Ecstasy, any drug, is two things: The inside and the outside. On the inside, things are good but on the outside it just looks lonelier than ever. Being sober with someone on drugs is a sobering and lonely experience. It is very sad, even though they are so very happy.

"Where do you think we go? I mean, when we go, Lenny, where do you think we go?"

He thinks it's drug talk; he thinks it's casual meandering, big-sky thinking. It's not. She's petting a dog she can't look at most days. Today it has a British accent. Lenny's answer is drug talk, casual meandering. "I mean, I think that the energy just stays in the earth, in the air. Energy... It can't be destroyed, so I think we become a part of everything."

She doesn't hear drug talk. She hears the truth she's been trying to hear. Andrea, consuming the world, consumed by passion, part of it: Not locked inside it, like Cathy thought, but alive with it. Sean, smeared with the world, neither energy nor matter but something free, something both. Paul, bringing the sand into her living room. She spent so long feeling like a part of nothing, apart from everything. Cancer was the proof. This is better.

"God, the answer is so obvious." She stands, looks up into the moon; she is beautiful and he sees it, the way she suddenly shines. "I'm not afraid anymore," she smiles. It's a party she was already invited to. "Death. Sharks. Anything." Not even big cats, he asks? Not even lions? No. They're a part of nature too, just as she always suspected. Off comes her shirt. He kisses her stomach, in the night.

Paul hears the music but doesn't think about it; he shouts into the house. "Got my suit! Forgot my tie! Maybe I'll get the one you gave me for our anniversary! Eh, maybe I'll shred that one and get another one..."

Out on the deck, he sees them. Without the narrative, the drugs and the escape and the oneness of all nature, their passion seems outsized, scary, devouring. They love the touch of one another's skin, tonight more than ever. But without the drugs, without knowing about the drugs, they just look intoxicated on each other. It makes it so much worse. It makes so much more sense.

Sean and Marlene, on the date with Earl. They trade opening jokes about the food, their age -- "I'd go for the corn on the cob, but I didn't bring my good teeth," he says; "If I'd known they were gonna bring us all this bread, I would have brought my big purse," she replies -- and Sean smiles. He knew this would go well. They're the same. Not because of how old they are, but how young.