^knock on the door
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne
It has always seemed like a misnomer. It sounds diminutive, like it should describe a little pixie or a fairy of some kind. Someone petite and delicate, a ballet dancer or a scrawny, teenage gymnast. Katinka just isn't the right name for her and the temptation to say it in a high pitched Mickey Mouse voice is too much for me to bear so I generally just say her or she or the Valkyrie because I wouldn't want her to kick my ass. I firmly believe that when they were picking out Norwegian baby girl names, if they had known she would end up being taller than most men, with the full, voluptuous figure of one of Frazetta's lucious women, her parents wouldn't have fucking picked Katinka.
I hefted the gym bag up onto my shoulder again as I waited there on the landing, freezing my balls off, as the sun had disappeared completely behind the Tetons, and continued admiring the outside of the intimidating cabin that now served as Puffy's home office, a hell of a wedding gift.
I still thought it was hilarious that they were married.
They'd sent me an invitation and I almost threw it away because I hadn't recognized his name, it started with a P, I think, but realized who it was when I saw hers and it wasn't even actually her first name that caught my attention, her last name had something like eleven consonants and two vowels a lot of S's and J's and K's and V's right next to each other. There was no photo set of them holding hands in a park or kissing in a field like you see on photography websites though. I am sure that creating a portrait of Puffy and the Valkyrie that didn't make people bust up laughing at the mismatched couple of the century must have been too much work for anyone to bear.
Because I had been out of the country on business I hadn't been able to attend the ceremony so this would be the first time I had seen either of them since before the wedding, hence the need to bring so much product with me. Puffy typically liked to keep himself pretty stocked up on smoke, having me come around to top off his Tupperware containers every ten days or so and since he hadn't been in town for a few months I imagined that he finally realized he was running low when I got the email with a satellite map of his address.
Puffy hadn't really made mention of how much dope he needed so I had brought a full compliment of the Indica hybrids that worked best for his pain. He had a myriad of health problems, most caused by his excessive weight, lack of any exercise whatsoever , and poor diet. Sitting in front of his bank of computer screens and counting his money had taken a toll on the guy's neck and back. Improper posture at the keyboard had given him Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. And a steady supply of Hot-Pockets and Red Bull had wreaked havoc on everything else. I remember thinking at the time that he was about six months overdue for a heart attack and that that would be a pisser, because I liked the tubby bastard.
I was kind of excited to talk to him about the buds that I had brought for him, a half pound of his favorites: Key Lime for his back pain, Lemon Diesel for his depression, Kandy Kush to help him sleep, and another half pound of some really wicked new shit called The Black. It reminded me of Killa Crip Kush, but it was darker with more red hair and candy coated with crystals.
It looked like weed from a different dimension.
When the Valkyrie answered the door that looked as if it had been carved by her axe-wielding Viking ancestors, I felt like I had been ambushed as I found myself face to face with a mesmerizing display of her Scandinavian cleavage wrapped up beautifully in the size 12 equivalent of a low-cut little black dress. As previously stated, she was already a tall woman to start with, but that night she was absolutely towering over me, wearing some sort of expensive high heels, the kind with the red on the bottom, maybe Kate Spade or Valentino, I don't know.
I couldn't remember ever seeing the Valkyrie dressed in anything other than blue jeans and a frumpy University of Oslo sweatshirt. Her long, obscenely blonde hair was ordinarily wrapped in those stupid double buns like Princess Leia or some other traditional Norse type of utilitarian, militaristic style that left no room for guessing about what part of the world she was from, but that night she had worn it in thick braided pigtails that hung down to her waist, framing the plentiful display of her bust. The dress was modest enough for an evening out on the town, dinner and drinks, but revealed enough of her toned thighs that it was impossible not to look her up and down, despite my most diligent efforts to remain professional.
The beautiful woman that stood in front of me with silver hoop earrings and smokey eyeshadow was a far cry from the average looking, nerdy girl with the chunky Coke bottle glasses and a master's degree, commonly listening to frenetic techno-metal or heavy, bass pounding black-metal or screaming, flaming, baby-sacrificing Satanic Swedish death-metal. Whenever I came around Puffy's office, back in town, her face was usually two inches from a computer monitor displaying a dizzying maze of multi-colored code lines and she hadn't said more than five words to me, ever, probably because of the earbuds blasting the Devil's music straight into her brain. Puffy and I talked about her, well, Puffy talked about her, always telling me she was his very own Six-Foot-One version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and he was head over cankles in love, and he was learning Norwegian so that they could talk but she and I never really engaged in any substantial conversation, she seemed far too busy keeping the websites running.
There was a temporary disconnect in my brain, a bout of cognitive dissonance that no doubt left me with a dumbstruck expression as I tried to grasp that this was the same person. It brought to mind the stereotyped rumor about librarians being kinky dominatrices once they let their hair down. I really liked librarians. Maybe software engineers were a hybrid strain of librarians and something else.
"Velkommen, Kaffe!" I had no idea what she was saying but she was saying it rather cheerfully and closing the distance between us with an excited little shuffle step in her high heels that caused a fair amount of bounce at my eye level, so I just smiled as she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me tightly into her bosom for a slightly longer than average hug. I dismissed this at the time as a probably some foreign, albeit not unpleasant, custom; like Italians kissing you on both cheeks or Mexican ladies insisting that you eat a full meal with them, even if you are just dropping off a quarter pound of Grandaddy Purp, with their husbands. I hadn't seen her in months so I guessed a hug was acceptable, but something else was going on, I just didn't know it at the time.
