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From: "Bradley Stoke" <bradley_stoke@hushmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Waiting for the Longships (Bradley Stoke) (MF FF)
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Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 12:10:03 -0400
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{ASSM} Waiting for the Longships (Bradley Stoke) (MF FF)

Title: Waiting for the Longships
Author: Bradley Stoke
Keywords: MF FF
Short Summary: The Norse women wait for the Longships to return.



Story: Waiting for the Longships (4,481 words)

Astrid is only one of many wives on the Norse shore who are
waiting for the longships to return from their regular spring
expedition. She looks forward to her husband Thorvald's return,
as much for the passion of his lovemaking as for the bounty the
men return with. But as summer becomes winter, Astrid comes to
fear that her husband may already have been called to Valhalla
and that she has become a widow.


For More : /~Bradley_Stoke


	Waiting for the Longships
        =========================

Astrid looked across the room at her son illuminated by the
fire but obscured by the mist of its smoke. She hoped he
wouldn't wake up and wonder what his parents were doing
on the straw mattress opposite. Not that he wasn't used to
the lovemaking Thorvald and she enjoyed together,
especially after the long night of feasting that led to this
moment of passion.

It never bothered Thorvald, of course. And it certainly
wouldn't tonight after all the ale he'd drunk. It was Astrid's
duty to give pleasure to him, hoping as always that she
might be blessed by another son as a result of his exertions.

Thorvald thrust away, caring little as to how his wife might
feel. In any case, it was unlikely he'd last very long until his
passion was defeated by his inebriation. But this was their
last night together for so many months and Astrid had been
waiting for this moment for so many hours As she tended
to the domestic duties of the hearth: spinning flax, gutting
fish, and comforting young Hromund, she had wanted this
moment of lovemaking to be special. When next would
Thorvald cross the threshold and take his wife in his strong
arms, carry her to their bed and thrust inside her?

She'd listened to the distant echo of the drunken carousing
he and the other men enjoyed after the feast of venison and
shark steak they partook together before it was time for the
women to take their leave. It was only right that the men
should so celebrate while their womenfolk attended to their
domestic duties. After all, the men would suffer many days
of privation until the longships reached their destination on
the Hibernian shore. And now, along with the other women
on the village, whose gasps of passion Astrid could hear
carried on the chill spring air, she could enjoy the carnal
passion of her husband. This was her moment of the
evening, her last duty before the menfolk of the village
launched their longships to sea to bring back the promised
riches from the lands of those who worshipped other gods
and spoke a different tongue.

Soon, and too soon for Astrid, Thorvald released his seed,
his penis shrank inside her, and he collapsed on her bosom.
His long hair and beard became a second comforting
blanket under the elk-hide she pulled over their naked
bodies. As Astrid lay on her back, her husband's arms
around her and his body slumped on top, she hoped that
this time Thorvald had blessed her with Freya's bounty and
Hromund would at long last have a brother. She could still
hear the passion of the other women of the village whose
husbands had more stamina than hers and who had more
good fortune than she in providing a reasonably sized
family for her man.

The following day, when the menfolk had at last stirred
from their slumbers, Astrid stood on the shore with the
other women watching the longships set off across the
ocean. This was what it was like every spring, as the men
set off on the voyages that would bring the men back with
many riches and tales of their exploits. She remembered
with particular affection the golden cross that Thorvald
showed her last year on his return, before it was melted and
refashioned into less heathen form. The Hibernians were so
rich in gold, just as they were in the grain, livestock and
cloth the menfolk traded with the towns and villages along
the shore.

She knew the cross was a symbol of the Hibernian religion,
but she had heard that theirs was a faith that denied the true
gods of Asgard and worshipped instead a Jew who had
been killed in a particularly brutal way by the Roman
savages who now worshipped him. There was little else she
knew about Christians, but she thanked Freya that the land
of the Midnight Sun had been spared the cruelties of a faith
that denied women their freedom and whose men took from
them the keys to the household that was every Norse
woman's right. Surely there was something perverse about
a religion that worshipped a dead man rather than the living
and immortal gods who feasted in the great halls beyond
the rainbow.

The menfolk waved bravely at their wives and affianced
when they had at last rowed the longships out into the
deeper waters away from the shore. Astrid focused her
gaze on the distant silhouette of Thorvald whose eyes she
was sure were equally on her and young Hromund.

"And that's them gone for another summer!" said Gudrun,
who stood beside her and was no longer waving.

