Works/The Jaguars Wife

There are five ages - Flood, Eclipse, Volcano, Hurricane, and Earthquake. In the first of five, the gods mold men from ash; then the water overtakes all, and the men become fish. In the second of five, the sun is eclipsed, and in the darkness the jaguars eat the men.
- Aztec creation myths

There are no sexy zoologists.

I take that back. There are no stylish zoologists. If you're in this and you're serious about it, then either you spend a lot of time wading through mud and swamp, or you spend your days with dung and Monkey Chow stains on your clothes. A well-dressed zoologist is suspicious.

So when I first saw her, I assumed she was a suit. The Enemy. Then, once I found out she wasn't, I figured she was one of those paper scientists who never gets her feet dirty. Like I was becoming.

"Brazilian," Grethel said when I asked. "I think."

"You're falling down on the job," I told her.

"Eh, there's nothing to be had. You find out more about her, Peter, you tell me. But don't get too close." Low chuckle. Grethel is a big hearty Bavarian, the kind you see on beer labels. "She might eat you for supper."

"It would be a change of pace," I said. But I didn't say it very loud.

The woman was tall and skinny, maybe too skinny, skinny enough that my eyes were almost surprised to find the curves along the way as they tried hard to take in all of her height at once. Skinny enough that she couldn't completely hide the muscles next to the long bones. She might not eat me for supper, but she could throw me into the next room.

I couldn't tell whether she was coffee-colored by genetics or beach time. Brazilian women don't seem to care about skin cancer, so of course they rarely get it, just to defy us all. Assuming she was actually Brazilian. Her hair didn't help - long, black, in crimped kinks which could have been natural, or applied that morning. High eyebrows, thick and angular. Black eyes - no, dark brown, when they finally caught enough light for me to see iris from pupil.

"You're staring," Grethel said.

"Hmm? Oh. I guess so."

In my defense, she was more interesting than the presentation. The last speech of the last day was always a summing-up, and in the last few years that had meant a rote recitation of the usual depressing facts. Not one species of large feline on the planet was doing well. Big cats need huge amounts of unfenced land to roam and hunt on. It's not just a question of giving them the space they like; they need enough other creatures on that land to keep themselves fed, and each of those creatures (usually herbivores) needs enough grazing land to keep itself fed.

And humans hate them. Oh, sure, they like to see them - in zoos. But put a human on the same terrain as the cats - especially a human who has to make a living or get a food supply from that terrain - and suddenly everything changes. It's hard to tell an illiterate farmer in the jungle to not shoot that tiger because it's endangered. All he sees is his kids playing in the yard.

No one ever offered a solution in a speech like this, because no one had any, and all of us in the profession knew it. So don't blame me for giving most of my attention to the tall woman.

I realized the speech must have ended, since people were clapping in a sort of unenthusiastic way - everyone else in the room had heard it all before too. I stood up, thinking about picking my way through the crowd to introduce myself, when I saw that the mystery woman was picking her way through the crowd, and it seemed like her target was van Brunt.

I hadn't even realized he was around. I gave the man credit for nerve, showing up at this conference. He couldn't have had many friends here. Although it looked like she was trying to become one. I turned away.

"Sorry," Grethel said.

"She wouldn't have given me the time of day anyway," I replied. "Are we still interested in dinner?"

- - -

Dinner, it turned out, segued to the hotel bar. The conference is the only time some of us see each other, and there's always a certain amount of gossip and catching up. I'm not sure how much I had to drink, but I did manage to leave the bar under my own power.

When I got to the elevator, the mystery woman and van Brunt were waiting for it also. They hadn't been in the bar - I'd have remembered that - so I assumed they'd been out on the town. I wasn't sober enough to tell if they were sober or not.

I considered turning around and taking the stairs, or pointedly waiting for the next car, but I realized I'd just be wasting a good rudeness. They were deep, deep into mutual lust. They may not have even noticed I was riding with them, or that I got off on the same floor they did.

I kept a few paces behind them. They looked ridiculous together; if van Brunt stood in front of her, he'd have bumped his head on the underside of her breasts, if she had bigger breasts. Like Boris and Natasha, down to van Brunt's little mustache. They were about to pull each other's clothes off from sheer impatience. What did she see in him?

I was surprised at myself.

