The knot in her stomach grew bigger with each clip she watched. The girls were young, skinny, submissive. Jack had always liked his women thin and young. It wasn’t him who had changed, it was her. And wasn’t that how most men wanted their women? In ?stermalm there was no room for aging and weight gain. At least not for women.

In the past month Jack had watched one particular video seven or eight times. “Young petite schoolgirl brutally fucked by her teacher.” Faye clicked play. A young schoolgirl in a short, checked skirt, white shirt, tie, socks, and Pippi Longstocking pigtails appeared; it seemed she was struggling with her lessons, particularly biology. Informing her that they have arranged for extra tutoring, her conscientious parents go out for the evening, leaving their daughter at home alone. The doorbell rings. A man in his forties, wearing a jacket with patches on the elbows and clutching a briefcase, is at the door. They go into a brightly lit kitchen. The girl gets her homework and opens her books. They go through the muscles of the body.

“When I say a muscle, I want you to show me where on your body it is. Can you do that?” the teacher asks in a deep voice.

The girl opens her eyes wide, nods and pouts. She manages two muscles. When he says gluteus maximus, the buttock muscle, she pulls up her skirt, revealing the hem of her underpants, and points at the outside of her thigh. The teacher shakes his head with a smile.

“Stand up and I’ll show you,” he says.

She pushes her chair back and stands up. He places his large hand behind her knee and moves it up her leg, under her skirt. He lifts her skirt higher and pulls her underwear aside. Pushes a finger inside. The girl groans. A perfect porn groan. But with a trace of astonished innocence and guilt. An acknowledgment to the viewer that she knows she shouldn’t be doing this. That this is naughty. But she can’t help it. The temptation is too great for her to resist.

He pushes his finger in and out a few times. Then bends her over the table and fucks her. She screams, groans, claws at the table. Begs for more. The whole thing reaches a climax when he tells her to put on her glasses—they have fallen off somewhere along the way—before he ejaculates in her face. Her face contorted with pleasure, her mouth half-open, the schoolgirl receives his semen.

Porn films had to be the clearest indication of just how highly men valued their semen. It was bestowed upon breathless, reverential women with their mouths half-open, always half-open, as if it were a precious gift.

Faye put the computer back in sleep mode with a couple of clicks of the mouse on the ugly Nordea mat. If that was what Jack wanted, that was what he would get.

She pushed the chair back from the desk, and it creaked reluctantly as she stood up. It was pitch-black outside now. The light snow had stopped falling. She picked up her wineglass and left the room.

Faye had everything she needed in her walk-in closet. She looked at the time. Half past nine. Jack’s plane was about to land, soon he’d be sitting in a taxi. Naturally, he used Arlanda’s VIP service, so it wouldn’t take him long to get out of the airport.

She had a quick shower and shaved off the light stubble that had grown out above her genitals. She washed herself thoroughly, then put makeup on, not the way she usually did, but a bit carelessly, like someone with less experience. She rubbed in plenty of blush, used far too much mascara, and, as the icing on the cake, applied some bubblegum-pink lipstick she found at the bottom of her makeup box—probably given to her in a goodie bag at some event.

Jack wouldn’t be getting her—not Faye, his wife, the mother of his child—but someone younger and more innocent, someone untouched. That was what he needed.

She picked out one of Jack’s thin gray ties and knotted it carelessly around her neck. She put on a pair of the reading glasses he was ashamed to wear in public and always hid when they had visitors. Rectangular, black, Dolce & Gabbana. Faye looked at the result in the mirror. She looked ten years younger. Almost like the person she had been when she left Fj?llbacka.

She was no one’s wife. No one’s mother. It was perfect.

Faye crept into Julienne’s room to get one of her exercise books and a pink pencil. She froze when Julienne murmured in her sleep. Was she going to wake up? No, she was soon breathing calmly again.

