The Body Was the Same. But Simon Was Not
“Because the body was the same.” He undresses the wet, unconscious Simon and for the first time sees this body without movement or fear — and the whole map: a contusion “the size and shape of a shoe sole,” older stains along his side, the mark of the IV. “How could anyone hit him at all? Where could you even hit? Everything here went straight through him.” A second of irritation in a corridor lies before him “as an enormous dark stain.” Pity rises first — and after it, “sudden and inappropriate,” desire.
And here is the moment the scene was written for: “the body was the same. But Simon was not.” Now he is not looking, cannot push the hand away, cannot say anything if he dislikes the touch. Jacob catches his own breathing changing, sees the bruise beneath his own palm — “this was what all that desire had achieved. Not closeness. Bruises.” — and snatches his hand away, “as if from a hot stove.” It is the first boundary he draws himself, with no witnesses and no one else’s “no.” Pity and desire are “grotesquely locked together” and have not gone anywhere; but for the first time a third thing stands between them — the understanding that consent is possible only for someone who can refuse.
