[...] He can come with any woman and it will feel pretty much the same, she already knows that. It is like that for everyone, she already knows that too. Except it is not like that for Ida, but she doesn’t say so. No one must know what it is like for her. He must not know how alone she is. They drink. That helps. Soon they laugh it off. We learn, we grow, they tell each other. We’re pioneers, rule-breakers, we embrace the darkness and we learn, we grow, they tell themselves and each other, we seek knowledge all the time. Anyone afraid to tremble is a coward, they say. But they are not cowards and that is why they are trembling now.

Do you feel freer now? No. More intimate? Perhaps it glues them together. They suture their bodies together with a sharp needle. They get to know each other’s bodies better, each other’s desires and responses. They look deeply into each other, they learn as much as is possible, they watch each other with strangers, in ever new situations, anything you can imagine, isn’t that a good thing? His hand cupping another woman’s breast. As it has cupped countless women’s breasts, also while they have been together. That is just how real life is. It is just the real world.