In the Shadow of Sadd

VICTORIA

Gretelise Holm


It’s pretty incredible how much men will pay to hear that they have a giant cock. Or just for the notion, the dream of it, thought Victoria. She had no idea, obviously, what their penises looked like – her only contact with them was by phone – but it was a big part of her repertoire:

“Then you take your big, hard cock out ...”

“Yeah,” he moans.

“It’s so big, it’s almost scary …”

“Yeah, more …”

“I’m so wet, soaking wet, and I can’t hide how horny I am … You stick your hand under my skirt and you realize ... that I’m not wearing panties!”

At this point she starts her canned heavy breathing, which makes her torrent of speech more abrupt.

“I take hold of it … I have to use both hands to get all the way around it ... it’s just soooo big …”

“Keep going,” the man moans into the phone. “More, more …” She can hear that he’s getting worked up, and it’s best if things don’t move too quickly. The rate is five bucks per minute, and she’d like to drag it out for at least ten.

“You bad, naughty boy. I’m letting go of your big cock!”

“No-no, don’t let go. I’m gonna give it to you,” gasps the client on the phone.

“I want you to lick me. My p-ssy is so hot, I want it so bad. You wanna lick my p-ssy?”

“Yeah ... yeah ... I’m licking your p-ssy. Does that feel good? You like it when I lick your horny little p-ssy?”

She hears unappetizing slurping sounds and silently swallows one of the pills she has placed in a row on the table in front of her.

“Mmmmmmmmm, that’s good,” she answers and checks the clock. Three minutes and counting.

She moans, but not ecstatically. Her experience tells her that this particular client is a quick comer, and she’d like him to last another seven minutes, unless of course he would call back in a short time.

“Ohhh,” she sighs. “More, yeah there. Please don’t stop. It feels so good. Don’t ever stop. I want more, more, more...”

She is about to say ‘cock,’ as a matter of routine, but she remembers that he is supposed to be licking her. The seconds tick away at a snail’s pace on the electric wall clock.

“No,” he says. “Now it’s time for the high, hard one. And you’ll be gettin’ plenty – I can do it three times, three times in an hour.”

“Oh, yeah ... Oh, yeah. Come inside of me. It’s so big and hard ... It’s stretching my p-ssy out ... my p-ssy’s on fire ... put out the fire ... aim that big hose at the fire ... and spray!”

He lets out an orgasmic roar, and she reciprocates professionally with an affected, happy whimper and sighs:

“I just can’t get enough of you.”

“I’ll call you back,” he answers hoarsely. “Real soon.”

***

Hillbilly, she thinks to herself, while appreciating that she had likely scored a new regular. She likes the easy, normal regulars. Not that she has anything against servicing the loons, but they can be so demanding.

She had once had to read an entire series of children’s books in order to portray little Heidi, who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The man on the phone expected her to know all the details, so he could more convincingly play the role of the grandfather, who in his fantasy version of the story screwed the little girl.

Jesus Christ ... Well, to each his own, as long as I get paid. It’s his money, thought Victoria.

She thought a lot about money – she always had. She was born into poverty, and every aspect of life in the City comes at a price. Every aspect of escape from life in the City comes at a price too. And for her, it was the latter that represented the greatest need – a chemical escape from the City and from herself.

The role of Heidi was not completely foreign to her, as she, too, had been screwed by grown men from the age of eleven or twelve. Damn, that was serious pain. But the money! She had been one of Hispaniola’s richest kids, and even at that age she understood that her greatest asset was located between her legs.

‘The wet checkbook’ was what Lulu – her first street friend – called her own p-ssy. She smiled at the memory of Lulu, who had been so much fun, but the smile turned to a resigned frown. Lulu had been one of the first to die. A natural death – assuming you consider a drug overdose to be a natural phenomenon. But at least she hadn’t been dispatched by a sadistic trick or a greedy pimp.

There were fewer and fewer left of her generation, and in many ways she’d been lucky – or clever, if you asked her. There was no doubt that it was her acting ability, and her expansive insight into the male psyche, that allowed her to sit by the phone and earn just as much money for Jimmy Sadd as many of the girls in his kitten houses.

