Swedish Bedding Ceremony

I had thought I was stuck in the NYC hamster wheel of women in their thirties: Hustle at work, race to the gym to maintain a dateable body, and keep up with dinners at trendy restaurants to maintain status among the girls. The Tinders, Bumbles, and Hinges of the dating app world brought me a steady flow of finance bros and tech nerds. Sitting across the dinner table from them, be it expensive omakase or dry-aged steaks, I couldn't help but wonder if their judgy-dismissive look while checking out my breasts reflected them wishing that a plastic surgeon would slip in a little silicon to add two sizes to my bra. And then I could feel myself slipping into their fuck-zone: Good enough to fuck, not spice enough for a relationship.

So I maintained that peak shape to be dateable: Grind on a Columbia graduate degree in the evening to get that pedigree name on my dating profile so that he can tell his mom: "Look she's educated!" Press those big wheels of weights up with my hip thrusts to build strong glutes and sleek calves. Spend more face time with Mary so that she'll bond more with me than Jessica who is trying to talk bad about me to the other girls. Get another sleek Met Gala style dress for two thousand dollars so that I can impress at a bar for Friday drinks.

You notice how it's all tumbling. I felt those days like my whole life was tumbling. I couldn't keep track of where I had to be when in my head. I completely relied on my calendar. After finishing each activity, I would check on my calendar where to run next. And I literally ran. I learned to run in high heels to catch the train before it leaves. I learned the mad dash from the local to the express subway before the express subway could close the doors when both trains arrived at the station. I got really good running in high heels, even stilettos. I knew how to ditch panhandlers and spotted violent homeless people from far away to avoid being shoved onto the train tracks. At night, my mind would be so restless. My legs would still feel like running. I had found these electrodes that I could press on my temples. The electro-stimulation would make me instantly pass out until a timer in the morning turned it off.

Then I met him. His name was Sjorgen. The way how he spoke so slowly and unhurriedly to introduce his name was foreign to me. New Yorkers are famous for being able to read out loud the entire War And Peace before an Alabama country egg can finish a greeting. I had the urge to correct him that I'd address him as "S" because his name was too much of a pain to pronounce. What the fuck was he thinking to come up with sounds that confused me! I gave him a glare that told him to get with the program and that he was no longer in Idaho but NYC.

He simply smiled at me with warmth. He looked at me and seemed to see an attractive woman, tall, long/dark hair, pretty dress, put together, polished make-up, the demeanor of a professional go-getter, and lots of estrogen in how feminine my body was. What he saw in me with that slight smirk and those attentive dark eyes was what gave me pause. He made me slow down. My mind had always been so focused on the fierce competition, how I still hadn't gotten a promotion and how Rachel in the HIIT class looked so much sexier in her yoga pants. Now, my mind refocused on how much I had achieved, a director position at work, building a body that can hold a handstand for thirty seconds, and building a rich social circle. He made me feel better about myself by the respect that he exuded for me.

I wondered who is that guy, who doesn't only consider me as a bunch of attributes and how fit I am for being banged against his headboard. Sjorgen had grown up in Sweden. He was a licensing director for a well-known music streaming service. His body was rather balanced, a little above average tall, not terribly athletic but active, and not super hot dressed but tastefully. He didn't brag about his job or other things. He didn't seem to have the impulse to impress me before I moved on into the whirlwind of NYC. He seemed to take his time to have a flirt. He complimented my fingernails. He asked me about my childhood. He gently teased me about changing the family car's oil as a kid.

While I enjoyed the respectful dinner conversation, I started thinking that he lacked the edge and was a boring nice guy. I started putting him in the category of being nice for a little pick-me-up to feel better about myself but not a serious contender. That all changed when we were standing in the caboose at the restaurant entrance. An intense downpour happened outside. The restaurant was packed inside. The only middle ground was a little caboose with a door to get out and one to get into the restaurant. They had built it so that drafts wouldn't hit dinners when guests wandered in. It was built from plastic. It was dark and cramped. We were waiting for an Uber to come by to which we would quickly dash through the torrential rain.

