The Debt

by Mark Lumby

  He felt someone standing from behind, spun around as he made the choice to leave; it was the butler.

  He had aged. The years had made him pale, skin almost see through, and if the light caught him right, looked as though his skin was thin enough to make out his bones underneath. He was an x-ray. His cheeks looked sharper, more defined. And before Jack even had a chance to recognise the needle he was holding, to fight against it, he stabbed the length into his leg.

  “I did warn you,” the butler spat in his ear, a pained accusation that sounded like it hurt his throat when he croaked it from his thin neck. There was a tone in his voice, though, that was apologetic.

  But those words started to lay claim to Jack’s memory, and he digressed to when he had supposedly uttered those words, if he ever had, but as he thought about it furthermore, that conversation was as crisp as the frost of winter.

  “But you never listened!” the butler continued like he was disappointed with him. His tone turned venomous, lips stretched over his stained teeth, seething bitterness. “People like you rarely do! Like lambs to the slaughter. Greedy bastards! You deserve all that damn well comes to you!” Jack pushed him away and the frail man fell heavily to the carpet. He stared at Jack, disgusted, but after the butler had stopped grimacing, he just grinned back at Jack. The butler’s demeanour suddenly changed when he realised that Francis may have overheard him. He had truly hoped not, although Francis did appear startled by his outburst.

  Jack had faced Francis, nursing the area where he had been injected.

  Francis strolled over to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and breathed into his ear like his words were only meant for him. “My advice to you right now is to accept what is happening. This is your destiny. Don’t fight it, Jack Monday. Embrace it!” He guided him further into the room, and as the group of people parted to let them through, Jack saw a polished silver table. It was rectangular with four chains at each corner. Positioned neatly on a separate table were several large knives. Jack counted them, but before he could finish, whatever the butler had injected Jack with was taking effect. He wasn’t seeing straight and voices seemed hollow. He only remembered Francis whispering into his ear, “Let it take you.” His words were calming and contributed to the feeling the drug had offered. He felt as though he was shrinking from the inside and was now struggling to even stand.

  Jack felt himself sinking back into the carpet, followed by several pairs of hands lifting his body, touching him and invading the places where they shouldn’t. Where they didn’t have permission. There was a feeling of weightlessness, and they laid him down gently on the table. The metal surface was cold like it had just been pushed from a large freezer. The frost rose, wrapping itself around the hairs on his arms, the cold making them feel electrified. Faces leered down at him, perverse and disgusting. He thought of Anja and wondered if she did know all along.

  Know what, Jack? What’s going to happen to you?

  The chains rattled, shackling his ankles and wrists. And although he could feel the chill of the metal, he couldn’t fight against it, against them. The injection had paralysed his body. He couldn’t turn his head at the sound of Francis sharpening knife against knife. He could feel the other guests removing his clothes, cutting through the material until he was naked. Hands roam over his skin, inspecting him, kissing his body: a hand on his penis, another on his scrotum. Jack couldn’t tell if he was going hard, if ever he could, but he fought against it.

  But it did feel nice.

  He felt wet.

  He couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. He felt a tongue play. He had hoped it was Florence, although the sudden thought of Anja pained him with guilt. Jack couldn’t even close his eyes, they were frozen to the open position.

  It felt so good. The sounds made it more intense: the licking and wetness.

  Francis placed his cheek close to Jack like he wanted to see what he could see if he had the strength to lift his head. He then looked at him and smiled; his expression was sexual.

  Jack couldn’t see him though; Francis was still at his side. But he could feel the warmth of his breath on the side of his face, a contrast to the frost that encompassed his skin, a salvation from the cold his naked body was starting to feel.

  Francis drew closer so that Jack could see him, and kissed him on his lips; his tongue prized them apart, probing his mouth.

  Jack couldn’t fight it. It was useless. But there was a place reserved in his mind where he could imagine himself to enjoy it. He never believed that place existed.

