Eater

What a beautiful man she thought, as she stroked his pale white cheek. He was still warm to the touch. Mandy leaned in and kissed his lips, softly - a small peck. She drank in a huge breath of his scent before pulling away and taking one more look at him. Mandy could feel that wicked grin take form on her face. She didn’t feel wicked though, wicked was just the description of the grin. She felt excited. She’d been dreaming about this for years. Mandy leaned in again, smoothed her nose against his chin, slowly making her way up to his cheek, running her tongue over every inch of stubble. She opened her mouth and secured a sizable amount of cheek flesh between her teeth. She was holding it there, literally drooling over him, with anticipation. Pop. It was like, biting into an apple. A crisp pop through the top layer of skin, followed by a soft marshmellow-y-ness underneath.

The distinct taste of metal excited her taste buds as the blood began to trickle. Mandy pulled back and began to chew. She’d eaten raw pork before, simply out of curiosity, fantasising that it was a man. He didn’t quite taste like what she had anticipated, but that was quite okay, as the sheer satisfaction she got from scratching this 12 year itch, made it worth her while. Mandy began to giggle like a school girl, drunk on lust and power. She leaned into him again, this time, without any of the foreplay and took a nice fat chunk out of the other cheek. Pop. As she began to chomp away, she started to laugh hysterically. This was so much better than she’d fantasised about.

Mandy got up. She wanted to get a butcher’s knife from the kitchen. This was her first kill. She didn’t want any of the meat to go to waste. She didn’t know when she’d get another opportunity like this. Mandy exited her garage as fast as possible, trying to open and close the door with lightning speed so that no one would catch a glimpse of the corpse inside. This looked so much easier in the movies. People usually had big properties all to themselves to commit all kinds of mischief on. Mandy had a townhouse. It was tricky, but doable. As she ran over to her front door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the window. She still had that stupid love-struck grin on her face, which on its own would be okay, only hers was covered in blood. She frantically started wiping her face as she ran into the kitchen.

She collected a chopping board, her butcher’s knife and some freezer bags.

“What are you up to?” Pauline asked, with an overly friendly smile on her face but a great confused frown on her forehead. It was Mandy’s neighbour. She’d caught Mandy red handed, leaving the house for the garage with equipment in hand. Shit, Mandy thought to herself; “Oh hi Pauline. I’m... Just making biltong...”

“Oh I didn’t know you made your own biltong?”

“Ja, I normally don’t, but my brother brought me this huge chunk of wildsvleis, so I thought I’d better make the most of it before it goes off, you know?”

“Oh lekker, I hope you plan on sharing!?”

“ha ha, we’ll see if there is any left”

Pauline smiled at Mandy and went back into her house. Mandy felt like she could hardly move. The adrenaline had just kicked her so hard that she felt like she was about to pass out. Pauline can thank her lucky stars, she thought to herself. She had no desire to eat a woman, but if she happened to kill one, well then, there’d be no point in letting her go to waste now would there?

Back in the garage, Mandy began to undress the beautiful man. When she removed his shirt she realised that she’d made quite a mess of things when she had killed him. It was a pity as she could have used some of that meat. She’d just have to find another way the next time that she did it. It was very important that she didn’t ruin his head or his face though, because it was the cheeks that she’d been fantasising about all these years. 

Naked and stretched out, with his right arm over the chopping board, Mandy took a swing with the butcher’s knife.

There was blood everywhere. Mandy had been chopping at him all afternoon, but a simple domestic butcher’s knife was no match for human bones. It was such a mess. Mandy started to feel a little sad. She had started with this project with such great expectations and then she went and ruined everything with her lack of experience. She curled up into a ball and held her knees together, wondering what to do. There was no turning back now. If she couldn’t manage to cut the body into bits with bones and all, she’d have to somehow strip the meat from the bones. Mandy started with the hacked up arm. She dug the knife in till it reached the bone, then scrapped the knife downward, along the bone, slowly lifting the flesh off. It was a hefty task that took her till midnight to complete.

The alarm went off at 5am on Sunday morning. Mandy had managed to refrigerate most of the meat during the early hours of the morning, but she’d have to make a plan with the internal organs and bones that lay scattered on her garage floor. Mandy put on her tracksuit and made herself useful. While staring at the mess in the garage, she was hit with an amazing brain wave. Mandy gathered up the leftover organs and carried them into the backyard. She discarded the lot into the braai. She then went back for the bones.

With an early morning fire crackling in the back yard, Mandy began to reflect on her weekend activities: As happy as she was, finally fulfilling her lifelong fantasy and all, Mandy couldn’t help but wonder if she’d miss her brother at all. Ohhh I wonder if I still have marshmallows!

Author's note: A special thank you to Patrick B Vince for sparking the idea for this story!