Loved all your reviews this week! Thank you for supporting this fic!
Now, Ipsita and I have decided that it's been all work and no play for too long now - time to set aside some hours for fun. She's been so great through some very busy weeks. Thanks, Sis!
January 5th, 2020 - Nuuksio National Park
Our bags lay forgotten on the porch. No one has ventured inside the cottage when this lake is so mesmerizing. It's been a long time since I've seen such a deep blue sky and felt a tranquility where silence is punctuated by the sound of fish on the surface. Steam is rising from the lake, making it look toasty warm, but it's a phenomenon caused by the air temperature dropping. Masen hasn't mentioned the cold so far, smiling as he takes photos.
"This is incredible," he declares, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. "Just what I needed after last night."
"A wasted evening," Marcus grumbles with a sigh. The opening-night crowds totally ruined our Lux experience. We could see images illuminating the Helsinki Cathedral but couldn't get close to anything, so we gave up in frustration, returning to the apartment to pack for the trip to Lapland.
"Is this like your parents' place on the river?" I ask, imagining something just as remote, but even more rustic with no road to bring in supplies.
"Nope." He shakes his head. "It's completely different. There is a punt that ferries cars across the river and dozens of houseboats. All the homes are designed for the steep blocks of land and built close to the water, and everyone has a little jetty with some kind of boat."
Instead of addressing the new questions filling my head, I make a suggestion. "Shall we take one of those canoes out?"
Kissing my temple, he states, "I was just thinking the same thing."
"Do you want to join us?" I ask Marie.
"No, we'll wait for the sauna."
The first thing we did when we arrived was to light the fire in the sauna. Once the smoke stops billowing out, it needs to be aired, then we adjust the temperature by pouring water on the superheated rocks.
"Can you both swim?" Masen inquires, and I know the question comes from him being responsible for strangers.
"We are not swimming!" Marcus insists, lighting a cigarette. "Too cold."
I would urge them to attempt it just once, but I understand it's not for everyone. I am very pleased that Masen will try these things, though. The affinity we've had since we first met definitely grows stronger the more time we spend together.
Opening the door of a small boathouse, we find paddles, life jackets, fold-up chairs, basic fishing gear, and a few lures. The map on the wall shows the hiking trails we can access from this northern section of the lake, and there is information in Finnish and English on fishing licenses, along with guidelines for minimum size limits. They have the same little poles we use for ice fishing in Alaska, and I check out the state of their lures.
"Are you gonna fish, babe?" Masen asks, sounding quite surprised.
"I was thinking about it. Are you?"
He shakes his head. "I'm not much of a fisherman."
My eyebrows shoot up at that statement. "Just keep that to yourself around my father or he'll make it his life's ambition to turn you into one."
"He'd be wasting his time, Bella. I have never killed a fish, nor do I know how to scale or gut them. I'd die if I found one full of eggs when I opened it up."
I cup his cheek because he suddenly looks vulnerable. This is not something I would have expected when he's generally so at home in the outdoors. Since my dad turned his fishing hobby into a popular activity for the guests at his hotel, it feels like I've been around fishing for most of my life. Sadly, it won't be on this trip, but I hope to give Masen the experience of eating a fish he caught some day, and I'll make damn sure it's not a pregnant female.
"Just know that it will be my pleasure to teach you if you ever want to learn."
"Thanks for not putting shit on me. I feel like a baby." He brings my hand back to his cheek. "I'll paddle if you want to fish. I don't want to ruin your fun."
"Nah, I'll be perfectly happy with the quiet, the scenery, and you."
We find an easy rhythm gliding through the water together, and the sound of our paddling is soothing. Huge rocks form the shoreline where there are not a thousand trees, and the vistas are doubly magnificent mirrored in the lake. We slow when three ducks descend from the sky, softly skidding across the surface, and they're vocal, probably rating their landing skills and the fish jumping out of the water.
"I'm going to try Mom before she goes to bed," he announces, calling Esme, who picks up immediately.
"Masen!" She sounds so much brighter than she did at Christmas.
"I have news, Mom. Bella and I are getting married, and we want to have the ceremony at Scots before we go away."
