Morsel

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Another leg.

I keep her bones in the fridge. Eventually, I’ll use them to make a broth.

And then, there’s only one limb left.

Mona can’t do much these days, and so I keep her in my bed. I’ve given up on the growth hormones and the milk; there’s no reason to waste the injections on her when she won’t last much longer.

She stares up at the ceiling, her skin paler now, with a sickly hue. Sometimes, I prop her up so she can almost sit, but the meat likes to slide down. I guess it’s more comfortable to lie flat and imagine you’re already in your grave, than it is to face your butcher.

Now, she has one full arm and three rounded, inflamed red stumps with bubbled white ulcers. Her body reminds me of a fashion doll with its parts ripped off.

All that’s left is her other arm and her head.

A lot can happen in a week.

A green smoothie—this time with blueberries instead of tofu—sits next to her attached arm, the cold glass leaning on her torso. An oversized straw is upright in the middle of the thick drink.

I stand in the doorway. I tear off a piece of her smoked labia and chew on the tender meat. The flavor is similar to brined salmon.

“Drink it,” I say with my mouth full.

The meat keeps its eyes on the ceiling.

“Don’t you want to be healthy for me?” I say with laughter. It’s not like she has much of a choice.

Finally, she turns to me, shooting with more venom than she’s had for the last few days. Her lips hang low, hopelessness settling into her muscles, but the strong-minded woman is still visible in her hate-filled eyes.

“If you gave me something besides fruits and veggies, maybe I would eat,” she says.

“The only meat I have right now is yours,” I say. “Do you want some?”

She hides her tears from me, another small way to defy me when she knows how much I love watching the pain flicker in her eyes.

I step forward. “Drink your fucking?—”

The dumb bitch smacks the glass again, and the green liquid spills on the sheets.

I exhale fully, then lick my teeth. I thought she was smarter than this.

I guess I was wrong.

Instead of chopping off her other arm in punishment, I scoop the smoothie into the glass, saving what I can. Mona’s eyes are still on the ceiling, and that refusal to acknowledge me burns every nerve ending in my body. How can a smart, well-known artist be so fucking stupid when it comes to a situation like this?

There will be no other meal. She knows that.

I grab a funnel from the kitchen. She’s not going to waste what’s left. As soon as I stomp through the bedroom, she squirms her head, her stumps and outstretched arm flailing. A normal person would feel guilty for overpowering her like this, but how can I feel bad for her when she’s manipulated so many people in her life, including me? I refuse to feel bad for forcing her to drink a healthy meal.

I yank her chin toward me. She keeps her teeth clamped shut. I backhand her, and she finally opens her mouth. I shove the funnel between her teeth, then dump the green sludge into the plastic. Mona chokes, and the funnel flies out of her mouth. Apparently she wasn’t ready for the liquid meal.

Once she can breathe, I do it again. I imagine babies are like this; you have to teach them everything. I guess that’s what Mona is to me now: a baby I’m taking care of, an animal I’m raising on a farm, meat that will eventually be completely slaughtered for food.

After a while, she swallows the liquid, getting the hang of the forced feeding. She continues to drink, and I stroke her whole tit. Her perky little nipple pebbles for me.

“That’s it,” I say quietly. “Keep drinking like a good girl.”

Mona’s rage-filled eyes dart back to me. My dick pulses in response. I rub my shaft through the fabric, then tap the funnel with the other hand so that she gets every drop. More organic sludge pools in her mouth.

Once she’s done with her meal, I put the funnel on the floor, then unzip my pants. I mount the bed, readying myself between her legs.

“He’ll find you,” Mona says.

Curiosity forms in my temples. I keep my dick in my hand. “Who?”

“Artemis. He knows everything.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Does he?”

“He’s the one who made the fingertips and toes. He’s the one who told me not to actually hurt myself, but said we should trick you. He’ll find you!” An ominous cackle bursts from her chest. Darkness and chaos flood her black eyes. “He’ll find you, you stupid motherfucker. You can eat me, but he’ll find you, and then you’ll never be free.”

I lick my lips and mull over those words. Artemis is dead; he hasn’t been a problem for me for quite some time. But perhaps there is some truth to her claims. There is a chance other people could start searching for her, especially with her “vacation” coming to an end soon. It’s almost time for me to move on from the fields.

With my pants hanging around my hips, I crawl to the ground and dig under the bed, picking through the last occupant’s knick knacks for my first trophy. My back heats under Mona’s heavy stare, and I’m glad for it. She’s not backing down; she’s still willing to challenge me. I like that. There’s a thrill in her defiance, especially when she doesn’t know the full scope of the situation.

She thinks I’d let him live? If I had, wouldn’t he be here right now?

