Viking Soul

"I know, it's just—I hope you won't think it's squeamish of me, but I just don't fancy owning one of our own people. I know the foreigner isn't making herself useful yet, but that will come in time."

"Erik. I don't think you're squeamish. At all. So I'm going to tell you something that's hard for me to admit."

After a pause, he encouraged her, "Go on."

"When I see you beating Cyrridben, I get jealous."

He nodded, and stroked his blonde beard in thought. "I can understand that. I haven't been spending as much time with you as I'd like. And the trip overnight to the village to buy the iron collar took me away after I'd only been here a few days. It was hard for me too, but it had to be done."

Svanna remembered watching Erik putting that damned thing on Cyrridben. It was the first time Svanna had seen her cry, and then Cyrridben hadn't stopped. It was three days ago, and all Cyrridben did was cry and sleep. Svanna was certain Cyrridben had not been a slave before.

"It's not just that. I feel the most horrid sense of excitement when I watch you beat her. I want to be her. I would never want to feel what she's feeling—I'd fall on my sword rather than endure that misery and despair. But I want to be the one under your hands. I want that, Erik. It fills me with desire."

Erik looked horrified. He sputtered, "You're my wife. I can't do that to you."

Svanna felt embarrassed. She backed down, and said, "It's just—seeing you beating Cyrridben makes me want you."

"Oh. Well." A look of puzzlement crossed his face, and then he fell back on his old standby, and kissed her. "Let's, um, go to bed early tonight."

Svanna summoned up a conciliatory smile. "Let's."

"I'd better go and finish with the rye, if we're making an early night of it." Erik trudged up the trail from the beach.

Svanna walked along the shore, as full of longing as when she was watching and waiting for the red and white striped sail of the Fedrasil to come over the horizon.

"Well, that didn't work. I've been thwarted, but I can't give up yet. I don't want violence. It terrifies me when Erik's mad drunk, but maybe that's better than nothing. Maybe I should think of an excuse to celebrate something, and bring out the mead. I want the calm and cool Erik, the one who strikes Cyrridben with hardly any emotion at all. But it seems I can't have that one."

Svanna knew that her plan was probably a bad idea. The angry, drunken Erik could genuinely hurt her, and then what would they do? Their relationship was already strained by Erik's long voyages at sea. This could crack their marriage asunder.

She asked aloud, "Freya, Goddess of love and all the arts of pleasure, will this longing within me EVER be fulfilled?"

Svanna's restless feet turned toward the water, and she saw something washed up on the narrow bit of sand. It was pale yellow. Svanna's soul went still as she realized what it was, even as she reached down and plucked it from the wet sand: amber. Freya's Tears, the holy substance that fell from the eyes of the Goddess as she searched for her lost husband Odh. It was like no other thing on Earth, for it could be polished like stone, but floated on the water like eiderdown, and it held energy as a barrel holds wine. It could be charged by magic, or by rubbing a fur, or by the peculiar tame lightning that sometimes danced on a ship's rigging. It was a sign.

"I asked, and she answered," Svanna whispered. "It's an omen. My longing will be fulfilled. But does this mean I should employ my plan tonight, or wait for my Wyrd?" Svanna had never been one to sit and wait for destiny to arrive. "Finding a piece of amber on the shore is as good a reason to celebrate as any. Tonight I break out the mead."

Many centuries later, a very old piece of amber appeared on a vendor's table inside the echoing cement bunker at the Ostara festival. It was dark with age. "This probably isn't the original setting," said the seller. She went on about cut and tools and something about the style of the silver brooch.

Susan tuned her out. The amber was calling to her, a soul-deep resonance exactly like what she felt when she looked at Eric. She had to have it. "How much?"
It was more than she had with her. She pulled out her money and counted it up. It was barely half. "Do you trade?"

"Whatcha got?"

Susan considered what she had with her. She would not trade her sword, symbol of her free status within heathendom. Nor would she trade her car; she needed it, and it was too valuable to trade to for a piece of jewelry in any case. "How about a wool cloak?" Susan indicated the one she had on.

"Done."

Susan unfastened the cloak and handed it across the table, and pinned on the purring amber. Well, not literally purring, that would be creepy; but Susan felt she had made the right decision. She would just have to stay close to the bonfire tonight.

She went out and found Cindy and related her dream and told her, "I know it must sound crazy, but I think this is the same piece of amber. What does it mean?"

