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Parallel Footsteps

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Ingerid and Elise are lawstudents and uncomfortable with where their life is heading. The story follows them on a journey of transformation through exploring their thoughts and feelings, new concepts and new ways of living.

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Parallel Footsteps

2 By Jenny Lane (www.parallelfootsteps.com)

Chapter 1Ingerid wakes up from a dream. A dream lit by furious flames. A dream burning from the edges towards the center like a glossy picture dissolving into nothingness. A cloud of ash and black smoke fills the room and inhales the dream like a vortex. Ingerid is left feeling empty. As if she will never be able to dream again. As if all the roads of fantasy and high visions are closed and only one stark path of reality is left, presented to her like harsh, cold concrete.

When Ingerid started law school she was eagerly engaged in every single class. Seated at front center, she was always typing away at super speed as her long polished nails hit the keyboard with an irritating sound. Sometimes she would feel the uncom-fortable tired gaze from other students around her, other times she would be so soaked in the lecture that she wouldn’t even notice if someone moved a few seats further away to avoid her. She was the stereotype of a perfect student. Eagerly engaged in after class activities like debates and charity organisations. One either loved or hated her, got repulsed by her or inspired. But the most common unspoken emotion she evoked around her was envy. Envy of her natural enthusiasm and energy. That unspoken thing that one is either flowing from or not, and that either resonates with ones own flow or challenges the lack of it. Many students around her hadn’t wholeheartedly chosen to be in the lecture hall. Some were unconsciously or consciously pushed into law school by parents, grandparents, the press or society’s opinion of what profession to choose, idols of tv-series or movies, friends…. The list was long with plenty of reasons and angles to why these young people were sitting in the same lecture hall at the law school building named Dragon Mountain in Bergen,Norway.

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One sudden day, 14 months later, the enthusiasm disappears from Ingerids face. Her footsteps are no longer fast and deter-mined, but rather slow and hesitant. Her body slides through the lecture hall door with palpable unease as she drags her bag of heavy books to the rhythm of deep sighs.

As Ingerid notices the substitute teacher on stage, she quick-ly turns around with only one thought consuming her whole mind:“Get out. Get out before he notices you and hauls you back in.”She just can’t take another teacher talking with the same en-thusiasm as she once felt when she started her studies. With the same words, phrases, stories and techniques that would ultimately only poke and confirm the hidden emptiness of an underlying realization she recently had. Ingerid sneaks out the door in the most anonymous way she can and stumbles onto the brick road in front of the Dragon Mountain where her red Ducati motorcycle is waiting patiently. The inside of the hel-met is still warm as she pulls it over her head and lets the soft fabric caress her chin like a loving friend. She throws her leg over the motorbike and feels the hard metal press against her thighs and chest. The recognisable hissing sound of the Ducati engulfs her as she turns her right wrist to a full tilt. As hunted by the Dragon itself, she speeds away leaving only a trace of smoke at her tail.

It took an arrogant, self-absorbed and ruthless man from Ber-gen to shake Ingerid out of her dream of justice. Her burning desire to help children in crisis situations like divorce by tak-ing their side and talking their language where they themselves weren’t able to speak, was the very reason she had chosen to study law. The idealism was driven forth from her own child-hood and the lack of understanding and help when she felt let

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down during the divorce of her parents. In a struggle where her needs were pushed aside by adults in an arena she wasn’t even invited to. But when Ingerid suddenly found herself face to face with this fellow student from Bergen raging with reason and emotion, arguing with convincing material for an immoral case, she finally understood what the practise of law really was all about. To her in that moment, there was no justice, not even an agreement of what was right or wrong. There was no moral compass to steer towards. It appeared to be a game of who could argue, manipulate, twist and turn in the cleverest way in order to win the case. That’s when Ingerid realised she had lost. Not only that particular case with her fellow student, but the big fight for justice. And with that realization, there was no turning back. The motivating factor for starting law school, the very engine that got her up in the morning was out of fuel. The passion and energy were ripped away in that very instant. Left scattered on the floor was a skeleton of logical reasons.

Emotionally shaken with a powerful red force between her legs, she speeds away in a foggy haze of contradictory thoughts. The humming sound of the engine and the cars passing by morphs into a lullaby that she feels the urgent need to wake up from. With an arched back and an intense gaze, she slides through the traffic in high-speed as if it was a slalom track. As a long open road appears in front of her, she turns the right rubber handle to a maximum tilt to bypass the cars in front and realizes a little bit too late that another car attempts to do the same. In a speed that is much higher than them limit she’s forced onto the shoul-der of the road. Gravel and grass threatens with an immense closeness raising her heart rate to the maximum level as she contemplates the small margins for survival. Her awareness sharpens and intensifies as she balances the motorbike between the shoulder with gravel and grass on one side and 2 cars on the other side. With extreme concentration focused on the ho-

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rizon ahead knowing that a tiny rock is all it takes to tip her off-balance and into a death trap, she knows she has an im-portant choice to make. Break to lower the speed and pos-sibly fall behind the other two cars, or raise the speed and move ahead of the danger. Quickly estimating the chances of the other cars lowering their speed, she decides to push her fears aside, hunch down and squeeze her thighs tightly to become one with the bike and speed ahead and out of the danger zone. She succeeds. The adrenalin rushes through her veins as she continues with an intense awareness of her body, bike, road and the nature that surrounds her. The sen-sation of being chased remains in her body for a long time before she’s finally able to calm down and pull aside to get off the motorbike. With shaking legs and heavy breathing she walks across the parking lot of a grocery store some-where unknown. It’s unknown and unimportant to her at the moment. It’s like she doesn’t even know how to think. As if thoughts don’t even exist. The only thing she’s able to sense is her own breath as it hits the protective walls of the hel-met. She takes it off and walks into the store to awaken her senses and grab some food. The body acts on automatic as her hands reach for the usual food she normally gets. Bread, cheese, pre-made dinners find their way into the basket as she strolls the aisles like a zombie. Effortlessly without en-gaging any thought process, she checks out, puts the grocer-ies in her backpack and walks out. Slowly feelings of guilt and responsibility starts to seep through to her awareness like zap from a tree trunk. “Wait, wait” someone yells at her as she exits the grocery store.

