The Bride Stripped Bare

by Rob Bliss

  I had heard of secret societies and strange cults and cabals involving people who, unofficially, ruled the world. Conspiracy theories, which sane or insane people spent their whole lives obsessed with, but most of us didn’t pay much attention to. If we weren’t in the cabal…but no, we were now. Or maybe just I was. Why did Gord say I would only find out about the Royal Order of Ursa at the wedding, and then not be allowed to leave? Did he know what would happen to me—and to his folks and siblings? Did he set us up? (Doing what some girl told him to do because he was in love, or lust, with her? Old diseases were hard to cure.)

  I didn’t want to go down that line of questioning, not at the time. Regardless if he had set me up, we were both screwed at that point. My priority had to be to get us out of there. We could discuss details on the plane home.

  Maybe I could use my privileged position in the family to escape from it. After all, Venus and her brood could’ve killed Gord and me when we made it to Canada. Why go on with a wedding when the groom had adamantly tried to run from the bride? And if they were in Canada, were they also in other countries?

  I asked Gord the last question. “Everywhere, they’re everywhere,” he answered between groans of pain. “Safe to assume they’re across this country and probably through Canada too. Europe’s a good bet, Russia too, maybe parts of Asia. That Asian woman you killed was originally from Japan, and the black woman, I think, came from Cameroon. I’ve met a few family members with foreign accents. They come from around the world…for Venus.”

  “Who is she in the family? The Queen Bear or something? And do you know if she’s been married before?”

  “She said she was divorced once and a widow once…gave me some names…Greg or Brian or something, but she didn’t talk about it much. Said she didn’t wanna relive the past…that I was her future.” A feeble laugh escaped his throat.

  A widow? I could see her being a black widow. But why would she kill a guy she married? For money, an insurance policy? The family was apparently stinking rich. I kicked myself for not having asked these questions of Gord about Venus before. Then again, it seemed like he was too smitten since all he could repeat was how great she was. I didn’t want to criticize his new fiancée, wanted him to be happily in love. Hell is paved with good intentions.

  God, that seemed like so long ago. Time was strange in this place. I recalled the clock in Gord’s truck, showing the wrong time so I thought it was broken. Should’ve been my first clue that things were not as they seemed.

  “Do you know if she’s got kids?” I asked, needing more background information on Venus if I was going to get Gord and I away from her and the family. “If Gorman’s her father, is her mother here? And if Gorman’s a priest, is Venus some kind of priestess? Will every member of this cult bow down to her?”

  Gord sighed, leaned his head back against the cross, smiled. “You always were the smart one, Chris. I never asked half those questions. I just assumed some stuff. What did I care—I was going to be set for life. I think she’s big in the family—very big. But maybe not at the top. And Gorman scares the shit out of me. He might be her father—might. But, for all I know, he could also be one of her old husbands. Hell, the whole family could be married to one another.”

  The blood from hundreds of fingertips dribbled into the black bowl. If not a marriage—some profane form of cult marriage—then at least the whole audience participated in a type of communion. Mingling of the blood. More pieces were falling into place.

  Before I could ask any more questions, the two massive men—who I overheard Venus calling Gitch and Skood—entered and sliced our bonds. Walked us out through a cellar of wood and stone, up a flight of stairs, and back onto stage.

  A long table with high-backed chairs had been set up on the stage. Similar long tables were lined up in the immense room, where the guests sat, each chair meeting with place settings of pristine china and crystal wine glasses. Candelabra dotted a line down the center of each endless table. And between candelabra were elongated silver meat domes on thick platters. Presumably, the meal of the evening.

  Positioned in the center of the stage table were two chairs which were taller than the others.

  Gitch (I assumed) forced me into one of the two tall chairs, where I could see and be seen over the main course. My convex face reflected back to me in the polished silver dome. The stench of cooked meat made my stomach churn—to say the least, I was not hungry.

  (Strange: the domes covering all the platters were not a foot or, at most, two-feet long, which would be normal. They were closer to five or six feet long. I wondered: what in the hell is for dinner?)