"Your task in this lifetime is to solve the dilemma of how to get the senseplay you desire without becoming dishonored by accepting a slave's role. This is the puzzle you failed to solve in your life as Svanna. But in this modern world there is a place for senseplay without the trappings of dishonor."

"Yes. That makes sense. I think there's more, though. I think I'm supposed to get back together with Erik. And I think Eric might be the same Erik."

"Why don't we ask him if he'd like to try the dreaming? Then we'll know."

Cindy got the two of them together. She explained the past life dreaming, and Susan told Eric about her dreams.

Eric grinned. "You're saying I'm the man of your dreams?"

"I guess I am. That sounds really stupid, doesn't it?" Susan laughed.

"Not at all, my lady." Like Vlad, Eric knew how to charm a woman. He kissed her hand, and told her, "It would be my honor to be your dream lover."

Susan smiled back.

Cindy guided Eric in how to dream of a past life, and to try to recall his life as Erik the navigator with Svanna, if he had any such past life memory. That night, he dreamed. And Susan dreamed the same dream. And so did Cindy. There were all there, the three of them, reliving their pasts together, so they could each restore their destinies: Susan to have her desires fulfilled, Eric to fulfill them, and Cindy to get the two of them back together, after sundering them in twain in her life as Cyrridben.

Svanna tried to get Cyrridben to eat oat porridge. Cyrridben, seeing her as an ally and protector, allowed her to put a few spoonfuls into her mouth, feeding her like a baby. The Celtic woman even let Svanna put an arm around her as she fed her, although she flinched from everyone else.

Then Svanna served the main meal, and after supper she passed around the mead-horn, displayed the amber she had found on the seashore, and called for a toast to Freya. "To Freya!" echoed her family. Svanna plied Erik with drink, in accordance with her plan. Every few seconds she thought, "This is a really bad idea. I shouldn't be doing this. I could really wreck things if I manage to provoke him into striking me. Anger isn't what I want. But I want his hands on me so badly I'll even take a rotten imitation of what I really want."

Svanna felt sick inside. But she had a plan and she was no coward. She watched for her moment, the moment when Erik would provide her an opening. It was very much like combat, this business of manipulating Erik.

But the evening wore on, and the moment did not come. Erik started to slur his words and look sleepy, and Svanna thought she might have given him too much. Erik started singing a sea-chantey, badly. "Oh the raidersh life for—hic! – me!"

Svana saw her moment. She was balanced on the brink, and had only that instant to decide: to go on with her plan, however much it frightened her, or to let it go, and go on living in quiet yearning.

"Oh, shut up that noise, Erik, please!"

"Thought you liked my shinging voishe." Erik chugged the rest of the horn, sloshing honey mead into his beard. "Uurrrrrrp."

"Only when you're sober."

"If I'm drunk it'sh your faul, faul, follot." Erik pointed at her and poked her arm.

Svana felt a jolt of excitement. He was almost there. He was like a stone poised above a snowy slope, right on the tipping point, ready to start an avalanche. If she could just push him an inch more, he would fall into passionate fury. Or so she hoped.

"Tonight maybe, but how drunk were you when you sacked Eire? How drunk were you when you picked your share of the treasure? A more useless prize I've never seen than that pretty young thing you brought home with you."

Svanna's spinster sister tried to shush her, but Svanna ignored her.

"She steals your attention from me, she does nothing but weep in the corner and cast a pall of sorrow over the house, she uses blankets and water and gives nothing back. Admit it, Erik! You chose her for her beauty. You wanted her. You forgot all about me! You always forget all about me when you're at sea!"

"That'sh not true." Erik stood up, swayed, and caught his balance on the table. "I washshinkin' of you all'time."

"You wanted her. You still want her. You never wanted me in the first place. You chose me because I'm good at fighting, so I can hold these lands against raiders from up the coast. You never gave a thought to how much you'd like me when you're home!"

"Love you! Alwaysh love you!" Erik staggered closer and caught himself again. He tried to prove his love by planting a slobbery kiss on her face, but she pushed him roughly away.

"Drunkard! Go back to sea and leave me in peace, and take that strumpet with you!" Svanna shoved him again, hard, in his churning belly.

For one sick moment, as she saw the hurt in his eyes, she regretted her words, and her ill-wrought plan. Surely this was not the work of the Goddess of Love. She should have waited, patiently, for the promise of the amber to be made manifest.

