13 HMV: Salty in Naustet
"Varm deg på meg/Hvis det blir kaldt/Slipp deg løs no, og fall fritt"
Translation: "Warm yourself on me/If it gets cold/Let go now, and fall freely"
–Stina Talling, song "BlimE (Mer Enn God Nok)"
9:10 pm, Week 6, Outside Sauna at SALT, Langkaia 1, 0150 Oslo, Norway
"Wait—lemme get this straight—" Macy stared up suspiciously at the art-deco-like triangular glass-enclosure structure up ahead. "We're going to soak in a sauna that's an art project inspired by drying fish?"
Harry chuckled as he carried a duffel bag full of towels, swimsuits, and a spare change of clothes between them. "Not exactly, love. The sauna is part of a larger art project that includes art pieces inspired by traditional Norwegian racks for drying fish."
"Right," replied Macy, as Harry sped up his pace, to avoid arriving at the sauna too late to closing. "Wait for me!" She scurried forward, attempting to catch up. Why on earth had she let Harry plan date night? she thought to herself, initially expecting him to make 6 pm reservations at a local fjord restaurant, followed by a walk along the water.
Just outside the glass doors, there were restrooms separated by gender. Harry unzipped the duffel bag and gave Macy her swimsuit for her to change into. After both had, they exited the restrooms to take a brisk outdoor shower. My hair, Macy inwardly wailed to herself, bemoaning the fact she had spent the latter part of two hours earlier that day taming her tresses. This was followed by a brisk dip in what appeared to be repurposed grape wine barrels, the type where one imagined the local townspeople stepping on the berries, crushing them with bare feet in a chanting dance, for the summer vintner harvest.
9:20 pm, Sauna Naustet at SALT, Langkaia 1, 0150 Oslo, Norway
The first thing Macy thought of when she peered into the room, entirely composed of wood planks, was hygge—or in Norwegian, koselig—an undefinable, inherent, ineffable sense of utter Nordic coziness—as she surveyed the speckled shadows from the perforated candleholder with its light within, coupled with the tiny sauna fire in what appeared to be a black iron miniature stove—akin to those seen in the 1800s during the time of pioneers. The stove had a back-end compartment for countless pre-chopped logs, no doubt used to stoke the steady, unwavering flames that warmed the cocoon she and Harry found themselves in.
The side benches—two on the left, and two on the right side of the tiny enclosure—were one followed by another on a higher step, similar to high school bleachers, strong and sturdy. Thick damask-and-navy striped linens—were they towels or blankets? Macy wondered—were neatly folded atop each top-most seated area. A broad metal pan was filled with water, with a carved ladle-like instrument within, to scoop the water out. What was that for?
Harry stowed the duffel bag in a nearby heat-resistant compartment and walked toward Macy, beckoning her to sit, which she did, hesitantly. She couldn't help but wonder whether the benches contained heat scorching enough to burn the outermost layer of her skin. "Is it safe to sit on the bare wood," she gestured toward the iron stove and back to the bench before them, "given the temperature?" Harry laughed.
"What's so funny?" exclaimed Macy indignantly. "It's a completely legitimate question—I mean, we're in a different country, how should I know how this stuff works—"
"Macy, love, relax—" Harry laid his broad hands on either side of her shoulders and she sat atop the lower of the two benches. "See? No burns. I would think you'd be more at ease, given how we've raised a pyro of our own," referencing their twenty-one-year-old daughter Matilda, currently paying her debt to society in Camp Wanaka.
"Not yet," she groused to herself. "And I've never gotten used to fire—I only did, for her."
"Ah, yes," Harry mused. "The things we do for our kids."
Macy nodded, sighing, thinking not of her maternal duties, but of what she had seen in the latest installment of the Oslo Afterposten newspaper, in the American equivalent of the "Style" section. Morgana, youthful, dewy, bouncing curls and all, had been photographed as part of an "Out & About" special about beautiful up-and-coming youth. Harry noticed Macy's reticence, remarking, "penny for your thoughts, love."
