My Anaconda by: counterparts "We'd passed the Tigor where it met our wider and endless Rio Nigro. It was here that a century and a half ago Colonel Fawcett of the British army found his alleged 20 meters of green anaconda. I'd never seen any snake the full foot thick our exploring Colonel claims to have discovered, and neither had anyone else verified such a claim, but every native I'd seen since I'd started up the Amazon claimed 20 meters of river boa is child's play. Fish stories, I understood, extended to a wide variety of creatures in the maze of equatorial rivers that is Western Brazil. Well, we were in the right place for some truth, Manaus a fair three hundred kilometers down river by then, and Bogota half a continent and a continental divide into the falling sun being the closest ports to my neat academic world of verifiable things. As if verifying my thoughts, I swatted a mosquito that I was certain could make Guinness, yielding a palm full of my own blood that I washed in the lazy brown river. A year earlier I'd spent a month walking barefoot among the water hyacinth in Argentina, feeling for coils of anaconda with my toes. Greenish brown, the monsters are almost invisible in their native habitat, so you feel for them hoping something far more dangerous isn't under there instead. Down south, the typical male was three meters long, three to ten coiled around a female during the April mating season, making collection of the species relatively simple - if you can believe untangling ten snakes at a minimum of forty pounds of pure muscle each simple; consider, nobody I know has a forty pound muscle, and you'll get an idea of what I mean. I know I certainly don't have anything comparable, all of a hundred twenty off season, less in that in the heat, meat, bone and still a little baby fat - maybe my quads would go for five or six apiece. Well, as I was saying, every zoo in the world wants one, not that this was my current mission. It wasn't mating season yet; I was looking for the prowling grand daddy or momma, the chance to record the biggest anaconda on record. I'd need thirty-eight feet and over six hundred pounds of snake for that. They didn't eat when they were breeding last time I was in the field, but they always bite if you chance too close to the triangular head. Anacondas are quite unfriendly, not at all like the pet store boas from Africa. The mug on a three meter snake is a good seven inches at the base - unhinged. The good news is they don't have fangs. The bad news is they have teeth. Not all that big, mind you, but enough to draw some blood and leave a nasty scar. I've a war wound from last year, a row of semicircular punctures coming up from between my toes to just in front of the ankle, top and bottom. He knew he couldn't eat me, he was just pissed that someone had the audacity to step on him so close to a brain that looks more like a bump on a spinal chord. Some times the scar is useful; whenever I'm not in the mood I can just roll over without a word and not worry about being called frigid. One look at the foot and even a fool can tell I've been up against something longer and slimier than a six inch penis. "Paulo. There. See the swamp bed. Let's check in there," I told my guide as we came upon a stream with a lowland off to the west bank. Of course there were lots of lowlands and swamps, but getting to one was a trick. This looked promising with the creek as an access route, and sparse low-lying trees. We'd no sooner gotten to the edge of the opening of lilies than I thought I'd hit the mother load. Paulo was hitting my arm with excitement, unaware that I'd been looking at the sunbathing constrictor for a solid minute. My two paddlers were nervous. I'd insisted upon using long canoes with outriggers since a couple hundred klicks out of Manaus because I knew we'd have to go get the snakes where they lived. We had a little motor, but it seemed an unnecessary waste of gas in the slow water season. There were snakes in the river, I'd already seen a couple, but most snakes like shallow water where they can sit up and sun - not to mention eat standing waterfowl and thirsty rodents in the shallows and on shore. Shoot, he was big, I decided, motioning the rowers forward. It was an affront to their machismo, having their courage tested and being commanded by a girl, so I looked at Paulo, and he yelled some Portuguese. We moved forward. He was swimming. That was very rare. Even stranger, he seemed curious of our boat, and came alongside. I saw his head lift, looking us over, sizing us up, very nasty. Even I was a little put off by that; the rowers were pissing their pants I was betting. I put my eyes on his body, and guessed how many boat lengths at a little over two as we rowed by in the opposite direction from his swim. Considering that he was swimming, not rigid, I guesstimated something between nine to eleven meters; not an official record, but damned close. Paulo did the camcorder thing I'd taught him, keeping the lens low so we could verify the boa's length relative to the boat. Paulo was getting to be indespensible, a quick learner who'd already asked enough questions to know half of what I'd learned in four years of college about snakes. Mister Anaconda's body nudged the boat; his way of saying, you're not shit. I readied the lasso. My anaconda had looked us over and thought about lunch. He was hungry thin for his length, a tad over seven inches in category D. He couldn't eat any of us - well easily - so he had made a wise decision for which I was grateful, because he could sure as hell grab us and constrict us to death before trying. Now, to reward him, I was going to try to get my paddlers to back up while I roped his tail. If I got it half way up, there was a chance he'd not come loose and we could tow him backwards to the mud bank only a few meters away where a measurement could be made. I told Paulo this, and he looked at me like I was loco. When he told the men, they laughed and then got suddenly very serious when they realized Paulo was going to let me give it a try. The lasso was on a snake stick, so all I had to do was dip it in the water, and ride it up. Pulling it tight, I wedged the stick into a seam I'd made in the side of the canoe and gave the motion to start rowing forward again. Once the snake figured it out, he started to swim harder, almost pulling the boat over. Paulo grabbed the rope and cinched it closer to the middle near the back, correcting the imbalance, but then the boat started going backwards, our rowers definitely losing the fight. Grabbing a third paddle, Paulo added his considerable muscle to the job which only meant we were going backwards slower. I jumped out, and grabbed the front of the boat, up to my waist in soup. We were still losing. Three minutes of futility later Paulo jumped out and waded to the bank with the long end of the rope. One of the rowers unhooked the rope from the boat so Paulo could loop around a tree and gain some leverage. I trudged up to the shore too, my legs already solid brown with mud. Soon the ship was banked and everyone had abandoned ship. We used the handy laws of physics to yank the angry snake to shore from the bank. The two men stepped on an oar that we'd thrown across his head, keeping the snake at bay, while the lasso pinned some of his substantial body to the tree. I roped another part of him, and hoisted it up a limb. Then, Paulo and I started walking a tape measure up his back piece by crooked piece. He was thirty-four feet long; we had it on video. I wanted to weigh him but there wasn't a tree tall enough in the clearing to hoist him that far and use my measure. As thin as he was, I doubted he was more than four and a half hundred anyway. I already knew I was four feet short of a record, God damn it! We untied him and let him go, or more accurately we untied him and ran for the boat. Backing off the bank, I motioned up the creek. Paulo was tired. Hell, I was tired. The rowers were undoubtedly wondering why they'd come with such a crazy dame. We bailed a ton of water and everything was drenched. Then, less than a hundred meters up the creek I had a break. A native stood on a bank, looking at us curiously. I waved. Paulo said something Portuguese. The native knew a little, and smiled. Maybe he was laughing at the mess we were. I had no doubt he'd seen our whole show. "He wants to know what we're doing? He says it's silly to fight a snake," interpreted Paulo after we'd beached the boat. I knew a little Portuguese, and had already formulated an answer, but I let Paulo do most of the talking because his was way better than mine, and misunderstandings could lead to disaster this far off the beaten path. "Tell him we're here to study the snakes. We're curious about big ones; how they survive; how they've manage to compete this unusually well for food; how their habitat varies from the less successful of the species. Better yet, we'd like to find one and have them help us measure it." Paulo thought over how to translate all of that in pigeon Portuguese and simply yelled something to the effect that we were here to look at snakes and watch them eat. The native shook his head yes, and motioned towards the bank at his foot. I was elated. The