Ingerid turns around to greet the voice and sees a young woman approaching her with long, curly blond hair. She has no recollection of who this woman is. As her steps grow

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closer and closer, Ingerid’s mind kicks into high gear sorting through memories for any clues of who this woman might be, but she’s left with a blank answer. Realizing that an embar-rassing situation is about to occur, she turns around hoping for a last resort. Maybe she was yelling at someone else behind her?But there’s no one there, and as Ingerid turns her head to face the unrecognizable woman again, she faces a couple of in-tensely happy eyes staring right at her.“You don’t recognize me?”, the woman asks with a light and carefree voice.“No….” Ingerid replies hesitantly while searching the wom-an’s pale face and deep blue eyes.“We went to high school together! My name is Lise”, the blond woman says with a cheerful voice seemingly unaffected by the awkwardness of not being recognized.“Ah, hi Lise”, Ingerid stutters with a warm smile while still feeling phony about not recognizing this radiating woman in front of here. Back in high school Ingerid was one of the popu-lar girls that everyone seemed to know. This wasn’t the first time she was exposed to an awkward situation where one part remembers while the other one is left clueless.In an attempt to distract herself from the awkwardness, Ingerid searches this woman’s face while trying to come up with some-thing to say. Instead she finds her mind not cooperating as a fascination with this face overwhelms her. It’s funny how time works on a human face, Ingerid thinks, as she studies the lines and softness of Lises features. Astonished by the openness and childlike innocence that seems to shine through Lise’s eyes, combined with the out of body experience that previously hap-pened, Ingerid struggles to accommodate a conversation and blurts out:“You look great!”,Quickly realising the stupid bluntness of the words as they es-

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caped her mouth, Ingerid looks down with embarrassment.“What’s going on? Get a grip, woman!”she thinks and scolds herself while staring silently at the concrete underneath her feet.“Thanks!”, Lise responds with a big smile uncovering picture perfect white teeth.“What a coincidence that I met you now. You see, I just came from an amazing workshop on a small island outside ofBer-gen”, Lise says with a laughter spilling out of her like a fresh-water stream.“I really feel like I’m flying right now! It was so incredibly in-spiring and enlightening”, she continues telling with immense eagerness and joy.“What was the workshop about?”, Ingerid asks feeling a curi-osity about this bubbly woman in front of her.“I probably couldn’t have told everybody about this, but you’ve always been a tough and fearless person”, Lise answers nod-ding towards the helmet resting on Ingerids elbow. Then goes on to say“.. so it wouldn’t surprise me if this is something you might enjoy too. It was a workshop where we got in touch with our thought patterns. Conclusions and ideas we learned in the past that stuck with us and became belief systems that might still be effecting how we look at similar situations today. By bringing awareness to and reviewing these ideas, one is challenged to look upon them with new eyes and see what benefits us more today. Releasing these old patterns evokes an enormous en-ergy-kick in the body. It’s like drinking ten cups of coffee!”, Lise shares with bountiful energy as she grabs a brochure from her purse. Ingerid feels the skepticism rise inside of her like an army of forceful bulls towards a red flag. Resentfully she accepts the brochure, puts it in the pocket of her biker jacket and quickly comes up with an excuse to leave. She doesn’t need any people singing Halleluja in her face right now, she

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concludes as she walks over to her red instrument of adrenalin and aliveness.

The next day, Ingerid meets up with her friends at “Barefoot”, their favorite café at lunch, restaurant at dinnertime and bar at night. Today she’s feeling out of touch and grumpy. She orders hot chocolate as usual as she walks in the door and sees Sara and Silje at the far end table. They have already been there for awhile eagerly discussing the lecture she missed blended together with gossip from yesterday’s party.“You really missed out on a great lecture yesterday, Ingerid! Too bad you left. Why did you leave, really? You were in the study group right before, and then all of a sudden you were gone. What happened?”, Sara asks eying her with a mix of se-vere judgment and pity.“I got so annoyed with Kjell that I couldn’t take any more pro-paganda”, Ingerid replies with a bitter tone.“He’s a complete jerk, everyone knows that! I don’t understand why he bothers you”, Sara responds quickly. But the comment doesn’t ease her mood. She watches Sara and Silje eagerly talking about the exciting lecture, while her mind travels back to Kjell and what happened in the study group.Why couldn’t she let it go like Sara suggested, and just put it in her head that Kjell was the problem, not her? Why couldn’t she just let go of those critical thoughts about justice and the legal system? Why did she have these condescending, destructive and distrustful thoughts of the future all of a sudden?Sara and Silje don’t seem to be interested in what’s going on with Ingerid. Occupied by gossip and each other, they talk away like they always do about what went down yesterday as if it was the most important thing in the world. They talk and laugh, talk and laugh like nothing had changed. Ingerid starts to feel invisible all of a sudden. She observes her two friends as they engagingly share with laughter and hand gestures. Seen

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from afar their conversation seems so shallow and unimportant and makes Ingerid feel alone like an outsider. She had thought that meeting up with her friends would turn things back to nor-mal. She was hoping she could get rid of the critical thoughts, but there were too many unanswered questions that bothered her. Instead of finding the answers and get back on track, she is left feeling disappointed. How much do your friends really care about you when they don’t even recognize your pain? What value is there in friends who choose to ignore problems, challenges and negativity in order to protect the status quo and continue as if nothing new had happened? Was she about to change? If so, into what or who? The questions dig deeper and deeper into Ingerid’s heart like acid burning its way to the core. A feeling of unease and restlessness starts to emerge as she feels her whole world crumbling in front of her eyes. What is she supposed to do if she’s not able to retrieve her enthusiasm for law? Would she be able to carry on studying without it? Maybe this is only a phase she has to go through? Maybe faith in the legal system would be restored at some point?

Desperation starts to emerge on Ingerid’s face, but the two girlfriends don’t seem to notice. She’s left alone with her own thoughts smothering her brain like a traffic jam. By simply ask-ing the questions, answers reveal themselves sometimes. Even as Ingerid thinks through some of these questions, answers spontaneously comes up like a gut feeling or a resonance in the stomach. The firmament that once was the basis of her lifestyle and existence has been shaken, and she knows this isn’t just a phase but rather a realization that has taken place.“Once you have seen the truth, you can’t go back”, she recites to herself.

