Morsel

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The SUV crunches over the dirt, each bump is like a hook lodging into my lungs. My throat constricts, but I need this. Even if she thinks she’s in charge, I need a sexual connection with someone for once.

We both do.

Mona parks, then grabs her purse and camera. I hold up my hand.

“Wait here,” I say.

For once, she obeys.

I stuff the foam box in the fridge, saving it for later, then I run to the generator at the back of the home and flip it on. The flies buzz from the pit and whine for more flesh. I swat a hand at them. They dance around me, a mob chanting for a feast. They’re more active than usual tonight. It’s almost like a sign they like her too. She won’t be coming to the backyard though. The flies would probably scare her away.

I run back to her car and open her door. “Welcome.”

She beams at me. “Such a gentleman.”

I open the front door of the house too, then usher her inside. Right across from the entrance, the grandfather clock ticks.

“The time is off,” Mona says. “Is that on purpose?”

I lift my shoulders. I don’t use the clock to tell time. I keep it there because of the noise. It reminds me of the clock my mother used to keep in the kitchen. It’s there to keep me company, like a beating heart.

I don’t tell Mona that. I pull her deeper into the house, and she runs her hands over the frayed edges of the floral wallpaper. Her garlic-pepper breath mingles with the stale air, as if she’s already seasoned for me.

My tongue thickens. I’m eager, so fucking eager, that if I’m not careful, I may burst with hunger.

I can’t let that happen.

Mona readies her camera. Each click of the shutter rings through the house, another mechanical heart beating with the grandfather clock.

“It looks like you haven’t done any renovations in years,” she says. “Is there a reason you’re keeping it locked in this condition? Did someone die here?”

The mobile home holds up in the rare desert storm, and if a fire comes and swallows it, I won’t lose anything of sentimental value. The flames would even potentially cook the offal pit, and I could eat that later.

“Probably,” I say.

I find Mona squinting at a black-and-white photograph on the wall. It’s an older image of a young woman, framed by a bulky silver frame. Now that I think of it, that picture frame is probably worth a lot of money. I can sell it and use the money for a premium cut of grass-fed beef.

“Is that your mother?” she asks, her voice quiet. She raises the camera and takes a shot of the picture. “You must’ve been close.”

“That woman wasn’t my mother,” I say.

I lick my lips and stare at Mona’s mouth.

“Why do you like cannibalism?” she asks.

I lower my eyes, humiliated under the weight of the question. Somehow, this question is different. Pointed. Ready to gut me. She’s asking why, as if there’s an easy answer. At the same time, I know I could probably say it’s hot, and that wouldn’t be a good enough explanation for her.

I swallow a lump in my throat. I know it’s more complicated than sexual desire. Mona is probably comfortable answering questions like this because she’s constantly interrogated about her art, but I haven’t been questioned like this since the last time I spoke with a therapist, and even back then, I didn’t like answering those questions.

“Why do you care?” I mumble.

“Because I’m interested in you, love. The real you.” She leans forward. “You inspire me.”

My head fills with hopeful ideas, and that dissolves the humiliation.

Her art. She means her art. The contract we signed. Her next project is about cannibalism.

Even still, someone may care about me for once. Me, the little boy who was left alone.

The cannibal fantasizer. The loner. Me.

“You’re not going to psychoanalyze my answer?” I ask.

“Why would I?”

Her tone is so matter-of-fact my chest swells. She doesn’t want to fix me then. She doesn’t want to try and change my sexuality. She’s actually interested in me.

I try to find the words and give her the answer she deserves. My mouth fills with sand, and that frustration seeps to the surface.

For the first time in my life, someone wants to know more about the real me, and I clam up like this?

“I don’t know,” I finally say.

“Try.” She pets my arm. “Is it the power? Perhaps the forbidden nature of it? The dominance?”

All of it, I think. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it feels right though. Dominance, like conquering prey. Forbidden, like a secret I can keep to myself. Power, the act of knowing that she can never leave me again because she’ll be inside of me. I’ll always have control of her.

The camera shutter clicks, knocking me back to the present.

I bare my teeth at her. “I wasn’t ready.”

“That’s the beauty of art.” She pinches my cheek. “The best art is when the subjects aren’t expecting to be captured.”

My upper lip curls. Why does that response irk me? Is it the “captured” part? Is it because she’s treating me like her prey?

“Here,” she says. She waves for me to follow her. “Let’s do a hands-on study.”

