Later, when Nikolett was asleep, Zoltán lay awake. He had the sense that things were going irreversibly wrong. What was happening now was only the ultimate expression of the nature of their relationship. They both earned money, but the girl earned more. She managed their affairs, took care of the bills and contracts. She was the one to define the direction of their lives. She would also be the one who decided how to spend the savings. Of course she would leave some room for Zoltán’s ideas as well, to make it look like he had a say in things, but the important decisions would be up to her. Tonight the girl demonstrated her physical dominance as well. The only question was whether the boy would accept it.

As a man, his answer was supposed to be an absolute no. A man should piss all around his territory. A man should rule, and rule alone in this extra comfortable two-room rental, as well as in the life attached to it. If that wasn’t possible, he would have to end this life, break up with the girl and start fresh with a new one, one who was more submissive to a man’s needs.

He also knew that the times when men thought this way about themselves were long gone. He wasn’t a ruler in this flat; he wasn’t a hunter in the jungle. He and she were equals, even though that equality had been upset tonight.

Of course, he could look at it from a different angle. What if Nikolett was sick, in need of some sort of help? No matter how you looked at it, biting dogs was a habit that wasn’t widely accepted in society, therefore it could very well be considered a pathological condition. Maybe with some therapy she could be made to give up this new habit, and a new kind of balance could be reached in their relationship, a balance where Zoltán could finally be dominant. But again it meant that when a woman dominated a man it was a sort of sickness to be cured. Zoltán, on an intellectual level, disapproved of the notion, but at the same time, deep down, he agreed with it.

What if one of these nights Nikolett gets caught biting a dog, he asked himself. She would definitely be prosecuted for vandalism or animal abuse or both. In any case, this life would be over, only in a more humiliating manner than if Zoltán walked away right now.

He thought back to the honey-colored Sundays, the Prosecco from Aldi, the extra comfort, and his heart ached with grief. How could he just walk away from all that?

He curled into a fetal position in the bed and fell asleep.

In the morning they didn’t talk about it. Nikolett put on her mask and left for work. Zoltán switched on his computer because a call was starting in half an hour.

At night, Nikolett went running again.