Valkyrie at sea By Diana the Valkyrie (c) 1998; Valkyrie@TheValkyrie.com Part 8 - Cavorting in Cadiz, and a Jolly Game of Hockey Update: 21/09/1998 to valkyrie At dinner that evening, I swapped one of my old biddies for Linda so we could be at the same table, since I wasn't so worried about her as competition any more, having already gotten my claws into a very decent bit of trouser, plus I had her non-aggression pact. Plus, having been through so much together we were Best Chums now. After dinner, still feeling somewhat umpty from all that running (Valkyries aren't built for speed, as you'll find out if you ever get to chase one) I followed Linda down to the theatre and watched her performance. She didn't seem to be affected by our adventures at all. I'd noticed on the tender, that she wasn't even out of breath, and on stage, wearing high heels, hair up and an eighteen inch feathered headdress on top of that lot, she looked simply magnificent, absolutely dwarfing her dancing partner, and when I looked around at the way the blokes were looking at her, I felt really quite proud of her. By midnight, I was feeling pretty much recovered, and knocked on the door of the Captain's Cabin. Stevie let me in, and then said "I need to talk to you." "What's up?" I asked, innocently. "It seems that two women were arrested, one of them about seven feet tall, for indecent exposure." "Seven feet tall? Wow. Even Linda's only six nine." He looked at me. "And then they escaped from jail by bending the two inch thick steel bars, slugged a guard unconscious, and ran away." "That's awful" I said. "I expect they'll be searching for them." "Yes, they are. And since one of them is a blonde, they were wondering if I had them on my ship." "Only one of them's a blonde?" well, I call it blonde. "So what did you say?" "I asked for their names, but unfortunately they didn't know the names." "Hmm, difficult. So I guess you have to watch out for two women, one seven foot tall, and the other one carrying a hydraulic jack." "Something like that." "I bet she didn't slug him, I bet she just squeezed him in her arms till he passed out." "I heard about your strong-man act last night." "Yes, the contortionist got a bit damaged, so I stood in for him." "And how did the contortionist get damaged?" "Now that definitely wasn't me, I never touched him." "Glad to hear it, Diana. I heard about the stunts you did. Pretty impressive for a girl." "I'm not a girl." "Woman" "Valkyrie" "All right, pretty impressive for a Valkyrie." I grinned. "No, not really." "But it was all arms and hands, you weren't using your legs." "That's more impressive, is why, men love to see upper body strength." "Yes. You must have thighs like a hydraulic jack, Diana." It was dark, so I didn't bother blushing. "Aren't they?" and he stroked the top of my thigh. This was more like it, so I stroked the top of his, and then we had a bit of a wrestling match, which obviously he won, and if you can't work out why it's obvious that he'd win, you haven't been paying attention, but somehow in the tussle his trousers came adrift from their moorings, and one thing, as things do, led to another. At the climactic moment, we both screamed. Him for the usual reason, me because I'd just brought my legs together with him in between, and it was like someone stuck a knife in both legs. And when afterwards he was being a bit too smug about how noisy I'd been, I explained that it wasn't entirely for the reason he was thinking. He turned on the light and had a look, and there was this huge black, blue yellow and green bruise running across the inside of each of my thighs. So Stevie got some sun cream and rubbed it on, which felt very good, although I didn't find out it was sun cream for a while, and Stevie said "You should have used a couple of pieces of wood to spread the load." "Hmm, good idea, I hadn't thought of that. I'll remember that, next time I have to bend a two inch thick steel bar between my legs." "Two inches?" I nodded. "Really?" he said, stroking the insides of my things. "They feel so soft, so silky." I stretched my legs and tensed the muscles. "Yes, I see what you mean, I'd hate to be caught between those nutcrackers when they decided to close." "No, it's different when there's a man there. I'm very gentle, really I am." "Yes, I know. The fact that I don't have any cracked ribs proves that." "Not cracked, broken, you don't have any broken ribs" I murmured as I fell asleep. Next day, we berthed at Cadiz, where Sir Francis Drake had singed the King of Spain's beard. But four hundred years later, we were all good friends, and Linda and I walked round the town gawking at the sights, while the locals gawked at 220 centimetres of California's Finest. Linda, of course, didn't even notice the