by Jamie Knight
Her Norwegian was a lot more native than mine, which really only stood to reason, though I did my best to help her feel comfortable.
I drifted through the rows of vinyls. Ola had hired a craftsman upstate to build her record racks from solid aged ash wood. The Crow’s Nest had the best selection of Black Metal in the tri-state area, much of it imported directly from Europe.
Americans still tried their best to copy the style, and it was something, but nothing beat the real thing. It was no accident that the form originated in northwestern Europe. Given a choice, I would take the more melodic and technical Swedish bands, hands down, though the other Nordic countries had their attractions as well.
Collecting my weekly stack, I got as close as I ever did to Ola, playing the usual game of interaction roulette with the aged and cracked debit machine that had been third-hand when she had gotten it through dubious means. I strongly preferred cash, but that had recently gone the way of the dinosaur. Too much direct contact involved, even with gloves.
I nodded to her once more as I left the store.
Thinking that a respectable amount of time had passed, I got out my phone and hit the listing for Brigid’s number.
“Hello?”
“It’s Leif.”
“Oh, hi, Leif!” she said, her voice brightening up noticeably.
“I was thinking about you.”
“I-I was thinking about you, too,” she confessed, her breathless tone implying that her thoughts had not been entirely pure.
“I was thinking about that date.”
“Yeah, about that, how are we going to manage that with the lockdown and everything?”
“You just leave that to me, okay? All I need from you is for you to be home, preferably alone, okay?”
My head was racing with ideas, but I had a plan in mind.
“Okay, I can do that.”
“When is good for you?”
“How about now?”
“Okay. Do you need, like, my email or something...?”
“It’s all figured out. Are you at your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there. We can begin in an hour.”
I snapped my phone shut. I had some preparing to do.
Chapter Three - Lisa
It’s funny how things go sometimes. Just when life is getting bad, a bit of hope comes and makes you think maybe everything will turn out alright.
Suddenly an alert came up on my screen. I didn’t recognize what it was at first, almost having forgotten I had ever set up the video-chat app. Closing my robe quickly, I tapped ACCEPT.
As though by magic, Leif was there. He seemed to jump out of the screen, almost like he was sitting right across from me, in a beautiful chair in a room as dark as mine, illuminated by blue light like I was. It gave him an otherworldly, almost supernatural quality.
He was dressed nicely, in a simple black suit with a blue dress shirt, open at the collar. A small silver Hammer of Thor, symbolic of Nordic mythology, hung around his neck. It was really nice that he had made an effort.
I, on the other hand, was still in my robe, having taken his directive to stay where I was a bit more literally than he had likely meant it. Fiercely independent as I might try to be, I was a submissive at heart. Particularly to a strong, powerful man like Leif.
“Hi,” he said, as though it was just another Tuesday.
“Hi.”
“Turn your camera on, please.”
“Oh, why?”
“So I can see you,” he said, in a way that instantly made me wet.
“Okay.”
It took several minutes to find the camera controls. My trembling fingers were not helping much. Still, Leif waited patiently for me to figure it all out, his soft expression giving an uncommon sort of comfort.
“There, did that work?”
“It sure did. There you are.”
I blushed at the pet name, too shy to conjure a witty reply. Let alone a similar name for him.
“You look amazing,” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“So do you.”
“Come on. I’m in my robe.”
“A Chinese silk robe.”
“Is it?”
“Oh yes. It’s hard to tell without seeing it in person, but early nineteenth century, I would guess. Looks to be in nearly mint condition, too.”
The robe had belonged to my ex. He’d walked out on Polly and me so fast I figured he must have forgotten it. It felt pretty good to know I had something of his that might be worth something.
“Valuable?”
“If it’s the real thing, extraordinarily so.”
“How do you know?”
“I like old stuff. I mean, I still have a smartphone and all that jazz. I am well aware of what century I live in, don’t worry. I just take pleasure in the simpler things, like studying that which came before. When we ran into each other earlier today, I was on my way to archery practice, in fact.”
I hadn’t been expecting that. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I really could see him with a bow and quiver, driving bolts though the dead centers of targets. His arms certainly looked big enough to get decent string tension.
Just the thought of it made me pretty hot. I wasn’t really the type to spend time worrying about the end of the world, but if things really did go south and society crumbled, I would want someone like Leif by my side.
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, it is, particularly when it is going well. I crafted my bow and arrows myself. Had to buy the quiver, though; the right kind of leather is just too hard to come by around here. Had it imported from England.”
My hand slipped down to my aching pussy. I knew I shouldn’t. Not when he could see me. But I was just so horny I had to find release, or I might explode.
“Sounds expensive,” I said, trying to keep up the conversation, gently stroking the outside of my pussy.
“Not really. I have my ways. Is your hand where I think it is?”
“What?” I asked, pulling my hand away quickly.
“Your hand.”
“I, um, where do you think it was?”
“Between your legs,” he whispered in a way that made me melt like ice cream in August.
