Three, Four...Better Lock Your Door (2 page)

"I really wish you hadn't said that," Sune said and held the door for me. He had his camera around his neck. "Now I won't be able to look at the mayor without picturing him with his wife."

C
HAPTER 2

T
HERE WASN'T MUCH
Susanne Larsen hadn't tried before sexually. She'd had numerous lovers and tried all kinds of positions and everything from bondage to S/M. She loved it all. The tougher the better. She loved role playing, whips, handcuffs, restraints and even blindfolds. She loved being beaten, the feeling of pain on her skin, the hair pulling and even biting. It all turned her on and always had.

Her husband of course knew nothing of her secret desires, nor was he ever going to. That was why Susanne always met up with strangers she found on a dating site on the Internet. A site only for people of her kind. Only for people who liked what she liked, and she liked it rough. This website made it easier for her to find a match, find someone who wanted to treat her the way she liked to be treated.

She started by writing to them once she found someone who matched her profile. After a couple of weeks flirting and writing dirty messages they would agree to meet. She loved the anonymity of it since she preferred to not know anything about the men she had sex with. That's also why she never agreed to meet more than once. She didn't want to risk feeling anything for them if she got to know them. They were supposed to be complete strangers who only wanted her for the sex. Who wanted to use her, exploit her vulnerability and penetrate her until she could take it no more. She liked to be treated like a whore and submit herself to the mercy of some handsome stranger in the dark whom she would never see again afterwards. She let them use her and she would scream her painful pleasure out all night.

Then she would go home to her family the very next day and be the wife and mom she was expected to be. That was the way she wanted it and that was how she lived.

She never thought much about her family while she was with the stranger, but for some inexplicable reason she did think of them that particular day. That day with the tall, dark, very young guy in the room at the inn in Karrebaeksminde. For just a few seconds she thought about her son and daughter at home in their beds and their father sitting alone in the living room watching some sports like he always did. She thought about them and felt for the first time a slight feeling of guilt and remorse that she couldn't escape. It was like a pinch in her heart.

Maybe it was because this one was handsomer than any of the others she had been with. Charming too. In fact he reminded her of one of the doctors at the hospital where she worked as a nurse, the one she'd had a huge crush on for months now. That had turned her on immediately once she saw him in the restaurant at the inn.

When he had told her that his name was Troels, she hadn't believed him, but decided to just play along. She had called herself Anna. It was her mother's name, but since she had died when Susanne was fourteen she was certain that she wouldn't mind. Served her right anyway for the way she had treated Susanne, she thought. Served her right for never interfering when her father climbed into Susanne's bed at night. Served her right for never stopping him and never listening to Susanne when she told her about it and asked her mother to make it stop.

Troels started off by slapping her across the face once they had entered the hotel room. He then kicked her in the back and threw her on the bed. She screamed but enjoyed it very much. The slapping around, the pulling of her hair was just like her father had done.

"Tell me I'm a little whore," she said. "Tell me what you'll do to me now."

"You little dirty whore," he said with a harsh voice.

Oh boy that turned her on. Those words really did it for her. Just like her father had always said when he climbed into her bed. "More, more," she begged.

"You dirty little slut. I am going to make you pay for all you've done. When I'm done with you, you won't be able to walk for two weeks. I am going to beat all those naughty things out of you. And then I 'm going to use you. You'll be my toy, you'll be my slave."

"Oh yes, master. Use me. Make me your slave," she groaned.

Then he pulled her by the hair off the bed and into the bathroom where he pushed her against the shower door. That was a new one; she thought and smiled while he cuffed her hands. Then he hit her again. He entered her from behind with the scream of a wild beast before he beat her with his belt. She screamed in pain. Her secret lover told her he had more toys in his bag in the car and he was going to get them. He told her to stay put. Then he laughed as he left her in the shower. Beaten, broken, bleeding. Left to the mercy of a stranger.

