by Lars Kepler
She remembers one man with worried eyes who dressed up in his mother’s underwear and wanted her to kick him in the crotch. He paid for her to pee on him as he lay on the floor crying in pain, but she couldn’t do it. She just grabbed the money and ran.
‘People get turned on by all sorts of things,’ Wille says with an embarrassed smile. ‘Obviously you can’t force anyone … I mean, you have to pay for some things. I’m not expecting you to actually enjoy what you do.’
‘It depends, but I do sometimes enjoy it if the man’s gentle,’ she lies.
Naturally Sofia promises full discretion in her ad, but she still has one safety measure as a precaution. She keeps a diary at home, where she makes a note of the names and addresses of people she’s arranged to meet, so that someone will be able to find her if she ever goes missing.
Besides, Tamara saw Wille once, just before she stopped working as an escort, got married and moved to Gothenburg. Sofia knows that Tamara would have posted a warning on the sex-workers’ forum if he’d behaved inappropriately.
‘As long as you don’t find me revolting and repulsive,’ the man says, taking a step closer to her. ‘I mean, you’re so beautiful, and I’m … well, I know what I look like. I was OK when I was your age, but …’
‘You look good now,’ she assures him.
Sofia thinks of all the times she’s heard people say that escorts have to be like psychologists, but most of the men she sees never say anything personal.
‘Shall we go up to the bedroom?’ Wille asks lightly.
3
Sofia follows him up the broad wooden staircase thinking about how badly she needs to pee. The soft carpet is held in place on each step by thin brass rods. The light from the large chandelier reflects off the varnished banister.
Sofia’s initial plan had been to concentrate on exclusive clients, the ones who were prepared to pay more for an entire night, ones who wanted company at a party or on a trip.
In the three years she’s been working as an escort she’s had maybe a couple of dozen jobs like that, but most of her clients just want a blow-job after work before they go home to their families.
The master bedroom is well-lit, dominated by an imposing double bed with beautiful grey silk sheets.
On the wife’s side there’s a Lena Andersson novel and a jar of fancy hand cream, and on Wille’s side there’s an iPad with finger-marks on the dark glass.
He shows her the black leather straps he’s already tied around the bedposts. She notes that they’re not new, the creases are slightly cracked and the colour has begun to flake off.
The room suddenly shudders and spins around a couple of times. She looks at the man, but he seems unconcerned.
He has white marks at the corners of his mouth, from toothpaste.
The staircase creaks and he glances towards the hallway before looking back at her.
‘I have to be able to trust you to release me when I say so,’ he says as he unbuttons his shirt. ‘I have to be sure that you won’t try to rob me or just run off now that you have your money.’
‘Of course,’ she replies.
His chest is covered with fair hair, and he’s making an effort to suck in his stomach while she looks at him.
Sofia thinks that she can ask to go to the bathroom once he’s tied up. There’s an en-suite. The door is open and she can see the shower and a patch of gold mosaic wall in the mirror.
‘I want you to tie me up, and take your time with it – I don’t like violence or force,’ he says.
Sofia nods and takes her shoes off. She feels dizzy again as she straightens up. She looks him in the eye before lifting her dress up to her navel. It crackles with static. She slips her thumbs beneath the top of her tights and starts to pull them down. The feeling of constriction eases as the thin fabric puddles around her calves.
‘Perhaps you’d rather be tied up instead?’ he asks, smiling at his suggestion.
‘No, thanks,’ she replies as she starts to unbutton her dress.
‘It’s actually pretty comfortable,’ he jokes, tugging gently at one of the straps.
‘I don’t do that sort of thing,’ she explains breezily.
‘I’ve never tried it the other way around … I’d be prepared to double your fee if you did it,’ he says with a laugh, as if the thought surprises and delights him.
What he’s now offering is more money than she earns in two months, but having to lie there tied up is much too dangerous.
‘What do you say?’ he smiles.
‘No,’ she replies.
‘OK,’ he says quickly, and lets go of the strap.
The buckle makes a tinkling sound as it hits the bedpost.
‘Do you want me to take all of my clothes off?’
‘Wait a while,’ he replies, giving her an oddly searching look.
‘Is it OK if I use the bathroom?’
‘Soon,’ he says. He sounds like he’s trying to control his breathing.
Sofia’s lips feel strangely cool. When she raises one hand to her mouth she sees his face break into a wide smile.
He walks over to her, takes hold of her chin tightly, and then spits straight in her face.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks, as a rush of giddiness sweeps through her head.
Her legs suddenly give out and she lands so heavily on the floor that she bites her tongue. She sinks onto her side as her mouth fills with blood, and she sees him standing over her, unbuttoning his corduroy trousers.
Sofia doesn’t have the strength to crawl away. She rests her cheek on the floor and sees a dead fly in the dust under the bed. Her heart is beating so hard that she can hear it thudding in her ears. She realises that she must have been drugged.
‘Don’t. Don’t do it,’ she gasps, before closing her eyes.
Before Sofia loses consciousness it occurs to her that he might be about to murder her, and that this might be the last thing she ever experiences.
