After an hour’s searching we gave up and flopped down in the heather to read the normal magazines we had found. Perhaps because I’d had my mind set on something quite different and had felt the expectation all day, I wasn’t really happy about just sitting there. Something was missing, and I got up, paced between the trees, looked down at the stream, perhaps a wade in the water was the answer?
“Want to go for a wade?” I called.
“Sure. Just got to read this first,” Geir said without looking up from his magazine.
I went over to the two bags of bottles we had found. Most of them were the long, brown ones with the yellow Arendals Bryggeri label, but there was also the odd dumpy, green Heineken bottle. I took one of them out. There was a bit of earth and grass stuck to the outside, and I wondered if it had been lying on the edge of a lawn for a while and had been picked up when the garden was being prepared for winter.
The lust was still there in my stomach.
I rotated the bottle in my hand. The dark-green glass lit up in the sun.
“Do you think it’s possible to stick your willy in this?” I said.
Geir rested the magazine on his lap.
“Ye-eah,” he said. “If the neck’s not too narrow. Are you going to try?”
“Sure,” I said. “Are you?”
He got up and came over. Took a bottle.
“Think anyone can see us here?” he said.
“No, are you crazy?” I said. “We’re in the middle of the forest. But we could move over there, to be on the safe side.”
We walked toward the trunk of a large pine tree. I undid my belt and dropped my trousers to my knees, took out my willy with one hand and held the bottle in the other. I pressed my willy into the top, the glass neck was cold and hard against my soft, warm skin, and actually too narrow, but with a bit of humping and pumping and wriggling, it slipped inside. A tingle ran down my back as my willy throbbed and the bottle seemed to tighten around it, harder and harder.
“I can’t get it in,” Geir said. “It won’t go.”
“I’ve done it!” I said. “Look!”
I turned to him.
“But I can’t budge it,” I said. “There’s no room. It’s stuck!”
To show how stuck it was, I let go of the bottle. It hung between my legs.
“Ha ha ha,” Geir laughed.
I was about to pull my willy out when I felt a sharp pain shoot up.
“Ow. Ow, ow, ow, shit!”
“What’s the matter?” Geir said.
“Ow! Ow! Oh, FUCK!”
It was a stabbing pain, as if from a knife or a jagged piece of glass. I pulled as hard as I could and got my willy out of the bottle.
On the tip of it there was a black beetle.
“OH! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” I howled. I gripped the beetle or whatever it was, it was black with big claws, pulled it off, and hurled it as far as I could, while running back and forth waving my arms.
“What’s the matter?” Geir said. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter, Karl Ove?”
“A beetle. It was biting my willy!”
At first he stared at me, slack-jawed. Then he burst into laughter. It was exactly his kind of humor. He rolled around in the heather laughing.
“Don’t tell anyone!” I said, doing up my belt. “Have you got that?”
“Yeah-heh-heh-heh!” Geir said. “Ha ha ha ha!”
Three times I made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone as we walked uphill, each carrying a bag and with the sun beating down on our necks. I also said a short prayer to apologize for my swearing.
“Should we go down and get the deposit on the bottles at Fina now?” Geir said.
“Do they take beer bottles there?” I said.
“Oh, that’s right,” Geir said. “We’d better hide them then.”
We walked back across the field, jumped over the stream, and there, on the other side, in a clump of trees below the chapel, we left the bags of bottles. Pulled up some ferns and tufts of grass and covered them as well as we were able, glanced around to make sure no one was nearby, then calmly moved away, knowing that if you ran you drew attention to yourself, up the road next to the chapel, which we then started to follow.
Outside the cellar door of the house where he lived stood Ketil, his bike turned upside down in front of him. He was revolving the rear wheel with a pedal in one hand while lubricating the chain with a small plastic bottle of oil he was holding in the other. His smooth, black hair hung down in front of his face.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” we said.
“Where’ve you been?”
“To the dump.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Searching for porn mags,” Geir said. I sent him a glare. What was he doing? This was a secret!
“Did you find any?” Ketil said, smiling at us.
Geir shook his head.
