Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

Karl would not let her go to the toilet, although the meal went for many hours. It was a test of strength. She thought perhaps the irritation in her bladder could be mistaken for sexual desire, so perhaps that was the purpose.

She swallowed the meat and did not answer the question. The plate was so large it must have carried the entire animal; what could be so fleshy? They ate sago broth with opium and honey, stir-fried ginger, caraway seeds, coriander, carrots, peas, spinach, cabbage, potato and onion. They ate tomatoes stuffed with avocado and truffle and pimento. Each course came out, the table cleaned between each, and the entertainment went on in the corner of the room. The men ordered the servants about loudly, each trying harder to be more demanding. Karl told them such servants were called tigers, once. That ladies’ attendants were called pages. The men began to say, “Hey, tiger,” to the servants, because it was the only way they would tame such a creature, by giving its name to a servant.

Tara and the other woman didn’t call their attendants page.

As the soup was being prepared, the man who claimed to have caught the tigers came to their table. They all knew he was the hunter, and they wanted to hear the story of how brave the tigers were, how the man nearly died.

“The tiger becomes obsessed with the animal it kills. It doesn’t leave the slightest taste, will eat the internal organs, the eyeballs, the hooves, the strings and bows of that beloved creature.”

The hunter watched Tara, took in her position, her breasts, the colour of her skin.

The hunter moved around the table as he spoke. They ate quails, tossed the bones over their shoulders, and the crackle of the bones seemed to be his jungle floor, his boneyard.

The hunter circled the table, making them twist their necks.

Karl scraped the last of the sauce from the central bowl. Somewhere teeth crunched on gristle.

“The flesh may rot, and still the tiger will stay. Near that meat it will live, sleep, for as long as it takes.”

The next course arrived, each person given a different portion, some a little more, some a little less. She watched them stare at each other’s plates, and covet that extra mouthful. Asparagus spears with hollandaise sauce, radishes always within reach, and phallus-shaped bread, which they tore with their hands and did not take the time to butter.

“The tiger will not share with any scavenger. A deer may last six days, a buffalo perhaps weeks. Because the tiger has to work so hard, it has to spend its life hunting. So a large kill is like a little holiday. He doesn’t want to cut it short.”

“So all a hunter has to do,” Tara thought, “is watch the vultures overhead, and find that tiger’s feast. And there will be an over-fed, rested tiger, protective of his feast, not expecting danger. All a man has to do is take the prey with a full stomach.”

Even at just a mouthful of each dish, her belly was swollen against the tight metallic shine of her dress. Her mother had worn a tight dress too, and her grandmother. They wore tight dresses and remained silent, they lived with legs ready to spread and died on a whim.

“Oh, yes. Until the tigers learnt that man knew the habit. Then the holiday was over; just a mouthful, a single meal, from every kill, and then away, to find more food. A tiger needs thirty cattle a year to live. How much do you think a man needs?”

No one knew. They were no longer listening to the hunter. The other woman had begun the story of a recent assignation, how foolish the man had looked. Each man at the table imagined how he would impress her. They became anxious for the Tiger’s Penis Soup, wanting its juices, its life-giving, ever-growing goodness.

The hunter pulled a chair behind Tara. She alone was interested in how the tiger died. As the soup reached the table, the man Karl wanted most to impress said, “I’ve heard that when a man or beast dies, his soul enters his penis. So we gobble the tiger’s soul.”

The table laughed heartily. Tara opened her mouth wide at Karl’s prodding, as if she, too, found this a delight.

She wondered, but did not ask, where the soul of a woman goes.

The soup cost thousands for the nine of them, the rest of the banquet the same again, and then there was the wine. They need two tiger’s penises for a tureen large enough for ten. It is rare to find two males together in the wild; they like their space, and their females, to themselves. The soup is considered an aphrodisiac.

The stock is chicken, a fresh chicken straight into the pot, cooked over day-long heat, strained through muslin. Most delicate. The flesh is discarded, given to the cat or used for the spring rolls.

And then the soup was before them, presented in a gold-edged porcelain tureen made by the finest potter. The hunter presented the lid, allowed steam to reach the noses of those at the tables.

“Just the smell,” he said, breathing deeply.

“I paid for that steam,” Karl’s boss said.

To Tara, it smelt like boiled meat.

There was silence as they swallowed the soup. They waited, each mouthful, for the promised erection, the promised desire, and they winked at each other like young boys pretending to have sprouted pubic bush.

Tara swallowed her portion, did not bite the secret ingredients, let them slide down her throat.

Later, she would think of the tiger’s penis as Karl pretended virility. It was so long, twisted. She would feel his tiger’s dick reaching up through her intestines to her lungs, where it would squeeze, squeeze, would not let her breathe.

The other woman sucked the fingers of the man to her left; the man to her right licked his lips, his chin, his cheeks, with a rough tongue.

“What about the rest of the tiger?” the boss said, “do we get any of that?”

“Oh, no,” said the woman serving them. She was a short woman, dressed in heels which made her tall. “That tiger, he’s thrown away. No good. Skin with a bullet hole, stained, all that. Once, a tiger would have been all used up, in another time, when people believed such things. His meat would be swallowed for the stomach trouble. His fur used for ladies’ clothes. His brain for curing laziness, sure enough. His gallstones to give better vision. And his tail; in the bath, it makes your skin soft.

“His eyes will stop convulsions and all his fangs, his claws, his whiskers, make a powerful love charm.” She laughed. “People were so silly. Now, we just take him for his penis, for the soup. And how was it?”

The man opposite Tara gave the waitress a squeeze, a pinch, a wink.

“Just lovely. Lovely.”

The next course was brought out, a mountain of batter pieces, holding surprises Tara didn’t want to receive.

As Karl reached for another lychee, she realised how big his hands were, like baseball mitts or paws, broad, short fingers, a vast expanse of palm.

The hunter said, “Once the tigers couldn’t be caught by taking their food, the hunter would set up a Tiger Kill.”

Only she was listening. Only she could hear.

“The hunters tie a nice deer to a tree and wait. They rustle and make noise, because the tiger hears well. He sees well, too, but his sense of smell is poor unless he is hunting the prey of love. If the creature was perfectly still, well-hidden, quiet, the tiger wouldn’t find it. Only when the creature tries to run does the tiger leap.”

They ate quince tart, pears stewed with ginger wine and steeped with mint, honeycomb with bee’s wings still attached, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, then at last the meal was over. The men went to their rooms where women had been summoned. The other woman went with the boss. Tara went with Karl.