A cute black girl moved in a few doors down from me.
I watched her drive up, get out and look the place over, then retreat to her car where she retrieved a piece of paper. She looked at it, then up at the building. I could see her lips moving and almost make out the words:
Hilton Tower, 999 Hopewell Drive
Not the end of the line, but close enough to inspire that sort of reaction in a lot of people who saw it for the first time. A pair of apartment buildings set off a minor road in a backwater town, where the residents were a mix of grandfathered owners, like myself, state assistance renters, like most of the people, and a few students who made the mistake of thinking cheap rent was worth the trouble of living so far from campus.
I guess she was in the right place, since the next thing I knew she popped the trunk and began unloading stuff into the parking lot. I watched her for a while, feeling sorry for her, knowing what it was like to be alone. Then she squatted and picked up a couple taped-together cardboard boxes and started up the path towards the front door.
That was her first mistake.
“Miss,” I called out to her, leaning over the edge of my balcony. “Excuse me, miss?”
She looked around, puzzled and a little irritated.
“Up here,” I said, and she craned her neck. “You really shouldn’t leave your stuff alone like that. In this neighborhood, that’s asking for trouble.”
She squinted into the bright sunshine, as if trying to get a better look at me.
“That may be true,” she said, “but I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Sure you do,” I said, my body reacting before my mind knew what it wanted to do. “Wait a sec, I’ll be right down.”
I think she called out—probably telling me not to bother—but she was still there when I made my way out through the lobby. Up close, I could see she was prettier than I first imagined, possessed of a curvaceous figure she’d probably inherited from her mother. Lean wherever possible, she moved with a muscular grace that spoke of years of training and deliberate exercise. Long, thick dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Dark skin, big brown eyes, and thick lips that peeled back from startlingly white teeth in an uneasy smile as I came down the path towards her.
Offering her my hand, which she took, I said:
“Jake Smith.”
The lie came easily, and I smiled as we shook.
“Briana Brown,” she replied. “Thanks. But really, it’s not necessary. I can do this on my own.”
“Sure you could,” I agreed, “and the thieves would make it easy for you by relieving you of half your possessions before you came back for your second load. You go on ahead, Briana, and I’ll stand guard here. If you need any help, I’ll be here when you get back.”
She gave me a funny look, as if she couldn’t quite reconcile my appearance with my attitude, but all she wanted to know was where she could find the super’s office. I told her. She thanked me again, and when she came back a while later I was still there, and so was her stuff.
“Have any trouble?” I asked, pitching away my half smoked cigarette.
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “That guy’s a real piece of work, though.”
“Who? Jones?”
She nodded.
I shrugged.
“Yeah, he’s a bit strange. But you’ll be too if you spend enough time here. Trust me, I know.” I bent over and grabbed half the remaining boxes. “Come on. Let’s get you moved in.”
Once inside, I placed the boxes I’d carried in a pile with the rest, then helped her arrange the few pieces of furniture that came with the apartment. By the time we were done, we were both covered in sweat, despite every window in the place being wide open. Not wanting to intrude or prematurely alarm her in any way, I retreated to the doorway where I stepped into my shoes. She followed me over and offered me her hand again.
“Thank you, Jake,” she said. “Really.”
“That’s okay, Briana. It’s all part of being a good neighbor. Even in a place like this.”
“I wish I had a cold drink for you, but my glasses aren’t unpacked yet, so I can’t even offer you tap water.”
I laughed.
“That’s okay. You want to avoid drinking the tap water in this building, anyways.” I opened her door and stepped into the hall. There I hesitated, as if working up my courage. Finally I said, “Hey, listen. I got all kinds of drinks in my place. After you get settled, you’re more than welcome to come down for a friendly beer.”
A dark shadow passed briefly across her pretty features. It was as if she somehow sensed the nefarious purpose behind my offer. But it was gone almost as quickly as it arrived, and her smile returned, pretty as ever.
“Thank you, Jake. I’ll probably be too tired by the time I get everything put away, but I appreciate the offer—and the help.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “I’m just down the hall if you change your mind.”
