After having sex with Marzia, Elio feels fulfilled and hopes that he no longer has a desire for Oliver. But this feeling disperses quickly, and Elio leaves a note under Oliver’s door, asking to speak with him. Oliver responds with his own note instructing Elio to meet him at midnight. Elio spends the day wondering if this is the night his life will change. He meets Oliver in his room at midnight. They hug, then kiss, then undress one another and have sex. During sex, Oliver instructs Elio to call him by his own name (Elio). Afterward, they sneak out of the house to wash themselves in the ocean. Elio feels ashamed and sickened by what happened, though he isn’t sure why. Oliver performs oral sex on Elio, bringing Elio back to his desire for Oliver and his happiness at their physical intimacy. That day, Oliver wears Elio’s swim trunks, which turns Elio on. Elio discovers that attraction is like a:

secret conduit to myself—like a catalyst that allows us to become who we are, the foreign body, the pacer, the graft, the patch that sends all the right impulses, the steel pin that keeps a soldier’s bone together, the other man’s heart that makes us more us than we were before the transplant.