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IN THE PENTHOUSE SUITE of the lavish hotel, the guest lit another luxury-length with his expensively-butch silver lighter. It was already his third cigarette and the interview had not even begun yet. He shuffled in his beautifully unadorned but hideously expensive Italian suit on the overstuffed hotel room chair, which was crowned with a prim antimacassar.

 

Beyond the window an angry sea tore up the beach and rattled the awnings. Behind spectacles the elderly interviewer adjusted his greyness and leant forward, poised before his celebrity interviewee. He oozed calm confidence; for this was the same room in which he had interviewed Robert, Marlon, Dustin, Robin.

 

“It’s a myth that this is a cushy job, you know,” offered the guest without being asked. “It’s not easy being half-man-half-beast.” His mouth was down-turned. Smoke billowed from his regal nostrils, his eyes were Cimmerian in their star allure. “I mean, in case you’re under any illusion.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs. “Banished to live in a cave with nothing to keep you company but the occasional virgin provided by the local villagers.”

 

The interviewer — almost as much of a celebrity as his guest — grinned politely (respectful of the tangible charisma in the room) and prompted himself from the typed notes balanced on his lap. “In the old days those villagers had been remarkably loyal to you, hadn’t they?”

 

“Yes, they were loyal but I don’t find that remarkable. The original deal, in return for me promising not to devour them, was that every year for nine years, seven virgins would be sent as a tribute from the village and left for me to feast upon. I now feel that this was generous of me; considering that, on a night of carousing in the village, I could have had their womenfolk with one flick of this claw.” He held up his single claw, as if to demonstrate its deadliness. In the other hand, his cigarette burnt dutifully. The star guest’s four fingers were not marred by the yellow patina of nicotine one might have expected.

 

The interviewer studied his notes while adopting a tone of show-business seriousness. “But your days as an angry, young half-man-half-beast are over, are they not? Those years of ‘rabble-rousing’ and whooping it up? What’s your life like now? I’m sure your fans would be interested to hear how you feel and what you do to pass the time.” His guest opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted; the interviewer eager to clarify. “A couple of years back you announced that you were giving up being a beast completely; that, instead, you planned on concentrating on being a man...”

 

“I started to ask myself...you know, about the meaning. I mean, whether there is actually any point, in the general scheme of things, being a beast, you know? You’re actually using the same energy, investing as much of yourself in this thing as a surgeon does for an operation. And is it really important?”

 

“And, what was your conclusion? Is it important?”

 

“I guess I’ll never know the answer to that one. You’ve just gotta do what you do and try not to go crazy while you’re doing it — whatever it takes,” he said emphatically.

 

“Drink was what stopped you going crazy?”

 

“There’s an old Japanese proverb. I always get it wrong. It’s something like, You wake up and then the rest is just horror.”

 

The interviewer laughed indulgently. “‘You wake and the rest is horror’, yes that’s very good. But things have slowed down in your life, haven’t they? I mean, the drink and the drugs... or whatever.”

 

“Yeah,” slurred the guest, skilfully changing the subject. “I guess that’s a sign of getting older, or something.” He ruffled his hair, succeeding in looking more grown-up, wiser than his audience remembered him — but not a day older. It wouldn’t be long before the public began asking themselves whether cosmetic surgery was his secret. “It started to get messy. By the time I’d found out where the villagers had deposited their offerings, I’d be so hungry that they didn’t really last long enough to make the whole ritual worthwhile.”

 

“Things changed forever, didn’t they, around the time you fell in love?”

 

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. The guest stubbed out the last half-inch of his designer cigarette, simultaneously removing the pack from his pocket, jerking it upwards and lighting another one without touching it with his fingers. His down-turned lips became even more distorted as he inhaled.

 

The interviewer attempted a different approach. “Here’s a quote from Medusa, an old acquaintance, who once had this to say about you: ‘He’s a romantic, a poet, who likes to drink whisky all night. He is attracted to beautiful blondes who are destined to drive him crazy.’ How true is that?”

 

“You mean the bit about the beautiful blondes? Well, Medusa is a wonderful person and she’s saying something nice about me, so I guess I should just go along with it.”

