Wings & Hearts

God it was a nice feeling to be back in normal clothes; for the past three nights Hanna had dressed me up like her own private Barbie doll for ‘Eyes shows, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her that enough was enough until the series of shows was over. Dressed in a knee-length grey skirt with knee-high socks, an argyle sweater and a yellow polo, I could have stepped into any private school in Greater Helsinki and fit right in. But I wasn’t set on being a lurking pedophile - I had to go shopping for Paavo, Jyrki, Hanna and Ville for Christmas (I didn’t have to, but to me such an action was obligatory, just like the thank you notes I had in my purse for the gifts I was to receive).

Jussi had been a sweetheart and invited the lot of us to his house for Christmas dinner - as ‘the lot of us’ were all quite far away from home for the holidays - I had a pair of drumsticks in my bag with a bow around them for him. Not just any drumsticks, though, this pair were to his specifications of how he liked to drum (heavy on the tip, like I understood why that was any good at all), painted black and had a trail of little red vampire bats. I had been extremely proud of the purchase. For Paavo, I had painstakingly tracked down the complete works of Metallica in Treble clef (rather than tabbed for guitar - again, it made no sense, but it mattered to my brother), which also rested in my bag. I had found the most lovely black scarf for Ville - it had metallic threads of assorted colors woven into it - in a children’s shoppe; for Hanna I bought a skimpy black metallic shirt that I was certain she would love (it was black and metallic, for Christ’s sake).

But Jyrki. Shopping for Jyrki was a hell of a problem.

For some reason I couldn’t find a single thing in all of the stores in Helsinki where something he would like could be purchased. Nothing! It was like the man already had everything - so what the hell was I to get him? Lingerie had been suggested, but I had always thought that a stupid gift to get one’s significant other, it would have been more a gift for myself than him and definitely would have sent all the wrong messages about “waiting for the right time.” A gal just had to be careful about that.

Maybe I should just suck it up and make the right rime for myself, I thought as I passed a shop who’s window was filled with studded leather items - the likes of which Jyrki already owned. I sighed and sparked up a cigarette, letting the smoke fill my lungs as I waited to be able to cross the street.

As I began to cross, I saw a familiar shape in the distance - tall, with curly brown hair shrouded in a cloud of smoke, Valo was a distance ahead of me in the crowd. I dragged the scarf I had gotten him from around my neck (of course I wore it before I gave it to him, it was damned cute!) and hurried after the smog that I knew to be his trail.

“Ville!” But the tall man couldn’t hear me through the crowd of Christmas shoppers and slipped away into a store on a street corner. The bell dinged in the shop as I followed him in - and I realized with horror I had just followed Ville into a sex shop. Oh lord.

Embarrassment colored my cheeks as I turned to rush out quickly, when a familiar voice called my name.

“Oooh, Sinikka, come to buy something for Jyrki have you?” My face must have been maroon with the force of the blood in my cheeks.

“Please, I was just, ah…” I stumbled over my sentence as Valo perched on the cashier’s desk, his cigarette dangling between his lips. “I was just following you to see what you were up to,” I felt like a little girl who had been dragged into a sex shop - I practically was a little girl that had been dragged into a sex shop, metaphorically speaking. Ville regarded me in silence with a raised eyebrow. “I need help shopping for Jyrki, but this wasn’t what I had in mind.” My voice was firm - as firm as I could manage, being on the verge of a seizure and all.

His green-eyed gaze level, Ville actually began to laugh at me. If my cheeks could have turned a deeper shade of red, they would have.

“Well why are you here, then?” I demanded of him, about to throw down my things and walk out (ok, maybe I’d carry out my amazing Christmas presents with me). How could he sit there on the cashier’s desk and laugh at me! Like I’d ever willingly (or knowingly) walk into one of these places!

“This is my dad’s store. I work here.” Cue the jaw dropping straight through the floor and into the basement.

“I - uh - oh.” Ville’s slow smile was enough to relax me, if only a little; it was clear he wouldn’t judge me for going into the shop like Hanna would have (though I doubted he wouldn’t tell the little dastardly girl).

“You needed help getting Jyrki something? You know there’s an amazing leather shop he likes to frequent just down the road,” Ville clambered over the counter and sat on the little stool there as I set my things down on the glass display (partially in order to hide the dildos and vibrators on display).

“He already has something like everything in there, and I wanted to get him something unique. I thought maybe you could help, because you two are such good mates.” I sighed, and ashed my smoke into the ashtray he had ready.

“If you don’t mind me asking - have you two resolved that little issue I heard you had a few months ago?” I tried to stonewall him, tried to puppy-dog eye him into thinking that I didn’t know what he was talking about, but Ville’s eyes were just so piercing - and something told me he knew that we hadn’t.

“Still a virgin.” Palms up, I confessed as if to a Priest and shrugged as if it wasn’t that big of a deal, like I hadn’t just sold my biggest secret to a man who’s girlfriend I knew much better than he. Something internally forced me to smile a little - a pained, forced thing as I finally began to fidget with the bags on the counter, careful not to spill their contents lest Ville see the scarf before his time.

“You know he’s not going to be able to wait forever, kultaseni. Jyrki’s bound to burst sometime.” How was it that Ville was better at girl-talk than Hanna was? I sighed, knowing how right he was.

