Chapter 8: The Bitter Fruit
The world came back in pieces.
First, the cold. A damp cloth moving over her brow. Then the low, threaded murmur of voices—tense, fractured. Finally, the deep ache between her legs, a throbbing reminder that pulled a soft groan from her lips.
Vanja opened her eyes. The sterile ceiling of Ragnar’s bedroom swam into focus. She was on the bed, a sheet pulled up to her chest. Ragnar sat on the edge, one large hand holding the cloth, his face unreadable. Erik stood by the window, his back to the room, a rigid silhouette against the distant Alps.
“There you are,” Ragnar said. His voice was quiet, stripped of its earlier fury.
She tried to sit up, a wave of dizziness forcing her back down. Her body felt hollowed out, sore in places she’d forgotten she had. The memory returned in a hot, shameful rush: Erik’s hands on her hips, Ragnar’s cock stuffing her mouth, the impossible, wrenching climax that had torn the consciousness from her.
“I…” Her throat was raw.
“Don’t talk.” Ragnar’s thumb stroked her temple. The gesture was unnervingly gentle. “You fainted. Just… lie still.”
From the window, Erik’s laugh was a dry, brittle thing. “Overdid it. Guess we forgot she’s in a delicate condition.” He turned, his eyes glittering with a complex, angry heat. He took a swig from a tumbler of whiskey. “How’s the mother of your child, Ragnar?”
Ragnar’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t look away from Vanja. “She’s fine.”
“Are you?” Vanja managed to whisper, looking at her brother. The possessiveness was still there, in the blue depths of his eyes, but it was banked now, smothered under a layer of something that looked like fear.
“I’m not the one who blacked out,” he said.
“Because of you. Both of you.”
Erik set his glass down on the steel console with a sharp click. “You came screaming, kjære. Don’t rewrite history. Your body’s just reminding you who it belongs to now.” He walked toward the bed, his movements loose with a predatory grace. “It’s going to be reminding you a lot, from what I understand. Hormones. Sensitivity.” He let his gaze travel over the sheet covering her. “Might be fun.”
Ragnar was on his feet in a fluid motion, placing himself between Erik and the bed. “Enough.”
“Enough? We just shared her. Now there’s a line?”
“There’s always been a line. You just keep fucking stepping over it.”
The air crackled. Vanja watched them, the two massive men circling each other in the cold room. She felt like a prize laid out on the bed, her value suddenly incalculable and precarious. The proof was in her womb, a tiny, dividing cluster of cells that had shifted the entire universe of their twisted dynamic.
Erik smiled, a cold slash of white. “The line moved, brother. It moved the second you put a baby in her. You think this ends with you holding her hand in a fucking clinic? This is forever. And forever is a long time for just one man to satisfy all that,” he said, nodding toward Vanja.
Ragnar’s fist clenched. “Get out.”
“Or what? You’ll throw me out? I’d like to see you try. I’ve seen your keeper stats. You’re slow off the line.”
It happened faster than Vanja could follow. Ragnar lunged, not with a punch, but by grabbing the front of Erik’s shirt and shoving him backwards into the frosted glass wall. The window shuddered.
“She is mine,” Ragnar growled, his forehead pressed to Erik’s. “The child is mine. You are a guest. A recurring fucking nightmare. Remember your place.”
Erik didn’t struggle. He just kept that icy smile. “My place,” he said calmly, “is wherever she is. You made sure of that. You let me in. You wanted a witness. Now you have one. You want to keep this pristine fairytale? Too late. It’s already rotten. And it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”
Ragnar released him with a shove. He turned back to the bed, his breath coming hard. The conflict on his face was terrifying—a war between the disciplined athlete and the primal, jealous beast.
Vanja pushed herself up on her elbows, the sheet pooling at her waist. The men’s eyes locked onto her, the argument forgotten in the sudden, naked exposure of her body. The marks from their hands were faint shadows on her skin. Her breasts felt heavier, sensitive.
“Stop,” she said, her voice stronger now. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the protest in her muscles. The cool air hit her skin, pebbling her nipples. She stood, letting the sheet fall completely, standing naked between them in the monolithic room. She saw the way their eyes darkened, the way their anger instantly sublimated into a different, more volatile heat.