Phone sex. What other options were there for an old whore in her twenties? Twenty-four, to be exact. The competition was outrageous since the whorehouses started importing young children from abroad.

She’d done better than most, and Jimmy Sadd himself usually sent his regards through Bruno when the latter came to deliver her cut. The terms of her employment were a 25% cut of everything she brought in from her customers, and half off on her dope. Occasionally she’d owe Sadd money, when business was slow, and her take didn’t cover her habit, but for the most part there was a cash surplus when Bruno balanced the accounts.

There wasn’t much in the way of business-related expenses. After all, she could simply invent the adult book store accoutrements – net stockings, garter belts, stiletto heels, riding crops – when her clients gasped, “Tell me what you’re wearing ...”

For the most part she sat in her dingy bathrobe, with her feet up on the coffee table, and looked at the toenails that she didn’t polish often enough.

Her hair was also in need of attention – maybe vitamins, she thought on this morning, as she looked at herself in the mirror and scratched her head. Bleached hair becomes porous, and porous hair absorbs grease. Her hair was stiff and dead, with split ends. She wasn’t going to walk around like that anymore. She’d go to the hair salon today, but it was still raining pitchforks out there – she wouldn’t send a dog out in weather like that!

She was shocked when the doorbell rang. What the ...? Damn! What were they thinking? Eleven o’clock in the morning, and she wasn’t even expecting visitors.

She sneaked over to the door in her bare feet, and looked out the spy hole. Who the hell was that cream-puss?

‘Cream-puss’ and ‘buttermilk boy’ were the personal slang terms she used for a well-dressed and well-groomed man with innocent eyes and perfect skin. The kind that wants to marry the first girl who lets him f*ck her. Kind of like Paul. Could this guy be a client that somehow found her address? No, that wasn’t possible.

“Who is it?” she yelled.

“Christian Berg,” the man answered. “I have good news from Jimmy Sadd.”

“Just a second,” she shouted back. “I just got out of the shower.”

She ran to the wardrobe and ripped a couple items of clothing down and out. Then she let him in.

“Sorry about the mess,” she said and pointed to the pile of clothing that literally tumbled out of the wardrobe.

This guy really was a cream-puss. Not so much as a speck of dust on his tailored suit, not the slightest scar on his face that might reveal a history of testosterone production, and nails that were so clean and well-manicured they were white, and nearly turned upwards. Probably sprays on a disinfectant in the morning, she thought.

His soft, modulated voice and upper-class enunciation confirmed her diagnosis:

“I’ve come on behalf of Managing Director Jimmy Sadd,” he said, and looked around the living room for a place to sit down.

He bent down over Müsli, her white mouse, who was frenetically tearing up the running wheel. The cage was placed on a low table that was covered by a ragged piece of sheeting.

“Well, what have we got here?” he said in the interest of polite conversation, without waiting for an answer.

Victoria cleared a spot on the sofa by swiping away a pile of socks, dirty underwear and old magazines.

“Sit down. Can I get you something?”

She had nothing in the house, but she was well aware that he would decline her offer.

He sat down carefully on the edge of the white sofa. She knew the type: he was afraid of getting syphilis, AIDS, lice and fleas.

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Shit weather, huh?” she said hesitantly, and for want of a better topic of conversation.

He set down his attaché case by his right foot and rubbed his white hands as though he were washing them in slow motion. Then he said:

“Managing Director Jimmy Sadd sent me on his behalf to express his gratitude for the extraordinary sense of occasion and presence of mind you have exhibited. Early this morning, Jimmy Sadd received a telephone call from Bruno Hanson, who informed him of the events that took place here in this building last night. Sadd wasn’t able to be here today, but he sends his warmest regards, and he would like to know if there is anything he can do for you.”

Victoria considered the question and looked bashfully down at the floor.

“Of course, it’s always nice to have a few bucks stashed away in case of emergency,” she answered slyly. “You never know what tomorrow will bring, and if the ground starts to heat up, having the cash to buy a ticket out of the City would be a good thing, no?”