Then her plan succeeded. Erik struck her. Not as he beat Cyrridben, not the calm and measured blows meant only to establish his dominance, but a wild, uncoordinated backhand that caught her shoulder and glanced off her chin. He was barely able to find her with his hand in his drunkenness.

It was not satisfying. It was not sexy. It made her feel ill.

Erik grunted an incoherent sound and snatched back his hand, eyes wide in horror. He stumbled, tried to catch himself on the edge of a chair and knocked it over, bumping into Svanna. He reeled back again, flailing to regain his balance.

Then a shadow moved in the corner, and a shiver of metal rang softly. A look of incomprehension passed over Erik's face. His eyes gazed fixedly ahead, and a peculiar gasp came from him. Then he fell.

Behind him stood Cyrridben, risen from her despair. In her hand was Svanna's sword, dripping blood.

Erik's body hit the floor with a thump. His eyes were open and unmoving.

"Erik!" Svanna shrieked. She dropped to her knees beside him, took his head and shoulders in her arms and rocked, crying, "Erik, Erik, Erik!" Her tears fell on his face, beautiful again now in repose, calm as she had wanted him to be.

The children burst into tears.

"Erik, oh my dear sweet Erik, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Tears fall like sea-spray, wet salt glistening in firelight. The gulls wail by the shore, endless, eternal. Wind ripples the heather, and songbirds dart amid the yellow blooms. Some things never change: grief and love and the Sea. But some things change. Customs change, and times change.

On the western coast of North America, as the morning fog burned away, a man in black motorcycle leathers sat playing a large wooden concert harp. The strings sang of sweet rain plinking into shallow pools, and wildflowers growing by the roadside, and the red flash of a blackbird's wings.

Susan, Eric and Cindy sat talking around the remains of last night's campfire, and Susan and Eric realized they had the same dream. They shared the same experience of past lives as Svanna and Erik.

"What happened to Cyrridben?" Susan asked Cindy.

Cindy said, "It is given to me to remember the realm of Folkvangr, and the hall Sessrumnir within it. I don't know what happened in Cyrridben's life after she murdered Erik. She may have been killed, or sold. She may have run away, or committed suicide, or she may have stayed with Svanna for the rest of her days. But I do know that the three of us came to the halls of Freya together, to be healed of our mortal woes, until we were ready to try again. I had to repair my error, and get the two of you back together. The rest is up to you." Cindy stood up, and smiled. "And now I leave you to it. My work here is done." She walked away into the bunker.

Susan said, "Back then nobody understood masochistic play. Erik the ancient heathen couldn't give me what I needed. But can Eric the modern heathen do it?"

"Oh, gods, yes. I'd love to! I've been into that for years."

"Really?"

"Really. Let's go to the beach. Tonight, when we'll have it to ourselves. I'll bring everything. Will you join me on the beach in the moonlight, my lady?"

"Yes. Yes, I will." Susan smiled shyly. They kissed.

The day passed slowly. Susan and Eric talked and talked, sharing the details of their modern lives.

At sunset they dared the treacherous stair. Eric had a lantern and a big bag. When they reached the beach in the pink light of the sunset on the water, Eric selected a patch of relatively dry sand near the cliff and suspended the lantern from an overhanging tree root. He spread a large, thick blanket, and bowed Susan down onto it.

From the sack, he withdrew a dozen jar candles, lit them, and spread them randomly on the sand, little flames winking in the sea wind despite the protecting glass, as the evening light faded and the stars flowered. Eric brought wood out of his bag and kindled a small campfire on the beach. Then he began peeling Susan out of her outer garments, belt and boots and shoulder-pinned apron, so much like Svanna's long ago.

Contemplatively, he rubbed the amber. "This was hers," he whispered.

"Yes, I think so," Susan said. "Can you feel the age? The power?"

"I feel it." The promise of the amber hung heavy in the chill night air.

He took off his cloak and boots and the green velvet doublet. He was dressed now only in velvet breeches and a woolen shirt.

The beach in the moonlight, the roar of the Sea, stars above, fires below, the moonpath on the water, all surrounded them in the mystery of night as Eric pulled Susan over his lap and began to warm her up over her under-dress with a light hand-spanking.

The slap, slap, slapping could barely be heard above the tide on the sand, the crackling fire, the west wind in the trees above the cliff, and the crash of the surf against the rock spires.