She would most likely not be able to ever restore the innocent enthusiasm for law again, and so the question then becomes

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whether to stay in school despite of her feelings about it, or choose to follow her passion and enthusiasm into an unknown future that is yet to be discovered. A path with only one visible step in front of her. As if life is a giant computer game and the next step a floating shelf without any railing or safety net.The only thing she knows about this next step is that it’s something new. Leading to somewhere new that she’s curi-ous to discover that might be different from anything she’s previously done. Maybe she’s leaning towards this new step because she enjoys the intensity and excitement that arise dur-ing the exploration and unveiling of a new world? Or simply because she doesn’t see any other step more alluring in the moment that she hasn’t already tried, often with the result of disappointment. What matters most to you? Ingerid inquires as she’s walking down the brick road towards Verftet by the waterline of the fjord. Is the most important thing for you to follow a common “safe path” to a financially secure future? To follow the pack, get a good education as I’ve been taught to do? Or is it to follow this untamed naïve power that lies hidden within curiosity and enthusiasm? What will make me most happy at the end of the road? That I was able to live according to the rules set by society and people around me? Or that I was able to keep the fire in my belly going and call its power forth at will, feeling the energy rushing through the veins day after day, year after year knowing that I’ve followed my heart and joy throughout life’s journey?

Ingerid recalls seeing plenty of people with a good education that nevertheless seem sad, tired and unhappy. A fast conclu-sion of the path to happiness is that it cannot be determined on whether one has a good education or not. There are proofs of both groups of people being happy regardless of their educa-tional background. But through answering her own questions like this, she discovers pretty quickly where her lighthearted-

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ness is going. Ingerid doesn’t want to forsake enthusiasm, curi-osity or joy by following someone else’s advice, be it from her own parents, friends or society at large. And with this conclu-sion she gathers the force and willpower to take the next step ahead, regardless of how skeptical and scared she might feel. Simply because she doesn’t want to loose the sense of curiosity and enthusiasm that she’d taken for granted for so many years. She understands it might be challenging, but she also knows it’ll take her through a journey of growth to a place of new possibilities. Ingerid opens her jacket pocket and pulls forth a brochure, folds it out and reads:“Who are you really? Discover your true self. Workshop April 12th-14th”.

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Chapter 2

Elise hustles fast through a corridor in the law school build-ing named Mountain Dragon in Bergen. Her face and move-ments bear clear signs of furious anger. She feels completely fired up from the discussion in the student group. An older fel-low student from Bergen named Kjell had gotten involved in an assigned case and had shattered all her argumentation. All the hours they had spent researching similar cases was swept away by an undiscovered case of higher importance that Kjell confidently laid down. Loudly and arrogantly, as many people from Bergen can be, he slammed all argumentation to the side with hard-core references that proved once again that even the most immoral, selfish and cold actions can be justified. Once again they were faced with a case containing a loophole in the legal system created by people who might not have been able to go to the ultimate low point of human behaviour necessary in order to encompass similar abuse. It’s like every disclaim-er is an expression of the current familiar edges of humanity. Whereas these edges seem to be pushed and pulled everyday like an ever-expanding challenge, some laws nevertheless re-main static and fall short of covering the human development. The irony of the situation is that these laws are often written by lawful people who often times might not have the slightest imagination of what’s possible to do in certain situations. They might not always be capable of achieving the perspective of someone really devious or vicious in order to include the most outrageous scenarios as a backdrop for some disclaimers. Alas, room for interpretations through clever twists and turns cre-ate small loopholes large enough for the most resourceful and motivated to wander through without the slightest residue of plaster on their smart, pinstriped black suits.

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As Elise walks across the worn out wooden door frame of the lecture hall she discovers a substitute teacher at the podium. A short, skinny man with a large, thick laptop bag made out of dark leather. He unzips the bag and reaches for the computer without glancing at all the students entering the hall. He doesn’t even notice that some students turn around and exit as soon as they see him. Being a substitute teacher at Dragon Mountain is not easy. They have a bad reputation for being unprepared and incompetent in regards to the subject at hand and as a speaker in general. In addition it doesn’t support their cause when most of them shrink under the spotlight as hundreds of critical eyes stare them down from the bleachers. It probably doesn’t help their confidence level that the lecture hall is built so that the teacher and the podium is the lowest point of the hall. In a situ-ation like this, it’s easy to understand why Kings of old times insisted on the throne being the highest point of a hall and that the people needed to stand or be seated below him. But this is not the case of modern architecture – at least not at this particu-lar lecture hall of Dragon Mountain. This particular substitute teacher though, didn’t seem to mind this situation at all. Harald used to be a student himself at Dragon Mountain a few years ago. He remembers the feeling of being a student and knows that in order to gain their respect in a situation like this he can affectively achieve that with some Shock & Awe. Harald plugs the cords to the big screen into his laptop, turns the sound up to a maximum and fires up a video from YouTube. The sirens and the noise from the video get the students immediate at-tention as several students hurries to find a seat so they won’t miss what’s going on. The scenes and actions in the video are brutal. Some of it is so shocking that many students turn away in disgust. As the video reaches its final seconds, Harald slams the lid down on his laptop while turning on the floodlights and proclaims with a dark, confident voice:

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“This is why we are here, people! We are here to lock those people up. To put down limits to what we as humans and as a society need to withstand in order to live together in peace.”

His voice resounds strongly and deeply into every corner of the room. The pause that follows enhances and puts focus on a common emotion in the room, making it almost tangible. The expressions on the faces of the students leave no doubt as to what they feel and their presence is palpable. Their senses are sharpened and their motivations are clear.

“The evidences are not always as clear as in this case, but one thing is for certain. In those cases where we do catch these individuals and get them locked up, our offices explode with cheers. Not because we have won, but because we know that we saved a few lives and possibly many. Because we are grate-ful to have a job that creates a better world and makes it a little bit safer through every case we solve. Welcome to today’s lec-ture about International Human Rights”.

Elise’s eyes are large and intense throughout the whole lecture. Fascinated by Harald’s explanations and stories, but most of all fascinated by him as a person. His simple but forceful charisma and his unpretentious attitude and speech. When the lecture is finished, Elise packs her belongings quickly and hurries down the stairs to thank him for his inspiring talk. She barely man-ages to get there first before a gathering is formed around him by eager students that are all moved by him. Feeling a little silly, she struggles with words to thank him for his work. Har-ald’s caramel coloured brown eyes meets hers for a tiny sec-ond before his attention is dragged around by a whirlwind of compliments and overwhelmingly grateful expressions. Lifted by a mix of embarrassment and sweet emotion, Elise almost floats out of the lecture hall closely followed by her two closest

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girlfriends who are whispering and giggling at her overstated enthusiasm.

