The Hypnotist

Chapter 85

The few hours of daylight are already over, and darkness has settled upon the city. Advent stars glow in almost every window. A heavy aroma of grapes rises from the brandy glass on the low table in the living room. Simone is sitting in the middle of the floor, looking at some sketches. After she’d got home, she’d peeled off her wet clothes, wrapped herself in a blanket, and had instantly fallen asleep on the couch, waking up only when Kennet phoned. Then Sim Shulman had arrived.

Now, in her underwear, she places the sketches in a row: four lined sheets outlining an installation he is planning for the art gallery in Tensta.

Shulman is talking to the director of the gallery on his mobile. He paces the room as he talks. The parquet flooring that creaks beneath his feet is suddenly silent. Simone notices he has positioned himself so that he can see between her thighs. She can feel it. She gathers up the sketches, picks up her glass, and takes a sip, ignoring Shulman. She opens her thighs slightly and imagines his burning gaze boring its way in. He is shutting down the conversation now, anxious to end it. Simone lies on her back and closes her eyes. She waits, feeling the heat below, the surge of blood, the slow wetness. She needs to feel something, anything, to muffle the thoughts in her head, to mute the panic. Shulman has stopped speaking; he moves closer. She keeps her eyes shut, opens her legs a little more. She hears the sound of him unzipping his trousers. Suddenly she feels his hands on her hips. He rolls her onto her stomach, pulls her roughly to her knees, yanks her panties down around her thighs, and pushes into her from behind. She isn’t really ready. She can see her fingers splayed on the oak floor. The nails, the veins on the back of her hand. She has to brace herself to avoid falling forwards as he thrusts into her, hard and alone. The heavy smell of the grappa is making her feel ill. She wants to ask Shulman to stop, to do it a different way, to start again in the bedroom, properly. He sighs heavily and ejaculates into her, pulls out, and goes into the bathroom. She hitches up her underwear and remains lying on the floor.

She doesn’t get up until Shulman has had his shower and emerges from the bathroom with a towel wound around his hips. Her knees ache. She forces a smile as she walks past him, locking the bathroom door behind her. Her vagina feels raw and sore as she gets into the shower. A strange feeling of powerlessness threatens to overwhelm her, extinguishing her thoughts, her hopes, her happiness, even as the hot water soaks her hair, pouring down over her neck, her shoulders, and her back. She soaps herself and washes her body meticulously, then spends a long time with her face upturned beneath the gentle flow of the water.

Through the rushing sound in her ears she hears a series of thuds, and realizes Shulman is pounding on the bathroom door.

“Simone,” he shouts. “Your phone’s ringing.”

“What?”

“Your phone.”

“So answer it,” she says, turning off the water.

“There’s someone at the door too,” he calls.

“God. I’m coming.”

She steps out of the shower, catching her obscured image in the steamy mirror, a grey ghost without features. She takes a fresh towel from the shelf and dries herself, kicking her abandoned underclothes aside on the wet floor. All she can hear is a strange humming noise coming from the bathroom extractor fan.

“Sim? Who was it?”

No answer. Simone is about to yell at him, then suddenly can’t. She doesn’t know why, but her senses have gone on alert, have tensed up, which is why she so carefully, almost soundlessly, unlocks the bathroom door and peers out. A terrifying silence emanates from the apartment. She knows now something is wrong. She wonders if Shulman has gone home, but she dares not call out.