“You want to claim me?” she said, looking from Ragnar to Erik. “Then claim me. But do it where I can see you. Where I can feel it. All this talking… it’s just noise.”
She walked, on unsteady legs, to the middle of the room. She turned to face Ragnar, then slowly got down on her knees. The polished concrete floor was cold and hard under her knees. She looked up at him, at the stunned hunger in his face.
“You first,” she whispered.
A low sound escaped Ragnar’s throat. He unfastened his trousers, his cock already hard and thick, jutting out angrily. He didn’t need guidance. He stepped forward, his hand tangling in her hair, not gentle, and guided himself to her lips.
“Open,” he commanded.
She did. He pushed in, the taste of him, of salt and skin, flooding her mouth. He wasn’t careful. He fed his length into her throat, her eyes watering instantly. She gagged, the reflex sharp, and he held her there, his fingers tight in her hair.
“Take it,” he muttered, his hips pumping shallowly. “Take all of it. You’re gonna learn to swallow everything I give you.”
Over his shoulder, she saw Erik watching. He had taken his cock out too, stroking himself with a lazy, possessive rhythm, his eyes glued to where Ragnar was fucking her face.
Vanja reached a hand behind her, beckoning Erik with a curl of her fingers.
He was on her in seconds. He dropped to his knees behind her, his hands sliding around her waist to cup her heavy breasts, pinching her nipples hard. She cried out around Ragnar’s cock, the sound muffled, vibrating.
“Eager little whore,” Erik breathed into her ear. He spat into his hand, rubbed the wetness roughly over her entrance, and without any further preparation, he drove into her from behind.
The stretch was brutal, exquisite. She was still slick and loose from earlier, but he was big, and he filled her with a single, relentless thrust that stole her breath. She convulsed around him, a shocked, silent scream.
Now she was pinned between them. Ragnar fucking her mouth, Erik pounding into her cunt, the rhythm discordant and devastating. The room filled with the sounds of skin slapping, ragged breath, and the wet, obscene noise of penetration.
Ragnar looked down at her, his blue eyes blazing. “Look at you,” he grunted, his pace increasing. “My perfect, filthy girl. Carrying my child. Taking two cocks like it’s what you were made for.”
Erik’s fingers dug into the flesh of her hips, sure to leave bruises. “She was,” he grunted, his thrusts going deeper, harder. “Feel that, Ragnar? Feel how tight she is? She’s clutching me like a fucking vise. Your pregnant little sister loves it.”
Vanja’s mind fragmented. The dual invasion was overwhelming, a feedback loop of pleasure and submission. Her own arousal dripped down her thighs. Her orgasm began to coil again, low and deep, a live wire in her belly, sparked by the sheer, degrading fullness.
Ragnar’s movements grew erratic. “Gonna come,” he warned, his voice thick.
He pulled out of her mouth, his cock glistening with her saliva. He stroked himself roughly, and with a harsh groan, hot stripes of come painted her face—her cheeks, her chin, her forehead. The smell of it, musky and intimate, filled her nostrils.
The sight of her marked like that sent Erik over the edge. He slammed into her one last time, buried to the hilt, and roared as he came inside her, his body shuddering against her back, filling her with a second, claiming heat.
The violence of his release triggered hers. Vanja’s body bowed, a silent, seismic wave crashing through her. It wracked her, milking Erik’s cock inside her, her cunt pulsing around him in endless, draining spasms that left her trembling and weak.
For a long moment, the only sound was their panting.
Erik pulled out slowly. He stood, tucking himself away, his expression unreadable once more.
Ragnar, still breathing heavily, sank to his knees in front of Vanja. He took the damp cloth from earlier and, with a tenderness that was devastating, began to wipe his own come from her face.
She looked into his eyes, saw the storm there—love, hatred, fear, possession.
“Mine,” he whispered, a benediction and a curse.
Erik, from the doorway, lit a cigarette. The smoke curled into the sterile air. “See you at the scan, then,” he said, his tone casual, as if commenting on the weather. He walked out.
Ragnar gathered Vanja into his arms, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, and carried her to the bathroom. He turned on the shower, the steam rising fast. He held her under the hot spray, washing her, his hands everywhere, as if trying to cleanse a stain he knew was permanent.
