by Menagerie
“Come on, Rosa,” Lui said, smirking. “It’ll be fun.”
Rosa hesitated; she barely knew these guys. And why were they inviting her?
Rosa had talked a little with Lui, and Sal, and a few of the other fellows at the office. She came in after hours to clean up, but they often worked late. Except they weren’t always working—sometimes, they were drinking. Sometimes, the sickly sweet smell of hash drifted from the men’s room. Sometimes, it was something stronger; Rosa would sigh when she encountered the remains of one of their impromptu parties—garbage strewn all over the office, an occasional unwelcome puddle.
And sometimes, inside a closet or a meeting room, she’d find an article of clothing. Or two. Secretaries, girl friends…maybe even hookers; she saw a couple of them in a rest room once, checking their makeup, and their contraceptives. They waved, and gushed hello; Rosa said hello back, and they giggled. “Don’t let us disturb you,” said one. “We’re just here working, too.”
Not that Lui and Sal and the rest were goofoffs. Rosa knew they put in long, strenuous hours at the agency; the payoffs could be big, but careers ended fast. She’d seen it happen; she’d come in every evening, and hear them muttering on their way out the door. And many of them were talkers, anyway; as she swept, polished, emptied, they’d tell her about their day—this deal made, that one crashed and burned. My boss is a drunk. My wife doesn’t understand me. A few of the guys who told her their sob stories had left; sometimes, they didn’t leave on their own. One, she’d heard, had jumped off a very tall building.
And a few of them had asked her out. She always turned them down—the ones who had asked were a little bit scary, beady-eyed, hard looking. Not like Gianni and Lui, the two who were inviting her to the big bash. They said they were sorry she had to scoop up their messes; now, they said, they were trying to make amends.
“We’re going to meet down by the wharf,” Gianni said, earnestly; the tall, thin man had brows like a pair of caterpillars, and they were always wiggling. “It’s our end-of-the-year blow-off; the guys all said they’d like you to be there, after all you’ve had to do, cleaning up after them all year.”
Lui was nodding, vigorously; the brawny young fellow had his shirtsleeves rolled up, and his tie was unknotted. “Come on, Rosa,” he cried out, “our treat. See how to party in style.”
Well…she didn’t really have any plans Friday night. She usually got together with her sister, drank a little wine and watched TV. Her sister would understand. OK, she told them, only—“We’ll pick you up, right here,” said Gianni; one caterpillar arched. “And make sure you get home, safe.” Lui laughed. Loudly.
Rosa didn’t know what these fellows were going to want to do; if they acted that way at the office, what were they like at a party? But secretly, she was…very excited. They were ambitious, handsome young men; they weren’t rich, but they acted like they were, and caroused like millionaires. Lui drove a late model BMW; his license plate read, HOTSHOT.
Her job paid pretty well, though; she bought a nice outfit and comfortable shoes, brought them with her for the party, and hurriedly changed in the ladies room. Lui and Sal were waiting outside in the Beamer, along with a woman with long, dark hair, whom they introduced as Brenda from Accounts Payable. “Come on, lazy,” they cackled. “We’re missing all the fun.” Rosa slid into the back next to Brenda, who smiled mysteriously at Rosa through little half-moon glasses.
It took some walking from the public parking lot to get to the pier, but Rosa could already see the glow from the bonfire as they trekked toward the river. Behind a massive shed, a dozen young people had gathered; even in the dark, they seemed to radiate excitement. Two were hunched against the wall of the shed, bent over; Rosa thought of the stray grains of powder she’d sometimes find on the floors and desktops. Others sat around the fire and passed a bottle; one of them thrust the bottle at Rosa. She took a swig, and it shot through her brain like liquid ice. She sputtered; they roared.
“Gotta hold it down, Rosa,” cried a familiar voice—Ric from Upstairs, one of the managers. “Here—I’ll show you.” He struggled up; all that greasy food—Rosa knew—had given him a bit of a paunch. The balding, bespectacled man tilted the bottle to his lips; the fire danced off the glass. He thrust the bottle back at her. “Here—do it right!”
Rosa hesitated; right now, she figured, her sister was sipping a nice rosé. Ric hovered over her, his hands clasped, the whites of his eyes gleaming around the fire’s glint on his specs. Rosa sipped, then swallowed a little more. It burned at first; then it warmed, and finally it dulled. Rosa stood, wavering, a dopey smile on her face, as the men and women cheered. Ric snatched the bottle away. “Stick with us,” he said earnestly. “We’ll make a partier of you yet.”
