‘I came like a fucking train,’ she whispered, lifting up one leg and placing her foot on the cistern to give me better access. ‘This is my way of saying thank you.’
It may have been the drugs, but sex with Linda Hvilbjerg was the kinkiest I had ever had. It was not passionate as with Line, but wild and demanding as if the world was about to end. The sweat poured from us and we gasped for air when we finally came. I collapsed on the toilet seat with my trousers around my ankles and she sat astride me, with my penis still inside her.
Linda laughed quietly between her heavy breathing.
‘That’s going to hurt in the morning,’ she said.
Morning. Suddenly it dawned on me that there was a tomorrow, a day with a wife, a child and work. A life with people who meant the world to me. It was as if my body expelled me and I floated up above the cubicle where we were sitting and observed the tawdry scene below. The attraction vanished. My penis shrivelled and withdrew from Linda’s body. The bile rose in my throat and I felt so woozy I had to close my eyes.
When I opened them again, Linda was fixing her hair. Her face and throat were still a touch flushed.
‘I’ll see you upstairs,’ she said, leaning forward to give me a quick kiss before she left the lavatory.
All I could think about was getting out of there. I stood up, my legs shaking, and pulled up my trousers. My shirt was soaked in sweat and my trembling hands could barely button it. I gave up trying to stuff it inside my trousers and went outside. It was cold and I skulked along the buildings until I found a taxi. I wished the trip would last all night and delay the meeting with my real life, but I was home in an instant.
I hesitated. My heart pounded and sweat was dripping from my forehead again. It was just after midnight and Line had probably gone to bed. I inhaled deeply a couple of times, slipped the key in the lock and carefully opened the door. It was dark, but I refrained from switching on the light. Having closed the door behind me, I stepped out of my shoes and peeled off my jacket. I sneaked over to the door to Ironika’s bedroom and peered inside. Despite the darkness, I could see she wasn’t in her bed. When I wasn’t at home, she would sometimes sleep in the double bed with Line, so I tiptoed to the master bedroom. I held my breath and listened out. There was no sound. Slowly, holding out my hands, I walked through the darkness towards the place where the bed was.
It was empty.
I switched on the bedside lamp and realized that my hands hadn’t been mistaken. The bed hadn’t been slept in. A wave of relief washed over me. Perhaps there was still time for me to take a shower and wash off the smell of Linda? But my relief soon turned into worry. If they weren’t here, then where were they? I entered the living room and switched on the light.
Line was sitting in the armchair by the window, her arms folded across her chest and an insistent gaze directed at me. She wasn’t smiling.
‘How could you do it, Frank?’
Her eyes didn’t leave me and I felt like cowering. My palms grew sweaty and my cheeks felt hot.
‘What do you mean?’ I managed to say, but it sounded low and hollow.
Still it was a fair question. Line couldn’t possibly have known that I had been with Linda. Yes, people had entered the lavatory while we were at it, but I couldn’t have been so unlucky that it was someone who knew me and Line – that was too improbable. My remorse at my infidelity vanished temporarily.
I straightened up and flung out my hands. ‘What have I done?’
While I waited for her to reply, I scanned my brain to retrieve any event that might have made her angry, things I had said or done or failed to do, but I couldn’t find anything.
‘How could you have such thoughts about our daughter?’ Line said at last.
The interview! It was the interview. At that point in time, I was so full of my success that I failed to see the connection between the television interview and Line’s reaction. How could I? It seemed to me that the interview had been a triumph, and that was also the impression Linda Hvilbjerg had given me.
I took a step towards Line. The right thing would have been to go to her and hold her in my arms to reassure her and convince her, but the smell of sex and Linda Hvilbjerg still lingered on my body and in my clothes, so I stopped. She must have interpreted it as hesitation because she looked away and her face took on a resolute expression.
‘So it’s true,’ she said. ‘You fantasized about mutilating and murdering my daughter.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ I protested. ‘Or, I mean … I would never …’
‘Don’t you think it sounds a little bit sick, Frank?’
I shook my head. ‘I would never hurt her,’ I said. ‘I love Ironika more than anything in the world.’
Line’s eyes bored into me again. They were filled with distrust.
‘I’ve read the book, Frank,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how you can think like this and certainly not in the presence of Veronika.’
I looked around, searching for the object of the discussion, who had been here while I wrote the book and approved every line. Perhaps she could come to my rescue, deflect this row.
‘She’s with her granddad,’ Line said.
I felt torn in half. One part was consumed with the most profound guilt at having been unfaithful to Line, the other with righteous indignation at being treated unfairly. The two halves couldn’t agree and their opposite qualities cancelled out any decent course of action. The result was that I simply stood there, gawping at my wife without defending myself or apologizing to her.
Line stared at me for a while, but as I didn’t react, she got up with a sigh.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I need time.’
I stepped forwards, but she held up her hand to me.
‘Alone,’ she said as she walked to the door.
I retreated slightly as she passed me. The smell of Linda was still very fresh on me, but to Line it must have looked as if I was giving up on her. I still couldn’t think of anything sensible to say and she got dressed in silence and left the flat without looking at me. From the window I saw her wheel her bicycle in the direction of Amager. At the corner, she turned around and looked up at the flat.
Away from Line’s accusing eyes, the half of me that felt victimized got the upper hand. I went over the interview and replayed the exchange in my mind. I hadn’t lied, this was how Outer Demons had been conceived, but to think … it was precisely because I loved my daughter that I had been able to write such dreadful things. They were my worst nightmares, the most revolting things I could imagine ever happening to her.
The anger surged in me until I could no longer suppress it. I punched the sofa, kicked cushions and furniture, howled at the door through which Line had left.
I was upset and I felt betrayed. Of all people, Line ought to understand me.
When I had finished punishing the furniture, I collapsed from exhaustion.
My guilt slowly returned. If I didn’t deserve to burn in hell because of the interview, then I deserved it for my disastrous mistake with Linda Hvilbjerg. The whole episode had been so grotesque that I could hardly describe it as infidelity, but of course that was what it was. I was a bastard, a terrible father and a rotten husband. My anger with Line had disappeared – she was right. I was a bad person who hurt the people around me. I cried, raged and beat myself up as the pathetic loser I was. I ran around the flat, slammed my palms against the walls and door frames, threw myself on the floor. At one point I drank gin straight from the bottle and my fits of rage ebbed away as my blood alcohol percentage increased. My vision blurred and the light faded until at last everything around me grew dark.