Magnus stretched his legs, resisting the urge to check his shoelaces for the twentieth time. He was beyond nervous and didn't know where to direct his gaze if not to his feet. He was standing in the loosely gathered crowd, waiting for the start signal, and, like everybody else, he was practically naked.
A balding, middle-aged man in a blue sweatsuit was talking on a megaphone. The sound was abysmal, but Magnus would've been hard pressed to make out the words in any equipment. His Finnish wasn't as fluent as he had thought it was, and some dialects he couldn't even begin to decipher. About the only word he could distinguish was "Nakukymppi", the name of the running event he was partaking in. The largely pale-fleshed crowd around him cheered, and he guessed it was some kind of welcome speech.
"Haluutko lainata?"
Magnus turned his attention to the woman standing beside him. She wore the same as him: running shoes, socks, and absolutely nothing else. Her skin was maybe even more pale than the average Finn, a hard feat to accomplish, but her hair was dark as were her eyebrows and lashes, even apparently without any makeup. Her eyes were the blue Magnus had started to think of as "average Finn blue", and she was maybe forty, lines of wrinkles spreading on her forehead as she raised her eyebrows questioningly. She was gesturing to him with a jar of lotion.
"Lainata?" he repeated. It meant "borrowing", but he wasn't certain what the lotion was for.
"Oh, I'm sorry," the woman said. "English?"
Magnus cursed to himself. Part of the purpose of this trip was to improve his Finnish, but people switched to English so easily here he seldom got the chance to conclude a conversation in Finnish.
"Amateurs use Vaseline," the woman said and gestured around. "Professionals use Tummeli. Try it."
Magnus scooped a glob of white lotion with his fingertip. He must have looked quizzical, because the woman laughed and gestured to his crotch. "Spread it on your privates," she said. "It'll chafe otherwise. And maybe armpits."
For good measure, she took out a generous blob herself, and spread it on her inner thighs with brisk motions. Magnus couldn't help noticing how the movement shook her tits, which were a bit on the ample side for her to be running naked. Well, okay--they were a lot on the ample side, her nipples sticking out a bit, and...
Magnus busied himself with the lotion before his body had time to betray him. He would be turning fifty in September, and had long forgotten what it felt like to develop spontaneous erections that were so uncontrollable they made him embarrassed. Now he had been traveling around his ancestral country, Finland, for four weeks, hadn't gotten laid once, and hadn't thought things through before deciding to take part in this naked event. He had concentrated on the idea of being naked
himself
, how it would feel to run in the sun with his balls hanging, how cool and weird a story it would make to tell back home; he hadn't extrapolated to the fact that everyone
else
would be naked, too, and that some of them would be women.
The woman stashed the lotion back in her pile of clothes. "There," she said merrily. "All set."
"So what lotion is that?" Magnus asked, wiping the excess on his thighs.
"Tummeli. It's meant for cow's tits," she answered, eyes twinkling.
He raised his eyebrows, but didn't have time to comment, when a make-shift starting pistol sounded out and the crowd moved forward. Finally! Running helped, concentrating on his pace, his breathing, getting to the groove of the exercise. He lost the woman in the moving, bouncing sea of wobbling flesh and, on rare occasions, sleek muscle. His thighs felt slippery and smooth, and as weird as it was, he could see the point of the lotion. He relaxed his shoulders, fixed his gaze in the middle distance, and let his thoughts go.
The Nakukymppi running event was for a ten kilometer distance, but it was run on a small loop of about three kilometers, supposedly for easy dropping out. It was very informal for a sports event. All the participants who even started in the required attire were considered to have completed it, and the winners would get a diploma. Participants jogged along lazily, mostly in small groups, talking and laughing with each other.
The day was sunny and warm, which was fortunate. Magnus hadn't anticipated how cold and miserable Finland would be in mid May, when he'd arrived. He'd had to stock up on weatherproof clothes and wooly socks. Now it was June, almost midsummer, and the nature around him was green and lush, filled with birdsong and buzzing insects. Trees cast a dappled shadow at the edge of the road. Dust from the dirt road rose from their stomping feet as their way wound gently up and down hills, skirting lakes, fields, and meadows. In some places, herds of cows lay in the shade, lazily chewing and twisting their ears, watching the runners pass them by.
After the first round, the crowd had stretched out. Magnus felt sweat trickling down his chest, twisting this and that way by body hair, and how his breathing was heavy and full. He followed a group of young men at a respectful distance. They were going so fast he didn't want to overtake them, and he didn't want them to think he was eavesdropping on their banter, which included a lot of innuendo about the female participants and who would try to score with whom afterwards. On a gentle upward slope he let them get away from him, enjoying a brief stretch of solitude on this remote country road.
The downward slope, descending into a shadowy old forest, was much steeper. Magnus almost skipped downhill, enjoying the coolness of shadow on his sweaty skin, when he heard a voice from ahead. It was female, and he could guess the purpose from its tone before he could make out the curse words.
"Vittu perkele vittu perkele vittu!"
The road twisted around a forested lake, and after a few steps Magnus could see her. The young men were just disappearing on the other end of the small straight, and the woman was grinding to a halt approximately at the middle, hopping on one foot and cursing.
"Hey, hey there! What's wrong?" Magnus shouted and sprinted to her. His first thought was that the young men had done something to her, and his blood boiled at the idea. When he got closer, he deduced that most likely she just had a cramp in her leg. She limped, turning to see who had shouted. Magnus recognized the lotion woman.
"Cramp, ah, fuck," she said, grimacing with pain and trying to stretch her leg. She almost fell, and Magnus hurried to steady her. He spotted a mossy rock a little off road and helped her to it. She sat, still cursing under her breath, then reached to massage her calf carefully. Magnus followed the line of her back, how perfect her white ass looked framed with the deep green of the moss, how her shins were striped with mud where the dust of the dirt road had mixed with her sweat.
"Thanks," she said, straightening her back again and sighing. "You don't need to wait. I'll be okay. I'll wait until it passes and limp back the way we came."
"You sure?" Magnus wasn't sure if she was just offering him an out or if she wanted him to leave. It was so hard to tell with these Finns. "Mind if I stay? I mean, I could help you back. And hey, everyone passes the run anyway, right?"
The woman shrugged. She tugged on a bit of moss and tossed it aside, her shoulders slumping. "Well, okay, I'd like that. That hill is kind of steep."
