The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

she sobs. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think that, I was just joking, please, let me go….’
    â€˜I’ve read…’ He pulls her towards him. She recoils from the snarl of bared teeth. ‘… Hobbes . And Locke . And Marx . And Rousseau .’ With each political philosopher’s name, he slams her against the mirror, harder every time. She is terrified that it will smash, that he will pick up a pointed wedge of glass from the carpet and cut her throat with it.
    â€˜I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she whimpers. ‘Please, just let me go and I’ll never… I promise I’ll…’
    He looks down, notices that she has one fist clenched. It is only when she sees him looking that she remembers the lipstick. Her fingers have fossilized around it. ‘Open your hand,’ he says.
    She does as he tells her. The lipstick is broken. Her arm shakes, and the small orange tube, detached from its base, rocks in her palm.
    Sol grabs it, holds it above her head. She stares up at it as if it is an executioner’s axe, having run out of words that she might say in her defence. Sol moves his left hand from her shoulder to her throat. This time he does not squeeze, but simply holds her neck firmly, in a way that makes it clear that any movement would be dangerous. With his right hand, he brings the lipstick down slowly, until it is level with her nose. It hovers, a small, orange finger, pointing at her. He is smiling, eyes bulging with enthusiasm for whatever he intends to do.
    â€˜Please don’t,’ she murmurs.
    Very slowly, he begins to write something on her forehead. A word. An orange word. Or maybe more than one. How many words can one forehead accommodate? As soon as she realises this is what he is doing, she starts to roll her eyes and wag her tongue inside her mouth and strain to get away, even though, with his hand still in place like a choker necklace, it is agony for her already bruised throat. But she would rather feel the pain, even risk unconsciousness, than stand still and allow herself to work out what he is writing.
    He is soon finished. He releases her neck and grips her by the shoulders again. ‘I’m going to go downstairs now and try to get the oil out of your carpet,’ he says, deliberately and obtrusively patient. ‘You are going to stay up here in this room and think about what a patronising bitch you’ve been, and you are not – repeat, not – going to wash this…’ – he jabs her brow with his finger – ‘…off until I come back up here and say you can. Understood?’
    She nods.
    â€˜If you leave this room, or wash that off, there’ll be trouble.’
    After he leaves the bedroom, she stays exactly where she is, up against the mirror, with her back to it. She can’t risk moving, can’t risk catching a glimpse of what he has written on her. She knows that as soon as she moves, she will look, and she desperately doesn’t want to know what word or words he chose. So she must keep her back pressed up against the glass.
    It is forty minutes before he comes upstairs again. She knows because she keeps looking at the clock on the bedside table. During these forty minutes, she assures herself, over and over again, that he did not kill or seriously injure her. She is still alive. Definitely. At the moment.
    Also, in the forty minutes, she does other things. She urinates in her underwear. She speculates about what Sol Barber has written above her eyes. She decides that it is the word ‘bitch’. She can cope with that, as he has already said it to her. That is what she will tell herself it is.
    At 2.43pm, he appears in the doorway of her room. He rubs his thumbnail and doesn’t look at her. ‘Well, I’ve done my best,’ he says. ‘You’d have to be really looking, or there’s no way you’d see anything now.’
    She says nothing. Her tongue