“I can only agree. I have been authorized to provide you with two thousand. If the ticket costs more than that, you need only contact me. Here is my card.”

Christian Berg, attorney.

Law firm of Berg, Klein & Hammon.

She studied him with a sidelong glance. Yeah, Berg was okay – in other words, he was the man he was presenting himself to be, she thought.

“How long have you worked for the managing director?” asked Christian Berg.

“Uhm,” she exerted thoughtfully, “the last seven years, on and off, in different jobs.”

“You looked after his fish. They’re like his children,” said the attorney and smiled warmly.

“I’m gonna make some coffee after all,” she said, going out into the kitchen and closing the door behind her.

She wanted to show Christian Berg confidence – she wanted to demonstrate that she didn’t have anything to hide.

***

Yes, she thought, as she filled up the coffee machine. It had all started with the fish in Sadd’s apartment, and that was before she met Paul.

It was Sadd, the mob boss, who had personally asked her to take care of the fish:

“You have to understand, my wife doesn’t want them in the house. And I’ll tell you one thing: at home, she’s the boss. I call her the Sheriff. You might not believe me, but I’m actually a little scared of her. If you take good care of my fish, I’ll give you three more points – 28%. And if any of them die, I’ll smack you silly.”

Obviously, it wasn’t a coincidence that Victoria ended up living next-door to the boss. He owned the entire building, and the apartment under his control was the same one he’d used previously to keep a high-end whore. He didn’t stay in the apartment very often, and his name wasn’t on the door. He kept it mostly for the sake of the fish. Now and then – probably when his enemies were after him – he used the apartment as a safe house, and he would occasionally be seen on the staircase in the company of a very young girl – when he was personally auditioning new talent for one of his houses.

It was one of these young girls, Lucy, who had told Victoria where Jimmy Sadd was keeping himself at that time, and naturally that information was secret. Victoria wasn’t even certain that Bruno knew about it. At any rate, Sadd got busted for something and got three months inside – which is better than being outside in a hell-wet climate like this.

Victoria had cursed the fish at first. She didn’t know anything about fish, but she had to take good care of them, because Sadd had killed people for a lot less than a tiger-striped aquarium fish.

It was precisely such a tiger-striped bastard that one day began to swim around belly-up, leading her to conclude that the pump, which oxidizes the water, had broken down. She dismantled it and brought it in to be repaired at AnimalCity. It was only a loose connection. But when she was putting it back in she came to push the tank too hard, and a wave of water sloshed over the side and hit the floor, along with three or four of the fish. She got the fish back in the tank, and then went over to her own place to get a towel, so she could clean up the lake that had formed on Sadd’s floor.

She was only gone for thirty seconds, but when she got back, the puddle on the floor had disappeared. It was still wet, but the water was gone, and water can’t evaporate that quickly.

The water must have run in under the bookcase. She got down flat on her stomach, looked into the darkness under the bottom shelf, which was unusually low, and began to circle the area with the towel. There wasn’t much water here, either, but she suddenly realized where the water had gone. She saw an opening – a crack – low on the wall. She illuminated the area with her lighter, and ran her finger along the line of the crack. What the hell? The crack ended where that section of the bookcase ended. And the wall behind that section was smoother to the touch than it was behind the other sections. Suddenly it came to her: that section of the bookcase was mounted onto some sort of door.

After having made it that far, it took less than five minutes for her to find the handle.

On the other hand, it took her the rest of the day to get over the joyous sense of shock she had experienced at suddenly finding herself in a room decorated with stacks of bank notes. Billions and billions, there must have been.

She must have done fifty miles worth of pacing, around and around, in her tiny apartment, while she thought and thought – until the guy in the apartment below her knocked on his ceiling with a broomstick, but by that time her plan was almost ready.

It was the chance of a lifetime, and she was going to take it, but it wouldn’t be easy. Aside from Bruno, only she had a key to the apartment, so if any of the money disappeared, the suspicion would fall quickly, and heavily, on her. And she’d be dead before she could even dip into the first stack. Jimmy Sadd must never suspect her in the slightest. She had to be very sly – but if she was, she’d be rich as a dictator for the rest of her days.

