One Night in Norway

"I don't do sex", she said.

I wasn't seeking intercourse but with her mouth on my ear I did wonder if I was engaged in some form of Norwegian foreplay.

Thanks to a SAS pilots strike I was stuck in Stavanger, south of Bergen, and needed an Airbnb for three nights.

Having booked a place, only to find I couldn't enter the premises due to the owner's ineptitude, I landed at another Airbnb with my friends. They had booked a one-bedroom basement studio with an outside spa for a night.

The owner Bekka, a Norwegian girl of Viking-like stature, was concerned at my accommodation dilemma and offered to put me up in her house above the studio. She refused to accept payment. It was a free night's lodging before moving downstairs when my friends departed.

To repay her generosity I offered to buy Bekka a drink. It was a small gesture and I'd be tucked up by 10pm. That was the plan.

By 9pm I was getting thirsty when Bekka arrived at the studio door wearing an impressive set of heels, raising her height to about 6ft:4 compared to my 5:11. Think Danny De Vito partnering Norwegian model Kathrine Sorland. Gender equity was seriously askew, and feeling slightly unsettled, 'when in Stavanger...' I thought.

It was then that I discovered Bekka just loved to dance, every night, til dawn. She was a VIP member of all of Stavanger's harbourside nightclubs, so Danny and Kathrine had green light access to the front of every queue.

More of a sweat session than alcohol-infused embarrassment, I became her aide caught up in a maelstrom of arms, legs and gyrating hips as we bopped from club to club. On one night in Stavanger two complete strangers connected. We weren't pissed but were incredibly high on life.

Nightclub noise necessitated lips-to-earhole communication. Bekka released her sex statement and then proceeded to download her life story. It was a work in two parts: a childhood destroyed at the hands of her abusive father, a fractured family and boyfriend dramas were balanced by a professional life where she filled a role akin to Florence Nightingale.

This Norse night owl was an emergency response nurse who worked through the night hooked up in front of five TV monitors. She received calls from people in distress and helped drag them from the jaws of death whilst at the same time coordinating emergency response teams to the caller's location. She was a tortured saint who coped with her personal car crash circumstances by saving others' lives. A remarkable woman who sort solace under a glitter ball.

Realising that I harboured no seductive intentions, Bekka named me her "Knight in shining armour". And with that, we shimmied all night long.

At 4am, one pub and five nightclubs later, we walked shoulder to shoulder back to Bekka's house and ended up in the tepid spa, cozzies on, drinking champagne. Proceedings ended when feeling slightly hypothermic, I pulled the plug and retired to the studio.

Two days later I was up at 3am to catch a 6am flight. I'd set the alarm but woke early to the sound of Bekka's heels walking on the floor above. She'd just come home after dancing yet another night away. I closed the door to the studio and tapped on Bekka's kitchen window. We smiled at one another and waved goodbyes as I walked away under moonlight.

I don't do sex either, at least not in Norway.