A New Jungle Goddess

Read no further if you ain't in the mood for Dark'n'Nasty, 'cause this turned out another of those, alas. And though Quinn's escapade pretends to be of this world and more realistic in contrast to the overblown pulp adventures of Jace in the Last Jungle, of course it's not. At all.

1.

A year ago it had seemed that Quinn's dreams were coming true. She'd tried to be realistic about acting, and she never seriously expected to get anywhere or make any dough, and suddenly somehow she was on the cusp of becoming a major movie star. Then just as rapidly it all melted away. She probably should have stuck with the small indie films that got her noticed. Instead she made the jump to the blockbusters. Except hers weren't. She did three "tentpole" pictures in a row, and all three flopped. None of the pictures was really any stupider than those kinds of movies always are, so probably the economy or the weather or something had more to do with their crummy performance than the quality of the storytelling.

Everybody said it wasn't her fault they ended up doing that bad. Everybody said she was good in them, or at least as good as anybody could be with such roles. She wasn't a lead in any of the wretched things (that was how she could appear in three in the same season), just colorful supporting parts. Her agent said that would protect her; she wouldn't get stigmatized. But no good offers were coming to her anymore, not even for dinky arty stuff. Already the world had forgotten her face.

The only halfway decent approach she got was for a cheesy-sounding tv miniseries with time travel. They wanted her to play a Jane Goodall type, only studying dinosaurs in place of chimps or whatever kind of apes it was that had made the woman famous back in the sixties. The scripts were pretty much what she expected from the sound of the concept. Quinn finally accepted the job, 'cause what the hell, and then she arranged a trip into the jungle for a couple weeks as preparation. The part didn't deserve it—she was told the whole stupid thing was gonna be shot on a greenscreen stage, and the budget was way too low for the effects to turn out decent. Still, she'd always wanted to visit a proper real life jungle, and this job gave her a rationalization for spending the money.

Then pretty much as she was about to get on the plane, some production office shit must have happened and she was informed by email that the project wasn't going forward. She could probably have refunded her ticket; God knows there were smarter ways to use that money. She argued back and forth with herself about it for ten minutes in the airport ladies room, and then decided not to get her money back. She would go ahead and fly to the fucking jungle and disappear for a while, just to see what it was like. Sure as fuck wasn't gonna do her career any harm. Maybe she'd achieve some profound spiritual connection with nature and reinvigorate her faith in herself.

2.

It wasn't meant to be a mere tourist trip, lounging in the backs of jeeps with binoculars. She'd volunteered to assist a team of scientists, trying to get a genuine feel for the life. Didn't work out like that. Then again, perhaps it had. Her principal occupation as she tagged along with them was just hauling clunky equipment around, huge heaps of the stuff, little of which ever functioned like it was supposed to. High-priced toys that didn't work. In the old days, explorers got natives to lug all their shit for them. Now that inglorious task fell to student interns. This group had gradually lost most of their interns for one reason or another, which had provided Quinn the space to fill in. The most sophisticated assignment the scientists trusted her with was setting up all their tents and taking them down. It was tedious and yet quite an elaborate process, believe it or not.

She didn't get along great with all the scientists. Some treated her fine, others didn't. One guy was always trying to get into her pants (shorts, actually, in light of the climate). He was over-persistent and she got fed up with it, especially when the team leader refused the discipline him. Quinn decided her and the group would have to part ways sooner than planned. The mystery of the vanishing interns (all female) was no longer mysterious at that point. When the team moved on to another region, she stayed behind.

A boat was supposed to come up the river in a few more days which could take her homeward when it turned around, for it never ventured further than this point. Quinn was in no great hurry. She wasn't sure she'd get on that boat—she might wait another few weeks for the next one, or the one after that. It was just the science team she wanted no more to do with. The jungle itself she didn't feel done with, not even close. With the scientists gone and their bullshit with them, she could finally, fully enjoy the environment.