Naturally, a mafia boss can’t put his money in the bank like ordinary people. The secret room was his bank vault, and some of the money in there was the result of her hard work. Sadd had never earned an honest buck in his life. The money was just as much hers as it was his.

***

From the kitchen, Victoria watched Cream-puss carefully use his handkerchief to wipe off the coffee cup she had placed in front of him. Afraid of getting herpes or AIDS. What a dick. In a couple of days she’d be able to buy and sell him as cat food.

She assumed an appropriately sweet and naive demeanor.

“Milk or sugar?”

“No, thank you. Black is fine.”

He cleared his throat, and she understood they were about to talk business:

“You knew nothing about the secret room?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. Did this guy have a sense of humor? Yeah, it’ll be all right: “If I’d known about the treasure chest, I don’t think I’d be sitting here cutting out coupons. I could probably find a few places in the world where it doesn’t rain quite as much as it does here.”

She smiled, and he smiled warmly back at her.

“Well, I’m sure you’re right about that,” he said, before putting on his mortician’s face:

“Was Paul your … your … your boyfriend?”

The corners of her mouth quivered. She ripped off a piece of paper towel and dried her eyes, while she nodded bravely.

“Just give me a few seconds,” she said, and hid her face in her hands.

“Of course,” said Christian Berg with sensitivity.

***

She let the memories play back in her mind’s eye:

She had first met Paul when she brought the broken aquarium pump to AnimalCity. He had waited on her hand and foot, and she could immediately smell his pent-up sexual frustration. She had a professional nose for that sort of thing:

We’re talking about a single, borderline-depressive, hillbilly underling who works as an assistant clerk in a pet shop. He isn’t particularly good-looking or smart, and he’s so sexually malnourished that the mere sight of the silicone bulges (which Sadd gave me for Christmas when I was seventeen) under my blouse is enough to set him off.

It had been a kind of automatic, reflexive thought that didn’t have any significance. She was simply trained to evaluate men and their sexual proclivities and needs. It came with the job.

Only when she had arrived back home with the pump, had found the secret treasure chest and made her sophisticated plan, did she realize she could use Paul. To assure the survival of the fish and to ... no, she wouldn’t think about that right now.

The next morning she put on a suede miniskirt, leopard-spotted stockings and a tight, low-cut, olive-green top, and made her way to AnimalCity.

She rejected a young female clerk who tried to assist her, and waited until Paul was available.

“Oh, I’m so happy you’re here,” she said.

He blushed and smiled blissfully:

“Did the pump work when you got home?” he asked.

“Perfectly. Thank you so much,” she answered effusively, softly touching his arm with her hand to establish an atmosphere of intimacy between them.

He visibly struggled to free himself of her spell. After all, he was on the job:

“What can I help you with today?” he asked.

She looked deeply into his eyes and answered:

“I want an animal – just a small one – that isn’t hard to take care of, but can still keep me company. Life can get a little lonely here in the City, you know?”

“Oh, I know all about that,” he responded.

“I hear you, you’re single too?” she asked.

He nodded and then asked:

“What kind of animal are you looking for?”

“Well, it has to have fur. Furry animals are so cute, you know? I don’t get people who have snakes and lizards and whatever. Cold-blooded animals, you know?”

“Oh, I know. I’m not too into the cold-blooded animals either, but we sell a lot of them these days. They’re trendy – especially with the kids.”

“Cold-blooded animals for cold-blooded people,” she said slowly, and a little hoarse, as she again looked him straight in the eye.

Many men find a hoarse voice sexy.

He clearly understood the message in her words (We’re both hot-blooded people) and blushed again violently.

“The aquarium fish aren’t yours?” he asked.

“Oh, no. They’re my neighbor’s. I just take care of them while he’s out of town. I mean, it’s the neighborly thing to do, right?”

“Of course it is. Being neighborly is important in the City. In the country, too, for that matter. I grew up in the country,” he said.