  Gord was forced into a smaller chair to my left, and next to him was Poppy, sharpening knife on fork, hungry. The two remaining bridesmaids sat patiently at the other end of the table, one chair empty since the third girl was dead. The white and black bridesmaids smiled at me with their youthful, beautiful mouths, licking their fingertips, opening their bear cloaks to expose bare breasts, circling painted nails around erect nipples. I had never sat at a dinner table with partially nude people before. I ignored them.

  Venus made her entrance, strode out onto stage, her shoes booming on the wooden floor, and took the tall chair beside me, pulled out by Gorman. The priest sat at Poppy’s end of the table, a chair procured by Skood, placed so that the priest faced along the length of the table. He wasn’t on display for the audience, as were the rest of us; his position seemed to have him watching the wedding party, to oversee the dining.

  Once all were seated, Gorman stood and raised a golden goblet, ushering the attention of the family to himself. They all stood, as did everyone at the head table except for Venus and myself.

  “To the bride and her groom, under the Great God Ursa, for the perpetuation of the family…may we all give thanks and praise and wish the new couple long life and many bloodlines.”

  Voices in the audience said, “here here!” and offered their toasts to us. Everyone drank but me and my bride (or, as Gorman had said, I was “her groom.” I belonged to her). It was partially the heights of our different chairs and partially because Venus continued to wear her immense bear costume—uniform—as she dined, but I felt incredibly small. Like the male spider spouse of the black widow.

  I gazed up at her and felt her cold hand caress my jaw. Glancing across the room, I tried to see where the doors were located, and what were the chances of escape. A mob of family, of course, would’ve stopped me. Maybe killed me, but then the bride would just get herself another husband. I had to appease my bride somehow, to learn more about her and her lineage, hopefully finding a weakness.

  I plastered a fake smile on my face as I returned my bride’s loving gaze.

  “So…now that we’re married, I guess we should get to know each other.”

  She tittered demurely behind a hand as though she was Marie Antionette. If she had been holding a fan, she would’ve fluttered it coyly. Fake bitch. I hated her even more. But if she was all about putting on an act, I would re-act to play off her.

  “There will be time, my husband,” she answered condescendingly. “I’m sure you have many questions, but they can all be answered on our honeymoon.”

  I perked up. I hadn’t considered that this whole event—this farce—to be played out to include a honeymoon. “Oh? Where will we be going?”

  She answered matter-of-factly, as though it was obvious. “To our family castle in the Carpathian Mountains, naturally. Your education will be continued there. You still have much to learn, old habits still to be broken. It’s better to learn by doing than by telling, don’t you think?”

  I played her game of verbal poker, not expecting necessarily to win, but simply to learn the rules. If I could’ve picked up the steak knife (the knife up my sleeve was gone) sitting beside my plate and plunged it into her breast, I would’ve. But then again, I’d already tried that.

  “And what will I be learning?”

  “If I tell you, it would spoil the surprise.
I’ll give you a hint because so far you are proving to be an excellent specimen.” She pinched my chin. “You have excellent genes, much better than those of…” she sneered a glance over at Gord; he kept his eyes off her, delicately touching his wounded forehead, but he must’ve heard her. “The family has been very impressed with your performance so far. In the tunnel was lovely. But when you took it upon yourself to defy convention and kill Annabelle, my bridesmaid—especially while you fucked her—and then ejaculated into her…mmm. We later siphoned it out of her, and it was presented to me in a beautiful crystal sherry glass. It was delicious! But I digress. It showed that you had a true killing spirit, which is what the family looks for.” She leaned passed me to glance again at Gord. “Your friend—that dog—followed orders to the letter. Showing no initiation, no intelligence, no passion. He relished what I gave him, not faithful to his soul. He had a weak soul, and meagre genetics. Your soul is black. And, as my husband, it will become blacker.”

  I nodded, not afraid of anything she was telling me, letting her feel confident about her powers over men.

  “So, getting to know each other a bit more,” I continued, “have you ever been married before? Got kids? Your mom and dad here? I’d love to meet my inlaws.”