He started loosening his tie. He took his time to loosen it a little bit, then pull a little bit on it, and then let me admire the progress that he had made. The deliberative way that he did it had something threatening about it. I couldn't put my finger on why loosening a tie could be so threatening, but it was in how steadily he looked at me, eyed me with intensity, and kept an intense silence. He grabbed my wrist harshly.

"You can say 'stop' any time, but you know where this is going," he said - his eyes hovering dangerously close in front of my eyes. I had that sensation like I was a deer and he was the hunter. I was dazed. I didn't say anything.

He grabbed my other wrist. He knew what he was doing. He had done this before. I felt the tie fabric sliding across my wrist. The fabric felt silky, smooth, and expensive. He made a few turns in the fabric, some loops, and some sticking an end through in between. A strong tuck made the fabric slide smooth and squeeze around my wrists. The fit of the tie was so snuck that I couldn't wiggle at all. I pulled on the knot and it would budge. My arms were restrained behind my back by a man whom I had only met an hour and a half ago.

His hand grabbed me strongly under my biceps. When he pulled me, I felt that he had control over my whole body. With my arms restrained behind me, I could do nothing. He pulled my balance off my heels so that I depended on his weight for support as he dragged me out into the street. Water was everywhere on the ground. The rain came down in thick strands. Water ran down my face like in a shower. Within thirty seconds, my hair was soaked - turning it into thick curls. My clothes collected quarter-sized water splotches fast. There was something intensely sexual about the cold water on a warm summer night soaking me.

He opened the car to a Chevrolet Uber. The way how he quickly made me bend forward and then tugged me into the back seat was smooth like he had done this before. I felt even more in his control. He seemed like an operator who had done this many times before. He seemed like he had a goal for me and experience on his side to get me there. I wasn't sure where we were going. I wasn't sure how to react.

"Fold your rearview mirror down," he told the driver - no please, but a twenty dollar bill tapping on the driver's shoulder.

As the driver complied without question, I could feel that I had slipped into a land of discretion where the driver would ignore anything happening to me - no matter how upsetting or concerning. The backseat was like a private space - no more like a taboo space: consciously ignored while taking a salient interest in witnessing what was going on there. The driver was a lanky Indian guy with gold chains and a gold watch on his wrist. He seemed to live by a guy code of locking rank amongst guys against women.

The tri-colors of traffic lights switching reflected in the many water drops running down the windows of the car. He released the top button of my white blouse. Then the next button came undone. The decollete dropped open wider to reveal more of my pink lace bra. Until he had undone a button below my breasts to give my front a deeply revealing slutty look. His hand was dexterous as it reached behind my back to unclasp the bra under my blouse. He was slick the way how he pulled the bra off my arms under the blouse without ever exposing me. He put the pink bra into his coat pocket like he was going to keep it without even asking for it.

He reached under my black skirt to get the top of my pantyhose, which had made me look more modest and presentable. I realized that he wasn't going to have his way with me, but that he wanted to make me look sluttier. After putting my heels back on me, he started rolling one pantyhose around the middle of the other until there was a big ball of pantyhose. He placed the ball in my mouth and tied the other pantyhose behind my back. I tried to speak to test if I was actually gagged, and I was. Just breathing, mumbling, and grunting came out of me when I spoke gently to avoid alarming the Uber driver.

We got out somewhere close to the Hudson River in Chelsea, an expensive and quiet residential block. He walked me slowly through the rain for my blouse to get soaked through and through until it clung to my skin and became translucent to reveal my nipples. He guided me to push my chest out and hold my boobs up high like I was presenting them. There were barely any people in the street, but the delivery guy riding an e-bike on the sidewalk like he was drunk gave me an embarrassing eyeful like he had stolen my deepest secret. At this point, every last spot of my clothing and underwear had been saturated with water. There was no more point in rushing as we slow-walked - titties high to the sky - down the street as if we were moving through honey while everyone around us was rushing with the tiniest of objects held over their heads.

His building was one of those classical doorman buildings with an awning running out from the front door to the curb. A doorman with a classical hat and gold stitching around the pockets stood clasping his white-gloved hands like a paige from another time. The gleaming golden light of the entrance cut into the pitch-black rainy night. With a calm gait and fully presenting me, he paraded me in front of the doorman. The doorman only addressed him and not me, like I was chattel or a pet. Pointedly, the venerable service man avoided staring at me, yet his attentive and trained eye full well took in every detail of me - how my full, natural-shaped tear-drop-shaped breasts clung to the transparent, wet, white fabric. The way how my hair was soaked through. The way how I was restrained, gorgeous, and quietly poised.

