Crossing the line

Janine Sohr

Softcover - 160 pages

"Hi, just leaving Uppsala Road on my way home, will be back soon." The mobile message is from Eva's husband. It's not unusual for him to call on his way home from his trips abroad. But the tone of his voice throws her off balance. A pang of fear spreads inside.

Crossing the Border is about Eva and Jesper, a middle-aged couple with two teenage children who are in boarding school. The couple is in the middle of their careers and see each other less and less often. The silence between them spreads, and, unaware of each other's thoughts, each ponders the meaning of life in their own way. The novel develops into a relationship drama, where lies and betrayal can be sensed. One evening, the truth comes out on the table, but one of the parties has been gagged. How can reconciliation be possible if one carries a secret and the other knows the secret, but is not allowed to announce it?

Can those involved resolve this drama without love and friendship being shattered?

Janine Söhr works as a psychotherapist and also teaches courses in creative writing and mindfulness exercises. Crossing the Border is her debut novel.

Excerpt from the book:

JASPER

Where am I going? Where did life go? Jesper is lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. Nothing is fun anymore. I just feel tired. Life has lost its meaning. No, I can't just lie like this. Eva will be home soon. I get up and surf for a while. He goes on Facebook. He feels bored, seeing his friends' quick pictures of themselves and silly comments about their activities. He quickly shares: "Hey, I'm going to the bathroom now. Just so you know". He smiles at his initiative, and feels quite satisfied when he closes the Facebook book. He starts Googling around the internet. By chance, he comes across a porn site. He types in a page. Curiosity is great. He was surprised to read recently in the daily newspaper that three out of four Swedish men have been to a porn site at some point. Never him. The thought of looking at porn online or elsewhere has just never occurred to him. And that for many it had accelerated into an addiction, which in some cases had led to broken marriages, job losses. Unbelievable! 250,000 searches per day.

Curiosity and boredom lead him to a site called Dolly. They require a signature and he calls himself Ponny. With his ninety-one in stocking feet, he can offer it. Scantily clad women appear on the screen. He decides on a woman who calls herself Gladan. Above her name is a photo of a woman with blonde hair and a slightly curly pageboy hairstyle. She looks a bit vulgar where she sits leaning forward to highlight her enormous bust, he thinks and feels both shaken and excited by the situation. Sitting at a screen and looking at a prostitute evokes associations with the beautiful Nastassja Kinski in Wim Wenders' road movie Paris, Texas. In the scene where she sits inside a pane of glass with her husband on the other side. Her husband can see her, but she doesn't see him and eventually understands that it's him because of what he says. Jesper dreams himself into the film and wakes up when a monotonous robot-like voice tells him to click on one of the "girls". He clicks on the picture and the woman in the photo becomes animated. He is on Skype. The woman, who now has an unbuttoned cardigan over her bra, introduces herself as Gladan. She then asks what he wants. He notices how he leaves his usual self and enters another dimension. “Ejaculation,” he hears himself say. Feeling really pleased that he is so easily transitioning from his strict self to a… Yes, to a what? His thought question goes unanswered. Gladan leans forward and asks in her slightly cracked voice: “What does Ponyponken like best about then?” Jesper shudders at the silly address. He feels the heat in his cheeks with shame, at the same time as he feels his penis swell and the heat spread. “Blowjob.” he presses forward. He barely has time to get the words out before he has an orgasm. Gladan doesn’t even have time to answer his sentence. Just as if he were a teenage boy again. He is dazed and quickly closes the page. It's been a long time since he felt so stupid, but also calm, he notes. The calm is quickly broken by feelings of shame and guilt. Feelings that hang like a dark shadow over the now diminishing calm. He goes into the bathroom and takes a long shower. Then into the bedroom, straightens the bedspread, to hide the fact that he's been home early and gone to bed. He puts on his workout clothes. He browses through a version of well-chosen music that he downloaded himself, and puts his headphones in his ears and goes for a jog.

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