Swedish Rites
by Herbert

It was shortly after my second divorce that I decided to open the brown trunks that had been collecting dust in my attic for so many years. Those wooden chests were the only remainder of what I had inherited from Aunt Tone, and I had kept them mostly for the value of the nice antique carpentry but also for the promise they held inside, the warm recollections they brought to life. I would sort through the clothes inside, spread them out on my lap, feel their fabric... The white cotton dress with its fine lace and purple bands woven into the cloth, the brown winter skirt, heavy and sturdy and worn off at the hem, a reminder of the Swedish soil over which it had swept for so many years...

But what I was really after was this old diary, written by my aunt when she was half my age. Written in the language of my ancestors, which to re-learn had taken me years of evening classes, years of reading the large lettered books that my mom had kept from her childhood.

You will have figured out by now: aunt Tone was not just a dear relative to me. She was my link to the old world, she was the witness of a bygone age, a world of rites, traditions and clear midsummer nights. A world, where women wore bright dresses in summertime and long dark skirts in wintertime to fend off the snow and icy winds. Skirts that brushed the earth, that made a rustling sound with every step and stride. That kept the warmth close to the body, where it belongs.

Aunt Tone had emigrated from Sweden to the United States as a mature woman, leaving her grown up children and her husband behind to follow an Italian pianist who she had met in Stockholm and who adored her fervently. Although they never married, they stayed together until she died shortly before WW I, leaving behind this trunk that had been passed on to me through two generations, four cities, one war.

This was the woman to whose memoirs I turned, sentence by sentence, straining all the Swedish I had learned, plunging myself into a world where the encounter between humans was facilitated by codes, faith and rituals. Where the encounter between humans was less painful, less egotistic and more apt to uncover the mysteries of life, the mysteries of nature and the soul.

"In my youth, I was still living in Kongsberg in the Telemark, we celebrated every year the 'feast of the womanly bounty.'" The feast is as old as our people and based on an old myth, according to which a woman's ability to breast feed is passed to her through a small amount of milk that she herself has to drink from a lactating woman's breasts. And of course, milk was also thought to play a role in fertility, and that is where the guys came into play, but let me tell you one thing at a time...

How proud I was that I had been chosen to be one of the "maids of bounty," shortly after the birth of my first child. I was still tired from the sleepless nights but proud and radiant and happy as I had never been before. The feast brings together the people of the whole valley, and everyone pays attention and pays tribute to the young mothers so central to this rite... Anyway - a day before the feast I was given a new white dress by my mother, beautiful like a wedding dress but different - for right over each of my breasts it bore a long slit that was barely closed with a ribbon tied in a bow, a design whose function I will come to explain later.

The morning of the feast was crisp and clear. My mother led me to the market place where I met the other maids of bounty, who were all dressed like me, in the same white summer dresses with these curious slits over their breasts... And what breasts I saw! My mother had advised me to feed goat milk to my baby this morning as this was the customary preparation for the maids, and my fellow maids must have done the same for their breasts stood out quite visibly... At least I had this distinct feeling of engorgement in my breasts, this fine drawing, stretching sensation, and in anticipation of what was to follow my nipples stood out quite a bit...

We were greeted by the village elders, who put wreaths of white flowers on our heads. Then dancing started around the birch tree. My breasts were hindering me quite a bit and jumping was impossible so heavy did they feel. Finally we gathered for the ceremony: the maids were placed in the middle of the community meadow, on a long wooden bench. Everyone sat around on the grass and sang our summer songs.

After some words by the elders the pregnant women came forward, their bellies bulging under flapping dresses. They would drink from our breasts, would suck our nipples in order to be able to feed their babies soon to be born... We untied the ribbons on our dresses and lifted our bare breasts through the slits.

I let my eyes wander to the left and to the right and saw nothing but white and these milk-filled breasts showing through the dresses, the nipples shining in the sun. My neighbor's breasts were of this white glow of a reddish girl, with long pink nipples standing out on swollen areolas, pointing slightly up to her face. To the right was a friend of mine, with heavy, sagging breasts, that nearly made it down into her lap, the nipples already dripping with milk, white drops that shone like jewels, clinging to the nipples for a while and then falling into her lap one by one.

The pregnant women come closer and soon I felt this round belly between my knees, that moved closer and closer and came to rest right between my thighs, hard but warm and snugly. Then warm lips touching my nipple, stroking it, and finally a timid suck. Faint but strong enough to make my breast swell up and let go of a gush of milk right into the open mouth. Eyes large and surprised, the sound of swallowing. Then the wind cool at my nipple. Her tongue licking off the drops that formed. The other breast dripping, wetting my belly.

Then it came the time for the men, the men who were married but who hadn't been blessed with a child yet. Milk from a new mother was thought to boost fertility, to make them become fathers, heads of families. These men were standing in a row in front of us, young and dressed in their black Sunday combinations, bowing down to greet us, then approaching us with deliberate strides.

Soon they had found what was meant for them, kneeling on the grass, snuggling their heads into our bosoms. Most of the maids had two guests at their breasts because there were more men than maids, as usual... And these men were exploring, searching, trying to get as much from this sweet abundance as they could.

I had one man on each breast, latched onto them with desperate sucks. Both must have come from a remote village for I did not remember to have seen either of them before. They may have been brothers for their hair shone in the same blend of blond and brown. And their suck was not different either. This was not this timid licking of the women, this was real sucking, thirsty, wanting. Demanding. Arousing.

I feel their lips working my nipples, working the whole areola, the whole tip of my breasts. Their beards tickle. I take their heads in my arms and comb through their hair with my fingers. Then I feel my milk rush into my breasts, inundate them, inundate the mouths that suck my nipples, make them swallow and swallow. I press them harder against me, I want them to suck, suck, suck... I feel my nipples glide through their lips, in and out. Two warm tongues bathing those hard tips, soothing them all around and around and around... Two warm tongues receiving the sweet milk that sprays from my breasts, flows into their mouths. I feel this silvery, drawing sensation on my nipples, this silvery pleasure that spreads throughout my whole bosom, and deep inside. This urge to be emptied. My breasts are huge now, pulled taught with milk, ready to nurse a hungry world... I regard their faces - their eyes are closed as if their soul was somewhere far away, and yet they are so present, so close to these nipples to which they are attached with all their will... I feel my milk flow, into these eager mouths, over those soft tongues, I feel their longing for softness, sweetness, pleasure, their trying to get as close to me as possible. Overcome with pleasure I close my hand around my breasts and start to pump my milk into these hungry men...

I let my eyes wander around. To either side of me each woman is nursing 2 men, the slits in their clothes wide open. Some of the maids have their eyes closed, rocking their guests gently. Others, like me have their hands cupped around their breasts, pumping gently. The red hair on my left sits up straight and proud and watches the two faces on her breasts with a full-eyed look, looking rhythmically from the left to the right. My friend on the right has a handful to deal with in the true sense of the wording as she has to lift up her large breasts in order to expose her nipples to her guests. She, too, does it proudly, offering her breasts as if they were precious fruits. There is a gentle breeze around us that carries happy noises of sucking and swallowing, of content purring and acclaim.

I realize how my bosom is getting softer, how its content is slowly ebbing away and I feel the lips sink deeper into my breasts, closer to my heart and again filling me with these silvery oscillations that spread from my nipples. I feel them very close now these strangers that had come to drink my milk, drink from my motherly bosom and I express the lasts drops with my fingers into their mouths while around us the sun is spending her last beams, pouring her warmth on us and her promise of growing and thriving.

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