by James, Elle
She pressed her hips forward, seeking contact. Her sarawil were soaked through between the legs. “I need,” she started to say then stopped, unsure what, exactly, she needed. More of Faiz. But she couldn’t say that, especially since he’d want to hear her use his foreign name, and she had enough trouble pronouncing Arnulf when she could think clearly.
Luckily, he understood the words she couldn’t say. He reached up, grasped the keyhole neckline of her qamis and ripped it open down the front. With surprisingly gentle hands, he pushed the tattered garment off her shoulders. He tried to untie the embroidered drawstring of her sarawil, but seaman though he was, the knot confounded his big fingers. He reached for the knife on his belt. Deftly, he cut the drawstring and pushed the pants down to her ankles.
Walladah held her breath, kept every muscle of her body frozen. A shudder of outrage turned almost instantly to a shudder of stark lust. That was how she’d imagined her Northman husband behaving, destroying things in the wake of his careless passion.
But the destruction wasn’t careless at all. It was careful, considered, deliberate. And she hadn’t imagined how sensuous and exciting it could be to have her fine garments destroyed like so many rags. She stepped out of the sarawil.
Arnulf kicked them aside. “Beautiful,” he repeated as if it was the only word of Arabic he could recall. “Beautiful Walladah.” He ran a hand down her naked belly and curved it over her neatly bared mound. “So smooth.” He said words then in his own tongue. She couldn’t understand them, but his deep voice dropped into a whisper that promised wicked delights, and his gaze went dark and heated. She knew whatever he said must be bold and erotic, and that knowledge, combined with the look and the voice and the teasing caress, aroused her more than she knew was possible.
He slipped two fingers between her legs, not penetrating, but stroking at the slick, sensitive flesh, the place she toyed with sometimes in the night, and she realized she’d been mistaken a few seconds before. It was possible to be far more aroused than she had been earlier, to reach a state where desire for something she couldn’t explain might just drive her mad.
She clenched, rocked forward to meet the touch. Blood roared in her ears, and when he withdrew his hand, she found herself grinding at the air.
He smiled, and it was definitely the grin of a warrior who saw victory in his grasp. “Soon,” he soothed, stroking her bare back and uncovered hair soothingly.
Then they set to work together removing his garments. Each layer they took off revealed more of the strong lines of his body, more hints of the wild Northman under the civilized clothing of a Muslim resident of Cordoba. By the time they were done, she wished she had the nerve to resort to a knife herself, to hurry the process.
He was very pale where the sun and wind hadn’t weathered his skin, as fair as the Circassian singing girl who’d performed at her wedding festivities. But it was the fairness of carved ivory, solid and firm, not that young woman’s plump, milky pallor. His broad chest and long legs displayed muscles she didn’t know existed. Oh, she could tell his body followed the same human pattern as her own, except for the obvious differences between man and woman. But his size and strength altered that familiar design, so he looked more like a strange creature out of legend—not a monster, but something fierce and beautiful, a djinni, perhaps.
She splayed her hennaed hands on his broad chest. She didn’t think of herself as a small woman—she was the tallest of her sisters—but her hands looked tiny against him.
She couldn’t help herself. She ran her hands down his body, circled his cock with one hand while cupping his balls with the other. His balls twitched when she touched them, like they had a life of their own. His cock was heavy, hot, thicker than she’d realized, purplish in contrast with his fair skin and the nest of pale hair from which it rose. Intriguingly, it was topped with a pearl of fluid. She caught it with one finger, tasted its musky saltiness. Then she returned her hand and began to stroke. The motion was awkward—she really had no idea what she was doing—but the temptation was irresistible. She managed only a few strokes before he caught her wrists. “Was I doing it wrong?”
“Too right.” He breathed her name like a prayer and pulled her closer. “I need patience.”
“Please… I want to know what I’m craving.” It was all she could think to say as the sheer impact of her husband’s body interfered with her ability to think.