  She smiled and her eyes flashed as she reached a hand down to my leg, but I could barely feel her fingernails through the thick fur covering me from the waist down. I reminded myself to ask about the bear motif, just to get confirmation on what I suspected.

  “I’ve been married several times. Some of my husbands are dead, some absorbed into the family.”

  “Absorbed?”

  “They fuck other family members, become entranced, and I let them go. I’m very…open-minded, to put it mildly. I own who I want to own until I get tired of them. But no one owns me.”

  “Is that right? So, you own me right now?”

  She nodded. “More than you know.”

  I chuckled into my fist, elbows on the table, trying to block out the smell of the dinner in front of me. It was half repulsive but became half tempting. I thought I wasn’t hungry, but with all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, my body craved food, no matter what it smelled like. My nausea on the wane.

  Skood began filling wine glasses. In the audience, other servants in bear skins and cloaks poured wine as well.

  “Okay, whatever you say,” I said to Venus with a sigh of false boredom. “Got kids?”

  “I have several children,” she admitted freely.

  “Really? Three, four?”

  She tilted her head to one side, needing a little time to consider the number she gave me. “Two hundred, three hundred… I’ve lost count.”

  I laughed out loud, couldn’t hold it in. “Wow. You look great after so much…motherhood. Your parents must be very happy—or exhausted—to be grandparents many times over.”

  “My father is the priest at the end of the table. He’s also the father of twenty-seven of my children. I had the first when I was twelve, as soon as I got my period. My brother, Poppy, has given me forty-two children. From conception to birth takes only a few hours, sometimes minutes, depending on how well the mother takes to…motherhood. That is how our family grows so large so quickly. There are genetic mistakes, of course. You saw some of those in the tunnel.” She took a sip of wine as my heart stopped and I forgot to breathe. Then she added, “My mother’s dead. Her name was Callisto. I ate her.”

  I couldn’t retain my humor anymore. Whether it was a well-rehearsed lie, or the truth, she didn’t flinch as she told me everything. After all, her dagger wound had healed in seconds, so I knew for a fact that there was some strange magic going on inside her. With such a large backwoods family, I easily suspected incest. Clichés are sometimes correct. But not incest to such a gross and grotesque extent. It was difficult to digest all she had confessed, so I stopped asking her about her past.

  Then Gitch arrived on the opposite side of the table, grabbed the silver dome covering the cooked meat by its silver handles, and revealed what had been prepared for dinner.

  Arms and legs cut off but displayed with fruit ornamentation alongside the torso. No head, just the neck. Cooked and glazed, surrounded by greens and small bowls of various dipping sauces. I gawked at the beast, my mind at first trying to match up what kind of animal or bird it was, what strange venison. But it was only when, in shocked curiosity, I stood to see the length of it from a heightened viewpoint, that I saw the tattoos on the neck. A rooster and a flying serpent.

  Paco.

  I stumbled backwards, kicking back my chair, staring at the thing. Bile rose up my throat and my legs shook, hands numb. The audience hushed. I scanned the room as silver domes were lifted off platters on each table. One table was centered with a platter of hands, another of feet; one bore a bald, barbecued head; others had pieces of carved torso—a chest with wrinkled breasts jutting upwards, nipples severed but replaced with cherries, toothpicks sticking from each; livers and coils of intestines, decorated with pineapple chunks; a platter of penises. The crowd watched my reactions before digging in.

  Venus met my stare. “He wasn’t family, so he’s dinner,” she said with a glance down at the cooked Paco. “Thank you—and your best man—for killing so many of the weak members of our family whom we transported down the tunnel to meet you. We had a feeling you’d provide the wedding feast, if properly motivated.” She stretched out a hand to present the room and its many cannibal meals. “As you can see, we take care of our own. They won’t miss the wedding,” she said with a wink and a laugh.

  My mouth felt like rubber. I vomited between my feet, stomach acid splashing across the shoes and matted into the fur of the pants. My gaze shot to Poppy, who was laughing, a large three-tined fork and a long steak knife in his hands, as he squeezed between my seat and where Gord sat.

