Women & Other Animals Read Free

water buffalo.
    "Freeze," comes the voice of Helmut, the world's best animal trainer. "Nobody will move." In less than a minute, Helmut should be performing, so he is wearing silk pants and a vest with no shirt. His blond hair lies perfectly in place, even as sprigs of her own hair snap loose from her pony tail. The tiger Helmut has trained continues to pace, orange, black, orange stripes rippling across big cat muscle. "Nobody will move," commands Helmut.
    Though she always has remembered that afternoon in the garden, has used it as a marker, a zero point on her own time line, she has never had a good hold of it. She knew those men with voices but no faces about as well as she knew God. Big Joanie obeys the world's best animal trainer, but she hates it that every person in this arena except her can see the tiger. Only about a minute has passed since the sunglasses man dropped the snow cone; the cherry color hasn't even begun to fade from her remaining snow. But the air has changed, become as empty as before a tornado. If she dares look up, the roof of the arena will be sucked away, and open sky will mock her. In arenas across the country, she has held her snow cones high as an offering, but today God has made it clear, he will not bargain with Big Joanie.
    The manager's girlfriend begins to lick him. He blinks to clear his vision and loosens his tie. The girlfriend samples him, tastes him. Small, insignificant circus people scatter in the tiger's wake. A dozen men in blue coveralls draw near the tiger, then back away, like the tide coming in and going out. Still, the music blasts. The manager presses the bleached cuff of his shirt sleeve against his forehead. The tiger pads back and forth between the cage and the front center seats. His girlfriend's mouth closes around him.
    Below, that bigheaded, bigassed snow cone girl is wedged against a low barrier between the arena and the seats, her back to the tiger. That girl lugged herself up and down the stairs of this section early in the show. She was doublebagugly but oddly voluptuous, her breasts and hips pornographic in their proportion. Lying Page 8
    with that giantess, eyes closed, a man might feel he'd come home after a long journey. Still, even a man who liked them big couldn't get past the face. A man who would take that to bed was a man who entertained no illusions of himself. That's what the manager had been thinking when she looked right at him, through eyes as closeset as double barrels of a shotgun. She seemed to know what he'd been thinking and that he'd lied to four creditors on the phone this morning. Then, just as abruptly, she looked away.
    His girlfriend purrs, her breath raspy. He grabs a handful of that glorious hair and pushes her head down harder, establishes a better rhythm. Sweet God in heaven, he thinks, but his pleasure is lashed to his fear that she will stop. He knows she would like nothing more than to look up and see this tiger loose on the arena floor, but he can't bring himself to tell her.
    Tiger muscles flex behind Big Joanie, close enough that the sharp smell of tiger urine is overpowering. Helmut, Bela, and Conroy draw near, pushing the tiger closer to the barricade and closer to Big Joanie. Helmut speaks to the tiger in German, words that sound as if they emanate from some private train car where the three men sit, smoking cigars and drinking liquor in comfortable chairs. The tiger stops. Big Joanie hasn't realized the world could be motionless, but the tiger stops pacing, and the world is like a stilllife: ugly woman and tiger.
    "Nobody will move," whispers Helmut in English. "Everything will be fine." He speaks so softly that Big Joanie wonders if she is reading his mind rather than hearing him. The voice mesmerizes her, connects her to him. He will lift her from danger before the audience of thousands.
    But the tiger growls and severs their connection. Of the two creatures, Helmut is the weaker. The tiger's eyes cut into Big Joanie,