Page 491 - A Little Life: A Novel

sex, they multiplied, and on bad days, or on days when he was particularly
dreading it, they multiply further. On those days, he can feel their whiskers
twitch as he moves slowly through their territory, he can feel their careless

derision: he knows he is theirs, and they know it, too.
And although he craves the vacations from sex that Willem’s work
provides him, he knows too that he ought not to, for the reentry into that
world is always difficult; it had been that way when he was a child, too,
when the only thing worse than the rhythms of sex had been readjusting to
the rhythms of sex. “I can’t wait to come home and see you,” Willem says
when they next speak, and although there is nothing leering in his tone,

although he hasn’t mentioned sex at all, he knows from past experience that
Willem will want to have it the night of his return, and that he will want to
have it more times than usual for the remainder of his first week back home,
and that he will especially want to have it because both of them had taken
turns being sick on his two furloughs and so nothing had happened either
time.

“Me too,” he says.
“How’s the cutting?” Willem asks, lightly, as if he’s asking about how
Julia’s maple trees are faring, or how the weather is. He always asks this at
the end of their conversations, as if the subject is something he’s only
mildly interested in and is inquiring about to be polite.
“Fine,” he says, as he always does. “Only twice this week,” he adds, and
this is true.

“Good, Judy,” Willem says. “Thank god. I know it’s hard. But I’m proud
of you.” He always sounds so relieved in these moments, as if he is
expecting to hear—which he probably is—some other answer entirely: Not
well, Willem. I cut myself so much last night that my arm fell off entirely. I
don’t want you to be surprised when you see me. He feels a mix of genuine
pride, then, both that Willem should trust him so much and that he is

actually getting to tell him the truth, and an enervating, bone-deep sorrow,
that Willem should have to ask him at all, that this should be something that
they are actually proud of. Other people are proud of their boyfriends’
talents or looks or athleticism; Willem, however, gets to be proud that his
boyfriend has managed to pass another night without slicing himself with a
razor.
And then, finally, there comes an evening in which he knows that his

efforts will not satisfy him any longer: he needs to cut himself, extensively