The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

noticed it long before. He tried to hide it, but it was perfectly clear that he thought Stina was super sexy. Whenever we had a party, he would always dance with her. Preferably all night long.’
    ‘What did you think about that?’
    ‘It didn’t really bother me. John and I have an open marriage. We’ve agreed that we can have sex with other people as long as we don’t expose each other to any diseases or feel compelled to report on our escapades. Neither of us believes in the illusion that people can stay together for a whole lifetime without being attracted to anyone else. And why shouldn’t a person be allowed to act on his or her desires? We’ve got only one life, at least as far as we know. Why should you have to deny yourself a lot of pleasurable experiences? For whose sake? For what reason? Because of an unrealistic, romantic and naive notion that there’s only one love in your life? Neither of us believes in that sort of shit.’
    ‘So you thought it was OK for John to have sex with Stina?’
    ‘Yes. I would like to have been there, sitting in a corner of the room. I’ve often fantasized about making love to a woman.’
    Jacobsson took a sip of water. She knew that Wittberg, sitting at the back of the room in his role as witness to the interview, was thoroughly enjoying this unexpected turn in the questioning. He also probably found it terribly amusing that Jacobsson was the one conducting the interview. He’d always accused her of being a prude.
    ‘Let’s go back to that first evening. What happened?’
    ‘Well, after John said that about Stina, the mood changed. There was an unusual tension in the air. You could see by the way everyone was moving about that they weren’t averse to the idea of experimenting, so to speak. Then Stina did something incredibly surprising.’
    ‘What did she do?’
    ‘She asked John what he thought was so sexy about her.’
    Without being aware of what she was doing, Jacobsson leaned closer.
    ‘He told her that it was mainly her breasts. They were so different from mine. Small and pointed. Then Stina went a step further. She got up, went over to John, and unbuttoned her blouse. Everyone was so surprised that they didn’t say a word. Håkan sat there, stunned. John stroked her breasts and that’s when it really got started. New pairs formed, and little by little one couple after the other disappeared. I ended up with Sam in their bedroom upstairs.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Jacobsson, taking another sip of water.
    ‘We had great sex, Sam and I. I’ve always found him bloody attractive. When we were done, we joked about the whole thing. It was a wonderful feeling, very natural, at least between the two of us. Then I went home, but John wasn’t there. I fell asleep, and in the morning he was lying in bed next to me. We didn’t talk about it. As I said, we have an unwritten rule not to discuss our sexual adventures, so we didn’t in this case either, even though we both knew what had happened. I think we wanted to protect each other. No one wants to hear that his or her partner has had amazing sex with somebody else. Even we draw the line there.’
    ‘So what happened when you met the others again?’
    ‘It was still exciting. Everyone seemed a bit on edge, as if we were all just waiting for the next party.’
    ‘And what happened then? The next time you had a party?’
    ‘Everybody drank more than usual, as if to avoid taking responsibility. And since the boundaries had already been breached, things moved faster than before. We were at Sten and Monica’s house.’
    ‘Why did you stop having these parties?’
    ‘The third time we were again at Sten and Monica’s house, and it wasvery clear that Sten only wanted to be with Andrea. He was after her right from the start, as if he took it for granted that they would have sex later on. At the first two parties, everybody had gone through the motions in the beginning. We had aperitifs and dinner and carried on conversations, putting on a good show until everyone was sufficiently drunk to lose their inhibitions. But that night Sten showed an interest in Andrea right from the start, kissing her and stroking her thigh and making sexual references throughout dinner. I could tell that Monica was getting really annoyed because he wasn’t following the rules of the game.’
    ‘What about Andrea? How did she react?’
    ‘She seemed flattered, laughing and flirting with him as if it were the most natural thing in the