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PaulK
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Posted: Thu Mar 6th, 2008 11:42 pm |
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I just picked her out of a line. The girls - young women from Asia or the Middle East or whatever -
were queueing up to be processed as usual. She looked nice so I beckoned and called to her
and she stepped out of line obediently.
"Yes, sir?" she inquired politely. She had a slight Indian accent but spoke clearly and precisely.
"You speak English?" Of course she did.
"Yes, sir."
I looked her over. She was naked, of course, and flawless, a real treat. Perfect, light brown skin,
slim but not scrawny body, dark hair cropped into a slightly ragged pixie cut and lustrous dark
brown eyes. She had been shorn and shaved as all the meatgirls had. Not a trace of body hair
showed from her head down and she was still slightly damp from her shower.
"What's your name?"
She looked slightly surprised, obviously she hadn't expected it to matter at this point, but she
anwered anyway. "Priya, sir."
"Priya, how would you like to be my mistress for a month?"
"Mistress?"
I saw her absorbing the implications of that. This was the crucial point. The first two I'd picked
hadn't understood English and the last one had declined on religious grounds. I'd watched for a
while with mild regret as she'd rejoined the line and in due course been chopped up, she had
been really lovely. On the bright side, though, this one was even better.
"I would be your - bed girl? Sex slave?"
"Something like that, yes. Just for a month, less if you don't come up to scratch. Sorry, I mean, if
you don't please me."
"And then....?" she looked, what, hopeful?
"Back here to be processed. Sorry, that's the deal." I shrugged apologetically. Keep the livestock
too long after they've been imported as meat and you're into issues of illegal immigration.
Priya looked round at the other women being led to the tables and butchered. She looked back at
me and nodded, deciding. "Yes, please sir, I think," she said. She still looked a little nervous.
"Don't worry," I reassured her. "I'm not a sadist."
"Sadist?"
"I'm not cruel to my women. I won't beat you. You'll be well treated while you're with me and if you
don't like it you can come back here any time you want."
It wasn't much of a guarantee, but the point was that she couldn't be any worse off than she
already was, so she had nothing to lose by trying it. If living with me turned out to be a fate worse
than death, she always had that option in hand. I could see that the logic of it wasn't wasted on
her and she nodded again, more firmly. "I understand you, sir. I will be your....mistress."
"Good," I said briskly. "Follow me. And you don't have to keep saying 'Sir'." I led her out of the
abattoir and up the stairs to my office, where my secretary was pretending to look busy on her
computer.
"Something for the weekend, sir?" she inquired archly, peering over her plain glass spectacles at
Priya.
"Oh, I'm hoping she'll last a bit longer than that. Put her on 'hold' for a month." I read off the stock
number stamped in Priya's left thigh. Lisa pursed her lips disapprovingly as she made the
necessary adjustment to the database. "If you're worried we'll run short you can always take her
place downstairs," I added. "Consent forms are in the bottom left drawer of my desk."
Lisa gave me a frigid glance but I noticed Priya's lips quirk in a faint smile.
I took her home on the bus (I hate cars, never owned one and never will) after dressing her in a
spare pair of overalls, to stop people staring. They fitted her like a tent. Some of the buttons were
missing and I couldn't help trying to glimpse her tits through the gaps as she sat on the seat next
to me. Yes, I know it's ridiculous, I'd already seen her naked. It was just different somehow,
sitting next to her and watching her look out of the windows, her eyes alight with curiosity. She
didn't know where she was going or what would happen to her there, but she was still alive. She
smelled nice too. Once she caught me looking at her and she just smiled faintly again.
Knowingly? Shyly? I didn't know. I didn't know her. Not then.
We didn't talk much on the way back. It was hard to think of anything to say. I didn't have to chat
her up; she'd already agreed to sleep with me for the next month, and her prospects after that
would have made a depressing topic of conversation.
Back at my place, I showed her around in a purely pragmatic way, not trying to charm her but
merely hoping to put her at ease. You know: this is the kitchen, these are the bedrooms, there's
the bathroom, etc. Priya took it all in with interest.
"Should I wear clothes inside?" she asked, indicating the overalls she'd been wearing. "I do not
know what is proper."
"There are some women's clothes in the wardrobe in the guest bedroom," I said. I gave her
directions. "Help yourself."
"Thank you." Priya disappeared upstairs while I put the kettle on. She returned shortly, wearing a
short, dark blue skirt and a white blouse. "Is this as you wish?" she asked.
"It's perfectly fine," I said. "You look lovely. Cup of tea?"
Priya accepted a cup with thanks. Afterwards, I set about making dinner for both of us,
questioning her about her likes and dislikes. Luckily, she didn't seem to be a fussy eater, and we
eventually dined on grilled salmon with asparagus and croquet potatoes. Priya ate with good
appetite. "This is very good," she commented politely.
After dinner we watched TV for a bit and eventually I left Priya perusing my bookshelves while I
went on the Internet. After I'd done my business and answered all my e-mails, I offered her a
glass of wine before we went to bed. She drank it and we went upstairs, where she undressed
with the air of a lamb awaiting slaughter. Considering her previous position, that amused me.
"Nervous?" I asked.
"No...." She paused and then "..yes," she admitted, "A little."
I could have asked "First time?" and then she would have had to answer "No, I've been nervous
lots of times." I've watched 'Airplane!' far too often. Instead, I just asked "Why? Are you a virgin?"
"No," she said after another pause. Now she looked really worried. "Should I be?"
Ah, right. In some societies, virginity is precious. "No, that's fine," I said. "Is that the problem?"
I watched her expression as she battled with some inner uncertainty. "Talk to me," I said gently.
"What can you lose?"
Priya nodded as if my words had decided the conflict. "I am not quite a virgin," she stated, "But I
am not very experienced either. It may be that I will not please you."
"And then you'll be back in the slaughterhouse tomorrow?"
Priya nodded again.
"Look," I said patiently, "I don't expect miracles from you the first time. Maybe not even the
second or the third. We've got a month to find out whether we can please each other. I won't cut
you off early unless you're just not willing to try."
That cheered her up a bit. "I will try," she said gamely.
"Don't try too hard," I advised. "Relax. I'll give you a back rub. Lie face down on the bed."
Priya complied rather gingerly, as though she thought the bed would collapse under her. I
couldn't help but smile. I started with the most unthreatening thing I could think of: a gentle
massage of her neck, shoulders and upper back. "You can talk or not, as you like," I said after a
while. "Do tell me if I press too hard. I don't want to hurt you."
"You are not hurting," she said softly. "It is..nice."
She did seem more relaxed, so I moved down to the more provocative area of her buttocks. They
were firm, round and frankly looked delicious. Honestly, I bore the girl no malice at all, but it was
impossible not to appreciate what a fine pair of rump roasts they'd make when the time came to
chop her up. Occupational hazard of being in the meat trade, I suppose. If the same thought had
occurred to Priya, she didn't say so and I thought it best not to mention it. "Open your legs a
little," I said. She complied and I slipped my hand under her to cup her pubic mound. She
flinched away at first, reflexively, then relaxed and let her centre rest in my palm. The flesh was
smooth, warm and faintly moist. Was she becoming aroused? No need to rush her. I slipped my
hand back out and moved down to her legs. They were slim but shapely, with good, firm muscle
on them. Some fine, lean steaks there. By the time I reached her feet, I had the sense that Priya
was really enjoying herself. Her occasional utterances of "..nice.." had subsided into throaty little
purrs of pleasure. That was a relief, at least I needn't worry about her not being a sensual animal.
Last but not least, I addressed myself to her feet. She squeaked when I first brushed the sole of
her left foot with my finger. "Ticklish?" I asked.
"Ticklish?" she inquired tentatively. I explained, continuing to massage her feet firmly but gently.
"Yes," she agreed finally "I am a little, I think."
"Do you like having your feet stroked?"
"Yes, very much," she said emphatically.
In due course, I asked her to turn over and she complied. I moved up beside her, placed a hand
on her breast and kissed her on the mouth. After a slight fumble, she responded. Kissing didn't
seem to be a mystery to her, thank goodness. From there, things progressed in the usual
fashion. Despite her professed lack of experience, she knew pretty much what went where and
what to do and didn't seem at all inhibited about doing it. What she lacked in expertise, she
made up for in natural talent and enthusiasm. In short, she was a damn good lay for a novice.
Eventually we both subsided, spent, and I rolled off her.
I hadn't bothered about contraception, of course; in a month's time Priya's womb and uterus
would be in a bucket with the rest of her entrails. Pity, really, she seemed like a nice enough girl.
Then again, lots of the women we slaughtered might have been perfectly nice people. We killed
them for meat, for sound ecological and economic reasons, not because they were nasty.
"Was I all right?" Priya asked after we'd got our breath back.
I turned to her and she was smiling hopefully at me. "Very all right," I said warmly. The smile
brightened.
"Not for me the chop tomorrow?" she asked, her English vernacular slipping slightly but the tone
optimistic.
"No," I confirmed. "Not for you the chop." Not for a while, anyway. Oh well.
She reached towards me then and I responded and we hugged. Yes, I know what you're
thinking. She asked me where she was supposed to sleep and I said she could use the spare
bedroom if she liked but was welcome to stay with me and she said she preferred to stay so we
slept together, with her cuddled up against my side. She was warm and she smelled nice and,
yes, okay, I rather liked her. It's only natural to like a pretty young woman you've just fucked when
she's being affectionate. It had been too long since I'd split up with my last girlfriend and I was
lonely. I'm only human.
So it was that I woke up in the morning with Priya half-sprawled across me with her head on my
shoulder. The only odd thing about it was how natural it felt. I didn't get that 'Who is she and
what the hell is she doing here?' feeling you get when you wake up after a one-nighter with
somebody you met at a party after too much to drink. When her eyes opened, she smiled at me
and I said "Good morning" and asked her if she'd like some breakfast before I went to work. She
helped me make it, we ate together and I actually kissed her goodbye before I left.
