by Menagerie
Gretchen knew she looked good. The dress fit perfectly... well, maybe she'd put on a few pound. But it stretched just right. She squinted into her vanity, puckered and blew herself a kiss; the lip-gloss evened out, a smooth, candy-colored shellac. She turned sideways, a hand on her hip, and studied herself up and down. "Well," she called out, "what do you think?"
Marc appeared in the reflection; he had a beer in his hand, as always. He grinned, cocked his head. "Fabulous, baby," he boomed, in that growly baritone. "Got a hot date?" Gretchen giggled, and wiggled. "I know this fabulous man-" she began, and then he was on her.
It had really seemed as though he couldn't keep his hands off her, for all these months. They had met at that crowded outdoor bistro; she was on a long lunch break, and was bearing a couple of colorful vinyl bags, full of new shoes. She loved shoes, and was always buying several pairs and then bringing them back and getting different ones. Like a kid in a candy store, with those shoes.
He started talking to her, right there in front of the egg salad sandwiches. You're not going to eat all that, he kidded her; you look like you hardly eat at all. She blushed, giggled; he kept it up, how skinny she was, how she needed to keep her strength up. They shared one of the tiny, round tables. Shoes? Let's see 'em. Proudly, she showed off the Prada pumps, then tried them on and stood up. She turned, peeked mischievously over her shoulder, and struck a pose; he applauded, enthusiastically, and the harried diners surrounding them paused in mid-bite. A few of them clapped, too.
So they kept on meeting at the bistro, and then came dinner. Not a fancy place, but big steins of beer and steaks this thick. Gretchen wore the Pradas, and a mid-thigh skirt; as she spun round and finished with her hands in the air and a look of exultation on her face, he bayed like a wolf in heat. Good food built up big appetites, and they wound up back at his place, a rumpled bachelor flat decorated in Modern Mismatch.
He was so direct, she loved it. The tiny skirt barely survived intact as they bounced around the bedroom; it finally ended up with the rest of her clothes, in a heap on the floor, as they dove into bed. Slobbering, biting, grabbing, he was on her like a jungle beast on prey. She responded in kind, panting so hard she squeaked, her mouth and hands all over him. He pushed into her hard, and they bounced wildly until he fell off her, totally exhausted.
There were a lot of nights like that in the months to come. He got off his commodities trading desk at 3:30 sharp; she punched out an hour later, and by the time she got home, he was already perched out in front of her apartment in the convertible, raring to go. If she was dressed for it, they'd head out to dance and drink; if she wasn't, he'd follow her in, and they might not get out for hours. So, after a while, she made sure she had a change of clothes at the ready.
Because Gretchen still needed to go out on the town. She still needed to be seen, the handsome, grinning Marc in tow, while she beamed like a newlywed. They went to a new place every night; he seemed to have a lot of friends, and they delighted in seeing her, looking her up and down, and giving Marc a thumbs up or a circled thumb and forefinger. She passed their test, whatever it was, and she'd blush while the men roared with laughter. But she secretly liked all the attention, and for all his attentiveness, Marc never asked if the scrutiny embarrassed her. It was as if it was part of the package, for him to show her off.
Marc's friends, she came to realize, were all a lot like him. They, too, all seemed to have girlfriends...but not forever. First Tom, and then Ralf, and then another... all made abrupt changes in lady friends. The petite blonde who giggled a lot was gone from Tom's side, and in her place was a tall redhead with a mysterious smile. The showy girl with all the jewelry was dumped by Frank, and now the tall engineer had an Indian girl on his arm, just half his size. Gretchen was starting to worry that she'd be next. "No, of course not," Marc assured her. "Would I give up all this?" And a quick pinch got Gretchen's fanny jerking; she squealed in protest, then laughed as he grabbed her, smushed her into his big frame, and they both couldn't wait to get back to her flat, or his.
Some weekends, though, they'd stay there all day. Marc was a great cook; he'd whip up everything from stir-fry to spaghetti, the tangy chunks of meat swirling around a sauce with a spicy flavor that dug right into you. Gretchen couldn't guess the ingredients; Marc wouldn't tell her. "All I can say is, it's very good for you," he'd lecture, as they fed each other spoonfuls off the tray in the bedroom. He wouldn't even let her into the kitchen; she pouted as she watched another dull soccer match, the indescribable aromas drifting from behind the door, where her boyfriend was working his magic.