She finally managed to get her keycard in the lock and they sort of fell into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them. I heard faint giggling. I continued down the hall to my room and tried to think of anything else.

- - -

I've had trouble sleeping all my life. It's not medical or because of uncomfortable beds or anything like that. It's because my brain wants to be most active exactly when it should be settling down. I thought about just giving in and doing all my work at night, but you can't really do that and coexist with civilization. I've managed it twice for long terms. Once when I was working on my dissertation. And once when I was doing field studies. My guides thought I was crazy.

I got up and put on some clothes, not sure where I was going to wander at that hour, unwilling to keep thrashing in the bed. Maybe they'd let me pace around the lobby for a while.

I admit it - I stopped in front of her room and listened. Just a pause. A short pause, that to anyone in the hall would look like I was stopping to recall if I'd left something important in my room.

What I heard behind the door was a growl. A low rumble that belonged to a large cat.

I froze. I listened again for a while, long enough to hear nothing else. Eventually I could move my feet again.

By the time I got down to the lobby, I was sure it was my exhausted brain. Certainly it wouldn't have been the first time. Once I tried to drive while too tired. I had to pull over when I began hallucinating deer, leaping out into the road in front of the car.

But if it had been real, then it could not have come from a human. It was my business to know that sound.

- - -

I expected to look like hell when I woke up - after maybe three hours of sleep, if that much - but normally not even a gallon of booze can kill Grethel's natural vigor, so I was surprised when she showed up for breakfast looking as bad as I did, if not worse.

"You're getting old," I said. "This fast living is beginning to catch up with you."

"Not funny," she replied. "I was called at five this morning by the police." She gestured to the waiter, pointing urgently to my coffee cup.

"Why on earth?"

"Because this town has no zoo."

"I don't understand."

"They wanted advice on catching a cougar. Or, as they said, a mountain lion. Thank you," she said, as a full cup was placed in front of her.

"All right, I admit I didn't have much sleep but -"

"A cougar. In the city park. Wandered in for a visit perhaps? Maybe got a taste for squirrel?"

I shook my head. "Ideally they're all over North America, but not in an area this urban. No way. Someone has to have put it there."

"And the police think that's us. Can't blame them, eh? The big cat people come to town, and suddenly cougars. I told them not even we were that crazy. Besides you can't fit a cougar in a suitcase. What?"

"Hmm? Oh. Just thinking -"

"Yah, about something I want to hear. Come on."

"Well, I couldn't sleep last night." I told her about walking past the mystery woman's room. "Maybe she's crazy enough."

"Sure, if she takes van Brunt to bed. But someone would have seen her trying to bring a cougar into the hotel?"

"Perhaps not. If it was her, no one saw her bring it out either. Should I tell the police?"

"Are you sure about what you heard?" I shook my head.

"Then no. Cat is caught, no damage, let everyone forget about it. Catch planes and go home."

We caught our planes - Grethel gave me one of her bone-crushing goodbye hugs - and went home.

- - -

I kept the matter at the back of my head for a few days, pondering it every now and then, until other things pushed it out of the way. I didn't think of it again until two months later, when I passed through Chicago just long enough to grab dinner with J.P.

J.P. wasn't a zoologist. J.P. was a librarian, although that doesn't do him justice. He dealt in raw information, and there was no one better at digging it out and accumulating it. He was always in lousy physical shape from too many hours in a swivel chair, and he always had a tired, resigned look, like he was watching civilization collapse around him.

J.P. lived the Mycroft Holmes lifestyle - home to office and back, with occasional stops at bookstores and restaurants. It wasn't that he wasn't social; he just never wanted to impose himself on anyone. Usually I end up tugging a conversation out of him. That night it was the other way 'round.

"Bad week, I take it," he said. Or something like that.

"Does it show? I guess so. Not bad, really, just -"

"Hmm?"

Just so boring that I'm ready to tear out my eyeballs. "It's pretty obvious now I'm not going to get another grant for field work. I wanted to go back to South America and finish the jaguar studies."

"How long ago -"

"Five years. The longer I sit reading other people's papers, the more I have to admit that they aren't going to pay me to go play in the jungle anymore. I may have to quit."

"That bad?"

"I hate it, J.P. This desk stuff is going to kill me if I keep it up. No offense, I mean, it works for you but -"

He wiped his face - Chicagoans think Italian beef is no good unless it self-destructs as you eat it. "None taken. I never did care for the great outdoors, but if that's what you love .... What about other sources of funding?"

