Chapter 7

We returned home the next evening. Eric had to yield to our pressures, since he preferred spending the night in the field and travel by day. But the kids and I had wanted to go home and sleep in our beds, especially after two long days of hard work. The village was not far, but just six kilometers[1] that separated us from home became an hour and a half away at a slow ox pace.

The house was freezing when we arrived. Eric used a flint to ignite the home and after a few minutes a mighty fire was burning inside the house. We had not finished leaving things when the doorbell rang.

"Oh, it's you" I didn't have to be kind with Dalla.

"Where is Eric?"

"He went down to Olga's to return her animals."

"I know, I've seen him. But it had been half an hour ago since he left"

"The oxen are slow," I wasn't to withstand Dallas nonsense and stupid suspicions.

"You are very rude" She spat. I rolled my eyes.

"If that's all you have to say, I'll tell you Eric when he comes back that you're looking for him..." I tugged desperately to close the door. She put one foot in between the door and the door frame, she pulled the door away, and I trod her and she slapped me. She pulled me by the hair. Leif ran up and grabbed her arm, she kept pulling and I swear I thought she would pluck my hair by root as a Mohawk warrior, but Leif bite her on the arm and she hit him in such a way that his ass ended a meter[2] away.

"You, old fat cow!"[3] I jumped on her and tried to pull her hair, she was two heads taller than me but I didn't care. I was about to beat her when a very strong hand grabbed me by the neck and pulled me away, an equally powerful force pulling Dalla in the other direction. Eric stood between the two of us, Leif came running and hugged me.

"What is happening?" he roared.

"Your slave has insulted me and attacked me" Dalla defended herself.

"That's not true" I yelled at Eric, but I detected in his mind he thought me very capable. My aversion to his lover wasn't a secret. My eyes filled with tears and I know I pout "You do not believe me."

"That does not matter. Why was my son on the floor?"

"She pushed him!"

"He bit me!"

"She was hitting Sookie, father."

"She is a slave" Dalla reminded the older Northman.

"But... but..."

"She's a slave, Leif. Go inside you both" Eric told us "Now I take care of you." My tears went down my fade when I saw Dalla's triumph face, a victory that Eric had served her in tray.

"She needs a lesson" the witch said as she walked away.

"You too, go home. Don't look for me again"

"But..."

"Or you'll find me" I felt that the heart will left my chest of happiness, although no one could claim victory. I heard his thoughts and saw that Eric didn't end with his relationship Dalla because of me or Leif, but because he was tired of her. She begged him and he shook her off. It was pretty humiliating. Leif closed the door and waited for Eric join us.

I jumped out of my seat as Eric came in, and he made it like a gale. He slam the door so hard that Audr and Erik took shelter behind my skirt, but Leif stood in front of me. I put a hand on his shoulder and push him away, also walked away from the other two children and with arms in my hips I stand in my best battle position. He looked at me and thought that he wanted to kiss me. He thought that if he punished me, then he would have to compensate me and would do it by making love to me until I passed out. I let out a moan and Eric get that sound like one from fear. His hand went to his face and massaged his temples, a gesture that had not ever seen him do.

"I never want you to do something like that again" He said simply. He went to his bed to get laid and didn't said anything else. I heard him thinking that the best thing to do was to end his relationship with Dalla because she doesn't like his children and I do, Dalla wasn't part of the family and I was, and because he didn't like her, like he liked me.

The next day started as usual. I giggled when I saw Eric urinating against a tree; and don't think that I'm freak, I liked watching him in his mundane ritual every morning. He approached the oak barrel, undressed and proceeded to his morning wash. I sighed and decided went out to the street, I looked his ass for a while, as gorgeous as ever and when he turned, I turned my face and went on my way.

"Good morning" I said with my head held high.

"Good morning. Sookie!" I braked and I turned around to look at him. He was drying himself. It seems that his total lack of shame to be bare is an old thing.

"Do you need anything?"

"Do you know how to shave?" he caught me creeped out and as always, I shook my head "You'll have to learn. When we eat breakfast, put water to be heated, I'm tired of the beard" he smiled at me and I smiled back.

Eric sat on the wooden bench and leaned back on the table when finished eating. Children went to do their chores. Audr, to collect the flowers that grew near the stockade, Erik, to set traps for rabbits near the fence and Leif to clean the barn and feed the pigs.

"Do you like to do on the street?" he asked.

"No, here we're o.k."

