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Starting from etymology, the authors address crime insofar as it seeks to deny separation. It may be considered as the ultimate temptation, in some subjects, to resolve the threat aroused by the disappearance of a narcissistically cathected object where there is a blurring between internal and external worlds. They illustrate this analysis by presenting a Maupassant short story about a sexual crime and then a sado-masochistically imbued relationship of a couple in therapy, then finally a transference-countertransference relationship in a classical analytic setting. The driving force of this relationship, just like romantic rapture, represents the exact opposite of the attempt to destroy the otherness that characteriszes crime.