She went into the kitchen to pour herself some more wine but stopped and pulled out a box of Julienne’s plastic cups instead. She filled a large Hello Kitty cup with red wine, one with a lid and a straw. Perfect.

When the key turned in the front door she was sitting looking through The Economist, which Jack insisted on leaving out on the coffee table. She was the only person in the family who actually read it.

Jack put his case on the floor, took off his shoes, and inserted the cedar-wood blocks that kept his soft, handmade Italian leather shoes in shape. Faye sat still. Unlike her usual discreet lip gloss from Lanc?me, the pink lipstick felt sticky and smelled faintly synthetic.

Jack opened the fridge carefully. He hadn’t spotted her yet. He was moving quietly, probably thought she and Julienne were both asleep.

She watched him from the gloom of the living room. Like a stranger looking through a window, she was able to observe her husband without his knowledge. Jack was always on the alert otherwise. Now, when he thought no one could see him, he moved differently. He was relaxed, almost careless. His usually upright frame was slouching, only slightly, but enough for someone who knew him as well as she did to appreciate the difference. His face was smoother, without the permanent worry line that was always there these days, even on the social occasions that were closely intertwined with his career, with their life, where the laughter and clink of glasses could be transformed into a multimillion-kronor deal the following day.

She remembered what Jack was like as a young man, when they first met. That cheeky look in his eyes, his happy laugh, hands that couldn’t stop touching her, that couldn’t get enough of her.

The light in the fridge lit up his face and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She loved him. Loved his broad back. Loved his big hands, which were raising a carton of juice to his lips. Soon they would be on her, in her. Dear God, how she longed for that.

Maybe that longing made her body move, because he suddenly turned his face toward the polished oven door and saw her reflection. He started and spun around, his hand clutching the carton of juice, halfway to his mouth.

He put it down on the island unit.

“Are you still up?” he said, surprised. The line between his neatly shaped eyebrows was back.

Faye didn’t answer, she just got to her feet and took a few steps toward him. His eyes roamed across her body. It had been a long time since he had looked at her that way.

“Come here,” she said softly, in a high voice.

Jack closed the fridge door and the kitchen receded into darkness again. But the lights of the city outside were bright enough for them to see each other. He walked around the island, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned forward to kiss her. But she turned her face aside and pushed him down onto a chair. She was in charge now. When he reached out one hand toward her skirt she batted it away, only to place it behind her knee a moment later. She pulled her skirt up so that he could see her lace underwear, hoping he would recognize it, hoping he would see how similar it was. To hers. The young girl. The innocent student.

His hand wandered upward and she couldn’t help letting out a groan. Instead of pulling her panties aside like in the film, he tore them apart. She groaned again, louder, bent over the table, swaying gently as he unbuttoned his trousers and tugged them down along with his underpants. He grabbed hold of her hair and forced her lower on the table. He leaned over her with all his weight, nipping the back of her neck with his teeth, and she caught the smell of orange juice mixed with whiskey from the flight. He kicked her legs apart forcefully, stood behind her, and pushed his way into her.

Jack fucked her hard and aggressively, and with each thrust the tabletop pressed against her midriff. He was hurting her a bit, but the pain was a liberation, it made her forget everything else so that she could concentrate wholly on the pleasure.

She was his. Her pleasure was his. Her body was his.

“Tell me when you’re about to come,” she groaned with her cheek against the cold tabletop, now smeared with sticky lipstick.

“Now,” Jack gasped.

She got down on her knees in front of him. He was breathing heavily as he pushed his cock into her open mouth. He grabbed the back of her head with both hands and forced it farther in. She fought against her gag reflex and tried not to twist her head away. Just take it. Always, just take it.

The porn scene was playing in Faye’s mind, and when Jack ejaculated she took pleasure in seeing the same look on his face as the teacher when he took possession of the innocent young student.

“Welcome home, darling,” she said with a forced smile.

That was one of the last times they had sex as a married couple.

STOCKHOLM, SUMMER 2001