Helloo?

Chapter 3: Breakfast and a Stranger's Eyes

The morning air hit them like a slap. Cold and damp and smelling of wet leaves and diesel from the delivery truck idling outside the main building. Tor pulled his jacket tighter around himself—he hadn't thought to grab a proper coat, just the thin denim thing he'd worn to the party, and the chill cut through it like it wasn't there.

Engla didn't seem to notice the cold. She walked ahead of him down the gravel path, her sandals crunching on the frozen ground, her breath pluming in the air. She'd thrown on a sweater—something oversized and mustard-colored that looked like it might have belonged to a grandfather—but her legs were bare under the dress she'd worn the night before. No tights. No jacket. Just that thin layer of cotton and the sweater and the cold nipping at her skin.

She was talking about something. A concert she'd been to last summer. A saxophonist from Malmö who'd played so hard he'd broken a reed mid-solo and just kept going. "You would have loved it," she said, glancing back at him. "The way the light hit his horn. The way he didn't stop. Not for anything."

Tor nodded. He was watching the way her hair moved in the wind. The way her sweater slipped off one shoulder, revealing the strap of something underneath—not the dress, something else, something he hadn't seen her put on. He wondered when she'd done that. While he was in the bathroom? While he was pretending not to stare at the ceiling and failing?

"Are you listening?" she asked.

"Yeah. Broken reed. Kept going. Light on the horn."

"Good." She smiled. "I'd hate to think I was boring you."

The café was tucked between a secondhand bookshop and a hardware store on the main street, its windows fogged from the inside, its sign hand-painted and peeling. Engla pushed open the door and a bell jingled overhead—a real bell, brass and worn, not one of those electronic chimes.

The warmth inside was immediate. Almost aggressive. It wrapped around Tor's face and hands like a wet towel, and he stood in the doorway for a moment, letting it seep into him. The air smelled of coffee and cardamom and something faintly burnt. A radio somewhere behind the counter played jazz, low and unobtrusive. The kind of music you forgot was playing until it stopped.

The place was nearly empty. An old man in the corner, newspaper spread across his table like a tablecloth. A young woman with a laptop, headphones on, mouthing words as she typed. A couple by the window, not talking, just watching the street.

Engla chose a table near the back. Tucked against the wall, half-hidden by a partition covered in old concert posters. She slid into the booth and patted the seat beside her.

"Sit," she said. "Not across. Beside."

Tor sat.

The table was small. Their knees touched under it. She didn't move hers away, and neither did he.

A waitress appeared—middle-aged, tired-looking, with a pen tucked behind her ear and an apron stained with coffee. Engla ordered for both of them without asking. Two coffees. Two cinnamon buns. "The big ones," she said. "Not those tiny bullshit ones you gave us last time."

The waitress laughed. "You got it, Engla."

When she was gone, Tor raised an eyebrow. "You come here often?"

"Every Sunday. It's my church." Engla leaned back against the booth, her arm brushing his. "What? You think I'm joking?"

"I think you're always half-joking."

"Fair." She picked up the salt shaker and turned it over in her hands. "My grandma used to bring me here. When I was a kid. She'd order the same thing every time—coffee, cinnamon bun, complain about the waitress." She smiled at the memory. "Now I come alone. It's different, but it's the same. You know?"

Tor nodded. He knew.

The coffee arrived first. Thick white mugs, mismatched, one with a chip on the rim, the other with a faded floral pattern. The coffee was strong and dark and slightly bitter, the way coffee should be. The cinnamon buns came next. Enormous. Sticky with glaze. Still warm from the oven.

Engla tore a piece off hers and ate it with her fingers. She didn't bother with a plate, just held the bun in one hand and pulled pieces off with the other. A bit of glaze stuck to her thumb. She licked it clean without thinking.

Tor watched her do it. He watched her mouth. The way her lips closed around her thumb. The way her tongue darted out to catch the last of the sweetness. It was nothing. It was just breakfast. But his body didn't know that.

"So," Engla said, mouth half-full. "What's the film about? The one you're working on."

Tor blinked. "What?"

"The film. You said you were working on something. For class."

He had said that. In his dorm room. Before any of this. When she'd been standing naked in his doorway and he'd been trying to make conversation like the world hadn't just tilted on its axis.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just an exercise. A short."

