" Natürlich. " He was so funny. She’d gotten used to him in very short order. Having sex with Ulrich was just like losing her virginity. She’d felt just the same mild disdain for the man involved and the same triumphant secret sense of having finally annihilated her childhood. Sex was like sleeping, only better exercise and more fun. It was something you did when you felt like jumbled-up blocks inside. It obliterated loneliness and when you came to on the far side of the experience there was a new sense of ease. Every time they had sex together, she came out of it feeling that much more settled inside her own skin. They’d been together three days so far and it had happened about ten times. Like ten pitons driven into a cliff, climbing high above everything that was old and Mia.