I'm delighted when she squeals and congratulates us, saying it should be fine so long as we're not rigid about times of the day. The school won't fully open until the first week of February, and then it will be peak time for marriages of ex-students around Valentine's Day. We talk about my parents' coming out for the wedding, and she insists there's plenty of room for them to stay at Woollahra.
Sue joins the conversation, gushing with congratulations and welcoming me to the family. Masen asks her how she's doing.
"I'll be better once I can see Rose again. I need to hug my baby."
There's emotion in her voice, and I imagine what it would be like if it were my daughter. Rose and Emmett are supposed to be out of danger, but there are still roads closed, and Emmett is away fighting fires every day.
"Aunty Sue, it makes sense to hold the reception in Melbourne. Since Mom is currently down there, would you two please be able to help us find a venue for the third weekend in February?"
"Oh Masen, this is exactly what we all need. A family reunion would be wonderful. It's just a bugger that Esme and I will have to sample the food. What a bloody chore!"
We all laugh, then the three of them are discussing parts of the city and people I've never heard of. A loon calls loudly, echoing around the cliffs, and I realize it might seem strange hearing my future Australian family discussing our wedding from a canoe in the Nuuksio National Park, but it actually couldn't be more perfect.
After a kiss that leaves me feeling dreamy, Masen spoils me by paddling all the way back to the cottage, and we unpack the canoe, noting that Maria and Marcus have been busy. There are now logs glowing red in the fire pit under a metal roof, designed to trap enough heat for us to cook and eat outside.
"Hola!" They come out on the porch in white toweling robes to welcome us back.
"How was the sauna?" Masen asks.
"Amazing," Maria sings out. "How was the lake?"
Masen is all smiles. "Stunningly beautiful." He wraps an arm around me and kisses my hair. "Just like my girl," he purrs in my ear.
Marcus comes down the steps. "Maria will show you the cabin, Bella. Is this fire enough, Masen?" he asks, lighting a cigarette.
Poor Maria. She looks frozen, so I quickly climb the stone steps and follow her inside where it's pleasantly warm with large windows framing views of the lake. Log cabin walls and light timber floors form a restful canvas for modern furniture and art made with an eye to the natural world. A rustic chandelier created from real antlers reminds me that we'll be in Lapland tomorrow night.
Maria points out where she stashed our groceries. There's a French press for coffee and a selection of tea bags and sugar sachets in a plastic bag they brought with them. There is also a bottle of wine on the counter she describes as a wedding gift from the Priorat wine region near their home in Spain. The vintage on the label is 2009.
Once she shows me how to operate the instant gas water heater, she leaves me to settle in while they return to the sauna.
I'm standing at the window, admiring the lake, when I notice Masen approaching the cottage. He comes in and takes off his jacket and beanie to lay down on the bed. "I think we just saw a moose!" I sit down next to him and rub my hand over his chest.
"You think?" I ask, having fun with him. I've always loved how people react to encountering them the first time. It's the same with bears.
"At first I thought it was an elk, but then I realized this thing was bloody prehistoric huge!"
I crack up because they do look like an oversized version of a modern-day animal. "Most people are surprised to find out how big they are and that they're timid outside of mating season."
A lazy hand moves around my lower back. It's a welcome sensation.
"Yeah, this one only came out of the forest for a few seconds. It had a bit of a 'whoops' moment when it saw us, then backed into the trees."
I smile and run my fingers through his hair. "Then it sounds like it was a moose, and you were very lucky to see one in the wild."
Both arms surround my hips. "Oh, I know how lucky I am." With him staring at my lips, I sense he's no longer talking about moose.
"I suppose we should join our hosts before it gets dark?" I ask, and there's a question in the tiny lift of his eyebrow.
"I have another idea." He sits up, making me squirm when his eyes leave no question about his intention.
"We did it this morning, Masen." It's not a valid reason to resist his advances, but I don't dare kiss him or we will end up doing it again. It's insane how often I want him at the moment.
"That's the problem. I'm still thinking about this morning."
I wonder if he has similar images in his head. "You must have such an ego by now."
