Skarsgård

Chapter 4: "American Girl In Sweden"

ALEXANDER

I am falling in love with Elyse.

I feel it. I feel her. I feel it all throughout my bones; as if she's slit my flesh open, stepped inside my skin, and now resides there. I want to be around her constantly. When I am not around her, I think about her. I think of her raspy voice, so sultry, so comforting, like a blanket. Sometimes I call her just to hear her voice message, just to hear her say in my ear: "You've reached Elyse, please leave me a message."

I have spent most of my adult life single un-amused and unimpressed with my dating choices - mainly because I never let them get beyond my bedroom door. However, meeting Elyse, there is something about her. I can't put my finger on it. She's the same as any woman; two eyes, one mouth, thick hair. Yet she is completely different than any other woman I've ever laid my eyes on and ever put my mouth to. She's truly something special.

I've spent so many years not finding the one purposely, refusing another woman neglectfully, and now I am transfixed with a woman I barely know. A woman sixteen years my junior. She brings out things in me that I have naturally kept to myself; nothing serious enough that I felt the need to hide it but nothing so unworthy that I would dare to expose it to others. She just gets me. Elyse brings out love inside of me that I did not know was tucked away, love I didn't know I possessed. It's exciting and terrifying simultaneously.

With each conversation, I am drifting deeper into her abyss, wanting to know more. (I want to possess this woman!) I knew it was happening when I started to change. My work has become more creative, and my ideas have started flowing. Suddenly, I start seeing aspects of the world around me that I never had before, and it's a beautiful thing. My stoic behavior became less automation, my patience was never ending, and I, myself, became a child again. I'm not talking about about fairy-tale, princess-meets-prince kind of an experience, but the innocence that comes with being a child; the acceptance, the truthfulness, the honesty. I feel happy in a way I can only remember feeling as a child, and the whole world seems like the magical place it did back then, too. I have become whimsical and free.

I love learning about her. Her heritage, her background, her future. I want to know what they hold and I sometimes think to myself, will I be in them?

A few days ago, I flew her here, to my home, in Stockholm, Sweden. She had told me she has never been to Scandinavia and I wanted to show her. I wanted to be the one who took her, who showed her my home. I wanted to experience it with her, for the very first time. I brought her to my fathers cabin in the woods surrounded by snow-clad mountains and a sparkling crystal clear lake. Its about an hour outside of town, in Uppsala and honestly, it's in the middle of nowhere. I've always wanted to take a woman here. (We are going on day eight in the cabin.) It's a place of pure isolation. A place where you can get to know someone and yourself. There is no bath so you have to bathe in the river that frames the cabin.

I came here to this cabin alone once. I brought an ex-girlfriend, Kate, here to Uppsala almost a decade ago. She hated it. I didn't expect her to love it right away or even be used to the rugged almost barbarian like lifestyle, but I thought she would appreciate the dial down; the time alone with me. She didn't. She left that same afternoon back to a hotel in Stockholm.