"Morgana." Of course, Harry realized.
"What about her? She's of age and recapturing her lost youth—" he began.
"I don't think it's appropriate for her to flaunt her looks in front of the media—I mean, she's a century and a half—she should act her age," said Macy sharply, which caused Harry to raise an eyebrow.
"Oh, really?" he remarked, pouring a ladleful of water down his wife's back, the heat trickling down in puffs of steam from her ever-sensitive shoulder blades to the bottom-most base of her spine, as she emanated the barest of gasps. Holy Hera, that felt amazing. She motioned for Harry to turn around as well, dipping the instrument into the silver pan, covering his back with the same.
"The media artificially promotes young looks—what'll she do when she wakes up one day and it's all stripped away? What's left?" Rather than appear worried, Harry's eyes began to twinkle with a glimmer of its own.
"Love, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous of Morgana," he casually remarked, kissing her smooth, elegant shoulder, fondling the curls that tumbled alongside.
"Me?" Macy sputtered, incredulous. "Jealous?" Harry nodded, as she shook her head vigorously, curls flying this way and that. "I'm just thinking she ought to be more careful. And you—"
Now it was Harry's turn to be surprised. "Me? What did I do?"
"You're the one who wanted to give her the freedom," she stated, "to let her run wild—explore—go crazy—she's a hundred-and-fifty, for crying out loud!"
"And run wild she must do, love," explained Harry as best he could as he began massaging Macy's upper shoulders, which were far too tense, in his opinion. "Morgana's headstrong—you should know that, of all people. If we forced her to return from her rumspringa, realistically speaking, what would she do?" Macy mulled over this question for a few moments, before replying.
"She'd probably run away and never come back, wouldn't she?" she answered in a low voice.
Harry concurred. "Exactly." He turned around to face his wife, brushing a tendril away from her melanin visage and kissed her forehead gently.
9:35 pm, Sauna Naustet at SALT, Langkaia 1, 0150 Oslo, Norway
"Ok, maybe I am kind of jealous," Macy admitted minutes later. "I never had a chance to 'let loose' when I was her age. My dad always kept me on a short leash—"
"He was doing so out of love," Harry moved from Macy's visage to stroke the tension out of her upper biceps.
Macy nodded as she arched her neck forward, cat-like, on impulse. "I realize that now, but he didn't make things easy for me."
"Imagine if you hadn't had Dexter in your life back then," theorized Harry, reverting to his professorial voice that Macy knew so well. "Where would you have ended up?"
She gave the question considerable thought as she stared at the scintillating, multitudinous reflection of amber candlelight on the burnished walls before them. "I probably wouldn't have gotten a Ph.D. from Columbia; I wouldn't have chosen a major, and I'd still be stuck in undergraduate studies as a near-thirty-year-old, trying to figure out what to do with my life. I was pretty indecisive back then…," she paused for a beat. "…I guess I was lucky. Even though he was strict, he supported me when it counted."
Harry smiled as he replaced the ladle on the metal pan with a clink. "You said it, not me." Macy watched as he plucked a piece of pre-cut log, placing it into the iron stove, causing a shower of sparks to burst forth within its robust, miniature cavern.
9:59 pm, Café Naustet at SALT, Langkaia 1, 0150 Oslo, Norway
Macy sipped their shared cup of cloudberry tea as Harry dug into a small, piping-hot waffle with brown sweetened cheesecake-like spread. "Absolutely scrumptious," he remarked, about to offer Macy a piece before remembering her dairy allergy. More for me, he supposed, drawing another morsel to his mouth. Tea? Harry mouthed over at Macy, motioning for the beverage. Macy made as if to ignore his request, then pushed the glass forward, a smile hovering on her lips. How very impish, Harry thought to himself, raising the glass, as if to propose a mock toast in her general direction. Macy pulled out her phone, showing a webpage on cloudberries, nicknamed "Arctic Gold" due to its expensive cost, and the fact that it was apparently illegal to harvest them unripe before the July/August picking season.
