There was a knock on the door. We froze. There was another knock, and Father’s voice whispered: “Are you there, Gunilla?” I got under the bed just as the door opened and he came in. “Gunilla?” He repeated.
“Yes, Daddy, but please don’t turn on the lights. I don’t have any clothes on.”
Father chuckled, and the lights clicked on. “Excellent,” he said, locking the door. “But why are you covering yourself like that? There’s nothing wrong with a Father seeing his little girl’s body, is there?”
“Please go away, Daddy. I’m tired!”
“Oh, no,” he laughed. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you since the other night when you prick-teased me and then ran away. It’s true that you supplied me with Annie, but it’s you that I want to get into.” There was a “lot of scuffling as he evidently tried to pull the blanket off Gunilla. “So,” he said. “We’re back to this. You’re going to hold out for your money again. You were so hot that night that you were throwing it at me for nothing, and I thought you had learned. Well, all right. As it happens, I brought your 5,000 kroner. In fact I brought the 5,000 kroner you said you wanted to lay me. Or to gobble it.” As confused and inexperienced as I was, I could sense how brutal Father’s manner was. How wrong the tone was. “So there’s the money, now get on your back and earn it.”
“Daddy, are you serious? Do you really want to have intercourse with your own daughter?” I smiled, hearing the mocking tone in her voice. He evidently didn’t hear it.
“Hell, yes, I’m serious. I don’t pay 5,000 kroner to dip my wick just for laughs. Now let me see the merchandise.”
“Stop, Daddy, or I’ll scream. I’m serious. I think maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
“What! No, you’re just leading me on again like you’ve been doing for years. Now let go of that blanket.”
“Stop!” It was clear Gunilla meant it this time. The struggling ended. “Now, if you promise not to touch me until I say you can, I’ll take the covers off while we talk it over. O.K.?”
“O.K.”
“Then stand over there.” The bed creaked as Father got up. “And you promise to stay over there?”
“I promise.”
“Daddy, do you really want me to pull down this blanket? I told you I don’t have any clothes on. Do you think it’s decent for a girl as big as me to be showing herself to her own Father?”
“Gunilla, I swear to Christ that if you don’t hurry up, I’ll rape you-screams or no screams.” She must have begun. The bed rustled a little, and I heard Father gasp. “Sweet Jesus, Gunilla, you’ve got the biggest dugs I’ve ever seen! You’re a goddamn cow!”
“Why, Daddy, why are you staring at my bosom like that? I think you like looking at your daughter’s naked breasts.” It was clear that she was putting on a show for me.
“You’re fucking right. You wait till I get my hands on you and I’ll demonstrate how I feel about my little girl.”
“But, Daddy, that’s a sin. You’re supposed to protect your daughter’s purity.”
“Quit stalling and get that blanket off.”
“I’m embarrassed, Daddy. If I pull it any farther down, you’ll be able to see my private parts.” She let her right arm drop over the edge of the bed until she found my hand. Then she groped down my body till she found my penis and began stroking it. “You must remember how young I am, Daddy. I’m shy. Please don’t ask me to put it right under your nose, and with all the lights on. Please.”
“Gunilla.”
“But you’re my father!”
“Gunilla, show me that twat before I kill you.” His voice sounded half strangled.
“Well, I guess a good girl always does what her father tells her to.” She squeezed my penis. “There!”
There was a low “Ah-h-h-h-hai-h-h” from Father. Then Gunilla’s firm voice: “Stay there!” This evidently stopped him.
“I’m going to nail that if it costs me every ore I own,” he muttered to himself.
“You mean you really want to fornicate with your own baby?”
“I mean that I’m going to screw you if it’s the last thing I do!”
“But even if it wasn’t a horrible sin and incest, Father, how could you dream of putting that big thing of yours in my little hole?” She squeezed me again, and I suspected she touched her cunt teasingly.
“Think of it? I want to drive it into you so far it will make your eyes pop! And as for it’s being so little, I’ll bet it’s been glued to every male teacher, servant, visitor, workman, dog, priest, banana, candle, or doorknob that has come into this house!”
“Daddy, you must think I’m a little whore!”
“I don’t think anything about it, I know!”
“And you also want to stick that huge thing into your own daughter’s little mouth.”
“I want to drive it into your throat and come till you choke on it!”
“But, Father, you have such perverted, unnatural desires!”
“You’ve made me this way, bitch, cock-teasing me until I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. You and your depraved mind. But enough chatter. You’re got your 5,000 kroner, now let’s see if you’re worth it!”
“No, Father, I’ve changed my mind. No amount of money is worth committing such a nasty sin. With my own father! I’m going to learn to be a nice girl.”
“What!”
“Yes, and unless you go away quietly, I’m going to tell Mother.”
“So tell her. Is that supposed to scare me? You know damn well that she’s ruled by whomever is throwing it into her. And since she’s too shy to have an affair, that means me.”
“That’s true, Papa, but you and I know that all the money is hers. And that all your fine cars and fancy clothes and big office and flashy mistresses and your yacht all depend on her sufferance. You aren’t likely to risk that, even though you are the one bedding her down.”
“Damn you, Gunilla. You’re a witch.” His feet started for the door.
“Wait a minute, Daddy.”
“What for?”
“You forgot to pick up your money.”
He cursed and slammed out.
Gunilla fell on me laughing and kissing whatever she could reach. She took my head between her hands and stared into my eyes.
“Oh, little Lars, how much I do love you. Not only am I going to give you Mother to screw, but we’re going to free her from that vulgar man.”
The room lightened at that moment. Gunilla raised her head, then bent down to giggle: “That’s Mamma’s light, little brother: come on, the main feature is starting!”
Chapter Eleven
Gunilla quickly turned off the lights and we scrambled onto the bed like two giggling kids spying on Christmas. From our darkness, Mother’s window was like a television screen. Everything in the room was preternaturally bright and clear. And curiously important. Perhaps it was because I was so excited, but the window focused everything to an intensity like the viewfinder of my camera. There was the tense expectation that comes when the theatre curtain rises on a brightly lit empty stage.