4
Sofia wakes up coughing. She suddenly remembers where she is. She is tied to Wille’s bed. She’s on her back, held in place by the leather straps. He’s tied her so tightly that the muscles in her legs and arms are straining. Her wrists are burning and her fingers are ice-cold.
Her mouth is bone-dry, her tongue feels swollen and sore.
Her thighs have been spread, pushing her dress up around her waist.
This can’t be happening, she thinks.
He must have drugged one of the champagne glasses while it was still in the cabinet.
Sofia hears a business-like conversation from the next room. Someone used to being in charge is talking.
She tries to lift her head up to look out of the window, to see if it’s night or morning, but she can’t. It hurts her arms too much.
It has just occurred to her that she has no idea how long she’s been lying there when he comes into the room.
Fear fills Sofia’s heart. She feels her throat constrict and her pulse race.
What definitely mustn’t happen has happened.
She tries to calm herself, thinks that she needs to get a conversation going. She has to make him realise that he’s picked the wrong girl, but that she won’t say anything if he lets her go right away.
Sofia promises herself that she’s going to quit being an escort, she’s been doing it for too long, and she wastes the money on things she doesn’t need.
The man is looking at her with the same hunger as before. She tries to adopt a relaxed expression. She knew right from the start there was something wrong here. But instead of turning around and walking away she ignored her gut instinct. She’s made a catastrophic mistake.
‘I said no to this,’ she says in a composed voice.
‘Yes,’ he replies with a slow smile, and lets his eyes roam all over her body.
‘I know girls who think this is OK. I can put you in touch with them if you’d like.’
He doesn’t answer, just breathes heavily through his nose and steps to the e
nd of the bed, between her legs. She feels sweat break out all over her body, and tries to prepare herself for what’s to come.
‘This is assault, you do realise that, don’t you?’
He doesn’t respond, just pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at her with great interest.
‘This is making me feel very uncomfortable and violated,’ Sofia begins to say, but stops when her voice starts to tremble.
She forces herself to breathe more slowly, to try not to seem scared, not to beg. What would Tamara have done? She can see her friend’s freckled face in front of her, that slightly mocking smile, the hardness in her eyes.
‘I’ve got your information written down in a book in my flat,’ she says, looking him in the eye.
‘What details?’ he asks casually.
‘Your name, which is presumably made up, but the address here, your email, the time of our meeting …’
‘So now I know that,’ he nods.
The mattress rocks as he starts to crawl up the bed towards her. He stops between her thighs, swaying, then grabs her underwear and pulls. The seams don’t break, and her shoulder aches as if it’s been dislocated.
The man tugs again, with both hands. It stings as the underwear cuts into her hips, but the reinforced seams won’t tear.
He whispers something to himself, then leaves her on the bed.
The mattress sways again, and Sofia can feel her thighs starting to cramp.
She has a fleeting memory of football practice, the way she could tell when a cramp was on its way, the tightening of her calves as she tried to pick out lumps of mud from her cleats.
Her friends’ hot red faces. The noisy locker room, the smell of sweat, liniment and deodorant.
How has it come to this? How did she end up here?
Sofia tries not to cry. She feels like she’s finished if she shows fear.
The man returns with a small pair of scissors and cuts through her underwear on both sides, then pulls them off.
‘There are plenty of people willing to do bondage,’ Sofia says. ‘I know—’
‘I don’t want girls who are willing to do it,’ he interrupts, tossing her underwear onto the bed beside her.
‘I mean, there are girls who get turned on by being tied up,’ she says.
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he declares bluntly.
Sofia can’t hold her tears back any longer and starts to cry. She arches her back and tugs at the straps so hard that her skin tears and blood starts to trickle down the bottom of her right arm.
‘Don’t do it,’ she sobs.
The man pulls off his shirt, throws it on the floor, pushes his trousers down and rolls a condom onto his half-erect penis.
He kneels down on the bed and she can smell the rubber on his fingers as he pushes her shredded underwear into her mouth. She starts to retch and comes close to throwing up. Her tongue is completely dry and tears are streaming down her cheeks. The man squeezes one of her breasts through the dress, then lies down heavily on top of her.
Sofia wets herself with fear, and a hot pool of urine spreads out beneath her.
When he tries to push into her, she twists to the side quickly and shoves him with her hip.
A drop of sweat falls from his nose onto her forehead.
He grabs her throat with one hand, looks at her, tightens his grip and lies on top of her again. His weight makes her sink into the mattress, which pulls her thighs further apart. Her ankles sting as the bedposts creak.
She struggles to breathe, tossing her head until she manages to get some air into her lungs.
He tightens his grip on her throat, and her vision starts to flicker. The room fades away as she feels him trying to force his way inside her. Sofia struggles to twist aside, but it’s impossible, this is going to happen anyway. She can’t stay inside her body, she has to think about something else. Flashes of memory dart past, cool evenings on the big football field, ragged breathing, clouds in front of her mouth, the silence down by the lake, the old school in Bollstanäs.
The coach points at the ball, blows the whistle, and then silence.
