The Discoverer by Jan Kjaerstad

bore onto the right course. ‘Good boy,’ she said with affected heartiness, slapping his thigh, blatantly, only a hair’s-breadth from his groin. ‘No reason to spoil the stars with a flare,’ she said. ‘But take a quick turn on the pump just to be on the safe side.’
    The reefing did not seem to have slowed them down at all. He was trembling as badly as ever. What worried him most of all was the sight of the mountainous waves which came from behind, you could see them a long way off: black walls of water barrelling relentlessly closer. He tried to keep his eyes front, but was constantly having to glance over his shoulder at the giant rollers steaming down on them, the surging foam, the sea trying to lap him up like a thousand-mouthed beast of prey. That swelling roar reminded him – of all things – of organ music. ‘Right Jonas, time to set full sail,’ his father always said when he played organo pleno . But this roar had a sorrowful note to it, like the music for a funeral. Still Julie never faltered. Her set face shone with concentration and what might have been pleasure. More and more, Jonas was wondering what was going to happen when – if – they reached harbour, he fell to day-dreaming about this, he did not know why, but he sat there, terrified out of his wits, like a condemned man with a hard-on, fantasising about how she would rip off his clothes, demand that he take her from behind, like a mountainous billow, wash over and under her, lift her up, again and again. ‘If you don’t sit still I’ll have to put a safety harness on you,’ she yelled, again with that knowing smirk on her face, as he dodged the spray from a huge rogue wave.
    It was getting late. She was taking her bearings from the lighthouses. For a long time he had kept his eye fixed on the Tresteinene light. It was so beautiful , quite unearthly. Mawkishly he thought to himself that his life had begun to flicker, like a light bulb just before it goes out, but the light did not go out, it went on flashing at its set intervals as they sailed passed it and Julie cut across the white sector towards Homlungen light, her eyes darting from side to side. She was keeping a sharp look out for spar buoys, barely visible in the gloom. Jonas held his breath until they had slipped past the lighthouse on its headland and he could see the lights of Skjærhalden.
    He knew what would happen next. She would ride him like she had ridden her boat across the waves, there would be no reefing where he wasconcerned, she would not allow him any slack. She would screw him rigid, on and on until she drained his bilges, making him gurgle from top to toe, pumping him utterly dry. And yet it was not her, the woman, he feared, but himself, the forces he felt stirring within him. As if she had set all his sails, generating a potency he had not known he possessed, a desire that rendered him willing to drown if only he could poke his tongue into that navel; an urge so strong that he would not have been surprised to discover that he was actually still on dry land, on Hvasser, staring at Julie’s belly; to find, in other words, that this whole, crazy boat trip had taken place inside her navel.
    As they glided in to the docks and he noted with relief that it really was Skjærhalden, and not Hvasser, he felt compelled to make a decision. Was his objective – was she, Julie – what he thought, what he hoped, she was? Or was he suffering from another attack of Melankton’s syndrome?
    They were safe in harbour, securely tied up. Just when it looked as though she was about to drag him into the cabin – she had already tossed her cap through the hatch, in what seemed like the first move in a striptease act – he said: ‘Hang on, I need to feel solid ground under my feet first.’ And as she went aft to check the anchor line, he seized the chance to grab his rucksack and climb ashore. He strode off briskly to the bus stop, where the last bus for Fredrikstad was preparing