“Stop it! It’s not what you think!”, Elise utters almost scream-ing at them while simultaneously smiling from ear to ear on the inside as her fantasies takes her way further than she’s ever experienced before. Those caramel eyes… She turns her back to her friends so they won’t notice the smirk on her face as she runs to the nearest restroom. She hardly dears to look at the other girls that are washing their hands while chatting and hurries to open the first available door. To her biggest surprise she discovers it’s not available after all. She apologizes swiftly and turns around to desperately look for a vacant booth. A loud laugh explodes from the girls in line as they see the horror, guilt and shame in her face as she knocks on every door with fran-tic gestures. The laughter echoes from all angles in the white tiled bathroom. Elise finds an open door and looks underneath the stall to really make sure it’s vacant before she slips in and closes the door behind her. With a pulse reaching the heights of skyscrapers, she covers her face with her shaking hands and starts crying silently so the others won’t hear. She doesn’t know why, but she can’t hold back. All alone protected only by the fragile half closed walls of a toilet stall, sitting on the toilet lid she tucks her knees to her chest in an effort to completely hide away and disappear. She cries and cries without words or understanding until she’s completely empty of all emotion.

”What happened”, Sara asks with a puzzled expression as she sees Elise in the cantina.“I don’t know exactly”, Elise answers and shamefully looks down.It wasn’t like her to be weak and shaky. She knows she has to sharpen up in order to keep her façade and social place and therefore decides to push all emotions aside.

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“Let’s just forget it, ok? I’m probably being pre-menstrual or something. Or maybe there’s a full moon? Or maybe someone did a few voodoo tricks on me?”, she says laughing with loads of self irony. Sara and Silje laugh along and the mood lightens as they continue talking like nothing out of the ordinary ever happened.Saved by toughness once again, Elise thinks quietly to herself.“Your coming tonight, right?”, Silje asks anticipating an af-firmative response.“Yes, off course!”, Elise replies with excitement hoping they won’t notice the sadness she really feels inside.

It’s Thursday and the routine is to party hard and long. The plan is to start the night at Sara’s with a Tex-Mex theme party.Around 8pm girls start rushing in through Sara’s doors. They’re all hungry for tacos and tortillas, but most of all starving for tequila and men. The party mood rises quickly as they come into the living room and hurdle together on the couch wearing short miniskirts and platform pumps. They know exactly how to raise the excitement fast since they’ve gotten pretty used to partying together for many months with the exception of small breaks for holidays. Well, the exception referring to their to-getherness, not the alcohol. They all knew how to pump up the partying even higher as they visited their hometowns or more exotic party-spots like Ibiza.

”Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots. EVERYBODY!”, the girls sing while pouring tequila shots at each other. LM-FAO’s song reverberates out of the red Geneva speaker which is connected to Sara’s iPhone by the window of her fifth floor apartment. The sing-along and the loud laughter continues as the girls walk down the stairs in the apartment building and stagger they way to Feliz where they’re going to meet the other

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law students. The doorman recognizes the girls immediately and welcomes them as he lifts the velvet red rope with a sly smile. He knows that girls like these are the actual honey boys are coming for and that’ll eventually end up as dollars on his bank statement. Shots, expensive wines and Champagne flour-ish in their company where one uptown boy after the other tries to impress and buy his way into the hearts or panties of the sexiest girls. It’s a game of attention. To see and be seen by the right people, the ones with the highest status and the best looks. Like a dog-show they try to outdo each other by display of expensive brand items, false eyelashes, deep cleavages, big bowls of ice and large bottles of champagne, slick hairdo’s and cool attitudes. They’re all playing the game to win.

The song “Turn me on” with Nicki Minaj fills the room with excitement and makes the girls climb up on several tables bal-ancing in their skyhigh shoes.”My body needs a hero, come and save me”, they sing in uni-son laughing and playing with each other.

The boys enjoy the view as they bump each others shoulder laughing while negotiating which girl to take home. Elise looks down at the boys and winks at them with flirtatious eyes. Tom returns the gaze confidently. The dark blue Gant jacket em-braces his shoulders and hugs his bulging arm muscles tightly. In the jacket’s upper left pocket there’s a red and white polka dot handkerchief balancing the masculine testosterone oozing around him while attracting the cutest girls as if it was a white flag of surrender. But behind the slick surface of champagne, strawberries, polka dots and soft velvet lies a hungry wolf wait-ing for the right moment to attack his next prey. After using all the tricks of flirting ever written and while the woman lies intoxicated by alcohol and laughter on his bed, the predator in him finally arises to devour his darkest passion and forbidden

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lust. Like a vampire he sucks the innocence and joy of life out of her and throws the remains of her on the floor as if it was fruit peel the following morning. The juice is gone and with it his interest in her. Ashamed and disappointed she finds the door and hurries home to her own cave where she licks her wounds and heal up before the next party a few days later.

Many girls will experience this scenario unfold this evening, but not Elise. She has seen the game and isn’t scared by it. She’s used to playing with boys, learning the tricks and nor-mally beats them in every single sport, game or foolishness they come up with. She’s done that for years since she was a little girl, and isn’t planning on giving it up yet. It’s her “ace in the whole” and at the same time her biggest defence system.

Elise keeps her eyes fixed on Tom. He’s got no chance of es-caping or winning. With every tiny little hip motion, twist and shake she lets her eyes wander away and then back again with slightly more seductive eyes every time. It makes him com-pletely mesmerized and that’s when she knows he’s lost.She knows this game and the rules very well, enough to let them believe they have chosen her, while the reality is she chose them a while ago. In silence during lectures or in the cantina, she spots her prey and when the night falls she pre-tends it’s their creation.

Elise sways her hips back and forth while bending down into her knees. She lures Tom closer to the table, and as he reaches the edge she throws her hip firmly to the side letting the mini-skirt swipe him softly in the face. He smiles teasingly at her as the tension between them grows.It probably won’t be long before he can’t resist me any more and tears me down from the table into a passionate and playful kiss full of desire, she thinks. But before she’s had time to think

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the thought through, he grabs hold of her and drags her down. She responds impulsively by throwing her legs around his hips and ventures into a spin of wet kisses and hungry hands.

