Winter Heat - Excerpt from "Löyly"
There’s something sensual and erotic about bodies bound together by tendrils of steam, about pressed flesh that burns defiantly against the wind and snows of Winter. During this time of year when we might find the close proximity of sweatered crowds oppressive as we drag through malls shopping for the holidays, take a break and enjoy a different kind of heat, a more satisfying flagellation than that provided by biting anxiety driven by seasonal obligations.
Löyly is Finnish for ‘spirit’ and also for the steam that is produced by water sprinkled on hot rocks in a sauna (the other Finnish invention-predating Nokia cell phone technology!). There’s a reason for the dual meaning, and if you’ve ever enjoyed a true Finnish sauna, you understand the harmony and freedom found in the steam and in the birch-branch flagellation that opens the pores and the soul, and fills the air with fragrant delight.
“Löyly” is the opening story in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. I hope you enjoy the excerpt. If you do, I bet you’ll like the entire anthology.
I swam for an hour then I dragged my pruned body out of the pool, showered in the little changing room, and stepped back out on the deck to stand transfixed by the vista beyond the foggy windows. While annoyed by the shitty weather, I loved the beauty and serenity of the snowfall. The large flakes drifted down completely at the whim of whatever wind might blow. Some fell heavy, wet, like obese calcified raindrops, others drifted to the ground in intricate Zen paths.
The perfect blanket over the ground amazed me. Painted green, the smoothness of the carpet would have been the envy of Augusta National.
Except for the quickly filling divots leading off into the veil. Footprints made not long ago, headed toward what?
The sauna. Someone apparently had a GPS and had found the temple of Sorrow Cove.
The grin started in my belly, and without a moment’s analysis, I wrapped my robe around myself, scuffed on my rubber clogs and found the door leading outside. The blast of cold air almost made me run back to my room, but I had to do this, I had to beat the elements, had to take control of the vacation I’d never wanted but had inherited. If this trip was going to have any meaning, I needed to make it my own – not let it stay Jeff’s irrelevancy.
The snow kissed my hair and clung to my robe, the cold air keeping it from melting right away. My breath sprayed in front of me like fueled smoke as I squinted against the fall to focus on the little shack, the destination of the quickly filling tracks.
When I reached the little building, I pulled the door open, praying I’d not find hedge trimmers and jugs of pesticide. My prayers were answered with a vision -- glorious, living sculpture.
Rodin. Michelangelo.
Sculpted thighs, corded arms, pecs, abs, a brooding countenance.
And not one beautiful inch concealed by clothing.
“The door. You let the steam out.”
Steam? Out? No, I thought as I let the closing door slap me in the butt. All the steam must be in here, boiling my blood, peaking my heartbeat. Surely I was producing enough heat now to replace any that had escaped in smoky plumes through the open door.
Naked. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—” I turned quickly, fumbling for the door latch.
“No, please stay.” Not the Yooper accent of the locals. Dutch, maybe? “Welcome.”
Beyond the door – snow and another gutter ball on the score card. I could do this. I had to do this.
I turned back around and smiled, feeling a little foolish as Adonis pulled a towel over his groin. Damn.
He jutted his chin toward the wall and I saw a row of wooden pegs. A thick moss-green robe hung from one of the pegs and I quickly removed my own robe and hung it beside his.
The small room was completely made of wood – smooth slats of cedar covered the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the two-level bench. Adonis sat at one end of the lower bench beside what looked like a stove filled with large grey and brown rocks. A bucket of water sat at his feet.
He leaned over and dipped a ladle into the water and looked over his shoulder at me. “Sit,” he nodded to the bench. I tried to look casual as I took a seat a comfortable distance from him and watched as he poured the water over the rocks.
Steam rose from the hot stones, quickly dissipating. Heat bloomed in the room and I found myself smiling.
Adonis sat back on the bench and looked at me. Small beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip. What would he do if I offered to lick the sweat off? He reached out a long-fingered hand. “I am Matias. Matias Toskala.”