I only do a short morning shift on Saturday and I got through it without paying much attention.
Lisa came in for a couple of hours as she usually does, to 'catch up with some filing' and clock up
a bit of overtime. If she gave me the occasional arch look, I ignored it. I went down to the shop
floor to talk with Arthur, the foreman, and to assure myself that all was running smoothly, which of
course it was. We both treated this as a routine formality. Another batch of women had arrived
and were coming out of prep (strip, shear, shave and wash, etc) and being lined up by the
ushers for the actual processing. Somebody handed Arthur a work sheet as we were talking and I
took this as my cue to get out of the way and let the men do their jobs.
When I got home, Priya greeted me warmly, but with her usual polite deference. We had lunch
together and I suggested we might spend the afternoon shopping while I showed her around
town. Then I remembered that she had no shoes and said I'd better get her some first, but she
said she didn't mind going barefoot for a while, she was used to it and the weather was warm.
We did find her some shoes and I offered to get her some underwear, but she didn't want any,
she didn't see the need for it. I could see her point. Her small, firm breasts didn't need support
and you don't need panties under a skirt unless it's cold and she wouldn't be here in winter. I
didn't insist.
I'm not going to bore you with a day by day chronological diary of the next month, it was pretty
repetitive. Over the next few days I got some inexpensive but serviceable clothes for Priya, to
augment the limited wardrobe one or two of my exes had left lying around, and a few other things
she might need including her own toothbrush. We slept together as an established routine and
she never again exhibited any nervousness about the sex part. On the contrary, she was quite
enthusiastic and increasingly forward. If she ever worried about the fact that she only had a few
weeks to live, she never showed it and she certainly never complained.
Priya was also a more than passable cook, once she had mastered the kitchen facilities, and she
took it upon herself to cook for us both and to do the grocery shopping and general
housekeeping. Some of her productions were exotic or eccentric, a mixture of Oriental and
Western styles, but never inedible and often delicious. In her spare time, when her jobs were
done and I was out, she liked to read. I had more books than she'd ever have time to get through
and so, when she asked permission in her usual polite way, I was glad to give it.
The first Monday back at work after the weekend was a little strange. I felt as though I'd been
away a lot longer than a couple of days. Lisa greeted me with a slightly pointed "And how was
your weekend?" and a raised eyebrow, but I just gave her a bland "Fine, thanks, you?" and she
left it there, for the moment at least. In case you wondered, I put up with Lisa's occasional
borderline insolence because she was a good secretary. She didn't exactly work hard, but that
was because she didn't have to, she worked smart. That was worth allowing her the occasional
snide remark as long as she didn't take it too far.
After a couple of boring hours wading through paperwork and taking a few phone calls, I took a
break and went out onto the mezzanine overlooking the factory floor. Work was going on as
usual, of course. Women were coming in and being processed into various meat products
according to the orders on the work sheets. A crisis would have been a welcome change, but we
rarely got any of those. The occasional screamer - one of the livestock getting hysterical and
going berserk or trying to run - sometimes provided a moment of distraction, but that didn't
happen often. They were usually fatalistically resigned by the time they got here and the few who
weren't had been mildly sedated and restrained. One in a while we got a protest demonstration
outside by the bleeding heart brigade. Since they were usually the same sort of sentimental idiots
who thought that 'meat was murder' even back when it was just chickens and pigs, nobody much
took them seriously.
Watching the daily routine that day seemed different, somehow. Only a few days ago, Priya had
been down there waiting to be processed and, if I hadn't taken a fancy to her, she'd be meat in a
butcher's shop by now, or maybe a gutted and impaled body in the cooler section, awaiting
shipment as a whole roaster. Dead, anyway. It was an oddly disturbing thought. Not that I was
feeling guilty about my part in the meat trade, of course. Some countries just had too many
people and not enough to feed them with, that was all there was to it. What were we supposed to
do, refuse to buy their excess population and let them all starve together? Go back to the absurd
and thankfully now discredited notion of propping up the poorer nations with charity so they could
hang on in borderline starvation just long enough to produce another generation of starving
indigents? Ridiculous.
I got through the working day and went home to the dinner Priya had made for us. Something
with chicken and spices and a kind of salad, I think. I enjoyed it and I told her so, and she liked
that. We passed the rest of the evening companionably, went to bed, had mutually satisfying sex
and slept together.
That's how it went over the next couple of weeks. I got used to leading a double life, doing my job
in work time and coming home to Priya at night. I looked forward to that. I liked living with her.
Well, why wouldn't I? She looked nice, she spoke softly, she fucked and cooked well, what's not
to like? I did find out a few things about her, too. She wasn't Indian, she was Malaysian. Why did
she speak such good English?
"Where I come from, all educated people learn English," she told me. Of course, Malaysia was
one of the countries that had been ruled by us British once. Well, it's easy to lose count, there are
so many of them. It all came out in bits and pieces as she got more relaxed talking to me and
opened up about herself. She had hoped to train as a doctor, but the national lottery had
assigned her to be exported as meat and she had accepted that as her duty. Like a lot of
Malaysians, and quite a few Britons for that matter, she had Indian ancestry and was technically
a Hindu, though she didn't take her nominal religion too seriously. Sacred cows? No. She didn't
mind eating beef.
"If I come back as a cow, I suppose I'll be eaten again," she said with a slight shrug. "At least if
I'm a British cow. What difference does it make?" She had begun to use contractions as her
colloquial English improved rapidly with practice.
Did I mention the sex? Yes I did but I'll mention it again. Once she'd got the hang of it and
realised that she could trust me, she was fantastic. It's ungallant to make comparisons, but my
last girlfriend, whatsername, Kirsten, well, I thought she was pretty good, but compared to Priya,
let's just say I didn't miss her so much any more. Call me shallow if you like, but it wasn't only
that. She was also a very agreeable person. I don't mean that she always agreed with me, I made
it clear to her early on that she was free to give me her honest opinions and she did, I mean that
she never argued just to be contrary. A cynic might say that she was afraid she'd get an early trip
back to the chopping block, but I don't think so, I think she was just good natured.
In retrospect, it's easy to see where this was heading. One day I woke up with Priya next to me as
usual, looked at her fondly, and got an awful sinking sensation in my stomach at the realisation
that she'd be gone before long. Not just gone from me, that was bad enough, but gone for good.
I didn't like the idea at all. It didn't seem right.
This is probably why knocking off the livestock, while not actually illegal, is customarily frowned
upon. Supposedly this is because of the danger of coming to see them as people. Nonsense, of
course, at least in my case. I'd never excused what I did with the silly pretense that they weren't
human. I simply kept a sense of perspective and professional detachment about it, or I had
before. So much for that, I told myself wryly.
When had it started exactly? I don't know, probably the first time I talked to her. The danger signs
had been coming with increasing intensity ever since and I'd simply ignored them. Little things,
like the time her pubic hair had begun to grow back and I'd delicately asked her whether she'd
prefer to use a razor or depilatory cream. It's not that I'm fanatical about a bare pubic region,
though I do prefer it, but that she wouldn't have time to grow it out. I took special care to let her
know that it was only because stubble was uncomfortable so she wouldn't think I was just
keeping her prepped for the slaughtering line.
I managed to conceal my sinking stomach from Priya when she woke, I hope, but she probably
picked something up when I struggled to get my breakfast down and she gave me a big hug
when I left. I must have had a visible dark cloud over my head at work, because Lisa noticed.
"Bad night?" she asked with mock sympathy, "Things not going well with your little meat
poppet?"
I could cheerfully have strangled her. The thought crossed my mind that, properly butchered,
Lisa would dress out to several more pounds of meat than Priya. Pity it couldn't be her on the
cutting table instead. I gave her a stone-faced stare and said "Where's that shipping report?"
while I entertained the fantasy. It helped a bit. I know, it wasn't nice, and I don't really think Lisa
deserved to die just for being a snotty bitch, but what had my 'little meat poppet' ever done to
deserve it? Yes, I know, life isn't fair.
I couldn't conceal my mood from Priya that evening, much as I tried. "Is something wrong?" she
asked at last, concerned, after I'd struggled to get through a perfectly good dinner.
I could have said 'no' and almost did, but she would have known I was lying. I'd never really lied
to her before, I'd just managed to avoid confronting this particular topic for fear of depressing her.
I shrugged. "I don't know," I said, evading slightly, "It's just that I've really enjoyed having you
here and it seems a pity I'll have to take you back before long."
"I have enjoyed being here," Priya said - her colloquial contractions came and went - "Very much.
And we still have some time left."
Less than two weeks. I shook my head helplessly. "I wish you didn't have to go at all. I'll miss
you." She wouldn't be able to say the same thing, of course. She wouldn't miss me at all. One of
the benefits of having your head chopped off.
Priya looked at me carefully with an expression I couldn't read. "There are lots of other girls," she
pointed out.
I sighed in exasperated surrender. "Oh, all right, I give in. I like you, okay? Really, really like you.
A lot. It bothers me that you're going to die soon and that there's nothing I can do about it. Happy
now?"
"Yes," Priya said. "Very happy." She was smiling and her eyes were bright with tears.
Everything got mushy then. We hugged furiously and I cried like a big girl while she comforted
me. It's true what they say, it does help to let it out sometimes. It was a relief that I wouldn't have
to pretend any more that I didn't really care about Priya, at least not to her. The rest of the world
could screw themselves, I'd give them the old stone face about it, but not her.
Sex that night wasn't just sex, we made love. It wasn't that much different from what we'd done
the previous night, really, we simply had a different understanding. I held her very close for a long
time afterwards. It was wonderful and all the world was rosy, apart from the fact that I was falling
for a woman who'd be dead in a fortnight. Falling for? Who was I trying to kid? I was sunk, full
fathom five.
"Don't be unhappy," Priya said at last.
"I hope you're not going to say 'don't grieve for me'," I said gruffly, "Because I'm bloody well going
to whether you like it or not."
"I know," Priya said gently. "You'll grieve because you have a good heart. Just don't do it now.