”It’s go time. Press my buttons yeah” Jennifer Lopez sings in the distance as they stare into each others eyes with fiery inten-sity. The base carries their bodies around and around and from side to side while a numbed silence arises in Elise’s head as if she has earplugs in her ears. The sound of breathing followed by a blurry gaze that slightly withdraws, tells her something is up. The dizziness arrives with tremendous speed. She yells at Tom to let her down, but the music drowns out her voice. He sways and spins her around and around with his hands wan-dering across her naked back. She tries to push away from his body, but can’t get out of his grip. He mistakes it for being a dance move and responds by slinging her quickly towards the floor before he pulls her up again with another firm grip around her back. She tries to hold back but is unable to resist. As her body is thrown onto his chest an internal liquid cascades to-wards him. The convulsions in her body take over as she vom-its onto his face, down his shoulder, chest and down his pants.Tom stops and immediately drops her to the floor. Game over.

Sara and Silje jumps off the table and picks Elise her up.“Are you ok?”, Sara asks. The answer is obvious, but during this moment it’s the concern that counts more than the actu-al words. Sara and Silje surround her and take one arm each around their shoulder. They lift and support her as she stumbles back onto her own feet. The girls grab her jacket and her purse and drag her across the floor and out onto the street. Elise is barely conscious as her body sways between the two girls like a flag in the wind. They manage to call a taxi and help her get in. Elise falls onto the seat like a bag and spreads out as if it was a bed with her head dangling to the side. The girls tell the

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taxi driver where to go and if necessary carry her into the apart-ment. Then they turn around laughing and re-enter the dark venue to continue partying, happy as ever as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

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Chapter 3Ingerid looks at the brochure from her biker jacket again and scoffs at the title of the course. Who would’ve thought she would ever go to a workshop like that? As if she wasn’t smart enough to know the answer to whom she is already? She bets the weekend workshop is filled with so-called weak people without education, purpose or meaning. People that are attract-ed to any kind of religious hope expecting one weekend will give them the answers to all of their problems, served to them on a silver platter. Ingerid feels the anger and resistance twist inside like a snake. The arrogant attitudes curling around her body, fuelled by furious thoughts firing off like fireballs. She was raised in a wealthy family with high work ethics and wil-ful personalities. To be in a room with people who “might not have the sense to roll up their sleeves and work hard to make a living” creates a mixed reaction of nausea and shame. Was she really this desperate? Couldn’t she just take the advice from her upbringing and family and continue law school? There are a lot of jobs in the world that are worse than being a lawyer. It isn’t that bad. Think of all the people in the world that doesn’t even have access to schools or education. Think of the children in Africa!

Ingerid tries to command herself back to senses.How many times had she been forced to finish her plate at dinner because the “children inAfrica” comment won as the strongest argument? Force-fed by bad conscience, thoroughly trained to appreciate logic and reasoning higher than feelings and inner knowing, she knew well how to succumb to others opinions. But wasn’t this the very idea that had lit up over her head during the student group like a large light bulb? The con-cept of “the best argumentation game”. That even the wildest,

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most violent acts can be justified if one only finds the right angle. That there is no right or wrong because at the end, it’s all about the logical world of viewpoint, angle and standpoints. Being able to understand in detail what it means to be in some-one else’s shoes to that extent that one is able to find good argu-ments and legal texts that can support whatever interpretation suits one’s case best. In this context wouldn’t it be imperative to understand “the weak” situation, those she would like to be able to defend and help? And wouldn’t this suggest that she should get to know them better?That perhaps she should take the course just to be able to better understand where they’re coming from?And with that reasoning Ingrid picks up the phone and makes a reservation for weekend course starting less than 24 hours later.

Ingerid arrives almost out of breath at the location for the re-treat. Not that she had to run to get there, she did after all drive from Bergen to Dokka on her Ducati which is a 5 hour drive, but the last part of the road was so filled with holes and rocks in the road that she almost felt like she had to drive through an ob-stacle course with her heart beating at 200 to get there. To drive a racing motorbike this far into the wilderness was probably not a good idea, but she got through it. She smiles with relief as she climbs off the bike that she’s parked with the nose heading out so she can easily get out without having to manoeuvre the large, heavy bike on her hip.In front of her lies a big, red wooden house in Swiss style archi-tecture. The ambiance in the area is quiet and rural. She walks towards the grass yard in front of the house and discovers two more log cabins and a traditional Norwegian storehouse. A few women are sitting on the porch in front of the largest cabin chatting softly. At the left of the next cabin there are a couple of men sitting quietly with their eyes closed facing the sun. In-

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gerid feels the calmness slowly sink into her body. She inhales deeply, exhales and drops the bag on the ground that she’s been carrying on her back for so long. With a slight hesitation she approaches the women on the bench, smiles and asks if they know where she can put her things.“Just head on inside until you reach the end of the living area where you can sign in and get a room”, one of the women an-swers with a friendly voice and a soft smile. Timidly Ingerid walks into the cosy timber house. A gentle scent of jasmine from a scented candle in the sparsely decorated hall welcomes her as she enters. The old wooden floor squeaks as she walks in signalling her arrival to the living room where two men and a woman are seated on antique furniture.

“Hi, welcome!” the woman says smiling at her as she approach them.“My name is Karoline and this is Sigvart and Kjetil” she says while reaching out her hand to greet her while turning towards the men to introduce them.“All three of us are going to be your workshop leaders during this weekend. If I can have your name I will check you off the list and give you your room key so you can get settled in”, she says with a friendly voice nodding towards the bag that casu-ally adorns her shoulder alongside the bulky helmet.“Ingerid Danielsen” she answers followed by a shy smile while feeling a sense of discomfort about new beginnings, unfamil-iar faces and unknown situations surging underneath her like a subtle undertow.“There you are”, says Karoline with a light, chirping voice while checking her name off the list.“You are going to be staying in room number 5 on the sec-ond floor above us together with Sofie, Line and Frøydis”, continues Karoline and points to the stairs at the entrance. In-gerid smiles politely and walks away to take off her motorbike

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gear and put her things away. As she walks towards the door, she meets Sofie and introduces herself. Sofie has long, blond hair, shiny ice-blue eyes and a dazzling smile that disperses kindness. She’s standing in a small room with four bunk beds placed against the wall. There’s a window in between them looking out at the log cabin across where the courses are going to be held.“Fortunately we’re not going to stay in this room for very long”, Sofie says laughingly while her eyes roll around the small bedroom.“I’ve taken the bunk bed at the top here. You can probably choose whichever one you’d like. I don’t think the others have arrived yet”, Sofie continues while unpacking her bag. They chat for a little bit about the weather and the beat up road they had to drive in order to get there. Ingerid is thankful to talk to someone simply to avoid the uncomfortable feeling and thoughts she’s having about sleeping in a bedroom with three unknown women, and spending a whole weekend with people she’s never met at this strange place in the middle of nowhere. She’s at a point of no return now, no matter how uncomfortable the situation gets. She’ll just have to stick it out until Sunday, which is after all not that many hours away. Only three days and two nights until she can return to her familiar life again. She should be able to handle that, she concludes while unzip-ping her motorbike pants.

