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“I think we should do it. Now.”
“Alright, alright,” and Willem smiles finally, just slightly, lopsided. He looks at Willem’s smile, the same one he had conjured when he said he was sure he was ready, the one temporarily banished as he forced himself to confess his diseases, his defilement, but back now that Willem was about to have sex. And that made it worth it, he told himself, that smile, how happy Willem was: he could endure anything to make Willem happy. To make Willem happy with him.
And it wouldn’t be an endurance, not this time, he thinks, prays, as Willem rolls towards him, above him. Puts his hand on his hip. Willem is going to take him to that dreamscape, the promised land where normal clean people go when they have sex, where it is fun and wanted and doesn’t hurt. His heart pounds, and he hopes Willem – if he notices – will think it is from excitement, from arousal. Willem begins to kiss him, deeply and slowly, exploring. Willem does not taste like coffee, he tastes clean, like spearmint mouthwash, and he can even close his eyes. He sinks into it. Willem is safe, Willem is not Brother Luke, Willem does not want to hurt him. As Willem pulls his hip closer he imagines that Willem is leading him into that new world, where Willem has been many times but where he is a stranger, a refugee, but he does not have to be scared because he has a guide.
Willem’s tongue probes into his mouth, gently, gently, licking at his lip first as if he is knocking at a door and waiting for an answer. He thinks Willem has learnt not to go too fast with this. It is nothing like the slab of meat that Brother Luke had pushed into his mouth so many times, twisting muscle overfilling the small hollow of an eight-year-old mouth, rubbing against baby teeth. The first time he had choked, as Brother Luke’s tongue pushed almost to his throat. The feeling was familiar from having clients in his mouth but that part of them couldn’t roil and squirm like Brother Luke’s huge tongue did.
“Oh sweetheart, oh dear, I’m sorry,” Brother Luke said. “It’s your first kiss. That’s so special for you. I’ll be slow. I’ll show you how wonderful it is to kiss someone who you love.”
He relaxes, opens his mouth, lets Willem in. He feels more than hears Willem hum in thanks, in eagerness. He remembers he needs to make noise too, and he hums back. Marco. Polo.
His reciprocation ignites Willem. He knew Willem wanted to have sex with him but since that one humiliating time he had scrambled away out of bed onto the floor when Willem wormed his hand down the front of his pants Willem has been slow, careful. But his announcement that he was ready has kindled something in Willem and by kissing back, by moving his hands, by making sounds, he seems to have blown on the spark and created a forest fire. Willem is panting into his mouth, moving a leg between his legs. He feels Willem hard against him and then he does open his eyes, to remember that even though it feels the same as every other man’s it is still Willem, just Willem. Willem moves his hand from his hip to his crotch then, seeking something that won’t be there, and he grabs it, drags it up his torso to his hair. He tangles Willem’s fingers in his hair – he knows this is something people like, though he hates it – and his pivot works: Willem moans and pulls slightly, none the wiser and maybe even more pleased by this seeming show of initiative, of desire, than if he had gotten hold of what he sought. I am doing a good job, he thinks.
They kiss. Instinct tangles with instructions until he doesn’t know if he is moving how he is moving because that’s how he wants to move or because that’s how Brother Luke made him move. He likes kissing Willem, he does, he has learnt to. He likes the way Willem strokes his face, his neck with one hand, he likes the feel of Willem’s bicep and back under his hands. He likes how Willem has slotted their legs together in the same way he does to sleep at night. His eyes fall shut. If only this could be it. If only sex could be holding each other, panting together, kisses trailing down necks but no further. Clothes on and scars hidden. If only bringing Willem to the point where he slinks into the shower to spill onto the bright marble – out of sight, the splashing water hiding the sound and scent – was enough. He knows Willem does it anyway, so why does he have to be any more involved than that? Why can’t Willem just leave him out of the part that involves sweat and spit and come and just enjoy this, the holding and breathing and kissing?
But Willem is normal, healthy, whole, and Willem wants to have sex with him.
Willem wants his body, wants to use him –
Unfair, unfair, Willem is not Brother Luke Willem is not Caleb Willem loves you Willem won’t hurt you what Willem wants is normal and good and right –
Willem tugs his hair just as he feels himself shrinking inwards and away and he forces a moan to bring himself back to the present. He opens his eyes and sees Willem and tells himself he is safe. He wants this, he does, he does.
Willem’s hand brushes down to the hem of his shirt and then slips under, stroking across his stomach and tickling the trail of dark hair that leads further. That hair had not been there when Brother Luke ran his dry hot hands over him and he doesn’t think Caleb once brushed across it with gentle fingers the way Willem is doing now.
