Viing Silver

"I expect your view of the Vikings was of all the raping and stealing they were supposed to do?" said a woman's voice beside me as I looked, in awe, at the contents of the museum case. I had been studying a small exquisite gold and silver broach made during the Viking Era in Denmark. I turned to look at the woman beside me.

She was about 35, slim, smartly dressed in a short sleeved fine wool sweater of a pale peachy colour, which was exactly matched, by her lipstick. Her skirt was a camel colour and reached her mid calf. She carried a black leather brief case. Stylish, her blond hair was swept up into a pleat and she wore thin gold framed glasses. Her face was lightly tanned and she looked as if she spent quite a bit of her time in outdoor pursuits, like many Scandinavians.

She went on to explain, "I expect your British history taught you about the raids and epic voyages but left out mentioning what skilled craftsmen the Vikings were?"

There was an amused hostility in her voice.

"Well, yes there was quite a bit about the invasions. I did know about their wonderful stone carving but I had never seen this sort of delicate work," I replied.

I had genuinely been impressed by the cases of silver and gold work I had seen in the museum that morning. She asked if this was my first visit to Denmark. I explained that I was spending a few days with some Danish friends of my parents in Copenhagen. Sadly my hosts had had to travel to Jutland to attend a family funeral for a couple of days. They had taken me round to see some of Copenhagen over the last couple of days and had now made some suggestions of things I might like to visit on my own while they were away.

We had a brief chat beside the display case. It turned out that the lady was from Sweden and she had a one-year lectureship in art history at one of the Art Colleges near Copenhagen. She was killing time before a meeting with one of the curators in this museum.

She checked her watch. "Look, I am planning to have lunch here. There is a good cheap café/bar on the second floor. Please come and join me, if you would like to. Say around 1.00pm."

She smiled at the look of surprise that must have been obvious on my face.

"I would be delighted to," I replied.

She half turned and added, "My name is Anna, by the way."

"Jim." I said as I rather stupid held out my hand. She smiled that little half smile again and shook it, before turning away and walking out of the gallery.

***

Just after 1.00 I found the café and there was Anna sitting at a small table with an older man in a dark blue jacket.

"Ah Jim, come and meet Dr Hooghenholst. Jim is a student from England and is exploring the Viking silver work."

Dr Hooghenholst pulled another chair up to the table and motioned for me to sit with them.

"I'll just go and get a bit to eat and join you in minute if I may," I said.

As I returned with my tray Dr Hooghenholst got up to leave, said goodbye to Anna and rather pointedly ignored me.

"How did the morning go?" I asked.

He had helped her find some of the reference material she needed and had made some useful suggestions for her to follow up.

"Look, I am sorry if I arrived too early. I got the impression that Dr Hooghenholst was not very pleased to see me!"

"He may not have been, but I was! He has been trying to get into my knickers for about a year now. Oh! perhaps I should not have said that quite like that!" and we both laughed. I must admit that it was a bit of a shock to hear her speak like that. Somehow it didn't quite fit the cool sophisticated image she created.

We went on to talk about our backgrounds. She came from mid Sweden and after studying at Art College there she had done some freelance interior design and photography before getting a lecturing job in Stockholm before coming to Denmark. She told me in such a way that further discussion on the subject was blocked that she was not married . I told her about the University engineering course I had just finished, and how I had just been dumped by my girl friend of three years. And that was why this trip was a voyage into new territory and fresh horizons.

About an hour later she began to gather things together.

"Look, what are you planning for tonight?" Anna asked. "If your hosts are away, why not come round to supper?"

"Really? That would be great but only if it is no trouble." I was a bit overwhelmed but I enthusiastically accepted.

"I eat simply and often on my own" she explained, "But I am sure we could enjoy ourselves." Again her little half smile seemed to indicate something else.

She gave me instructions of how to get to her place. It was only a couple of stops on the green metro line and a short walk from where I was staying.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit of blur. The museum had somehow lost its hold, window-shopping was a bore but I did enjoy just sitting in a café on the side of a waterway wondering about what might happen during our supper date.

