The Shield-Maiden 🤍 2.8.1

In which Lagertha makes her demands

I sit at a half-empty table at a dinner for a literarily minded charitable foundation, regrettably without Charlotte. She had a conflict across town, so I came by myself, and this is something to be endured until I can get home. I look around the room again to see if there’s anyone I recognize so that I can hop tables, but once again I strike out. Not that table hopping is permitted, as the the high-strung woman that greeted me when I came in was quick to inform me.

“You are assigned to table forty-two,” she said, referring to a list. “It is of utmost importance that you stay at your table and at your place, because the entire meal has been coordinated based on what you chose.”

I nodded to mollify her. I decided not to use that moment to reveal to her that I failed to respond with my choice in time and would thus be receiving whatever was considered to be the default.

“Sounds good.”

“Under no circumstances should you switch seats with anyone,” she said almost accusatorially. “It will throw off the staff and delay meal service for all of the other guests.”

“Got it. No seat swapping.”

She read me the preemptory riot act for a further thirty seconds, and then allowed me to head to my table. I’ve never cared for these events, and it’s the self-importance of people like her that make them even more insufferable.

I am lost in these thoughts when someone says, “Is this seat taken?” I look up and see a face I recognize but do not know personally.

“According to the woman at the door, very much so,” I say. “From what I can tell, no.”

“Looks empty to me,” the woman says, sitting down. She is wearing a black dress that greatly highlights her figure, and her blonde hair is flowing down over her shoulders in vintage style tresses. The word that springs to my mind is elegant.

I look over my shoulder towards the door.

“Did you just do a head check for that overzealous harpy?” the woman says.

I smile. “What can I say? I’m a rule follower.”

She clicks her tongue in disgust. “I thought better of you from your novels.”

“You can’t believe everything you read,” I say.

“If only half of what I’ve read about you is true, that would still be a good adage to live by,” she says.

If only half of what you read here is true, it would still be worth a subscription.

The gossip columns have picked up on some details of my sexual escapades of the past year, and though none are entirely correct, there is a nugget of truth to most.

I chuckle. “I’m Jack, but it seems you have the advantage of me,” I say in a posh English accent.

“Yes, it does,” she says, with a smile. Her blue eyes are casting a spell on me, one I am only too happy to fall under.

“And who are you?” asks an imperious voice. “I thought I asked you to leave.”

I look up and see the woman from the front door addressing the woman to my right.

“This is Lagertha,” I say smoothly. “Shield-maiden of Norway.”

The woman checks her list. “I don’t see her on this list.”

“She’s my plus-one,” I say.

“You don’t have a plus-one registered.”

“We were supposed to register them?”

If bureaucratic irritation had an onomatopoeia, it would be the tsk of frustration emitted by this woman right now. “What is she eating?”

“She will have the fish,” says the woman next to me.

The organizer snaps her little folio closed and leaves without a word, trailing well-bred contempt in her wake.

My guest leans back and arches an eyebrow, reevaluating me. “I thought you were a rule follower?”

“Yeah, well. You can’t believe everything you hear, either,” I say. “Crashing the party?”

She smiles. “Something like that.”

“Funny, I usually try to avoid these.”

“Alas, the commitments of a professional life.”

“Yes,” I say. “So, Ms. Winston, what is it that brings you here tonight?”

“Tut, tut,” she says. “So direct.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Very well. It’s been a warm Autumn so far, wouldn’t you say?”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly with her lips pouted out tightly.

I take the time to draw a breath and let it out. “Do you find that individuals are more capable of accepting a woman as a shield-maiden than is our society at large?”

She raises her own eyebrows. “It depends on the individual. Some are threatened by it, whereas some find it... liberating, perhaps, to be with a woman who has the plan.”

“What do you think defines the difference between those two camps?”

“I find that men in particular who are insecure in their manhood are predictably threatened. But it’s not the outside picture that counts. The burliest of lumberjacks may be a teddy bear and the most waif-like intellectual may flee to the hills when a maiden beats her shield.” So saying, she clasps a fist to her breast and thumps twice.

“And how does one tell the difference between the two?” I ask.

She takes a sip of water, watching me over the rim of the glass. “Observation.”

I nod. “I have a shield-maiden in my life and she is quite an astute observer of character. She was able to see right through me and has taught me things about myself that I never guessed at.”

“Does your art not require self-awareness?”

I think for a moment. “Self-awareness, yes. But not necessarily accurate self-perception. Many belief systems are built on foundations that we accept as presented when we’re young, and can be very challenging to overcome.”

