And it did.
— Well done. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
He was mocking me.
— Where’s Kim? What have you done with...
— It?
— Him.
— The slave is waiting. In the cellar. Can you find your way down?
I ran out of the apartment, stumbled down the stairs, down, down, with every step I took there only seemed to be more flights, and I was overcome with a nauseating impression that the stairwell was growing impossibly long, down, down, and very suddenly I came to a heavy iron door, which with great difficulty I managed to push slightly open, so that I was able to squeeze through, coming upon a new landing, which led to additional uneven stairs, and in turn more stairs, down another flight, down, down, farther down in the building, several floors beneath the building itself, all the way down into the cold underworld. Every blind footfall felt like a headlong dive over a precipice. In the end I knew in my soul I was down as deep as it was possible to go.
The ceiling was low. I sucked at the thin musty air, damp from being closed in, with a tinge of mold and an extra tang, likely an ancient sewer pipe leaking inside the walls. I pushed farther into darkness. It enveloped me completely. I was forced to squat so as not to bang my head, the medieval brick vault was so low. I attempted to light my way with my phone, but still scarcely saw anything, nothing more than rusty brown and my own fingers that held the phone before me, as if it were a weapon.
With aching slowness I groped forward, running a hand along the rough walls, until suddenly I detected breathing that was not my own, weak, panting, flickering like a flame in a draft, without strength, nearly extinguished. I reached out, straight into the black. Warm, living skin brushed my fingertips, and I recoiled.
— Is it you? I managed.
— Who are you?
— Is it Kim?
— Who is Kim?
— What’s your name?
— I have no name.
— Stop it. Answer.
— It’s Kim.
The voice of the man on the phone came from somewhere behind me.
— But you’ll be helping me.
I spun around and tried to catch a glimpse of him in the light of my phone, but he ducked away from me and receded. From somewhere in the distance I heard the iron door to the cellar close and lock.
Adrenaline was now the only thing that kept me standing.
— What have you done?
— What have you done?
— Let me see you!
— Let me see you!
At that moment a naked ceiling lamp was lit, and the young androgyne sat before me, as naked and white as the lightbulb.
— Do you know what you want? s/he asked me with a small, faint smile.
— I want to get out of here. Now.
— Don’t you want to rescue me anymore? Don’t you want to own me?
— I don’t want to be part of this game.
The man in the dark suit, whose face was concealed by a piece of black cloth, now appeared behind the androgye. He placed his hands around its neck.
— If you want to have me, you must take me. Show that you’re a worthy owner.
The man pressed harder, and I could hear Kim’s breathing stop. Her face turned blue.
— Stop! Stop! I’ll do it.
— What? the man asked without releasing any pressure.
— Show you I’m worthy!
He quickly let go and Kim sputtered for oxygen. Now I saw that s/he was sitting, lashed to the old office chair with cable ties.
— I knew you wanted it, Kim said weakly.
— I don’t want anything, but I’ll do what I have to, I answered.
— Then do it, said the man, and took a step to the side.
For a moment I played with the idea of overpowering him, freeing Kim... but he was too big, too menacing. Instinctively, I stepped toward Kim and tried to look dangerous, wanting her to cringe and shrink from me. S/he tittered, and I slapped her, which made her laugh out loud.
— What was that?
— Shut up!
— Can’t you do it?
The man stood in the background with his arms crossed over his chest and remained silent. I looked at him, but he just nodded at me.
— Again! s/he challenged me.
I struck another blow, harder now, with an open hand.
— Make a fist, you fucking faggot! Kim hissed at me, as if s/he were the one who was making a threat.
I clenched my hand into a fist, gave him a good solid shot in the face, which knocked her head backward. S/he quickly recovered, stuck her tongue out at me through a bloody nose.
The man standing by looked more and more exhilarated. Perverted scumbag, I thought, and punched the androgyne in the stomach so that s/he gave a fast hard expulsion of air.
— Is that enough?
— You’ll learn to tame me. You’ll own me.
— I’ll set you free!
— Don’t you understand anything? He’s the one you’ll set free.
I prepared myself. Struck again. Gave in to some sort of primitive, violent desire I didn’t know I had. The androgyne’s challenges spurred me on. I’m ashamed to describe in detail all the things I did, but a torturer serving in Pinochet’s military police force would have been proud of my effort. This continued for a protracted period of time that I was incapable of measuring, for I was sucked out of time itself, out of myself, into some sort of vehemently malicious personality that welled up out of my depths, beyond language, beyond emotion, beyond civilization and judgment, and finally beyond me, although it came from my truest self, from my deepest interior, like magma within a volcano, with the same indifference to life and death.
In the end s/he went silent, and I gently removed the plastic straps, stroked around the wounds, held Kim close to me, while tears, wholly foreign to my experience, trickled from the corners of my burning eyes. This, and a strange, deep satisfaction, made me forever a stranger to myself. The androgyne comforted me all the while, petting the nape of my neck.
— Can I go? asked the man who’d been quietly watching the whole time.
— Yes. He’ll pass.
Then I lost consciousness.
I woke up on Skeppsbron to the creeping light of a summer dawn. I was born anew. A void, empty.
The phone was cold and dead... I threw it into the sea, as if to liberate myself from the fever dream of the past twenty-four hours. Though I didn’t for a moment imagine I’d be spared more conversations in the future. I understood that I’d taken the man’s place. And worst of all, what I tried hardest to defend myself against, with the pathetic gesture of hurling the phone away... was the knowledge that I’d enjoyed it. Already, I anticipated Kim’s next call with the most sublime pleasure.
Black Ice
by Inger Frimansson
Translated by Laura A. Wideburg
Södertälje
Just a feeling, the impression that she was not alone in the house. The grandfather clock chimed twenty past eleven. She intended to go to bed.
Just as she was entering the bathroom, a short, loud bang came from the basement. Maj Lindberg knew her home, she’d lived in it her entire adult life. She was intimately familiar with all the creaks, groans, and sighs of her old house built of wood and brick.