Trích đoạn: Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman.

Call Me by Your Name (2017)

❁ This, the afternoon he did finally walk into my room without knocking as if summoned by my prayers and asked how come I wasn't with the others at the beach, and all I could think of saying, though I couldn't bring myself to say it, was, To be with you. To be with you, Oliver. With or without my bathing suit. To be with you on my bed. In your bed. Which is my bed during the other months of the year? Do with me what you want. Take me. Just ask if I want to and see the answer you'll get, just don't let me say no.

❁ ...I'd be willing to yield if you pushed, that I'd already yielded, was yours, all yours, except that you were suddenly gone...

❁ 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.

❁ Just be quiet, say nothing, and if you can't say "yes," don't say "no," say "later." Is this why people say "maybe" when they mean "yes," but hope you'll think it's "no" when all they really mean is, Please, just ask me once more, and once more after that?

❁ I wanted to hear his window open, hear his espadrilles on the balcony, and then the sound of my own window, which was never locked, being pushed open as he'd step into my room after everyone had gone to bed, slip under my covers, undress me without asking, and after making me want him more than I thought I could ever want another living soul, gently, softly, and, with the kindness one Jew extends to another, work his way into my body, gently and softly, after heeding the words I'd been rehearsing for days now, Please, don't hurt me, which meant, Hurt me all you want.

❁ How I loved the way he repeated what I myself had just repeated. It made me think of a caress, or of a gesture, which happens to be totally accidental the first time but becomes intentional the second time and more so yet the third.

❁ Let summer never end, let him never go away, let the music on perpetual replay play forever, I'm asking for very little, and I swear I'll ask for nothing more.

❁ As I sat there working on transcriptions at my round table in the morning, what I would have settled for was not his friendship, not anything. Just to look up and find him there, suntan lotion, straw hat, red bathing suit, lemonade. To look up and find you there, Oliver. For the day will come soon enough when I'll look up and you'll no longer be there.

❁ 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.

❁ ...let him know, let him see, let him pass judgment to if he wants - just don't tell the world - even if you're the world for me right now...

❁ It never occurred to me that I had brought him here not just to show him my little world, but to ask my little world to let him in, so that the place where I came to be alone on summer afternoons would get to know him, judge him, see if he fitted in, take him in, so that I might come back here and remember.

❁ Now, in the silence of the moment, I stared back, not to defy him, or to show I wasn't shy any longer, but to surrender...

❁ The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life.

❁ Every time I go back to Rome, I go back to that one spot. It is still alive for me, still resounds with something totally present, as though a heart stolen from a tale by Poe still throbbed under the ancient stale pavement to remind me that, here, I had finally encountered the life that was right for me but had failed to have.

❁ We belonged to each other, but had lived so far apart that we belonged to others now.

❁ Sunspots, I thought, and I couldn't put the thought away. "What are these?" I asked, pointing at his hand and then touching it. "I have them all over." Sunspots. They broke my heart, and I wanted to kiss each and every one away.

❁ You are the only person I'd like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist.

❁ I was going to walk him outside the hotel lobby and then stand and watch him go. Any moment now we were going to say goodbye. Suddenly part of my life was going to be taken away from me now and would never be given back.

❁ We had found the stars, you and I. And this is given once only.

Latin word: Cor Cordium - heart of hearts (i.e., the innermost part of one's heart, the most secret one knows, the most beloved people one loves, etc.)