He chuckles. "I'm not taking all the credit, not when it's you relaxing and giving yourself to me. I'm merely a student, learning to please my woman."
"Well, to me, it feels like you're the teacher." I never climaxed from intercourse before this trip, but he's flicked on that switch, and now I want to fuck him every chance we get.
"If I'm honest, I'll do anything to feel you cum on my cock like that. Just thinking about it is making me hard again."
Discovering just how hard he is, I get up and close our door. Coming back, I ask, "What exactly will you do, Masen?" I want to hear him talk dirty.
"Cooking. Cleaning." Such an intelligent answer must have a kiss, and the dynamic between us sizzles when I move to his neck.
"Foreplay. Orgasms. I want you wet."
God, the man was born to do that to me.
"Massage," he gasps when my teeth graze his earlobe.
Masen groans, and I know I'm torturing him, but it would be rude to leave our hosts to wonder why we're not joining them, and I have an idea of my own.
"Masen, they're waiting for us in the sauna, but we do have to change into our swimsuits, and I … owe you a few orgasms." I seductively lick my lips so there's no doubt what I'm offering.
With eyes darkening, he replies. "If you're wearing the white bikini, I guarantee it won't take long."
Well, that's good to know.
-0-
Relaxing round the fire pit, full of exceptional wine and delicious food, I understand why skewering meat and roasting it over hot coals is so popular in Finland. Apart from the fire adding a wonderful smoky flavor, I like how everyone talks while cooking their own, rather than one person getting stuck manning the grill or stove. When I ask Masen if we can adapt this shared activity for the team in Australia, he says we'll easily find a small barbecue to take on the road.
Maria likes it, too, saying she is sick of doing all the cooking. Marcus reacts to the comment, saying he'd love a job as easy as hers. He works long hours in his uncle's business, and I'm not surprised when she tells us she's an English language teacher. It explains why she speaks it so well.
Maria asks a lot of questions about our families, amazed to learn I haven't lived with my parents for over ten years. It's cruel when she says I must have broken my mother's heart, and I feel like I need to defend myself, recounting the many times I've been back, explaining that we don't need to see each other all the time to maintain a good relationship.
Masen must notice I'm upset, because he makes us all laugh with his indignant reaction to his father telling me he's too old to live at home.
We talk about my experience of living in South Africa. I'm shocked that she thinks expat life is all servants, glamorous events, and weekend safaris, and that whites are protected from the violence and crime. I explain that Johannesburg is a wonderful city rich in culture, bursting with human spirit and endeavor, but it can be a very scary place sometimes.
"That must have been strange living in a country where blacks are the majority."
I hate that I can almost smell where this is going. "What do you mean, Maria?"
"Well," she snorts. "You come from a land with a long history of slavery and abusing its blacks."
Wow, she really went for it. I'm kinda sick of people using the US as a prime example of the world's racial intolerance. Does she imagine it's any better for blacks in South Africa? Has she never heard of apartheid or holocaust, the genocides that took place in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Syria, Croatia or the Congo? Opening up those wounds on humanity wouldn't make for a very pleasant evening.
"It's not a problem unique to the United States," Masen chips in. "White people have been taking advantage of blacks for millennia."
I love that he's so quick to leap to my country's defense when his own family has borne the brunt of racial cruelty, but she's supposedly an educated woman who really should know better than to point the finger like that.
"Actually, Maria, the ten million Africans slaves who survived the transatlantic crossings went mainly to South America, not to what we now know as the United States." She frowns, but offers no response, leaving me to continue. "The Americas were being colonized, and the new world was desperate for a cheap labor force. The British colonies in North America only took three percent, so who do you think took the rest?"
I expect one of them to guess when it's so friggin' obvious, but their train of thought is not following mine when they both shrug.
"Okay, at the time, ten percent of Lisbon's population was black African, and the Portuguese were well versed in the slave trade, so it's no surprise that the majority of slaves went to Brazil. There were some big players like the Dutch and the French in the mix but think of the other major language spoken in South America."
When it dawns on her, she sits back and shakes her head. "Española."