They saw each other every night, all weekend long; if he'd have asked, she would have moved in. But he didn't ask. "You wouldn't want to see this place in the morning," he grinned, and Gretchen couldn't understand; how could it look any worse than it did at night? She would do her best to straighten things out, toss the empty beer cans and empty the butt trays, maybe wipe the goop off the tiny dining table, before he'd whisk her back out to the cinema or the café. All of his friends, she decided, must come here every single night for card games or watching ballgames; that's why he didn't want her around...
It was a little depressing, but it had all happened so fast, she really didn't have time to think about long-term commitments or those other relationship-breakers. They hadn't had the time. Marc had every single evening planned; they'd meet another couple or two, dance or drink or both, have a laughing, teasing, wonderful time, and then go back for a quick romp and a goodnight. She was home by ten, maybe eleven…and the next evening, the ashtrays were again full, half-finished beers were scattered around his flat, scraps of meat and bones were piled up in the garbage. "Do you ever sleep?" she demanded. "Not while you're around," he winked, and they didn't even go out that evening, just humped like bunnies till it was time to go home.
For all his voracious sexual appetite, Marc was a straight shooter, and never showed much interest in kinky stuff. So Gretchen was surprised when he made the unusual suggestion. I've got a friend in town, he said... runs a shop. He'd like the two of us to come by, have a little fun. What kind of fun? When he told her, her eyes got wide, and she searched his face; nothing different, same old lopsided grin, the earnest, puppy-dog eyes, and she relaxed and grinned back. Sure, she said, why not? She'd been in a three-way a time or two. If the friend was anything like Marc, she'd be in for a pretty exhausting ride.
So when Marc's impromptu frontal assault had ebbed, she struggled back out of the bed, and finished zipping up the shimmering, synthetic dress. It showed quite a bit of thigh, and with the matched heels, she looked like a real party girl. "Ready," she declared; he was already heading for the door. "We can walk," he told her. "You'll work up a good sweat for the main event," and she laughed as the two of them strode down the avenue, toward town.
But it turned out to be a very strange walk. Although the streets were near deserted at that late hour, every couple of blocks, another one of Marc's friends would surface. The friend was always alone, with no ubiquitous girlfriend in tow, and eyed them both walking along as if watching a parade. Ralf smiled at them, gave them a big thumbs-up; Frank was hanging around a bench, and looked down, shyly, with a wave. Marc cheerily greeted each of them, and Gretchen had an anxious moment. "Do they know where we're going?" she asked Marc. "They don't know why," he responded, and finally, they made it.
What a strange place for a rendezvous! Loops of sausage and smoked hams hung in the window; the butcher's shop had been cleaned up for the evening, the wares removed from the displays, but the smell of fresh meat still hung in the air. Marc's friend was like all his other friends... young, trim, self-assured. "Just finished putting everything away," he reported, wiping off his hands. "My, you're a pretty one!" and Gretchen blushed and thanked him, extending a hand. Marc winked at the butcher. "Understand you've got something in the backroom you want us to see," he said, casually, and the young man nodded, and led the way.
There were few preliminaries. Marc was already tugging at Gretchen's zipper before the door closed; the butcher was hanging up his apron, and then his trousers. The room was eerie, a flat table for meatcutting, steel counters on all sides. A chart displayed those places at which a cow comes apart at the seams; a rack of knives, big to little, hung from the same wall. Gretchen's dress fell to the floor, and then she found herself bent over the table, gripping the edges tightly, as Marc's big, muscular cock worked its way into her butthole.
"Ooooh..." she started, and then was startled to find her mouth filled; the butcher had clambered onto the table, and his own member now tickled her tonsils. Gretchen greedily took it in, and began to melt into the role, fucked in two directions in a meat shop. Her hips moved in concert with Marc's thrusts; she sucked on the other's member, feeling very slutty, and loving every minute of it. The men came almost simultaneously, and Gretchen shook like she was in an earthquake. Just the thought that two guys wanted to do her at once had gotten her started, and the cream inside of her had brought her like they had gone right through her.
They kept experimenting, different positions. When the two guys fucked her vaginally and anally, Gretchen could imagine their dicks touching in her middle. Her mouth was ringed with manjuice; she reached out with her tongue, slurped it off, and then one of them was on her, again. She was getting dizzy, blood pounding in her head, her eyes glazing over; lust had overtaken her, as she pawed at the abundance of male flesh surrounding her, waited for the next penetration. She was lying on her back on the table, writhing after yet another glorious hammering, and barely noticed when the butcher methodically, one after the other, secured her wrists and ankles to the table's four corners.
