Morsel

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

A few days have passed since we made our dinner plans, and since then, I’ve been counting down the days until I get to see Mona again. Eating a steak with her won’t be like how it is with the sex workers; she’ll take my foreplay seriously.

I peer out of the window. Her headlights beam down the road. Our date is only minutes away now.

My stomach churns. I have this gut instinct she would understand the offal pit and the mixed ground meat. It makes me nervous to think of her in my space though.

I turn off the main generator, then meet her in the driveway. When I think about it, she’s like an unattainable goddess, and I’m the weak mortal who has built an entire altar of animal sacrifices for her. Meat. Flesh. Blood.

No, I think. If anything, I am the god who eats her.

Mona’s SUV stops beside me. I swallow my nerves, replacing it with broadened, confident shoulders. She leans over and opens the passenger door for me.

“I’m excited,” she says. “I’ve never been to this steakhouse. I hear it’s good.”

I sit and buckle up. “It is?—”

She puts her hand in my lap and squeezes my dick and balls like she’s already got me by them.

A sharp tension cuts inside of me, my vision blurring with need.

I am the god who eats her, I remind myself.

She winks. “Let’s eat some meat.”

Classical music plays from the car’s speakers. With every passing mile, I relax. This is a simple dinner date, and it’s the obvious next step in connecting with someone who shares the same interests. And that’s what I’ve always wanted.

The restaurant bustles with noise. Mona tugs me past tables filled with diners. The server gestures to our booth, and we settle into opposite sides.

I pick up my menu. Mona fiddles with a camera.

“What do you usually get here?” she asks.

That’s right—if she is a vegetarian, then she probably doesn’t have many options here. I should have suggested a different restaurant, but I didn’t, because I need the steak to show her what I want from her body.

“The filet mignon,” I say. “Rare. You’re a vegetarian, right?”

She laughs, then places the camera on top of the table.

“I eat meat,” she says. “I don’t usually go to chain restaurants though. I’ll get the filet too.”

My spine stiffens. It seems like a jab at my economic status. I don’t let those insecurities surface though. Even if she usually only eats at exclusive restaurants, she agreed to dinner with me. She asked me to be in her art.

The server returns, and Mona orders. “Two rare filet mignons. Oh, and a glass of cabernet for me.”

I rub my chin. I don’t say anything though. I like saving money, but if Mona wants wine, then we’ll get wine. Besides, they say that a glass of red wine every now and then is good for the heart. The better her organs are working, the better she’ll taste. Hypothetically speaking, that is.

Forks and knives ding against dinner plates. Children whine. Men lecture.

I should say something, shouldn’t I?

“How long have you been doing art?” I ask.

My cheeks redden. Doing art? What the fuck is wrong with me? No one does art. She probably thinks I’m a total idiot now.

I correct myself. “Creating art, I mean?”

She lifts her nose slightly, a flash of condescension in her expression. Then she smiles.

“My whole life,” she says. “It’s a part of me.”

My shoulders strain as I mull over those words. If art is a part of her, then maybe cannibalism is a part of me too. My interest started young. No matter how hard I try or how many therapists I go to, I can’t get rid of the urge. It’s been this way since I can remember.

This time, I don’t meet her eyes. In a low voice, I ask, “Why are you doing this?”

In my periphery, I see her straighten, giving me her full attention. “What do you mean?”

“This art project on cannibalism.” I shrug, finally glancing at her. “Your art is always controversial, right? But why this? Why cannibalism?”

She chuckles, each note low and cutting, like there’s a joke that I’m not aware of, and I’m the punchline. The hairs on the back of my neck stand, and I push back in my seat.

I don’t leave though.

Control yourself, I think, and you’ll get what you want.

“As you may have gathered by my last exhibition, I’m always interested in the objectification of human beings. Cannibalism is obviously the next step,” she says. “Think about it: cannibalism is the actual consumption of a human as an object.”

That’s where people are too narrow-minded though.

“Cannibalism doesn’t have to be about eating people like a roast beef dinner,” I say. “It can be about the ultimate form of love or sexual exploration and trust. Being there for someone, even nutritionally providing for them.”

She takes a long sip of wine. The silence eats away at me, judging me for being such a needy little boy.

“I’m sure survival cannibalism exists,” she says. She dangles her glass by the neck. “Most cannibalism falls into survival or predatorial, but I’m not interested in the art of survival.”