She’s the stupid motherfucker.

I dangle what’s left of the ponytail, and the decaying head swings back and forth, the exposed section of brain wriggling with maggots.

Her chin trembles. Her lips open.

She can’t speak.

I put his head right next to hers, then I hold myself over her, resting on my forearms, my dick right at her entrance. Her mouth gapes at her dead husband’s head, his lips opened in a silent wail. Her rounded stumps jerk to push me away, but she’s so fucking helpless.

I lick her ear, and it’s salty with her sweat. Maybe I’ll make chips with her cartilage, or maybe I’ll cook it down until it’s soft and chewy.

I wrap my lips around her earlobe. “I killed him,” I whisper. I shove my whole length inside of her. She whimpers, and I stick my tongue in her ear, lapping at her waxy flesh. “I killed him and ground up some of his meat. I even stuffed the rest of his body into the furnace at the processing plant. He won’t bother us anymore.”

Tears roll down her cheek. I lick from her ear down to her neck, tasting her natural sweat and oils. How hard do I need to bite to get a chunk of meat straight from a woman’s skin? One day, I’ll test it out.

A shrill cry explodes from her, stabbing my eardrum. I pull back.

“You’re jealous,” she says, her lips curled at the ends. “You’re fucking jealous of my husband.”

I realize then that the piercing noise was laughter. She’s too scared and shocked to be able to laugh normally. Maybe forced amputations in quick succession fuck with your entire body, even your vocal cords. To be honest, I don’t know why her laugh sounds so weird, but I know she’s laughing at me.

“I didn’t kill Artemis because I’m jealous,” I snap. “I killed him because he would’ve tried to protect you. But you don’t get it, do you? All I wanted was a true connection with someone who understands me, and you and that stupid motherfucker?—”

“You don’t want connection,” she shouts, green spittle splattering my face. “You want to control me. You’re like a rat, clinging to the first shelter you’ve found, and the fucked-up thing is you know you can do better. You even tried. You promised me a life where you’d only eat little parts of me, but you chose to be this person. You want to be a rapist. You want to be a monster. You want to be a fucking cannibal!”

I pull out and kneel on the bed, straddling her, my limp dick hanging between my legs. I don’t see Mona anymore. I see my mother lying on the dining table. Her rotting stomach. Her missing tongue. Her teeth clacking, the dead bitch returning from the grave to mock me one last time.

“You’re just a needy, stupid, pathetic little barnacle, latching onto the first person who gives you attention,” Mona shouts. Her harsh laughter reverberates in the small room. “No wonder your mother left you.”

She keeps yelling. Laughing. Making fun of me. Everything out of her mouth is about how pathetic I am.

I’m not the one who has one arm and no legs. I’m not the one who has no choice but to eat green smoothies for the rest of my short existence. I’m not the one with my dead husband’s decapitated head next to me.

I’m not the one who has to watch a cannibal eat her body.

Ever since I left the art gallery, the idea of killing her has been cooking in the back of my mind. I told myself I’d capture her, keep her, and feed on her. I knew she couldn’t live forever, and I told myself killing her wasn’t the point. I told myself I wanted to savor her body until she understands me.

And then what?

It’s not like I can let her go. If I drop her off at her house, the police will eventually arrest me. And if I throw her out into the field to survive in the wild, she’ll die anyway. The wolves will find her, or her corpse will become fertilizer.

A barking laugh chortles from my chest. This time, Mona freezes, suddenly aware that now, I’m the one who’s mocking her.

Maybe she is right. I’ve always been terrified of being abandoned again, and that’s why I stopped dating and stuck to sex workers for so long. It’s why Mona seemed like the first good thing to happen to me.

Maybe I am a clingy, needy, obsessed man who needs to feed on a woman to be complete. Maybe being that pathetic is worth it, because I get to see the struggle, the reluctance, the beautiful fear in her eyes as she bows down to my control.

I tried to suppress it. I tried to tell myself killing a woman wasn’t a part of my fantasy, but now I know it’s the divine part I’ve buried deep inside of myself so that no one knew the real me. I’m mad at myself for that. Why did I want so badly to be like everyone else?

Everyone has fantasies, and maybe some of us—the rare, exceptional few of us—dream of human meat. Even then, some of the fantasizers try to act like death doesn’t actually exist in our sexual dreams. No, these sensual interests aren’t that scary. After all, it’s just a pornstar wriggling in a sleeping bag, pretending it’s a giant carnivorous worm; it’s just a computer-generated dinosaur eating a screaming, naked woman; or maybe it’s just an erotic horror story about a man devouring a woman piece by piece. Maybe all of it is just a reflection of the way we dehumanize each other in our daily lives, just like Mona tried to explain in her tired art project. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe none of it is real. Maybe we only like the idea of it.

