Taste of Humanity

                “My first taste of human flesh was accidental. A coincidence of time and place,” I stated. My eyes were locked on her droopy, sluggish ones. They were a brilliant green but growing dimmer and dimmer by the second. Her brows furrowed, causing wrinkles in between her eyes. I gently cupped the side of her face with my hand, smoothing out her expression, causing the wrinkles to disappear. Wrinkled skin signifies old age, a depressing trait. Makes me lose my appetite.

                I had serenaded and wooed her until she trusted me, drugged her, and convinced her to follow me to this place. We were in a dungeon cell, twelve feet by eight feet, but it was uniquely tailored to suit my purposes. Along the eight foot wall in the back was a waist high stone counter, just wide enough to lay on and made of stacked stone blocks. A hole to the right of it in the wall glowed oranges and reds, unsteady and blinking.

                “You’re nineteen, right?” I asked. She attempted to try and form words, breathing irregularly, so I traced my thumb over her lips, full and red. “Shush, hush now, you don’t have to answer. Just relax. You can lean on me and trust me, you’ll be sound asleep in no time.”

                “No… wait… I can’t… my first…” She trailed off, the hand clutching my shirt falling limply away. I noted my blood caked under the nails.

                She started to collapse, eyes closing, breath evening, so I deftly placed the hand on her face to the back of her neck and the other hand at the small of her back, supporting her weight. Holding her against me, I adjusted the placement of my arms so I could carry her bridal style to the wooden board atop the stone counter.

                I began to prepare the body. It was of greatest importance to keep her alive before cutting her, for freshness. The clothes had to go first, layers of dress and petticoat, before I could gut her. When I did cut into the soft flesh of her belly, I positioned the wooden barrel next to her and cleaned her out. Blood bubbled from her mouth at first, she jerked and regained consciousness, moaned throatily, and weakly raised a hand that flopped against me. Her face was tipped toward me when her life drained, eyes open and staring past. I’d tried eyes once. It was an experience I wouldn’t repeat.

                Her uterus was removed and any other muscle I could cut cleanly from her was trimmed out and the skin removed. I made steaks and laid them out on a large, thin sheet of iron, put the trimmings around them, and slid it into the hole in the wall, an oven. I was to make stew, steak, whatever I could from this meat to please my lord.

                I remembered the first time I’d had human flesh. I was only ten at the time and I worked in my father’s tavern. He was a small, shrewd man but still bigger and stronger than me, a fact he made known on a regular basis. When he hit me he kept it away from the eyes of the customers and left my face alone. Said it was good for business to have a pretty boy. One night after hours he took me to the back alley to punish me for spilling a drink.

*

                “Please, please, it won’t happen again, I swear!” I cried, beseeched him, begging for it to stop. Wherever clothing covered me my skin was no longer a creamy white but a mosaic of reds, yellows, purples, and blues. He sneered. I was his only outlet for anger ever since mother left and he was weaker than most men.

                “You useless little idiot, I bet you spilled that beer on purpose! You want my tavern to go out of business!” he shouted and gripped my shirt, shoving me against the wall. I heard a snap and pain burned through me. One of my ribs was broken. If anyone outside the alley heard us, they would continue on their way, but I felt a need to try for the rare kindness that seemed to appear every so often in the form of extra bread passed my way or kind glances.

                “Someone, anyone, please help me!” Tears were welling. I knew acting tough would only make my father harsher, so I allowed my emotions to wash over me.

                A clatter at the end of the alley stopped my father as he glanced to see what was happening. Four men armed with swords were walking toward us. They were all large, burly men.

                “Are you Bran Cooper? You owe your Lord a debt, sir, past overdue. We’ll be taking your tavern,” the foremost man said.

                “Of course, sir, but taking the tavern is unnecessary, I have the money. Most of it, anyway. Just allow me to go get it.” He shifted nervously and let me go. I ran into the kitchen holding my side and grabbed a knife. The men were definitely not friendly. I heard my father attempt to follow me, but was detained.

                “We don’t need your money. To our Lord, what you owe is nothing. A mere pittance,” one of the men stated. My father started to protest but it ended in a wet gurgle. The man who killed him, identifiable by his bloody knife, dragged him into the kitchen and pushed him towards me. I expected to gag as my father sagged against me, but I just felt lightness in my chest. The man who had caused me so much misery had faded away, just like that. Realizing I was not the cause of his disappearance, I frowned.

                “Here, boy, take care of him.”

                “H-how? Do you want me to bury him?”

                “No, you’re in a kitchen aren’t you? Cook him up. No one will know the difference. They might even like it.” The man who spoke shared a humored look with his companions. “Don’t worry, boy, we mean you no harm. Just give us some meat for our troubles and we’ll be on our way.”