Shadows flickered from behind a small boathouse; as Rosa tottered unevenly toward them, she could hear two voices…a man’s rumblings, a woman’s sighs. A hand took hers; she turned, blinked. It was Lui. “Care to go for a walk?” the young man asked. Rosa tried to focus on his face; a big grin stretched from one unshaven jowl to the other. She nodded.
The walk only lasted a few seconds. Rosa found herself behind the boathouse, with Lui pawing at her clothing. The owners of the shadows stirred; Gianni and a woman Rosa didn’t know. “É, Lui,” Gianni grumhemorrhage. “Find your own pad—” before the woman, laughing, pulled him back down on top of her. Rosa stood very still, trying not to fall down, as the young man unbuttoned her blouse, reached behind her and unsnapped her brassiere. “Very nice, Rosa!” he exclaimed, and nuzzled her breasts, dragging her down to the ground.
It was, Rosa’s somewhat blurry mind decided, a remarkable experience. Lui was all over her, pulling down her slacks, kneading her breasts and buttocks, smothering her with kisses. These hot-blooded types…the dude had her pinned down; she barely felt the abrasion of the hot sand. “Oh, Rosa,” Lui kept saying, “you are wonderful!” Rosa didn’t feel wonderful; she didn’t feel much of anything, except drunk.
The lovemaking—well, it was too direct to be called lovemaking—the sex seemed to be going on a long time. Rosa’s eyes had been tightly closed; when she opened them she saw, not Lui, but Gianni. The caterpillars above his eyes were prancing. “We traded,” the fellow grinned. Rosa nodded sleepily, closed her eyes again; she could detect subtle differences—for one thing, she decided, Gianni weighed about 20 kilos less than Lui. And his hands did not roam over her body; they were still, a tight grip, as he rose, and fell, and then rose again…
“Let’s go in there, Rosa!” whispered Lui. Lui again? Rosa was back on her feet; the sand burned her soles. Lui’s form was wide and fuzzy in the darkness; he was holding the door open to the boathouse with one hand, pulling her toward the door with the other. She stumhemorrhage in, her knees knocking together. “What happened to Gianni?” she tried to ask, but her tongue was so thick that it was just a rush of sound. Lui laughed. “I should have warned you,” he said, softly, as he told her by the bare shoulders and guided her through the shed. “Ric mixes a mean drink.” Rosa’s face was numb; she thought about that powder again. Sometimes, she would find it spilled in Ric’s office.
Lui stopped, then lifted Rosa up; she felt helpless as he dropped her into—what? It was too dark; she could just barely see by the the orange and yellow light of the campfire, playing against the windows on one side of the boathouse. Whatever she was in, it was hard and cold, felt like steel. “This is a special game we play,” Lui said, and he clambered in next to her; she heard whatever they were in clanking against a table. “It’s called ‘Rock the Boat’,” Lui said, and dove onto her again. His hands probed her softness, her most vulnerable parts; his mouth over hers, and she felt him inside of her. And sure enough, whatever they were in—was it a metal boat?—started rocking, back and forth, as if they were at sea.
The feeling got to Rosa; up until then, she had been passive, a plaything for the two men. (Had it only been two? She wasn’t sure.) But with the feeling of the hard, cold metal against her back, contrasting with the soft warmth of Lui’s body, Rosa turned on; she clawed at the man, wrapped her legs around him—her legs were strong and heavy, and he cried out in delight. “Easy, easy, girl!” Lui said. “Let old Luigi inside, please!” Lui was not old—he was several years younger than she—but Rosa was feeling the passion of a teenager. She went at him voraciously, mouth and tongue and body; Lui’s heavy frame beat against her, and the boat, or whatever it was, kept rocking…
Rosa was spent, exhausted. She was dimly aware of a bottle being placed to her lips; she greedily sucked the fiery liquid down. Naked, on her back, she looked up and saw the bottle move; the liquid splashed down on her, running down her breasts and belly and legs. She panted; it was warm in the boat. It was getting warmer. It was getting hot…Where was she?
Rosa’s eyes blinked, and half-opened. The boat, or whatever it was, was inside something else, and it was warm in there. She could barely make out metal walls on either side, and above her; she was in a chamber a couple of meters on each side. She could also feel something inside of her—a couple of somethings, one in her vagina, one in her butt, plugging her up. She smelled smoke; she heard crackling. There was a fire, somewhere; the growing warmth comforted her. She smiled, closed her eyes again and started to sleep.
