Despite a double gin-and-tonic and two of the small pink pills that she preferred to call “muscle relaxants,” her hands shook when she punched the number. And she held her breath while listening to the amorous voice: “You’ve reached City Sex and Luxury Massage. For telephone sex, press 1. For information about net-sex, press 2. For appointments, press 3. For personal service, press 4-”
She hung up as if she’d been burned, mixed a dry martini, and curled up in the well-preserved, original Arne Jacobsen Egg chair.
She looked out over the sound through the coast road villa’s picture window, waiting for the alcohol to relax and embolden her. Her Philippine au pair gave a friendly smile through the glass, which she was cleaning.
A half hour later Claire Winther felt she was ready. It was the only solution, the only way out of this situation, she told herself.
She punched the number again and pressed 4 for personal service.
“This is Bonnie. What can we do for you?”
“My name is Michelle Jensen, and I’m interested in hearing if there’s a possibility of working for you.”
“There’s a decent possibility if you look really good and know what you’re doing. How old are you, and how long have you been in the business? You specialize in anything?”
“I’m thirty-four but I can easily pass for twenty-six, definitely. I have to admit I don’t have a lot of experience, in fact I’m a beginner. But you know how it is, it’s tough out there right now, you need a little extra cash, so why not… if you have a natural talent?”
“We’ll take a look at you and talk about it. Come in around six if you can, and if you have some porny pictures of yourself, bring them along on CD.”
“I don’t.”
“No problem. We’ll figure it out. In fact, we could use a Danish girl right now, so if you’re okay…”
Claire felt calmer. Bonnie had sounded like a normal, everyday person. How hard could it be?
She chose a dark wig and large sunglasses. The oldest pair of jeans she owned, and a red lace top under the black leather jacket that hadn’t been outside the closet for five years. Given her exclusive wardrobe, this was the cheapest she could look, she decided, and she topped it off with crimson-red gloss lipstick and a shot of a much-too-heavy and sweet perfume, a shopping mistake.
Obviously she couldn’t arrive at the brothel in her Jaguar, so she called a cab and asked the driver to drop her off at the main station. It came to eight hundred kroner.
The November murk lay wet and heavy over the city, so she pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead as she walked down Istedgade, first past the row of hotels next to the station, then past all the porn and sex shops decorated for the Christmas season.
It was fascinating, she had to stop and stare through the shop windows. A Christmas manger scene with the tiny baby Jesus-surrounded by dildos. A blow-up sex doll with a silicone pussy wrapped in a chain of red heart-shaped Christmas lights. Handcuffs, leather whips, half-masks, and chastity belts hung on a plastic Christmas tree with a star on top and icicles covering it.
At the shelter, the Men’s Home, the guests for the night had already begun to gather. Hoarse voices, the clinking of bottles, and tubercular coughs rose from the group of ragged, dirty, homeless figures. Claire decided to cross the street to the other sidewalk.
There was more dignity to the slick black kings of the street, who in two-and three-man groups marked off their territories, while the black females busied themselves braiding hair in salons, the walls covered with wigs and hairpieces of all colors.
The African hair salons were something new, thought Claire, who hadn’t sat foot in Vesterbro since she left as an eight-year-old.
A drunk wearing only an open leather vest on his upper body tumbled out from one of the half-basement tattoo shops and knocked into her. His skin was totally and colorfully illustrated from his bald head to his waist.
More sex shops, more Asian grills, more stores with weird combinations of souvenirs, Christmas decorations, porn underwear and sex toys, more bars, more brothels.
At Skelbækgade, the street prostitutes-the lowest in the pecking order, the most desperate-were already busy. Addicts and Africans, as far as she could tell. Several men walked back and forth, openly sizing them up, while others crept past in their cars.
The nine-to-five shift, they called these early sex customers, when she was a kid.
At the spot on Istedgade where the place begins to look respectable again, she turned right, down a side street.
She stopped when a text message beeped in. It was John, from Rio: All’s well, dear. Brazil is the land of opportunity. Great deals. Looking forward to getting home December 9. Hug and kiss.
