Calendar Mystery 10: THE PHILOSOPHY OF FIKA
Characters:
Chris Josephson, 29, creative writer and professor, owner of Sandy
Point lighthouse
Frank Zanetti, 24, detective sergeant
Amik Ziibaang, 40s, Ojibwe shaman
Peter Red Crow, 19, Ojibwe farmer
Simon Red Crow, 24, Ojibwe farmer, rescued from unknown assailants by
Peter and Chris
Maggi Red Crow, mother to Peter and Simon
Shout out to Mike! Thanks for encouragement. In this chapter, Chris, Frank, and the Red Crow brothers celebrate their safe return. All does not go quite as planned, but there 's hope for the future. Goran: goranbixo@aol.com
Help keep nifty stories free! Check out: donate.nifty.org/
Maggie Red Crow waited on the dock at Burntside Lodge from dawn to dusk, expecting Peter 's return. Frank had told her about the Calendar Mystery: Twelve young men gone missing, including Simon. She dared not hope for Simon 's return, fearing that hope might bring bad luck. Scenes of returning canoeists are common in the Boundary Waters, so when Maggie saw three figures in a canoe crossing the water at a distance, she assumed it was someone else. Only when they reached the channel between the dock and the "Hamm 's commercial " island did she see that the man in steerage looked like Simon. She believed when Peter shouted, "Look, Mom! It 's Simon! "
Maggie prepared a dinner to celebrate Simon 's return; not a fatted calf, as in Jesus 's parable, but pot roast, which is close enough. Peter Red Crow and Chris Josephson were already there. Amik Ziibaang and Frank drove up to Burntside for the occasion.
Won 't this be awkward, Chris at dinner with rivals for his affection?
"I 've already had him, " Frank said. He had transferred his affections to Sebastian, at least for the present.
"I 've already had him, " Peter Red Crow echoed.
Simon hadn 't had him, but because he saved his life, he owed him more than passing friendship.
Amik Ziibaang had already had him, but he had outgrown the silliness of youth. He explained Chris 's underwater mishap as allegory: "Manitou designed this adventure for you. It was your descent into the Underworld. You 're destined to be a shaman. "
Frank 's interest in Simon was mainly professional. As the captive who got away, Simon had first-hand knowledge of the culprits in the Calendar Mystery. There would be time to interview him later, if he could be persuaded to return to Duluth.
After dinner, Chris, Frank, and the Red Crow brothers gathered on the dock, dressed in blue- jeans and flannel shirts, against the chill of a September evening. They passed pot in a circle while white pines swayed in the autumn breeze on the "Hamm 's commercial " island. Marijuana fueled their candor when they broached the topic of romance. Peter reported a rumor that Frank was making time with Sebastian, showing him around campus, taking him to Ingmar Bergman movies. Courting him.
"Gay guys are such gossips when they get together, " Frank laughed.
Another pot-laden cigarette made the rounds.
"How about a foursome? " Simon proposed.
"A foursome with Red Crows in charge, " Peter replied. Having already made it with Chris, he had a queer eye for Frank. "Two doms, two subs. The doms are us. "
"That would be novel, " Chris chuckled at the impossible fiction.
"Synchronized sex, " Frank quipped.
Fueled by pot and testosterone, Frank launched into a fantastical comparison of Chris 's anatomy to pastry, based on details that Chris had told about the Swedish practice of fika. "His ass is double-mounded, creamy-buttered with a pinkish red cherry. "
"Redder and rounder when I bagged him, " Peter Red Crow bragged.
"What 's fika? " Simon wondered.
"Coffee with pastry, every mid-morning and mid-afternoon, " Chris explained. "Last summer in Sweden, my cousin Goran Bixo prepared an itinerary for our journey through Jämtland; to places off-grid for American tourists. "
Jämtland. Home of his ancestors. Plenty of room to knock around there. Only Lapland has more land and less people.