The location for the workshop activities is a log house con-sisting of a small hall and two open rooms merged into one large space. The wooden floor is clean and empty without any furniture except for a few black pillows laid out in a circle at one end of the room. 16 participants quietly enter the room and find an empty black pillow to sit on. The feeling of malaise resounds in Ingerid like a big African drum pounding away at every heartbeat.

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“What am I doing here?”, she thinks and catches herself gaz-ing at the door pondering if there’s still time to withdraw, jump onto the bike and head back home. But before she’s given the time to consider it further, Karoline opens the tense silence in the room with a warm welcome. She makes a quick introduc-tion of herself as a psychologist, before introducing the two men by her side. Kjetil is presented as a Buddhist monk and Sigvart as a photographer, philosopher and “man of the wilder-ness”. Then Karoline goes on to suggest that they all introduce themselves and briefly tell why they have chosen to come to this retreat and what their intentions are for this weekend.

Ingerid feels her heart leap with nervousness. All of a sudden it beats twice as fast as she immediately starts looking for words to answer these questions. Completely submerged in thoughts, she’s unable to retain the names of any of the other partici-pants as they introduce themselves one by one. She’s only half-way listening to what they’re saying. Nevertheless she’s able to catch that most of them are actually well-educated people with clear intentions to improve their lives. They’re hoping this weekend workshop will give a direction to steer towards and build upon. Gradually Ingerid becomes more and more curious of the people around her. She starts to pay attention to what they’re saying, despite of her turn approaching. The group con-sists of 16 participants, roughly divided into a fifty-fifty split between men and women. The average age is about 40 with Ingerid being the youngest at 21, and Lars being the eldest at 67 years.

One thing starts to emerge as a common thread between the attendees. Most of them agree with the previous person to have met a wall or a challenge they can’t seem to overcome. Some say they have unanswered questions and feel their lives are missing something vital. They all appear to have a deep wish to

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dispel a frustration described as a longing for something more fulfilling that is yet unknown. To close the gap between where they are at the moment and where they desire to be, even though the desired place might not be something tangible but rather a sensation. A deep yearning tells them there’s something more. But like a cloud in the sky they can’t seem to grab onto it and hold it… So it disappears and leaves them sad and frustrated.

When it’s time for Ingerid to introduce herself, she’s taken a bit by surprise. She’s gotten so interested in hearing about the oth-ers that she feels caught off guard and unprepared to answer. She starts off a little embarrassed and shy, introducing herself as the law student she currently is, and agrees with the others about the frustration, emptiness and longing for a deeper and more fulfilling meaning in life.

The words seem to fall out of her like an overturned bucket full of honesty and unknown truths that were hidden secrets when she walked through the door to this room a few moments ago. She feels rather shocked and surprised by her own answers that reveal themselves to her while speaking. As if she’s talking and listening at the same time. The experience leaves her a little puzzled. Yet the openness and space in the room along with friendly smiles from everyone in the circle, gives her a comforting feeling.

When the introduction is finished, they’re divided into A’s and B’s with an assignment to say “welcome” and greet each other. Person A should turn to their left and say welcome to so and so.Ingerid nervously turns to the person to her left and asks with a soft voice.“What’s your name again?” followed by a nervous giggle.“Per. And you?”, the man replies quickly with a slight apolo-

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getic smile.“Ingerid”, she whispers and looks over at Karoline to see if she’s given the clear signal to start the assignment. But there’s no need for an answer as the room is already buzzing with small-talk indicating a green light. Ingerid timidly turns to her left again and says:“Welcome Per!” Her tone of voice accidentally turns into a for-mal radio voice, which makes both of them laugh. The laughter seems to release the nervous tension between them and brings a warm and friendly mood to the situation.“Thank you, thank you”, Per answers politely with a wide smile which makes them laugh again. They relax into a friend-ly smile while waiting for the next assignment. Several people are still talking amongst themselves when Karoline rings a bell to bring them to silence.“Wasn’t the task to simply say “welcome” to the person to the left? It wasn’t to engage in a long conversation now, was it?” she asks rhetorically with a twinkle in her eye while raising her finger like a strict school teacher. Everyone laughs and smiles at each other.

“Ok, now let’s do the same with the person to the right”, Karo-line commands gently.With less shyness, Ingerid turns and exchange names with the woman to her right.“Welcome, Liv”, she says with a friendly, relaxed voice.“Welcome Ingerid”, Liv replies and they smile at each other without saying anything else.The introduction goes by faster this time without the small-talk. Karoline looks around at the people in the circle. They’re all sitting quietly with their full attention on her. Pleased with the situation she goes on to say with a sly smile and humour:

“Look at that! You were actually able to follow the task to a tee!

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Since you were so good at doing the last task, I’m going to give you another one. I’d like you to find a comfortable position on your pillow and face towards the centre of the circle. Then I invite you to close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply… Inhale… Exhale…” Karoline says with a voice growing calm-er and softer by each word she utters. A few seconds of silence goes by before she continues even softer.

“Then I’d like you to imagine a deserted country road brightly lit by a warm sun…”She waits a few seconds before she goes on:“Then add beautiful flowers and lush green trees along this road…”Several seconds pass by and the soft silence in the room is now strongly palpable. It’s an empty but warm and comforting si-lence. Karoline continues with a very soft and pleasant voice:“There’s a small stream running on one side of the road… It trickles gently and beckons you to follow it to a small forest pond … At the end of the pond is a small animal … See if you can see what animal it is … Carefully walk over and gently greet it … If you have a question you need an answer to right now, see if you can ask the animal for advice… If you haven’t already been given a reply, invite an answer from the animal or the surroundings now…. Receive the answer with gratitude, and slowly make your way back to the country road…. When you’re ready… Take a deep breath and gently return to the circle and open your eyes”. Karoline ends the guidance with a deep inhale and a warm sigh as she exhales.

