by Lisa Tuttle
“I'm starving,” she whined. “I need to eat. If I don't eat, I'll die.”
In answer, he lifted his arm toward her face. She looked at it: solid, meaty. He raised it a little more and she felt it brush her lips. She opened her lips, touched his flesh, as so often before, with her tongue. Then, when he did not draw it away, she let him feel her teeth. When he still did not move, she bit him. That first, tentative, lover's bite did nothing, so she bit him again, and this time tore away a chunk of his flesh in her jaws.
There was no blood. His flesh was dry and chewy, the texture that of a dumpling or a half-cooked roll, and it tasted a little like salty bread.
She swallowed the first mouthful and was instantly ravenous for more. She looked at him, still offering her his arm, and saw herself looking back. She flinched at that, but then saw it as validation of what she was about to do. If he was her, then he was hers, to do with as she wanted. Obviously he was feeling no pain. More than that: he was enjoying it. He was smiling slightly, she recognized the voluptuous pleasure relaxing his features, and she could feel him still erect inside her.
She leaned down and took a large, deliberate bite out of his shoulder. It was delicious. It tasted like nothing she knew, and yet she had the sense that she had always been longing for it. Even before she'd swallowed her mouth was watering for more. The more she ate of him the more the craving grew. As she consumed his arms and chest she was soon no longer starving, but as her actual need decreased her appetite became even stronger. She wanted to eat every bit of him.
Eating his head was the strangest, scariest, most difficult part. She felt like a monster: that she wanted to do what she was doing was the hardest to accept, as hard as seeing her own eyes in Gray's familiar face staring knowingly back at her. She closed her eyes and growled as she tore his ear off.
And then he was gone from the waist up. But she could still feel his penis inside her. Suddenly she couldn't bear it any longer; the situation was too horrible. For a while she'd been able to imagine they were sharing in her cannibalistic feasting, as if eating was just another type of sex. But not now that his head was gone, and he had no face. She felt neither sexy nor hungry. She was beginning to feel afraid. She moved to disengage and found she could not; his penis seemed to be stuck inside her. Horrible stories heard in adolescence, images she'd believed long forgotten, flared in her brain. Although she was in no pain a panicky fear made her jerk and fight, and in a moment she was free, crouching beside the legs and lower torso. Before she could even begin an approach to calm she had seen that the torso had testicles but no penis. It had broken off inside her.
She opened her mouth, feeling a scream building, and then she forced her head down to his weirdly empty groin and made herself eat. She had to finish what she had begun; there was no other way. It made no difference that she no longer wanted him: he was hers, and she had to take him all inside.
Her jaws ached from chewing and her throat from swallowing. She was so full she could not imagine containing any more, but she knew she must. The taste of his flesh, once so compelling, now was sickening. Mouthful after mouthful she forced down, hardly chewing, holding her breath sometimes, keeping her mind a blank. If she thought about what she was doing, what she had done, she would be sick, and it was too soon for that. If she was sick, here and now, she'd only have to eat him all over again. She didn't question her knowledge; there were rules which had to be obeyed.
She made herself keep eating until there was nothing left to eat, and then she fell asleep.
She had no idea when she woke what time it was or what day. She felt bloated and unhappy, unrested, but she made herself get up. Getting to her feet she had the faintly uncomfortable sensation of wearing a tampon which had shifted from its usual position and needed to be removed, but when she checked with her finger there was nothing there.
Although she felt an urgency to get out of the house, she nevertheless took a shower—cold, of course. It was easier to do that than spend the rest of the day worrying what she smelled like, or what strange substances might have spotted her skin. Then she dressed quickly in clean clothes, stuffed everything else back into her suitcase, and left.
Two hours later she was entering Houston in rush hour. Creeping along the jammed freeway, she realized she would have to make a decision soon, or the prevailing currents of traffic would carry her off to Sugarland or worse. She'd had no destination in mind beyond Houston. She could go stay with her sister, as she had done before the funeral, but she didn't want to. She tried to remember which of her high school friends were still around.
The exit sign for West University Place caught her eye and she moved, managing, through a combination of luck and determination, to get into the exit lane before it was too late. She made her way to the village shopping center where long ago she'd hung out with Roxanne. As she'd remembered, there was a pay phone on the corner by the Mexican restaurant. She thought about calling Leslie's mother, who had been so kind at the funeral.
But as soon as she picked up the phone she knew she had to call Gray first. Making arrangements for where to spend the night was not as urgent as her need to speak to him, to hear his voice. She needed to be reminded of their life together, to be pulled back into the real world. All at once, in the familiar, hot, humid Houston evening, she missed the cool, damp little house in Harrow quite desperately. The sound of the abrupt purring ring of their telephone in her ear—so different from the American ringing tone that the first time she'd heard it she'd thought it was a busy signal and hung up—made her stomach tense with anticipation. In a moment she would hear his voice.
But the phone went on ringing, unanswered, until the operator said, “I'm sorry, there's no reply.”
“Thank you. I'll try again later.” But it was already later—it would be after midnight there. He should have been in bed. Maybe he was in the bathroom? She marched up and down the block until she'd convinced herself of this, then went back to the phone to try again.
