Diana's Prof 
By Diana the Valkyrie
Diana and the Prof investigate the physiology and sociology of Valkyries. 


This is the fourteenth in the series of stories by Diana. I'd 
just like to emphasise that, although I am rather stronger than the 
average girl (or even than the average man), what follows is entirely a 
fantasy of mine. I made it up. It didn't actually happen. Valkyries are 
mythical. I think. 

If you haven't seen Wagner's Ring cycle, maybe this will get you 
interested. A lot of people think it's very good. 

This is actually the first part of a cycle of stories covering a single 
theme (you might actually say it isn't actually the first one). Read the 
earlier ones, you'll see what I mean. Look out for the continuation. 

If sex and violence isn't you, then don't read this. 



(C) Diana the Valkyrie, 1996. Email me at valkyrie@thevalkyrie.com



Diana: 

What exactly is a Valkyrie? Where did they come from. How could there be 
nine sisters and no brothers, that's pretty long odds? Who was their 
mother? Why were they such powerful warrior women? How did they Choose 
the Slain, and what did they do with them then? Did they have babies? 
Were the Valkyries real, myth, or myth based on reality? Was the Wagner 
story true, part of the myth or something he made up? 

So many questions, and so few answers. No-one I knew seemed to know 
anything about Norse mythology, and I simply *had* to know more about 
the Valkyries, now that I knew I was a Valkyrie myself, or at least a 
descendant of them. But how could I be a descendant of a mythical 
sisterhood? Another question with no answer. 

The encyclopedias are useless. They all refer to Wagner, and maybe he 
just made up his story? And when I went to the public library, there 
simply were no books about Norse Mythology except the rather ordinary 
ones about Wodin, Thor and the main men. Nothing about the Valkyries, 
except a brief mention. 

Well, Gran always told me, when you don't know something, find someone 
who does, and ask him. Him, not her, because men are more helpful to a 
pretty girl than a woman would be. So, first question - who to ask. I 
did some searching on the Web, and a name that seemed to come up rather 
often in connection with Norse Studies was Dr. Michael Cooley. A bit 
more checking revealed that he was a Professor of History at East Anglia 
University, which is near Norwich, not terribly far from London. So I 
sent him an email, explaining my interest in Norse Mythology, and asked 
if I could come and visit him and discuss a project. A few days later, 
he invited me to take tea with him one Friday, so I took a day off work 
(my "boss" Nigel's a dear about that sort of thing), jumped on to Black 
Beauty my favourite steed and up I went. Black Beauty's a motorbike, but 
not any old bike. She's a Honda Valkyrie, that's right, a Valkyrie on a 
Valkyrie! She's tremendously powerful, her top speed is around 160 mph, 
and she loves flying. And Kevin has painted a picture on the fairing, a 
bare breasted Valkyrie, hair flying round her head, swinging her sword. 
I think it's based on a Boris Vallejo picture. Her face looks rather 
like mine, but I'm certain her breasts are smaller. Have a look at it, 
you can find it at 

http://www.k2nesoft.com/twilight/graphics/boris/fullsize/bv76.jpg 

I suppose I'd better explain about flying. A Valkyrie is supposed to 
ride a flying horse. Unfortunately, flying horses seem to have died out 
these days, so I got the next best thing, the biggest, most powerful 
bike I could find. And then, of course, I wanted to see what it felt 
like to fly on the back of a horse, so whenever we go over a hump-back 
bridge, I take it at about 100 mph, and we spend several seconds in the 
air. There's quite a few hump back bridges around London, if you look 
carefully, and it really is exciting flying over them. And it's a good 
way to terrorise your pillion passenger; even if he closes his eyes and 
hugs himself against your back so he can't see or hear what's happening, 
he can feel the sensation of flying, it's just like falling, and they 
*always* scream! And then they hug you ten times as hard, which is nice, 
and I think the stimulus from the adrenaline that they get makes the sex 
much better. I don't do drugs and wouldn't let my trousers do drugs 
either, but adrenaline doesn't count, it comes from inside you. 

Norwich is a couple of hundred miles from London, so the trip took about 
two hours, Valkyries just fly through traffic! 


Michael: 

I get a few letters, mostly from schoolkids, asking how they can find 
out more about the Vikings and Norse Mythology. I usually tell them to 
look at http://www.math.montana.edu/~fixen/vikings.html, and that makes 
them happy. They don't usually ask to see me, so when this one wanted an 
appointment, I was feeling a bit bored, well, to be honest, my book on 
trading patterns between the Scandinavian Vikings and the Normans was 
going rather slowly, so I rather welcomed a bit of a distraction, I 
guessed she wasn't just some kid, but an undergraduate working on some 
sort of thesis, so maybe we'd be able to have an intelligent 
conversation. I didn't realise at the time just how much of a 
distraction Diana the Valkyrie was going to be. 

When she arrived at my study for tea, the only clue to what I'd let 
myself in for was the fact that she was dressed in black leather from 
head to toe; jacket, trousers and high boots. And on her head, she had 
what looked like a Viking helmet, but if you looked more carefully, you 
could see it was just a standard cycle crash helmet, and someone had 
glued a couple of horns to the sides. It looked good, though, it wasn't 
just an amateur job. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble over that 
helmet. But for what reason? 

She took off the helmet, and shook out her hair. She was a young woman, 
not a teenager, so my hypothesis about her being an undergrad was 
exploded. She was blonde, pretty, but nothing special, just pretty in 
the way any normal, healthy young woman would be pretty. Of course, my 
work means that I don't get out much, so I don't come into contact with 
women much. I know a nurse called Judy, but we're just friends. This 
suits me fine, because I'm not much good socially. And I've gotten used 
to a bachelor's life, no-one to nag me about mowing the grass, plenty of 
time to work on my book about Norse trading patterns. "Do you mind if I 
take off my leathers?" Uh, no, I didn't mind. "I came up on the bike, 
and it was a bit blustery." Ah, that explains the leather gear and the 
helmet, but not the horns. She took off the boots, struggled out of the 
trousers, then took off the heavy leather jacket. Underneath, she was 
wearing a chunky-knit sweater and jeans; I guess it gets cold on a 
motorbike. "I had a moped once" I offered. "You have to wrap up warm." 
She smiled at me, and nodded. 

"Milk and sugar?" I asked, beginning the traditional British Tea 
Ceremony? "Milk, no sugar" she answered, and I poured Earl Grey out of 
the teapot into fine china cups, followed by full-fat milk from a small 
jug. I don't think semi-skimmed is right for tea. "Have a cucumber 
sandwich". 

She sat in my guest chair, sipping Earl Grey and looking at me. Her eyes 
were pale blue, her face was broad, too broad to be called really 
pretty, and a girl has to have that fine delicate look to qualify as 
beautiful. Having no wife, I consider that I'm allowed to look at girls 
and pass judgments on their looks, on a scale of ten. I rated Miss 
Diana at four, maybe five. Although I hadn't seen what her figure was 
like yet, her sweater covered everything up. "Tell me about your 
project," I asked. 

"It's about Valkyries," she said. "I want to find out everything I can 
about Valkyries." "Well, from memory, they were nine sisters, daughters 
of Wotan and Erda. Wotan was the chieftain of the gods. Let's see, there 
was Brunnhilde, of course, and Waltraute, Brunichild, er, Sigiling, um, 
I can't remember the other names, I can look it up if you like. They 
rode winged horses, like Pegasus, but that was a Greek legend, they wore 
helmets and carried spears. If you go to a performance of Wagner, "Der 
Ring Des Nibelungen", something like that, you'll get some idea what 
they looked like. The Valkyries were the Choosers of the Slain, they 
visited battlefields after the battle, to choose the strongest heroes, 
to fight the final battle, Gotterdammerung, on the side of Wotan. The 
Valkyries carried them off to Valhalla, where they would fight by day 
until all the heroes were killed except one, then the Valkyries would 
bring them back to life and they'd spend the night feasting and 
drinking. But what most people don't know, is that the Valkyries were 
also Wotan's messengers and general factotums." I stopped. "But how do 
we know all this?" she asked. 

"In the 17th century, an old book was found in Iceland, called the Codex 
Regius. That, plus a few contemporary references, plus some stuff that 
the Christians wrote down, plus the Edda, is all we know." I looked down 
at her crash helmet "One thing we do know - they didn't wear horned 
helmets!" She grinned. "I know, but everyone thinks they did, and style 
is more important than substance for what you wear." 

Hmm. I like that. Style is more important than substance for what you 
wear. 

Then she asked me if anyone was doing research into the Vikings, and I 
explained my current project to her. 


Diana: 

I watched him as he told me all the stuff I already knew. He was a 
fortyish, his hair was untidy, and he was wearing a cardigan with a 
button missing and a hole in one of the elbows. I couldn't see anything 
interesting when I looked at his corduroy trousers, but they were so 
baggy, they could have been hiding anything. But as he spoke about the 
old Norse myths, he became animated, his eyes flashed, and he waved his 
arms around a lot. I asked him what he was currently researching, and he 
launched into a diatribe so mind-numbingly boring, I had to go into 
"fascinated-woman" mode. In case you don't know how to do this, you lean 
forward, look deep into his eyes, make sure yours stay open, and 
punctuate his sentences with nods and "Uh-huh" every now and then, while 
thinking about something interesting like how long his tongue is, and 
whether he knows what to do with it. I was thinking about how to change 
the subject to talk about the reason why I'd come, and suddenly, he said 
"So, tell me why you've come here." 


Michael: 

Aaargh! I got onto the subject of Norse trading patterns, I mustn't do 
that, there's only one person in the whole world who's remotely 
interested in that subject. She pretended to look interested, but I saw 
her eyes glaze over and her nods and yesses became automatic. Luckily I 
recognised the symptoms, and made myself shut up, and asked her about 
her project. 

At first, I thought she was a nutter. She bit her lower lip, and looked 
at me with those cool blue eyes, and said "Professor, I want you to 
suspend disbelief until I've finished explaining." I nodded. Academics 
practice believing impossible things all the time, you should hear what 
my colleagues in Quantum Physics believe! And that's before you listen 
to the theologists. "Professor, I'm a Valkyrie. Or to be more precise, 
I'm descended from the Choosers of the Slain, and I've inherited their 
characteristics. I discovered this on a recent trip to Norway, where I 
met two other Valkyries, and they're so like me, they could be my 
sisters. They told me about their heritage, and it's my heritage too, I 
didn't know before, but now I just *know* it's true. And that's why I 
want to know all about Valkyries." 

Well, I don't think there are any people who think they're Napoleon, not 
walking around the streets, anyway. But some people believe in re-
incarnation, so I asked her if that was what she meant. "No, I don't 
think so. I'm actually descended from them, on the female side, of 
course." 

Of course. Yes. Well, that accounts for the horns on the helmet. Now, I 
wonder how I can get rid of her quickly without being rude or making a 
fuss? "You don't believe me, do you?" Er, well, er.  "I'm willing to 
keep an open mind", I lied. "I presume you have some evidence to show 
me, other than your colouring and your deeply-held conviction?" She took 
a deep breath, and nodded. "Look." And she took off her sweater, and 
pulled down her jeans. 

I didn't know where to look. At first, because of embarrassment, but 
then because there was such a choice of good things to look at. Where 
should I start? Clothes - she was wearing a short cotton skirt, half way 
down to her knees. Round her waist was some sort of complicated leather 
belt. Above the waist, and tucked into her skirt, she was wearing a 
long-sleeved silk blouse, I assume it was silk, it was very thin and 
clung to her body, clung so well that I was fairly sure that she had 
nothing underneath it. It was open at the throat, but she wasn't showing 
much flesh - she didn't need to, her assets were obvious. 

She wasn't slim and slender - she was quite chunky. Not fat, she didn't 
look like she was fat, more kind of burly, but somehow, there was an lot 
of her. Not that she was tall, I'm five foot nine, and I was a few 
inches taller. But she was big, wide, broad, and she was deep. She 
looked like you could put a blade in front and use her as a bulldozer. 
Her chest was big, and I'm not talking about her breasts, not yet. You 
know how some girls look like a strong breeze would blow them away? 
Well, Diana looked like she could exhale that breeze just by breathing 
out. 

Then, mounted on her broad chest, there were two cannonballs. The sort 
you'd shoot out of a six inch bore cannon, too big to emplace on a ship, 
you could only put such a huge gun on a shore fortress. I say 
cannonballs, because they gave that impression of weight and solidity, 
but they weren't quite cannon-ball shaped. Cannon balls are round, and 
these were mostly round, but, well. I don't have much experience with 
women, but what it looked like she had, was a fuse sticking out of each 
one, and I had the impression that handling that fuse would make the 
whole package explode. I guess medieval history professors aren't too 
good at describing women. And I have to confess, she looked a bit scary. 

So I looked down, towards her waist. She didn't have a waist, not the 
sort of graceful curving line that you see on women wearing bikinis. Her 
belt was wrapped round something rather smaller than her chest, but that 
was only by comparison. You would only call it a waistline by it's 
position. 

So then my eyes dropped further, and you remember I said she was wearing 
a skirt that came halfway down to her knees. Well, I guess I got that 
the wrong way round. Her skirt revealed half her thighs, and the half 
that I could see, looked like they might have the same diameter as the 
gun with the six inch bore. As a rule of thumb, the thickness of a 
medieval gun barrel was same as the radius of the shot it used, so a six 
inch gun had a barrel that was twelve inches across. Now, no way were 
her thighs twelve inches across, because that would make them 38 inches 
around, pi times diameter, and that's bigger than my chest, and no way 
were her thighs that big, at least, not half way down where I could see 
them. But, short of getting down on my knees and using a tape measure, 
there was no way I could estimate their size any better. 

I realised I was staring at her thighs, and with a start I looked up at 
her face. She was smiling at me, gently, and I realised she must be used 
to having this effect on people. "You see what I mean?" she said. Hmm - 
she certainly looked the part. "Well, you're big, I can see that! But 
that doesn't make you a Valkyrie." "No, of course not. But it isn't fat, 
you know. Let me show you something." 

She reached into her bag, pulled out an iron spike, and handed it to me. 
No, not a spike, it was a six-inch nail, the kind of thing you use to 
mend fences. "Try to bend it," she suggested. I tried. Not very hard, I 
admit, I mean, those things are thick, they're designed not to bend when 
you bang them with a hammer. I knew that it couldn't be done, so I just 
gave a half-hearted try, and gave up. She held out her hand, so I gave 
it back to her. 

She took a sheet of newspaper, and rolled the nail up in that "To 
protect my palms against damage", she said. She stood in the middle of 
my study, and held that roll of paper with her thumbs in the middle and 
her fingers towards the ends, and I could see her thumbs whiten with the 
pressure, and then slowly, the straight roll of paper bent. She 
unwrapped it, and gave me one bent six inch nail to hold. 

I looked at it. Then I looked at her. I guess my disbelief must have 
showed, because she said, "Would you like to see that again?" I nodded. 
So she took another nail out of her bag. I held out my hand for it, and 
this time, I tried my hardest to dent it. I tried the way she had, I 
tried wrapping it in paper, I tried holding one end against the floor 
and pressing down. Nothing I could do could make any impression. They 
make those things *hard*. 

I rolled it in a sheet of ordinary photocopy paper, and gave it back to 
her, watching carefully for any sleight of hand. She took the rolled 
paper, and making sure that it stayed in my sight the whole time, she 
carefully bent it until it was at a right angle. Then she gave it back 
to me, still in the paper, and when I unrolled it, sure enough, I had 
another bent six inch nail. 

Then I made a very big mistake, one I'll never make again. I shook my 
head in disbelief, because there's no way a woman, even one built as 
solidly as Diana, could do that, it must have been a trick. "You still 
don't believe me, do you" she said, very quietly. "You must have 
switched nails, I don't know how it's done, I'll have to think about it 
..." 

She stepped towards me, and knelt in front of my chair, back straight, 
settling back on her heels the way women do. I had an excellent view of 
her breasts from above, which distracted me enough so I didn't realise 
what was about to happen. She put one hand on my knee, which caused all 
sorts of disruptions in my head, and put the other hand on my left 
forearm. Then she whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, "Are you 
right-handed?" I nodded. "Please, Professor Cooley, don't be all macho 
about this. Just shout when you've had enough, and I'll stop at once. 
You understand?" I nodded, automatically. 

At first, she just held my arm. Then slowly increased the pressure until 
she was gripping it. Then she squeezed it. Then she crushed it. Then it 
felt like someone had slammed a door on my arm. I was gritting my teeth, 
trying not to cry out, as the pain was getting worse and worse, until 
suddenly I realised that she was just going to make it worse and worse 
until I did scream, and the sooner I screamed, the sooner this agony 
would end, and I'd just worked that out when ... 

My eyes blinked open, and I smelled a strong smell of musk. She was 
waving her perfume bottle under my nose. I jerked upright, and white 
fire shot through my left arm, and I winced. "Oh, welcome back", she 
said. "I was beginning to get worried. You have a remarkable tolerance 
to pain." I shook my head. "No", I said, "I'm just too stupid to know 
when to give up." She smiled, looking relieved.  "Let's have a look at 
that arm." 

She help me roll up my cardigan sleeve - to be precise, she rolled it 
up, I wasn't feeling up to doing anything that involved my left arm. We 
looked at it, and there was an angry red area just above the wrist, 
where she'd gripped it. "I've got just the thing" she said, and from her 
capacious handbag - was there anything she wasn't carrying? - she 
produced a bottle. "Oil of Wintergreen, perfect for bruises." Of course, 
she'd planned this. She'd known I might not believe the stunt with the 
iron nails, although in retrospect, I wished I had. 

She opened the bottle, poured some on her fingers, and started to apply 
it to my skin. I found it difficult to equate the softness of her 
fingers now, with the blinding pain of her grip in my forearm. She 
looked up at me as she soothed my bruise. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to 
hurt you so much. You didn't say anything, so I assumed you were OK." "I 
was being stupid. By the time I'd realised you'd just keep increasing 
the pressure and it was time to ask you to stop, it was too late, and 
I'd fainted." "That doesn't usually happen, they nearly always shout 
out, except when they're ultra-macho. You must be very brave, and very 
resistant to pain." She'd done this before? Yes, of course she had, 
that's why she knew about Wintergreen. I tried not to wince under her 
gentle touch - she was being very gentle, but my arm felt like it had 
been pounded with a hammer. She'd called me brave, so I had to live up 
to it. I thought about how medieval monks had scourged their flesh to 
achieve God's Grace, and was just getting ready to give up and scream, 
when she said "What a brave soldier you are", and so I just gritted my 
teeth some more. I was very glad when she announced she'd finished. 

"Look, I'm really sorry about that, it's going to come up in a lovely 
Technicolor bruise, but I had to convince you, and you weren't going to 
accept anything that could be faked somehow." I nodded ruefully. "and I 
didn't break anything." I thought about that. Could she really have 
broken my arm just by gripping it in one hand? "Surely you'd have to 
twist it or bend it, in order to break it?" "No, you see there's 
actually two bones in your arm, and ... do you want me to show you?" her 
hand hovered over my arm, I looked at her, but she was grinning. Joke. 
"It's professional scepticism. We see so many faked artifacts, I have to 
be very cynical." I started rubbing my arm, but stopped very quickly. 
"So you believe me now, right?" 

I thought of lying to her, but I thought that isn't a way to behave. 
She's not going to get angry with me. I hope. "I certainly believe that 
you're the strongest woman I've ever met. But that doesn't actually 
prove that you were descended from a group of sisters who might not have 
actually existed anyway." And she nodded. "Yes, I see your logic. But 
it's a theory that makes sense, isn't it? And don't forget Freya and 
Hilde." "Yes, but just because there are two women who physically 
resemble you ... and they're as strong as you are?" "Well, we didn't arm 
wrestle or anything, it isn't really important who's stronger than who, 
but they're obviously in the same general ball-park as I am." 

That's got to be one of the fundamental differences between men and 
women. Any similar group of men would have had a competition to see who 
comes out on top. The Valkyries didn't care. Hey, I was beginning to 
think of them as Valkyries myself now. Well, if you've been on the 
inside of Diana the Valkyrie's hand when she closed it, you might feel 
differently. Anyway, that still doesn't prove it. "Maybe that's evidence 
that there's a common ancestor among the three of you, but it isn't even 
proof of that, let alone anything to do with Valkyries." "Four." 
"Sorry?" "There's four of us. I didn't mention Victoria, she's in 
London, and she's one as well, except she's slightly different." 
"Different how?" "In two ways. First, she's quite a bit taller than me, 
she's getting on for six foot, and Freya, Hilde and me are all about the 
same height. Secondly, she's got a completely different attitude towards 
men. Freya, Hilde and I all think that you have to be gentle with them." 
Gentle? She calls that gentle? What would she do if she was being rough? 
"Vicky likes to hurt them. You don't want to meet Vicky, she loves to 
hurt and humiliate men. She brought her boyfriend round last week, and 
he had a collar and leash round his neck, and his knees were chained 
together so he could barely walk." I scratched my head. This was too 
much to take in at one sitting. 

I looked at my wrist watch, it was getting late. Now I'm pretty set in 
my ways, and one of the things I haven't done for years, well, decades, 
is take a girl out for dinner, not counting Judy, of course, who isn't 
exactly a girl any more. But somehow, I wasn't thinking of Diana the Valkyrie 
as just a girl any more. Usually I'm rather nervous around girls, and 
you'd think that a girl like this would leave me incoherent with terror. 
She wasn't exactly pretty, but she was feminine, and overpoweringly 
female. But somehow, she had the opposite effect. I didn't feel that I 
would be expected to try anything on with her, and I knew for sure that 
if I did, she could handle it. Because as I looked at her, I realised 
that she wasn't just physically strong. She radiated an aura of 
competence and confidence, in the way she walked, the way she talked and 
the way she held herself. You know the way women stand with their arms 
crossed over their bosoms, as if to hide? Men never stand that way, and 
you'd think it would be physically easier for us. But she didn't stand 
that way, she stood with her head up, her shoulders back, and her bust 
looked like the figurehead of a ship, is was so firm and proud. "Er - 
would you like a curry? There's a good place I know in town." She 
smiled. "Love one, yes. And we can continue our discussions." Not a 
question, a statement. I could get to like this girl, a lot. If she 
didn't leave me black and blue all over. 