Please wait until I am gone. I know I am being selfish, that it is hard for you..."
"Hard for me?" I began indignantly. I wasn't the one who had a date with a chopping block.
"Yes," Priya said. "I came to this country knowing that I would die here. Alone, I thought,
amongst strangers. Instead, I've had some good times and I'll spend my last days with a kind
man who cares for me. It is you who will pay the price for that."
I wasn't sure I deserved to be cast as the good guy. "I only picked you out because you're hot
and I was horny," I said gruffly. "I kept you because you're good in bed."
"Lucky for me," Priya smiled.
"For me too," I said and kissed her. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well be hanged
for a sheep as a lamb. Better to have loved and lost, always look on the bright side, etc. I'd put on
a brave face and enjoy the rest of my time with Priya and try not to bring her down. The sackcloth
and ashes bit could wait.
At breakfast the next morning, Priya asked innocently, "Do you ever eat woman flesh?"
I almost choked on my cornflakes. I had, of course, quite often in fact. Well, I was the manager of
a food processing plant specialising in woman meat and obviously I wasn't a vegetarian. Priya
must have worked that out for herself, surely.
"I have done," I admitted apologetically, feeling apprehensive. Would she be disgusted with me?
Angry? Disappointed?
Priya just nodded acceptance. "Yet you have not done this since I have been here," she
observed.
Whew. She hadn't run screaming from the room. "No. I thought it might be a bit tactless," I said.
"I didn't want to upset you." Eating girl meat in front of someone who was about to become it
seemed way beyond tactless to me.
Priya cocked her head and gave me an quizzical smile. "Not even at work?"
"No," I said. It was true, I hadn't. You could get it in pies or sandwiches at the works cafeteria but
I'd been sticking to things like ham or cheese and salad lately.
"Why not?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, the whole idea just seemed a bit weird. Eating...that...while you were
living in my home would have felt....disrespectful? In bad taste? I don't know why."
Priya smiled at me fondly. "You are so sweet. I just asked because I wondered, what do we taste
like? Chicken?"
I'd have choked on my flakes again if I'd had any in my mouth. Instead I just spluttered into my
tea a bit. I gave her a suspicious glance. She was winding me up, teasing me. "Oh, much better
than that. More like cheese and Marmite sandwiches with a touch of lobster thermidor and extra
Spam." Priya started to giggle with a bite of bacon sandwich in her mouth. I hoped I wouldn't
have to do a Heimlich on her. I waited for her to swallow and get her breath back. "Why do you
want to know?"
"I would like to know what I'll taste like. Could we have some?"
The idea was somehow shocking to me, which was illogical, of course. Dear, gentle Priya eating
another woman? Heaven forfend. Silly of me. The other woman would be killed and eaten
anyway. It's not as if she was asking me to go out on the street and shoot someone for her. I had
a brief, wild vision of bagging a likely wench, throwing her down on the kitchen table and saying
'Will this one do?' "I suppose we could," I said. "If you really want to....?"
"Yes, please, if you don't mind..?"
I shook my head. "All right. Any particular part you'd prefer?"
Priya frowned slightly in mock concentration. "Oh, I don't know," she said, "Whatever you think is
good." Her expression changed to an impish smile. "Whatever part of me you'd most like to eat."
I was almost ready for her this time, but that still sent a kind of visceral shock through me. "That
would be all of you," I said, as calmly as possible.
"All of me? Even my toes and my spleen?"
"I'm not sure what spleen tastes like," I admitted, struggling a bit. "Toes? Chewy, I'd think, but I'm
sure yours would be exquisite..."
"I'm sorry," Priya said, suddenly contrite. "This is uncomfortable for you to talk about, isn't it?"
"Just a bit awkward. I'm sorry too, I know you're only trying to keep it light and I do appreciate it.
Were you serious about having, er...."
"Yes," Priya said. "Not spleen, though. Maybe just a simple steak. Leg, rump, something with red
meat on it. Would that be too costly?"
"Don't worry about it," I said. "Special occasion. Besides, I get trade discount. Leave it to me."
I was in a strange mood at work that day. Not depressed like the day before, but not exactly
normal either. I'm not sure if there's a word for what I was. Clear headed but detached, like I
wasn't really there or the rest of the world wasn't real. Lisa gave me a few odd looks, but she kept
fairly quiet, as if she couldn't make me out. I caught her watching me and gave her a bland,
bright smile that made her look away uneasily. I got through the morning's work with abstracted
efficiency. I had a chicken salad sandwich for lunch and read the paper for a bit, then went down
to the factory floor, where I had a few words with Arthur as usual. Then I told him I wanted to pick
out a couple of steaks for dinner.
Arthur didn't need to ask why I hadn't just phoned down and ordered them. "Want to pick 'em on
the hoof?" he guessed correctly. I nodded. It was unusual but not unheard of. "Got a particular
cut in mind?"
"Two thigh steaks, top of the legs, same heifer," I said.
"Top steaks of both legs?" Arthur asked, raising his eyebrows. It was quite an expensive
selection. The very top of the thigh, next to the crotch, is the prime cut of the legs and one of the
most prized parts of the body.
"Yes. Special occasion."
Arthur nodded. If he had any thoughts on what that special occasion might be, he kept them to
himself. "New batch coming through now," he said.
It was a bit like a flashback to the last time, when I'd picked Priya out. Not so long ago, but it
seemed like another age of my life. The women were of roughly the same ethnic mix but I was
looking for a particular body type and I passed up several perfectly good dinner prospects before
I found the right match. "That one," I said. Arthur cut the girl out of the line and brought her to
me. I inspected her carefully. Almost exactly the same build. I came close enough to smell her
skin and sniffed. Close enough.
"She'll do very nicely," I said.
Arthur made a note on the worksheet on his clipboard, checking her stock number and repeating
"Right.Top cuts, both thighs."
"What is happening, please?" the girl asked. She sounded nervous. Maybe she thought I was
going to eat her liver raw with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
She even spoke English, too. Perfect. "Nothing that wasn't going to happen anyway," I explained
to reassure her, or maybe myself. "I'm going to have some of your meat for dinner, that's all.
What's your name?"
"Sanja," the girl said, looking slightly surprised to be asked.
Deja vu again. For a moment I saw another face looking back at me and the world twisted, but it
passed quickly. She wasn't the same. "Somebody might want to know," I told her.
Sanja nodded as if she'd understood something. "Thank you," she said. Such a polite girl.
"You're welcome," I replied. I told Arthur, "Okay, take her. Make it quick and clean."
Arthur gave me a quizzical frown and I shook my head minimally. He nodded. He realised I'd said
that for the girl's benefit, not because I doubted his team's expertise.
I watched as Sanja was led to a cutting table where she lay down submissively and was quickly
killed by decapitation. I didn't stay to watch her being cut up in detail. Arthur would have my order
sent up when it was ready.
Back in the office, I called Priya at home. "Hi, it's me. I've got the meat. It's steaks. No, just get a
couple of baking potatoes ready and maybe a salad or something, whatever you fancy. I'll cook
them myself when I get home, they won't take long. Yes, me too. See you soon. Bye."
Lisa was looking at me again, an odd expression on her face. "Something wrong?" I asked. She
shook her head and looked away.
Priya greeted me warmly when I got home. The old polite deference she'd started out with had
been melting away for some time and now, after last night, was completely gone. She was
wearing a short, blue sleeveless dress that left a lot of brown skin on show, and open sandals.
She looked stunningly beautiful, good enough...... I winced inwardly at the cliche. Of course I
couldn't say that.
Then again, why not? "You look good enough to eat," I said boldly.
Priya laughed. "I would hope so," she said. "I'm glad you can say that now."
"You know I wouldn't..."
"I know you would rather that things were different, but they're not," Priya said firmly. "It's all right.
Show me the meat, please?"
We went into the kitchen and I unwrapped the steaks. There was a pleasant smell of potatoes
baking in the oven and a bowl of salad on the table, along with the standard condiments.
"What part is this? Leg?" Priya guessed.
"Top of the thighs," I said.
"Right at the top? Here?" Priya lifted her skirt and touched the top of her right thigh with her
hand. Her lack of underwear was apparent. It was an unselfconcious gesture and therefore all the
more intensely, even perversely, erotic.
"Right there," I confirmed, "From a girl with your body type. You said you wanted to know..."
"What I would taste like, yes. You chose her specially?" I nodded. "What was her name?"
"Sanja," I said. "How did you know I'd ask her?"
"Because you knew I would ask you. Besides, you asked mine."
I was taken aback. That was different. "But I was asking you if you were willing to be my
mistress, not picking my dinner."
"But you asked my name first," she said. "Before you propositioned me. Is that right,
'propositioned'?"
"Yes, that's right. What would you have done if I hadn't? Turned me down?"
"Probably, yes."
Presumably that made some kind of sense in feminine logic. I shook my head. Who says
manners don't matter? "How would you like yours done?"
"The same way you are having yours."
I tenderised the steaks with a rolling pin and fried them in olive oil with just a touch of tarragon
until they were medium rare while Priya set out the plates and cutlery and took the potatoes out
of the oven. We sat down to eat. I took a bite of my steak, which seemed excellent to me, and
waited to see what Priya made of hers. She nodded appreciatively with her mouth still full,
chewed, swallowed, and said "Good!" We didn't talk much for the rest of the meal apart from
food-related comments: "Pass the butter, please", "More salad?", "Try a bit with mustard on it",
and so on.
When we were done, Priya poured us two glasses from the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon she'd
opened earlier. "That was really good," she said. She lifted her glass in a toast: "To Sanja," she
proposed.
"To Sanja," I concurred. We drank.
"I wonder what she was like," Priya mused a while later, curiously, not morbidly.
"I don't know, really, we didn't have a long conversation," I said. "She seemed nice enough. She
wanted to know what was going on when I picked her out, so I told her and then I asked her
name. She thanked me, I'm not sure what for, and that was about it."