rowers were still pouting. Paulo just motioned forward as he grabbed the science bag. I scraped up a cistern and a handful of freeze dried and followed. We came to a village of maybe twenty families. I saw a good fifty people, half children, all but a couple of rag covered crotches short of unanimous nudity. There seemed nothing sexual about it to me, but I did notice Paulo's eyes lingering on the variety of breasts. Our rowers, coming reluctantly and empty handed, were slowed even more by the spectacle. A few photos right now, and I had no doubt my work would make a sell in some upcoming National Geographic; though previously I'd not considered such a commercially pretentious scientific outlet. The village was on the only rise for miles, and looked cramped. I knew the signs of a village under stress; too little land for proper sanitation. Some of the huts were down near the creek, certain to be washed out in the monsoon. They looked newly made, so I guessed disaster was an endured yearly occasion. The native who'd brought us here went from one villager to the next, as if forced to make an explanation for uninvited dinner guests to twenty wives. I detected no Portuguese when he spoke. As if somewhat embarrassed at having brought home uninvited guests, he hustled us into one of the bigger huts near the side of the village that smelled worst of rot. Once inside, I was immediately struck by the heat, but didn't want to seem ungrateful, so I sat down. Strangely, I was worried about the mosquitoes, knowing how rot and human cramping can lead to all of those insect born diseases that account for a sixth of the human deaths on our planet. "The chief is out hunting," he began, Paulo interpreting. "It is safest to wait in here. We find very big snake," added Paulo, mirroring the native. "What does he mean by very big snake?" I prodded. "He says he knows of a very big snake. They will help you feed it ... maybe. Depends on the chief, he says," continued Paulo's interpretation. "How big?" "Big. He claims the one we had was much smaller. I think he might be telling the truth; he hasn't asked for anything yet. I doubt if the gentleman knows how to lie," explained Paulo. "Good," I said, happily. "Can we go outside?" I asked. "No. Some of the villagers are wary. It seems they've had a few bad encounters with the Brazilians, and know about the fire clearing going on down river. He's been down river and doesn't believe we're farmers, but most of the people here have never been there; they just don't like the stories. It's safer to wait for the chief, he says," interpreted Paulo. I wasn't eager to stay in the village, but it seemed it might be useful at cutting to the chase if there was any truth in the native's boast. The native left, coming back a few minutes later with some fruit that I determined I'd never eat. After awhile the sun went down, and the village went to sleep. I was still filthy, and smelled almost enough to overcome the smell of the village rot. We ate all but one of the freeze dried and most of the water before we found a way to fall asleep on the mats. Paulo woke me sometime near dawn. I bounce up, a bit confused by my surroundings until my mind reminded me that I was in a native hut. "The men have left. They've taken the paddles, food, everything but the equipment duffel it seems." "What? They left us here? Just like that? What's the matter with those people?" I protested, my mouth still a little sleep slowed. "Well for one, you're loco. Lasso a snake. Jump in the water with him. Then there's this village. Up to a decade ago they ate strangers in these parts. The only reason I didn't stop you myself was I thought the native had to have a bit of civilization in him if he spoke something I could understand," explained Paulo. "You mean these people are cannibals? That's ... well ... I don't know what that is." "Crazy. Your only saving grace is that, that guy saw you jump in after the snake, and he probably thinks you're crazier than he is. And, of course, there's the fact that we're not enemies. Believe it or not, most cannibals have a sort of ethical code when it comes to eating their own species," he said, looking out the seam in the hut for early risers. "You jumped in too." "But not first. Besides, I'm a man," he said. I didn't think it wise to get into an argument over the issue of liberated women and neanderthal men, so I let that drop. "Maybe we can stop them?" I asked. Without an answer, he left the hut, and I followed. The dark is dangerous, not because of anacondas, but because of all the other wild things that hunt at night; least of which isn't the dozens of varieties of poisonous snakes that outnumber my favorite boa a hundred to one. The bank was empty. There were some smaller native canoes a little further along, but nothing I wanted to spend five days on the Rio Negro in. Push come to shove, that probably was what was going to happen though, I was thinking. The river bank is the worst place in the world to be at night, so I moved on up the slope while Paulo checked to see if they'd left us our bags. It seemed the cannibals had a better moral code than our boat thieves, because they'd even taken my clothing. "Probably in a rush," Paulo said from down in the gloom before I heard a big, "Splash!" "Ahh! Get something!" Yelled Paulo. I stepped closer and saw him wrestling with something that resembled a log near his leg. My eyes adjusted just when Paulo went down. The Crocodile was two feet longer than Paulo, and pulling him towards the water. If it got him there, it'd be the end, I knew, scrambling for a rock or a stick or anything other than the mass of wimpy vegetation all around me. "Help!" I screamed, just as a couple of natives came out of what seemed like nowhere and rushed down the slope. They didn't hesitate a minute, one running right into the water before picking the croc up by the tail. The second native helped lift the beast and ran a stone knife right through his lower jaw until it came out at the nose. A second jab punctured the brain, but the croc still wiggled. They pulled the mouth off of Paulo's leg, ripping skin as it came. Paulo jumped up the bank, and fell at my feet with his leg a torn mess. I looked at it and wondered how he'd made it the four steps to where he'd landed. The natives walked on by carrying a still jerking breakfast and screaming at us to follow in their indecipherable tongue of repetitious syllables. They seemed pissed. I helped Paulo up and we followed. "You try to steel boat. Very bad. Me think spy for burn farmer," said our host native, who'd obviously lost some faith. "No. Friends steal our boat. We try stop," explained Paulo, every word a strain. While they argued I checked our water, and found it empty. Paulo was bleeding badly, and all the natives were just standing around bickering at us. Going to the fire, I grabbed a pot and went to the creek to fill it. When an old woman tried to stop me, I pointed to Paulo's leg and said, "Water." I doubt she knew the word, but she seemed to understand, letting me go with a scowl on her face. I filled it and returned. Then there was the problem with bandages. Other than the clothing on our bodies, there was nothing clean to wrap and put direct pressure on the wound. The hired help had left us with nothing but our scientific gear and cameras. Taking off my blouse and short, I tossed them into the pot. The water boiled pretty fast, but it took forever to cool. I poured it over the wound, trying to clean as best I could with the ripped ribbons of what had once been some pretty nice L.L.Bean shorts. It would take a hundred days to dry my shirt in the humidity, so I just wrapped the wounds as best I could. Blood was still seeping through the fabric. There was nothing to tighten with, and I needed direct pressure. "What the hell. Who's going to care around here?" I said, unhooking my bra and wrapping it around his bandages. The hooks and elastic were perfect, binding the cloth tight to the wound and slowing the blood enough to encourage me that it might end before he bled to death. I looked up at Paulo who'd stopped arguing long enough to ogle my naked 35-Cs. "Don't let it go to your head," I said, realizing my pale bra line looked nothing at all like the natives'. A little offended, I stood up, and noticed how my white briefs seemed invisible, wet with sweat and spilled water. I could almost count the pubic hairs. My white socks and low rider boots only made me seem more naked. I sat back down, mostly to hide. "I'm sorry. Thanks," he said with a certain Latin charm. "I'm going to be the laughing stock when we make it back to Manaus," I said. "If we make it back. They think we're here to spy on them. They also think we're thieves. It's not looking good, and in a few minutes I'm going to be in pain. You did OK, but the fever's sure to get to me in this pest hole," explained Paulo. I was a biologist. I knew he was right. Then, over my shoulder, the native who'd been our champion yesterday said, "He die. Leg kill him. Good thing. You no good. You steal boat!" "No we didn't. We're here to watch the snakes. We watch eat. See! Cameras," I explained, my pigeon Portuguese as bad as his. I grabbed a Nikon out of the bag and held it