I left my old bicycle at the University, because she had her motorbike. 
I mounted up pillion behind her, and she told me to put my arms round 
her waist, which was rather nice, because I had to get right up close to 
her back to do it, and I had my head on her shoulder. "Hold on tight" 
she said, and I did, and I also closed my eyes after the first few 
seconds, because I reasoned she knows what she's doing, I'll just assume 
that she won't crash. And if she does, seeing it coming wouldn't help me 
anyway. So I was only trembling slightly when I got off, and that was 
because she took a bridge so fast that I swear we were flying for 
several seconds, and the landing was quite a big bump. 

When I got off, I got a good look at the picture on the bike's fairing. 
It was a powerful-looking woman on a flying horse, swinging a six foot 
steel broadsword, you could see how heavy it was by the way she was 
holding it. The painter had done the sword extremely accurately, I 
thought, but the woman was a complete fantasy exaggeration, especially 
her breasts. Then I thought about Diana, and maybe it wasn't an 
exaggeration. She told me "It's a Honda Valkyrie, I just had to have one 
when I found out about it. It's the biggest bike they make, over a 
hundred horsepower. I call her Black Beauty." 

We had a great evening, just sitting across a table and talking. She 
told me about her job in the bank, and I didn't even know that world 
existed. And I laughed when she told me about how she intimidates the 
opposition by taking off her belt, and they realise, as she's laying it 
on the table, that it's actually a very nasty bull-hide whip, with the 
bull's penis as the handle. I stopped laughing when she stood up and 
unwound it from her waist, and showed it to me. "Golly, you're a 
Valkyrie and no mistake. All you need is a sword!" So then she laughed, 
and reached behind her head into her hair, and pulled out a dagger, all 
in one fast and fluid motion, and then she laid it on the table between 
us. "Yes, it's sharp and *don't* touch it." This was no pencil 
sharpener. This was a deadly offensive weapon, the sort of thing that 
they're looking for at airport security checks. And I asked her about 
that. "Yes, the machine always beeps, and then they look at it, it's in 
a scabbard, and it looks like it's  just a hair clip, so they aren't 
bothered." 

"But why do you carry it, what do you use it for?" "Freya gave it to me, 
she carries one just like it, and so does Hilde. I use it for peeling 
apples, what did you think I used it for?" Yes, I was being a bit silly. 
She'd told me a few times now that she didn't think it was right to hurt 
men, although she didn't seem to have any problem with total 
intimidation. "You can also use it to trim ties." "What on earth do you 
mean?" She put her knife away, and said "Hold this napkin against your 
shirt." I held it up, just under my chin. Diana wriggled her shoulders, 
and I hadn't realised before just what a riveting thing a shrug can be, 
but while I was trying to collect my thoughts, something flashed, and I 
was holding half a napkin, and the knife had disappeared again. "You can 
also use it to trim ties," she repeated. I never wear a tie, well, 
except on special occasions, but I know that bankers do, and a tiectomy 
must be a pretty intimidating experience. "You're really into 
intimidation, aren't you." She frowned, then nodded. "I suppose so. I 
hadn't really thought of it that way. You've got to get men to do what 
they're supposed to do, don't you?" "Never been a problem for me. People 
just ignore me. Have done all my life." 

I had a lamb Pasanda. She, of course, had a Vindaloo, and ate it with 
great relish, plus three helpings of rice, a vegetable curry on the 
side, two Nan breads, and I had the feeling she was still hungry after 
all that. She didn't do that sort of thing on purpose (the Vindaloo, 
that is), at least not all the time. She was just one very spicy lady. 
No, make that one very vigourous Valkyrie. Halfway through the meal, I 
wondered what would happen if I asked her to come back to my flat for 
the night. Then I thought, maybe not, maybe I wouldn't survive the 
night. Then I thought, but she did say she's very gentle with men. Then 
I thought, but I know what gentle means with her. In the end, I'm just 
not used to doing this. I didn't know the words, I didn't know the 
music, and I would have made a fool of myself. Better to let the evening 
end well, maybe some other time. Maybe after my arm stops throbbing its 
insistent reminder of the strength of Diana the Valkyrie's grip. 

I called for the bill, but she took it from the waiter. "I'll pay", I 
said. She smiled at me. "Don't be silly." "No, it's all right, I can 
afford it." "Michael, I just told you how much I made on that oil rig 
deal. What do you make per year?" "I'm a full professor at the faculty 
of History. I make about a tenth what you made on that one deal." "So 
don't be silly." I made a grab for it, but she moved her hand away. 
"Tell you what," she said, "we'll arm wrestle for it. Winner pays the 
bill." I looked at her. "It isn't that I'm afraid I'll get hurt", I 
began. She held her head to the side, and smiled. "Mmmh?" "I was brought 
up not to fight with girls," I said with a straight face. She broke up 
laughing, patted me on the cheek, and called the waiter over. "I like 
you, you make me laugh." 

Then she took me home, gave me another pat on the cheek to say good 
night, and roared of on her big black motorbike. As you can imagine, I 
didn't sleep much that night. I kept dreaming of Valkyries on motorbikes 
when I did sleep, and thinking of Diana when I was awake, which was most 
of the night. 

Diana: 

He was completely helpless, just like a man, and very sweet. You could 
tell he was single, no ring, plus the state of his cardigan. He was 
obsessed with Viking trade, but eventually he realised that the whole 
world doesn't share his obsession, so he stopped talking and asked me 
what I wanted. 

I'd thought about how to play this, and there just isn't a good way. So 
I plunged in at the deep end, and told him I was a Valkyrie. I could see 
the word "Nutcase" in his eyes, but I was expecting that, and had the 
usual demonstrations lined up for him. He didn't buy them, though. The 
first time I bent a six inch nail, he wasn't expecting what happened, 
and he hadn't been looking properly. The second time, he still thought 
it was some sort of trickery. I expect the academic frame of mind 
teaches them to be sceptical. So I had to do something I hate doing, I 
had to show him directly on part of his body. He was sitting down, so 
the old bear-hug wasn't convenient, and anyway there's always the chance 
of a cracked rib when I do that. So I told him to shout when he'd had 
enough, and I gripped his arm, just above the wrist, and gradually 
increased the pressure. Gradually, so he had a chance to stop me before 
he got hurt. 

I hate hurting men; it isn't right, and they don't like it either, most 
of them. So when I'm forced to do it, I try to do as little damage as 
possible. Unfortunately, there's this macho thing inside them that makes 
it hard for them to give up to a woman. I thought Professor Cooley, 
being an academic, would be different. But I was wrong. The first 
inkling I had that something was wrong, was when he passed out in his 
chair. Oh no! 

I rummaged in my bag for smelling salts (ammonium chloride, the acrid 
whiff of it gets men conscious much faster than cold water), and 
wouldn't you know it, I'd forgotten the bottle.  So I uncorked a bottle 
of perfume instead, and held that under his nose, and it did the trick. 
Then I apologised, except that it was his fault really. I did have my 
Wintergreen with me, I usually carry it, because it's good for bruises, 
and men do bruise easily. I applied it carefully to his arm, and 
although he gritted his teeth rather a lot, he took it well. I could see 
that he'd have a very bad bruise there later, I hadn't realised I was 
squeezing quite so hard. But he should have said! 

So then he accepted that part of my story, but he was still sceptical 
about the Valkyrie connection. He pointed out that just because I was 
very strong, it didn't mean it was genetic. So I explained about Gran, 
and he admitted that OK, it could be genetic, maybe, but that didn't 
mean there was a link with Valkyries. Then I told him about Freya and 
Hilde, and how they looked so like me they could be sisters, and he 
explained that all that meant, was a common ancestry, not necessarily 
Valkyries. And he's right, of course, I hadn't thought of that. It's 
good to have a sceptic around. 

Then he invited me to continue the discussion over dinner, and I was 
getting a bit peckish, so we went and had a curry. I showed him my belt, 
and I demonstrated how quickly I could unsheathe Cat's-Claw and slice a 
table napkin (I've been practising that one, and I had to buy Kevin a 
whole bunch of new ties). He tried to pay, but I wouldn't let him, and I 
made another date with him for Saturday week, so he could have a chance 
to do some preliminary research, and then we could discuss the plan of 
action. I usually have a big heavy date on Saturdays, but this Valkyrie 
stuff was important to me, really important, and I wanted to have the 
whole day to progress it. So the next Saturday, I stoked up on Hassan, 
with his balls as big as peaches, and just as juicy, like a cornucopia 
of come, and burned up the motorway to Norwich. 

Michael: 

Over the next week, my book on Viking trading patterns didn't get much 
attention, I'm afraid. I was following two main lines of research. 

I decided I could approach this from two directions. I was still very 
sceptical about the Valkyrie hypothesis, but there was an obvious prime 
facie case for investigation, and it couldn't hurt to find out 
everything I could about Valkyries. Looking for where did Wagner got his 
information, was one promising line of approach, and the standard 
mythological texts were full of references. So to that end, I decided to 
write the definitive academic paper on Valkyries, with the working title 
"The Valkyries - Myths or Misses?" Sorry. Academics like a good play on 
words. And I kicked off various investigations for that. 

Here's some of the sources I used, together with the languages they were 
in: 

Sigurd The Volsung The POETIC EDDA (Old Norse) The PROSE EDDA by Snorri 
Sturluson (Old Norse) VOLSUNGA SAGA  (Old Norse) DAS NIBELUNGENLIED  
(Middle High German) 

And here's an example of what I found - this was from the Edda 

"Valkyries I saw, coming from afar, Eagerly riding to aid the Goths; 
Skuld bore one shield, Skogul another Gunn, Hild, Gondul and 
Spearskogul: Duly have I named the daughters of Odhinn, The valiant 
riders the Valkyries." 

which implies there were only six Valkyries. 

And from another source: 

"Her name was Sigrdrifa, meaning Victory-Granter, and she was a 
Valkyrie. " 

Which is a seventh, then you add Brunnhilde and the others, and you get 
totally confused. I suppose myths tend not to be consistent; a bit hit 
and miss, you could say. 


The second, and more reliable, line of approach, was Diana herself. 
There were a lot of unanswered questions. She was a big girl, but the 
muscular power that she'd demonstrated couldn't be explained just by her 
size. I hadn't noticed any big bulging muscles on her arms or legs. So 
what was it that gave her the power of that extraordinary grip, that I'd 
felt myself at first hand. And thinking of it, I could still feel it 
throbbing; I'd put a bandage over it because it was so sore and tender 
there, and the first time I'd taken the bandage off to put on some more 
Wintergreen (Diana's idea), I was shocked by the Technicolor state of my 
skin. And if I had any doubts at all, she'd left her six inch nails with 
me, and I kept one in my drawer at the University, and one in my study 
at home, and occasionally I took one out and looked at it, wondering how 
a woman's fingers could twist the thick steel. I bought a few myself, 
took it down to the machine shop and clamped one in a vice. Then I 
attached a spring-balance to measure the loading, but no matter how hard 
I pulled, it didn't bend. In the end, I just gave up and whaled away at 
it with a sledgehammer until it bent. Not a very scientific test, I 
admit. 

The most obvious Diana-questions were medical, so I approached some of 
the chaps in the Faculty of Medicine. I realised that they wouldn't take 
me seriously until they'd seen her for themselves, so I set up a meeting 
for the next time she came up. I had to get them interested enough to 
want to make a scientific investigation of this phenomenon for 
themselves. I thought just meeting Diana the Valkyrie would probably be 
enough. 

She rang my doorbell on Saturday. I went to the door, and she was 
standing there. I swear, if she'd had a sword in her hands, she'd have 
looked like a Valkyrie. You see, before plate armour or chain mail was 
invented, warriors used leather armor, thick cured hides from cows or 
similar animals, to protect themselves in battle. I could have sworn 
that she was wearing leather armor, plus the horned helmet, and although 
Vikings didn't wear them we've all seen enough pictures in history 
books, plus Hagar the Horrible, to convince us that they did. She smiled 
and walked in, and pulled something from a scabbard on her hip - surely 
she wasn't carrying a weapon there? No, it turned out to be a mobile 
phone, and as she extended the aerial, I could imagine that it was some 
sort of spear. "See you tomorrow" she said to the person she called, and 
hung up. And I had a lot of problems with the butterflies in my stomach. 
So where did she intend to sleep tonight? 

"Help me off with this" she asked, so I helped her take off the leather 
trousers and jacket. Then she sat down, and stretched out her leg, 
offering me her foot. I grabbed hold of her boot and tugged until it 
came off, then the other one. She pulled a pair of ordinary shoes out of 
her bag and put those on; now she no longer looked like a warrior woman, 
she looked like a rather heavily built young woman, with exceptionally 
firm breasts that seemed to jut straight out from her body, a remarkable 
pair of thighs, and not much of a waist. "So what have you found so 
far?" I blinked, and tried to stop staring at her. 

Bookwork hadn't taken me far along the road; I now knew the names of the 
nine Valkyries, but no more than that. "Brunnhilde was in love with the 
greatest hero of all time, Siegfried", I said, "according to Wagner, 
that is. But I don't know how accurate Wagner was, I don't know what his 
sources were." I explained that to investigate that route further would 
need a trip to the continent of Europe. "To Bayreuth," said Diana, 
excitedly, "that would be great." "No, to Leipzig", I said. "Wagner was 
born there in 1813, and I could examine his letters and notebooks, to 
see where he got all his information about the Valkyries." Diana looked 
slightly disappointed. "I want to go to Bayreuth, I want to hear the 
Ring cycle at the Festspielhaus." She bounced up and down. "Wow", she 
said, "Yes!" "Hang on, Diana. That isn't research, that's just opera." 
"I don't care, we can do research there as well, there's bound to be 
masses of Wagner material in Bayreuth." "True", I conceded, "All right, 
Leipzig and Bayreuth." I have a feeling that this girl always gets what 
she wants, there's no point in trying to stop the tide coming in. And 
somehow, I just don't feel like trying to go against her. "Great, we'll 
go to Bayreuth" she said. 

Er - I hadn't actually meant that. I was planning to go by myself, visit 
the libraries and reference sites, and just quietly do research. I have 
to say, though, it would probably be more enjoyable travelling with a 
companion. I can see even bigger advantages in having Diana around. I 
eyed a couple of those advantages surreptitiously out of the side of my 
eyes. 

"Oh - how's your arm?" she asked. "It's fine," I said. "Show me" she 
said. So I rolled up my sleeve, and she unwound the bandage that I'd put 
on. "Who put this on?" she asked, scornfully. "I did, with only one 
hand, it isn't easy, you know." "Oh. Oooh look, it's like a rainbow!" 
Most of the colours of the rainbow were indeed there, red, yellow, green 
and blue. It was the biggest bruise I've ever had, the sort of thing 
that young boys proudly show off to their school friends. She dipped her 
head and kissed it. "I'm really sorry, Michael. I didn't mean to hurt 
you so much." She kissed it again, and rewrapped the bandage, doing a 
much more professional job than I had. "Why a bandage, anyway? That's to 
keep wounds clean, and the skin isn't broken." "You've no idea how 
tender it is, Diana. If something just touches it, then it hurts. The 
bandage is to protect it from bumps." She reached out her hand towards 
my face, and her knuckles brushed against my cheek. I couldn't help 
thinking what would happen if those same knuckles closed into a fist, 
and with the power of her arms behind it, punched a man in the face. I 
shivered slightly, but she didn't notice. 

"I've made an appointment; we're visiting the Medical Faculty at two 
o'clock." I explained to Diana that I wanted to investigate the reasons 
why her body was so strong. "It just is, Michael". "No, that isn't an 
explanation. I want to take samples for analysis, do some work on your 
DNA, check your metabolism, that sort of thing." She sat down, and bit 
her lower lip, looking anxious. "Don't worry, it won't hurt." "That's 
what I said to you," she laughed. "No, you said to shout when it started 
to hurt, and I didn't, and that's all my fault." She nodded, looking 
serious. "So what are you worried about?" 

"I'm worried about, well, about. Oh, Michael! You see, one day, I want 
to have a baby. Babies." "Perfectly natural, so what are you worried 
about?" She turned her head to one side - was it my imagination, or were 
her eyes getting moist? "What if I'm not, well, not. You know?" I was 
completely flummoxed, what on earth was she talking about? It was 
obviously very important to her, from the way she was behaving, but I 
hadn't the faintest idea what this was all about, except it was linked 
with reproduction and a medical examination. Ah, I see. "Are you worried 
about whether you can have babies?" She looked up at me, and her eyes 
were definitely moist now. "Yes", she whispered. "But why are you 
worried? You're a normal healthy young woman, and you ..." "No, I'm 
not." Oh, of course, no, she wasn't exactly a normal young woman, silly 
of me. But that shouldn't matter. I tried again. "Diana, you're a 
healthy young woman, your body has everything you're supposed to have, I 
assume?" She nodded. "In fact, you have plenty of everything you're 
supposed to have, haven't you?" She smiled slightly. She wasn't actually 
crying, but she looked like she'd come close. "I haven't had any 
complaints. I think I'm adequate." That isn't the word I've have used. 
"So why do you think there might be a problem? Have you tried to 
conceive before and failed?" "No, I'm on the pill, plus I almost always 
make my sex partners wear a condom, you can't be too safe. I'm not ready 
yet to start a family. And anyway, I haven't ..." she trailed off and 
shook her head fiercely. I wondered what the anyway was that she hadn't. 
One more question to file away for later. And *almost* always wore a 
condom - well, this isn't any of my business, so I let that one go by. 
"So really, you've got no good reason to worry." 

"You know about mules?" she said. A cross between a horse and a donkey, 
yes. "Maybe I'm a mule." I see what she means. The horse/donkey cross 
produces an exceptionally strong animal, capable of carrying much 
greater loads than either of the parents, and with tremendous stamina. 
And it's a general rule - cross breeding produces what is called hybrid 
vigour. But the cost is this - mules are sterile. 

"Look, Diana, there's no point in talking about this and speculating. 
We'll get some tests done, and if you want a fertility test, we can do 
one of those as well." "But the only way to test fertility is for me to 
get pregnant, and I don't want to, not just yet." "No, there's another 
way. We take an ovum from inside you, and see if it can be quickened by 
ordinary sperm. If that works, then we know you're fertile." "What 
happens to the fertilised egg afterwards?" she asked. I gestured, thumb 
down. It's a tough universe, but a fertilised egg isn't a baby, it isn't 
a foetus, it isn't anything yet. Diana looked thoughtful, I don't think 
she really liked this idea. 

So at two o'clock, we went to visit Dr. Henshaw at the Medical Faculty; 
he'd agreed to do the tests. I had another exciting ride as Diana's 
pillion, although the opportunity to bury my head in her back and wrap 
my arms round her waist made up for the terror of the ride. Anyway, I 
kept my eyes closed, so I was all right except when she went over a 
bridge, and we left the ground for a few seconds. I think she does this 
on purpose. 

First of all, I wanted him to understand what he was testing for, so we 
started off by going down to the physiology lab. There they have all 
sorts of apparatus to measure strength, endurance, lung capacity, 
oxygenation, you name it. The only thing I wanted to do here, was 
convince Henshaw that Diana was worth careful study. I mean, when you 
looked at her, you saw a rather thick-set, chunky young woman, with not 
much of a waist, a large upper body, and fat legs. I have to be honest; 
I knew they weren't fat, because when she walked, they didn't wobble, 
they flexed. But if you just glanced at her, her legs looked very big. 

The first apparatus we used, was a simple chest-expander sort of thing. 
Two handles, held together with springs, with the travel limited by 
cables, and there was a scale that showed how far you pulled them apart, 
and therefore how much force you were exerting. Henshaw handed her the 
device, and she took the handles, and simply pulled them apart to their 
furthest extension, until the cables that linked the handles were taut. 
"Do you want me to pull it further?" she asked. Henshaw laughed, he 
thought she was joking. "No, that's fine Diana," I said, and she let it 
go. "She is strong", he said. I looked at Diana, and held my tongue. I 
guess she could have torn the thing apart if she'd tried. "Lie down on 
this bench", he asked, and she lay down on a wooden bench. 

Diana lying on a wooden bench is a sight that needs describing 
carefully. As she lay down, her breasts hardly changed shape at all, 
maybe they flattened just slightly, but the silk of her blouse settled 
over her like a second skin, outlining their shape, and making her hard 
nipples prominent. She arranged her skirt over her legs as she sat on 
the bench, but when she lay back, it inevitably rode up, and although it 
was still leaving her some modesty, I was seeing more of her thighs than 
I'd ever seen before, and it was hard to keep a cool head. Then she 
reached up and pulled her hair back, and as her arms raised towards her 
head, her breasts moved up and forward. Then she spread her legs, one on 
either side of the bench, resting her feet on the floor, and she looked 
like a woman ready for sex. I have to admit, I had an erection by this 
time, something that doesn't usually happen to me in public places. 

Henshaw put twenty kilos on a bar just over the bench, and asked her to 
lift it off. She didn't have any difficulty with that. So he added 
another ten. "Er - Henshaw?" I said. "Yes?" he answered, turning towards 
me. "We'll be here for ever if you mess around like that." I helped him 
get the bar up to a hundred kilos, and Diana lifted it off its supports 
like it was no weight at all. Henshaw's eyebrows raised slightly, I 
noticed, but he didn't say anything. We added another fifty, and this 
time, when she raised it, you could see that she could feel the weight, 
at least. So we put it up to two hundred. Diana settled herself more 
comfortably on the bench, gripped the bar on both sides, and pushed. Up 
it went, but you could see she was having to try, at last. So we added 
another fifty. 

250 kilos is 550 pounds. That's about three times my weight. She 
wriggled her bottom on the bench, gripped the bar, and braced herself. 
Unfortunately, bracing herself included gripping the bench between her 
thighs, and we'll never know whether she could have done the lift, 
because the bench broke as the pressure from her thighs proved too much 
for the wood. "Craaack" it went, and it was crushed in the middle. But 
the bench was supported with legs only at each end, so when the middle 
lost its tensile strength, it sagged towards the floor, and Diana 
started to slide down towards the bottom of the vee. She would have been 
all right, because she was holding on to the bar and could have 
supported herself that way. But mechanics don't take human weakness into 
account, and Diana dissolved into a fit of giggles, let go the bar, and 
bumped down to the floor. At that point, she'd still have been fine if 
only she'd waited to be helped up, but she tried to get up under her own 
steam, by getting hold of one end of the weight bar, and she managed to 
topple it over on top of her, and it was lucky she wasn't in its way, 
because when it landed on the bench, there was a crunching noise as the 
bench was reduced to firewood. 