"She thanked you for doing her the courtesy of talking to her," Priya said. "I would bet you said
'you're welcome' too."
I nodded. "Of course. I was polite, God forbid that I should be rude. And then I watched her
being led away to be killed." I made a face.
"Of course. And you think this is, what's the word?"
"Incongruous?"
"That sounds right. And no, it isn't. Times like this are when courtesy is most important."
"I suppose so," I said. She was uniquely qualified to know how a person in Sanja's situation
would have felt about it.
"I know so," she said, shaking her head and smiling wryly. "You're funny. Your plant processes
many women every day and yet you reproach yourself over Sanja because you spoke politely to
her. Would she have been better off if you hadn't?"
I gave her a rueful smile back. "You're right, of course."
I may have mentioned before that Priya wasn't a complainer and I was beginning to understand
why. She understood her situation and the reasons for it intellectually and then accepted them
emotionally. Not everybody gets that far. She just didn't have that 'Okay, I get it, but why ME?'
thing that most of us have. Call it Eastern fatalism if you like, but I don't think so. I'm sure she'd
rather not have been picked to be sold as meat but she had been. Why should she waste the
rest of her time fretting about something she couldn't change? She'd got me for that.
"Come on, cheer up," she said. "Let's clear the dishes and have another glass of wine and we
can watch that Python film again. I wish to practice my Latin grammar."
So we watched 'Life of Brian' again with our shoes off and the lights low, slowly sipping our way
through a few more glasses of wine. Priya loved the Latin lesson sketch and the 'What have the
Romans ever done for us?' bit, which she said was a brilliant satirical rebuttal of politically correct
anti-British-Imperialism, but she also laughed at the lisping speech by Palin's effete governor and
the Biggus Dickus jokes. I enjoyed it too, I always do, and more so for being with her, but I also
had a vivid, recurring image in my mind of Priya's hand on the top of her thigh, touching the
same part of her own body as the part of Sanja we'd just eaten.
Sex that night was wonderful, as usual, but more so than ever. No, it wasn't frantic or urgent, it
was slow, gently sensual and totally relaxed. It was like a conversation in tactile language. Priya
communicated that she was completely happy and wanted me to be too. For a while, I lost myself
in her serenity. I lost myself in her. I think it took a long time, but I had no sense of time while it
was happening. We came together. By that, I don't just mean we both had orgasms at the same
time. Both of us had one and we shared it. There is no way I can describe that to you, you've
either done it or you haven't. It's like you can't explain what sex is like to a virgin. Nudge, nudge,
wink wink. You can't explain what this was like to someone who's only had sex. We didn't talk for
a while afterwards until I eventually said "I suppose you know that I love you."
"I know," Priya said. "You're not sure that I love you too, but I do. Trust me." She smiled at me in
the dark. "Could we have done that if I didn't?"
I trusted her more than I trusted myself.
Please don't get the impression that I'd never cared for a woman before. I'd never slept with a
woman I didn't like, or at least thought I liked. I'd never slept with a 'meat poppet' before either. I'd
just been sexually frustrated when I picked Priya out of the line. Starving in the midst of plenty, it
had seemed illogical to deny myself. I'd only wanted to enjoy her body and treat her as well as
possible before I took her back to be slaughtered. I didn't expect that she'd be the one I'd really
fall for. Cue Michael Palin in the Spanish Inquisition sketch: "Nooobody expects..."
I had Python on the brain. Or the Brian. Well, you don't, do you? When you're a teenager you
imagine you're in love with every girl you fancy. Then you have sex and you get over it. After that,
if you're lucky, or unlucky, you connect with somebody on a level you didn't even know existed
and you go mad. You're not just you any more. You're you and her. An item. One flesh, as the
marriage ceremony puts it. Just my luck to have fallen in love with someone who had less than
two weeks left to live and whose flesh would be on display in a butchers window after that.
Priya understood her situation perfectly, as I said. She wasn't thinking 'Okay, I get it, but why
ME?' I was thinking 'Okay, I get it, but why HER?' She was part of me.
"No," I said, "You're right, we couldn't have. I've just never done that before. I mean, sex, yes,
obviously, but not like that."
"Really? Never?" Priya sounded surprised. Well, she would be. She was relatively sexually
inexperienced, maybe she thought it happened at some point in every relationship.
"No," I said, "Only with you."
Priya said, "I am honoured. And lucky." She sounded pleased.
It sounded a bit odd to me, put like that. I wasn't at all sure I deserved the 'honoured' bit and, as
for 'lucky', well, that was hardly how I'd have described her situation, but I could see her point of
view. "The honour is mine," I said gallantly.
Priya smiled ruefully. "But not so lucky for you, you think?" she guessed, "I'm sorry."
"I'm not," I said. "I don't regret it. I can't." It was true. When you're really in love with somebody,
you can't wish you weren't. At least, I couldn't, you can speak for yourself. I couldn't look at Priya
and think "I wish I didn't love her." It would be like wishing I wasn't me or that she didn't exist,
which was more or less the same thing. I can't explain it any better than that, as I said, you've
either been there or you haven't.
You may be wondering what I'd expected to happen. Did I think I could have spent a month
sleeping with an attractive and likeable girl and have no regrets at all about taking her back to be
chopped up? No, of course not. Even pig farmers get fond of their pigs sometimes and get a bit
sentimental when the time comes to slaughter them. They do it anyway. I expected that I might
become a little fond of Priya, or whoever I'd picked, and then I'd get seriously drunk and maybe
do a bit of crying into my beer the night after, but I'd get over it as I got over the accompanying
hangover. After all, as Priya had pointed out herself, my plant processed women every day and
any given one of them might have been a perfectly nice person if I'd got to know her. Sanja had
probably been a nice person and now she was dead and we'd eaten her. Had she been glad to
know who would do it? Had it made it any easier for her to lie down and wait for the end to come?
Priya snuggled up to my side in the now familiar position. I put my arm around her slender back
in the usual way. She spoke my name. I turned to her. "Please remember that you have never
done me harm," she said. "Only good. Never forget that. Promise me?"
I knew perfectly well what she was trying to do. I would grieve for her, she couldn't help me with
that, but she didn't want me compounding that with guilt. Logically, she was quite right. I hadn't
forced her to become my lover and I'd never mistreated her. Laugh if you like, but I despise men
who are needlessly cruel to women. I had nothing to reproach myself with. "I won't forget, I
promise you that," I said. "Goodnight, love."
Priya fell asleep easily; I could feel it from her regular breathing and her steady heartbeat. It only
took me an hour or two more. I didn't grudge one minute of it, not one precious second.
My dreams were disturbing, but I only half-remembered them, as you do. Things were a little odd
at breakfast. Priya seemed distracted, maybe even worried, which was unusual for her. She'd
woken up cheerful and affectionate, as usual, and we'd gone through all the little morning rituals
together, but when we were actually eating breakfast, I got the impression that there was
something on her mind.
"Okay, out with it," I said in that half-joking tone you use not to sound threatening.
Priya actually started and looked guilty. She opened her mouth and shut it again. She put down
her cup of tea.
"Something's on your mind, love," I said. "Do you want to tell me? If you say 'no' I won't ask
again."
Priya nodded. "I was wondering if you will eat me when I am dead," she said frankly. She looked
at me, her expression both anxious and apologetic.
I had been more than half expecting something like this to come up. "Is that a question or a
request? Do you want me to?" Priya looked uncertain. About what? "If you don't, just say so.."
Priya shook her head. "I would like you to, but..."
Yes, it all came together. I'm not totally thick. "You're worried that it would be hard for me, aren't
you? You want to go out knowing that I'll eat some of you, that your death will mean something to
someone who loves you. You didn't just want to know what you'd taste like, you wanted to know
what you'd taste like to me."
"Yes," Priya admitted.
Obviously I'd guessed it earlier when I'd ordered the same parts of Sanja for both of us. It's easy
to see in retrospect, it's different if you're living it. I'd known all along what she was up to on some
level, I just hadn't wanted to put it together. That would have meant accepting the fact that she
would die and I was still having a hard time with that, can you blame me? "And then, when you
realised how much you meant to me..."
"I had intended to ask," Priya said. "As a favour, but then I thought..it might be too much to ask."
I took her hand. "Nothing is too much for you to ask," I said fiercely. "Nothing, ever. Never forget
that. Promise me?"
She got that happy tears look again. I can still remember how she looked then, every detail. Her
hair had started to grow out just a bit. Nothing much, just not quite the shorn heifer look she'd
had when I picked her. She was wearing one of my old T-shirts, faded and threadbare but clean.
"I promise," she said.
If this all sounds a bit bizarre, you just have to see it from her point of view. Think about it. Why
had Sanja thanked me when I'd only told her I was going to have her for dinner and asked her
name? Because it made it personal. I'm sure she understood the economics of her situation and
knew that nothing I said would change it, but at least I'd spoken to her, if only for a few seconds.
She wasn't just going to end up in a butcher's shop as anonymous pieces of meat, she'd be
dinner for somebody who at least knew her name. A pity I hadn't told her mine, but that couldn't
be mended now. How much more would it mean to Priya? Some things you have to get right first
time because you only get one chance.
"I'll be with you at the end too, if that's what you want," I told Priya. "And before you ask if it will be
hard for me, yes, of course it will, it will hurt like Hell. I'm not being noble, I just don't want to
spend the rest of my life regretting that I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I couldn't live
with that. Okay?"
"Okay," Priya said dubiously. I could see that she didn't like the idea of putting me through that,
but she saw my point. What do you do with a girl like that? I hugged and kissed her and told her
I'd walk to work. I needed some air, I needed time to think.
"You decide what you want to do," I said before I left. That was it, I was committed. If Priya told
me she'd like to have her lungs, liver and heart boiled up with onions and oatmeal and served in
her stomach as haggis, I'd have to do it. Of course, she'd never do that. She wasn't cruel, she'd
never subject me to the horror of Scottish cuisine, but a promise was a promise. I really would
have eaten her spleen and toes if she'd wanted me to.