“There’s nothing easy about rebuilding a foundation underneath an existing structure. That requires a lot of trust.”

“Yes.”

“A willingness to let people follow their own course from time to time. To wander. Explore.”

I feel a little thrum of excitement go through my balls. I give her a long look. “I like the trend of your thought, Ms Winston. And I agree.”

“Lauren,” she says.

I nod, and the serving staff come through and deliver plates of food. Through dinner and into dessert, Lauren and I talk about self-actualization and the morality and illusory nature of free choice, themes that often present themselves in my books. She has well-thought out opinions and impresses me with the breadth of her interests. She maintains a veneer that is difficult to penetrate, however, and her flirtations remain veiled and indirect. Her body language becomes more open but she is difficult to read, and she is so disarmingly beautiful that I have a difficult time maintaining my own distance compensatory to hers.

“But that’s the whole point,” she is saying when I shake myself from being a bit lost in her smile.

“So you say.”

She pauses. “You know, usually when I wear something that covers my chest I don’t run into as many problems with men staring at me like an object.”

“An object of desire or an object of worship?”

Lauren blinks and then snorts a laugh. “You know, I don’t think I gave you a lot of ways out there but you found one.” She grins in spite of herself.

I grin back sheepishly. “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.”

“The Popeye defense,” she murmurs, rolling her eyes.

“Canned spinach will save me?”

“‘I yam what I yam’,” she says.

“Ah,” I say. “So what is a viking man to do when he sees a striking shield-maiden?”

“Tighten his vambraces and prepare to show her his strength with sword and shield.”

I slip my pen from my pocket and twirl it between my fingers as I draw out a small notebook as well.

“A sonnet for the warrior-poet, perhaps?” I ask, clicking the pen and flipping open the notebook. “’Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate....’”

She watches, suppressing a small smile.

“’Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’... I could go on if you’d like.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, still with that small smile of hers.

She is obviously enjoying my discomfort, so I deprive her of it by finishing the sonnet, line by line. Her face gives nothing, but I think I see something in her ice-blue eyes subtly change.

“...’So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee,’” I finish.

Lauren blinks slowly, leaning back, relaxed, watching.

I realize what the look is, and where I recognize it from. She is the panther, still and watchful; but hungry, and looking at her next meal.

I open my mouth to suggest that we leave, and just before I speak I realize it’s the wrong thing to say. She will invite me, or she will not. She wants to be in control, and that is fine by me. However, my mouth is open and sound is about to emerge from my mouth, so I throw something else out instead.

“Billy Shakespeare sure had a way with words, didn’t he?” I ask.

Lauren surprises me by bursting out laughing, and it melts my heart. Her face, the flinty edge broken up by the full smile that she has rarely let me glimpse tonight, lights up and becomes something else. At the cost somewhat of the elegant, unreachable beauty, perhaps, she is pretty in a new way. The three people on the other side of the table look over at her outburst and then go back to their conversation. She is covering her mouth and her eyes are watering as her laughter subsides into giggles and hiccups.

“Oh,” she says. “I hate the hiccups.”

“My grandmother always said it meant someone was thinking about you, and you were supposed to try and think of who it was,” I say with a smile.

“Distraction has very little impact on the involuntary reflexes of the diaphragm, I think,” she says.

“I’m inclined to agree with you.”

She dabs carefully at her eyes. “Lovely. I always appreciate a good laugh. Let’s end this on a high note, shall we?” She stands and extends a hand. “Wonderful to meet you,” she says. “Thank you for the conversation. I hope to see you again.”

I take her hand and stand, bowing my head slightly. “Likewise. Charmed to make your acquaintance, Lauren.”

She smiles winningly, an enchanting red carpet smile, and sweeps away.

Well shit, I think. I instinctively know that calling out to her would be the wrong move.

“We all strike out sometimes, kid,” says an older man from across the table.

I smile sheepishly and shrug.

***

A few minutes later the serving staff clears our final plates and I notice a small card that had been underneath mine. I pick it up and see a room number: 1408. An upsetting reference to a horror story floats through my mind, but I stand and make my way through the banquet hall to the lobby. In speaking with the clerk, he tells me that there is no such room.

“We don’t number our rooms that way,” he says. “The numbers don’t start that low. Sorry.”