I waited until she began closing the door before adding:
“Oh, and Briana? I’ve got air conditioning.”
She smiled, thanked me again, and I departed.
Back in my own apartment I opened a beer and went into the kitchen. My knives were where I always kept them, on a rack bolted to the wall above the stove. I got them down, one at a time, and placed them beside the large wooden cutting board that occupied the majority of my counter space. It’d been a long time since I’d had cause to use either the knives or the board, but if things played out like I hoped, I soon would.
Briana didn’t end up coming down that day, but a few days later I was moping around the house, shirtless and chain smoking, when there was a knock at the door.
“Hi,” Briana said, looking lovely as ever in a pair of denim shorts and a clean white tank top. “I wanted to thank you again for your help the other day,” she said, holding out a covered casserole dish. “I’m not the best cook in the world, but my mom’s recipe for red beans and rice is hard to screw up.”
Smoke dangling from the corner of my mouth, I accepted her offering, which was heavier than I’d expected.
“Well, thank you, Briana. That’s awful nice of you.”
She stood there, not talking, eyes downcast, and I knew there was more, so I waited for her to speak.
“Um, I know this is a bit awkward, since we barely know each other, but I was wondering if I could take you up on your offer.”
“Offer?”
I thought about the daydreams I’d been having, of her coming to me exactly like this, begging to be slaughtered. Again I wondered if she wasn’t clairvoyant, or at least mildly psychic, but then she dispelled my curiosity by pointing towards the humming air conditioning unit mounted to a window in my living room. It barely kept the temperature in the high seventies, but that was still better than the stifling nineties I knew I’d have to endure without it.
“I’ve been trying to work since I got here, but it’s just too damn hot to think in my apartment.”
“Oh, of course. Come on in.”
I wedged the door open with my foot and stepped aside to allow her in. She entered, I let the door close, and immediately excused myself, returning moments later wearing the cleanest shirt I could find. Briana took stock of my place, and whatever she thought she kept to herself, but I knew what she saw. Tired, old furniture (not unlike that in her own apartment); nicotine stained windows and worn carpet; but if there was one thing in my favor, in the eyes of woman at least, it was how spotless my kitchen was.
“It’s not much,” I said, “but you’re more than welcome to it.”
“I like it,” Briana said. “It’s cozy.”
Her hands were full with the casserole dish when she first came, so she had to go back to her apartment for her work stuff. In the brief span of time she was gone, I made up my mind. If nothing immediate prevented me from acting on my fantasies, she would be in my freezer before the week was through. Briana came back with a newish looking laptop, which she set up on the kitchen table. I handed her a beer and opened one for myself. We toasted each other and drank deeply of the crisp, refreshing liquid.
“So,” I said, holding my sweating bottle to my forehead. “If you don’t mind me asking, Briana, what brings you to this particular part of the country?”
Briana thought a moment, sipping her beer.
“I guess it’s twofold,” she finally said, looking up at me from behind her computer screen. “My parents are from the city originally, though I grew up far from here.”
“You’re here to visit?”
She shook her head.
“No, my parents are both dead. My dad died when I was five, and my mom passed away a little more than a year ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. We weren’t close, but she was pretty much all I had. After she died, I used the little bit of money she left me to move out here. I wanted to get in touch with my southern roots, maybe write a book about my experience.”
My heart quickened.
No friends or relatives.
No one who knew her for a thousand miles.
“A book?”
“Yeah. I was working some dead end retail jobs, barely making enough to scrape by. I’d always wanted to be a writer—my high school writing teacher said I had the talent—so I thought, why not, now’s as good a time as any. So here I am, and that’s what I plan to do.”
“That’s awful brave,” I said, doing my best not to sound creepy. “I mean, to just uproot yourself like that, travel all this way to a place you’ve never been, where you don’t know anybody. And at your age, too.”
“Yeah,” Briana said. Shrugging, she downed the rest of her beer, and belched. She looked surprised, as if the burp had caught her totally off guard. I laughed, finished mine, and did the same.
“Well,” I said, going to the fridge for another couple of bottles. “I’m glad you decided to do so. The company’s certainly better now that you’re here.”
