Bull-leaper

[A Minoan lady, resplendently dressed, pacing agitatedly up and down next to a large wooden crate and clutching a scroll in her hand]

Read the manual, read the manual…

“From the workshop of Daedalus: artisan, inventor, highest-quality craftsmanship in all of Crete” – why do they always have to advertise, even in the documentation? – “One facsimile wooden cow; life-size. Some assembly required.” Assembly? I have to put it together? Seriously? Daedalus, you know who you’ve made this for – Pasiphaë, Queen of Crete, daughter of a sun god and a nymph – I’ve never lifted a hammer or banged in a nail my whole life! Are you toying with me now, in my moment of greatest need?

[Hurriedly returns to the scroll]

Read the manual, read the manual… “No tools necessary. Suitable for solo construction.” Oh, relief! Just a little bit of… fastening here and… slotting here… some nice, simple diagrams. And, best of all, no prying eyes! Daedalus, I was right to confide in you, worthy of a queen’s secrets!

[Pause. Then addresses the audience cautiously]

Of course, one should never trust too much to human nature. We can’t choose whom we love and we can’t choose how we love, so why would we rely on anyone else to understand us? Even our most sympathetic audience can silently be judging us. You ladies sitting here, smiling so sweetly at me, can I still count on your support after I confess my predicament? Or will you be saying to yourselves, “No, no, she’s going about this all wrong”? And as for you gentlemen… perhaps it’s best you don’t listen at all. [Pause] Seriously, I’d put your hands over your ears while you still can. [Pause] Alright – but you’ll never think of women the same way…

[Returns to reading the manual]

“Ensure rear leg epsilon and rear leg zeta are secured to hindquarters beta before attaching leather section delta with fully operable tail, udders and vulva”.

[Buries her face in her hands]

I don’t have to do this… I don’t have to do this… [Anguished] Oh Daedalus, why isn’t there a manual for disassembling desire! When I first came to you with my request, breathless and trembling, why didn’t you do what philosophers do? Tell me that eros is madness and send me away with an earful of cold-blooded precepts to deaden my ardour. But no, you listened patiently, you nodded gravely, and showed me how my wildest fantasy could be transformed into flesh. [Looks at the crate] Cow flesh. [Pause] Imitation cow flesh, to be sure, but “the best that gold can buy”. And all to please Him. The Magnificent One.

[To the audience]

Ladies, imagine a princess, brought up in a palace, secluded, waited on obediently but always spoken to impersonally. Kept from the sight of men, except the oaf who was to be my husband. Whose only glimpse of an outside world was the bull-leapings, where girls and boys my age could take a force of nature in their bare arms and wrestle with it! Then back to wandering the corridors, where around every corner a bull’s head would stare down at me, eyes glistening, or a fresco would show me flanks and shoulders shimmering in torchlight. Those artists, sculptors did their jobs too well! So imagine the day we saw Him, pacing along the surf towards us, fixing us with a haughty eye. Everything I’d seen only in glimpses – necks, forelegs, horns, thighs, loins – suddenly coalesced into a single being. And his colour – blinding! Whiter than any Cretan lady’s arms – except mine. “Sacrifice him!”, yelled the priests, “the gods intend it!” “Keep him”, said my husband, with his eye for prize livestock, “the gods don’t need another side of sirloin”. As for me, I couldn’t speak. Love had filled up my lungs and all I could think of was: ‘How can I sacrifice myself to Him?’.

[Returns to the scroll]

“Remove all clothing before entering. Slide both legs down into fur-lined hindquarters. Bend fully at the waist, ensuring posterior is pressed firmly against the inside of leather section delta affixed to cow’s rear. Use levers left and right beneath the cow’s shoulders to close the upper entry hatch and operate the tail. For convenience and stability, hand grips are sewn under the withers for when the bull begins to mount”.

[Pause. Then, to audience]

Gentlemen – if you’ve been listening this far – against my express advice – I can guess what you’re thinking and I want to say – I do understand. I know there’s a moral problem. How can a woman, no matter her position, no matter her upbringing, stoop to something like this? There’s a word for the sin I’m about to commit. I blush to utter it.

[Pause; takes a deep breath]

Deception. I, a queen who commands from the throne of Knossos, now resort to trickery, to fakery, to get my man – [Looks at the crate] my…male… It’s an extreme case, I grant you, but how can I make you see, it’s a difference of degree, not kind? We women are long inured to subterfuge. We daub our faces with colour, we strip our limbs of hair, we pinch here, fill out there, compress, constrain, chisel ourselves – all to make you men believe there’s some great and mysterious difference between you and us. And when we succeed, we have to fool you again that your sweating, unhandy advances are attractive to us. [Pause] Oh, don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming you at all. It’s your innocence that’s being abused. But now I’m putting those same arts – the genius of my sex – to work on a being who, at the risk of offending you further, surpasses any of you in body, beauty or breeding.

[Looks at the scroll]

“After use, please exit the cow safely using the upper hatches. The workshop of Daedalus shall not be held liable for any cuts, bruises or splinters sustained during the act of coition”.

[Sighs]

This is not how I wanted to do it. The bull-leapers get to fill their arms with these wonders of creation, while I’ll be face down in a repurposed wine vat, biting my tongue for fear of uttering a human cry.

[Listens]

Wait – is that Him? Yes! That regal snort, those imperious hooves – He’s coming! [Starts to push off the crate] There’s still time to put it all together! But calmly, Pasiphae, calmly. Slow and stately: like the queenliest heifer in the herd…

[Exits]