“How are you feeling right now? How was this experience for you?”, Karoline asks while softly gazing around the circle. Most of them are sitting quietly on their pillow with relaxed expressions on their faces. All except one woman who eagerly starts talking.

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“Wow, what a wonderful exercise! I wish I knew it was that easy to get answers to complicated questions earlier”, Frøydis exclaims with overwhelming relief, joy and surprise.“We know the answers deep down very often, but sometimes it can be a little hard to remove the clutter in our minds in order to get clear enough to hear it. This exercise is designed to do just that”, Karoline replies with compassion.“Anybody else wants to share their experience?”, Karoline asks with an ease and friendliness that invites the most pre-cious secrets forth.“I got in touch with an amazing calmness. It was so lovely to discover the sensation I feel in my body right now”, Per answers with a beatific smile reflecting a presence that is still reverberating with peace.“That’s great”, Karoline responds and continues:“This sensation is at the heart of what we are going delve deep-ly into this weekend.”

Then Karoline gives a small overview of the schedule along with some practical information. She goes on to tell them that dinner will be served in 30 minutes, and that they can use the time leading up to it to reflect and maybe go for a walk in the beautiful surroundings. The last thing she says before setting them free is that they are not allowed to talk to each other. They will have to be silent throughout the whole weekend.

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Chapter 4Elise wakes up with a strong headache. Her head feels really heavy and her body even heavier. She opens her eyes and casts a quick gaze at the alarm clock. 08:45.“What day is it today?”, she wonders as she slowly wakes up into the world of human affairs.Friday?… The lecture! Shit! She quickly gets out of bed and tears her clothes off, which reminds her of how she literally fell into bed.“My goodness the clothes stink!”, she exclaims embarrass-ingly as she throws them in the laundry basket. She takes a quick shower and tries to remember what happened last night. Bits and pieces of scenes pop out in her mind like a memory puzzle, triggering a range of emotions from joy to pleasure to dizziness to pain to embarrassment and shame. It seems like her feelings spilled out uncontrollably and got the best of her. Through gathering her consciousness like a crazy person with-out all the reference points, she puts together a story that seems to fill in the gaps between the missing pieces. She works hard on the story while putting on make-up in a hurry. Her friends are probably going to quiz and try to make fun of her, so she better come prepared. While chucking down a couple of pills and a glass of juice, she grabs her stuff and heads out the door. Out on the street she throws her leg over the red Ducati mo-torcycle and races off to Dragon Mountain more concentrated than usual in an attempt to compensate for any residual shame or alcohol in the blood.

She storms breathlessly through the door to the lecture hall and sneaks by the teacher quietly while nodding apologetically in response to his stern look. Her eyes flicker quickly across the hall to see if she can spot Silje and Sara. There. At the other

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side of the room. They wave to her with thumbs up followed by quizzical expressions on their faces. Elise smiles and nods in response before she sits down and lets out a sigh of relief as she takes out her laptop from the bag.

“Wow, you went out with a bang yesterday!”, Sara exclaims nearly shouting it out as she walks towards Elise outside the lecture hall.Elise giggles timidly while giving Sara and Silje a hug. They decide that it is more important with an update on yesterday’s events rather than studying, so they take to their feet and stroll down to Barefoot for lunch and chatter. The girls peek through the large, oblong windows that reveal two floors at once to see if they can spot any other friends at the café. The place isn’t filled up with students yet, so they walk in as if they own the place and throw themselves onto the leather bench while or-dering three “Barefoot Club Sandwiches” accompanied by ar-rogant giggles.The worn down brick walls and the illuminated alcoholic bev-erages on display behind the counter reminds them of the night before and sets the tone for hefty bragging and gossiping. They laugh and chatter loudly. Their daring and foolish debaucher-ies mixed with giddy embarrassment, acknowledgments and compliments, nearly intoxicate them just by talking about it. These precious moments of gossiping have almost become a ritual. An act of confession that wipes away all doubt, shame and guilt and replaces them with a whiff of acknowledgement-elixir. An addictive ritual they have established as an after-par-ty habit in order to return to the source that drives them, and re-establish the purpose that makes them repeat the same party pattern week after week.

“Have you seen Tom today?”, Sara asks looking over at Elise with a smile.

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“No, thank goodness!”, Elise exclaims so loudly that the people at a nearby table turn around out of curiosity. The girls embar-rassingly hush at each other.“You should’ve seen his face! It was as if someone had dropped a bomb on him. Shocked at first, then panic, then completely mad with anger!” Silje says while laughing in between each description.“I bet those clothes had a lovely smell to them after a while”, chuckles Elise while Sara and Silje’s faces transform into ugly expressions of disgust.“Ugh! Yeah, I’m not sure if you’re going to get lucky with him again, unfortunately”, Sara laughs.“It doesn’t matter. I was actually just planning to sleep with him in order to get a revenge on Kjell. After all, they’re like arch rivals. I simply wanted to cast a fireball into their net”, Elise replies quickly.“Haven’t you forgotten about Kjell yet?” Silje asks with a sur-prised and firm voice. Elise looks away and immediately re-grets admitting her real motive for yesterday’s conquest.“There are so many guys that are more deserving of you than him, Elise”, Sara says with a compassionate voice. Elise looks at both of them and feels the emotions start to rise again inside her. Within an instant the mood changes into something sticky and uncomfortable.

“Can’t we talk about something else?”, Elise asks harshly while straightening her back as if someone is pulling her up by the hair.“Where do you want to go tonight?” Silje asks in an attempt to change the mood. It’s Friday night and the custom thing to do as a law student in Bergen, is to party at Feliz again. But considering last night’s events, they all agree to select a differ-ent venue.“Maybe we can be a little crazy and choose a completely dif-

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ferent hunting ground?”, Sara says while smiling slyly as her eyes wander back and forth between Elise and Silje. They re-spond by leaning closer into the table as if a secret is about to be revealed.“Where to?” Silje asks curiously anticipating something new, unexpected and unexplored.“We don’t have to go all wild and crazy since it’s already Fri-day and we only have a few hours to plan and get in action… But how about Oslo?”, Sara suggests smiling expectantly at both of them.“Yes! Let’s do that!”, Silje replies enthusiastically.“Per Olav has always said that we need to take a trip to Oslo and party with the law students there. Why not jump on a plane and go there tonight?” Sara says with conviction as if the deci-sion has already been made.“YES!”, Silje answers while lifting her hand in the air respond-ing to a high-five from Sara. Elise nods and joins the high-five. She’s grateful to be offered a solution to the awkward situation and pleased that the activity will probably be engaging enough to keep her out of the deep emotional waters lurking under-neath her skin.