"Yes, Spain took millions, and the big problem in South America and the Caribbean was that slaves died and had to be replaced. While the conditions were far from perfect, their North American counterparts flourished in comparison. They lived longer and had higher fertility rates."
"Oppression and racial inequality exist in every part of the world," Masen adds. "Unfortunately, people get away with hiding racism behind religion."
While I agree with him, I'd rather leave that alone when we don't know how religious these two might be, so I steer the topic away.
"For a thousand years, Africans have been taken against their will into the Arab world and Europe, as a commodity nearly as valuable as gold, and that's just recent history. Africans have been populating the planet for hundreds of thousands of years."
"So, is it true we all came from Africa?" Marcus asks, lighting another cigarette. The amount he is smoking is starting to really bug me, especially when I see the money he's burning while his wife is penny-pinching, bringing tea bags from home. However, it's none of my business, and I'm glad he's asked a question I'm happy to answer.
"The evidence keeps mounting the more human remains are found there. It's generally accepted that Neanderthals were already in Eurasia long before Homo sapiens left Africa. The two species were interbreeding while we coexisted, and analysis of Neanderthal tissue reveals a pattern of increasing human DNA, suggesting we may have bred them out of existence around forty thousand years ago."
"Incredible," Marcus responds.
"I think it's incredible how new discoveries keep adding to the story. I am in awe of people who can rewrite a chapter of history from what they find under a microscope, by radiocarbon dating, or knowledge of sedimentary deposits on an archaeological site. Without their expertise, we wouldn't know there were apelike creatures walking on two legs five million years ago, or that something was making crude stone tools a couple of million years ago.
"Current thinking is that humans first appeared in the southern region of South Africa, and that it wasn't a catastrophic event or danger that triggered the migration. It was more likely simple curiosity, or a quest to find a warmer place to live. So far, there's no evidence of language earlier than fifty thousand years ago, but by then, they had inhabited every continent on earth."
"Isn't it amazing?" Masen asks with a look of wonder, and I smile at him, loving that he finds this as interesting as I do.
"I am an anthropologist who wants to tell stories, Marcus, so I'm blessed to work for National Geographic. That my job brought me to Australia and my soulmate is the really amazing part."
"Why did you go to Australia?" Maria asks.
"I was working on a documentary where we followed a migration from India to Australia. Masen was our guide for the final days in the outback of Australia."
"I was their driver," Masen adds, grinning.
I roll my eyes because he is not getting away with that. "Right, a driver with a degree in anthropology. His knowledge of the area and the Aboriginal communities was invaluable, and I wouldn't have anyone else on the team to guide us this year."
"Do you take tourists into these Aboriginal communities?" Marcus asks.
"No." He shakes his head, definitively. "The Anangu people don't welcome tourists into their communities."
"Why not? They are not proud of their culture?"
I see Masen hesitate with his response. The answer is complicated and why he is so fundamental to the success of our project.
"Proud is not the right word, Marcus. They are unwilling to part with thousands of years of knowledge when white men show no respect for the land. Secrets are not given out freely in Aboriginal culture. One must gain trust and adhere to a strict hierarchy of discipline. Young men have to attain a certain level of maturity and reverence before they're taught to hunt. In a similar fashion, females learn to gather and prepare food from their grandmothers. They don't share their secret business with men, and vice versa."
"Thousands of years and still savages," Marcus states.
Masen sighs. "It's difficult for outsiders to comprehend."
"But you seem to know all about it, Masen," Maria adds.
They've both been unnecessarily abrupt when Masen has answered their questions candidly, but I know he won't share his Aboriginal heritage with people like them.
Our eyes meet before he responds. "Bella and I both did anthropology at university. She took the human evolutionary option while I went down the indigenous studies path."
"You have a lot in common, so are you working together in Lapland?" Maria asks.
I leave it to Masen, because I don't want to invite more questions, and he replies, "No, we're on vacation."
"So why choose Finland at this time of the year?" she continues, reminding me I ducked her question last night.
Thankfully, Masen responds before it gets awkward. "Bella came here for Christmas as a kid, and she always wanted to come back."