Caleb’s fingers left bruises on his hips the first time. It was far from the worst thing he’s ever been left with after sex, far from the worst Caleb would go on to do to him, far from the most painful part of the experience. His old familiar transformation into a curtain rod or ceiling fan didn’t work when Caleb exposed him just enough to get what he wanted and instead, to get through the pain of having something inside him that shouldn’t be there – something that couldn’t simply be exposed and flicked away with a razor – he focused on his belt buckle as it banged rhythmically against his thigh. All his scars were hidden and Caleb couldn’t even see that he wasn’t erect but his clothing wasn’t the armour he thought it would be. Being almost completely clothed while bent over like that somehow left him feeling even more like the slut that Caleb called him, that he knew he was and always had been.
So eager that you can’t even wait long enough to get undressed. My sweetheart, it’s so good to see you enjoy your work so much. I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud. You’re such a natural.
He threw that shirt and those pants down the incinerator later, convinced he could feel the slime on them even after washing them. Better to suffer nakedness than let his clothes – clothes he went to work in, clothes he wore when he cooked for Harold and Julia – be fouled.
Now he pushes up and away from Willem, stands next to the bed. Willem’s lips are wet and red and his boxer briefs are tented and the yellow muscle tank that he sometimes wears to bed is lopsided, so the ‘California dreamin 86’ neon text is unreadable and glimpses of the smooth planes of his torso are exposed. Some part of his brain can see and understand that Willem is beautiful, not just beautiful but gorgeous, sexual, desirable. He can understand on some intellectual level why people want to have sex with Willem.
He pulls his long-sleeved t-shirt smoothly over his head, standing in front of Willem. Willem is watching with the same hunger in his eyes that they all did (unfair, so unfair to Willem); he knows how to undress in front of men who want to have sex with him even if he cannot bear to do so in front of people he knows and trusts. It is easier to slide down his pyjama pants, his underwear, in front of a Willem that looks like a client. He was a good prostitute. He knows how to do this. If this was a role he was playing, he would win any award Willem had ever been nominated for; he knows his lines and his blocking perfectly. But this isn’t a role. This is what he is. This is as natural as bleeding.
Willem sits up and reaches for him. “Jude, Jude,” he breathes; he manages to smile coyly at Willem’s obvious but nonsensical desire and he hopes it reaches his eyes. Men don’t like it when his eyes look dead.
He takes Willem’s hand, stopping him from touching him, pulls him towards the edge of the bed. Willem pulls his tank top off. He kneels. He knows from Caleb that kneeling like this is intensely painful but he learnt to do this before his legs stopped working and so he still does it. He follows the script.
“Ooh, I’m an actor, I know what to say,” JB had teased Willem once, in college, when Jude had been running lines with him and he had gotten every word right in a lengthy, rapid-fire monologue that came near the end of A Comedy of Errors. Jude congratulated him – Willem had been struggling with the comedic timing of the wordplay – and JB said that rote learning other people’s genius was much easier than creating your own. Willem shot back that JB wouldn’t know anything about creating genius, and Malcolm laughed, and JB sulked, and Jude said, “Let’s do it again, to make sure you’ve got it.” Willem did it again, this time on his feet, with the blocking, and even JB laughed at some of the jokes.
Willem likes scripts. Willem won’t be mad that he’s saying the lines and following the blocking rather than being able to come up with his own.
He avoids preamble. He pulls away Willem’s underwear, just enough. He takes Willem in his mouth. It feels the same as every single other time he has ever done this.
“Oh my god, Jude, Jude, oh my god – Christ, Judy –”
He has never heard Willem’s voice sound like this before but it is still unquestionably Willem, and that helps. Willem is clean from the shower and tastes of nothing, just the blandness of skin, and that helps too. The scent of sandalwood lingers as he breathes through his nose. For a moment the urge to bite down is overwhelming, the last thrash of the childhood violence inside him that was chained and killed long ago. He focuses on how painful his legs are because that is different and was not there when he did this with Brother Luke or Dr. Traylor.
Willem is still, waiting, and that is different too.
He looks up at him, makes eye contact. That is unbearable so he glances back down, sees the smooth planes of Willem’s body and the shining beads of sweat. He thinks that Willem is like a statue, a painting, and he can understand how beautiful this view would be if it was somehow not connected to sex. He makes himself remember how many people across the whole world would do anything to be where he is, in front of Willem Ragnarsson and his perfect unmarked body, and he tries to be grateful, because Willem has chosen him, over all the people he could have without even trying. It doesn’t matter that he hates it. Willem has chosen him, for some insane unbelievable unfathomable reason, and so he needs to show how grateful he is. He can try and give back a fraction of what he takes.
