Call Me By Your Name

by André Aciman

“Later!” The word, the voice, the attitude.

It never occurred to me that what had totally panicked me when he touched me was exactly what startles virgins on being touched for the first time by the person they desire: he stirs nerves in them they never knew existed and that produce far, far more disturbing pleasures than they are used to on their own.

On late afternoons, when there was nothing to do in the house, Mafalda would ask him to climb a ladder with a basket and pick those fruits that were almost blushing with shame, she said. He would joke in Italian, pick one out, and ask, Is this one blushing with shame? No, she would say, this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age.

It never occurred to me that if one word from him could make me so happy, another could just as easily crush me,

Did I want to be like him? Did I want to be him? Or did I just want to have him?

I know books, and I know how to string words together—it doesn’t mean I know how to speak about the things that matter most to me.

This felt special. Like showing someone your private chapel, your secret haunt, the place where, as with the berm, one comes to be alone, to dream of others. This is where I dreamed of you before you came into my life.

“People who read are hiders. They hide who they are. People who hide don’t always like who they are.”

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.

I suddenly realized that we were on borrowed time, that time is always borrowed, and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when we are least prepared to pay and need to borrow more.

Time makes us sentimental. Perhaps, in the end, it is because of time that we suffer.

as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name.