Life and Limb by Elsebeth Egholm

Laursen click-clacked over the kitchen floor on high heels and stooped down over her husband.
    â€˜Hello, love. Good day?’
    The kiss landed on his forehead. She knew he hated kisses on the forehead. They made him feel like a child.
    â€˜Fair to middling. What about you? You’re late.’
    â€˜Dorrit was off ill. You know how it is.’
    She looked at her watch. It was a quarter past six. She quickly went into action, pulling pots and a pan from a cupboard. The clatter was louder than it needed to be. Perhaps because she was still trembling inside.
    â€˜When are you going to tell me about him?’
    She spun around.
    â€˜About whom?’
    â€˜Him. The new one. You’ve just come from him, haven’t you? I can see it in you. The way you walk. You’re so distant.’
    It wasn’t the first time. She knew there was no point but she still had to run through her usual protests. Sometimes she almost believed them herself.
    She shook her head.
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about. How do you want your duck breast?’
    â€˜Rare. You know very well how I like it.’
    Of course she did.
    â€˜Was it the hen’s night? Was that where you met him?’
    She had squatted down to look for an apron in a drawer. Now she stood up and tied it around her waist.
    â€˜I’m going to brown them and put them in foil into the oven – is that okay?’
    â€˜What does he look like?’
    She turned her back on him and dropped a blob of butter on the pan. Then she scored the two pieces of duck. The children would have a pizza, courtesy of the microwave. They weren’t keen on duck.
    â€˜He’s not that tall,’ she said with her back to him. ‘Muscular.’
    She described him down to the last detail. His hands, eyes, mouth, and the nose which must have been broken at some time. His clothes. His smell. In the ensuing silence her body came alive. She couldn’t help herself. It was like a downpour inside her with the water level rising and rising. She was sore in the places where he had been. Her buttocks smarted with every step she took and reminded her of the whip that had rained down blows on her. Carefully at first, and later, when she had asked him for more, harder and harder. He had snatched at her hair and her scalp had hurt. He had penetrated her, hard, first there, then elsewhere. He had groped his way to her most secret places and found them; found what made her react with the greatest passion. She had been close to losing consciousness before he was finished with her. And yet she had gone back to him the next day and begged for more. Two hours ago she had been lying there, legs spread and strapped into position. Helpless by her own choice – if she could be said to have any choice.
    â€˜What else?’
    She fried the duck in the pan; it sizzled and spat.
    â€˜Nothing else.’
    He sighed. She could hear he wanted to pump her for details and he would succeed in the end. But now the children had been lured from their caves by the smell of food. She gave them a hug of gratitude, which took them by surprise.
    â€˜Set the table, will you? We’re eating soon.’
    Strangely, they obeyed. She knew it was a brief respite, but for the time being she could breathe freely and imagine that they were a normal family: father, mother and two children, a boy and a girl. The perfect life.
    While they ate, she was back in his flat. It wasn’t intentional; she tried really hard to be present at the table and ask the children about their homework, school and day. As it was, she was operating on two levels while he sat silent and ate dinner and sent her searching glances.
    â€˜Have you heard about the dead woman? With no eyes?’
    It was Emma who asked. She was the youngest, and she had just started to show an interest in thrillers and absorbed everything in the papers about murder and horror.
    Kiki shook her head.
    â€˜That