Briana smiled as she accepted her second beer.
I knew I’d have to act fast.
As young, beautiful and outgoing as Briana was, she was bound to make friends, draw all kinds of attention to herself. Still, I found myself strangely reluctant to act. It’d been a long time since I’d had any kind of meaningful interaction with another human being, let alone one as pretty and pleasant as her. That didn’t mean her fate wasn’t already sealed; I had a place cleared out and ready for her in my freezer. It was just a matter of timing. Too soon and my stomach would be full while my heart remained empty, too long and I’d be both heartsick and hungry because she’d make herself untouchable. I resolved to let fate decide: if nothing changed, I would invite her to dinner at the end of this week, otherwise I’d take things one day at a time.
Briana continued coming to my apartment to work.
She never once questioned why I was home all the time (if she had, I had a lie ready), I think she was too grateful for the meagre kinship I offered, and the relative sanctuary from heat more intense than anything she’d ever known before.
Most of the time she wrote in silence. Sometimes she put headphones in and listened to music. During her breaks, we would share drinks—beer, soda, water—and talk. Occasionally, I’d go out and bring us food. There was a good Mexican place not too far away, and she was partial to chicken tacos. Most of the time I’d smoke and try to find excused to be in the same room with her. The days passed easily, flowing one into the other, until finally it was Thursday and I had no choice but to follow through with the plans I’d made earlier in the week.
“Briana?”
“Mmm?”
“What would you think about having dinner with me tomorrow night?”
She looked up from her computer.
“You mean, like a date?”
I thought a moment.
“Yeah. Something like that. No pressure or anything, just a bit more than our usual takeout.”
“What do you mean? You want to cook me something?”
I smiled.
“Yeah. I want to cook you something.”
She smiled back and, to my surprise, readily agreed.
“But you have to let me bring something,” she said. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Okay,” I said. “How about you take care of the sides and I’ll deal with the main.”
Opposite of what I really intended, but I couldn’t exactly tell her what I had in mind, could I.
“Sure!” Briana beamed. “What are you planning on making?”
“Have you ever had long pig before?”
“Long pig?” She frowned. “What’s that?”
It was a risk, using that particular phrase in the age of Google, but I couldn’t help myself. Still, the lies flowed as easily as ever from my lips, and I was ready with a followup.
“It’s kind of a local thing,” I said. “Basically, it’s a kind of slow roasted pork.”
“Sweet, savory or spicy?”
“I’m sorry?”
Briana smiled patiently.
“Is it mainly sweet, mainly savory, or mainly spicy?”
“Oh!” I smiled back at her. “Sweet. Definitely sweet.”
“Great. That’s all I need to know. What time?”
“How about eight?”
“Eight it is.”
She closed her laptop and tucked it under her arm. I tried—and failed—to conceal my disappointment, but when she explained her reason for leaving it more than made up for it.
“I have to shopping,” she said. “And start cooking. The dish I have in mind will go perfect with pork, but it requires a bit of preparation.”
“Well don’t worry too much,” I said. “I don’t want to distract you from your work.”
She then did something that’s stuck with me to this day. Rising up on her tiptoes, she kissed me, and her lips were soft and moist and, yes, more than a little sweet.
“You’re worth all the trouble, Jake.”
Then she was gone and it took everything I had not to chase after her.
It’s not that I’m some kind of sex maniac or anything—I just felt such an overwhelming love for her, I felt it as physical need. I wanted her, sure, but what I wanted more than the pleasure of being inside her was to have her inside of me. But I knew if I chased her down, it would spoil everything. I wasn’t ready and neither was she—which, believe it or not, is as important to me as anything else. If you’ve ever killed an animal for its meat, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It might fight you at first, sensing perhaps that the end is near, but the moment before you strike, when you’ve got the knife poised or the axe ready to fall, a strange calm will come over it, as if it knows and understands what you’re asking and it gives its full consent. People are the same, it just takes them a little bit longer to come around.
When she arrived the next night, I was waiting for her.