"Try not to make me many scars" stuck my tongue out and he laughed "Follow the hairline and" taught me the movement "never against the grain."

"Yeah, yeah... I've seen it in the movies[4]" I said "And my grandmother shaved my grandfather" I remembered that I still had the knife and sharpener at home. Eric taught me a few new words in Old Norse that day while he sharpened very well the metal blade. He washed his face with hot water and began to rub the soap against his blond beard, stopped him before he started to get too much foam.

"Let me" My grandmother held an exhibition in the parish on the lifestyles of Southern society before the Civil War. Section of furniture and utensils of daily use, the instruments were used for shaving (assigned to the exposure by my grandmother) with an information sign that there was an explanation of how it was done. I remembered perfectly. I placed a cotton cloth soaked in hot water over Eric's face and made a sound of satisfaction, so obscene that I felt myself getting wet. After a few minutes, I removed it and put a little oil I had done it a few berries picked in the forest one day I went with the kids to look for mushrooms. He said nothing. Then I lathered his beard until oil and foam left it even softer than it already was.

I brushed the hair from my face, I approached him, I stroked his jaw and placed the knife in his neck. I looked into his eyes and saw him watching me intently. I was placed between his long legs open. I was so long since I tangled in them no...

"Am I o.k. here?" perhaps it was better if I do it from behind.

"There you are wonderful" He said. I started to move the knife down, and his hair fell like angel hair on his clavicles. I figured that shaving him was like when I epilate myself with that same blade (Had you thought that because women here wouldn't do it I'll go around with hair in my legs?)

"Do not you want to close your eyes for a while?" I asked.

"Why would I want to do that?" I got into his head and found his thoughts. He thought I had soft hands and that I smell good. He liked me to lean on him. He fantasized about the option to move an inch his head and his nose and his mouth sunk in between my breasts. He was convinced that underneath the horrible woolen dresses, proper to slaves, I was a beauty. He was sick of imagining me naked. I was getting nuts on the thought he lifted his arms, remove his hands from his thighs and grab me by my hips. Eric seemed to be having a similar thought. He fought against the idea of getting up the dress and caress my legs. I lifted his chin to shave the neck, I bent and saw that his dick was hard. I dropped against him further and with no more hesitation, he placed his hands on my waist. He moved them to my hips as I shaved one side of his face. His hands are big, so even the palms rested on my hips, his fingers squeezing my butt.

"What are you doing?" Leif was watching us from the doorway. I pulled away from Eric and I showed him the knife to the child, my heart pounding.

"I shave his beard" I scratched my eyebrow nervously. Leif stared at his father with angry eyes and at me with suspicion. He was thinking about talking to his grandmother again, "Want to see how I do it?" He didn't want to, he rather go to play, but he stayed to watch us. Eric didn't touch me again.

When I told him I was over, he got up and washed his face with hot water, making a gesture of burning. He raised a wood from floor, pulled out a key and opened one of the trunks which lay in the corner of the house which I had never seen open. I guessed over his shoulder that kept things there Audd, his wife. He took a silver mirror, lovely, reminded me that one the Beast gives Bella in the Disney movie. Who knows from who he had stolen it.

"Not a single wound" he said looking himself on the mirror "Magnificent. Here, keep it, women are vain by nature and I don't use it"

I grabbed the mirror and glared. "I'm not vain" I said as I touched up bangs "And I think you're pretty flirtatious for a man."

"Do you think?"

"Yes" I looked at my hair "My hair tips are perfect" I commented "The water here is great, leaves your hair soft and shiny. That's why you have that wonderful hair despite so many years..."

"So many years?" Before I had to tell a lie that sound like an excuse, Audr came looking for me because her doll had broken and hoped I could repair it. It just needed a couple of stitches. Eric and Leif took to the street.

As I sewed the little girl's doll and she paid attention, I could hear Eric and Leif arguing the other side of the door.

"Why do you do it?" Leif asked "You'll screw up it, you always screw up everything... I do not want you to mess around!" I understood Leif, the child loved me dearly, and it was easy to see it in his gestures to me. But he must have loved his mother more. It must be hard to see your father giving his attentions to another woman who isn't your mother. Either way, that Leif had to do to the idea of me being with his father, first I had to be with Eric. No use to torment the child if his father and I weren't together.


[1] 3mi 1281.7yd

[2] More than a yard.

[3] She said this in English.

[4] She said this in English.