Chapter 12: The Phone Call

September 1979 — Hovås/Göteborg, Sweden

On Monday morning, the first day of school, I began the routine that would last until the first day below freezing — I jogged, showered, dressed, ate breakfast, then walked to the bus stop. I met Freda there, and she introduced me to two friends of hers who were in the same grade she was but at different schools. Pavel was a Russian immigrant who had been in Sweden for four years, and Åke who was Swedish. They were both in their last year of High School and planned to go to University the following year, Pavel to study chemistry and Åke to study civil engineering.

I followed the route that I had with Anders, taking the #2 Tram from Linnéplatsen to Vasaplatsen, in front of Schillerska. I found the homeroom I’d been assigned to and grabbed a seat next to a short, stocky guy with brown hair and glasses. He introduced himself as Lars-Gunnar Peterson, but said to call him Helge. I watched as the students filtered in to the room and saw quite a few pretty girls. By the time the bell rang to start class, I had counted twenty-two girls and seven guys, including myself. I couldn’t believe my luck!

Class started on time and after the roll was taken, Mr. Helstrand asked me, in English, to introduce myself to the class. I used a few Swedish phrases but mostly spoke in English. When I was finished, he corrected me on one thing — I had called him ‘Mr. Helstrand’ and he said students usually called their teachers either «magister», which meant teacher, or by their first names. He then asked the rest of the students to quickly give their names and where they lived.

High Schools in Sweden were ‘magnet’ schools in that they attracted students from all over the region, and were not community-based. There were no students in the class from Hovås, or even on my same bus line. The girls in the class ranged from the very dark-haired Lotta and Katarina to the brunette Suzanne and the flaxen Eriksson twins, Margaretha and Christina. The guys ranged from the very Italian-looking Ulf to the almost white-haired Bengt.

Unlike at Milford High, we would have all of our classes together, except for our chosen foreign languages. When the rest of the class was in their Swedish class and their foreign language, I’d walk over to a government building and take my two-hour Swedish for Immigrants course. Other than that, I would have math, chemistry, gym, history and English, the latter being in addition to the other foreign languages being studied by someone in the class — Spanish, German, French, and Chinese.

The schedule was set up so that there was a free period for the students, based on which language they were taking. My schedule was Math, Swedish, Free Period, Foreign Language, Lunch, Gym, Chemistry, English and History. Because of my special schedule, it meant that I would have a Free Period with the students studying Spanish, German, and Chinese. Once the Swedish for Immigrants class ended, I’d be taking Swedish, which I thought would be interesting because the class mostly involved reading Swedish literature and poetry.

The first week flew by, but there was one embarrassing event. The gorgeous brunette Suzanne leaned over during Math class on Thursday and asked me a question in English.

“Steve, do you have a rubber?” she asked.

I had no idea why I turned bright crimson, but Helge laughed and came to my rescue.

“Steve, you call them erasers in the US!” he chuckled.

I handed Suzanne my eraser and wanted to crawl under my desk. Helge explained that «suddgummi» in Swedish was ‘eraser’, but that «gummi» could be translated as ‘rubber’, but Swedes tended to just use the word «kondom» for the prophylactic. Given that Suzanne was one of the most beautiful girls in the class, I’d actually have preferred the other meaning!

Other than that incident, things went well. I began to learn names and get used to the schedule. Helge translated for me in class, which was quite helpful. He was a top student, so he had no difficulty translating and keeping up. At lunch, I sat with Helge, a blonde girl named Elizabeth Molander and Suzanne, whose last name was Fjällman. As Patrick had warned, lunch did include boiled potatoes every day.

I also hung out with Elizabeth during our free period and met her friend Torbjörn Bernhardsson, who was at Schillerska but in N1b, the companion class to our N1a. He and I hit it off right away, and he invited me to hang out on Friday night at his parents’ apartment, which was less than a block from Linnéplatsen, where I could catch the bus home.

Thursday evening, I received a call from Petra asking if I wanted to go ice skating with her and Sofia on Saturday afternoon. I told her ‘yes’ and insisted that she invite Tomas. She laughed and said ‘OK’, and that he had been teasing her a lot less over the past week. I’d take those small victories with him!

Friday after school, I headed over to Torbjörn’s and had dinner with his family. We hung out in his room and he introduced me to «Kalle Anka», as Donald Duck was known in Swedish. I found out that Swedes were completely nuts about Donald Duck and he lent me several comic books. It was odd reading Donald Duck and his nephews and Uncle Scrooge in Swedish, but I figured it was a good way to learn. Torbjörn let me know that on Christmas Eve they showed a Donald Duck special on television that basically the entire country watched!

I was really happy to find out that first week that both Torbjörn and Helge were really nice guys. The other guys in my class seemed to fit the jerk stereotype, but these two certainly didn’t. Torbjörn’s best friend was Elizabeth — they had been friends since they were five. Helge wasn’t interested in girls and reminded me of Larry in that way. These were two guys I wanted to hang out with.

