Sandra Hill by The Last Viking Page A

would,” Rolf contended. “Magnus has a fondness for big tits.”
    Meredith sputtered at that crudity.
    “Hi, Ms. Foster,” Amy Zapalski and Joleen Frank crooned in unison, halting whatever tirade she would have come up with for the coarse Viking. The girls’ eyes were glued on Rolf’s bulging biceps and tight buns, highlighted when he bent down to pick up a quarter he’d dropped. Then their observation moved on to the items he was purchasing. The girls glanced from Rolf to her to the garments, and giggled.
    Meredith cringed. She just knew the rumors would be flying around campus by morning. Professor in hot pink. Or would it be hot professor in pink? Or professor in pink with hot Viking?
     
    Two hours! They’d been in the supermarket for two hours! Meredith had never spent so much time in a grocery store in her entire life.
    Of all the odd things this odd Viking had encountered since arriving so oddly in her life, he claimed that the grocery store was the most marvelous. In the fruitsection, he’d examined each and every different item, and she’d had to stop him from eating as he went along.
    “But where does all this come from?” he’d exclaimed.
    “From all over the world.”
    “On ships?”
    “Some of it.”
    He’d had the same incredulous reaction in the vegetable department. “Who would have e’er guessed that so many bloody vegetables exist.”
    Then it was the boxes that held all the items in the store, whether they were cereals or pastas or ice cream. “I have ne’er seen a land with such a reverence for boxes.”
    Hmmm. She’d never thought about it before, but she guessed he was right.
    And metal cans, as well, drew his fascination.
    But the meat section alarmed him most. “I don’t understand. What do men in your country do? What is their role? If they are not the hunters and protectors of their families…” His words had trailed off in dismay. “Are men not men here?”
    “Men earn the money to take care of their families,” she’d tried to explain. “Well, actually, that’s not quite true. Today, in most families, the men and women both work. They share duties equally.”
    “Men are not the heads of the families?”
    “The roles aren’t defined like that anymore.” She’d stumbled in her explanation, and she could see that Rolf was still deeply troubled. The more time they spent in the giant supermarket, the more depressed he seemed to get.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “The excess. There’s too much of everything in your land. And it comes too easy. I don’t think I’d want to live in such a land. Surely, the men become soft. It’s all so confusing.”
    Meredith couldn’t argue with that.
    But now, her cart was overflowing, and even Rolf’s energies seemed to be flagging.
    “What are those?” he asked, nudging her to look at a toddler seated in his mother’s cart. The imp was eating Oreos with meticulous detail, taking the two cookies apart carefully, licking the icing with the tip of his little pink tongue, then crunching the outside wafers.
    Rolf licked his lips in imitation.
    “Those are Oreo cookies,” she said with a laugh. Really, Rolf was like a little boy himself sometimes. She pointed to the shelf behind him.
    Rolf put three packs in her cart, then added another.
    There was only one more aisle Meredith needed to hit. Personal products. She bought Rolf some deodorant, having to explain its purpose.
    He sniffed the open Mennen roll-on. “It’s acceptable, but it doesn’t smell as good as your drek.”
    Then she bought him a toothbrush, which he considered a good invention, though shredded twigs had done well enough in the past. She hesitated in one last section, then threw a box of condoms in the cart. Forget about pregnancy…a woman couldn’t be too cautious about AIDS these days.
    When Rolf asked what they were, she said she’d explain later. But he was persistent and sounded out the words aloud. “Tro-jan. Cone-dome.”
    “Rolf. Be quiet,” she