up. "No. Think you steal and spy ... farmer that burn land. You no good! He die, go in river." "No!" I insisted. "Bring snake. I show. We watch snake. We measure snake." I held up the spring scale. "We watch eat. Then we both go down river!" "You no go river. You stay. We talk chief when come," said the native. "Good. You talk chief when come. Then we see snake and go down river," I said authoritatively, remembering my psychology classes. Of course I looked anything but authoritative, white and pink and my tits bouncing with every word. Down below I knew Paulo was beginning to fade when he wasn't watching me. I grabbed him under the arm and half drug him into the best shade I could find without putting him into the bush, pushing our instrument bag up under his head for comfort. "Hum!" Said the native, finding his own shade. Some of the people dispersed, but most just found shade and watched. They were waiting for something, probably the chief, I imagined, or maybe for Paulo to die. I guessed that with their sanitation someone with a bite like that would die in hours around here. On the other hand, I'd cleaned the wound. It would take Paulo a good week to die if he was going to. Back home it would be nothing, a couple shots, some stitches, and a prescription of penicillin, maybe a fever and some bed rest. We had to get down river, and it looked to me like we had to put on a snake show to make them believe we weren't, what was it Paulo had said, oh yes, enemies. There was a murmur at the non-creek edge of the village. Then a row of native men came walking through the crowd. It was the men, and I hoped the chief. It could be bad or good, but at least the chief was an option. The first two men carried a pole loaded with wild bananas. Behind that, a second pair was loaded with the bearer's provisions and weapons, blow pipes and a couple of bows. Then the chief, distinctive because he had the biggest loincloth, bore only his own weapons, and displayed a ton of home made tattoos on his arm. Finally, a last pair bore a second pole. I felt my head get light when I saw a native woman tied feet and hands to the pole like one might carry a deer. Her head hang back in exhaustion. Though she tried to lift it and take in the horror of being delivered to the village like a lamb for slaughter, it was mostly her eyes that moved in frantic jerks. She had a head of black hair. Most of it was matted and filled with brown mud from where it had scraped endless pools of goo throughout the long journey. Oh yeah, I was thinking; this was the chief who was going to fix everything - who was I kidding. They laid the bananas and captive on the ground, and came right over to me, having been met at the trail no doubt, and amply briefed. There was a wild look on the chief's face, telling me he'd probably been ordained for reasons other than the wisdom of Solomon. "Why here?" He asked. I was a little relieved to note that he spoke some pigeon Portuguese, and had asked a question instead of simply picked me up and put me on a pole like the native woman across the clearing. "Bad men take boat. We try to stop We've come to study the big snakes. We want to measure them. We need to watch them eat, and then we go down river." My Portuguese was pathetic compared to Paulo's and I knew I'd said more than they could understand, confusing them as much as helping my cause. "You want snake. Yes. Me know. You want snake eat. You want watch. We do. Then you like him. You go down river. We like. Stay here," I think he said. I caught you, snake, eat, see, do, river, go, and kind of guessed at the rest. "Shit. Thank you," I said, genuinely relieved. "No shit here. There," he pointed to a path that ran beside the hut we'd slept in last night. I couldn't believe it; he'd said the English word shit perfectly; some things are universal. They went back to the woman. She screamed just watching them turn her way. It was like she'd come back from the dead, suddenly animated, banging herself on the pole and ropes that had her entangled on the ground. Someone scrambled up a ten foot pole at the far edge of the clearing and looped a rope to a knob at the top that had been made from an untrimmed branch while the rest of the chief's men untied her from the carrying pole. They took her dragging and kicking to the upright pole and then tied one of her feet at the ankle again with the dangling rope. Once the one leg was secure, the unceasingly screaming and kicking woman was lofted by pulling on the free end of the rope until her finger nails could barely touch the ground when she swung at the low point. It would have been better if they'd tied both feet, I was thinking, whenever my abject horror allowed a thought. Her free leg fought for something sensible, first rising alongside the other, then swinging towards the pole, sometimes hanging at an odd seventy or eighty degree angle. I knew the leg was going to tire her out. It had already destroyed any dignity she might have imagined still retainable. Most of the village settled down after awhile. Most found some dried fish or greens, and cook it up in a pot over the community fire. Two or three families usually cooked one meal together. Still a scientist (there was little else to be) I made constant entries into my journal. They brought me some bone infested fish on a big leaf, but I'd lost my appetite, and I was kept busy trying to cool Paulo with some septic water from the river. Up the pole, the lady's screams died down to an occasional whimper and a steady sob. I found the villager's reactions most startling. In America I'd seen the same kind of couch potato stare while watching TV with my mother and father. They'd watch awhile, some leaving to do other things, others getting a snack, or peeling a banana. Once in awhile someone would laugh at the way she moved her leg, go up and fondle her obscenely, and then turn to friends and engage in idle conversation. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon she pissed herself, and that seemed the main attraction, some calling to the others to come out of huts and watch. I was fascinated too, but for quite different reasons other than amusement. I wanted to help the captive, but none of my ideas seemed wise under the circumstances, so in the end I deluded myself by thinking she'd have done the same to them in her village if she could have had them as guests there. At mid afternoon someone fed the delirious woman. Soon thereafter, the chief came by, looked at me for about ten solid minutes, and then departed down the same path he'd appeared that morning with a half dozen of his men. They had ropes and poles, and I desperately hoped their enemies were being scarce where ever they chanced. Another of my fears was that their enemies would come to reclaim the captive. I had no idea how to hide in the swamp, and could imagine them drawing a bee line for the big brown nippled white woman in bleach white panties, socks and hiking boots. Some women started milling around the captive almost as soon as the men had left. After some discussion, one walked up to the exhausted captive and tied a rope around her left arm, right up close to the armpit. Then they sat back and talked some more until the arm got blue. When it did, a couple of the older children grabbed the limp arm and pulled out tight so the lady was angled out from the pole a few feet. The captive seemed to wake some, screaming with a horse throat that was almost a whisper. Her other arm flailed towards the children, but was weak and hopelessly out of range. One of the older women came up with a metal knife, one of my first signs that someone had done some trading here. It took almost five minutes to cut all the flesh to the bone with the dull blade. Only at first had the woman tried to scream, her face turning into shocked, staring eyes of submission by the second minute. Done with that, another lady brought up a rock and banged on the bone about twenty times until it broke. Mangled flesh and a splinter of bone shone two inches below the tourniquet, as the lady fell back against the pole. A couple of women lowered her leg to the ground, and then tied off the rope so she'd not leave the base of the pole as she recovered (more a breather, recovery being highly unlikely). She rested right in a heap where she fell. They wrapped the arm in leaves, dug a pit at the edge of the fire, and then buried it after lofting in some coals. My father had done that with a pig once, I recalled, some of the tenderest meat I'd ever eaten, after he'd dug the pork back up a few hours later. I imagined the meat falling off the arm in little bits. The normalcy of the thought filled me with a weird sense of shame. Just before the sun went down, they dug it up. Everyone in the village got a bite. For the second time that day, someone brought me food. I said no, but they shoved it at me, violently insisting. I knew the women in particular resented me. I took a sliver, maybe four ounces, and fed some to Paulo, who was so out of it he'd never know. He managed a bite with some water, and that seemed to please the villages, who then left us alone. I was starving, and finished off our last half pack of dried fruit, hardly able to keep it down because all I could