"About what?"

"A man who follows strangers. He doesn't talk to them. He just watches. Tries to imagine their lives. Their secrets."

Engla chewed slowly. "That sounds creepy."

"It's not. Or it shouldn't be. It's about loneliness. About trying to connect without knowing how." He shrugged. "I don't know if it works."

"I want to see it."

"It's not finished."

"I don't care." She pulled off another piece of cinnamon bun. "I want to see what you see."

Tor took a sip of his coffee. It burned his tongue. He didn't mind. "Why?"

"Because you see things. I told you that." She looked at him. Not with the teasing look she usually wore, but something softer. Something almost serious. "I want to know what the world looks like through your eyes."

The radio shifted. A new song started. Slow. A woman singing in Portuguese. The old man in the corner turned a page of his newspaper. The laptop woman kept typing.

Tor felt something shift in his chest. A loosening. A settling. He didn't know what to call it.

"Your turn," he said. "Something true."

Engla smiled. "You're keeping track?"

"I'm observant. You said so yourself."

She set the last piece of her cinnamon bun down on the table. Wiped her fingers on a napkin. Took a long drink of coffee. The mug was almost as big as her face.

"I've never stayed the whole night with anyone," she said. "Before you."

Tor waited.

"I've done the other thing. The sex thing. Plenty of times." She said it without shame, without apology. Just a fact. "But I always leave. Or I make them leave. Because I don't like the morning. The waking up. The... the messiness of it. The way you have to figure out who you are to each other when the lights come on."

"And last night?"

"Last night was different." She looked at him. "You were different."

Tor didn't know what to say. He didn't know if there was anything to say. So he reached under the table and found her hand. Her fingers were sticky with glaze. He didn't care.

Engla squeezed his hand. Then she pulled hers away and went back to her coffee.

"Okay," she said. "Enough profound shit. Tell me about your favorite movie."

They talked for another hour. About movies. About music. About the weird things people do when they think no one's watching. Engla told him about a saxophone teacher she'd had who could play twelve notes at once—or claimed he could, anyway. Tor told her about the first film he'd ever seen in a theater, how he'd cried at the end even though it was a comedy, even though nothing sad had happened.

"Why did you cry?" she asked.

"I don't know. The lights came up and I looked at all these people around me, and I realized we'd all just been somewhere together. Somewhere that didn't exist. And now we were back. And it felt like we'd lost something."

Engla was quiet for a moment. "That's beautiful," she said. "In a sad way."

"Everything's beautiful in a sad way. That's what the film's about."

They finished the coffee. Engla ordered another round without asking. The waitress brought them and cleared the plates. The old man left. The laptop woman left. The couple by the window left. They had the place to themselves.

Tor thought about how girls were so often sexualized in the world. He thought about it in the abstract—the way women's bodies were used to sell everything from cars to deodorant, the way their worth was so often reduced to how they looked in a dress or a bikini or a pair of jeans. He thought about it in the abstract because he believed in things like equality and autonomy and the right to exist without being turned into an object.

He believed in those things. He really did.

And yet.

Engla had leaned forward to reach for the salt, and her sweater had shifted, and he could see down the front of it. Not everything. Not quite. But enough. The soft curve of her cleavage, the freckles he'd memorized the night before, the shadow between her breasts. She wasn't trying to be sexy. She was just reaching for salt. But his eyes went there anyway.

He looked away. Fast. Before she could notice. His face felt hot.

This was the problem. He knew it was the problem. He could hold two ideas in his head at once—that women were people, full and complete and deserving of respect, and that this woman's body made him feel like he was burning alive. He could believe in the first thing and still be undone by the second. He hated that about himself. He hated that his left feminist ideals couldn't stop his eyes from drifting.

But she'd told him to look. Last night, in her room, she'd said it. I want you to look. And there was a difference, wasn't there? Between the way the world looked at her and the way she let him look at her. Between being an object and choosing to be seen.

She caught him staring. Of course she did.

"What?" she said. That little smile. The one that meant she knew exactly what.

"What do you mean?”

