Morsel

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Days pass, and then with a quick internet search, I know it’s the opening day of Mona’s exhibit. I have to see her, and that comes with seeing her art.

The event listing on my phone states that the exhibition is simply titled Cannibalism. There’s no fluff around it, and that’s something I can appreciate.

My heart pumps at a steady pace while I stand on the opposite side of the street, just like the last time, when Mona and I first met. Guests walk in and out of the entrance to Sway Gallery. Each person has their jaws open and their lips curved, like they’re haunted but intrigued too. The giant windows facing the street glow like an aquarium. I scan the glass for Mona.

Champagne flutes on trays. Gourmet snacks in cupped hands. Gaping mouths and sharp fingers. Mixed ages. No woman with black hair, pale skin, and black clothes.

Mona isn’t visible from here.

Last time, she was waiting in the bathtub for me. This time, I doubt she’ll be in the bathtub, and yet a part of me hopes she is. Maybe we can start over. This time, I’ll do it right. Just me and her. Me, her, and the bathwater boiling the two of us alive.

Her husband claims that she doesn’t want to see me. What if he’s lying in some misguided attempt to protect her? What if he’s jealous of what we have?

And after all we’ve done together, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t see her art for myself?

I’d be a stupid little boy. A pathetic child.

And I’m not stupid or pathetic.

Inside the gallery, I head toward the bathroom. Before I get there, I immediately stop in my tracks. My jaw drops, my pulse narrowing around my windpipe.

A pig’s heart floats inside of a jar, suspended in liquid, and a light emanates from the bottom of the container. The backside of the jar is decorated with the picture of the old woman, the one Mona took from my wall, and that picture is surrounded by tiny photographs of me. My eyes scratched out with black ink. Blood on my face. My teeth bared and open, chewing on what I know are her toes.

The cannibal eats the mother, the caption reads.

The news articles didn’t use my real name in order to protect me—a young boy at the time—from the public. How does she know what I did to my mother?

She doesn’t know though. She can’t. Mona is making assumptions about me.

I take in everything around me. There are photographs of us everywhere with our faces obscured. But in most of them, there’s no Mona. It’s just me.

I’m her main inspiration.

My gut spirals into knots. Why does that make me so uneasy now?

On the far wall, the film collage from our private screening plays, but now, the footage is spliced with video clips of me fucking her as I chew her toes.

As I draw closer to the main wall, the focal point of the entire gallery, my back crawls with invisible insects. In the giant black-and-white photograph, my eyes are scribbled over again. Red paint, what I assume is meant to represent blood, is fingerpainted over my hands, my skin, and my lips. A chill runs over me, clammy against my skin, as I read the photograph’s caption: You’d become a part of me.

Next to the main wall, a silver platter holds tiny, flat sculptures painted a dull pink. I squint my eyes and realize it’s fingertips. The platter has been arranged like a charcuterie board serving slices of hand.

A stranger reaches over me and takes a fingertip from the platter.

“Oh! She must’ve used tofu,” the person says. She pops it in her mouth. “Hmm. It tastes good! Extra firm, maybe?”

Another man takes a slice from the platter and chews on it methodically. “No, dear. This is definitely pork.”

I gawk at them, my stomach churning as everything spins around me. I scrutinize the charcuterie board. The silvery edge is decorated with red, delicate cursive: You want your meat to melt in my mouth, don’t you?

I said that, didn’t I?

Sweat beads over my skin.

What if she never actually fed me her fingertips?

No. That can’t be. It can’t?—

Nausea wages a war inside of me, my stomach threatening to expel everything it contains. Instantly I’m small, so fucking small, as I stand there in the middle of the gallery, in a place where I don’t belong. Strangers gawk at the pictures, at the sculptures, at the pig’s heart in the glass, at the video clips of me, and it’s like they’re laughing at me. Me, the cannibal who thought he finally found the one. Me, the cannibal who was willing to do anything for her. Me, the pathetic little boy who risked it all for someone he thought loved him.

My mother’s voice echoes in my head: How much of a stupid little boy can you be?

I’m not stupid.

There’s an explanation for this. There has to be.

Another small display on top of a pedestal draws me in. The column is decorated with pictures of me, each frame slightly different, all of them with me covered in pig’s blood from the night I told Mona that we were going too far, the night I tried to stop us. On top of the pedestal, a blue velvet box holds two bloody toes and red paper towels, an exact replica of the ones she gave me. Underneath it, the red caption reads: And without your leg, you won’t be able to run away from me.

Then I notice the small table next to the pedestal. A platter, similar to the one with the charcuterie slivers, holds a horde of matching toes, each of them with painted red toenails.

A young man takes one, flinging it in his mouth like finger food. She made hors d’oeuvres? Is that all this is? Themed snacks?

