The Girl and the Bull

They bound the girl to the bull with ropes and garland of roses.  She was beautiful and naked and exposed to sun and eyes alike, her head resting just at the top of the bull’s head so that her hair hung across its horns and eyes and nostrils.  She didn’t cry or scream, but she wore a mask of fright so frightful I nearly cried and screamed for her.

When they sent the bull, it came straight to me, as though the beast knew where to go and who I was.  The beast was strong, and sturdy, but tired, and it bowed its head to me by bending its front two legs, presenting the girl.

I reached out with a hand so the bull could sniff me, not unlike a dog, and then I touched its forehead and then I touched hers.  At first, the girl did not smile, her expression remained rigid and unchanging.  She was a sacrifice, as the bull was a sacrifice, both of which I gladly accepted.

I removed the garlands first, the roses and their thorns, and twice drew my own blood but none fresh from the girl.  She’d suffered enough.  She quavered beneath my touch.  I was gentle.

I untied the ropes, carefully, so as not to cause further abrasions to either girl or beast.  She slipped silently into my arms.  I carried the girl to my bed and laid out, like a sumptuous feast, incredibly enticing, soft, fragile.  I covered her nakedness with satin and, kissing her briefly on the lips, I whispered, “You’ve nothing left to fear.”

I left her to sleep.

The bull awaited my return, still prostrate, snorting and pawing the ground, anxious for the burden it had lost.  Again, I touched its forehead, whispered calming nonsensical sounds to the beast, and led it to my enclosed pasture, where I kept my heifer.

Mine was a small farm, far beyond the outskirts of any town, nowhere near the cities, far enough from the capitals of either warring country to be on either side at any given time.  I didn’t care.  Far enough, too, to have not been the bull’s destination, or the girl’s, but I didn’t care about that, either.