he turned sixteen, he would be able to stop. Now he was forty-five, and it was as if he was eleven once again, waiting for the day when someone — once Brother Luke, now (unfair, unfair) Willem — would tell him “That’s it. You’ve fulfilled your duty. No more.” He wished someone would tell him that he was still a full human being despite his feelings; that there was nothing wrong with who he was. Surely there was someone, someone in the world who felt as he did? Surely his hatred for the act was not a deficiency to be corrected but a simple matter of preference?

One night, he and Willem were lying in bed — both of them tired from their respective days — and Willem had begun talking, abruptly, of an old friend he’d had lunch with, a woman named Molly he’d met once or twice over the years, and who, Willem said, had been having a difficult time; now, after decades, she had finally told her mother that her father, who had died the year before, had sexually abused her.

“That’s terrible,” he said, automatically. “Poor Molly.”

“Yes,” said Willem, and there was a silence. “I just told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that she hadn’t done anything wrong.” He could feel himself getting hot. “You were right,” he said at last, and yawned, extravagantly. “Good night, Willem.”

For a minute or two, they were quiet. “Jude,” Willem said, gently. “Are you ever going to tell me about it?”

What could he say, he thought, as he held himself still. Why was Willem asking about this now? He thought he had been doing such a good job being normal — but maybe he hadn’t. He would have to try harder. He never had told Willem about what had happened to him with Brother Luke, but along with being unable to speak of it, part of him knew he didn’t need to: in the past two years, Willem had tried to approach the subject through various directions — through stories of friends and acquaintances, some named, some not (he had to assume some of these people were creations, as surely no one person could have such a vast collection of sexually abused friends), through stories about pedophilia he read in magazines, through various discourses on the nature of shame, and how it was often unearned. After each speech, Willem would stop, and wait, as if he were mentally extending a hand and asking him to dance. But he never took Willem’s hand. Each time, he would remain silent, or change the subject, or simply pretend Willem had never spoken at all. He didn’t know how Willem had come to learn this about him; he didn’t want to know. Obviously the person he thought he was presenting wasn’t the person Willem — or Harold — saw.

“Why are you asking me this?” he asked.

Willem shifted. “Because,” he said, and then stopped. “Because,” he continued, “I should’ve made you talk about this a long time ago.” He stopped again. “Certainly before we started having sex.”

He closed his eyes. “Am I not doing a good enough job?” he asked, quietly, and regretted the question as soon as he said it: it was something he would have asked Brother Luke, and Willem was not Brother Luke.

He could tell from Willem’s silence that he was taken aback by the question as well. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. But Jude — I know something happened to you. I wish you’d tell me. I wish you’d let me help you.”

“It’s over, Willem,” he said at last. “It was a long time ago. I don’t need help.”

There was another silence. “Was Brother Luke the person who hurt you?” Willem asked, and then, when he was quiet, the seconds ticking past, “Do you like having sex, Jude?”

If he spoke, he would cry, and so he didn’t speak. The word no , so short, so easy to say, a child’s sound, a noise more than a word, a sharp exhalation of air: all he had to do was part his lips, and the word would come out, and — and what? Willem would leave, and take everything with him. I can endure this, he would think when they had sex, I can endure this. He could endure it for every morning he woke next to Willem, for every affection Willem gave him, for the comfort of his company. When Willem was watching television in the living room and he was walking by, Willem would reach out his hand and he would take it, and they would remain there, Willem watching the screen and sitting, he standing, their hands in each other’s, and finally he would let go and continue moving. He needed Willem’s presence; every day since Willem had moved back in with him, he had experienced that same feeling of calm he had when Willem had stayed with him before he left to shoot The Prince of Cinnamon . Willem was his ballast, and he clung to him, even though he was always aware of how selfish he was being. If he truly loved Willem, he knew, he would leave him. He would allow Willem — he would force him, if he had to — to find someone better to love, someone who would enjoy having sex with him, someone who actually desired him, someone with fewer problems, someone with greater charms. Willem was good for him, but he was bad for Willem.