“I just, I mean. Aw, vittun.” After I spoke, I clamped a hand over my mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be obscene about it,” I mumbled through my fist and cig. Ville chuckled, and lit another fag as he waited for me to speak.

“I just feel like I know nothing, and that he’ll… uh… be frightened away.” I sighed, and finally allowed my shoulders to sag. “I don’t know what to expect.” The glance I took showed that Ville’s face was sympathetic - as if he were playing the part of caring older brother.

“Well, you’re not going to need sex toys, that’s for certain.” He faked a grimace as he emerged from behind the counter and moved a misplaced object (I wasn’t beyond blocking each and every item in that store out of my mind with little black bars) from a foreign display to it’s home carousel as if it were nothing to him. “But you’re going to have to make that perfect time you’ve been trying to force him to make for yourself.”

Oh that horrible, horrible man! Had he really spilled his guts to Ville about all of this, thinking that it was nothing? I found it difficult to be angry with either of the men - boys! - though, Ville was more than right about the “perfect time,” and Jyrki was more than right to seek the advice of his best friend in order to successfully woo me. Secretly, I wondered how Jyrki had survived such a long wait if it was so important to guys - did he have hairy palms or was his eyesight deteriorating and I hadn’t even noticed his plight? I laughed aloud at the thought - and found myself wilting under Ville’s striking gaze to spill with a fist over my mouth for the second time that day. I managed to relay the thought to the brown-haired man without too much chuckling, and he was forced to gnaw on his own knuckle to suppress laughter (which wouldn’t have been professional to the other customer in the store).

“Let’s just say it’s been a true testament to how much he loves you - and you’d never even have known it.” Ville shook his head ruefully, as if he and Jyrki stayed up at night and chatted about these things while painting each other’s nails black. Come to think of it, Hanna and I did usually pass out from alcohol consumption before the boys did - but that was something I had always contributed to our size in relation to how much we all drank. The image of hulking Jyrki and Ville with his hair in curlers and a green clay mask on both of their faces almost made me burst out laughing again.

“Well, if I don’t need sex toys, what should I do? How do I - oh, Christ, this is so obscene.”

“That’d be the first thing you need to get over, love. It’s a natural part of life, and you’re not exactly the epitome of a Catholic good-girl, you need to get over that hump.” I giggled at the imagery of his last, but Ville’s stern glare silenced me. I perched on the counter as he began to move more things about the room, replacing that which was misplaced with a practiced ease.

“I resent that remark! I do happen to be a good Catholic girl. Not very prevalent in Finland, but we’ve got a good following, Jesus and I.” My teeth clamped down on the fleshy part of my hand as I fought back peals of self-inflicted laughter, laughter which stemmed off the nervousness this odd situation inspired in me. Talking to Ville about sex, and asking for his advice? Not something normal.

“Hey! Ville! I still need your help!”

“Oh, sorry darling.” He meandered back from the front of the story. “Dunno how much help I can be, though, considering my sex and all.”

“Well - ah.” Finally, I realized I was going to have to be forward and obscene to get the information I required. God, everything that had to do with sex required nerve. “Tell me about your first time.” My glance - over the trail of smoke from my cigarette - was apologetic. Despite how uncomfortable the question was to ask, Ville simply laughed it off.

“That’s not going to help you at all, we were both drunk at the time. Definitely not your ‘perfect setting.’” He leaned against the counter beside me and placed his smoke to his lips, staring off into the distance as if in deep thought. “Hanna and I had the most romantic first time of all of the women I’ve been with.” I shot him a glance - ‘all of the women I’ve been with?’ Excusez-moi, Ville.

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve not been with hordes of women, please don’t go telling Hanna that,” Ville’s palms turned towards me, pleading. I grinned and nodded sagely.

“I might not if you help me out!” Ville’s grin spread, as if he knew I would never tell.

“Well, uh, there were a lot of candles involved.” I though of Jyrki’s burnt leathers (which he still wore, with a piece of black duct tape over the hole!) with a pained wince. “Ok, no candles. What about sexy lingerie, yes? I could help with that one.” I propelled my head down toward my knees, catching it in my arms at the last second.

“I have plenty of that.” I could almost feel Ville’s eyes searing into my back, digging for an explanation. “I only wear matching sets.” I shrugged as well as I could under his burning gaze in my strange position.

“You could still use a candle you know. Come here, I’ll show you something.” With effort, I unraveled myself as I jumped off the counter and followed him deeper into the black abyss which was his father’s sex store.

I was surprised to see that they had candles of an assorted variety, and not all of them nastily shaped or disgustingly named. Some of them were labeled with the names of different essential oils.

“Now, keep in mind I’m not Jyrki, but Vanilla is my favorite. It’s about the only scent here that doesn’t make me have an asthma attack.” The though made me frown - Jyrki had developed a cough since the last gig, and it didn’t sound normal.

“Vanilla sounds good,” A too-causal image of Jyrki and I on his bed with a tub of vanilla ice cream beside our bodies made me cringe lightly, but I tried not to second-guess myself. Ville knew better than I.

“And you’ve got the lingerie. So make a thoughtful mix tape for a soundtrack and you two should be good to go.” His smile was soft and caring as he laid a hand on my shoulder after he rung up the candle. “Good luck, Sinikka.”