He said he was going to change and walked out of my room. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” When I looked at my crotch, to my complete dismay I saw it was damp. Had he seen it? Surely he must have. That’s why he wanted us to go to the beach. That’s why he walked out of my room. I hit my head with my fist. How could I have been so careless, so thoughtless, so totally stupid? Of course he’d seen.

 I should have learned to do what he’d have done. Shrugged my shoulders—and been okay with pre-come. But that wasn’t me. It would never have occurred to me to say, So what if he saw? Now he knows.
 
“我在樓下等你。”他說他要去換衣服，然后走出了我房間。我看著褲襠，這才驚慌地發(fā)覺有印濕的痕跡。他看到了？他當(dāng)然看到了。所以他才要我們一起去海邊。所以他才走出我房間。我握起拳頭敲自己的頭。我怎么這么不小心，這么沒腦子，這么蠢不可及？他當(dāng)然看到了。
我應(yīng)該學(xué)學(xué)他可能有的反應(yīng)：聳聳肩，不在乎看見我濕了。但我不是這種人。我永遠(yuǎn)不可能覺得“就算他看見又怎樣”。這下他知道了。
 
What never crossed my mind was that someone else who lived under our roof, who played cards with my mother, ate breakfast and supper at our table, recited the Hebrew blessing on Fridays for the sheer fun of it, slept in one of our beds, used our towels, shared our friends, watched TV with us on rainy days when we sat in the living room with a blanket around us because it got cold and we felt so snug being all together as we listened to the rain patter against the windows—that someone else in my immediate world might like what I liked, want what I wanted, be who I was. It would never have entered my mind because I was still under the illusion that, barring what I’d read in books, inferred from rumors, and overheard in bawdy talk all over, no one my age had ever wanted to be both man and woman—with men and women. I had wanted other men my age before and had slept with women. But before he’d stepped out of the cab and walked into our home, it would never have seemed remotely possible that someone so thoroughly okay with himself might want me to share his body as much as I ached to yield up mine.
 
我從未想過，就在我身邊，竟然有這么一個人，住在我們家，陪我母親打牌，和我們共進(jìn)早餐、晚餐，純粹為了好玩而在周五背誦希伯來禱詞，睡我們的床，用我們的毛巾，結(jié)識我們的朋友，雨天和我們一起坐在客廳里裹著同一條毛毯看電視——天氣冷了，我們覺得大伙兒聚在一起聽外面雨打窗權(quán)，感覺溫暖又舒服——仿佛是另一個我一般，喜歡我喜歡的，想要我想要的。我從未起過這樣的念頭，因?yàn)槌嗽跁献x到的、從謠言里猜測的和無意中聽聞的淫言穢語外，我仍然活在這樣的錯覺里：我這個年紀(jì)的人沒有誰想要同時扮演男人和女人的角色，或是同時想跟男人和女人在一起。我也曾經(jīng)對同齡的男孩懷有欲望，也跟女孩子在一起過。但之前似乎連微乎其微的可能性都沒有——像他這般完全接受自我的人，竟然想要和我分享他的身體，而我也同樣渴望奉獻(xiàn)出我的——直到他走下出租車、來到我家中。

《請以你的名字呼喚我》