The Beauty

Considering how best to subdue her prey, Greta rapped the handle of a coiled whip against her gloved palm – her version of nail-biting.  Stalking the imprisoned tiger, she sidled towards his cage. Her arrogance feigned confidence and the heavily powdered face and black body suit caricatured beauty. Unruffled, Raj – a rare albino Bengal – returned her challenging stare through an unlit fire ring.  A world-renowned cat trainer, Greta knew that an untamed beast was not ready to learn show tricks. She intended to subjugate the tiger and introduce some basic commands during the initial training sessions.

The Beast

Captured from the Himalayan foothills of India, Raj was about five years old and fully grown at 450 lbs. His Siberian-blue eyes locked with Greta’s reptilian stare in a hypnotic duel as the battle of instinct versus expertise commenced. The tiger naturally manifested fear, while Greta brandished fear as a weapon. Spare the whip and spoil the beast was her unspoken mantra. If you like carrots, stick to rabbits she often repeated to herself, pleased with her weird sense of humor. The tiger reacted to Greta’s theatrics with a menacing growl.

Trainer vs Tiger

Cautiously, Greta unlocked the gate and approached the tiger. Maintaining eye contact, she raised the whip and inched closer. Every exaggerated movement was graceful until the second before she abruptly snapped the whip. It exploded with a deafening crack, grazing Raj’s left ear and startling him into a defensive crouch. Another explosive crack, delivered with surgical precision, licked the hairs of his right ear. Launching his sleek form through the fire ring, he pounced in her direction. In the split second between the snap and the tiger’s landing, time stopped. Greta’s haughty grin inverted into a rictus of horror as the enraged animal crushed her body to the ground, filthy with his excrement.

…..Beauty had conquered the Beast.