The grip on her throat disappears, Sofia spits out her underwear and gasps for air as she blinks.
Someone’s ringing the doorbell downstairs.
He grabs her chin and forces her mouth open, then shoves the underwear back in, and she starts to retch again, breathing through her nose, unable to swallow.
The doorbell rings again.
The man spits on her and gets off the bed, pulls his trousers up and grabs his shirt before leaving the room.
As soon as he’s gone Sofia pulls her right hand as hard as she can, without thinking of the consequences.
She feels excruciating pain, but her hand comes out of the strap.
Only the underwear in her mouth stops her from screaming out loud.
Her head is thudding. She’s on the brink of passing out, and her whole body is shaking with pain. Her thumb could be broken, and the ligament feels torn. Her skin looks like an old glove and blood is coursing down her arm. She pulls the underwear from her mouth.
She whimpers out loud as she tries to loosen the strap around her left wrist. Her fingers keep slipping, but eventually she manages to pick the buckle open. She quickly tugs the strap through the catch, then sits up and removes the restraints from her ankles.
She gets up on unsteady legs, clutching her wounded hand to her stomach, and starts to walk across the thick carpet. Her head is pounding with shock and pain. Her feet feel numb and her dress is wet and cold over her backside.
Carefully she makes her way out of the bedroom and creeps along the hallway where the man has just disappeared.
Sofia stops before she reaches the staircase. She can hear another voice downstairs, and decides to shout for help. She can’t hear what the other man is saying, and tentatively moves closer. There are clothes from the dry-cleaners hanging over the banister. Through the thin plastic she can see bundles of identical white shirts.
She clears her throat carefully, ready to shout for help, when she realises that the other man isn’t inside the house. His voice is coming from the intercom. A messenger, asking to be let through the gate. Wille says that he’ll have to come back, then puts the phone down and walks back towards the staircase again.
She staggers but manages to keep her balance. She has pins and needles in her feet as the blood flow returns.
Sofia moves backwards. The floor creaks beneath her and she looks around and sees a larger room further down the hall, with painted portraits on the walls. She thinks about running in and opening a window to call for help, but realises that she doesn’t have time.
5
Sofia makes her way quickly along the wall and past the stairs, until she reaches a narrow cupboard door. She grabs the handle and pulls.
Locked.
Through the prisms of the chandelier, she watches the man walk up the stairs.
He’ll reach her soon.
She walks back towards the stairs and crouches down on the floor, hidden by the dry-cleaned shirts. If he looks directly at her he’ll see her, but if he just walks past she’ll have a few seconds’ headstart.
Her hand hurts so much that she’s shaking, and her neck and throat are swollen.
The steps are old and worn, and the staircase creaks. She sees him between the banisters and shrinks back cautiously.
Wille reaches the top and walks down the hallway.
He walks towards the bedroom without noticing the blood she’s left on the carpet.
Carefully she gets to her feet, watching his back and suntanned neck as he walks into the bedroom.
She walks silently around the railing and starts to run down the stairs.
She realises that he’s turned around, and is already coming after her.
The thudding footsteps speed up.
She clutches the throbbing, bleeding fingers of her injured hand with her good one.
All she knows is that she has t
o get out of the house. She rushes through the large hallway, hearing the harsh creak of the stairs as the man comes after her.
‘I don’t have time for this!’ he yells.
Sofia runs across a narrow rug towards the door. She trips over a pair of shoes but keeps her balance.
The alarm system is glowing on one side of the front door.
Her fingers are so wet with blood that the catch slips out of her hand. She wipes her hand on her dress and tries again, but it won’t budge. She pushes the handle down and shoves the door with her shoulder, but it’s locked. Her eyes dart around, looking for the keys as she tries twisting the catch again. She gives up and runs through the double doors leading to the living room.
Something metallic hits the floor in another room.
She moves away from the large windows, her own reflection a silhouette against the pale wall behind her.
She hears him coming from the other direction, retraces her steps and hides behind one of the doors.
‘Every door is locked,’ he says loudly as he enters the living room.
She holds her breath, her heart pounding in her chest, and the door creaks gently. He stops in the doorway. She can see him through the crack between the hinges, his mouth half-open, his cheeks flushed.
Her legs start to shake again.
He walks a few more steps, then stops to listen. She tries to keep quiet, but her frightened breathing is loud.
‘I’m tired of this game now,’ he says as he walks past her.
She hears him searching for her, opening doors and closing them again. He says loudly that he just wants to talk to her.
Furniture scrapes the floor, then silence.
She listens. She hears her own breathing, the ominous ticking of a clock, but nothing else.
Just silence.
She waits a little longer, listening for creeping footsteps, knowing this could be a trap, but still chooses to leave her hiding place, because this could be the only chance she gets.
She creeps further into the living room. Everything is quiet, as if enveloped in a hundred-year sleep.
Sofia goes over to one of the chairs around the polished table and tries to lift it, but it’s too heavy. Instead she drags it by its back with her one good hand, pulling it towards the windowed patio doors, groaning with pain when she has to use both hands. She runs two steps, spins her body, and yelps as she swings the heavy chair against the glass.