The best thing to do was to let Gudrun know that, with her, he had definitely been able to perform and let her draw her own conclusion. Once in possession of this juicy piece of information, she would make sure to tell everyone about it.
“Yes, it was rather horrible. But thanks to Torsten, nothing happened in the end.” The baker’s wife didn’t need to know how close they had come to disaster. That she had almost been raped and Torsten almost killed was not the point of the story. Gudrun only needed to understand that he was not as impotent as she believed him to be. “And, well, it was not all bad, considering what it led to later that night, while we sought shelter from the storm.”
“What do you mean?” Gudrun’s eyes had sparked with interest, just as Aife had hoped. It was almost too easy.
She smiled to herself and picked up a pale loaf from the back of the display. Wheat bread, nothing like the rye loaves she usually bought. But why should she not treat herself today? It had stopped raining at last, and she was enjoying taking her time choosing what to buy.
“Do you know, I think I’ll have a wheat loaf for a change,” she said, purposefully acting as if she had not just let slip a vital piece of information and was only interested in purchasing bread. “How much is it?”
The baker’s wife wasn’t so easily distracted. “Wait. Are you saying that you and Torsten…?”
Revealed our most painful secrets to one another? Shared the most amazing, most wicked moment under the cover of darkness? Gave each other sinful pleasure? Yes, all this happened.
Instead of answering, Aife blushed, which was not difficult to do when she remembered what she’d had the audacity to do to Torsten. It had been most daring, most delicious, and she could still taste him on her tongue. It seemed that this response told Gudrun what she wanted to do more efficiently than if she had started to detail everything they had done.
“But I d-don’t understand,” she stammered.
“What don’t you understand?” Aife asked innocently, eyeing up a golden hazelnut flatbread. Should she buy it as well? The wheat bread was already an indulgence she rarely afforded herself.
“Well, it just so happens that Sigrid told me the other day that he could not bed women. Apparently a friend of hers tried to seduce him a few months back and he could not…well, you know…”
Yes, she did know.
“Torsten?” Aife infused all the disbelief she was capable of in her voice. “Torsten, Wolf’s son? One of the strongest, most virile men in the village? Sven’s brother, the man who’s bedded all the women who want him?ThatTorsten you mean? You think he would be incapable of bedding a woman?”
“Well…that’s what Sigrid said.” But Gudrun didn’t sound so sure anymore.
“Why on earth would she say that? You must have misunderstood. Or else…” Aife twisted her lips in mock consideration and leaned in conspiratorially. “Or else the problem is not so much with him as with Sigrid’s friend. Perhapsshe was so put out that he refused her advances that she started to spread rumors about him. There is no telling what people will do for spite. In any case, let me tell you that there is nothing wrong with his ability to perform.”
Another blush, impossible to stop.
“Apparently not… You at least seem quite satisfied with his?—”
“I will take the wheat loaf and the flatbread as well,” Aife decided, thinking it best not to insist. She had said enough. Within the week, everyone would know what to think of Torsten.
She handed the coins to a dumbfounded Gudrun and made her way back home, already biting into the warm flatbread. Delicious. As she rounded the baker’s hut, she came to an abrupt halt.
Standing by the fence was Torsten, looking at her with intense brown eyes.
“You heard,” was all she said, swallowing the mouthful of bread with difficulty.
“I heard.”
She had expected anger, resentment at her interference perhaps, but his lips were twitching in what looked like a mixture of amusement and gratitude. Oh dear, he looked utterly striking in the morning sun, the golden light making his eyes glow and his bronzed skin shine. With the bruise at his temple, he looked like a warrior back from battle. A battle he had fought for her. Why had she decided it was better to revert back to being friends and forget about kissing, exactly?
Right now she couldn’t remember.
“Thank you.”
Aife tried a carefree shrug, ended up coughing when she choked on the last crumbs of flat bread. Eventually she was able to answer. “After the way you helped me with Edita, I could not let you be maligned throughout the village. It wasn’t fair.Besides, what I said was no lie,” she added in a lower voice. “You are capable of the same as any other man.”
His eyes, aglow with gratitude a moment before, now sent sparks of pure lust. “Mm, apparently. And now thanks to you I might find myself having to fend off women’s advances instead of trying to convince them I can perform.”
Oh. She hadn’t thought of that. He might indeed attract more female attention from now on. The thought tore at her guts.
“Will you make the most of it?” she asked with commendable effort at breeziness. Why should he not? And why should she care? Hadn’t they decided to forget the madness? Yes, only it was hard to convince herself that was what she wanted when her body was still humming from her earlier release and he was standing in front of her like a mighty warrior.
Torsten seemed to hesitate for a moment, and Aife was certain he was only doing it to tease her. It worked, damn him, because she did hate the idea of him going to other women. Her heartbeat picked up when he gave her a slanted smile.
