Page 37 of The Blue Viking

Rurik reached across Bolthor and swatted Toste. The fool just laughed. Then Rurik turned to her. “You did not have an orgasm?” Rurik asked her in a little-boy, wounded voice.

“How would I know? I don’t even know what an or-gaz-him is.”

Rurik did not seem to hear her as he rubbed the nape of his neck thoughtfully. You’d think she had accused him of some great wrong. “Mayhap I imbibed too much mead that night,” he suggested.

Stigand made a snorting sound of disagreement. “On the other hand, mayhap there was a full moon, or a chill in the air.”

“Or a dog barking to distract him,” Vagn chortled. “Yea, Rurik’s dog, Beast, was no doubt barking because he had to go outdoors to piss and Rurik lost his concentration. In essence, a dog’s bladder was to blame.”

Toste was bent over with belly laughter. “Perchance his braies were too tight. That’s as good an excuse as any. I recall one time Olf the Fat claimed his wick went limp due to a too-short haircut.”

“Nay, nay, nay! I know what it was. The spell that marked Rurik’s face moved a mite lower,” Bolthor offered. “Are you sure your lily’s not blue, Rurik?”

Lily? What lily?

The whole time Rurik’s friends teased him, the frown on his forehead deepened and deepened.

“ ’Twould seem, in some things, Rurik the Greater is not so great,” Bolthor remarked with a chuckle.

Rurik reached across Maire and now it was Bolthor that he swatted, but, like Toste, the giant dolt just laughed. Now Rurik’s deep frown was accompanied by a continuous growl of irritation.

“Would someone please tell me what an or-gaz-him is?” Maire practically shouted over Rurik’s grumbles and his friends’ laughter.

“What manner of question is that?” Rurik sputtered, finally seeming to hear her. “ ’Tis not a subject for dinner talk, and certainly not for a lady’s ears.”

“All I asked was … what’s an or-gaz-him?”

“Uhm, uh, orgasm refers to the ecstasy period during the sex act.” Rurik nodded his head as if well satisfied with the reply he’d come up with. When he looked to his companions, they nodded as well. Rurik wiped his brow with a forearm and added, “Whew!”

Well, he might be relieved, but she was still confused. “Ecstasy? What ecstasy? Dost mean like the religious ecstasy when zealots go into a fit and their eyes roll back in their heads?”

“You could say that,” Toste said. “Betimes my eyes do tend to roll.” His lips twitched with deviltry as he spoke.

“And my limbs have been known to go into tremors,” Vagn added, holding his belly to relieve the peals of laughter that emanated from him.

“But there’s naught religious about what either of you do,” Bolthor pointed out to the twins. He was also laughing.

“The ecstasy period,” Rurik explained to her in a strangled voice, “is the same as peaking.”

“Peaking?” She frowned. “Like a mountain peak?”

“Nay, not like a mountain peak.” He shook his head with disbelief, as if she were a thickheaded child. “Well, in a way ’tis like climbing a mountain, reaching the peak, then tumbling deliciously over the top and down, down, down.”

Each of Rurik’s Viking friends, and Old John, too, gave him smart salutes at his presumably brilliant explanation.

“And, to your mind, there is ecstasy in falling off a mountain? And pigs do this falling for half an hour?” She puzzled over that nonsense for only half a second before pronouncing, “Methinks all men must be barmy if they follow this logic.”

Bright color started to flood Rurik’s face. Although she had lain with Rurik only once, he must be embarrassed that she hadn’t experienced this falling-off-a-mountain business with him.

Suddenly, she understood. “Oh, you mean that time when a man grants and pants and says, ‘Sweet Jesus, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming’?”

“That would be the time,” Rurik remarked dryly.

“There are times I thank God I’m not a man.”

“Women have orgasms, too,” Rurik said defensively, in a low voice.

“They … never … do,” she retorted hotly.