And without the support of the weight bar, standing on one leg, she was 
completely off balance, so she fell on top of the whole mess, and there 
was another scrunch as the firewood was reduced to matchwood, and by now 
she was laughing so hard she was helpless. And I saw her laugh, and I 
knew that she wasn't hurt, but she looked so absurd lying there amongst 
the debris, that I started laughing too. And I held out a hand to her, 
so she could extract herself from the wreckage, but she took my hand and 
simply pulled me down on top of the whole mess, making sure that I 
landed on top of her. 

Falling on top of Diana the Valkyrie is highly recommended, I would say. 
Provided you're invited, of course. She isn't exactly soft, but it isn't 
like landing on a wooden floor, either, and there's a delightful 
mobility to what you land on. And she held on to my hand, and put her 
other arm across my back, so I couldn't get up even if I wanted to, plus 
of course I wasn't up to using my left arm for anything just yet, 
because of the bruise. And I have to confess a certain lack of 
motivation, because it was rather nice down there. So I wriggled a bit, 
but actually I don't think there was ever any chance of me being able to 
get up until she let me. 

All good things come to an end, and eventually, we extracted ourselves 
from the bits of wood that was all that was left of a sturdy gym bench, 
and after a few minutes, even Diana's giggles stopped. 

Henshaw managed to keep a straight face throughout. I expect he didn't 
find Inspector Clouseau funny, either. 

Actually, none of that mattered, really. The purpose of the exercise 
wasn't to find out how much Diana could handle, it was to convince 
Henshaw that she was worth an investigation. And a girl who can bench 
200 kilos is phenomenon enough for the scientific mind. He was 
convinced, and I was glad that she wasn't going to have to hurt him to 
convince him, like she had me, not because I cared about Henshaw, but 
because I knew how much she hated hurting men. 

So then we all went down to the pathology lab, and Henshaw took X-rays 
to examine her bone structure, blood samples, hair, saliva, urine, skin, 
fat, muscle and various other things that he extracted out of her with a 
long needle and a hypodermic. Diana took it all very well, but I have to 
admit I felt a bit queasy. It's just as well I'm a historian. 

Then at last, we were finished with Dr. Henshaw and his devilish 
instruments of torture, I think I was as relieved as she was. "OK, now 
what?" she asked. Well, to be honest, that was it. I'd told her 
everything I knew about Valkyries, which wasn't much, and I'd gotten the 
medical examination started, and there wasn't really much else that I 
could do. But I didn't want to tell her to go home. I hadn't had so much 
fun in years as I was having around her, and I didn't want it to end. 
You know, when you're in an academic environment like Anglia University, 
you start to think that trade between Viking settlements is all that 
matters in the world. Diana reminded me that there were other things in 
life. 

Diana: 

After I'd wrecked his apparatus, this geek called Henshaw got his own 
back by X-raying me, sticking needles into me and cutting bits off me. 
It was pretty gruesome, I noticed that even the Prof flinched as a 
particularly long needle went in to grab something obscure from deep 
inside me. Then Henshaw made me promise to keep a log of everything I 
ate, and also everything on the way out. "You want specimens?" I asked. 
He looked at me, as if to say "Don't be silly?" Eventually, it was over, 
and I was so glad. "So now what?" I asked the Prof. As usual, he was 
clueless. So I took him down to the local supermarket, bought cold 
chicken, French bread, gherkins, apples, lemonade and three bottles of 
wine. I stashed it all in Black Beauty's back box, and we zoomed out 
into the countryside to find a good spot for a picnic. 

Michael: 

It was a lovely day - warm, sunny, a hazy lazy day. I half expected a 
white rabbit to come bursting into the glade, consult a watch, say "Oh 
my ears and whiskers, I'm late, I'm late" and run off. 

We stretched out on the green, and I asked her if I she was OK after 
that fall. "Yes, thank you; I didn't fall far, but it was just as well 
that the weight didn't land on me. That would have made a nasty bruise." 
Bruise? It would have broken her bones if it had fallen on her. Or would 
it? I wonder. "Diana, may I see your wrist?" She offered me her hand, 
and I compared her wrist with mine. Your wrist is practically pure bone, 
there's almost no flesh or muscle to pad it out. It gives you a fair 
idea of the size of someone's bones if you look at their wrist. And 
Diana had very thick wrists, I hadn't noticed before, but when I put 
mine next to hers, mine looked fragile and delicate. "Pretty big, 
Diana," I said. "Yeth, and I'm only thixthteen" she replied, laughing. I 
blushed, she could be quite crude sometimes. Then I laughed too, she 
didn't mean any harm by it. "How about you, you fell down also." "Yes, 
but I fell on something soft. Well, softish. Well, parts were a bit 
soft." She grinned, and jiggled some of the less hard parts. She picked 
up a bottle. "Did you bring a corkscrew?" Er, no. I assumed she had 
everything under control. "Don't you have a Swiss Army knife?" "I'm not 
a Boy Scout, you know. What about that knife you carry in your hair." 
"What, Cat's Claw? No way, Cat's Claw isn't an eating knife, she's a 
Valkyrie fighting knife." "Oh, do you get into many knife fights, then?" 
"No, wrestling matches are more my thing." 

There was a long pause while I tried to imagine wrestling with Diana 
the Valkyrie. If she was serious about not wanting to hurt men, I could see 
that wrestling with her could be rather enjoyable. On the other hand, 
the thought of her legs round my waist, crushing me like she'd crushed 
that bench, wasn't a nice idea at all. She sat on the grass, facing me, 
and as if she could read my mind, she spread her legs apart, modestly 
smoothing her skirt over them. "Honestly, I'm very gentle." She leaned 
back, resting on her elbows, and for a moment, I had a fantasy about 
leaping on top of her and raping her. Just for a moment. "So we don't 
have a corkscrew?" I shook my head. "Sorry." 

She sat up. "I bet I can get a bottle open without a corkscrew." No way. 
about a millimeter of cork peeps above the rim of the glass, she 
wouldn't be able to get a grip on it, let alone pull it out. "You're on, 
how much do you want to bet?" "I'll bet you my skirt against your 
trousers." 

What? Then she explained it to me - if I win, she takes her skirt off, 
if I lose, I lose my trousers. I thought about that, but not for very 
long, because it sounded like I win either way. I really would like to 
see how those thighs continue after they disappear under her skirt, and 
if I somehow lost, and I don't see how I could, I had a clean pair of 
underpants on. OK. 

She sat, legs crossed, the bottle gripped between her thighs. It must 
have been like putting it in a vice. I could just see the neck of the 
bottle as it emerged from her iron thighs. She brushed her hair back 
with one hand, wrapped some paper round the neck of the bottle, gripped 
it and wrenched. The top simply snapped off, and she picked up the 
bottle and poured a paper cupful for herself, and another for me. I held 
out my hand for it, and she said "Aren't you forgetting something?" 

Well, she'd got it open, I had to admit. So I stood up, turned away from 
her, and took my trousers down. I haven't done that in front of a woman 
since I was a little boy, but somehow I didn't feel uncomfortable about 
doing it in front of Diana. I turned back, and sat down, and she handed 
me my wine. 

"You're not married, are you Professor?" Here I'm sitting in a forest 
with a beautiful girl, and she's calling me "Professor."  "Don't call me 
Professor". "OK, Dr. Cooley." "Come on, Diana, you can call me Michael." 
"So, you're not married, are you?" "No, and I never have been." "How 
come?" 

So I told her the story of the love of my life, when I was eighteen, how 
I'd loved and lost, and somehow never had the heart to try again. 
"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard" she said, and somehow she was 
close to me, and I could feel her warmth. "How old are you?" "I'm forty-
eight, and it's too late now. I'm a bachelor for life. I couldn't adapt 
to someone else. Besides, I'm past it." "Past what?" "You know." "No, I 
don't know. Tell me." "Diana you're the worst tease I've ever met. Has 
anyone ever told you that you're a complete wind-up artist?" She tossed 
her hair and smiled. "I like you too. And you're not past it." "Yes I 
am." "Want to bet?" "Look, Diana. My hair's going grey, my beard is 
already grey, I've got a paunch, I have trouble with my knees when the 
weather's wet, all I know how to do is Viking Trading patterns, I'm past 
it." "No you're not", she said, and she put her hand inside my 
underpants. Just like that. She didn't ask "May I?", she didn't say 
"Excuse me?", she just slipped her hand in. About a quarter of a second 
later, I had an erection, and about two seconds later, I had soaked my 
underwear. 

I was so embarrassed, I didn't know what to do. My social skills aren't 
too well developed in the first place, and in the second place, Diana 
isn't exactly your average girl. So when she reached up to her hair and 
brought out Cat's Claw, I thought she was about to castrate me, but she 
didn't hesitate long enough for me to move, she simply sliced through my 
underpants and pulled them away from my groin. "There, that's better." I 
whimpered, a delayed reaction to seeing that sharp knife in such close 
proximity to part of me that I was very attached to, and didn't want to 
be detached from. She looked up at my face, and must have seen the 
terror there, because she laughed, a low musical chuckle. "Oh, Michael, 
what on earth did you think I was going to do! You silly boy." She wiped 
me down with the dry part, and we sat side by side, finishing the bottle 
of wine. 

Then she pulled out the second bottle. "Now, lets have another bet. I 
bet I can open this bottle without breaking the glass, just using my 
thumb." No way, that's got to be a sure thing. Hang on, she must know 
something I don't. Let's make sure of this. "You can't break the glass, 
you can't use a corkscrew. You can't even hold the bottle between your 
legs." She nodded. Well, I know this is a sucker bet, but what have I 
got to lose? I'm naked from the waist down anyway. "What have I got to 
lose?" "Your shirt against my blouse." Oh wow, yes, I want this. 

It's funny. There I was, a forty-eight year old academic, making a 
complete fool of myself with a girl half my age. Well, there wasn't 
anyone else around to see, and this was a memory I could warm myself up 
with for years to come. "Is it a deal?" "Deal." 

She put the bottle on the grass, standing on its base. She knelt over 
it, and my attention was distracted by the way her breasts fell against 
her blouse, pushing it even further out. I think she realised what she 
was doing to me, because she looked up for a moment, and grinned. Then 
she put her thumb on top of the cork and pushed down. The cork slowly 
slid into the bottle, and she poured out two more cups of wine. She held 
mine out to me, and I took my shirt off, and gave it to her. I wasn't 
wearing a vest, and I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. Vests 
aren't macho, so I was glad I didn't have one, but it was a bit chilly; 
it's funny how a warm summer afternoon turns chilly when you're naked. 
And somehow, I didn't think that Diana was impressed by macho anyway, so 
on the whole, I wished I'd been wearing a vest. But I wasn't naked. Oh 
no. By no means. I still had my socks on. 

"Your paunch isn't that bad." I looked down. Yes it was. It bulged 
obscenely, and I made an immediate resolution to go on diet, strict 
diet, from tomorrow. But I sucked it in, and tried to hold it in. I 
looked at Diana's belly, it was firm and flat under her silk blouse; it 
looked like you could have used it to break a brick on. She saw me 
looking, and smiled lazily, sexily. She unwound the belt from around her 
waist, and flicked it in the air. CRACK. "Have you ever used that?" I 
asked. She cracked it again, harder, CRAAAACK. "Not on a horse" she 
said. "It would be terribly cruel to use a whip like this on a horse." 
"But on a man? I mean, suppose a man actually asked you to whip him?" 
She cracked it again, BANG. "You could flay the skin from a man's body 
with this." BANG!!! "Did I tell you the name of my whip?" "No. Your 
knife is Cat's Claw, your bike is Black Beauty. What's your whip 
called?" "Man-beater." CRAAAACK!!! 

I shivered. It wasn't fear, not really. She didn't like hurting men, 
she'd told me that often enough. But I was naked except for my socks, 
and it was getting chilly. Who am I fooling. She intimidated me totally, 
and I was beginning to wonder if there were any exceptions to that rule 
about hurting men. I knew there was at least one, my throbbing arm 
reminded me. CRAAAACK!!! 

"We've got one bottle of wine left. Do you want to bet again?"  I shook 
my head. I'm very attached to my skin, and I didn't want her flaying it 
off me. She sat with her legs apart, flat on the grass, her arms behind 
her, supporting her. In this position, her breasts were thrust forward, 
and she was pointing them directly at me. "I'll bet you all the clothes 
I'm wearing against your socks, that I can get the cork out of that 
bottle just by telling it to pop out." Of course, I agreed. I would have 
agreed to anything by then. I can see how she conducts a negotiation, by 
the time she's finished, there just isn't any way you can even think of 
not doing what she wants. Total intimidation. She smiled and said "Cork 
- come out." Nothing happened. I was almost surprised. Why didn't the 
cork do what she told it to do? I would have. 

"Well, looks like I lose." She stood up, took off her skirt revealing a 
pair of thighs like tree trunks. Maybe they really were 38 inches each? 
Then she took off her blouse, and I forgot about her thighs. Some men 
prefer a woman's legs, some like arses, and some like breasts. With 
Diana, it really didn't matter, she had it all, but her breasts were 
mountains of femininity that a man could think about for the rest of his 
life. She stood there for a moment, like a marble statue. Then she 
walked over to me, bent over and kissed me gently on the nose. I moaned. 

And woke up. 

I opened my eyes. Diana was fully dressed, and so was I. What? I 
blinked, and she said "Time to wake up, Prof. You've been working too 
hard, you've been asleep for the last two hours. Come on, time to go." 

I groaned. Couldn't that dream have lasted another hour? Or a few 
minutes, at least? Or preferably for ever? She stood up and made partial 
recompense for interrupting my dream by treating me to a yawn and a 
stretch. The yawn wasn't important, but the stretch left very little to 
the imagination. She wasn't wearing very much in the first place, and 
her skirt rode up as she stretched, and her blouse plastered itself 
against her breasts. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming 
again. I'm not sure that actually works. I mean, if you're dreaming, why 
shouldn't you dream that you pinched yourself and it hurt? She shook her 
hair around, and started to pick up the picnic things. 

On the way back. I held her waist as hard as I could, it was the closest 
I was going to get to the woman of my dreams; literally the Valkyrie of 
my dreams. She brought me back to my flat, and climbed into her 
leathers. Evidently she was going home tonight - I was disappointed, but 
I hadn't really expected anything else. You can dream though. I knew 
what I was going to dream about tonight. But before I fell asleep, I 
thought about Nicola, I hadn't thought about her in years. Not that 
Nicola had been anything like Diana, but Nicola was the only girl I'd 
ever loved, and I was surprised to find that thinking about her didn't 
hurt like it used to thirty years ago. 

Diana: 

The picnic was fun, he's a good conversationalist. We talked about 
books, about politics, about movies and about the Vikings - he stayed 
away from trading patterns, thank Wotan. I hadn't realised they invaded 
Sicily, they did get about. And he said that they might even have gotten 
as far as America, which they called Vinland. But there's some doubts 
about that. For sure they got as far as Greenland, which was given that 
name as a nifty bit of marketing, because it's a god-forsaken ice-
covered hell-hole. 

Then he dozed off; I expect he'd been working hard. He moaned a bit in 
his sleep, but he looked so innocent, and with a little smile on his 
face. I thought, if he shaved off that awful beard, lost a few pounds, 
got some decent clothes, he'd be rather nice. On the other hand, I get 
wet sometimes thinking about cucumbers. After a couple of hours, I woke 
him up, ran him home, and went back for a good dose of Hassan. I don't 
know what I'd do without that boy, I really don't, he's such a 
convenience, he goes on and on and on, like a fountain, supplied by 
those mammoth testicles of his. And Kevvy made me a large meal, which I 
dutifully logged in a notebook. 

Michael: 

On Thursday, I had the results from Henshaw's tests, and I decided to 
invite Diana round so I could show her and explain them. And, of course, 
I very much wanted to see her again, she was like a golden light in my 
life. But as soon as I picked up the phone, I got dizzy, and my heart 
started pounding. I put the phone down and sat down. This is ridiculous. 
I'm not some seventeen year old kid asking the prettiest girl in class 
out for a date. This is the dissemination of the results of a scientific 
investigation. I kept saying that to myself as I dialled her number. 
"Hello?" "Hello Michael, how's your arm?" Typical Diana, takes control 
straight away, I bet she didn't even realise she was doing it. "It's 
getting better, there isn't any yellow or green any more, just black and 
blue." "You'll be fine in a couple of weeks, that's good. Have you got 
the results of my tests?" "Er, yes. Er..." "Smashing. I'll come up on 
Saturday and you can show me. Eleven o'clock be fine?" "Yes, fine." 
"Okay, TTFN". 

So much for me asking her to visit. Every encounter with Diana was like 
getting hit by a bulldozer, either you get out of the way, or it rolls 
right over you. And where did she get TTFN from? That was one of the 
catch phrases from Tommy Handley's ITMA, and even I'm only just old 
enough to remember that. 

On Friday morning, I looked at myself in the mirror. Long and hard. 
Because I knew what had to be done, I just didn't have the courage to do 
it. You see, in every profession, you dress for that profession. Milkmen 
wear the stripy apron, policemen wear the peculiar helmet, chefs wear 
that absurd white hat, city folk wear pinstripes. Diana told me that 
even she wore pinstripes for the city, a smart jacket-and-skirt suit 
with a cream silk blouse. So academics have academic dress. And that 
isn't a mortarboard and gown, that's just for ultra-formal occasions. 
Academic dress consists of worn corduroy trousers, and a sweater or 
cardigan that even War-on-want would throw away as garbage. 

But dressing like that isn't compulsory, and in my position as senior 
Professor on the Faculty of History, I could afford to be a little bit 
eccentric. So I went down to town, and walked into Marks and Spencer, my 
terrified credit card in my pocket. As I looked around the serried ranks 
of non-academic clothes, I realised I hadn't the foggiest what to get, 
so I picked the most outrageously-dressed assistant, and asked him. 

"I want to look "with-it", I said. Help me choose some glad rags." He 
gave me a funny look. I suppose slang changes over time. 

I left carrying a new suit, two pair of jeans and three shirts. I wasn't 
sure about the shirts, they didn't look me, somehow. Oh, and he gave me 
some advice. "Get a haircut." When I was young, back in the sixties, 
longish hair was considered a bit outrageous, and I suppose I'd just 
kept it that way. But looking around me, I could see that the young folk 
weren't wearing it like that any more. So I visited a barber. 

"Yes sir. What would sir like today?" I really didn't know, so I 
explained I was trying to impress a girl, and I wanted to look younger 
and more, you know. "Sexy", he said, and started snipping. Half an hour 
later, he'd finished, and he held up a mirror so I could see the 
results. I have to say, I wasn't impressed, it looked about the same as 
before only shorter. "If I could make a suggestion to sir?" This use of 
sir as a nominative noun was beginning to irritate me. "Yes?" "Sir would 
look year younger without the beard." "No thank you." I paid him and 
left, reducing his tip by a pound for the bad grammar, and another pound 
for the impertinent suggestion. 

When I got home, I put on the jeans and one of the check shirts, and 
looked at myself in the mirror. And sighed. 

A medium-length grey beard is one of the signs of a senior academic. It 
makes you look distinguished, and wise, and professorial. It also makes 
you look old. I covered it up with my hands and looked again. It took me 
years to get my beard like this. It would be sacrilege to destroy this 
monument to learning. I took my hands away and looked again. I thought 
of Diana, yawning and stretching in the forest glade, and I went to the 
bathroom, and got a firm grip on my scissors, a firm grip on my beard, 
and another firm grip on my courage, and hacked it off. After that, it 
was easy. I just shaved and shaved and shaved, until my face was as 
smooth as sandpaper. But it was worth it. When I looked in the mirror, I 
didn't see an old man any more. I won't say I looked young, but at least 
I looked middle aged. 

Then I thought about what I'd just done. I'd just changed my whole 
appearance, my whole image, just to impress a girl half my age. I was 
behaving like a seventeen-year-old, I was making a complete fool of 
myself. I sat down in shock, but it was too late. I could put the new 
clothes at the back of my wardrobe, but my beard would take months and 
months to grow back. I shook my head, and made a deal with myself. I'd 
try the new image for a month, and if it didn't work out, I could always 
regrow my beard. 

But I did make one irreversible decision. I threw out that cardigan. 
Actually, I think if I'd kept it much longer, it would have walked out 
of its own accord. Well, I could always visit the charity shop and buy 
another reject. 

On Saturday morning, I got up early, and shaved for the first time for 
ages. My face felt odd, sort of colder than usual, and naked. And I 
dressed in a lumberjack shirt and a pair of jeans, and you could barely 
see my paunch, if I held it in carefully. When the door bell rang, I 
strolled casually to the door, and casually opened it, lounging casually 
against the door post. Diana breezed in like a fourteen-wheeled double-
decked bus and almost knocked me over. 

Then she stopped, turned and said "Wow! What happened to you?" I 
grinned. "Hey, I like it! You look so much younger without the face 
fungus." I grinned bigger. Then she walked right up to me and kissed me 
on the nose, and I almost collapsed, my knees nearly gave way. 

It isn't being kissed on the nose, you understand. I think I could 
handle that quite easily, even from Diana. It was the way she came right 
up to me to do it, and I felt her body against mine, all the way from my 
knees to my neck. She just kind of walked into me, and I would have 
bounced off her, except she was ready for that, and had an arm round my 
back, so I couldn't fall over. I swear she knew exactly what she was 
doing, exactly what effect her body had on me. It was worth shaving off 
my beard for that alone. Like being run over by a bulldozer. 

Then she stepped back. "So tell me about the medical tests. What's the 
result?" "It's a lovely day. There's a ruined castle not very far from 
here, we can go there and ..." "Tell me, tell me now, you can give me 
the details later. Can I or can't I?" I grinned. I knew what she meant, 
but I wanted to get out of this stuffy house, take her somewhere nice. 
"I've even got a corkscrew this time, and we can sit on the grass and 
..." Diana jumped up and down, a delightful sight. "No, just tell me, 
come on, can I, can I ..." I laughed at her impatience. And that was a 
mistake. She frowned, took a step towards me, and put her arms round me. 
Mmmh, nice. Then her arms tightened, and I realised I was in trouble. 

She didn't do it quickly, in fact she did it quite slowly. It was like I 
was under a car, and someone was slowly lowering it on top of me. At 
first, it was quite pleasant. Then it was almost pleasant. Then it was 
rather tight. Then I had trouble breathing, and at that point, at last, 
I understood how a man has to handle a Valkyrie. It's basically the same 
way you handle a bulldozer. 

