But magic is sometimes all about knowing where the secret door is, and how to open it. With that, you’re gone - Michael Cunningham

It's the solitude that slays you. Maybe because you'd expected ruin to arrive in a grander and more romantic form.

It's impossible to imagine, isn't it? Most men probably go through the same motions, more or less, but what's in their minds, what agitates their blood? What could be more mortifyingly personal, what veers closer to the depths, than whatever it is that makes us come? If we knew, if we could see what's in the cartoon balloons over other guy's heads as they jerk off, would we be moved, or repelled?

He's filled with a sense of childish release, the old feeling that because you are sick, all your trials and obligations have been suspended.