Page 472 - A Little Life: A Novel

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