My worst critic waits until I have stopped screaming into the tape before ripping it off in one quick pull. I don’t feel pain, but I’m aware that skin from my lips comes off with it and the taste of blood fills my mouth. I swallow all the air I can in one deep breath, cough and spit blood.
Suddenly you appear with the two wedges I have spent the last couple of days making. I got the wood from one of the shelves in the kitchen cupboard, sawed them into triangles and sanded them down. The angle had to be just right, as wide as possible, but small enough to reach all the way in.
I swallow a couple of times before I open my mouth. You press one wedge into the left side of my mouth with such force that my jaw is nearly dislocated. I groan to the extent that I can with my mouth wide open. You insert the second wedge into the right-hand side and tap it into place with the side of your hand. My lips are fully stretched and it feels as if they could snap like elastic at any time.
You bend down and pick up the pincers. They are covered in blood and vomit and slip out between your gloved fingers. You pick them up again and wipe them and your gloves with a cloth. My mouth fills with saliva. I can’t swallow so I lower my head to allow it to dribble out of my mouth and down my chin. You place one hand on my forehead and force my head back. You hold the pincers with the other and tap them tentatively against my front teeth. The sound of metal against enamel clatters in my head. I close my eyes.
Your thumb finds my eyesocket while you place your fingers across my forehead. I feel the pincers grip a front tooth and you put your foot on the seat between my thighs. The tooth creaks as you tighten the pincers and when you pull I hear a terrifying grating sound as the roots of my tooth are torn from my jaw. My head snaps back and there is a stabbing pain in my neck. I groan and lift my head again. The pain from my hands drowns out everything else so I have to feel with my tongue to check if the tooth has been ripped out. My gum feels ragged and blood flows into my mouth.
Before I have time to empty my mouth, you get hold of me again, push my head back and clamp the next tooth with the pincers. The blood is running down my throat and I try to cough. Drops of blood spray across my cheeks. You pull again and my head snaps back for the second time.
I slump forwards and the blood runs out of my mouth and drips on to my trousers. The holes where my teeth used to be feel like craters.
You go over to the wood burner while I carry on bleeding. Saliva and blood form a sticky paste that flows out of my mouth like slime. My whole head aches and my jaw muscles are sore from being stretched for such a long time.
It takes five to ten minutes before the poker is hot enough and with some difficulty you hold my head by my hair and press the iron tip against the wound in my upper jaw. It sizzles and when the poker hits my upper lip, I can feel it split. The heat makes me jerk my head so violently that you are left holding a clump of my hair. Irritably you shake it off your fingers like a piece of stubborn Sellotape.
My head dangles back and forth and from side to side. I find it hard to stay focused and I’m not really aware of what is going on around me. It’s like I’m sedated, possibly because my body has short-circuited my overloaded nervous system. I don’t know how, but through the fog I’m aware that you carry on with the other teeth. When my upper mouth has been cleared, you start work on my lower jaw. This time you don’t pull them out, but fetch a hammer and bash them into my mouth with one blow. It sounds like my jaw breaks and a dart of pain penetrates the fog and lights up like a flashlight. I spit out blood and teeth and am almost grateful when you close the wound with the red-hot poker.
There is no mirror, thank God, but I imagine that my mouth is one gaping big hole of blood, flesh and rubble. My tongue sits in the middle, red and untouched like a stigma in a flower.
My woozy state displeases you. From the table you fetch a green plastic bottle which you hold under my nose. The ammonia attacks my nostrils and I straighten up and open my eyes. I see you pick up the pincers and the poultry shears. With an almost dispassionate movement, I try to turn my head, but you push the pincers into my mouth and clamp my tongue. Pulling directly up to the ceiling, you force my head back. The missing teeth provide you with easy access and you cut off my tongue with a V-incision as far back as you can reach. The blood spurts out of my mouth, but all I notice is my severed tongue, which you place carefully on the seat between my thighs. The blood makes it unrecognizable.
My head lolls forwards to drain the blood from my mouth. My jumper is soaked and the floor is red around the chair. It’s hard to say how much blood I have lost, but it looks serious and I feel distinctly dizzy every time I raise my head.
You cauterize the wound in my mouth with forceful pressure from the poker. It cools rapidly and you have to go back and forth between the wood burner and the chair a couple of times until you’re satisfied, then you yank out the wedges. I can barely close my mouth. My jaw muscles temporarily feel slack, overstretched, so they can no longer function.
My head slumps forward and my chin rests against my chest.
Perhaps I could have stopped it? After all, I wrote the script, but it could have been a trap. What would have prevented me from hiding in the bushes outside and whacking you at the back of your head with a shovel while you waited for me to open the door? I would have tied up your ankles and wrists with the gaffer tape you had brought, dragged you into the living room and drunk the single malt whisky you had brought. It would have tasted fantastic. It would be a victory toast, like a black-and-white photo of a great game hunter with his trophy. When you woke up, I could have forced a confession out of you, tortured you with the same instruments you have used on me until you admitted to killing Mona Weis, Verner Nielsen and Linda Hvilbjerg. I would make sure to record your confession on a dictaphone or on a video camera. Then I would call the police and I would be cleared of every suspicion and proclaimed a hero. I would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. My books would sell again and this script would be published and turned into a film. Everyone would be dying to hear what had really happened in the holiday home near Nykøbing in my own words. You, too, would become a celebrity. Newspapers and TV companies would offer you lots of money for an interview with you in your cell. You might even write your own version of events and we would meet in talk shows, you handcuffed to two police officers and me in a new suit with manicured nails. Line and the girls would be in the audience and afterwards the four of us would go out for dinner. I would tell them that I had quit drinking and would never write another book again. And I would have kept my word for a very long time … or for several months.
Oh, yes, I might have been able to save my life, but I wouldn’t have been able to save myself.
The ammonia stings my nose and my body jerks. I cough. Slime and blood are forced from my mouth and stain your clothes. You ignore it. Instead you grab my head and force open an eyelid with your thumb. I try to focus, but it isn’t easy and my eyelid glides shut as soon as you let go.
I’m freezing. My clothes are soaked with blood and sweat and my entire body is shaking from a combination of cold and shock.