She leaned her head against his chest, listening to the frantic beat of his heart. The water ran over them, but she knew some things wouldn’t wash off. The seed. The claim. The future, growing deep inside her, binding them all in a dark, inescapable knot.
He buried his face in her wet hair. “I’ll fix this,” he murmured, but it sounded like a prayer, not a promise.
Vanja closed her eyes. She didn’t believe in prayers anymore. Only in consequences. And hers were just beginning.
And hers were just beginning.
And hers were just beginning.
The flight to Oslo was a study in silence. Her father, Lars, sat beside her in the business class cabin, his newspaper rigid in his hands. He hadn’t mentioned the phone call from Ragnar, the one she’d overheard with its terse, clipped warnings about her “stress.” He simply said Mum needed to see her, that it was time. The facade was his idea, a performance for her mother’s brittle peace. Vanja stared out at the clouds, her hand resting on her still-flat stomach, feeling the ghost of Erik’s finish inside her, a secret stain beneath her clothes.
The family home in Vinderen was a monument to Nordic order. Light wood floors, white walls, everything in its place. Her mother, Anna, hugged her tightly, her eyes searching Vanja’s face for signs of the London weariness they’d invented. “You look pale, darling,” she said, her voice laced with a concern that stung. “University is too much. You need good food, quiet.”
Dinner was grilled salmon and potatoes. The conversation was a minefield. Her mother asked about her research. Her father talked about the shipping business. Vanja mechanically recited lies about library archives and kind supervisors. Lars watched her over the rim of his water glass, his gaze steady, approving the performance. She felt like a doll he was positioning on a shelf.
Later, she stood on the deck, the Oslo fjord a black mirror below. The cold air bit through her sweater. She heard the sliding door open and close behind her. He didn’t speak at first, just stood beside her, a larger, older shadow. He offered her a cigarette. She took it, let him light it. The shared ritual was more intimate than a touch.
“You did well in there,” he said finally, his voice a low rumble.
“I’m a good liar. It’s a family trait.”
He didn’t laugh. The silence stretched, filled with everything they weren’t saying—the marks on her skin, the child in her womb, the men who’d put them there. “This thing… with the baby,” he began, then stopped.
“Don’t,” she whispered, the word lost in smoke. “Just don’t.”
He turned to face her. In the moonlight, he looked like a harder, grayer version of Ragnar. The same stubborn jaw, the same possessive set to the shoulders. “I am your father. I have a right to worry.”
“You lost the right to worry when you started wanting,” she said, looking directly at him.
His breath caught. The truth, named aloud here in the respectable cold, hummed between them. She saw the conflict in his eyes—the decent man recoiling, the other man, the one he kept locked in the dark, leaning forward.
She dropped the cigarette, crushed it under her heel. “I’m staying in the guesthouse. The silence in the main house is… loud.”
She walked away, feeling his eyes on her back all the way across the manicured lawn.
The guesthouse was a single room, all pine and wool. She didn’t turn on the main light, just a small lamp by the bed. She poured a finger of the aquavit she found in the cabinet, drank it fast, feeling the fire bloom in her gut. She was so tired of being a thing fought over. Here, now, she would be the one who took.
She heard the soft click of the door. She didn’t turn. She stood by the bed, pulling her sweater over her head, letting it fall. She unbuttoned her jeans, pushed them and her underwear down her hips in one slow movement, stepping out of them. The cool air raised goosebumps on her naked skin.
She heard his sharp intake of breath from the doorway.
“Lock the door, Daddy,” she said, her back still to him.
The click of the lock was definitive. She finally turned. He was still by the door, his coat on, his keys in his hand. He looked ravaged. “Vanja… this is…”
“What? Wrong?” She walked toward him, her movements fluid, confident. She stopped a foot away, close enough for him to smell the alcohol on her breath, the scent of her skin. “You didn’t think it was wrong in Munich. In my flat. You shoved your tongue so far inside me I could taste you for days.”
A low groan broke from him. His keys hit the floor.
“You’ve been looking at me all night. Watching my mouth. Remembering how I used it on you.” She reached for his belt, her fingers deft. “You want to pretend this is about worry? Fine. Worry about this.” She unzipped his trousers, freed his cock. It was already fully hard, thick and heavy in her hand. “Worry about how much I need it.”