She answered at once: Thanks, hon. On the way to new fitness center. Trying to get in shape for Christmas. Take good care of yourself.
The fitness center was to be her alibi. She had a membership card in her pocket.
“Wow! You’ve got class!” Bonnie said, looking almost lovingly at her as she pulled her in through the hallway to the reception area.
Ikea, Claire Winther noted. Cheap, but light and clean and less sleazy than she had expected. A beige corner sofa and a coffee table with porn magazines. A counter with a coffee maker and plastic cups. A flatscreen on the wall, fastened to a swinging arm.
“Here’s where we receive customers, who come in only by appointment. They call or book on the net. As a rule, anyway. If it’s totally dead we’ll take them in off the street. I keep track of the shift schedule and the appointments and do the books, and most of the time I’m sitting right there.”
Bonnie pointed at the chair and desk behind the counter.
A madam, Claire thought.
Bonnie was closer to sixty than fifty. She was overweight in the way alcoholics can be, a bulging stomach and thin arms and legs, her face ruddy and spongy with large pores that looked even larger because of her makeup, and she spoke with a hoarse, nasal voice.
She continued: “Five of us are full-time. Take that back, five of us were full-time. Alette, our Danish girl, died two weeks ago. Sad story. There’s so much bad heroin around right now. Not that Alette was an addict, no no, she only fixed once in a while to feel good, she just got unlucky… You don’t look like…?”
Claire shook her head. “No, I stick with the supermarket drugs you can get in Brugsen,” she answered.
“Good, because drugs-they’ll just take you farther and farther down!” Bonnie put a protective arm around Claire’s shoulder, looked her right in the eye, and almost whispered: “I can’t count how many I’ve seen kick the bucket with their stilettos on…” Then she continued, more businesslike: “Right now we have two Thais and one Romanian, sweet girls, all of them, but the Thais don’t understand Danish. They’re here on tourist visas-three months at a shot. Theresa from Romania has a residency permit here and speaks pidgin Danish. Problem is, more and more of our customers only want Danish girls. It’s all this talk about trafficking that’s scaring them. God’s sake, the foreign girls beg for a job, and now for example we’re saying no to all the African girls, so they’re on the street-painting the town red, as they say.”
Bonnie smiled at her own wittiness and went on: “I take care of the phones and the cheap net sex, where they can jerk off to the sound and video files I send them, along with some live talk, moans and groans. Ten kroner a minute! Doesn’t sound like much but it actually brings in quite a bit. Then we have a webcam so they can buy direct live shows. Most of them want girl sex, that’s a lot more expensive of course, if it’s direct and interactive, but all this about the money, you just let me take care-”
“How much?”
Claire received a warm smile in return: “You-you can hit the jackpot! You’re exclusive, high-class-and you’re Danish!”
Claire kept quiet, Bonnie became eager: “As a guesstimate, a good day, taking eight or ten customers, you’ll go home with five thousand kroner. Times twenty…”
“But the clinic here takes their cut?”
“The clinic takes 60 percent of your overall earnings. That’s the way it is. The money goes to rent, ads, equipment, supplies, transportation, security. Nothing under the table here. I guarantee you won’t get cheated, and there’ll be plenty of work. We’re counting on a lot of Christmas business, and Copenhagen is the only place left in Scandinavia where it’s still legal to buy sex. The Bangkok of the North, ha ha!”
Bonnie showed her the rooms. Three had double beds, a large bathroom with Jacuzzi and whirlpool bath-also for servicing customers-and a dressing room and wardrobe, complete with everything necessary to the trade.
Bonnie measured her by sight and concluded: “C-cup, 38. We have everything you need, but it’s all right if you bring something along.”
A back stairway led from a kitchenette down to a soundproof S &M room in the basement.
The room was dimly lit, and Claire shivered inside as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Rack, gallows, iron-bar cage, tongs, whips, chains, masks, rubber and leather clothes, and various instruments to stick into body orifices.