He starts to move. He is good at this. It is, some distant part of him reflects, physically much easier to do with a full-grown adult’s mouth.
Willem moans, loud and deep, and it is the worst sound he has ever heard Willem make. He can see Willem’s hands fist in the sheets. They aren’t tangling in his hair or pushing and pulling so hard it hurts his neck. Willem does not want to hurt him. Willem wants to have sex with his boyfriend. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, to expect.
He keeps going. He is good at this.
“Jesus fuck Judy!”
No one has ever called him Judy when he is doing this. Brother Luke called him sweetheart or darling. The clients called him Joey. Caleb called him slut. Dr. Traylor never called him anything. Every single thing that is different, that proves that this is Willem – Willem who he trusts, who he loves, who will never hurt him, who he promises he wants to have sex with – is something to grab on to as he can feel his mind trying to break away from what his body is doing. His legs scream in pain.
He keeps going. He was born for this.
“Jude – Jude, I’m – stop, I’m gonna come, Judy –”
He pulls away, wipes his mouth against the starburst scar on the back of his hand. He doesn’t think he will be able to keep from vomiting if he has to swallow it and so as much as it will make him want to smash his face into the mirror until his skin is shredded and flayed he readies himself to feel it on his face, gluey on his eyelashes. But Willem is squeezing himself, biting his lip, and after a moment he breathes out, controlled, and smiles sheepishly.
“God. Sorry. That’s – that’s embarrassing, you’re making me feel like a horny teenager again!” Willem pants out a laugh.
He doesn’t know what to do. This isn’t how it goes.
“Hey, I wasn’t sure so – I didn’t want to presume,” Willem says. “Jude, come here, that can’t be comfortable, your legs –”
Willem reaches for his hands, and he lets him pull him back onto the bed. His legs are on fire but he doesn’t know why Willem would bother about it now. Willem stokes his face gently, and brings their lips together.
“You are just full of incredible surprises, huh Judy?” Willem says, puncturing his words with more kisses. “You – are – amazing.”
You’re a slut, you’re a good little whore, you are made for this.
“You haven’t come yet,” he says, because he knows this is the most important thing and that it will not end until Willem does.
Another laugh slips out of Willem. “I said I didn’t want to assume!” Willem is still holding the side of his face. The touch is so gentle, so incongruous with what is happening. “But…did you want to…” Willem glances down, suddenly shy. He can’t bear the thought of dancing around it, coy like virgins, pretending they don’t both know exactly what must happen.
“Have sex?” he says. He hopes his eagerness to get to get it over with will be taken as eagerness for it to happen.
“Uh, yeah Judy, kind of think that’s what we’re literally doing right now,” Willem laughs again, but he doesn’t understand. Willem swipes the pad of his thumb against his bottom lip as if he is making a point. “But if you wanted to…do more…”
Again, the unbearable prolonging. “Yes, Willem, I’m ready,” he says, and he moves away to lie on his back, hoping Willem will tell him if he wants him like that or on his front.
“Woah, Judy, alright!” (Such a willing little slut, so desperate for it, aren’t you? Say you’re desperate for it.) Willem’s grin fades as his gaze travels from his face to his lack of erection.
“Um, is this okay? I mean, are you sure you’re –”
“Yes, Willem, come on.”
“But you’re not –”
“It’s – it was the car injury, Willem, don’t worry about it, come on.”
“Oh, Judy, I’m sorry –”
“Don’t, Willem, it’s fine, come on –”
“Is there something I can do? What would you like –”
He pulls Willem towards him, over him. Grabs Willem’s hand, licks a wet stripe up his palm, pushes it down between their tangled legs.
“Let’s have sex, now, Willem, come on.” Why is Willem dragging this out, why does he not just take what he so clearly wants? It’s not fair for Willem to keep giving him these tests, asking questions that he doesn’t have scripted answers to.
“Alright, but Jude, slow down – are you sure? I don’t mind if we stop, this has already been –”
“Willem, please!” He is almost begging now. He is begging for Willem to hurry up, to get through this as fast as possible, to get it over so he can go back to the Willem he loves instead of this client version of Willem. He hopes that what Willem hears is him begging for sex, begging (to be fucked to be used you’re a cock-hungry little slut aren’t you hungry tight little hole begging to be filled) for his hot boyfriend to give him what he wants, like in the movies he watched with Brother Luke sometimes.
He can sense that Willem somehow hears both, and that in the space between one heartbeat and the next he is deciding which he will pick. Like when Brother Luke would talk about their cabin in French, and he had to pick whether he meant there would be fishing or peaches, because it was the same word but there was only one right answer.
