It began with a letter.
Slipped beneath Astrid's door before sunrise, the envelope sealed with wax — not red, not black, but deep fjord blue.
Inside:a note in careful, almost delicate handwriting.
You watched me once, years ago, before you ever arrived.I watched you back.Meet me where the rowan trees lean east. At dusk. No questions. No clothes.
No name.
Just the scent of pine and fire still clinging to the parchment.
Astrid knew who it was.
Emil.
Kari's quiet, long-limbed lover. The boy who never made eye contact with her in the square, who always trailed two steps behind Kari like a shadow that adored the sun.
He had grown.
And now he was reaching.
She told no one.
Not Kari. Not Ida. Not even Åse.
Because this wasn't betrayal. It was permission, echoing from within the soil of the village itself.
She went at dusk, as instructed — naked beneath her linen coat, the red book tucked beneath one arm like armor.
The rowan trees bowed toward her in the wind, leaves whispering secrets between branches.
And he was there.
Already waiting. Already hard.
Not nervous.
Humming.
"Why now?" she asked softly, her breath visible in the cooling air.
Emil shrugged. "You didn't belong here before. You do now."
She stepped closer.
"Does Kari know?"
He nodded. "She lit the candle for me."
Astrid blinked.
"The one in the window?"
"Yes. That's how we tell each other: go."
They stood inches apart.
And Astrid said the thing she didn't even know she needed to say:
"I'm not afraid of your youth. But I'm afraid of being worshipped."
He reached out — not to her breasts, or hips, but her face.
"Then let me offer you a fire, not an altar."
They undressed slowly, as the wind picked up and the last of the sun sank like a secret into the fjord.
His body was lean, warm, hungry in the way new fire always is — uncertain of how big it can get.
He lay back in the moss. Arms open.
And Astrid — not playing goddess, not pretending virgin — crawled over him, her knees pressed to his ribs, and let him inside without words.
He filled her like someone lighting a candle from both ends.
It wasn't about depth or pressure — it was about presence.
She guided his hand to her chest.
Then to her throat.
Then between her legs.
He didn't gasp when she climaxed.He shuddered.Like he'd been the one undone.
Afterwards, they lay side by side, steam rising from their skin into the chilled air.
He turned toward her and whispered:
"I've only ever made love with Kari. But I dreamed of you first."
Astrid smiled.
"Then let's call this a memory you needed to return to."
He kissed her shoulder.
And left her there, wrapped in her coat, alone under the stars.
She didn't cry.
She didn't ache.
She glowed.
Back at her cottage, she opened the red book. Dipped her quill.
And wrote:
"Straight isn't simple here. It's a spiral. A hunger. A history waiting to be retold."
"The fire between a man and a woman doesn't burn brighter than between women — it burns differently. It burns forward."
A knock at the door.
This time — Leif.
He said nothing.
Just held out a loaf of warm bread, his hands dusted with flour and quiet longing.
Astrid smiled.
"Come in," she said.
"But only if you're hungry."
He stepped inside.
And didn't close the door.