“Down here you’ll be a queen and dominatrix, I think. You should know that many of our masochists are very important men with exclusive tastes. Have you done it before?”
“No,” Claire said. “But there’s nothing wrong with my imagination.”
“You’ll get some recordings and film to take home with you. We have videos of most of our regular customers. They all have different desires. The most bizarre, right now anyway, is someone who wants needles stuck through his foreskin-can you handle something like that?”
Claire nodded. “If it’s part of the job…”
“Also, you’re an obvious choice for doing high-class escort. Lasse is our driver and bodyguard. When you’re out with a new customer we have a security system. It’s a special cell phone that stays on so Lasse can hear everything. He’s also Teddy Bear’s man.”
“Teddy Bear’s man?”
“Teddy Bear is our owner, he owns the whole building. We pay rent to him, Lasse takes care of that. Teddy Bear’s okay. He comes around once in a while for a session down here in the torture chamber. You’ll meet him. He’s going to be wild about you.”
“I don’t want to be whipped or tortured myself,” Claire said firmly.
“No, of course not. That’s no problem. One of the Thai girls, Cindy, is pretty tough. She takes all the sadists… and Theresa is good with all the seniors, the gross-looking ones, and the handicapped…”
The problem came up back at reception.
“I’m going to get our photographer to take some gorgeous shots of you now, for the website. I’ll show it to you,” Bonnie said, and sat down at the computer.
“I won’t appear on any website. If that’s a condition we’ll have to forget the whole thing,” Claire said.
Bonnie looked serious, thought for a moment, and then said: “They need to, like, know what they’re buying. Couldn’t we show your body without your head?”
“No,” Claire answered.
“Okay, we’ll make an exception and put a different body out. You’re so beautiful, nobody will be disappointed if they even notice they’ve been tricked.”
The website popped up.
Bonnie pointed: “Here’s our Thais, Cindy and Lara. That’s what we call all of them. We bring new ones in about every three months. They don’t show their heads here, either. It’s more because of the authorities. They’re only here on a tourist visa… And here’s Alette. We haven’t taken her off the site yet. Isn’t she sweet?” A tear ran down Bonnie’s cheek and was slowly absorbed by her open pores.
Claire stared at the picture of a skinny young girl with empty eyes, a half-open mouth, and disproportionately large silicone breasts, “playing with herself,” as the text claimed. She was in the process of inserting a black dildo.
“Apparently she didn’t have any family. We were the only ones at her funeral, anyway,” Bonnie sighed. “What would you like to be called?” she then asked.
“I’m Michelle,” Claire answered.
“But do you want to use your real name?”
“Just call me Michelle,” Claire said. “And I’ll give you my cell number, but not my ID number or my address.”
“That’s fair enough,” Bonnie answered, looking as if she was thinking like crazy about the story behind this elegant woman’s decision to debut as a whore.
Bonnie started gathering up DVDs so Claire could study the servicing of customers, and she handed her a sheet of paper filled with writing.
“This is the list of our services and prices. We call it the menu,” she explained.
Claire ran her eyes over the text. Danish, Swedish, French, Greek… female sex, bathtub sex, S &M, escort and out-calls, one girl and two girls. The typical price was thirteen hundred kroner an hour at the brothel, but it was noted that the fees were only guidelines, and that customers could have individual programs made up and prices calculated.
“Actually, we’re in a situation right now where we need someone to replace Alette. When can you start?”
“Tomorrow,” Claire answered. “I need to take a look at all this.” She nodded at the DVDs.
Just as she was leaving, Cindy and Lara walked in with Lasse, a friendly, smiling, solarium-tanned bodybuilder with a ponytail. They had been at a customer’s place on an out-call.
Lasse tossed four thousand kroner on Bonnie’s desk.
“This is Michelle, she’s starting with us tomorrow,” Bonnie said as an introduction.
“Michelle, you’re totally gorgeous!” Lasse said, and groped her breasts appreciatively, winking flirtatiously at her.