What did I really want? It's just too obvious for words. I wanted to marry her and live happily ever
after, of course. Sorry, but there's a reason for the cliches. I think I've done this bit before, but the
first time you fancy a girl you kid yourself that she's your one true love. The first time you really do
fall in love, what do you want? You want her, forever. Maybe even kids some day. Just not to lose
her. That's the main thing. Except I couldn't do that.
I'd have sent her home if I could. I'd have lost her then, but at least she'd still be alive. I could still
feel her body in my arms, so warm and small and vulnerable, so vital...
....so fucking precious. Yes, okay, that's a just personal reaction. All human interactions are,
aren't they? We only really care about the people we know and love. I've never sympathised
much with the bleeding hearts who wring their hands and wail about starving babies in Africa or
wherever. Of course it's unfortunate, but if you don't want your kids to starve, stop having more
kids than you can feed. Duh. It's not rocket science. Anyway, it's none of my business. But Priya?
None of this was her fault. Why her government had instituted some sort of national lottery to cull
the population instead of just shipping out the useless gits I don't know, but I could hazard a few
guesses. Maybe the same sort of misguided, politically correct egalitarianism that had thankfully
gone out of fashion here. Maybe the lottery was corrupt and they thought they'd get more money
for healthy, attractive young women than the hoi-polloi. Eastern countries have always
undervalued women compared to the West, but they do like our money.
We, of course, have a far better use for their undervalued women than they do. We like eating
them. Tasty cooked or raw. Okay, cooked, unless you're a werewolf. There are any number of
cooking programmes on TV about how to serve them up. Frankly, I find most cooking shows
about as interesting as the ones with overpaid yuppies trying to get even richer buying properties
in the South of France, Eastern Europe or any of those new Third World countries that went
bottom up when the inflated economic miracle of the European Union collapsed. Britain survived
through not subscribing to the silly paper money fantasy of the Euro. It's lucky that we had a
good Chancellor at the time, or we'd have been in the same sinking boat. Before long we could
probably look forward to cooking French women. I'm sure they'll taste as good as any of the
others, with or without garlic.
Sorry, I'm venting a bit here, not to mention rambling, but how I felt at the time was just that I'd
rather see anybody going to the chopping block than her. That's what happens when you fall in
love. The law, politics, even basic morals, they don't matter any more, you get obsessed. I'd have
walked miles over broken glass just to see her smile at me, just to look into those warm brown
eyes one more time.
So, walking to work, I started looking for women to put in her place. Half seriously, you
understand. I couldn't just kidnap somebody and expect her to pass for Priya in the slaughtering
line, could I? Still, I could dream, and speculate a bit. Like this: Oh look, there's one now. About
the right age.....no. Too tall, too light skinned, too dark....that one? Pretty lass, about the right
build and colour, hair too long but that's easily fixed...she sees me looking and, good grief, she
smiles at me. Does she think I'm flirting? I smile back and look away casually, indicating that I
was just caught fancying her. She'll probably get a lift out of that, walk with a little more spring in
her step. It would never occur to her that I was thinking of having her killed and butchered to
spare my meatgirl lover.
Monstrous, you're probably thinking. Take some innocent young woman off the street and murder
her? Who could do such a thing? Well, take off that neat business suit - she probably works in
an office - and shave her and she's just as much a meat animal as someone like Priya, no more,
no less. Or maybe you think I do this all the time, see every woman I look at as a heifer, meat on
the hoof. Well, I don't, or at least I didn't.
"You're in a mood," Lisa said pertly when I finally reached the office.
"Don't you start," I warned her.
Lisa sniffed.
That's when I decided to kill her. I spent the morning dealing with routine jobs while fantasising
about how I could do it and get away with it. I'd much rather have killed Lisa, who annoyed me,
than some innocent girl on the street who just looked a bit like Priya. I couldn't quite see how to
make it work. I got through the day somehow.
I was about to eat dinner that evening when Kirsten turned up. Priya was serving up when
somebody knocked on the door and there she was.
"Mind if I come in?" she inquired as I stood there dumbstruck for a moment.
"What happened, the gorilla you left me for ditched you for a nice little chimpanzee?"
"Fuck you too," Kirsten said. "I ditched him."
"He was rubbish in bed," I interpreted.
"Pretty much," Kirsten admitted. "Bigger dick than yours but didn't know an erogenous zone from
a hole in the wall. Heard you were fucking a meat cunt."
You wonder why I didn't mind that she left me?
"Yes, and she's better in bed than you ever were," I retorted. I was never good at sparring with
Kirsten because I don't lie easily. I didn't have to. I viewed Kirsten's expression with satisfaction
as she realised I was telling the truth. "Come in and meet her."
Now Kirsten looked a bit put out as I turned around and led the way to the kitchen, but she
followed automatically. "This is Priya, the..."
"Hello," Kirsten cut in hastily. "Um..."
"Priya, this is Kirsten," I completed the introduction.
"Pleased to meet you," Priya said politely. "Will you be joining us for dinner?"
"Ah...I shouldn't...." Kirsten was trying not to stare too obviously at the 'meat cunt', who looked
composed and immaculate in a simple skirt and blouse.
"It's just a lamb and bean casserole, Greek style," I said. "There's plenty to go around."
"Well..." Kirsten was obviously tempted, either by curiosity or the smell of the food. Priya had
already produced another plate. "Oh, all right. I mean, yes, thanks." She took a seat at the table,
looking completely at sea. Priya served her the plate, now loaded with casserole.
We all sat down and ate.
"This is very good," Kirsten said at last.
"Thank you," Priya said. "I saw the recipe on a television programme. I like to cook."
I could almost read Kirsten's mind from the expression on her face. "You're very good," she said.
"I hope I will be," Priya replied, straight-faced, "The cooks on the television programme said that
this dish could be made with the flesh of a lean young woman. Wine?"
"Maybe one glass," Kirsten choked out. Priya poured it.
One glass? Yeah, right. Well, it would break the ice a bit. I just hoped things wouldn't get out of
hand. Kirsten was always unpredictable when drunk. After a couple of glasses more, she opened
up.
"So, what's the deal with you and my ex here?" The plates had been finished and cleared away.
"Ex?"
"Ex-boyfriend. Former lover...?"
"I am his mistress," Priya explained. "I was about to be slaughtered when he offered me the
position for a month. I accepted."
"And when the month is up?"
"I will be slaughtered and he has kindly agreed to eat some of me."
"How very generous of him," Kirsten said, draining her glass and reaching for the bottle.
"Yes," Priya said, with a very slight edge in her voice. "It was."
Oh, fight, fight! Catfights are fun to watch. Well, no, not really, unless they're naked and wrestling
in baby oil.
Kirsten backed down. Slightly. "So you're happy to be his dinner?"
Priya's hackles settled down a bit. "Yes," she said. "I will be killed in any case, I would rather be
eaten by someone I love. Wouldn't you?"
It wasn't a situation that Kirsten had ever encountered. "I'd rather not be killed in the first place,"
she said.
She'd never loved anyone either, I thought.
"Nor would I," Priya said. "Unfortunately, we do not have that option."
Kirsten picked up on the pronoun 'we'. "Which means," she pronounced with half-drunken
sagacity, looking at me, "You don't want to kill her either." She smiled.
Well, duh....prize for the bleeding obvious...."No," I said, "I don't. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather
kill you. Not that I hate you enough to want you dead, but I love her and I don't love you. Clear?"
"As crystal," Kirsten said. "Look, I just came here to see if you still fancied fucking me. My last
boyfriend was a dud and I was horny. I heard you'd got so desperate you were shagging a meat
cunt. Sorry, Priya, no offense, got to admit he's got good taste picking you. Bad luck about
getting chopped next week or whatever. I'd better get a taxi and bugger off."
"You're too pissed to use a phone," I said. "Kip down in the spare room."
"Or you could sleep with us," Priya suggested, winking at me.
"I'll think about it while I throw up in the toilet," Kirsten said. She staggered off.
I gave Priya a 'what the fuck' look and she shrugged. "I like her," she said. "I'm sorry, I should
have asked you first, but I thought it might be fun."
"You'd really like to sleep with Kirsten?"
"I don't know, I have never done it," Priya said. "There is an English saying that you should try
everything once except incest and folk dancing. What is so terrible about folk dancing? It sounds
like fun."
"I'm not sure I'd stop at incest if I had a good looking sister and she was into it," I admitted.
"Look, if you really fancy a threesome with Kirsten and she's agreeable, I'm willing to give it a go,
but I don't know if she will be."
Kirsten returned looking somewhat steadier. "Sorry," she said, "False alarm. I was drinking too
fast. Think I've got my second wind now."
"That's okay," I said. "Sorry if I was a bit brusque before. I can call you a taxi but you're welcome
to stay a while if you like."
"Please do," Priya said. "We don't have many guests to come visiting."
I'd never invited any. I hadn't invited Kirsten, come to that, until she'd just turned up, and I'd only
asked her in to rub her nose in the 'meat cunt' crack. People say things like that to avoid facing
the fact that the women we kill and eat are humans. I was beginning to resent that more than I
used to, for the obvious reason.
"If you really don't mind," Kirsten said, more to Priya than me.
"You would be welcome," Priya said.
Kirsten looked at me and I nodded. "In that case," she said, "Anybody fancy a joint? Helps me
drink slower."
I've just remembered that I haven't described Kirsten physically. She was about average height
for an Englishwoman and well built without being overdeveloped. Imagine a girl who used to be
on the school hockey team and did quite well at it. In other words, considerably bigger than Priya.
She had a mop of slightly wavy dark blonde hair in no particular style and strong features that
came somewhere between handsome and interesting and touched on beautiful in the right light
or if you were stoned or fucking her.
I don't remember the exact sequence of events after that and I'm not going to bore you with a
detailed account of them anyway. We had a few more drinks over the course of the evening,
talked, listened to some music, occasionally flipped through the TV channels and watched things
we couldn't follow because we'd come in at the wrong time, and so on. I shared a joint or a few
with Kirsten and we even got Priya to take a few tokes, though she coughed a bit because she
didn't usually smoke.