Briana knocked, opened the door, came in and set her side dishes down. She called my name, said something along the lines of how good it smelled (I’d preheated the oven), and then I struck. Holding a cloth soaked in chloroform over her mouth and nose, she fought me for about thirty seconds before the drugs overcame her ability to resist. She slumped and I accepted her weight, lowering her to the floor so I could lock the door. I carried Briana into my bedroom, where I stripped her of her clothing. Her skin was smooth and dark, and it felt incredible, though I managed to resist anything that might be considered unnecessarily improper. Judge me if you will, but I believe in treating my food with respect, and I’d no sooner molest a woman than I would a chicken or hog.
Carrying Briana into my bathroom, I attached sturdy, leather coated cuffs to her ankles one at a time. Then, using the eyelets drilled into the ceiling above my tub, I hoisted her body up and suspended her with her head over the drain. She had a strangely pleasant smile on her face, as if she were relaxed and totally at peace with what I was about to do.
“I’m sorry, Briana,” I said, and held my knife to her neck.
I watched her pulse throb in the veins there, and knew that, once I made the cut, she would be dead in seconds. Of course I’d already gone way too far to back out, but for a split second I entertained the possibility of letting her down and allowing her to go on with her life. She was young, she’d get over this, and probably go on to do great things. At the very least she’d start a family of her own—something about her personality told me she’d be a great mother—perhaps raise children she could pass her own mother’s recipes to.
Alas.
With firm, even pressure, using a hand on the back of her head to keep her steady, I drew the knife across her throat. Metal parted flesh, smooth as warm butter, and a gout of hot blood exploded from her severed arteries. Contrary to what you see in movies, it’s more of a gush than a squirt, especially when the victim is suspended in a way that lets gravity do most of the work. Briana’s body shook as her heart pumped her lifeblood down the drain, and in a matter of seconds, she was still. I kissed her on the lips, which were still warm, and turned on the tub to help prevent the blood from coagulating in my drainpipes. I then ran my knife down the inside of both her arms, forming a T by slashing across her wrists. Later I would remove her head (for decorative purposes), but for now it was fine attached to her body by the strong bones of her spinal column. Likewise, she could keep her organs for now, while the blood drained from her body.
Taking a step back, I shook my head sadly, feeling at the same time simultaneous pangs of hunger and lust. There is nothing in this world more beautiful or appetizing than a woman strung up for butchering.
Reluctantly, I closed the shower curtain and went back to wait another hour or so in the living room. It was the most difficult hour of my life. I constantly felt the urge to check on her, but knew it was best to stay far, far away from a woman as you drained her body of blood. Eventually, the time was up and I returned. She was still there, and looked just about the same, from the placid expression on her face to the way her body slowly shifted back and forth, borne about by invisible air currents. Using my sharpest knife, I inserted its tip just above the slit of her sex and, with firm pressure, pulled upwards towards her breasts. Her skin parted easily, exposing pink muscle and yellow fat. Reaching into the cut, I pulled her open. Her entrails were an unpleasant mass of coiled, multicolored flesh. I tried not to think too much about it as I positioned my slop bucket beneath her and started pulling them out. You had to be careful—if you tore the stomach, bowels or bladder, for instance, you had a real mess on your hands—but this wasn’t my first rodeo, and before I knew it, I had her carcass cleaned out. I put the slop bucket in the freezer to keep it from stinking up the place, then I set about butchering Briana’s body into manageable pieces.
I cut off her hands and feet first, setting them aside. Then I removed her arms at the shoulder, working my knife in and around the bones, cutting tendons until all that held them in place was a bit of cartilage around the joints. With the firm application of directed pressure, they snapped loose, and I put them with her hands and feet. Next to go were her legs. These were trickier, as the bones were bigger and stronger. I cut them into small pieces at the knee and thigh, so that all that remained of her was her torso and her head. It took a lot of effort and skill to cleanly sever her head, but I did it, making sure to trim the edges of any unsightly bits of dangling flesh. I put Briana’s head, her eyes still closed, in a place where she could watch while I decided which of the choice cuts of her flesh I would dine on that evening.