Her perfume was faintly reminiscent of poppies, washing over my brain like heroin, making my spine tingle and I numbly reciprocated the hug with as much disciplined innocence as I could possibly muster, both hands placed against the middle of her back. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore that my chin was resting between Puffy's newlywed wife's breasts.
But I have never been good at ignoring beautiful women.
I could feel the metal clasp of her strapless bra under my palms and for a split second, with my eyes still closed, I imagined what it would be like to unzip her dress and watch it billow as it slid down the length of her long, powerful legs. How easily I could unclip the bra and let it fall away to our feet. In my mind's eye, I could see her standing stripped bare in front of me, wearing nothing but those maddeningly tall heels.
It was so cold there in the entryway that her nipples, the same neutral color of her smiling lips, would instantly stiffen, demanding attention. Refusal would not even be an option in the presence of this fair skinned goddess of the north, this daughter of Odin.
"Puffeeee," she called back over her shoulder as she continued squeezing me to her, instantly bringing me back to reality,"Kaffemannen er her og han tok med marihuanaen din!"
After she had relinquished her embrace and closed the heavy door behind me, I asked her why she was all dressed up or if this was her new uniform at work.
"Oh no, honey," she said, smiling "Puffy and I want you to stay for the evening and eat with us and visit a while. This is just my dinner dress." I watched her pouty lips as she spoke, every word was clipped neatly at the end and her accent was so slight and sweet I had originally mistaken it for French when Puffy had first introduced me to her. I hadn't thought much of her at the time, except that she must have been the tallest French woman in the world. She had been in disguise all this time as a mild mannered cubicle dwelling computer dork.
Each step she took echoed through the spacious interior of the custom built mansion-cabin with a loud satisfying tok!tok! against the knotty hardwood flooring. It was the kind of sound that will cause men to turn around and watch, no matter what they are doing, and following closely behind her as she led the way deeper into the house and I couldn't help but do just that; tracking the shift of the material across her backside with my eyes. It was comfortingly round, quite pleasing to the eye and I noticed for the first time that she had the sort of bottom that clichés and celebrities were made of.
I realized that I hadn't taken my eyes off of her since she had opened the door, I had ignored the inside of the house completely, the decor, the carpets, furniture, everything but the shape of her body under that tight fitting dress, the sway of her hips and the enchanting rhythmic percussion of her high heels and in a futile attempt to distract myself, I explained that if I had known that this was going to be a formal occasion I would have worn something other than faded jeans and my old jacket. She just shook her head and smiled at me over her shoulder as we arrived in the warmly lit living room. She slipped gracefully behind the bar that ran nearly the entire length of the room and plucked a bottle of whiskey with a blue label that I didn't recognize from a shelf with dozens of other bottles and gave me a do you want some of this? expression, thin eyebrows raised above big blue eyes. I replied with a yeah sure, I guess expression of my own.
I asked where her new husband was as I laid the gym bag down on the brass bar top and took a seat on one of the of the polished stools, she told me that he was in the gjesterom and ice cubes tinkled as she dropped them into a glass. I don't speak a lick of Norwegian but that one was close enough to English that I could figure it out. I asked if they were planning on having me spend the night or something, if that was why he was in the guest room. Again, she just looked at me smiling silently, and then poured the whiskey.
I remember thinking that I had to find something else to focus on besides the low cut of her dress, or the way the light played off of the planes of her clavicle as she set the glass of liquor next to my hand and then poured herself a glass of wine. If I kept staring at her, shit was going to get awkward real fast once Puffy came back from whatever the hell he was doing.
I lifted the drink to my lips and stole one more glance at her over the rim as I tasted the smoothest and most expensive scotch I'd ever had before I closed my eyes.
I imagined that those high heels would continue their siren song against the top of the bar as she walked it's length to stand over and stare down at me like a dominant Nordic queen, her braids hanging down on either side of her magnificent breasts, their faint pink tips still standing proudly erect despite the warmth of the den, her dress long forgotten.
Everything that it had been designed to conceal would be within reach if I was to raise either hand, fingertips sliding along the inside of her thigh to the warm apex of her wide and glorious stance.
I turned my eyes upward to the lighting fixtures and noticed that they had been arranged in such a way that they beamed upwards against the ceiling to light the room ambiently instead of blindingly pointed downward.
Yes, I thought, just focus on the lights. Much safer than staring at her. Start acting professional.
That's when I saw it.
A camera lens. There in the corner. Unmistakable.
Ice suddenly rushed through my veins and the rubbery erection that had just started to press uncomfortably against my jeans seemed to lose its ambition.
I dropped my gaze to the old gym bag. Full of dope.
Behind me, I could hear that Valkyrie was walking back out from behind the bar, but the sound of her heels that had kept me in a trance for the past two minutes seemed like it was coming from some different plane of reality as I contemplated the possibility that I was in the middle of an elaborate sting operation, that the second Puffy took the bag and handed me the money, a swarm of federal agents dressed like bullet-proof ninjas would burst out of the next room, point submachine guns at my face, and then take me to prison.
I calmly finished the finest and possibly last glass of booze that I would ever drink, although its smooth burn down my throat did little to take the edge off of the black dread that was sinking to the pit of my stomach. My arms and legs felt strangely numb and I managed to set the empty drink down without losing my grip on it completely.
As I stared at the camera, I distractedly called her by her first name, and asked her once again where her husband was.
Everything changed the moment I felt her hot breath against my ear as I hadn't realized that she was standing so close to me. Her long manicured fingers wrapped around my wrist and guided my limp hand easily under the hem of her dress, between parted thighs, and it was instantly clear that she was not wearing panties.
"He is upstairs. Watching us." she whispered.
let him watch>