think of was that everyone around me was eating human flesh, and under those circumstances being the odd woman out seemed a dangerous distinction. By the fire, someone had won the right to burn off the last of the sinew, and then ran around with the skeleton, chasing the kids with the rattling fingers. I saw the captive looking at this without expression, just a deep empty stare. When the fun was over, they teased the woman with her own skeletal arm, and then pulled her leg up for the night so her back was still on the ground. It had been a huge day, and I'd had enough, falling asleep in the clearing as soon as the sun died. It wasn't smart sleeping in the open, even in the middle of the village, but I was too shocked to move, and the heat from the hut might be just enough to take Paulo's fever over the edge, I was thinking. I was awakened by the sun and the ever present swarms of insects. Looking over at Paulo, all I could see was his eyes, and instantly thought him a corpse until I noticed his chest rising. Following his gaze, I saw the captive. She'd been lofted back up the pole, this time by the one remaining arm. There were two more tourniquets, one at the top of each missing thigh. For the second time since waking up I'd mistaken wide staring eyes as signs of death, contradicted by the tip of her tongue moving over her cracked lips. She reminded me of a doll who'd been torn apart by rotten children. Over by the fire, fresh dirt marked the sight of the buried meat, wistful plumes of smoke rising from the dirt showing signs of deep roasting coals. I was hungry, and this startled me. "How are you feeling?" I asked Paulo, turning back to my charge. "What happened? Apparently I've missed the chief," said Paulo, taking his eyes off the mutilated and dying woman and looking at my naked breasts. "You had a fever. He came and we discussed the snake. I think he went to get one, because he seemed to like the idea of me studying one. He said we could go down the river when I'm done, or at least I think that's it. His Portuguese is ratty, and my pigeon is even worse," I explained. He finally looked up at my face, and I was struck by how tired he looked, explaining the rudeness of his earlier hanged head. "You can't be serious. You're still trying to study a snake, and I'm sitting here wondering if I'm going to lose my leg or die of gang green?" "It's not that simple. He thought we were thieves or spies for the farmers. I had no choice. If we don't show what these instruments do, he's going to think we're enemies. Like that lady over there," I explained, pointing to the rag hanging on the pole half carved like a Thanksgiving turkey waiting out first rounds. "You have a point. Sorry," said Paulo, thinking, and hanging his head again. "Thanks for the bandage too. I know what it must have meant to you." A little smile crept onto his face. There hadn't been all that much to laugh about, so I didn't begrudge him the humor. I unwrapped the bra holding my shirt to his leg, and then gingerly unpeeled the bloody shirt. It looked nasty, the good skin shriveled up from dampness, and the rips still exposed with white puss and black scabs. Several of the wounds opened up and started bleeding thin pink ribbons of blood. I took the pot and reboiled my bandages slash clothing with some water, stepping around and ever mindful of the place where the captive's legs were cooking. I thought about putting my panties and socks in with the soup, but I hadn't hit that native of a level yet, and instead opted for a quick bath in the same creek that Paulo had met his crocodile in a day earlier. My socks hung to dry, I was down to my panties, and turning darker, or more red depending upon which parts, with each minute under the sun. "Looks like they're back," said a still very sick Paulo as I re-wrapped his leg. I turned around and watched twelve tired men bring in the biggest thing I had ever seen strapped to a pair of poles in my life. I guessed that the chief had picked up stragglers to help with the work, because it seemed more men than he'd left with. There, dropped unceremoniously in the middle of the compound, was the biggest snake ever to be soon recorded. There was a rope around her mouth, and at four parts of her body, keeping her relatively restrained on the poles, so I grabbed my tape measure, and started in without invitation. Paulo crawled over a foot or two, and framed up the monster in the video camera, doing what he could in his weakened state. It was over thirteen inches in diameter at the thickest part, a calculation based upon the way gravity made her even bigger side to side, but smaller top to bottom. Starting at the tail, I crept up with my ruler, wary of the angry head where I finished off forty three feet of snake, something like fourteen meters, I roughed out in my mind. Across the base of the jaw, she was almost eleven inches unhinged. Since the mouth could unhinge to twice it's width, this fat reptile could basically eat whatever it wanted, as long as she could catch it, which she'd obviously managed. A twenty five foot anaconda was already on record as eating a solid six foot tapor. Most snakes prefer eating one big meal, usually between twenty-five and fifty percent of their body weight. I had to believe the snake in front of me had eaten well, each meal between a hundred and three hundred pounds or something. There were scars across her body, most near her mouth. It's not all that easy being a predator, particularly when you have to eat whatever is offered up. Still, I could see she was hungry, her belly streamline. One third of the way back from her head would be her stomach, and it looked no more swelled than the rest of her. They said they were going to let me watch it eat. I wondered what? I looked over at the native woman, one arm, a nearly dead, sagging head and an obscenely exposed body that seemed less human with each cut, and guessed, though considering the missing parts, she'd be a paltry meal for this reptile. After all, she'd been supper the night before, and breakfast smelled done. I bet even the snake could smell it and was salivating her super toxic saliva, a noticeably acidic slime. Weak venom is basically strong saliva, or strong saliva is basically weak venom, depending upon how you call it, I knew from my workaday technical knowledge of the fascinating legless creatures. Going back to the bag of instruments, I rummaged through things. There as rope, a hose for siphoning, assorted tools, and finally my scale. I ran back to the snake. When she rose her back once, I tossed the end of my measuring tape under her, and then jumped over, measuring off a 40 inch circumference. Then I tied off the tape, and put my scale on, yanking as hard as I could so the natives would see the spring extend. I was pulling about ninety pounds and the snake moved a little. Of course I'd have liked to have gotten a real weighing, but there was no convenient tree again, and all I was after at that point was to show off our wares, proving to the chief that we were indeed scientists, and not spy for the farmers. The weight could be estimated from the rest of the data. I dug for some drama, and turned to the chief who was standing off watching with his men before throwing a hand into the air, yelling, "Yes!" His eyebrows lit, and he raised both his hands, causing the whole village to shout in jubilation. While they celebrated I made entries into my log, and put the stuff back into the bag. Paulo kept right on recording me, and in a rush I realized he'd just gotten a good record of our find, along with a porno flick of a white woman dancing all over the clearing in nothing but wet panties that had crept all the way up both her cracks. I wondered if editing would reduce the validity of the evidence. Maybe I'd just show it to female colleagues, I decided, grabbing the video from Paulo, and then putting the camera away. "Are you feeling better?" I asked Paulo. "No. I doubt if I could even get up, but I can maybe talk to the chief now. We've done our thing. Maybe he's ready to help us? If I don't get some help, I'm going to lose this leg." "I'll go get him," I said, and was soon back with the head cannibal. The two of them started negotiations. Back over by the chief's hut, people were gathering around some kind of large clay pot they'd extracted from a hut next to the chief's house. Someone brought out a bowl. I realized it was the local brew. Others were digging up breakfast. I looked at the woman hanging on the pole and noticed that she'd expired while I'd been doing my showboating by the snake. This made me feel a little guilty, as if there had been a connection, which of course there hadn't. Paulo and the chief were getting louder. Then the chief walked away, and Paulo looked pained as if his leg had started a new throb. "What did he say?" I asked. "He says you wanted to watch the snake eat. Then he said you wanted to go with me down the river. He explained that he thought I was going to die. Now he says, only you have to go down the river." Paulo paused. "No. That's not right. We can both go," I said, confused. Paulo wouldn't say anything, as if his next words were painful. I repeated myself. He looked up at me. "To them, with these