“Jesus Christ,” he choked out.
She dropped to her knees on the wooden floor. She didn’t tease him. She took the head into her mouth, swirled her tongue around the crown, then sank down, taking him deep into her throat in one practiced, wet slide. He cried out, his hands flying to her head, not to guide but to clutch.
“Fuck… your mouth… just like that,” he babbled, his hips pushing forward.
She gagged sloppily, letting spit drip down his shaft, coating him. She pulled off with a wet pop. “You like that? You like your daughter’s dirty mouth?”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, even as he thrust toward her lips again.
“Why?” She licked a broad stripe from his balls to his tip. “It’s what you are. It’s what I am. Tell me you want it.”
He was shaking. “I want it.”
“Say it properly.”
He looked down at her, his face a mask of pained ecstasy. “I want my daughter’s fucking mouth.”
She took him back in, sucking him hard and deep, her head bobbing ruthlessly. He was panting, a litany of curses and encouragements falling from his lips. She could feel his thighs tense, the telltale pulse at the root. He was close.
She pulled off again, leaving him glistening and throbbing. She stood up, turned, and bent over the edge of the narrow bed, presenting herself to him. The cool air hit her most intimate flesh. “Then take it. All of it. No condom. I’m already ruined, remember? I’m already full of someone else’s bastard.” The words were vicious, a weapon she used on them both.
He didn’t hesitate. He moved behind her, his hands rough on her hips. He spat into his palm, slicked himself, and positioned his blunt head at her entrance. “You’re a wicked girl,” he breathed, and shoved himself inside to the hilt.
The fullness was shocking, familiar. He was bigger than Ragnar, thicker. He didn’t start slow. He set a brutal, immediate pace, each deep drive punching a ragged moan from her lungs. The bed frame slapped against the wall.
“Is this what you needed?” he grunted, his fingers digging into her flesh. “This what you came here for? Your father’s cock?”
“Yes!” she screamed into the quilt. “God, yes! Fuck me, Daddy! Fuck me filthy!”
Her permission shattered his last restraint. He hammered into her, the sound of their joining obscenely wet in the quiet room. One hand snaked around her hip, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing rough, frantic circles. “You come for me,” he demanded. “You come on your father’s dick. Let me feel it.”
The dual assault was too much. The coil, perpetually taut these last weeks, snapped. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and consuming, her cunt clamping down on his invading length in rhythmic, milking spasms. She wailed, the sound muffled by the bedding.
Her climax triggered his. With a guttural roar, he plunged deep and stilled, pumping his release into her in hot, endless jets. She felt it, the intimate flood, another claim added to the chaotic mix already inside her. He collapsed over her back, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his breath hot on her neck.
They stayed like that, joined, for a long time. The world outside—the respectable house, her unaware mother, the distant city lights—ceased to exist. There was only this sweat-slicked, shameful truth.
Eventually, he softened and slipped out of her. He rolled onto his side beside her on the narrow bed, not letting her go. His arm was heavy across her waist. He was staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling.
Vanja felt the slow, hot trickle of his spend leaking from her onto the sheet. A marker. Another one.
“I can’t fix this for you,” he said, his voice raw. “What they’ve done. What I’ve done.”
She turned her face into the pillow. She didn’t want it fixed. She just wanted, for a moment, to be the one who chose the ruin. The emptiness that followed the pleasure was vast, and cold, and entirely her own.
The emptiness that followed the pleasure was vast, and cold, and entirely her own. His weight finally shifted off the bed, the springs groaning in relief. She heard the rustle of clothing, the soft snick of his belt buckle. She didn’t watch him dress. The fjord’s black water through the window seemed to swallow the light.
“You’ll fly back tomorrow,” he said, his voice now flat, administrative. “Your mother believes you’re rested. That’s enough.”
Vanja pushed up on her elbows. The evidence of him was sticky on her inner thighs. “And what do you believe?”
He paused at the door, a silhouette reclaiming its armor. “I believe you’re a problem that’s been made exponentially worse.” He left, closing the door with a quiet, final sound. She was alone with the scent of sex and aquavit and pine.
