Ларс Кеплер: The Rabbit Hunter

‘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.

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 end 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.