Still no reply, although she asked the operator to let it ring a little longer “in case he's asleep.” But she knew perfectly well that Gray could never sleep through the ringing of a telephone. If he wasn't answering the phone he must be out.
“Um, Agnes?”
The soft, familiar voice caught at her heart. She turned around, astonished.
Alex Hill smiled at her. “I thought it was you. I saw you go past the window when I was in the restaurant, and then when I came out, you were on the phone. It's really nice to see you. Are you going to be in town long? Oh—” He stopped smiling as he remembered. “I heard about your mother. I'm really sorry.”
She started to say thank you and then stopped. Surely that wasn't right. What did you say when someone offered commiserations? How did you accept? She hadn't figured it out at the funeral and it was even harder to know what to say now. But she had to say something, if only that it was nice to see him, too. He was still waiting for her response. She opened her mouth. “I,” she said helplessly. “It's . . .” She began to cry.
He put his arms around her and held her. He said nothing at all, just let her cry. Occasionally he patted her on the back.
“I'm sorry,” she said when at last she was able to stop. She pulled away from him although what she wanted most was to go on resting against his chest, feeling protected.
“Don't apologize. You have a good reason for crying. I wish—are you here by yourself? Were you going somewhere?”
“I was just trying to call my husband. There's no answer; I want to try again.”
“Come home with me. You can call him from there.”
“It's long distance.”
“I know. I'll send you a bill. We don't take as big a rake-off as some hotels. . . . Where are you staying?”
“I don't know. I just got back—I need to call somebody, find a place to stay.”
“Look no further. Where's your car? You can leave it there. Get your things. I'll bring you back in the morning, drop you off on
my way to work. My office is just up the street.”
She made no protest because this was just what she wanted. It was such a relief to be taken care of, to have decisions made for her, and it was all the better that the white knight of her fantasies should be the first boy she'd ever loved.
Sitting beside him in his car, being driven home, she felt entirely comfortable for what seemed the first time in years. She paid no attention to where they were going. She listened to the tapes he played: Bonnie Raitt, Pat Benatar. She wished the journey could last forever.
His house was a new, narrow town house that looked like all its neighbors, sand-colored brick and pale wood. Inside there was an impression of bare, sparse modernity: a large, open-plan space with white walls and minimal furniture of chrome, glass and black leather. Black-and-white photographs adorned the walls. She saw a stack of Vogue magazines on the chrome-and-glass table, but no books. It seemed a little bleak to her, and impressively clean.
“Nice place,” she said.
“It's all right. Do you want something to drink? Have you eaten? There's stuff to eat.”
“I could eat something.” She followed him into the kitchen, a narrow, beige and white area separated from the dining area by a long counter.
“I still can't cook—I can only offer you a sandwich, or something from Lean Cuisine.” He gestured at the freezer.
“A sandwich would be fine.”
“Peanut butter and jelly?”
“Great. Do you know what jelly means in England?”
He shook his head, getting out the bread.
“Jell-O.”
“So the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich . . .”
“Exactly.” She sighed happily, crossed her arms and leaned on the counter, watching him as he moved. He had put on weight since college and the buttons of his blue shirt strained slightly across his stomach. There was the softness she had felt when she had rested in his arms, and it was something he probably looked at and pinched with dismay after every shower, promising himself to do something about it. Lean cuisine, she thought, and remembered how he had liked to eat, how they had all liked to eat, and drink, during their last semester together in Austin. Remembering how they had eventually ended up in bed together she wondered why they hadn't done so sooner, or why that once had not developed into the affair she had always wanted. They'd had other involvements, their lives had progressed in different ways. She wished it otherwise. She could almost believe it was, at that moment in his kitchen, the two of them bound in wordless intimacy as she watched him make her sandwich. It was wonderful to watch; he took such care. First he buttered both slices of bread, then spread Skippy peanut butter on one and Welch's grape jelly on the other. After he pasted the bread together, he cut the crusts off before cutting the sandwich in half slant-wise. It was exactly the way she'd liked it as a child, and she hadn't had a peanut butter sandwich made for her with such care and delicate attention to detail since then, when her mother had made them for her. He invited her to sit at the dining table and served it to her just as her mother would have done, on a small plate, with a glass of milk.
“This is wonderful,” she said after swallowing the first bite. “This is great. Delicious.”
“Oh, hey, come on. It's a peanut butter sandwich!”
“But beautifully prepared. Perfectly made. Really, I haven't had such a perfect peanut butter sandwich since I was a kid.”
He shook his head. “Well, I guess I can keep you happy as long as your needs don't get any more complicated.”
His eyes sparkled down at her and she smiled back. “Oh, my needs are very simple.”
He turned away from her, toward the fridge. “I think I'll have a beer. Want to join me?”
She looked at her untouched glass of milk. “Mmmm, maybe later. This really calls for milk, not beer. I don't want to spoil the peanut butter experience.”
