The three women gazed at her then in silence, waiting for her response to their butting in to what was obviously a private, but very interesting, conversation.
“Go on, Rona, tell us of these amazing five rules of seduction,” Helga said, half teasing. “But remember, all of you, this is a private talk, not to be spoken of outside this circle.”
They all nodded, pulling their stools and chairs closer, all the while continuing their embroidery work.
“First is the Madonna/Harlot Principle,” Rona proclaimed.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Men like a woman who appears all prim and chaste in public, but wild as a seasoned concubine in the bed furs… just for him.”
“Ragnor especially likes for me to wear a gunna with a full-length, open-sided over-apron, with my hair braided into a coronet atop my head,” Sigrud confided with pink cheeks, “but no undergarments at all underneath.”
Talk about more than I wanted to know!
The others hooted with laughter.
“Makes for easy coupling in the halls, or the scullery, or behind the cow byre,” Bera offered, also blushing, “especially if your man is wearing no undergarments, either.”
Definitely too much information!
“Or under the trestle tables in the great hall,” Eve added timidly.
I can’t believe what I am hearing. Do women really do all those things? Just to please a man? “Oh, good gods!”
“If you have trouble with that one, the easiest of them all, then you might as well give up right now.” Rona pursed her lips and wagged a finger in Helga’s face.
Helga stiffened her body with determination. “Nay. I can handle it.” Or die of humiliation trying. “What’s next?”
“Next you must cultivate and refine your own individual sexual personality.”
“I don’t have a sexual personality. In fact, I don’t know what a sexual personality is.”
“A woman doesn’t have to be comely to have men lust after her. That is what Rona is trying to say.” It was Bera the Buxom speaking now. “Look at me. I am a perfect example. Oh, my breasts are an asset, but other than that, I am a little too fat. My buttocks even jiggle when I walk.”
“But jiggling is good,” Sigrud told Bera.
Bera shrugged. “Let’s face it. I am not a comely lass, and no longer in the first blush of youth, either. Still, I ne’er had trouble attracting men, and I got my Bolli, didn’t I?”
“It’s all in a woman’s own image of herself,” Rona said.
“Huh?” Helga said.
“To be provocative, a woman must feel provocative,” Rona explained.
“Huh?” Helga said again.
“Listen, there are things you can do to make yourself physically more attractive. Plump up those breasts with a little sheep fleece, add a few curves to your hips and buttocks—your waist is already tiny enough. And you can sway when you walk—or slither, as I like to describe it. Thrust your pelvis forward a bit when you walk. Like this.”
Oh, my God! She looks like a ship’s masthead entering a room. Do men really like that? “I have been flat-chested all my life, and I have no intention of fluffing up my bosom at this late date. Everyone would know they were false.”
“Those were just suggestions, mistress. Mostly it’s what’s going on inside your head,” Rona proclaimed, tapping her own noggin for emphasis. “Try this afore you come down to dinner this evening. Picture a fantasy scene. Very detailed. Two naked bodies. Hot kisses. Wicked touches. Your nipples getting harder and harder. Aching. And your woman folds weeping with arousal.”
Not in a million years could I picture that! And if my woman folds ever wept, I did not know it. “And this will accomplish what?”
“It will change the way you present yourself. Your body will move differently. Your lips will part. Your eyes will glaze over.”
“He will think I’m having a fit.”
“Not if you do it right.”
“I’m going to try it,” Eve announced of a sudden. “In truth, I am feeling a bit tingly all over, even at the thought of it.”
All right, admit it, Helga. You feel a little tingle. Mayhap you are not entirely hopeless.
“Me, too,” Bera and Sigrud said.