"You're fertile, you can have babies, you're not a mule." Her arms 
slackened a bit, and I could breathe again. "Oh, Michael, that's 
wonderful, are you sure?" "Well, it's a bit complicated, Diana, I'll 
have to explain the details." Her arms tightened again, but then she let 
go of me and brushed her knuckles against my cheek. "You're skin's so 
soft, Michael. Come on, let's get going." She keeps doing that. As her 
knuckles brushed my cheek, I had a hot flush, imagining that she had 
closed her fist and drove those same knuckles into my jaw, breaking it 
and leaving me unconscious. But Diana isn't like that, why do I keep 
having these thoughts? 

I had to visit the toilet first, partly to sit down for a few minutes, 
and partly because I really did need to go. Then I gathered up all the 
bags and stuff, and went outside to be a pillion passenger again. Hang 
on, where were all the leathers? The helmet? 

By the time I got outside, Diana was already sitting in her car. She had 
a car, as well as a motorbike? And what a car! Not the usual closed box 
on wheels. This was a car from heaven - open-topped, wire wheels, two 
seats, bonnet three yards long. I looked at the marque, and it was a 
Morgan. I've heard about those, and I've seen pictures, but I never 
thought I'd actually sit in one. They aren't what you'd call a luxury 
car, but to someone whose main mode of mobility is a five geared 
bicycle, it represented the pinnacle of automotion, a veritable 
transport of delight. Sorry, academics love puns. Did I mention that 
before? 

I got into the passenger seat and belted up - somehow, whenever I was 
with Diana, I seemed to be in the passenger seat, one way or another. I 
don't think she did it on purpose, she was just, well, just a Valkyrie. 
Clunk into gear, and rrroarrr-vrooomm. I just sat back in my seat, 
determined that her driving wouldn't scare me, and closed my eyes, just 
to be safer. Except that I was supposed to be navigating, and I had to 
peek now and then. She wasn't quite as dare-devil in the car as she was 
on her bike, you can't squeeze through such small spaces in a car. And 
when she went over a bridge, she barely left the ground at all. 

When we got there, we spread out the blanket (I'd come properly prepared 
this time), uncorked the wine to let it breathe, and started to lay out 
the things. There was a lot. I'd seen her eat, in the Indian, and she 
seemed to consume a lot without really trying. And Henshaw told me, her 
metabolism would take a lot of fuel. While I did all this, Diana kicked 
off her shoes and leaned back on her elbows, wiggling her toes. Why is 
it so erotic when a woman wiggles her toes? When I'd finished getting 
everything ready, she rolled over onto her tummy, and supported her body 
on her elbows, arching her back. Her breasts lay against the ground, and 
she started to stuff my carefully laid-out picnic inside her. "So tell 
me what you found out", she mumbled around mouthfuls of chicken. 

I pulled my briefcase over, and rummaged around for the X-rays. "First 
of all, your bones are bigger than average. Take your femur, for 
example." I'd only just learned that the correct word for thigh-bone was 
femur, you learn something new every day. The average femur is eighty 
millimeters thick, that's about three inches. Of course, there's 
variation amongst people, but for a female your height, 98% of the 
population would be within about half an inch of that." "Mmmh, two 
standard deviations", she said. Just what I needed, a Valkyrie who knows 
statistics. I'd been hoping to impress her with my new-found knowledge, 
but I knew I'd better tread carefully if she already knew about the 
Gaussian curve. I showed her the thigh x-ray. "That's you. Henshaw 
measured your femur, and it's five point two inches, way outside the 
normal range. Even a very big man wouldn't have a femur that size." She 
nodded, and held out her wrist. "You can see from my wrist, I know my 
bones are big, well, they're thick. That's one of the reasons why I 
weigh more than the charts say I should. And I can't swim. I tried, I 
really tried to learn, but I just don't have the buoyancy. I think it's 
these big bones." 

"OK, now if your femur diameter is one point seven three times normal, 
the cross-section is three times normal. And it's cross section that 
determines the strength of the bone. Henshaw says that you need those 
big bones as an anchor, to support the rest of your body." Diana showed 
how she could crack a chicken's thigh bones in her teeth, crunch, and 
smiled at me through a mouthful. She might be gentle with men, but I'd 
hate to be a chicken in her grasp. "I've never had a broken bone, not 
even when I was a girl. But big bones isn't all he found, is it?" 

I rolled up my sleeve. "No. Look, Diana, hold out your arm, and bend 
your elbow at a right angle." She sat up and did that, but she didn't 
roll up her sleeve, so I crawled over and did it for her, which was 
pleasant. "Now, keep your elbow at a right angle." I got hold of her 
wrist, and tried to straighten her arm, not very hard, just enough to 
give her some resistance. "Now, look at your forearm." Just below her 
elbow, a very big bulge appeared. "Now look at mine." I showed her the 
same thing on my own arm. "Feel, here." I showed her where to touch. 
"That's the tendon. The muscle for bending your elbow is in your upper 
arm, and it attaches to the lower forearm via that tendon." She nodded. 
"So when that muscle contracts, it pulls the tendon, and that bends your 
elbow." She nodded again. "Look closely in the crook of your elbow, you 
can see the tendon when you stress your arm." "Yes, I see. So?" I showed 
her the elbow X-ray. You can see the bones as the very dark shadows, and 
you can see the muscles and tendons as lighter shadows." I pointed out 
the tendon through her elbow, just as Henshaw had done for me, and 
traced it's path. "Your tendon attaches to the bone, a greater distance 
from your elbow, than mine does." 

She saw the implication immediately. "Leverage", she said. "Yes, 
leverage. Your tendon attaches twice as far away from the joint as is 
normal, so you get twice the leverage. Henshaw says all your joints are 
like that." "But twice the leverage means half the movement" she 
objected. She flexed her elbow a couple of times. "See, it goes up and 
it goes down." Yes, I'd asked Henshaw about that, and he'd explained it 
to me. "Although your arm moves a lot, your muscle doesn't have to 
contract very much, just a fraction of its length, because of the 
leverage. You just contract your muscles further than ordinary people 
have to, but the variability is already there, it's just that most 
people don't use it, because you can only move a limb as far as the 
joint permits anyway." "So what you're saying is, I'm twice as strong as 
average, because of this extra leverage?" I nodded. 

She frowned, and stood up. "Do this", she said, and she spread her arms 
apart, then moved them backwards. I did the same. "This is as far as I 
can get", she said when her arms were straight out. "I can't get them 
further back." I tried with my own arms, they went back much more than 
hers did. "Now do a windmill" I rotated my arms like windmills. "I just 
cannot do that," she said. "Can you touch your toes?" She doubled over 
to show me. "Nowhere near." Her fingertips were a good twelve inches 
from her feet. "I just don't have the degree of movement you've got, can 
you see? When I was a girl at school, they used to try to get me to bend 
and stretch like the other girls, but eventually they gave up, I just 
can't do it." "What about high kicks?" "Well, yes and no." She 
demonstrated a high kick, her foot reaching head-high. "But if I just 
try to lift my leg, I can only get it half as high." The force from the 
kick would carry it up as high as her head, but she obviously couldn't 
get it above her waist if she just lifted her leg. "Well, Diana, that's 
the trade-off you're getting. More leverage, less movement." She nodded. 
"I think I like it like this, I'd rather be able to sting like a bee 
than be able to swim like a butterfly!" We both laughed, the butterfly 
was specifically designed to make it hard to swim, I think. "That's an 
easy choice to make, seeing as how you can't swim anyway!" "Well, I can, 
as long as it's straight down." 

I pulled out another X-ray. "This is your abdomen. See, here's your 
spine." "What's this blobby thing inside?" "I don't know, I'm not 
medical, you know. I'm just repeating what Henshaw told me." "OK. But 
you said I'd be all right for having babies?" Ah. That's a whole 
different area, but I knew how important it was to her, so I switched to 
that instead. I put the X-ray down. 

"Henshaw took an ova from your, er, I can't remember what he called it. 
Ovarium? No, Ovaries. He put it on a slide, under a microscope, you know 
what I mean? Then he added some fresh sperm, and waited. The sperm swam 
around, found the egg, and one of them fertilised it. So, your eggs are 
entirely compatible with ordinary sperm." She smiled, and it was like 
the sun breaking through the clouds. "I'm fertile!" "Well, hang on 
Diana. All that proves is that your eggs are fertilisable. It isn't a 
real fertility test, it doesn't check that your fallopian tubes are 
right, it doesn't check that your womb can carry a baby, it doesn't 
check anything except that one thing. But there's no reason to suppose 
that you'd have any problems whatsoever in conceiving. And Henshaw said 
that with your strength and size of pelvis, you'd have a very easy 
pregnancy, and you'd have no trouble in labour. Just squat down behind a 
bush and drop it, was the way he put it." 

She was practically over the moon. She hugged herself in delight, and it 
was infectious, I was very happy for her. We drank another glass of wine 
to celebrate, and I said "Now, about your abdomen." She nodded, and I 
brought out the x-ray again. "You see this grey region next to your 
skin? That's muscle. You can tell, because fat is much lighter on an X-
ray, because it's not so dense. Henshaw measured it, he says you've got 
a layer of muscle two inches thick round your belly." Diana frowned. "Is 
that bad? Will that make having a baby harder?" "No, don't worry about 
pregnancy, your body will adapt to accommodate the baby. What it means, 
is that there's a very thick layer of muscle wrapped around you. Two 
inches, Diana. Two inches." "That doesn't sound like very much. So 
what?" Golly, I was so glad I still remembered my geometry. "If you wrap 
a belt two inches thick round something, it increases the radius by two 
inches. That increases the diameter by four inches, and when you 
multiply that by 3.14, you get an increase in circumference of just over 
twelve inches." Silence while she took that in. "My belly - so you're 
talking about my waist, really." "Yes. How big is your waist, Diana?" 

She scrunched up, hugging her knees. I knew she wasn't too pleased about 
her waist, although what I'd seen of it looked good. She shook her head, 
her hair flying around. "How big is your waist, Diana?" "Too big." "How 
big?" "None of your business." "OK, let me guess. You're thirty-two 
round the waist, but twelve of that is that belt of muscle, so you're 
equivalent to an ordinary girl with a twenty inch waist, and that's 
nothing to be ashamed of." 

She looked up at me. Her eyes were big, and her eyebrows were high. 
"Thirty-four" she whispered. "I'm as fat as a cow." I was quiet for a 
moment. Her waist was about as big as my chest. "No, Diana. You've got 
to subtract twelve inches from that. Twelve and a half, actually. So 
really your waist is twenty-two. A fraction under, in fact. And that's 
not a fat cow, that's a very trim figure." "Thirty four", she repeated. 
"I eat too much," and she waved the remains of a rather large chicken at 
me. The remains was entirely bones. 

"Henshaw reckons you don't. Henshaw reckons you should be eating about 
four or five thousand calories each day, that's two or three times 
normal. That's because you need the fuel, just to live. Look." I 
unscrunched her, moved her arms back, unfolded her body. Then, when she 
was lying flat, I dug my thumb into her belly. Or rather I tried to, it 
was too hard for that. Not hard like iron, or even like wood, you 
understand. Try digging your thumb into an orange, that's what she felt 
like. "You see, Diana? You aren't fat, fat is soft and flabby. Your 
waist is hard and firm. It's twelve inches of muscle on top of what an 
ordinary girl would have." She still wasn't convinced. "Should I dig my 
thumb into your belly, Michael?" she asked, innocently. I grinned. "You 
don't scare me, you don't like hurting men, you wouldn't do that." She 
smiled back at me, and stroked her left arm. I looked down at my arm, it 
was still black and blue. Maybe she makes exceptions to that rule 
sometimes. "Diana, you dig your thumb into my belly, it'll go in six 
inches - maybe you'd even be able to feel my backbone if you tried. I'd 
rather you didn't, but if you really want to, I can't stop you." And I 
rolled over onto my back. I think that's how you handle a Valkyrie - 
total, instant surrender, and she backs off, hopefully. This is the way 
that dogs handle aggression, and it works for them. She backed off this 
time, and laughed. "No, Michael. It's OK." I tried to find another way 
to put it. 

"It's because you're a Valkyrie, the extra is what gives you a 
Valkyrie's strength. Without those twelve inches, you'd just be an 
ordinary girl, with a rather slender waist. Would you rather that?" "No, 
of course not." "And Diana, you are very attractive to men, you know." 
"Yes, I know that, but I don't usually let them see my waist, I make 
sure their eyes are drawn up or down. But I know it's there." She looked 
at me, her big blue eyes steady on my face. "And you've got the same two 
inch band over your chest. That's why your bust is so big." She looked 
down and smiled. "Men like these," she said, proudly. "They look at them 
when I walk into a room. Do you know how big I am?" "Let me guess. An 
ordinary girl would be thirty four, maybe thirty six. Your two inch band 
gives you an extra twelve inches, so you'd be, wow." Wow. I hadn't 
worked that out before. "Go on, Michael. What would I be." "Forty 
eight?" She nodded. "Forty eight what?" I asked. "What do you mean, 
forty eight what?" I've read about this, and I'm not sure I fully 
understand it, but I've a vague idea what it means. "Cup size." She 
smiled. "And how on earth would I know that?" she asked, smiling. 

Unh. She keeps doing this to me. I understood at once, if you don't buy 
bras, why would you know your cup size? Then she stood up, and brushed 
the crumbs from the front of her skirt, smoothing it down over her 
thighs. I knew what she was doing, she was showing me that you could 
look below her waist as well. So I did. "Hips?" "No thank you, I've 
already got a pair." I laughed. "And a very fine pair they are too. And 
your hips aren't bad either." Then she laughed. "Let me guess. Forty 
eight?" "Forty six." "Well, that boils down to thirty four, not bad." 
"I'd rather not be boiled down." "You'd be too tough anyway, too much 
muscle." She laughed again - we both did. Then I brought up the subject 
that had been bothering me a lot. I tried to do it casually. "And your 
thighs." She got serious fast.  "They cause me a lot of trouble. You 
know I can't wear ordinary jeans? And it isn't my waist that's the 
problem, or even my hips, you can get large sizes, The problem is my 
thighs, I can't get my legs in." I nodded, tried to look serious, and 
sympathetic, and not at all as aroused as a Berserk Viking. "So what do 
you do?" "I don't wear jeans, except when I'm on Black Beauty, when it's 
really cold, under the leather trousers, and they look so awful on me, 
they're so baggy, I take them off when I take the leathers off. I get a 
large size of men's jeans, you can get them at the Big and Tall men's 
shop, and I cut about twelve inches off the legs so they fit me. But 
skirts are no problem, lots of women have got my measurements." "So how 
big are your thighs?" 

But she wouldn't tell me. I tried, I tried quite hard, because I was 
really interested, but she told me she didn't tell people her other 
measurements, she was only telling me because of the research. "Speaking 
of which, any luck with Wagner?" She was trying to change the subject. 
"Henshaw wants you to come in for a physical examination." "Sure, when?" 
"He said he'd be free this evening, and you should bring your notes on 
what you've eaten." "OK. So what about Wagner." 

I sighed. "It looks like he just invented quite a lot of it, but based 
it on the original legends. Brunehilde really was the most senior 
Valkyrie, but he made up Siegfried, the main hero." "So did the real 
Valkyries fall in love and get married?" "There's no information about 
that, which probably means they didn't. Anyway, they were probably too 
busy fighting and entertaining the heroes in Valhalla." "What do you 
mean?" "To train for the Final Battle, they would fight every day until 
they were all killed except one. Then the Valkyries would bring them 
back to life, and carry them back to Valhalla for the evening feast." 
"But they could still have been married, couldn't they?" "Er, Diana, 
feasting doesn't just mean food and drink." "Oh. Of course. Yes, I see. 
So the Valkyries were kind of like prostitutes, is that what you're 
saying?" "No, no. They did it because they enjoyed it, not for pay. It 
was what a Valkyrie was, what she did. They did it for the love of 
life." "I would imagine it would take rather a lot of heroes to make one 
Valkyrie happy", she said, thoughtfully. I guessed she was talking about 
herself. 

Diana: 

We talked a lot that day. I don't usually get to talk to people; women 
don't like me much (it's mutual) and men are only interested in one 
thing. Two things, sleeping afterwards. Three things, I nearly forgot 
eating. But Michael seemed to know everything about everything. I 
suppose that's what history is about, it's about what happened. He 
wasn't just into Vikings, that was just his specialised area. He knew 
about the world wars, about the Tudors and the Stuarts, about everyday 
life in ancient Rome. He explained about the Industrial Revolution, and 
why the steam engine got invented when it did, rather than two thousand 
years ago when the Greeks first thought of steam for propulsion. We 
talked about shoes and ships and sealing wax (he recited "The Walrus and 
the Carpenter" for me, I read it when I was little, but I didn't 
appreciate it until now). 

We also talked a bit about me, and he explained about a few things I'd 
been wondering about, like why the inside of my elbow looks different 
from other people (I thought I was the only one who knew about that, but 
he deduced it from the X-rays), and why my wrists and ankles are so big. 
He wanted to know how big my breasts and thighs were, but I draw the 
line, a girl has to have some mystery. Besides, I wasn't sure if he'd 
believe me if I told him. 

Dusk crept up on us, and Michael suddenly looked at his watch and said - 
"Hey - Henshaw." So we jumped into Fay (the Morgan) and raced back to 
Norwich. 

Henshaw: 

After I had a chance to look at the X-rays and analyse the samples, I 
knew that I was on to something big. There was some very major 
differences here, and they were differences in architecture, not just 
detail. When you compare Homo Sapiens with Neanderthalis, you see a 
similar scale of difference, even though the two species could 
intermarry. Is it possible that there was enough difference to warrant a 
new genus, at least? I would name it Homo Henshavius! Or maybe the 
differences were only enough to warrant calling it a syndrome - 
Henshaw's Syndrome. I like the sound of that. I didn't have X-rays of 
the skull, and I hadn't measured how much force the subject could exert, 
or her stamina - there was so much research I could do. I was so 
excited, it's not often a scientific opportunity like this comes along. 
I could present a paper at the next BMA congress, something like 
"Osseous diameter and fibre contractility in sufferers from Henshaw's 
Syndrome". Maybe I could write a paper for Nature, daring but not too 
ostentatious, maybe "Indications of variance suggesting a new genus", 
and suggesting  Homo Henshavius? Well, let's do the investigation first. 
Where to start? 

Skull X-rays, that's imperative. The most significant differences 
between Neanderthalis and Sapiens are in the skull. Bone samples. Muscle 
samples from a variety of locations. Brain size measurement. More 
accurate X-rays. A Cat scan, a radiometric survey. 

And measurements of the subject's strength, obviously. The skeleton and 
musculature was obviously optimised for power rather than speed, so how 
much of a trade-off is there? Can the subject actually run and jump, or 
is locomotion restricted to a sluggish pace? What was the fundamental 
variation that caused all the others as a consequence, was it the bigger 
bones or the displaced tendons? And maybe there are other adaptations; 
my examination so far had been fairly superficial. The opportunity to 
make scientific discoveries of this magnitude comes so rarely, I was 
determined to discover everything possible from the subject. And Cooley 
- he was just an old fool, a humanities type, right down to the frayed 
cardigan. He wouldn't try to claim a share in my discoveries. No, I was 
assured of a place in the scientific firmament, all I needed was to 
write up my amazing discoveries. 

The subject arrived early that evening. Cooley apologised profusely for 
the lateness, apparently he'd been up to some nonsense. I observed that 
he'd shaved off his beard, making his weak chin and prominent nose more 
obvious. I rapidly got rid of him, and told the subject to undress. She 
exhibited some reluctance to disrobe, but I explained that it isn't 
possible to perform a complete medical examination otherwise. If it made 
her feel better, I told her, there was a Ladies down the corridor she 
could use. 

When the subject returned, I observed that she was naked except for a 
pair of panties, which I told her to remove, and to lie down on the 
examination table. She complained that it was cold, but I told her it 
would soon warm up by contact with her skin. 

First things first. I gave the subject a sedative, so she'd cooperate 
more readily; I quadrupled the usual dose, because of her high body 
weight and fast metabolic rate. Then I told the subject to follow me to 
the X-ray department, to make further exposures. I clamped her head in 
the frontal position, and took an X-ray; I then wound the clamp 
mechanism to rotate her head through successive angles of 15 degrees, so 
that I could have X-rays from each direction. That would give me skull 
shape and size, jaw structure and teeth. 

While I had her in such a suitable environment, I took ordinary 
photographs as well. The excessive layer of muscle on her arms, legs and 
body was clearly evident in these, as were her sexual characteristics. 
There would be no doubt about the gender of this specimen! Even lying 
down, her secondary sexual characteristics were prominently displayed 
above her sternum. These would make excellent illustrations for my BMA 
lectures on the subject. 

Next, I wanted to confirm this 50 millimeter layer of muscle that the X-
rays had shown. Although X-rays of bone are generally reliable, X-rays 
of soft tissue are prone to error, as muscle and fat don't show up very 
well. Unfortunately, dissection was out of the question, so I used a 
hypodermic probe. I had to exert quite a lot of pressure to insert the 
hollow sampling needle; I took samples at depths of 10, 20, 30 40 and 50 
mm. The tiny incisions would soon heal. I made sure that I'd sampled all 
round her torso; back and sides as well as front. 

To confirm the atypical positioning of the tendons, I used another 
technique, one used currently in keyhole knee cartilage surgery. Under 
local anesthetic, a rather larger hypodermic is inserted next to the 
ulna, just below the elbow joint; this carries a fibre optic, which is 
connected to a video camera. By this means, I was able to get direct 
observation of the unusual attachment position of the tendon, and was 
able to confirm that the attachment was considerably further down the 
bone than customary. I performed a similar operation on the lower leg 
and knee - the same configuration was evident. These surgical procedures 
normally take less than a week to heal - indeed the patient can be up 
and about within a day or so. In this case, I wasn't doing any cutting, 
so the patient shouldn't have any mobility loss, even temporarily. 
However, while I had the tools inside the leg, I took the opportunity to 
shave off a bone sample. 

It was obviously important to establish the tensile capabilities of Homo 
Henshavius (I was already using this term in my notes!). The 
unscientific fiasco of the previous exercise would not be repeated, we 
would use proper measuring apparatus. 