"I'll summon the freight elevator," the doorman said ceremoniously and with a hushed tone like he was doing my date the usual favor. There was a hint that I was scandalous and had to be hidden from the respectable residents.

We crossed a beautiful lobby with bright, cheery lighting and giant modern art pieces of abstract colors. A vase with three-foot-long flowers - ornate, exotic shapes that inspired awe was the centerpiece on a giant table in the lobby. Orange beaks and shiny red spirals were flower shapes I had never witnessed before. All that gleaming upscale feel made me feel less than equal like a hooker or toy secretly scurried inside before anyone could see.

The elevator door closed. The walls were padded by blankets to protect the walls against furniture damaging them. The doorman had to operate the elevator because it lacked the usual floor buttons but had to be operated manually. A heavy silence landed on the trio of us. Within the privacy of the freight elevator, he definitely oggled me and felt unthreatened to investigate what most salivated him about my body. My date enjoyed exposing me like that. He enjoyed the discomfort that he caught in my eyes. I was embarrassed but secretly enjoyed the fantasy of it all.

To be congenial, the doorman said something to my date: "This specimen is especially gorgeous." In the way how the doorman spoke, he conveyed that he could talk about me while I was in his presence because I wasn't to reply and was like a possession, an object, or a pet. That put me into a place that I had never been in. It made me feel like I was in a novel - a plaything for the aristocratic gentlemen's pleasure.

About a year later, we were planning our wedding. He turned out to be a total catch. By day, he was the absolute gentleman. He was kind, a good listener, and made every accommodation I could wish for. Yet when a switch went off in his mind, he turned into an almost cruel, dominant man. He had his way with me. All the nice-guy act came off so thoroughly. It's like I had it all with him. He had grown up in Sweden. So we traveled back to his family to get married.

The plane ride was pleasant. His family picked us up at the airport. The Stockholm Arlanda Airport was clean, organized, and full of people. I got a quick look at his parents. His dad wore a fishing hat with a fishing fly stuck on it. His mom got a hand lotion out of her big, beige purse to take care of my hands that must have dried out on the flight. There was a mix of sister and cousins that was a little bit hard to keep track of as we hurried towards the exit, constantly losing someone and getting someone cut off.

While we were storming out, Sybille insisted on me trying Swedish fish. They were tiny cracker sized fish that were hard and crunchy. I had to bite into them whole. Their bones cracked as I chewed on them. The taste was stale, bitter, and salty in an absolutely disgusting way. Sybille seemed extremely proud about sharing Swedish culture. I was eyeing the trashcan to spit it out, but I was pulled alongside the pack to make it outside. So I chewed and swallowed the terrible thing.

Only when I sat in the backseat of a gray Volvo was I able to take in what was going on. I had never realized how towering Volvos are. Obviously, they are not like the giant American SUVs. However, they are hefty. After all, they are engineered to run over a moose without damage to the passengers. We wrote into the night because darkness at such a northern latitude had come soon after noon this time of the year.

Matteo sat in the front seat. He was Sjorgen's younger brother. His hair was copper red. His face was red from seemingly constant animation. His features had something intense and angry about them. His fingers were short and stubby. Overall, he seemed like a hothead. Fitting his impressions, he started complaining unprompted about a co-worker. The co-worker was an idiot, who had to be cut to size. "Flat-foot monster" was the nickname for the co-worker because of how exasperated the co-worker looked every time Matteo snarled at the "pussy" as he called him. I felt uncomfortable about him but made respectful sounds to attempt to make a good impression with my fiance's family.

Restraint was unfamiliar to Matteo. Matteo was happy monologing in the passenger seat as he described his opinion of the sister Sybille. Sybille had made the wrong career choice. She was utterly unattractive not due to a lack of genetic disposition but due to a lack of effort to make her assets shine. With shock, I heard him describe how he once went through her clothes drawer to steal all the modest clothing that unnecessarily covered the sister, which he threw out after cutting them up with scissors to make sure that the sister couldn't retrieve them from the trash.

