Bear Yoke, Become Bull

The main issue with me Julie thought as she jabbed the hay pile with a pitchfork, is that I smell like animals all the time.

“Hey! Julie!”

A voice dragged her out of her attention away from the hay barrel.

“Jack!” She startled. Jack was blonde and handsome and he buzzed around the ranch like a biting fly. Julie had no idea why. Sometimes her mother would giggle about her little boyfriend but Julie didn’t like him like that. He was nice to look at, sure, but something in his eyes was insatiable, hungry all the time. It made her skittish.

Besides, he probably didn’t like her like that either. She smelled like animal. They were just friends, had been friends for a while and would remain just friends for much longer.

“I’m having a party Friday, you should come,” he said, barring his teeth and handing her a flyer. Immediately the sweat on her hand made the once-crisp paper warp and wave.

“I’ll try.” She said quietly.

“Sweet, later.” He said and headed back down the path through the woods, that eventually ended in his house.

Dinner that night was beef stew.

“How was your day, hun?” Julie’s mother asked, sipping hot soup with her back straight and her elbows tucked close to her side.

“Fine,” Julie grumbled, not looking up from where a particularly stubborn cooked carrot would not remain balanced on her shallow spoon.

“Anything exciting?”

“Jack came by earlier today. Invited me to a party.”

“Oh! That’s delightful!” Her mother crowed. “He’s such a nice boy…”

Julie just hummed noncommittally. “He’s fine. I don’t know if I’ll go…”

“You should! He could make a good match for you.”

“I have chores.” Julie said abruptly, leaving the bowl of stew only half-full and heading outside.

The horses were Julie’s favorite animal to tend; they were strong, graceful and powerful. Then, came the lambs with their soft white fleece and their big, dark, wet and trusting eyes. Towards the bottom of the lists were the cows.

They had eyes like the lambs but their eyes were too small for their hulking heads. Cows were big and ungraceful, heavy bodies crammed into pen walls, crushing grass and clover under spindly legs holding up massive weight. At first, they only kept dairy cows on the farm. Gentle and stupid animals good who provided a steady stream of income from their utters. It was a gross way to think of it, but true.

Then they started to keep the bulls. For meat. They were violent animals; they chased her with their horns.

Julie liked the bulls less than the cows, and she suddenly regretted the beef in the stew.

Julie ended up going to the party, wearing a dress she didn’t like that fit too tightly around the arms. It was loud and crowded and she lost track of where Jack was almost immediately. She knew almost no one else and suddenly had a feeling like she was taking up too much space, putting too much sweat and heat into the already thick air. She wanted to leave.

“Hey.”

Julie whipped around to see the voice. It wasn’t Jack. It was a man around her age with hair darker than Jack’s and longer, but still with that cavernous look in his eye.

“Hi,” she replied. She was backed into a corner of bodies.

“What’re you doing after this?” His teeth gleamed in the light. They would hurt, if they ever sunk into her flesh. “Wanna go back to mine?”

“No, sorry. I’m not interested.” She replied, eyes downcast.

He recoiled like she’d kicked him in the chest. “Whatever,” he snarled and added under his breath, “Fat fucking cow.”

Julie felt her eyes dampen with tears, quite without her permission.

“Hey!” She heard another voice, this one quite familiar.

“Jack!”

“You ok?” He asked. The pinch of his eyebrows was gentle and concerned, but that look was still in his eyes. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light. She shook her head. She was not ok, she wanted to go home.

“You stay here,” he told her. “I’ll get you a drink. It’ll help settle you down.”

She nodded and waited.

The drink made her feel worse, and weirder. She told Jack again that she wanted to go home.

“Come on,” he said, instead of listening. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

Jack felt like a meat hook. His hands, his mouth, his eyes torn into her. She kicked and bellowed.

He didn’t listen.

The next morning she staggered home, the zipper of the too-tight dress was broken so she held it up the whole way back. She changed into work clothes and went out to feed the bulls.

They didn’t rush her this morning, hadn’t rushed her since she’d learned not to sneak up on them or get too close to their personal space. Today, the largest of the bulls, an enormous tan animal came close to take the hay from her hand. It looked at her with those big dark eyes; she could see her reflection in the damp irises.

She looked… angry.

“What the hell happened last night?” she demanded, standing on Jack’s porch.

“Don’t worry, I used protection.” He said.

“What? No! You put something in my drink! And you—”

“Come on.” He interrupted “You wanted it; I mean who besides me would—”

He didn’t finish his sentence as she rammed her head into his face.

“WHAT THE HELL?” He screamed as his nose exploded into blood. Julie was seeing red. “YOU BROKE MY NOSE! THAT’S BULLSH—”

Julie cracked her fist across his face again and did what any animal did when you hurt it, made it angry, tried to make it meat.

She gored him.