The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  RUTH AND MONSERRAT had just finished love-making in the large, ornate room she had shared with Damiana, which was in an isolated part of the house where she painted and went to be alone. Their bodies were much as they had imagined and desired. Ruth was the taller and more muscular, small-breasted, like the ancient Greek ideal of beauty. Monserrat was smaller and had the strikingly dark, olive-skinned and voluptuous beauty of the Hindu ideal. Both were still slender for their active engagement with the world.

  As Ruth had intuited, Monserrat wanted complete, surface-to-surface love; and their bodies, so different, melded together beautifully in desire. Ruth found freshness in this; she was astonished by how much the complete surface of a woman’s body could say. Now, it said, I love and accept you completely in a naked, rhythmic and orphic speech; like the moving, rarely perceived background of nature and the unknown, fluctuating self that exists below thought. This love had a hint of eternity in it, as did all things vibratory and full of song.

  Often, Ruth like Alex was compelled to break the rhythm to make love orally, creating another rhythm. Here, too, Monserrat wanted as much physical contact as possible by caressing Ruth’s face or placing her legs over Ruth’s shoulders. Ruth, to the contrary, needed only strong touch for orgasm; though, like Alex, she was always close to orgasm throughout lovemaking.

  Both Ruth and Monserrat were struck by how little their minds functioned in this love; how instantly they were rhythmic together; how completely instinctual. This contrasted with the lovemaking of their much younger lovers, particularly Ruth and Sylvie, who was the most restless and unpredictable of lovers. Katia, too, was overly restless when her moods overcame her, Ruth thought. What a long journey it was to this love, they thought. They had known all the youthful challenging, straining to the limits, experimenting with another’s body as though it was that of a stranger.

  Now there was something new in the world, though they were old lovers.

  Their thoughts returned to them. They were not falling asleep yet. “Tell me one of your secrets,” Monserrat asked.

  Ruth laughed. “Our bodies no longer have any. But yes, our minds do, true enough. I don’t know if this secret is now all-too-obvious, but I grew up thinking that human life was a curtain, hiding all that is really thought and felt. Everything truly worth knowing is a secret. I always wanted to look behind the curtain, and I did find what was there: sexuality and our deepest emotions place us directly into the animal kingdom. Above, all, we are animals, barely human as another, exalted state. It’s here that we are most dangerous to the world and ourselves. The question mark has become a quest for me, I think, and it has determined my profession, my outlook and, to the degree that we are prophets, my prophecy for the world we live in. Now, after all these ponderous imponderables, you tell me a secret, a good one that I could never guess.”

  “Mine is similar in some ways. I identified with the French children’s book hero, The Little Prince, as one who is not exactly alien or human, male or female, child or adult; something entirely different. I felt this when I was very young, and when I was much older, I knew that it was the heart of another that is always alien, wild and unexpected when we first encounter a person who becomes important to us and even when we love. Now, you tell me another secret, if possible less basic and more intuitive.”

  Ruth was silent and thoughtful. “I can only tell you the first image I ever had of freedom: it was a beautiful city on water, San Francisco. I’d found this endlessly fascinating city of people with a light in their eyes and freedom on their lips. All the compulsions and fears of childhood ended there in a matter of hours, incredibly. I had found the freedom to explore the world as an adult. I saw my life as a trajectory of new worlds to discover and that I would never know the outcome, which might very well be tragic; but this, too, I loved because it was unknown and free.

  “I later found this beautiful city on water in many different countries; the most hedonistic and perhaps the wildest was Rio de Janeiro. There were others with different histories and peoples: Amsterdam of intellectual and sexual freedom; Hong Kong of capitalism as the strangest form of romanticism; now Barcelona with the most extraordinary buildings that look as though they were designed by sea creatures.