Astrid turned towards her neighbour, tears streaming from
her eyes as they were from all the other wives. She was
shocked to observe that Gudrun's eyes were not damp at
all. Did she not miss her man? Or was it men, such was her
reputation in the village. Gudrun was a woman who had no
permanent man in her life, but was known to have enjoyed
the attentions of many men, including, of course, the chief
himself. Her hearth was hers alone. Her goats were her own
and shared with no husband. The daughter she had borne
had no father's name to honour. The flax she spun she
exchanged for goods her smallholding didn't provide.

"The summer days will be long, hard and lonely!" wailed
Astrid.

"Long, I agree. But hard and lonely, not at all," said
Gudrun, with a smile. "They are my favourite days. The
birds sing. Nature is bountiful. The gods rejoice. Fair
recompense for the long cold nights of winter."

"By the great tree, Yggdrasil, do you not miss the
menfolk?"

"Not at all, sweet Astrid. And why should I worry about
them. They'll have fun: pillage, murder and rape. It's what
the men like to do most and what they like to sing about."

"Rape?" said Astrid aghast. "My Thorvald? Maybe the
younger men, but not Thorvald."

"And why not? Do you think he honours the chastity of the
women of Hibernia any more than he does the lives of the
men he slaughters, the farms from which he brings back the
grain and livestock, or the pagan shrines he desecrates?
Men are beasts when they have their sword unsheathed and
ale in their stomach. Your Thorvald is no different from
other men. Indeed, as an older, experienced warrior he has
to set the example."

"Not my Thorvald!" wept Astrid.

Surely Gudrun's words were said in jest. Her husband
assured her that no heathen woman had tempted him in this
way, although he was often rather coarse in his description
of their freckled, red-haired beauty. Although Astrid had no
great love for Hibernian women, who were mere chattels to
their men and worshipped the god of Charlemagne and
Rome, she had no wish that they should suffer from the
brutish passions of the village's menfolk, and most of all
from Thorvald.

Astrid returned to her home, knowing that until the
longships returned she and the other wives would have no
one to help them in the duties of the hearth or field. It was
true that Thorvald, like most men, was of only marginal use
in this capacity. When he wasn't away in summer bringing
back Hibernian bounty, his main preoccupation was hunting
reindeer, elk and boar, whose meat, though very welcome,
provided only occasional variety to a diet mostly of fish,
mushrooms, goats milk and hare.

The summer days were indeed long. Soon the sun would
never set and night become as much day as day became
night in winter. These were the days when Astrid gathered
together the food that kept hunger at bay in the long night,
when it was sometimes too cold to venture far from the
hearth for many days, and when a goat might need to be
sacrificed to satisfy the clamour of the belly. The long
nights when the men were most reluctant to hunt and snow
piled high against the walls of their home.

In these summer days, however, when the only men left in
the village were the very young and the old and feeble,
Astrid came to know the other women more closely and
intimately than was possible when the menfolk strode the
village paths. The women formed a community of support
and comfort: often visiting one another in each others'
homes and exchanging gifts and gossip while the sun
refused to descend beneath the horizon.

It was in these months that Astrid saw more of Gudrun.
Before, she had been very wary about associating with a
woman of such easy virtue, even though she was blessed by
the favours of the chief, but Gudrun showed sympathy for
Astrid's concerns for Thorvald.

One day, she met Astrid weeping by the river when
collecting water. While her daughter, Matilda, played with
Hromund in the shadows of the trees, Gudrun so
entertained Astrid with her wicked jokes and sly
observations that Astrid forgot all her worries about her
distant husband.

"It can't be," said Astrid when Gudrun speculated again on
Thorvald's assault on the virtue of the Hibernian wenches.

"You don't know men as well as I do, Gudrun, do you?"

"I've known one man only and one man is enough for me,"
said Astrid sternly.

"If only that fidelity were so true of Thorvald!" said
Gudrun, but refused to elaborate.

Astrid measured her wait by the phases of the moon, high
in the sky and sharing the heavens with the ever-present
Sun. There were normally two full moons before the men
returned and life would return to normal and the days
became shorter. After that, there would be the threat of
winter when the autumn equinox heralded the difficult long
nights to come. However, it was with alarm that Astrid
observed the moon creep through all the phases of death
and renewal, much like her own stubbornly consistent
menstrual cycle, and the longships still hadn't returned.