***

I rang her doorbell having been back home to change from my jeans and T-shirt into my only decent shirt and chinos. As she opened the door I gave the little bunch of flowers I had bought at the metro. It was clearly the right thing as she stood back in mock amazement and then kissed me lightly on the cheek. I followed her up the stairs to her flat.

She was wearing a short sleeved pale blue wrap around cardigan with a tie at the waist, like the ballet dancers wear. Her hair was held in a dark blue scrunch and she had a full ankle length dark blue cotton skirt with a motif of small white flowers. Her hair swung as she climbed the stairs.

"Do come in and make yourself at home. Did you have any trouble finding me? What would you like to drink? I am having a German white wine. I find it is enough to relax me and sharpen my appetite with out being too heavy and sleep inducing like those French reds."

She seemed as nervous I felt. I reassured her that her instructions had been perfect and I would love to try the same wine even though I longed for something warming and comforting. She indicated an armchair for me while she went into the galley kitchen to get the drinks.

The flat was like Anna, cool and a simple with rather bare beech furniture and a couple of brightly coloured rugs of some ethnic origin. There were a number of large black and white photographs on the walls. On the far wall was a lake scene with some large rocks in the foreground. Near where I was sitting in an armchair was a beautiful birch woodland glade with a female nude partly hidden by trees. The only colour photo was a rather surrealistic image in greens and blues but from where I was sitting I could not make out what the objects were.

Anna passed me a glass and our fingers touched as I took it. That contact seemed much more erotic than the simple kiss she had given me earlier.

"What interesting photos you have. Did you take them?" I asked.

"Oh no! They are far too good for me! They are by a fellow art student when we were in college. She is brilliant isn't she? It was a delight for me to be her model." She quietly admitted.

Looking at the woodland scene again I said in an almost unbelieving voice, "Oh so that is you coming out of the trees?"

She laughed, "Yes, it is me. I was younger then. But what makes you think I am coming out from behind the trees and not going into them?"

It was a good question and I got up to look more closely at the picture. The nude was holding onto the tree with her right hand, which had slightly raised her right breast. She was standing with her left knee slightly forward but not enough to cover her pubic hair. Her head was turned looking at something in the trees to her right. I hadn't noticed another figure lying on the ground almost obscured by the trees. I could not make out whether it was male or female. I told Anna it was very strange to be looking so closely at a nude photograph of the lady in front of me!

"We have a different attitude to being naked than you, I think?" she laughed. "Haven't you had your photo taken without your clothes on?"

I turned to look at her sitting on the couch with her legs tucked under her and her arm lying along the back. Her head was on one side, she was smiling.

"Good God no!" I said in a rather shocked and embarrassed way.

"It is a good thing I didn't suggest a sauna then!" I shot her a quick look and she was killing herself laughing at my embarrassment. "Perhaps you better have a look at the lake scene by way of a change."

I walked across the room to the rather contrasty print of the lake surface with its symmetrical pattern of waves blown by the wind. In the foreground were two well-rounded rocks with grass growing between them.

Anna had got up and was standing behind me. "Well?" She asked.

"Great texture on the water." I suggested.

"What about the foreground?"

I looked more closely and realised that they were not rocks but a pair of naked hips. Could that be pubic hair and not grass, I wondered. I put my hand to my mouth. Could that be Anna too?

Anna slipped an arm round my waist and rested her head against my shoulder.

"Sorry, that was cruel of me. Yes, it is me, again taken by Kerstin. I am glad you like the water," she joked and squeezed my waist. I put my hand over hers to keep it there and turned to look down into her face so close beside me.

"I am sorry, I am not sure what to say."

"Don't say anything. I am proud of my body. I like other people to enjoy it. Today my body isn't quite what it was in those pictures but it is the only one I am likely to have."

I was deeply aware of her fragrance so close to me as well as her soft breasts pressed against me. I hadn't noticed the deep-speckled blue of her eyes before. My feeling of awkwardness had changed to longing as I looked deep into her face. With her free hand she pulled my head down to hers and we kissed tenderly.