But I know I’m different from them, and I’m done acting like death isn’t a part of the desire for me. I’m not going to pretend anymore. I’m done with roleplaying.

Fuck the fantasies.

I hate to think I had always planned to kill her and denied that need to my inner self, but I guess I have. I need to kill her as much as I need to eat her. Maybe even more.

And soon, I will kill her.

I bare my canines, and Mona creeps back into the bed as far as she can with her one arm. Her neck bends against the headboard. She blocks her face with her arm, protecting herself from me.

But the thing is that if you cut off someone’s legs and arms, then they can never leave you. And when you eat parts of them, they literally feed your body and soul. Your system digests their flesh, and they become a part of you.

This is who I am. A cannibal. A man who kills and eats women. Mona isn’t the first woman I’ve killed and eaten, and she won’t be the last.

Finally, after all of this time, I can accept myself completely. I should thank her for that.

“I was going to keep you alive for a long, long time,” I murmur as I bend down, close to her face. “I thought I loved you, but I guess I never did. You can’t kill someone you love, can you?”

Her pupils dilate, her mouth dropping slightly, and I see it there, right where I want it: her desperate need for survival, even though she knows it’s fucking hopeless, and that fear is savory, like crispy slices of skin sautéed in a garlic butter sauce.

I pin her arm to the side, then I lean on my elbows again. I lick her face, then her nostrils, her eyelids, and finally, her lips. The sweat and grime coats my tongue, and there’s a sharp sourness to her mouth, like an expensive cheese, mixed with the mild sweetness of the green smoothie. I’ve been sponge-bathing her, but I guess I haven’t paid much attention to her teeth.

Her rancid breath doesn’t stop me.

I shove my tongue back into her throat, tasting everything: the sharp, sour flavor and that mild bitterness. I stretch my tongue, eager to tongue-fuck her esophagus. I’ll never make it, but my dick is so fucking hard as I try and try and try until I can’t breathe. I pull off of her, swallow some air, then dive back down with my tongue. My fat muscle snakes between her teeth.

A sharp pain pricks me.

I rip myself off of her and clutch my mouth.

Blood drips over Mona’s lips. As she chews, she smirks at me.

I touch my tongue. She didn’t get much—not more than a pinch of muscle—but she succeeded.

She fucking bit me.

Maybe she does understand me.

I try to smile, but the rage overpowers it. I grab pliers and a knife from the dresser, then mount the cunt again. The sobs rake through her chest, and the meat panics, clamping her jaws and lips shut. So I punch her, my knuckles crashing into her eye sockets, and she relents. Then I yank that fucking organ out of her mouth, and her garbled cries are like screams from a drowning victim. I saw through the flesh. The muscle frays like the strings of a wet blanket. Her sloshy sobs become screams, and those chortled noises push me on.

Finally, the pressure releases. The tongue is severed from her body.

I toss it in my mouth. It’s chewy. Metallic. A slight toughness to the tastebuds, more than I remember with my mother. I gnaw on it as I stare down at Mona, and my dick throbs, ready to impale her.

I lift her hips. She’s light now, like a blow-up doll from the sex shop, and it’s so fucking easy to fling her around. We can’t stay here for long, but maybe for these last few days, I’ll indulge as much as I can and fuck her like a sex toy.

Mona twists to the side and spits blood.

“Look at me,” I say with my mouth full. I let our blood trickle down my lips. Pain stings my tongue. I scream it again anyway. “Look at me, you fucking bitch!”

She doesn’t move, so I grab her chin and force her to face me. She scrunches her eyelids shut, but then I push my thumbs on her eyeballs for a few seconds, and she opens them.

Her pupils are dilated, and her sclera is streaked with blood. I tuck her tongue into my cheek.

“Good girl,” I mock.

I slide my dick inside of her, forcing her to watch me as I eat her voice. The blood stains her pale skin so beautifully, and I’m grateful for this moment. Take away someone’s tongue, and they can’t even verbally refuse you anymore. There’s no reason for me to feel anything right now, except for inner peace. She’s mine. Mine to fuck. Mine to eat. Mine to kill. All fucking mine.

Her eyes are so glossy, they’re almost like cups of water, and I love it when she looks at me like that.

“One day,” I say, her tongue barely muffling my words now, chewed down to a smaller size. “As soon as you stop being worth my time, I’m going to kill you, and you can’t do anything to stop me,” I say. “And I’ll enjoy watching you die as much as I enjoy eating you.”

With that thought, the orgasm punches through my body and fills my head with overwhelming bliss.

And as I come, I swallow the mangled bits of her tongue.