I scowled. "Well, there's the corporate money, but if I took any of that, I'd turn into Poul van Brunt. Or people would think I had, anyway."

"Hmm - know that name somewhere. Colleague of yours, I suppose?"

"I wouldn't go that far. I'm told he knows his stuff, but for the last ten years or so he's made his money telling people that Pacific lumbering doesn't threaten wildlife and so forth. Pet scientist on payroll. Not very well liked."

"Wish I could figure out where I'd seen that name recently. Oh, well. Too much information, not enough brain. Have you explained to your bosses that this is not what you came to the university to do?"

"It doesn't help. I was about to say, it's not the lack of money. They've got the cash. The problem is my age. They want to give all the field work to these twenty-year-olds who bounce around like Irish setters and don't mind being exploited as long as they get to see cool places. Of course, none of them have a clue what they're doing yet, but the point is -"

The point is that I'm looking forty-five in the eye and I'm not where I'm supposed to be now. The point is that I dream at night that I'm walking through green jungle, listening to the noises in the dark. The point is that I don't want to die with my skin that gray color from living under fluorescent lights. The point is that I'm about this close to dropping everything and going for a long ride down the Amazon and never coming back to explain why.

"Well, never mind," I finished. "I think you get the idea."

As we were parting company, shaking hands in that regretful way people do when they feel that the gesture is too formal but hugging is inappropriate, J.P. said, "I'm going to have to do a few searches on that van Brunt. It's going to bother me until I remember where I saw it."

I almost asked him to somehow search for the Brazilian woman then, but told myself that was ridiculous.

- - -

J.P. didn't find out about van Brunt, though. For once I beat him to it. Two days after I came back, a young man with earnest eyes, a white shirt, and a dark tie knocked on my apartment door. I thought he was a Mormon, until he showed me his ID. I expect private investigators to look more rumpled.

"Just a couple of questions, if this isn't a bad time," he said. "I'm trying to find a missing person."

"Oh?" I said, gesturing him in. I figured it was someone I knew - but none of my friends were missing. At least I hoped not.

"Poul van Brunt. I take it you know the name," he said, seeing my face.

"And that I'm not a friend," I said.

"He doesn't seem to have very many," was the response. "Not within his profession, anyway."

I nodded. "Last time I saw him - and I mean 'saw,' I've never actually spoken to him - was at a professional conference in January."

"I'd like you to be more specific, if you can. When exactly did you last see him at the conference?"

"I saw him at the closing presentation. We all tend to have fun that night and not fly out until the next morning. I saw him late that night going up to someone else's hotel room. I didn't see him the next morning, though I didn't do much but have breakfast before catching my plane. Are the police there paying for you to do all this? If you're asking everybody who was there, you've got to be running up a heck of an airfare bill."

He pursed his lips, then smiled a little. "I'm also learning that zoologists are very conscious of where the money's coming from."

"That's what happens when you live on grants," I replied.

"The police are cooperating - I'm doing their work for them. But van Brunt's wife is the client."

"His wife? That's a new one. Should I assume that she's not tall, dark, and exotic-looking?"

"You're getting ahead of me," he replied.

"The woman whose room he went to was the same woman who had been seen flirting with him at the final presentation," I said. "I was told she was Brazilian. Black hair, dark skin, tall, dark eyes. I don't have any other information, although you've probably got plenty of descriptions of her by now."

He nodded. "Do you remember when you first saw her at the conference?"

"I didn't see her until the final presentation. I'd have remembered her. Say, does she actually have a name?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"She was a mystery," I explained hastily. "No one seemed to know who she was or what she was doing there. And we all know each other pretty well."

"I know," he said. "But wouldn't someone have gotten her name from her registration if it had been there?"

"Oh. Right."

"Apparently one of you did get up the nerve to ask this complete stranger why she was lurking around a specialized professional conference," he said. "She said she was a field agent from the ministry of wildlife in Manaus."

"Manaus as in Brazil?"

He shrugged. "That's all I got. Anything else you can tell me? Anyone have any specific grudges against van Brunt, aside from the general dislike? Anything he might be running from?"

I shook my head. "You know a lot more about him than I do by now."