She was not by herself. Instead she'd become the houseguest of the local priest, an actual honest-to-God tribal medicine man with his own hut on the riverbank, atop high stilts. He was a young, affable fellow, and had travelled the world a bit and got educated before returning to his homeland and taking up the traditional mantle of his forefathers. She liked him a whole lot. They smoked pot together late at night under the stars, trading stories. If he'd wanted to fool around with her, she probably would have been up for it. He was handsome and he was charming. They spoke Spanish together, for the most part. All the locals in this area seemed pretty familiar with that tongue. Fucking missionaries, they get everywhere.

This was still a very isolated and mostly unspoiled region, even so, which was what had drawn the scientists there. A triangular basin, not very large. A little cut-off world of its own, it seemed. You could hike across and back in under three days, and it only took that long because the undergrowth got so thick. Mountains walled off two sides, while the other end dwindled forlornly into a desert. A river snaked through the middle. It came down out of one set of mountains as a series of falls, got fat and lazy as it meandered across the basin, then exited through a gap in the other range, a very narrow, very deep gorge. Like one of those mountains was missing, a lost tooth. Once through there, the current picked up and all too soon you had rejoined contemporary civilization in the form of mines and logging camps, one after another after another. In Quinn's view, the whole rest of the jungle was goddamn ruined all the way to the coasts, where by then it was dead and gone completely, replaced by cities.

Two separate tribes inhabited the secluded basin, though it wasn't quite large enough to support them. The tribes were fairly small and closely related. That didn't prevent them from fighting a great deal. There was only so much game and fruit to go around. The medicine man—his name was Novobbo, or rather, that was Quinn's approximation of it, best as she could pronounce—he served both tribes. She got the idea that hadn't always been the case, but he seemed reluctant to give her further details. He wouldn't specify which tribe he'd belonged to before having to minister to both. Nor would he tell her what had happened to the other one. Not that it was tough to guess. The Noble Savage was always a romantic myth, sadly.

If she was smart enough to know that, how come she believed it when Novobbo announced out of the blue that he'd had a vision and that she might become the savior of his people?

All the pot was probably a big part of it. Plus it was simply flattering. Everybody would like to have a grand destiny. To count for something important in the world. He told her she could save lives. He told her it was fate that brought her to the basin.

It was too tempting an idea to brush off. Not when you've got a big hole in your life, like the failure of her career had created. Not when you're stoned off your ass, like she was at the time.

And Novobbo had charisma. He had fervor. It really seemed like something magical had happened to him. He said he wanted to pass that magic to her. He said the spirits of the jungle were talking to him. They needed someone to speak for them, for the good of the valley. It couldn't be Novobbo himself, because he was a man. The spirits wanted a female representative. Also it was good that she was a visitor, an outsider. The local men wouldn't listen to one of their wives or daughters, if the tree spirits tried to make use of them. But Quinn they would have to take seriously.

She couldn't see why that would be the case, but didn't question the claim. She assumed Novobbo had his reasons.

Fuck it, she thought. Let's try it. If it didn't work, so what? Imagine if this turns out real, she told herself, and you threw away the opportunity. Imagine how much of a waste that would be.

So she performed the ritual with him. She said the magic words he told her to say. She took the potions he gave to drink. She put on the costume he wanted her to wear.

She left her original identity behind, for the moment. She shrugged it off, like her contemporary clothing. Clad in the skins of animals, she took on their strength. She became someone new, someone greater, someone strange and powerful. The speaker for the trees. The guardian of all life within this forest.

Quinn became a jungle goddess. For real!

Well, it seemed real. It really did, at the end of the ritual. She really thought she could feel the magic of the forest churning within her, transforming her.

It was the best feeling you can imagine. Her whole life had led to that moment. All the disappointments and embarrasments, now at last they made sense. All her doubts and questions and fears, all were swept aside. Life was no longer a meaningless mess. For the first time, she knew exactly why she'd been born.

3.