The wait extended beyond one moon and through the entire
cycle of the next. The subject of the men's delayed return
was the only topic of conversation the women of the village
ever discussed. What was delaying them? How long could
it take to sell the riches they had taken from the Hibernians?
It surely couldn't be that they had been bettered in battle?
Or had the gods of the sea claimed the menfolk for their
own?

It was better to hope that the men had perished in battle, if
they were not merely delayed, than that the men had died a
less than heroic death. Perhaps they were now dining in
Valhalla with the immortals: laughing and joking with Thor,
Baldur and Odin in the kingdom beyond the rainbow.

The women's misery was compounded by the shortening
days and the worsening weather. Soon, the first flakes of
snow arrived, not, thankfully, to settle, as the strong winds
and rain that followed drove away the thin coating of white.
But a later snowfall was more permanent and the isles were
now adorned in their winter coat. Without the men to
comfort them, the prospect of the night that never ended
held a particular dread.

Although Gudrun mourned no man, she was clearly as
anxious as Astrid of a winter where the village was run only
by women, without the excitement of the men preparing for
their hunting expeditions and the welcome meat with which
they returned, although Gudrun commented that the
reindeer they found were more likely stolen from the
nomads of the inland plains than hunted down with quite
the valour recounted in the tales they regaled their grateful
womenfolk.

"Where is Thorvald?" Astrid wailed. "Where are the
longships? They honoured the gods before they left. Surely
the gods would protect them!"

"Perhaps they've been having a more fruitful time in
Hibernia than on earlier expeditions," Gudrun speculated.
"Perhaps they'll return next year, when the sun appears on
the horizon again."

"I hope so. Oh! I hope so!"

"That's if they haven't settled down with freckle-faced
Hibernian wives?" Gudrun muttered bitterly.

Astrid stared at her friend, totally aghast.

"I don't believe you said that! Our menfolk, especially not
Thorvald, would never abandon a good Norse wife for
heathen chattel."

Gudrun smiled. "I'm joking, Astrid. There's every chance
the gods will bring them back eventually. Remember the
women of the southern isles. Their men returned the
following spring bringing back bounty from distant
Andalusia ruled by the men of the camel."

Astrid smiled. She nursed the same hope that the expedition
had merely taken the men further south to the mythically
rich lands where even the winters were warmer than the
Norse summer and the natives had permanently sun-
darkened skin.

Gudrun and Astrid spent much more time together, not just
through the day when they helped each other in their
domestic duties, but at night when they kept each other
company. Their children had become such good friends.
They played together in the claustrophobic confines of the
hearth when the blizzards were most intense. To stay warm,
the two children slept together under the same hides, as did,
on the other side of the fire, their mothers.

Most women of the village shared their homes in much the
same way as did Astrid and Gudrun. It was one less fire
each night to tend and domestic chores were less
burdensome when the work was divided between two or
more women. It was natural for the womenfolk to express
their solidarity for one another and it kept at bay the
privations of the long sunless days just as it lessened the
agony of loneliness and anxiety.

"I miss Thorvald so much!" sighed Astrid one day as the
two women sat together around the fire, whilst outside
their two children were playing in the dusk of the few
minutes of midday sun that heralded the end at last of the
worst days of winter.

"I miss the men too," agreed Gudrun. "I miss their
company. I miss my lovers. I miss the richer meat than hare
and lemming they bring back from the hunt."

"It's not men I miss. It's Thorvald!"

"And why is that?"

Astrid raised her skirt to reveal the thick triangular bush of
blonde hair between her thighs. "It's here I miss him most,"
she said, indicating the rich flesh that swelled through the
knotted strands. "There is not a night I don't wish Thorvald
could satisfy the itch I feel."

"You want a man's cock inside you again?"

"Yes," said Astrid, blushing at the strange intensity of
Gudrun's stare and hastily rearranging her skirt. "But not
any man's. It's Thorvald's I want!"

The question occurred again when Astrid and Gudrun
settled for sleep beneath the hides piled over them. In these
winter nights, people slept and rested for many more hours
just as in summer they would often forego sleep altogether.
When Astrid slept she did so with a depth that escaped her
in summer, but she would also often simply enjoy the
warmth of her bed. She felt no more guilty at her idleness in
winter than did any other woman. There were fewer chores
to attend to in the months when no crops were to be tended
or gathered, and good reason to conserve what warmth
there was.

"It's here you most miss Thorvald?" asked Gudrun, placing
her hand over the linen-covered mound of Astrid's crotch.

Astrid nodded.