I grinned and gripped his hand in a polite shake. “Andie Fortner.” Naked. Only a tenuous scrap of terry stood between us. “I’m really sorry about barging in. I didn’t know,” my voice trailed off as my cheeks burned.
“I was not expecting anyone else, but it is okay. Naked is best for sauna.” He brushed long light brown bangs from his forehead.
“It is?” Smooth, Andie.
“Tradition. Back home, saunas are enjoyed bare, though not often men and women together.”
“Where’s home?”
“Helsinki, Finland. I teach at university and am here to lecture at the school in Hancock.”
“I’d say you’re a long way from home but considering the weather and the fact that we’re in a sauna, I guess I’m the alien here.” If my accent didn’t scream Dixie draft, Dolly Parton would weep.
He laughed softly, his smile genuine and disarming. “Do you know about saunas?”
“I know they’re hot, and make you sweat, but that’s about all – oh, and that they are best experienced naked.” I said with a grin.
Naked. He wasn’t putting the moves on me, and he was comfortable with his own nakedness. What the hell? I’d dashed through a blizzard to reach this shack, and if a real live Finn was telling me naked was the way to go, well tan lines be damned, naked was what I was going to be.
If my knees would hold me up.
I stood and slid the straps of my one piece off my shoulders and in a momentary flood of courage, peeled the wet material off my body in one hopefully graceful movement. I waited for the high school marching band to burst through the doors and seal my embarrassment, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the shock of my spontaneity melted like butter into an odd ease. I walked back over to the peg where my robe hung, and deposited my suit. It was the turning back around and walking the two steps to my towel that seemed unreasonable.
Deep breath, racing heart, I made that turn and took my seat again. I looked at Matias with a broad smile. He was watching me, all of me, but there was no leer in his eyes, just calm appraisal.
“So, naked’s best. What else about saunas?”
His eyebrow quirked, but his face remained passive. He took up the ladle again and poured more water over the stones. There was a little mist, but the steam quickly filled the room with more heat. “That is löyly – steam – but it means more. Löyly is also spirit.”
“The sauna has a spirit?”
“It can be said, yes.” He poured another ladle over the rocks. As the heat washed over me, my bones turned to putty and every pore in my skin sighed.
I smiled. Better spirit than the bourbon I drank the night before.
Matias moved his towel aside. I tried not to stare but his cock bounced attractively as he rose from his seat. Reaching to the wall, he took what appeared to be a small tree limb from its hook. On the long branches, bright green leaves shone with moisture. “This is a vihta – birch leaves. We beat the skin with the branches.”
“Beat?”
He gave the gathered branches a little shake, then stretched across his opposite shoulder to swat his back. More attractive bouncing and I really had to resist reaching out to touch him.
“They stimulate the skin,” he held the branches out to me.
“Okay,” I said without much conviction, but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.
I tried to wrap my hand around the gathered stems, but the individual thin branches seemed determined to flop their own way in spite of the straw binding at the base.
He chuckled again and reached for the branches. “Here,” he said, taking the vihta in a masterful hand that had the branches sliding into submission. He dipped the leaves into another bucket of water then smiled at me. “Turn away, and pull your hair back. You will see.”
See what, I wondered as I did as he said. Naked and alone with a naked man about to be flayed with a tree. I could see the postcard to my mother now.
Blood pounded in my veins and pooled suspiciously in my belly. Anticipation added an edge of tension and vulnerability before the bright shock of the strike. It wasn’t hard, but the leaves laced my skin with firm control, a lush wetness and a shimmer of sting that slashed my back with an awakening charge of delight. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, the fresh scent of the birch binding me in a cloud of awareness and newfound sensation.
The second strike layered the first, a few leaf tips stroking the backs of my arms and the nape of my exposed neck. The rich cream of arousal mixed with wonder as the birch blessed my skin. My back warmed further, the skin made new with the sharp, green kisses. My mind drifted, like it did after too much wine, and I arched like a cat, my back bowed to invite the next strike, the tender flesh over my ribs and sides of my breasts exposed.
