by Karina Halle
This time he looks happy.
17
Anders
“The flight is young, we’re getting deep without an aqualung,” Skye Edwards from Morcheeba softly croons from the radio in the corner of the bar.
Getting deep without an aqualung is right.
I’m screwed.
Utterly and completely screwed.
I knew from the moment I saw Shay again, that I was in deep. I just didn’t know it would be fathoms’ deep. I was already so eager to have her back in my life, to have that chance to make amends and get things right again, that I wasn’t really thinking clearly about what actually having her back would do to me. What it would mean.
I still don’t know, to be honest. Even sitting here in this dimly lit bar in Alesund, with a pint of cold beer and a hawking klipfisk pizza, I feel lost as I’ve ever been. It’s been a few days since we hit the road in my Datsun, looking for escape and adventure, and if I wasn’t steadily falling for her back in Todalen, then I’m almost free-falling now. A deep dive, through clear water that turns murky and complex the further down I go, as I try to wrestle with my feelings for her, sinking, sinking.
The thing is, there are too many feelings to process and they’re all leading me in different directions. I’ve taken to writing some shitty poetry to try and figure it all out, pulling out the notes section of my iPhone and letting the words visit me, like an ebbing and flowing tide. I have no idea where I’ll end up in the end, but I just know that it probably won’t be pretty.
It’ll be real though. Real and raw.
Just like us.
The town of Alesund was supposed to be just an overnight stop. After we left the Svegvikka Guesthouse, we drove along the infamous Atlantic Ocean Road, taking our time so that Shay could photograph and document every breathtaking moment. The road is world-renowned for a reason—half the time it feels like you’re driving suspended above water, with only little islets to ground you here and there, mountains lurking in the background. There’s a bridge, Storseisundet, that has such a steep incline that when you’re driving up it the road seems to disappear. and it looks like you’re about to re-enact parts of the movie Speed.
With so much to see, we got to Alesund late, and it wasn’t until the next day that Shay fell in love with the place and asked if we could stay a few more nights. Of course I said yes. I’d say yes to anything she asks of me.
Our room is pretty amazing, right above the water, just like our previous room at the guesthouse was, except this time we’re on a busy harbor, with sailboats and fishing boats cruising past, taking pictures of our bright hotel, sometimes of us waving from the window. The hotel even gives you fishing roads which you can hang outside your window in hopes of catching something. Obviously, fishing is the last thing I want to do right now, but Shay’s been enjoying herself, caught up in the wavering hope that she’ll catch something. So far, no luck, but she has patience I definitely don’t have.
So we’re here, just staying in place, exploring the shops and the bars and the restaurants and trying to enjoy each other’s company while we have the chance. It feels like a vacation, like we’ve found a little space for ourselves to just be with each other and discover each other all over again.
But I’m so conscious of time, marching forward and slipping through our fingers. The harder I try to hold on, the worse it gets, like trying to hold back grains of sand from the hourglass. I didn’t even want to let her go shopping alone today, I wanted to stay at her side, soaking up her company as much as I can before it’s too late.
She insisted that clothes shopping would be too boring for me, and that she’d meet me at this bar for dinner and drinks. Who knows, maybe she needs some time to be alone. Maybe I’m crowding her a little. Maybe I’m being too much. She seemed to like that aspect of me back in the day, but I have to stop thinking in the past. I have to start thinking of our present, and our future.
And what future is that? I ask myself. The one in which she stays on the farm, helping Per, having no life of her own while you’re out at sea for most of the month? That future?
I hate how it is. How it will be. I wish I could let go of the rusted shackles keeping me in place, keeping me stuck in a life I don’t want to be stuck in. My duty. My destiny. I’m bound for it and yet I want to be bound to her.
Ease up, I remind myself. You’re coming on too strong. Don’t ruin what little time you have.
And there she is.
Shay opens the door to the bar, stepping inside. She must have gone back to the hotel room to change because her jean jacket and scarf are draped over one arm and she’s wearing a new dress, white with tiny pink flowers, the kind that hugs her tits, putting them on display, making her skin glow. I know people are looking at her as she walks toward me, giving me a shy smile as she brushes her bangs off her face, and I can’t blame them.
I’m the luckiest guy here.
She’s turning all the heads but I’m the one she’s chosen.
“Hey,” she says, taking the seat across from me.
I can only stare dumbly for a moment.
“You look gorgeous,” I finally say. “Can I keep you?”
I add a smile to my words, so she’ll think I’m joking, but I’m also kind of not.
She laughs. “I’m all yours, Anders. And thank you. I wasn’t sure about the dress because it’s not quite dress season here, hence the boots.” She sticks her leg out, showing off her combat boots. “But I was so fucking sick of my clothes, you have no idea. I think I might just leave half of them behind at the hotel, maybe the housekeeper will want them. I bought so much stuff, found the best little store with all these cool Norwegian brands. At least I think they’re Norwegian brands.”
I can’t help but smile at her, hanging off her every word. “Good. You deserve it. I can’t imagine having to live out of a backpack for so long.”
She gives me a dry look. “Oh whatever, you’re a dude. A fisherdude! You probably wear the same damn thing every day when you’re out at sea.”