  “I bred you well,” Francis breathed and then smiled. Close up, it looked blurred and false. “Anja is a great asset; she has done me proud. And to create such a fine specimen. Lucy, too.”

  Breed? Specimen? What was he talking about?

  “You are prime meat, Jack Monday,” he said as he held up the knife. He drew the blade down the side of his face like he was making love to the metal. Francis Dupont went out of sight.

  “Lucy!” He screamed. “Keep your fucking hands off her!” although his voice was only in his head.

  There were hands all over his body—so many hands, squeezing, nipping, and then—

  Fuck! He tried to scream out—for a moment he thought he had. There was a cold and stinging sensation down his right thigh as they carved slices of meat from him. He knew he was bleeding. He felt the warmth of blood and then the coolness that followed it, and the stickiness as it flowed underneath him, and poured down the table, descending a pipe at the end and into a champagne ice bucket. He knew what they were doing to him, but still couldn’t comprehend it, although the pain certainly contributed in convincing him. He realised something from the ceiling. He hadn’t noticed it until now. There was a mirror fixed above him like it served a purpose for him to watch. To see Francis carving into his stomach, stabbing and peeling away his flesh.

  Jack screamed in his head. It’s all he could do to try and mute the pain. It didn’t seem to work. Francis slipped his long fingers into his abdomen, probing as he watched Jack’s paralysed features, and removed his intestines, pulling them out like oily eels. He held them like a trophy in one hand, clinging around his arm like it was being consumed, whilst in the other, contents of Jack’s last meal spilt over his palm. He studied it like he was finding proof of a different lifestyle.

  Using both hands, he wrapped the intestines around his fists, dragging them away like gluttonous stringy elastic. Jack’s stomach churned, though he didn’t know whether it was the intrusion of many hands inside of him or a real reflex of being sick. But there was nothing he could do. He wanted to reach out and kill him—kill them all. If he could move. He couldn’t even blink. His eyes were stinging and watered down the sides of his head. It could have been tears too. Because God only knew he was crying from the inside. Francis offered a handful of intestines to his guests, who were all crowding around the metallic table with disturbing and lustful expressions. This was all the invitation they needed to join the taboo. They were gorging from the palm of his hands like he was feeding his children, their faces soon bathed in red.

  Jack could feel the cutting. The pain was real. He wanted to close his eyes, pray the pain wasn’t real, that he wasn’t laid bare on a metal table with his stomach open. He could hear his tortured screams in his mind. But all he could do was watch through the mirror and be still. Watch as his blood poured off the table and soaked into the carpet they walked upon.

  Watch them strip each other naked; men touching women; men touching men; women touching women; their mouths probing blood lubricated skin.

  Licking.

  Sucking.

  He watched as their reflections had sex all around him, an orgy of glistening bodies slipping together like hot sticky honey.

  A few turned on him. Francis was one of them, Florence another. She caught a glimpse of him watching her from the mirror as she plucked her hand from his warm stomach. He knew what she was going to do next, and although he was gulping for air, splu
ttering blood from his mouth, a part of him wanted it too. She wrapped her bloody hand around the base of his penis and teasingly lowered her mouth. The warmth was comforting, but now his eyes started to flutter and the room and the sounds and everything inside became hollow and further away. Nothing mattered anymore. The pain didn’t matter. The people in the room and what they were doing to him, didn’t matter. It wasn’t real anymore. A dream where the pain was fading, his body becoming numb and turning ice cold.

  He would wake up any minute, Anja to his left, still sleeping, and all of this was just a dream.

  As he closed his eyes, although not under his own control, he allowed himself a moment of escape before he woke up. He enjoyed the feel of her tongue flicking across his tip, massaging his penis with her lips. But this, and the pain that faintly continued were eventually dying.

  So was he.

  His last thoughts were of Anja and Lucy and the last twenty years Francis Dupont had gifted him.