He sees it in Willem’s eyes as he picks the right answer.
“Okay, Judy. Yeah. You’re sure.” Willem brings his hand up to his mouth and wets two of his fingers, and the spit is warm and slimy like blood when he presses against him, into him.
The first time Father Gabriel did it it was confusing and painful, and he couldn’t understand it, because why would the Father need to search there? He’d put the lighter in his underwear, that was all, he would never in a trillion years thought to put it there, and he didn’t understand what Father Gabriel was doing or why. He was so young he couldn’t even conceive of what was happening. Even in hindsight, it barely felt like the first time he had been – been what? ¬ because even though it hurt and he didn’t like it, it wasn’t until later – those many other firsts – that he had felt the clawing writhing shame. That came later, when he realised Father Gabriel wasn’t searching, and it was happening in his room, and the other brothers were doing it too, and then other things started happening, for the first time and then all the time.
On some level he realises what Willem is trying to do, and he can, from some great distance, recognise that he is doing it because Willem does not want to hurt him. But it will hurt, and this probing makes him think that Willem is going to hook a finger around his intestine and rip it out. Worst of all, this isn’t for Willem, doesn’t give Willem what he wants, and the idea that this is something that he, Jude, wants Willem to do is laughable and disgusting. He can’t stand this prolonging.
“Willem, I want you inside me. All of you. Now.”
Saying it makes him want Willem to really pull out his intestines and choke him with them. It is the biggest lie he has ever told Willem and the fact that it is something he was taught to say to Brother Luke makes it even worse, a lie within a deception within his true identity. He can’t look at Willem as he says it but he feels Willem shudder above him and he knows that he is responding the same way Brother Luke always did.
“Christ, Judy, yeah. Fuck.”
Willem’s fingers are gone, rummaging around now in his bedside table, finding an unopened box of condoms that Willem must have bought months ago in his eternal optimism. He knows that he should do it, should show Willem how good and clever he is by doing it with his mouth like he was taught. Caleb liked that. Willem will like it too, and he wants to show Willem how good he can be so that Willem will love him and stay, but he is paralysed. He watches Willem slide it on and his fear and disgust crescendos.
It's slow. Gentle. Willem watches his face as he pushes in and he has to work to school his expression into one of ecstasy instead of pain. Willem keeps talking, keeps asking: “Good, Judy? Okay? Is that good?” and he has to keep nodding, keep breathlessly chanting ‘yes, yes, yes’, playing the part better than ever before because the stakes are impossibly high. He cannot let Willem realise.
Willem kisses the inside of his knee when he bottoms out. It is the same kind of kiss Willem bestows on his forehead, his hand, his eyelids, and he cannot bear seeing this glimpse of the Willem who loves him at the same time as feeling the one who wants to fuck him. His arm is over his face, he knows his eyes give him away. He wishes he liked this, wishes he was normal, wishes he could be what Willem wants. It hurts.
Willem leans forward over him and he gasps as the angle shifts, the pain pressing and shifting. “Yeah?” Willem breathes and he just nods as Willem nudges his arm aside with his head and begins to kiss him again. He tries to focus on the feel of Willem’s lips – he likes this, he likes kissing Willem – but all he can focus on is the feel of Willem elsewhere, and when Willem begins to move, slowly at first but getting faster, harder, he can only think that he hates Willem and wish he had never let him touch him. He tosses his head back to take the pain and Willem laves at his throat. He can hear Willem panting in his ear, hear the disgusting spit noises as Willem kisses and licks and nips, hear his guttural moans and his whispers of ‘yes, Jude, yeah, god, so good, I love you, feels so good’. Beneath it all is the wet slapping of meat, like a bag of offal tumbling down stairs, the sound that has accompanied his nightmares all his life.
The first time he realised that things were going to get worse with Dr. Traylor was when he wrapped a hand around his throat and squeezed, hard, while they were having sex. For a split second he waited for Brother Luke to burst into the room and yell at Dr. Traylor to stop, but of course he couldn’t anymore and so Jude had closed his eyes and let everything dissolve into nothingness. From then on Dr. Traylor sometimes choked him while they had sex and although it was frightening when he blacked out he also didn’t mind it, because it meant that he didn’t have to be awake while it was happening. He would wake up in a sticky little pool of blood with his throat so raw and bruised he couldn’t talk or eat, and although he would be even dizzier than usual and it made him sure that Dr Traylor would kill him during sex, it was preferable to the other things that happened in that basement simply because he wasn’t really there when it happened. It was almost like Dr. Traylor was doing him a favour by sending him away from what was being done to his body and every time part of him thought that he was being sent away, from everything, for good.