I give her a look that says, guilty.
“Anyway,” she says, “it kind of feels like my life has found a new chapter, you know? So I might as well dress appropriately.”
And what chapter is that? I want to ask. Is it a chapter that I’m in? Am I a part of this new narrative?
But fear has tempered my boldness. I’m afraid to ask certain things in the event that it will scare her off for good. I know we should both be free with each other right now, that I have nothing to lose, and yet…yet it feels like I could lose everything.
Like I said.
I’m screwed.
“So, should we get something to eat here?” she asks, her slender fingers pulling the menu toward her. For a moment I picture a diamond ring on her left hand, a ring that I would have given her. I imagine us in the future, here, living this life together, trying to make the best of it, make it work. Would it be so unfair to ask her to stay with me? To have her be with me…
Have her…love me?
Can I give her the life she wants, the one in which she finds herself, where she finds a home and stability and the family she’s always been yearning for?
Will she let me try?
The feeling has so much elation behind it that it feels like a bird about to take flight and soar above the seas, and with a heavy, sinking feeling in my heart, I know that it’s asking too much. Asking her to stay with me here in Norway, to be with me, would only stifle her life. We’re both young, but in some ways she’s so much younger. I’ve already settled down, in the same deep ruts that I’ll die in. She has her whole future ahead of hers. To ask her to stay with me is to deprive her of that. I’ve already fucked her life up once before, I won’t do it again.
“Klipfisk pizza?” Shay asks, glancing up at me from the menu. I give her a wary smile. “That can’t be good, can it? Fuck, I’m tempted to order it. That, and a whole bunch of that elderberry cider I had the other day.”
She bites
her lip and suddenly I don’t give a fuck about cider or pizza or anything else.
All I care about is her.
Being with her as much as I can, while I can.
I get to my feet and reach for her hand. “Come here,” I say gruffly.
Then I lead her across the bar, not caring if anyone is watching us go to the restrooms together.
Once inside the bathroom, I lock the door, making sure it’s secure, and then I attack Shay, fire burning through my veins until my skin feels too hot and there’s only one way to get relief.
My hands grab hold of her sweet face, fingers digging into her jaw, while I move with urgency, driving her backward toward the tiled wall until she’s pressed up against it. My mouth covers her mouth, lips ravenous, tongue thrusting against hers. Fucking her good. She whimpers into my mouth and I feel the vibrations shoot down my spine, straight to my cock, which is already rock hard.
It whips me up until I’m something wild, savage, feverish, my dick is growing impossibly stiff and trying to break through the fly of my jeans, begging for release, for relief. I reach down and pull up the hem of her pretty little dress until it’s bunched at her hips then I slide my hands under her ass and lift her up so that her legs are wrapped around me, holding me tight.
“Anders,” she says through a throaty gasp, and I can’t help but grin at her, remembering how she used to be so game for anything, including fucking in a public pool. She can protest all she wants, but I know she’s still that same adventurous girl.
I also know that I can’t keep my fucking hands off of her even if I tried.
Suddenly, I spin her around and carefully place her on the edge of the sink, testing its weight for a moment, pulling away from her eager mouth.
“What are you…?” she begins, her lips wet and wanting, but from the devious look I’m giving her, her question is quickly answered.
I place my palms at her thighs, spreading them in front of me while she reaches forward with one hand and holding my shoulder to keep from falling, while the other hand braces against the sink.
“Fuck me,” I growl. She’s not wearing any underwear at all. It’s all her, open and pink and bare for me to drink in, in every way I can.
I give her a quick, heated glance. “As if you didn’t plan for this,” I say gruffly. “You’re such a good fucking girl, aren’t you?”
She grins at me, biting her lip again. “Good or bad, I’m whichever way you want me.”
And I’m a goner.
I crouch down and immediately bury my face between her legs, licking up and down her soft crease, tasting every single inch of her. She’s so fucking wet already, I’m practically drowning in her honey. My sweet, sweet sparrow.
“Oh fuck, Anders,” she cries out, legs spread wider for me while she reaches down and grabs my hair, making a fist, yanking at my head in bursts of wonderful pain. There’s nothing better than this, devouring her like a man craving oxygen, fucking her harder with my tongue, tasting her, feeling her clit throb beneath my lips, until I’m just a hair trigger away from coming myself.
Shit. Slow down, Anders.
Then her body tenses and she’s coming in my mouth and I don’t let up the pressure, don’t hold back my need to ravage her inside and out.
“Oh god, oh god,” she cries out, her voice choking, and I’m smiling against her slick skin, loving the sound of her, the way she calls out for me, as if I’m her god. Fuck, that’s all I want.
I straighten up, keeping her legs spread even as her head rolls to the side, her mouth open, panting, her body still quaking from her orgasm. I swiftly unzip my jeans and take my cock out, hot, tight and rigid in my hand. It’s nearly painful, this need I have for her, a need I can’t deny myself any longer.
While she’s still limp, trying to catch her breath, I wrap my hand around her waist, holding her in place, and tighten my grip around my cock, pressing it up against her, the sound wet, slick. I hiss softly, the anticipation building, then I push myself inside her with one hard, eager thrust, holding her steady against me.
