Bullfighting

Barcelona. From where I’m sitting, I can see a bead of sweat working its way down between the breasts of a magnificently endowed senorita I’ve had my eye on since I entered the arena. I’ve parked myself in the row above her, just two back from the dust and blood of the ring itself, and if I crane my neck a little I can look right down her camisa. It’s going to be hard, I tell myself, to pay attention to the fight, what with such an exquisite specimen of Spanish hottieship on unwitting display a foot below.

It seems like the entire city has turned out today to see El Toro Molestado, but it’s so quiet in the arena you could hear a fly land on a caballo’s culo. Everyone is holding their breath - which is fine, since my senorita is in a state of constant inhale as well, her pechugas bulging dangerously. Then a whisper moves through the crowd like lightning. Hoy matará trece toros. Today El Toro will kill thirteen bulls, un número ridículo, a feat that will ensure his status as one of Spain’s youngest and most accomplished matadors.

At the moment I couldn’t care less. My senorita–let’s call her Carmen–is rubbing her thighs through her miniskirt, leaning forward towards the ring in anticipation. I can almost see her licking her lips.

Could she really be this excited, just at the prospect of seeing El Toro Molestado, aka The Irritated Bull, aka Diego Montero Torres? An orphan, at age eleven Torres slew his uncle’s prize bull in the countryside outside of Seville, taunting it with a ratty poncho from behind a fence and then ramming a sharpened stick through its tear duct and into its brain. His uncle beat him with the flat of a pitchfork and then jabbed it in his thigh. Today, seven years after that first kill, Torres still limps, though most of his fans swear that limp disappears when he takes up his embroidered muleta and dons his pompom shoes.

But to the astonishment of the bullfighting world, El Torro announced his retirement last month. This is his final match, after which he intends to hang up the cape and retreat to his private compound in Florida. First, however, he will attempt an orgy of dust and bloodshed the likes of which Barcelona has never seen. This has always been El Torro’s trademark - an intensity and flair that have won him thousands of fans, male and female.

A trumpet blast echoes through the arena. Carmen shivers as if a warm wet breeze has touched the back of her neck. A small parade of men on horseback emerges from a gate across the arena. Which of them is El Torro? I can’t tell. All the men are dressed in crimson. Loops of black and gold and white braid adorn their hats and run up their sleeves. It’s an overwhelming spectacle - a calvacade of velvet pants and epaulettes. Any chance I might have of getting a good look at El Torro will have to wait.

I turn my attention back to Camen’s camisa. A few minutes pass, and then the trumpet sounds again. I look up to see a a lone figure strolls into the ring, clad entirely in red satin. He seems to part the dusty heat before him, his sword sheathed neatly at his side and his tie a dark slash down his snowy shirtfront.

What is this? El Torro? He is early. Spanish bullfights are divided into three tercios, and this first tercio should belong to the picadores, with their sharpened spears and childish taunts.

I’ve heard that El Torro is unpredictable. Wild. And in the past few years rabid young Torres fanatics have been agitating for the inclusion of bullfighting in ESPN’s X-Games, claiming that matadors like El Torro embody the spirit of extreme sport.

A third trumpet blast announces the release of the bull. El Torro tenses visibly, his slender thighs straining against his pantalones. His fingers toy with the sword at his lean hip. Matadors like Torres - who weighs in at a graceful, even waifish, 130 pounds - have helped launch bullfighting as an underground international phenomenon. In the field of alternative sport, some predict that in the next decade it will rival competitive lumberjacking.

I can’t tear my eyes off him. Across the ring, a man in red opens the gate of the bullpen and the beast steps forward, shaking its monstrous head from side to side in the sunlight. Torres waits. The crowd is hushed. Carmen seems to have gotten up for a soda, which is good because now I have a better view of Torres’s broad shoulders, draped lightly with his scarlet cape. The bull canters slowly to the center of the ring. Its eyes are wet and gleaming, the ridge of its back bristling with thick hairs. El Torro is a statue, is a stone. The great beast paws in the dust, raising a cloud of fine earth around its hooves. It lowers its horns, and a fine strand of iridescent drool descends from its thick snout to its undulating jowels.

Suddenly, El Torro darts forward. He dashes by the bull, delivering what appears to be a nasty tweak to its left ear. The crowd erupts in cheers. The animal charges, but El Torro is already safely past. He halts at the far side of the room and doffs his tricorner to salute the crowd. The sunlight catches his shining countenance - the delicate curves of the cheekbones beneath his leathery Spanish tan, the dazzle of his eyes beneath a dark thicket of Spanish eyelashes. He moves one long-fingered hand to flick a drop of sweat from his immaculate white starched collar.

The bull re-orients itself, homing in on El Torro. The matador spreads his cape wide. The Swoosh on his capote seems to momentarily disorient the beast –so clever is my El Torro, sly as a fox!–and before the bull can charge the matador has danced away again. He is as brilliant as his sequins, I think, and my breath catches in my throat as it becomes clear that soon he will draw his sword and finish the bull. Is this premature? I wonder, but only for a split second.

Again El Torro brandishes the capote. He tosses his tricorner to an assistant who has materialized from across the ring. His bare head holds my gaze like a magnet, his hair swept neatly back in two midnight wings. My fingers tighten on the edge of my seat and I feel a strange tightness in my chest that I know can be released only by tousling, by touching, that magnificent scalp - but suddenly the bull jerks forward, its tail lashing. The Swoosh seems to have infuriated it, but El Torro only smiles coldly, flashing a set of pearly whites and tossing the cape aside. The bull lowers its horns again and throws its body at El Torro. I leap out of my seat, smothering a gasp.

El Torro whips his sword from his hip and plunges it deep into the animal’s throat. The bull staggers, shudders, and falls forward onto its knees. My own knees feel weak. I press my hands to my chest. The smell of blood is thick in the arena.

El Torro turns to salute the crowd, lifting his arms and his weapon. A pair of bloodsoaked pompoms dangle limply from his blade. I sink back into my seat, my nipples softening at last.