Despite what my sexual preferences demanded, I would avoid those areas I knew to be poor eating. When someone’s given their life—willingly or not—for your gastronomic enjoyment, you owe it to them not to spoil the experience by trying to eat something not fit for eating. For that reason I avoided her sex (though I would later consume the most feminine part of her, it wouldn’t be today) and breasts, as well as her asshole. Way back when I first fantasized about eating a woman, it was her tightly coiled, puckered rear orifice that drew my attention. I don’t know if it was my sex drive or what, but I wanted so badly to eat the assholes of the women I fantasized about that I wound up eating ass before I ever went near a woman’s pussy, or let her near my cock. I think it goes without saying that assholes most definitely are not meant to be eaten, regardless of how big a role they play in your fantasies.
I decided this time I’d let her side dishes determine which part of Briana I’d eat first.
Going back to the kitchen, there were no signs of struggle.
In fact, apart from the two dishes, there was no immediately visible trace of Briana at all.
I knew better than to be comforted by the fact—if any investigation were conducted, I had no doubt the cops would find all sorts of evidence—but it was still good to know that my place, apart from the bathroom, could pass a perfunctory visual inspection.
Examining the dishes, I saw Briana had made mac and cheese, as well as what looked like fresh, sweet, moist cornbread. Peeling off the foil and plastic covering the top, I saw that indeed it was cornbread, and it smelled as good as I knew Briana herself would taste.
Mac and cheese and corn bread.
To me that meant one thing and one thing only: ribs.
It would be a bit more work, separating her ribcage from her torso rather than roasting the whole thing at once, but the work was more than worth the reward. I boiled her ribs for a while, before patting them dry, adding salt, pepper and garlic powder, then headed to my balcony to grill them. Briana smelled delicious, and when there was only a few minutes left, I heated the mac and cheese under my oven’s broiler until the cheese on top was bubbling.
By the time I sat down, I almost couldn’t wait. The smell was incredible, and knowing Briana had given her life for this meal made it all the sweeter. I took my time, sinking my teeth into her fork tender flesh, enjoying how sweet it tasted, with just the right amount of fat to compliment her meat. I put off tasting her side dishes as long as possible, but finally I could resist no longer. Despite Briana’s protests to the contrary, she was a good cook; the mac and cheese was savory, while the corn bread provided a sweet, crumbly contrast, especially when I added a bit of butter. I ate everything on my plate, wishing I had cooked more of her, then went back for seconds. Finally, for dessert, I broke my golden rule and ate a part of her not meant to be eaten.
Briana’s labia were dark and rubbery, and I ate them raw, cutting them into small pieces. It took me a while, but the effort—and sore jaw—was worth the knowledge I’d consumed the most intimate and feminine part of her. My final bite was her clitoris, which I swallowed whole, like an after dinner mint or maraschino cherry.
After I was done, I felt tired, satisfied. I wanted to lay down and go to sleep. However, I still had a lot of work to do, individually portioning and wrapping (to prevent freezer burn) what remained of Briana’s corpse. I took great care in that effort, separating her breasts more for aesthetic than culinary reasons, as well as slicing big chunks of meat into manageable pieces. It still amazes me how much meat can come from even an average sized woman, especially if one takes ones time and does it right, saving as much as possible.
I disposed of her remains, what little I didn’t eat, in a swamp on the other side of the road. Gators liked to congregate there, and I’m sure more than one fed on Briana’s bones and organs.
There was no investigation.
After a couple months, Jones cleared out her apartment and eventually rented it to a couple from the city. Briana’s car was towed, sold for scrap. No one came looking. No one but me knew what really happened to her.
With her death, Briana had satisfied my deepest, darkest urge. Yet, at the same time, she kindled in me an intense desire to do it again. I found myself wondering if the meat from, say, an Asian woman would taste different from that of a white woman, or if there would be a pronounced difference in women of the same race. In any case, I resolved to find out, one way or another. One good thing about living where I do, there’s a never ending supply of meat. I don’t know how long until I’ll eat again, but when I do, I’ll be sure to tell you about it.