 

“She compared you to the great Mike O’ Taur...”

 

“I’ve never seen any resemblance, personally. But I’m flattered, of course.”

 

“Now, the gossip columns got a lot of mileage out of the rumours of a brief but torrid alliance with Pasiphaë and, of course, from her husband’s subsequent law suit...”

 

“Well, we don’t want to get into that, do we? I guess I do have a weakness for blondes.”

 

“Perhaps, if you don’t mind,” said the interviewer, not really caring whether his guest minded or not, “you could tell our viewers about the great love of your life.” He adjusted his spectacles on the bridge of his nose as though they were a pair of binoculars.

 

“One day, the villagers chose a young thing who had been working as a waitress in a local taverna. At about this time, they were running low on unspoilt fresh product. It took some time for them to lure her up to the cave. By then, I was ravenous.” The guest took one last drag on his cigarette and a generous yet surreptitious belt of whisky from the glass on his side table.

 

The interviewer used the opportunity to pose a brief intervening question. “How did these ritual mealtimes manifest themselves? Tell us about your home.”

 

The guest lit another cigarette. “A cave is a cave, you might think. But you don’t get to be one of your real legendary half-man-half-beasts without some kind of special refuge; a place in which to retreat from all the noise and hurly-burly of the modern world. I may only have been here for a few thousand years; no one really seems to know and I certainly can’t remember. It’s just home to me. Anyway, I’ve never really discovered a reliable means of finding my way around it, y’know? Perhaps it’s a subconscious effort on my part to keep things interesting. I often stumble upon chambers full of stalagmites with dripping marble walls that I swear weren’t located there a week before. On other days, I come across some narrow passage that looks refreshingly familiar, but which leads off into another mysterious twilit chasm or a pooled cavern I’m sure I’ve never set eyes upon.”

 

“So, how does your average half-man-half-beast” — asked the star interviewer, trying to be witty — “actually manage to isolate a spot of lunch?”

 

“Well that’s it, man. You know, virgins are all very well  — they should be succulent. Although the villagers have fobbed me off with a couple of gristly ones over the years. Easy to see why they were glad to be rid of them. It’s getting hold of them that’s the problem. I’ve always thought we needed to re-define our terms. I’m up there doing my job as the world’s half-man-half-beast, but don’t think for a moment that anyone bothers to ask my opinion or find out my feelings. I mean, ‘virgin’ is a fairly loose term. I’d like to see some kind of reasonable age limit put into force. I’ve bitten into a few so-called virgins, I can tell you, that just reeked of spinster.”

 

“Well, we’ve digressed somewhat now,” said the interviewer, barely concealing a variety of impatience he had developed exclusively for the cameras.

 

His guest excused himself. “You see, this young waitress — Agnes was her name — was brought up by some guy called Daedalus. He was a lawyer, or something.”

 

“His press release refers to him as a prize-winning architect — labyrinths and mazes a speciality.”

 

“Whatever,” said the guest, subtly rotating his thumb to flick expensive ash from his expensive cigarette onto the expansive carpet.

 

“When did this happen, exactly?”

 

“This was last autumn some time. It’s amazing people still seriously think an offering of human flesh can eradicate their sins. I couldn’t believe my eyes when they came to rest on Agnes. She was dressed in the emerald-green robes used each spring for the local farmers’ fertility rites. She looked incendiary, stunningly healthy and unspoilt. Although I hadn’t eaten for weeks and her curves looked mouth-wateringly Epicurean, there was another look, it seemed to be just behind in her face — that took my mind off my lunch; a primal, indescribably urgent throbbing that brought my heart into my throat as she cowered against the dripping limestone.”

 

“Yes, her sex appeal has been compared to that of Hayworth, Welch, Crawford... But tell us about Theseus,” suggested the interviewer. The guest didn’t want to talk about Theseus — he had drifted deeper into reverie.

 

“Her hair was drawn back tightly and gathered in a knot on the top of her tiny, fragile head. Her cheeks were livid and her breathing irregular. She smelt of frankincense and honey. I drew in a breath and looked at her with a curiosity I’ve never before sensed. I left her weeping in the vast chamber and hurried off into the shadows; afraid that my greed might get the better of me. I found some skulking vermin and a few fat spiders that helped numb my craving for food then went back to bed to sleep off my passion.”