She gasps loudly, her hands digging into my shirt, holding tight, and I’m letting out a low, animalistic groan as I drive myself inside of her, to the hilt, so we’re as close as fucking possible.
I pull back an inch and stare into her eyes, lost in their warmth, their desire for me, a look that I’ll never get tired of seeing. Like she sees me, all of me, for who I really am, even the parts of me I’ve never shown her. The parts I’m too afraid of.
I kiss her, soft, hard, feeling too much of everything, like she’s slipping through my fingers just as the days are, the time we have together. I don’t want to lose her, I don’t want to let go of her. I want to keep fucking her like this, buried so deep inside so that she’ll never be able to shed me, or forget me.
I want her to stay with me and I’m too fucking scared to ask for it.
So, instead, I let out a guttural groan, and she whimpers in response, and our need for each other fills the room, becoming something bigger than the both of us.
Let me have this, let me just have this.
I keep pumping into her harder and harder. My hips slam against the sink as I fuck her, faster, and her legs wrap tighter around me, keeping me as close as possible.
“Yes, yes,” she whispers, and I glance at her, watching as her eyes pinch shut, as her head starts to slam back against the mirror. Fuck, this is hot. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.
Her hands move frantically up and down my shirt, nails digging into my muscles and trailing down to my ass where she yanks me into her, until I’m driven so deep inside her that the air is knocked out of my lungs and I’m gasping for breath.
“Fuck, Shay,” I swear, grunting with each thrust, the sweat beading on my forehead and rolling off onto her tits, which are practically popping out of her dress. “I’m not going to last long.”
“I’m ready for you,” she says, nails digging in deeper. “I want to feel you come inside me. Make me drip with you.”
Holy fuck. I have never heard Shay do any sort of dirty talk before, and I have to say, I’m in fucking love with it.
“Good girl,” I grunt, pressing my hand against her throat, holding her head back against the mirror as I fuck her longer, deeper. “Such a good girl, Shay.”
She watches me with wild eyes and then I reach down with my other hand, sliding over my slick shaft where it disappears into her at breakneck speed, bringing my fingers up until I’m rubbing at her clit.
“Oh fuck!” she calls out, coming already, and now I can’t hold back any longer. I arch my back, driving my cock up at an angle while she orgasms, her thighs quivering as she convulses around my cock, squeezing and…
There.
So close.
Fuck.
I come, eyes rolling back into my head, the bathroom spinning until we’re in a galaxy of our own. I think I’m swearing in Norwegian, my words turning into nonsensical animal sounds as I keep coming inside her, shooting straight into her as my pumps begin to slow.
I feel like I’m being emptied, not just physically, but emotionally. Like I’m being drained, giving Shay every single ounce of me, hoping she’ll keep me safe and close to her heart.
But as my orgasm starts to leave my body, and I’m aware that I just fucked her inside a public washroom in Alesund, all my old worries come back to me.
That I won’t be enough for her.
That this is all I’ll get of her.
And that I’ll spend the rest of my days regretting that I didn’t do more to keep her this second time around.
Because the problem now, the problem that I see so very clearly, is that I can’t just let Shay go, and I can’t keep her either. One is unfair to me, the other is unfair to her.
The problem is that I love her.
I’ve fallen back in love with her.
And if history has taught me anything, it’s that this isn’t going to end well.
18
Shay
One of the first things the guidebooks to Norway will tell you is that you have to get out to see the fjords. There are so many of them, including the one that leads to Todalen, that most travelers will be overwhelmed with choices, but it’s Geirangerfjord that most people talk about. It’s definitely the one on the actual cover of the guidebooks.
Right now, standing beside Anders on the top deck of the ferry, I can see why it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the fairy-tale like subject of so many photos. It’s narrow as hell, with countless waterfalls splashing down the sharp sides of the towering sheer mountains, plunging into the depths of the ocean. There’s barely any shoreline, and when there is a pocket of land, picturesque remains of abandoned farms, accessible only by boat, add some color to the endless green, gray and blue.
More than anything, this fjord makes you feel impossibly small. This car ferry looks like a miniature ship in comparison, and everything seems too big to contain with your eyes.
In a way, it reminds me of how I feel around Anders.
How being in his presence sometimes makes me feel like I’m so small next to him. It’s not just that I’m short and he’s this hulking Nordic god, nor is it that he makes me feel like I shrink. I don’t shrink around him, I bloom. It’s that sometimes the way he looks at me feels too big for this world to contain, too big of a feeling to even grapple with.
Sometimes I catch Anders staring at me with this yearning look in his eyes. It’s a look that’s different from the one I knew back in the day. It’s more than just lust, it’s this deep need, a need for me, one that I can feel in my gut, lifting open the cages and letting hopeful birds take flight. I want to take that look and give it to him right back and let him know that he has me.
But every time I’m about to do that, every time I take in a deep breath and ready myself to tell him something I can’t take back, to take a step into the unknown and put my heart on the line, that look in his eyes disappears. The mood changes, like clouds over the sun, a passing storm. It’s like he won’t let himself look at me like that for too long, like he’s not letting himself want me.