"We saw sights that Swedes like to visit, " Chris continued. Goran 's detailed itinerary was vague about where we would have breakfast and dinner. He omitted lunch altogether, but was quite specific about where we would stop for morning and afternoon fika. He knew all the pastry shops in the county. "
"In Sweden, pastry is one of the fine arts, " Frank remarked to the Red Crow brothers, who gazed at tight denim and loose flannel, his jeans and his shirt, imagining Frank unensconced in fabric.
"Goran was amusing about fika, " Chris continued. "He said he was writing a book on `The Philosophy of Fika '. Apparently, he is. In the first chapter, he offers tips on selecting pastry based on color, design, and the fragrance of cinnamon or ginger or almond. Only one pastry is permitted at fika, so one must choose wisely. He who chooses a second will hear the clink of eyebrows going up and down. Then, there 's the transcendence of fika. One savory bite into pastry sends a Swede into a trance, staring into space in fika-meditation. There 's a Freudian chapter on dreaming of fika, and another on the symptoms of fika-withdrawal: the jitters that occur when a Swede is deprived of coffee and pastry, especially in the afternoon. Another on
Midnight Fika ', whether it 's permissible. Apparently, it isn 't. Beware of false prophets who misconstrue the true meaning of fika, that 's another chapter. Diverse tastes in coffee and pastry are explored in a survey of Fika Dialects ' county by county. Does Jämtland have four fika- dialects or eight? These correspond to dialect divisions disputed by linguists. Which leads to a chapter on `Tronds Fika ', where pastry is Norwegian because North Jämtland was settled by migrants from Trondheim. It 's a national debate. Is Tronds fika authentically Swedish? Historically not, but the Swedes, as tolerant as any Dutchman, accept Tronds into the family, although Norway would gladly take it back. "
It was time to change the subject, which Peter Red Crow did by praising the hirsute beauty of Frank, "Mediterranean sculpture overgrown with fuzz. Nips erect as pin-heads. Maybe a well- placed twitch will stimulate his ass to hunger for dick, " he said. "But you haven 't yet seen the lower landscape, have you, Simon? "
After months of captivity in some makeshift harem, a tale as yet untold, Simon Red Crow suffered PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder. Peter and Chris saw this when they found Simon sleeping at their feet in the tent. He ran in panic at the sound of a rifle-shot. Still, he recovered when he rescued Chris from drowning.
Amik Ziibaang assigned Simon the task of teaching the Ojibwe language to Chris. This could be done in two years, if they lived together and studied intensely. Simon protested that he was just a farmer with a high school education. How could he be a teacher?
"You 're a native speaker. That makes you an expert, " Chris assured him. "As a native speaker, you know all there is to know about Ojibwe. If your knowledge needs a bit of organization, I can help with that. "
Chris was familiar with the medieval notion of `fourfold meaning '. On this occasion, he declared that the rescue of Simon, and Simon 's rescue of him, should be narrated as a text in Ojibwe history. "The event has four levels of meaning, " he said: "literal, allegorical, ethical, and anagogical. " He recited a Latin jingle that he used in his Chaucer course:
Littera gesta docet,
Quod credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas,
Quo tendas anagogia.
"At the literal level, Simon was heroic when he rescued me from drowning. It proves he can rise above adversity.
"At the allegorical level, our adventure was sent by Manitou to unite me with Simon in brotherhood. That 's why the Great Spirit calls us to live together. "
"On the ethical level, in Latin called `moralia ', our adventure calls Simon to teach, and me to learn. Teaching and learning are obligations that will bring us to the study of Ojibwe texts and rituals.