“It was,” I confessed, blushing furiously.
“Take off your robe,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” I whispered, without a moment’s hesitation.
I wanted him to see me. Even if he couldn’t touch me.
“Good girl,” he said, making me bite my lower lip. “Now open your legs.”
I obeyed him, spreading my legs wide, the cool air brushing onto my pussy making me tingle.
“Where would you want me to touch you?”
“Here,” I begged, indicating my soaking, tender, open slit.
“With my fingers or my tongue?”
“Fingers first,” I said, shuddering with anticipation at the very idea.
“Wet yours.”
I plunged my fingers into my mouth and sucked them like I had just burned them, getting them nice and slick like Leif had ordered.
“Now touch that pussy of yours that is dripping wet for me,” he directed.
Lightly, I moved my well-wetted fingertips to my outer lips, moaning loud with sweet relief as much as tender pleasure.
“Feel me stroke you,” he said calmly.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. His fingers caressing my delicate pink folds, flooding me with pleasure.
“Now pretend I’m fingering you.”
With his permission, I put two fingers inside me, still pretending that they were his, filling me up, giving me such joy. I really could have cried.
“Angle your fingers up slightly.”
I did, nearly yelping with sudden pleasure. I knew instinctively I had hit my g-spot. Something I had never managed before.
“Feel that?” he inquired.
“Oh, fuck yes,” I moaned with every fiber of my being.
I wasn’t sure if he was going to say more but I came before he could, bucking and moaning, biting my own fist to keep from screaming and waking Polly.
“Get on your knees,” he ordered, when I had recovered.
“I don’t— oh, okay, I’m on my knees. Right in front of you. I’m completely naked. My pussy is wet for you.”
I couldn’t stop the words from flowing.
Putting his head back, Leif closed his eyes and unzipped his suit pants. I nearly fainted when I saw his cock. It looked like the thickness of a fucking tree trunk but smooth and porcelain-white with a bright pink head, throbbing in the air.
All eight inches were hard as hell. I wanted him to pound it into me so much I could taste it. Literally and figuratively.
“I’m licking your balls. Sucking them one by one,” I said, imagining it as I watched him stroke.
“Good.”
“Now, I’m licking after your shaft, from bottom to top, swilling my tongue round your head in figure eights.”
“Feels good, honey,” he said, stroking even faster.
“Now I’m sucking the head, lightly, taking it all the way into my hot little mouth,” I said, really getting into it.
“Good,” he groaned, continuing to stroke.
“Now I’m sucking more, moving my mouth down little by little.”
“Harder,” he implored.
“I’m sucking harder. As hard as I can, I’m almost all the way down your gorgeous cock. Gagging on it as I suck. Tears in my eyes as I look at you, wanting you to fill me up with your hot cum.”
I gasped when it happened. A bunch of thick white cum blasted out of his cock onto the floor. It was beautiful, but seemed like such a waste. I wanted to actually be able to swallow it as it came out of him. Fresh from the source.
“I’m kissing you gently,” he said, tucking away his still-hard cock and zipping up his spotless suit pants.
“I can feel it.”
I could, too.
“I’m stroking your pussy gently.”
“Feels really nice.”
“I am asking you out for a picnic tomorrow.”
“How would that work?” I asked, breaking character.
“Leave that to me, my pet.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter Four - Leif
It took some doing, but I had said I could and indeed I did. I had some help from a tape measure, using it to mark the distance we’d need between us. Twice.
The most difficult part of the whole setup was finding the picnic baskets. Double-lidded wicker with big, arching handles. Like something out of Yogi Bear.
The blankets were eight-foot squares and brightly checkered. All we were missing were the ants, and it could have been a cartoon.
“Liff!” Polly cheered.
“Lie to me and tell me my name was her first word,” I joke.
“No, but it was one of her first human names,” Brigid chuckled, looking down at the little girl.
She sat on the other blanket, exactly six feet from mine, set up with its own basket. I didn’t really think Polly would be into fondue or goat cheese, so I improvised, mostly using the blender.
My date kept her legs crossed at the ankles as she put Polly down beside her. Those legs were beautiful and on full display as she dug through the basket like a kid at Christmas.
“Baby shakes?” Brigid asked, taking out one of the juice bottles of thick liquid.
“I was thinking smoothies but yeah, pretty much,” I confessed with a humble shrug.
“That’s brilliant!”
“Thanks.”
“I could kiss you,” Brigid smiled.
“No, you can’t, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
She blushed furiously, no doubt remembering what we had done the night before. Both of us had clearly wanted so much more. We would just have to wait a while longer. Still, that didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun in the meantime.
Giving Polly one of the specially made baby shakes - it really was a better term - Brigid busied herself with the plate of deviled eggs, acting like she was trying not to meet my eye. As though if she so much as gazed up at me, she would jump my bones, or at least one bone in particular, right then and there.
Not that I didn’t feel the same about her. I was keeping my emotions in check, though, difficult as it was.