I strapped each of her arms to the machine, and clamped her body into 
place with the retaining belts. Then I attached her legs firmly to the 
lower rods using the rubber connectors. I told her to keep her arms and 
legs rigid and outstretched as long as she could, and to resist the 
machine as far as she was able. Then I switched the machine on. 

It's a very simple device, really It simply bends the arm and leg joints 
with a gradually increasing amount of torque, and measures the subjects 
ability to resist the pressure. I started it up at a fairly low value, 
and set it to automatically increase with time. I consulted my 
wristwatch; eight o'clock. I estimated this would take well over an 
hour, so I went to get my dinner. 

Michael: 

She was hysterical. I mean, really hysterical, I couldn't get any sense 
out of her. Obviously something terrible had happened. She was wearing a 
lab coat, and nothing else, and she must have run all the way from the 
faculty to my flat. She banged on the door, but before I had a chance to 
open it, she must have thrown herself at it, because it burst inwards in 
an explosion of wood splinters and hysterical Diana. She was almost 
screaming, completely incoherent. I've read that what you're supposed to 
do in such cases, is slap the woman's face, but I didn't want to do 
that, partly because I didn't want to hurt her, and partly because I'm 
not sure what a Valkyrie does to you if you slap her face. So I did the 
only other thing I could think of, I put my arms round her, and held her 
tight, and told her not to worry, that I'd look after her, that 
everything was all right, and so on. After several minutes, she calmed 
down enough, and was just crying, a steady sobbing that meant I still 
couldn't get any sense out of her. But at least she wasn't hysterical 
any more. 

I think in this situation, kissing someone isn't taking advantage, it's 
part of the calming down and soothing process. I thought about this, and 
then I thought, no, it isn't right, she's not herself, if you kiss her 
now, it's an infringement of personal liberty. But then I thought, well, 
it's for medicinal purposes, just like when a doctor does things to you. 
Then I thought, but what if she gets upset at me, and what about the 
academic code of conduct? Then I thought, sod all that, and kissed her. 
I'm not sure how much good it did her, but it made me feel better, at 
least I was doing something. Then I kissed her again, and wiped her 
face, and I think I was getting through to her. She looked up at me and 
blinked, and wasn't crying quite so hard. "What's the matter, Diana? 
What happened?" 

She sniffled, and showed me her arm, and there was blood on it. She 
showed me her leg, there was blood there, too. Then she opened the lab 
coat, and I must admit her breasts grabbed my attention, but only until 
I realised there was blood all over her belly, too. What had happened? 
"How did that happen? Did you fall?" 

She stopped crying. She stood up and shook herself, all over, like a dog 
does, and then she wiped her face with the back of her hand, and pulled 
her hair back. Blood was oozing from a nasty scrape on her shin, and 
both her arms were badly bruised. She threw her head back, raised her 
arms, and howled. Howled, there's no other word for it, she howled. It 
was full-throated, nothing held back, like a wolf baying at the moon. It 
was loud and it was blood-curdling. I could imagine a Viking war cry 
being like that, the sound made by a Berserker. 

She scared me. What was going on? Had she been in a fight? For a moment, 
I wondered what happened to the other guy, whether there was enough left 
to put in a bag. 

Then she shook herself again, and said in a normal tone of voice, "Have 
you got a pair of trousers I can borrow? And a sweater?" "Diana, what 
happened?" "Your friend Henshaw, that's what happened. He's a sadist. He 
made me undress naked, he clamped me into his infernal machine to take 
pictures, he stuck needles in me, he put a video camera inside me ..." 
"WHAT?" "...yes, and then he put me in a torture machine and just left 
me there. It practically broke my arm before I broke it apart. I had to 
cut the straps to get out, it was lucky I had Cat's Claw in my hair, 
I'll never go anywhere now without Cat's Claw, and I just ran all the 
way. Oh, Michael, it was horrible." 

I would be Having Words with Henshaw about this. How dare he? "Diana, 
I'm so sorry, I had no idea, I thought he was just going to take some 
more X-rays and stuff." She looked at me, frowning. Take it from me, you 
don't *ever* want to see a naked bloody Valkyrie, standing over you and 
frowning at you. I guess my fear must have shown in my face, because she 
smiled, and said "Oh, Michael, it isn't you I'm angry with, it's him." 
"Don't worry, I'll be Having Words with Henshaw tomorrow." "That might 
be difficult." "Why?" "Because of his accident." "What accident?" "The 
one he's going to have as soon as you find me something to wear and I 
can go and instruct him on the subject of how to treat a Valkyrie. 
Trousers! Sweater!" 

I rummaged through my wardrobe. I found a hugely over-sized sweater that 
Aunt Fiona had over-knitted for me a few years ago, I thought that might 
go over her body. But no way could she wear any of my trousers. I 
brought out a pair anyway, so she could see for herself. 

She grabbed the sweater out of my hands and started to put it on, but I 
stopped her, suggesting that we wash and dress her wounds a bit first. 
"No, they're just superficial, I'll worry about them later." "Henshaw 
isn't going away. It would be silly for you to get something infected." 
She nodded, and I led her to the bathroom, and put the shower on. She 
took off the lab coat, and I almost gasped, partly with horror and 
partly with admiration. Horror at the mess she was in, admiration at the 
way she was built. "Michael, you can do my back." 

She stepped under the shower, and I soaped up a flannel. I took a deep 
breath, told myself that this would probably be the high point of my 
entire life, and washed her back. I offered to do her front as well, but 
she laughed, and that was the first time I'd heard her laugh since she'd 
arrived, it was such a lovely sound. She took the flannel from me, and 
washed the rest of herself. She stepped out of the shower, I gave her my 
fluffiest towel, and she dried herself, very gingerly. She was still 
oozing blood from her scraped shins, and I could see red droplets 
forming on her belly. Oh well, at least when I wash that towel, I'll be 
able to test some of the claims about bloodstains made by the washing 
powder. I didn't have any bandages, just Elastoplast, so I tore up a 
sheet, and if you'd seen the sheet, you wouldn't have thought it was 
such a great sacrifice, because that sheet was worn paper-thin already, 
it needed replacing anyway. And as I was wrapping the strips of sheet 
round her shins, she was telling me more of the horrors that Henshaw had 
inflicted on her. 

"I always thought that mad scientists were just in films", she said, 
"But all he could talk about was what a scientific genius he was, and 
how amazed the world would be by his astounding discovery. And it was a 
while before it dawned on me that *I* was his discovery, he thought he'd 
discovered me! First of all he gave me some pills, fool that I am, I 
just swallowed them, and I went all woozy and dozy. He took pictures of 
me naked, he was going to show them to an entire conference, he's still 
got those pictures, I want to get them back. He stuck huge great needles 
in me and wiggled them around, he jabbed me so that my skin went numb, 
then he hurt me deep inside. He kept sticking needles into my belly, my 
sides, even my back. He stuck a video camera inside me, I don't know 
how, but he showed me the pictures on a screen. 

"And then he put me in this machine, oh, Michael, you don't want to know 
about the machine" and she shuddered. "Tell me about the machine." I was 
going to have Very Strong Words with Henshaw. Maybe even report him to 
the Dean of Medicine, this all sounded most irregular. "He strapped my 
arms and legs to it, and my body, and I was laying on top of it face 
down, and it was moving my arms up and down, apart and back, but it was 
trying to move them as far as it could, and, oh, Michael, it felt like 
it was trying to break my arms off backwards, and it was trying to break 
my legs too." Henshaw hadn't realised that the greater leverage she got 
by having her tendons attached further from the joint, meant that her 
arms and legs had less movement. An arm movement that you or I could do 
easily, was simply impossible for Diana. "I got so scared, it was 
hurting my shoulders, and I felt like my knees were being bent the wrong 
way." "So what did Henshaw do, he just watched while you were in pain?" 
"No, he wasn't there. He went off somewhere, left me in that bloody 
machine." This called for Very Strong Words Indeed. In fact, I started 
to think in terms of a written complaint, and I told Diana so. 

"Oh, Michael, you're so sweet. A letter of complaint? Well, if you like, 
but I've got other ideas." She put on the ridiculous sweater that Aunt 
Fiona had knitted for me, and it fitted her rather well, hugging her 
body like I had earlier. Then she looked at the trousers, and held them 
up to herself. "Hum. They aren't very big, are they?" I grinned. "That's 
because I'm so slender and lissome." She stuck her tongue out at me, 
which I suppose is the only possible response to that remark, and said 
"Thirty two waist. You're smaller than I am." "That's because I'm not a 
Valkyrie." "So you *do* think I'm a Valkyrie!" "Well, Diana, you're 
obviously something. And Valkyrie is as good a word as any, whether 
you're descended from the Daughters of Wotan or not." "The problem's 
going to be the legs, I'll never get these on." She looked at my 
trousers. "Oh, well, I hope these weren't your favourites." 

She reached up to her hair, and pulled out Cat's Claw. I hadn't seen 
that up close, she wouldn't let me handle it. She said that it was bad 
luck for a man to touch a Valkyrie's knife. I think she made that up. 
She castrated my trousers, cutting them down drastically, cutting off 
not only the legs, but also cutting out the crutch. I winced as I 
watched, and wanted to cross my legs. It's just as well she believes 
that Valkyries have to be gentle with men. A few quick strokes of that 
knife, which must have been as sharp as a razor, and she'd converted my 
old trousers into a short skirt. She tugged it on, it was a tight fit, 
but it worked, hugging her hips as snugly as if it was painted on. "What 
do you think?" "Could start a new fashion." She made a face at me, and 
pulled the sweater over the top of the improvised skirt. "I need a belt. 
I don't suppose you've got a vicious bull-hide whip in your wardrobe?" 
"Do you want the brown one or the black one?" "You don't happen to have 
a pink one, do you?" 

Come to think of it, maybe I did have something. I ferreted around in 
the back of the wardrobe, where the old shoes and coat hangers gather to 
do whatever disgusting acts they get up to together, you should peruse 
alt.sex.wardrobes. "Diana, what are you planning to do?" "It's best if 
you don't know." I backed out of the wardrobe, triumphantly. "How about 
this suitcase security belt? It's very long, and very strong." Diana 
took it from me and wrapped it three times round her waist. "It'll have 
to do. Buckle?" I shrugged. She sighed, then tucked it into itself. "But 
why do you want a leather belt, anyway?" "Why did you think?"  "I 
thought maybe it's some Valkyrie thing, it's the Belt of Orion or 
something." She laughed. "Because if I wear a belt, it makes my waist 
look better, silly. Have you got a hairbrush? I left my bag at the 
Medical Center." 

She took Cat's Claw's scabbard out, brushed her hair, then clipped it 
back in place, holding her hair securely behind her head, and also 
holding that vicious blade she was so fond of.  I went to a drawer, and 
pulled out a bright blue coloured handkerchief. "Here. It's clean." 
"Michael, you're a treasure," she said as she tied it into her hair. 
"Have you got a mirror?" Er, no, just a little one. "How do I look?" 

Aunt Fiona's sweater hugged her bosom, swelling out from her neck, then 
gracefully curving back as it flowed downwards, and the belt cinched it 
tightly around her waist. The sweater was long - long on me, and she was 
a few inches shorter than I was. So the skirt she'd made by emasculating 
my trousers barely peeped out below. Everything below that was legs; 
legs, legs and legs. She looked like a prostitute out on the prowl. 
"Diana, you look like an avenging angel." Academics are very keen on 
absolute truth, but there's such a thing as tact. She smiled, showing 
lots of teeth, and I thought I bet that's the look Vikings had just 
before they boarded the longships for a season of rape and pillage. 
"Don't wait up for me. I may be some time." "Be careful, Diana. Please 
be careful." 

I wanted to go with her, but I guessed I'd just be an encumbrance. The 
last thing a Valkyrie needs is a man trailing along, needing protection. 
So I closed my eyes, and tried to feel sorry for Henshaw, but when I 
thought of what that bastard had done to her, I couldn't feel any 
sympathy for what was about to happen to him. So I sat down, and bit my 
nails. Then I did a bit of pacing up and down. Then I did a bit of 
repair work on my front door, it looked like a car had hit it. The door 
itself was fine, but the screws holding the hinges had splintered the 
wood and come adrift. I made new holes, and screwed them back in, 
hanging the door about half an inch higher than before. Then I took a 
large sheet of paper, and a map of Europe, got onto the Web, and started 
planning our trip to Leipzig and Bayreuth. It might sound heartless to 
be doing such a mundane job while Diana was putting herself in peril, 
but what else could I do - I didn't have any nails left to bite. Anyway, 
why was I worrying? Henshaw was just another guy, he'd fall to pieces in 
Diana's hands. 

Round about two in the morning, I found myself nodding off over the 
computer. Diana had told me not to wait up for her, so I undressed and 
went to bed. 

When I woke up, it was that time just before dawn, when the night has 
the pearly pre-dawn glow, and the birds haven't yet thought what they'll 
sing this morning. What woke me was a splintering crash, and a lot of 
cursing, lots of Wotan and Loki, so I know it was either a Viking or a 
Valkyrie that was turning the air blue. Since I don't know many Vikings, 
and I only know one Valkyrie, I realised that Diana must be back, so I 
turned the light on, grabbed a dressing gown, and went to see what the 
matter was. 

My front door lay in ruins on the floor again, only this time, she'd 
split it down the middle, and was lying in the middle of the wreckage. 
"If you'd rung the bell, I'd have let you in." I said, reasonably. She 
looked up. "Fuck" she said. "You repaired the door, didn't you?" "Well 
yes, of course, I didn't want to just leave it off it's hinges. Why did 
you break it down again?" I could understand the first time, she'd been 
distraught. But she seemed perfectly calm now. "Because, idiot, I 
assumed that it would still be off it's hinges, jerk, so I just gave it 
a little push, moron, and it didn't move, you buffoon, so I thought it 
was stuck, you fool, and I gave it a bigger push, cretin, and it all 
collapsed, and I tripped over it, and I think I've broken my ankle." 

So I helped her extract herself from what used to be my front door, I 
expect I can get a new one at a DIY shop, helped her hobble into a 
chair, and helped her get her boots off. She went "oo" on the right one, 
but I pointed out that if it had been broken, she wouldn't have just 
gone "oo". "So how did it go?" "It went fine until your door attacked 
me. Can we talk in the morning? I'm completely shagged out." I offered 
to let her have my bed, and I'd sleep on the couch, but she said "Don't 
be silly." So I said, "Alright, I'll make up the couch for you" and she 
said "You are a knuckle head, aren't you? We'll both sleep in your bed." 
"Er, but, er." "Don't worry, if you try to rape me I'll scream for 
help." Me? Rape her? Chance would be a fine thing. I don't think 
Valkyries get raped, I think Valkyries do the raping. Well, if she was 
happy to share my bed, I certainly was. If she tried to rape me, I could 
always scream for help. Very quietly. I didn't expect her to sleep in 
the nude though! "Don't be silly", she said, "You've already seen me 
naked. I always sleep like this unless I'm with someone." I'm not 
someone? "So what do you wear if you're with someone?" She was almost 
asleep when she replied. "It's creamy and lacy and silky and sexy and 
slinky and soft and feminine and is that a banana in your pocket or are 
you pleased to see me ..." and she was asleep. 

I, on the other hand, am not used to sharing my bed with a member of the 
opposite, er, persuasion. I was acutely conscious of her hair on the 
pillow, her regular breathing, her perfume, her sexuality, her powerful 
yet erotic body, those firm yet gentle breasts, and those devastating 
thighs. I remembered how those thighs had crushed a wooden bench, and I 
wondered what she'd done to Henshaw. Whatever it was, he deserved it. I 
lay awake for hours, thinking of the Valkyrie that shared my bed - no, 
that occupied three quarters of my bed and let me have the remainder. 
Eventually, I fell asleep. 



The sun through the window woke me up. My brain returned to the world of 
the living, and I opened my eyes. I'll never forget the sight I saw if I 
live to be a hundred. 

She was lying on top of the bed, she must have kicked the bedding off in 
the night. She was on her back, one arm by her side, the other arm 
behind her head, her breasts rising and falling gently as she breathed. 
Her eyes were closed, of course, so was her mouth, and she had a faint 
smile. I could see her nostrils moving fractionally as she slowly 
breathed in and out. 

I lay and watched her, the most impressive woman I've ever met, a real 
live Valkyrie, naked, just inches away for me. I wanted to reach out and 
touch her; her firm belly, those big hard thighs, and the mysterious 
female region in between. I wanted to touch her breasts, to feel her 
nipples harden under my finger, to hear her moan with pleasure at my 
caresses. Of course I did nothing, not wishing to break the spell. I'm 
not sure what happens to a man who tries to take liberties with a 
sleeping Valkyrie, she had this rule about being gentle with men, but I 
knew she was willing to make exceptions. 

I lay there, trying not to move, not wanting to wake her. She'd told me 
about some of her sexual adventures; Diana was no shy virgin. I tried to 
imagine her heavy body on top of me; she would get on top, of course, 
Diana would naturally take control like she did with everything else. I 
tried to imagine the effect of a woman with four times my strength, yet 
gentle, and with the objective of giving pleasure to her sexual partner, 
because she'd told me that she got more out of sex herself if her 
partner had an orgasm. She'd told me that in her hands, a man could have 
several orgasms each night, and she wasn't boasting, just explaining. I 
thought just one was a lot. 

But most of all, I just lay watching her naked sleeping body. She looked 
so vulnerable, so helpless as she slept, her breasts slightly flattened 
by gravity, but still prominent above her big chest. Then further down - 
I knew she thought her waist was much too big, "as fat as a cow" she'd 
said, but of the thirty four inches, about twelve was the belt of muscle 
around her body, the two inch thick layer of muscle that covered her 
whole torso. Her waist didn't look big to me, not compared to her chest 
and her thighs. 

Yet she looked utterly feminine, utterly desirable. You couldn't 
actually see her muscles, they were covered up with the soft 
subcutaneous layer of fat that all women have, hiding the hardness of 
the ridges of muscle and the big veins that brought life to them. She 
just looked big, not just big-busted, but big, big all over. Broad, and 
deep. She was only about five foot six, but she weighed a couple of 
stones more than me, and I looked all over her sleeping body for the 
kind of flab that I have on my body, and there was none. 

I could still see the abrasions on her shin and the small wounds on her 
belly where Henshaw had done his infernal work. And, looking carefully, 
I could see a scar on her shoulder, and wondered what had caused that, 
maybe I could ask her. Then my eyes followed the line of her arm up and 
behind her head; the positioning of her arm made her biceps bulge, but 
not hugely, and not defined like a male bodybuilder, but gracefully, a 
curve that rose towards the middle of her upper arm, and narrowed 
towards her elbow. I flexed my own arm for comparison - my muscles were 
actually more visible than hers, but of course she was relaxed and 
sleeping, whereas I was trying my best to make a muscle out of the 
unpromising raw material of my arm. And as I looked more carefully at 
her arm, I realised that even asleep, the circumference of her arm was 
quite a lot more than mine. She didn't look like she had big muscles, 
because they were covered in the same subcutaneous fat that concealed 
the layer round her body. But that size wasn't fat. She had just the 
finest sheath of soft tissue covering the hard, but there was a lot of 
the hard, her muscles went deep, and not much of the fat, just enough to 
soften her shape, to hide those big, deep muscles. I know that some 
people like to see the muscles on a body cut and defined, but that was 
probably because they hadn't seen Diana, seen how she could combine the 
same appearance of great strength, with a gentle overlay of softness. 

Then I looked down her arm towards her hand, which disappeared behind 
her head into her hair, and I realised that she was gripping Cat's Claw 
as she slept. Waking her might actually be dangerous - that blade was as 
sharp as, well, sharp as a cat's claw, with a point like a needle and an 
edge like a razor, and I thought that her terrible experiences of 
yesterday might be the reason why she slept like that, the feel of the 
knife bringing comfort and security to her. Some women sleep hugging a 
teddy bear; Diana the Valkyrie, slept with her hand on her weapon. I 
shivered, slightly, and not for cold. 

I watched her face - peaceful, innocent, serene. If I was being 
perfectly honest, I still wouldn't rate her face at more than four out 
of ten - her features were too large, especially her nose, and slightly 
chubby; certainly she didn't have the sort of fine bone structure that 
beautiful women have. And then looking down her body; naked, there were 
no secrets, apart from the secrets hidden by her bushy pubic hair. I 
looked at her frankly, as an artist looks at a model. Her waist was far 
too large, her hips too broad, her legs too thick and her chest too 
deep. She was just too big and heavy to be pretty, yet she was 
undeniably sexually attractive, very much so. Maybe it wasn't just her 
appearance, and maybe it wasn't the physical power that her Valkyrie 
body gave her in such abundance. I think more than anything else it was 
her personality and her attitude - nothing's impossible, men need 
protecting, life is there to be taken and wrung as dry as her strong 
hands could wring a flannel. And her total self confidence. She knew 
that she was in control of her life, and of anyone whose life 
intersected with hers. 

In fact, her sexuality was so great that, watching her sleep, I began to 
get an erection, and I began to fantasise about what it would be like to 
leap on top of her and rape her. If only! She must be the one woman in 
the world who didn't have to worry about being raped - no, there were 
the other Valkyries she'd told me about. Thinking about the existence of 
Freya and Hilde made my erection harder, as I tried to imagine what they 
looked like. But ever and again, my eyes were drawn to Diana, to the 
sleeping form that looked like a soft, sweet woman, but who had given me 
the worst bruise of my life by simply gripping my arm, just to convince 
me that she was no ordinary girl. 

I couldn't take any more, and I carefully got out of bed, so as not to 
wake her, and had a cold shower. And then, of course, I couldn't go back 
to bed. In my absence, Diana had spread herself out, and there was no 
room for me to lie down. And waking a Valkyrie with Cat's Claw gripped 
in her sleeping hand, is too dangerous to contemplate. So I got dressed, 
wrote a note for her to tell her where I was, and left three copies for 
her to find. One on the kettle, one on the toilet in case she went there 
first, and one pinned to the jamb next to the wreck of the door that 
she'd gone through without opening. Twice. 

I got out my bicycle, and rode down to Henshaw. I still intended to Have 
Words with him, he couldn't do the sort of thing he'd done and get away 
with it. 

