Morsel

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I told Mona to call me, but my phone doesn’t ring.

I knew this would happen.

I tap my fingers on the table and check the grandfather clock. Do Mona’s missing phone calls have anything to do with the accusations that bitch made outside of her office, or does it have to do with Artemis?

It has to be Artemis. He’s a jealous parasite getting under her skin. Changing her decisions. Feeding on her.

Hatred bubbles in my veins as I realize that I’m that stupid, little boy again, waiting for his mother to wake up and feed him something. Anything. Waiting for her to love him again.

Except this time, it’s not my mother.

It’s Mona.

At Mona’s next lecture, the front seats are taken, so I sit in the back row. Once class is over, she limps to the door, and I step in front of the exit and block her path.

“We haven’t had dinner in a while,” I say. “I’ll cook for you.”

She checks to make sure no one is watching us, then she grins at me. “I have a meeting later, but I can squeeze in a meal. How about that chain restaurant?”

I scrutinize her, reading past those words. Artemis must have told her to only meet me in a public setting. She doesn’t trust me anymore.

Then I remember he said he didn’t trust her with me either. As if we are two people destined to destroy each other.

It’s more proof that we are made for each other.

No…It’s not that. Mona is made for me.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?” I say. I corner her under my shadow. “You’re scared, but you know me, little morsel. Let me cook for you. I’m harmless, right? You can trust me.”

Her posture deflates, then she chuckles. “Okay,” she says. “Your place.”

By the time dinner arrives, she’s dressed conservatively with a blazer over her blouse, a long skirt, and tights covering her legs. Every inch of her skin below her neck is covered like a fucking nun, as if I need to peel the bitch to get to the good stuff.

I don’t say anything though. I tell myself those layers are simply extra butcher paper wrapping her meat.

I serve her a salad with fried tofu, and I serve myself a steak salad.

She gawks at the crispy chunks of white material, her jaw practically on the floor.

“You’re giving me tofu?” she asks.

“You need to stop eating meat,” I say.

“This is fucking rabbit food.”

“And you are my fucking rabbit,” I say through clenched, smiling teeth. “Are you criticizing the meal I cooked for you?”

She puts down her fork. I do the same. We scrutinize each other, our eyes hardened, our jaws strained, and the tension between us is thicker than a blood clot. An uneasiness pours out of her body, as if she knows that one wrong word can change everything for her. As if she finally understands who I am.

I link my fingers in front of me, waiting for her answer. Finally, she leans back in her chair.

“I’m not criticizing your meal,” she says. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done for me. This is sweet.”

I pick up my fork and stab another bite of juicy meat. “But?”

Mona pokes a chunk of tofu, then moves it on the side of her plate. “I just don’t like the texture.”

I keep chewing. “You’ll get used to it.”

Soon, a pile of golden tofu, speckled with drops of red wine vinegar, sits on the side of her plate, like dismembered toes pickled with red onions. The pressure builds in my groin and spreads to my chest. I should be insulted by her refusal to eat the meal I cooked for her, but my dick engorges as I dream of the possibilities for her appendages.

I can’t stop myself.

“I want to cook your toes. Two of them,” I say quickly. “You’ll walk better if we cut off the same toe on each foot. That way it’s even on both sides. It’ll help you balance.”

Mona’s upper lip curls. “We’re taking this too far, Kent. We can’t?—”

“It’s just two toes, Mona. You cut off the first two. The second toe on each foot would be the same. You’d have three other toes on each side to give you balance. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal?” she says in a high-pitched voice. “And what happens after that? My foot? My leg?” She twists her neck, her nose lifted high in the air. “I’ve been limping since I cut off my first toe for you. I can’t touch anything in my studio without getting sharp pains in my hand.” Tears form in her eyes. “I did all of this for you, Kent. And now, you’re telling me you need more of me?” She throws her hands up, the gloves on one hand still bulging with bandages. “I can’t do that. I need to think about my art and my well being.”

She continues lecturing me. The words fuzz into white noise, and I latch onto the one claim that kills the rest.

She did this for me?

How could she have done this for me? She wouldn’t even let me cut off her toe. She knows how much cutting off her toe would mean to me, and she’s the selfish bitch keeping that to herself.

“You didn’t do it for me,” I say. “You did it for your art. You even chopped it off by yourself, even though you know part of my fantasy is the actual dismemberment.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kent. Something is wrong with you.” I clench my jaw, and she cowers, sinking into her seat. “I mean, something is wrong with us. ” She shakes her head. “Artemis is right. This isn’t safe. We can’t keep doing this, or I’ll get seriously hurt, and I don’t want to die yet. I don’t think you want to kill me either.”

My entire body goes rigid at his name. She has the nerve to bring him up now? Him? In my fucking home?

“I don’t want to share you with him,” I say.

A beat passes. Neither of us moves. We stare at each other, two predators circling. My jaw strains.