He moved his hands, scooped her up, carried her the few steps to the elaborately carved bed, draped with fine white netting and layered in rich red fabrics in celebration of the marriage, except for stark white sheets that would display her virgin blood.
Walladah’s heart raced, and she could not tell if she was more excited or frightened. He seemed so huge lying over her, so blond, so alien, and his cock, nudging at her opening, seemed far too large to accommodate. Yet, she wanted to accommodate it, wanted to feel it filling her, moving inside her as the older women had described so eloquently. Impatient now despite her nerves, she opened her legs and canted her hips forward to meet him. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, not against her slick opening, but at the hypersensitive pearl of flesh above it. Sensation filled her. She squirmed against him, half-drunk on desire, wanting, wanting…
“You are a maiden,” Faiz said—no, she reminded herself, Arnulf. The wild name suited him, even if she could not bring herself to speak it. “And yet you flow like a river for me.”
“That’s poetic.”
He smiled, a fierce, proud smile. “That is the best I can do in a tongue I speak poorly. But this is proper poetry.” He began to recite something in his own language.
Walladah caught the rhythm of the ocean in the words, the violent give and take of battle, a few lines that hinted at some wild Northern magic. His blue eyes went distant as he recited, as if he looked, in his mind, at the scene the poem described. It didn’t rhyme, but the rhythm was strong music. She could imagine rowing a ship to that beat.
And then the tone changed. She still couldn’t understand the individual words, but now he was clearly speaking of something tender and intimate. A long-sought homecoming, a woman’s beauty, the wonder of love.
The meter, she thought, was the same as the earlier poem, but it seemed different now, a heartbeat, or two bodies making love. His hips kept rocking as he recited, rocking to the rhythm of the words.
Between steady teasing movement and the deep, rich voice reciting passionate words, she was more than ready when he entered her at last.
There was an instant of pain, a sense of something tearing deep inside her. My old life, she thought. There was no going back now to the maiden she had been, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to go forward, to experience the pleasure that the women had described last night.
She wasn’t sure what to do next—her pre-marital instruction hadn’t been that detailed about how to please a man. So she wrapped both legs and arms around her husband, moved against him, letting her hips take over when her brain failed.
It was overwhelming and frightening and wonderful, all at once. She wanted to say something, wanted to give him a poem in Arabic in exchange for the one he had given her. But that was too much for her brain to handle right now. She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could manage was a moaned, “Faiz.”
“Arnulf,” he said, a hint of teasing reproach in his voice. Then his mouth was over hers and he was moving faster. Arnulf was big and it hurt a little, she wouldn’t lie to herself, but the hurt was edged with gold and she wanted to push to the pleasure she felt hovering just on the other side of the discomfort. Then he eased his hand between their bodies and began to stroke her pearl.
Pain stopped. Thought stopped. Walladah’s heart almost stopped as she reached that place of pleasure she’d known was waiting, then went beyond it to a degree of bliss she hadn’t known existed. Oh, she’d heard hints in the naughtier sort of poems and songs, had heard the old ladies joking about it last night, but it had seemed like an exaggera
tion. Those hints were pale shadows of the truth, and the truth was a fire that lifted off the top of her head to let in stars and poems as her body convulsed around her Northman’s cock. “Arnulf,” she managed to say, unable to worry if she pronounced it properly. “Arnulf.”
His body stiffened. His face screwed up as if he were in pain. Then he let out a great roar and his cock leaped inside her, setting off another wave of convulsions, another pleasure so strong it drove away words.
Words stayed distant as Faiz…no, Arnulf… slipped from her side long enough to wet a linen cloth at the wash basin and tenderly clean her. She jumped a bit at the cool cloth, and she was tender and would no doubt be sore in the morning. Still, his touch on her sex and lips set off another release, a milder one than before, but enough to make her groan and make him look down upon her and smile. Words remained far away and difficult as she took the cloth from him and cleaned him, smiling to herself as his cock, though limp from its exertions, jumped at her touch, as if it very much wanted to stiffen for her.