I step away and go to the elevator, the promise of an encounter rekindled within me, and my desire is strong. I go to the fourteenth floor and get out, but the clerk was right of course. The rooms are not numbered in a way that makes sense. I think back to the story, wondering if she was making a literary reference. If memory serves, room 1408 was on the thirteenth floor in a building that skipped thirteen in its internal numbering system. I go back to the elevator and go down a floor, since this building does have a thirteenth floor. I look at the card and the room numbers, but nothing jumps out. The rooms are numbered starting with 1310 and go up in single digits--1311, 1312, 1313, and so on. I think back to the story. Didn’t 1408 itself mean something?

“It added up to thirteen,” I mutter. “One plus four plus eight.”

I count along the wall until I get to the thirteenth room of the thirteenth floor, 1322, and knock on the door.

It opens a moment later and Lauren stands with a small smile, leaning with her hand on the top corner of the door.

I grin at her, I can’t help myself.

“Yes?” she asks.

“I would like to come in,” I say.

“You would?” she asks. “How interesting.”

“May I come in?” I ask.

“You may,” she says, standing aside and gesturing expansively with an arm.

I pass her and she doesn’t move, and I hear the door click shut behind me. It’s an average-sized hotel room, with bland artwork and a neutral color palette. Nothing interesting to note whatsoever, besides the occupant who I turn to face.

Lauren is about a foot shorter than me, and she doesn’t approach me as I turn to look at her. I am conscious of the power dynamic that formed between us at dinner and that is solidifying by the moment. Is this what it feels like to be dominated, I wonder to myself? She is ten years my senior, and I find that very arousing, but I am also at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed.

She is watching me with that same small smile, her golden hair catching the light and her high-collared dress highlighting a great figure underneath.

“I appreciated the cryptic invitation,” I said. “But you know there was a monster in room 1408.”

“Actually, the room itself was the monster,” she says lightly.

“Hmm,” I say. “Not sure the distinction sets me at ease.”

“And what,” she asks, leaning against the wall from over by the door, “would set you at ease?”

I smile. There’s no way around these verbal spars. I take a step forward and she stops me with one finger. But she says nothing.

“May I approach?” I ask.

“No,” she commands, but without a hint of harshness.

I clasp my hands behind my back and assume a relaxed military rest position.

“Good boy,” she says, indulgently. “Your shield-maiden has some commands for you. Will you accept them?”

I nod. “Yes, madame.”

“Take off your clothes.”

I take off my suit jacket and fold it, laying it carefully over a chair. My tie is next, then I unbutton my shirt while she watches and slip off my shoes. I lay the shirt carefully over the jacket and undo my belt, dropping my pants and stepping out of them. Socks next—never last—then my boxers. My cock, fully erect, springs free as I put my boxers on the chair and resume the rest position.

“Good boy,” she says softly, eyes lingering on my cock. “Now, pull that chair next to you on your left and kneel down.”

I take a chair from the table and slide it up next to me, facing right, and go to my knees.

Lauren steps forward confidently on bare feet and pulls her dress up slightly, planting one foot on the chair. The dress has a slit up the center in the front, and she parts it.

“You hinted that you knew how to worship,” she says. “Show me what you can do.” Her voice is without tenderness but also without the teasing, almost taunting attitude she has had thus far. She takes my head gently and pulls me forward under her dress. It is mostly dark except for the light coming in from below, and her pubic hair is trimmed instead of waxed as I have become accustomed to. It is immediately humid and fragrant with her scent, and though I cannot see, I know what to do.

I kiss her inner thighs, trailing up her right leg and getting closer to her vulva. Then I skip over it and start from her left thigh, working inward again and kiss her outer lips gently. I use my tongue to part them slightly and send the tip inside to explore. I taste her, feeling her pubic hair on my nose, and draw my tongue up her slit fully. Wide and flat, then thin and firm, I pull my tongue up through and between her labial lips several times, feeling her breath accelerate. When I reach her clitoris and give it an experimental tap with my tongue, lifting its hood and flicking over it, she cries out and grabs my head with one hand, winding her fingers into my short hair and pulling. I try that move again, gauging her response since every woman likes her clit treated differently, and she cries out once more.

I go back to licking her lips and slipping my tongue further, to the outer entrance of her vagina itself. I roll my tongue up and down, then slide back up to her clit and this time flick it for a few seconds. Her hips push forward and she pulls my hair again, moaning loudly.

I go to drop down to her slit again and she pulls my head back where she wants it. “Oh no, you don’t. Be a good boy and keep at it—until—I—”

Lauren evidently loses her train of thought as I do as she directs, licking her clit directly and without mercy. She holds my head to her pussy, grinding on my chin and gasping out incoherent moans of pleasure. I am thrilled to be making her lose her cool at last, and when she cums, it’s forceful. She tenses up and I can feel the thrumming muscles of her thighs by my ears like live wires, and then I maintain my tongue’s foraging efforts until she releases pressure on my head. To my surprise she yanks her dress up further and starts playing with her clit right in front of me, so I dive in and lick her labia again. As a result I get a full blast of her ejaculate in my face when she cums.

