“Now it is your turn,” she told me.
“Just a minute,” I told her. “Ferdinand will keep. Would you mind explaining just why the devil you brought me here.”
“Why, to fight the bull, of course, señor.‘To prove your manhood.”
“Is this what you meant by proving my manhood?”
“But of course. To embrace El Toro. How else in Parnplona?”
“And all that business about filling my arms and sticking my lance in and getting my first piece of Spanish tail -- you were talking about the bull?”
“Si. The tail of the bull. And both ears, too, later on.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked her.
“Si. A little. But why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering why you picked on me for this escapade.”
“Because you spoke to me. Because, as I told you, you have the good muscles. Because you seemed a man with courage. But I see that I was mistaken.” She turned and started to walk away.
“Where are you going?"
“I will have nothing to do with cowards.”
“But I have to talk to you. And preferably in English.”
“I speak only Spanish," she told me haughtily. “And in any language I do not speak with poltroons.”
“Ye Gods. You mean I have to fight that bull before you’ll even talk to me?”
“Exactly, Señor.”
“But I don’t know the first thing about fighting bulls.”
“It is very simple, Señor. I will show you.”
And she did. For a half hour she patiently instructed me in the use of the cape and the pike. Then she led me out to the center of the bullring again, patted my cheek, and left me there.
The bull pawed the ground about twenty feet away from me. I thought about pawing the ground myself-—for the purpose of digging a hole into which I might crawl—and decided against it. The bull snorted. I blew my nose out of nervousness. The bull lowered its head. I tucked my testicles between my legs. The bull charged. I waved the cape like a distress signal.
The horns ripped the cape and kept going. “Olé!” That was the redhead trying to be encouraging. “Oh, no!” That was me as the bull swerved into a circle, reversed its direction, and charged toward me again. I shook out the cape and pulled in my rear end just in time to keep from losing half, of it—-which might have provided the perfect symbol for my appraisal of the situation. “Olé!” I acknowledged her praise with a sickly grin.
Once again the horny behemoth went for me. “Now the pike!" the redhead called. “Use the pike!"
“Won’t that make him angry?" I objected.
“Of course. That is the idea. Quick! Stick him!"
Her last words coincided with the bull's lunging for my groin with a murderous horn. More out of reflex than either sportsmanship or malice, I jumped to one side and brought the pike down so that it stuck in his shoulder. Now the beast was really angry, and when it charged again, I yanked the lance free.
“Olé! You have the makings of a fine toreador, Señor. Your coordination is excellent.”
I acknowledged the compliment with a bow. That was a mistake.”
“Look out!” she screamed.
Too late! The bull hit me squarely from behind. Fortunately, the horns missed me. But the impact was great enough to send me sailing through the air. I landed at the redhead’s feet.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
I got to my feet and wriggled the injured portion of my anatomy. It was numb. Then the numbness began to leave, and it felt as if I'd sat down on a dozen or so carpet tacks. “I‘m not going to do much horseback riding for a while," I told her. “Outside of that, I’m fine.”
“Come inside with me,” she said, leading me to a row of stalls fronting a barnlike structure. “We will put some liniment on it before it stiffens up on you.”
We entered the building behind the stalls. Inside, the air was heavy with the aromas of hay and bull-sweat and manure. She went to a cabinet and fished out a bottle of liniment. “Here.” She handed it to me. “I‘ll turn my back, and you go ahead and apply it to where you were hurt.”
I tried to do as she suggested, but it wouldn’t work. No matter how I bent over and turned and angled my body, I simply couldn’t get into a position where I could rub ointment into the injured flesh. “It’s no use," I called to her.
No answer.
I peered through the dimness. I could just barely make out her silhouette. She was standing with her back to me. From the way she was holding her head, I could tell she was staring at something quite intently.
I pulled up my pants and crossed over to her. She jumped when I touched her arm. “Oh! Are you finished?” she asked.
“I never got started,” I replied. “It’s an anatomical impossibility. It would stump the most expert contortionist.”
“Si. Well, that’s good,” she answered absent-mindedly.
I looked over her shoulder to see what was keeping her so preoccupied. It was a nature lesson. I should have guessed. Nothing is calculated to hold the attention of a normally erotic young girl so well as the sight of beasts in the act of mating. And the bull which was mounting the heifer in the comer of the corral was either unusually aroused—even for a bull stud—or else he was just so naturally well-endowed that he would have given any man an inferiority complex.
“Is it not thrilling?” The redhead wet her lips with her tongue. Her eyes were glittering. There was a light dew of perspiration on her forehead. She was leaning half over the fence so that her breasts were pressed into the back of her hands. The nipples were stiff, aroused, and clearly visible. Just touching her arm, I could sense, rather than feel, that she was trembling.
“Very thrilling,” I agreed.
This time she responded to my voice. She turned to face me, the uptilted peaks of her high breasts barely grazing my own chest. Again her tongue peeped from between her lips. “Did the liniment help, Señor Victor?” she asked, proving that I had been right and that she hadn’t really heard me before.
“No. I wasn’t able to reach around far enough to apply it.”
“Oh. Well, perhaps if I helped you . . .”
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s in sort of an indelicate spot, isn’t it?”
“There's no reason that you should suffer because of modesty.” She glanced at the two panting beasts again. “Animals have the right idea,” she observed. “They’re never modest. Come now. Just lean over the fence here and drop your trousers. I don‘t mind alleviating your suffering. I don’t mind at all.”
“Okay. If you’re sure, then okay.” I did as she suggested. As her fingers trailed soothingly over the bruised area, I found myself focusing on the lust-maddened bull. He was being far from gentle with the cow now, but she didn’t seem to mind. For some reason, I found myself recalling what the American I’d met in the cafe had told me about bulls. It raised a question in my mind, and I put the question to the redhead. “This surprises me,” I told her, indicating the scene in the corral. “I was told that they gelded arena bulls.”
“You were misinformed, Señor Victor. Only in Barcelona do they do that to the bulls. Here in Pamplona we find that putting a bull to stud the night before he goes into the arena increases his fury in the ring. Besides, tomorrow he may die. Why should he not live a little tonight?" As if to punctuate what she was saying, her warm hands kneaded the ointment into my flesh.