Very hot! The pain was finally getting through to her drug-sodden brain; the metal bottom of the “boat” was searing her back and buttocks. She ordered her body to move; it wouldn’t. Tried again; she was able to shift a little bit; some of her skin stuck to the surface. Tears welled in her eyes; the liquid in the bottom of the pan was starting to give off steam, and small bubbles were forming. Was it just the liquor? Was it her sweat? Was the blood cooking out of her? Rosa tried vainly to call for help, but her tongue again was good for only a low, inarticulate moan. And then, the wall in front of her fell away; through the gloom of the boathouse, a light blazed in her eyes.
“What do you think?” came the anxious voice of Lui.
Even in her pain, Rosa recognized Sal’s measured baritone. She hadn’t seen the blond, handsome, big man at the party. “I would give her an hour,” she heard. “Then we’ll have to go in and get her ready.”
Rosa managed to partly raise her head; her face was twisted in tears. “Sal?” she managed to whisper, her head falling back with the effort.
“Hi, Rosa,” Sal said cheerfully, pointing the flashlight at her; his teeth gleamed in an easy smile. “I’m sorry you didn’t understand. We’re going to cook you and eat you.”
The words somehow made sense to Rosa, seemed right. Yes—she was not in a boat, but a metal pan, in a hot chamber, covered with something wet. She could still barely move. Of course, they’re going to cook me and eat me; that’s why they wanted me to come to their party. She stared straight up, totally exhausted from trying to fight Ric’s potent brew. Lui was saying, “So you hollow her out, right?”
“Yeah,” said Sal, “and take off her head. We’ll put the potatoes and tomatoes in, oh, four hours from now; we eat at 4 o’clock—see you in an hour.” Sal peered inside; the flashlight danced across Rosa’s anguished face, as she gasped for air. “Bye-bye for now, Rosa,” he laughed, and the door clanged shut.
Each minute hurt worse than the last—then, the pain started easing. Rosa no longer tried to move; she felt her sphincter give way, but whatever was plugging her up was secure, kept her from emptying herself into the pan—it must be a pan, she decided. Her muscles would no longer respond; they must be cooking. She was roasting, she knew, and couldn’t do anything about it. What had she told her sister? Out—she was going out. She hadn’t said where; Lui and Gianni had told her not to. Bad things would happen at the party, Lui had winked; we don’t want anybody to know. Bad things.
Rosa was fading; she felt a sheen over her body—her own fat, her own juices. It was dripping down the curves of her body, blending at the bottom of the pan, hissing and sizzling. The fire beneath her was up to a roar; the smoke would have made her cough, had she been able to cough. I’m being smoked? She thought about that, her body flavored like wood. Then she thought no more.
The partygoers had swelled to more than thirty; they whooped as Lui and Sal carried the big, metal tray out of the boathouse. Inside was Rosa, what was left; headless and eviscerated, she’d cooked to a moderate doneness, her flesh juicy and pink, impregnated with the aroma of the wood. Vegetables surrounded her, bathed in the moisture that had cooked out of her body. The two men dropped the tray on the sand with a thud; kneeling next to it, Lui used a long knife to slice slabs of meat from Rosa’s carcass, dropped them on paper plates.
What had been a roar of anticipation and delight turned quieter, the sounds of men and women with their mouths full of greasy meat. Sucking sounds, slurping sounds, an occasional pop as another can of beer was opened. Lui sat cross-legged on the sand, a plate perched on his lap; on it was a generous slice of Rosa’s thigh. He greedily dug in; Brenda, smiling, sat next to him, delicately chewing on a strip from the unfortunate woman’s arm.
“It was good of the boss to let us use his boathouse,” she said. Rays of dawn were emerging over the glistening, white-topped waves. “Shouldn’t we hurry to clean it up?”
Lui was fighting with a tough piece of meat; his strong teeth finally pulled it away. “The boss wants what’s left,” he said through the mouthful. The woman looked toward the large tray; Rosa’s body, half-eaten, was resting in a puddle of her own essence. Lui continued, “He’s coming down himself, later this morning.”
Brenda eyes opened wide. “Himself!”
“Sure,” grinned Lui; a couple of people had sauntered back to the tray, were pulling more meat from Rosa’s shoulders and legs. “Got to get it while it’s fresh. Besides, he’s got to get back to the office. He needs to hire a new woman right away.” He flung a bit of Rosa’s flesh off to the side; seagulls converged on it. “You know what a bunch of slobs we are.”