He didn’t know what to say. “Sometimes I need it,” he said, finally. “Rarely. I don’t use it that often.”

“Good,” said Caleb. “See that you don’t.”

He was startled. Was this an expression of concern, or was it a threat? But before he could figure out what he should feel, or what he should answer, Caleb had turned, and was heading into his closet, and he followed him, continuing his tour.

A month after that, he had met Caleb late one night outside his office in the far western borderland of the Meatpacking District. Caleb too worked long hours; it was early July and Rothko would present their spring line in eight weeks. He had driven to work that day, but it was a dry night, and so he got out of the car and sat in his chair under a streetlamp until Caleb came down, talking to someone else. He knew Caleb had seen him—he had raised his hand in his direction and Caleb had given him a barely perceptible nod: neither of them were demonstrative people—and watched Caleb until he finished his conversation and the other man had begun walking east.

“Hi,” he said, as Caleb came over to him.

“Why are you in your wheelchair?” Caleb demanded.

For a moment, he couldn’t speak, and when he did, he stammered. “I had to use it today,” he finally said.

Caleb sighed, and rubbed at his eyes. “I thought you didn’t use it.”

“I don’t,” he said, so ashamed that he could feel himself start to sweat. “Not really. I only use it when I absolutely have to.”

Caleb nodded, but continued pinching the bridge of his nose. He wouldn’t look at him. “Look,” he said at last, “I don’t think we should have dinner after all. You’re obviously not feeling well, and I’m tired. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Oh,” he said, dismayed. “That’s all right. I understand.”

“Okay, good,” said Caleb. “I’ll call you later.” He watched Caleb move down the street with his long strides until he disappeared around the corner, and then had gotten into his car and driven home and cut himself until he was bleeding so much that he couldn’t grip the razor properly.

The next day was Friday, and he didn’t hear from Caleb at all. Well, he thought. That’s that. And it was fine: Caleb didn’t like the fact that he was in a wheelchair. Neither did he. He couldn’t resent Caleb for not being able to accept what he himself couldn’t accept.

But then, on Saturday morning, Caleb called just as he was coming back upstairs from the pool. “I’m sorry about Thursday night,” Caleb said. “I know it must seem heartless and bizarre to you, this—aversion I have to your wheelchair.”

He sat down in one of the chairs around the dining-room table. “It doesn’t seem bizarre at all,” he said.

“I told you my parents were sick for much of my adult life,” Caleb said. “My father had multiple sclerosis, and my mother—no one knew what she had. She got sick when I was in college and never got better. She had face pains, headaches: she was in a sort of constant low-grade discomfort, and although I don’t doubt it was real, what bothered me so much is that she never seemed to want to try to get better. She just gave up, as did he. Everywhere you looked there was evidence of their surrender to illness: first canes, then walkers, then wheelchairs, then scooters, and vials of pills and tissues and the perpetual scent of pain creams and gels and who knows what else.”

He stopped. “I want to keep seeing you,” he said, at last. “But—but I can’t be around these accessories to weakness, to disease. I just can’t. I hate it. It embarrasses me. It makes me feel—not depressed, but furious, like I need to fight against it.” He paused again. “I just didn’t know that’s who you were when I met you,” he said at last. “I thought I could be okay with it. But I’m not sure I can. Can you understand that?”

He swallowed; he wanted to cry. But he could understand it; he felt exactly as Caleb did. “I can,” he said.

And yet improbably, they had continued after all. He is astonished, still, by the speed and thoroughness with which Caleb insinuated himself into his life. It was like something out of a fairy tale: a woman living on the edge of a dark forest hears a knock and opens the door of her cottage. And although it is just for a moment, and although she sees no one, in those seconds, dozens of demons and wraiths have slipped past her and into her house, and she will never be able to rid herself of them, ever. Sometimes this was how it felt. Was this the way it was for other people? He doesn’t know; he is too afraid to ask. He finds himself replaying old conversations he has had or overheard with people talking about their relationships, trying to gauge the normalcy of his against theirs, looking for clues about how he should conduct himself.

And then there is the sex, which is worse than he had imagined: he had forgotten just how painful it was, how debasing, how repulsive, how much he disliked it. He hates the postures, the positions it demands, each of them degrading because they leave him so helpless and weak; he hates the tastes of it and the smells of it. But mostly, he hates the sounds of it: the meaty smack of flesh hitting flesh, the wounded-animal moans and grunts, the things said to him that were perhaps meant to be arousing but he can only interpret as diminishing. Part of him, he realizes, had always thought it would be better as an adult, as if somehow the mere fact of age would transform the experience into something glorious and enjoyable. In college, in his twenties, in his thirties, he would listen to people talk about it with such pleasure, such delight, and he would think: That’s what you’re so excited about? Really? That’s not how I remember it at all. And yet he cannot be the one who’s correct, and everyone else—millennia of people—wrong. So clearly there is something he doesn’t understand about sex. Clearly he is doing something incorrectly.

That first night they had come upstairs, he had known what Caleb had expected. “We have to go slowly,” he told him. “It’s been a long time.”

Caleb looked at him in the dark; he hadn’t turned on the light. “How long?” he asked.

“Long,” was all he could say.

And for a while, Caleb was patient. But then he wasn’t. There came a night in which Caleb tried to remove his clothes, and he had pulled out of his grasp. “I can’t,” he said. “Caleb—I can’t. I don’t want you to see what I look like.” It had taken everything he had to say this, and he was so scared he was cold.

“Why?” Caleb had asked.

“I have scars,” he said. “On my back and legs, and on my arms. They’re bad; I don’t want you to see them.”

He hadn’t known, really, what Caleb would say. Would he say: I’m sure they’re not so bad? And then would he have to take his clothes off after all? Or would he say: Let’s see, and then he would take his clothes off, and Caleb would get up and leave? He saw Caleb hesitate.

“You won’t like them,” he added. “They’re disgusting.”

And that had seemed to decide something for Caleb. “Well,” he said, “I don’t need to see all of your body, right? Just the relevant parts.” And for that night, he had lain there, half dressed and half not, waiting for it to be over and more humiliated than if Caleb had demanded he take his clothes off after all.

But despite these disappointments, things have also not been horrible with Caleb, either. He likes Caleb’s slow, thoughtful way of speaking, the way he talks about the designers he’s worked with, his understanding of color and his appreciation of art. He likes that he can discuss his work—about Malpractice and Bastard—and that Caleb will not only understand the challenges his cases present for him but will find them interesting as well. He likes how closely Caleb listens to his stories, and how his questions show how closely he’s been paying attention. He likes how Caleb admires Willem’s and Richard’s and Malcolm’s work, and lets him talk about them as much as he wants. He likes how, when he is leaving, Caleb will put his hands on either side of his face and hold them there for a moment in a sort of silent blessing. He likes Caleb’s solidity, his physical strength: he likes watching him move, likes how, like Willem, he is so easy in his own body. He likes how Caleb will sometimes in sleep sling an arm possessively across his chest. He likes waking with Caleb next to him. He likes how Caleb is slightly strange, how he carries a faint threat of danger: he is different from the people he has sought out his entire adult life, people he has determined will never hurt him, people defined by their kindnesses. When he is with Caleb, he feels simultaneously more and less human.