Per Olav welcomes the three girls with open arms, an abun-dant liquor cabinet and the living room filled with law students. The party is already well on its way when they arrive, and the speakers are thundering with “Rage Against The Machine” screaming:” And now you do what they told ya. Now you’re under con-trol.” The room buzzes with testosterone from 17 guys jumping around the room with beer bottles in hand, waving with their heads to the beat of the music.

There’s a 90s party tonight at “The Breakfast Basement” Per Olav shouts nodding towards the empty couch. The girls watch

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the crazy boys for a few seconds before they push each other down on the couch laughingly. Shortly thereafter, 3 bottles of alcopos appears on the table followed by a bottle of Jägermeis-ter and several shot glasses. All of a sudden the wild boys seem to come out of their haze and throw themselves at the couch and the bottles on the table. One guy slides down the armrest next to Sara and mumbles something which is probably supposed to be an introduction, before he takes one of the Jäger shots and jumps back onto the living room floor to reunite with the gang. The floor which is covered by exclusive mahogany hardwood and decorated with Persian rugs, seems to be dangerously close to destruction. Along the large, panoramic windows overlook-ing the Oslo Fjord, there are 4 other girls sitting in a lounge area. They smile and raise their bottles in the air towards Elise, Sara and Silje. The girls glance around the floor as if it’s a hunt-ing field filled with prey. They observe the boys on the floor and wink at each other when they see someone they like. The other two pretends to be judges by letting their eyes wander from head to toe before they nod affirmatively. But they’re not the only ones looking. It’s a dance of eyes where everyone in the room is playing and being played into a box of categoriza-tions, comparisons and judgments.

Prodigy continues the incitement of male hormones as they sling hypnotic words and rhythms into the air: “I’m a firestarter. Twisted firestarter “. One of the boys looses complete control as the dizziness gets the upper hand as he tumbles to the ground closely followed by a bottle of beer. The Persian carpet quickly sucks up the fermented drink as if it was grass welcoming the rain. Panic spreads among the well-educated girls on the couch who quickly jump to their feet in search for paper towels or something else they can use to clean it up. Per Olav stops the havoc and says with a relaxed voice:“It’s not the first time I send it to a carpet cleaner. Relax, it’ll be

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all right by tomorrow.”

Per Olav then turns to Elise and looks deeply into her eyes with an intense gaze that she recognizes immediately. The host is shooting an arrow towards his first prey expecting a catch since he’s generously providing a great weekend in Oslo for the three girls. One of the girls will probably have to render some sort of extra service.

“What is Love” by Haddaway, echoes through the speakers in the living room. Elise points to Sara and Silje and invites them to dance with her hoping that Per Olav will change his mind and designate one of the others rather than her. Instead Per Olav shows up behind her, grabs her hips, squeezes them tightly towards his own and swings them sensually back and forth to the rhythm of the music. The alcohol is making its sedative entry as she’s slowly starts to ease into the idea that she’ll have to sacrifice herself this evening. She was, after all, the reason behind needing to escape Bergen, she concludes, as she throws herself playfully into the dance with full vigour to cheerful delight from her friends on the couch.

After a few rounds with alcopops, beers and Jägermeister, they head on out to the big hunting grounds of “The Breakfast Base-ment”. Three strict gatekeepers are guarding the venue as if they were cut out of “The Matrix” movie wearing black leather coats and dark sunglasses. Per Olav walks straight up to them with an aggressive and authoritative attitude… Keeps the pose for a few seconds… then break down into laughter while they jokingly shake hands. They obviously know each other. The girls follow Per Olav closely and let out a sigh of relief as they slide past the line-up of the crowd outside the trendy venue. The bustling scenery at “The Basement” is filled with smiley, sleepy faces on top of swaying bodies. The flashing strobe light

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in the ceiling makes it difficult to see clearly and makes Elise, Sara and Silje fumble in the dark for each other’s hands while wet bodies constantly bump into them from both sides. George Michael’s “Fastlove” flows out of the speakers as the shove their way through the crowd. “All the bullshit conversation, baby can’t you read the signs” he sings to the sensual rhythms of drum’n base. “Oh, oh baby, baby” the students sing while they swing their heads backwards and lift their hands high in the air. When the girls finally manage to cruise their way through the dance floor to the table where Per Olav and the boys have taken, there’s already 3 bottles of champagne and several glasses on the table ready to be served. Per Olav waves the girls over, pours some champagne and gives them a glass each while he lipsyncs: “What’s there to think about baby.”

With intensity in his eyes he looks straight at Elise as she ac-cepts the glass of champagne. She’s still able to reciprocate and play the game. While turning towards the girls she winks at him and sensually shakes her hips knowing that his eyes are resting at that exact spot. Oh yeah, he’s looking! Her hair flows through the air as she quickly turns around to meet his gaze with burning intensity and lust in her eyes. He smiles with enjoyment shouting out of every cell in his body. Oh yeah, he wants more, he still wants to play. Elise leans towards the girls and calls out to them:“Look at how they’re drooling”, she laughs and nods at the boys sitting sprawled on the couch intoxicated with pleasure as if they were watching a Burlesque show up close. The girls look at each other laughing. Enjoying all the attention and the flirtatious audience they continue dancing sensually.“Some of them are probably fantasizing about all of us being naked”, Sara shouts. The girls laugh even louder as they let the movements become more sensual and intimate with each other. They move towards

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each other as their hands glide over each other’s backs, hips and buttocks. The boys react spontaneously with whistling while shouting out cheers as if it were a boxing match:“More! More! More! “The girls have done this before and know how to play it smart-ly.“Score!”, They think, and winks at each other while they finish the game knowing that they letting the boys hanging – fired up and ready for “Fastlove”.

Champagne and shots keep coming. The girls are dancing around the room like bees in a field, taking honey in terms of attention and affirmation from wherever they find it. They keep reconnecting with each other from time to time as if their fellowship was the hive, until they find themselves back at Per Olav’s parents’ house.

The after-party awakens a dark, carnal desire as the boys are no longer settling for teasing. All three girls are now deeply trapped in a web of French kisses and caresses. Drowsy, ex-hausted and sated with attention, they unopposedly share the sweetness as if it’s overflowing from the edge of a jar. All besides one.

...to be continued....

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