Or is she making fun of me?

My chest clenches. I can’t stop staring at the art. Another pedestal displays small squares of toast with dark red jelly. It’s difficult to focus on the inscription, but I scrutinize the words until I can read it: I could eat you on toast.

Then I study a picture of us outside of her pool: Mona is naked with the apple in her mouth, and her stomach obscures the view of my genitals, but it’s clear that my head is tilted back in orgasm. The caption reads: What if we eat people together?

I said that to her in private. I could have told her I love her like a normal person, but eating people together means more to me than love. It was my best attempt at a commitment.

I feel so fucking used.

As I reach the back corner of the room, I find a picture on the wall of Mona standing next to the woman who accused me of rape that one day on the university campus. The caption reads: A special thanks to my inspiration, Desire, who goes by that alias for anonymity. I deeply appreciate her for sharing her story with me for this project.

I wrinkle my brow. What the fuck does Desire have to do with this?

Underneath that picture, there’s a black plaque with white text. Her artist statement. I read it.

Cannibalism, or the dehumanization of us.

What’s left after a cannibal has consumed what he wants of her meat? Unfavorable scraps. Rotting flesh. Bones. Feces.

Eating human flesh isn’t the only time we transform each other into consumable objects. Labor. Family. Sex. Rape. Romance. Even friendship.

Every human interaction has a power dynamic where the subject consumes and the object is consumed. The truth is that all humans are capable of cannibalism. We consume each other each and every day.

Once we honestly accept that and make changes to respect one another, we can begin to live fuller lives with our fellow humans.

And if we don’t accept this, we face the consequences of consuming humanity and being devoured ourselves.

Laughter erupts, breaking into my consciousness. My scalp tingles as if knives are pricking holes into my skull. I can sense her there before I even see her.

We instantly lock eyes.

Mona smirks, then tucks hair behind her ears. Her hands are completely exposed. Her fingers pale and unscarred. Her red toenails peek out of her open-toe stilettos.

All ten fingertips and all ten toes are intact.

She dismisses her entourage. My chest pounds, drumming in my ears. I ball my fists and imagine her neck in my hands, where I squeeze so hard, her brain bursts like a water balloon, the flesh and blood splattering her shitty art and ruining everything around her. Even me.

“I was hoping you’d make it,” she says.

She looks up into my eyes, challenging me. Even though I’m twice her size. Even though she knows I can kill her. Her lips curl at the ends, her permanent smugness digging a deep pit inside of my stomach.

If I reached out, I could touch her tits. I could rip her fucking nipples off and show her adoring fans what it’s like to eat a bitch raw.

I grit my teeth, willing myself to be so angry that I kill her on the spot.

But the truth is I can’t do that. My body is weak. Heavy. Useless.

“You didn’t actually cut off your toes,” I choke out. “Did you?”

“Come on, Kent.” She tosses her head back in laughter. “Artemis’s skills were a big help with all of this, but it was only an artistic experiment. You knew that.”

Rage boils inside of me, and blood rushes in my ears. I see the eyes: guests, onlookers, art collectors, servers. Everyone watching us as they eat their fake fingertips and toes.

No, I didn’t know it was a fucking experiment.

“You lied,” I say. “You used me!”

She rolls her eyes. “You signed a contract.”

That contract mentioned her art project. It went into detail. It said something about not giving me money out of the final profits. I kept getting stuck on the fact that it was about cannibalism though.

Did I miss that it was an experiment? That her husband was going to create fake, edible body parts for me to consume? Did I miss all of that because I was too fucking horny to read every detail?

Is this my fault?

I don’t care who is watching or listening to us anymore. I raise my arms. “I didn’t know what I was signing!”

“And you could’ve taken the time to read it. You even took the contract home with you, remember? But you didn’t read it carefully.” She lifts her nose. “I was completely up front in that contract. I even asked if you wanted a copy. Maybe next time, you’ll be more careful before you agree to something where you don’t understand the consequences.”

Everything blurs around me. I’m hyperfixated on Mona. She’s the center of a volcano, a natural, deadly force pulling me into its molten core.

Then an image flickers inside of my head: that woman from the university. The one that accused me of raping her. She was tied to the cage. Her tit was bleeding. Steak juices dripped down my face.

Is Mona talking about Desire?

Is she trying to say Desire didn’t know the consequences of sleeping with me?

Mona cracks her neck, her eyelids languid like this is a bore to her. I imagine her head on a cutting board, my dick fucking the backside of her esophagus until my shaft tears through her throat and slides over her tastebuds.

I’ve always dreamed of being the hunter. The one who provides, the one who feeds, the one who kills, the one who enjoys flesh. And with Mona, I thought I had that. I thought we could be together. Hunter and prey. The perfect match.

