Valkyrie of Desire

7. A Good Wife

Hierophant, oh Father

We embrace your light

And kill to preserve it

Change

Enough to be faithful

To be righteous and sure

No matter confessed truth

To endure means ignore

—Joan Seventhome

Naked in a small bathroom, Hildr turns from two full wash bins browned by the filth of her weeks in the woods. Apple's townhouse is quaint, quiet, and stinks as only a single man's home can. Still, it is an improvement over wild lands and haunted ruins.

She puckers her lips and points at the old man. His breath comes out heavy, and his eyelids flutter. It must be hard on his heart to hold a boner longer than a trip to an outhouse.

Hildr twerks her butt towards him and bends to rub every bit of her pink skin with a thick cotton towel. Her muscles ripple as she moves, feminine in definition but masculine in potential power.

"So good." Apple strokes his scraggly white beard with his left hand. "So ripe."

"Aren't you done yet?" She pulls her face down between her knees, long hair sweeping the dusty floor. "I could have air dried by now."

Through an open door, the up-side-down Apple rocks in an oak chair with a blanket covering his lap. "Don't talk." His eyes are wide and his right hand hidden. "Just spread those perky cheeks."

Hildr sighs and stands, righting her view of the man. "Enough, old coot. If you haven't managed yet, it's not going—"

He spasms, tongue out and eyes rolling up into his head. Hildr steps forward but stops and frowns as he gasps, wiping his right palm on his woolen trousers.

"Beautiful." The old shaman wets his lips. "It's been months since I've seen such a sweet peach."

Hildr snorts. Degrading, but an honest compliment.

She sorts through a pile of soiled summer dresses in the corner of the cramped living room. "These are too cute for whore's garb and too small for you to nancy about in."

Apple picks up a strawberry pink frock and wipes his sweaty face. "Community service." He chuckles and rubs his crotch with it. "I have to do the druidic circle's laundry, a season for every animal I've conditioned. Griffins alone book me for years, and they blame me for the aviary staying empty. Ridiculous! Why would a griffin choose to serve as a mount?"

"For me, Peggy would."

"Hah. A day hungry and that golden bitch-griff would slash ya open and slurp half your guts before you'd have the good fortune to die."

Hildr twists a red shawl around her wrists, mind drifting. ... The cloth becomes bloody meat, and her hands shrink. A giant of a man calls her "Princess" and orders her to toss the dripping flesh to a griffin that is spooking the noble horses of a fancy carriage. She tosses with a squeal and claps as the beast snatches the treat out of the air.

A vivid moment from a reoccurring dream of an impossible life. Hildr shakes the fantasy away. Her mother raised her in a brothel. There never was a father, and the only time she got called "Princess" was when old men paid for her services.

She drops the shawl and fingers an off-white dress decorated with cherries. "I require clean attire."

"Your tight ass looks fine filthy or peachy clean."