The tea contained subtle notes of crisp apples mixed with delicate raspberries, plus a hint of tart cranberry. Both wondered—just how on earth would this 'illegal-when-unripe' law be enforced? "Maybe they have body heat-sensing infrared security cameras?" speculated Macy, taking another sip of their tea.
"That sounds far too complicated," responded Harry, who took another bite of his waffle dessert. "Maybe they employ trolls and hulder-folk?" he inquired with a deadpan expression.
Macy side-eyed him, biting her lip to avoid laughing aloud at the very image Harry had described. She logically reasoned aloud, "according to Norwegian legends, aren't trolls supposed to be three, six, or nine-headed, at least the ones that Askeladden conquered? And if he conquered them, they're probably not the most reliable security guards…"
"Right you are," murmured Harry. "And the hulder-folk?"
"Just as unlikely," Macy answered repressing the urge to roll her eyes, in the presence of her partner in crime. "They're mountainous underground creatures swimming in wealth—why would they go out of their way to watch several hundred cloudberry bushes? I'm telling you, Harry, sometimes the simplest, most logical answer is scientific technology."
"Anyways," Harry went on, side-stepping the matter entirely, "Norwegians are proud of their berries, they use them for jam, tea, or for creating Christmas sweet cloudberry whipped cream."
"Nice," Macy said aloud, thinking to herself that when Christmas rolled around in several short months, she could expand her cooking repertoire and add the whipped cream recipe to her list. Would it resemble the clotted cream Harry was so fond of? She hoped it would. Never change, my dear, Macy thought to herself, holding Harry's hand from where he sat across the table from her; her husband's automatic assumption that mythical creatures were responsible for everyday happenings rather than scientific theory never ceased to bemuse her.
10:30 pm, Conference Hall, Hotel Christiania Teater, Stortingsgata 16, 0161 Oslo, Norway
After orbing back to their hotel room and dropping off their duffel bag, Harry beckoned Macy to grab his arm, transporting them both to an exquisite Old World-style theater with hundreds of feet of luxurious cotton-polyester-mohair flame-retardant stage curtains, an ornate crystal chandelier containing thousands of the glittering gems and calligraphic crown molding stories above their heads, and plaster-inlaid elegant skyboxes that hearkened back to the heyday of classical operatic performances, upper-crust monacles, and puffed ballgowns that cost nearly a year's salary.
Macy walked around the dimly-lit rows upon endless rows of maroon movie-style seating. "Harry, where are we?" she turned around to face him.
"At the hotel," Harry replied, "at least, the part that used to be a theater way back in the day. It's a conference room now, so the concierge told me the first day we arrived."
"Wow," breathed Macy, running her slender fingers atop the seats. "It's really…fancy."
"Thought you'd like to see it, given our mutual Darcy/Jimmy history at Tessera Nightclub, and how you used to perform for a full audience. I mean, it's not the same, but—"
"I love it," Macy whispered in his ear. "Shall we?" she offered him her hand and he took it; she led the way up the five stair-steps to the front stage, now lit a crimson red, to circular tables covered in white linen tablecloths, each surrounded by several gold-rimmed peacock-blue velveteen chairs. She observed, in the back, a full drumset and a series of black microphones situated at varying heights.
"According to this pamphlet," Harry took a folded piece of paper from his pants pocket, "the stage dates back to 1918, when it was originally called "Opera Comique;" it was confiscated by the Germans during WWII, but eventually returned to Norwegian ownership in 1945. In 1986, the room was converted into a movie theater for cinematic purposes; since 2006, it has hosted various TV shows and now doubles as a banquet hall."
"Fascinating," murmured Macy, as she found herself reimagining herself as Darcy. Was that really a century or so ago? If she closed her eyes tight enough, she could have sworn she was back at Tessera Nightclub, fringed flapper dress, cloche hat, ochre makeup and all.