But instead, she hunted me.

I dig my nails into the palms of my hands, the pain scorching my flesh. “And the processing plant with the woman recording me?”

“That was all Artemis.” She winks over her shoulder. That couple—the shaved-headed man and the plain, brown-haired woman—stand next to Artemis. “I didn’t see the point in aggravating you in a place where you couldn’t explore your sexual needs, but he insisted we record the whole thing. It was supposed to be evidence for the police or something. I guess he wanted to prove to me that you’re dangerous.”

Artemis wanted me to blow up like a cannon to put me in jail, but Mona knew I would need to let off steam after an event like that, didn’t she? She used that opportunity to sneak into my home and tease me with the pig’s blood, assuming I would be in an agitated state.

And I had felt guilty for fantasizing about killing the brown-haired bitch—a complete no one—instead of Mona, the woman of my dreams.

“Anyway, that’s why I told Desire to confront you herself. It was part of her full arc, you know? Victim becomes survivor. You can’t just consume a sex worker and flush away the trauma you caused her. You know that, right?”

A million images run through my mind, but I can’t shake the memories of cutting Desire’s breast as she bled and cried for me to stop.

Maybe I did rape her. I didn’t kill her though. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

I didn’t kill her.

I didn’t.

I didn’t?—

“You lying, scheming bitch,” I mutter, spit foaming at the corners of my mouth.

“I never lied to you,” Mona says emphatically. “I did what I had to do in order to prove a point. You were willing to literally eat me, Kent.” She lowers her chin, and even though I’m towering over her, it’s like she’s looking down on me somehow. “Honestly, you should be locked up. Who knows what else you’re capable of.”

Artemis steps forward. He shows me his phone: 9-1-1 illuminated in bright numbers on the screen. His finger is lifted, ready to call for help.

How am I the fucking threat when I never actually ate her meat? When I never actually hurt her? How am I the fucking threat when I was the one who was lied to and manipulated?

And why does it feel like she’s pulling out my intestines right now? She’s basically gored me like an animal, and now I’m stuck on my hands and knees, picking up the last pieces of my soul.

“Did you even want to be eaten?” I whisper.

“Oh, Kent.” She chuckles, and my spine tightens. Her tongue slithers over her teeth. “When Desire first told me about what you wanted to do to her, I was fascinated. Honestly, I was. I watched every video and read every article I could find. But did it arouse me? Intellectually, yes. Sexually, no.” She clicks her tongue, then her lips peel back in a sneer. “I simply wanted to prove how a sexual predator is willing to dehumanize his prey for his own selfish gain.”

The lights inside of my mind go dark, and it’s hard to see anything besides Mona. On the surface, it sounds like she’s using her art to do something good for society, but there’s this raw, nagging sensation at the back of my throat, and I can’t let it go.

She used Desire, that shaved-headed man, and that brown-haired woman. She even used Artemis, and fuck, she used me. For fuck’s sake, Mona used all of us as stepping stones to gain notoriety in the art world. She’s stepping on me to lift herself up, and not once has she mentioned anywhere in this exhibit how much I did for her. That I watched her film collage. That I participated in her threesome. That I ate her fake flesh. That I got her a wheelchair.

Not once has she mentioned that I fucking worshipped her.

“So cannibalism is supposed to represent dehumanization?” I scream. I jab at the black plaque with her artist statement. “You used all of us! Everyone is dehumanized in your art!”

The gallery falls silent.

Artemis steps forward, his shoulders hunched and bracing for impact, like he can actually take me.

I growl at him, then face Mona again. “You don’t care about sex workers,” I say. “You don’t care about Desire. You don’t care about any of us.”

“You’re right,” Mona says. “I don’t care.” She purses her lips, then dismisses me with a flick of her hand. “It was nice seeing you, Kent. Thanks for helping me with this little project.”

Artemis heads toward me, and though I want to stand my ground and not move a damn inch, everyone in the gallery is watching me right now, studying the photographs of my obscured face and piecing it together. A man even puts his arm around his date’s shoulder and pulls her closer to him, as if I’ll break out of my human skin and attack her like a beast. I may have killed before, but I’m not a killer. I wouldn’t do that to some stranger, and definitely not in a place like this.

And I still don’t belong here.

Before Artemis can force me to leave, I head toward the exit. My heart pumps with rushing blood, and each muscle contraction is another step toward that abyss. Maybe the best revenge is to be a better person and not harm anyone, like everyone seems to think I will.

The night air swallows me, and I suck in, and in, and in.

But I can barely breathe.

There’s so much I can do to be a good person. None of it sits right with me though.

Maybe I’m not a good person after all.