”Nothing”, she said. The smile still on her face. As she moved, he thought of how amazing she looked. This was total cognitive dissonance. He didn’t ever want to think about girls as objects to have for oneself. Movies depicting seductive women felt so wrong, so unfair. Now he was sitting across from someone who looked like she was made for sex, her best self totally naked for boys. He wanted to talk about his views on this matter with her, so he said:

"I've been thinking about something," he said.

Engla raised an eyebrow. She didn't say anything, just waited. That was one of the things he was learning about her—she knew when to fill silence and when to let it sit.

"It's stupid," he said.

"Most true things are."

He turned his coffee cup in his hands. The ceramic was warm against his palms. Outside, someone walked past the window with a dog on a leash. The dog looked back at him through the fogged glass. Then it was gone.

"I think about how women are looked at," he said. "In films. In ads. Everywhere. Like they're... I don't know. Like they exist to be seen. And I hate it. I genuinely hate it."

Engla nodded slowly. She didn't look away. She didn't flinch.

"But then I look at you," Tor continued. "And I'm doing the same thing. I'm staring. I'm thinking things I shouldn't think. And I don't know how to hold both of those at once. The belief and the... the wanting."

He stopped. His face was hot. He'd said too much, probably. He always said too much. Overthought everything until it turned to mush in his mouth.

Engla picked up her mug and took a slow sip. When she set it down, she was smiling. Not the teasing smile. Something gentler.

"You know what I think?" she said.

"What?"

"I think you're describing the difference between looking at someone and seeing them. And you're the only person I've met who actually does the second one." She tilted her head. "Also, I'm literally sitting here with my tits half out because I forgot to button my sweater. So maybe stop beating yourself up for noticing."

Tor laughed. It came out surprised and loud. The waitress glanced over from behind the counter.

"That's not—" he started.

"It is, actually." Engla leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "Here's the thing. I like being looked at. When I want to be. When it's you. That's the difference, isn't it? Consent. Intent. Whether the person doing the looking sees you or just... uses you."

He nodded. She was right. She was annoyingly, beautifully right.

"You're a filmmaker," she said. "You're going to look at people for the rest of your life. That's your job. But you can do it with respect. You can see them. That's what makes you different from every asshole with a camera and a hard-on."

"That's a low bar."

"Most men don't clear it." She shrugged. "Anyway. You asked."

She pulled her sweater up—not closed, just up, adjusting it on her shoulders. It didn't cover anything. It might have made things worse. Tor's eyes dropped to her collarbone before he could stop them.

Engla noticed. She always noticed. She smiled that slow smile again, the one that started in her eyes and spread down to her mouth. She had pointy tits he noticed.

His eyes dropped to her collarbone before he could stop them, tracing the delicate line of bone beneath skin, the faint constellation of freckles that dusted her shoulders like scattered stars. The sweater had slipped again. Or maybe she'd let it slip. He couldn't tell anymore whether she was careless or deliberate, whether the difference even mattered.

Engla noticed. She always noticed. That slow smile spread across her face, starting somewhere behind her eyes and working its way down to her mouth, curving her lips into something that made his stomach tighten.

"You're doing it again," she said.

"Doing what?"

"Looking at me like I'm a problem you're trying to solve."

Tor let out a breath. "Maybe I am."

"Good luck with that." She picked up her coffee and took a sip, watching him over the rim of the mug. "I've been trying to solve myself for nineteen years. Haven't cracked it yet."

The café had emptied out. Even the waitress had disappeared somewhere behind the counter, leaving them alone with the radio and the fogged windows and the smell of coffee going cold in their cups. The morning light had shifted, slanting differently now, catching the dust motes floating between them like tiny planets.

"Can I tell you something weird?" Tor asked.

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

He turned his mug in his hands. The ceramic had cooled. His reflection stared back at him from the dark surface of the coffee—distorted, unrecognizable, someone he almost didn't know.

"Last night," he said. "In the practice room. I couldn't stop thinking about... about the way you looked."

"I was on my knees with my mouth full. Not exactly my most photogenic moment."

"That's not what I mean." He set the mug down. "I mean after. When I was still standing there and you were still on the floor and I could see everything. Your hair. Your shoulders. The way your dress was hiked up around your hips."

Engla's smile flickered. Something shifted behind her eyes—curiosity, maybe, or recognition.