As Willem speared into him, over and over, he wished Willem would wrap a hand around his throat and send him away, so he could come back when it was over and Willem could take what he wanted without him having to be there. But instead all Willem did was lick and kiss his neck in between the whispered, panted mantra: “Judy, god, fuck, yes, so good, Jude, yeah, I love you, I love you, I love you”.
Brother Luke had chanted the same mantra their first time too. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and Jude was in tears, he couldn’t help it, because he thought Brother Luke was like his father, and fathers didn’t do this with their sons, not in any of the books that he’d ever read. But this was love, Brother Luke said so, and he did love Brother Luke, and so maybe he was right, this was what people did when they loved each other, even if he was so much smaller than Brother Luke. But it wasn’t like he didn’t know about sex anyway – not like other little boys in the books – so maybe this was just what love was when you were no longer small and ignorant.
So he said it back, even though his tears. It came out in gasps and shouts, but he said it, repeated it back, because Brother Luke said it would be different because they were in love, it wouldn’t hurt because they were in love, and so if he loved Brother Luke hard enough it would stop hurting and be different. “I love you, Brother Luke, I love you,” as his breath hitched in pain and anguish.
And Brother Luke liked it, it made Brother Luke happy. “Tell me Jude, tell me you love me,” he grunted, and so he did, and then Brother Luke was finished. And after that he always remembered how happy it made Brother Luke to hear it, so much so that it would be over faster.
He says it again, now, and he makes sure to say Willem’s name, probably more times than is necessary, but he is terrified that he will call him Brother Luke otherwise. “Willem, I love you, Willem,” and Willem is panting and grinning and laughing and saying it too. Willem’s thrusts are getting harder and faster, and he realises that he is starting to dig his fingers into Willem’s back. He can’t hurt Willem, or give any hint that he is in pain, so he flings his arms up and away and clenches his fists, hard, so hard that his arms are shaking. The feeling of his nails slicing little crescent moons into his palms brings relief. He doesn’t want to think about Brother Luke while Willem is inside him, so he focusses on his fingernails and thinks instead of the bag waiting under the sink, about how once Willem is done and asleep he will be able to bleed out all the rot sloshing inside him, like opening a sluice valve.
Willem pushes deep, goes rigid, his face contorting. He looks away, he does not want to see Willem like this.
Willem shudders out a breath and collapses onto his forearms, all above and around him. Drops of sweat on Willem’s face threaten to fall on him like hanging knives. Willem is panting still; there is a beautiful smile on his face and his eyes are alight. He has made Willem happy.
“Hey,” Willem whispers, bringing their foreheads together.
“Hi,” he manages.
Willem giggles quietly. “Thanks.”
He doesn’t know what to say and so just tries to smile.
Willem places a last kiss on his mouth, soft and lingering, before moving back and away, retreating from within his body. He tries to roll away off the bed as Willem busies himself with the condom, but Willem looks up at him.
“Hey, Judy, what about you?” Willem glances down at what still isn’t and will never be there. “Is there something I can do for you? Something we can try, or just something that will feel good –”
“No – Willem, it’s okay, I’m – I’m tired. I’m going to shower,” he says, moving towards the bathroom. He feels exposed, their shared nakedness disgusts him, the room stinks. His forearms tingle in anticipation, he cannot wait until Willem is asleep. The ritual of retreating to the bathroom to cut after sex allowed him to survive the years of motel rooms and he needs it now as badly as he ever did then.
“Alright, Judy,” Willem says now, as he lays down and stretches out. He scratches his stomach slowly, sleepily. He looks like what he is – a Hollywood star, a Calvin Klein model, smooth tanned lines that women throw themselves at. He, Jude, is lucky, he must be grateful, he is chosen, he must be happy. I am lucky, I am grateful. I make men happy.
Then, as he puts his hand on the bathroom handle – “Hey, Jude, we need lube. Make it better for you next time, yeah? Easier. Let’s do it properly next time.”
He agrees without turning around, shuts the door behind him. He is unable to face the thought of ‘next time’, a series of next times that stretch on forever, for as long as Willem will stay, for the rest of his life. A sacrifice, a penance, a punishment that he will endure every day: the cost of a perfect life with perfect Willem. Finally, the rent on his body is due, after all these years of getting a life for nothing.
He sits on the floor of the bathroom with his bag, shower running, hoping he will be able to get up again. The sharp sting of the first slice gives way to the blood-slippery thrum of each consecutive cut. Each one is less painful, and he hopes and prays that this will be like everything else: the first time has happened, and it was terrible, but the worst is over now, and it will get better.
The next time will be better.