Munheim’s gray austerity felt like a refuge after the performative warmth of Oslo. Ragnar was at a training camp. The silence in the penthouse was profound, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the distant wail of city traffic seven stories below. She slept for fourteen hours straight. When she woke, the first fluttering nausea found her, a gentle, insistent reminder anchored deep in her gut.
She stood under the shower for a long time, the water scalding. Her skin was a map of fading evidence: the faint yellows of Erik’s grip on her hips, a barely-there bruise on her breast from her father’s mouth. She scrubbed until her skin was pink and raw, but the memories were sediment in her bones. The phone rang as she was making tea. An unknown Munich number.
“Yes?”
“It’s Dr. Berger’s office. Confirming your ultrasound appointment for tomorrow at ten.” The woman’s voice was crisp, professional.
Vanja’s hand went to her stomach. “Thank you.”
“Your husband will be joining you?”
She stared at the concrete expanse of the balcony. “My brother will.”
A slight pause. “Very good. See you then.”
She ended the call. The word ‘husband’ hung in the air, absurd and grotesque. The tea tasted like nothing. She wandered into Ragnar’s room, the site of so many negotiations of flesh and power. His scent was everywhere. She pulled one of his training shirts from a drawer, a thin gray thing stretched from his shoulders, and put it on. It drowned her.
The key turned in the front door just after midnight. She was on the sofa, watching the blue glow of a muted football match. He dropped his duffel by the door, his frame filling the entryway. He looked tired, his bright hair dark with damp from the rain.
“You’re back early,” she said.
“Canceled the team dinner.” His eyes tracked over her, lingering on the shirt she wore. His shirt. A simple claim. “How was Oslo?”
“Quiet. Mother sends her love.”
He walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out a beer. The cap hissed off. He drank half of it in one long pull, his throat working. “And your father?”
“He believes I’m a problem that’s been made exponentially worse.” She echoed the words precisely, watching him.
Ragnar’s knuckles whitened around the bottle. “He’s right.” He set the beer down with a hard click. “The appointment is tomorrow.”
“I know. They called.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I told them you would be.”
He moved then, a predator’s fluid stride. He loomed over the sofa, casting her in his shadow. The game flickered silently across his face. “What did he do to you there?”
She didn’t look away. “What do you think he did?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He leaned down, bracing his hands on the back of the sofa, caging her. His breath smelled of hops and cold air. “Did he touch you?”
“He’s my father. He’s touched me my whole life.”
“Don’t.” His voice dropped to a graveled whisper. “Don’t play semantic games with me, Vanja. Not about this. Did he fuck you?”
She held his blazing gaze. The truth felt like a weapon she could turn on herself, on him, on all of them. “Yes.”
The word landed between them like a physical blow. Ragnar recoiled as if struck. He straightened up, running a hand over his face. A raw, wounded sound escaped him. It was the most vulnerable thing she’d ever heard from him. “In our house? With our mother… there?”
“In the guesthouse. He came to me.” She found a strange, cold power in the narration. “I was on my knees. I asked for it. I wanted to feel ruined by someone I was supposed to trust.”
He turned and drove his fist into the steel refrigerator door. The dent was deep, a sudden crater in the smooth surface. He didn’t seem to feel it. “Why? For Christ’s sake, why?”
“Because you and Erik made me a battleground!” She shot to her feet, the shirt falling off one shoulder. “You filled me up with your hate and your come and your goddamn baby and I just… I needed to choose the damage for once. I needed it to be my hand on the knife.” Her voice broke. The anger melted into a terrifying hollowness. “It didn’t help. It just made me emptier.”
He was across the room in two strides. His hands, the ones that could delicately control a football or brutally reshape steel, framed her face. They were trembling. “Look at me.” She did. His eyes were ocean-deep with pain and a fury that had no clear target. “You are not ruined. You are mine. This,” his hand slid down, splaying over her stomach, “is mine. Whatever he took, whatever Erik took, I will overwrite it. Do you understand? Cell by fucking cell.”
It wasn’t comfort. It was a vow, violent and absolute. He kissed her then, not with passion but with possession, his mouth sealing the promise to hers. It tasted like desperation and beer. She didn’t resist. She opened for him, letting him plunder, because his ruin, at least, was a familiar country.
