Page 389 - A Little Life: A Novel

had begun, and he had answered what Luke had told him to say—“I’m tall
for my age”—both pleased and oddly not-pleased that the client had
thought Luke was his father.

Then Brother Luke had explained to him that when two people loved
each other as much as they did, that they slept in the same bed, and were
naked with each other. He hadn’t known what to say to this, but before he
could think of what it might be, Brother Luke was moving into bed with
him and taking off his clothes and then kissing him. He had never kissed
before—Brother Luke didn’t let the clients do it with him—and he didn’t
like it, didn’t like the wetness and the force of it. “Relax,” the brother told

him. “Just relax, Jude,” and he tried to as much as he could.
The first time the brother had sex with him, he told him it would be
different than with the clients. “Because we’re in love,” he’d said, and he
had believed him, and when it had felt the same after all—as painful, as
difficult, as uncomfortable, as shameful—he assumed he was doing
something wrong, especially because the brother was so happy afterward.

“Wasn’t that nice?” the brother asked him, “didn’t it feel different?,” and he
had agreed, too embarrassed to admit that it had been no different at all, that
it had been just as awful as it had been with the client the day before.
Brother Luke usually didn’t have sex with him if he’d seen clients earlier
in the evening, but they always slept in the same bed, and they always
kissed. Now one bed was used for the clients, and the other was theirs. He
grew to hate the taste of Luke’s mouth, its old-coffee tang, his tongue

something slippery and skinned trying to burrow inside of him. Late at
night, as the brother lay next to him asleep, pressing him against the wall
with his weight, he would sometimes cry, silently, praying to be taken away,
anywhere, anywhere else. He no longer thought of the cabin: he now
dreamed of the monastery, and thought of how stupid he’d been to leave. It
had been better there after all. When they were out in the mornings and

would pass people, Brother Luke would tell him to lower his eyes, because
his eyes were distinctive and if the brothers were looking for them, they
would give them away. But sometimes he wanted to raise his eyes, as if
they could by their very color and shape telegraph a message across miles
and states to the brothers: Here I am. Help me. Please take me back.
Nothing was his any longer: not his eyes, not his mouth, not even his name,
which Brother Luke only called him in private. Around everyone else, he