I let the anger go for now, and I don’t give myself time to think. Mona’s hips sway into the kitchen, and she flips on the lights, comfortable in my space. The electricity hums from the fluorescent strips in the ceiling. Mona slides a hand across the countertop and moves a few utensils out of the way. She sets up the camera on the opposite side, then connects a wireless remote to it.

She wants to take pictures of us right now?

She climbs onto the empty countertop. Her dress hikes up around her hips, exposing her bare ass. I was right; she’s not wearing any panties. I salivate over those pink pussy lips speckled with coarse hairs, imagining the taste of her flesh. Tangy. Sweet. Decadent. She crawls along the counter and looks over her shoulder at me seductively, before she finally flips over and lies down. Like she’s been captured.

I snap my teeth shut. She bites her lip.

“Fuck me like I’m your meat,” she moans.

Those words enter through my bloodstream, and my dick grows to its full potential. A sex worker can say the same words, and it irritates me to no end. With Mona, everything is different. There may be red flags everywhere, and a camera ready to snap your picture, but when a woman like Mona tells you to fuck her like she’s your meat, you fucking do it.

Besides, she’s interested in the real me. Why shouldn’t I show her a peek of who I am inside?

I lean over the counter, kiss her neck, and suck in her scent. The faint odor of candied salt fills my nostrils. I pull down the strap of her dress.

“Tell me how you’d do it,” she breathes.

I lick her collarbone. Sweat beads on my forehead, the tension of nerves and desire fighting inside of me. I want her to want me, and I don’t want to mess this up. I don’t want her to leave me.

“You won’t freak out?” I ask. “You won’t?—”

“Stop being scared and tell me what you’d do to me,” she hisses.

My stomach roils as I try to think straight and concentrate on the good, on the fact that my dream girl is lying on the counter asking me to fuck her like she’s meat. I can’t squash the inner questions though.

She expects my obedience, doesn’t she?

Does she think I’m a little bitch?

Am I not man enough for her?

I shake my head. It’s not like that. Mona is simply frustrated with me, like I get irritated with the escorts. She doesn’t want me to perform; she wants reality.

I can tell her something easy, something she probably wants to hear. I can tell her I’d chase her, fuck her, then eat her until there’s nothing left.

I’ll do all of that one day. But right now, I’m starving, and it’s blurring my common sense.

My heart rate increases as I hold down her wrists. She licks her lips.

“I’d chain you to a bed,” I say in a low voice. I squeeze her wrists until her skin thins, and the coarse texture of her bone rubs against my fingertips. Then I bite her wrist. Her veins slide under my teeth, and she yelps, then pulls my head closer to her, desperate for more.

“I’ll feed you only vegetables and fruits and leaves,” I continue. “I’ll make sure you never move, so your meat will stay tender. You want your meat to melt in my mouth, don’t you?”

“Uh huh,” she purrs.

The camera shutter clicks right as she moans. Energy fills me. If she’s taking pictures now, then this is what she wants.

“I’ll roast your abdomen,” I say. “But first, I’ll peel the skin from your leg and season you like a real leg of lamb.” I bite her inner thigh, and she flinches slightly. The camera clicks. I bare my teeth, embracing the predator inside of me, and a smile crawls over my lips. She’s not running away. She’s here. She’s listening to me.

“You’d taste so good, baby,” I whisper. “And without your leg, you won’t be able to run away from me.”

She shivers. “You’d do that to me?”

“Of course I will,” I murmur. I bend down to her thighs and bite again. “I’ll do everything I can to savor your meat.”

“Harder,” she rasps. “Bite me harder, Kent.”

Frustration buzzes to my jaws. Does she think I’m a pussy?

I bite down as hard as I can, and her skin finally gives way. A hint of a metallic liquid teases my tongue.

She cries, and I immediately lift from her. A tiny drop of blood pools on her skin, her thigh meat indented with my teeth. Was that hard enough? I want to howl. Am I still a scared little boy to you?

Then Mona’s bottom lips quiver, and those irritations fade, replaced by the panic. I went too far, didn’t I? This will be the act that pushes her over the edge, that forces her to leave me.

Then the shutter taps. I blink. She grins, encouraging me. Go on, her smile says. Keep telling me your desires.

If she’s well enough to keep taking pictures, then she likes my piercing bite.

I’m back in my predatorial form again. There are so many fleshy parts of her body. Her breasts. Her stomach. Those mouth-watering thighs. I can barely keep track of what I want first.

“I’d make you watch me eat you,” I say. “You’d become a part of me.”

“Kent, now— ” she says. “I need you.”