Beads of perspiration and condensation trickled down my sides, under my breasts, and my pussy, exposed to the steam of the sauna, to this bizarre, otherworldly moment, swelled and slicked.
Every inch of my skin hummed with the heat and humidity of the sauna and my mind became the fulcrum between my body and my soul. Desire coursed through me, my pussy anticipating the next strike of the birch with a heartbeat pulse that nearly melted me, my breath matched the rolling press of air, water, and fire.
The next strike sliced my upper back, light nettles bolting sensation from the side of my right breast directly to the untouched nipple. I imagined Mathias’ teeth clamping on the nub, sucking at the nipple, cupping the weight and branding me with his tongue.
I needed his cock. I wanted him in the most savage, most basic way a man and woman connected. I needed him to fuck me. He beat me after all. I willingly sat in this little hut of wet fire and let him strike me with sticks. His balls slapping my ass didn’t seem a stretch.
I leaned far forward, my arms trembling, my breath a rush in my ears, and the birch fell again twice, rapid, the second harder than the first and lashing just across the crack of my ass. Nerves raw, flayed to the feverish temperature of the sauna, the last across the small of my back and the top of my ass tossed me to the edge of orgasm.
I moaned. I barely heard it above the ringing pulse in my ears, my lips, my pussy, but the sound rattled off the wood walls of the sauna.
I dripped from my nose, my arms, my chin, my sex. Every inch of me bloomed and reached, seeking, yet full as I plumped with liquid fire even as I released, renewed, revived. Jeff’s dismissal, my mundane job, the honest absurdity of my being in Michigan in November all faded comfortably into the realm of the inconsequential. All that mattered was the sure pulse of my blood, the heavy drop of my heart, the electric thrill of my nerves. Water collected on my skin, housed me, cleansed me, invigorated me, and I, for the first time in my life, felt everything.
Copyright 2010 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.
Löyly is Finnish for ‘spirit’ and also for the steam that is produced by water sprinkled on hot rocks in a sauna (the other Finnish invention-predating Nokia cell phone technology!). There’s a reason for the dual meaning, and if you’ve ever enjoyed a true Finnish sauna, you understand the harmony and freedom found in the steam and in the birch-branch flagellation that opens the pores and the soul, and fills the air with fragrant delight.
“Löyly” is the opening story in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. I hope you enjoy the excerpt. If you do, I bet you’ll like the entire anthology.
Excerpt from "Löyly"
By Angela Caperton
Published in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Copyright 2010
By Angela Caperton
Published in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Copyright 2010
I swam for an hour then I dragged my pruned body out of the pool, showered in the little changing room, and stepped back out on the deck to stand transfixed by the vista beyond the foggy windows. While annoyed by the shitty weather, I loved the beauty and serenity of the snowfall. The large flakes drifted down completely at the whim of whatever wind might blow. Some fell heavy, wet, like obese calcified raindrops, others drifted to the ground in intricate Zen paths.The perfect blanket over the ground amazed me. Painted green, the smoothness of the carpet would have been the envy of Augusta National.
Except for the quickly filling divots leading off into the veil. Footprints made not long ago, headed toward what?
The sauna. Someone apparently had a GPS and had found the temple of Sorrow Cove.
The grin started in my belly, and without a moment’s analysis, I wrapped my robe around myself, scuffed on my rubber clogs and found the door leading outside. The blast of cold air almost made me run back to my room, but I had to do this, I had to beat the elements, had to take control of the vacation I’d never wanted but had inherited. If this trip was going to have any meaning, I needed to make it my own – not let it stay Jeff’s irrelevancy.
The snow kissed my hair and clung to my robe, the cold air keeping it from melting right away. My breath sprayed in front of me like fueled smoke as I squinted against the fall to focus on the little shack, the destination of the quickly filling tracks.
When I reached the little building, I pulled the door open, praying I’d not find hedge trimmers and jugs of pesticide. My prayers were answered with a vision -- glorious, living sculpture.