“ Mmmm, how long have you lived in town?”

“Coming up on two years.”

“How do you like it?”

“It cuts both ways. Like you said, it’s easy to feel alone and unwanted in this ant heap.”

“You just need to find yourself a nice girl,” she laughed flirtatiously.

“Well, first I’ll find a pet for you.” His voice cracked midway through the sentence, and she was worried he’d have an accident in his pants. She was certain that he had an erection under his brown smock – it was her business to know.

Hamster. Guinea pig. Rat. Ground squirrel. He displayed the animals and provided information on their habits and how to care for them. She looked at him with admiration and said:

“Wow, you know so much!”

Men want to be admired. Admiration stimulates the production of their sex hormones. She knew her business in theory and in practice.

“That one’s mine,” he said and pointed to a large brown rat that shared a cage with a white rat.

“What a cutie,” she said. “What’s it doing here?”

“It’s here to look out for the white one. You know what my rat’s called?” he asked expectantly. She shook her head.

“‘Dirty.’ He laughed at his own joke, and she politely laughed along. “Dirty Rat.”

“Oh, it’s so perky, and so cute,” she squealed in delight when she saw the little red-eyed mouse tearing along on its running wheel.

She bought the mouse – with the cage and wheel – and he instructed her on how best to care for it. It was obvious that he was doing everything he could to avoid terminating the transaction.

In the end she helped him out of his predicament:

“There’s a problem with one of the fish – a big one with stripes and a long kind of antenna. It’s started swimming sort of weird – sideways, you know, like it’s sick or something. Sometimes it swims on its back, and I freak out, thinking it’s gonna die. Do you know a lot about fish?”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s hard to make a diagnosis off the cuff ...”

She looked shy and apologetic:

“Maybe if you have time ... and if it isn’t too much of a hassle ... maybe you could ... I mean, for money, of course ... come over and take a look at it?”

“Of course I can!”

He shined like the sun – and f*cked like a rabbit, she found out later that evening.

For some time he behaved like a frisky dog: horny, happy and devoted beyond belief. He was only two years younger than she was, but in terms of life experience he was at least a couple of generations behind. He was so honest that she could read him like an open book, and so naive that she could convince him of practically anything, which she certainly did. She lied about her work, and she lied about a great deal more.

Four days after their first meeting, he bought twelve red roses, dropped to his knees and proposed to her. She said yes, and he gave up his rented attic room and moved into her apartment. He took over the job of caring for Jimmy Sadd’s fish. As an expert in the field, he could do a much better job.

Bruno Hanson, who attended to Sadd’s interests, had thought it was an excellent arrangement, and he even saw to it that an extra key was made for the nice young man, who would naturally be compensated for his services.

***

Attorney Christian Berg cleared his throat, and Victoria took her hands away from her face. Her eyes were red – the result of her surreptitiously probing them with her finger. It would work to her advantage should the attorney see her as a sensitive person.

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “But I have to try – on Managing Director Sadd’s behalf – to map out the sequence of events as they took place.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said. “And I’ll be all right in a second.”

“Do you have any idea when Paul discovered the secret room?”

She shook her head and said calmly:

“None at all. I didn’t even know it existed, much less that he’d found it.”

“And the gun? Did you know anything about that?”

She shook her head and hid her face in her hands once again, then she raised her trembling shoulders to her ears in a sort of worried plea. She allowed her thoughts to bear her away.

***

Lucy’s friend, Willy, had given her the address of the gun dealer, but he’d probably already forgotten about it. Names, numbers and addresses constantly circulated around an environment like that – just like information on pushers, dirty cops and soft doctors who are always good for a scrip or two.

She didn’t have to fear that the gun dealer would rat her out to Sadd, as he had been fished out of the river two days earlier with a hole straight through his head. God only knows what he’d done to deserve that.

