My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen Read Free Book Online Page A

– no! No touching, sir! And at the same time tweak up my petticoats so that they can see the flesh at the top of my leg, where the stocking ends, & …’
    Yes, dear reader, I had him where I wanted him, for by now he was breathing heavily & struggling with the buttons of his tweed
knickerbockers, but I told him, steady on, mister, cash first: five kroner. Such a pitch he had worked himself into just with
the thought of seeing more, that by the time he had scrabbled for the money in his pocket & revealed the pale & desperate
thing that poked from his breeches like a worm struggling for air, it was all over. Which was just as well, for a moment later
Fru Krak swept in wearing an outfit of pomegranate pink as depicted on the cover of that week’s edition of the Fine Lady, & I barely had time to cover the incriminating translucency on my skirts with my feather duster before greeting her demurely
& receiving my orders concerning the tasks ahead of me & Fru Schleswig, while Pastor Dahlberg scurried from the room muttering
something about a sermon on penitence, his face the colour of a peeled beetroot.
    And thus did two sources of income open to me in the space of one week, & I was right glad for it, & pleased with myself indeed.
For I knew that the Pastor’s need for repentance would crop up again, it having struck me over the years that many married
women, due to their husband’s negligence, have never become acquainted with their own lust, & seeing nothing emerge from the
act save more babies, they cry off with complaints of headaches, bunions & women’s trouble, thus catapulting their frustrated
menfolk into the laps of mistresses, or girls such as myself. Fru Krak, to look at her, was surely the last woman on earth
capable of lifting her petticoats for any other purpose than to piss or shit, so it was clear to me that she would soon tire
of the ordeal of servicing the ageing but still eager Dahlberg once she had secured him with the forthcoming nuptials. And
had her horoscope not advised her, on the subject of subordinates, to make sure they know their place, but allow them leeway in matters that could help you privately?
    Very well, I thought, my dear Pastor, & his good Lady Muck. But if it’s to be, you shall pay a high price for it. Five kroner
is just the beginning.
    Have you ever had the experience, dear reader, of waking every morning obsessed by the same thought? A thought which nags
at you all day, & will not relinquish its grip even as you drift into sleep, but worms deeper into your psyche, manifesting
itself in the most disturbing dreams? Such was the tenacity of my urge to discover the mystery that lay deep in the bowels
of the Krak household. Unearth it I must! And yes, as I have already remarked to you, the frightening but insubstantial facts
Gudrun Olsen had imparted to me, accompanied by warnings of doom, had, far from damping my appetite, only whetted it further.
But it turned out that there was more to come, unexpectedly, from another quarter. A week after my encounter with Gudrun,
I had taken advantage of Fru Krak’s absence at the hairdresser’s to visit the apothecary for some rose water. Herr Bang was
behind the counter, & we were soon chatting about some of the changes that were being wrought in the neighbourhood of Østerbro. He told me that his girls were to attend the new school run by Ingrid Jespersen, & that his wife would teach there too,
& I in turn told him where Fru Schleswig & I were employed, it being not far from that very school, & at this news his face
darkened.
    â€˜I know Fru Krak. She’s been a regular customer of mine ever since her husband disappeared. A bad sleeper. I sell her a lot
of potions for the nerves, but I have remarked that nothing seems to work. I’m not surprised she’s twitchy, the things that
went on there. And do still, if the rumours are to be believed. She has been trying to sell that house