Nor did it initially register on her when the butcher casually reached up to the rack next to the chart, and selected a long, heavy knife. She felt a bit of a thrill when she saw him re-don his apron, and then turn slowly toward her. "Trying to scare me?" she teased; the grin was still locked onto her face. The butcher didn't smile at all.
But Marc did. As the butcher was securing Gretchen to the table, Marc had gotten dressed; now, he was sitting in a folding chair, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped around his knee. And smiling; goodness, smiling very broadly. "Don't you think you should be scared?" he asked.
He was there; he was smiling. It was just part of the play, and she smiled back. "I know you'll protect me," she said; the butcher stood on the other side of the table, very still. She didn't even look at him, just looked at Marc, a smile-down.
"What if I don't?" he said. He was rocking back and forth a bit; he seemed to be trying to get a rise out of her, and that momentary chill traced down her spine again and rested in her genitals. "You're my lover," she said, with a coyness she hoped would mask the tightening in her throat. "You wouldn't let anything happen to me. I know you."
Marc sat back, and threw his head back a little bit; Gretchen couldn't see his eyes anymore. He was laughing a little. "You know me," he said. "Do you think you know Tom? What happened to Stef?" The cute, chubby little blonde had always been with Tom, clinging to him, laughing at his every joke; one day, she was gone just like that, poof. "Think Tom and Stef came here?" asked Marc. "Think she wound up on that table, too? Think maybe Tom was sitting right here, and Stef said, I'm not scared; you'll protect me?"
The words tore into Gretchen, one by one, each piercing her more deeply than the last. She was still convinced - well, trying to convince herself - it was a joke; the two buddies were placing a grossly unfunny trick on her, and if she got scared and told them it wasn't funny, the joke would be on her. She wouldn't give them that satisfaction. "Sure," she said, trying to laugh. "Stef wound up tied up here on the table... and so did Viv, and Bonnie. Pretty smart, murdering all your girlfriends and getting new ones. You never get bored that way."
Marc stood up; casually, he strolled up to Gretchen, looking up at him from the table - was she really breathing that hard? Her chest was heaving, and he reached down, a finger tracing around her nipple, then down her sternum to her navel.
"No," he said. "I never get bored. We never get bored. You all end up here. And in the end, we all get some of each of you. We each place our orders, and when Klaus, here, is done, we come in - one by one - and pick them up." His hand had moved back up to her breast, and it opened, and cupped her. "I will get one of these," he said, and then tracing back up to her shoulder and arm. "And one of these. And a few other bits. We all have our favorites; Klaus knows how to prepare them. We'll all be satisfied for a little while. Then, it will be someone else's turn. Maybe Lakshmi's... Frank's new friend."
Gretchen became aware that she had frozen solid, barely breathing under Marc's touch and his hypnotic voice. If it really was a joke, it was long beyond funny, and finally she decided it had gone too far and her mouth opened wide, and that was when Klaus shoved the rag into her mouth. Marc smiled, widely, gave the desperately staring, struggling, gurgling woman a friendly little wave, and walked back to the chair. He sat, heavily, resumed his pose with the crossed leg and the hands clasped, and nodded. "On," he said, "with the show."
It lasted quite a while. The blood spurted with the first cut, diagonally across the joint where Gretchen's thigh met her hip. Her muffled screams eventually became hoarse, then faded into the anguished cries of a deep hurt. The unsmiling butcher, who just minutes ago had been inside her, methodically took her apart; his cuts were clean with the knowledge of Stef, and Viv, and Bonnie; and there were others. As each piece of body was sliced and taken, the thrashing and bouncing subsided to shudders, and then nothing. Marc let out a long, slow breath, as if he'd just reached climax; his eyes were still fixed on the precise, ever-moving blades.
"Nice work," he said, and rose. "I'll wait out front."
"No problem," said Klaus; he was moving pieces of the woman to the steel counters. "I'll have yours in a minute. I've got plenty of time."
The walk back to Gretchen's flat was a leisurely one. Marc had the carefully-wrapped, waxed paper packages under one arm. On the way back, he met each of them again; they all grinned, and he pointed to the packages, and grinned back. They'd be trooping in, one at a time, for their share. As far as Marc was concerned, he thought as he stowed Gretchen in his trunk, they were getting the leftovers. He had gotten everything he wanted out of her.