Heller's Girlfriend (43 page)

Not long after there was a
Viking raid on their village and everything was burnt to the
ground, the men slaughtered, the woman and children captured. She
was amongst the kidnapped, being young, healthy and of childbearing
age. Her kidnapper was a young tall, blond man.

The Viking took her across the
sea to a village in his homeland. He brought her to a round hut
made of animal fur. There he deposited her on a bed of rugs, and
she lay there terrified, shrinking away from him. He spoke to her
at length, gesturing around him, but of course she couldn’t
understand a word of what he was saying. Then, as if he’d gained
her consent, he pushed up her dress, forced her legs apart with his
hands and brutally pushed himself inside her, muffling her screams
of pain with his hand clamped over her mouth. He finished quickly
and fell asleep at once, leaving her to retreat to a dark part of
the hut, sobbing in pain and despair.

The next few weeks passed like
that for her. He raped her every night, and she spent the rest of
the time cradling herself in the darkest part of the hut. She
refused to wash, barely ate, and spent all night and day crying,
mourning for her dead husband and her lost life. Then her period
started and the Viking left her alone.

Many times an elderly woman or
a young woman came to bring him food and to clean his hut. She
stared at them in misery, and assumed they were his mother and
sister. She knew they would not help her escape from him, even
though when they spoke to her their voices were kind. The woman
couldn’t understand what was being said of course, but the Viking
complained to his mother when she stepped into the hut one day.

“
She doesn’t like me,” he
sulked. “She doesn’t wish to lie with me. I have to force her to
every night. I dislike her crying all the time.”

“
You must be patient, my
son,” advised his mother. “She has probably left a husband and
maybe even children behind her and it is normal that she mourns
them. This is good. It shows that she is a loyal and devoted wife.
Like she will be to you as well one day.”

“
I have shown her my
possessions and explained my rank in the village. I told her that I
would be a good provider and of my skill in hunting and fishing. I
told her that I am a good warrior and will protect her. She can see
that I am strong and healthy, and well-favoured. Why doesn’t she
like me?”

“
Be patient, my son. She
can’t cry forever.”

And the elderly woman was
right. By the time her period had finished, she had cried out all
the tears she had in her body, and spent her time sitting quietly,
watching the Viking when he was in the hut. She could see that he
was industrious and skilled and did not join in the drunken
carousing that seemed to happen every night outside the hut. She
could hear other women screaming nightly and was grateful that he
hadn’t used her any more unkindly than he had.

One morning she was sick of her
smell, and indicated to him that she would like to eat, bathe and
change her clothing. He was surprised and pleased, and ushered his
mother and sister into the hut to see to her needs. They were kind
to her and brought her food, which she ate greedily. They led her
to a nearby stream to bathe, bringing a clean, plain shift for her
to change into. She threw away her soiled clothes and stood in the
stream, washing her hair and body.

She didn’t realise, but there
were two men watching her as she bathed. The first was her Viking,
who was desperate to possess her again, viewing her naked body in
awe. The other was one of the regular drunken carousers who had not
been fortunate enough to find his own woman during the raid, and
had decided to take what he wanted from another man.

When she dried off and slipped
the fresh shift over her body, the two women guided her back up the
path to the village. Suddenly though, the other man jumped out from
the bush and grabbed her, dragging her back towards the wood,
ripping at her clothes and struggling with his pants. She screamed
and screamed. Her Viking sprang from his hiding place and
challenged the other man. There was an intense, but brief, struggle
that her Viking won easily, being the younger and stronger of the
two, leaving the beaten man unconscious on the ground.

The woman clung to him sobbing
in relief. It had just occurred to her that her future safety and
life were in the hands of this man, and that no matter how
unpleasant her time with him had been, it could be much worse for
her in this strange land. She was a pragmatist and realised that
she would never again see her homeland, that her much-loved husband
was dead, and that she had little choice but to start a new life
again here with her Viking. She knew this was the destiny of many
women in her time, and that it was pointless to rail against
fate.

The Viking was very aroused by
contact with her again, especially after having witnessed her
nakedness earlier. He picked her up in his strong arms and took her
back to his hut, laying her down on the fur rugs. He was about to
push up her shift and force her legs apart again, when she stopped
him by putting a hand on his chest. He stared at her in puzzlement
and watched with increasing desire as she slipped her shift over
her head, kneeling naked next to him. He moved to reach for her,
but again she stopped him. She slipped off his clothes, so that he
was also naked beside her.

They knelt on the rugs, facing
each other. She took his hands and guided them gently over her
face, down her shoulders, breasts, hips and legs. He watched her
intently, breathing rapidly with increasing desire and excitement
as he touched her. She then took his hands and ran them through her
long hair. He was a fast learner and was soon caressing her body,
stroking her soft breasts in wonder and tangling his hands in her
hair. She then leaned forward and kissed him, which he also learned
quickly. Finally though he couldn’t stand the foreplay any longer
and pushed her down on the rug, grunting approval when she
willingly opened her legs to him. He rammed himself inside her in
his urgency. She winced in pain and pushed him back, taking hold of
him and guiding him into her in a more gentle way.

She moved her hips with him,
and stroked his back, murmuring in his ear. When he climaxed with a
loud and excited shout, pleasure shuddering through his whole body,
she smiled secretly to herself. She suspected that she was his
first woman, which was why he was so unskilled in the art. They
fell asleep on the rugs, her cradled in his arms. She was still
sleeping, enjoying her first fear-free sleep since her abduction,
and didn’t wake when the Viking’s mother brought food to the hut.
She smiled with delight when she saw the woman lying in the bed
with her son and not huddled at the edge of the hut.

“
She came to you willingly?”
she queried softly.

