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Jude meets the man who will become his first romantic partner through their mutual friend Lucien. Caleb Porter is a high-powered businessman who immediately expresses interest in Jude. Caleb is confident and assertive, and he takes the lead in pursuing Jude. Although Jude is hesitant to engage in sex and romance after his abusive childhood, he allows Caleb into his life due to his loneliness and low self-confidence, as he believes he is unattractive and may never be given another chance at partnership. Caleb’s assertiveness almost immediately escalates to emotional abuse. Caleb is disturbed and disgusted by Jude’s disability, which requires him to use a wheelchair on occasion, and Caleb demands that Jude never use the wheelchair in his presence. This request raises red flags for Jude, but when Caleb later explains that his discomfort with Jude’s disability stems from years of watching his parents’ physical decline due to their own disabilities and illnesses, Jude is willing to extend sympathy and understanding to Caleb. However, it is clear that Caleb does not see Jude’s or his parents’ disabilities as real or valid. Rather, Caleb perceives physical disabilities as a sign of intellectual weakness and laziness. For Caleb, possessing a disability is a moral failing, and to allow Jude or his parents to use aids and devices designed to make life easier is to enable or encourage this moral failing.
Caleb’s mindset is not only disrespectful and delusional, it is incredibly dangerous. Jude feels obligated to live without his necessary, pain-reducing aids, and Caleb’s disgust with disability leads him to dehumanize and abuse Jude. Caleb confirms all of Jude’s worst fears about himself: that he is worthless, revolting, and shameful. Caleb’s emotional, sexual, and physical abuse of Jude is so severe that he not only nearly kills Jude during an altercation, but also damages Jude’s self-worth to the point that much of Jude’s prior healing is destroyed. Although Jude and Caleb’s relationship is relatively short-lived, Harold believes it is the event that cemented Jude’s tragic fate. Jude is never able to fully recover from the trauma of Caleb’s abuse.