He stood up. "Won't waste any more of your time then. But if you should happen to run into the mystery woman, give me a call." He handed me a card. "A lot of people are really interested in talking to her."

"I can imagine," I said, opening the door for him.

"You keep in touch too," he said, studying me. "Don't take any trips without telling anybody where you're going."

"Don't tell me you suspect me of something."

"No. But aside from our mystery woman, you look like the last person to have seen van Brunt. So we may not be done yet."

He closed the door behind himself with a quiet click.

- - -

I was making a name for myself, or so they told me. Gaining prestige. It didn't seem to matter that I had about zero interest in being a Grand Old Fart of the profession. I was supposed to sit back and be appreciative.

I did get to travel a lot. But never to places I wanted to be. All of the urban spaces looked alike, I was sleeping worse than ever, and the only good side to the trips was getting to see all my friends.

In fact, Dan and Gina were the only thing that saved me from tearing my hair out that week in May. The seminars I was attending were sheer torture, an endless series of those same Old Farts discussing and debating all the little things they had found to distract themselves from how irrelevant they had become.

"You're being too harsh," Gina said, with that little smile. The one that said, oh, it's just Peter being silly again. I remembered the night I finally told her what I had always wanted to say, and she smiled that smile, and told me she was marrying Dan.

"Probably. I'm feeling harsh. Everything annoys me these days. All the news is bad. Did you hear about this "access corridor" program in Brazil?"

"Um, no." She looked unsettled.

"They want to put roadways through the jungle - for logging, but they're smart enough not to say that. Habitats and ranges slashed into pieces, and once they can get into the deep part of the jungle by road, who knows what'll happen? The only thing that's saved it so far is that it was so hard to get to. But, hey - the government wants it, the citizens want it, and it's not like there's anything in the jungle but a few animals anyway, right?" I took a long gulp of my drink, and shuddered a little from the alcohol burn.

She put her hand gently on my shoulder. "I understand. But why make it such a personal battle?"

"I don't know. I think I'm getting more brittle as I get older. Wasn't Dan supposed to be here by now?"

"Yes," she said. That explained why she looked so worried. Gina was one of those people who is both possessive and protective. "He knew when we were getting out of the seminar. Should I call the house, do you think?"

"I'll do it." I wanted to spare Dan the speech he'd get if he was still home. Dan tended to get caught up in his programming and forget about the time. "I have to go to the men's room anyway."

I left the bar and turned the corner into the hotel lobby. I was moving toward the bank of phones when I saw Dan, coming out of one of the hotel elevators. I changed course.

"Oh, uh, there you are," he said. "Wasn't I supposed to meet you at your room?"

"No," I said. I removed a stray hair from the collar of his shirt. A long black hair, kinked in lazy zigzags.

"Dan, what's my room number?" I asked absently, as I stared at it.

"Um - I - I must have ..."

"Why, Dan?" I said, pushing him against the wall between the elevators, heels of my hands against both his shoulders. "Have you lost your mind? How could she possibly be worth it?"

He stared at me, struck dumb, and I knew that somehow my brain had led me down a dark alley and I was about to lose a very good friend. Then he cracked, and I was right after all.

"Oh, god, Peter .... I couldn't - I mean, I don't know, there was something about her that I just couldn't say no to. I don't even know why she was interested ... she asked me to come up with her and it was like I didn't even realize what I was doing .... My god, I've really screwed up, haven't I? Gina - is she frantic?"

"Gina's a little worried," I said, letting go of him. "Not frantic. No, no, calm down. It's all right. If you shake, you'll give it away. Deep breaths. You were running late, that's all. She'll fuss at you and that'll be it."

He straightened up, gulped air. "You think so?" Part of him was asking: Are you going to keep quiet?

"Yes, but only if you keep under control. You do owe me one thing."

Nervous eyes. "What?"

"Room number. I need to talk to this woman."

"But -"

"I mean it, Dan. I want this from you before we take another step."

"1050," he said.

"Thank you."

"What are you going to say to her?"

"Nothing dangerous. Let's go. Or Gina will wonder whether I got lost in the toilet."

- - -

I don't know how I knew it was her. I did, though, even before I saw the hair. Even so I was nervous, wondering what I would say when she answered the door. If she answered the door.

And then she opened it, and all I could see was those dark eyes in that brown face. From a distance I heard her say, "I know you, don't I?"

