The next morning, Astrid didn't rise with the birds.She rose with the bruises.
Not the purple kind, but the aching, internal ones — stretched nerves, kissed muscles, her body still humming with Liv's mouth. Every breath was a reminder. Every step: a memory.
The lake had dried from her skin, but not from her.
There was something sacred in how Liv had taken her — not claimed, not conquered — but opened. Like a gate swinging wide to a garden she didn't know she'd been locked out of her whole life.
Now, she stood inside it. And everything smelled of wet stone, wild thyme, and sex.
Åse knocked at noon.
"Come," she said without waiting for an answer, wrapped in her eternal grey shawl, barefoot as always.
Astrid followed. She didn't ask where. She was done asking.She simply wanted.
They walked through birch woods, past mossy stones and sleeping deer. The sky was overcast, and still, Åse's skin gleamed with its own light. There was an authority in the old woman's quiet, as though every tree bent slightly when she passed.
They reached a clearing.
A circle of stones. A platform of wood.And a long, low bench with mirrors set behind it.
"Sit," Åse said, gesturing to the bench.
Astrid did.
"Now," Åse said, lowering herself beside her, "you learn the oldest rite we keep in this village."
Astrid waited.
And then, they came.
First: a woman, late forties perhaps. Brown skin, long limbs, breasts full and heavy. She walked into the center of the clearing naked, her hips swinging with ease. Her eyes flicked up, meeting the bench. She nodded.
Then came a man behind her — not her partner, perhaps not her lover, but her witness. He undressed slowly, folding his clothes with care. Then knelt.
Before her.
Astrid held her breath.
The woman placed a hand on his head. Spoke no words. Just pressed.
And the man lowered his mouth between her thighs.
The clearing was utterly silent, save for the distant birds and the first wet sounds of desire.
Astrid leaned forward, lips parting. She could hear her own breath — short, sharp, greedy.
Åse whispered beside her, "This is the Ritual of Watching."
Astrid turned, stunned.
Åse explained: "Before we touch… we watch. Before we take… we understand. The body isn't just for pleasure. It's for communion."
Astrid swallowed, eyes still fixed on the pair.
The woman had thrown her head back. Her moans were low, controlled — not performative, not for show, but real. Her thighs trembled. Her fingers curled into the man's hair. Her eyes fluttered shut only after she opened her mouth to the sky.
"Why the mirrors?" Astrid asked quietly.
Åse smiled. "So you don't just see them. You see yourself—watching."
Astrid glanced at the mirror.
Her reflection was flushed, lips parted, chest rising quickly. Her eyes were darker than usual. Hungrier.
She didn't look like Astrid Hammar from London.
She looked like someone who had learned to beg.
More villagers arrived in the hour that followed.
Some came to touch. Others to kneel. A few, like Astrid, simply to witness.
She watched a woman take another's nipple into her mouth while whispering poetry in Norwegian. A young man stroked himself gently, never climaxing, just savoring.
A couple kissed so slowly it felt like a prayer.
Astrid's body responded — thighs wet, fingers twitching, nipples hard against her linen shirt — but it wasn't about orgasm.
It was about presence.
She wasn't turned on in the way London had taught her.She was drawn in.
Melted into. Absorbed by.
When she finally stood to leave, Åse touched her wrist.
"Next time," she said softly, "you may choose to be seen."
Astrid met her gaze.
"I want that."
Åse nodded. "Then next time, you do not come to watch. You come to offer."
That night, Astrid wrote in her journal.
Not words.
But descriptions. Fragments of flesh. Colors of moans. The way a hip curved under another's hand. The moment before a cry, when a jaw tensed and eyes flared open.
She didn't write names.
Only moments.
And when she slept, she dreamed of herself on the platform — under moonlight, hands open, back arched, a circle of strangers around her not judging, not waiting, only receiving.