“We’re going to my room,” she said to the two others. “So you can have a bit of peace here.”
They looked up at us and nodded. Then they went back to it. Margrethe’s long, black hair almost completely covered Jan Vidar’s face. Their tongues went round and round in each other’s mouths. He was stroking her back, up and down his fingers went, his body otherwise motionless. Susanne sent me a smile, squeezed my hand harder, and led me through the hall and into her bedroom. It was dark inside, and colder. I had been there before, and liked being in her house, even though her parents were always there, and in principle we only did what Jan Vidar and I normally did, that is, we sat chatting, moved into the living room and watched TV with her parents, had a bite to eat in the kitchen, went for long walks along the river, for this was not Jan Vidar’s dark, sweaty room we were sitting in, with his amplifier and stereo equipment, his guitar and records, his guitar magazines and comics, no, this was Susanne’s light, perfumed room, with its white flowery wallpaper, its embroidered bedspread, its white shelf full of ornaments and books, its white cupboard with her clothes nicely folded and hung up. When I saw a pair of her blue jeans there, or hanging over a chair, I gulped, because she would be pulling these very trousers over her thighs, hips, zipping up and buttoning. Her room was filled with such promise, which I could barely put it into words, it just sent surges of emotion through me. There were other reasons I liked being there. Her parents, for example; they were always friendly, and there was something in the family’s manner that made it clear I meant something to them. I was a person in Susanne’s life, someone she told her parents and younger sister about.
Now she went over to close the window. Outside it was misty, even the lights in the neighboring houses were almost invisible in the grayness. On the road below, a few cars drove past with their stereos throbbing. Then it went quiet again.
“Hmm,” I said.
She smiled.
“Hmm,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I had no expectations, other than that we would lie here rather than nestling against each other. Once I had put my hand inside her Puffa jacket and placed it on a breast, and she had said no, and I had removed it again. The “no” had not been sharp or reproachful, more a statement of fact, as if it invoked some law to which we were subject. We did some caressing, that was what we did, and even though I was always ready for it whenever we met, I soon became tired of it. After a while I felt almost nauseous because there was something futile and unresolved about this caressing, my whole being longed for a way out, which I knew existed, but it was not a route that could be taken. I wanted to move on, but was forced to remain where I was, in the vale of rotating tongues and hair perpetually falling over my face.
I sat down beside her. She smiled at me. I kissed her, she closed her eyes and leaned back onto the bed. I crawled up on top of her, felt her soft body beneath mine, she groaned a little, was I too heavy? I lay beside her instead, with my leg over hers. Caressed her shoulder and down, along her arm. When my hand reached her fingers she squeezed it hard. I lifted my head and opened my eyes. She was looking at me. Her face, white in the semidarkness, was serious. I bent forward and kissed her neck. I had never done that before. Rested my head on her chest. She ran her hand through my hair. I could hear her heart beating. I stroked her hips. She tensed. I lifted her top and placed my hand on her stomach. Leaned forward and kissed it. She grabbed the hem of her top and slowly pulled it up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, right in front of me, were her naked breasts. In the living room, “Telegraph Road” was played again. I did not hesitate and closed my mouth around them. First one, then the other. I rubbed my cheeks against them, licked them, sucked them, finally put my hands on them and kissed her, for a few seconds I had completely forgotten her. My dreams or imagination had never stretched beyond this point, and now I was there, but after ten minutes there was the same sense of satedness, all of a sudden it was not enough, not even this, however great it was, I wanted to move on wherever it led, and made an attempt, started fumbling with her trouser button. It came open, she said nothing, lay with her eyes closed as before and her sweater pulled up under her chin. I undid the zip. Her white panties came into view. I swallowed hard. I tugged her trousers around her hips and drew them down. She said nothing. Wriggled a bit so that it was easier to remove them. When they were down to her knees I put my hand on her panties. Felt the soft hair beneath. Karl Ove, she said. I lay on top of her again, we kissed, and while we kissed I pulled down her panties, not a lot, but enough to slip in a finger, it glided down through the hair, and the moment I felt her moistness against my fingertip, something in me seemed to crack. It was like a pain shooting through my abdomen, followed by a kind of spasm in my loins. The next second everything was alien to me. From one moment to the next, her naked breasts and her naked thighs lost all meaning. But I could see that she was not having the same experience as me, she was lying as before, with eyes closed, mouth half-open, breathing heavily, engrossed in what I had been engrossed, but was not any longer.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “But perhaps we should join the others?”
“No,” she said. “Let’s wait a bit.”
“Okay,” I said.
So we resumed. We embraced, but it did not arouse anything in me, I might just as well have been cutting a slice of bread, I kissed her breasts, that aroused nothing in me, everything was strangely neutral, her nipples were nipples, her skin was skin, her navel a navel, but then to my amazement and delight, everything about her suddenly changed back, and again there was nothing I would rather do than lie there kissing everything I touched.
That was when someone knocked on the door.
We sat up; she quickly wriggled her trousers into position and pulled down her top.
It was Jan Vidar.
“Are you coming out?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Susanne. “We’re on our way. Hang on.”
“It’s half past ten, you know,” he said. “We’d better be off before your parents come back.”
While Jan Vidar was collecting his records I met Susanne’s eyes and smiled at her. When we were in the hall, ready to go, about to kiss them goodbye, she winked at me.