But as she lay curled against his big body, words came back in force. They weren’t forming a good poem, not yet—and certainly it would be a poem she could share with no one but Arnulf, even when it was complete, for it would be racy enough to make a singing girl blush. She would share it, though, if she thought he could deal with a wife who wrote poems. Meanwhile, another poem came to mind, one of those that she wasn’t supposed to know but did anyway, about the night and stars and a beloved brighter than all the stars in the sky. She began to recite.
And to her astonishment, her husband joined in, repeating the poem in his deep voice. When it was finished, she rolled up onto her knees so she could look at his face. “How did you know that?”
“I heard someone recite it after a dinner gathering. It stuck in my head, though I couldn’t understand most of the words then. It’s a lover addressing his beloved, isn’t it?”
“Like the one you recited for me, the second one. The first was something warlike, I think, but the second one talked of love.”
“I am very proud of that first poem; it tells of a great battle out of legend. Perhaps you can help me translate it into Arabic. I know you have poems that speak of war and heroes. The second one is rough, but I composed it on the spot, and I was more than a bit distracted.”
Once again, the top of Walladah’s head opened, and stars and poems flowed in. “You write poetry? Faiz…Arnulf…that’s wonderful.”
He laughed. “I’ve never written a poem in my life, though perhaps you can help me with that. I’ve composed many, though.” He lowered his voice. “Between the two of us, wife, poetry was what first made me think to open a trading house in Cordoba. Everyone in this city goes about spouting poems, even the woman selling vegetables in the market and the man driving sheep in from the hills, and this fact makes me feel at home even though this place could not be more different from the north. The words of the holy Koran captured me, though I could not understand them at first, because it sounds like a long, wonderful poem. And then I learned what they meant and here I am.” He laughed, an abrupt, gruff laugh. “I know. You thought you’d been married off to a wild Northman warrior, and here I lie prattling of poetry.”
“I like such prattling. I feared we would not be able to speak of such things, but it seems we have enough words in common for what matters. Even though I didn’t understand your poems, I felt them here.” She took his hand and placed it over her heart. “Poetry comes from untamed places, though we shape it so it sounds civilized. I think this marriage will suit us both well, Arnulf.”
For the first time, his name rolled easily off her tongue. Let him be Faiz to the rest of the world; it was, as she said, a strong and honorable name. But now she could hear the music in his name, wild and fierce and sweet like his verse and his lovemaking.
She said his names again, both of them, for the sheer joy of shaping them with her lips.
Until Arnulf, also known as Faiz, gave her something better to do with her mouth.
The Needle and the Strap
Bibi Rizer
The East coast of Newfoundland, 1015 AD
Jari spotted the boat at dawn. He had taken the first watch in his brother’s place after losing a game of dice he was almost sure was rigged. The older men had only laughed when he protested. As the youngest in their remote settlement, with no woman to give him prestige, Jari had to bear their fun at his expense like a Norseman. Stoically. He filed away his anger to make use of one day in battle or on a raid. Perhaps he would picture his brother’s face as he cleaved open one of the Skræling warriors.
In truth, he had no wish to face the Skræling again. Their shrieks and painted faces gave him nightmares. A Norseman—having nightmares about battle! Jari thought the Skræling gods had cursed him with cowardice because he accidently desecrated a grave site. How was he to know these wild people didn’t burn their dead like proper warriors? It was hardly fair to be cursed for ignorance, but other people’s gods were like that, Jari knew. Unfair.
He gazed out at the boat, silhouetted by the rising sun over the silver ocean. He hoped they had women with them. And ale. First ale, then women. Jari found women almost as terrifying as Skrælings without a little fortification. Two or three ales in him, though, he could perform respectably well. When he’d had the opportunity, that is. Which had been a while ago. And with whores.