"You don't get to have Dan," I said.

Did I say that? That assumed a lot. I must have, though. Then, somehow, I was sitting on a chair in her room. She was at the end of the bed, facing me only a foot away, crossing her long legs. A bathrobe. That was what she was wearing. An amazing smell.

"Is that what you're scared of?" she asked.

"He has a good marriage," I said. "You shouldn't tempt him."

"There are things you don't know." She leaned toward me, her long arms reaching out to unbutton my shirt.

"And you know them? Do you have a name?"

"Several." Jungle flowers. Heavy and sweet.

"The police want to talk to you about van Brunt," I said.

"I know." She pulled the shirt open, down to expose my shoulders. Drew experimental circles on my chest with a sharp fingernail.

My head wouldn't unkink. I clutched her wrist. "I'm not here for that."

She smiled. Her teeth were very white. "Liar."

"No, you're the enemy," I said, standing up. My balance was off. I pulled my shirt back up over my shoulders.

She laughed once, at the back of her throat. She lay back, squirming backwards on her ass so her whole body was on the bed. She pulled her robe open, lay fully exposed, legs apart. She looked at me, locked her eyes onto mine.

And then I was tearing my clothes, ripping them to get them off me, growling, like an animal trying to thrash out of a net. Pulling free these obstructions, I leapt at her, to thrust and force myself on her prone body until she screamed with compliance. Determined to master her, but she lifted her hips and met my attack. I snarled and thrust at her, then pulled back to break free, but I was trapped, her arms tight around me, clasping mine to my side, her legs locked around mine.

I roared in rage, rocking and pulling and pushing, struggling to overpower her or get loose. I could do neither. I felt her fingers poke into my back as she kept her grip there. I grunted and shoved and gasped, trying now not to be overcome. But it wasn't possible. Unable to get away, unable to stop, I could only continue my motions for what seemed like ages. Then dropped my head on her breasts, completely drained.

"You did very well," I thought I heard her say. But I may have already been asleep.

- - -

The next day, Gina kept trying to catch my eye during the seminar, and I avoided it. The scrapes across my back itched, and I was sure my face was visibly red every time I thought about how I got them.

Afterwards, again, Dan joined the two of us and we had dinner. Dan watched me, anxious to know what I had said or done the previous night; I watched him with the suspicion that he had seen the woman again that day, while Gina and I were occupied. I was sure of it. I could smell it. But how could I confront him, after the way I had spent my night?

And Gina watched us both, with her catlike instinct for when someone was holding out on her, glaring at first me and then Dan in turn.

It was not a pleasant meal. I went to bed early.

- - -

I was walking on cool dirt, naked, feeling the weight of still, humid air on my skin. The moon bleaching me pale, the trees cutting through that with shadows like tattoos. In the jungle. The roar of the Amazon not far away.

I felt it - knew that it was behind me, in the trees and among the underbrush. Following me. Every time I moved forward a few feet, I could pause and hear the very low rustle behind me.

At the river's edge. I turned to face the jungle path behind me, nowhere left to go. Waiting for it to leap down from the trees onto me.

She took me by the shoulder, spun me around, forced me into a long kiss.

- - -

"Are you all right?" Gina asked. "Insomnia again?"

"No, for once I slept," I said. "Bad dreams."

"Just your luck," she replied, with that smile.

"I'm sorry about last night," I said. "I wasn't at my best."

"None of us were. It's okay."

"Can I buy the two of you dinner? As an apology? I know, we've eaten together the last two nights but -"

"You don't need to apologize, really. And we'd be happy to eat with you, but we've already promised to have a dinner guest over. Someone Dan knows. But we have one more night after this one," she added.

"True. Well, then, I'll just forage around this evening."

- - -

I don't know why I did it. I was doing a lot of things without knowing why; I was beginning to get used to letting some back part of my brain do the driving. That night literally. When my rental car came to a stop, I wasn't very surprised to see that I was at Dan and Gina's.

Maybe I was suspicious. Maybe I just didn't want to go the hotel and sleep and have the same dream again. Or maybe I just wanted to see.

I looked in one of the living room windows. Dan lay on the couch, head on a pillow, asleep and snoring. I walked around back.

The bedroom had a sliding glass door to the patio. It was partially open, letting in a May breeze and blowing the curtain aside for me to get a clear view. I'd have been afraid of being seen, if they'd been paying the least attention.