“I’ve got a pile of them in my room,” he said. “Would you like to borrow them?”
“Oh yes!” Geir said.
“Is that true?” I said.
He nodded.
“Do you want them now?”
“I’ve got to go home and eat,” I said.
“Me, too,” Geir said. “But we can take them with us and hide them in the forest.”
Ketil shook his head.
“No chance. Then they’d be ruined. You’ll have to take them home. But that’s OK. I can bring them over this afternoon.”
“That’s great. But then we’ll have to meet you outside. No ringing the bell. Agreed?”
“Oh?” he said, smiling with narrowed eyes. “Are you frightened I’ll show the mags to your Dad, or what?”
“No, but … he asks a lot of questions. And you haven’t been there before.”
“Fine,” he said. “Be outside at five and I’ll be there. OK?”
“That’s when the soccer’s on,” I said.
“Six then. And don’t tell me you want to watch children’s TV!”
“OK. Six.”
Mom was sitting in the kitchen reading a book with the radio on and rice boiling on the stove. The whole of one side of the pan was white with milk and in the area between the hotplates there was also milk and rice, almost dried up from the heat, so I could see it had boiled over.
“Hi,” I said.
She put the book down.
“Hi,” she said. “Where have you been?”
“Mm,” I said. “Around and about. We found some bottles and we’re going to get the money back on Monday.”
“Nice,” she said.
“Are you going to make pizza this evening?” I said.
She smiled.
“That’s what I’d planned.”
“Great!” I said.
“Have you started the book you got?”
I nodded.
“I started yesterday. It seems really good. I’m going to go to my room and read some now in fact.”
“You do that,” she said. “Food’ll be ready in a quarter of an hour.”
She always brought something when she came on Fridays, and this time it had been a book.
A Wizard of Earthsea,
written by someone called Ursula K. Le Guin, and already after the first few pages I knew that this was an absolutely fantastic book. Yet I didn’t settle down with the book without some hesitation, because Mom was at home and I wanted to be with her as much as possible. On the other hand, she was here and almost all the qualities her presence brought to my life were in place, not least the fact that Dad never did anything awful when she was here, never had one of his furious outbursts, always controlled himself, even though I was lying on my bed and she was in the kitchen.
I watched the English Football League match with Yngve and Dad. He had bought toffees as usual, and both Yngve and I had been given a pools coupon with eight rows of twelve matches each. I got five correct results, which the others laughed at because that was less than half and I might just as well have rolled a dice. Dad said it was as hard to get five as it was ten. But whereas those who got ten right were sent money by Norsk Tipping, those who got five had to pay money to them, he said. Yngve got seven right and Dad got ten, but unfortunately this time there was no payout for ten.
By the time all the results were in it was two minutes to six. Outside, Ketil came whizzing down the hill on his bike with a bulging plastic bag strapped to the luggage rack. I jumped up and said I had to go.
“What are you going to do now?” Dad said. “Children’s TV is starting.”
“I’m not in the mood for it,” I said. “And I’m meeting Geir.”
“Meeting, eh?” Dad said. “Well, that’s fine. Just make sure you’re back home by eight.”
“Are you going out?” Mom said from the doorway. “And here I was thinking you could help me make the pizza.”
“I’d love to, but I’ve arranged to meet someone,” I said.
“Our son has started making arrangements,” Dad said. “Are you sure it’s Geir? Not a little sweetheart?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely sure about that,” I said.
“Be back home by eight then,” Mom said.
Dad stood up.
“Soon we’ll be all alone in the evenings, Sissel,” he said, hauling his trousers up by the belt loops and running a hand through his hair. I was already on my way down the landing and didn’t hear what she answered. My throat was thick with excitement, my whole body tingling. In the hallway, I put on my sneakers – if we were lucky the forest would be dry now – the blue sweater, and the blue quilted vest Mom had made for me, opened the door, and rushed out to meet Ketil, who was sitting on his bike with one foot on the pedal and one on the ground, and Geir, who was standing next to him. Both glanced toward me.
“Let’s go to the boathouse,” I said. “No one will see us there.”
