After a while, Willem knocked. “Can I come in?” he asked, and he told him he could.

“I’m looking at point number two,” said Willem, seriously. “I hate to tell you this, Jude, but we have the same body.” He looked at him. “You’re an inch taller, but can I remind you that we can wear each other’s clothes?”

He sighed. “Willem,” he said, “you know what I mean.”

“Jude,” Willem said, “I understand that this is strange for you, and unexpected. If you really don’t want this, I’ll back off and leave you alone and I promise things won’t change between us.” He stopped. “But if you’re trying to convince me not to be with you because you’re scared and self-conscious—well, I understand that. But I don’t think it’s a good enough reason not to try. We’ll go as slowly as you want, I promise.”

He was quiet. “Can I think about it?” he asked, and Willem nodded. “Of course,” he said, and left him alone, sliding the door shut behind him.

He sat in his office in silence for a long time, thinking. After Caleb, he had sworn he would never again do this to himself. He knew Willem would never do anything bad to him, and yet his imagination was limited: he was incapable of conceiving of a relationship that wouldn’t end with his being hit, with his being kicked down the stairs, with his being made to do things he had told himself he would never have to do again. Wasn’t it possible, he asked himself, that he could push even someone as good as Willem to that inevitability? Wasn’t it foregone that he would inspire a kind of hatred from even Willem? Was he so greedy for companionship that he would ignore the lessons that history—his own history—had taught him?

But then there was another voice inside him, arguing back. You’re crazy if you turn this opportunity down, said the voice. This is the one person you have always trusted. Willem isn’t Caleb; he would never do that, not ever.

And so, finally, he had gone to the kitchen, where Willem was making dinner. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Willem had looked at him and smiled. “Come here,” he said, and he did, and Willem kissed him. He had been scared, and panicky, and once again he had thought of Brother Luke, and he had opened his eyes to remind himself that this was Willem after all, not someone to fear. But just as he was relaxing into it, he had seen Caleb’s face flashing through his mind like a pulse, and he pulled away from Willem, choking, rubbing his hand across his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, pivoting away from him. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this, Willem.”

“What do you mean?” Willem had asked, turning him back around. “You’re great at it,” and he had felt himself sag with relief that Willem wasn’t angry at him.

Since then, he has been constantly pitting what he knows of Willem against what he expects of someone—anyone—who has any physical desire for him. It is as if he somehow expects that the Willem he has known will be replaced by another; as if there will be a different Willem for what is a different relationship. In the first few weeks, he was terrified that he might upset or disappoint Willem in some way, that he might drive him toward anger. He had waited for days, summoning his courage, to tell Willem that he couldn’t tolerate the taste of coffee in his mouth (although he didn’t explain to him why: Brother Luke, his awful, muscular tongue, the grain of coffee grounds that had permanently furred his gumline. This had been one of the things he had appreciated about Caleb: that he hadn’t drunk coffee). He apologized and apologized until Willem told him to stop. “Jude, it’s fine,” he said. “I should’ve realized: really. I just won’t drink it.”

“But you love coffee,” he said.

Willem had smiled. “I enjoy it, yes,” he said, “but I don’t need it.” He smiled again. “My dentist will be thrilled.”

Also in that first month, he had talked to Willem about sex. They had these conversations at night, in bed, when it was easier to say things. He had always associated night with cutting, but now it was becoming about something else—those talks with Willem in a darkened room, when he was less self-conscious about touching him, and where he could see every one of Willem’s features and yet was also able to pretend that Willem couldn’t see his.

“Do you want to have sex someday?” he asked him one night, and even as he was saying it, he heard how stupid he sounded.

But Willem didn’t laugh at him. “Yes,” he said, “I’d like to.”

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 then, Willem has held him in the same way every night, even through July, when not even the air-conditioning could erase the heaviness from the air, and when they both woke damp with sweat. This, he realizes, is what he wanted from a relationship all along. This is what he meant when he hoped he might someday be touched. Sometimes Caleb had hugged him, briefly, and he always had to resist the impulse to ask him to do it again, and for longer. But now, here it is: all the physical contact that he knows exists between healthy people who love each other and are having sex, without the dreaded sex itself.

He cannot bring himself to initiate contact with Willem, nor ask for it, but he waits for it, for every time that Willem grabs his arm as he passes him in the living room and pulls him close to kiss him, or comes up behind him as he stands at the stove and puts his arms around him in the same position—chest, stomach—that he does in bed. He has always admired how physical JB and Willem are, both with each other and with everyone around them; he knew they knew not to do it with him, and as grateful as he was for their carefulness with him, it sometimes made him wistful: he sometimes wished they would disobey him, that they would lay claim to him with the same friendly confidence they did with everyone else. But they never did.