“Certainly not! You don't want to spoil that dinner it took me so long to make. Maybe when Mon gets home. She should be back in half an hour or so. She never wants to eat in the evenings, but she sometimes likes a drink.”
Her shoulders, which had felt so relaxed, were suddenly tight again, as if she were still driving. “Who's Mon?”
“Didn't I say? She's my wife.”
Despite his liberal use of “we” and “us” when he spoke, he hadn't mentioned a woman, and she hadn't thought of one. Absurdly (she now realized) she'd imagined the plural pronoun referred to a housemate or, at worst, a girlfriend living safely far away. She'd imagined herself in the midst of a gentle seduction.
“Mon,” she repeated vaguely and took a bite of sandwich to give herself time to adjust to the idea.
“Short for Monica. Married nearly two years now. She was—you might have known her. Monica Willies. She went to our school. Of course, she was two years below us.”
“Oh, Alex. You married a sophomore?”
While he laughed she ate the sandwich he had made for her. But as she tore out a bit of the sweet, chewy stuff it seemed to her that the texture was all wrong for a sandwich. And as she chewed it turned to flesh in her mouth, raw and indigestible. She chewed and chewed and chewed until her jaws ached. As she tried to swallow some of the pulpy mass, her throat closed with revulsion.
Pushing back the chair she struggled to her feet.
“Are you all right?”
“Bathroom,” she muttered thickly.
“Through there—by the front door—to your right.”
She made it just in time to throw up into the toilet. Oddly, although she heaved and retched until she was exhausted, apart from the small amount of undigested sandwich, only a little, greenish liquid came up. It seemed that her stomach was completely empty.
She lay in bed in the guest room with the light on, a glass of ice water and an empty bowl close at hand. The guest room was also Mon's sewing room, and she stared at the sewing machine and dressmaker's dummy in the far corner until she fell asleep.
As soon as she woke up she knew by the fact that the room was now dark that someone had come in. They might have just turned out the light and gone away again, but she sensed a presence. She lay perfectly still, moving only her eyes, until she saw the figure lurking in the dark.
“Alex?”
There was no reply, but she thought she saw the figure move slightly. In a normal voice she said, “Alex, I can see you.”
Still he said nothing, but in a flash she had a vision of Alex standing there in the doorway with his eyes closed and arms outstretched, shamblingly seeking her out like the pillow friend, and she screamed.
“Agnes, hey, it's all right, you were dreaming, that's all.” She felt his hands, his arms around her, his bare chest and she whimpered and went limp. When she opened her eyes the room was glaringly alight. Alex looked back at her, his eyes fully open and enlarged by a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses. His hair was tousled and he wore a pair of baggy shorts. “You were having a nightmare,” he said.
“I thought . . . someone was in the room.” Now she could see that the door was not where she had believed it to be, and she could see the dressmaker's dummy in its place. Alex pointed at it and she nodded. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't apologize. Everybody has nightmares sometimes.” He was still holding her, sitting comfortably close on the bed. She could smell the soap and salt on his body and feel the warmth of his bare skin. She felt like stripping off her T-shirt and rubbing her nipples against his.
“Are you all right now?”
“Stay with me a little longer.” She rested the palm of one hand lightly on his chest, to feel the spring of his hair.
“Mon probably hasn't even noticed I'm gone. She kind of stirred and muttered when you started screaming, but I think she didn't really wake up. I guess, if we ever have babies, I know who's going to have to do the three a.m. feedings.”
She slipped her hand down his chest and into the waistband of his shorts. He caught his breath but made no attempt to stop her. He
was already erect as she fondled him. His penis strained and butted her hand like a happy pet.
After a little while she withdrew her hand to strip off her T-shirt. He stared as if he'd never seen a naked woman before; as if he couldn't believe his luck. His excitement thrilled her; she felt eager to increase his pleasure, to show him how generous she could be.
As she pulled him down to her she felt him resisting what they both wanted, and saw him starting to frame his excuses. She didn't want to hear his wife's name again; she didn't want any more words to come between them. She put a finger to his lips and then, sitting up to face him, her breasts pushing against his chest, she whispered very low into his ear, “Quickly. No noise. Just do it.”
He tugged down his shorts and she lay back and opened her legs. He positioned himself between her legs and then—she couldn't understand what was happening—tried and failed to enter her. She was eager; she wanted him as much as she'd ever wanted any man; he was evidently fully erect. She tried to guide him in with her hands, thinking that excitement had made him clumsy, but that wasn't it. He was in the right place. The head of his penis butted, again and again, against the lips of her vagina, finding something blocking his entrance. She was beginning to feel sore and he was beginning to droop when he abruptly got up and pulled his shorts back on.
“Not a good idea,” he whispered. “Obviously.” He flashed her a strained, chagrined smile. She bit her lips and held her hands out to him, knowing as she did so that there was nothing she could do to hold him now, no reason he should stay.
She lay on the bed with her knees up and legs parted after he had left her, horribly aware of the broken-off cock inside her that remained as a barrier to any other lover.
THE QUESTION ANSWER'D
When one has stopped loving somebody, one feels that he has become someone else, even though he is still the same person.
—Sei Shonagon