"My womanhood itches too," said Gudrun, pressing
Astrid's hand on her own crotch which she was shocked to
find was not covered by thick cloth. Gudrun had pulled up
the linen so that Astrid's fingers were pressed against a
thick tangle of hair. "It burns. Feel the heat it gives. If only
I could use the warmth of my cunt to warm my toes. At
best it can only warm my fingers."

"It's very hot!" remarked Astrid with wonder.

"Is yours equally as hot, dear Astrid?" wondered Gudrun,
who tugged at her friend's skirt.

"No!" said Astrid sharply, pulling her hand away from
Astrid's crotch which seemed slightly moist as well as hot.
She rolled over on her side and faced away from Gudrun,
though she didn't resist her friend's comforting arms around
her shoulders where they normally rest each night.

Throughout the following day, Astrid remembered the
sensation of her fingers on Gudrun's crotch as they sat
together spinning flax or skinning hare. She sometimes
caught Gudrun's eyes as they wandered towards Astrid's
crotch hidden under coarse linen. She knew well the
sensation of damp warmth that burnt from her own vagina,
but, although she had no reason to doubt that other women
didn't also burn in the same way, it was a revelation to
know for sure.

The following night, when Gudrun's fingers again found
their way to Astrid's crotch, pulling her dress slowly up her
thighs, this time there was less resistance, although Gudrun,
as much as she, was not at all sure whether a comforting
stroke of the tangled hair should be all this invasion
amounted to. As Astrid slumbered after this brief
adventure, her crotch itched uncontrollably and she was
obliged to use her own fingers to extinguish the heat that
normally Thorvald was best equipped to handle.

Neither Gudrun nor Astrid had words to describe the turn
in which their relationship took. At first, it seemed merely
like friends comforting each other, though Astrid was
aware that their exploration of each other's crotches
became steadily more adventurous and more sensual. Soon,
every night was spent in urgent mutual masturbation, their
fingers digging deep inside, as deep, it sometimes felt, as a
man's penis might venture. And every day was spent
looking forward to their passionate fumbling.

All the while, the brief dusk of midday became steadily
longer until the sun was wholly above the horizon. Even
though these were normally the days of worst hunger and
misery as the rations were spent and yet to be replenished,
Astrid enjoyed these winter nights more than she'd done
since Thorvald and she were newly wed.

Gudrun was as uncertain as Astrid. Their new affection was
as strange to her as it was to Astrid. Their first kiss was a
shared revelation for both women. The passion they felt
when they shed their clothes was equal to any they ever felt
with a man. They ignored the chill on the side of the bed
not facing the fire, as they replenished the missing warmth
with the heat of their conjoined flesh. This was the first
time that Astrid had ever seen a woman's naked body so
close, except for those few balmy days of summer when it
was warm enough for the women of the village to brave the
chill water to bathe together in the river. Astrid wasn't sure
how much her feeling of desire as her friend shed her
clothes was because she admired a woman's body so much
as she very much admired Gudrun's. But admire it she did.

The beautiful bosom, with nipples erect with desire rather
than from the chill of a river's flow. The skin that matched
her own for paleness. The rich odour of Gudrun's vagina
that filled her nostrils, while her lover's tongue reciprocated
below. The smells that were so much Gudrun's, different
from those of Thorvald, but different again from her own.

"Listen!" said Gudrun, one night as the two of them lay
naked in one another's arms under the elk-hide.

"Listen to what?" wondered Astrid, hearing the distant hoot
of an owl.

"I'm not sure," admitted Gudrun. "A kind of panting,
grunting noise."

Astrid frowned, but in the unnatural silence of her
heightened attention she listened as hard as she could.
Although the snow was turning to slush and there was less
often the fragile crunch of distant footpads, there were, she
was sure, some strange animal noises. She hoped it wasn't a
wolf or bear visiting the village on the prowl for a child to
snatch away.

As her ear became attuned to the night silence, she
recognised it at last as a sound she was most familiar with
when amplified by proximity. It was much like the sound of
urgent lovemaking she heard on Thorvald's last night when
the men and women of the village marked their final hours
together with connubial passion. But it was a sound only of
women. There were no men's voices in that chorus.

She and Gudrun were not the only womenfolk who had
learnt to comfort each other in the pleasures of the flesh.
Indeed, as Astrid's ears strained yet further, could there be
a woman in the village who had not overcome the anxiety
of the longships' delay in this way?

