female uttered a small, soft, surprised noise. Now she is beginning to understand, thought the beast.
She squirmed a tiny bit.
There is no escape for her, thought the beast.
But the female uttered a soft noise, one it seemed at once of curiosity, of surrender, of petition.
She is an unusual and interesting female, thought the beast.
The female then, feeling his touch, began to whine beggingly.
Yes, it is a normal female, thought the beast.
I must not do this, thought Brenner, wildly, agonizingly. Am I naught but a beast? Is this what I have become! How is it that I, of my race and kind, should find beauty in this form? How is it that I can find this attractive, that I can respond to it? What have I become? What am I? How horrifying that I should find this thing so beautiful, so wanted, so perfect! How is it that I should find this lithe, alien form, this glossy pelt, these movements, these sounds, these odors, so exciting? Would it not be better to be forever condemned to loneliness? And what but pain and horror might come of this? Is this not death to Pons? Should I not, in my lonely vigilance, in the discharge of my dark stewardship, drive this thing away, or, failing that, destroy it?
It seems a quite satisfactory female, thought the beast. It will give me much pleasure.
The female, held, intensified her supplicatory whines.
Brenner found himself excited, half maddened, even frenzied, by these sounds, and by the sight and the scent of her. He could not believe the feel of her body. He was delirious with joy at her proximity.
I must drive her away, thought Brenner.
She is quite satisfactory, thought the beast. I will never let her escape.
I must drive her away, thought Brenner.
I shall claim her, thought the beast.
I must not do this, thought Brenner.
Then the beast uttered a mighty roar, of joy, of triumph, of exultancy, of jubilation, of satisfaction, and the pretty one, so helplessly held, uttered a sound of great surprise, and perplexity, and then, in a moment, again and again, yowled in ecstasy.
Later the female licked at the blood on the beast’s shoulder, cleaning it for him, and he, in turn, licked her flanks, where he had, in the forest, punished her for her insolence, or resistance. On her hide, too, at the flanks, there were the bloody marks of his claws. These marks, too, he attended to, with his large, rough tongue.
He later made use of her again on the platform, and then, again, after having driven her up the trail, nipping at her, on the height of the cliffs. He then, toward morning, drove her down to the valley, and thence herded her to his den. There, within those walls, and near the outer gate, that closest to the valley, he again, from time to time, pleased himself with her beauty.
In the morning, before they rested, she lay at his feet and looked up at him, lovingly. She lifted her head and licked at his leg.
You are mine, pretty one, thought the beast.
You are mine, pretty one, thought Brenner.
They then rested, curled about one another.
Chapter 40
From that point on, which we might signify as that of the beast’s acquisition of a mate, life was much better for Brenner. The misery and the frustration were now muchly dissipated. At an end now were numerous pains of deprivation, the torture of powerful needs left unsatisfied. There was now little point to howling on the cliffs, except, perhaps upon occasion, as Brenner was a rational being, to vent ancient griefs, to deplore the cruelties of fate, to acknowledge the mysteries, to inquire information of the stars, knowing they would give none, and to remember a friend. But perhaps even more important than the mere assuagements of certain physical requirements was his simple joy in the company of the female, his gratitude that she should exist, that there should be something such as she, that she was about, that she was near. Now when he roamed the forests, she was with him. Together they trod upon the leaves, padding softly beneath the branches. They drank at the same streams. They hunted together. They fed together, their heads side by side.
Brenner, in so far as he could, with snarls, and warnings, and by example, for he was clearly afraid of her only too natural instincts, and the ways in which she, untutored, might define her prey range, made clear to her the eccentricities of his office. Pons,