Susan thought, "I'm really doing this."

Spank, spank, spank, spank, spank, Eric kept up a steady rhythm. He thought, "I'm really doing this."

He pulled off her dress, and continued spanking her over her panties, some indeterminate pale color glowing in the moonlight. The smoke of the campfire caressed her bare skin with warm gusts. Eric pulled off her panties, spanked her some more, and rubbed her bare bottom.

Then he rolled her gently off of his lap, and arranged her lying bottoms-up on the blanket. He carefully pulled her arms and legs into an X position, echoing the shape of the rune Gebo, the Gift, the rune of sex magic. She turned her head to the side, looking up at him with one sparkling eye reflecting the candlelight and the moonlight. She had a deeply happy smile on her lips.

Eric thumped her body with his hands from shoulders to feet, halfway between spanking and massage. Then he reached into her piled garments and pulled her sword belt free of the sword and pouches. He took the buckle in his right hand, and ran his left hand appreciatively down the length of the wide, heavy leather belt.

He grinned, and snapped the end down on her back. The sting was incredibly exciting. Susan smiled and sighed and closed her eyes, and dug her toes into the yielding surface of the blanket, making little holes in the sand beneath. Eric swung again, and swatted her well-warmed butt. Susan spread her legs a little more.

Eric needed no further encouragement. He began a steady rhythm, striking again and again with her own sword belt. The end of the heavy leather belt made little triangular tip-marks whenever it touched her back or legs, probably pink but seeming dark in the firelight and moonlight. It left no shapes on the buttocks, but even in the wavering orange light of the lantern and the other candles and the popping campfire, as the belt descended again and again and again, Eric could see a rosy glow on Susan's buttocks.

Susan sighed and groaned in pleasure. It was both stimulating and profoundly relaxing. It was soul-fulfilling.

Eric's rhythm synchronized with the crashing surf. A mist began to roll in off the sea, fresh and cold and wet. It cooled Susan's burning flesh, and the sensation of the mist and the woodsmoke flying against her skin as the leather smacked into her over and over nearly had her in ecstasy.

The amber and the sea and their souls: power flowed between them, among them, through them. Amber-colored firelight, winking like phantom fairy lights from the candles as the fog rolled in, blotting out the stars. The moon shown down through the mist, pale and blurry as old memories.

Eric set the belt aside and reached into his bag. He poured oil on her buttocks, smelling of rare essential oils of rose and yarrow. He massaged the oil into her bottom, and back, and legs, and the bottoms of her feet. He took a foot and pulled the toes back, just enough to draw the skin of the sole tight. Then he picked up a slender stick from the ground. Ever so lightly at first, then going to more medium pressure, he switched the arch of her sole. Then he did the same to the other foot.

Then Eric set Susan's feet back down on the blanket and moved back to her buttocks. He poured more oil onto her backside, and slicked his hand. Slowly, he worked one finger into her tight butt hole. He withdrew it, covered it in oil again from her skin, and worked it back inside. Again and again he oiled the inside of her, penetrating more deeply, and more easily, each time.

Then he worked in a second finger. Thrusting slowly, he moved the two fingers in and out, in and out. Then he began to scissor them, carefully stretching her. He reached into his bag and brought out a glass massage wand. It glistened like ice in the firelight. He oiled it, and carefully inserted it into her well-prepared opening.

The sensation was incredible. It was like having all her genitals turned on at once, and her feet as well; the nerve Eric hit inside her electrified every pathway below her waist at the same time.

Red light of passion exploded in her mind. Fire rent the veil that cloaked her inner sight, and the night lit up for her like neon. Eric glowed to her mind's eye like Elmo's Fire dancing in the rigging of a sailing ship.

Eric flipped her over. He took her ankles and held her legs high, wide, and apart. He let go and Susan stayed in position. Eric pushed the glass wand even farther inside her, right up to the round ball at the end.

Susan threw her head back and groaned in pleasure and desire. Eric spanked the round globes of her buttocks with his hand and pushed the anal toy into her. Susan started to pant. Eric gave her the belt again, whipping her pink bottom over and over until she squirmed.

Eric withdrew the toy and stripped out of his shirt and breeches. He popped free, straight as a mast. Eric oiled up and entered her deliciously prepared bottom. He positioned her legs over his shoulders and thrust into her, in rhythm to the pounding of the sea.