My throat dries. She’s dismissing the providing love of cannibalism, and yet she’s teasing me too, playing with her words. Coaxing me in. She’s not interested in survival.

My brain imagines Mona with her limbs removed. Her torso roasted. The muscles pulled from her bones until she’s nothing, not even a cadaver. An ending where she’s my favorite meal.

But I’m not a real cannibal. This is pretend.

I clear my throat. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to know that someone would be there for me if I needed them?—”

She cuts me off. “But have you forced anyone before?”

I blink rapidly at her. Forced anyone? “What?”

“Rape,” she says. “It’s simple. You take what you want, don’t you, love?”

My gut twists as I stumble over her words. Rape? I may have done some things that my sexual partners didn’t like, but I never went into it without telling them what I was going to do. They knew what I wanted and what I was like. I can’t control how they react to me.

My mind glimmers with a memory: a woman is chained to my oven. Tears coat her face, and her mouth opens in a blood-curdling scream. I don’t hear anything though; I simply see. Red liquid drips down her chest. The knife is in my hand. Her blood dribbles on my chin and lips. It’s not like she was that hurt. For fuck’s sake, the incision was basically a paper cut.

The point is I told her what I was planning to do. She agreed.

And she got her fucking money.

“No,” I say. “I’m not a rapist.”

“Of course you’re not a rapist, ” Mona says, exaggerating the last word. A disconcerting sensation washes over my chest and down to my groin. She continues: “Have you ever fantasized about rape though?” She licks her lips. “I have.”

Romantic cannibalism has always been about digestion, when my soul mate becomes a literal part of me. There isn’t anything more meaningful than that. When I think about my actual fantasies though, those sexual dreams that I can’t stop, the idea of a woman’s face bending in agony as I cut off a sliver of her tit has always made me hard. Licking her tears. Eating delicate chunks of her labia. Her cunt constricting around my cock as her legless and armless torso fights me.

I don’t know if I consider that rape, though. I’m not hurting anyone if I’m only imagining it.

“I guess,” I say. “I can see why the power in doing something like that is appealing.”

“Exactly. It’s just like cannibalism, isn’t it?” I open my mouth to disagree. She keeps talking. “When was the first time you considered cannibalism?”

I’m instantly transported to another memory. I was too dizzy to get up, so I stayed in my sleeping bag, unable to move and being forced to watch as my mother and her boyfriend fucked. His jaws latched onto her breast, and her skin crunched in his teeth like tendons being ripped apart. She screamed, but her lips reached for his, and it didn’t seem like pain anymore. It seemed as if she wanted more.

Then I see my mother lying on the kitchen table, her mouth pried open so far her jaw looks unhinged. The frayed edges of her chapped lips like a wreath around her empty, cavernous mouth. The raw muscle of her tongue warmed my palm, and I found it comforting. It was like she was finally there for me. Like she wanted to talk to me for once.

I shake those memories away. Those weren’t the first times I thought about cannibalism, but Mona doesn’t need to know the details of my pathetic childhood. The highlights are enough.

“Camping,” I say. She wrinkles her nose. I increase my bravado to not seem so childish. “I saw some weird shit as a kid. My mother was crazy.” I laugh loudly. “What about you? When did you first think about being eaten?”

“My pet rabbit ate her baby.”

She angles her head and studies her wine glass, almost like she’s lost in a memory. A mother eating a child, even if it is a small-brained creature, must be a shocking event to witness. It’s hard to think of any mother or father eating their child.

The server presents our matching dishes: two filet mignons with smashed garlic potatoes and caramelized Brussels sprouts. Mona squeals, and though it bothers me that she’s eating meat, her excitement makes me lighter and heightens my arousal.

Now, I get to show her what I’m capable of.

I cut into my rare steak, and the watery blood oozes onto the plate. I stab the bite, mentally skimming through my filthy speech.

“Do you know how I would?—”

My jaw drops.

Mona clutches the steak in her bare hands. The red drips flow down her wrists like oil in a marinade.

I look around nervously; the far tables are busy with their meals, and our neighboring booths can’t see us, but there are at least two nearby tables watching us. Watching her. A little girl gawks, and her mother shakes her head. Don’t pay attention to them, the mother mouths. Her actual whispers are inaudible from this distance, so I imagine her next words: They’re embarrassing themselves.