At any rate, she certainly hadn’t lamented his loss. The gun dealer’s death, as it turned out, had spared her a great deal of inconvenience. He had demanded that they barter: the cost of the gun for the use of her sex organs for six months – though at a maximum of twenty installments. She’d only paid off on four of the twenty, so in reality she had gotten the SIG PRO SP 2022, which the dealer said had belonged to a now-deceased French policeman, at a good price.

It had been an extraordinary sensation to hold her own gun in her hand. She’d experienced a feeling of power and control that was new to her. At first it was a novelty that she wouldn’t be keeping ... and then she just had to have a really cool gun.

The gun was meant for Paul. He was going to need it. But he wouldn’t be needing the ammunition, so she tossed it into a container on the way home from the gun dealer. That way there was no chance anyone could get hurt – by the bullets.

When it came to her planning, it was a great stroke of fortune that Paul lived such an ordered life, coming and going at the same time every day. When she came home with the gun, there was plenty of time to plant it on a shelf in the secret room.

She went to the room practically every day and got high by inhaling the smell of what must have been the greatest fortune in the City. She could linger there for hours – and end up getting dizzy at the thought of the wealth she would shortly acquire.

As far as she knew, Jimmy Sadd would be getting out of jail in about two months, so her plan had to be put into effect soon – and the first step was that Paul had to discover the secret money room of his own volition.

Every day, when he got back from work, he went into Jimmy Sadd’s apartment to feed the fish, and stayed there for about half an hour. She suspected that he liked to loaf around the place and soak in the more luxurious surroundings.

Paul had the unfortunate quality – according to her – of being jealous of those who enjoyed a life that was more entertaining and pleasurable than his own. Passive jealousy won’t get you anywhere, she thought. She would have much more respect for him if he, say, took some initiative and pulled off a proper bank robbery. But that requires a man of a certain stature ...

On the whole she was pretty tired of him and his clingy, dog-like horniness. He slobbered, and she hated to be kissed. Her mouth was her own – as opposed to the cash register down below.

“I like it best from behind,” she told him, and smoked a cigarette while he got himself off.

“Mmmm, my love,” he said. “That’s really hot. No messing around ...”

At any rate, the important thing now was that Paul found the secret room all by himself. She had to arrange for his attention to be directed at the bookcase door, and since it was still she who dusted and watered the plants in Sadd’s apartment, she was confident she’d find a solution.

She knew that Paul was fascinated by Sadd’s more exotic souvenirs, like the hippopotamus tusk, the Saami dagger and the Egyptian baby mummy. It was common for these items to be moved around a bit when she dusted, and she could always place them on the bookcase section in front of the well-camouflaged door handle.

At the same time, she could shift the handle a bit, so it stuck out by a millimeter or two.

She could read Paul like an open book, so she sensed it immediately, when he had found the secret room. When he came back to her apartment he was sweating – enough to fog his glasses – and when he was done making dinner he asked, with feigned indifference:

“Who is this Jimmy Sadd really?”

She had Paul right where she wanted him.

***

“You didn’t even know that Paul had a gun?” repeated the attorney, Christian Berg.

“No, I would never have thought so. You have to understand: he wasn’t that type at all. He was a country boy – real small town, you know – and a little boring maybe, but that was just what I fell for. Here in the City people can be a bit too far out there, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yes, that’s certainly true. What about Bruno Hanson, how well do you know him?” asked the attorney.

She blinked in confusion:

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry …”

“There’s nothing to know. You know I work for Jimmy Sadd. I work in phone sales, on commission. It was mostly Bruno who took care of the books. In other words, my cut was transferred directly to my net-bank, but there was always some extra stuff that Bruno took care of. Sadd has other things on his mind.”

You never say more than you have to in this world, and she didn’t think her drug use or the dark side of the business concerned the attorney in any way.

“Yes, of course. Bruno Hanson is a good man,” said Cream-puss.

***

A good man. It’s interesting how men speak of each other without knowing anything at all, thinks Victoria.

The attorney says that bald, wide-jawed ‘Bruno the gorilla’ is a good man.

Personally, she wouldn’t even call him a man – he was a sniveling infant who at least once a month sprawled on her living room floor so he could have his diaper changed.