It’s a new experience for me, and after the initial surprise I find it very arousing. She is nearly screaming with the force of her release, and then squirts another jet of clear cum that splashes my face. I go back at it and she cums again, though without an accompanying deluge, and after this one she pushes me gently away and winds down her own efforts, bucking her hips and shaking.

Lauren grabs the back of the chair to steady herself, then half-whispers, “Lay on the bed and get that cock ready.”

She watches as I stand and wipe my hand across my face and then start rubbing the slippery wetness onto my stiff dick. I lay out on the bed and slowly stroke my cock a few times, making sure it’s as hard as possible. Lauren unzips the side of her dress and pulls it down, revealing her fit, martial-artist’s body to me before climbing on the bed. She kneels over my hips and without any ceremony lowers herself onto my cock. She puts her palms on my chest and starts working it again immediately, eyes closed, rolling her hips and using my cock as a tool of her pleasure.

“Oh, wow,” I say at the heat of her pussy when I enter.

Lauren rides me hard, going up and down like a piston, lost in her own world. At one point I put my hands on her hips and she opens her eyes to look at me. I think she is about to tell me to move my hands but then she seems to register my presence and leans forward, dangling her supple boobs in the air above me, her golden hair hanging down on either side of her face. I slide my palms up her side and cup them, palming her nipples and squeezing. She leaves a hand on my chest to support herself and drops the other to her clit. I admire the way she knows her body because she cums quite quickly, heaving a huge sigh and throwing her head back, whipping her hair around and crying out.

She calms when it subsides and looks down at me. “Do what you need,” she says softly. “But pull out. I don’t use birth control.”

I start thrusting up into her, hands on her hips. After a moment, though, I sit up and flip her around onto her back. She looks up at me calmly with those stunning icy blue eyes, her hair spread on the bed cover. Her features look carved from marble in the low light of the table lamp, and I can’t help commenting on it.

“You are so beautiful,” I say. She looks back at me almost watchfully but shows no other sign. I put my cock back inside of her and start thrusting, working now to make it myself. There is some relief in knowing she has gotten what she needs, but some hollowness too. This is not lovemaking, but it’s not exactly fucking either. I thrust into her and her face changes, feeling pleasure, but not overcome by it. She does not perform in the slightest. In the moment I find this very sexy and it redoubles my desire. She is an island and I long to tether her to the mainland, an effort I know to be futile and find all the more enticing as a result.

I thrust up and in until I am ready to cum, and then pull out and draw white lines up her belly to her breasts. Lauren gets up on her elbows to watch this, smiling her small smile. She reaches out and lifts my chin, then leans forward and kisses my lips, the first tender thing she’s done.

“I’m gonna shower,” she says, and scoots down to the end of the bed to stand. “That’s a lot of cum you had there,” she notes, and walks to the bathroom.

I flop back on the bed, my dick still very much erect, and put my arms behind my head.

As I hear the shower turn on, I reflect on new experiences and space out for a minute or two.

Lauren comes back out to get something and glances over at me.

“Still hard,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s that viking virility,” I say.

She puts a hand on her hip and looks at me for a moment. I can almost see her thoughts on her face.

“You’re thinking, ‘Maybe I misjudged him,’” I say.

She grins. “What’s the prize for mind reading, do you think? More sex?”

I smile. “I suffer from no shortage of sex. I didn’t come here to beg for scraps.”

“I did misjudge you,” she says, without a trace of apology.

“It’s all good,” I say. “You got what you wanted to get, right? And I got mine. We’re square.”

“Square,” she repeats thoughtfully, and then goes back into the bathroom. I hear the shower door open and shut, and the sounds of water splashing.

I must doze off, because I imagine I see her coming back out in a towel and crawling onto the bed to start licking at my cock, not like a sexy woman, but more like a large jungle cat might. It’s part sexy and part unsettling. My thoughts guide the dream and when I look down, it is a large cougar lapping at my balls, and I feel a thrill of fear.

“Still hard,” Lauren says again, drawing me up from sleep.

🤍🤍🤍

If I were the judge, I would sentence you to a lifelong subscription.

---

Here’s the Next Episode…

---

Sanctified is a sweeping serial romance of epic proportions. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for your support!