  “The people of these cities are those who, for very different reasons, are in love with the world; that is what they chose with their freedom. And, every new generation can come to these cities and also know that yes, there is a place that beautiful, with golden light and a brisk spring air, where they will be free to embrace the unknown. This is the heart of why I am sickened by the future I have prophesized. These cities will be among the first to be destroyed. Or, they will exist behind huge sea walls; and how then can they, as fortresses, ever be the image and spirit of freedom for those who come after us? I am sorry that my secret is ultimately a sad one. If you have the impulse to go on, then tell me another secret.”

  “We will have to talk this out later. I see now that you are often hiding your deepest feelings from me, perhaps trying to protect me, which won’t succeed. I sense that you are reluctant to talk about it now, so we have much to do later. I have a similar secret but it bears no prophecy. I have traveled all over the world, too, and once I discovered what I thought was an ideal point of view, one to orient myself to life and appreciate it most. I say to myself, I am twenty years old and in a new, cosmopolitan city, full of rich experiences and secrets to be revealed. While I am here, anything can happen, and it is ultimately the unknown that I love. I think this is similar to your image of freedom as a beautiful city on water.”

  “Yes, it is, and you are fortunate to carry no prophecy.”

  They were silent for a long time and then, with much physical contact, they slept.

  In the middle of the night, Monserrat awoke and saw that Ruth’s sleep was restless and her eyes were wet with tears. She began to touch her slowly, which instantly penetrated Ruth’s dream. When Ruth was awake, Monserrat held her and said, “You are still grieving. Now you must tell me everything.”

  “I’ll tell you the nightmare. All that grieves me is longer than Scheherazade’s tales, which I would never expose you to in the middle of the night. In the dream, I was once again seeing a TV nature program I saw a year ago that showed a polar bear and its cub struggling on melting Arctic ice. The cub was small and light and could stand and move. The mother, however, was enormous in size and kept falling into the ocean. Eventually, it could only move on the joints of its front and rear legs. It was so horrible to see. It took tremendous energy and concentration just to try to get out of the melting snow and onto real ice. The mother bear never found the ice and kept falling into the ocean. It was obviously a long and agonizing death, since getting food and nutrients was out of the question. The cub tried to stay with its mother, but it would float away on the broken ice at any moment.

  “The mother’s huge, heavy white body that had once made it the Arctic’s most effective hunter, the top of the food chain, could now only drag itself slowly to a certain death from drowning. If it remained for even a few moments in the ice hole, the fast current of the ocean would drag it away, leaving it unable to break through the ice to oxygen. It could even die in front of its cub. It was so horrible to see, so horrible! I was very close to the animal and could feel its terror. That’s a horrible way to die, below a layer of ice with no way to break through. It must be like being buried alive. You can see the world beyond that could save you, yet you are fully conscious, suffocating. So many polar bears have been found drowned, and that’s exactly how it happens. I was there and close, not the animal but somehow united with it.”

  “You’re so concerned about the issues in your book that it’s entering your dreams.”

  “Yes, and even though I’m otherwise so happy. I’ve never been happier than here with you. You must know that.”

  “I know; I understand that. At our ages, we can see the world to come. We want to preserve what we’ve loved and known to be the finest things
in our world; we want them there for the generations to come. It’s not that we never find the meaning of life but that what we find is so fragile, ultimately, and threatened by so much human stupidity and carelessness. I think about this every day, but it rarely comes into my dreams. What you’ve said is the future—uncontrollably destructive weather and mass extinction—do you believe that it is inevitable?”

  “No, not at all. There will be things that can be done up to the last. But, in the political realm, the ‘great powers’—the U.S. and China primarily—are conscious of the dangers but unable to act. When I’m happy with you and have so much to live for, I feel the destructiveness of human apathy more acutely. Can you accept me like this?”

  “I have already,” Monserrat said and smiled. “I have said it with my body, that wanted nothing but contact with you. You are something very rare, a guardian in all your heart and spirit, and I love and revere you completely. But, you must talk this out with me.

  “This has no place in the middle of the night, at the hour of the wolf. I would be a poor guardian of the woman I love if I kept you from your sleep.”