"And I thought—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I thought you looked like you were made for it. For being seen. Like that."

The words hung in the air between them. Tor's face burned. He'd said too much again, gone too far, crossed some line he hadn't even known was there.

Engla set her mug down. Slowly. Deliberately. The ceramic clicked against the table like a punctuation mark.

"Say that again," she said.

"What?"

"What you just said. About me being made for it."

Tor's throat tightened. "I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant." She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and her sweater fell open another inch. "I want to hear you say it again."

He looked at her. The wild honey of her hair. The freckles scattered across her chest like someone had flicked a paintbrush at her skin. The pointy tits he'd noticed and tried not to notice and failed to stop noticing.

"You look like you were made to be looked at," he said. "Like being naked is what you're for."

Engla's breath caught. Just for a second. Just enough for him to hear it.

"Most guys wouldn't say that," she said. "They'd think it. But they wouldn't say it."

"I'm not most guys."

"No." Her voice had gone rough. "You're not."

She stood up. The movement was abrupt, almost violent, and her chair scraped against the floor with a sound that made the waitress poke her head out from behind the counter. Engla waved her off without looking.

"Come with me," she said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere we can be alone."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the booth. His coffee sloshed, spilled, pooled on the table. He didn't care. He didn't care about anything except the heat of her fingers wrapped around his and the way she was walking toward the back of the café like she owned the place.

The bathroom was small. Single-stall. The door had a lock that looked older than both of them combined, but it turned when she twisted it. The room smelled like bleach and lavender soap and something underneath that was just old building, old pipes, old secrets.

Engla closed the door behind them. The lock clicked. She turned to face him.

"Here's the thing," she said. "What you said back there. About me being made to be seen." She stepped closer. Her sandals made no sound on the tile. "I've thought about that. My whole life. Whether it's true."

Tor's back hit the sink. Cold porcelain against his spine. "And?"

"And I think you might be right." She reached up and pulled her sweater over her head in one motion.

Underneath, she was wearing the same dress from last night. The same thin cotton. The same straps that had slipped off her shoulders in the practice room. But she didn't stop there. She reached behind her back and found the zipper and pulled it down. Slow. Deliberate. The sound of metal teeth separating filled the small room like a promise.

The dress fell. She stepped out of it. And then she was standing in front of him in nothing but a pair of simple black underwear, her skin golden in the fluorescent light, her nipples hard, her stomach soft and curved, her hips wide enough to hold onto.

"Look at me," she said.

He looked.

"I mean really look. Not the way you look at everyone. Not the way you're always watching. I mean look at me like I'm the only thing in the world."

Tor's hands found the edge of the sink. Gripped it. He needed something to hold onto.

"You're the only thing in the world," he said.

Engla smiled. That slow, dangerous smile. Then she dropped to her knees.

The tile was cold. He knew because he'd felt it last night, the same cold seeping through his jeans when he'd stood in the practice room and watched her do this. But this time was different. This time there was no piano. No foam walls. No distant thump of music from a party upstairs. Just the hum of the bathroom fan and the wet sound of her breathing and the buckle of his belt coming undone.

She pulled his jeans down to his ankles. His boxers followed. He was already hard—had been hard since the café, since she'd leaned forward and let her sweater fall open, since she'd said his name in that rough voice.

"Nice," she said. Just that. Just one word. Then she took him in her hand.

Her grip was firm. Confident. She knew what she was doing and she wasn't in a hurry about it. She stroked him slowly, root to tip, her thumb circling the head, spreading the wetness that had already gathered there. Tor's breath hissed through his teeth.

"You like that?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"I like it."

"Tell me what you like."

He looked down at her. On her knees. Naked except for those black underwear. Her hair falling across her face. Her eyes never leaving his.

"I like your mouth," he said. "I want your mouth."

Engla smiled. Then she gave it to him.

Her lips wrapped around the head of his cock and her tongue pressed flat against the underside and she took him deep in one slow motion. The wet heat of her mouth made his knees buckle. He caught himself on the sink, knuckles white, breath ragged.

She worked him with her hand and her mouth together, timing them, building a rhythm that made his hips want to thrust. He held back. Barely. She hummed—a low sound that vibrated through him—and he nearly lost it right there.

"Fuck," he whispered. "Engla."