conditions, they don't have a place to bury people. When they die, they set them on a log, and shove them into the river. To them, going down the river means death. He thought I was going to die, and that you wanted to die with me and go down the river. He thought you meant for the snake to have you, so you could watch it eat. The chief isn't a very complicated man. He doesn't understand science. All he understands is eating and death. They would have never gotten the snake if it wasn't for the entertainment of watching you be eaten, he said. Now he insists since it took his men so much trouble to get the animal," explained Paulo. I was shocked. My heart dropped out of my chest, and I fell to the ground, following it. From my knees I said, "You're kidding me." He didn't answer, because he was looking over my shoulder. Before I could turn around, a couple of the man had me by the shoulders, and were dragging me backwards over to the big jar of whatever it was the rest of them were drinking. They shoved a ladle at me, and when I wouldn't take it, they put it to my mouth and made me drink what I couldn't spill. The stuff was horrible, more rotten vegetables than alcohol, though I did notice some greens that were probably useful for stomach cramps, an antacid I assumed would be useful. One grabbed my nose, and I was out of options, drinking to keep from drowning. After a cup or two, they seemed pleased, and let me go so they could use the cup. I sat a little stunned, looking at the snake, and at the dead girl, and then at Paulo. While I was feeling pity for myself, a native came forward with the chief's next big surprise. Everyone quieted and parted. I guessed it was a coral snake, though I couldn't remember the exact variety. A ladle was poured, and the man hinged the coral snake's jaw over the lip, letting a drop of venom drip into the alcohol. Then he threw the snake into the fire where it tried to crawl away, but only half made it. They offered the poisonous drink to me, but held it so it wouldn't spill. "Drink. Make good," said the chief. Make good my ass, I thought. Coral venom is a neurotoxin. Unlike rattlesnake venom, which destroys the blood, coral venom goes right for the nerves, shutting down the commands that make you move, including the heart and lungs. It's very nasty stuff. One drop was maybe lethal, I was thinking, trying to calculate the amount it would take if ingested as opposed to injected. I took the cup, one native hand still there to protect its cargo, and started to drink. I drank fast, letting half of it spill down my naked chest, and drip over my nipples, finally onto my still wet panties. There, I thought, half a cup means half a drop, ingested. I'd probably live. I broke out laughing. The very thought of living through what they planned, coupled with the alcohol that had finally made it to my brain, started it, and I couldn't stop. Yes, I wouldn't die from coral snake venom, but then I had this little problem with an over six hundred pound anaconda to deal with. Looking up at the chief, he seemed pleased that I was taking it so well, me still laughing like the lunatic the pressure was making me into. He ordered me up another cup of, this time venomless, brew. From that point on, things started getting very numb. At one point, someone noticed the anaconda scar on my foot, and started to mumble something that seemed religious. The chief picked up my foot, and examined it, shaking his head yes as if it were a sign. The drink hadn't hit me all the way yet. I looked at the chief, who was studying me as if he had all sorts of assorted thoughts rolling around inside, and intent upon his course in spite of, if not because of, the seemingly mystical foot. Still, the power of the bit foot might hold some negotiating power, I thought. I said, "Paulo take boat?" Pointing over at my guide, I repeated, "Me snake. Paulo take boat. Find home. Go away?" The chief shrugged, and said yes. At least one of us would get out. There'd be something good, and my report would make it out. I'd be the discoverer of the world's biggest snake. There could be worst legacies than that, though I'd have traded all of it in a minute to run. It was like I was in a cloud. Glancing over at Paulo, he was still non-ambulatory, but had the video camera out for the record, and though I felt the native men pawing me, I found it hard to be overly concerned; my fate with the anaconda seemed all I could muster the mental energy to dread in my inebriated state. My hands and feet tingled with weak poison. They let me stand then, perhaps to test me, and I got half way up before falling like a limp noodle. The chief yelled something, and the tribe scattered. He had my shoes and socks, putting trinkets in the socks like he'd discovered the world's greatest handbags. Trying the shoes on, and finding them way too tight, he looked around, and found a boy he favored, maybe his eldest, tossing them to the youth. Then he grabbed my arm, and drug me into his hut. Quite literally, we had no choice because my legs barely worked. Inside, he tossed me on the matte on the floor, and pulled my panties off, stashing them away, another unusual find for these primitives, I imagined. It had taken a whole day, but I was finally naked. Then he turned me over, and tried to set me on my knees. I was on all fours, but then slumped over, slowly melting again. He pulled me up, and I felt him penetrate me with his penis. Pulling me to him with his hands, he managed to keep me up long enough to achieve his satisfaction. I watched through my legs because it was draining keeping my head up. This took every bit of five minutes; I guessed that being the big man on the block, he never worried himself too much about his partner's satisfaction. Of course, this suited me fine, though the idea of rape looked a little distant at the time, the value I guess of plying the date with large bowls of drinks and a little venom. When he was done, he let me go, and I conveniently fell over. From this vantage I got a good look at his trophy case, which amounted to a couple of tree trunks holding up a rough shelf stacked three layers high with skulls. At least he was ecologically efficient, killing more than he bred. He was very decorative with his skulls, I recalled thinking, pieces of pigment, feathers, and even a couple with some hair reattached in a motley sort of way. Well, of course, I thought again, no TV. Then, as I was looking at the ones with hair, I felt him lifting me again, just my head this time. He held a knife in front of my face, and I started to panic. I tried to raise my arms in defense, but they only left the floor a few inches, and then fall back down. Soon he was holding me up by my hair alone, and I wondered if it was healthy; again I laughed the laugh of a lunatic, but this time with a decided muffle quality to my voice. The knife went to my head, where I thought he was going to scalp me, but instead he started cutting off huge locks of hair until I was left with odd patches of half inch, one inch, two inch, whatever. He stuffed his treasure in the other of my socks. My mind was working slowly; it wasn't until he'd nearly finished that I realized he'd already decided how he was going to decorate my skull. Then, minutes later, when the men dragged me back outside, my mind caught up to the realization that if the snake digested me, my skull would be fairly mushy at best, if not digested entirely. That pleased my inebriated self no end. Next thing I knew I was lying feet first and a foot in front of the biggest snake in the world, feet and hands tied with a single loop each of thin cord. A couple of the older men, dressed in some kind of ceremonial feathers and paint, started rubbing raw split capybara all over my legs so I'd smell like that king of the rat family, one of a normal sized anaconda's favorite meals. Instantly aroused, the snake opened her mouth, the most frightening thing I'd ever seen, though she was old and had lost most of his teeth in the heat of a lifetime of battles. I think the drug had crossed the peak because I could feel my feet again where the rope bound, though I was remiss to move them. I was thinking clearer too. If I moved, the snake would surely grab me, and then begin wrapping his massive coils round me. On the other hand, given how the poles were still attached, and how the natives had roped them to keep her from moving the way she probably wanted, I might be able to avoid constriction if I kept still. The snake would think me dead or stunned sufficiently to just gobble me up and save me the misery of that unthinkable compression. The snake crept within a few inches, and the forked tongue took its first probe. The natives cheered. Olfactory information enters the snake by transfer of molecules to the tongue first , and then the glands inside the mouth. It was her way of getting a touchy feely smell of the offering. As for feeling, I was definitely getting my feeling back on the foot she'd touched - or at least I thought I was, and that was what mattered. I shouted over my shoulder to the unseen Paulo, "Paulo. Does it hurt to die?" I just wanted a voice, not necessarily information. "No. You're pretty wasted," he said, trying to ease my mind. "She's