It had started out rough but turned into a pleasant evening. Eventually, Priya decided it was time
to go to bed. She was yawning and that meant she wanted sex or sleep and preferably both.
"We're going to bed, " I told Kirsten. "Too stoned to call a taxi, sorry. You can sleep in the spare
bedroom or with us."
"You serious?" Kirsten looked at me. It wasn't something we'd ever done when we were together.
"Buggered if I know. My Mistress suggested it. Don't ask me how it's going to work."
"It's like folk dancing, I think," Priya said. "You just do it."
"What the fuck, why not?" Kirsten said.
A threesome with two attractive women is supposed to be every man's fantasy. Personally, I'd
always suspected that it would be awkward, a logistical nightmare. Maybe I was overthinking it or
maybe it only works if you're stoned enough and in the right mood. There was an awkward
moment when Kirsten neary fell over taking her panties off and another when Priya knocked over
the bottle of wine we'd brought with us and nearly soaked the emergency joint, but we managed
to get into bed and after that...
It was good, okay? I don't remember who did what to whom or why or in which order but it
worked. Don't try this at home without several drinks, a blend of Morroccan and Afghan hash and
two horny females with no inhibitions, or whatever works for you.
We slept together with Priya snuggled up to me as usual and Kirsten with her arms around her
from behind. Oh, work it out yourself, I'm not going to draw a diagram. It was sex but not as we
know it, Jim. It shouldn't have worked but it did and I was too shagged out to argue.
"Awake at last," I noted the next morning as Kirsten finally opened her eyes. "Remember where
you are?" She looked as if she were thinking about it for a few seconds and then nodded. "Any
regrets?"
"Shit, no. Best fuck ever," Kirsten replied, yawning and stretching "Well, for a good long while,
anyway. Who'd have thought a chick could do that? Maybe there's some mileage in this bisexual
thing."
"No more gorillas, then?"
"Not unless they can find my clit without a map. Where's Priya?"
"Downstairs making breakfast. Smell the bacon?"
Kirsten propped herself up on an elbow. "Smells good," she said. "Great cook and a great fuck
too. No wonder you like her. Almost a shame she's going to be a pile of girl chops in a week or
two." I just looked at her. "All right. It IS a shame. What she can do with her hands and her
tongue..."
"Kirsten..."
Kirsten sighed. "Okay, I like her. Satisfied? She's wonderful. Much nicer than me. Wouldn't take
much, of course."
"She likes you too, God knows why, or she wouldn't have slept with you and I certainly wouldn't
have made her. Maybe she thinks under that hard-nosed bitch act you put on there's a decent
person struggling to get out."
"That's rich coming from somebody who works in a woman-killing factory."
"Which didn't stop you sleeping with me or eating the stuff I brought home. Let's not do this
again, Kirst."
"You're going to have to kill her, aren't you?"
"Thank you for reminding me. Yes."
"And you really love her? You weren't just pushing my buttons?"
"Yes, and no."
"Poor you. First time?"
I was out of Airplane jokes. "Yes. I thought I loved you. Maybe I did, a bit, maybe I just liked
fucking you. You were pretty good and you were never boring. Annoying and abrasive, yes,
boring, no. She's something else."
"The real deal?" Kirsten raised a sceptical eyebrow. She couldn't help it. "I don't know whether I
pity or envy you if that's true. I'm sorry she has to die, really. I do rather like her, but what can I do
about it?"
"Nothing. That, at least, is none of your fault."
"Thank you so much. How did it start? You just saw one in the abattoir that you fancied and
brought her home for a quick shag, perk of the job?"
It was actually nice to talk about it for once, get it off my chest. "More or less. Hadn't been laid for
a bit after you buggered off and there were all these women, some of them quite pretty, going to
waste. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. Whoever I picked out would get a temporary
reprieve so no harm, no fault. I did ask her first, I'm not a rapist."
"Fuck me or die now, your choice, no pressure?" Kirsten got that irritating smirk on her face.
Cheap shot. I wasn't going to rise to the bait. "Yes, okay. But I didn't sell her for meat, somebody
else did that. Oh, screw it, I'm not going to argue. You want breakfast or not?"
"Shit, yes. I could eat a horse." Kirsten got out of bed. I couldn't help noticing that she had a lot
of good meat on her bones. Plenty on her rump, from my perspective.
"Move to France," I suggested. "Otherwise you'll have to settle for bacon and eggs."
"Starting with the dick," Kirsten said as she tried to find her clothes. "Do the frogs ever eat horse
dick like the Spanish do bulls' balls? Screw it, who needs panties anyway? Throw me a shirt or
something. Deep fried horse dick sounds nice."
"I doubt you could eat a whole one," I said, tossing her a shirt. "It's bacon and eggs on toast with
grilled tomatoes and creamed mushrooms or you can fuck off and get a McBreakfast from the
local fried shit shop."
"I'll eat whatever Priya cooks, thanks," Kirsten said equably, pulling one of my old rugby shirts
over her head.
Well, at least she was saying 'Priya', not 'meat cunt'. Progress of a sort.
Priya welcomed us to the kitchen. "English breakfast," she announced cheerily, attired as usual
in a short skirt and blouse. "I love it." She smiled at Kirsten, who smiled back faintly and muttered
'Bloody Hell' under her breath. I gave her a raised eyebrow look but didn't ask.
Priya did, after we'd eaten. "Is something wrong?" she asked Kirsten, who had been unusually
subdued and polite.
"No," Kirsten said. "Great breakfast. That'll set me up for the day."
Priya gave her the same look I had.
"Oh all right, gang up on me," Kirsten complained. "It's just that you look so.. I don't know.
Cheerful. Normal. Like nothing's wrong. Happy domestic scene. In a week or two, you'll be meat.
Dead. People will be sitting around a table like this and eating YOU. Why aren't you worried?
Doesn't it bother you?"
"I don't have time to be worried," Priya said, smiling. "In a week or two, I'll be meat, as you said.
Does it bother you?"
"Yes," Kirsten said. "You're somebody I slept with, not just, well.."
"Meat?"
"Good meat, I don't doubt, but.."
"Good, you think? Would you like to eat some of me?"
I actually saw Kirsten's nostrils flare as she scented Priya. "Damnit, y
|
bobbyphoto2
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Posted: Fri Mar 7th, 2008 04:38 am |
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| Nice long story, but did something get cut off at the end? It ended rather strangely....
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PaulK
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Posted: Fri Mar 7th, 2008 08:47 am |
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I tried to post it all at once, but the text got cut off. Maybe there's a limit. I'll post the rest later, when I work out how much I can send at once.
Paul
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FinalMagus
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Posted: Fri Mar 7th, 2008 03:48 pm |
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Just post all starting from that point, then go to where it cuts off and post all starting from that point. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Great story so far. I want the rest of it!
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PaulK
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Posted: Fri Mar 7th, 2008 03:57 pm |
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I'll work on it tonight. Patience. 
Paul
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PaulK
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Posted: Fri Mar 7th, 2008 06:50 pm |
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I actually saw Kirsten's nostrils flare as she scented Priya. "Damnit, yes, I would," she said. "I just
wish..."
Priya leaned over and kissed Kirsten. "Thank you."
"For what?" Kirsten gruffed, but she was both pleased and uncomfortable. "I can't save you.
What do you want me to do, have one of your tits for dinner when you're dead?"
"Why not? You seemed to like them last night," Priya teased.
"Oh God." Kirsten rubbed one eye with her fist. "I wasn't really going to bite. I don't usually fuck
women, but..."
"It's okay," Priya said. "You didn't hurt me and I enjoyed it. I thought you did too."
"I did," Kirsten admitted. "Best fuck ever, as I told your..." she looked at me. What, lover, killer,
rapist?
"Lover," Priya decided for her. She said it proudly, as if she'd never had one before, which she
probably hadn't.
Kirsten took her hand. "I am so, so, very sorry," she said. It was a new thing for me. Kirsten
always avoided the sloppy emotional stuff.
"I'm not sorry that I met you," Priya said. "I wanted to. Fucking with you was good."
"I don't know if I can do it again," Kirsten said. "It was great, but..."
Priya nodded. "Come again, any time."
I walked Kirsten to the door. "Thank you," I said.
"Yeah, right. I got a good lay and a good breakfast. No problem."
"You're welcome."
Kirsten started to walk away. She stopped and turned around. "I don't suppose there's any way
you could...?" She looked cautiously hopeful but not optimistic.
"Not kill her? Trust me, I've thought about it."
"I'm sure you have." I saw the hope leave her face. "Oh well." She sounded sad and resigned.
"You really do like her," I said.
Kirsten shrugged minimally. "What's not to like? She's beautiful, she's sweet but not sickly..... I'm
not besotted but I know a good person when I see one even if I'm not one myself. Well,
sometimes. Besides, she's a good lay...."
I hadn't often seen Kirsten this way before. Well, never, actually.
"Tell her I'll order one of her tits when she gets chopped," Kirsten said.
"Will you?"
"If she says it's okay, I will. That's what she wants, isn't it? To know who's going to eat her?"
It was. "And if it's not okay with her...?"
"Then I won't. Give me some credit."
I believed her. I said so. "I believe you."
"Tell her I'll eat her left tit and thoroughly enjoy it." Kirsten made a wry face.
I couldn't help smiling. "She'll like that."
She nodded and walked away.
"All right?" Priya asked as when I came back in.
"Okay. She said, and I quote, 'Tell her I'll eat her left tit and thoroughly enjoy it.' She also said she
won't if you don't want her to. I think she really meant it." I shook my head.
Priya smiled. "You look surprised. Why is that?"
"She likes you. Kirsten doesn't often like people, especially beautiful women, and she doesn't do
warm and fuzzy."
Priya gave a sort of dismissive shrug. "Kirsten is an unhappy person. She pretends to be bad but
she is not. It is...it's..." she frowned, looking for the right words. "A performance? Like a play?"