The two Thai girls held limp hands out to her and smiled shyly, their eyes on the floor, then they walked into the dressing room together to get ready for the evening customers.
Claire Winther stopped by the fitness center on the way home and spoke loudly and amiably with the receptionist and the man beside her on the treadmill, making sure that she was noticed.
At home, she poured a double gin-and-tonic, which she drank while taking a long and luxurious bubble bath. Just as she had settled in her adjustable bed with her laptop and Bonnie’s DVDs, John’s goodnight text came in: Dear, what do you think about spending Christmas and New Years here in Brazil, I’ve found a wonderful beach hotel and the weather is great?
She answered: Wonderful. Just what I need-to get away from this wet and cold darkness.
I’ll reserve the luxury suite and arrange the trip. Okay with you if we leave around December 20?
That’s great for me. Kiss hug and goodnight.
Then she put the first DVD in to study the whores and their customers in action.
By midnight she knew she could do this. She had a plan. Abandon her body mentally during the act, but leave her brain in charge. Most of it was banal and cliché-ish-as Bonnie had said it would be.
“They want to believe that they’re fantastic, that they have an enormous cock and make you really horny. If you play that role you almost can’t go wrong.”
First and foremost in her mind was to take good care of herself. No sadism, no anal sex, no kissing, no sex without a condom, and no appointments without security. There were alarm buttons at the clinic, and Lasse was on duty with his phone on out-calls.
She could be firm with her demands because of her status as a luxury escort.
A week passed, and the others at the clinic were impressed with the stylish novice.
The customers were also thrilled.
A local politician, a police sergeant, and a real estate tycoon made new appointments with her as soon as they were finished. That was unusual. Most customers slink off, slightly embarrassed after the conclusion of a session, and aren’t heard from again until the urge overcomes them.
She learned quickly how to answer the eternal question: “What makes a sweet, pretty girl like you…”
“Times are tough right now, and it’s a job just like any other,” she would answer.
On the third day, a straightlaced high school teacher already wanted to “save” her.
“You are far too good for this. I’m single and wouldn’t mind having a girlfriend like you,” he said.
When she told the story to the others in the kitchenette, they doubled over with laughter.
The catastrophe came on the seventh day.
A sadist went amok with Cindy down in the S &M room and ran off without paying. Cindy was shaken up from several violent blows to the head, in addition to suffering a hand wound from trying to avoid being knifed.
She sat in the kitchenette with a dish towel wrapped around her wounded hand, crying in anguish.
“She has to go to the emergency room,” Claire said.
“That’s a problem, because she’s here illegally,” replied Bonnie.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna work, but I’ll call Teddy Bear,” Lasse said. He punched the brothel owner’s number, explained the situation to him, and had a long talk, after which he updated the others: “Teddy Bear will under no circumstances have her go to the emergency room. But we can send her home and get a new… You want to go home?” he asked her in English.
Cindy looked at him blurrily, then her head fell on her chest.
“I think she has a concussion,” Claire said. “I have a proposal: I know a doctor at a private hospital who will be discrete about this. Let me take care of it.”
They all agreed, provided no one told Teddy Bear.
“But I have to drive Lara and Theresa out on three outcalls, so you’ll have to take a taxi,” Lasse said.
First Claire had the taxi take them back to her home on Kystvejen. She picked up her Philippine au pair’s residency permit and passport, then they rode to the private hospital.
“My au pair has been hurt. She hit her head and cut her hand…” she explained to the doctor.
“She seems disoriented. We’ll have to do a brain scan and hold her for observation. Her hand isn’t serious, no tendons or vital parts have been cut, but it will have to be stitched,” the doctor said, after a quick examination. Then he looked questioningly at Claire. “It looks like an assault.”
“Yes, she had a fight with another Philippine, a boyfriend, but he was on his way out of the country, leaving today, presumably he’s already flown the coop, and she won’t go to the police… Would you like me to pay a deposit?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Cindy was wheeled away on a trolley while the doctor did her case sheet on his computer, entering various details from the passport.