Rodin. Michelangelo.
Sculpted thighs, corded arms, pecs, abs, a brooding countenance.
And not one beautiful inch concealed by clothing.
“The door. You let the steam out.”
Steam? Out? No, I thought as I let the closing door slap me in the butt. All the steam must be in here, boiling my blood, peaking my heartbeat. Surely I was producing enough heat now to replace any that had escaped in smoky plumes through the open door.
Naked. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—” I turned quickly, fumbling for the door latch.
“No, please stay.” Not the Yooper accent of the locals. Dutch, maybe? “Welcome.”
Beyond the door – snow and another gutter ball on the score card. I could do this. I had to do this.
I turned back around and smiled, feeling a little foolish as Adonis pulled a towel over his groin. Damn.
He jutted his chin toward the wall and I saw a row of wooden pegs. A thick moss-green robe hung from one of the pegs and I quickly removed my own robe and hung it beside his.
The small room was completely made of wood – smooth slats of cedar covered the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the two-level bench. Adonis sat at one end of the lower bench beside what looked like a stove filled with large grey and brown rocks. A bucket of water sat at his feet.
He leaned over and dipped a ladle into the water and looked over his shoulder at me. “Sit,” he nodded to the bench. I tried to look casual as I took a seat a comfortable distance from him and watched as he poured the water over the rocks.
Steam rose from the hot stones, quickly dissipating. Heat bloomed in the room and I found myself smiling.
Adonis sat back on the bench and looked at me. Small beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip. What would he do if I offered to lick the sweat off? He reached out a long-fingered hand. “I am Matias. Matias Toskala.”
I grinned and gripped his hand in a polite shake. “Andie Fortner.” Naked. Only a tenuous scrap of terry stood between us. “I’m really sorry about barging in. I didn’t know,” my voice trailed off as my cheeks burned.
“I was not expecting anyone else, but it is okay. Naked is best for sauna.” He brushed long light brown bangs from his forehead.
“It is?” Smooth, Andie.
“Tradition. Back home, saunas are enjoyed bare, though not often men and women together.”
“Where’s home?”
“Helsinki, Finland. I teach at university and am here to lecture at the school in Hancock.”
“I’d say you’re a long way from home but considering the weather and the fact that we’re in a sauna, I guess I’m the alien here.” If my accent didn’t scream Dixie draft, Dolly Parton would weep.
He laughed softly, his smile genuine and disarming. “Do you know about saunas?”
“I know they’re hot, and make you sweat, but that’s about all – oh, and that they are best experienced naked.” I said with a grin.
Naked. He wasn’t putting the moves on me, and he was comfortable with his own nakedness. What the hell? I’d dashed through a blizzard to reach this shack, and if a real live Finn was telling me naked was the way to go, well tan lines be damned, naked was what I was going to be.
If my knees would hold me up.
I stood and slid the straps of my one piece off my shoulders and in a momentary flood of courage, peeled the wet material off my body in one hopefully graceful movement. I waited for the high school marching band to burst through the doors and seal my embarrassment, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the shock of my spontaneity melted like butter into an odd ease. I walked back over to the peg where my robe hung, and deposited my suit. It was the turning back around and walking the two steps to my towel that seemed unreasonable.
Deep breath, racing heart, I made that turn and took my seat again. I looked at Matias with a broad smile. He was watching me, all of me, but there was no leer in his eyes, just calm appraisal.
“So, naked’s best. What else about saunas?”
His eyebrow quirked, but his face remained passive. He took up the ladle again and poured more water over the stones. There was a little mist, but the steam quickly filled the room with more heat. “That is löyly – steam – but it means more. Löyly is also spirit.”
“The sauna has a spirit?”
“It can be said, yes.” He poured another ladle over the rocks. As the heat washed over me, my bones turned to putty and every pore in my skin sighed.
I smiled. Better spirit than the bourbon I drank the night before.