"An act," I suggested. "She's pretty convincing, most of the time. Fooled me, anyway."
Priya smiled more broadly. "You are a man. In matters of the heart you are honest and simple."
She gave me a mischievous look.
I gave her a menacing glare that was pure affection. The light in Priya's eyes danced as she
laughed.
"Tell her she is welcome to eat my left tit, or any part of me," she approached me and drew me
into an embrace, "That you don't eat first," she purred.
We kissed, if you can call it that. The way Priya kissed...well, songs have been written about how
it feels when it's that good and when you're a kid listening to pop music you don't know what it
means until it happens. I can't describe it, I'd end up with an entry in a Bulwer Lytton contest for
bad prose with stuff like 'Our tongues entwined'. It's not like that. Kissing Priya was better than
fucking anybody else. Put together the sexiest kiss you ever had with the electric shock you felt
the first time you ever kissed a girl and it was sort of like that.
When we came up for air, Priya said, "You do know that she loves you, don't you?"
"What?" Was she kidding me?
"You don't," Priya observed. She shook her head. "Men!" She kissed me again with the voltage
turned down a bit. "Go to work."
I did as she told me. I got through the morning well enough but at lunchtime I phoned Kirsten.
"She said 'Tell her she is welcome to eat my left tit'," I told her after the usual exchange of
pleasantries.
"She really said that?"
"Yes."
"Was she serious?"
"Yes."
There was a pause. "Okay, tell her I will. Anything else?"
"Nothing much." I wished I could shrug over the telephone. "I'm just plotting to kill my secretary
and substitute her body for Priya's."
"Need any help?"
Sometimes I wondered about Kirsten. "It was a joke."
"No, it wasn't," she said.
"And you're offering to help because?" I might as well humour her.
"I met Lisa once, remember?" I barely did. "She's a bitch, not that I should talk. I like Priya, I
don't like her. Got a plan?"
"Not really, just needed to vent a bit."
"Call me back when you've got one. Otherwise, tell Priya that I'll eat her after she's chopped. It's a
promise."
The line went dead.
Lisa came back from the cafeteria. I don't suppose she had any idea that I was plotting to murder
her, but she'd been cutting down on the snippy remarks lately, so who knows? Maybe she
sensed something. I didn't much care. I went down to the processing room to talk to Arthur. If I
couldn't come up with a way to save Priya, which frankly seemed unlikely, I needed a backup
plan. Kirsten had said "You're going to have to kill her, aren't you?" That had stuck in my mind. I
didn't actually chop the women myself, I was just the manager, I let other people do that.
It took a bit of explaining. "I want you to show me how to kill a woman," I said.
Arthur told me at some length that it was a skilled job and there were union rules and so on. I
could tell that he didn't think much of the idea. I was management, white collar. Chopping the
chicks was working man's work.
I insisted without quite saying that he'd be fired otherwise. He relented, not without reservations.
"There are standards," he said. "You have to have them done properly by trained operatives or
you'll get some jobsworth from the Health and Safety people saying you're using untrained people
who might cut their own fingers off, and then there's PETA with that stuff about inhumane
treatment of livestock.."
"I know all that," I said patiently. "I'm not going to take anyone's job away. I just want to get my
hands dirty. You can train me all you like. I'll practice on dummies if that's what you do. Then I
want to kill a woman myself. As quickly and painlessly as possible."
Arthur was not one of the world's great brains, but he wasn't entirely stupid. "Ah," he said.
Dear reader, if you are indeed entirely stupid, he'd probably clocked the fact that I was going to
insist on killing my meat poppet personally. Yes, that was my great backup plan and I'd have to
practice on dummies or whatever it took and have a live rehearsal with a real woman before I
trusted myself to kill Priya as gently as possible. Believe me, I know how absurd that sounds.
There is no nice way to kill a person. I just didn't trust anyone else to do it. If you think that's
insane, have you ever been in love with somebody you might have to kill? No? Thought not, so
keep your snide comments to yourself. I still had to ask Priya if that's what she wanted, but if she
did I had to be ready.
"It has to be done fast," I said. "I don't have forever." Because neither did she.
How do you kill the woman you love? Practice. Okay, old joke. Believe me, or don't if you like, I
was quite well aware of the absurdity of the situation. I spent the afternoon practising my swing.
There's a lot more to killing a woman than meets the eye, but isn't it always like that? You think
golf is just hitting a ball with a stick but then you get into it and it's all woods and irons and
postures and a whole culture of specialist jargon. All I wanted to do was make sure that if
anybody chopped Priya's head off it would be me and that I'd do it properly. Not so much to ask,
is it?
It was bloody exhausting.
"You're probably best with the sword," Arthur said at last. "You've got an eye for it. Trouble is, it's
hit and miss. You only get one shot. If you're not sure, there's the guillotine...."
That at least couldn't go far wrong but it didn't appeal to me much and I thought it wouldn't to
Priya either. I should probably ask her. I couldn't think how I could bring that up over dinner, and
that brought back the usual fantasy. I've heard that some people fantasise about killing women.
I've seen it done often enough for real that I don't. Me? I fantasised about not having to kill one.
Just one. Mine. My Priya.
"Just think of me as meat," Priya said when I made love to her that night. "That might help." She
was in a playful mood and I went along with it. She insisted that I fuck her - her words - from
behind and imagine myself skewering her as if my dick was a spit. I got into it a bit. It wasn't too
hard to imagine what a fine, lean roaster she'd make. Her back was lovely and the pressure of her
taut rump against my belly......don't ask.
"You're meat," I muttered into her ear as I fucked her. "I'm going to enjoy eating you." I continued
in that vein for a while and I think Priya got into it too. She came hard and I rode her.
Afterwards, she snuggled up to me as usual. We couldn't help it. "You still love me, don't you?"
she said. No, it wasn't really a question.
"Priya, I know you're meat. Nice try, but it doesn't help. I knew that when I took you. Yes, you're
meat and you'll be good meat but I still love you and that isn't going to stop."
"Can't say I'm sorry," Priya said. Her on and off contractions were improving. Maybe it was the
sex.
"So stop trying to help me. I'll eat you when you're dead but I'm not ever going to be glad that
you're going to die, okay?"
"Okay," Priya said. Then she spread herself over me and we made love the way we usually did.
There are no words for that. I don't know how long it took. When we were back to the standard
cuddling position afterwards, I was left with the problem of how to broach the question.
"Is something wrong?" Priya murmured. She could read my moods from my body, the shape of
the silence or something.
I sighed. Now I'd have to tell her or she'd be worried, and she'd know if I lied. "I've been
wondering whether I should kill you myself," I said. That I didn't want her dead at all didn't have to
be said. "And the problem is whether you'd prefer it. It's not the sort of thing a man usually has to
ask the woman he loves and I wasn't sure how to bring it up."
I felt Priya relax a little as she accepted that I was telling the truth and then she tensed a bit.
"Oh," she said.
"Problem?" Two can play at this body reading game. Priya was silent for a moment. "You think it
would be hard for me, don't you?"
"Yes."
"It just takes a bit of practise," I said, "But I think I'm getting the hang of it."
Priya made a noise between a sob and a snort of laughter. "You!" she said with affectionate
indignation and slapped me gently, burying her face in the hollow of my chest.
"We've been through this before," I reminded her. About eating her. "Remember what I said
then?"
"Nothing is too much for you to ask," Priya recalled.
"I also said 'never forget that'. Priya, love, do you think I could live with myself if I didn't do
everything I could for you? Consider it a favour to me if you like, but you tell me whether that's
what you want. If you'd rather I just held your hand while it happens..."
"May I think about it?"
"Do you even have to ask? You can keep your options open until the last minute if you want to."
Priya kissed me. "I'll think about it," she said. "Thank you."
I just gave her an affectionate squeeze. Nothing more needed to be said. All in all, that had gone
better than I'd expected. We went to sleep.
The next afternoon, I resumed my practice under Arthur's strict tutelage. Surprisingly enough, it
went quite well. Eventually Arthur declared that I was ready for a live subject.
"You're sure?" I asked nervously.
Arthur shrugged. "Up to you," he said. "You've got the aim dead on, it's not going to get any
better than that. The only problem is if you choke, some people do, and that could happen if you
practice now till Doomsday. Worst that happens then is we'll have to finish the heifer off
ourselves. Should I have one brought in here?"
Frankly, I'd have preferred that, but it might give the men a bad impression, make me look like I
was chicken. "No," I said, "I'll do one on the floor."
You know how stage fright feels? Ever been in the school play or had to speak in public? Well, it
was like that but worse. You want to be anywhere else, even if it means having a fainting spell
and being carried off, but somehow you do it anyway. I let Arthur make the arrangements while I
watched carefully, noting little details of the processing room like I never had before.
All too quickly, a girl was led up to the cutting table Arthur had picked out for me, its usual
operator standing back with a carefully neutral expression. The girl looked at me and the sword I
was carrying and quickly averted her eyes. She was helped up onto the table and made to lie
down on her stomach with her neck over a chopping block. Her short hair made the vertebrae of
the neck clearly visible, along with the very fine, soft hair on it. She had gooseflesh and she was
trembling slightly. It made my own nervousness seem ridiculous and I steadied a bit. The least I
could do was give her a clean finish and not hack at her like an amateur. An idea occurred to me.
"What's your name?" I asked her. This was a trick I'd seen doctors use. They ask you something
and then stick the needle in quickly while you're still talking.
"A - Anjali," the girl said and I brought the sword down sharply. It went straight through her neck
and her head fell off into a bucket. Her body twitched and blood spurted from her neck for a few
beats and then she was still. I'd done it. I'd killed her.
"Good stroke," Arthur said, sounding slightly surprised.
"Not bad, sir," the worker said gruffly. "Hope yer not after ma job."
"No, thanks," I said with forced lightness. "That was just the easy bit. I'll leave the hard work to
you. Take over." I gave the man a comradely pat on the shoulder, thanked Arthur, and made my
way back to the office. My knees were weak and shaky and I felt dizzy. I hoped nobody had
noticed.
