The Gospel According to Dionysus

14 Jan, 2025

An old short story I was asked to post. You can read the original in Portuguese here. This was made a day before I turned 17 so keep your expectations nice and low.

It is night, a quarter to seven, and the apartment smells like done rice and fried beef. The cook is Luke, who works at home for his wife, Hippolyta.

Hippolyta Gonçalves de Santos Dias is a mechanical engineer, a supervisor at Bosch. She commands some other hundred engineers every day with German precision. Her Italian heritage is visible in her height, in the long and blonde hair down to her waist, and in her eyes. She could trace her ancestry up to the first to ever come down the boat and recite their name, surname, and how they contributed to the family's fortune.

Luke is the son of northeasterners¹ and doesn't know what he did to deserve her, but he'd do anything to keep her.

She comes into the apartment without saying a word, crosses the living room, leaves her suitcase on top of the table, throws the shoes in a corner, the suit jacket in another, and lets herself plunge down into the couch. Hippolyta undoes her dress shirt, sighs deeply, and focuses on the ceiling, resting for the first time ever since she woke up today.

In any other day, Luke would have approached, asked how her day had been, and they would have talked over dinner. Not today. Luke had plans for today.

He passes in front of the couch very slowly, swinging his hips as if he wasn't aware of it, and says not a word. Hippolyta pretends not to see, but eventually takes the bait and lifts her head.

Luke looks over his shoulder, locks eyes with her for just a moment, and dashes to the bedroom.

In a matter of seconds, he's pinned to the bed by the wrists, but his captor isn't Hyppolyta, and the captive isn't Luke. That's the Jaguar, and the Rabbit is her prey.

The Jaguar leaves the Rabbit where he is and disappears in the darkness of that sanctum. The Rabbit is afraid. His throat is tight, he feels his heart trying to leap from his chest, his attention would be perturbed by a pin falling on the floor.

The Jaguar, unlike the Rabbit, can see very well in the dark. She makes sure not to make any sound. Her quarry must know its place.

The Rabbit is immobile, and knows he must continue like this. At some point, one of them would make a mistake. He only hoped it wouldn't be his.

His eyes search the room, lost.

His nose catches the smell of the Jaguar, but right at that moment, the Rabbit shifts in the bed. He has made a mistake.

Right on his feet, the Rabbit tries to leap but is grappled back to the bed. He feels the fangs in his neck, the claws in his body; some in his wrist, others in his thigh.

His chest heaves up and down, breathing like a locomotive.

Any other day, the Jaguar would have been serene and gentle. This wasn't one of those days.

The Jaguar bites in his shoulder again and clamps her claws, the Rabbit lets out a loud moan. In his panic he tries to fight the Jaguar and struggles, but they both roll on the bed. Now the Jaguar is straddling his back, pinning him against the sheets. His paws are in his back, he can feel the claws; those sharp daggers could rip him up in the blink of an eye.

The Rabbit cries and sobs. Luke, of course, is laughing with joy and pleasure, but that's not Luke. That's the Rabbit, and the Rabbit is prey.

His predator lets him go once again, leaving him atop the bed just like the day he was born.

The Rabbit turns himself up and the Jaguar finally pounces. With a roar she leaps on top of him and the ensuing kiss could be measured in the Richter scale; her claws grip his head, others his hips, and she hurries to put him inside. To consume him.

The panic of the hunt gives way to the pleasure of consummation. He lets himself go, his flesh being devoured by the Jaguar, but she's not satisfied with just that - no. The Rabbit had provoked her, she wanted more, and she breaks her body against his. Claws and nails get lost in someone's skin, the Jaguar bites and the Rabbit bites back. The dance is as delicate as a car crash; there are grunts, there are roars, there are snarls, but words there are note. Those are Man's tools, and they have no place here.

This is a sacrifice, but it isn't dedicated to any god that matters; not right now. Right now who matters is the Jaguar, the Rabbit, and the come-and-go of their bodies. That blood isn't shed in the name of divinity for the only god in this moment is pleasure, and that is a gluttonous deity.

Tensions escalate. Rabbit and Jaguar are a maelstrom of flesh and passion, whirling and whirling amidst screams of pleasure and hate, of frustration, of joy, of pure ecstasy. The Jaguar drags the Rabbit closer to herself and embraces him in her arms, and the Rabbit tries to do the same, tries to bridge the distance between them, to shed their duality and become one. The Jaguar roars and feels her vocal chords vibrate inside her throat, and for a moment, that same vibration is felt in the Rabbit's throat - he didn't even notice he had been roaring back.

Body, spirit, mind, all is one now. There is no more Jaguar or Rabbit, Hippolyta or Luke. There is no more sanctum or bedroom, bed, heat, cold, seasons, time. Jaguar and Rabbit have turned into raw passion, stuffed with sentiments and emotion, and dissipated in the air.

In that act they destroy one another, level one another. Once shattered into smithereens, they rise again from the clay, one made in the image of the other.

After half an hour, Hippolyta gets up and leaves Luke on the bed. She goes to the kitchen to have some dinner, although her hunger had already been satiated.