The Sandman

41

When Anders gets home the house is quiet and the light is off in Agnes’s room. He locks the door behind him and goes into the kitchen. Petra is standing at the sink rinsing the glass cylinder from the blender.

She’s wearing baggy stay-at-home clothes: a Chicago White Sox T-shirt that’s too big for her, and yellow leggings that she’s pulled up to her knees. Anders goes up behind her and puts his arms round her, smelling her hair and fresh deodorant. She’s about to pull away when he moves his hands up to cup her heavy breasts.

‘How’s Agnes?’ he asks, letting go of her.

‘She’s got a new best friend at preschool,’ Petra says with a big smile. ‘A little boy who started last week, apparently he’s in love with her... I don’t know how reciprocated his feelings are, but she let him give her some bits of Lego.’

‘Sounds like love,’ he says, sitting down.

‘Tired?’

‘I fancy a glass of wine – do you want one?’ he asks.

‘Want one?’

She looks him in the eye, smiling more broadly than she’s done for a very long time.

‘What do you mean by that?’ he asks.

‘Does what I want matter?’ she whispers.

He shakes his head and she looks at him with twinkling eyes. They leave the kitchen and go silently into the bedroom. Anders locks the door to the corridor and watches as Petra opens the mirrored wardrobe door and pulls out a drawer. She removes a bundle of underwear and gets out a carrier bag.

‘So that’s where you hid everything?’

‘You’re not to make me feel embarrassed now,’ she says.

He pulls the duvet aside and Petra empties the contents of the bag, all the things they bought after she’d read Fifty Shades of Grey. He picks up the soft rope and ties her hands, loops it through the slatted headboard, then tightens it, making her fall onto her back with her hands above her head. He ties the rope to the bottom of the bed with two half-hitch knots. She parts her legs and squirms as he pulls off her leggings and underwear.

He loosens the rope again, loops it round her left ankle and ties it to the bedpost, then pulls it round the other post and ties her right ankle.

He pulls the rope gently, making her legs slowly spread open.

She’s looking at him, her cheeks flushed.

He suddenly pulls harder and forces her thighs apart as far as they’ll go.

‘Careful,’ she says quickly.

‘Keep quiet,’ he tells her sternly, and sees her smile happily to herself.

He fastens the rope, then moves up the bed and pulls her T-shirt over her face so she can no longer see him. Her breasts sway as she tries to get the fabric off her face.

There’s no way she can get loose – she’s entirely helpless in this position, with her arms over her head and her legs pulled so far apart that her inner thighs must be aching.

Anders just stands there, watching her shake her head, and feels his heart beat faster, harder. Slowly he undoes his trousers as he sees her crotch start to glisten with moisture.