The dark woman lay on her back across the bed, her ass at the edge, her feet and legs dangling off and spread well apart. Gina knelt at the foot of the bed, her tongue and lips busy, one hand across the bed for support, the other between her own legs. She was panting, gasping for breath between flicks of her tongue. The other woman was making a low noise which was gradually becoming a loud growl.

I turned and went back to the car, drove to the hotel, told myself I was not going to masturbate. Like it was a point of honor.

- - -

It was a high altar, a high square pyramid with stepped sides. I worked my way up the steep steps, slowly, sometimes on hands and knees to get from one to the next. I knew I had to reach the top, although I was already out of breath from the effort.

I crawled onto the final plateau and pulled myself up to my feet. Ahead of me, at the far side of the square, a huge throne of gold, ornate and intricate. I lowered my head, bowed my back, and approached.

She was pleased to see the humility of my advance. "Kneel," she said once I stood before her, and I did.

She opened her legs, spread them apart. The scent flooded me, overwhelmed me.

"Approach," she said, and I did, on hands and knees like a dog, moving forward until my face pressed into her hot skin, my nose and mouth wet.

The smell told me what to do. What I had to do.

- - -

I shook my head, trying to clear it. The noise would not go away, no matter how hard I tried.

It was the phone. I picked it up, mumbled something.

"Peter, she's gone," he said. "She's gone." He kept repeating that.

"Dan? Is that you?"

"She's gone, and it's my fault. She's left me because of that woman."

I started laughing.

"What - why are you laughing? Peter?"

"Is that what you think? No, no, never mind. I'll be over as soon as I can get there."

I hung up.

He was sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. "You had sex with her again," I said. "The second afternoon. Then what happened?"

"She wanted to meet Gina. She told me to bring her to meet Gina. I - I had to. I mean it was like I couldn't refuse."

"So you brought her to meet Gina. And then what?"

"Well, Gina was suspicious, of course, but they seemed to get along ...."

"Did Gina have sex with her that night? Or not until tonight?"

"They had sex? What? How do you -"

"Dan. Just tell me what you remember tonight."

"She came over for dinner. After dinner she told me to go to sleep on the couch. I was really tired; I thought this was a good idea. They both kissed me on the forehead. When I woke up, they were both gone. Do you mean that -"

I shook my head. "She never really wanted you at all, Dan. You're not one of us. She just needed you to get to Gina. I should have known." I moved to the door.

"Wait! What are you talking about? You can't just leave. Do you know where Gina is? Do you know what's going on? Tell me!"

"Gina's not coming back, Dan. Neither is our mystery woman." Astonished both at my own coldness and the certainty. "If I see her again, I'll tell her you said hello."

- - -

I didn't stay at the hotel that night, and I didn't sleep. I sat in an uncomfortable chair at the airport. I didn't sleep on the plane either.

In fact, I didn't really sleep - or at least I didn't sleep enough to dream - for the next two days. So my email to J.P. might not have been the clearest in the world.

But he understood it enough to find out what I needed to know. In the big-cat crowd, there had been four disappearances in two years. Five if you added Gina. All vanished mysteriously. Why hadn't anyone at the conference been gossiping about this?

At the time of his disappearance, van Brunt and another had been acting for a company with interests in India and surrounding area, interests that were eating big cat habitat right and left. Another was jeopardizing the ranges of snow leopards in Asia. The fourth had been justifying an American mining operation with a reputation for privately offering a bounty for cougars. It's the cash flow. Eventually it's too hard not to be The Enemy.

But Gina hadn't been.

Dan called. A lot. I never picked up the phone. Rang and rang and one day I couldn't stand it. I grabbed it. "What?"

"Gott, Peter, is that how you answer the phone now?"

"Oh. Grethel. Sorry."

"Peter, are you all right? I heard you weren't coming to München and -"

"I'm fine, Grethel. Just tired of all flying all over the place to listen to these stupid little speeches." Or just tired. I keep having the same dreams, isn't that strange? But I know why.

"Well. I was looking forward to seeing you," she said.

Damn. "Grethel, I'm sorry, really. I just can't stand to go to another conference or seminar or anything like that."

"Is it because of Gina?"

"No. Well, not mostly."

"They tell me that you haven't talked to anyone since then .... Peter, don't shut yourself up in that room. Come."