  Now he knew the price.

  By the time Florence had sunk her teeth into his meat and had torn it away, Jack was dead.

  11

  The guests had already taken their share of Jack’s meat and had since removed themselves to the corners of the room where sofas and sections of carpet were covered in black plastic sheets. Bodies squirmed nakedly over each other, sticky with blood and sweat and semen. The air was humid, a pungent smell of sex.

  Florence was touching herself over Jack’s body, grinding into his open stomach and smoothing his entrails over her breasts. Blood had stopped pumping from his neck long ago and had now resigned to a slow ooze. His face had been licked clean from splattered blood, although several guests had taken it upon themselves to sink their teeth into his face and add to further disfigurement. His cheek had been ripped open, teeth visible through a lining of red, jaw dislocated, and his tongue gone. Florence leaned over to reward Jack a kiss, took his bottom lip between her teeth and tore it away. Just as she was close to climax, chewing on his lip and blood glazing her mouth, the double doors swung open.

  Florence spat the flesh from her mouth as Anja stared back at her, but it took Anja a while to realise who lay on the metal table. She couldn’t cry for him, although she wanted to. She wanted to run to his body and hug him no matter what mess he was in. But that was a sign of weakness; a sign that through those twenty years she had actually learned to love him. She wasn’t meant to. Love was forbidden.

  Francis had noticed her also. He watched her for a while from the purple velvet chaise longue, but his attention turned back to Michael, his hands caressing between his naked thighs where an elderly woman was pleasuring him with her mouth.

  Florence dismounted Jack, strolled over to Anja like a model on a catwalk; her posture was seductive and her face was hungry and contorted with lust. She wiped the blood from her mouth, her fingers lingering around her lips for a time before lowering her hand, stroking her breasts and brushing her labia.

  When Florence stopped in front of her, Anja refrained from looking at Jack, composing herself and trying not to look shocked. She figured by the grin Florence was giving her that she had seen through the false mask, anyway.

  “Sister,” Florence said. “The bastard of the family.” Then she called over her shoulder, “Father! Your other daughter has arrived.” She drew a bloody finger down Anja’s cheek. “Why don’t you join in, sister? I’m sure you’ve tasted him before, although,” she laughed, “not like this. He’ll still be warm.”

  Anja slapped her cheek and spat in her face.

  “Careful, sister! You have many bridges that need building before you step foot into this family again.”

  Anja blasted back, “And my only crime is that I don’t share that bitch of a mother of yours!”

  Florence grabbed at Anja’s coat and pulled her near. Her teeth were gritted, stained with blood as she said, “How fortunate for you that we share the same father! I would have killed you long ago.”

  “How unfortunate for you that our father favours me!” She tried to shrug away.

  Florence pulled her closer. Anja could feel her warm breath and could almost taste the blood that was drying across her face.

  Jack’s blood.

  Anja moistened her lips. Her stomach tensed like tightened knots, and her heart raced as her sister’s breath made her wet below. Florence pulled her even closer, grinding her bare skin into Anja, but before their mouths could join, Anja turned the other way. Florence halted, embraced her sister’s chin and twisted her head so that she was forced to look at her. She pushed her lips into hers, inserting her tongue before Anja pushed her off. She fell to the floor, grinning, licking her lips to taste her even more.

  Anja screamed, “No! Not anymore!” She caught sight of Jack. Once Florence had removed herself from Jack, the guests had feasted on him. One man had taken a saw to Jack’s skull and had begun hacking through his forehead. It was enough to make her close her eyes. She tried to block out the sounds too: the moaning, the sound of the blade going through bone, the slurping of Jack’s intestines as they slipped down like spaghetti. The moaning of the threesome in the right corner of the room. Some of the guests had taken bites from each other, too. Minor wounds, none too serious, but enough to take the pleasure to new heights.

