Posted by PK on October 18, 2001 at 18:08:12:
"Okay, here's the deal," the producer said. "You hunt naked. Just the tiger makeup. We've
put cameras all round the park, we should get some of it. When you kill her..."
"Wait a minute," Amanda said. "Makeup? Naked, fine, no problem, but I don't do that. And
what's this 'when you kill her'? I don't hunt unless the prey's got a fair chance. If I get her, I
eat her, that's not negotiable..."
"Wait a minute," Jerry objected. "Nobody told me anybody was going to get snuffed..."
"Not 'snuffed'" Amanda corrected. "Killed. And eaten." She was already having second
thoughts about this. She had to be honest with herself, though she didn't normally go in for
theatrics the idea of hunting naked had appealed to her on some level. Fairness? Possibly.
After all, most of the quarry ran unarmed, and near enough naked themselves. Did she really
need weapons against them? Well, since the odds usually favoured the runners (easier for
them to simply avoid the hunter than for the hunter to catch them in a limited time period,
only idiots tried to fight) it was handy to carry a bow in case you got a clear shot. There were,
of course, other aspect to it. A better challenge. Something she hadn't done before. And, of
course, she reluctantly admitted to herself, she rather liked the idea of being a prehistoric
savage, a primaeval huntress. It suited an aspect of her.
But a were-tigress? It was disturbingly reminiscent of adolescent vanity (Won't I look cool in
stripes?) and a bit too obvious a reference to the tiger's identification with Shiva. Death
personified.
Not me, Amanda thought. I'm nobody's cliche. But..
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Blake, of course. Had her name defined her nature? No, she could have been a sick rose.
But still, 'One law for the lion and the lamb is oppression.' Works for me, she had thought.
"I don't do makeup," she told the producer.
Jerry hadn't finished. "In case anybody missed it, I'm not doing snuff. Whatever you call it."
"In English, it's called killing," Amanda said with heavy patience. "I thought we'd covered
that." To the producer, she said, "I don't hunt in greasepaint and I'm not killing anybody who
doesn't know the rules. That's not negotiable either."
"I'm sure we can work something out," the producer said.
"Hello, I'm still here," Jerry put in.
"Shut up," Amanda and the producer said at once. For a brief moment Amanda almost
smiled back at him.
"I want to talk to her," Amanda said.
"She's not here yet," the producer prevaricated. "Look, we've got some time, why don't you at
least try the body paint on? It's soluble in a mix of alcohol and water - won't wash off in the
wet but you can get it off without abrasives, it's a marvel - what can you lose? If you still don't
want to use it..." he shrugged. "We'll talk. Deal?"
A stalk of grass tickled Amanda's nose. The air was alive with scents and she could feel the
pools of sunlight on her skin shift as the clouds and trees moved. The shifting light interacted
with the static design on the skin of her back, the different infra-red absorption rates of the
pigments in her body paint. Not a parallel processor on the planet could work the algorithm
that made her aware of her stripes by the four dimensional interference pattern.
Bees buzzed by, as they do. Amanda waited. Not patiently, not impatiently. She waited.