stares, I suppose she assumed that everyone behaved that way. But although we weren't in Morocco any more, Spain wasn't used to sights like Linda, and after a fairly spectacular car smash that I was pretty sure she'd caused, I started counting the accidents. Mostly it was people walking into each other, into trees, into lamp posts and tripping over dogs, but there was one delightful muliple collision involving a bicycle, a dog and two pedestrians. It was jolly hot, so we found a cafe‚ and sat down to cool off and have a coffee. A couple of locals came over and started chatting us up. Linda encouraged them, of course, by flashing her eyes and tossing her hair, but then she made the mistake of doing her stand-up-and-tower-over-you thing, and they looked up at her, stood up, found they were still having to look up more than twelve inches, more like eighteen inches, and they skulked off. Linda looked surprised. "That usually works" she said. "Spaniards" I said. "Different cultures behave differently, Linda. Your Socal guys go gaga over giantesses, but Southern Europeans like the smaller feminine types. Let me handle the next lot." Two more swarthy little chaps sat down; seated, you can't really see just how tall Linda is, unless you notice how high her knees are, or see the length of her arms. We ordered four cans of coke and sat there sipping and flirting, until we felt rested and ready to see some more of Cadiz. But the two slightly rat-like Dagoes wanted to join us. I looked at Linda, she looked at me, I shook my head slightly, and she grimaced, so I ordered another can of coke. When it arrived, I took one of the empty cans and crushed it in my hand, so the two guys had to show that they could do the same, squeezing up the empty aluminium cans into a crumpled ball. Then I took the unopened can, and squeezed it in my right hand, grunting slightly as I put on the pressure, until suddenly it burst, spraying coke all around, and the two Spaniards set sail for Seville and all points South. "Impressive" said Linda. "Heh heh heh" I chortled. We got back to the ship in time for the afternoon game which was hockey, another game that I'd played quite a lot at school until the regrettable incident with Roger Guthridge and Sidney Cartstone, which was absolutely not my fault in the slightest, and I'll dispute with anyone who repeats the totally untrue rumours. Anyway, as far as I could rememeber, the rule was that you mustn't raise your hockey stick above shoulder level, and you mustn't hit your opponents. Apart from that, I don't think there are any rules. So we played the Blues against the Reds as usual, with me captaining the Blues and Linda the Reds, and never mind about not being allowed to hit your opponent, I couldn't even catch her. On the other hand, as long as I stayed in front of the goal, I could act like a brick wall, and no matter how often Linda flicked the puck at me, I warded it off. Goal is a great place to play if you're not built for speed, and if Roger and Sidney hadn't decided to both come at me at once ... but as I say, that's all in the past and there's no point in raking it up again. Anyway, Roger was walking quite soon afterwards, albeit with the help of a stick. And what's the point of having first aiders around anyway, if they aren't for patching up injuries on the field. There's only one problem with a defensive strategy; you can't really win that way. But eventually, someone passed the puck back to me, and I set it in front of me, raised my stick to not quite shoulder level, and gave it a mighty whack towards the opposition. The opposition, sensibly, possibly remembering the cricket ball, and including their goalie, got out of the way. So we won, one-nil. Linda's contortionist joined us for dinner, and I was trying to find out from him exactly what he'd been doing when things went wrong, and what exactly it was that he'd broken, or dislocated, or what. He, of course, we being totally coy about it, and Linda wasn't helping. The captain sent over a bottle of Bolly to our table, which I thought was jolly nice of him, so I sent a bottle of Moet back. Then I discovered that the contortionist was ticklish, and from then on it was very easy to get a full and frank confession from him. Although why Linda wanted his legs behind his neck I can't imagine. That evening, instead of a variety show, they put on a play. They did "The Importance of being Earnest", one of my favourites, and Linda was Lady Bracknell, and although I've always thought of her as a small but commanding presence, seventy five inches, plus a high-plumed hat to add another fifteen or so, turned her into a tall, commanding and stately figure who completely stole the show, and I've never heard "A handbag? A handbag???" done quite so well.