"It's a long way and a lot of money to see only one country," Maria preaches.
Masen shrugs. "We'll come back one day and see more."
"You must love her very much," she states, flashing a look of disapproval at me.
Her observation wounds me because I'm very aware of how selfish I've been. Tears threaten, and I stand to gather our plates, needing distance all of a sudden.
"She's going to be my wife, Maria," Masen declares, getting up to help me.
"Sit down, Masen. I'll be right back." He touches my arm as if he's concerned. "It's okay," I assure him.
As soon as I have the plates in hot water, Masen is beside me. "She doesn't realize how bloody rude she is."
"She just hit a raw nerve when I've dragged you all the way to Finland."
He grabs a dish towel and starts to dry. "You didn't drag me. I came here to help you."
"Help me do what? We're going to Lapland tomorrow and I still don't know why! I haven't had a dream in ages."
Maria and Marcus appear with our empty wine glasses. "Bella, we're …" She stumbles, sensing the tension. "We're going into the sauna."
"Catch you later." Masen barely glances at them before they leave.
I finish the dishes and stare at the sink. With my guts in a knot, I know this is about more than Maria's thoughtless words.
"Do you believe she's going to communicate from the other side?" he asks, cutting right to the crux of the matter.
I'm not certain I have the answer to that question. "I never told Tanya how special she was to me."
He hands me the dish towel to dry my hands, then lays it over the rack. "Come with me." Pulling on my hand, he leads me to our room. We're taking off our jackets when he says, "You say you want to tell stories …" He stops as if he's thinking. "Storytelling is important in Aboriginal culture, but we don't say the name of the deceased or show footage or images of them."
"Why not?" I ask, sitting next to him on the bed. This is the kind of thing I need to know for the documentary.
"We can still talk about them, but saying the actual name calls to their spirit, stirring it from its resting place, and nobody wants a restless spirit hanging around."
I stifle a laugh because this really isn't funny. "So, you believe in an afterlife?"
He nods, and I wonder why I never thought to ask him. It settles me, knowing he won't think I'm crazy.
"You know I haven't had a dream since I booked this trip?"
"Maybe the lack of dreams means you're allowed to have a life she's not part of."
"Is that what this is?" I ask, knowing he has always been wise.
"Freedom to live your life? Absolutely. She may have been in your past, but I'm your future."
All the emotion I've had bottled up explodes in my chest. Ever since I found out I hurt Masen, I've been examining myself and finding much lacking. Everything he says resonates deeply within me. I gave her no importance while she was alive and too much in death. Then I found a man who so completely captured my heart that I ached for him, but I made him believe I was pushing him away. All I can do is face these things and make sure I never repeat them.
"You're the most important part of my future." Tears fill my eyes, and I break down in his arms.
"Then please let me help you through this, baby. You're about to confront something you've put off for a long time, and these tears mean you're probably very scared."
"I am scared, Masen, but not of her. I'm about to get married to a man I adore, and I don't have a best friend to share it with. I've made excuses for my inability to keep in contact with people, but the truth is I wasn't a good friend to her then, and I haven't been a good friend to anyone since. You still hear from your high school friends and catch up with people from university, so there is obviously something wrong with me."
He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm sort of insulted you think I would settle for someone like that. Look at how tolerant you've been tonight? You controlled yourself when I was ready to explode from their fucking ignorance, and his smoking? Do not ask me to go to Barcelona because I won't.
"The woman I'm marrying has natural empathy, and an ability to see what's important. In my opinion, National Geographic is bloody lucky to have you. Do you ever wonder why one of their best cinematographers is committing a whole year of his life to your project? Could it be that he holds you in high regard?"
This is just too raw for me to think of an appropriate answer.
"Look, I know you set high standards, Bella, but you've never stayed in one place for very long. Give us a chance to lay down roots, and I guarantee you'll make good friends."
That is what I want, and my tears flow again, but they're now accompanied by a sense of relief. I've bared my soul, exposing my worst fears and flaws, and he still thinks I'm okay. I just wish I could see myself through his beautiful eyes.
Thanks for reading xo
