Page 42 of A Tale of Two Vikings

Helga stiffened her body with determination. “Nay. I can handle it.” Or die of humiliation trying. “What’s next?”

“Next you must cultivate and refine your own individual sexual personality.”

“I don’t have a sexual personality. In fact, I don’t know what a sexual personality is.”

“A woman doesn’t have to be comely to have men lust after her. That is what Rona is trying to say.” It was Bera the Buxom speaking now. “Look at me. I am a perfect example. Oh, my breasts are an asset, but other than that, I am a little too fat. My buttocks even jiggle when I walk.”

“But jiggling is good,” Sigrud told Bera.

Bera shrugged. “Let’s face it. I am not a comely lass, and no longer in the first blush of youth, either. Still, I ne’er had trouble attracting men, and I got my Bolli, didn’t I?”

“It’s all in a woman’s own image of herself,” Rona said.

“Huh?” Helga said.

“To be provocative, a woman must feel provocative,” Rona explained.

“Huh?” Helga said again.

“Listen, there are things you can do to make yourself physically more attractive. Plump up those breasts with a little sheep fleece, add a few curves to your hips and buttocks—your waist is already tiny enough. And you can sway when you walk—or slither, as I like to describe it. Thrust your pelvis forward a bit when you walk. Like this.”

Oh, my God! She looks like a ship’s masthead entering a room. Do men really like that? “I have been flat-chested all my life, and I have no intention of fluffing up my bosom at this late date. Everyone would know they were false.”

“Those were just suggestions, mistress. Mostly it’s what’s going on inside your head,” Rona proclaimed, tapping her own noggin for emphasis. “Try this afore you come down to dinner this evening. Picture a fantasy scene. Very detailed. Two naked bodies. Hot kisses. Wicked touches. Your nipples getting harder and harder. Aching. And your woman folds weeping with arousal.”

Not in a million years could I picture that! And if my woman folds ever wept, I did not know it. “And this will accomplish what?”

“It will change the way you present yourself. Your body will move differently. Your lips will part. Your eyes will glaze over.”

“He will think I’m having a fit.”

“Not if you do it right.”

“I’m going to try it,” Eve announced of a sudden. “In truth, I am feeling a bit tingly all over, even at the thought of it.”

All right, admit it, Helga. You feel a little tingle. Mayhap you are not entirely hopeless.

“Me, too,” Bera and Sigrud said.

“Let’s all try it,” Eve suggested.

Hell and Valhalla! We are all going to look like a bunch of moony-eyed maids, tipsy from ale or a blow to the head. Barmy as barn bats. Helga threw her arms in the air. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Rona shrugged. “Methinks you are not ready to be a temptress, m’lady. Best you sit back and wait for things to happen. Let the man…Vagn…control this loveplay.”

“Never!” Helga exclaimed. She was a fighter and stubborn as a horny bull…that’s what everyone said of her. How else had she managed to succeed as a merchant in a man’s world? She could not give up so easily. She just couldn’t. “What next?” she asked Rona.

“The actual steps to sexual expertise. There are probably hundreds, but I will mention just a few of the tamer ones.”

Yea, tame would be good for me. “Like?”

“Learn to caress yourself.”

Oh, oh, oh! I don’t believe she just said that. And if that is tame, I am in way over my head. “By myself or in company with a man?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.

Everyone laughed.

“Both ways. If you learn your own body, you will know how to use it.”