Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre

door.”
    After that, the day is the usual hell of mopping floors, collecting trays, ketchup stains, the smell of hot cooking oil, the floor tiles sticky with spilled Coke, overflowing bins. Almost seven hours later, Sophie realises that she has been so engrossed in her thoughts that she did not notice her shift finished twenty minutes ago. She does not mind the unpaid overtime, she is mostly concerned about what is going to happen next. Because through all the turmoil, she has been thinking about her meeting and the fact that she has a deadline: now or never. The plan is sound. Everything now is just a matter of skill, and money. Since her visit to the agency, she feels sure she has the skill. As for money, she is still short. Not much. A little less than a thousand euros.
    She goes into the small staff room, hangs up her uniform, changes her shoes and looks at herself in the mirror. She has the haggard face of those who work cash in hand. Lank, greasy hair falls into her eyes. As a child, she sometimes looked at herself in the mirror, stared deep into her own eyes and, after a while, she would feel a dizzying trance-like state and have to clutch the edge of the washbasin to stop herself from falling. It was like plunging into the unknown depths that lie dormant in each of us. She stares at her pupils until she can see nothing else, but before she can be swallowed up by her own gaze, she hears the manager behind her.
    “Not bad.”
    She turns. He is standing in the doorway, arms folded, one shoulder resting casually against the frame. She pushes back her fringe and turns to face him. She does not have time to think, the words come unbidden.
    “I need an advance on my salary.”
    A smile. An ineffable smile that hints at all the darkest triumphs of men.
    “Well, well . . .”
    Sophie leans back against the washbasin and folds her arms.
    “A thousand.”
    “A grand? Really? Is that all?”
    “It’s more or less what I’m owed.”
    “What you will be owed at the end of the month. Can’t you wait?”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “Oh?”
    For a long moment they stand, staring at each other, and it is in this man’s eyes that she finds what she was looking for in the mirror, that strange feeling of vertigo, but there is nothing intimate about it now. It is a dizzying nausea that assails her in the pit of the stomach.
    “Well?” she says, trying to shrug it off.
    “We’ll see . . . we’ll see . . .”
    He fills the doorway, blocking her exit, and Sophie fleetingly remembers the man back at the bank several months ago. An unsettling sense of déjà vu. But there is something different too.
    She moves to leave, but he grabs her wrist.
    “It should be possible,” he says, enunciating each syllable, “Come and see me tomorrow after your shift.”
    Then, jamming Sophie’s fist against his crotch, he adds:
    “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”
    This is the difference. The brash insolence. This is not anattempt at seduction but a display of power, a crude deal between two people each of whom has something the other wants. It is very straightforward; Sophie is surprised at how simple it is. She has been on her feet for twenty hours straight, she has not had a day off in more than a week, she sleeps very little to avoid the nightmares, she is exhausted, drained, she wants it to be over, she has invested her last ounce of strength into this plan, she has to make it work, right now, whatever it costs it will be much less than the life she is living where everything is wasting away, even the very roots of her existence.
    Without making a conscious decision, she unclenches her fist and grasps his hard cock through the fabric of his trousers. She is staring into his eyes, but she does not see him. She is simply holding his cock. This is a contract.
    As she catches the bus, she realises that if she had had to give him a blow job, right there, right then, she would have done it. Without a flicker of hesitation. This