going to bite me next," I said, voicing my terror. "It will be alright." The mouth opened. The old snake had been through some fights, and had lost most of her teeth, but when the bite came, it came after a thrust forward. My feet IMPALED THE SNAKE'S THROAT, her teeth grabbing my legs almost to the knees. "Oh God. I'm in. She's taking me. Jesus, my legs hurt!" "I'm here. Just talk to me," said Paulo. "Are you taping this? Will you get my research back? Mail it to the institute for me," I asked. "I'll try," said Paulo. "Try hell. You owe me. Oh!" I finished with a moan, as I maneuvered my feet inside so the toes pointed in, and so she'd not break my ankles. "I feel so helpless. I could pick up a rock. Maybe I can knock you out," offered Paulo, only a few feet behind me. I was too entranced watching myself being held to drop my head back and speak directly to him. The natives had cut the ropes on the closest pole, giving the snake some maneuver room. She slithered forward a little, and turned her head a few degrees. Her head raised almost a foot, and my feet with it. Then SHE LUNGED FORWARD, dropping her head as she came, and straightening her body. It was as if I'd been held up in the air, and then dropped in a strange horizontal sort of way almost a foot inside her throat. For the first time I could feel a foot of muscles surrounding my feet, ankles and a third of each leg. They tightened, holding me tight as if in quicksand. Liquid seemed to be dripping over my legs, and where it touched it felt like that athletic lotion that made the muscles heat up and get lose. She seemed confident in her catch, not particularly interested in constriction, or still unable, but her mouth closed again, catching me above the knees and penetrating my skin again with several teeth. "I have a plan, Paulo." "That's the spirit. Fight it," he said, trying to help. "Seriously. Listen. Anacondas don't keep their prey down every time. If the catch doesn't fit, she'll grow disinterested, and regurgitate." "I think you might have a good chance," he lied. "No, that's not it. Look. I'll fit just fine. This animal is huge for a snake. On the other hand, when I get in, if I cause problems, she'll think she can't take me. If I live long enough, I can maybe gouge at her ... irritate her. If I come out, the natives will think I'm magical. They'll have to let us both go," I said. "How are you going to live in there," he said, forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be helping me gain some confidence. "The siphon hose for the motor. It's in the bag. When I get in put it in my mouth. It's not very thick, but maybe it's thick enough. Can you crawl over and do that when I get close. Then feed it if it gets stuck. It won't be easy. The snake won't like the hose, and she won't like you fooling with her, and she will try to clamp down on the hose so it won't come with me, and then puke it up. Maybe a stick jammed in her lips from time to time will let you feed some slack. Look, the first lung isn't in too deep, and then there's the heart, and then the next lung. Any irritation by the heart might be best, I'm guessing. That's not more than six or seven feet in. It might work if I don't run out of air," I explained. "What are you saying? You're going to grab her heart?" "Of course not. There are layers of tissue and muscle between the throat and heart, but she's not good at eating live prey. They don't think of irritation as anything but a bad fit, I think." "You think?" He said. "You have a better idea?" "OK. I think I can do it if the natives and the snake don't go ape about it," he offered. I could hear him rustling for it in our bag. "When you're close, I'll give it to you." "Jesus. Thanks Paulo. This might work," I said. I watched with a new sense of hope as the horrible mouth opened. I SAW THE JAWS UNHINGE prophetically. Pulling at my feet, I realized I'd regained over half of my feeling and mobility, though I was terribly weak. The feet were barely movable, coming but an inch. Then I felt my feet go completely slack. She had no grip whatsoever down there. HER BODY MOVED UP some, and the slack got even better, moving upwards. Then the muscles regained a grip at my feet. It seemed the slack in the grip rolled up my legs, and then regrasped inch by inch upwards. Almost a minute passed with this maneuver, finished by a slight shift in the head down back to the ground. Her mouth stayed open, not clamping down at all this time, but maintaining her stretched open gape. That mouth seemed nearer too, so I brought my head up as far as I could lift it and saw that she'd swallowed another ten inches of me. If her mouth closed now it would shut on the top of my thighs. As for my thighs, the gap would be plenty good to take it. She was definitely going to put me inside. I started to shake, and noticing this, I understood that I could feel the shaking. The alcohol and venom was almost gone. She'd been at it for twenty minutes I guessed. Snakes are slow eaters usually. God, I was hoping she'd be faster once I was well in, or else I'd be mad before I could coax her into regurgitating me. The natives had come closer, and I saw around the head that they'd removed the last pole, favoring a few ropes to keep her from roaming their village, but otherwise leaving her free to eat me. The top of her head was vertical, her retaining the gaping mouth. Saliva dripped from the top, and gave me that strange hot feeling on my legs. My knees were too far inside to see, and from there down, I was hot like I was in a hot bath. Of course there was also the feeling like I'd been wrapped in meat, meat bound by bands of rope. Then the realization hit me that it was I who was the meat. I was no more than a few pounds of hamburger to this snake, and she was treating me no better than I'd treated a quarter pound of ground chuck back home at my apartment. "God, Paulo, I'm just meat here," the words escaped. "You'll get out. They can't keep my snake lady in, even if they do think you're meat," encouraged Paulo. "This is so undignified." "I'd worry about something else if I were you, besides the fact that you're butt naked and giving me a hard-on," teased back Paulo. As if answering Paulo's challenge, the snake's throat started to SWALLOW. I felt my feet get some wiggle room again, as the room widened until most of my lower leg seemed free. Then lower muscles constricted around my feet, an the rippling wave of easing and re-griping rode up the lower half of my body until the rest of my thighs disappeared inside her throat. She didn't have to bite me, and preferred not to in order to maintain the passage. Instead, she was eating me ten inches at a time, one swallow per five minutes. I had one trick then, an idea that caught me one swallow before it would be useless. I'd drank a lot, and even if I didn't want to, the dam was going to burst when she tightened around my bladder. Instead, I let go a long wave of pee. Looking back finally at Paulo, I saw he'd gotten this humiliation on tape, just like the rest of it I was definitely going to edit this part. Deep yellow urine flooded up against the top hinge of the snake's mouth. It splashed back, diluting some of the dripping saliva as it pooled in the cup made of my legs, pussy and the top half of the snake's head. Maybe that would do it, I thought, really thinking it probably not that big of a deal to an animal that has probably had half the forest piss in her mouth from fear and pressure just before being swallowed. The snake moved its head a little to the side, encouraging me, but then when it settled down, the new angle flushed most of the pee onto the dirt. I didn't know if she'd tipped on purpose to wash out the foul liquid, or if it had been just one of those things, but the results were that this idea hadn't flushed. Perhaps sensing the chore of taking a woman's hips, the snake lifted her head, lofting me a foot into the air. My back was arched, and with my hands tied in front of me wandering for some purchase, I was instantaneously balanced on my head. The process was starting over. She took another long, rippling SWALLOW. Again, the illusion that my feet were free, enough so that I imagined myself walking away from all of this. They even moved back and forth a little, as far as the bonds allowed, my guess somewhere near the top of that second lung. It was too soon to start kicking and causing a fuss, I thought, because doing so would only make the snake throw her body over me and constrict what was still hanging out. Near the end of the huge rippling swallow, I felt my hips sink past the hinge of her throat. I was a good foot deeper in this one gigantic gulp, and I knew that the worst part of the job was over as far as the snake was concerned because a woman's hips are usually at least as large as her shoulders. It's times like these that double D's could come in handy, I told myself, bringing on a few seconds of another lunatic's laughter - though I was losing the knack. That mouth finally closed this time. It clamped shut just under my breasts, and I was looking right into the most terrible eyes I'd ever looked into. She was probably trying to gage the rest of the job, or maybe she'd thought she was almost done, having felt