                I was confused, but I wasn’t about to give them reason to change their mind about me. I remembered gutting and cleaning a rabbit once and attempted to repeat the steps on my father. It was a mess, yet somehow I felt my steps quicken and my movements eased as I dismembered him. He had dominated me so easily and now he was helpless to my ministrations.

                As I cooked him up I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I craved the meat he would provide. I held myself back from tasting the food I was preparing, though, knowing it was wrong. When it was ready I dished it up and served it to the men, swallowing the spit in my watering mouth. To get myself away from the temptation of human flesh I carried the barrel of entrails, bones, and other useless parts of my father’s body out to trash pile and shuffled trash over it to hide the evidence. I hoped when I walked back into the building the men would be gone.

                They sat about the oven for warmth, laughing, and turned towards me when I entered.

                “Boy, come over here!” the man who killed my father commanded. When I stopped in front of him he gripped my jaw. “Open your mouth, you’ll like it, trust me.”

                Without much of a fight, external or internal, I opened my mouth. My stomach rumbled and the men laughed. Meat was shoved into my mouth and the man let go of my jaw. I chewed and swallowed.

                “More please.”

*

                Noticing the pleasant smell wafting from the oven, I pulled the girl’s meat from the oven and thought of the present. I was to take this meat to my Lord and call it deer. He wasn’t to know his favorite meat was human flesh. Select guards and I knew what this was made of, but the kitchen cooks just thought it was some kind of specialty meat we didn’t want to disclose our source to.

                I cut into a piece of the meat and took a bite. It was done perfectly, as usual.

                “Hey, you almost done down here? My Lord is growing impatient.” It was the guard who killed my father, who replaced my father.

                “Yeah, just got done. I suppose I’ll have to go find a new girl now. At least this way I know I won’t have any brats running around.” I winked at him and dished up the meat. He took it from me and slapped my back, laughing.

                “Good work, and yeah, kids can be a real pain,” he teased.

                “Hey! So these eight years you’ve just been putting up with me? Wow,” I laughingly retorted. “Anyway, you said our Lord was impatient and who are we to keep him from his favorite meal?”

Author's Note

For a contest (which I won!!!) Any review is a great review, and don't be afraid to really rip into my writing. I love criticism and hearing your thoughts.

Reviews

[dancerella10]

At first I thought this was a supernatural short story. I thought the narrator was a vampire, werewolf or other type of mythical creature that thrives off of human flesh. However, further into it I realized that this was a story set in an alternate universe or in the future. It was very creepy but I still, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it because it was very disturbing, but it definitely captivated me. There was no way I was going to read just one paragraph. Oh, no. I had to see what happened. It was well thought out and has an interesting storyline. This really makes me want to know more. I'm interested now, tell me more! I think maybe this should be turned into a longer story. I would love to find out whats behind all of this.

[S. Michael Long]

(: Had to read again (: love this one! seriously though everybody.. i have it on good advice that the writer does in fact have "the hunger" so... yeah (;

[L0v3craft]

Good lord...that was...disturbing, though I admit I enjoyed it all the way through!
Did you know that human flesh susposedly taste like pork? That was floating around in my mind while reading this...but I can't remember where I heard or read it from. -shrugs-

Anyway, the story was far from boring, I loved the twisted dark humor the guards display with the narrator's father's corpse and feeding him bits of it to him, though quickly became disturbed when he enjoyed the taste! However, I can't help but point out and suggest that you could possibly alter how you go into the narrator's flashback? The shift between present and past in the story was kinda subtle--maybe you could add another space between the parts were the flashback starts and ends? I was lost when the flashback ended, but it was brief and I was able to continue reading without further abruption.

Oh, and congrads on winning the contest with this! (however long ago that was)

[JadeForever]

i feel really sick...but this is super duper good.:D love your descriptive language..its really awesome how he kills them too :D

[Marie]

Somewhat gross, but a first-rate story.

[Tegon Maus]

Yikes !! No dinner plans with you !!! Well written, clever, but God awful creepy !!
Pass the 57 sauce please.

[Dean Kuch®]

I liked the stories premise, but I found myself wondering more than once about the era in which it was occurring. I supposed to myself that it was medieval times, but the slang that the young boy used in the story was far from medieval.
Interesting read however...

[Emilie Barn]

This is something amazing. I love the subject and the way you use words. I enjoyed reading it. Seriously. Good job =))

[Tamelia Jade]

Wow... so icky! But sooooo awesome. Is it wrong that I even sort of liked the guy? Seriously I really enjoyed it. You had me reading it so carefully! Good job, keep it up :)

[Rasputin]

This was creepy as s**t- in a good way. At first, the description of the cell made me think of Kevin from Sin City, but then I realized that it took place in medieval(?) times.
Incidentally, there were cannibal tribes in South America that referred to human flesh as "long pig". Apparently, human flesh is most similar to pork in terms of taste and texture. Kinda makes you wonder what it means when a product is labelled as "meat food product".
Anyway, great job. It's good to see that not everyone on this site is completely squeamish.