"I am keeping you from your drink," Anna said turning slowly away and leading me by the hand back to my chair.

My God, I thought, what the hell I have got into here. She was delightful and I found her more and more intriguing but I must admit I felt out of my depth. She sat down on the sofa, tucked her feet up and flung her right arm across its back. I hadn't noticed before, perhaps they weren't very obvious, but the outline of her nipples was showing though the fine wool of her top.

Anna explained, "When Kerstin and I left College we agreed that we should swap our photographs of each other. So she kept the prints and negatives I had taken of her and she gave me mine. It is sad that Kerstin has given up professional work now. She got married, like me, but like me, it did not work out. Perhaps we valued our freedom too much, I don't know. She has now got cancer. When a friend, a close friend, gets cancer it stops you in your tracks and makes you rethink the aims and values you thought you had sorted out for yourself."

She was slowly winding her ponytail though her fingers and letting it fall before starting to do it again. The waist of her cardigan had lifted to show a band of skin at the top of her skirt. This repetitive action stretched and loosened her top against her breasts, revealing and then hiding her nipples. The wool must have been caressing them.

We chatted about my university and what I wanted to do in the engineering field when she remembered that she had not put my flowers in water. She went into the kitchen, found a vase and quickly arranged the flowers. She brought them in and put them on top of the low bookcase.

"How's your glass?" She asked as she passed my chair. I held it up hopefully. She took it and bent down for her own. As she did I could see the swell of her breasts down the vee of her cardigan. When she brought the full glasses back she bent down in front of me as she passed me my glass and paused watching my eyes drag themselves up from the deep valley between the pale wool. She smiled that little smile again.

"Stop staring and give me a hand with supper." She said laughing as she took my hand and pulled me to my feet.

"Sorry I didn't mean..." I stammered embarrassingly.

"Yes you did, and I am flattered. Would you like to see some more?" she said as she made to pull her top open. "Perhaps later." she grinned and readjusted her cardigan.

***

We were clearing up the remains of a delicious meal. She was at the sink doing the last washing up and I was drying. As I tried to ease past her I put my hands on her hips. She froze and leaned back against me, trapping me against the work-surface. I slipped my arms round her tummy and again felt warm soft flesh between her cardigan and the cotton skirt. Her hair was in my face as I bent forward, kissed her on the cheek and said, "That was a lovely meal."

"And that was a nice way to pay a compliment."

She turned and continued to lean against me pushing her leg between mine.

"What do I feel down there?" she giggled slipping a hand down to my fly. "Oh! That is an even better compliment to an older lady!"

My hands cupped her bottom and gently explored, feeling for the seams on her knickers. There did not seem to be anything there, perhaps a thong but all I could find was the waistband of her skirt. Had I been sitting through supper with a lady with no knickers? Anna was snuggling against me and could feel the firmness of her breasts, the warmth of her breath and her damp lips on the skin of my neck. I moved my hands up her back and held her tighter. The wool was smooth over her skin; I caressed the skin at the nape of her neck where the wool gave way to her skin and her hair. I pulled her waist into me and she thrust her leg up into my groin squeezing my erection painfully. I groaned into her hair.

"Too hard?" she asked and turned her face up to be kissed again.

I laughed "You or me?" and she banged my arm with her free hand "Your choice!"

I raised my hands up her back and suddenly realised that I could feel no bra under the thin knitwear. Was she naked beneath the clothes I could see?

She wriggled away and took my hand leading me to the sofa, "The rest of the washing up can wait. I cannot!"

She pushed me down and partly lay on top of me so we were in a similar position to that in the kitchen except she had removed her leg from my groin and was now sitting astride my thighs. I tried to pull her down hard to kiss her again but she resisted saying:

"Gently, we have all night, at least!"

I softly touched her face and, using my thumbs, slowly stroked her cheekbones, the corners of her eyes, out to her ears and back again. Down to the corners of her mouth and back up again. When I got back to her mouth again it opened and she made as if to bite my thumb. I could feel the tip of her tongue just licking the end and a slight sucking sound. She opened her mouth wider and took the whole of my thumb inside while I spread the palm and fingers over the nose and cheek. She was now leaning over me to one side and, with my free hand I slid down her arm until I could feel the swell of her breasts on the inside of my wrist. I tentatively pushed my wrist down to press against her breast to be greeted by her raising herself against it. I let the hand fall and cup the swelling and she moaned quietly.

