Page 440 - A Little Life: A Novel

He nodded. Willem waited. “It’s going to take me a while,” he said, at
last.
“That’s okay,” Willem said. “I’ll wait.”

“But what if it takes me months?”
“Then it’ll take months,” Willem said.
He thought about that. “What if it takes longer?” he asked, quietly.
Willem had reached over and touched the side of his face. “Then it will,”
he said.
They were quiet for a long time. “What’re you going to do in the
meantime?” he asked, and Willem laughed. “I do have some self-control,

Jude,” he said, smiling at him. “I know this comes as a shock to you, but I
can go for stretches without having sex.”
“I didn’t mean anything,” he began, remorseful, but Willem grabbed him
and kissed him, noisily, on the cheek. “I’m kidding,” he said. “It’s okay,
Jude. You’ll take as long as you need.”
And so they still haven’t had sex, and sometimes he is even able to

convince himself that maybe they never will. But in the meantime, he has
grown to enjoy, to crave even, Willem’s physicality, his affection, which is
so easy and natural and spontaneous that it makes him feel easier and more
spontaneous as well. Willem sleeps on the left side of the bed, and he on the
right, and the first night they slept in the same bed, he turned to his right on
his side, the way he always did, and Willem pressed up against him, tucking
his right arm under his neck and then across his shoulders, and his left arm

around his stomach, moving his legs between his legs. He was surprised by
this, but once he overcame his initial discomfort, he found he liked it, that it
was like being swaddled.
One night in June, however, Willem didn’t do it, and he worried he had
done something wrong. The next morning—early mornings were the other
time they talked about things that seemed too tender, too difficult, to be said

in the daylight—he asked Willem if he was upset with him, and Willem,
looking surprised, said no, of course not.
“I just wondered,” he began, stammering, “because last night you didn’t
—” But he couldn’t finish the sentence; he was too embarrassed.
But then he could see Willem’s expression clear, and he rolled into him
and wrapped his arms around him. “This?” he asked, and he nodded. “It
was just because it was so hot last night,” Willem said, and he waited for

Willem to laugh at him, but he didn’t. “That’s the only reason, Judy.” Since