She leaves him to his work and prepares herself a salad for lunch, just to occupy her mind and calm her nerves. She puts it in the fridge and returns to her work with her equilibrium almost fully restored, able to concentrate on the latest compliance report drafted by members of her team, to mark up the changes that need making and request the drafting of additional sections. Around half past twelve, she puts on a pair of sneakers and pops down to the nearest shop to get some mints, which she might suck on after lunch. When she returns, it is almost one o’clock – the witching hour, the time for extraordinary events to occur.
She waits in the kitchen while Ulf washes up in the downstairs bathroom. When he comes in, he has lost his bulky belt and carries the pleasant oaky aroma of his work. They sit opposite each other, eating the food they have prepared, drinking mineral water. Sophia makes the first move, rubbing his foot with her shoe. He looks her in the eye. Something Sophia can’t identify is in his look. It’s not passion per se; it’s more like the state that precedes passion. In meteorological terms, it’s like the darkening of the sky that precedes the first faint rumblings of thunder.
She brings her other foot into play, so that both her feet (still in their shoes) are rubbing each of his. He wipes his hands on his napkin, moves the plates and glasses out of the way, and, taking Sophia’s hands in his, pulls her across the table and kisses her fiercely. He remains seated while she, the shorter partner, is in a half-standing position, her stomach pressed – not unpleasantly – against the table’s rounded edge. He runs one hand through her hair, while the other – the more impulsive one – seeks out her breast…both breasts.
Letting hold of her for just a moment, he walks around the table, helps her to her feet, lifts her up and carries her upstairs. When they get to the landing, she whispers ‘left’ into his ear and he takes her to her bedroom and lays her gently on the bed. He takes her shoes of and kisses her stockinged feet. ‘God, this is going to be good,’ she thinks.
Leaving her lying on her back – her legs slightly bent for comfort, her arms pulled back so that her hands could play with her hair – Ulf began to undress, never taking his eyes off Sophia as he did so, as if afraid she might vanish. He was wearing nothing beneath his blue cotton twill shirt (hardly something a carpenter normally wore, Sophia thought). Sitting on the bed beside her, he took off his socks and then his jeans, then stood so she could get a good look at his muscular body. Sophia noticed that he was virtually hairless on his chest and in the lower abdominal area. Of course, she also noticed the bulge in his briefs.
Before proceeding further, he bent down to kiss Sophia, whose head was at the foot of the bed. This time there was more feeling in the kiss. Sophia was just getting lost in the wondrous sensations that were sweeping through her body when he broke the kiss and asked her to take off his one remaining item of clothing. Raising herself so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, she ran her fingers from his chest over his six-pack down to his belly button. As she proceeded further south, she saw his penis twitch in its cage. Running her fingers over the elastic waistband, she continued down until she found his ball sac. She rubbed it gently before starting the journey along his shaft, which jerked periodically as she made her way to journey’s end. Considering that he was sufficiently aroused for the time being, she eased the fabric over his tumescence, watching in delight as the flesh coloured, circumcised weapon was revealed for the first time.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get enough of Thor’s hammer,’ thought Sophia, as she imagined it smashing to smithereens any inhibitions she might still have, strange as that may sound to the reader of her story. (‘O, wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us!’ and all that…)
‘Would you like me to lick it?’ asked Sophia a little redundantly.
‘If it isn’t too much trouble,’ replied the enigmatic Swede.
‘Little Ulf looks like big trouble,’ laughed Sophia.
There was no moaning or other noises from the self-contained Swede as Sophia got to work on his phallus. This was a little disconcerting at first – a bit like listening to a sitcom with no canned laughter. Something felt like it was missing. Sophia plugged away just the same, feeling a lot better when Ulf employed the time-honoured hand-around-the-base-of-the-head trick to encourage her to go deeper.
‘Houston, we have lift-off!’ she thought.
But even after this encouraging sign it wasn’t all plain sailing. She might have been churning away as if her very life depended on it, but Ulf was so motionless (and of course quiet) that she thought he must have fallen asleep on his feet – like a horse. She was about to pop up to check on the state of play when she felt that old familiar feeling via the various receptors that obviously measure these things in her mouth and throat.
‘It takes all sorts to make a world,’ she reflected, as wads of his jism shot down her oesophagus.
Sophia had never seen Ulf as animated as when he thanked her for her ‘expert fellatio’. Apparently, very few women had ever managed to make him come orally, including Petsi. Sophia ticked him off for telling secrets out of school and was going to offer him a bit of advice in respect of showing a bit of enthusiasm, but decided against it when she realised that this might jeopardise her chances of getting a good fuck. She knew how melancholic these Swedes could get. She once had a boyfriend who was an Ingmar Bergman fan and had taken her to see one of his films. It was easily the most depressing experience of her life. No, any advice she might dispense would have to wait until after the main event.
So, instead of a little lecture, Sophia told Ulf that his sperm was the tastiest she had ever swallowed, and that she was looking forward to receiving another load in her pussy, which was ‘aching for his hammer’. If you want a man to perform in bed, the sure-fire way to achieve this is by acting like a brain-dead bimbo – especially if you are already blonde. It is a sad fact, but a fact, nonetheless.
To her enquiry as to whether he wished to rest before proceeding, he answered with the most animation he had yet shown that he was ready to give Sophia ‘the fuck of her life’, if she was ready to receive it. Demurely – she actually fluttered her eyelashes – Sophia replied that she thought she was, but now that she realised how big he was, she wasn’t sure any more. Since that was the case, Ulf insisted on giving Sophia choice of positions.
Her mind suddenly flooded with images of Luca doing his wife ‘like a sheep’ at that incredibly acute angle, she asked Ulf how you said doggy-style in Swedish. When he told her that they used a word meaning ‘from behind’, she was distinctly underwhelmed, but understood that this was what you must expect from a country that had produced Greta Garbo and Ingmar Bergman. Putting her disappointment to one side, she asked him if he could do her ‘from behind’ but from a sharp angle.