Now she had reason to believe this was so, Astrid soon saw
more evidence that she and Gudrun were by no means
unique in the way their friendship had changed in character.
She saw women holding hands and exchanging sly glances
that signalled greater affection towards one another than
just shared grief and loneliness. She even saw Bolla and
Ingeltore kiss each other in the shadow of a tree when they
thought no one else could see them.

A gradual recognition of the new order soon became widely
known, but it wasn't spoken of. The women knew they
should honour their husbands whether they were alive or
not, and it was not right to have relationships that would
not, and could not, bring forth children; but there were no
men, at least not of the age or fitness to be good fathers,
and the survival of the village needed the women to pool
together their resources. And if there was pleasure to be
gained in the companionship of other women, was this not
fair compensation for the loss of the men who normally
fulfilled this need?

As the days became longer and spring gave way to summer,
Astrid was sure that the village was actually a better run
and more prosperous place than it was when the men spent
their time drinking or hunting. In fact, some women even
took on themselves the task of hunting boar or deer, and
were no less successful in their efforts than the men. On the
whole, she was happy in her life of passion and love with
Gudrun, though she sometimes missed Thorvald. After all,
Matilda might be a child with no father, but didn't Hromund
deserve better?

It was more than a year since the longships' departure and
the sun now refused to set, when news at last came back of
the fortune of the men's expedition. Astrid hastened with all
the other women, Hromund and Gudrun in tow, when word
spread that one of the menfolk had returned. The worry
that gripped Astrid as she ran to the village square was that
only one man was there. Where were the others? And
where, above all, was Thorvald?

The sole survivor was Sigfast who sat in the middle of a
circle of concerned wives who clamoured for good news.
But alas it was not to be! Sigfast was but a shadow of the
warrior he once was. He was lame in his right leg and there
was a cavernous emptiness where once his left eye shone.
He leaned on his staff that had accompanied him for many
leagues along the Norse shores and recounted the news the
wives had feared so much.

"We were sailing back from Hibernia," he said. "We had
gold and meat aplenty. We were full of good spirits and had
imbibed heavily of ale. Thor had been generous to us, we
thought. He had brought us victory in battle and the spoils
of our valour were great. But as our ships steered north of
the land of stone circles, we were cursed by the demons of
the sea who brought upon us a vicious storm.

"Our seamanship was tested to the utmost, but the winds
from the icy North were unkind. They tore our ships apart
and one by one they were smashed against rocks at sea. I
saw the ship in which sailed valiant Leiknir, brave Thorvald
and the chief break into splinters on the guano-painted
rocks. Our ship fared better and we prayed to Odin and
Thor that we should be spared. Unfortunately not! The
waves crashed high, the wind blew strong, and the rain
lashed hard. We were pulled and thrown from side to side,
water coming in over the bows. And then, struggle as we
did against the oars, we too met our fate on the rocks."

The women moaned in misery, Astrid amongst them.
Thorvald dead, not as she might have hoped as a hero in
battle, now to be feasting in Valhalla, but the more
wretched death of a sailor. His soul was lost and he would
not serve the honour and distinction of fighting with the
gods in the last great battle of Ragnarok.

"I was carried by the waves to the Orcadian shore: the last
of our company. I thought I would die, but the gods spared
me. The sea claimed only my eye and the strength of my
leg. Fortunately, there are many blond-haired Norse settlers
in the land of the stone circles who tended me and kept me
alive through the long days of winter, but months much less
cold than here. The snow settles but lightly and the midday
sun remains above the horizon even during the midwinter
solstice festival. And soon a passing longship took me back
to Norse shores many leagues to the south from whence I
have come."

So it was to be only Ingulfrid, Sigfast's wife, for whom this
homecoming brought good tidings. For all the other wives
and those who had hoped to be wives on the longships'
return, it was the news they had dreaded most throughout
the long Winter night.

Gudrun comforted Astrid as best she could. Their bodies
glistened with the perspiration of their conjoined passion,
compromised as it was by the knowledge that Thorvald,
nor any other village man, would satisfy them again.

The two lay together on their backs: Astrid weeping once
more with Gudrun's arms around her shoulder. Her lover
smiled at her.

"Perhaps this is how the gods meant it to be, Astrid," said
Gudrun softly. "Our love was meant to be. It is truly
blessed by Freya."

Astrid nodded sadly. But she wasn't sure how much her
tears were for the grief she felt for Thorvald or how much
was secretly relieved that she and Gudrun could remain
together. The ways of the gods were mysterious, but she
was sure Gudrun was right. As sure as summer would
become winter once more, theirs was a love that was meant
to last.


For More : /~Bradley_Stoke

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