Robert
Girardi

It is a little strange making love to her now.  Sex in our youth had innocence, but it was also clumsy.  Now the innocence has been wiped away by too much experience.  Her body moves knowingly beneath my fingers; she adjusts herself to the right angle; she bids me wait for the moment.  Perhaps what was lost in sweetness is made up in pleasure.  Is this worse, better?  I can’t say.  We are no longer the same people.  As a youth, despite what I thought, it was not possible to fuck.  It would have broken our young hearts.  Now it is difficult not to.

Madeleine's Ghost p. 223