“OK,” Ketil said. “I’ll cycle round. See you down there.”
Geir and I ran down the slope and onto the path, jumped over the stream, and scurried down the hill, which seemed to vibrate beneath our feet, crossed the field, the gravel road, and only slowed down when we reached the grassy incline at the same time as Ketil hove into view at the top of the hill, beside the old, white house.
Ketil was two years older than us and kept himself very much to himself, at least that was how it appeared to us. The high cheekbones, the narrow eyes, and the gleaming, black hair made him look like an Indian and caused a stir among the girls. It wasn’t long since that had started. From one day to the next Ketil became the one they talked about and looked at, suddenly you heard his name all over the place, and the strange thing about this was not the way that he suddenly existed now, having existed before in a kind of vale of shadows, but that there was a certain pride in the girls who talked about him and eyed him, as if
they
were the ones who became interesting by making such an unexpected selection, almost more interesting than he was. For he just carried on with his life, cycling round, one day here, one day there, invariably alone, and always friendly to us.
He kicked down the stand on his bike, an orange DBS racer with drop handlebars and the tape hanging off one end, lifted the spring flap on the luggage rack, took the bag, and strolled over to where we were lying in the grass, each with a sprig of grass in our mouths.
“It’s porn time!” he said, grabbing the bag from the bottom and spilling the magazines over the grass.
The sun was low in the sky over the ridge behind us, and his shadow stretched a long way across the ground. From the islet in the bay came the sound of screeching gulls. Feeling weak all over, I took a magazine and rolled onto my stomach. Even though I looked at the pictures one at a time, and focused on one part, such as the breasts, which I only needed to catch a glimpse of to feel an electric shock of excitement shoot through me, or such as the legs and the wild thrill aroused by the sight of the slit between them, more or less open, more or less pink and glistening, often accompanied by a finger or two nearby, or near the mouth, which was often open, often contorted into a grimace, or such as the buttocks, sometimes so wonderfully round that I couldn’t lie still, this wasn’t about the parts in themselves, this was more like bathing in the totality, a kind of sea in which there was no beginning and no end, a sea in which, from the first moment, from the first picture, you always found yourself in the middle.
“Can you see a big mons anywhere, Geir?” I said.
He shook his head. “But there’s one here with enormous tits. Do you want to see?”
I nodded, and he held up the magazine for me.
Ketil sat some meters from us, with his legs crossed and a magazine in his hands. But after only a few minutes he threw it down and got to his feet.
“I’ve looked at them so many times,” he said. “I’ll have to get some new ones.”
“Where did you get them?” I said, gazing up at him and shielding my eyes from the sun.
“I bought them.”
“BOUGHT THEM?” I said.
“Yes.”
“But they’re old, aren’t they?”
“They’re used, you chump. There’s a hairdressing salon in town that also sells old magazines. They’ve got loads of porn mags.”
“Are
you
allowed to buy them?”
“Obviously,” he said.
I stared at him for a few seconds. Was he pulling my leg?
Didn’t look like it.
I flicked through. There were photos of two girls on a tennis court. They wore short skirts, one light blue, the other white, white shirts, a sweat band over their wrists, white socks, and white sneakers. Each was holding a racket. Surely they weren’t going to …?
I flicked on.
One was lying on the grass and had opened her shirt so you could see her breasts. Her head was back. Was she wearing any panties?
Nope.
Soon they were both naked, on their knees by the net, with their bottoms in the air. It was fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic.
“Look, Geir,” I said. “Two playing tennis!”
He glanced at me and nodded, too absorbed in his own pictures to waste any time.
Ketil had walked down to the old, tumbledown pontoon, where he stood skimming stones he must have found on the beach nearby. The water was like a mirror, and every time a stone hit the water, small circular ripples spread outward.
I had flicked through three or four magazines when he reappeared in front of us. I looked up at him.
“It feels good to lie on your stomach and read them,” I said.
“Ha ha ha! So you like rubbing yourself?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I can imagine,” he said. “But I’ve got to be off now. Keep the mags if you like. I’m sick of them.”