She thrusts her pussy, practically bucking into my face. I growl, then push her hips until she’s lying flat, ready to be sliced open. I lick her slit. Her liquid need drips down her crevices, filled with sweetness and salt, and I grab my dick through my pants. I bite her beady clit, her hood sliding from the pressure of my teeth, each movement tenderizing that bundle of nerves. Then I trace my finger down her cunt.

I pinch her folds. “I’d slice off these pretty little lips. I’d eat them first.”

“Do it,” she whines. “I need to come?—”

The hunger rises inside of me. With two fingers massaging her meat sleeve, I swirl my tongue around her swollen clit, puffy from arousal or me—or both—and she tastes so good. Like a tender medallion sprinkled with freshly crushed peppercorns. Like a polpette drowning in garlic. Like a raw, meaty tongue dipped in stomach acid.

Her hips twitch, nearing that final peak, and I don’t know if it’s my skill or if she’s already worked up from dinner. I keep forcing her into that abyss. My fingers jab inside of her, and my lips suction that meaty clit until she’s convulsing around me and coming like a beast. Her legs wrap around my skull as if she’s a praying mantis about to pop off my head and eat it.

As she comes down, I scoop out her juices and lick my fingers clean. I moan as I savor the subtly sour, natural taste of her.

She breathes heavily, still lying on the counter. I rest my head on her stomach and listen to her digest. Her belly gurgles and whines, a protest of the filet she’s currently digesting. Even her internal organs know she doesn’t need meat anymore.

I decide right then she’s going to begin a new vegetarian diet. I’ll stop spending my money at the butcher shop and start spending my paychecks on organic produce for her. I’ll buy her the best fruits and vegetables.

We don’t have to talk about her new vegetarian diet yet though.

She hops off of the countertop.

“Stand there,” she says. I move where she wants, then check her camera. She probably doesn’t want me to accidentally block the lens.

She fiddles with one of the kitchen drawers, and I suck the droplets of her drying juices from my hands and eat her arousal like she licked up the filet’s blood at the restaurant.

My stomach growls. I’m still hungry.

Mona holds up a utensil. A steak knife.

My jaw drops open, and she sits on the counter and spreads her legs. Her pussy oozes more clear juices onto the countertop as she brings the blade to her thigh, right below my bite mark. The blade knicks her skin, and the blood beads along the seam of broken flesh.

My dick rages as panic flares inside of me.

That’s blood. Real fucking blood. Blood that she needs to survive. Blood that I can’t have. If I go overboard, I may ruin this relationship before it truly begins, and I can’t let that happen.

But my stomach growls angrily. I want to taste her blood.

I want to taste her.

“Drink me.” She points down between her feet. “Kneel before me, love, and drink my blood.”

Conflict ripples inside of me and clogs my throat. This is some vampire queen shit, but we’re not acting in a movie or television show.

This is real. Mona is bleeding. She cut herself.

For me.

She cut herself to feed me.

It’s all for me.

And I’m so fucking hungry.

“T-this is wrong,” I stutter. “This is real, Mona.”

“Come on, love,” she says. I take another step closer, and her voice taunts me. “It’s only a little blood.”

My breath catches in my throat. “I can’t?—”

“I want you to do it,” she says, a hint of familiar anger appearing in her voice. “Are you going to deny me?”

When the sex workers made fun of me or when girlfriends told me I was messed up, I hated them, and I hated myself even more. I hated that I was a freak who liked something as disturbing as eating a woman, and I hated how those freakish desires left me alone. Does Mona feel like that too? Is she isolated? Does she think I’m mocking her?

The blood droplets pool on Mona’s skin, and my dick grows painfully hard, my balls contracting against me. This isn’t right; at the same time, I don’t want to disappoint her. I’ve tasted her period blood, and now, I’m curious. So fucking curious that I need to know if her blood will taste different when it’s fresh from the source.

I kneel down.

I lick the blood.

Warm liquid, like metal and pepper and nectar, swims over my tongue. I seal my lips around the wound and suckle more of her life source.

“Yes,” Mona murmurs. “Go on. Eat more. Pull at the skin.” She pushes her thigh, disrupting my suction. My nostrils flare. What the fuck is she doing now? “Chew it off,” she commands. “Eat me?—”

I didn’t plan to chew anything off.

I just wanted a lick. A little taste.

But this isn’t about me or what I want, is it?

It’s about her power over me.

I don’t want her to have power over me.

But I like how she tastes way too fucking much.

My chest compresses, and I adjust my pants. I swear I can’t breathe around her right now.

“I need some air,” I say, and I run out of the home.