Chapter 4: The house of open doors
The worn wooden stairs creaked their familiar protest under Derek’s weight as he ascended, the sound swallowed by the thick silence of the house. Halfway up, a murmur, low and conversational, drifted from the second floor. He paused, one hand on the banister, listening. It was Sabine’s voice, a lilting cadence from behind her door.
He reached the top landing. The hallway was a tunnel of shadows, the only light spilling from the crack beneath the bathroom door and, more notably, from Sabine’s room. Her door was not shut. It stood ajar by a deliberate two inches, held in place not by chance, but by a small, ugly piece of hardware screwed into the doorjamb. A child safety lock, the kind used to keep toddlers from locking themselves in. He reached out, his fingers hovering near the cold metal. It was firmly engaged, preventing the door from closing fully.
A prickle of unease traced his spine. He turned, his eyes adjusting to the dimness. An identical device was fitted to Fiona’s door, and another to Petra’s. Three doors, all permanently compromised. None of them could have true privacy; every sigh, every whispered secret, every private moment was potentially available to anyone standing in this corridor.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall beside Sabine’s door, the faded floral wallpaper cool through his t-shirt. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, not really, but the words were right there, spilling into the hall.
“…no, the guy arrived just as Mommy had spanked me again,” Sabine was saying, her tone remarkably matter-of-fact. There was a pause, presumably as her friend Anja responded. Derek stared at a water stain on the ceiling, the information settling heavily. So it was true for her, too. The oldest of them, the one who tried so hard to project maturity, was subject to the same archaic discipline.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Sabine continued, a thread of genuine sympathy in her voice. “I’ll leave you alone now so that you can apply some cream.” Another pause, then a light, almost amused laugh. “The cream on my bottom is already being absorbed. Take care, Anja, and come round again sometime, yeah.”
He heard the soft click of the phone being set down. Driven by a morbid curiosity he couldn't suppress, he shifted his weight, angling his head to peer through the slender crack between the door and the frame.
The slice of the room he could see was illuminated by a soft bedside lamp. Sabine was lying on her stomach across the bed, her long black hair fanned out over the pillow. She had another pillow tucked firmly beneath her hips, arching her back and elevating her rear in a deliberate, almost practiced posture. Her legs were slightly parted, and she was clad only in a simple cotton t-shirt and a pair of plain white panties that were pulled down just enough to expose the full, rounded curves of her bottom.
The skin was a deep, furious crimson, a stark map of recent punishment. It glistened slightly under the lamplight, shiny with the lotion she had just applied. The color was not uniform; it was a blotchy, intense red that spoke of a thorough, stinging application of force. This was why she had seemed so stiff, so uncomfortable when Katja had introduced them earlier. The memory of her forced, pained smile as she shifted on the sofa cushion clicked into place with brutal clarity.
So this was the system. All three of them—the bubbly Petra, the stormy Fiona, and the seemingly mature Sabine—all still came over Katja’s knee. Regularly. The evidence was right there, glowing in the lamplight.
He pushed himself away from the doorframe, the movement silent on the thick runner carpet. The air in the hall felt suddenly thicker, harder to breathe. He walked the short distance to his own room, his hand closing around the cool, solid brass of his doorknob. He turned it, pushed the door open, and stepped inside his private space. The click of the latch as he closed it behind him was a definitive, solid sound. A perfect seal. His door, unlike theirs, closed all the way.