“Eighteen summers old,” Jari muttered. “Stuck in this desolate drit-bucket, watching ships like an addled thrall-child.”
He sighed heavily and began the climb up to the longhouse to inform his brother of the approaching ship.
His brother, Iver, roused eventually, untangling himself from the limbs of his pregnant wife, who protested with suggestions that made Jari’s cheeks burn and cock twitch.
Iver slapped his back as they made their way down to the shore. “I should slit your throat for looking at my woman’s teats,” he said with a grin.
“I wouldn’t have looked if she hadn’t been shaking them in my face,” Jari replied. “I was in grave danger of being concussed. I had to look to dodge a lethal blow to the head.”
His brother roared with laughter all the way to the beach.
The long ship had not moved any closer. Its mast was down, but even at this distance, Jari could see the small craft had oars. The ocean was relatively calm.
“Why don’t they row in?” Jari asked.
“Pull up the faering. We’ll go out to meet them.”
“Should we not…wait? What if they’re not friendly?”
Iver slapped him again. “That’s a Norse boat, boy. What Norseman would lurk off the headland like an eel if they had intentions to attack?”
They climbed into the faering, a small narrow dinghy with two sets of oars, and set to row out to the forlorn longboat.
When they reached the bobbing ship and pulled up to her port side, Iver called out, “Hey! Brothers? Show yourselves!”
No answer came. Iver threw a loop of rope to an oar lock and pulled up close alongside, hoisting himself upward. Jari clambered up beside him. No sooner had he poked his head over the gunwale and witnessed the horror therein than Iver had lunged at him, tearing him away and hurling them both into the frigid water below.
“Pestilence!” Iver shouted as they surfaced.
Jari blinked the salt water from his eyes and considered the after image of what he had seen. A pile of bloated bodies, grey in death, their faces contorted in their last agony.
“Did you touch one?” Iver asked.
Jari shook his head, treading water, feeling his feet grow numb, his stones shrinking in his sodden breeches. “No, I didn’t even have time to take a breath.”
“Good. Let’s away. We’ll come back with flames and arrows and send these poor souls to Valhalla, if they’ve earned it.”
They returned with more of the men from the settlement, and bows and arrows dipped in pitch. Jari carried a flame with which to light them. Their holy man spoke some in
scrutable words, beseeching the gods to look kindly on these most ignoble deaths.
Jari thought it was pointless, but he said a silent prayer to Freya that these Norsemen’s wives might find peace somehow. It galled Jari to think of women waiting for men who were never coming back. He would dream of them tonight, he thought. Dream of easing their grief with his under-used manhood.
“Jari! The flame!” his brother snapped. The other men had their arrows at the ready.
Jari lifted the lantern so each could light their missiles. They let fly and soon the small ship was smoldering then burning, dark smoke rising with the souls of the dead men.
Jari blew out the lamp as they turned the faering and began to row back to shore.
Halfway to the beach, the air was torn with a wild screech. They all turned to look at the burning ship just as a spectral figure, black clothed and flaming emerged onto the gunwale, hung there for a moment, writhing, before tumbling into the churning water.
“Gods preserve us,” said one of men. “A sea draug!”
But when the creature surfaced, screaming and thrashing, Jari could see it was no monster. It was a woman. And she was about to drown.
Without thinking, Jari dove into the waves, pushing through the current. The woman disappeared from view as he swam, sinking with a weak yelp. He dove down, opening his eyes under the murky brine and just spotted a falling shadow. His hand shot out and grabbed a tendril of the poor creature’s hair. He kicked his legs hard and dragged them both to the surface.
“Are you mad!?” he heard his brother cry. “She’ll have the fever!”
The woman wasn’t breathing. Jari kicked and swam for the faering, but as he arrived, the other men set on him with oars. One even drew an arrow.
“You’ll not be getting back into this boat with that,” the holy man said, not sounding very holy at all.
“Please,” Jari spluttered, as a wave overtook him. “She’s not breathing.”