Matias moved his towel aside. I tried not to stare but his cock bounced attractively as he rose from his seat. Reaching to the wall, he took what appeared to be a small tree limb from its hook. On the long branches, bright green leaves shone with moisture. “This is a vihta – birch leaves. We beat the skin with the branches.”
“Beat?”
He gave the gathered branches a little shake, then stretched across his opposite shoulder to swat his back. More attractive bouncing and I really had to resist reaching out to touch him.
“They stimulate the skin,” he held the branches out to me.
“Okay,” I said without much conviction, but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.
I tried to wrap my hand around the gathered stems, but the individual thin branches seemed determined to flop their own way in spite of the straw binding at the base.
He chuckled again and reached for the branches. “Here,” he said, taking the vihta in a masterful hand that had the branches sliding into submission. He dipped the leaves into another bucket of water then smiled at me. “Turn away, and pull your hair back. You will see.”
See what, I wondered as I did as he said. Naked and alone with a naked man about to be flayed with a tree. I could see the postcard to my mother now.
Blood pounded in my veins and pooled suspiciously in my belly. Anticipation added an edge of tension and vulnerability before the bright shock of the strike. It wasn’t hard, but the leaves laced my skin with firm control, a lush wetness and a shimmer of sting that slashed my back with an awakening charge of delight. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, the fresh scent of the birch binding me in a cloud of awareness and newfound sensation.
The second strike layered the first, a few leaf tips stroking the backs of my arms and the nape of my exposed neck. The rich cream of arousal mixed with wonder as the birch blessed my skin. My back warmed further, the skin made new with the sharp, green kisses. My mind drifted, like it did after too much wine, and I arched like a cat, my back bowed to invite the next strike, the tender flesh over my ribs and sides of my breasts exposed.
Beads of perspiration and condensation trickled down my sides, under my breasts, and my pussy, exposed to the steam of the sauna, to this bizarre, otherworldly moment, swelled and slicked.
Every inch of my skin hummed with the heat and humidity of the sauna and my mind became the fulcrum between my body and my soul. Desire coursed through me, my pussy anticipating the next strike of the birch with a heartbeat pulse that nearly melted me, my breath matched the rolling press of air, water, and fire.
The next strike sliced my upper back, light nettles bolting sensation from the side of my right breast directly to the untouched nipple. I imagined Mathias’ teeth clamping on the nub, sucking at the nipple, cupping the weight and branding me with his tongue.
I needed his cock. I wanted him in the most savage, most basic way a man and woman connected. I needed him to fuck me. He beat me after all. I willingly sat in this little hut of wet fire and let him strike me with sticks. His balls slapping my ass didn’t seem a stretch.
I leaned far forward, my arms trembling, my breath a rush in my ears, and the birch fell again twice, rapid, the second harder than the first and lashing just across the crack of my ass. Nerves raw, flayed to the feverish temperature of the sauna, the last across the small of my back and the top of my ass tossed me to the edge of orgasm.
I moaned. I barely heard it above the ringing pulse in my ears, my lips, my pussy, but the sound rattled off the wood walls of the sauna.
I dripped from my nose, my arms, my chin, my sex. Every inch of me bloomed and reached, seeking, yet full as I plumped with liquid fire even as I released, renewed, revived. Jeff’s dismissal, my mundane job, the honest absurdity of my being in Michigan in November all faded comfortably into the realm of the inconsequential. All that mattered was the sure pulse of my blood, the heavy drop of my heart, the electric thrill of my nerves. Water collected on my skin, housed me, cleansed me, invigorated me, and I, for the first time in my life, felt everything.
Copyright 2010 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.
Posted by Angela Caperton at 12/11/2011 5:29 PM 
Categories: Smooth, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Angela Caperton, Sexuality, Erotica, Cleis
Tags: Angela Caperton Erotica sexuality Smooth Cleis Rachel Kramer Bussel
Categories: Smooth, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Angela Caperton, Sexuality, Erotica, Cleis
Tags: Angela Caperton Erotica sexuality Smooth Cleis Rachel Kramer Bussel
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