“Forgive me, but you took me by surprise when you knocked on the door tonight.
Now I’m so unhappy I can’t sleep.”
“Why are you unhappy?”
“Don’t you know?”
He shook his head.
“If I tell you, promise you won’t laugh.”
“Promise.”
“When I seduced you last winter it was an idiotic, impulsive act. I wanted to enjoy
myself, that’s all. That first night I was quite drunk, and I had no intention of starting
anything long-term with you. Then it turned into something else. I want you to
know that those weeks with you as my occasional lover were some of the happiest
in my life.”
“I thought it was lovely too.”
“Mikael, I’ve been lying to you and to myself the whole time. I’ve never been
particularly relaxed about sex. I’ve had five sex partners in my entire life. Once
when I was twenty-one and a debutante. Then with my husband, whom I met
when I was twenty-five and who turned out to be a bastard. And then a few times
with three guys I met several years apart. But you provoked something in me. I
simply couldn’t get enough. It had something to do with the fact that you’re so
undemanding.”
“Cecilia, you don’t have to...”
“Shh—don’t interrupt, or I’ll never be able to tell you this.”
Blomkvist sat in silence.
“The day you left for prison I was absolutely miserable. You were gone, as though
you had never existed. It was dark here in the guest house. It was cold and empty in
my bed. And there I was, an old maid of fifty-six again.”
She said nothing for a while and looked Blomkvist in the eyes.