This was what she wanted, she thought to herself while waiting for his return, wondering with a shiver what kind of toys he had brought. This was what she longed for but could never get with her husband who thought she was nothing but an ordinary woman, wife, mother and nurse. She could never share this with him. She could never tell him her dirty little secret, could she?

She didn't finish the thought before the frosted door to the shower opened and a face was revealed. Panic arose inside of her as she stared into the eyes of a woman in a long blue dress. Frantically she pulled her hands but they remained stuck in the handcuffs. The woman in the elegant blue evening dress smiled and stared at her with wild manic eyes that seemed to enjoy the fear in hers. She lifted her hand and showed a small scalpel much like the ones doctors at the hospital used.

Yes, Susanne Larsen had tried almost everything sexually over the last many years living her secret double-life, but she could say for certain that she had never done this. 

C
HAPTER 3

K
ENNETH
J
UHLERSEN WAS
having a bad day.

He lost his job during the recession and then started a cleaning business on his own, working hard the last three years. He built it all up so he and his wife would have a decent retirement, something to look forward to, travel a little, and see the world.

Being fired was the worst thing to ever happen to him at the time. It had almost destroyed him. He was so close to retirement. Who would hire a car salesman who was almost sixty years old and whose biggest accomplishment was selling seven Toyotas on the same day once back in the early nineties? They had named him "The brave tailor" since he had struck seven in one day like the little tailor in the fairy-tale who had killed seven flies. They removed the "little" since Kenneth was big like a Viking and calling him "the brave little tailor" would just be strange. But what good did that do him when he was fired due to cut-backs? All he had left after twenty-five years selling cars was his nickname. What was he supposed to do two years before his retirement?

At the same time his wife Bettina was constantly bothering him about the winter garden that she had wanted for ten years, which he had once promised her. Being a man of his word he wanted to keep his promise to her. That was when he decided to take fate into his own hand. He grabbed his wife's cleaning equipment, the bucket, the mop, the vacuum cleaner and put it all in the back of the car. Then he started going door to door asking if anyone needed his service. At first his wife was terrified since he had been all over their own neighborhood and she did not care for the neighbors to know that her husband had to stoop this low. But once the money started coming in she suddenly saw the possibility of finally getting her winter garden and they had agreed that Kenneth Juhlersen was allowed to go door to door in any neighborhood other than their own.

Today, three years later, he had three employees working for him. The order with the local inn was one he recently landed so it was of the utmost importance that nothing went wrong. It was the order that could finally put him over the top. If he kept this client satisfied he didn't have to take others any longer. He no longer had to clean people's houses, and Bettina would get her winter garden.

So when they had called from the inn this same morning and told him that his employee Annette hadn't shown up Kenneth Juhlersen knew had to go himself. It was like he had always said: if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.

Kenneth Juhlersen had cleaned four rooms by nine thirty and now he walked down the hallway pushing his wagon. He stopped in front of a door and pulled out the key from his pocket. It was an old inn and they had kept the old-fashioned keys instead of replacing them with the key-card system that so many hotels used these days. This place was different. They wanted to keep everything in that old style making people think they had found a piece of the old fashioned Denmark that was charming and romantic. Kenneth Juhlersen knocked first like he had trained his employees to always do.

"Cleaning-service."

No one answered. Since there was no “do not disturb” sign on the door he put the key in the door. That was when he realized that it was already open.

"Hello? Cleaning service," he said again while slowly pushing the door open.

Still no answer.

Kenneth Juhlersen shrugged and entered by pushing his wagon through the old white-painted door with golden handles. He sighed and plugged in the vacuum cleaner. This was not how he had pictured his life at sixty-three. He was supposed to have retired by now and travel the world with his wife of nearly forty years. But fate had another opinion apparently. Not only had he lost his well-paid job at the Toyota dealer and lost his retirement bonus at fifty-nine, but last night he had also discovered that his wife in fact hadn't gone to Alanya in Turkey with her best friend Lisbeth for a 'girl's week out.' She was there with another man.

