Never Gonna Dance Again

It was something I'd done almost every day of my working life: pick up a sword, and wield it, and try not to die.

l even enjoyed it at one point. I can't lie. The swell of the crowds behind me and under me was impossibly sweet. It thundered in my blood like a drug, and I was addicted to it alright.

Girls loved me. Well, everyone loved me. I was in the best shape of my life, and the costume didn't skimp on that fact, not one bit. I knew, when I twisted this way, or turned that way... that I cut a spectacle for the watchers to swoon over. The sun glinted on my fine colours, and I was vain for my silks and sequins.

I must have looked at the beast a hundred times, a thousand, even. I don't think I saw him even once. I saw his hooves, his horns, and the great slabs of muscle that could crush me to powder. I saw distance; this much is safe, that much will make the people gasp. I saw which way he glanced, because animals can't lie, not like people can. Did l ever look at his eyes, though?

Yes. Once. That last day. It was the undoing of me.

I expected to see rage. Heat. A male desire to match my own, that peacock-esque drive to strut and stomp and squash.

His eyes were liquid dark and questioning. They didn't pin me in a hurricane of testosterone. They didn't scream, I will end you! They didn't mock. They looked around for escape, and they lighted on me and asked, "What is this?" and then, (and I almost hated him for this) in the next moment they wanted to know, "Am I going to die?"

Something went out of me, like wind dropping out of straining sails. The drug that had sustained me for so long congealed like tar in my veins. I felt it turn to poison in real time. Waves of euphoria were replaced by nausea and disgust.

The sword dropped from my fingers. I hardly felt it. I walked away. I didn't think he would gore me, (I'd seen those eyes, and they didn't hold any violence) but a little piece of me wished for it. Because I deserved it? Or because if he had, it would have justified my behaviour all this time?

I sank down at the side of the arena, aware that the Crowd was rumbling. It was their turn to be confused. Soon, they might be disapproving or even furious. I couldn't care.

I watched him trot round, his hooves kicking up clods of sand. Those enormous dark eyes still darting this way and that, looking for an answer, a way out. I appreciated for the first time how magnificent he really was, and how innocent.

If he'd understood the dance, and done it willingly, perhaps I could have continued the spectacle. That was never the point, though. It was always about mastery, about needling that hulking power into a response, and side stepping it all with a flourish. About feasting on his confusion, getting drunk on his fear.

Never again.

*******

There is a story about a bullfighter giving up like this. It is fiction. There is probably a true version floating about, where he gets gored for his trouble, but I didn't feel like writing that story today. Maybe another time.