  “All right, but you must be sure to finish, talk it all out with me. Don’t withhold anything. This nightmare came out of nowhere, and now I know that you’re trying to protect me from knowing what disturbs you.”

  “I know, but we must sleep and tomorrow, you must show me more of your home. I so loved the day in Barcelona.”

  “All right, I’ll give you up now, but only to take you up later.”

  “That I can’t live without. We must take one another up every night, if possible. I love the full body treatment you gave me.”

  Monserrat smiled. “You aren’t serious. But tell me this: what of our young lovers? I almost said, our children.”

  “They are some of the most creative, brilliant, brazen children around. They’ll be pursuing their extremes and limits for decades. They’ll lead magnificent lives and when they are old, they’ll probably be a lot like us—provided my prophecy is wrong. I would love to believe that I’ve failed in my analysis, and some hope is justifiable.”

  “Then I’ll let you all go.”

  “That would be best for your health, my great love.”

  SYLVIE DID NOT know what came first: the dazzling light, the heat, the incomprehensible sound or the dismay. Two men in uniforms were bending toward them, slowly clapping their hands in rhythm. She was lying on her arm, with Alex lying over her, waking up at the same moment. Their clothes were still underneath them.

  Alex immediately spoke to her in a low voice. “Don’t laugh; don’t resist. It’s the Guardia Civil, Spain’s moral police. Let me do the talking and dress as fast as you can.” She smiled awkwardly at the two men, rapidly pulled out their clothes and covered Sylvie as well as she could, then herself. “Good morning, officers,” she said.

  “And what a good morning it is for you,” said the man with the mustachios. “Here you are, en flagrante, buttocks to the breeze in our famous Gothic Quarter. Was it, perhaps, a wayward religious impulse that led you here and inspired you both to disrobe?”

  Alex smiled and dressed at an impressive speed. Well, she can get in and out of clothes faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, Sylvie thought. What a useful skill. “No, officer,” she said. “We certainly never intended to do this. We accidentally fell asleep, unfortunately. We are not vagrants. We have a residence, and we will never do anything like this again, you can be sure.”

  “Well,” said the bald and bold officer, shorter than his colleague. “I would like to point out that you two can now be married in our wonderfully enlightened country and frankly, we do expect it, rather than shameless public sexual spectacles like the one you have indulged in.”

  “Why would we stop just because we’re married?” Sylvie asked.

  Alex gave her an agonized look. “Don’t, don’t!” she whispered furiously. “Shut up or agree with everything they say!”

  “If you marry,” said the bald and bold one, and a tired and cynical look came over his face, “you will soon grow bored. When you are completely bored, you will not want to fuck in weird places; and then, wonder of wonders, you will become good Spanish citizens who are commendable rather than a couple of naked, post-coital fools who got caught with their pants down.”

  “Yes, officer,” Alex said. “I agree entirely.” Sylvie smiled. “I fully intend to propose marriage to this woman as soon as we are alone. It is a brilliant suggestion.” Sylvie looked at Alex in shock.

  “Of course, you agree,” said the mustachioed one. “For your youth, obliviousness, misfortune and dubious good intentions, we will make an exception this time. Too, you do not look at all like the criminal scum we usually find in situations like this. So, ladies, we will not arrest you today. But if we find you again, you’ll be thrown into the same cell as the prostitutes.”

  “Certainly,” Alex said. “You are eminently reasonable, kind and considerate, and we will make every effort to follow your excellent example and suggestions.”

  “Very good. Now, we have important business to attend to and so do you—fully clothed, I may add.” With that, they left with a kind of rhythmic strut.

  Alex would not allow laughter until they had turned the corner. “Spain has moral police?” Sylvie asked.

  “In a manner of speaking. They are not Barcelona’s regular police force; they just show up at strange moments all over the country. They have a storied past, not all of it moral. They were criminal and greatly feared and hated under Franco, but to address what’s most important, we are very, very lucky to get out of this, and we must be much, much more careful in the future. They were a couple of gay officers, and they let us off for that reason alone, probably.”