I rang his bell - there was no answer. But the door was slightly ajar, 
and when I pushed it, it opened. I could see why - splintered wood - 
Diana had been there last night, and her door count was up to three. I 
walked in, and looked round. I saw a body across the living room, and as 
I walked closer, I could see that it was Henshaw. I was also hit by an 
appalling stench, I wasn't sure what it was. As I leaned over to look 
more closely, he moaned slightly, a good sign, as it meant he was still 
alive. I'd been worried that Diana might have gone over the top; that 
knife of hers could slit a man's throat in half a second. She'd showed 
me what she could do with it to a man's tie. 

I couldn't see any blood, which was another good sign, but I saw the 
puddle of vomit, and his trousers were soaked, and I could smell the 
acrid smell of urine, mixed with the stomach-churning smell of his sick. 
I gagged, and choked on the horrible stink. 

I'd come to give him a Piece Of My Mind, but it looked like Diana had 
already done that. I wondered what she'd done to him. Whatever it was, 
it served him right for torturing her. I went to the telephone to call a 
doctor, then I thought maybe an ambulance, then I thought maybe not - 
they'd want to know how it happened, and Diana could get into trouble. 
But what else could I do, I couldn't just leave him like this. Could I? 

He coughed, and choked, then lay still again. A few drops of blood 
trickled out of his mouth onto the floor, and joined the vomit. Internal 
bleeding - a very bad sign. What had she done? No - he looked very ill, 
and for all I knew, might be in serious danger. If he died, Diana would 
be in big trouble, so although I had no sympathy for him, I had to help. 

And I knew who to call. Judy. Judy is a nurse, she'd know what to do. 
Maybe he isn't too badly hurt, maybe he just needs to rest and 
recuperate. Or maybe he really was badly injured and needed 
hospitalisation. But Judy would know. 

I've known Judy for several years. I had broken my elbow once, and after 
it had set and the plaster was off, I had to do exercises to get the 
full use of it back. Judy coached me, encouraged me, and without her 
nagging, I don't think I would have the full use of my arm today. And 
she'd turned out to have an interest in history, specifically medieval 
history, one of my favourite areas. And she was about my age, maybe a 
couple of years younger, and she shared my tastes in music, So we'd 
carried on seeing each other afterwards, in a way. Nothing torrid, you 
understand, but when a film like Braveheart came out, she'd phone me up 
and suggest that we went to see it together. It's nicer not to go to a 
film alone, because then you can talk about it afterwards, and maybe 
have dinner and discuss the era it was set in, that sort of thing. So we 
were friends, just friends, but rather good friends. And I thought she'd 
help. So I phoned her up. 

"Judy, I have a problem." I explained about how I'd found Henshaw, and 
could she come round and see? "Call an ambulance" she said, so I 
explained that I'd rather not do that unless he really needed it, 
because there would be embarrassing repercussions, and could she pop 
round and help? 

She arrived half an hour later. I was watching out for her, so I was 
able to let her in at once. She walked over to Henshaw and looked at 
him. "Phew", she said. "Yuck." She opened all the windows, I suppose I 
should have thought of that, then brought a pair of scissors out of her 
bag, and went to work. Scissors? But I needn't have worried, she was 
just undressing him. "I don't want to move him until I know the score", 
she explained as she snipped his clothes away, one hand over her nose. 
Eventually, she had his body exposed, and we could see that there didn't 
seem to be any major damage. Henshaw opened his eyes, saw me, and 
groaned - Judy was behind him, so he couldn't see her. "Where does it 
hurt, Henshaw?" He groaned again. "Head. Belly. Arms." He could barely 
talk. Oh, Diana, what have you done? 

Judy walked around him, saying "It looks superficial. I don't think we 
need to call an ambulance. Let's get him cleaned up." And as she came 
into his sight, he looked up, saw her, and made a sound I'd rather not 
hear ever again, a sort of wailing shriek, the despair of a damned soul 
in torment, wet himself again and fainted. 

I looked up at Judy, who was looking puzzled. Then she said to me "You 
run the bath, I'll get him properly stripped." I went to the bathroom 
and ran the taps. "Check the temperature with your elbow", she yelled 
through the door. I got the bath sufficiently filled, and dipped my 
elbow into it like I've seen women do, and it was fine. "Bath's ready", 
I shouted. In a few moments, Judy came through the door, Henshaw cradled 
in her arms. She walked over to the bath, and lowered him in. And that's 
when I realised why Henshaw had screamed. 

Judy was blonde, five-six and heavily built. Judy was the classic "fair, 
fat and forty". She looked like Diana, and Henshaw had thought that the 
Valkyrie had returned to dish out some more pain. She looked round at 
me. "When you're a nurse, you have to do this sort of thing all the 
time. You get a knack for it, it's no big deal." No big deal. She'd been 
carrying Henshaw like he was a baby, and I knew how come. I'd never 
thought about it before, and if I hadn't met Diana, I would have 
accepted her explanation, but knowing what I knew, I also knew this. It 
wasn't fat that made her so heavily built. Judy was a Valkyrie. 

Maybe she didn't know it, maybe she did and wanted to keep it secret. 
Maybe she didn't even know what a Valkyrie was. Indeed, there was no 
evidential link between the mythical Choosers of the Slain, and the 
chunky Diana the Valkyrie or Judy. But Valkyrie was as good a word as any for 
the women who were clearly of common ancestry, slightly taller than 
average, and with substantial differences in anatomy that set them 
apart. And Judy was a Valkyrie, I was almost certain of it. 

She washed Henshaw efficiently, lifted his slippery wet body out of the 
water without any apparent effort, dried him, and carried him into bed. 
At no time did it even occur to her to ask me for help. Nor did she need 
help. But after she'd given him aspirin to reduce the pain and 
inflammation in his belly, and got him into bed, where he was fast 
asleep, she said to me "And now, Dr. Cooley, you're going to tell me 
what happened here. He looks like he's been in a fight, a rather one-
sided fight. Did you do all that?" 

Well, I didn't want to lie to Judy, but I didn't want to get Diana into 
trouble. So I just sat there, saying nothing. "Well?" said Judy. "Look, 
Judy, I really don't want to talk about this, I'm sorry." "OK, I don't 
think it was you. Somebody has beaten this poor man up very badly, and 
whoever he is, he's a dangerous menace and needs to be brought to book. 
Now stop protecting him, and tell me what happened here." 

"Judy, I *can't*. But I can tell you this - Henshaw deserved what he 
got, and it won't happen again. Judy, you picked him up like he was a 
baby." "I told you, nurses get used to having to do that, it's a knack." 
"No, Judy, it isn't. You can pick a man up that easily because you're a 
very strong woman, and you're trying to pretend you're not. The other 
nurses couldn't do that, could they?" 

She sat down, and regarded me carefully. "Could they?" I insisted. She 
shook her head. "And you don't want me to know you can do things like 
that." She shook her head again. "Judy, we've been good friends for 
several years now, and you know you can trust me. I know more about you 
than you imagine, because I've been doing research into exactly the 
condition that you have. And so was Henshaw, except from a different 
angle, and that's what got him in trouble." "What do you mean?" she 
said. "I'll put the kettle on." I made coffee using Henshaw's kitchen, 
and we sat across the table and talked. 

"Judy, the name we've given to your condition, is Valkyrie. Maybe the 
original legend was based on women like you, that's one of the things 
I'm researching. But you aren't the only one, there are other women like 
yourself." She listened quietly, because this was perhaps the most 
important news she'd ever heard. "I thought I was the only one, I 
thought I was a freak of some sort." "No, Judy, you're not a freak, 
you're a Valkyrie. It's something to be proud of, not something to be 
ashamed of. You're trying to hide it, and you shouldn't, you should spit 
in the face of the world and let them know what you are." "I tried that, 
the world spits back." Yes, I can imagine. "When I was a girl in school, 
I learned that you mustn't be different, people hate anyone who is 
different." Children can be very cruel, I know. "And you have no idea of 
the problems it gives me. You know I've never married." Yes, and that 
was strange, because Judy is a very nice person, and fun to be with. 
Intelligent and full of humour. "Men find me repulsive, I turn them off. 
And that's so upsetting for me, you can't imagine. That's why I've been 
celibate for a very long time, and why I decided to dedicate myself to 
nursing. You're practically the only friend I've got, and certainly the 
only man friend. Women don't like me much, either." 

Oh dear. What an appalling self-image for any woman to have, and for a 
Valkyrie to feel that way about herself, was extraordinary. It was 
obvious what I should do, though. I had to tell her about her heritage, 
about what she had and what she could do with it. 

So I explained to her what the physical differences were; the larger 
bones, the displaced tendons and the extra thick layer of muscle that 
covered her body. "It adds about twelve inches to your measurements, 
bust, waist and hips. If you want to compare yourself to an ordinary 
woman, you have to subtract those twelve inches. What's your waist, 
thirty-four?" I guessed that, because that's what Diana was, but she 
shook her head sadly. "Thirty eight. And no matter how much I diet or 
starve myself, the least I've ever been is thirty six. Have you any idea 
how difficult it is to get nice clothes when you're as fat as a pig?" 
Diana once called herself as fat as a cow, but there wasn't an ounce of 
spare flesh round her waist, she was hard as oak, and tight as a drum, 
and I guessed that Judy would be exactly the same. "But Judy, it isn't 
fat, that's why you can't diet it off." She nodded. "Yes, I know. I 
can't pinch any flesh between my finger and thumb, and that's the test 
for being overweight. But still my waist is thirty eight, and that's 
more than people think is attractive." I thought of Diana, naked in my 
bed, her body so big and broad, but certainly attractive, very much so. 
I could see that if you went for the undernourished waif look, a big 
Valkyrie wouldn't appeal, but surely very few men really found any sex 
appeal in a woman with the body of a child? Whereas a Valkyrie is more 
than a woman, much more. 

"Is that what Henshaw was researching?" she asked. "He was looking into 
the medical and anatomical aspects of Valkyrism, I've been looking at 
the cultural issues. What went wrong for Henshaw, was he treated his 
subject like a laboratory rat, hurt her badly both physically and 
emotionally, and she turned on him." "His subject. You mean you've got a 
Valkyrie that you're studying?" "Yes, and I think you ought to meet 
her." I thought that meeting Diana would be the best tonic Judy could 
have, because Diana would show her what a Valkyrie could be, if she 
wanted to. Judy didn't have to wear starched nurses uniforms designed to 
make her look sexless, off duty she didn't have to wear baggy sweaters 
and long skirts to hide her body and legs. But Diana would show her how 
a Valkyrie should dress. 

Just then, with perfect timing, Diana walked in through the door. The 
distraught hysterical female of yesterday evening had vanished without 
trace; what walked through the door was a calm, confident woman, in 
control of her life and destiny, secure in the knowledge that she could 
give any man the utter bliss of her sexual attentions or a month in 
hospital, whichever she wanted. And she looked it, too. She was wearing 
a crisply ironed silk shirt, stretched over her breasts and tucked into 
her skirt. Her only jewelry was a fine gold necklace that looked 
delicate and feminine around her large neck. Under the shirt she was 
braless, as usual, and her nipples made it very obvious that she neither 
wore nor needed a bra. Her legs were bare from mid-thigh down, and she 
was wearing a short but full skirt. She looked delicious, as usual, and 
I wanted to throw myself at her. But you don't do that to a Valkyrie 
unless you know she wants you to. 

I introduced them. I could see Judy looking carefully at Diana, looking 
and comparing. Thinking, could I do this, could I look like this if I 
wanted to? And do I want to? 

"Judy, this is Diana the Valkyrie. She's the main impetus and funding behind 
the Valkyrie Project, and of course she's a Valkyrie, as you can 
observe. Diana, this is Judy Finch. She doesn't want people to know, but 
she's a Valkyrie as well." 

Judy spoke first. "So it was you that beat up Henshaw. What happened?" 
Diana joined us at the table. "Is he all right? I think I went a bit 
over the top, I might have hurt him rather." "Last time I saw him, he 
was crying himself to sleep. What did you do to him?" I interrupted. 
"First of all, Judy, you've got to hear what he did to Diana." And Diana 
told the story again, of how Henshaw had treated her like an 
experimental animal, only worse, because it's illegal to be cruel to 
animals. Judy was aghast. "You can't *do* that sort of thing!" "Not to 
me, you can't" replied Diana. "I broke his machine to get out of it, and 
ran back to Michael. He was wonderful, looked after me and everything." 
I glowed. "But I had this intense sensation of unfinished business, you 
know what I mean? So I came round here to teach Henshaw that you don't 
treat people that way, and especially you don't treat Valkyries that 
way." "So what did you do?" 

"When I got here, the door was shut. I was going to knock, but then I 
thought, let's give him a surprise. So I just kicked it down." I thought 
of those powerful thighs, kicking a door down wouldn't be a problem. 
"When I walked in, he was just standing up. 'What do you want?' he said. 
'You, sweetie. I want you. I want your pain, your suffering. I want to 
see you hurt, like you hurt me. I want you, sweetie.' I walked up to 
him. 'Do you remember? You gave me a sedative, to make me nice and 
docile? Here's a sedative for you, sweetie.' I backed him against a 
wall, and punched him in the belly, not hard, just enough to collapse 
his stomach muscles, and drain his resistance. 'You gave me quadruple 
the normal dose, didn't you sweetie? So here's the second part.' I 
raised my fist again, so he could see it clearly. 'Where would you like 
it, sweetie-pie, by mouth or direct in the stomach?' He didn't answer, of 
course, so I gave it to him in the stomach. The first punch had 
destroyed any resistance from his stomach muscles, so the second time, 
my fist went in deep into his soft flesh. I thought that I could feel 
his spine for a moment. He doubled up and collapsed to the ground, 
choking for breath. I let him flop around for a while, because I wanted 
him to appreciate the next part. He didn't need the rest of the 
sedative, he was nicely docile already. 'What you did next, sweetie, was 
then you gave me an injection, a shot which left me dazed and woozy, I 
barely knew what was happening, did I sweetiepie? So let's give you the 
same.' I lifted him up, with my hand round his jaw, and propped him 
against the wall. Then I slapped his head, left, right, left, right. I 
didn't want to punch him, that would have done too much damage. But the 
slaps scrambled his brain nicely, and his legs turned to water as he 
collapsed to the floor again. This time, he didn't flop around, he just 
lay there in a heap, dazed from the head shots. I waited again while he 
collected himself, there's no point in hurting a man already in pain. 

'Oh, sweetie, then you had fun. Then you clamped my head in your X-ray 
machine. Do you know what it feels like to have your head clamped?' I 
knelt down and pulled him into a sitting position, and got behind him. 
Then I put my arms under his, round his shoulders, and linked my arms on 
the back of his neck - a full nelson. With this hold, I levered his neck 
down and down, until I could feel his backbone stretching under my 
hands. 'You feel it, sweetie? You feel how it is when your head is 
clamped into an uncomfortable position, and it hurts, and you can't 
breathe?' I stood up with his head and body clamped in the hold, and 
shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, to make him feel even more 
helpless, and to send waves of pain through his weak body. I held him 
like that for several minutes, until his arms and neck were paralysed 
with pain, increasing the pressure occasionally, so he knew there was 
more available, shaking him from time to time, to keep his attention, 
and then I just dropped him. He couldn't even put out his arms to stop 
himself crashing into the floor, and he just lay there, motionless, 
breathing noisily. 'Then you stuck needles in me, big ones, long and 
thick and painful, do you remember sweetiepie?' I knelt next to him 
again, and jabbed my thumb into his chest, and he jerked in response. 
'Do you remember, my love?' I jabbed his side, his body gave a shudder. 
'You wanted to check that my whole body was covered in that dense thick 
layer of muscle, and you found that it was. I'm strong, aren't I 
sweetie?' I jabbed his back, he screamed, and arched his back in 
reaction, then curled up into a ball again as his damaged stomach 
reacted. 'Well, you found that I do have that layer all over.' My thumb 
dug into the soft flesh of his shoulder. 'All over. Here, and here, and 
here.' He was crying now. A man crying usually turns me to mush, but not 
this animal. 'Do you remember when you scraped my bone, darling? Do you 
have any idea what a bone scrape feels like, my love?' I balled my fist, 
and started to rub the knuckles up and down his shin, pressing hard. 'It 
hurts, lover. It hurts deep down inside.' His shin started to get red 
and raw. 'It hurts, Henshaw, my darling. It hurts inside. Right inside 
me, that's where you went, and you hurt me, you hurt me so badly. How 
could you do that?' The bruise on his shin was livid red now, but I 
didn't stop, I rubbed it harder. 'How could you, sweetiepie? How could 
you do that to someone who had never done you any harm?' He was 
screaming by the time I stopped rubbing his shin, the skin was broken 
and bleeding, and the bruise underneath was every colour of the rainbow. 
It looked like my shin felt. 

'And then, sweetie, you put me in the machine that moved my arms and 
legs.' 'Please, no.' he begged. 'Please, I hurt so bad, I can't take any 
more, please.' 'Yes, sweetie. That's good. You're remembering how I 
begged you, how I degraded myself by pleading with you. And what did you 
say, sweetie?' He moaned in fear of what I was about to do. 'Mmmh, 
that's right, my love. You said nothing, you just got on with the job. 
You remember how I told you I can't move my arms that far back, my legs 
won't bend as far as you're moving them? You remember my darling?' He 
whimpered. 'Please, no, please.' 'Yes, that's good, that's just right, 
that's exactly what I said.' I turned him over onto his face, and sat on 
the small of his back. My weight made breathing difficult for him. 'You 
strapped me in as tight as you could, and started the machine going. You 
know what it did, my love? No, of course you don't, you left me there, 
didn't you, so it didn't matter how much I screamed, there was no-one to 
hear. So I'll show you what your machine did.' I took his wrists in my 
hands, and pulled them up and back, until they had gone as far as they 
would go. 'You're so much more flexible than I am, sweetie, your arms 
have got so much more travel, you're so lucky, I guess it's part of the 
price I pay for my anatomy.' 'Please, please, it hurts so much.' 'No it 
doesn't, sweetie. Your arms can do this easily. It's only if they're 
pulled back further than they are meant to go that it hurts.' I pulled 
his arms back a bit more. 'I can feel some resistance now' I pulled them 
back another few inches. 'Look, you're so flexible, darling love. Look 
how much your arms can move.' I relaxed the pressure, then pulled them 
back again. 'This is how your machine works, to and fro, back and forth, 
but not everyone has the same movement in their arms, and mine are far 
worse than yours.' I pulled back and up, feeling the resistance in his 
tendons as they stretched. 'See, sweetie, we can make you even more 
flexible, wouldn't that be great?' 'Nooooo, nononono' 'But there was no-
one to hear me, was there?' I pulled his arms back again, hard, feeling 
the ligaments pop, hearing the bones creak. 'How long were you going to 
leave me there, sweetiepie? How long? How long? How long? How long? How 
long? How long? How long? How long? How long? How long? How long? How 
long?' 

I must have lost control round about then, remembering what it had felt 
like to be left to suffer unlimited torture, without any hope of relief 
or rescue. I remember I thought I'd die, then I remember wishing it 
would happen quickly as the machine tried to tear off my arms and legs. 
Then I remember the surge of adrenaline as I thought, NO! and again as I 
screamed 'NO!!! NO!!!!!' You can't do this to a Valkyrie, and the 
Berserker rage filled my brain as mindless violence filled my body, and 
I don't know exactly what happened, but I came back to my senses 
surrounded by the wreckage of the broken machine. And once again, I 
slowly became aware of my surroundings, only this time, I was sitting on 
a broken man. And then I went to your home, Michael, and to bed." 

Judy and I sat and listened to this terrifying tale, and my blood ran 
cold as Diana calmly described the horror of being left alone to be torn 
apart by a machine. And I felt so glad I'd told her about Viking 
Berserkers, the condition that a man could whip himself into where he 
fought insanely, without regard for his own safety, and with two or 
three time his normal strength. I thought that if Diana was normally 
four or five times as strong as a man, what would she be like in the 
Berserker state? No wonder she'd smashed the machine. 

"His arms are just useless by his side" Judy commented. "But you haven't 
actually broken anything, he'll recover in time." "I just wanted him to 
know what he'd done to me", replied Diana. "I didn't mean to cripple 
him. I just, well, I didn't know what I was doing, there at the end." "I 
don't think you did any permanent damage, not to his body, anyway. He 
might have an permanent aversion to well-built blondes, though." Diana 
laughed. "Well, I didn't fancy him anyway." 

Diana turned to Judy. "Are you really a Valkyrie? You look like you 
could be." Judy nodded. "I've never told anyone, but Michael guessed." 
"It wasn't hard", I answered, you were carrying Henshaw around like he 
was a baby, then I looked at you and I saw Diana, you could almost be 
her sister, you've got the same build and the same colouring, and I just 
knew, you're a Valkyrie." "So why do you keep it secret?" Diana asked. 
"When I was at school the other girls ..." "I know, I know, I know 
exactly what you mean" Diana interrupted. "I had that too. They called 
you 'fatty' and names like that, right?" Judy nodded. "And then when I 
got older, and I started going out with boys, when they saw how fat I 
was, they weren't interested, they only like the slim slender girls." I 
couldn't let that go by. "Judy, you're not fat, it isn't fat, it's 
muscle. And not all men like skinny rakes, you just went out with the 
wrong ones." She shook her head sadly, but Diana broke in. "Honestly, 
Judy, he's right. Look at me, I'm as big as you are, but I gets lots of 
boys, I could fuck someone different every night if I wanted to. You 
have to dress right, and you have to stand proud, and you have to flaunt 
what you've got. And you have to try to attract the sort of man who's 
attracted by big strong girls, not soft skinny ones." "It's all very 
well for you, Diana. You're very pretty, and you aren't as big-bodied as 
I am. And you're young." Which brought me into the discussion again. 
"Diana? Pretty? No way, she's absolutely plain ..." "Thank you Michael" 
"... no, Diana, it's true, you don't have a pretty face, you know that, 
but it doesn't matter, you're the sexiest girl I've ever met, and you've 
got that incredible body" hang on, it was Judy I was trying to convince, 
not Diana, so I turned back to her "and you're just as good-looking as 
Diana, and if you're a bit broader in the beam, so what, and you 
certainly aren't old, last time I looked you were forty two." Oops. You 
aren't supposed to mention a woman's age, but Judy didn't seem to 
notice, she was thinking, and looking at Diana. "Really?" Diana said 
"Yes, Judy, you've got to give yourself a chance, I mean dressed like 
that of course men won't be interested, your whole way of dressing says 
'Go away, I'm not interested'. But if you made yourself look nice, you'd 
get zillions of men after you. And men are ever so nice really, and you 
can have so much fun with them," Diana concluded with a grin. 