"On the anagogical level, in Latin quo tendas ', which means which way we should tend ', the conk on the head that knocked sent me unconscious to the bottom of the lake, that was my descent into the Underworld. For a man of two spirits to become a shaman, he must experience a descent into the Underworld, a symbolic death. Our adventure fulfills the initiation that a shaman requires. My `quo tendas ', the way I should tend, is to follow the path of a shaman. "
"Spoken like a shaman, " Amik said. "Your words confirm that Manitou has chosen you. "
A peyote ritual requires the presence of a shaman. Chris wasn 't yet a shaman, but close enough, Amik Ziibang declared when he disbursed eight peyote pellets to the foursome, two for each man. "But Chris and Frank, " he cautioned, "if your bodies prove to be unaccustomed to peyote, limit yourselves to one pellet. "
The four men sported in the bedroom while Amik and Maggie Red Crow engaged in quiet conversation at the dining room table. When the foursome got rambunctious, Amik and Maggie took a walk along the shore of Burntside Lake, not wishing to overhear anatomical details that might be disclosed by romping voices above them.
The carnival started with an anatomical inspection of Frank and Chris while they stood side by side, legs apart, leaning on each other for support during the onset of peyote-induced wooziness and visions of many colors. The brothers outdid each other, exploring the attributes of their chosen partners, Simon with Chris, and Peter with Frank, naming the parts that they rummaged with touches and kisses from head to toe. "Rhetoric in action, " Chris called it, "an exercise in effictio, " but then he had to explain what he meant: "It 's head-to-toe description, comparing hair to gold filament or black ermine, eyes to the blue of sapphires or the brown of rainfrest agates, and so on. "
The state of Minnesota paid Chris to be poetically inclined. Like a master of ceremonies in a spectacle of nudity, he pronounced fantastical conceits while the Red Crow brothers rummaged their respective prizes: Peter with Frank, and Simon with Chris:
"Item: Lips. One pair is fulsome. Luscious Mediterranean temptations. The other, delicate Nordic lines. "
Frank 's kiss made Peter feel randy. The kiss of Simon and Chris was romantic. The scene was about to get rauchy, fueled by peyote, but rauch was no barrier to romance. At least, not for them.
"Item: Chest forested in mystery like the Boundary Waters, or sculpted smooth like North Shore boulders. "
Peter ran his tongue over Frank 's chest and chomped a clutch of hair, pulling it out with his teeth. Simon ran both hands over the chest of his prize, squeezing the smooth musculature of his breasts.
"Item: Nips like hatpins, exotically ornamented with brown pearls imported fresh from Tahiti. The other with nips broad as parka buttons. "
Peter copped a feel of Frank 's brown pearly hatpins. Simon clapped his teeth around parka buttons while stimulating Chris 's butt with a finger.
"Item: Mediterranean torso, darker than any Ojibwe, and mine is fair like the dunes on Sandy Point. "
The Ojibwe brothers fondled their designated partners from clavicle to groin, not omitting a deep exploration of armpits.
"Item: Navel mysteriously hidden in a thicket of hair; or seductively smooth like a tidal pool on the North Shore. "
Two Ojibwe tongues penetrated the prized navels, simulating a deeper penetration that Peter lusted for and Simon longed for.
"Item: Buttocks. Hirsute and rough-hewn, exuding the masculine principle in nature. The other, radiant like two moons. "
Peter delivered a possessive swat to each of Frank 's buttocks. Simon handled Chris 's butt with a seductive slide, using both hands to separate the radiant moons.
"Item: Cleavage. One is a forest trail leading by indirection to a virginal sacred spring. The other, a garden path pointing the way to a delicate pink rosebud. "
"It all depends on whether you 're a forester or a gardener, " Simon quipped. Peter ran his hand down the forest trail. Simon took the garden path. Were they in search of a sacred spring, or a flourishing rose?
"Item: Shaft. One like the tower of Lebanon, three shades darker than the complexion of his torso. The other a Tower of David, ivory and purply-veined. "
Peter frigged Frank. Simon frigged Chris. The Ojibwe brothers guided their partners into a frontal sword-fight in which Frank was the undeclared winner.