  “Why do you think they’re gay?”

  “Your body was in full view, and neither of them got a hard-on. It’s the first thing I looked for. When I saw that, I knew we’d get through this in some kind of half-decent shape.”

  They were dressed now, and Alex pulled Sylvie up on her feet. “And you’re still gorgeous, and I still love you madly. But, you have no idea how dangerous that could have been. You really can’t trust men in law enforcement anywhere on earth, and I shouldn’t have to tell that to a woman who looks like you. There are good cops, of course, but there are plenty of rotten apples as bad as the criminals they catch. You could have been taken to the station and gang-banged by a dozen horny, pimply cops with halitosis. I wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect you; they’d put me in another cell. You’d end up with traumatic stress syndrome for the rest of your life. Christ! Please tell me you understand this danger and that we will never, ever take a risk like this again.”

  Sylvie smiled and touched Alex’s cheek tenderly. “Yes, my love. Actually, I was terrified and thought you handled them very well. I sensed that you wanted to protect me from them. Let’s go back to the hotel and clean up, have breakfast and then sleep. I hurt from head to toe. You were a one-woman gang-bang last night, but then, I wanted all of it.”

  They returned to the hotel, washed, had breakfast in a café and were soon nearly asleep back at the hotel. As they held one another and began to doze, Sylvie suddenly asked, “Who will you tell about this night with me? Monserrat?”

  “Christ, no! I won’t tell anyone, ever! Who would believe it? My friends would just laugh and tell me I had a wet dream.”

  Sylvie smiled. “Then we have a secret together.”

  Alex smiled, too. “Yes, we do, a crazy one, an ecstatic, wonderful, unforgettable one that we just, barely, didn’t have to pay for. I hurt from head to toe, too, and I wanted every bit of it. Will you marry me in Spain?”

  Sylvie sighed. “I was hoping that was another lie to the moral police. I’ve been thinking about my answer, in case it wasn’t. At the moment, I have two answers that contradict one another: one is that I have no idea what I’m going to do with you. The other is yes. When I’ve slept and recovered from this, the most likely answer will be yes, bu
t no marriage on this trip. Come live with me in Paris first.”

  Alex only said “ah!” in absolute pleasure; and then, after a long time, “the only thing better than gang-banging you in Barcelona would be gang-banging you in Paris.”

  “I never thought I’d ever tell anyone that he/she could fuck me forever, but I certainly can’t resist you. We are very compatible sexually.”

  “I guess you’ll want to make love in the Louvre, somewhere on the Eiffel Tower, maybe hanging from the Eiffel Tower . . .”

  “I hope we don’t accidentally kill each other.”

  They instantly slept.

  “I’LL BET THIS is your favorite work of art in all Barcelona,” Monserrat said. “You see with the eyes of an artist, but this beast will please all of you.”

  “It does,” Ruth said and smiled. “You’ve predicted me. This one strokes my love of animals to ecstasy. And I doubt anything else but you can do that.”

  It was midmorning. Monserrat had taken Ruth to Gaudi’s dragon, the animal emissary that welcomes all visitors to Park Guell. They intended to see all of Gaudi’s buildings for his richest patron, Guell, as well as the unfinished Church of the Holy Family. “Our favorite question: what do you see?” Monserrat asked.

  “Well, I think this beast is uniquely joyous, even for Gaudi, who seems to create from his own childish joy almost exclusively. The dragon’s mouth is open and he seems to be laughing, his eyes drowsy with pleasure. His body is a colorful multiplicity of patterns and shapes—undulant stripes and a riot of polka dots—all created from broken tiles, deliberately asymmetrical. He’s also covered with curious bumps that could be wondrous flowers growing out of him or even seeds dispersing to become baby dragons. He seems part animal and part plant, the patterns on his body completely spontaneous, as though blown by the wind. He also seems to be guarding what is below him. I first think it must be eggs but then see that it’s floral and vegetative. He is guarding nature, his duty to protect it.