“Her name is long and it’s hard for us to pronounce,” Claire said. “So she calls herself Cindy. She doesn’t speak Danish and understands only a little English, but we’ve found ways to communicate, so get in touch with me if there are any problems-and let me know when she can be picked up. I’ll stay in touch.”
First name: Cindy, the doctor wrote, and nodded politely at Claire.
She paid a deposit of twenty thousand kroner, putting it on her gold card.
That evening she told Bonnie: “I have some family coming next week. I’ll have to work quite a bit from home, so don’t put me on any shifts.”
The truth was, John was coming home from Brazil the day after tomorrow. She had given a lot of thought to how she would conceal what she was doing. Her excuses would have to be the fitness center and visiting friends. Fortunately, he wasn’t the controlling or suspicious type.
It was Sunday evening, and he would be home Tuesday morning. She debated whether she should surprise him by going out to the airport. No, that would seem peculiar. His car was parked out there, he always drove home alone. She should just stay home and greet him with a warm bath and a nice lunch. That’s how he liked it.
“Monday is okay, but I’ll have to take Tuesday off,” she said to Bonnie.
Bonnie frowned, worried: “Then I’ll have to start calling around to freelancers. It’s tough right now. Christmas rush. But anyway, it’s okay. You have to take care of things at home,” she sighed.
Monday, Claire had three out-calls before Bonnie rang her at six o’clock:
“Okay, listen. Teddy Bear wants a session tonight. He’s coming in at nine, and he’s really looking forward to you after all the good things Lasse has told him. As you know, Teddy Bear is a little bit special. He wants it really hard, for a long time. Bound and gagged. The rack, cage, gallows.”
Claire looked at her watch: “I have appointments until nine, and I have to get something to eat.”
Bonnie: “Perfect. Lara and Theresa can tie him up and gag him, then he can stand there and wait until you appear as the dark mistress of the night, the slavedriver… Also, he likes the big black wigs and lots of black around the eyes. Oh, and by the way: when he blinks with one eye, stop with the pain. That’s the game.”
Claire visited the private hospital with flowers for Cindy and to hear the results of the scan. The news was bad. The scan revealed a hematoma in the brain, and Cindy needed a serious operation.
“We’ll operate tonight and hope for the best, but there is a risk of permanent damage. The hematoma is in an unfortunate location…”
The doctor brought out the scan and pointed and explained. Claire was only halfway listening. Her other half boiled with anger.
Back at the brothel, she put on the entire circuslike garb: stilettos, net hose, leather costume, half-mask, whip, and black wig. Then she slipped on the long gloves.
The long gloves that she had never taken off in the S &M room.
“The deal is, he’ll stay down there until tomorrow, but you can just leave him after he’s had two or three ejaculations. That’s the deal. Then he’ll have another ejaculation early tomorrow before he goes home to his wife, but Lara and Theresa will take care of that…”
Just before ten she walked into the soundproof basement room.
John Winther, nicknamed Teddy Bear, stood buck naked on a small platform that his leg irons were fastened to. His hands were manacled behind him, and the handcuffs were chained to a heavy iron shackle. The lower part of his face was covered by a peculiar leather creation that served as a gag. And loosely around his neck hung the gallows noose.
He could communicate only with his eyes, and Claire read the eager anticipation in them. She let her gaze glide down the length of his body, to where his erection presented itself.
He hadn’t recognized her, she was surprised at that.
She fought off a sudden impulse to flog him as an outlet for her rage, for his penis already stood greedily up on his stomach, and the mere thought of giving him a climax nauseated her.
Instead she first flung off her wig-and then her leather mask. His penis fell and shrunk into itself like a frightened snail, and she read genuine terror in his eyes.
In a moment of weakness she considered removing his gag so he could answer her question: WHY?
But no, she had made up her mind long ago. No explanations and excuses, no more lies. Instead she held a monologue: “You’ve surprised me in two ways, John. One: I’d been expecting you, but not tonight. And two: I didn’t know that you were the pimp. Just thought you were a customer.”
