OLGA AND I brushed our teeth in front of the bathroom mirror. It was she who followed me once Helena had gone inside, lain down, crashed. I made space for her next to me at the sink, a familiar gesture I associated with my previous romantic relationships, a life lived side by side, the space you make for the other and the space they make for you when you reach for something, pass each other, spit past each other; it was an unfamiliar gesture because it was her and I’d never been so close to her in the night. I watched her in the mirror and her reflection gazed back, the black eyes, the woolly eyebrows, the wide mouth full of foam. She brushed hard so I brushed harder, until the toothbrush hit my soft insides, jaw tense and rigid.

I was fatigued. I felt desire make its return from the day. More palpable now, purer, stronger and more dangerous, no longer dismissible; it was no longer possible to conceive of not acting on it. I saw a possibility. But I had to be cautious. I sensed the ecstatic feeling of anticipation, the certainty and hesitation of my movements; I sensed my toeing the line. Close to the underworld. I reined in my movements, made them smaller, slower.

Olga spat, a string of blood in the foam. I spat. The light in the bathroom whirred and quivered and made it look like she was trembling as she turned the faucet and everything drained in a gurgling spiral.

We merged in the mirror. When I looked at her it was as if I saw myself. When I kissed her I liberated her from something: her childhood, her mother.