Judy looked wistful. "If only ..." she said, looking at me. "She's 
right, Judy." Diana nodded, vigourously. "Look, Judy, you come with me, 
I'm going back down to London now, and we can go out and get you some 
decent clothes, you'll see what a difference it makes." Judy shook her 
head sadly. "I'm too big, they won't fit. I have to wear maternity 
smocks, fat women's clothes. I can't get anything nice that fits." Diana 
grabbed her hand. "Yes you can, how do you think I cope? There's special 
shops in London for big people, I go there. Come on, Judy." Judy put up 
her last defence, and it wasn't much. "I can't afford it, nurses don't 
get paid much, and I don't have much of a clothing budget." And with 
that, Diana just dragged her out of the door, saying "Don't be silly, 
I've got oodles, I'll pay, us Valkyries are like sisters, don't worry 
about it ..." and I could hear them arguing as they got into Diana's 
Morgan and she drove away. 

I sat and listened to the silence. It was like someone had suddenly 
switched off the TV, like life had suddenly ended. The contrast between 
the noise and excitement with two Valkyries in the room talking and 
arguing, and the silence of loneliness was too much for me, so I left 
Henshaw's flat, and went home, to do some more work on Viking trading 
patterns. She'd been so taken with meeting another Valkyrie, she hadn't 
even said good-bye to me. I didn't cry myself to sleep, but I felt very 
sorry for myself. 

Over the next few weeks, I saw them occasionally, when they deigned to 
visit a mere man, and we all went out in Diana's car, which could just 
about hold two people plus a dog. Guess who had the doggie seat. And 
they were telling me about their adventures; Diana was obviously 
relishing her role as teacher to Judy, and Judy was plainly lapping up 
everything about being a Valkyrie. Gradually, over those weeks, she 
changed from being a bit introverted and quiet, to being a lot more 
boisterous (although not as rowdy as Diana). Diana told stories about 
her amorous adventures; she seemed to have a different guy every night, 
and Judy told me about Diana's two live-ins. 

Although Diana was young and intense, she was half my age, and I 
increasingly found myself sitting next to Judy on these outings. One 
evening, several weeks later, Judy turned up at my flat carrying a 
couple of suitcases. Judy, but not Judy. I mean, it was Judy, but Judy 
as I'd never seen her before. Judy after Diana had gotten through with 
her, a Valkyriefied version of Judy. "Hello, Michael." "Jesus, Judy." 
She twirled. "What do you think?" "Jesus, Judy." She put her hands 
behind her head pushing her shoulders back and her chest forward. "You 
like?" "Jesus, Judy." She looked down at my trousers, and she could see 
exactly what I was thinking. She smiled. "Yes, I know. I hadn't realised 
I could do that. Diana showed me lots of things." 

They'd gone to the shop that Diana used, and bought Judy some new 
clothes. Tops and bottoms, Valkyries can't buy nice dresses off the peg. 
But the silk shirt that Judy was wearing left absolutely nothing to the 
imagination. I hadn't realised she was so big up top. Well she wasn't 
that big before. Was she? So where had it all come from? I asked her. "I 
used to wear a tube top, to make myself look less, er, big, you know? 
Diana wanted to burn it, and we had a little ceremony with a can of 
petrol. She said I should flaunt my breasts, and anything else I had 
lots of. And when I said that men didn't like women who looked like 
that, she took me surfing, and proved it." "Surfing?" "That's what she 
called it. Oh Golly, but it's fun. We dressed up, all silky and sexy, 
short skirts, high heels, and we went down to London, and travelled on 
the tube in the rush hour. What you do, is you get on at one end of the 
train, then you put your hands behind your back, and you push through 
the jammed crowds to the other end. You keep score by counting the 
erections." I tried to imagine a woman like Judy pushing past me in a 
crowd, her front crushing against me, her hands behind her back, and I 
nearly wet myself just at the thought. "Oh Michael, I never knew, I 
never realised. Surfing is such fun, it's so good." Pretty good too for 
the men being surfed, I should think. "And then we went to Harrods, and 
she showed me lift surfing." "What's that?" "You get in a lift that's 
already crowded, and you push in using your breasts as a battering ram. 
Then, once you're in and the doors are closed, you slowly turn round. 
And count the big trousers again! Not bad for a forty-two year old 
fatty." "Judy, you're not fat ..." "I know, I know, I'm a big bad 
Valkyrie, and I've come to get you!" 

She'd obviously had a wonderful time causing consternation (and probably 
more) among the male population of London. But I can see how it would do 
a lot for a girl's confidence, and I guessed that surfing had played a 
large part in improving Judy's self image. "Yes, of course it did. Oh, 
Michael, I never knew, there's so many men who fancy a woman like me. I 
nodded, very vigourously, took my courage in both hands, and said "I do, 
for one." She smiled. "I know, Michael. Diana told me. You've got a real 
thing about Valkyries" and she walked towards me until her body was so 
close to mine we were touching, and then I leaned forward an inch and I 
felt the hard sexy body of my good friend Judy. I kissed her, or to be 
more accurate, she kissed me and I tried to breathe and kiss her back. 
Then I felt her strong arms go round me, and pick me up. "Diana said I 
would have to do this quickly. I'm a Valkyrie and I'm going to drink 
your blood" "No, that's vampires" "So what do Valkyries do?" "I don't 
know, what *do* Valkyries do?" She carried me into the bedroom and put 
me down on the bed. "Fuck you. Before you mess your trousers." And she 
put one hand on my waistband and pulled, and my trousers just fell 
apart. And she was right; about one second after she got me inside her, 
I exploded with an orgasm. "Shhh" she said, holding me afterwards, as I 
tried to apologise for my premature ejaculation. "Don't worry, that one 
doesn't count. We'll do it properly later." 

"Judy, there's something I've got to tell you." "What's that?" "Well, 
you know I told you about Nicola, and how I loved and lost? How I was so 
stupid, and left her for a year to study in Norway, and when I came back 
I'd lost her?" "I know", she said, and cuddled me close to her. "But 
that was then, and this is now, and I'm a Valkyrie, and no-one else 
matters." I persisted, I had to confess this. "Ever since then, I've 
been, well, Judy, this is very difficult for me." "Mmmh?" she said, 
lazily. "I can't. You know? I can't." "Can't what?" "Oh, Judy, you know 
what I mean. I can't get it up, not when I'm with a woman." She reached 
down between my legs, and said "What's this then?" And she was right, it 
was a bit stiff. And then it was really quite stiff. And then she 
stroked it a little, and it felt huge and hard and capable of going 
anywhere and doing anything. "You might not be up to much with a woman, 
but Diana told me you were hot stuff with a Valkyrie, and I think she's 
right." 

She encouraged me on top of her, and I lay on top of her body, and it 
felt hard and soft, an extraordinary combination. I mean, it wasn't that 
parts of her were hard and parts were soft (although her breasts were a 
*lot* softer than any other part of her). But everything had that 
hard/soft feel; soft on the surface, but hard as rock underneath. If I 
pressed my fingers into her, they'd sink in a little way, but then 
they'd encounter something like oak, and I knew it was that two inch 
thick layer of muscle that every Valkyrie seems to have. 

She did something with her legs, and something with her arms, and then 
she was gripping my penis inside her, gripping my shoulders with her 
arms, and gripping my waist with her legs. It was like being locked 
inside a wall of muscle, I'd never dreamed that it could be like this. 
Nicola hadn't been anything like this, the few times we'd coupled. 
Nicola had been nice, Nicola had been very nice, but Judy was taking me 
to a placed I hadn't known existed, a place where there was just me and 
a wonderful woman, sorry, Valkyrie, and although I was in the dominant 
top position and she was in the submissive place underneath, I knew that 
it was her that initiated, that took the lead, and I was just passively 
responding. 

She was right about the first time not counting, because the second 
time, she drew out my pleasure until I was almost screaming. And then we 
talked about things, about the things that lovers talk about, and if you 
don't know what that is, I'm sorry for you. She let me rest for about an 
hour, and then she said "Play time again." 

I didn't really feel up to it, but I didn't resist. One thing I've 
learned from Diana, is how to handle a Valkyrie. I'll pass the technique 
along, it's very simple. You do whatever she wants, whenever she wants 
it, and you hope she knows about being gentle with men. And the same 
technique worked with Judy, and she'd learned about gentleness from 
Diana, thank goodness, but she was my best friend before anyhow, and now 
she was my best friend and my lover. And it was great. 

Afterwards, she held me close to her big body, and I ran my hands up and 
down, feeling the Valkyrie strength, feeling that thick layer of muscle 
that covered her body, the fine layer of fat that smoothed over the 
muscles, and the thin sensitive skin that protected it all from the 
world. And I discovered that Valkyries love to have their breasts 
touched, stroked and fondled, especially their nipples, so I did a lot 
of that for her. She told me that it wasn't just her, Diana said all 
Valkyries are especially sensitive there, so that's another tip for you. 
And I started to get her aroused again, until she said "Michael, you can 
carry on doing this, I like it, but don't you realise what it's leading 
to?" And I said, "No chance, I don't think I'll be able to go again for 
a week" and carried on stroking her soft body. Yes soft, because her 
skin was soft and velvety, and the hardness of the muscles underneath 
wasn't a factor. Until she said "You're wrong, Diana showed me this" and 
She wiggled her hips and bucked a couple of times, and my soft penis was 
resting on her cleft. Then she spread her legs and opened herself up, 
and my dick fell inside her. And then, and then, something with a grip 
like steel, a grip like silk, squeezed and released, clenched and 
relaxed, and somehow, something in my groin knew what to do, because it 
started getting at least semi-hard, I'm not sure exactly what was 
happening because I was still a bit numb from the last time. What I do 
know, though, was that her powerful vagina sucked another orgasm out of 
me, a small one, but very nice, very nice indeed, and my eyes closed and 
either I fell asleep or I passed out, I'm not really sure which. The 
last thing I knew was a gentle kiss, and "Sweet boy, sweet dreams" 
before the lights went out. 

I woke up feeling happy. For a moment, I couldn't think why, then I 
remembered my ex-friend Judy, no longer a friend, now a lover, and both 
of us much the better for it. I turned over, but she wasn't there. The 
warm glow inside me was, though. Was this what I'd been missing all 
those years? How incredibly stupid I'd been - on the other hand, I'd not 
come in contact with a Valkyrie before. Happy and fulfilled, but very 
very tired. I remembered Judy having more sex with me in one night than 
the rest of my life put together, which wasn't difficult, and I drifted 
back to sleep. 

I woke up again a lot later, looked at the clock, and realised I had 
fifteen minutes to get to my lecture, otherwise there would be a lot of 
disappointed Medieval History undergraduates (or possibly some very 
happy undergrads, they don't all like lectures). I threw some clothes on 
and raced out - Judy was nowhere to be seen. I managed to get through 
the lecture - the economics of the monasteries in the thirteenth 
century. 

As I watched the students file out, I was mentally sorting them. I 
spotted three girls who had the right colouring, but not really the 
right build, unless Valkyries bulked up after their teens. I'd ask Diana 
or Judy. And I realised that there was so much that none of us knew. 
Henshaw was right about one thing, it would be a good idea to make a 
proper scientific study of the Valkyrie. He was just wrong about how he 
went about it. I also realised that I was now checking out every female 
I saw for possible Valkyrieness. Valkyriehood? I decided on Valkyrility, 
well, someone has to invent the vocabulary. And Valkyrility was rapidly 
becoming my main research field. 

I got back home, and phoned Judy, and left a message on her machine, 
when can we get together again? Then I started to make a plan, something 
I should have done before, and something very like what Henshaw had 
planned. I wanted to do the first ever analysis of Valkyrility, the 
phenomenon that we called "The Valkyrie", the name had stuck now. 

The medical work Henshaw had done gave me the basis for the 
physiological explanation, but I wanted to do so much more. Was Diana 
right about the inheritance only via the female line? Was it really only 
one in sixteen? At what age did the typical Valkyrie characteristics 
(the belt of muscle, the big breasts, the large arms and legs) develop? 
Presumably, the thicker bones and the displaced tendons were present 
from an early age, but how early? And was it a total package, or could 
you have the displaced tendons without the muscle belt? No-one had ever 
investigated this stuff before. And what were the sociological 
implications? Diana told me about the negotiating advantages that 
Valkyries had against men, but what did this mean in practice? What 
would it be like for an ordinary man to live with a Valkyrie? Which 
triggered off another thought - is there a male equivalent?  And so on, 
and so forth. There was so much to do. I made a list, and started to 
prioritise it, then I realised that I was being silly. What I ought to 
do, is find out what Diana and Judy wanted to know, and put that at the 
top of the list. 

Because I really was beginning to get the hang of dealing with a 
Valkyrie. Instant and unquestioning obedience was a good start, even 
though they didn't actually demand it, but if I thought about it, there 
was so much more. When challenged, roll over on your back and show her 
your belly, seemed to work quite well. Finding out what she wants, and 
doing it before you're even asked is a much better plan. Judy had helped 
by telling me that her breasts are her most sensitive area - well, if 
she wanted her breasts stroked, that was mighty fine with me! And Diana 
told me about one of her weaknesses, she can't stand seeing a man cry, 
so I knew that if I ever felt like bursting into tears with a Valkyrie 
around, I shouldn't try to hold back. 

So, anticipate their wants. Well, I knew Diana wanted to go to Bayreuth, 
to hear the Ring, and I guessed that Judy would want to go as well. And 
I have to say, the thought of listening to a major opera cycle in the 
company of two strong beautiful Valkyries was getting me aroused. So I 
cycled round to a travel agent, and (using Diana's credit card) made 
bookings for travel, hotel and opera tickets for three. I booked two 
rooms, and hoped that I would be sharing with Judy, or maybe even with 
Diana, and not be the odd one out. 

The evening she returned from London, Judy came back from work looking 
very upset. I greeted her with a kiss, and she started to tell me about 
her day. "This was the first time I'd gone to work as a Valkyrie," she 
said. "What do you mean?" She meant, dressed as a Valkyrie. Not trying 
to hide that big strong body and the large sexy breasts. Wearing a cream 
silk blouse tucked into a short skirt, and a feminine tailored jacket 
which apparently (she said) is a kind of Valkyrie uniform (I bet that's 
Diana speaking). And no bra, of course. "Of course," I said. Anyway 
first off, the hospital Director-General had started giving her flak, 
although she'd been entitled to the weeks off she'd spent in London, 
some sort of crisis had blown up in her absence, and he was roasting her 
for not being there. "And I stood there in the corridor saying Yes Sir 
and No Sir, and then I though, hang on, a man is talking to a Valkyrie 
like this? What would Diana have done." "Diana doesn't like hurting men" 
I reminded her, having a major stake in this idea myself. "I know, but 
honestly Michael, he was practically abusing me there in the corridor, 
in public. And then he started on the way I was dressed, he said I was 
out of Nurses uniform while on the job, and I explained that senior 
sisters like me only have to wear uniform when we're on ward duty, which 
I wasn't today, and he just started to go on and on at me, about 
discipline and stuff. Oh, Michael, if I'm a Valkyrie, I can't let men 
treat me like that! I have to have respect." "So what did you do?" 
"Well, you're right, I didn't want to hurt him, just get some proper 
respect. I'll show you what I did." 

I tried to draw back, suspecting that I rather didn't want this 
demonstration, but she just followed me until she had me against a wall. 
Then she took my head with one hand, and pulled it down against her 
breasts, and held me with my nose deep in her cleavage. At first, I 
struggled a bit, but then I realised she wasn't hurting me, just making 
my head stay there, and it was rather nice. But she held me there, and 
when I tried to say something I was muffled, and then I started to feel 
short of breath, and I started to struggle again, even though it's a 
pretty hopeless idea for a man to try to fight off a Valkyrie. But she 
let me go immediately, and asked "Are you all right?" Uh, yes, I was. 
"That's supposed to be a punishment?" I said, grinning. She nodded, 
seriously. "Diana showed it to me. It's for when you want to humiliate 
and intimidate a man in public without hurting him." Yes, I could see 
that if she did that to anyone else, it would have that effect. "I held 
him like that for several minutes, until he stopped struggling. When I 
let go of him, he was crying, so I took him to his office, wiped his 
face, blew his nose and told him that I'd look after him." Tip of the 
month - when attacked by a Valkyrie, burst into tears. It's a great 
defence, they don't know how to handle it. 

So I told her about my arrangements for the three of us to go to 
Bayreuth for the Ring, and she was really pleased. "And while we're 
there, I'll be researching Wagner's sources on Valkyries, see what I can 
find out." "You know Diana's three big questions?" While Judy had been 
in London, she and Diana had been talking non-stop. Diana was giving 
Judy masses of help in how to be a Valkyrie, which was completely new to 
her, but Judy was about 20 years older, which meant that she knew a lot 
of things that Diana hadn't. "And what are the three big questions?" 

First, can she have babies? We'd determined that Diana's ova could be 
fertilised by ordinary sperm, and although that wasn't quite the same 
question, it meant that she probably had roughly the same chance of 
being infertile as any ordinary woman. That, of course, wasn't a good 
enough answer for Diana, but the only more definitive answer would 
involve actually having a baby, as far as I could see. 

Second, is there a male equivalent of the Valkyrie? I'd given some 
thought to this, and I reckoned that if there were, he'd be very 
visible. He'd be a world class weightlifter, or bodybuilder or 
something, he'd have no reason to hide it like Judy used to. So, the 
fact that we couldn't see any male Valkyries, meant either there weren't 
any, or else the condition meant something very different for men. I 
speculated. Maybe the male equivalent is to be small and weak? In which 
case, that wasn't much use to the big strapping women I knew. 

The third big question, boiled down to - is there a downside? Is there 
some huge drawback to being a Valkyrie that we hadn't discovered yet? On 
that question, only time could tell - time, plus talking to the oldest 
Valkyries I could find. 

That evening, Judy moved in to my flat. She didn't ask me, she just told 
me, and I knew that my life would never be the same again. I was no 
longer a bachelor, free to come and go, to do as I pleased. And she made 
it clear from day one that she wasn't planning to be a housewife, 
either. No surprise there, I couldn't imagine a Valkyrie in a pinafore! 
But she did say she'd help me with the cooking and housework 
occasionally. And that night, she showed me why I should be extremely 
grateful to share my lodgings with a Valkyrie. This time, I didn't 
suffer from premature ejaculation, and she demonstrated some more of the 
things that Diana had taught her. 

Afterwards, as I lay on top of her, her arms round me, she raised the 
subject of Diana. "Are you in love with her?" she asked bluntly. "I had 
thought I was, but it was so one way, nothing came of it. She must think 
I'm a complete wimp." "No worse than other men, Michael. No, she likes 
you, she told me she's very fond of you, and you make her laugh." "And I 
like her too, she's a lot of fun, and ever so nice, and great to look 
at, but..." "But?" "Well, she can be so sweet and gentle, but ..." 
"But?" I nestled as close to her as I could get, and kissed one of her 
nipples, I knew she liked that. "She's so intimidating!" 

"Explain." "She intimidates me. I don't think she does it on purpose, I 
think she just automatically intimidates all men. She wears that 
terrible whip round he waist ..." "She's ordered one for me" I shivered, 
thinking about lovely Judy wearing a twenty-foot bullhide whip round her 
waist. "She calls it 'Man-beater' ..." "That's just a name," she said, 
"You mustn't read too much into it." I nodded. "The knife she carries in 
her hair is probably illegal, it's certainly intimidating." "She says 
that a Valkyrie has to carry a weapon." "You don't, Judy" Judy pulled 
the brooch out of her hair, and pushed her fingers through it, turned 
and smashed her fist into the table. It sounded like a sledgehammer 
blow. "Knuckles", she said. "got them in London. A Valkyrie has to carry 
a weapon."  Unhhh. "And she says things like 'Valkyries shouldn't hurt 
men'". "What's wrong with that, I think she's right." "Yes, Judy, but 
don't you see, just the fact that she says it, and keeps on saying it, 
draws your attention to the opposite." 

Judy moved slightly under me, and I clutched at her breast to avoid 
falling off. "It's all right, baby, I've got you" she said. "And have 
you ever been on the back of her motorbike?" "Sure, we used it all the 
time to get round London." And isn't that intimidating?" "She's a fast 
driver, yes, but she's perfectly safe." Which gave me a thought, I 
wonder if Valkyrie reflexes are as fast as normal? Another test to make. 
"Michael, her whole job is based on her ability to totally intimidate 
and dominate a group of men, very quickly. Has she ever hurt you?" 
"Apart from when we first met, to prove to me that she wasn't faking? 
No, she hasn't, she's such a gentle girl really." "So what is it, then?" 

"Judy, I don't want to make a big deal out of this, and I know I'm being 
silly, so just humour me, but if it came to it, you'd protect me, 
wouldn't you?" I won't go into her answer, which was long, complicated 
and very physical, but the essence of it was, yes. But thinking about 
it, there hadn't been any kind of election (I can't see Valkyries 
holding a democratic election), or a battle (which seemed more the 
thing), but Diana seemed to be Head Valkyrie, and she wasn't the oldest, 
because Judy was older, and she wasn't the strongest, because Diana had 
told me that Freya was stronger than her, from all that wrestling and 
weight lifting. Maybe she just had the most charisma, or something. 


The following Monday, Judy and I set off for Bayreuth. We met Diana at 
London Airport, and on the plane, where the seats are notoriously 
narrow, I found myself sandwiched between the two women. I felt like the 
sliver of ham you sometimes find between two thick slices of bread. But 
nice, very nice. I think it's the soft coating of fat over the hard 
layers of muscle that gives a Valkyrie such a wonderful feel. Or maybe 
it's the velvety skin. 

We arrived at Bayreuth and collected our bags from the carousel. 
Naturally, the girls wouldn't let me carry the big heavy ones, which 
makes perfect sense of course, except I hadn't reckoned on the dirty 
looks I got as I strolled, almost unencumbered, with the girls carrying 
two suitcases each while I coped with a small bag. I wanted to explain 
to people that either of the girls could handle all five cases plus me 
tucked under one arm, but I couldn't, so I just ignored the dirty looks. 