You may wonder why it bothered me. Well, I wondered that myself. I was just as responsible for
the deaths of all the women we processed as the men who actually did the deed and always had
been, I had always known that. I was not particularly sentimental about it either, it was just a job.
Why should it be different just because my hand had wielded the blade? Morally, in a strictly
abstract sense, it wasn't. On a gut level, it felt different. I had felt the shock of the blade shearing
through Anjali's neck and hitting the block beneath; I had smelt the blood. I could still see her
face in my mind's eye.
On another level I was quite pleased with myself because I'd done a good, clean job of killing her.
And, again, a bit guilty about feeling pleased with myself. I wondered if Anjali had appreciated it.
How had it felt to her? Maybe I should have asked her. They say you stay conscious for a few
seconds after your head is cut off. I imagined picking Anjali's head out of the basket and asking
'How was that for you? Did it hurt? Blink once for yes...'.
I even thought about going back and doing another one. I could ask the question and get a bit
more practice in at the same time, killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. After all, suppose
my success with Anjali had just been beginner's luck? I evisioned myself chopping girls' heads
off all afternoon, asking each of them one question or as many as I could get in before they died.
Did it hurt? Did you enjoy that? Were you scared? Did you come when I killed you? Do you come
here often? Fancy a drink later?
I wondered if the first time you kill a person you always go a bit funny in the head. By the time I
reached my office, I was chuckling to myself. That may sound grotesque, but you had to be
there. Lisa gave me a guarded look and said nothing. I did some of the managerial work they pay
me for and went home. Oh, I forget, not right away. I got a few bits of Anjali for dinner, including
one of her breasts. Kirsten had said she'd eat one of Priya's tits after she got chopped and the
two of them had been getting along well, so I thought Priya might like to know how she'd taste to
Kirsten. Chicks like personal stuff like that. That made me a bit late going home.
On the way back on the bus I phoned Kirsten. I don't know why exactly. I suppose I just wanted
to talk.
"Oh, it's you," she said.
"'Fraid so."
"What's the crisis? Keep it short, Doctor Who is on in ten minutes."
"I know, Priya records it for me. Thing is, I just killed a woman..."
"Occupational hazard, isn't it?" Kirsten sounded impatient and slightly bored. No change there,
then.
"Personally."
"Oh. Fun, was it?"
I couldn't imagine for a moment why I was bothering to talk to her. "Not exactly. Do you think you
could see your way clear to having dinner with us just once more?"
The line went silent for a minute.
"I'm not going to beg," I said.
"When?" Kirsten asked.
"Any time before Priya dies."
Another silence, shorter. "Okay. Tell me when. I'll be there. Give her my....well, you know. Say I
said 'Hi'"
"Thank you," I said.
When I got home, Priya was watching Doctor Who. She dutifully started to get up to make dinner
or reheat it or something and I shushed her and sat down next to her an arm around her
shoulders. I'd only missed the first five or ten minutes and I could always watch the recording
later if I'd missed anything important. The episode ended in a cliffhanger, it was a two part story.
Priya was thrilled. She had less than two weeks to live but, fortunately, more than one, which
meant she'd see how the story ended.
"How was your day?" she asked me at last.
I took a deep breath. "Fine," I said. "I killed a woman."
Priya looked at me, concerned. "Did you do it well?"
She didn't have to ask why I'd done it and I thought I really should stop underestimating her. It
had always been obvious that she was intelligent, probably more so than I was, and she missed
nothing.
"I think I did," I said. "Her name was Anjali and I brought a few parts of her with me. Sorry I'm a
bit late. I hope dinner isn't ruined...."
Priya kissed me. "It's just a casserole. I'll warm it up. We can cook Anjali tomorrow. Oh, I put
some of those herbs in it, the ones your cousin brought from Crete. I hope it works." She left for
the kitchen.
Yes, gentle reader, she had improved her colloquial English that much in a couple of weeks. Or
maybe that's just how I remember it. This is me, you see? Trying to get it right when I write down
what I remember. I know what I felt. I'd let my meat poppet get to me. I'd wanted to make her feel
at home. Now home wouldn't be home any more without her in it. Just a few days after the next
episode of Doctor Who, she'd be gone. I was not happy about that, but I've said that before,
haven't I? It was getting harder and harder not to be really pissed off about it.
Kirsten came to dinner two days later. She brought a bottle of wine and some of her own stash of
good hash. Priya received her warmly with a hug, but Kirsten had something to say first.
"Before we start I've got a confession to make," Kirsten said, "I found out how I could save you,
but I'm not going to."
"How?" I demanded, starting to get angry, "And why not?" Priya didn't look angry, I noticed. Of
course, she wouldn't.
"Because the only way I could do it is by offering to take her place," Kirsten told me. I saw Priya
nod. She'd probably guessed. "Sorry," Kirsten said to Priya. "I'm not that unselfish. The whole
'far, far better thing I do' just isn't me."
"Don't be sorry," Priya said. "I couldn't expect that of you. Nobody could."
"So you can throw me out now if you like," Kirsten said to me.
Now I remembered. It was possible to do that, it was just so rare for anybody to actually do it that
it hadn't occurred to me. I certainly wouldn't have expected Kirsten to, or even to have thought
about it. "Nobody could expect that," I conceded. "I'm just a bit touchy on the subject, sorry."
"I know you'd rather see me dead than her..."
"Kirsten, I didn't mean..."
Kirsten shook her head. "I'm not blaming you. You love her, I get it. I'd feel the same way in your
shoes. I just wanted to get that out of the way. Elephant in the room thing."
Priya smiled that smile that lit up the world for me. "We have elephants in Malaysia," she said.
"But it is difficult to fit them into a dining room."
And that was that. We had dinner together, drank the wine, smoked a bit of dope, just a pleasant
social evening. It was surreal. Priya and Kirsten chatted like old friends though they'd only met
once before. Priya wanted to play 'Barrett' because she'd become fascinated with the works of the
genius Syd. Did you know that the guitar track on Dominoes was done in reverse in one take?
Well, I did and I made sure everybody knew that I knew. I'm not sure the girls were all that
interested but, bloody hell, how did he DO that? It's a guy thing. Okay, cue the music:
"It's an idea, someday
in my tears, my dreams
don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm
you and I, you and I and dominoes, the day goes by..."
Kirsten had heard it before, of course, but she hadn't paid much attention to it. She listened
again because she was stoned and because Priya liked it. As a red-blooded male heterosexual,
I'm supposed to be thick as a brick about emotional matters but, you know, I don't always need to
be hit over the head with it. Kirsten liked Priya a lot. Really a lot. After a certain amount of hash
you can read body language like a book with illustrations. We wouldn't have to twist her arm to go
to bed with us. I was beginning to wonder if I should just tell them to get a room if I was
superfluous. That's the whole male insecurity thing kicking in. I should have known better.
"Fireworks and heat, someday
hold a shell, a stick or play
overheard a lark today
losing when my mind's astray"
I think we played the whole thing twice. After the third joint I had some difficulty finding the tracks
I wanted to play. It took me half a century or five minutes to locate "Wolfpack" and then two
minutes to get "Four Sticks", that one's programmed in. If you don't like "Four Sticks" from Led
Zep 4, the one with the funny symbols on it, you're not worth talking to.
I missed out on "And so to F...." by Brand X that night except that we did it. Kirsten didn't throw
up, she wasn't that drunk, we didn't have any awkward moments, we all just went to bed together
as if that was just the thing you do after a pleasant social evening. Seems to be all and it's rosy
it's a beautiful day. That's a quote from the Barrett album if you wondered.
Want to know how the sex worked? Tough luck, it was private. It was good, okay? Better than the
last time we'd done it.
"I could get used to this," Kirsten said afterwards when we were all sated and snuggled up. "Pity I
won't be able to. Sorry, Priya, not trying to bring you down."
"I know," Priya said.
"It's a mystery to me," Kirsten rambled. "You know, I thought maybe I could have let myself like
you because you were going to die?"
"Yes," Priya said.
"Kirsten..." I warned. But Priya gave me a squeeze that told me she was okay with it.
"Maybe it was that at first. I'm a selfish, jealous bitch. Now I'm really pissed off about it. I keep
thinking it's not fair. Yes, I know that you know that and you've accepted it and everything
but....sorry, I'll shut up now."
"You can shut up now," Priya said. "I understand." She gave Kirsten a gentle kiss.
Kirsten was crying silently. In the dim light I could see her face running with tears. It was a
shocking sight. "I do like you," she said. "I do, really, very much. I know I don't..."
"It's all right," Priya said. "I know you do."
Women, eh? You just want a nice threesome orgy and it gets all emotional. Okay, just kidding in
that rugged masculine way. Got to keep up the stereotype. It's just that I wasn't used to seeing
Kirsten that way. Maybe it had to take Priya's imminent death to get through her armour.
Buggered if I knew. I'd just had sex with two attractive women and I was literally shagged out. I
didn't think Kirsten really just liked Priya, I think maybe she loved her a bit. I thought for a
moment the three of us could work well together. Or maybe that was just a male fantasy. Maybe if
Priya wasn't destined for the chopping block it wouldn't really work. How could I know? I liked
Kirsten more for liking Priya, but Priya... my lady. Love of my life and all that silly stuff. I went to
sleep with my doomed lover and my sort of ex-girlfriend. I had to get up in the morning and kill a
few more women, so I needed my sleep.
Kirsten looked a bit subdued and sheepish in the morning. "Sorry about all the waterworks last
night," she gruffed. "Getting sentimental in my old age."
"It's not sentimental to show you care if you really do like her," I said gently. "It's quite normal and
nothing to be ashamed of."
"So I've heard," Kirsten said drily, then hesitated and went on. "I think it's worse than that. I think
maybe I sort of love her a bit which is ridiculous, isn't it?"
"I'm not in a position to point the finger," I pointed ou | | |