the thinning when she'd slid over my hips. With less leverage due to the unhinged mouth, the teeth scraped instead of bit. Her tongue licked up between my breasts, and just missed my face. I imagined myself dying from terror right then and there. In spite of the shakes, I did my best to stay still in the hope she'd open her mouth back up and leave me alone. Her way of making me feel less ill at ease was to do a mini SWALLOW. I couldn't see inside, but I knew I'd probably never see my belly button again. Her lips push up against my breasts until they bulged up like they were in an uplift bra. She knew she couldn't fit them in the way she was clamped down, so the mouth opened, and I found myself looking at a tongue and dripping saliva instead, wondering why I'd thought that less terrifying than the face a minute earlier. Shrouded by the head from some views, the villagers came closer, less worried that distracting the snake would spoil her desire to feed. She turned to challenge the distraction, dragging my body sideways several feet. I worried that if she moved too much Paulo wouldn't be able to reach me with the hose, but then she moved back, and I was drug again, only this time my head was lifted up off the ground at the last minute. Held up like that, the snake started to SWALLOW again. This time it was two bands of loosening and tightening, as more muscles had engaged me, providing what was literally hundreds of pounds of pressure to keep me in. Anyone trying to dislodge me would probably pull my arms off instead. The tongue probed my skin, sliding over my face, and invading my nose, ears and lips. I forced my lips tight to keep from invasion. Her tongue receeded, leaving trails of memory on my nerves of feel. I saw the mouth coming closer as the swallow developed. Raised up as I was, she took a lot more of me than before. I'd hoped my breasts and shoulders would delay the inevitable, but the throat had already seen this kind of expansion, and I just sank, falling as much as being pulled by the throat muscles. Sinking is perhaps not the best way to describe it, since I was really moving sideways, and often upwards, but my whole world of gravity had become the inside of that snake. My breasts were mashed up against my neck in the most uncomfortable of all positions, tight inside the throat. One nipple poked out like an eye, plainly visible to the pleasure of the camera still in Paulo's hands. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't nearly as big a meal as I'd first imagined, and was up to my arm pits inside the throat. She didn't like me there, my shoulders stretching her throat uncomfortably near the jaws, so her throat ripped again with a smaller SWALLOW, dropping me another eight inches until my mouth had sunk to a mere inch from the noose of flesh at my chin. "The hose! Paulo ... the ... hose!" I squeaked out, breaths coming in short, shallow swallows. I felt his hand push the thin clear plastic into my hands. Of course he'd have a little problem sticking his hand inside a snake's mouth, I realized, quickly feeding the thin clear plastic tubing towards my mouth. It came limp, curved by gravity with a bit of an arch, dangerously close to the snake's open mouth at the peak. Just as it touched my lips, the mouth started to close around my face. I sucked the tubing in, almost inhaling it. No way could I risk choking when it took as much effort to breath as I'd been forced to expend. I tried sucking through the tubing, testing it as if I had some kind of other option if the test failed, and the air came grudgingly. While this was going on, that mouth was slowly closing on my world. I could see every last detail of the complex interior of the top of that mouth as it dropped over my face. Great drops of saliva dripped over my forehead, and I shook slowly to keep it from my eyes so I could see as long as possible. Then the mouth closed over my arms, and stopped, leaving a ridged seam of light where, when I strained my eyes back over my forehead, I could watch the natives pass by as if viewing a casket just before the door closed and the slow steady descent into the ground began. MY LEGS FELT LOOSE. I shuddered in horror. This was it. I was going in, and I mean the face part of me, the part by which I relate to the world. If I had any piss left I'd have peed myself because my body relaxed from fear. When the relaxation hit my upper thighs, I felt the new muscles grip my feet and pull down. It seemed my whole body was released just then. Just before I slid away, I saw the snake's gape start to re-hinge, narrowing the neck back down like a closing gate. My nose bent up like a pig's snout and filled with saliva and mucus as it was drug through the snake's neck. Then my hands felt the meat of her mouth, and slid easily to the throat. The only cool air on my body was the air at my finger tips, the last air I'd feel, I was compelled to believe. I pulled the tubing with me, literally holding on for life. When the sliding stopped, I inched some slack, doing what I could in the event the snake's mouth tightened on the hose and made it hard to pull during one of those increasingly more productive swallows. A shaft of light still hit the top of my head because my hands were still in the throat, but I only appreciated a little bit of the glow in one eye where it leaked across my forehead, the hose acting like a fiber optic. Otherwise I'd entered the darkest cavern imaginable, completely surrounded by the flesh that had eaten me. The snake had won; I was food. It occurred to me that I needed to close my eyes, but they'd been rubbed open by the massive constriction. The snake SWALLOWED again, and I dropped. Here, I could hear the heart beating nearby my ear. Fluids were attacking my nose and eyes, and I did my best to ignore this because there wasn't anything I could do about it. If I didn't concentrate on bringing in the hose and breathing, I'd die for sure. Still, it was hard to ignore, overpowering, just another thing to terrorize me along with the claustrophobia and the increasing probability that I was doomed to stay consumed by an animal who thought no more of me than a jungle rat. I fell again, or was pulled, each being part of the action of being SWALLOWED. The swallows were coming a lot closer together, I realized, one a minute now. I sensed the heart near my hands, and had been waiting for it. If I grabbed the snake here, I could damage the inner lining of the esophagus at a place where the snake was most vulnerable. I'd never get close to the heart, of course, but if there was a sore spot, maybe this was it, I hoped. It was my only hope too, and seconds were ticking away. The stomach was probably getting very close, not much more than a couple of body lengths into the snake, almost where my feet were already, I guessed from my knowledge of her anatomy. Holding onto the hose with going to totally occupy one hand, I tried to turn my other hand to dig, and found it difficult. I had to force it, wondering if I'd be able to turn it back when I'd finished. I started to dig at the lining, finding it tougher than I'd first imagined, more like ligament then muscle, a fact I knew to be true, but hadn't given proper consideration. I cursed myself for forgetting this, again as if I'd had any other options. The digging had no depth to it. On the other hand, it did seem to agitate the snake. She started moving. I felt her rising, falling, moving from side to side. This encouraged me, so I dug faster, breaking my nails, but not caring one bit about the manicure. The esophagus started to open around me, it seemed. I was elated, a mood swing I thought I'd never have again. When I felt the ripple moving up instead of down, my heart almost stopped as my mood crashed. I dropped a long, long ways, more than I foot I guessed, into the snake. When I'd stopped falling, my feet felt much less restricted. I could even move my knees a little, though the rope still bound me. I wanted to drop then. I wanted my whole body to be loose like that. I imagined myself falling into some kind of cave, a wide open place, still black but unrestricted, a place where I could plot and maneuver. I knew I was crazy then, making up a world that didn't exist down there so my mind could cope. The stomach was far too narrow and small for me to actually do anything. While this was happening, the snake was still moving, a mostly smooth ride, but with noticeable bumps. Then she was gliding. Her movement had become a much steadier side to side motion. "She's swimming!" My brain screamed at me. "My God, she's out of the village. I'm being taken to her lair to be digested in private!" I don't know why that meant anything, considering how totally useless it was to put any hope in the idea the natives would cut me out, but it seemed the whole world to me then. I was crying pools of salty tears, the wetness welling up in the pockets made of my eye sockets. The tears mixed with the saliva to burn brutally. SHE TOOK ANOTHER GULP, and a whole half of me was loose in her stomach. I'd felt the dull burn of saliva for some time, but then I felt the enzymes and acids of her stomach on my lower half. "Oh Jesus God, that burns!" My mind shrieked. I could feel my body being burnt off layer by layer. Already, I assumed, large batches of nourishing molecules were being flushed into the intestines that surely were just a foot or two under my toes. The realization that it might take forever for her to chemically reduce me enough to rupture a major artery hit me. In the mean time I'd literally be melting like that wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, bottom to top, turning into ooze. