My mouth was as dry as cotton. My shoulder hurt and tensed when I woke up next. I still had my shoes on. My body was down, but it wasn’t a comfortable position by any means. I breathed out a tired sigh and got up, cracking my neck like a two-thousand-year-old mummy as I tried to get rid of the kink. I dropped my head into my open palms, my elbows placed over my knees, and I wanted to scream. This was stupid. I was here, right?
It wasn’t the end of the world. I wasn’t buying into their way of life. Take the blood test and leave for the airport the same day. Simple. With that thought in mind, I stretched and got up, letting myself open my suitcase and hop in the shower. There was no need to be dirty on top of everything.
Their shower had great water pressure, and I felt better after. I dried my hair and chose a comfortable outfit of a pair of leggings and a loose sweater. I groaned when I looked at the time. I slept more than I should have. It was past ten o’clock at night. I just messed up things for myself.
One peek outside showed me that this was going to be harder than I thought. The sky was still too bright even though it was late. The sun had just dipped below the horizon. Between a longnap and the brightness, I couldn’t imagine how I was going to sleep again.
“I can sleep when I’m back home,” I told myself, then closed the curtains back again.
Wacky place. The sunset was between six and seven all year round in Brazil. Maybe that was why Dad left. He couldn’t bear this long of a day. With a last deep breath, I opened the door, peeking through the gap to see if I could spot any of my hosts. When I didn’t, I dared to step out of the room.
The house was quiet as if they weren’t home, and my suspicions were proven right when I entered the kitchen and saw a note beside a bowl of köttbullar. My stomach growled at the sight of the meatballs. My dad always made them for me, especially when I was feeling poorly. It was his treat. I put the dish in the microwave while I read the note.
We had to go out to take care of a few things. Please eat and rest.
Talk to you soon.
Per.
Of course it was Per. No way was Anders slaving away on top of the stove to make me anything. The more I ate, the more I knew I wasn’t tired anymore. It had been months since I slept properly, knowing that I couldn’t keep things the way they were with the amount of bills I had. And then, when Anders contacted me, a new wave of problems arrived. My shoulders had been tense for a while, and that nap was the most relaxed I’d ever been.
Once I finished eating, I sneaked around the house, looking at their stuff, but they weren’t the most interesting people, so I got bored pretty quickly. No one told me to stay in all day, right?
Yeah, of course not. I wasn’t a prisoner. Maybe I could go for a walk, see a few things, and relax a little. This was the first trip Itook since we decided trips hurt too much, so it was about time to enjoy and see the view.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that all I was doing was sightseeing, this heaviness in my chest would finally dissipate. I put my shoes on and rolled my shoulders, expecting the front door to be locked, but it wasn’t. Of course, I wasn’t locked in.
The cold breeze greeted me as I crossed the threshold. It wasn’t bad, just a sign that soon this whole place would be covered in snow. It was the end of August, and the warm days were over, I bet.
The village was nothing like anything I’d ever seen. The houses were painted in bright colors—the one across from us in red, and the other one in blue. They weren’t close together like in most places in the world, but seemed in random locations across the vast green grass. The only road was the one leading out of the town. I could still see Anders’s car tracks leading from it to in front of the house. Wherever they went, they walked. I tracked up the hill, beside the lake, trying to get a good look at everything. From that privileged position, I could see the way the houses were built wasn’t random at all. Right in the middle was a small circle with beautiful fairy lights hanging from five poles around the place. The next larger circle had more houses, a little more distant from each other, and then the pattern repeated.
Neat and simple. It had a beauty to it, a simple life as if I had stepped into a time machine. I thought back to Per’s cupcakes, wondering where he taught. There was no way he was a teacher just in this village. I doubt there were enough kids for that.
Thinking about the logistics of this place, I made my descent, planning on going back in. The wind blew a little too cold for my liking, and I still felt like something was wrong. I didn’t want to be caught by Anders looking around the place because I was sure he would make that a bad thing.
I had almost reached their yellow house when my eyes went up, and I stopped in my tracks, hand over my fast-beating heart.
Colorful speckles of light lined up over the finally dark sky. For a moment, I was confused and rubbing my eyes, but the colors only got darker as if a bucket of paint had just spilled in heaven. My feet dragged as my eyes ate up the wonder. I knew about the northern lights, of course, but I assumed they were only possible to see in the dead of winter. My eyes hurt when I almost refused to blink, afraid that the lights would dim and go away, afraid this was just a hallucination, but the painting took form in front of my very eyes as if an invisible artist was responsible. I was left breathless.
Voices of others ripped me from the moment. My teeth grazed my bottom lip, and while I didn’t want to make myself known to the village just yet, it hurt me to think of going inside the house where I couldn’t see the lights anymore. The indecision weighed on me as the voices got closer and closer, and without thinking, I found myself hiding beside the house, holding a hand to my chest.
I barely spared them a glance. Their voices rose in excitement that matched the one I held back. They were locals, but their reaction to the lights proved to me that this was unbelievable, no matter how many times you saw it. For the first time, it hit me that my father was raised here, that he looked at the sky and ran up and down that hill. That the northern lights were part of his life, and a surge of love joined the amazement. Tears pricked my eyes. The stupid tears fell, and I kept watching the sky, noticing different things at every turn, the movement like a river of possibilities.
It was the lack of murmurs from the villagers that took my eyes from the sky for the first time. Their voices died down, and for a moment, I thought I was finally alone. Thankfully, my eyesturned to the square, and there I found them all under the fairy lights.
Naked.
Having sex.
I stumbled backward, and my back hit the wall. My eyes blinked furiously because I must be seeing things. There was no way that the good people of a small village in Sweden were having an orgy under the northern lights. I saw the woman I had seen before by the lake. She was naked, and four very naked men were closing in on her. One especially tall man bent over to take a nipple in his mouth as another fell to his knees and buried his mouth in her pussy.
My hand covered my mouth as conflicting feelings blossomed in my chest. My eyes darted from one pack to the other. All the packs were outside and shamelessly naked, interacting outside their own pack. I bit my bottom lip hard as I watched for the first time in my life a woman be penetrated at the same time she took a man into her mouth.
It was something out of a porn movie, something wild that I wasn’t supposed to watch. My heart beat grew fast, and right between my breasts, something like forbidden desire grew strong at each one of their moves. My toes curled inside my shoes. My cheeks were red, and the worst of it all was between my legs. I was soaked.
I was never judgmental or a prude, but it felt wrong to stay hidden and watch. At the same time, why would they be outside if they didn’t want to be seen? I nodded my head, accepting my own reasoning. My breathing grew labored, and my hand edged closer and closer to the band of my leggings.
There were many things I should do at this moment, walking away being the top of the list, but I couldn’t entertain that option. Soon, all packs were fucking under the northern lights. Their moans were low and whispered, a symphony in sin, andI couldn’t take it any longer. My fingers found the edge of my underwear and soon my greedy pussy. Instead of judging myself, I rubbed my clit. That first release got me so good, my head fell back against the wall.