She pulled back just enough to speak. "Say my name again."

"Engla."

"Again."

"Engla."

She took him deeper. Her hand moved to his balls and cupped them, rolled them, squeezed just enough to make him gasp. Her other hand braced against his thigh for balance. She was relentless. Methodical. She knew exactly how to undo him and she was taking her time doing it.

Her cheeks hollowed. Her tongue swirled. Her head bobbed in a rhythm that matched the pounding of his heart. He watched her—couldn't stop watching her—the way her lips stretched around him, the way her throat worked when she took him deep, the way her eyes stayed locked on his face, cataloging every reaction.

"I want to come," he said. "Engla, I'm going to—"

She didn't pull away. She didn't slow down. She just took him all the way and held him there, her nose pressed against his stomach, and when he came he came with a sound that was almost a sob. She swallowed every drop. Kept swallowing until he was done. Then she pulled back and licked her lips and stood up.

His taste was still on her mouth. He could see it. A sheen of him on her lips. She didn't wipe it away.

"You look wrecked," she said.

"I am wrecked."

She kissed him. Hard. And he tasted himself on her tongue and didn't care.

"Get dressed," she said. "We're not done."

He didn't know what she meant. He was too wrung out to ask. But he pulled up his jeans and she pulled on her dress—didn't even bother with the sweater—and she took his hand and led him out of the bathroom like nothing had happened.

The waitress stared as they walked past. Engla dropped a crumpled bill on the counter and didn't look back.

Outside, the air had warmed slightly. The fog had burned off. The street was busier now, people walking dogs and pushing strollers and carrying shopping bags from the Coop. Engla walked fast, her hand still wrapped around his, her hair bouncing with every step.

"Where are we going?" Tor asked.

"You'll see."

She turned down a side street and then another, past a church and a cemetery and a patch of grass where two kids were kicking a ball against a wall. Then she stopped in front of a building he recognized.

The library. The same one that served both the folkhögskola and the town. Two stories of brick and glass. A sign by the door said it was open.

"Engla—"

"Trust me."

She pushed open the door. The air inside was still and warm and smelled of old paper and furniture polish and something faintly sweet, like the ghost of a thousand forgotten snacks. The main floor was empty except for a librarian behind the desk—a woman in her sixties with glasses on a chain and a cardigan that had seen better decades.

Engla walked past her without stopping. She pulled Tor toward the stairs.

"Miss Sjöberg," the librarian said without looking up. "Back again?"

"Just returned a book," Engla said. "Found what I needed."

They climbed the stairs. The second floor was darker, quieter, lined with shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. Fiction on one side. Non-fiction on the other. Magazines in the corner. A reading area with old wooden tables and chairs that creaked when you breathed on them.

The floor was empty. No students. No patrons. Just dust and silence and the hum of the heating system.

Engla led Tor to the back, past rows of books he couldn't name, past a window that looked out over the cemetery they'd passed. She stopped in an aisle between two shelves—history, judging by the spines—and turned to face him.

"Here," she said.

"Here?"

"Here." She reached up and pulled the strap of her dress off her shoulder. Then the other. "You said I looked like I was made to be seen. So see me."

The dress fell.

She was naked underneath. No underwear. Nothing. Just her skin and her freckles and the curve of her waist and the softness of her thighs. The light from the window caught her from behind, turning her hair into a halo, tracing the line of her spine like a brush drawn in gold.

Tor couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. Couldn't do anything except stare.

"Is anyone here?" she asked.

"No."

"Good." She took a step toward him. Then another. "I want you to touch me. But not yet. First I want you to look."

He looked. He looked at her breasts. The way they sat, full and heavy, nipples dark and tight. He looked at her stomach. The little roll of softness above her hips. He looked at the triangle of hair between her legs, honey-dark, trimmed but not tamed. He looked at her thighs and her calves and her feet on the cold library floor.

"You're beautiful," he said.

"I know." She wasn't being arrogant. She was just stating a fact. "But that's not what you're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking."

He swallowed. "I'm thinking about what you said. In the café. About being made for it."

"And?"

"And I'm thinking about the way you look right now. Everything on display. Nothing hidden. Like you're a painting someone forgot to cover."

Engla smiled. That dangerous smile. "Keep going."

