“Come on,” said Denise. “Out with it, Jazmine.”
She drummed on the table with the tips of her fingers and took a deep breath. “I slept with my mom’s boyfriend. He was the first guy I got pregnant with,” she said with a cheeky smile, throwing her head back.
“Oh my God,” said Michelle, looking at Denise’s raised eyebrows. “Did she find out?”
Jazmine smiled, revealing the dimples in her cheeks.
“And that was the end of that affair, right?” Denise said, laughing.
Jazmine nodded again. “You can be sure of that! For both of us!”
Michelle was delighted. You really got to know each other with this game.
“What about you, Denise? What’s the worst you’ve done?”
It was apparent that she would have to think hard about this by the way she inspected her bright red nails.
“To myself or someone else?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.
“That’s up to you. There are no rules about that.”
“Lots of things, I think. I steal from my sugar daddies if I can get away with it. For example, yesterday I stole a picture of this guy’s wife. Sometimes, if I want to be rid of them, I blackmail them, and they get the photo back and disappear once they’ve paid up.”
“That doesn’t sound like the worst you can come up with,” Jazmine said dryly.
A roguish smile spread over Denise’s face. “If you say the worst thing you’ve done, Michelle, I’ll come up with something better in a bit.”
Michelle bit her bottom lip. She didn’t know how to get the words out.
“It’s soooo embarrassing!”
“Come on, your turn,” Jazmine said, sounding annoyed and pushing her dirty plate over toward her. “Otherwise you can just start washing up now.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.” She hid the bottom of her face in her hand. “If I could get a job as an erotic model, I really think I could imagine sleeping with the photographer. It would round things off.”
“What sort of shit is that to come out with, Michelle? Start washing up!” Jazmine looked sternly at her. “You make us come up with something real and then spout out some bullshit. What do you think we’d do in that situation? Do you think it was fun for me to fuck that ugly bloke yesterday and demand money for it?”
“At least it was better than getting pregnant again, wasn’t it?” said Denise.
Jazmine nodded. “Come on, Michelle, don’t be such a silly cow. Tell us what you’ve done that’s soooo embarrassing.”
Michelle looked away. “I love watching Paradise Hotel.”
“Shut up, you little Goody Two-shoes, you can—”
“And often dream about being on the show.”
Jazmine was about to get up. “You’re doing the dishes.”
“And if Patrick isn’t at home, I masturbate all the way through the show. I take off all my clothes and touch myself while watching it. It feels really hot.”
Jazmine made herself comfortable again. “Okay, crazy! You get credit for that, you little slut.” She smiled.
Michelle was back in the game.
“I know it’s because I’ve been so sick of Patrick. In a way, I hate him just now. All night while you two were partying, I was thinking about how I could take my revenge. Tell his boss that he steals cables and sockets and uses them to make money on the side. Or slash the tires of that car he loves so much. Or just slash it all the way around. Or I could make sure he would make a fool of himself at the club where he works. He’d hate that more than anything. He—”
“Well,” Jazmine interrupted her, which didn’t feel nice. “Are we getting anything from you, Denise?”
She nodded while considering her answer. “The worst I’ve done? I’d probably say it’s that I lie all the time. That no one can trust me, and that goes for you two as well.”
Michelle frowned. What a horrible thing to say.
“But now I’ll tell you something else that will definitely be bad enough.”
“Out with it, then!” Jazmine’s expectations were clearly high, but not Michelle’s. Denise had just said that she lies about everything and to everyone. So what was the point of listening to her?
“I think we should help Michelle.”
Michelle frowned again. Was she taking the piss? Was she now the butt of another joke?
“Okay, we’ll do it. But what’s that got to do with the game?” asked Jazmine.
“If Michelle goes along with my idea, you’ll be the one washing the dishes, Jazmine.” Denise turned to face Michelle. “As things stand now, you don’t contribute anything at all around here, do you, Michelle? I’m only talking about money, okay? So now you’re going to tell us how to get our hands on some, and whatever you say, we’ll do it.”
Michelle was totally confused. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know how we can get ahold of any; otherwise I would’ve done it already. You know Patrick kicked me—”
“Say anything, Michelle. You suggested we should rob Anne-Line Svendsen. So is that what we’re doing?”
“No, that was just a—”
“Are we going to Patrick’s apartment to steal everything we can lay our hands on?”
Michelle took a deep breath. “Hell no, he’d know it was me.”
“Then what, Michelle? I’m willing to do whatever you say—even if it’s really bad.”
Jazmine laughed. She was obviously in. Michelle didn’t like it at all. What was she meant to come up with?
“You mentioned before that Patrick steals from his boss. Maybe you could blackmail him,” suggested Jazmine.
“No!” She shook her head. “I don’t dare. He’ll kill me if I do anything like that.”
“What a jolly nice guy that Patrick must be. But what’s the name of the club where he works as a doorman, Michelle, and when is he there?” asked Jazmine.
Michelle shook her head more and more violently. “He’s there on Wednesdays and Fridays, but what difference does it make? He won’t give me any money, if that’s what you think. And we can’t do anything to him because there are cameras and everything.”
“I asked you what club.”
“It’s not really a club, more of a venue really.”
“What venue, Michelle?”
“Victoria, out in Sydhavnen.”
Jazmine sat back and lit another cigarette. “Victoria? Okay. I’ve been there loads of times to pick up guys. It’s a really good concept because they’re also open Monday to Thursday. Actually, they’re the only place that is apart from a few city clubs and gay bars. They make you buy something to drink, but as long as you buy a Zombie you can sip it for the rest of the night—unless some guy picks you up and pays for the rest of the evening. But how long has Patrick been working there? I don’t remember seeing him.”
Michelle tried to remember. She wasn’t good at keeping track of time.