Oh, Grethel, to hell with you and to hell with your Bavarian gossip. If you're so hot to see me how is it that you have never, not once in ten years, made any sort of advances? Never done anything more than give me one of those bear hugs on my way out? "Damn it, Grethel, I'm just tired. That's all. There's nothing else to it. And I am not going to another damned presentation just so everyone can see how - oh, never mind. Forget it."

"I see."

"Was that what you called about? To make sure I wasn't becoming a recluse?"

"No, I also wanted to ask your advice. A difficult decision I am making. But I think now is not the time."

Click.

My head was throbbing. I went into the bathroom and tried to take four aspirin. I dropped one on the floor, picked it up and swallowed it anyway. How many germs can dance on the head of an aspirin? Maybe it'd kill me.

The phone rang again. Jesus. I was not answering it. Grethel could just leave a message.

"Peter, please pick up the phone if you're there." Not Grethel. Dan. My lucky night. "Look, I finally figured it out. You're mad because of what Gina was doing, right? But you can't just -"

I lunged at the phone, ready to tear off his face. Long distance is the next best thing to being there. "Because of what she was doing? No, Dan, I'm not mad because of what she was 'doing.' We both fucked her too, didn't we? You got yours, I got mine. Little hypocritical to be mad about that."

"That's - um - not what I meant," he said.

"What do you mean?" I spat.

"The corridor project. Brazil - I don't get it. You don't know? She said you'd talked about it, the day before .... I figured she'd told you and you were pissed at her for working on it .... Peter? Are you still there?"

God, Gina. You're dead and you keep breaking my heart anyway.

"Peter?"

She couldn't have needed the money that badly. Dan made a fortune. He was in a field where they actually paid people once in a while.

"Peter?"

I left the phone dangling, his voice still making small noises.

- - -

I hadn't packed, hadn't shaved, hadn't changed, hadn't bathed. Paid extortion at the airport. The little girl on the other side of the aisle kept staring at me. I wanted to roar at her. Make a noise so loud she'd scream. That'd show her.

I tried not to think about the inside of my own head. But I couldn't avoid my head and avoid my dreams at the same time. So I dreamed.

Hot. Unbelievably hot. Looked like Asian jungleswamp. Walking thigh-deep in unbearable muck, muddy slimy water you could almost see steam rising from. Slowly thrusting one leg ahead of the other, through the mire, tangling in water plants whose tentacles wanted to drag me below the surface. Feeling the rot forming all over my skin, an itch too many places to scratch. Knowing I would die here.

She was waiting where the dry land grew from the mud, hair down in her eyes, partially covering them but not their glow. Surrounding her in a circle, some cats whose faces I knew. Collectively rumbling. Not sure if it was a happy noise or a growl.

"I can save you," she said. Or maybe she didn't. Maybe I said, "You can save me."

"I know," one of us replied.

I pulled myself out of the muck, tried to clean green goo from my bare skin using my hands. It didn't want to come off.

"You have to do it this way," she said. She knelt on all fours, turned her brown ass to me, spread her knees a little apart and lifted and showed like a cat in heat. Red, engorged, waiting. She made a low rumble.

"If I do this - "

"You will join them."

The cats circled to watch.

- - -

"Sir? Sir?" A hand shaking my shoulder gently. I opened my eyes.

"We've landed," the flight attendant said.

The Munich airport is forty minutes outside the city. On a good day. From the S-bahn to the U-bahn to the Schwabing section of town, I counted the seconds. I surfaced to the sight of a road blocked with police cars, outside the giant Englischer Garten. "Was ist los?"

"Ein Löwe," I was told.

"Nein." I sighed. "Eine Löwin."

"Was?" The policeman turned around.

I shook my head, walked away. Not three blocks. A chicken in every pot, a lioness in every park. I started to giggle.

Of course there was no reason for her to be there. But she was. Feeding papers into the fire, one by one. Sitting, in no hurry to be anywhere, cross-legged on Grethel's rug, sweat beading all over her bare flawless skin. She reeked of recent sex.

"You've taken all my friends," I said.

"Your friends should make better choices," she replied, not turning around.

I watched her feed documents into the fire. "Everyone has lapses in judgment. You take away their lives because they did something stupid?"

"What makes you think I am taking anything away?"