On Saturday, I met Sofia, Petra, and Tomas at the bus stop and we headed to the ice rink. All three of them were much better at skating than I was, and Petra was having a good time skating circles around me, teasing me and otherwise being silly. I did practice skating backwards and turning back to front, but I was still a bit unsteady. Tomas took pity on me and was helping while the girls were teasing. It was all good natured, and we had a lot of fun. We had coffee at a small café near the rink and took the bus back home.

I walked Sofia home, and she kissed me goodbye at her door and said she would call me when she could have the house to herself, but it wasn’t as easy as during the Summer when her parents were working and she wasn’t in school. I reminded her she could come up to the Jonssons, but she said she’d rather do that kind of thing with nobody else around. I understood that she didn’t want anything getting back to her dad. We agreed on another ice skating outing in two weeks given I’d be gone the next weekend.

On Sunday, Patrick, Suzana, and I played in a teen ‘best ball’ golf tournament. Suzana and Patrick were both much better than I was, so I didn’t contribute much except encouragement and companionship. I was getting along better with Suzana and Patrick noticed. It turned out that being nice worked pretty well. Sadly, Patrick treated the girls around him like the other Swedish guys his age and I couldn’t make any headway in convincing him that being nice was a better way.

I suspected the reason for that was that he was extremely good looking, in great shape, and seemed to have his pick of girls in his class. If it was working for him, why would he change? Unlike Tomas, he had a decent relationship with his sisters, so he didn’t have that motivation. Because Patrick was always cool with me, I just let it go. He was more brother than friend and I was used to dealing with Jeff, so getting along with Patrick was actually pretty easy.

Anders and Eva had come to cheer us on and Anders spent the entire eighteen holes drinking beer. I noticed that he got a bit nasty when he was drunk. That didn’t strike me as a good thing, and it didn’t strike me as good that a doctor drank as much as he did. I had talked briefly with Freda about drinking and she said that a lot of Swedish guys drank, even before they turned eighteen. She told me that I’d probably see that at the first class party. That party was coming up in two weeks.

The second week of school, I started the Swedish for Immigrants course. The instructor was a Swedish woman in her mid-30s named Erika Lindfors. The class had nine others, three of whom were from Iran, two from Russia, one from Poland, and three from Germany. I was surprised to find that Erika spoke English, Russian, Polish, Farsi, and German, in addition to Swedish!

I had a head-start on the course because of the YFU-provided training in Falkenberg, so the first week was mostly review. Erika gave me some extra worksheets to do because I finished the lessons in the workbook quickly. She asked if I could stay for thirty minutes after class each day and she would work with me on speaking to try to get me up to speed as quickly as possible. Because I had the free time, I told her I’d really appreciate it. We’d be joined by a young Iranian woman as well, who was also in school, though a year ahead of me.

A few of the girls in my class at Schillerska, Suzanne, Margaretha and Christina Eriksson, and Annie Martinsen, along with Helge, started pushing me to use as much Swedish as possible. At lunch they would first say something in Swedish, and if I didn’t understand, would repeat it, then ask me which words I didn’t know. Helge also gave me a dozen children’s picture books that had simple sentences on each page with the illustrations. All of this extra help was going to pay off, I was sure.

On Friday, I took my overnight bag with me, and when school was out, headed to the train station for the train to Helsingborg. I had a bit of a wait and didn’t get into Helsingborg until close to 11:00pm. Rolf and Pia met me at the station and we went back to the Anderbergs’, where Pia would stay the night. Pia and I went directly to bed and made slow, gentle love before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

On Saturday after I jogged my old route, and we had breakfast, Pia and I spent the day in Helsingborg, walking around, checking out shops, drinking coffee, having lunch, and otherwise just enjoying each other’s company. We went back to her house for dinner after stopping at the Anderberg’s for my overnight bag, and I thanked Rolf for letting me stay the night before and told him I’d see him later in the year. I let him know that the next visit would be after Pia’s trip to Göteborg for the ABBA concert, probably in November.

We had a nice dinner at Pia’s with her parents and Lisbet. Her parents left to go to a movie and Pia and I watched TV, drank tea, and caught up on what had been going on in our lives. She told me that she had met a guy the previous week and he had asked her out. I told her to go and have a good time, remembering my conversations with Jennifer and Birgit. I told her if it developed into anything, just tell me and we’d figure out where to go from there. She seemed relieved when I said that.

We talked more about our relationship and it was clear that if I was not going home in nine months, she’d be interested in seeing if we had long-term potential. Because that wasn’t the case, she would take my advice and go on a date with this guy who was a twenty-one-year-old college student named Johan. I didn’t say it, but I hoped they didn’t become an item, at least until after I went home, because I’d really miss seeing Pia. I’d grown very comfortable being with her, and we had a lot of fun, both in and out of bed.

Around 10:00pm, we put our cups in the sink and went to get ready for bed. Lisbet had been pretty good about not teasing all evening and had mostly stayed in her room. Now, she came out of the bathroom wearing tiny pale blue lace panties that left nothing to the imagination and a half-shirt that barely covered her breasts.