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. The snake was swimming with her head above water, the hose apparently clear, so I didn't have the luxury of dying of asphyxiation or drowning. I cursed the instinct that didn't afford me the courage to simply hold my breath or spit out the hose. That idea of Paulo hitting me over the head with a rock seemed like the biggest Christmas gift ever passed up at the time, but it was lost, just like everything else, my body, my pleasure, my life, all those next things that won't come. I felt incomplete, knowing that if Paulo didn't make it back, my things back home would just sit there until someone realized I wasn't coming back and found a stack of old bills beside repeated eviction notices that had fallen unread through the mail slot in the door. That was another ill, counter, but small concern compared to the thought that I desperately needed for it all to end, willing to trade everything I was for an instant of relief. After twenty long minutes, counted in half seconds, she SWALLOWED, a slow, easy swallow. My body was pulled down until only my head and arms were stuck in the esophagus, wedged my the size of my shoulders. I thought I sensed my toes hitting a mushy wall, like they'd reached the end of the stomach. My legs weren't burning as much as before, kind of numb like they'd been with the coral venom before. I knew many of the nerves in the skin had simply been softened and then loosened away like the rest of me was in the process of doing. In the place of that, my hips, crotch, stomach, ass, and most of all, nipples started to burn as if someone were taking a torch to them. The stomach churned now, full of fluids and getting serious about the task that would take several days. In that fluid washing over me were pieces of me being digested. I knew the process. I'd studied it. I'd dissected countless snakes at all stages of their daily lives, and this was payback for knowing what was happening to the meat that I'd become. I was being reduced to chime, the mush that will be slowly pushed through the intestines for digestion. Much of me will already have been there in smaller blocks of molecules. Once inside the intestines, I'll be slowly absorbed into the snakes bloodstream, to feed all of the snake's cells, and in the case of this female, probably help create her next brood of young. What doesn't make it through the intestines will be fed out the anus. Snakes don't pee, so I'll be spared that humility, I was thinking, my brain on automatic, trying to divert my thoughts to something less painful and frightening. Of course there was an excellent chance I'd not all be reduced to chime. If after a week or less I can't be reduced, bacteria will set in. The snake will not like that, and finally vomit me, spewing up blobs of tough muscles like the heart, and a few worn fragments of bones, mostly ball joints and other thick material, all tied together in one unrecognizable mess that a thousand scavenger creatures from insects to vultures will then thank their mini gods for delivering such tasty fair. "God, why can't she do that now?" I screamed inside. I was probably too damaged to live by then, but I'd have sold my soul to the devil for a chance to be eaten outdoors. My hand was numb from the futile groping, but I did my best to dig at her throat. For my efforts, I felt some acid spill up from the stomach, into the throat, and wash into the pockets where my eyelids had been pulled open. It was so ridiculous the way my head was stuck in the throat while my body was being consumed. Then I felt the burning at my eyeballs intensify. The acid ate at the vulnerable, tender lining, and then inside. I was being invaded by fluids. When the acid hit my brain, my whole body started to involuntarily shudder as I went into an epileptic fit. The motion helped the acid fill all the crooks and nannies down below, entering my virgina and urinary tract. The acid was lobotomizing my brain, killing my consciousness, putting me in my place as I slowly became a less cognitive creature than the one who'd won my carcass in the grand card game of life. I dropped into the stomach, my legs reduced, and the toes passing into the crease of the intestines so the stomach could accomodate the last of me. I could feel myself being digested, knowing the pure pain of going from meat to chime. My air hose fell, and the snake would slowly regurgitate it over the next day. I had ruined, mushy lips in those last two airless minutes. My insides ached for air. Snake acid poured into my lungs and stomach, aided by my struggle to breath anything, eating me from the inside. Things got cold inside my veins, while the outside and inside still burned deep to the bone, and somehow, in spite of the fact I'd been in total darkness for at least half of an hour, things, way too slowly, got very, very black." __________ __________ __________ "That's a very nice narrative you've put on the film, Mister Paulo," said the buyer. "Thank you. I wanted it to have that National Geographic, slash Public Service Television kind of professional quality," I explained. "The part about her feelings all of those pleasures inside the snake, I don't suppose you made that up a little," he said, smiling. "Ninety percent of the narration was from her own journal, although I did take some license at the end, using what she'd taught me about the creatures.. After all, I couldn't crawl in there with her. I do know that she was breathing through that tube a long time after she disappeared. It made a hell of a hiss, almost like a whistle. I could see her body moving in the bulge wherever she was moment to moment too. It was errie, almost as if I could touch her and she'd feel it. They let the snake go. Their religious instincts are very back to nature it seemed. The reptile went straight for the creek. You can see by the video here, that the tube was trailing, still pretty much above water. I didn't expect to get so lucky, because the idea of her living and knowing the snake was taking her away was what inspired me to keep writing about after she'd made the stomach. It's probably the best part of the script," I said. "Yes. The video supports the story about her struggle inside quite well. That's the most erotic part, and it is not lost on me how you've made it seem so real. You should do more scripts. The hundred grand is happily spent, Mister Paulo. You have unique quality here. What I like best about it is that it's a true story, not some made up ordeal by some sadists who did in a hapless victim in some short, messy act of carnage. There's something fake about murder that makes it a little less valuable, don't you think. I'm much more interested in the uncontrived demise; the happy accident." "That's the value I saw in it as well; right away in fact. I was tempted to send it to the scientists, but then thought, why? I can always find another eager biologist to duplicate the trip for a good fee. Imagine, the snake is bound to be even bigger after a good meal like that. Who else can guarantee a record find?" I told him with a chuckle. "Or maybe you can discover it yourself, and make a name for you," offered the client. "Who did the narrative?" "A girl I found wandering the streets of Rio. It seems she'd come down here and had her things stolen, like about half the people who come here, only for her it was all she had. Instead of going to the American embassy, she hit up the first man she saw who spoke her language, who naturally was me by arrangement. I had her all twisted around, but then asked her to do the narrative. I flashed some cash. "I'll buy you a ticket home, and put a couple hundred in your pocket. All I need is someone to voice over a video. I was on an expedition, and things went wrong. You'll see ...." I told her, going on about the trip. She had some moments when she bulked, but by then I had her out in the outskirts. She'd have done anything just to be back on the main street. I sometimes think the number one criteria for being a tourist is stupidity, though she should have been on television with that voice," I said, again chuckling. "So, is she going to be a problem?" "Oh, definitely not." "I see. Well then, nice doing business with you. Maybe some other time," the buyer said, holding out his hand to shake mine. "Same here. Oh, and if you're interested, I have this smaller 'take' we might want to discuss later; only an hour thing actually. It seems a nice, pretty, tourist lady accidentally walked into a little quicksand on her way back to the city. I have a great movie of it; in the same voice I might add. It's very real; I used telephoto so she'd think she was alone, and then had an excellent opportunity to explore the many advantages of a potential savior."
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