The costume she'd been given was very ... revealing. Scanty. Then again the women of the tribes day by day wore little more. Occasionally as a matter of fact Quinn had seen them walking about in much less. Necklaces, bracelets, headscarves, and that would be it. They weren't always that uncovered, but it didn't seem to raise anybody's eyebrows when it happened. Context is key. So she resolved not to let her self-consciousness get the better of her. The outfit wasn't going to be a problem if she didn't make it one. If she didn't let it get to her. She would gradually become used to it and after that all the anxious feelings of over-exposure and vulnerability would fade away.

When in Rome, as it's said.

Essentially it was just a bikini, made from leopard skin, or maybe it was cheetah. (Did they have cheetahs on that continent? Or was it the leopards that wouldn't have belonged? One or the other, probably; she wasn't sure which.) Girls all over the world wore swimsuits or lingerie that looked exactly the same, except theirs were pretend, made from other stuff and just printed with the distinctive speckles. The genuine hides she put on were surprisingly comfy. The two pieces didn't grip as firm as modern clothing. At first she didn't enjoy the sensation—everything seemed too wobbly and unprotected—and then pretty rapidly her mind changed. Her body adjusted. Only took a few minutes. Then she wondered, ruefully, if it might feel irritating and restrictive when it was time for her to switch back.

The top had no shoulder straps, and its cups didn't completely enclose her breasts. They didn't cover the tops or the bottoms. They weren't proper cups at all. The whole leather top was cut more like a scarf, but with laces on the ends. Quinn, of course, was quite used to bras and other clothes that left the top halves of her breasts uncovered. Way of the world. Yet having their undersides constantly exposed too was very weird for her. Gave her a little shock every time there was a bit of breeze. The bottom edges of her breasts were much more sensitive than she'd ever realized. Damn ticklish, to be blunt about it.

The bottom piece wasn't a pair of panties. It was a brief skirt. It hung almost to her knees in the front and in the back, but didn't have sides to it, so her thighs and hips were left totally bare, except for thin cords over the bumps of her hips, connecting the separate flaps. Thankfully there was another strip of cloth running underneath in the middle, safely screening her essentials when those flaps swayed or jostled too much. A thing they did with aggravating frequency, just about every single time she moved. Decorative beads along the bottom fringes were supposed to weigh the flaps down—they didn't work very good.

Novobbo had offered her sandals; Quinn turned them down. She preferred to stay barefoot, like the natives. She'd given up shoes since coming to the jungle, initially inspired by some of the photos she'd looked at of Jane Goodall. The scientist wasn't barefoot in all the old famous pictures of her, but she sure was in a fair number of them, as she clambered around in trees or rolled in the dirt with apes she'd befriended. Quinn had decided to emulate her. A small thing, perhaps, but she felt it had contributed very strongly to getting used to the environment and becoming one with it, as much as possible. Another semi-silly thing she kept thinking about was the Disney movie Tangled. When she first watched it with a friend, the other girl thought it was bizarre and offputting that Rapunzel had run around barefoot the whole movie. But to Quinn it made perfect sense for the character, and more than that it was something she related to. The instinctive need to feel the world under your feet—to really feel it and connect to it, as you did when you could actually curl your toes into the grass (especially after being imprisoned and isolated all her life, as the princess in the fairy tale had been). Shoes and socks blocked you from that connection—a literal, physical, visceral grounding. Plus the jungle climate made them gross. No more than two minutes and they were reeking! Practically petri dishes. That was never an issue when you went without. Your tootsies still sweated, obviously, like the rest of you. But you didn't carry it around with you, giving it time to stew and sprout fungus. It just evaporated. So much cleaner and healthier in the long run.

4.

To get the essential message across, and to make it stick, what Quinn was told she had to do was present a big red urn or jug thing of (believe it or not) sacred beer to the two rival war bands, and get everybody to share the stuff. Not only would they have to drink it—she was supposed to convince all the men to let her pour a lot of it over their heads. A kind of baptism. The sacred beer would cleanse the bloodthirsty rage from their bodies and bring peace back between the tribes.