I took my hand away to hold her face again and she relaxed. Holding her face in both hands I very gently brushed a kiss on her forehead, then her eyes, then her cheek, her nose before just brushing my lips against hers. I then kissed my way up the other side of her face before returning just to flutter across her lips. I could feel the warmth of her breath as she opened her mouth but I resisted that temptation and slowly kissed my way up and round her face before retracing my way to her lips. This time I opened my mouth to meet her open lips. The tips of our tongues just flicked in contact.

She then started to kiss my face and neck in a similar way with her tongue tickling my ears. I dropped my hand back down her arm and onto the mound of her breast and cautiously opened and closed my fingers to make a little pressure and feel the softness move. Anna again thrust herself up against my hand and kissed me harder than she had done before. As I gently caressed her I could feel the edge of the wool and warm smoothness of her skin in the vee of the neck of the cardigan. A finger slipped inside to meet the smooth swelling of the other breast.

She raised herself and moved to sit more upright with her hands on my shoulders. She stretched back throwing out her chest which showed her nipples under the tight wool. I could not resist but to reach up and put my palms on her breasts. She shivered slightly but remained arching backwards. I slipped one hand inside the cardigan to feel the smoothness of her skin against my palm and softness of the wool against the back of my hand. There was no bra and her breast moved easily as I pressed. My fingers explored more widely and came to rest against her hard nipple. Anna suddenly swung forwards, trapping my hand and kissed me harder than she had previously. She then got off me and stood up.

She pulled me up saying, "Let's get a bit more comfortable," and led me into the bedroom

We stood and kissed for a short while before she sat down on the bed and tucked her legs up as she had done on the sofa earlier. She reached to the side and undid the ties of her cardigan top. She smiled and opened her arms for me to join her. As she did so the sides of the top opened slightly to reveal the valley between her breasts. As I moved to join her she slipped into the middle of the double bed and part of her top opened wider to show one lightly tanned breast capped by a deeper pink aureole and nipple. No sign of a bikini mark! She did not reach to cover herself. I knelt beside her as she unfastened the top three buttons on my shirt and pulled it over my head discarding it over her side of the bed. This movement had exposed both breasts. The aureoles were quite large with stiff rosy nipples standing proudly erect. I bent to bury my face in the valley as my hands squeezed both globes against my cheeks. One of Anna's hands held the back of my head firmly against her while the other explored my chest and tummy.

With one hand on either side of my head she pushed me away from that wonderfully scented hollow so that her nipples were just touching my chest. She held my head still while she slowly moved back and forth, just brushing my skin with her nubs. The sensation was so erotic. I slipped my hands up under her cardigan and again savoured the contrast of soft wool and the smooth skin of her back. The small of her back was slightly moist from perspiration and this had made the wool in that area lightly damp. I was pushed back down on the bed while she leaned over me still teasing me softly with the tips of her breasts. She moved up to swing her breasts across my face and I tried to kiss them but she held me firmly to stop me moving. My hand strayed down over her skirt and bottom as I gently squeezed her cheek. Still holding my head she pressed her breasts against my face so I could now kiss and lick their exquisite skin. As I pulled her ass, the pressure on my face increased. I slipped my hand up to the outside of the waistband of her skirt and then under and down inside to cup the firm softness of the cheek. I was right I could feel no knickers as my fingers strayed into the divide between the cheeks. She was naked under a single layer of clothes.

Anna raised herself and resumed the slow side to side motion just brushing my skin with her nipples as she moved down my torso over my stomach. Because she had pushed herself away from my face I could no longer hold her ass so I reached up to touch her breasts which were tantalising my tummy muscles. She pushed my hand away but continued with the rather hypnotic side to side swinging. Her eyes were shut, her head slightly tilted back and she seemed to be in a trance.