 

“So, you managed to resist the urge to eat her altogether, did you?”

 

“Weeks went by; I cowered in the shadows, watching her bathe naked in the deep green pools where the glow-worms stippled the cavern walls. She was delicately and fragrantly beautiful — a kind of fey frailty that made my eyes smart and my mouth tremble. She made no attempt to find her way out of the cave; it seemed she had resigned herself to her fate. I wondered, as she smoothed the cool cave water over her palely luminous skin, how it was that Daedalus had managed to resist her charms.”

 

“She surely must have been hungry in the cave?”

 

“One night, I managed to prey on some sheep that were grazing at the mouth of the cave. She was resourceful; with shards of flint scraped from the wall, she struck a flame, built a small fire using moss and scraps of the clothing from my previous victims and, over it, grilled the mutton. It smelt wonderful, but I let her eat it in peace.”

 

“This period of calm and sublime entertainment was not meant to last, was it?” asked the interviewer provocatively, leaning forward until he and his guest were practically touching foreheads.

 

“Well, there is always some ladies’ man out there who is prepared to risk his neck for a virgin in distress. This one was called Theseus.”

 

“Yes. How that name must hiss and spit now in your inside-head!”

 

“You got it.” The guest practised stubbing out Theseus using his cigarette stub.

 

The interviewer continued baiting. “So, tell us about Theseus, then.”

 

“You know the kind of guy: smarmy; serious money in his toga pocket; independent; good looking; could charm a girl’s knickers out from under her chastity belt.”

 

“Ponce.”

 

“Yeah. Well, some woman called Ariadne had the hots for big-boy Theseus. It was Ariadne who gave Theseus the idea of the clew...”

 

“It’s an irony of love, isn’t it, that lovers often do things which ultimately are not in their own best interests,” interjected the interviewer, playing on his guest’s bruised emotions. “Hoping that their apparently selfless generosity will be interpreted by their lovers as a sign of true devotion. When really they’re just stumbling around in the dark, trying to find their way out.”

 

“Nice metaphor.”

 

“Mmm. Clew is an ancient and underused word, isn’t it? Just a ball of yarn, really, invested with added poignancy for you, of course: in that maze of sharp edges, dark corners and narrow passageways.”

 

“Well, sure. Ariadne promised Theseus that she’d help him, if he agreed to marry her. She was just trying to impress him. And she wasn’t going to do that with just any old ball of thread. So, she chose something extra special.”

 

“And what exactly did this special something entail?” The interviewer leant back in his chair, gratified that he had managed to push his guest towards providing more expansive answers.

 

“From her best gown, Ariadne pulled a length of pure golden yarn and wound it around a reel of bleached bone.” His guest stopped — just when it was getting interesting — to take another drink. “She gave it to Theseus and told him to tie one end of it off at the mouth of my cave so he could find his way back out.”

 

“And how was Agnes dealing with her incarceration?” The interviewer’s short attention span was as infamous as his guest’s beastliness was legendary.

 

“In the cave at night, she sobbed herself to sleep, keeping me awake. I wondered whether she was mourning the waste of her youth or her destiny — now that she was condemned to remain a virgin for eternity. I covered my ears, but the sound of her sadness penetrated everything. Perhaps she had been betrayed by men before, just as so recently she had been betrayed by Daedalus.”

 

“Well, that’s just conjecture, isn’t it?”

 

“How else could he have convinced her to go to the cave?” The guest shook his hand and wagged the smouldering cigarette-end in an aggravated fashion in the direction of the celebrity interviewer. “That architect guy tricked her, you can bet on it.”

 

“And what about Theseus?”

 

“He made his way into my cave at night. He knew what was waiting for him there.” The guest’s voice rose in volume, accelerating. “He could hear Agnes’ gentle sobbing from the cave’s mouth and slipped in, between the echoing ooze of coursing water and the palpable velvet of its inner darkness. When I think of Agnes now, I am forced to think of her with Theseus.”