“«Pia, är du säker på att jag inte kan få låna honom?»” (“Pia, are you sure I can’t borrow him?”)

“«Fråga honom, det är ju hans beslut i alla fall.»” (“Ask him, it’s up to him in the end.”)

“Steve, Pia said I should ask you if I could borrow you!”

She was pretty good looking, but this reminded me far too much of the Connie situation back home.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said. “You’re sexy, but Pia has said ‘no’ every time, so I think that’s the correct answer.”

Pia smiled, “«Jag hade inget att oroa mig för!»” (“I had nothing to worry about!”)

“Of course, if I could have you both together...” I smirked.

“No!” they both said, laughing.

Lisbet made a silly pout face and went into her room.

Pia and I finished getting ready for bed and went to her room.

“You were being silly about that comment about me and Lisbet, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was. She’s been teasing you, so I wanted to tease back.”

“Isn’t that every guy’s fantasy, though?”

“Yes, it is, but you know I’ve already done it. It was just teasing, unless, of course, you want to do it!” I smirked.

“No, I don’t!” she giggled. “But I do want to do this...”

She pushed me down on the bed and pulled off my shorts, and quickly sucked me until I was hard. She straddled me and impaled herself on me and began slowly moving up and down, grinding into me when she took me fully inside her. I reached up and put my hands on her breasts and squeezed, then began tracing my fingers over her nipples, occasionally tweaking them. Pia began moving faster and grinding harder and exhaled hard as her pussy gripped my dick and she had her first orgasm.

When her orgasm passed, she leaned down, her nipples just lightly grazing my chest and kissed me hard while she ground into me, sliding back and forth with me fully engulfed in her soft, silky tunnel. She had her second orgasm, but didn’t stop grinding, extending it as long as she could.

“Keep doing that same thing!” I said softly into her ear. “I’m not close. You can probably have at least two more before I cum.”

She continued grinding herself into me and we kissed deeply. I grabbed both her butt cheeks and squeezed while she continued to ride me. I released her butt, pushed her up slightly and took one of her luscious breasts into my mouth to suck and lash her nipple with my tongue. She came almost immediately, groaning as her pussy spasmed around me.

“Steve! Please cum in me!”

“Get yourself close again, then when you are there, move up and down hard on me, OK?”

She continued grinding for a few minutes, then began furiously humping up and down. I sucked hard on her nipple and twirled my tongue around it. I was very close and when she came, she arched her back hard, pulled her nipple from my mouth, and the hard squeeze from her orgasm caused me to fire jet after jet hard into her.

She stopped moving and lay down on top of me, my dick still inside of her, our sweaty bodies touching along their whole length. My erection softened, and I slipped out of her, but I continued to hold her tight for several minutes.

“I can give you more with my mouth if you want,” I offered.

“Are you sure? I have your stuff in me.”

“Yes! We could do 69, if you want.”

She smiled and turned, placing her dripping pussy over my mouth and taking my soft dick into her mouth. I pulled her down onto me and began licking her labia, then found her clit and began teasing it with my tongue. This caused Pia to push her pussy harder into me and I tongued her clit until she tensed and groaned around my now hard dick. She was bobbing up and down on my dick, using her tongue to stimulate me and applying gentle sucks when she bobbed up. Her hand went to my balls, and she applied gentle pressure, which brought me right to the edge. I continued licking and sucking her pussy as she gave a hard suck on me, causing me to cum and fire several spurts into her mouth.

I pushed gently on her hip and she moved off me, turned and we French kissed deeply, savoring our joint taste. I moved my hand to her mons and inserted two fingers into her and with a bit of pressure on her clit and the movement of my fingers brought her to another orgasm.

She collapsed next to me at that point, and I pulled her to me to cuddle her, our sweaty bodies touching, her head on my chest and her breasts pressing into me. We fell asleep once again with the bed coverings completely tangled around us.

Sunday morning I woke early, as was the norm, and decided to forego my run to stay in bed with the beautiful girl who was snuggled close to me. I’d be leaving in a few hours and didn’t want to spend any time away from her. Around 7:30am Pia woke, and we got out of bed. She smiled and took my hand and led me to the bathroom and pulled me into the stall shower with her. We kissed and then washed each other, rubbing our wet bodies together repeatedly.

While we were in there, Lisbet came into the bathroom.

“Looks like fun! Is there room for me?” she teased.

“No!” Pia declared smugly.

Lisbet left after brushing her teeth and we shut off the water and grabbed towels from the rack, dried off, and went back to Pia’s room wrapped in towels to get dressed.

“Did you leave the door to the bathroom unlocked on purpose?” I asked.

“Yes, but not because of why you think! We only lock it if we are using the toilet. Otherwise, we share the bathroom. Besides, the shower has glass you can’t see through.”

I smiled and shook my head.

We had breakfast and then sat and drank coffee and chatted with her parents. I was getting better at following the Swedish parts of the conversation, though I was still having quite a bit of trouble with vocabulary. That would come with time and practice.