The Sauna Club – Part 1: Löyly

"You will be naked," said Aino, "and you will not be embarrassed. It is the only rule."

Taylor stared at her neighbour in the stairwell. Aino was thirty-four, tall, freckled and quite calm, a Finnish architect with a towel over her arm and the cheerful honesty Taylor had come to love in her six weeks in Helsinki.

"In the US we put on a swimsuit."

"In Finland we put on nothing. You'll adapt."

The neighbourhood sauna was a low wooden building by the sea, with a stove, a jetty and a roomful of women of all ages, chatting about taxes. Taylor, thirty-one, scarlet to the roots of her hair, followed Aino into the heat.

It was dim, hot and fragrant with pine. Steam rose from the stones in a great soft wave.

"Löyly," said Aino, ladling water. "The breath of the sauna."

"It feels like... being hugged by a furnace."

"Yes. Exactly."

Taylor laughed, and her shoulders loosened. Nobody stared. Nobody cared. A woman of eighty was complaining about the price of coffee. After ten minutes, Taylor discovered that she had forgotten to be embarrassed.

"Now the sea," said Aino.

"The sea?"

"It's two degrees."

"Aino—"

"Trust me."

They ran down the jetty together, shrieking, and plunged into the black freezing water, and came up gasping with joy. Taylor had never felt so alive. Steam rose off her skin in the cold evening air.

"Can I ask you something?" she said, shivering, wrapped in a towel on the dock.

"Yes."

"Why are you so kind to the clueless American?"

"Because you're brave," said Aino, "and funny. And I like how you say my name."

Taylor blushed hotter than the sauna. "Green?" she said.

"Green," said Aino, smiling. "Very green. Come. We go in again."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Second Round.