She rolls her eyes. “We never agreed to be exclusive, love. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to share me.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “You can find someone else.”

Her threat lingers in the air, like the stench of rotting meat from the offal pit, drawing the flies closer.

It took a long time to find her. She knows that. And she knows how easily she can cut me out.

I won’t let that happen. I’ll do anything to keep her.

“You’re right,” I say. “Artemis is right.” I stab a cherry tomato. It pops between my molars, and I imagine her eyeball in the same position. Would it be as juicy as a tomato? “We’ll stick to dirty talk.”

“Thank the muses,” she says. She forks a tomato too. “The brain is the biggest sexual organ anyway. We only need the dirty talk. Maybe a prop or two, sure, but nothing serious. It’s just pretend anyway, right, love?”

Before I open my mouth to answer, her vision catches on the wall behind me, on the oval of bright wallpaper where the photograph used to hang, the one she asked if she could borrow.

“What happened to your mother anyway?” she asks.

“That woman wasn’t my mother.”

“I know, Kent,” Mona says, her voice simmering with agitation. “That’s why I’m asking. I know your mother was crazy, but what did she do that was so extreme that now you’re a sexual cannibal?”

Every inch of my home takes on a red hue, like I’m seeing the world through tinted glass. Mona isn’t the pale woman in the black clothes anymore. She’s red, like raw beef on a cutting board.

I’m not a cannibal. I’ve only eaten what she’s given me. I haven’t taken anything from her, and I haven’t eaten the rest of her body. But it’s like she’s accusing me of something. My jaw clenches, and I imagine I have the jaws of an alligator, able to snap her body in half and trap her in my mandibles.

Mona is different though. She’s the only person who understands my inner struggle. I’m not going to hurt her like that.

I love Mona.

I swear I do.

And I can’t waste any of my steak salad, just like I refuse to waste Mona.

“She was going to leave me, and she died,” I say. I shove a forkful of lettuce into my mouth. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Did you kill her?”

I drop my fork. Mona tenses, though to her credit, she keeps her expression vacant, like she wants to see what I say before she gives a full reaction. I cock my head to the side. My shoulders broaden, irritation taking hold of me. I stay neutral too.

Killing would imply that a ten-year-old kid has the gumption to be able to shove a knife into a dumb bitch, and I never did anything like that.

“No,” I say. “What happened to her was an accident.”

“What happened, then?”

I swallow a lump in my throat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine,” she says in a high-pitched lilt. She reaches forward and holds my hand with her gloved, wounded fingers, a small attempt to connect with me. “You won’t let an accident like that happen to me, will you, love?”

There’s an expression on her face I don’t quite understand. The tendons in her neck are sharper than usual, and her throat bobs, like she’s gulping down an apple. I’ve never been good at reading people, but I’ve been around Mona enough to know that something is different tonight.

Is she afraid of me?

I shake my head. She’s not afraid of me. She thinks I’m harmless, and I’m aware of how good I have it with her. She’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’m not going to fuck that up by accidentally stabbing her.

“No,” I say. “Never.”

“Good,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

The rest of the meal continues, and the silence is filled with the dings of our forks and plates. At the end of dinner, Mona leaves the chunks of tofu to the side of her plate. I clear the table, and in the kitchen, I eat the tofu with my hands, pretending it’s her toes.

It’s not the same though. Plants aren’t meat.

I want her flesh.

“Thanks for the meal,” she says, her voice drifting through the house. I wipe my hands and head to the door. She pulls her purse strap higher on her shoulder, her camera strap on the other. “I’ll see you soon?—”

“Wait,” I say. “I got you a present.”

Her posture straightens. “Oh?”

I run to the bedroom and pull out a film camera—the one-time-use kind, an item I found in the mobile home when I moved in—and I give it to her.

“Thank you,” she says. “I love film. I’ll use it for the exhibition.”

She heads toward the door again, and panic forms in my rib cage. She can’t go. I can’t let her. If she leaves right now, she may never come back.

“Stay with me,” I plead.

My forehead creases. I try to keep my eyes open and form tears, my own performance to manipulate her this time. It’s so unusual to me though. I don’t feel like other people. I didn’t even cry when my mother died. Why would I cry when Mona leaves my home?

“It’s the end of the semester. My next exhibition is almost here,” she says. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She can do whatever she wants, even leave me, and she knows it.

I press down the anger and soak in the desperation, crossing my fingers that this display of emotion works.

“Please, Mona,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me.”

Something about those words must unlock her sympathy, because she smirks and shakes her head. “You truly are persistent,” she teases.

“What can I say?” I rise to my full size and tower over her. “You inspire me.”

“Do I?” She trots over and grabs the olive oil off of the kitchen counter. “Let’s use this.”

Olive oil? To season her, we’d need more than that.

I force a smile. This isn’t about seasonings. This is about Mona. I need to fulfill her fantasies first, and later, we can get to mine.

It’s the only way to make my dreams come true.