"I'm thinking about touching you. But not with my hands. Not yet." He took a step closer. "I'm thinking about what it would feel like to press my face against your stomach. To feel how warm you are."

"Then do it."

He did.

He crossed the distance between them and dropped to his knees. His face pressed against her stomach and her skin was warm and soft and smelled like soap and sweat and something underneath that was just her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her and she ran her fingers through his hair.

"More," she said.

He kissed her stomach. Her hip. The soft swell of her belly. He worked his way down, mouth open, tasting her, and when he reached the place where her thighs met her body she made a sound that echoed in the empty aisle.

His tongue found her. Wet. Hot. She was already slick and ready and she tasted like salt and citrus and something almost sweet. He licked her slowly, learning the shape of her, the rhythm that made her gasp. She braced herself against the bookshelf behind her. A copy of something heavy—Churchill's memoirs, maybe—toppled and hit the floor with a thud that neither of them cared about.

"Fuck," she whispered. "Right there. Don't stop."

He didn't stop.

He worked his tongue against her clit in tight circles while his fingers slid inside her, first one, then two. She was tight and wet and pulsing around him and he could feel every shudder, every twitch, every time her breath caught in her throat. She came with a cry she tried to swallow, hips grinding against his face, fingers tangled so hard in his hair he thought she might pull some out.

When she was done she pulled him up and kissed him with her taste still on his mouth.

"Now," she said. "I want you inside me."

"Here?"

"Right fucking here."

He pushed her against the bookshelf—harder than he meant to, books shifted, dust motes swirled—and fumbled with his jeans. She reached down and helped him, yanking the button open, pulling him free. He was hard again already, aching with it, and when she wrapped her leg around his hip and guided him to her entrance he pushed in without waiting.

She was wet and tight and hot and he felt every inch of her clench around him. He moved slowly at first—not out of gentleness, but because he was terrified of coming too fast. She didn't want slow. She grabbed his hips and pulled him deeper.

"Harder," she said. "Fuck me harder."

He did.

The bookshelf creaked. Books fell. Somewhere below them, the librarian was stamping returns and humming to herself and had no idea that two floors above her a jazz student was being fucked against a stack of World War II histories. Tor grabbed Engla's hips and slammed into her, over and over, and she took it, begged for it, met every thrust with her own body like they were playing a duet.

"Look at me," she said.

He looked.

"Look at me while you fuck me."

He looked into her eyes and she looked into his and neither of them blinked. He felt something shift in his chest—something bigger than lust, something he wasn't ready to name. She clenched around him and he knew he was close.

"I want you to come inside me," she said. "I want to feel it."

That was all it took. He drove into her one last time and buried himself as deep as he could and came with a groan that he muffled by biting his own fist. She came again too—or maybe she'd never stopped—shuddering around him, pulling him closer, digging her nails into his shoulders.

They stayed like that for a long moment. Bent into each other. Breathing hard. Sweating in the cold library air.

Then she laughed.

"We're going to get banned," she said.

"Worth it."

She untangled herself from him and bent to pick up her dress from the floor. Her body folded and unfolded like she was made of something softer than bone. She pulled the dress over her head and smoothed it down and looked at him with those bright hazel eyes.

"Let's do this again," she said.

"The library?"

"Anywhere." She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the stairs. "Everywhere. I don't care. Just... again."

They descended the stairs together. The librarian glanced up as they passed, then did a double-take. Maybe it was the state of their clothes. Maybe it was the sound of books still settling on the second floor. But she didn't say anything. She just watched them go with a look that hovered somewhere between disapproval and amusement.

Outside, the sun had come out. Real sun, warm and gold and blinding after the dimness of the stacks. Tor squinted against it and Engla laughed and pulled him into the street.

"Where now?" he asked.

"I don't know." She turned to face him. Her hair was a mess. Her dress was wrinkled. There was dust on her shoulders and a mark on her neck that might have been his stubble. "Where do you want to go?"

Tor looked at her. This girl who'd walked into his room naked and never explained why. This girl who sang jazz and played saxophone and fucked like she was improvising. This girl who let him say the things he was ashamed to think and then made them real.

"Anywhere," he said. "As long as it's with you."

“You would be a great stripper,