Kenneth Juhlersen pushed the vacuum cleaner across the carpet aggressively hitting table corners and chairs on the way. He thought about the night before when he was sitting in his living room watching the news when the phone rang. He picked it up and to his surprise talked to a woman he had never heard about before.  

"My name is Lone Bendner," she said. "You don't know me, but I know you. I need to talk to you."

At first he had thought it was a wrong number or a clever phone sales trick. But it wasn't.

"I am calling you because I have information about your wife that I think you'd like to know. See she knows my husband Ole from work. They both work at TDC - the phone company. They met at a conference last year in Naksskov. They've been seeing each other since at hotels, telling us they were going to conferences and so on. I know this because I checked his e-mails today and found a bunch coming from your wife where they planned all this. If you know her e-mail and password maybe you can log in and see for yourself. I know this is probably a lot to take in, I know it was for me, but I thought you should know. I know I would want you to tell me if it was the other way around."

Kenneth Juhlersen gasped for air. His heart was beating fatally fast in his chest. His hands felt sweaty and couldn't hold on to the phone right. He was certain he was about to have another heart attack like the one he had three years ago just after he was fired. But it wasn't a heart attack. This was how it felt to be hit by reality. A reality so hard to comprehend that it made him feel sick.

"Hello. Mr. Juhlersen? Are you still there?" The voice of Lone Bendner sounded distant, as if it was coming from another world. The world where wives cheated on their husbands and lied to them about where they were.

"Are ... are you telling me that ..." Kenneth Juhlersen stuttered.

"Yes, Mr. Juhlersen. Your wife is with my husband in Alanya."

That was when he dropped the phone to the ground. He heard Lone Bendner's voice fade away while he walked towards the kitchen. In the cabinet above the fridge he grabbed the thirteen year old scotch that he had gotten as a farewell gift from the Toyota-dealer three years ago. He didn't even bother to find a glass. He just opened the bottle and started pouring the liquor into his mouth until he couldn't hear Lone Bendner's annoying voice anymore.

Kenneth Juhlersen turned off the vacuum cleaner and picked up a dress from the floor. He found a hanger and put it nicely in the closet. His head hurt like hell when he bent over. But the hangover wasn’t the worst part. He was mad. Angry, almost furious. He would most definitely fire Annette after all this. No doubt about it.

"Not showing up for the most important client," he mumbled while picking up a stiletto from the floor and putting it in the corner of the room. "What do I care if she has three kids? If you don't show up you get fired. That's just the way it is."

Kenneth Juhlersen sighed when he found the other stiletto. He knew perfectly well he could never fire anyone. Nor could he stay mad long at his wife for cheating on him. Who could blame her? he thought, glancing at his reflection in the mirror across from the bed. He was bald and fat. Kenneth Juhlersen sighed again. He always thought that he could keep his wife happy if he made sure she had everything. Apparently that wasn't enough. He grabbed his bucket and put on his rubber gloves.

Kenneth Juhlersen was indeed having a very bad day and when he went into the bathroom of room 445 and saw the blood smeared on the frosted glass in the shower, he knew it was about to get much worse.

C
HAPTER 4

T
HE INTERVIEW WITH THE
mayor went smoothly as expected. He was happy naturally and the opposition wasn't. Sune took pictures while I interviewed them both at city hall and then we left. We bought Smoerrebroed on our way home, a Danish specialty, a kind of open sandwich on rye-bread that everybody eats for lunch.

Sara hadn't moved since we left. She was still sitting at her desk staring into the computer-screen when we entered the editorial room. She didn't react when I lifted the bag with the food and yelled “Lunch is here!'

That was when I knew that something was up. Sara was scribbling on a notepad next to her while listening intently to the scanner. I shrugged and looked at Sune. He went into the kitchen and brought out plates. Sara was still extremely focused while we ate.