She felt wicked then, she kept laughing, because it was her one sacred truth, that she revelled in her pain. She felt it bulge in her throat, as if she were spitting up a gag. It climaxed there, all at once, choking her. It was horrible and absurd and she felt she might be damned for not feeling scared of such things.
When she finally stopped laughing, she looked back at him, terrifed and aroused. She was excited by her fear in him. He leaned in too closely, breathed in her face so she could feel the moisture build up on her skin, whispered in her ear, and all she could feel was his dominance over her. He could take everything away from her and it would mean nothing, and she would love him for it, because he was the realization of all her fears. He was the Nightmare, the self-fulfilling dream.
He embraced his darkness without feeling weighed down by it. It was natural, there was no anger in it. He was at once an angel, because even in his wickedness, he was innocent.
"Out of every position one may have adopted, out of every finitude, we are expelled; we are set whirling when reason suffers shipwreck," he said. "All things contain this secret abyss."
She looked up at him sweetly, even shyly, then. "I am out in the storm right now. There is a hurricane and I'm hanging onto a tree with the illusion of permanence. The chaos is everywhere, inside and out, the uncertainty, the doubt, I spiral inwards with it and it seems there is no way out, it never ends. The solidarity of the tree is a dream. But how do you accept, how do you let go, how do you be so naked and vulnerable without dying?"
"That is the tragedy," he said. "Truth is like an exotic insect: it has a short lifespan. The instant after it is given life and freedom, it dies. But how encompassing, how saturated that moment is! One could not bear it for longer than that, they would burst."