 

“Theseus the seeker; Theseus the Hero; Theseus the finder of clews...?”

 

“Theseus the taker, the thief, the ponce! He crept in to get Agnes. He must always have loved her — or at least the idea of her.”

 

“And what was the idea of you?” asked the interviewer with a wry smile.

 

“This will always be the biggest question, won’t it; for Daedalus, Ariadne, Agnes and for everyone. In the story of me, which is what I have now become, everyone knows what happens: I am killed violently by Theseus for threatening his love.”

 

“But you’re my guest tonight and are sitting opposite me right now, so we know that this didn’t happen.”

 

“It’s my love of Agnes that will bring about the end of me,” said the guest, and fell silent for several moments, as the wind drumming in the awnings became like the overture to a lament. “It was not for several days that I discovered traces of the clew. The yarn had snagged on the rocks, and its fibres billowed in a supernatural wind howling through the cave. It seemed that Ariadne had failed in her attempt to help Theseus — and yet, there was no sign of him, or of Agnes.”

 

The interviewer crumpled his brows, uncrumpled them. “The idea of the clew was to guide them back out of the cave and yet they seem to have managed without it; rent and torn as it was. Could it be that Theseus’ heroism was enough to save them both? If so, what is the meaning of the clew in the story of you?”

 

“Fragile curls of gold confronted me as I wondered through endless passageways, in chambers similar to the one where I first discovered Agnes. They didn’t help me find my way out of the cave, either.”

 

“What place is there for a half-man-half-beast in the outside world nowadays?” asked the interviewer, provocatively. “Is he not an exotic peculiarity without his cave, his labyrinth, his maze of picked-clean virgin’s bones?”

 

The guest fixed his interrogator in his Hollywood stare, tousled his hair leaving it immaculately unkempt, but remaining silent. The interviewer twirled his pen, looked wistfully out of the window at the storm. “The strands of the yarn became the strands of your story, didn’t they? They snagged on the rocks of truth, severed by the twists and turns of the labyrinth that was designed to confine you.”

 

His guest smirked and held his charred cigarette butt between thumb and forefinger to pull on it deeply before stubbing it out. Smoke was still coiling from his mouth and nose as he began to talk. “I picked a filament of the clew from the clammy smoothness of a boulder in a vast antechamber deep within the cave. It was cold to the touch. I called out, but my voice was confined by the beastliness of my body. The bellowing of my inner voice vibrated the walls and resounded in my inside head. I was crying for the memory of Agnes and the long, downy firmness of her thighs.”

 

“Yes, I’m sure you were — wouldn’t we all!” The interviewer left a brief, dramatic pause. “But the old days — the old ways — were over; the days of unlimited virgins being willingly delivered to the cave?”

 

A fresh cigarette was already glowing on the end of the guest’s lighter, its silver twinkling in the stormlight. “The villagers came to doubt my strength and wrath and I lost all enthusiasm for pillaging in the village.”

 

“Half-life crisis?”

 

The guest nodded vigorously, his beastly half obscured by the veil of smoke.

 

“The nine years were up, your contract with the villagers had expired and you became an unemployed half-man-half-beast.” said the interviewer with eyebrows raised.

 

“A sad, old, lonely monster in the story of me — and nothing more than a bad dream in the story of Agnes.” The interview was drawing to a close, the blandness of a commercial break beckoning with great red, illuminated digits. A whirring corporate unrest emanated from the camera crew. The guest uncrossed his legs and leant forward with his elbows on the knees of his hiked-up suit pants.

 

The interviewer was already gathering up his notes.

 

The guest’s voice dwindled to a self-conscious murmur as his eyes fell upon the smoke coiling from his final cigarette.

 

“It’s not easy being a half-man-half-beast. I mean, in case you were under any illusion. Banished to live in a cave with nothing but your conscience to keep you company and not even an occasional virgin to prey upon.

 

“There doesn’t seem to be many of us left these days — virgins, I mean...”

 

—0O0—

 

(The Cave, the Clew and the Virgin, too is previously unpublished in print.)

 

 

Email me the title of this story and I will send it to you as a PDF file, free of charge: chrisb[at]xtra[dot]co[dot]nz