At the hotel, we had a problem. I'd booked two rooms, one double and a 
single. Of course, my idea was that Judy and I would share, with Diana 
in the single. Diana however, wanted to bunk in with Judy so they could 
talk most of the night. And I've made a rule for myself, never argue 
with a Valkyrie. It's a good rule, because arguing with Diana was like 
telling the tide not to come in, no, more like standing in front of a 
bulldozer, and I felt sure that Judy would be just as impossible. So I 
just walked over to Judy and put my hand in hers, and stroked the back 
of her hand, and she looked over to Diana and said "I don't really want 
Michael to sleep alone." I think I'm getting quite good at this. So 
Diana and Judy compromised; they'd share the double, and I'd join them 
to sleep. Ham sandwiches in spades! 

We sorted out the suitcases, Diana carried mine to my room because they 
wouldn't hear of me doing it for myself, "You've got to save your 
strength" and they both giggled. She plonked it down on the luggage rack 
and then just stood there, waiting. "Er ..." I said, quizzically. "Tip?" 
she said. Uh. She doesn't want money, what on earth - oh. I'm stupid. I 
moved towards her and she gathered me in and kissed me. "Michael, I'm so 
glad you and Judy have got together. She's just what you need, I'm much 
too young for you." "You mean, you might have ...?" "Shhh, hush. 
Probably. Maybe. Anyway, it doesn't matter, Judy will take care of you." 
and she kissed me again and held me against her hard/soft Valkyrie body. 
Then she released me, and disappeared out the door. My knees buckled and 
I sat down on the bed, and couldn't stand for several minutes while the 
weakness of my knees was matched only by the hardness of my prick. It 
wasn't that Diana knew how to press my buttons, it was more that *any* 
button she pressed worked fine. 

After I got unpacked, I went to visit the girls, not that I'd call them 
girls to their face. They were unpacking, but they'd also started a 
fashion show; Diana had brought a whole bunch of new clothes for Judy, 
who was trying them on, and Diana was showing off some of her new 
things. Valkyries are very like ordinary girls in some ways. I just sat 
on the bed and watched. I know it really had nothing to do with the 
academic pursuit of history, or the scientific study of Valkyrism (the 
study of Valkyries must be Valkyrology) but I felt that a Valkyrie 
fashion parade was something I ought to watch. And it wasn't as easy to 
watch as you might think. They demanded audience participation, and I 
had to help with zips and bows and hooks and eyes and things. 

Then we went down for dinner, the girls looking gorgeous in evening 
dresses, me in a blazer and trousers, not grotty-looking, but not 
exactly a peacock. Anyway, who'd be a peacock when the peahens get all 
the attention? 

So there we were, munching away at dinner, listening to the live 
pianist, when this tall blond (men are blond, women are blonde, it's 
terrible being an academic, things like that become important to you) 
stranger with an extremely short haircut came over to our table. He 
bowed, clicked his heels, and said in a thick German accent, "Mein 
nommer ist Seigfried. Your daughter to dance with me to ask may I?" I 
think all three of us went through the same thought processes, two of 
which consisted of "Do I look that old?" but Judy spoke first. "Yes, you 
may ask her." So he turned through fifteen degrees (did he practice 
this? had he measured it with a protractor?), bowed again and said to 
Diana "Could I the honour of this dance have?" And she blushed, for 
heaven sake, I've never seen her blush, and whispered yes, stood up, and 
they walked over to stand next to the piano. "Judy, she blushed!" Judy 
laughed. "Watch this", and Judy blushed, too. "That's not possible, it's 
involuntary. Is that another Valkyrie thing?" Judy shook her head. 
"Watch carefully", and she did it again. And this time I saw, she wasn't 
blushing, she was bringing her hands up to her face and hiding, then 
peeking out. She didn't actually go red, my mind had just assumed that. 
"Diana showed me this trick." 

So we watched as Diana and Siegfried twirled and spun round where the 
piano was. And then they had a word with the pianist, and he played 
again, and they danced again. After an hour of this, I said to Judy 
"There's not a lot of point in us hanging about", so we got up and left. 
Diana waved her fingers at us over Siegfried's shoulder as we left. 

I spent the night with Judy, and only Judy. The expected ham sandwich 
didn't happen, I'm glad to say, I'm not too sure what happens to a man 
in between two Valkyries, and when we woke up, there was still a total 
lack of Diana. We went down to breakfast, walked round the town, back to 
the hotel - still no Diana. So Judy got herself ready for the opera, 
wearing a white dress with a long skirt, arms bare, hair up in a high 
bun, looking absolutely stunning with her big body in contrast to the 
feminine white dress. We decided that Diana would have to take care of 
herself, so we went to Act One of Das Rheingold and settled down to be 
enthralled. 

If you don't know the plot, go to http://www.utu.fi/~hansalmi/topi.html 
or http://www.azopera.com/dr_story.htm. If you want to see the opera 
yourself, search the web for the word "Nibelungen", and you'll find 
someone is performing it, somewhere.  Here's the plot of Das Rheingold. 
The crucible set for the Gods is heated when the forge begins to form 
the powerful Ring in the underworld of Nibelheim. Wotan bargains with 
the Giants to build the glory of Valhalla and risks the Gods' 
immortality. To appease the Giants and ensure eternal youth, Wotan 
steals the Rhinegold and the Ring from the evil dwarf, Alberich, and 
gives it to the Giants. In fury, Alberich spits forth the Ring's 
unforgiving curse. 

When we got back to the hotel that evening, we found that Diana was 
lying asleep in our bed, in her usual posture; naked, flat on her back, 
one arm covering her bush, the other one up behind her head. She looks 
almost pretty like that. Judy went to wake her up, but I grabbed her arm 
just in time. "Er, Judy, that might not be wise." "Why?" "See her hand, 
behind her head?" "Yes?" "She's holding Cat's Claw, she sleeps with it 
in her hand, at least, she has ever since Henshaw." "So?" "What happens 
when you wake her up?" "I don't know, what happens when you wake her 
up?" "I don't know either, but I don't want to be within range of that 
knife." Judy nodded. "Good point." I groaned, it isn't only academics 
that make bad puns. "So Michael, you wake her." "Me?" I squeaked. "No 
way." "Go on, Michael, you're a man, she won't hurt you." 

I didn't much feel like testing that theory, maybe she won't spot the 
difference in time. So I took a spare pillow from the wardrobe, and 
threw it at her. There was a flurry or movement, and then feathers 
filled the air like a snowstorm. Diana sat up. "Oh, hello guys. What's 
this?" "This" was an unstuffed pillow. Diana spat a few feathers out of 
her mouth, slid her knife back into its scabbard, and said "What 
happened?" So I explained that she was sleeping with her knife in her 
hand, and I didn't fancy getting close enough to wake her, or to put it 
another way, close enough to get my throat cut, and she laughed. "I 
wouldn't hurt you, Michael, don't be silly." Yes, I thought, but would 
she recognise me in time. "Do you have to sleep with the knife in your 
hand?" Diana looked serious. "I wasn't aware that I was. I never used 
to." "Henshaw" said Judy.  Diana nodded, "I expect you're right." 
"Couldn't you put the knife away when you go to bed?" Diana thought 
about this for a moment. "Not really. A Valkyrie always carries a 
weapon, even when she's naked." I thought of Judy's knuckle duster, and 
wondered what else you could find in a Valkyrie's hair. I reached up to 
Judy's head and felt her chignon, and I could feel the cold hard metal 
inside. Judy smiled, sat down on the bed, and changed the subject. 

"So what happened with Siegfried? Appropriate name, don't you think?" 
Diana smiled, a long, lazy smile like a cat that had just finished a 
kilo of fish and a litre of cream. "He was nice." "So what happened, 
Diana?" Diana looked at me, then at Judy.  Then she looked at Judy, 
smiled, and nodded at me. "Oh. Michael," Judy said, "You go to bed, 
we'll join you later. Come on, Diana, we'll go to your room and you can 
tell me there." I guess some things aren't for male ears, so I went to 
bed. 

I was woken up a couple of hours later, by a lot of giggling, and a 
large body pushed me over to the left of the bed. Then another large 
body pushed me over to the right, except that there was already a large 
body there that didn't move. So I was squashed in the middle, feeling 
more like a nut in a nutcracker than ham in a sandwich. Both girls 
turned their backs to me and moved away from the edge, and I was trapped 
between two large and hard bodies. 

But not just hard. You see, Diana only slept naked when she was alone. 
When she had company, she liked to wear a sexy night dress, on the 
principle that if you cover things up slightly, it's more erotic. Not 
that Diana's idea of a sexy night dress covered up very much. And Judy 
did the same - in fact, Judy seemed to have picked up quite a lot of 
what Diana did. So although I was crushed between two hard bodies, there 
was the soft layer of fat covering them, and then a very silky fabric 
against my skin. I was in a torment of erotic desire, yet having trouble 
breathing, they were too close together, and squashing me. There was 
only one way out. "Judy" I whispered. She shifted slightly, in the wrong 
direction, towards me, and there wasn't any slack. I reached out and 
shook her shoulder. "Judy" I whispered more urgently, and shook her 
again. "Mmmh?" she mumbled, and turned over, taking me in her arms. That 
made things better, because her front was a lot softer than her back, 
and her arms kept Diana off me. Which left me with the other problem - 
part of me was even harder than the two Valkyries that sandwiched me. 

Fortunately, I've discovered something else about Valkyries. Their 
bellies and breasts are very sensitive, and if you stroke them gently, 
they get terribly turned-on. So I brought my hand up between us, and 
rubbed Judy's breasts. I felt her nipples harden under my fingers, and I 
felt the sexual tension in her body. Now she was fully awake, and I felt 
her arms tighten around me. "Try not to wake up Diana", I whispered. I 
didn't fancy the consequences of a randy Diana wanting to take a 
turn at me after Judy, I'm not exactly a young man any more. Judy kissed 
me softly, and pulled me on top of her. "Diana showed me this" she 
whispered - was there anything Diana hadn't taught her? Her legs parted, 
and she pushed me down, lifted me and then pulled me up, and my penis 
was engulfed in her warm wet vagina. "Now keep still" she said, as if I 
could do anything else with her arms holding me like a vice. So I kept 
perfectly still, and so did Judy, except I started to feel a clenching, 
gripping, squeezing feeling as she used her vagina to manipulate my 
penis inside her. "Diana told me that Valkyries have very strong sexual 
muscles, Michael. Is that true?" I was beyond speech, I could manage a 
soft grunt. "You know that two inch layer of muscle round my body?" 
"Unh, unh." "Well, we have the same layer inside our vaginas" "Urggh, 
Unggh" "Not two inches, of course" "nng, nng, ngg" "Only an inch or so, 
but that's enough, isn't it?" "Aah, aah. Anngh". "And if I squeeze like 
this ..." "Arrgh" "... and clench like this ..." "No ... nononono." ".. 
and stop you from making too much noise like this ..." her tongue 
invaded my mouth like a gag, her mouth covered mine "mmh, mmh" "... and 
just grip and release, and GRIP." There was an orgasm just waiting to 
explode inside me, but Judy's powerful body was stopping it. I squirmed 
and wriggled and screamed "MMMMMMMMM" but nothing came out, until she 
suddenly released the pressure, and let me come. "MMMMMM. MMM. MMMM." 
She held me tight until the last spasm had wracked my body, then she 
withdrew her tongue and let me breathe again through my mouth. She kept 
her arms round me, though, and I stayed on top of her until I fell 
asleep, which didn't take very long. I can't imagine why anyone would 
screw an ordinary woman if a Valkyrie is available. 

When we woke up next day, Diana said to me "Have a good time last 
night?" I blushed and nodded, she'd heard? "Couldn't help hearing, you 
were making so much noise!" she grinned. I thought we'd been careful. 
"Tell you what, next time, I'll hold you still so Judy can concentrate 
on what she's doing." I thought about that, and started getting aroused. 
She patted my groin and kissed my cheek, and just then Judy came back 
from the bathroom, and shooed Diana away from me. "Can't you see the 
poor boy's exhausted?" Well, I wasn't actually, I'd had rather a good 
night's sleep. 

"Now, Diana, you *must* join us this evening." "Must?" She raised one 
eyebrow at me. I don't know how she does that, I've practised and 
practised in front of a mirror, but I can't do it. Judy can do it too, 
but I've known ordinary women who can, so it can't be a special Valkyrie 
thing. "Must?" I backtracked rapidly. "Well, I think you'll want to. 
Tonight is the 'Die Walkure' part of the opera cycle." In case you 
didn't know, the Ring is four operas, usually performed in succession 
over a week. She put her hands behind her head. "Yes, you're right. I 
can't miss that one. Look, I'm sorry I missed Rheingold, but I was 
having such fun with Siegfried." "What did you get up to?" Diana looked 
at Judy, and Judy looked at Diana, and Diana shook her head slightly. 
Ruddy Valkyries, they're impossible to deal with! Never mind, I thought 
maybe I could persuade Judy later. And even if I couldn't, it would be 
fun trying. 

That afternoon, the three of us went out and walked round Bayreuth. It's 
a nice little town, it would be perfectly ordinary if it hadn't been for 
the opera house. We stopped to listen to an oompah band, we had knuckle 
of pork in a beer garden, we drank Bavarian beer, and generally had a 
good time. It started getting late, so we went back to the hotel to 
change for the evening. Judy says she needs at least an hour to get 
ready to go out, but it seems more like two hours to me. Diana seems to 
be able to get herself dolled up in five minutes. Judy says it's because 
she's younger, she has less work to do. I thought maybe Judy would get 
some help, but Diana just sat and made unhelpful comments. I thought 
Judy looked just fine, except that I don't think taffeta suits her. I 
mean, it isn't just taffeta, it's the whole bouffant skirt. The top 
looked fine though, well, Judy's top always looks fine. Diana wore a 
plain black dress, which I thought was much more effective, and went 
nicely with her hair, which she wore swept up. 

"Diana, I can't see Cat's Claw?" She smiled, and put her hands behind 
her back, and twirled for me. "I still can't see it." "That's good, 
then. You're not supposed to know it's there until too late." I thought 
about this. "That comb ..." She nodded. "But that isn't a knife." 
"There's nothing that says I have to carry a knife. Look at Judy." True, 
Judy favoured knuckle dusters. "But what use is a comb?" "Combs have 
teeth. Terribly sharp ones, in the case of Shark's Teeth. I could saw 
through wood with this, think what it would do to a man's throat." I 
thought. I sat down. I had this terrible urge to hide behind Judy, but 
that wouldn't be a very manly thing to do, so I just looked across to 
check that she was still there. Diana can be so *intimidating*. Then she 
laughed and came and sat next to me, and patted my cheek with her 
knuckles the way she does, which actually makes it worse, because her 
knuckles make me think of her fist, and what she could probably do with 
that, and she said "Don't be such an old silly, Michael." 

Eventually, Judy had everything how she wanted it, so we went down the 
lift, into the hotel lobby. Siegfried was sitting waiting, and when he 
saw us, he stood up and clicked his heels again. I gather it's only 
North Germans do this. Then he offered Diana his arm, Diana grinned at 
us happily, and they went off together. We didn't see them again that 
evening - Diana missed dinner, and she hadn't returned by the time we'd 
finished, so she also missed Die Walkure. And she didn't come back to 
the hotel that night. 

Here's what she missed. In the face of battle, Siegmund, fathered by 
Wotan, discovers that Sieglinde is his twin sister. Yet, they join as 
man and wife. Wotan knows he must kill Siegmund for his violation of the 
laws of matrimony. But unable to bear the agony of the deed, he sends 
the Valkyrie, Brunnhilde, in his place. She takes mercy on the two 
lovers. In anguish, Wotan causes Siegmund's death by shattering his 
sword in battle. Brunnhilde is made mortal as punishment for betraying 
Wotan, and he surrounds her with a wall of flame that can only be broken 
by a hero. A wall of flame. A portent of the fall of the Gods. 

We didn't see her at breakfast either, and I said to Judy, "Siegfried 
must have gotten lucky again", but Judy frowned at me, and said 
"Michael, you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." So I 
shut up. She turned up about noon, with a typical Diana the Valkyrie line. 
"Golly, I'm starving. Let's go kill a horse." So we went out to one of 
those eat-all-you-can places. I expect all the ones round where Diana 
lives went bankrupt long ago. On the way there, I saw Judy raise an 
eyebrow at Diana, and Diana shake her head quickly. I wondered what was 
going on. 

"How was your evening with Siegfried, Diana?" "Great." "What did you 
do?" "Went out." "And did you, did you make love?" "Michael, darling" 
she said, waggling a rather large beef bone at me, "How would you like 
to spend the next hour or so trying to get this out of the place that I 
insert it?" She's not subtle, is she? I looked at Judy for support, and 
Judy said "I'll hold him still for you, Diana." So I shut up. But I was 
a bit worried, Diana wasn't usually this reticent about her sex life. 
Usually, she would go into graphic, lascivious and totally unnecessary 
detail about her latest conquest, with hardly any encouragement at all. 

That evening, she missed Siegfried, the opera, not the person. After we 
got back to the hotel, she asked Judy if she could borrow her long satin 
evening dress, and they fussed around trying to get it to fit. They were 
the same height, but Judy is a quite a bit bigger in the bust, so they 
used brooches to shorten the straps, and it looked pretty good on Diana. 
We managed to talk her out of wearing her whip round her waist, it 
really didn't go with the dress. Because she had a date with Siegfried, 
the person, not the opera. Again, when we got back to the hotel, there 
was no Diana, so we didn't even think twice about it, we went to bed, 
talking about the Ring. Here's the summary. 

This is the third opera in the cycle. Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and 
Sieglinde, reforges Nothung, his father's shattered sword. and kills the 
dragon guarding the Ring. The Ring becomes his, as does the curse. And 
this young man of adventure discovers the fire containing the sleeping 
Brunnhilde. He wakens her to love. And to love's partner. Destiny. 

Meanwhile, my sleeping love was lying next to me, and I was thinking. 
"Judy." "Mmmh?" "Judy, listen." "Ummm?" "Judy, if he's Siegfried, is 
Diana Brunnhilde?" "Hum?" "Judy, if the German guy thinks he's 
Siegfried, does Diana think she's Brunnhilde?" "Don't be silly, Michael. 
Siegfried is a common German name. It means Victorious Man, or Hero, 
something like that." "But here in Bayreuth, don't you think it's a bit 
of a coincidence?" "Michael, darling, there must be thousands of men 
called Siegfried in Bayreuth. I expect they're commoner here than in 
other parts of Germany. Anyway, I think it's a nice name." I suppose so. 

We didn't see Diana that evening, that night, the next morning or the 
next afternoon. I told Judy I was worried, but Judy laughed, and said 
"What are you worried about. Diana out with a man?" Put that way, I 
suppose I was being a bit silly, but Diana really was acting oddly. That 
evening we went to see the climax of the cycle. 

The final part is called Gotterdammerung, the Twilight of the Gods. 
Answering the call to adventure, Siegfried plunges into a world of false 
friends, deceit, betrayal, and death. An herb potion and deception by 
Hagen, the evil dwarf's son, lead Siegfried to force Brunnhilde into 
marrying another man. Hagen ends Siegfried's Ring-cursed life with a 
spear in the back. Siegfried's funeral pyre and Brunnhilde's immolation 
ignite the heavens and earth. The Gods' fate is sealed in the final 
conflagration and the world awaits its rebirth. 

It was terrible when Hagen stabs Siegfried in the back, but when 
Brunnhilde (now a mortal) mounts Grane and rides into the fire, I cried, 
and so did Judy. We clung to each other in the opera hall, and when I 
recovered a bit, I noticed that several other people were crying too, 
partly because of the story, and partly because of the power of the 
music. Except that Judy and I had a special reason for identifying with 
Brunnhilde. 

When we got back to the hotel, there was still no sign of Diana. We went 
to bed, very quietly, but after a few minutes I whispered in the dark. 
"Judy." Two strong hands reached out and pulled me towards her. I rubbed 
her belly and breasts, and in the dark we very quietly made love, not 
fucked, we made love, and then afterwards we clung together and slept. 

I was woken up next morning by the sound of the two women talking. When 
I stirred and moved, they stopped, and Judy and Diana said "You just go 
and get packed", and so off I went to the other room. When I finished, I 
carried my bag to the double room, the girls had finished by then. And 
we all went downstairs to settle the bill and get the taxi to the 
airport. 

When we were in the plane, I tried to quiz Diana, to find out more about 
Siegfried, but she looked across me at Judy, as if to say "do 
something", and Judy kept me occupied until we landed.  

We all went to Diana's flat first, and she told Hassan and Kevin to take 
a walk for a few hours. Then she sat down cross-legged on the floor, 
Judy and I on the settee, and Judy held my hand, as Diana explained. 

"You wanted to know about Siegfried. Well, Michael, it isn't what you 
thought. And Judy, I haven't given you all the details, either, I didn't 
want to while we were still in Bayreuth. So, I'll give you a summary of 
the situation, then I'll tell you what happened while you were at the 
opera. OK?" I nodded, and got a good grip on Judy's hand. 

"You thought I was enjoying a good fuck while you were at the opera, 
right?" I nodded. "No. We didn't have sex, not even once. Siegfried is 
fighting the neo-nazis, and he wants us Valkyries to help. And I said 
yes." 

"But ... but ..." I said. 

"During the war, the Nazis tucked money away in Swiss banks, billions in 
gold, stolen from their victims. Now this money is being used to fund 
neo-nazi groups around the world. Siegfried is a member of an 
organisation devoted to frustrating their plans. But they have no 
resources, not enough people, no cash, no government backing, nothing. I 
told him I worked in a bank. And when I explained to him that I was a 
Valkyrie, he said "Gott has sent you" and he told me the whole thing, 
and asked if I and my sisters would help him. Well, we're not actually 
sisters, but, oh Michael, Judy, you should have seen what I saw. I'll 
tell you about it. And I agreed. But I couldn't tell you about it, not 
while we were in Bayreuth, you don't know who might be listening, or 
what might be bugged. Trust no-one, Siegfried said. They have agents and 
sympathisers everywhere." 

Judy nodded, she knew all that already. "Details, Diana. What were you 
doing those four days, what have you agreed to do, how will we do it, 
oh, millions of questions." 

"Right", said Diana, settling herself more comfortably. "Here's what 
happened, and what I saw and did, and what we're going to do." 

... 



Diana the Valkyrie 
Email me at valkyrie@thevalkyrie.com
Or via alt.amazon-women.admirers





You need to read "Diana's Crusade" to find out.