10:40 pm, Backstage, Conference Hall, Hotel Christiania Teater, Stortingsgata 16, 0161 Oslo, Norway
Their steps echoed in the reddened shadows as they traversed the backstage area; though this wasn't the original theater in which Darcy found her fame, Macy understood that certain theater aspects remained unchanged. She knew there was likely a set of dressing rooms, a "green room" or backstage lounge for performers, an elevated "catwalk" of black wrought-iron allowing people to quickly walk from one stage wing to the other unobtrusively for set and lighting purposes, and various storage areas for costumes and the like.
And indeed, Macy spotted the elevated catwalk almost immediately, coupled with the side wings of slotted metal, which she knew typically led to a winding staircase, back to the stage's main level. She walked to the foot of the stairs, glanced back mischievously at Harry, and took the first step upwards.
10:40 pm, Backstage Catwalk, Conference Hall, Hotel Christiania Teater, Stortingsgata 16, 0161 Oslo, Norway
"Amazing view," murmured Harry who had crept up behind Macy's form. At that very moment, Macy was glad she had hurriedly changed earlier into one particular sleeveless, scoop-necked black laced cocktail dress, described online as having "supreme and luxurious allure" with a "feminine touch of seductiveness." Indeed, she thought to herself as she subconsciously bit her lower lip.
"Why Mr. Valensi," she purred, as he nuzzled her neck, "you certainly have an eye for theatrical assets," as she felt his hardness suddenly pressing up along her upper thigh.
"Oh, you have no idea—" he said as he began thrusting between their frenzied kisses. All of a sudden, Macy found herself picked up in one motion, her legs wrapped around his sturdy, well-built body as they continued their passionate embrace.
"Considering we're ten feet off the main stage, maybe we could…" Macy paused, "find a place a bit less hazardous?"
"Roger that," gasped Harry, and they soon found themselves within one of the dark, deserted dressing rooms; Macy hastily employed telekinesis to shut and lock the door, then turned her head around to continue her inveigling motions, her tongue gently winding its way to his mouth, where they felt each other's sordid warmth and wetness, feeling each other's instinctual response to the other. Harry laid Macy atop a sturdy shelf adjoining the room's mirror, as she hurriedly unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, pulling his stiffened length free, using her index finger to wipe and taste droplets of his salty essence that leaked from within; Harry nearly became undone at the vision of his very own stunning goddess, tasting him, in utter thrall.
His arm dove beneath Macy's dress, pulling her underwear down as she shook it free, causing it to fall to the ground, neither of them noticing where it landed. "Macy," Harry's eyes were now smoldering with an urgent ferocity. "Tell me what you want."
"You," she said, in no louder than a whisper.
"What was that?" he growled into her ear as she felt herself involuntarily shiver.
"You!" she all but shrieked. "I want you, Harry. I want you inside me." Harry watched with rapt fixation as she positioned her moistened folds just so, to meet the tip of his engorged length, and together, they gasped at the resulting penetrative sensation.
"Fuck, Macy," groaned Harry aloud, thrusting wildly as she moaned with unbridled pleasure, clutching his silky chestnut hair, throwing his head back, and enveloping his mouth in a torrid kiss. His length hit Macy's innermost core in the most sensual, seductively flawless angles so that she had the unearthly, ethereal sensation of seeing stars.
As if on impulse, she looked over his shoulder, and took in the odd visual before her; cosmetics on the smaller makeup table had freed themselves from a knobbed drawer and were floating around the room, as if weightless. Oh, man. "What is it?" she heard Harry say.
"Nothing," she replied, "just a bit of…pleasure…making itself known." He smirked, as he continued to pinch and lick the most sensitive part of Macy's neck, knowing exactly what she meant, causing her to gasp loudly once more. A second passed, a couple more, as they crested toward their mountainous apex. "I-I think I'm going to—" she whispered in Harry's ear, and he nodded. Me too.
Macy clawed at his shoulder as he came in one final thrust, his essence coursing in spurted rivulets into his beloved, as they rode their pleasure together in their convulsive, cosmic, heady embrace.