He broke the kiss, breathing harshly. “Tomorrow they’ll put gel on your stomach and show us a heartbeat. And you will understand what this is. What we are.”
He picked her up, carrying her towards the bedroom. His steps were purposeful. The shirt was ripped from her body, the thin cotton yielding without protest. He laid her on the cold, dark sheets and stripped himself, his body a landscape of disciplined muscle under the low light. He was fully, aggressively erect.
“This isn’t for pleasure,” he said, his voice low. He pushed her legs apart, his calloused thumbs digging into the soft skin of her inner thighs. “This is a reclamation.”
He didn’t wait for her to be ready. He spat into his hand, slicked himself, and positioned the broad, flushed head of his cock at her entrance. She was dry. He pressed forward anyway, the burn immediate, a sharp, tearing insistence. She gasped, her back arching off the bed.
“Take it,” he growled, pushing another relentless inch. “You let him in here. You’ll take me. However I give it to you.”
The friction was brutal, almost unbearable. Her body clenched in protest, which only made the stretch more intense. He leaned down, capturing her mouth again, swallowing her pained cries. He bit her lower lip, hard enough to taste blood. The metallic tang mixed with the salt of sweat.
He finally slid home, fully sheathed in her tight, resisting passage. They both stilled for a moment, joined in a painful, perfect fullness. A single tear escaped the corner of her eye, tracking into her hairline. He licked it away.
“Mine,” he whispered against her skin. Then he began to move.
It was a punishing rhythm, deep and hard, each thrust a deliberate claim. The slickness came slowly, from pain and raw friction and the body’s reluctant surrender. The sound was obscenely wet, a rhythmic slap of skin that echoed off the minimalist walls. He fucked her with a focused, ruthless intensity, his eyes locked on where their bodies joined, watching himself disappear into her again and again.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his pace unforgiving. “You feel me in your guts, Vanja? I’m fucking his memory out. I’m fucking Erik’s ghost out. There’s only me. There will only ever be me.”
His words were as violent as his hips. She felt herself fragmenting, the pain transmuting into a shocking, shameful spike of pleasure. Her body was betraying her, welcoming the invasion, clenching around him in perverse gratitude. She wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into the hard muscles of his ass, pulling him deeper.
“Say it,” he demanded, his hand sliding between them to rub her clit with a rough, circular pressure. The sensation was too much, a direct line to the core of her. “Say whose cunt this is.”
“Yours!” The word was ripped from her. “It’s yours, Ragnar, god, please…”
“Please what?”
“Please don’t stop. Fuck me. Make it so I can’t remember anyone else.”
Her permission unleashed something feral in him. He shifted, hauling her hips higher, driving into her at a new, devastating angle. The head of his cock battered a place inside her that sparked white behind her eyelids. She was screaming, a continuous, ragged sound she didn’t recognize as her own voice. The coil, perpetually wound, snapped with catastrophic force.
Her orgasm was a seizure of pleasure, a tidal wave that wiped everything clean—the guilt, the shame, the empty cold. She convulsed around him, her cunt milking his length in frantic, rhythmic pulses. It was too intense, bordering on pain, and she sobbed through it, her nails raking down his back.
The feel of her clenching around him tore his control away. With a shattered groan, he plunged deep and held, his own release pouring into her in hot, endless spurts. He collapsed on top of her, his full weight pinning her to the mattress, his face buried in her neck. They were both shaking, slick with sweat, utterly spent.
THEY FUCK AGAIN, AS the dawn bleeds gray at the edges of the blinds. This time it is slow, a grinding, somber calculus of movement in the half-light. He turns her onto her side, folding himself against her back, his arm a heavy band across her ribs. He enters her from behind, a slow, thick invasion into her sore, tender flesh.
She makes a small, hurt sound. He stills, his mouth on her shoulder. “I know,” he murmurs, the word an apology and an absolution. He doesn’t pull out. He begins to move again, a gentle, deep rocking that is less about taking and more about presence. It’s a whisper of possession, a melancholic sealing of the pact.
Her hand finds his where it rests on her stomach, their fingers lacing together over the unseen, dividing future. He comes inside her quietly, with a shudder that is more sigh than roar, a final, solemn claim. They lie like that, still joined, as the room fills with the slow, cold light of morning, and the city wakes up below them, oblivious.