They were beyond the present, outside time, with no memories and no future. There was nothing but obliterating sensation, thrilling and swelling, and the sound of fabric on fabric and skin on fabric as their limbs slid across each other in this restless, sensuous wrestling. ... They moved closer, deeper and then, for seconds on end, everything stopped. Instead of an ecstatic frenzy, there was stillness. They were stilled not by the astonishing fact of arrival, but by an awed sense of return - they were face to face in the gloom, staring into what little they could see of each other's eyes, and now it was the impersonal that dropped away.
In this passage from "Atonement," the characters experience a transcendent connection that takes them beyond the constraints of time and memory. They are enveloped in a thrilling interplay of sensations, lost in the physicality of their touch, which ignites a sense of intimacy and urgency. This moment of wrestling is marked by an overwhelming presence that blurs the lines between their current existence and the outside world.
As they draw nearer,...