  He sawed off a hunk of Paco, held it out for me.

  “Eat up, brother. The coke in his veins makes him extra spicy!”

  I tried to run but could only get to the end of the table. The shoes practically welded to my feet were heavy and it was difficult to balance while walking in them. Gorman stood, snapped his fingers, and Skood rushed to me, slipped a thick arm around my neck. Walked me back to my seat, pushed me into it. Poppy’s molars tore off the meat on his fork and chewed, mouth open, bits of meat clumps and flesh strings hanging between his teeth.

  Gord was in another world. I think he didn’t even know what the meat was. Salivating, he cut off a large steak from Paco’s shoulder and pectoral muscle, dropped it onto his plate, then sawed off bite-sized pieces, stuffing them greedily into his mouth. Ravenous—as hungry as I once was. He washed down each mouthful with gulps of wine, his goblet instantly refilled by an attentive Gitch.

  Poppy sat down and Gitch exchanged his wine bottle for a carving knife and fork, began cutting from the opposite side of the table, piling chunks of the dead man’s torso and belly on the empty part of the platter up by Paco’s neck stump. He then carried one steak at a time, dripping blood and juices, across the table to fill each plate. Gorman and Poppy and the two bridesmaids began feasting immediately.

  “Just a little one for me,” Venus instructed the behemoth waiter. “I’m watching my figure. But something extra rare.”

  Gitch pushed the knife into the belly, sawed up, split open the flesh at the sternum.

  “Excuse my hands, mistress,” he said to the bride.

  “You’re excused” she said, giving a look of lust to him as she licked a fang. “I know where they’ve been.” Then she leaned over to me, still held in my chair by Skood’s hands on my shoulders. “He’s the father of nine of my kids,” she whispered with a wink.

  Gitch returned the wink as he rolled up his sleeves and sank his arm up to the elbow under Paco’s ribs. A wet sluicing sound echoed in my ears as I watched, bubbles popping out from the meat that swallowed the waiter’s arm.

  By the look on Gitch’s face, he was reaching around inside the dead man, breaki
ng something off with his powerful fingers. Then he grabbed hold of some interior meat and pulled it out, his arm exiting with a churning, watery suction.

  Venus passed her plate to his clean hand. He dropped Paco’s heart onto it, then passed it back to her. She cooed to herself as she took up cutlery and sliced off a small morsel, slid it delicately between her teeth, tongue slipping out then in, chewed demurely.

  Her eyelashes fluttered at me. “I love breaking a man’s heart…and then eating it,” she giggled. Some juice escaped her lips, which she wiped up with a finger, sucked her nail clean.

  I felt dizzy. A pulse began in my temples and my muscles suddenly drained of all energy. I couldn’t leave the chair under my own power even if Skood had let me. I was numb to all feeling, to emotion—couldn’t feel hatred or humor or the need to run for my life anymore. Even if I could’ve saved my life, my body wouldn’t respond. I looked over again at Gord and he continued to stuff food into his mouth, even picking up pieces that had fallen into his lap and sucking them in between his juice-stained lips. Face bent over his plate, only looking up to cut off another piece from the beast on the table and dragging it to his plate. Or not even: often he cut it off the body and put it directly into his mouth. He had carved a hole through the side of Paco large enough to see a few exposed ribs. His knife scraped meat off the bone, sounding like nails on a chalkboard.

  Venus made a motion to Gitch, telling him what his next slice should be. My head was twitching as though I had just inhaled a pound of coke. I couldn’t control my body, started scratching the jacket arms and fur pant legs, trying to free whatever black worms were crawling beneath my skin. I couldn’t hold my head still long enough to see where Gitch was slicing. Not until he put it on my plate, did I see the flying serpent tattoo, its ink eye looking up at me.

  “The skin is most delicious—crispy,” Venus whispered into my ear. “There’s a tradition in our family, dating back eons. We gain strength over our enemy by consuming his body.” She wove fingers through the hair at the back of my skull. “Become stronger, Chris, by eating your enemy and his symbol of power. This is all a part of your ongoing training. There are many meals like this in your future.”