I snarled, pushed beyond patience. Leaped over the sofa, halfway across the room, into her, throwing her down and pushing her body across the floor. Lying atop her, honestly considering taking her warm throat in my mouth, wondering how far I could sink my sadly blunt teeth in.

She narrowed her eyes and then flashed a white smile, and before I could react, she had flipped us. My head pounded on the floor and she was sitting astride me, looking down at me, not even perturbed.

"I am going to tell you a story," she said.

"Once the jaguar, creature of fire, creature of the hunt, was no enemy to man, nor a friend.

"The jaguar came upon a young would-be hunter one day, who had clearly had no luck for some days. The boy was thin as a bird leg, nearly starved. The jaguar invited the boy to sit upon his back and ride to his home, where he would be fed dinner.

"In those days the men did not know fire. The boy was amazed at his first taste of cooked meat. The jaguar's wife was a human, and childless. She convinced her husband to let her adopt the boy into the household.

"The jaguar disliked the boy. He insisted that the boy always get the old tough pieces of meat and scratched him in the face when he complained. The jaguar's wife, meanwhile, taught the boy to hunt properly, giving him a bow and arrows and teaching him how to shoot them.

"One day, after the boy had received a particularly rough time from the jaguar, he took the bow and shot the jaguar in a fit of anger. Then, realizing what he had done, he fled, taking with him the weapon and a piece of grilled meat.

"When the boy returned to the human village, he told his tale and shared the meat. Meanwhile the jaguar's wife had returned home, found her husband dead, and gone to burn his body amidst her tears. While she was out building the pyre, the humans came back to her house, and seeing the fire, took it away with them.

"When the jaguar's wife discovered what the ungrateful humans had done, she vowed revenge, and declared from that time she would eat her meat raw. Only the reflection of fire could be seen in her eyes."

She stared down at me.

"That's not the way I heard it," I said.

"Then you heard it wrong." She dropped herself onto my body and kissed me, her skin wet against my clothes. Then she bit my lip, hard, breaking the skin. I yelped, then licked the metallic taste from her teeth.

She pulled open my shirt, scattering buttons across the room. "You smell almost like one," she said. "But too human to mistake."

She tugged my pants and underwear down impatiently, yanking at my skin and pulling hair from my legs. I should have been too scared or too angry to be aroused.

She was smiling; those teeth, sharp and so white.

"You have to do it this way," she said. She knelt on all fours, turned her brown ass to me, spread her knees a little apart and lifted and showed like a cat in heat. Red, engorged. Waiting.

But by then I was already mounting her, growling, thrusting deep into her, screaming my lust. Her yowls matched mine, loud, rising in pitch. I leaned forward against her, my hands over hers, my teeth against the back of her neck as we knelt there four-legged, locked together.

Animals. Animals. And then I had to let go.

I lay on the rug, panting. She leaned over me, now dressed - lost time again - kissed me and said, "The third time is forever. Never again."

And she was gone.

Did I have to be grateful for her mercy as well? Was it mercy?

I looked at one of the few remaining documents scattered around the floor, sighed, and fed the rest of the Brazilian corridor papers into the fire.

- - -

Well, J.P., that's the story. In case you're wondering why I didn't send it via email, it's so I'll be in Brazil by the time you get it. I figure that's her home base; she has to turn up sooner or later. Maybe she actually does check in at Manaus once in a while. She has to pay for all those hotel rooms somehow.

I'd just go lurk around the next person to take on the Brazilian project and wait for her to arrive, but it seems that's been permanently cancelled. Too many disappearances, I guess. She hadn't just gone after the scientists on that one. Home territory is precious.

Grethel said a project like that was selling your soul. There's irony for you. I still don't know why she accepted it.

I visited Grethel in the Munich zoo before I left. They told me she was adjusting well to her temporary quarters. I couldn't tell whether there was awareness in her eyes. I'd like to think there was, but I don't trust my own brain these days.

Three is forever, but two is almost forever. I can't think like a person anymore. I can't concentrate. I want to wander around forests in the dark, smell things humans don't know they can smell because they never try.

Maybe I won't find her. Maybe I'll find her and end up on four feet. Maybe I'll find her and something else will happen, something I can't predict.

But I'm not coming back, J.P. No matter what.

Watch out for the jaguars.

Copyright © November 2006. Do not distribute or reproduce.