It was a real big jug, and it was fucking heavy. The fumes from the beer itself, or whatever it was, were strong enough to get you dizzy and watery-eyed all by themselves. The drink was made from honey and fruit and lots of other ingredients. It looked like maple syrup more than anything else, the way it sloshed around sluggishly, only it was fizzier and a tiny bit more transparent, meaning less brown. When she tasted a tiny bit, it burned like hot sauce, and she felt it coat her throat. It made her lips and tongue tingle, and her chest inside. It made her heart pound. It also made her pee like crazy. One swallow had her going every five minutes for the next hour.

Novobbo told her this Magic Holy Jungle Beer of Peace was simply called the Gift. That was the translation of its proper tribal name, anyway. Just the Gift.

And there was only one place it could be given, where it would do what it was supposed to do. A particular clearing called the Gouge where the war bands would gather every few days and shout insults back and forth, and sometimes fight duels between champions. Most of their fighting happened lots of other places and it was generally a dirtier if somewhat low-key business of stealthy raids and ambushes. The clearing was where they would come to ritualistically brag about those various battles afterward, despite the fact that none of them accomplished very much, beyond a few more people getting hurt or killed. As far as one side or the other winning for keeps, that never got any closer.

So right in the middle of their next regular, ordinary, useless shouting session—at high noon, in fact, if she timed it right—Quinn marched out from the shadowy treeline into the open grass between the two tribes, holding aloft the big jug as high as she could manage. It made her arms hurt and tremble, but the whole time it was a much harder struggle for her not to feel too silly and shy in her new costume.

A hush fell across the Gouge as she took the central position with the Gift. The men on her left had red snakes tattooed on their biceps. The other tribe had gold snakes instead, and also they inscribed them on their thighs instead of their legs. Both sides also painted their bodies with shockingly bright colors and a lot of them wore wooden masks carved into scary demon faces which were also very elaborately painted and colorful. The chief of the red snakes was taller than the other one. He had real big, real crazy hair. It looked cool on him, though. He pulled it off.

The chief of the gold snakes was a lot older and stockier. Not a fat guy, not really, just built thick. One of those thick-bodied, naturally blocky guys. Would have made a good linesman, probably.

The red snake chief's name was something like Sash-Tat. Quinn never found out what the other chief was called, besides, obviously, Chief. Or rather Frut, if you want to be technical. Frut being the local word for chief or king or warlord and so on, whatever particular flavor you preferred for men like this. Thus Sash-Tat was properly, formally addressed Sash-Tat Frut.

But mainly when Quinn spoke to all these different guys, she used Spanish like she always had since coming here. She'd been afraid that might be a problem, after taking on the Jungle Goddess persona. Novobbo said it wouldn't matter. He had literally waved her worry away.

"The fact you're an outsider is why the forest spirits have chosen you to do this for us. It's perfectly appropriate for you to keep using an outsider's language. That's part of their message. Besides, my people use Spanish interchangeably with the old tongue. They've become so jumbled together, the original language doesn't really survive any longer."

As instructed, as loud and steady as she could, Quinn recited in carefully-enunciated Spanish: "I come to you on behalf of the forest. I have been chosen by the spirits of the trees. The time of war must end! Too long has it persisted. You will destroy the jungle, and you will destroy your home! You will destroy yourselves! The spirits cry out for peace! The jungle demands healing! Accept the Gift I bring to you! Cleanse yourselves and save yourselves! End your war! End your madness! All of you! All you brave and foolish warriors! Come to me and take my Gift! Come to me and be cleansed! Come to me and be saved!"

It seemed to work. It seemed to work exactly as Novobbo promised it would. The men threw down their weapons and their scary masks. Weeping, they flung themselves to their hands and knees and crawled toward her widespread feet, all in a scrambling rush. They appeared desperate for redemption and salvation.

She tipped the urn and poured the beer over them as they approached. She splashed and indeed soaked their ecstatic faces with the stuff, and they screamed with joy when she did. At the same time, Quinn tried to go careful, afraid the urn might run dry before all the men got anointed. Everybody had to get a good quick solid dose but not too much. Not more than everyone else. She couldn't quite tell how many penitent warriors surrounded her in the grass. Somewhere between thirty and forty altogether. That was her best estimate, anyhow. She might have been way off.