El Toro—the Bull—was pawing and snorting beyond to door to the plaza de torros, wanting the dance to the death—to the achievement of the Petit Morte—to begin. But I was in no hurry. I was still dressing myself out in preparation to fight the bull in this arena, which was still my job until I was old enough, next year at fifteen, to dance solo in the ring with the bulls. Part of ascending over him was driving him mad by making him wait for it. If it weren’t for brains and guile, I would be no match for the Bull and the fight would be over before it began. The Bull was a massive brute. This would not be satisfying for either the bull or me. The heights the pleasure we came to together depended on the preparation, the tease.

I had already pulled on my pink stockings and the black satin, form-fitting breeches and selected the white shirt, a frilly one this time, I thought. I wanted the contrast between matador and bull to be pronounced. Youth, trimness, style, fluidity on the one hand and brutish, muscular, lust-driven narrowness of purpose on the other. I wanted even the Bull to see and appreciate the difference.

But what to wear for the traje de luces—the suit of lights? It had to be flashy and it had to anger the Bull to arousal. That was the whole point. The Bull had to be angry enough to melt down so that the estocada—the death blow—was mine, not the Bull’s.

The green, I thought. The Bull fairly snorted whenever the green was flashed. And the capote—the cape—was to be green as well. But the sash? The sash would be bright red.

The Bull was fairly bellowing impatience and the need for the corrida—the fight—from beyond the massive wooden door after I had finished knotting the sash and straightening my black astrakhan, my two-pointed hat. I stood admiring myself in the mirror for several moments. Flawless. I was magnificent even if I did say so myself. I was almost too beautiful to take on the Bull at all. Perhaps I should leave the Bull pawing on the other side of the door there and become an unattached boy of the night. But that, of course, was ridiculous. What would the fashionable matador be without his bull?

Time for the dance of death—the achievement of the Petit Morte.

I threw open the door strutted out onto the killing ground. The Bull was turned from me but whipped around at my entrance. He was a monstrous thing, but magnificent in his monstrosity. All bulging sinew and muscle, hairy and massive and mean looking. A tremendously virile male. A pendulous cock that would make a rhino whine and back away and a ground-dragging ball sac. The Bull expressed the essence of brute precisely.

I swished my cape and tilted my head and looked saucy for the brute. I was late—hours late—for our assignation, but I wasn’t about to let the Bull think this bothered me one bit. I at least was ready and the Bull wasn’t. All of this time and I was ready for the Bull, but the Bull had done nothing but stand out here on the gravel of the arena and act like a bull.

I swished the cape again and did a little bit of pirouetting on my delicate ballet slippers, and the rage and impatience rose in the Bull’s gorge and I was being charged.

“Ole!” I cried out with a lilting laugh, as I turned deftly at the last second and passed my cape over him in a perfect Veronica move.

The Bull would think twice about that, I thought, with a stab of self-congratulation. Bet the Bull didn’t think I had that maneuver in my repertoire. But bulls don’t think. They just impetuously do. And their appetites are large and gross and insistent—and totally selfish, I might add. That was why the relationship between a matador and a bull never really worked out. Both were totally self-absorbed. So, naturally, one of them had to die.

But I was thinking too much and it was slowing me down. The Bull charged me again and caught the satin of my breeches and tore a chunk of the material away at my hip. First blood. The first blood had gone to the Bull and all because I was mentally screwing around with the Bull and not taking any of this seriously. But it had gotten serious now. These breeches couldn’t be taken back to the rental shop now.

The Bull really had drawn blood. There was a thin slice across my bared hip. The drawing of the blood made me angry. But it seemed to stimulate the Bull. The baring of the flesh at my hip had stimulated the Bull’s lustful need to dominate and vanquish me. The Bull looked at the wound and snorted in victory and pawed the ground, ready to charge again.