LITMIR.BIZ

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out the last sleeping tablets. The clock in the corridor says it’s ten o’clock. The pharmacy will be closed and she would never be able to go out again anyway.

      The bedroom is a mess. Laurent was looking all over the apartment for his files again this morning and he thought that maybe they were hiding under the sheets. Everything is upside down. Marie never berates him for anything but right now a diffuse anger spreads through her whole body. She was raped this evening, assaulted, attacked, and she can’t even have sleeping pills or her husband by her side or a tidy bed. She buries herself under the cold sheets, turns out the small bedside light, and waits with her eyes open for sleep to be so good as to take her.

      She thinks it’s about midnight when she hears Laurent come home. She recognizes his footsteps, his stride, his rhythm. From the way he lumbers around the hall she can tell he’s had a little too much to drink. That’s good, he’s sure to sleep. Every creak of the wooden floor stresses her. She wishes she could open the windows and jump into thin air before her husband reaches the bedroom. He sidles up close to her, his body hot and naked. “Are you asleep, honey?” She immediately closes her eyes, relaxes the muscles of her face, slightly slows her breathing and gives a few soft grunts. Laurent eventually turns away. His body rolls to the other side of the bed, far away from her. He’s a happy, healthy, well-fed man full of drink and plans for the future, he can fall asleep in a matter of minutes. His wife on the other hand knows she’ll have to pretend to live and sleep for many days to come. Marie opens her eyes. The silence is interrupted by the sound of scooters on the boulevard. Her eyes don’t move, staring straight ahead. Deep in the night, facing the wall that she’s previously looked at while bowled over by pleasure, the trouble down below feels to her like fate’s revenge on a life it deems too easy.

      

      Marie got up several times in the night; Laurent didn’t notice a thing. She thought he’d be very tired this morning after his long evening but he clearly isn’t. She watches in silence as he paces around the kitchen. “I’m sure I put it here when I came home.” Marie doesn’t react. “I’ll end up putting tracking devices on all my files so I can find them. I’m super-late!” Marie can’t remember a single day when she hasn’t helped him find his stuff. Her husband notices something different this morning. “You okay, honey? You seem miles away.” She spots Laurent’s green folder on the fruit dish. She doesn’t tell him, waits for him to fret a little as he watches the minutes trickle by. She’s just about to tell him when he sees it. “Ah, there it is. I knew it was in the kitchen! Okay, I’m off to work, Jean’s waiting for me. And don’t forget we’re going to Paul and Sophia’s for dinner this evening. They’re expecting us at eight. Love you!” He drops his cup in the sink, kisses his wife, and runs out of the kitchen.

      Obviously, Marie had forgotten this dinner. The stigmata of last night’s attack materialize again. Her vagina hurts, it’s burning and painfully swollen. All her joints are stiff, her knees and wrists ache. Maybe she should see a doctor. It’s eight thirty, time to go to work.

      When she’s downstairs she looks for her bicycle in the building’s small inner courtyard. Gripped with sudden panic, she rings the caretaker’s doorbell. “Hi, sorry to disturb you, but did you see my bicycle?” As she asks the question she remembers: the remains of her bike are still at République. And then she was raped. She backs away slowly. “I’m so sorry, I remember now. I left it at work.” The caretaker smiles at her, thinking she must be working too hard and is tired this morning.

      The day seems to go on forever. She wishes she could slip away and lie down, sleep for a lifetime. She sits facing her elderly customer with a rigid smile on her face. And yet the woman is promising a handsome investment, more than three hundred thousand euros of life insurance. With this contract Marie could make her grand entrance into the top three of the sales team for this quarter. Her colleagues will be full of admiration and the CEO will congratulate her personally. He raped her yesterday evening. Marie can’t stay upright on her chair any longer. Her lower back hurts, the pain in her vagina is radiating up to her stomach, wracking her guts with sharp spasms, swelling and subsiding, making it difficult for her to concentrate. “Is that your husband in the photo?” It was four years ago when Laurent arranged a romantic trip to Venice for their anniversary. They were happy. Marie had asked a tourist to take their picture in the Piazza San Marco. At the last minute the ice cream Laurent was holding fell right down the front of his shirt, making his wife and all the witnesses in the background laugh. Marie thinks about the dinner this evening. She doesn’t know how she’s going to hide everything from start to finish without arousing suspicion.

      She’s having lunch with Hervé today. He tells her how helpless he feels with his wife and daughter. Yesterday they had the nerve to open the cage that housed a turtledove he found six years ago in the woods in Orne. When he came home at the end of his day’s work he found the cage empty but for a few feathers, and his wife and daughter laughed in his face at his despair. Marie finds this unbearably sad and wonders just how much pain you can cause another person without suffering any physical consequences. The two women are being so cruel, surely Hervé’s distress will eventually spill over into violence. A good gunshot in the head to each.

      Laurent comes home earlier than usual so he has time to get ready for dinner. Marie is rummaging frantically through her walk-in closet, she has no idea which dress to wear for dinner. Too dark an outfit would only emphasize her mood. Something too colorful might be misinterpreted as a sign of happiness. Trousers are out of the question, her vulva can’t tolerate the pressure of thick fabric. She can’t wear knickers, just very fine tights. Laurent notices this when she takes off a dress for the tenth time. He comes over to her from behind, strokes her breasts, and plants a kiss in the crook of her neck. “You’re very sexy in your tights … We could get to work already, you know … We still have a little time.” She’s forgotten about the baby. The plan that so thrilled her only two days ago now seems laughable, stupid, disgusting.

      Laurent is turned on, she can feel him hardening against her buttocks. She lets him have his way, can’t see any alternative. She’s never rejected him, he’d think it was odd if she did now for no obvious reason. Being tired won’t always be an excuse for escaping her conjugal duty, especially if they’re still planning to have a baby. Laurent lowers her tights, turns his wife around in his arms and lays her down on the bed. His hand slips inside her, strokes her with slow circular movements. He kisses her, explores her mouth with his tongue, takes a handful of her hair, pinches her nipples between thumb and forefinger. Marie is frightened it will hurt. She prepares for the pain she will feel when he penetrates her, taking a breath in and letting it out slowly. He drives into her. Her body tears on the inside as if a great heated file were being inserted into her vagina. Her mouth twists and she groans in pain. Laurent pushes harder. Every thrust of his hips, the least undulation is torture. She suddenly feels as if she is being drained of all her blood, she can feel her organs sliding downward inside her, a gaping wound opening up in her stomach. Laurent plunges a finger into her anus and she screams. He pulls it out. She feels raped all over again, by her husband. He’s not noticing her, is tormenting her body, inflicting superficial pain to escape the confines of an excitement that’s become all too familiar. Now there’s no distinguishing between the two situations. Her rapist’s sadism feels to her just like Laurent’s, the husband who doesn’t notice her suffering. “I’m coming … Wait, I’m coming …” He comes inside her. She’s going to throw up, represses it. A few vestiges of her lunch come into her mouth. She smiles at him, puts her arms around him, breaks away. He watches in silence as she gets up. He can’t possibly know that this second ordeal endured by his wife marks the end of any compromising on her part.

      

      This dinner is a bad idea. On the way there Marie thinks about how she’s going to say hello

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