Page 44 of Morsel

The door chime jingles. I grimace and adjust my erection, a headache forming between my temples. This is why my relationship with Mona is a problem. Whether it starts with a toe or something even smaller than that, as the years pass and slices are taken from her body, I would have no choice but to continue eating her. Even if I supplemented with animals or other women, Mona would eventually become an inanimate object: a reliant torso, bed bound, and still serving me.

Whispers flutter past me. I turn over my shoulder and see the woman who was recording me in the break room, next to the same man with the shaved head who was goading me into talking about raping women.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise. Are they following me?

No. That would be crazy. This is a local butcher, the closest one to the processing plant in fact, and if they work there too, then they’d come here before or after work, like I do. This shop has the best organic meat in the city. It makes sense.

The woman stands on her toes and keeps her eyes on me as she whispers to the man. He bares his teeth at me.

I ball my fists. “The fuck are you looking at?”

The woman skitters closer to him like a bug hiding under the cracks of a tile. I sneer. The bitch would be better off as barbecue than a plant worker.

The butcher clears his throat. I blink rapidly. The old bitch is gone. I walk up to the counter, and the butcher glares at me. The fuck is his problem?

“I’d like a filet mignon,” I say. I briefly scan the chalkboard for today’s inventory. “And some pig’s feet. Two pounds if you’ve got ‘em.”

“I think you’ve got enough to take home with you,” the butcher snarls. “Your business is not welcome here anymore. Leave, or I’ll call the police.”

A painful pulse radiates between my temples. He must have seen me stealing the offal and rotten meat. So it was me then; I’m the reason he’s got the garbage bins locked up. He must’ve added security cameras, and I must have completely missed them.

“So what?” I say. “It was in the garbage.”

“I can’t have perverts jerking off behind my store,” he growls. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

My vision reddens. A pervert? An outcast. A loser who will never be anything.

A cannibal monster.

“Fuck you, you wasteful piece of shit!” I shout as I storm out of the shop.

I sit in the van for ten minutes before I truly calm down. I remind myself that there are more butcher shops. Grocery stores have offal and meat scraps sometimes. Even if the stores have other waste clogging their bins, and it’s harder to find the actual meat product, I can figure out another way to fill my pit. I can find a new plan.

I can deal with this.

I reverse out of my parking spot and head back to the mobile home. I switch on the radio, and the smog from the city winds through the streets like a fine mist. I take a deep breath in and force myself to relax.

Once my heart rate is even, I pretend like there’s a neat package of white paper on the passenger seat, keeping me company. A slice of Mona wrapped like a present for me.

Everything is fine.

I glance over at the passenger seat. Black hair, pale skin, sunken eyes. Not a slice of Mona anymore, but the full ghost of her.

We don’t have to pretend anymore, the imaginary Mona says. I don’t want to play games. I want you to eat me.

I put my hand on her thigh, stroking her pliant skin and inching closer to her pussy.

“You want more?” I ask. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Take me to the farm, she says. Let me go free. We can run wild. We can do anything, Kent. Anything! You can eat me. I want you to eat me.

“I’ll take little nibbles off of you.” My fingers worm closer to her meat pocket. “We could fuck like rabbits while I dine on your breasts.”

How about a wolf and a rabbit? she says.

There’s nothing in the passenger seat. Still, my imagination fills the emptiness: Mona smirks at me. Like she knows more than I do. Like she’s better than me. This is just a fucked-up daydream, and somehow, she’s still manipulating me.

A figure in a leather jacket leans over the center console.

---