  All she could do was cover her ears. The sounds still replayed in her head, though, ricocheting off the inside of her skull. It was enough to send her dizzy.

  Francis glanced over again, stood and wrapped his black silk gown around his torso. As he went over to them, unbothered that Florence had been pushed to the floor, he started to slowly clap.

  Florence was ruffled, leering at her sister. She pouted her lips as she said, “Oh, I thought it would be like old times—you and I up in the bedrooms—playing. Father listening.” She raised an eyebrow at Francis.

  “You tease your sister, Florence.”

  “All in the name of fun, father. But she doesn’t seem to want me anymore.”

  Anja opened her eyes to see her father there. “That was twenty years ago—I’ve changed.”

  Florence climbed to her feet. “You’ve aged.”

  Francis said, “Dear Anja,” he embraced her in his arms, kissed her forehead. “How I’ve missed you.”

  She recoiled in disgust. “Is it repaid?”

  “You have pleased me.” He smirked at her.

  “Are we even, father?” she said urgently. “I need to know. I’m getting older and I don’t like it.”

  Florence put in, “Your bridge will never be rebuilt.”

  Francis glared at her, unable to hide the scorn in his voice. His pupils dilated and glowed crimson. He revealed his teeth to Florence as he said, “That is for me to choose,” his voice deeper. “Know your place, daughter, otherwise it shall be you who will be on a plate,” he snarled at her, then bowed his acceptance to Anja. “If you’re asking to be converted, then yes, you are ready.”

  “I’ve always been ready.”

  “Is that how it always was? You seemed happy with Jack.”

  “I know my heritage; I’m happy with that. Was. Jack was my way of repaying my debt to you. And now it’s done.” She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it.

  He approved. “And now it’s done.”

  Florence said, “I suspect she loved him, father. You know that wasn’t allowed.”

  Anja stared at her like she was willing fire to emit from her eyes. “It’s what I had to do!”

  “Of course it was,” Francis said, turning to Florence. “You should feast while you can. There won’t be much left of him. It might be some time until the next pedigree.”

  Jack’s chest cracked as they pulled his bones apart, sucking the blood off them. Others were lapping at the pool of blood caught on the table where he lay, wine glasses scooping blood from the bucket, too.

  Florence knew he was right. Meat prepared as such was rare to come by and took time to perfect. Twenty years. Meat like Jack is what kept them young and strong.

/>   She returned to the table for her share, shoving the guests aside. Anja felt the urge to follow her, but Francis hadn’t granted his permission.

  12

  Anja and her father returned to the study where Jack had sat with him all those years ago. The room wasn’t without its changes: the swords had been replaced with a family portrait, a picture Anja wasn’t a part of.

  Francis noticed her looking at it. “That will change,” he reassured. He went over to pour two glasses of Scotch, handed one to Anja.

  She stared into the liquid, and she thought of Jack. “Do you think—do you think he felt it?” She looked at her father.

  “Does it matter?” he waved his hand as if he was wafting the question way.

  She shook her head, a silent no, and sipped the Scotch.

  “You’ll need to be patient with your sister,” he advised. “She has been top dog since you left, and now her elder sister has returned—well—she won’t roll over quite submissively.”

  “I know; it’s to be expected I suppose. Could I still reside in the Lakehouse?”

  “Why would you do that? There are perfectly decent quarters for you here. Your old room is vacant.”

  “I just thought that perhaps I could still use it. Lucy wouldn’t want to leave. And I think all this would be too much for her.”

  “My dear,” he threw his head back. “Lucy is meat. You have bred her just as you did Jack. You have created quite a specimen, too, and I’m sure she will taste even better. She is young and her meat is pure.”

  “But—she’s my daughter: your granddaughter.”

  “And she is beautiful, but you know our heritage. Good meat is hard to produce, so we have to farm them like we did with Jack. We can eat anyone, but it’s not the same. You know that! Prime meat is like caviar; that’s why we save it for the feast.”