“
Yes, and it was very
pleasing to me, Mother. And she helped me to be kinder to her. It
made my pleasure even greater and I think she received some
pleasure too.”

“
It is always wise to keep
your woman pleased in bed, my son. Then she will not stray from
you.”

He looked down at the
slumbering woman, and stroked her long hair. “She is so
beautiful.”

“
You have chosen well. She
will bear you many sons. I will start teaching her our ways in the
morning, so she can be a good wife to you.”

And the woman learned the ways
of her new country, and did so with respect and a sense of humour
at her own mistakes that made her popular with the other women.
When her period didn’t arrive after a few months, she was quietly
content. They were lying together on the rugs one night, and she
took the Viking’s hand and placed it on her stomach.

“
Baby,” she told him in his
language. He smiled at her with such genuine pride that for the
first time she felt as though she would be able to be happy in this
new life. She was thrilled at the thought of having her first baby,
even if it was with the Viking.

And they grew old together,
raising many fine, strong sons and beautiful daughters.

I woke up and stayed in bed,
puzzling over the dream. It was full of meaning for me, but I
wasn’t sure I understood the message.

When Heller asked me why I was
frowning, I nestled on his shoulder and told him of my dream, with
as much detail as I could remember. I stopped talking and looked at
him, feeling a bit shy after sharing such an intimate dream with
him. He studied me for a long time, his eyes roving my face, before
he spoke.

“That was a very detailed and
intriguing dream, my sweet,” he said finally. “The symbolism of it
isn’t lost on me. But I’m having trouble deciding if the Viking is
the good guy or the bad guy in the story. I mean, the woman ends up
with a happy life, but it’s not the choice she would have made
voluntarily. And he forces her to leave her old life and loved ones
behind to submit to him in a strange place.” Our eyes locked
together. “Is this dream about you and me? Is this how you view
coming to work for me?”

The air around us was suddenly
loaded with emotion. It felt important that I answer this question
properly – important to him.

“Not consciously, but I guess I
often have to do what you want even when I don’t want to, because
you’re my boss. And let’s face it, it
is
almost impossible
for me to maintain any kind of normal relationship with a man in my
current life. So, yeah, I guess I’ve had to give up my old life to
join you. Do you think that’s what the dream means?”

“I think it’s definitely telling
you that I am your future. How do you feel about that?”

“I honestly don’t know. It’s
almost as though I’m not being given a choice.”

“Just like the woman in your
dream. Perhaps you really think that I’m forcing you into a
relationship with me, and it’s a relationship you would never have
chosen to enter yourself?”

I couldn’t answer then and
looked away, because what he was saying was coming dangerously
close to my true feelings. I’d never thought it was a good idea for
me to become emotionally entangled with Heller. I knew
nothing
about him – not his real name, not his age, not
where he came from, nothing about his family, nothing about his
previous life. How can you possibly love a man you don’t even know?
So why did I have these feelings for him and why did I find myself
fooling around with him so often? I simply couldn’t straighten it
all out in my head.

“Matilda, is that what you
think?” he asked again, an urgent tone in his voice. He grabbed my
chin in his hand and forced me to look him in the eyes.

“I don’t know, Heller. I just
don’t know.”

“Because don’t forget the other
part of your dream, where she shows him how to be a better person.
That resonates a lot with me as well.”

It was the right thing to say in
the circumstances. I knew that since we’d met, I had made some
impact on him and stirred up emotions in him that he probably would
have preferred not to have.

I cupped his face in my hands
and kissed him tenderly on the lips. Never one to miss an
opportunity, he grasped the back of my head, pulling me down on top
of him as he reclined back on the bed. We shared some hot kisses
and he caressed me, running his hands over my body, arousing me
instantly. I tried to calculate how long it had been since I’d had
any sex, but his hands and lips made it impossible to think.

He slipped off my top, kissing
my breasts, and had his hands down my boxers, grasping and kneading
my butt, when a vision of Violet’s malevolent face as she broke my
hand popped into my head. I jolted backwards, breaking away from
him, breathing heavily.

“That woman again?” he asked,
disappointed.

I laughed shakily. “I think
you’re going to have to sleep with hundreds of women before I’m
going to be able to forget about her.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s not every
day that a man is told to sleep with hundreds of women so he can
have the one he really wants.”

“Aren’t you up to the
challenge?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood, slipping my top
back on.

He moved over to sit on my legs,
pinning me to the bed. “I do have one challenge that is frustrating
me. I want to give my sweet Matilda a heavenly experience to make
up for my neglect, but she won’t let me sleep with her. So I have
to think of something else.”

My breath caught in my throat.
“What do you think she’d like?”

“Oh, I know she’ll like this.”
And he yanked down my boxers, throwing them to the floor over his
shoulder.

“Heller!”

He pushed my legs apart and
leaned far down, his tongue gliding up and down.
Holy shit, that
was good!
He stopped and looked up, his eyes innocent. “Did you
want me to stop?”

“Um . . .”

He used his tongue on me again.
“How about now?”

“Well . . .”

Once more. “Now?”

“No,” I said in a little voice.
“Keep going. Please.”

So he kept going. And going. And
going. And the man sure knew what to do with his tongue and where
to do it.

My orgasm was so strong that I
jerked uncontrollably, my knee flying up and cracking him in the
jaw, sending him tumbling off the end of the bed. He fell to the
floor with a loud thud and a groan.

I sat up and crawled to the end
of the bed. “Oh sorry, Heller! Are you all right?”

He sat up on the floor rubbing
his jaw. “I suppose that’s a compliment?”

I giggled guiltily. “It was
fantastic
! And . . . sorry again.”

“Sex with you is going to be
quite an experience, Matilda. I can tell that already. I only hope
I survive it.”

Chapter 32