I seized up the look of Matteo from behind, snatching his profile when he turned back to make a point. He had unkind eyes. He had the kind of blank face that someone has who means little in the world. He seemed to use the playground of his family to play out his games. I wouldn't want to be left alone with him. I increasingly felt uneasy and my verbal nods sounded more and more polite rather than heartfelt.

We drove for hours along fjords: icy water on one side and steep pine tree-covered mountains on the other side. The geography made clear why the Vikings had to leave their lands to raid. There was no flat patch of land to grow anything. There were endless rocky, steep walls diving into the water. As the time passed on and we drove farther and farther into the darkness and remoteness with less and less cars passing, I could feel us sinking into a deep winterland from which it would be hard to extricate myself shall I want to run.

My dread only increased when we arrived at the country residence, a singular home in the middle of a forest overlooking the fjord, stretching like a skinny finger. I was walked into the study upstairs, a beautifully comfortable affair with armchairs, bookshelves, chandeliers, carpets, and a window overseeing the snow-covered backyard. I was formally introduced to Sjorgen's father. When I remarked on the fishing fly on his hat being a Hare's Ear Nymph, his mother said, "The two have found each other!" Then everyone bowed out pretending that they didn't want to disturb two fishermen talking shop, but I could feel that everyone was sick and tired about hearing the father talk about fishing, seemingly the only topic he was interested in. The father himself was still standing and watching out of the window with a scotch glass in his hand. I stood in the room a bit uncomfortable with myself, seemingly having nothing else to add and the father being too busy investigating something in the backyard.

"I know that you don't care for fish," he said, seemingly to let me off the hook. He paused allowing a new tension to build, like he had an even more uncomfortable topic than simply listening to a boring topic.

He sat down in the armchair. He pointed at a stool for me to sit down. I noticed the implication that while he was sitting in a towering throne with powerful leather stitching deeply reclined between the arm and headrest, I had to sit on a low stool without even a backrest to be comfortable. I had the feeling that this was an official seizing up and a kind of rite to get his approval for the wedding. He was an old man with white hair and a nose that had grown into a gnoll.

"He had to get an American," he said with scorn, implying that I had to redeem myself. "You are pretty. I looked at your LinkedIn profile. You are smart as well. I'm sure you'll make a great mother. That's not my worry. My worry is will you honor tradition! Tomorrow morning is supposed to be the bride robbing. Your family isn't here to do their part. However, Sybille organized a group in their place to steal you tomorrow morning. They'll take you to the island over there. By midday, I'll start negotiating for your release. It's an old Swedish tradition. These lands are very old."

"I'll be delighted to participate in the wedding traditions," I told him, already started to feel a bit weary from trying my best to make good impressions on people. The long plane and car ride had worn me down emotionally.

"You look a bit sick. I know what cures that. Follow me," the father said.

He walked me down a spiral staircase downstairs and onto the basement at the back of the house. The floor and walls were paneled in blond wood. He grabbed a towel from a big pile. He took off his clothes under the towel and walked into a sauna. With him gone, I quickly undressed and covered my top and bottom with a towel from the pile. I followed him in. The heat was more intense than in America. He poured eucalyptus oil into a bucket of water. Then he threw the mixture onto hot rocks. The hissing steam filled the air. The heat got intense, scorching my skin. Desperate sweat pearls shot to my skin's surface to protect against the furnace. I held on. I had to prove myself as an American.

Sybille found us. She quickly joined us. The mother joined us. The sauna got packed with everyone. They were so excited about the sauna ritual and being together. I had never experienced so much glee amongst a family before. Everyone started sweating big pearls. Cheeks rouged. Deep groaning sighs sounded. It was some kind of cathartic group release. And when the next bucket of eucalyptus oil water got dropped on the rocks, it was like a bass drop at a rave party. Everyone sighed and cheered to welcome the heat tearing the skin apart with savage burning sensation. And I knew it was a game of chicken for who would live first. As the American, I had to prove myself. As the Swedes they had to prove themselves that they lasted at least as long as the American.