Mona doesn’t notice. She bites the meat, then closes her eyes and moans as she savors the taste. Her body shifts, her hips wriggling, and I get the sense that underneath the table, she’s spreading her legs.

When her eyes open again, she glances at the camera. The red light blinks. She’s recording, then. She must always be recording.

She locks onto my gaze.

“Try it,” she says. “Forget about the forks and knives. Eat with your hands, like we were meant to.”

A primal feast. My mind is a mess, and my cock bulges.

Every eye in the restaurant sears into us. We’re going to get kicked out. I should tell Mona to stop.

The words don’t form. Besides, even if I tell her what to do, she may not listen. Instead, I wait for the server to ask us to leave.

I simply can’t look away.

My dick presses against my metal zipper. There’s an animalistic nature to Mona, a quality I want to hold on to, and the back of my neck tingles with warning and thrill. She’s doing this for me, isn’t she? She’s putting on another show to turn me on.

She’s not going to play into your fantasies, my brain warns. Look at how she’s eating the steak. She’s the one who’s going to eat you alive, you pathetic little freak.

That can’t be true, though. She may like teasing cannibalism from both ends—consumer and consumed—but her personal ad asked for someone to eat her.

As she licks the blood off of her fingers, I realize she’s finished her steak. Her Brussels sprouts and the potatoes are completely untouched.

Mona is a carnivore, then. At least for now. I’m sure I can convince her to experiment with other diets, even if it’s only while we’re roleplaying.

“I love a good steak,” she says. “Don’t you?”

I stare down at my plate. The meat has cooled, and the puddle of red blood creates an unappetizing sludge with the butter sauce.

This was supposed to be my turn, where I showed Mona how I can fulfill her darkest fantasies too. Instead, she took over again. Pushing me aside. Ignoring me.

My scalp prickles, and my dick is flaccid again.

I’m not hungry. Not anymore.

Not for that.

“Some people say I come on too strong,” Mona says. Her teeth click, then she wiggles her fingers at the little girl watching her. The mother scowls. Mona wipes her lips with her napkin, her smug expression taunting the mother. Then Mona faces me, still clinging to that pompous attitude. “Am I too much for you, Kent?”

I grit my teeth. Another taunt. Another tease. Another way to mess with me.

I can see why most people would think Mona is too much. She’s pale, like she does her art in a basement without any light, and her eyes are so dark with makeup, it’s like she’s got two shadowed holes for eyes. And with her short height, you’d think she’d be easily overlooked, but her personality is too big to be dismissed. Her willingness to indulge in wine baths, cannibalistic movies, and eating food with her hands in the middle of a crowded restaurant is completely out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t had many relationships either, like me.

Even if she is too demanding, there are things we have in common. Things I’m willing to sacrifice myself for. I’ll let her have the upper hand for now, if it means I’ll get what I want later.

“No,” I say. “You know what you want. It’s not everyday you meet someone like that.”

A high-pitched voice breaks in. “I see you liked your steak.” The server pauses, then subtly grimaces at me. “Do you want to take that home, sir?” I nod, and she hands me a foam box. “I brought some dessert menus.”

“You’re a doll,” Mona says. She happily takes the menus, and the server disappears. Mona shows me a picture of a dessert. “They have bread pudding. Do you want some dessert?”

Underneath the table, Mona is probably spread out. Pantiless. Her pussy flaps hot and sweaty. Her skin moist with the animal proteins digesting in her stomach. Her fleshy meat rubbing against the seat cushions.

After eating that steak, she’ll have a metallic taste, and even though she’s not premium meat right now, I still want to taste her.

My head spins with lust. Maybe I am hungry after all, but not for sugar.

“I want you, ” I growl.

Her eyes glitter. “Let me go pay, then.”

I grind my teeth, my erection softening once again. The fuck is she trying to do now?

“Wait,” I say. “I’m supposed to?—”

“Oh, love,” she coos. I swallow hard and ignore the warning bells screeching in my skull. She strokes my arm. “You’re the one indulging me, remember?”

My stomach flops, turbulence rising to the surface. Mona isn’t supposed to be the dominant one, and yet she’s paying for our meal. She leads the way every fucking time.

Then she grabs my hand, and I let go of those thoughts. I can do this. I can be the man she wants me to be, as long as she’s my meat.

I tuck my boxed steak under my arm as I follow my human steak to her car.