It started the second time he came around with her cut. He had a light-blue pacifier in his pocket.

“What the f*ck?” she’d said, when he took it out. “Have you got young children?”

“No, I use it myself. I have a video too, that I want you to watch.”

“Oh, please! I’ve seen every porno film in the entire world,” she answered warily.

“You haven’t seen this one.”

No, she had to admit, that was true. She hadn’t seen a porno film like this, where big men were sprawled on oversized changing tables, and had their big, ugly, hairy asses oiled and powdered, or had diapers put on them, were fed gruel and put on the potty, as they babbled away happily all the while.

Baby-men. Okay, she’d thought. It was one of the more innocent perversities, and since Bruno paid well, it was all good with her.

So now, about once a month, she was mother to a bouncing baby Bruno. She’d bought the props at the pharmacy: powder, pacifiers, diapers …

Of course, there was also a sexual component:

“Mommy, can I please touch my pee-pee?” Baby Bruno would ask.

Different variations followed:

“No, little Bruno. You mustn’t do that. Bad boy!”

But little Bruno did it anyway, and then had to be smacked on his little behind.

Or Victoria might say:

“Okay, little Bruno. Can Mommy see what you do with your pee-pee?”

Of course, it always ended with him making a mess with his pee-pee, so that Mommy had to clean it up and put a new diaper on him.

‘Well, to each his own, as long as I get paid,’ was Victoria’s business slogan. And she was no longer surprised by men and their many peculiar proclivities.

Psychologists had explanations for those things. As a rule it had to do with childhood.

“What’s your mother like, Bruno?” she asked.

“She’s one of a kind.”

“I mean, what was she like when you were little?”

“I don’t know. My brother, George, and I took care of ourselves.”

Right, thought Victoria the amateur psychologist. I guess that explains the diapers.

“Does your brother George wear diapers too?” she asked.

“No. He likes hitting. He once beat a whore to death. He didn’t do it on purpose, and he was really sorry about it afterwards.”

So there wasn’t any definitive psychological explanation for the diaper thing after all.

But she would always prefer Bruno’s perversity to George’s.

She actually got along well with Bruno. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in physical strength. And whatever could be said about him, he was always a loyal friend.

***

Christian Berg has gotten up and walks around her living room. Victoria concentrates on appearing calm. It’s crucial that he doesn’t smell her anxiety. To this end she remains silent. Talking too much can be a sign of nervousness.

He looks out the window and picks up a photo that has fallen over – a young woman in 80s clothing.

“Is this your mother?”

Victoria nods. Don’t talk too much. Why can’t he just give her the two thousand and piss off?

“She’s a good-looking woman, your mother. What does she do?” he continues.

“She was a businesswoman – a good businesswoman,” answers Victoria.

“In what field?”

“Home parties.”

“Oh, where friends sell makeup and Tupperware bowls to each other. My wife’s involved with that.”

“Yeah, something like that,” answers Victoria.

***

Or rather, nothing like that at all. Victoria’s mother arranged an entirely different type of home party – very small, exclusive home parties, where women and children were sold to men.

That’s why Victoria was so good at playing the role of little Heidi in the Swiss Alps:

“Grandpa, would you help me with my dress?”

“Grandpa, I can’t find my panties!”

“Grandpa, what’s that big bulge in your pants?”

She had been trained by her mother, who had been trained by her mother, and she could still break out in a sweat recalling the anxiety, panic and pain of her early childhood, which was why she decided not to have children of her own. The baton would not be passed any farther.

The worst of the pain was behind her by the time at the age of about eleven. She had more money than the other kids, and she had found an expression that comforted her on most days: ‘You can get used to anything.’

When she was fifteen years old, she hit the streets with Lulu, who was the same age, and who had also come up in her mother’s stable. They defied the old pimp and went their own way for a short while. But there was always someone squeezing in to make money off of someone else’s effort. Now it was Sadd’s turn to play the role of the pimp for a while. But it wouldn’t be a long while, thought Victoria joyously. For the first time in her life she could see freedom on the horizon – all the freedom she could buy.

***