His cheeks moved, and a weak whistling sound escaped from the leather clump in his mouth, while his questioning eyes shone with horror.
“How did I find out? Oh, it was so banal: your secret cell phone with the prepaid card! It was lying in your desk drawer, vibrating, the day I was waiting in your office-when you were late for lunch at King Hans. I read all the text messages about Alette’s death. It was a bit cryptic: A is dead from an OD-that’s how it looks. I understood that. My own mother died of an overdose. Murder or suicide? That’ll never be solved, right? I call it murder, whether the poor woman stuck the needle in herself or not!”
She drooped and went quiet. Tried to recall the image of her mother but could remember only her scream and her frightened eyes.
When her mother entertained customers, Claire had hidden in a cubbyhole behind the clothes hanging in the closet. That evening she’d fallen asleep in the cubbyhole, and when she crawled out the next morning her mother lay cold, dead on the sofa. The needle lay in the ashtray.
Claire was put in an orphanage and later placed with a number of foster homes. She did okay for herself, and had never set foot again in Vesterbro.
John Winther rattled his chains desperately.
She continued: “At first I only thought divorce, but then it hit me: why should I divorce myself from a few billion kroner? A text from ‘the mistress’ gave me the idea. I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for this hour in this room. Before you die, I want you to know that Cindy, the girl you wanted to ship out of the country with a brain hemorrhage, was operated on tonight. She’ll be okay. I’m guessing that the only reason you bought this building was to have easy access to sexual services, and the income from the whores was just a little bonus that in your habitual greed you pocketed. But it’s a lot of money to them, so I plan to pay them back when your estate is settled. Goodbye, John.”
All she had to do was tighten the noose around his neck.
He climaxed as he died.
The next morning, wearing her warm mink, the tall, elegant Claire Winther stood in the airport and waited for her husband. When he didn’t show up on the flight from Rio, she contacted the airline, then the police. She showed them the text message about his arrival and seemed to be on the verge of tears. A few hours later it was discovered that he had arrived the previous day.
At approximately the same time, the police were notified of a brothel customer found dead in Vesterbro. The two incidents weren’t immediately seen as being connected. Claire Winther received a call on her secret cell phone with the prepaid card. The conversation was short, something about her making sure that the bill would be paid.
Then she tossed the cell phone down one sewer drain and the card down another.
Toward evening the police showed up at the coast road villa. There was reason to believe that Claire’s husband was dead, and would she like to sit down.
Claire broke down when she identified the body, and she was offered emergency counseling, to which she said yes, please.
The tabloids all carried essentially the same story the next day: One of Denmark’s unknown billionaires, the Danish-American John Winther, had died in a sex game gone awry at a brothel in Vesterbro. In connection with his death, the police are looking for a small Spanish-speaking woman answering to the name of Michelle. She is possibly from South America. According to the brothel’s other prostitutes, the woman had recently been hired for a trial period and was servicing John Winther in the brothel’s S &M room, where the accident occurred. John Winther, 46, earned his fortune as an international developer. Recently he had bought up and developed sites in Russia and Brazil, where his company was presently involved in new subdivisions. The company owned many properties, both in and outside of Denmark.
The doctor had recommended to Claire that she check into a hotel to avoid the press storm, so she took a suite at D’Angleterre. The chairman of the board for John Winther Development, a prominent business lawyer, briefed her in the suite.
The company was in good shape, it could carry on as if nothing had happened, with one difference-she was now the majority stockholder.
“I’m going to spend the winter at our house in Florida, but I want to be kept informed of anything significant happening with the company, and to participate in all the board meetings,” she said.
The chairman nodded: “Naturally.”
Again she stood in the airport. Had just checked in her luggage, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked into a puffy, yeasty face with pores like craters.
“Bonnie!”
“You won’t forget us, right?”
“Of course not. You know me! But things need to settle down a bit. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
They waved for as long as they could see each other.