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A Novel
by Edouard Louis
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Excerpt
Change
I climbed the stairs two at a time. I no longer know what I was thinking about in that stairwell, I imagine I was counting the steps so as not to think of anything else.
I arrived at the door, caught my breath and rang the bell. The man approached from the other side, I could hear him, I could make out his footsteps on the wooden floor.
* * *
I'd met him on the Internet just two hours earlier. He was the one who'd contacted me. He'd told me he liked boys like me, young, slender, blond, blue-eyed—the Aryan type, he'd insisted. He'd asked me to dress like a student and that's what I'd done—at least his idea of a student—with an oversized hoodie I'd borrowed from Geoffroy and sky-blue trainers, my favorites, I'd done what he wanted because I was hoping he'd reward my efforts and pay me more than he'd promised.
* * *
I waited.
* * *
Finally, he opened the door and at the sight of him I had to tense my face to keep from grimacing—he didn't look like the photos he'd sent, his body was flabby, heavy, I don't know how to put it, as if he was sagging or rather oozing to the floor.
Just coming to the door had been a strain for him, I could see his fatigue, his shortness of breath, the dozens of tiny drops of sweat shining on his forehead. I tried to look at him as little as possible, I wanted to avoid seeing the details of his face. In less than an hour you'll be out of here with the money, I thought. His odor reached me, a synthetic smell of vanilla and sour milk. I focused on that sentence—In less than an hour, the money—when suddenly I heard voices behind him in the flat. They belonged to men, several of them, maybe three or four. I asked who they were, he smiled and said: It's nothing. Pretend they're not here, they're used to it, I often bring in whores, you're not the first. You ignore them and we'll go to my room.
* * *
I thought: I don't want other people seeing my face—the shame began to rise inside me, from the tips of my fingers to the nape of my neck, like a warm, paralyzing fluid, I recognized its burn. I threatened to go home. I thought it would hurt or irritate him but he didn't try to stop me. Calmly he offered to give me fifty euros for the trip if I wanted to turn and go, and I hated him for not getting angry. I needed more than fifty euros. Okay, I said, we'll go straight to your room, they won't see me, I'll pull up my hood.
He promised me his friends wouldn't try to see my face, they don't give a shit; he was already turning around, I could see his fat white neck. Think of the money, think of the money.
* * *
* * *
I crossed the living room with him. He walked in front of me. I lowered my head, the hood hiding my face. In the bedroom he sat on the edge of his bed, the weight of his heavy body on the mattress produced a high-pitched creaking sound.
The mattress screamed in my place.
I stood there, facing his body, I didn't dare move, he looked at me Fuck you're a turn-on with your little Nazi face. I didn't say anything, I knew my silence would please him, that was what he wanted and what he was paying me for, my toughness, my coldness. I was playing a role. He asked me to undress, he said: As slowly as possible, and I did.
Now I was naked in front of him, waiting. He just said: I want you to fuck me like a slut. He straightened up, pulled his trousers down to his knees, without taking them off completely, turned and got on all fours on the bed—his ass in front of me too white and too red, flaccid, limp, covered with little brown hairs. Go on, fuck me, fuck me like I'm your little slut, he repeated. I rubbed my cock against his body but nothing happened, my cock remained inert, I failed, I wasn't able to think of anything else, to imagine myself in another situation, the reality of his body won out, as if it was so brutal, so total, that it made any attempt at imagination impossible. Can't do it? he asked and to buy time I said Shut the fuck up. I felt his body shudder under my fingers, he loved it.
* * *
I tried again, rubbed against him, on him, desperately, forcing myself to imagine another body in place of his body, another body under my body, or rather on my body, because I knew that was what usually turned me on. I concentrated, but the contact with his dry, cold skin brought me back to the truth and his presence. He started to sigh to show his impatience. I told you shut the fuck up and don't move, I repeated, but I knew it wouldn't work as well the second time. He wanted something else. I rubbed myself even harder against him but I knew I'd already lost, I'd lost from the start, today I look back and I think I knew that the moment I entered his room.
* * *
I thought of the money I needed, the shame the next day if I had to tell the dentist I couldn't pay him, the look in his eyes and the words he must have known by heart, Can I pay you next time, I'm sorry, I don't have my wallet, I forgot it, he'd have known I was lying and I'd have known he knew, and I thought of the shame this infinite game of mirrors would cause—it was as simple, as banal as that, that was why I was in this man's house, naked against him.
Excerpted from Change by Edouard Louis. Copyright © 2024 by Edouard Louis. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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