Thoroughly energized by my concoction, Polly took on a new spark of life. She turned from the sedate, content baby I had seen before into a pint-sized dynamo, running over to my blanket as fast as her little legs would carry her.
Brigid barely got to her in time, swooping Polly up off her feet for several seconds, playing an impromptu game of airplane. Polly giggled as her feet left the ground.
“Sorry, she has a mind of her own,” Brigid apologized, taking Polly back over to their side of the picnic.
“As should be expected.”
Apparently, Polly took my words as permission and as soon as her feet touched grass, she was back over, trying to hug me. I was too fast for her and was up off the blanket and taking a slow lap around the perimeter of our island in the sea of green before she was within arm’s reach.
Brigid was too busy laughing to even attempt to collect her spawn. No matter though. I didn’t figure a toddler could outlast me, particularly at that speed.
Sure enough, before long she started huffing and puffing, then took the most adorable belly flop, her little legs no longer cooperating with the rest of her body. This necessitated another bout of heartfelt giggling, Polly able to see the humor of her own situation.
“Nice bit of self-awareness,” I said, as Brigid scooped up her very amused daughter.
“I do my best with her.”
Lunch finished, Brigid and I set into dessert with the ferocity of an avenging army. Brigid got a dabble of whipped cream at the corner of her sweet mouth, and I wanted so much to clean it away for her. With my tongue, if possible. I chained the wolf howling within, remembering my civilized side.
“I would like to show you something,” I said, as we cleared up our respective spots.
“On your bike? I don’t think we’ll all fit.”
“It’s within walking distance.”
“Won’t it look, well, odd? Walking down the street with ‘pick-ah-nick’ baskets?”
“Afraid Ranger Smith will catch us?”
“Among other things.”
“Trust me, love. Wicker baskets are far from the weirdest things people have seen me with.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Let’s just say the boys in blue tend to look askew at a Norse longbow and full quiver of arrows. Even if you are only taking them in for storage at your range. Revolvers, fine, but the weapon used to fell King Harold at the Battle of Hastings? Far too deadly.”
We made sure to keep our six feet apart as I led her to the Crow’s Nest. I descended to the lower level first, maintaining social distancing as well as showing Brigid the best way to tackle the riddle of the stairs.
There really was a trick to it; you just had to know where to put your feet. All safe at the bottom of the chasm, I held the door for Brigid as she got gloves and a mask.
“Letting the ghosts in?” Ola asked.
“Not quite.”
“This is amazing!” Brigid marveled, gazing about the deceptively large shop.
“Bigger on the inside, jellybean,” Ola said.
“Why do you call me that?” Briged asked.
“Your hair,” Ola said.
“My hair?”
“Bright red. Look like strawberry jellybean.”
“Or raspberry,” I pointed out.
“Jelly-been!” Polly exclaimed, clapping.
“I thought I would try something new.”
“It looks really good,” I said.
“Agreed,” Ola opined.
“Oh, I’m sorry, and you are?”
“Ola Hallegrim, Brigid McHaggis. Brigid, this is Ola, my dear friend and the best music vendor i
n the state.”
“Stop, you make me blush.”
“I speak only the truth.”
“Which can be biggest problem.”
“Agreed,” Brigid concurred.
Splitting up, and staying at least six feet away from each other, we perused the finely crafted racks. Brigid was mostly just amazed that such places still existed.
“I would like to play some of these if I had a record player.”
“That’s always useful.”
“Yuth-ful,” Polly parroted.
“She learns fast,” Ola called from behind the counter.
“Oh, you have no idea. I have my own narration when going through the park. She knows lots of words but her favorite is ‘birdie.’”
“Birdie?” Polly asked, looking up at the ceiling.
“Not here, honey.”
“Oh,” Polly said, sounding genuinely disappointed.
The scene was somewhat sullied by the arrival of the Death Bringers. My own term for people who recklessly went out, taking no notice of the social distancing measures, and didn’t seem to even consider any protective measures, such as masks or gloves, like those Ola insisted on.
“Get on mask and glove or get out,” Ola ordered.
“Says who, Helga?” the lead prick demanded.
“Me and Louis,” Ola said, putting a Louisville Slugger down on the counter.
They were clearly shaken but not about to back down. The “bro code” forbade it. She was just a girl, to them, after all.
“Who are you going to get to swing it?”
“Me.”
All heads turned as one as Ola tossed me the bat. The Death Bringers held their ground as I approached, machismo and stupidity gluing them in place.
The lead Death Bringer tried his best, even turning slightly before he swung his punch. I barely felt it. It would take a lot more than that to bring me down.
“My turn,” I said, leaning down several inches so we were eye to eye, the slugger resting casually on my shoulder.
They nearly crawled over each other trying to get back to the rickety old stairs and up into the empty sun-dappled streets.
“Was it something I said?”
Chapter Five - Brigid
I could have fucked him right there on the floor of the record store. I really thought he was going to be a fling, just a bit of fun, but my feelings were telling me something quite different.