"Item: Scrotum loose, with the texture of gunny, with balls hanging free, the left one visibly lower than the right. Or a silky-smooth sack, tight and distinctively bifurcated by a delicate pink sea, that knits the testes into a tight pair. "
The Ojibwe brothers turned show-me empirical on this one. With close observation and gentle handling, they took turns proving the truth of Chris 's anatomical commentary.
"Item: Thighs and legs equally muscular, one hirsute, the other smooth. " Chris, the smooth- skinned specimen, is taller. "
"Item: ten toes, " Simon said playfully. He knelt at Chris 's right side, lifted his lower leg, and sucked on the toes.
Peter was expected to do the same to Frank. After some hesitation, he did it. "I 've got something you haven 't got. A foreskin, " he bragged, meaning Frank 's. "It 's long and loose to match the gunnysack texture of his scrotum. "
"I 've got something you haven 't got, " Simon countered: "Tan lines. "
"You can 't dock with tan lines, " Peter replied. He proved his point by stretching Frank 's foreskin over Ojibwe cockhead and halfway up the shaft. Simon did the same, following Peter 's example. Chris did it, too.
Their game of `effictio ' continued in this vein. Comedic objectification. A psychological domain that differentiates gay men from women. An objectified woman feels degraded, even when she 's dressed for it, but a gay man accepts admiration as a sex object. No me-too movement for gay men, except for one or two nut-cases.
The brothers prepared their partners for insemination by rimming them while they leaned over the bed on opposite sides, facing each other so they could lock arms and lips in harmony with anteater-action in their holes. Analingus, to be followed by synchronized penetration.
Suddenly, Frank withdrew from the action. "Sorry, guys, I can 't do this, " he said. He left the room, got dressed, and joined Amik Ziibaang and Vera on their walk along the shore of Burntside Lake.
"Don 't be offended, guys, " Chris said. "Frank is a virgin. He wasn 't ready for this. Besides, he 's saving his cherry for someone else. "
"He 's a virgin? " Peter asked. "I didn 't know. " Much as he liked sex-play, he understood that for a classy guy like Frank, the sacrifice of virginity should be an intimacy meant for two. In the forum of a foursome, first-time penetration would have been perfunctory and "too public, like a frog. "
"He did his bit for our scene by lending his foreskin, " Simon remarked. "We 've got no call to expect more. "
Simon flattened Chris 's body and fucked from behind. Peter realized that his brother was in love with Chris. He would have seen this sooner, were it not the distraction of the foursome and the effect of peyote. He resigned the field of combat, leaving the lovebirds to their nest. He fell asleep in the adjacent bedroom.
During months of captivity, Simon had been abused by hateful captors in ways too painful to describe. After his escape, he lived as a solitary wild man of the woods ' for weeks. Now, at last, he was free, and loved. He poured into Chris his pent-up sex drive, his lust fueled by anatomical exploration in their game of effictio ', the effect of peyote, and a new-found romance: a fourfold liquefaction of energy. Any one of those four would have been sufficient for intercourse, but possession of all four gave Simon the thrust of five senses plus the horsepower of procreation, arguably a sixth sense. Through his erect penis, Simon 's six senses absorbed a love like no other when he orgazzed and felt a velvety constriction in their shared love-canal, moistened to silken slickness by his semen. Velvet and silk. To which was added the satisfaction of planting a profusion of Ojibwe seed in the body of the man he had meant to possess, but who, by some incomprehensible process, possessed him.
Nor did Peter Red Crow get off easy when he awoke to the fumbling of bedcovers. Frank crawled into bed. Before long, they were locked in a silent embrace. Peter would have chosen for himself the same role that Simon played with Chris. As it happened, Frank flipped him. With this turning of tables, Peter would have wished for a smaller size, but couldn 't resist the retrofit of his inner sanctum to accommodate nine inches of Italian stallion. Frank racked up another sorely satisfied lover on his scoreboard of creds as a top, no thought being given (on this occasion) to Sebastian, who would have to wait.
1